Duan Wenjie, Bu He
Department of Sociology, Wuhan University, 299 Bayi Road, Wuchang District, Wuhan, Hubei, People's Republic of China.
Qual Life Res. 2017 Sep;26(9):2519-2531. doi: 10.1007/s11136-017-1579-4. Epub 2017 Apr 20.
Character strength is described as a positive and organized pattern of emotions, thoughts, and behaviors. It serves as a schema that organizes categories of information toward the self, others, and the world, and provides the self-aware knowledge that facilitates the pursuit of goals, values, and ethical principles. Recent research has suggested that three reliable factors emerge from the measures of character strengths: caring, inquisitiveness, and self-control. The goal of this paper is to develop a psychometrically sound short measure of character strength.
The questions were addressed in two studies using two independent samples: a cross-cultural (i.e., 518 Asians and 556 Westerners) sample, and a cross-population (i.e., 175 community participants and 171 inpatients) sample in China.
Findings from the exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis suggested a cross-cultural three-factor model of character strength that could be measured by the Three-dimensional Inventory of Character Strengths (TICS). A multigroup confirmatory factor analysis further indicated that the number of factors and factor loadings was invariant in the medical and community samples. This result indicated that the brief inventory could be applied to a medical context. Internal reliability, content validity, and predictive validity were good, although the predictive validity of the three character strengths for psychological symptoms in the medical sample was more modest than that in the community sample.
TICS is expected to be used for screening populations at risk, and a tool to aid mental health professionals in group-based treatment/intervention planning. It also should be noted that this short inventory should be used with caution for individual decision making.
性格优势被描述为一种积极且有组织的情绪、思维和行为模式。它作为一种模式，将关于自我、他人和世界的信息类别进行组织，并提供自我认知知识，以促进对目标、价值观和道德原则的追求。近期研究表明，从性格优势测量中可得出三个可靠因素：关爱、好奇心和自我控制。本文的目的是开发一种心理测量上合理的性格优势简短测量工具。
在两项研究中使用两个独立样本解决这些问题：一个跨文化样本（即518名亚洲人和556名西方人），以及一个中国的跨人群样本（即175名社区参与者和171名住院患者）。
探索性和验证性因素分析的结果表明，性格优势的跨文化三因素模型可通过三维性格优势量表（TICS）进行测量。多组验证性因素分析进一步表明，在医疗和社区样本中，因素数量和因素载荷是不变的。这一结果表明，该简短量表可应用于医疗环境。内部信度、内容效度和预测效度良好，尽管在医疗样本中这三种性格优势对心理症状的预测效度比在社区样本中更为适度。
预计TICS可用于筛查有风险的人群，以及作为一种工具，帮助心理健康专业人员进行基于群体的治疗/干预规划。还应注意的是，对于个体决策，应谨慎使用这种简短量表。
