Ethics & Virtues

What are you willing to wait for? What are you willing to suffer for? Research psychologist Sarah Schnitker (Baylor University) has done groundbreaking work in the science of patience. By exploring the ways to become more patient with others and ourselves—and discovering the role of this timeless virtue in a flourishing life—she offers us a freeing and stabilizing approach to thinking about goals, perseverance, and navigating our fast-paced world.

The Thrive Center for Human Development and FULLER Studio present Patience, a five-video series that will change the way you think about patience. Psychologists, Benjamin Houltberg and Sarah Schnitker lead a table discussion with Rabbi Sherre Hirsh, Tasneem Noor, and Harlan Redmond to share their thoughts on the meaning of patience within different cultural contexts, faith traditions, and individuals.     Working with Faith Traditions How do different faith traditions think about the practice of patience? Our moderators join Rabbi Sherre Hirsch, Tasneem Noor, and Harlan Redmond to reflect on the role of patience within their own faith, the patience of God, and wisdom from the Quran.     Each Other Can patience positively transform our relationships with others? Our thought leaders examine how patience can lead to better relationships through listening and understanding each other’s stories.     Self-Care Our panel of experts continue their discussion on…

If there are ways we would like to more fully live into certain virtues, one way to do so is by using the Rule of Life to help us establish new automatic life rhythms.

Learning how what you value shapes your week.

Spirituality is more than a feeling.

A Thrive Scholars Fellow shares transcendent experiences along with caring adults can stimulate spirituality and virtue development in youth.

How does love contributing to thriving? The practice of the 5 B's of love is explained here.

Joy is more than an emotion. Rebecca Baer reflects on true joy as being rooted in love, sharing a mindfulness practice.

How can we cultivate our joy “muscles?” Pamela Ebstyne King, executive director at the Thrive Center, speaks on what is required for our joy training and the benefits of joy at the 2018 Future of Joy Conference, hosted by the Yale Center for Faith and Culture. Author’s Note This talk was given at the Yale Center for Faith and Culture.

Summary In response to professor of psychology at University of California, Davis, Robert Emmons on gratitude to God, Pamela Ebstyne King explains how gratitude can both guide us and propel us toward thriving and the good life.   Author’s Note This talk was given at the 2022 Integration Symposium and was originally published on FULLER Studio.

Postdoctoral Researcher, Dr. Susan Mangan provides research-based activities to help us experience the positive emotion of elevation.

Dr. Susan Mangan explains the role and benefits of moral elevation in inspiring us to help our communities.

Dr. Pamela King reflects on her hopes for her son as he graduates high school and her new role as a partner in this next phase of their lives.

Dr. Meredith Hope discusses the role of religion in youth thriving and ways caring adults can help enable spirituality in adolescence.

How do you become more joyful?

Want more joy even during the tough times?

Leanne Bishara shares 4 research-backed ways parents and teens can face difficulties with patience.

Dr. Stephanie Trudeau breaks down the Mamba Mentality framework and offers tips for how to integrate it into our own lives.

How can caring adults equip youth for a journey of long-lasting joy? Pamela King highlights the 3 essentials needed.

Summary Pamela Ebstyne King responds to Cameron Lee, Professor of Marriage and Family Studies at Fuller Theological Seminary, on hope and humility as clinical virtues, reflecting on telos, hope as an orientation, and the importance of having an eschatological anchor in a fragmented society.   Author’s Note This talk was given at the 2018 Integration Symposium and was originally published on FULLER Studio.  …

Summary Executive director of the Thrive Center, Pamela Ebstyne King explains the key differences between happiness and joy, pointing to purpose as the key to discovering true joy in this interview. Author’s Note This interview was originally published on Yale Youth Ministry Institute.   About the Author Pamela Ebstyne King Pamela Ebstyne King is the executive director of the Thrive Center and serves as the Peter L. Benson Professor of Applied Developmental Science at Fuller Theological Seminary. Her primary academic interests are applied research at the intersection of human thriving and spiritual development. Dr. King’s work combines theology, empirical research, and community engagement to further understand what contexts and settings enable all people to thrive.  …

This project seeks to integrate the theological and psychological perspectives of joy and flourishing.

Abstract An extensive body of research points toward spirituality and religiousness as resources for promoting human thriving. People with strong connections to the transcendent and religious meaning in life often view morals and values as central to their self-concepts. Although moral identity theory and contemporary views of virtue development emphasize the importance of narrative identity for habituated moral action, the two are often discussed in isolation of each other. In this chapter, the authors highlight how their commonality is particularly evident when examining the potential of religion to provide a transcendent self-narrative that leads to virtue formation and moral action within social contexts. This chapter describes how young people integrate religion and morality in their own lives, and it provides a broad overview of research linking religion to moral and virtue development through an ideological, social, and transcendent context.

Our team seeks to test and develop a theoretical framework to help guide future research on gratitude.

Author: Pamela Ebstyne King, Rebecca Ann Baer, Sean A.Noe, Stephanie Trudeau, Susan A.Mangan, Shannon Rose Constable Abstract: The study of gratitude has expanded beyond interpersonal gratitude and considers how people respond to gifts that are not caused by human agency. Given the discord between the prominent understanding of gratitude requiring the appropriate recognition of a gift to a giver and the increasing divergence of transcendent belief systems that do not acknowledge a transcendent or cosmic giver, we explored how people with different worldviews viewed and experienced gratitude. Transcendence does not hinge on metaphysical beliefs, but it can be experienced phenomenologically and subjectively. We conducted a case-study narrative analysis (N = 6) that represents participants from three different categories of belief systems: theistic, non-theistic but spiritual, and other. Our findings demonstrate how people link their transcendent narrative identity to their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors pertaining to gratitude. Although the theistic participants…

Longitudinal study by Sarah Schnitker to explore spirituality and virtue formation in physicians. An Exploration of the Role of Religion and Spirituality on Virtue Formation in Physicians.

Sarah Schnitker examines the connection between intercessory prayer and generosity with student researchers. Examining the Effects of Moral Intuitions and Intercessory Prayer on Generous Behavior.

Sarah Schnitker and Ben Houltberg examine the contexts in which teen athletes develop character strengths.

Thrive scholars measure 3 dimensions of intellectual humility for human thriving.

Sarah Schnitker and student researchers study the impact of goal sanctification on gratitude, generosity, and thrift.

Does goal satisfaction increase goal achievement? Sarah Schnitker examines personality dynamics.