Character Strengths Use at Work: a Meta-Analysis of Relations with Work Performance and Employee Wellbeing

Abstract

Character strengths, individual differences in positive, morally valued human characteristics, are a core concept in positive psychology and positive organizational behavior. The application of character strengths through “strengths use” at work is associated with a variety of positive outcomes, including higher levels of work performance and employee wellbeing. To address fragmentation in this literature, we conducted a meta-analysis of relations between strengths use and these outcomes. Consistent with pre-registered hypotheses, we find positive associations between strengths use and work performance (ρ = .421) and worker wellbeing (ρ = .621). However, contrary to the premise of “strengths overuse,” we did not find evidence for non-linearity in these associations. We also explore demographic and methodological moderators of these relations and present an accounting of additional relations between strengths use at work and a broader network of more specific performance- and wellbeing-related constructs, associated strengths-use constructs, job characteristics, dispositional and attitudinal constructs, and demographic characteristics.