TITLE:
Clarification of Characteristics of Character Strengths Utilized in Stressful Situation
AUTHORS:
Shogo Matsumoto, Koichiro Aoki, Shogo Komatsu, Chieko Kato
KEYWORDS:
Positive Psychology, Character Strength, Stress Coping, Questionnaire, Text Mining
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Social Sciences,
Vol.9 No.2,
February
18,
2021
ABSTRACT: The
research of positive psychology has been applied on various fields such as education and industry as therapies and
activities (positive psychology intervention) to enhance positive emotions,
behavior, and recognition. Among various interventions, understanding one’s
strengths and exercises to utilize the strengths in daily life has been
proved effective. Previous studies about strengths indicated that the character strengths are utilized for overcoming adversity.
There is a possibility that proper choice and utilization of character
strengths depending on situations and stressors lead to overcoming stressful
situations. This study conducted a survey on students’ own strengths and strengths
used in stressful situations for identification of character strengths which are useful
for stress coping. The purpose of this study is to clarify how to utilize the
strengths in stressful situations by analyzing free-description obtained from the survey. The results of the survey on the students’ own strengths and strengths used in stressful situations showed the
characteristics of each strength. In particular, the analysis on the
free-description about the strengths regarding “Transcendence” clarified in
detail the way to utilize the strength “Hope” in stressful situations. This
study brought knowledge about positive psychology interventions such as utilization of “Hope” in daily life as stress coping.