Life Paths Research Program - (931) 598-1113

Life Paths Research Program seeks to study how people develop personal strengths and use them to cope with difficult times.

The Life Paths Research Program is a research division of the Psychology Department at Sewanee: The University of the South that strives to learn about how people develop personal strengths and cope with adversity.

The research project involves a survey that asks questions about people's character strengths and how people use their strengths during difficult times. Other questions on the survey ask about personal values and beliefs, and people who wrote a Templeton Laws of Life Essay receive questions about their experience writing the Essay. We are not recruiting for new participants at this time. Please check back here for more information in the early months of 2015.


The project has included 3,000 people from Middle Tennessee and North Alabama. Study participants received a $30 Wal-Mart gift card and an additional $10 Wal-Mart gift card if they provided us a copy of their Essay. We also recruited people who have written a Laws of Life Essay to complete 90-minute, in-person interviews about their life story and received a $50 Wal-Mart gift card.

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