Character Strengths: Stability and change from a military college education

ABSTRACT

A service academy military education seeks to develop character. Twenty-four character strengths measured by the Values in Action – Individual Strengths instrument are examined longitudinally to determine effects on character from a service academy education. Significant growth equations were obtained for Citizenship-Teamwork, Hope-Optimism, Fairness, Capacity to Love and be Loved, Appreciation of Beauty, Industry-Perseverance, Zest-Enthusiasm, Spirituality, Creativity, Leadership, Humor-Playfulness, Judgment, and Love of Learning from a mixed models analysis (overall Type 1 error set at .05). Based upon differences expected from a cross-sectional national sample it was inferred that the military college education differentially affected all character strengths except Gratitude, Citizenship-Teamwork, Creativity, Hope-Optimism, Capacity to Love and be Loved, Humor-Playfulness, Perspective, Modesty-Humility, Appreciation of Beauty, and Judgment.

KEYWORDS:

• Character strengths
• military education
• longitudinal changes

Acknowledgment

I would like to acknowledge the contributions of LCDRs Eric Stein, Nic Jarboe, and Jose Rosario and the training officers of the Commandant of Cadets Division who were instrumental in arranging for data collection.

The views expressed in this paper are those of the author and do not represent those of the United States Coast Guard or Coast Guard Academy.

Notes

¹ The Class of 2015 received an abbreviated form of the VIA measuring only 16 VIA character strengths. This affected the sample size of some of the analyses that included the Class of 2015.

² These statistical details may be obtained from the author.