Strengths based rehabilitation assessment: Adapted Inventory of Virtues and Strengths

Emotion regulation from a virtue perspective

BACKGROUND

The ability to regulate one's emotional state is an important predictor of several behaviors such as reframing a challenging situation to reduce anger or anxiety, concealing visible signs of sadness or fear, or focusing on reasons to feel happy or calm. This capacity is referred to as emotion regulation. Deficits in this ability can adversely affect one's adaptive coping, thus are associated with a variety of other psychopathological symptoms, including but not limited to depression, borderline personality disorder, substance use disorders, eating disorders, and somatoform disorders.

METHODS

The present study examined emotion regulation in relation to the virtue-based psychosocial adaptation model (V-PAM). 595 participants were clustered based on their Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS) score, producing two clusters (i.e., high functioning vs. low functioning). Then, emotion regulation group membership was discriminated by using five V-PAM virtue constructs, including courage, integrity, practical wisdom, committed action, and emotional transcendence.

RESULTS

Results show that five virtues contribute to differentiating group membership. Practical wisdom was the strongest contributor, followed by integrity, emotional transcendence, committed action, and courage. Predictive discriminant analysis was conducted and 71% of cases were correctly classified. A discussion of the relationship between emotion regulation and virtues was elaborated.

CONCLUSION

The concept of virtue holds significant importance in the comprehension of an individual's capacity to regulate their emotions, meriting future study.

Psychometric Validation of Adapted Inventory of Virtues and Strengths

The purpose of this study was to validate the Adapted Inventory of Virtues and Strengths (AIVS). AIVS is a unique instrument that operationalizes virtues in terms of character traits that are specially designed for psychosocial adaptation and rehabilitation. Data were collected from 464 individuals with disabilities and analyzed via the combination of exploratory ( n = 256) and confirmatory analyses ( n = 208). Although the results suggest dropping some items, the original five-virtue structure was supported and confirmed via both analyses. The construct validity of AIVS was further analyzed via correlation analyses between AIVS and other measures including Values in Action Inventory of Strengths 72-Item, Satisfaction with Life Scale, Connor-Davison Resilience Scale, and General Self-Efficacy Scale. The results suggest that with continuing research to document reliability and validity, AIVS has potential in the context of rehabilitation research. Further discussion on psychometric information of AIVS and future implications were presented.