Character virtues and hope for peace in Pakistan in the face of religious extremism

Religious extremism continues to fuel violence in Pakistan, underscoring the urgent need to identify factors that may foster hope for peace. This study examines character virtues as predictors of hope for peace, focusing on dispositional measures of patience, forgiveness, gratitude, dispositional hope, and spiritual jihad (a form of moral striving in Islam). Across two studies involving university students in Pakistan (Study 1 N = 261; Study 2 N = 304), correlations showed positive associations for all predictors, and multiple regressions showed that patience and spiritual jihad uniquely predicted greater hope for peace=. While gratitude and hope showed mixed results in regressions, forgiveness did not uniquely predict hope for peace. These findings highlight the potential for interventions that cultivate patience and spiritual jihad to promote reconciliation. This research provides a foundation for future studies to explore causal mechanisms and develop interventions to foster hope for peace in Pakistan and beyond.