Virtue-Focused People Better Decision Makers, Study Says

Angel

It’s common knowledge that people tend to be better at solving other people’s problems than they are at addressing their own.  But a new study  finds that people who think, not in terms of what they personally feel or think they should do about their problems, but in terms of what attempting to live up to a particular set of virtues would have them do in response to a problem, are just as good at solving their own problems as they are helping others.

The study, published in the journal Psychological Science, found that people with a more virtue-oriented focus tend to think more objectively and take a more long-term view in the face of their struggles and so are less impulsive and reactive than those who aren’t as virtue-focused

This research supports a technique we use with our clients in the Pastoral Solutions Institute.  When a client is struggling with a challenging situation.  One of the things we will have them do is reflect on the following questions:

  1. What your automatic response tends to be in that stressful situation? What, specifically,  you didn’t like about the response?
  2. What virtues were missing from your default response?  What qualities would have been helpful to be able to access in that situation?
  3. Identify different times you have been able to display those qualities in different situations when you were under pressure.
  4. How you could adapt those more virtuous/productive responses to this different, frustrating situation?
  5. What structures of support you will create (phone reminders, notes, daily reflection time, an accountability partner, etc.) to help you remember to use this  new, more virtuous response next time.

This technique is tremendously helpful for escaping the tendency to fall into reactive, emotionally-driven responses to frustrating situations and identifying healthier and more productive alternative responses.  Eventually, the more the client uses this exercise, it actually rewires the way they think about problems allowing them to adopt the more virtue-based, goal-oriented, objective approach to problem solving that enables them to be as effective in helping themselves as they are in helping others.

To learn more about how the Pastoral Solutions Institutes Tele-Counseling practice can help you face challenges in a more productive manner, visit www.CatholicCounselors.com or call 740-266-6461 to make an appointment to speak with a counselor.

 

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