Intragroup Peace and Character Strengths

Intragroup conflict is on the rise due to increased group diversity in family, work, and sports contexts. Character strengths and virtues can potentially influence how intragroup conflict can transform into opportunities for conflict prevention and resolution and intragroup peace. There is a dearth of research, however, on this topic. This chapter addresses this gap and reports on the results of a study designed to investigate the association between character strengths and virtues and intragroup peace. Social psychological theories (i.e., social dominance theory, social identity theory, and intergroup contact theory) served as the framework guiding the conceptualization and implementation of the study and interpretation of the results. Data were collected from 400 individuals in the United States. Findings revealed that teamwork and perspective were the most highly ranked character strengths linked with intragroup peace for female- and male-identified persons, respectively. Character strengths connected with the virtues of humanity, courage, and justice were the highest ranked to support processes of intragroup peace, while spirituality was the least ranked character strength. Results are discussed in relation to the targeted social psychological theories and literature on character strengths and virtues. Clinical, research, organizational, and theoretical implications of the findings are presented as are implications to prevent and reduce conflict, and promote intragroup peace in families, in the workplace, and on sports teams.