Personal Projects and the Development of Virtue: How Characteristic Adaptations Enact and Encourage Virtue VALERIE TIBERIUS, PHILOSOPHY COLIN DEYOUNG AND MOIN SYED, PSYCHOLOGY UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA

Overview: Well-being, virtue and change How are Virtue and Well-Being Related? ◦One approach: Does virtue cause subjective well-being?

Overview: Well-being, virtue and change How are Virtue and Well-Being Related? ◦One approach: Does virtue cause subjective well-being? ◦Problem: narrow conception of well-being.

Overview: Well-being, virtue and change

Wave Incoming college students Traits Virtues Well-being CAs Self- Report Peer- Report Personal Project Analysis (PPA)

Wave 2 End of College Year 1 Wave 3 Beginning of College Year 2 Wave 4 End of College Year 2 Traits Virtues Well-being CAs Self- Report Peer- Report Personal Project Analysis (PPA) Wave Incoming college students

Wave 2 End of College Year 1 Wave 3 Beginning of College Year 2 Wave 4 End of College Year 2 Traits Virtues Well-being CAs Self- Report Peer- Report Personal Project Analysis (PPA) Evidence of Virtue Wave Incoming college students

Wave 2 End of College Year 1 Wave 3 Beginning of College Year 2 Wave 4 End of College Year 2 Traits Virtues Well-being CAs Self- Report Peer- Report Personal Project Analysis (PPA) Evidence of Virtue Future- Authoring Intervention Wave Incoming college students

Wave 2 End of College Year 1 Wave 3 Beginning of College Year 2 Wave 4 End of College Year 2 Traits Virtues Well-being CAs Self- Report Peer- Report Personal Project Analysis (PPA) Evidence of Virtue Future- Authoring Intervention Intervention Group Control Group Wave Incoming college students

Methodology How do students’ goals affect how their character develops? ◦ What are their goals? ◦ How do they see their goals? ◦ What makes them more or less successful in the pursuit of these goals?

Personal Project Analysis Stage 1: Project Elicitation

Personal Project Analysis Stage 2: Project Appraisal Project Appraisal Matrix (Cognitive Dimensions)

Personal Project Analysis Stages 3 & 4: Cross Impact and Hierarchical Analysis

Methodology We predict we’ll find that virtue develops naturally in people in ways that are shaped by their goals and strategies. But can we encourage the development of virtue?  Self-Authoring Intervention  Free imagination  Then, structured guide (ours will include instructions to think about character-related goals: what kind of person will you be in your ideal future?)  Exploratory part of study

Challenges  Methodological Challenges  Epistemological (Integration) Challenges o How will we define virtues and will we have the same thresholds? o Preserving relevance to the big questions through the increasing specificity needed for empirical work.  Recall the question: How are Virtue and Well-Being Related?

Deep Integration A synthetic model for interdisciplinary research on normative topics:  Identify shared key features of normative notions  Operationalize with attention to the underlying theories  Gather and analyze data  Draw out implications for various evaluative and theoretical perspectives.

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