Strengths and Virtues: Positive Character Traits in Playful Adults

photo by Vladimir Fedotov on Unsplash

How is a strength of character established? Where does it come from? According to research, play is a fundamental factor in developing character strengths, also known as the virtues that positive psychology believes underpin wellbeing. For adults, it’s not usually the most instinctive direction to take, but playfulness may be central to a ‘good’ life, and it is evidenced that play is a pillar of both ethical and psychological thriving. For adults, play is not a distraction from virtue; it’s entangled with it.

Most ideologies treat play as something to outgrow, but research by Proyer and Ruch suggests otherwise; adult playfulness is meaningfully linked to character strength. Sampling 268 adults to assess their playfulness (including spontaneity, creativity, and how fun-oriented they were) and their character strengths (defined as virtues such as humour, appreciation of beauty, teamwork, and prudence) produced intriguing results. Rather than being inconsequential, playfulness predicts good character traits, which, in turn, are linked to well-being.

Essentially, fun and laughter are reflections of deep psychological values, not childish distractions.

It turns out, adults with a higher score in playfulness also tend to exhibit positive character strengths, better in teamwork, lower levels of over prudence, and generally more amiable. From the surface level, it looks as though these people just like ‘fun’, but psychologically, these traits are connected to greater life satisfaction, better relationships, higher resilience, and greater emotional health. Seriousness doesn’t sound so appealing anymore.

As with most research like this, it doesn’t fit neatly into a box packageable by workplace wellness programs, but it does serve more as an invitation to the definition of maturity, what a purpose is, and what it means to flourish.

Playful adults are not less engaged, they’re engaged differently; less rigid, less controlled, and more willing to question assumptions. They are capable of injecting humour into a stressful scenario, able to problem solve, and have more inclination to appreciate the beauty and novelty of the seemingly mundane. It’s not trivial, it’s adaptive.

When we consider the leaders or professionals we most admire, the ones who stand out are those who have the ability to navigate complexity without shattering, the ones who can take humour on the chin, who can laugh at themselves, who can generate ideas in high-pressure environments. How often do these individuals possess a playfulness? And not a playfulness as a lack of seriousness, but as a quality of aliveness. Playfulness acts as a form of psychological agility, ability to move between frames, reject fixed narratives, and to see more than one interpretation of events. Without these qualities, we consider the type of leaders we don’t agree with; rigid, defensive, and predictable. Which of these holds more authority for their people?

And what of prudence, the overcautious characteristic that stifles spontaneity? While considered a virtue, at its extreme, prudence can be engulfing and limiting to the positive flexibility that eludes playfulness. It is not to say that prudence is not inherently bad, or cannot accompany traits of the playful adult, but it can transform into over-seriousness, cautious exchange, and filtered emotion.

Teams that struggle to play together cannot create together, relationships without lightness struggle in conflict, and individuals who cannot play with ideas have less freedom to evolve. The endless struggle results in burnout and drained reserves. Playfulness introduces variation, softens identity, and is, ultimately, protective of the self.

In any individual’s life, beyond the workplace, this research holds some food for thought. At what point was play abandoned? How do we view characters that still embody playfulness? Should we continue to replace play with performance and productivity? While an individual who does not engage in play can be successful, how much of their wellbeing is suffering at the same time, and is it worth it?

Playfulness is not a deviation from the good life but a signal of it.

Playfulness carries the energy of the trickster archetype; the disrupter of rigidity, the exposure of the inflated ego. The depth psychology perspective of play is that adults who repress play don’t eliminate it; they drive it underground. When it reappears, it emerges in less conscious forms, such as passive aggression, cynicism, sabotage, or even as shadow humour that cuts rather than connects. Integrated playfulness, in contrast, is conscious Trickster energy; the ego is strong enough to allow flexibility, to be authoritative without being brittle, firm in an identity that can hold a paradox. In this sense, playfulness is psychological integration and is far from regressive. It signals that a personality can move between the serious and the light-hearted without fragmenting because their psyche is not afraid to look foolish. It may be that playfulness develops a deeper maturity than solemnity ever could.

For the full article, published in Psychology of Well-Being: Theory, Research and Practice, Volume 1, find the link here:

The virtuousness of adult playfulness: the relation of playfulness with strengths of character | Psychology of Well-Being | Springer Nature Link

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