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I'm feeling philosophical today, so let's discuss a phrase I've heard a lot but never understood as much as I wanted to. Have you ever heard a parent or authority figure tell a child say something along the lines of "do X, it builds character" where X is usually a chore or something undesirable? I haven't much in real life, but a good deal in a joking manner, where X is something extremely dangerous.

Anyway, back to the point. First off, what is character, at least in that context? Does it mean one's moral character as a whole, or one's character traits, or one's work ethic (which is a character trait that is a part of one's moral character), or does it mean something else?

Secondly, does telling a child to do chores and the like while telling them it builds character actually do so? And to what extent? I mean, obviously giving kids responsibility is important, but are there other ways to teach character as defined in the first question, and are they more or less efficient? And what about one's environment? There are many cases where adversity is "blamed" for one's character (or lack thereof). And finally, is there any "innate" or "default" amount of character that plays a role? For example, experiments like the Milgram experiment [1] and the Stanford prison experiment [2] didn't yield particularity optimistic views on this question. (Sorry in advance for any mistakes!)

I'd love to hear your thoughts! Sorry this is kind of long!!!

[1]
People were led to believe they were playing the part of a pseudo-teacher who shocked a pseudo-student when they got answers wrong. The "student" was actually an actor, who never actually got shocked, but the volunteers never knew that. The voltage was "increased" with each wrong answer.
From Wikipedia:
"If at any time the subject indicated his desire to halt the experiment, he was given a succession of verbal prods by the experimenter, in this order:

Please continue.
The experiment requires that you continue.
It is absolutely essential that you continue.
You have no other choice, you must go on.
If the subject still wished to stop after all four successive verbal prods, the experiment was halted. Otherwise, it was halted after the subject had given the maximum 450-volt shock three times in succession."
The volunteers were never threatened, restrained in any way, or intentionally intimidated. The experimenters thought most would eventually defy the instructions. Most of them didn't, even when the actor pretended to claim to have a heart attack, though they were clearly uncomfortable and tried at least once (but not more than four times) to object.

[2] Two groups of male students from Standford were assigned to either prisoner or guard roles. Eventually, all hell broke lose. The guards and prisoners got so into their roles, that they had to end the experiment early, for saftey concerns for the "prisoners" due to the abuse of power by most of the "guards".

"Character" is another one of those words that doesn't really mean anything when you apply it to real life. You're talking about morals (personal principles of right and wrong) and those experiments test morals vs. ethics (what society declares right and wrong).

Chores/experience/life builds virtues which help make up your morals. You might learn reliability by doing household chores, you might learn generosity by raking your elderly neighbors yard after your own. You might learn them through fairy tales or religion or some other source.

Environment plays an obvious role, as does parenting, but your shitty parents and environment might inspire perseverance and fortitude, it isn't automatically negative. Your positive parents and environment can cause selfishness and pride, two anti-virtues.

Most morals are learned, but the lack of some basic morals in people being considered a disorder and the observation of some basic morals in wild animals says there's at least some kind of inherent standard. An individual who isolates themselves and indiscriminately kills is equally immoral/considered a psychiatric disorder no matter what species you are. It would be very atypical to see this behavior in humans, wolves, rabbits, or even insects. That infers to me that at least the value of life itself is respected across the animal kingdom.

The experiments say to me that, unless you have an shounen manga hero's confidence in your own personal morals, you will defer to society's ethics. No matter what their personal morals said, the subjects in the first experiment couldn't bring themselves to go against the ethics of the higher authority, the scientists in this case. Maybe they felt their actions were justified or excused in some way because they weren't acting on their personal morals. It's groupthink in action.

Character is character. You have characters in books, you have characters that are actors. People act our roles, people become their own specialized characters. I know of no character in any story or play that was developed without experience. Doing 'X' is an experience. Experience builds character. Doing something challenging is quite the experience, hence why it builds character more than something easy.

Have you ever heard a parent or authority figure tell a child say something along the lines of “do X, it builds character” where X is usually a chore or something undesirable?

I have heard people saying things along that lines.

Nobody ever actually defines what "character" means in this context which makes it a bit of a meaningless cliche.

First off, what is character, at least in that context? Does it mean one’s moral character as a whole, or one’s character traits, or one’s work ethic (which is a character trait that is a part of one’s moral character), or does it mean something else?

I figure that what most people mean when they say "character" is morals, ethics of wisdom or something like that

They cant mean literal character because any person is going to develop a character regardless of upbringing. Literal character is well….character. It's kind of hard to describe. A very nebulous concept that refers to any kind of personality and grounding an entity can have

Secondly, does telling a child to do chores and the like while telling them it builds character actually do so?

Telling a child to do chores helps them learn that life is work and you don't get everything handing to you on a platter. Sometimes you gotta get your hands dirty. I don't know if that builds character per se, but that if anything teaches kids to avoid one certain character: the character of being a rotten brat.

Saying it builds character is a bit misleading when it would be more accurate to say it builds good character. No matter what happens, you are going to have character. The question is if it becomes good or bad

In that context it refers to things like self-discipline and a sense of responsibility.

Wow, thanks for the responses! Was afraid I'd come off as a pseudo-intellectual and was afraid to come back to read the replies (even though I knew I was being unreasonably paranoid) so I'm glad that not only was I not ignored, but given some insight! Seriously, I'm super shy in real life so while I get a lot of time to think about these types of things to myself, I don't really get much of a chance to discuss these types of things (my own fault, really) with others. Thanks so much for providing the insight; I really liked reading it!