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Thriving in Openness, Care, and Compassion: How Virtue and Compassion for Self and Others Relate to Flourishing

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Abstract

This study aimed at investigating the connection between virtue, compassion for self and others, and flourishing. 11,395 individuals provided data on the virtues of Caring, Inquisitiveness, and Self-Control, compassion for self (i.e., Self-Compassion and self-Criticism) and for others (i.e., Empathy, Common Humanity, Recognizing Suffering, and Willingness to Act), and flourishing. Regression analysis showed that: (a) Caring and Inquisitiveness were associated with an individual's sense of compassion, both for self and others; and that (b) the virtues and this kind attitude towards self and others were associated with an individual’s level of flourishing, explaining 50% of the between-person variance. Women scored higher than men on all variables except Self-Control. Self-Compassion increased with age; Empathy, Common Humanity, and Recognizing Suffering showed inverted-U trends with peaks around age 40–50; Willingness to Act and Self-Criticism showed downward trends. The results suggest that being caring, open, and kind may be major determinants of fulfillment.

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Data Availability

Data are available upon reasonable request sent to both Ryan Niemiec (ryan@viacharacter.org) and Paul Verhaeghen (verhaeghen@gatech.edu).

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Acknowledgements

I would like to thank and acknowledge Dr. Ryan Niemiec from the VIA Institute on Character for kindly inviting and allowing me to collect compassion, self-compassion, and flourishing data from the VIA participants and for insightful comments on an earlier version of this manuscript, as well as Dr. Christopher Wiese for insightful comments on an earlier version of this manuscript. This paper is dedicated in loving memory of Jacob Miller, B.S., who instigated our research program on the structure and measurement of compassion; his quiet, gentle, kind, and thoughtful presence is much missed.

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  1. School of Psychology, Georgia Institute of Technology, 654 Cherry St NW, Atlanta, GA, 30332, USA

    Paul Verhaeghen

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Verhaeghen, P. Thriving in Openness, Care, and Compassion: How Virtue and Compassion for Self and Others Relate to Flourishing. J Happiness Stud 25, 19 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-024-00725-y

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