4.4 Shadow Side of Character Strengths

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From the course by University of Pennsylvania

Positive Psychology: Resilience Skills

721 ratings

University of Pennsylvania

Positive Psychology: Resilience Skills

721 ratings

Course 4 of 5 in the Specialization Foundations of Positive Psychology

Learn how to incorporate resilience interventions into your personal and professional life with Dr. Karen Reivich. In this course, you are exposed to the foundational research in resilience, including protective factors such as mental agility and optimism. Several types of resilience interventions are explored including cognitive strategies; strategies to manage anxiety and increase positive emotions such as gratitude; and a critical relationship enhancement skill. Throughout the course, you will hear examples of individuals using resilience skills in their personal and professional lives. Suggested prerequisites: Positive Psychology: Martin E. P. Seligman’s Visionary Science, Positive Psychology: Applications and Interventions and Positive Psychology: Character, Grit & Research Methods.

From the lesson

Leveraging Character Strengths and Strengthening Relationships

In this module, you will identify your own character strengths using a well-validated questionnaire. Next, you will describe how to use your character strengths in stressful situations to increase resilience by creating a buffer of positive emotion. Additionally, you will learn the research on active constructive responding, and identify their predominant responding style with important people in their lives. Finally, you will hear examples of inculcating resilience into organizations, and plan how to incorporate resilience strategies into your personal and professional lives.

4.1 Background and Definition of Signature Strengths15:21

4.2 Activities: Developing Character Strengths and VIA Conversation4:58

4.3 Using Character Strengths to Navigate an Upcoming Challenge16:16

4.4 Shadow Side of Character Strengths10:20

Meet the Instructors

Karen Reivich, Ph.D.
Director of Resilience Training Services
Positive Psychology Center

[MUSIC]

So we've talked about your signature character strengths, and

I hope you had a chance to interact with each other about what you've learned

through taking this survey.

But there's another topic about character strength that I think is important for

us to wrestle with, and

that's what we call the shadow side of our character strengths.

So, sometimes the best of who we are can cause harm to ourselves or to others.

Sometimes the best of who we are can get us into trouble, and

we call the ways in which our signature character strengths can get us into

trouble as the shadow side.

So let's explore that a little bit together.

So, one way in which the best of who you are,

your signature character strength can get you into trouble,

is that it could flow out of you at the wrong time or the wrong place.

Remember, we said a signature character strength,

you feel authentic, the motivation comes from within, you're energized.

So these parts of us are just coming out of us at all times and

maybe sometimes at the wrong time.

So, everyone who has the signature character strength of humor

has a story to tell of a time when you were playful or

cracked a joke and it was not well-received.

It was a wrong time, wrong place, you offended people.

We call that wrong time, wrong place,

the shadow side of the signature character strength.

So think about your signature character strengths and ask yourself,

do they ever flow from me at a time where that wasn't the best time to tap

into that part of my character?

Another way in which a signature character strength or character strength can get us

into trouble is at a times, because these parts of our character are so

dominant in us, we might not be attuned to other people.

And the ways in which they're different from us in terms of

their character strength, so here's an example.

Let's say two of your dominant strengths are gratitude and zest.

And there's somebody that you work with who's done something really effective and

you want to praise that person.

And let's imagine that that other person has humility as one of his

top character strengths, he's a deeply humble person.

And so you see this person do something well, and because of your gratitude

you want to thank him, and because of your zest you don't just want to thank them,

you want to sing it from the rooftops.

You're like, go barreling across the office, shinning the light on this person,

naming all of the wonderful things he's done and why that matters, full

of all of your zest, and what effect does that have on this deeply humble person?

This person who has humility as his top character strength.

Well, maybe it shuts him down.

He feels uncomfortable and awkward and embarrassed rather than valued.

So that's an example of one person's dominant strength being

misattuned at least in how you're expressing them to another person.

Now, I want to be clear I'm not saying we should be hiding the best of who we are,

Imean, that's no good either.

But perhaps what we need to think about at times is, how do I modulate

the best of me so that I'm also helping to bring out the best of someone else?

And so, maybe my zest and gratitude has to be expressed differently with

a person who's deeply humble versus a person who also is deeply zestful,

and these are the questions we want you to think about.

Modulation and attunement, okay, those are two ways in which

our character strength can sometimes cause us some difficulty.

There's another, another shadow side, is when we value

our own character strengths to a degree that sometimes we inadvertently

are judgemental of other people who don't share the same character strengths.

And, again, you could see how this would happen,

I mean, you view the world through who you are, right?

So, your top strengths are comfortable for you, they're natural to you.

And so, let's imagine that one of your top character strengths is creativity,

that's dominant in you.

When you're in a meeting, you're always generating new ideas of how to handle

a situation when there's a problem.

You're the first to think outside the box and

come up with many different ways of how that problem can be solved.

And imagine that someone on your team doesn't have a lot of creative ideas.

And so you're sitting there with all these different ways of approaching, and

then you look over and this person isn't saying much, and

maybe internally you're thinking, man, what's his deal?

Come on, get in on this.

Like, what's wrong with you?

Why aren't you participating?

And so, you're being judgemental because that other person perhaps doesn't have

creativity as a dominant strength, and they add value to the team in other ways.

But while you're creative, that person is not particularly creative, and so

it's much harder for them to engage at the same level that you're engaging,.if

that comes out of us as judgement, then other people can feel put down.

Whereas, perhaps what we want is to learn how to engage

people through whatever their dominant strengths are.

So that's another way in which our dominant strengths can create a shadow,

can get us into trouble.

Now there's one last one that I want to talk with you about.

And for me, in some ways, this is the most curious of all of these shadow sides.

And it's when we have the experience not of judging others, because they don't

have the same character strengths as us, but when we have the experience of judging

ourselves because we don't have the character strengths of someone else.

And in those moments some of you will recognize that rather than allow yourself

to be elevated by the character strengths

of this other person, rather than allowing ourselves to be sort of swept

up in the greatness of this other person, we diminish ourselves.

We make ourselves feel small because we

don't have the same character strength that they do.

I remember when my husband, he wasn't yet my husband,

my fiance, had- just moved out here from California.

And one of Guy's signature character strengths is spirituality,

he views the world through the lens of the wonderment

of the world, the wonderment of the universe.

He's swept up by questions of like, how did that come to be?

And at this time in my life spirituality was not a dominant strength of mine,

and so we were different in that way.

I remember driving down the New Jersey Turnpike, and

Guy had just come out here from California where there's so much beauty around.

And we're driving down the New Jersey Turnpike and Guy looks out the window and

he sees this building, and he says, would you look at that building.

And I look out the window and I say, yeah, it's an eye sore,

they ought to knock that building down.

And Guy says no, no, not that.

Look at the yellow on the wall of that building,

where does yellow come from?

Guy was wondering about the color yellow.

And when I heard Guy, my soon to be husband, who's spiritual and

wonderful and loving and kind, and curious,

wonder about the color yellow rather than engage with him and say,

yeah, I don't know, like how does yellow come to be, and who made yellow?

And what is yellow all about anyway?

Instead of allowing myself to be swept up by his spirituality,

I got cranky, I rolled my eyes.

Quite honestly, had we not been going 60, I would have opened that car door and

dropped and rolled.

I was so deeply uncomfortable

that I couldn't wonder at the color yellow the way he could.

And instead of allowing myself to be swept up and

elevated by this man I'm about to marry, who sees proof of the existence

of God in the color yellow, I felt ashamed, I felt small.

And in that moment, I distanced myself from him and diminished myself.

And so, another thing I'd like you to think about is,

when do you diminish yourself because you don't have

the same dominant traits as somebody else that you love or work with?

And what would be different for you?

What would have been different for me if I could take time back and

get back in that car and be going 60 down the New Jersey turnpike,

what I would want to do is now just to ask him questions,

and revel in the fact that this is the man who wonders about yellow.

So I want you to think about, when do you make yourself small,

and what do you need to change so

that you can be elevated rather than diminished by the greatness in others.

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