Making Sense of People: Detecting and Understanding Personality Differences

In thinking about a person’s character, it is important to pay attention to the way someone expresses both universal and culture-based values.

Franklin was not alone in this belief. Through the ages philosophers and religious leaders have encouraged the development of good character. What mainly distinguished Franklin’s ideas from those of his predecessors was his elaborate practical method for self-improvement.

• Humanity—Strengths such as kindness and love that involve tending to and befriending others • Justice—Strengths such as fairness and citizenship that contribute to community life • Wisdom—Strengths such as open-mindedness and love of learning that entail the acquisition and use of knowledge • Transcendence—Strengths such as awe and spirituality t

most Americans who lived in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries shared the view that character was the most significant part of personality—and the part that could be improved through conscious effort.

There appears to be a widespread preference for people who are honest, courageous, emotionally stable, flexible, productive, modest, generous, trusting, sociable, and only moderately quirky—the sorts of individuals with none of the ten flaws on the list.

Why is this so? Why do traits with a moral quality have such a powerful effect on us? Is this just a reflection of the cultural influences that Allport emphasized?

moral instincts—the instincts that lead us to behave in ways that benefit other individuals or the general social order—evolved because they also benefit those who express them.

The result was a program that was explicit, realistic, and, as he looked back on it, seemingly effective.

“[T]hough I never arrived at the perfection I had been so ambitious of obtaining, but fell far short of it, yet I was, by the endeavor, a better and happier man than I otherwise should have been if I had not attempted