VIA Institute on Character

The VIA Institute on Character (formerly Values in Action Institute) is a nonprofit organization that was founded to create a scientifically rigorous classification of character strengths (the VIA Classification of Character Strengths and Virtues) and a way of measuring them (the VIA Survey of Character, also known as the VIA Inventory of Strengths, or VIA-IS). The VIA classification and survey are used by psychologists, researchers in the field of positive psychology, management consultants, life and health coaches, social workers, educators and individuals interested in character development. The VIA Institute fosters new science-based knowledge about the VIA character strengths and virtues, and practices to help individuals and organizations utilize them.

The institute was founded in 1999 by Neal H. Mayerson, Ph.D., chairman of the Manuel D. and Rhoda Mayerson Foundation, working with Martin E.P. Seligman, Ph.D., then the President of the American Psychological Association. Seligman tapped Dr. Christopher Peterson to serve as lead researcher.
With input from 40 scholars/researchers, Peterson and Seligman wrote Character Strengths and Virtues: A Handbook and Classification and developed the VIA Survey of Character, or VIA-IS.

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