Christopher Peterson, Ph.D., is professor of psychology at the University of Michigan, where he has been the director of clinical training and an Arthur F. Thurnau Professor, an award given to honor his contributions to teaching. Together with Martin E. P. Seligman, Ph.D., Peterson wrote Character Strengths and Virtues: A Handbook and Classification. The book looks at twenty-four specific strengths under six broad virtues that consistently emerge across history and culture: wisdom, courage, humanity, justice, temperance, and transcendence. In the article below Peterson gives us some insight to the resistance he received while researching this book. Be sure to check back later today for an excerpt from the book.
I embarked with hesitation on the projection that resulted in Character Strengths and Virtues: A Handbook and Classification. Its goals—to identify consensually recognized strengths of character and to devise ways of measuring these positive traits—had little precedent within recent psychology. Many psychologists today endorse extreme cultural relativism and may further doubt that “character” exists except in the eye of the beholder. (more…)