The present study investigated the role of 24 character strengths in 87 adolescent romantic relationships focusing on their role in partner selection and their role in mates' life satisfaction. Measures included the Values in Action Inventory of Strengths for Youth, the Students' Life Satisfaction Scale, and an Ideal Partner Profiler for the composition of an ideal partner. Honesty, humor, and love were the most preferred character strengths in an ideal partner. Hope, religiousness, honesty, and fairness showed the most substantial assortment coefficients. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed targets' character strengths as explaining variance in targets' life satisfaction. Furthermore, to a lesser degree, specific character strengths of partners and couples' similarity in certain character strengths explained variance in targets' life satisfaction beyond targets' character strengths. This first research on this topic showed that character strengths play a significant role in adolescent romantic relationships.
The present exploratory study investigated the role of character strengths for the description of ideal partners, for selecting real life partners, and for determining mates' global life satisfaction. Peterson and Seligman (2004) developed the Values in Action (VIA) classification of 24 morally valued, positive traits (i.e., character strengths) that are represented in individuals' thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Their theoretically derived VIA classification consists of six virtues (on the highest, abstract level) that are manifest in life via character strengths (Peterson & Seligman, 2004). Each of these virtues comprises three to five observable, measurable character strengths: (1) wisdom and knowledge (includes the character strengths of creativity, curiosity, open-mindedness, love of learning, perspective), (2) courage (i.e., bravery, perseverance, honesty, zest), (3) humanity (i.e., love, kindness, social intelligence), (4) justice (i.e., teamwork, fairness, leadership), (5) temperance (i.e., forgiveness, modesty, prudence, self-regulation), and (6) transcendence (i.e., beauty, gratitude, hope, humor, religiousness). Peterson and Seligman (2004) established several criteria that a positive trait had to fulfill to be included in their classification. One criterion was that the display of a character strength by an individual does not diminish other persons in their environment, quite the contrary, their display elevates others who are with them ( Park & Peterson, 2009). This led us to the assumption that character strengths are worthy to be studied in the context of romantic relationships, where two mates interact closely with each other. It was thus expected that character strengths are relevant for partner selection and mates' life satisfaction.
