The virtue counterbalancing model: An illustration with patience & courage

ABSTRACT

In conceptualizing virtues as fully distinct constructs and vices as the absence of virtues, positive psychology is unable to provide a coherent account that explains tensions between virtues. This article puts forward a simple, holistic model that emphasizes the counterbalancing nature of virtues and conceptualizes vices as both deficiencies and excesses of virtues. Virtues check-and-balance one another to temper instantiations of vice. To test this model, a longitudinal study (N = 299) was conducted on goals and goal pursuit, investigating the virtuous strategies of patience and courage and their relations with the vices of passivity and reactivity. Findings suggested empirical support for the virtue counterbalancing model. Additionally, there were interesting distinctions at the within level (e.g., specific goal level) and between level (e.g., characteristic person level) of analysis, which provide further insight into how these virtues and vices relate. Implications for the model and future research directions are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Virtue
• vice
• goals
• character
• Aristotelian golden mean

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Correction

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2023.2178960.

Data availability statement

The data described in this article are openly available in the Open Science Framework at https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2023.2178960.

Open scholarship

This article has earned the Center for Open Science badges for Open Data, Open Materials and Preregistered. The data and materials are openly accessible at https://doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2023.2178960.

Correction Statement

This article was originally published with errors, which have now been corrected in the online version. Please see Correction (http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2024.2328441)

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Templeton Religion Trust 0314 (2021-2023).