How Your Mind Shapes Who You See as Virtuous: Surprising New Psychology From Türkiye

What makes someone see another person as virtuous? A new study from Türkiye suggests the answer may lie less in moral philosophy and more in the architecture of the mind itself. Researchers surveyed 1,322 undergraduate students aged 18 to 32 across five universities and found that psychological wellbeing was by far the strongest predictor of how strongly students endorsed qualities such as wisdom, justice, generosity, courage, and chastity in others. The regression model explained 35.9 percent of the variance in perceptions of virtuous persons, with wellbeing alone carrying a standardized coefficient of β = 0.580 (p < 0.001). But the study also delivered a genuine surprise: intolerance of uncertainty, which the team expected to be negatively associated with virtue perception, actually showed a smaller positive association (β = 0.138, p < 0.001), running directly counter to the hypothesized direction.

The research, published in Frontiers in Psychology, was led by Şener Şentürk of Ondokuz Mayis University together with colleagues at Sakarya University and the Gaziantep Provincial Directorate of National Education. The team framed perceptions of virtuous persons as an understudied dimension of moral cognition, one that positive psychology has increasingly treated as a psychological resource rather than merely an ethical ideal. Within this framework, virtues such as justice, honesty, responsibility, compassion, and self-control function as an internal regulatory compass, guiding not only what individuals consider normatively desirable but also the persistence and coherence of morally congruent behavior over time. How people mentally represent virtuous others, the authors argue, may shape role-model selection, social affiliation, and behavioral regulation, making these perceptions psychologically meaningful rather than merely descriptive judgments.

University students were chosen as a theoretically relevant population because higher education represents a formative social context in which students encounter diverse values, identities, and ethical perspectives while making repeated value-based judgments in academic collaborations, peer relationships, and professional preparation. The university years also overlap with emerging adulthood, a developmental period characterized by identity exploration, increasing autonomy, and the consolidation of personal values. Students regularly confront uncertainty tied to academic demands, career decisions, relationships, and future social roles, which is precisely why the researchers considered psychological characteristics such as intolerance of uncertainty potentially relevant to how students evaluate the virtuous qualities of others.

The study used a cross-sectional correlational design. Participants were recruited through a non-probability convenience sampling strategy from universities in Sivas, Sakarya, Samsun, Erzurum, and Gaziantep, and data were collected via an anonymous online questionnaire that took roughly 20 minutes to complete. Of 1,340 initial responses, eight were excluded for substantial missing data or patterned responding, and ten extreme outliers were removed during statistical screening, leaving a final sample of 1,322. The sample was predominantly female (78.3 percent), and perceived income levels skewed low to medium, with 39.6 percent reporting low income and 54.3 percent medium income.

Five validated instruments formed the measurement core. The 21-item Virtuous Person Perception Scale, spanning five sub-dimensions of wisdom, chastity, generosity, justice, and courage, showed acceptable internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.81). Psychological wellbeing was assessed with an eight-item single-factor scale (α = 0.86), resilience with a six-item unidimensional scale (α = 0.82), intolerance of uncertainty with a 12-item scale covering prospective and inhibitory anxiety (α = 0.87), and hopelessness with the 20-item dichotomous Beck Hopelessness Scale (α = 0.87). Before analysis, the team verified that skewness and kurtosis values fell within the acceptable ±1.5 range, and regression diagnostics confirmed no problematic multicollinearity, with tolerance values between 0.679 and 0.810 and variance inflation factors between 1.234 and 1.473.

The headline result was unambiguous. The four-predictor regression model was statistically significant (F(4, 1317) = 184.580, p < 0.001) and explained 35.9 percent of the variance in perceptions of virtuous persons. Psychological wellbeing was the strongest positive predictor by a wide margin, supporting the hypothesis that positive psychological functioning is associated with more constructive value-based evaluations. Individuals with higher wellbeing typically report greater meaning in life, psychological integration, and positive interpersonal functioning, characteristics that may provide a context in which virtuous qualities are more readily recognized as meaningful, attainable, and personally relevant. Yet because the data are cross-sectional, the finding does not establish that wellbeing causes more positive virtue-related perceptions.

The other three hypotheses fared differently. Psychological resilience showed a small positive bivariate correlation with virtue perception (r = 0.114, p < 0.001), but this association vanished once the other predictors were controlled (β = 0.024, p = 0.330), suggesting the initial link largely reflected shared variance. Hopelessness told a similar story: its moderate negative bivariate correlation (r = −0.291, p < 0.001) disappeared in the regression (β = −0.018, p = 0.500), and its substantial association with wellbeing (r = −0.519, p < 0.001) hints that its apparent connection to virtue perception may have been carried indirectly through psychological functioning. Only intolerance of uncertainty retained a significant unique contribution, and in the opposite direction from what theory predicted.

That unexpected positive association between intolerance of uncertainty and virtue perception is the study’s most provocative finding. One tentative interpretation offered by the authors is that individuals who are less comfortable with ambiguity may rely more heavily on clearly defined virtuous characteristics as stable normative reference points when evaluating others, endorsing qualities such as justice, wisdom, and courage more strongly because these provide relatively clear standards. However, the study did not directly measure moral rigidity, need for closure, or the cognitive processes involved in interpersonal evaluation, so the authors urge cautious interpretation and replication before any firm conclusions are drawn about why discomfort with uncertainty might align with stronger virtue endorsements.

Exploratory demographic analyses added modest texture to the picture. Female students reported somewhat higher perceptions of virtuous persons than male students (means of 80.77 versus 78.71), though the effect was small (Cohen’s d = 0.22). Perceived income level, year of study, and academic achievement each produced statistically significant differences, with fourth-year students scoring higher than those in earlier years and students in the lowest achievement group (0–69) scoring lower than all others, but all effect sizes were small (η² between 0.010 and 0.028). The authors stress that because different students were compared at a single point in time, these findings do not show that perceptions change as students progress through university, and they should be viewed as exploratory rather than evidence that demographic characteristics determine virtue perception.

The broader implication, the researchers conclude, is that psychological characteristics are not uniformly associated with perceptions of virtuous persons, challenging a simple distinction between protective resources and vulnerability factors. The findings suggest universities might meaningfully consider student wellbeing and value-related reflection together, potentially incorporating ethical reflection and discussion of moral exemplars into wellbeing initiatives, though the authors caution that interventions have not yet been tested and that resilience- or hope-focused programs are not supported as methods for modifying virtue-related perceptions. Longitudinal and cross-cultural research, they argue, is now needed to clarify the direction and underlying mechanisms of these associations, particularly the counterintuitive link between intolerance of uncertainty and how strongly young adults perceive virtue in others.

Subject of Research: Psychology

Article Title: University students' perceptions of virtuous persons in Türkiye: associations with psychological wellbeing, resilience, intolerance of uncertainty, and hopelessness

Article References: Şentürk, Ş., Gür Erdoğan, D., Altınışık, M. S., Şiraz, F., & Kara, K. (2026). University students' perceptions of virtuous persons in Türkiye: associations with psychological wellbeing, resilience, intolerance of uncertainty, and hopelessness. Frontiers in Psychology, 17, Article 1961607. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2026.1961607

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2026.1961607

Keywords: moral cognition, psychological wellbeing, virtue perception, positive psychology, intolerance of uncertainty, university students, Türkiye, Frontiers in Psychology, University, students', perceptions, virtuous