Journal of Personality Assessment

ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/hjpa20

Do Strengths Converge into Virtues? An Item-,

Virtue-, and Scale-Level Analysis of the Italian
Values in Action Inventory of Strengths-120

Tommaso Feraco, Nicole Casali & Chiara Meneghetti

To cite this article: Tommaso Feraco, Nicole Casali & Chiara Meneghetti (2021): Do
Strengths Converge into Virtues? An Item-, Virtue-, and Scale-Level Analysis of the Italian
Values in Action Inventory of Strengths-120, Journal of Personality Assessment, DOI:
10.1080/00223891.2021.1934481

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/00223891.2021.1934481

View supplementary material Published online: 06 Jul 2021.

Submit your article to this journal Article views: 33

View related articles View Crossmark data

Citing articles: 1 View citing articles

Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at

https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=hjpa20
JOURNAL OF PERSONALITY ASSESSMENT
https://doi.org/10.1080/00223891.2021.1934481

Do Strengths Converge into Virtues? An Item-, Virtue-, and Scale-Level Analysis

of the Italian Values in Action Inventory of Strengths-120
Tommaso Feraco1,2, Nicole Casali1, and Chiara Meneghetti1
1
Department of General Psychology, University of Padova, Padua, Italy; 2Pentathlon Srl, Napoli, Italy

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

The Values in Action Inventory of Strengths (VIA-IS) is a widely-used measure for character. Its fac- Received 23 February 2021
torial structure is still debated, however, and previous validation studies usually failed to examine Accepted 9 May 2021
the unidimensionality of the single character strengths. In addition, no studies to date have exam-
ined its Italian version. We validated the structure of the Italian short form of the VIA-IS in a sam-
ple of 16722 participants. Using confirmatory factor analysis and treating items as ordinal
variables, we followed three simple, but too often neglected, steps: we studied the unidimension-
ality of the single strengths first, then their convergence into second-order virtues, and then fitted
a hierarchical model that includes items, strengths and virtues, as originally proposed by Peterson
and Seligman. All strengths except “love of learning” were unidimensional, and both the virtues
and the final hierarchical models showed acceptable fit indices, unlike three models derived from
an exploratory factor analysis. The same findings emerged for a smaller sample of 1035 partici-
pants. Finally, both character strengths and virtues showed positive relations with general mental
health and negative relations with psychological distress. These results are discussed considering
previous studies on the factorial structure of the VIA-IS.

Introduction defined as “the psychological ingredients – processes or

The conceptualization of character proposed by Peterson
and Seligman (2004) radically shaped the field of positive
psychology (Niemiec, 2013), but its measurement is still
debated. The self-report questionnaire originally proposed
by Peterson and Seligman (2004) has often showed sub-opti-
mal structural results, with previous validations mainly rely-
ing on reliability indexes only (i.e., Cronbach’s alpha)
ignoring, for example, scales’ unidimensionality (Ng et al.,
2017). For these reasons, in this study we analyze the valid-
ity of the Italian version of the VIA-IS-120 adopting a dif-
ferent and more complete statistical approach that we
believe can result in a more reliable version of the measure,
that could be adopted in future studies using the instrument.
Peterson and Seligman (2004) define good character on two
dimensions: a vertical one comprising three hierarchically-
organized conceptual levels (virtues, character strengths, and
situational themes); and a horizontal dimension, as each
conceptual level consists of several elements (six virtues, 24
strengths). On the highest level of abstraction, there are six
core virtues, identified after extensive cross-cultural reviews
as the most highly valued moral characteristics in history
and philosophy. These virtues, also called “the high six”, are
defined as “core characteristics valued by moral philosophers
and religious thinkers” (Peterson & Seligman, 2004, p. 13)
and recur within and between different cultures. Character
strengths lie on the intermediate level of abstraction and are
mechanisms – that define the virtues” (Peterson & Seligman,
2004, p. 13). Strengths of the wisdom and knowledge virtue,
for example, are distinct but they all have in common the
acquisition and the use of knowledge. For this reason, vir-
tues may be statistically conceptualized as second-order fac-
tors describing the common variance shared by the
corresponding strengths (Ng et al., 2017). Strengths were
derived from a literature review of positive psychological
traits. To guide their research, the authors initially identified
7 criteria (that subsequently became 10, and now there are
12) that character strengths must meet to qualify as such
(e.g., they must be measurable and trait-like, and contribute
to individual and others’ fulfilment). On the lowest level of
abstraction there are situational themes, which are specific
habits that enable people to display a certain strength in a
certain situation, thus explaining the great deal of variation
we can observe in individual behavior. Horizontally, the
high six are: wisdom and knowledge (knowledge used for
good); courage (willful exercise to reach goals despite adver-
sity); humanity (fairness in relations with others); justice
(fairness in community life); temperance (control over
excess); and transcendence (belief in a greater meaning
beyond oneself). The character strengths include 24 positive
trait-like features connected to specific virtues: cognitive
strengths (e.g., creativity, curiosity) relate to the virtue of
wisdom and knowledge; emotional strengths (e.g., bravery,

CONTACT Tommaso Feraco tommaso.feraco@phd.unipd.it Department of General Psychology, University of Padova, via Venezia 8, Padova, Italy.
Supplemental data for this article is available online at https://doi.org/10.1080/00223891.2021.1934481
ß 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
2 FERACO, CASALI, MENEGHETTI
perseverance) to the virtue of courage; interpersonal strengths
(e.g., love, kindness) to the virtue of humanity; civic strengths
(e.g., teamwork, fairness) to the virtue of justice; strengths such
as forgiveness and modesty to the virtue of temperance; and
strengths like appreciation of beauty and spirituality to the vir-
tue of transcendence. Table 1 shows the six core virtues and
their related character strengths. After establishing their tax-
onomy, both vertically and horizontally, Peterson and
Seligman (2004) operationalized their model and developed a
measure for strengths (the Values in Action Inventory of
Strengths, VIA-IS), which contains 240 positively-keyed items
(10 for each strength). As a last step, by means of factor ana-
lysis, they identified five factors that reflect, but do not per-
fectly replicate the six core virtues, which they called
emotional, intellectual, interpersonal, restraint, and theological.
Nevertheless, the authors underline the importance of applying
the explanatory power of the psychological analysis and meas-
urement to enrich the philosophical nature of their taxonomy
(Peterson & Seligman, 2004, p. 13).
Factorial structure of the via-is: unidimensionality issues
Since the first factorial analysis on the VIA-IS (Peterson &
Seligman, 2004), its structure has been empirically investi-
gated time and again in validation or theoretical studies
across different countries. We identified and reviewed 19
such publications (see Table 2) on the structure of the VIA-
IS, finding that they mainly relied on principal component
analysis (PCA) and principal axis factoring (PAF). None of
these studies reported the same results, however (see Table
S1 in the Supplemental materials). Each study yielded a dif-
ferent model of the latent structure of the 24 strengths, with
differences in the number of factors extracted, in the content
of those factors (in terms of the strengths composing them),
and even in the labels used to name the factors. Scholars
found evidence to support grouping the 24 strengths into
three (e.g., Duan et al., 2012; McGrath, 2015; Seibel et al.,
2015; Shryack et al., 2010), five (e.g., Aza~
nedo et al., 2017;
Peterson & Park, 2004; Ruch et al., 2010; Singh & Choubisa,
2010) or, less frequently, four (Anjum & Amjad, 2020; Brdar
& Kashdan, 2010; Macdonald et al., 2008) or two factors
(Khumalo et al., 2008). As summarized graphically in Table
S1 in the Supplemental materials, an intellectual second-
order factor usually comprising strengths such as creativity,
curiosity or love of learning emerged in several studies. On
the other hand, fairness, forgiveness, kindness, leadership
and teamwork often converged into an “interpersonal”
second-order factor. A third typical second-order factor was
labeled “restraint” (or “conative”, or “cautiousness”), and
frequently included the strengths of honesty, perseverance,
prudence and self-regulation. There is more variation as
concerns “transcendence”, or “theological” and “emotional”
second-order factors. Table S2 in the Supplemental materials
further elucidates these models by showing the co-occur-
rence of each pair of strengths within a given second-order
factor for the different models reviewed. Authors (e.g., Duan
et al., 2012) very rarely used confirmatory factor analysis
(CFA) to corroborate the findings they obtained with
Table 1. The VIA classification. Adapted from Peterson and Seligman (2004,
pp. 29–30).
Core virtues Character strengths
Wisdom & Creativity [originality, ingenuity]
Knowledge Curiosity [interest, novelty-seeking, openness to experience]
Judgment [open-mindedness, critical thinking]
Love of learning [systematically adding knowledge]
Perspective [wisdom]
Courage Bravery [valor]
Perseverance [persistence, industriousness]
Honesty [authenticity, integrity]
Zest [vitality, enthusiasm, vigor, energy]
Humanity Love [closeness, intimacy]
Kindness [generosity, nurturance, care, compassion,
altruistic love]
Social intelligence [emotional intelligence, personal
intelligence]
Justice Teamwork [citizenship, social responsibility, loyalty]
Fairness
Leadership
Temperance Forgiveness [mercy]
Humility [modesty]
Prudence [cautiousness]
Self-regulation [self-control]
Transcendence Appreciation of beauty and excellence [awe, wonder,
elevation]
Gratitude [thankfulness]
Hope [optimism, future-mindedness, future orientation]
Humor [playfulness]
Spirituality [religiousness, faith, purpose]
exploratory approaches, however. As we have shown, this
led to a plethora of models that risked being unreliable and
were consequently not adopted in subsequent studies. Each
new study involving the VIA-IS started with a new explora-
tory analysis of the tool’s internal structure, basically ignor-
ing all the models that had gone before, generating, in our
opinion, high confusion as well as low replicability of the
findings (e.g., Casali et al., 2020; Heintz & Ruch, 2020;
Martınez-Martı & Ruch, 2017; Peterson et al., 2008; Petkari
& Ortiz-Tallo, 2018; Weber et al., 2013). Interestingly, CFA
was also very rarely used (e.g., Anjum & Amjad, 2020;
McGrath, 2014; Ng et al., 2017) in direct efforts to replicate
the structure originally theorized by Peterson and Seligman
(2004); and, when it was, the fit indices were poor and the
authors opted to investigate other models. Even when alter-
native models were fitted using a data-driven approach
(based on the results of EFAs), the fit indices of CFAs were
always barely acceptable (see Table 2). In fact, this approach
leads to a significant loss in terms of theory, since any asser-
tion made on the instrument and its relations relies on cur-
rent data rather than theoretically-driven hypotheses and
interpretations, making it hard to generalize results and rep-
licate findings. Instead, authors have to completely rethink
the theory behind the instrument (as in McGrath, 2014,
2018) or the instrument itself (as in Duan et al., 2012; or Ng
et al., 2017). Most of the previous studies on the factorial
structure of the VIA-IS also based their exploratory results
on measures of character strengths based only on
Cronbach’s alpha for reliability, without checking their uni-
dimensionality, which was not confirmed in the two studies
that did analyze it (Khumalo et al., 2008; Ng et al., 2017). In
other words, aggregate measures of character strengths were
used, without any prior assessment of whether or not they
could be aggregated in a single factor.
 DO STRENGTHS CONVERGE INTO VIRTUES? 3

Table 2. Methods used in previous studies on the VIA-IS structure, and results obtained.
VIA-IS
Study Version Language N Analyses Item-level # Fit indices (when available)
Peterson & Park, 2004 240 English FA a 5
Peterson & 240 English PCA (varimax) a 5
Seligman, 2004
Macdonald et al., 2008 240 English 123 PCA (varimax) a 4
Khumalo et al., 2008 240 English 256 CPCA (obliminal) – item level PCA 24
CPCA (obliminal) – virtue level a 6
CPCA (obliminal) – virtue level a 6
EPCA (obliminal) a 2
Ruch et al., 2010 240 German 1674 PCA (varimax) a 5
Singh & Choubisa, 2010 240 English 123 PCA (varimax) a 5
Brdar & Kashdan, 2010 240 Croatian 881 ML (promax) a 4
Shryack et al., 2010 240 English 332 PCA (varimax) a 3
Duan et al., 2012 240 Chinese 839 EFA item-level EFA
96 420 PCA (varimax) 3
96 419 CFA 1-factor 1 CFI ¼ .80, GFI ¼ .71, IFI ¼
.80, TLI ¼ .78, RMSEA
¼ .11
CFA 2-factor (a) 2 CFI ¼ .82, GFI ¼ .74, IFI ¼
.82, TLI ¼ .81, RMSEA
¼ .10
CFA 2-factor (b) 2 CFI ¼ .83, GFI ¼ .80, IFI ¼
.83, TLI ¼ .81, RMSEA
¼ .10
CFA 2-factor (c) 2 CFI ¼ .83, GFI ¼ .77, IFI ¼
.83, TLI ¼ .81, RMSEA
¼ .10
CFA 3-factor 3 CFI ¼ .90, GFI ¼ .85, IFI ¼
.90, TLI ¼ .89, RMSEA
¼ .08
Littman-Ovadia & 240 Hebrew 635 PCA (varimax) a 5
Lavy, 2012
McGrath, 2014 240 English 458.998 a: PAF (promax, varimax) þ No 5
PCA (varimax)
b: same as (a) – Item-level PAF 24
c: same as (a) with 24 a 5
new scales
CFA based on Peterson and No 6 CFI ¼.69, GFI ¼ .67, AGFI ¼
Seligman (2004) .60, RMSEA ¼.14,
SRMR ¼.10
CFA based on (a) a 5 CFI ¼.89, GFI ¼ .87, AGFI ¼
.78, RMSEA ¼.10,
SRMR ¼.05
CFA based on (c) a 5 CFI ¼.90, GFI ¼ .90, AGFI ¼
.84, RMSEA ¼.08,
SRMR ¼.05
Azan~edo et al., 2014 240 Spanish 1060 PCA (varimax) a 5
Littman-Ovadia, 2015 120 English 726.771 PAF (promax) a 5
Seibel et al., 2015 240 Portuguese 1975 PCA (varimax) a 1
PCA (varimax) a 3
PCA (varimax) a 4
Ng et al., 2017 240 English 447.577 CFA based on Peterson and No 6 CFI ¼ .69, TLI ¼ .69, RMSEA
Seligman (2004) ¼.04, SRMR ¼ .06
CESEM-bi No 6 CFI ¼ .80, TLI ¼ .79, RMSEA
¼.03, SRMR ¼ .07
CESEM No 6 CFI ¼ .78, TLI ¼ .77, RMSEA
¼.03, SRMR ¼ .04
107 CFA 24 strengths CFA, x 6 CFI ¼ .85, TLI ¼ .84, RMSEA
¼.03, SRMR ¼ .05
Hierarchical CFA 24-6 6 CFI ¼ .79, TLI ¼ .79, RMSEA
¼.04, SRMR ¼ .07
CESEM 24 strengths 6 CFI ¼ .90, TLI ¼ .89, RMSEA
¼.03, SRMR ¼ .03
CESEM global bifactor 6 CFI ¼ .92, TLI ¼ .90, RMSEA
¼.03, SRMR ¼ .03
McGrath, 2016 240 15.540 CFA based on McGrath (2014) No 5 CFI ¼.75, RMSEA ¼ .12, SRMR
¼ .08
CFA þ MI based on No 5 CFI ¼.96, RMSEA ¼ .07, SRMR
McGrath (2014) ¼ .05
Multigroup CFA based on No 5 CFI ¼ .90, RMSEA ¼ .11,
McGrath (2014) SRMR ¼ .09
Azan~edo et al., 2017 120 Spanish 2143 PAF (promax) a 5 –
H€ofer et al., 2019 240 German 1073 PAF (promax) a 5 –
120 685 PAF (promax) a 5
(continued)
4 FERACO, CASALI, MENEGHETTI
Table 2. Continued.
VIA-IS
Study Version Language N Analyses
Anjum & Amjad, 2020 240 Urdu 542
Note. VIA-IS ¼ Values in Action Inventory of Strengths; FA ¼ factor analysis; PCA ¼ principal component analysis; CPCA ¼ confirmatory principal component ana-
lysis; EPCA ¼ exploratory principal component analysis; ML ¼ maximum likelihood; EFA ¼ exploratory factor analysis; CFA ¼ confirmatory factor analysis;
CFI ¼ comparative fit index; GFI ¼ goodness of fit; IFI ¼ incremental fit index; TLI ¼ Tucker Lewis index; RMSEA ¼ root mean square error of approximation;
PAF ¼ principal axis factoring; AGFI ¼ adjusted goodness of fit; SRMR ¼ standardized root mean square residual; CESEM ¼ clustered exploratory structural equa-
tion modeling; NFI ¼ normed fit index.
Ignoring the unidimensionality of the single character
strengths raises issues in empirical studies that investigate: (i)
the associations of virtues with variables of interest (e.g.,
Martınez-Martı & Ruch, 2017; Peterson et al., 2008; Petkari &
Ortiz-Tallo, 2018; Weber et al., 2013) because the virtues might
be composed of unreliable strengths; or (ii) the associations of
single character strengths with variables of interest (e.g.,
Gander et al., 2020; Karris Bachik et al., 2020; Martınez-Martı
& Ruch, 2014) because the scales for the strengths could be
composed of more than one factor (i.e., they might be multidi-
mensional). Regarding the former approach, studies generally
either used the VIA-IS virtues as they are (as in Harzer &
Ruch, 2015; Shoshani & Slone, 2016) or they sought the factor-
ial structure of the strengths best fitting their data before pro-
ceeding with their analyses, leading again to unreliability of the
results and replication issues. Therefore, we believe that a dif-
ferent statistical approach must be followed to ensure higher
validity and reliability of such a widespread instrument.
Rationale of the study
In the present study we examine the structure of the Italian
version of the VIA-IS-120. Previous validation studies, or stud-
ies focusing on its factorial structure, have some methodological
issues – as also highlighted by Ng et al. (2017) – that led, in
our opinion, to a possible misuse of the measure. We identified
three main problems. The first, and probably most important,
refers to the unidimensionality of the single character strength
items. This is usually ignored and only reliability indices are
considered. Unidimensionality problems on the strength level
could then lead to unreliability on the virtue level, making it
impossible to replicate the second-order structure twice. This
second issue is probably rooted in the first unidimensionality
issue. Then the numerous unreplicated, unconfirmed structures
of virtues probably induced scholars to run exploratory analyses
on structures emerging from their own studies, thereby lower-
ing the generalizability of their results. In our study, we tried to
deal with all of these problems by basing our analysis first on
the unidimensionality of the single character strengths, then on
their possible convergence into the virtues proposed by
Peterson and Seligman (2004), before going on to examine a
hierarchical model inclusive of the whole theoretical structure.
We considered character strengths as converging into second-
order latent factors (i.e., the six core virtues), and used the term
“second-order virtues” to indicate that these virtues represent
second-order factors into which character strengths should
Item-level # Fit indices (when available)
CFA based on Peterson and a 6 CFI ¼ .85, NFI ¼.83, IFI ¼ .85,
Seligman (2004) RMSEA ¼.11, SRMR ¼ .23
PCA (varimax) a 4
CFA a 4 CFI ¼ .92, NFI ¼.91, IFI ¼ .92,
RMSEA ¼.06, SRMR ¼ .05
statistically converge. Statistical convergence, however, is not the
only way to study how strengths and virtues are conceptually
related. To this end, other approaches may be considered, for
instance analyzing how prototypical a strength is of a certain
virtue (Ruch & Proyer, 2015). For the purpose of this validation
study, we relied on the procedure outlined above to generate a
more reliable and valid estimate of the validity of the VIA-IS-
120 questionnaire (Beaujean, 2014) compared to previous EFA
approaches. The results of this procedure were also compared
with three models obtained using an EFA approach.
Finally, character strengths should contribute to life fulfill-
ments and help individuals coping with adversity (Peterson &
Seligman, 2004). Previous research confirmed this conceptual-
ization (Niemiec, 2013) and consistent findings support the
association of character strengths and virtues with a higher
level of life satisfaction, as also shown in a recent meta-ana-
lysis of 22 studies (Bruna et al., 2019), general mental health
(e.g., depression, Huta & Hawley, 2010), resilience (Martınez-
Martı & Ruch, 2017), self-efficacy (Weber et al., 2013), fewer
psychological problems (e.g., distress, Duan & Wang, 2018),
post-traumatic growth (Peterson et al. 2008), and academic
achievement (Lounsbury et al., 2009). Thus, to further analyze
the validity of the Italian version of the VIA-IS-120, we also
present the correlations of character strengths and virtues
with both general mental health and psychological distress in
terms of anxiety, depression, and stress symptoms. This
choice of variables, instead of positive factors like life satisfac-
tion or happiness, was driven by the contingent pandemic
situation. In such difficult times, we felt it was important to
see whether character strengths might have sustained people’s
mental health by being relate to milder symptoms of distress
and better general mental health. We investigated this by test-
ing the theoretical “adversity functions” of character
strengths, whereby character strengths should sustain individ-
uals before, during, and after an adverse situation through
their buffering, reappraisal, and resilience functions, respect-
ively (Niemiec, 2020). These data were previously collected
for other purposes and published (Casali et al., 2020).
Method
Participants
All participants completed the VIA-IS-120 online. We con-
sidered a total of 17757 participants. Data for 16722 partici-
pants (Sample 1) were kindly provided by the VIA Institute
on Character that authorized their use for research aims.

These participants completed the inventory directly on the
Institute’s website between 2016 and 2020. Information on
gender was available for 12874 participants (4567 males;
8237 females; 70 other). Unfortunately, information on age
was only available in terms of age range for 173 participants
(125 were between 25 and 54 years old, 10 were over 54,
and 38 were under 25 years old). A second sample of 1035
participants1 (Sample 2; 271 males, 764 females; mean age ¼
37.88, SD ¼ 14.66; age range: 18–81) was collected online
using Qualtrics. Participants in the second sample were con-
tacted by email, social media or personal contact, and com-
pleted the questionnaires on a voluntary basis. Data from
Sample 1 were used for the first round of analyses, which
included an exploratory use of modification indices (MI),
and an EFA. Sample 2 was used to confirm the results of
the analyses run on the first sample and to evaluate conver-
gent validity of character strengths with mental health and
distress symptoms.
Measures
The Values in Action Inventory of Strengths-120 (VIA-IS-
120; Littman-Ovadia, 2015; Italian version provided by the
VIA Institute) is a short form of the original VIA-IS
(Peterson & Seligman, 2004). The already-translated version
of the instrument was provided by the VIA Institute and
checked by the authors for typos, clarity, and consistency
with the original version. It is a 120-item questionnaire for
measuring character strengths (see the VIA Institute https://
www.viacharacter.org/ for a complete description). Each
strength is measured by 5 items scored on a 5-point Likert
scale (1 ¼ “not at all like me” to 5 ¼ “very much like me”).
For instance, curiosity and hope are measured with items
such as “I am always curious about the world” and “I always
look on the bright side”. The original measure showed a
high internal consistency for every strength (Cronbach’s
alpha range: .67–.90 for the VIA-IS, Peterson & Seligman,
2004, and .75-.91 for the VIA-IS-120, Littman-
Ovadia, 2015).
The Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scales-21 (DASS-21,
Lovibond & Lovibond, 1995; validated in Italian by Bottesi
et al., 2015). It is a 21-item questionnaire for measuring
three distress factors: depression (e.g., “I could not feel any
positive emotion); anxiety (e.g., “I felt I was having a panic
attack”); and stress (e.g., “I felt stressed”). Respondents indi-
cate how often they felt as stated during the last seven days
on a 4-point Likert scale (0 ¼ “never happened” to 3 “it
happened almost every day”). Both the scores for the three
subscales (Cronbach’s alpha between .74 and .85; Bottesi
et al., 2015) and a total general distress factor (Cronbach’s
alpha ¼ .90; Bottesi et al., 2015) were computed.
The General Health Questionnaire-12 (GHQ-12,
Goldberg, 1978; validated in Italian by Giorgi et al., 2014). It
is a 12-item questionnaire measuring general psychological
health. Respondents must indicate how often they felt as
stated during the last two weeks on a 4-point Likert scale (0
¼ “more than usual” to 4 “much less than usual”). A total
DO STRENGTHS CONVERGE INTO VIRTUES? 5
score was calculated according to the Italian validation
(Cronbach’s alpha ¼ .85; Giorgi et al., 2014).
Procedure
The VIA Institute on Character translated the VIA-IS-120
into various languages, including Italian, and gives anybody
the opportunity to register and complete the questionnaire
for free. We contacted the Institute to ask for permission to
access the data collected on their site by people completing
the Italian version of the questionnaire online. We also
requested information on age and gender, where available.
The VIA Institute kindly provided their data and gave us
permission to use them for research purposes. For the
second sample, the VIA-IS-120, the GHQ-12, and the
DASS-21 were implemented in Qualtrics and a link to
the questionnaires was sent to researchers’ personal contacts
and posted on social media. Respondents voluntarily
answered the questionnaires independently and without
any incentive.
Data analysis
To examine the unidimensionality of the 24 character
strengths, we conducted a series of CFAs, analyzing the local
dependence of the items, and the monotonicity of the
responses for each scale. To examine the strengths’ conver-
gence into a second-order virtue, and the general factorial
structure of the VIA-IS-120, we conducted a series of CFA.
Given that Likert scale responses are ordinal, not continuous
data, all 120 items were always treated as ordinal variables
(Shi et al., 2020), so diagonally-weighted least squares
(DWLS) was consequently preferred as estimator over max-
imum likelihood (ML). Such a procedure is statistically
advisable, and should produce more reliable results in the
case of Likert-scale type variables (Flora & Curran, 2004;
Pastore & Lombardi, 2014). The fit of each model was
assessed using multiple indices: the comparative fit index
(CFI); the Tucker Lewis index (TLI); and the standardized
root mean squared residual (SRMR). This last index was
chosen instead of the more commonly used root mean
squared error of approximation (RMSEA) because recent
simulation studies found the former more reliable when
using ordinal data in large samples (Shi et al., 2020), and
when the number of parameters considered is large
(Maydeu-Olivares et al., 2018). Chi-square (v2) was not con-
sidered because it is very sensitive to sample size and model
complexity, and less informative than the other indices
(Schermelleh-Engel et al., 2003). As there are no absolute
standards for assessing a model’s fit, and previous CFA on
the VIA-IS showed barely acceptable fit indices according to
strict cutoffs (Hu & Bentler, 1999), we adopted a non-strin-
gent cutoff rule. We considered models with CFI and TLI
values of .90 or more (Bentler & Bonett, 1980), and SRMR
values of .09 or less (Schermelleh-Engel et al., 2003)
as adequate.
The analyses included six steps, and Sample 1 was used for
the first four. We inspected the measurement models of the 24
6 FERACO, CASALI, MENEGHETTI
character strengths in step one, and of the six virtues originally
proposed by Peterson and Seligman (2004) in step two. In step
three, a hierarchical model was fitted to measure the validity of
the factorial structure of the VIA-IS-120 model, including all
the items, the single character strengths and the six virtues. In a
fourth step, we ran an EFA and assessed the goodness of fit of
three alternative models (four-, five, and –six factor models) to
compare them with the CFA model. The final CFA model was
then run on a smaller sample representative of a typical study
on character strengths (Sample 2, n ¼ 1035). This enabled us to
confirm the findings obtained in the first three steps. In the first
three steps, Modification indices were calculated whenever the
models showed slightly poor fit indices in an effort to better
understand the fit issue and try to overcome it (Beaujean,
2014). If the fit indices were distinctly poor, the model was con-
sidered unsuitable for inclusion in successive analyses and dis-
carded. All analyses were also run without considering the
results of previous measurement models. Finally, in the sixth
step, we calculated the correlations of the 24 character strengths
and the six virtues with general mental health and dis-
tress symptoms.
The “lavaan” package (Rosseel, 2012) in the R software
(R Development Core Team, 2019) was used for the
CFA analyses.
Measurement model of the 24 character strengths
The unidimensionality of each character strength was
assessed with CFA. We ran a CFA for each strength, includ-
ing the five related items considered as ordinal. This step
was not usually included in other studies on the factorial
structure of the VIA-IS, but it is fundamentally important
because it reveals whether there might be a measurement
problem, and on which level, or else it confirms unidimen-
sionality. Directly assessing the structure of the complete
model – without testing the item-level structure – would
probably result in the inclusion of certain measures (single
strengths) that could prove problematic. Unidimensionality
was also studied using the “aisp” function of the “mokken”
package in R (Van der Ark, 2007), which provides an auto-
matic algorithm based on Mokken’s item selection proced-
ure (Mokken, 1971) and examines monotonicity based on
Loevinger’s H. Items were considered satisfactory when their
H value was at least .30 (Mokken, 1971). As for local
dependence (LD), the r transformed variance-covariance
matrices of the residuals of the single CFA models were
examined. If the pairwise correlations between the residuals
of two items exceeded .20, we considered them as possible
indicators of local dependence (Terwee et al., 2019). EFA
models were also considered to make sure they did not yield
better fit indices than the theoretical model.
Measurement model of the six virtues
The original model proposed by Peterson and Seligman
(2004) suggested that the 24 strengths reflect six second-
order virtues, as they are “distinguishable routes to display-
ing one or another of the virtues” (Peterson & Seligman,
2004, p. 13). To our knowledge, no studies have since exam-
ined whether it is true that the 24 strengths converge statis-
tically into the hypothesized virtues. In the present study we
ran a CFA for each virtue, including the hypothesized
strengths that should connect to it and the items related to
said strengths, adding six separate second-order models of
virtues to the 24 first-order measurement models.
The hierarchical structure of the via-is-120
After confirming the goodness of the first- and second-order
models, we integrated them in a single hierarchical model,
which included: i) all the items (treated as ordinal variables)
loading on a given related strength; ii) all the strengths load-
ing on a given virtue; iii) a correlation between each virtue
because they are assumed to be correlated. See Figure S1 in
the Supplemental materials for a graphical representation of
the hierarchical structure of the VIA-IS-120.
Exploratory factor analysis
To accomplish this step, we randomly split the dataset into
a calibration sample (N ¼ 8361) and a validation sample
(N ¼ 8361). The calibration sample was used to run the
EFA, while the validation sample was used to fit a CFA
based on the results of the EFA. Following the suggestions
of Velicer et al. (2000), we adopted two criteria to identify
the number of second-order factors to extract from the 23
character strengths (love of learning was excluded): min-
imum average partial analysis (MAP, Velicer et al., 2000);
and parallel analysis (PA, Horn, 1965). In accordance with
the number of eigenvalues higher than one (i.e., 7.91, 2.15,
1.67, 1.42, 1.13, 0.87), the results of the PA identified five
factors to be extracted, while the MAP indicated four. We
then extracted two different models using promax oblique
rotation to account for the correlation between the virtues.
Similarly, a six-factor model was extracted in line with the
number of virtues proposed by Peterson and Seligman
(2004). Finally, three CFA were run for the three models
using the same specifics as for the previous CFA models.
Replication analysis
In the fifth step, we replicated the final model using data
from Sample 2 to see if our previous results still held when
a smaller, independent sample was considered, as done in
other studies (e.g., Duan et al., 2012; H€
ofer et al., 2019).
Convergent validity
As a last step, using data from Sample 2, we calculated the
correlations between both character strengths and virtues
and the five convergent measures: GHQ-12, DASS-21 (total
score), anxiety, depression, and stress. Only correlations
with p < .001 were considered significant.
 DO STRENGTHS CONVERGE INTO VIRTUES? 7

Table 3. Descriptive statistics, reliability coefficients, fit indices and mean of the factor loadings of each character strength.
M SD Skew Kurt a x CFI TLI SRMR MFL
Appreciation of beauty 4.04 .63 .69 .56 .80 .75 .99 .98 .04 .67
Bravery 3.66 .69 .42 .06 .81 .78 .99 .98 .04 .68
Creativity 3.74 .73 .40 .08 .88 .86 .99 .98 .06 .79
Curiosity 3.61 .72 .44 .01 .82 .80 .99 .98 .04 .70
Fairness 3.91 .56 .53 .73 .74 .68 .99 .98 .03 .60
Forgiveness 3.58 .79 .40 .15 .83 .82 .99 .99 .04 .71
Gratitude 3.63 .75 .36 .12 .86 .86 1.00 .99 .03 .75
Honesty 4.23 .53 .77 1.22 .79 .76 .99 .98 .05 .66
Hope 3.45 .79 .42 .17 .81 .79 .97 .95 .07 .69
Humility 3.49 .71 .39 .11 .76 .74 .96 .92 .07 .64
Humor 3.69 .74 .41 .13 .83 .84 .99 .99 .06 .71
Judgment 4.17 .52 .69 1.16 .75 .69 .99 .98 .03 .62
Kindness 4.06 .57 .66 .82 .79 .73 1.00 1.00 .02 .66
Leadership 3.57 .63 .20 .14 .77 .75 .95 .91 .08 .64
Love 3.79 .73 .59 .18 .79 .77 .96 .92 .08 .67
Love of learning 3.63 .75 .21 .55 .79 .85 .95 .90 .19 .73
Perseverance 3.64 .78 .48 .12 .88 .86 .99 .99 .05 .78
Perspective 3.69 .68 .38 .12 .82 .80 1.00 .99 .03 .69
Prudence 3.57 .69 .35 .07 .79 .78 .99 .98 .04 .66
Self  regulation 3.29 .76 .23 .30 .74 .73 .99 .98 .05 .61
Social intelligence 3.76 .62 .44 .28 .75 .72 .97 .94 .06 .62
Spirituality 3.07 .81 .03 .45 .78 .79 .98 .97 .07 .65
Teamwork 3.63 .62 .37 .32 .74 .69 .99 .99 .03 .61
Zest 3.39 .80 .25 .27 .85 .83 .99 .98 .05 .73
Note. M ¼ mean; SD ¼ standard deviation; Kurt ¼ kurtosis; CFI ¼ comparative fit index; TLI ¼ Tucker Lewis index; SRMR ¼ standardized root mean square residual;
MFL ¼ mean of the factor loadings.

Results
The results of the character strengths’ measurement models
showed that all the strengths except for love of learning can
be considered unidimensional (see Table 3 for details). The
fit indices were always acceptable, with the CFI ranging
from .95 to 1, the TLI from .91 to 1, and the SRMR ranging
from .03 to .08. On the other hand, love of learning showed
a very high SRMR (.19), and a barely acceptable TLI (.90).
Love of learning should connect to the virtue of wisdom
and knowledge, but it was not considered in subsequent
analyses because of its unacceptable factorial structure. The
results were the same using Mokken’s automated item selec-
tion method, which showed that the first two items on the
love of learning scale (items 17 and 48) loaded on a second
factor. Similarly, local dependence was only found between
the items for love of learning and the first two items’ resid-
uals, which showed strong correlations with each other (r ¼
.37), and negative correlations with the third and fourth
items’ residuals (r > .26). Monotonicity was also generally
confirmed: of the 120 items, only seven showed H values
lower than .30. In particular, one item for the gratitude,
honesty, prudence, self-regulation, and social intelligence
scales, and two items for the spirituality scale did not meet
the criteria (see Table S3 in the Supplemental materials for
the complete set of values). The loadings of each strength
were acceptable, however, their means varied from .60 (for
fairness) to .79 (for creativity), and all strengths showed an
acceptable reliability in terms of Cronbach’s alpha (.74 < a
< .88), and McDonald’s ordinal omega (.68 < x < .86). See
Table 3 for details and Table S4 in the Supplemental materi-
als for the correlations between the strengths. To sum up,
with the exception of love of learning, the scales for all the
single strengths showed good psychometric properties,
though attention should be paid to the monotonicity of
some items.
On the virtues level, all but one of the virtues hypothe-
sized showed good fit indices (see Table 4), while transcend-
ence reached a slightly inadequate SRMR (.11), despite good
CFI and TLI values (.93 and .92, respectively). This would
suggest that strengths could define virtues in much the same
way as originally hypothesized by Peterson and Seligman
(2004). Each model of a virtue included its related strengths,
and the items loading on each strength. In particular, the
virtue of wisdom and knowledge included creativity, curios-
ity, judgment, and perspective. Love of learning was
excluded from the analyses; adding it to the model at this
point again gave rise to unacceptable fit indices (SRMR ¼
.10). The second-order loadings of the virtue of wisdom and
knowledge ranged between .64 and .78 (mean ¼ .72). The
virtue of courage included bravery, honesty, perseverance
and zest, and its second-order loadings ranged between .74
and .85 (mean ¼ .72). The virtue of humanity included
love, kindness and social intelligence, and its second-order
loadings ranged between .67 and .89 (mean ¼ .79). The vir-
tue of justice included fairness, leadership and teamwork,
and its second-order loadings ranged between .83 and .98
(mean ¼ .90). The virtue of temperance included forgive-
ness, humility, prudence and self-regulation, and its second-
order loadings ranged between .39 and .69 (mean ¼ .57).
The virtue of transcendence included appreciation of beauty
and excellence, gratitude, hope, humor and spirituality. As
the SRMR for this virtue was too high (.11), we only
inspected the modification indices for this model, which
showed that some items had correlations between residuals.
In particular, the correlations between residuals for items 14
(“I practice my religion”, spirituality) and 71 (“My faith
makes me who I am”, spirituality), for items 29 (“Despite
challenges, I always remain hopeful about the future”, hope)
and 30 (“My faith never deserts me during hard times”, spir-
ituality), and for items 87 (“I have a great sense of humor”,
8 FERACO, CASALI, MENEGHETTI

Table 4. Descriptive statistics, fit indices, mean of the factor loadings mean, and correlations (all significant at the .001 level) of each virtue.
M SD CFI TLI SRMR MFL .1 .2 .3 .4 .5 .6
1.Wisdom and knowledge 3.80 .49 .95 .94 .08 .72 – .59 .51 .41 .34 .58
2.Courage 3.73 .53 .95 .94 .08 .72 .59 – .57 .49 .37 .66
3.Humanity 3.87 .50 .96 .96 .06 .79 .51 .57 – .60 .38 .67
4.Justice 3.70 .50 .95 .94 .07 .90 .41 .49 .60 – .52 .48
5.Temperance 3.48 .49 .95 .94 .07 .57 .34 .37 .38 .52 – .40
6.Transcendence 3.58 .53 .95 .95 .09 .73 .58 .66 .67 .48 .40 –
Transcendence without modification indices – – .93 .92 .11 .71
Note. CFI ¼ comparative fit index; TLI ¼ Tucker Lewis index; SRMR ¼ standardized root mean square residual; MFL ¼ mean of the factor loadings.

humor) and 119 (“I am known for my good sense of humor”,
humor) showed high modification indices (MI ¼ 13301.80,
6615.56, and 6509.93, respectively). After specifying these
correlations and fitting the model again, the fit indices were
acceptable (SRMR ¼ .09). The second-order loadings of the
virtue of transcendence then ranged between .45 and .91
(mean ¼ .73). All the virtues correlated significantly with
each other, with transcendence showing generally stronger
correlations (especially with humanity and courage), and
temperance showing generally weaker correlations, while
justice correlated particularly strongly with humanity (see
Table 4).
A first hierarchical model (m1) including all the models
previously tested, and a correlation between each pair of vir-
tues was fitted (see Figure S1 in the Supplemental materials
for a graphical representation). The model included 115
items treated as ordinal variables (love of learning items
were excluded) loading on 23 strengths, loading in turn on
six virtues. The results showed slightly inadequate fit indices
(CFI ¼ .89, TLI ¼ .89, SRMR ¼ .08). Modification indices
were inspected again and the model was rerun, specifying a
correlation between the residuals of four strengths (perspec-
tive and prudence, MI ¼ 11912.15; perseverance and self-
regulation, MI ¼ 10387.97) and two items (5 “I have no trou-
ble eating healthy foods”, self-regulation; and 68 “I can
always stay on a diet”, self-regulation, MI ¼ 16230.77). This
second model (m2) showed acceptable fit indices (CFI ¼
.90, TLI ¼ .90, SRMR ¼ .08), so we decided not to specify
any other modification index. Complete loadings of the final
model are given in Table S5 in the Supplemental materials.
The same model was also fitted without considering the
results of previous measurement models (e.g., also including
love of learning), but it showed lower fit indices (CFI ¼ .88,
TLI ¼.88, SRMR ¼ .08). To ensure that a model derived
from EFA did not yield remarkably better fit indices, we
extracted three models from the calibration sample, one
with four and the other with five second-order factors
(based on the results of the MAP and PA), and one with six
second-order factors, without including data for love of
learning (see Table S6, S7, and S8 in the supplemental mate-
rials for the complete set of results). The three models (m3,
m4, and m5) were then fitted using CFA on the validation
sample. They both included the 115 ordinal items loading
on 23 strengths, which loaded on four (m3), five (m4), or
six (m5) second-order factors, respectively. The correlation
between each pair of factors was also specified. The results
show lower fit indices for these models than for m2 (CFI ¼
89, .88, .89; TLI ¼ .89, .88, .89; SRMR ¼ .08, .08, .08).
We then fitted the best model (m2) again using our
experimentally-collected Sample 2 (1035 participants). In
this case (m6), the fit indices mainly overlapped with those
obtained from the larger sample (CFI ¼ .90, TLI ¼ .89,
SRMR ¼ .08). The fit indices of all the hierarchical models
are listed in Table 5.
Data from Sample 2 were also used for studying VIA-IS-
120 convergent validity. Results (see Table 6 for complete
correlations) show that 9 strengths and five virtues (i.e.,
excluding justice) correlated significantly with GHQ-12
scores; 10 strengths and five virtues (i.e., excluding justice)
correlated significantly with DASS-21 total scores; in par-
ticular, only three strengths and two virtues correlated with
the anxiety subscale scores; 19 strengths and all the six vir-
tues correlated with the depression subscale scores; nine
strengths and four virtues (i.e., excluding justice and wisdom
and knowledge) correlated significantly with the stress sub-
scale scores. It should be noted that 10 out of 24 character
strengths – appreciation of beauty, fairness, humility,
humor, judgment, kindness, leadership, love of learning
(that was excluded from the analyses due to unidimensional-
ity issues), perspective, and prudence – did not show any
significant relation with the outcome variables. For what
concerns the virtues, transcendence, courage, and temper-
ance significantly correlated with all the outcome variables,
humanity with all the outcome variables except anxiety, and
wisdom and knowledge with three of the outcome variables
(i.e., GHQ-12, DASS-21 total score, and depression). Justice
only significantly related with depression.
Discussion
The VIA-IS is a well-known and widely used measure of
character derived from the huge theoretical work of
Peterson and Seligman (2004), however its psychometric
properties and factorial structure are still to be defined and
an Italian validation is unavailable. Here, for the first time,
we examine its validity in the Italian version on a large sam-
ple of individuals and try to deal with some of the issues
identified in previous validation and factorial studies. To
our knowledge, this is the first study to investigate the
internal structure of the VIA-IS-120 at both item- and
strength-level and to treat items as ordinal, which is strongly
recommended for Likert-type responses if the sample size is
large enough for threshold estimation (Flora & Curran,
2004; Pastore & Lombardi, 2014). It is important to bear in
mind, however, that: we had no details of the age of partici-
pants in the first sample (though data provided by the VIA
Institute of Character generally cover the whole population;
 DO STRENGTHS CONVERGE INTO VIRTUES? 9

Table 5. Fit indices of the hierarchical models. The final model is in bold. Table 6. Correlations of character strengths and virtues with general mental
CFI TLI SRMR health and distress symptoms (anxiety, depression, and stress).
m0 .88 .88 .08 GHQ DASS Anxiety Depression Stress
m1 .89 .89 .08 Appreciation of beauty .04 .03 .10 .02 .01
m2 .90 .90 .08 Bravery .08 .09 .01 .18 .03
m3 .89 .89 .08 Creativity .16 .10 .00 .16 .08
m4 .88 .88 .08 Curiosity .23 .22 .09 .31 .14
m5 .89 .89 .08 Fairness .00 .02 .01 .01 .05
m6 .90 .89 .08 Forgiveness .10 .21 .13 .20 .22
Note. CFI ¼ comparative fit index; TLI ¼ Tucker Lewis index; Gratitude .24 .27 .10 .36 .21
SRMR ¼ standardized root mean square residual. m0 ¼ original model of 24 Honesty .07 .13 .08 .16 .09
strengths and six virtues (Peterson & Seligman, 2004); m1 ¼ m0 excluding Hope .31 .40 .20 .50 .31
love of learning; m2 ¼ m1 with modification indices; m3 ¼ four-factor solu- Humility .03 .07 .01 .04 .11
tion; m4 ¼ five-factor solution; m5 ¼ six-factor solution; m6 ¼ m2 fitted on Humor .14 .07 .02 .11 .05
Sample 2. Judgment .02 .02 .04 .02 .01
Kindness .03 .06 .01 .09 .06
Leadership .09 .06 .02 .11 .05
see Ng et al., 2017 for an example); we mostly focused on Love .17 .22 .10 .31 .15
Love of earning .11 .05 .01 .11 .02
the factorial validity of the measure and did not analyze Perseverance .16 .25 .14 .34 .15
convergent validity by using peer/other-ratings or life satis- Perspective .04 .03 .02 .07 .02
faction, as usually done (e.g., Ruch et al., 2010); and we con- Prudence .04 .11 .09 .09 .11
Self-regulation .17 .22 .13 .23 .19
sidered the Italian version of the short form of the Social intelligence .10 .09 .01 .15 .07
questionnaire (i.e., VIA-IS-120). As a consequence, our find- Spirituality .21 .24 .09 .31 .20
ings might not apply to the original VIA-IS, or to versions Teamwork .10 .15 .06 .18 .13
Zest .30 .34 .17 .45 .25
in other languages. However, we strongly believe that an Wisdom and knowledge .16 .13 .03 .20 .09
item-level analysis and the unidimensionality of each of Courage .21 .28 .14 .39 .18
the 24 character strengths’ subscales should be tested Humanity .13 .17 .06 .24 .12
Justice .08 .09 .01 .12 .10
systematically also in the other versions and that relying Temperance .13 .23 .14 .22 .24
only on reliability information, as previously done, should Transcendence .27 .28 .10 .38 .23
be deprecated.  ¼ p < .001.
Unidimensionality of the character strengths subscales
went untested in almost every previous study. To our know- look precisely at the most problematic items. Two items
ledge, the first authors to test it with a CFA were Ng et al. regarding spirituality (item 14, “I practice my religion”; and
(2017): they found that the subscales of the long form of the item 71, “My faith makes me who I am”) showed high corre-
instrument (VIA-IS) were not unidimensional (i.e., the fit lations between residuals. This may be because these items
indices were poor), so they reduced the number of items refer more to being religious than to spirituality in general,
based on their factor loadings until unidimensionality was while the opposite is true of the other items comprising this
achieved. We found the subscales of the Italian short form character strength (e.g., item 7, “I am a spiritual person”;
of the VIA-IS unidimensional (except for love of learning item 110, “My beliefs make my life important”). In the same
scale, in which two items [17, 48] differed in content from vein, item 30 regarding spirituality (“My faith never deserts
the other three, and there was a high correlation between me during hard times”) describes a sense of faith in the
residuals), however, and reliable in terms of both future that might also be intended as hope that things will
Cronbach’s alphas and McDonald’s ordinal omega. Our get better. This might explain why its residuals correlated
findings would suggest that single character strength sub- with items from the character strength of hope, such as
scales are unique factors (at least in the Italian short form) “Despite challenges, I always remain hopeful about the
and, with the exception of love of learning, can be used in future” (item 29). Modification indices also pinpointed two
further studies. It should be noted nevertheless that seven items regarding humor (item 87, “I have a great sense of
items did not meet the monotonicity assumptions, and humor”; and item 119, “I am known for my good sense of
might be revised in future studies to further increase the val- humor”). Compared with the other items relating to this
idity of the measure. The unidimensionality of the strengths character strength (e.g., item 57, “I try to add some humor
was still not enough, however, to validate their use from a to whatever I do”), these two items refer to how people see
multivariate perspective, i.e., also including the other themselves, and could consequently overlap with each other
strengths, which are strongly correlated with each other and much more than with the others, which are more behavioral
may overlap. This aspect was ascertained in subsequent and refer to the use of humor in different situations. Such
analyses, by answering the question first of their conver- small similarities could prove particularly important in a
gence into common virtues and then of the convergence of smaller set of items as in short forms of the VIA-IS (like the
both strengths and virtues into a complete model of charac- one adopted in the present case), because they derive from
ter strengths. the aggregation of items correlating more strongly with the
Our results largely confirmed the measurement models of latent factor, not from a meaningful analysis of the items’
each of the six virtues, the only exception being transcend- content (Littman-Ovadia, 2015). Keeping these modification
ence, for which the SRMR was poor. We inspected modifi- indices in mind, we specified the correlations between the
cation indices to shed light on the issue, this enabled us to above-mentioned items in a second model and found better
10 FERACO, CASALI, MENEGHETTI
fit indices, although the use of modification indices does not
entitle us to conclude that the virtue of transcendence per-
fectly fits our data. The character strength of spirituality
strength in particular is more difficult to distinguish as a
unique strength when considering also the other strengths
converging into transcendence, even though it emerged as
unidimensional in a separate analysis. All the other virtues
showed good fit indices, which means that their strengths
can be grouped together as single factors or, in other words,
as a unique second-order variable.
The last level of our analysis involved including all the
virtues and strengths in a single hierarchical model.
Although previous studies had always found very poor fit
indices when studying the theoretical model originally pro-
posed by Peterson and Seligman (2004), our hierarchical
model resulted in an acceptable SRMR and only slightly
inadequate CFI and TLI values. Following the same proced-
ure as for the virtue of transcendence, we identified three
main problems in the model: a correlation between two
items of self-regulation that could be described as “diet
items” (i.e., item 5, “I have no trouble eating healthy foods”;
and item 68, “I can always stay on a diet”), and between
two pairs of strengths converging into different virtues (per-
spective and prudence, which belong respectively to wisdom
and to temperance; and perseverance and self-regulation,
which belong respectively to courage and temperance). One
way to clarify these associations could be to test alternative
models in which the strengths that showed to be correlated
are placed together as converging into the same virtue, and
then check whether the model fit improves as a result. In
McGrath et al. (2018), for instance, perseverance and self-
regulation were both found to load on the “self-control” fac-
tor. It could also be argued, however, that - even if they
hypothetically connect to different virtues - strengths like
perseverance (or grit in Duckworth’s work) and self-regula-
tion are known to be related, but separate constructs (see
Duckworth & Gross, 2014, for instance), so it may be that
the items used in the VIA-IS are not precise enough to tear
them apart. Notwithstanding these flaws, the hierarchical
model resulted in an acceptable fit, in line with the results
obtained using other methods, such as EFA (Anjum &
Amjad, 2020; McGrath, 2014) or CFA on reduced versions
(Duan et al., 2012; McGrath, 2016; Ng et al., 2017). Such fit
indices were also slightly better than those of the two EFA
models fitted on our data, suggesting that the CFA model
might be preferable because it also has the advantage of the
strong theoretical basis proposed by Peterson and Seligman
(2004). Finally, the hierarchical model could also be repli-
cated in a smaller independent sample (Sample 2), indicat-
ing that it may be reliable even in studies on smaller
samples, such as those usually collected for experimen-
tal research.
Peterson and Seligman (2004) conceptualized character
on the grounds of a commendable amount of theoretical
research and their proposal was designed to be open to
adjustments. It was not meant to be exhaustive or flawless.
Several other authors have questioned their taxonomy from
both a theoretical (e.g., Miller, 2019; Snow, 2019) and a
practical (e.g., McGrath et al., 2018; Ruch et al., 2021; Ruch
& Proyer, 2015) standpoint, and came up with theory-driven
(as in Miller, 2019) or data-driven ( as in McGrath et al.,
2018; Ng et al., 2017 ) alternatives. For instance, they pro-
posed vises as counterparts of virtues (Miller, 2019), polyto-
mous assignment of strengths to virtues (Ruch et al., 2021),
a unique super-ordered factor expressing dispositional posi-
tivity (Ng et al., 2017), or a reduced tripartite taxonomy
(Duan et al., 2012; McGrath, 2015; McGrath et al., 2018).
That said, the primary aim of the present study was to valid-
ate the Italian version of the VIA-IS-120 and, in doing so,
we attempted to address some of the methodological issues
we identified in the use currently made of the VIA-IS, with-
out venturing into new theoretical proposals. To answer
such theoretical questions, further studies must be run and
different empirical approaches should be taken into account
(e.g., Ruch & Proyer, 2015). Overall, what emerged from
our analyses is that (with the exception of love of learning)
the inventory’s character strengths can be considered unidi-
mensional and reliable in Italian samples, and mainly con-
necting to the hypothesized virtues (again with some
exceptions, as discussed earlier), in line with results obtained
using other methods by Ruch and Proyer (2015), and by
Ruch et al. (2021). On the basis of the only other study ana-
lyzing the factorial structure of the single character strengths
(Ng et al., 2017), we can extend our results to other VIA-IS
versions (in other languages). We can also tentatively rec-
ommend using the short form (VIA-IS-120) because, unlike
the original form, it showed unidimensionality on the char-
acter strength level. This should be tested in more depth,
however. The use of non-unidimensional scales should
be avoided.
Moving forward, as some strengths emerged as partially
overlapping, and possibly pointing to multiple virtues, one
solution could be to revise the items on the basis not only
of correlations (as in Littman-Ovadia, 2015), but also of
content, in order to measure strengths more accurately, as
done more recently by McGrath (2017), but would demand
to a complete revision of the VIA-IS short form.
Be that as it may, we strongly believe that confirmatory
analyses, guided by solid theoretical assumptions, are the
best way to make the VIA-IS uniform, replicable, and usable
across studies, and thereby strengthen the value of its associ-
ations with other outcomes.
Finally, the VIA-IS-120 proved reasonably reliable in
both a large sample and a second, smaller independent sam-
ple, albeit with a few issues relating to a poor fit for love of
learning and an overlap for some strengths. Future studies
should adopt confirmatory approaches to validate existing
or new theoretical proposals and investigate the structure of
the VIA-IS hierarchically, considering both item and
strength levels, and treating items as ordinal variables.
Convergent validity was also examined in the second sample
including measures of mental health (GHQ-12) and distress,
in terms of anxiety, depression, and stress (DASS-21). Such
correlations showed to be small-to-medium and in line with
previous studies investigating the relation between character
strengths and distress in different populations (e.g., Antebi-

Gruszka et al., 2021; Haridas et al., 2017; Huta & Hawley,
2010; Lee et al., 2019; Lim, 2015) with transcendence
strengths such as gratitude and hope usually resulting the
most related to higher mental health status (Huta & Hawley,
2010; Petkari & Ortiz-Tallo, 2018). These results confirm the
importance of precisely measure character strengths to sus-
tain positive psychology interventions to nurture wellbeing,
mental health, and help people flourishing (Niemiec, 2020).
Conclusions
Using CFA, we confirmed the validity of the Italian version
of the VIA-IS-120 on character strengths, virtues and hier-
archical levels. Our results showed that all the strength fac-
tors except love of learning are unidimensional and can be
considered separately in future studies. On a more general
level, with few exceptions, the items of the 23 strengths did
not appear to load on other strengths, and the latter con-
verged well into the virtues originally hypothesized by
Peterson and Seligman (2004). With the exception of two
pairs – self-regulation and perseverance, and of prudence
and perspective – the different strengths did not load on vir-
tues other than the one hypothesized nor did they correlate
too strongly with other strengths. This evidence leads us to
conclude that, after excluding love of learning, the VIA-IS-
120 can be used to study single character strengths and
aggregate scores of the original virtues (Peterson &
Seligman, 2004), without exploring the convergence of
strengths into new components.
Notes
1. These data were collected for a study already published:
Casali et al., 2020
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to acknowledge the VIA Institute for giving us
access to the data used in this study and for granting us permission to
use them for this publication.
Declaration of interest statement
This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies
in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors. The authors have
no potential conflicts of interest to report.
Funding
The present work was conducted as part of the Dipartimenti di
Eccellenza research program (DM 11/05/2017 n. 262), supported by a
grant from MIUR to the Department of General Psychology,
University of Padua.
Data availability statement
Data for Sample 2 are available on Figshare. Doi: 10.6084/
m9.figshare.13353539
DO STRENGTHS CONVERGE INTO VIRTUES? 11
References
Anjum, A., & Amjad, N. (2020). Values in action inventory of
strengths (VIA-IS): Translation and validation in Urdu language.
Pakistan Journal of Psychological Research, 35(1), 163–189. https://
doi.org/10.33824/PJPR.2020.35.1.10
Antebi-Gruszka, N., Friedman, A. A., & Schrimshaw, E. W. (2021).
Character strengths and their associations with well-being and men-
tal distress among lesbian, gay, bisexual, and queer individuals.
Journal of Gay & Lesbian Social Services, 33(2), 157–179. https://doi.
org/10.1080/10538720.2020.1859424
Aza~nedo, C. M., Fernandez-Abascal, E. G., & Barraca, J. (2014).
Character strengths in Spain: validation of the values in action
inventory of strengths (VIA-IS) in a Spanish sample. Clınica y
Salud, 25(2), 123–130. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.clysa.2014.06.002
Aza~nedo, C. M., Fernandez-Abascal, E. G., & Barraca, J. (2017).
Version corta del cuestionario VIA de fortalezas personales.
Psicothema, 29, 254–260. https://doi.org/10.7334/psicothema2016.225
Beaujean, A. A. (2014). Latent variable modeling using R: A step-by-step
guide. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315869780
Bentler, P. M., & Bonett, D. G. (1980). Significance tests and goodness
of fit in the analysis of covariance structures. Psychological Bulletin,
88(3), 588–606. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.88.3.588
Bottesi, G., Ghisi, M., Altoe, G., Conforti, E., Melli, G., & Sica, C.
(2015). The Italian version of the depression anxiety stress scales-21:
Factor structure and psychometric properties on community and
clinical samples. Comprehensive Psychiatry, 60, 170–181. https://doi.
org/10.1016/j.comppsych.2015.04.005
Brdar, I., & Kashdan, T. B. (2010). Character strengths and well-being
in Croatia: An empirical investigation of structure and correlates.
Journal of Research in Personality, 44(1), 151–154. https://doi.org/10.
1016/j.jrp.2009.12.001
Bruna, M. O., Brabete, A. C., & Izquierdo, J. M. A. (2019). Reliability
generalization as a seal of quality of substantive meta-analyses: The
case of the VIA inventory of strengths (VIA-IS) and their relation-
ships to life satisfaction. Psychological Reports, 122, 1167–1188.
https://doi.org/10.1177/0033294118779198
Casali, N., Feraco, T., Ghisi, M., & Meneghetti, C. (2020). Andra tutto
bene”: Associations between character strengths, psychological dis-
tress and self-efficacy during Covid-19 lockdown. Journal of
Happiness Studies, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-020-00321-w
Duan, W., Ho, S. M. Y., Yu, B., Tang, X., Zhang, Y., Li, T., & Yuen, T.
(2012). Factor structure of the Chinese virtues questionnaire.
Research on Social Work Practice, 22(6), 680–688. https://doi.org/10.
1177/1049731512450074
Duan, W., & Wang, Y. (2018). Latent profile analysis of the three-
dimensional model of character strengths to distinguish at-strengths
and at-risk populations. Quality of Life Research, 27(11), 2983–2990.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11136-018-1933-1
Duckworth, A., & Gross, J. J. (2014). Self-control and grit: Related but
separable determinants of success. Current Directions in
Psychological Science: A Journal of the American Psychological
Society, 23, 319–325. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721414541462
Flora, D. B., & Curran, P. J. (2004). An empirical evaluation of alterna-
tive methods of estimation for confirmatory factor analysis with
ordinal data. Psychological Methods, 9(4), 466–491. https://doi.org/
10.1037/1082-989X.9.4.466
Gander, F., Hofmann, J., Proyer, R. T., & Ruch, W. (2020). Character
strengths – Stability, change, and relationships with well-being
changes. Applied Research in Quality of Life, 15(2), 349–367. https://
doi.org/10.1007/s11482-018-9690-4
Giorgi, G., Perez, J. M. L., D’Antonio, A. C., Perez, F. J. F., Arcangeli,
G., Cupelli, V., & Mucci, N. (2014). The general health question-
naire (GHQ-12) in a sample of Italian workers: mental health at
individual and organizational level. World Journal of Medical
Sciences, 11, 47–56. https://doi.org/10.5829/idosi.wjms.2014.11.1.
83295
Goldberg, D. P. (1978). Manual of the general health questionnaire.
Nfer-Nelson Publishers.
12 FERACO, CASALI, MENEGHETTI
Haridas, S., Bhullar, N., & Dunstan, D. A. (2017). What’s in character
strengths? Profiling strengths of the heart and mind in a community
sample. Personality and Individual Differences, 113, 32–37. https://
doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2017.03.006
Harzer, C., & Ruch, W. (2015). The relationships of character strengths
with coping, work-related stress, and job satisfaction. Frontiers in
Psychology, 6, 1–12. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00165
Heintz, S., & Ruch, W. (2020). Character strengths and job satisfaction:
Differential relationships across occupational groups and adulthood.
Applied Research in Quality of Life, 15(2), 503–527. https://doi.org/
10.1007/s11482-018-9691-3
H€ofer, S., Hausler, M., Huber, A., Strecker, C., Renn, D., & H€ oge, T.
(2019). Psychometric characteristics of the German values in action
inventory of strengths 120-item short form. Applied Research in
Quality of Life, 15, 597–611. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11482-018-
9696-y
Horn, J. L. (1965). A rationale and test for the number of factors in
factor analysis. Psychometrika, 30, 179–185. https://doi.org/10.1007/
BF02289447
Hu, L., & Bentler, P. M. (1999). Cutoff criteria for fit indexes in covari-
ance structure analysis: Conventional criteria versus new alterna-
tives. Structural Equation Modeling: A Multidisciplinary Journal,
6(1), 1–55. https://doi.org/10.1080/10705519909540118
Huta, V., & Hawley, L. (2010). Psychological strengths and cognitive
vulnerabilities: Are they two ends of the same continuum or do they
have independent relationships with well-being and ill-being?
Journal of Happiness Studies, 11(1), 71–93. https://doi.org/10.1007/
s10902-008-9123-4
Karris Bachik, M. A., Carey, G., & Craighead, W. E. (2020). VIA char-
acter strengths among U.S. college students and their associations
with happiness, well-being, resiliency, academic success and psycho-
pathology. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 1–14. https://doi.org/
10.1080/17439760.2020.1752785
Khumalo, I. P., Wissing, M. P., & Temane, Q. M. (2008). Exploring the
validity of the values-in-action inventory of strengths (VIA-IS) in an
African context. Journal of Psychology in Africa, 18(1), 133–142.
https://doi.org/10.1080/14330237.2008.10820180
Lee, B., Kaya, C., Chen, X., Wu, J. R., Iwanaga, K., Umucu, E., Bezyak,
J., Tansey, T. N., & Chan, F. (2019). The buffering effect of charac-
ter strengths on depression. European Journal of Health Psychology,
26(3), 101–109. https://doi.org/10.1027/2512-8442/a000036
Lim, Y. J. (2015). Relations between virtues and positive mental health
in a Korean population: A multiple indicators multiple causes
(MIMIC) model approach. International Journal of Psychology, 50,
272–278. https://doi.org/10.1002/ijop.12096
Littman-Ovadia, H. (2015). Short form of the VIA inventory of
strengths: Construction and initial tests of reliability and validity.
International Journal of Humanities Social Sciences and Education, 2,
229–237. Retrieved from www.arcjournals.org
Littman-Ovadia, H., & Lavy, S. (2012). Character strengths in Israel:
Hebrew adaptation of the VIA inventory of strengths. European
Journal of Psychological Assessment, 28(1), 41–50. https://doi.org/10.
1027/1015-5759/a000089
Lounsbury, J. W., Fisher, L. A., Levy, J. J., & Welsh, D. P. (2009). An
investigation of character strengths in relation to the academic suc-
cess of college students. Individual Differences Research, 7, 52–69.
Lovibond, P. F., & Lovibond, S. H. (1995). The structure of negative
emotional states: Comparison of the depression anxiety stress scales
(DASS) with the beck depression and anxiety inventories. Behaviour
Research and Therapy, 33, 335–343. https://doi.org/10.1016/0005-
7967(94)00075-U
Macdonald, C., Bore, M., & Munro, D. (2008). Values in action scale
and the Big 5: An empirical indication of structure. Journal of
Research in Personality, 42(4), 787–799. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.
2007.10.003
Martınez-Martı, M. L., & Ruch, W. (2014). Character strengths and
well-being across the life span: Data from a representative sample of
German-speaking adults living in Switzerland. Frontiers in
Psychology, 5, 1–10. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01253
Martınez-Martı, M. L., & Ruch, W. (2017). Character strengths predict
resilience over and above positive affect, self-efficacy, optimism,
social support, self-esteem, and life satisfaction. The Journal of
Positive Psychology, 12(2), 110–119. https://doi.org/10.1080/
17439760.2016.1163403
Maydeu-Olivares, A., Shi, D., & Rosseel, Y. (2018). Assessing fit in
structural equation models: A Monte-Carlo evaluation of RMSEA
versus SRMR confidence intervals and tests of close fit. Structural
Equation Modeling: A Multidisciplinary Journal, 25(3), 389–402.
https://doi.org/10.1080/10705511.2017.1389611
McGrath, R. E. (2014). Scale- and item-level factor analyses of the VIA
inventory of strengths. Assessment, 21, 4–14. https://doi.org/10.1177/
1073191112450612
McGrath, R. E. (2015). Integrating psychological and cultural perspec-
tives on virtue: The hierarchical structure of character strengths. The
Journal of Positive Psychology, 10(5), 407–424. https://doi.org/10.
1080/17439760.2014.994222
McGrath, R. E. (2016). Measurement invariance in translations of the
VIA inventory of strengths. European Journal of Psychological
Assessment, 32(3), 187–194. https://doi.org/10.1027/1015-5759/
a000248
McGrath, R. E. (2017). Technical report: The VIA assessment suite for
adults: Development and evaluation. VIA Institute on Character.
McGrath, R. E., Greenberg, M. J., & Hall-Simmonds, A. (2018).
Scarecrow, tin woodsman, and cowardly lion: The three-factor
model of virtue. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 13(4), 373–392.
https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2017.1326518
Miller, C. B. (2019). Some philosophical concerns about how the VIA
classifies character traits and the VIA-IS measures them. The
Journal of Positive Psychology, 14(1), 6–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/
17439760.2018.1528377
Mokken, R. J. (1971). A Theory and Procedure of Scale Analysis. De
Gruyter.
Ng, V., Cao, M., Marsh, H. W., Tay, L., & Seligman, M. E. P. (2017).
The factor structure of the Values in Action Inventory of Strengths
(VIA-IS): An item-level exploratory structural equation modeling
(ESEM) bifactor analysis. Psychological Assessment, 29, 1053–1058.
https://doi.org/10.1037/pas0000396
Niemiec, R. M. (2013). VIA character strengths: Research and practice
(The first 10 years). In Well-being and cultures. (pp. 11–29).
Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-4611-4_2
Niemiec, R. M. (2020). Six functions of character strengths for thriving
at times of adversity and opportunity: A theoretical perspective.
Applied Research in Quality of Life, 15(2), 551–572. https://doi.org/
10.1007/s11482-018-9692-2
Pastore, M., & Lombardi, L. (2014). The impact of faking on
Cronbach’s alpha for dichotomous and ordered rating scores.
Quality & Quantity, 48(3), 1191–1211. https://doi.org/10.1007/
s11135-013-9829-1
Peterson, C., & Park, N. (2004). Classification and measurement of
character strengths: Implications for practice. In Positive psychology
in practice. (pp. 433–446). John Wiley & Sons, Inc. https://doi.org/
10.1002/9780470939338.ch27
Peterson, C., Park, N., Pole, N., D’Andrea, W., & Seligman, M. E. P.
(2008). Strengths of character and posttraumatic growth. Journal of
Traumatic Stress, 21, 214–217. https://doi.org/10.1002/jts.20332
Peterson, C., & Seligman, M. E. P. (2004). Character strengths and vir-
tues: A handbook and classification. Oxford University Press and
American Psychological Association.
Petkari, E., & Ortiz-Tallo, M. (2018). Towards youth happiness and
mental health in the United Arab Emirates: The path of character
strengths in a multicultural population. Journal of Happiness Studies,
19, 333–350. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-016-9820-3
R Development Core Team. (2019). R: A language and environment for
statistical computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing.
Rosseel, Y. (2012). lavaan: An R package for structural equation model-
ing. Journal of Statistical Software, 48(2), 1–36. https://doi.org/10.
18637/jss.v048.i02
Ruch, G., Gander, F., Wagner, L., & Giuliani, F. (2021). The structure
of character: On the relationships between character strengths and

virtues. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 16(1), 116–113. https://
doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2019.1689418
Ruch, W., & Proyer, R. T. (2015). Mapping strengths into virtues: The
relation of the 24 VIA-strengths to six ubiquitous virtues. Frontiers
in Psychology, 6, 460–460. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00460
Ruch, W., Proyer, R. T., Harzer, C., Park, N., Peterson, C., & Seligman,
M. E. P. (2010). Values in action inventory of strengths (VIA-IS):
Adaptation and validation of the German version and the develop-
ment of a peer-rating form. Journal of Individual Differences, 31(3),
138–149. https://doi.org/10.1027/1614-0001/a000022
Schermelleh-Engel, K., Moosbrugger, H., & M€ uller, H. (2003).
Evaluating the fit of structural equation models: Tests of significance
and descriptive goodness-of-fit measures. Methods of Psychological
Research Online, 8, 23–74.
Seibel, B. L., DeSousa, D., & Koller, S. H. (2015). Adaptaç~ao Brasileira
e Estrutura Fatorial da Escala 240-item VIA Inventory of Strengths.
Psico-USF, 20(3), 371–383. https://doi.org/10.1590/1413-
82712015200301
Shi, D., Maydeu-Olivares, A., & Rosseel, Y. (2020). Assessing fit in
ordinal factor analysis models: SRMR vs. RMSEA. Structural
Equation Modeling, 27(1), 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1080/10705511.
2019.1611434
Shoshani, A., & Slone, M. (2016). The resilience function of character
strengths in the face of war and protracted conflict. Frontiers in
Psychology, 6. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.02006
Shryack, J., Steger, M. F., Krueger, R. F., & Kallie, C. S. (2010). The
structure of virtue: An empirical investigation of the dimensionality
of the virtues in action inventory of strengths. Personality and
DO STRENGTHS CONVERGE INTO VIRTUES? 13
Individual Differences, 48(6), 714–719. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.
2010.01.007
Singh, K., & Choubisa, R. (2010). Empirical validation of values in
action-inventory of strengths (VIA-IS) in Indian context.
Psychological Studies, 55(2), 151–158. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12646-
010-0015-4
Snow, N. (2019). Positive psychology, the classification of character
strengths and virtues, and issues of measurement. The Journal of
Positive Psychology, 14(1), 20–31. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.
2018.1528376
Terwee, C. B., Crins, M. H. P., Boers, M., de Vet, H. C. W., & Roorda,
L. D. (2019). Validation of two PROMIS item banks for measuring
social participation in the Dutch general population. Quality of Life
Research, 28(1), 211–220. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11136-018-1995-0
Van der Ark, L. A. (2007). Mokken scale analysis in R. Journal of
Statistical Software, 20(11), 1–19. https://www.jstatsoft.org/article/
view/v020i11
Velicer, W. F., Eaton, C. A., & Fava, J. L. (2000). Construct explication
through factor or component analysis: A review and evaluation of
alternative procedures for determining the number of factors or
components. In R. D. Goffin & E. Helms (Eds.), Problems and solu-
tions in human assessment: Honoring Douglas N. Jackson at seventy.
(pp. 41–71). Springer.
Weber, M., Ruch, W., Littman-Ovadia, H., Lavy, S., & Gai, O. (2013).
Relationships among higher-order strengths factors, subjective well-
being, and general self-efficacy - The case of Israeli adolescents.
Personality and Individual Differences, 55(3), 322–327. https://doi.
org/10.1016/j.paid.2013.03.006