Conceptualising and testing the Narnian Character Virtue Scales: a study among 12- to 13-year-old students

ABSTRACT

This paper sets out to examine and to operationalise 12 key character virtues identified within C. S. Lewis’ Narnian texts: courage, curiosity, forgiveness, fortitude, gratitude, hard work, humility, integrity, justice, love, self-control, and wisdom. A pilot study among 56 year eight students (12–13 years of age) generated nine five-item instruments displaying adequate internal consistency reliability, and suggested ways in which the other three measures (curiosity, integrity, and love) could be enhanced in future work. Construct validity was explored by examining the correlations between these 12 character virtues and sex, self-concept, and empathy, and by locating these 12 character virtues within the three-dimensional psychological space proposed by Eysenck’s model of personality.

KEYWORDS:

• Character
• virtues
• adolescents
• psychology
• personality
• self-esteem
• empathy

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

The authors gratefully acknowledge the generous funding of the John Templeton Foundation (grant number 56369) that made the project possible.