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Four Virtues: Interventions for Goodness' Sake

Empirical interest in promoting virtues has dramatically increased over the last decade. The present study will focus primarily on the warmth-based virtues of forgiveness and humility, and the conscientiousness-based virtues of patience and self-control. I introduced participants (N = 135) to a workbook intended to promote one of these four virtues, or to promote general positivity for participants in a workbook control condition. I hypothesized that virtue workbooks would produce higher levels of the target virtue, more so than in both a non-action control condition (n = 33) and in a control condition that completes a workbook that promotes general positivity. The forgiveness, humility, patience, and positivity workbooks did indeed build their respective targets. Virtue workbook participants reaped more benefits than the positivity participants, but both improved more than the control condition. These findings suggest that workbook interventions serve a valuable purpose in the promotion of goodness.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:vcu.edu/oai:scholarscompass.vcu.edu:etd-4007
Date24 April 2013
CreatorsLavelock, Caroline
PublisherVCU Scholars Compass
Source SetsVirginia Commonwealth University
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typetext
Formatapplication/pdf
SourceTheses and Dissertations
Rights© The Author

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