Brief Report
Character strengths and academic performance in law students

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrp.2014.12.003Get rights and content

Highlights

  • We examined character strengths in law students in relation to academic performance.

  • Law students’ characteristics were comparable to other highly educated samples.

  • Strengths related negatively to law school grades.

  • Character may matter more for entry into law school than for success once there.

Abstract

We examined law student character and academic performance. Incoming students from Emory University (N = 132) and American University (N = 164) completed the Values in Action Character Strengths Inventory. Strengths were compared to a sample of U.S. lawyers (N = 6,219) and six other samples (N = 135,814). Law students demonstrated a normal range of characteristics, similar to other highly educated groups. Top strengths included judgment, curiosity, love of learning, and fairness. Strengths were positively related to undergraduate grades, but negatively related to LSAT scores and law school grades. Findings suggest a selection effect, such that character matters more for entry into law school, at least on one main admission criterion, but matters less for academic success once there.

Introduction

It is commonly assumed that lawyers are pessimistic, unhappy, and more prone to destructive addictions than other occupational groups (Daicoff, 1997, O’Grady, 2006). The roots of the lawyer narrative are old and deep, and the image of the socially maladapted lawyer, at home only when engaged in courtroom confrontation, is well entrenched in the public imagination and scholarly literature (e.g., Shiltz, 1999). A stereotypical image is that these negative tendencies are implanted in law school, where otherwise bright, ambitious, and optimistic college graduates develop a host of psychosocial ills, including high rates of depression and suicidal ideation, alcohol and drug abuse, and disabling stress (Benjamin, Kazniak, Sales, & Shanfield, 1986), even while being successful in their law practice.

Early studies support this view. Law students with a pessimistic explanatory style academically outperformed optimistic students (Satterfield, Monahan, & Seligman, 1997). Seligman, Verkuil, and Kang (2002) claimed that a pervasive negative explanatory style is rewarded in law school and the profession as a whole, and is one of the reasons why lawyers are unhappy. No replications of these studies have occurred. In this paper, we revisit lawyer personalities.

We focus specifically on positive dispositions. The Values in Action (VIA) Classification of Character Strengths (VIA-IS) was created to measure 24 positive characteristics: appreciation of beauty, authenticity, bravery, creativity, curiosity, fairness, forgiveness, gratitude, hope, humor, kindness, leadership, capacity for love, love of learning, modesty, open-mindedness, persistence, perspective, prudence, self-regulation, social intelligence, spirituality, teamwork, and zest (Peterson & Seligman, 2004). Of possible traits, these characteristics were selected for the VIA as they were seen as relatively universal, fulfilling to the individual, morally valued by individuals and societies, trait-like, distinctive, and measureable. A person’s highest rank-ordered strengths are considered one’s signature strengths.

Numerous studies have been conducted on character strengths, finding positive associations with physical, mental, social, occupational, and functional outcomes (c.f. Niemic, 2013). For example, perseverance, love of learning, humor, fairness, and kindness related to better grades for college students (Lounsbury, Fisher, Levy, & Welsh, 2009). Law students who purposely used their top strengths reported lower levels of depression and stress and increased life satisfaction (Peterson & Peterson, 2008).

In the current study, we investigated the character strengths of law students. We measured the strengths of the entering classes of two relatively selective law schools and compared their strengths to other samples. As the law school environment is extremely demanding and focuses on objective applications of the law, we expected that these high achieving law students would score higher than non-law samples in terms of conscientiousness-type strengths (e.g., prudence, perseverance, self-regulation), and lower on emotional strengths (e.g., creativity, love, spirituality). We then related the strengths to academic performance. As prior studies have found strengths to be positively related to functional outcomes, we expected that law students with the best academic performance would report higher levels of strengths overall, and would be particularly high on conscientiousness strengths, compared to lower achieving students.

Section snippets

Measures

The Values in Action Inventory of Strengths (VIA-IS) is a 240-item self-reported measure that identifies where a person falls along 24 different strengths (10 items per strength).1 The measure has shown acceptable

Law student strengths

Table 1 summarizes mean values and rank ordered strengths for the Emory and American law students. On average, strengths were comparable across the two samples (overall mean strengths: t(294) = 0.76, p = .45). Scores were also similar for specific strengths, except American students were higher in citizenship/teamwork (t(294) = 2.06, p = .04). For both samples, four of the top five strengths were judgment, curiosity, love of learning, and fairness, and the lowest strengths were spirituality,

Discussion

In this study, we examined the character strengths of incoming law students in comparison to lawyers and other groups, and examined associations between strengths and academic performance. Overall, law students demonstrated a normal range of characteristics, similar to other intelligent, highly educated samples. The most dominant strengths for both law students and lawyers included judgment, curiosity, fairness, and love of learning. To the extent that reported character strengths were

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to acknowledge Gregory L. Riggs, former Associate Dean for Student Services and Community Engagement at Emory University School of Law, and David B. Jaffe, Associate Dean for Student Affairs at the American University Washington College of Law, for their leadership and support of this project. We also acknowledge Mike Eidle, University of Pennsylvania, for his help in data collection.

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