Character strength · Justice
Fairness as a character strength: meaning and examples
The short answer: fairness is the habit of treating everyone by the same standard, giving each person a fair chance, and not letting personal feelings bias decisions about others. It is one of the 24 character strengths of the VIA classification, in the Justice family: the strengths of living well in a group.
What fairness looks like
People with a lot of fairness tend to:
- feel strongly when someone is treated unjustly, even a stranger
- give everyone a turn to speak in a meeting
- make decisions on the merits, not on who they like
- apply the same rules to themselves as to others
- are trusted to settle disputes
In everyday life
At work, fairness is the manager who shares good assignments evenly, judges work on its quality, and gives the same feedback whoever made the mistake. At home, it is splitting chores, bills and attention evenly, and hearing both sides before deciding.
Fairness is what makes people trust a group. When it is missing, even small unfairness tends to be remembered for a long time.
Fairness and the strengths close to it
- Teamwork is committing to the group. Fairness makes sure the group treats everyone in it well.
- Leadership needs fairness to keep people's trust.
- Honesty gives fairness accurate information to work with.
When fairness is overdone, or underused
Like every strength, fairness works best in the right amount. Overdone, fairness can become rigid: insisting on equal treatment when people actually need different things, or keeping score in close relationships. Underused, favoritism creeps in, and others can sense it even when it is unintended.
The aim is even-handedness that still sees each person.
Is fairness one of your top strengths?
Ask yourself:
- Does seeing unfair treatment upset you, even when it has nothing to do with you?
- Do people trust you to make fair calls in disagreements?
- Do you hold yourself to the same rules you expect of others?
If you answered yes to most of these, fairness may be one of your signature strengths. The only way to know how it compares with your other 23 is to rank them.
Find your top strengths with the free test
Where this comes from
The 24 character strengths were described by psychologists Christopher Peterson and Martin Seligman in Character Strengths and Virtues: A Handbook and Classification (2004). Happy Me's assessment uses public-domain questions from the International Personality Item Pool and is not affiliated with the VIA Institute.