Personal Development

1st Sem 2023-2024

Lesson 1: Knowing Oneself Human Development and Self

Knowing Oneself

What is Development?
● a progressive series of changes that occur in a predictable pattern as the result of
interactions between biological and environmental factors.
● the act or process of growing or causing something to grow or become larger or
more advanced.

What is Human Development?

● developing through the many changes that take place in the life of human beings
as a result of many factors
● attempts to understand how humans grow in different aspects: physical, mental,
emotional, social-behavioral, spiritual, etc.

3 Aspects or Domains of Human Development

1. Physical Development
2. Cognitive Development
3. Psychosocial Development

Physical Development
covers the growth of the brain, motor and sensory skills, and even physical health

Cognitive Development
covers our capacity to learn, to speak, to understand, to reason, and to create

Psychosocial Development
includes our social interactions with other people, our emotions, attitudes, self-identity,
personality, beliefs, and values
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How is Human Development Influenced?

Heredity
Heredity: inborn traits passed on by the generation of offspring from both sides of the
biological parents' families

Environment
Environment: the world outside of ourselves and the experiences that result from our
contact and interaction with this external world

Maturation
Maturation: natural progression of the brain and the body that affects the cognitive,
psychological, and social dimensions of a person.

Personality Development vs Personal Development

Personality Development
Process where a person learns set of emotional qualities and ways of behaving (table
etiquette, sit properly and walk with grace, dress appropriately, and communicate better)

Image enhancement (skincare and make-up, fashion and clothing, even body contouring,
modeling, beauty pageant, etc.)

Personal Development
Process where a person reflects upon themselves, understand who they are, accept what
they discover about themselves, and learn (or unlearn) new sets of values, attitudes,
behavior, and thinking skills to reach their fullest potential as human beings.

Defining “Self”
In philosophical terms, it is the being, which is the source of a person's consciousness.
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● the agent responsible for an individual's thoughts and actions.

● an intangible entity that directs a person's thoughts and action.

In, psychology, sociology, or religion, it is the essence of a person; his thoughts, feelings
and actions, experiences, beliefs, values, principles, and relationships.

Self
Includes a person's life purpose, meaning, and aspirations

Therefore, when we speak of the "Self", we will describe it in personality terms since
personality is also referred to as the set of behaviors, feelings. thoughts, and motives.

Knowing Thyself

Socrates
Socrates maintained that the most important thing to pursue was self-knowledge, and
admitting one's ignorance is the beginning of true knowledge.

Plato
● According to Plato, one of Socrates' students, the beginning of knowledge is self-
knowledge.
● The ancient Hindu writings Upanishads confirmed, "Enquiry into the truth of the
"Self" is knowledge.
● The Persian poet Rumi ruminated, Who am I in the midst of all this traffic?"
● The American poet Walt Whitman celebrated his "Self" as "simple, separate
person."

Lesson 1b: Knowing Oneself Personality and Its Dimensions

Knowing Oneself
● How do we define personality?
● How does it develop?
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● What makes personality unique and enduring?

Gordon Allport defines personality as "a pattern of habits, attitudes, and traits that
determine an individual's characteristics, behaviors, and traits"

Personality
refers to the unique and relatively enduring set of behaviors, feelings, thoughts, and
motives that characterize an individual Feist and Rosenberg, 2012)

Two key components of personality:

1. Uniqueness
2. Enduring or consistency

Factors that Influence Personality

Nature (heredity or genetic make-up)
Nature (environment)

Five Universal Dimensions of Personality

OCEAN
● Openness to experience
● Conscientiousness
● Extraversion
● Agreeableness
● Neuroticism

Trait theories of personality have long attempted to pin down exactly how many
personality traits exist.

Earlier theories have suggested a various number of possible traits

➢ Gordon Allport's list of 4,000 personality traits
➢ Raymond Cattell's 16 personality factors
➢ Hans Eysenck's three-factor theory.

However, many researchers felt that Cattell's theory was too complicated and Eysenck's
was too limited in scope.
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As a result, the five-factor theory emerged to describe the essential traits that serve as
the building blocks of personality.

Today, many researchers believe that there are five core personality traits.

Evidence of this theory has been growing over the past 50 years, beginning with the
research of D. W. Fiske (1949) and later expanded upon by other researchers including
Norman (1967), Smith (1967), Goldberg (1981), and McCrae & Costa (1987).

Big Five Universal Dimensions of Personality

The five broad personality traits described by the theory are:
1. Extraversion
2. Agreeableness
3. Openness
4. Conscientiousness
5. Neuroticism
It is important to note that each of the five personality factors represents a range between
two extremes.

For example, extraversion represents a continuum between extreme extraversion and

extreme introversion.

In the real world, most people lie somewhere in between the two polar ends of each
dimension.
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1. Openness
● features characteristics such as imagination and insight, and those
high in this trait also tend to have a broad range of interests
● tend to be more adventurous and creative.
● People low in this trait are often much more traditional and may
struggle with abstract thinking.

2. Conscientiousness
● Standard features of this dimension include high levels of
thoughtfulness, with good impulse control and goal-directed behaviors
● tend to be organized and mindful of details

3. Extraversion
● Characterized by excitability, sociability, talkativeness,
assertiveness, and high amounts of emotional expressiveness.
● Are outgoing and tend to gain energy in social situations.
● People who are low in extroversion (or introverted) tend to be more
reserved and have to expend energy in social settings.

4. Agreeableness

● This personality dimension includes attributes such as trust, altruism,

kindness, affection, and other prosocial behaviors.
● tend to be more cooperative.
● Those low in this trait tend to be more competitive and even manipulative.

5. Neuroticism

● Neuroticism is a trait characterized by sadness, moodiness, and

emotional instability.
● tend to experience mood swings, anxiety, moodiness, irritability and
sadness.
● Those low in this trait tend to be more stable and emotionally resilient.
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Ways to Measure Personality

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
● E or I (Extraversion or Introversion)
● S or N (Sensing or Intuition)
● T or F (Thinking or Feeling)
● J or P (Judgment or Perception)

E or I (Extraversion or Introversion)
how an individual prefers to channel his or her energy when dealing with people, whether
it is inward (introversion) or outward(extraversion)

S or N (Sensing or Intuition)
how one prefers to process information, whether through the use of senses such as being
able to describe what one sees, or intuitively like dealing with ideas.

T or F (Thinking or Feeling)
how an individual prefers to make decisions, either thinking or using logic and analysis,
or feeling which uses the cognitive senses based on values or beliefs

J or P (Judgment or Perception)
how an individual prefers to manage one's life, whether through judging, which means a
planned and organized life, versus perception, which has more flexible approach to living
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Lesson 2a: Developing the Whole Person

Holistic Development

Holistic Development
- Holism is about seeing things as a whole and as something that is bigger then
the sum of its parts.

Mind and Body Dualism of Descartes

Rene Descartes, one of the modern philosophers of our time, influenced much of
mankind's thinking with his theory of duality or understanding the nature of things in a
simple, dual mode.

Examples: separation of body and spirit/mind and body, yin and yang of the eastern
culture, male-female gender, black-white characteristics

Holism and Gestalt

- General Jan C. Smuts, a South African statesman, wrote about holism as “the
tendency in nature to form wholes which are greater than the sum of the parts
through creative evolution.”

Concept of Gestalt
- something that is made of many parts and yet is somehow more than or different
from the combination of its parts; broadly, the general quality or character of
something.

Example: in music, a symphony cannot be defined by one of its notes alone, a car is
made up of hundreds of different parts

Five Aspects of Human Development

1. Physiological or the physical attributes including the five senses
2. Cognitive or the intellectual functions of the mind
3. Psychological or how thinking, feeling, and behaving interact and happen in a
person
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4. Social or the manner by which an individual interacts with other individuals or

groups of individuals
5. Spiritual or attributes to beliefs, values and virtues

Lesson 2b: Developing the Whole Person

Affect and Values

Feelings and Emotions

Paul Ekman of the University of California identified six basic emotions that human
beings experience:
- Happiness
- Sadness
- Fear
- Anger
- Surprise
- Disgust

Feelings
result from the emotions that were experienced

Emotions
taken from the Latin verb, movare, which means to move or be upset or agitated.

defined by Smith (1973) as a descriptive term referring to variations in level of arousal,

affective state or mood, expressive movements, and attitudes

Attitudes and Behavior

Attitudes
person's thoughts, feelings, and emotions about another person, object, idea, behavior,
or situation
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result of a person's evaluation of an experience with another person, idea, behavior, or

situation based on his or her values and belief system.

Behavior
manifestation or acting out of the attitudes an individual has.

Values and Virtues

Values
- A system of beliefs that adhere to the highest ideals of human existence
- Create meaning and purpose in a person’s life that often result in personal
happiness and self-fulfillment
- basic and fundamental beliefs that guide or motivate attitudes or actions
- are usually nouns while virtues are the descriptors that usually mirror the value it
represents

Virtues
- a trait or quality that is deemed to be morally good
- descriptions of or adjectives that reflect a value

Values Virtues

Peace Peaceful, calm

Integrity Reputable, responsible, honest,

trustworthy

Love Loving, caring, compassionate,

gentle, affectionate

Respect Respectful, civil

Balance Objective, fair, harmonious

Universal Values from UN:

1. Peace
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2. Freedom
3. Social progress
4. Equal rights
5. Human dignity

Ten common values of people according to Shalom Schwartz:

1. Self-direction - independent thought and action; choosing, creating, and
exploring
2. Stimulation - excitement, novelty, and challenge in life
3. Hedonism - pleasure and sensuous gratification for oneself
4. Achievement - personal success through demonstrating competence according
to social standards
5. Power - social status and prestige, and control or dominance over people and
resources
6. Security - safety, harmony, and stability of society, of relationships, and of self
7. Conformity - restraint of actions, inclinations, and impulses that are likely to
upset or harm others and violate social expectations or norms
8. Tradition - respect, commitment, and acceptance of the customs and ideas that
traditional culture or religion provide the self
9. Benevolence - preserving and enhancing the welfare of those with whom one is
in frequent personal contact (the in-group)
10. Universalism - understanding, appreciation tolerance, and protection for the
welfare of all people and of nature

Motivational goals that characterize the ten values (S. Schwartz)

1. Openness to change
2. Self-transcendence
3. Self-enhancement
4. Conservation

Lesson 3a: Developmental Stages in Middle and Late

Adolescence

Middle and Late Adolescence

- Adolescence is a crucial period in the development of an individual.
- Marks the major transition stage that bridges childhood to adulthood
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- The middle and late adolescence is between the ages of 15-21. This is the time
of one's life that is full of excitement and challenges.
- For an adolescent, the world is expanding, exciting and demanding of energy.
- A major hallmark of this period is the quest for identity and individuality
through assertion of independence, exercise of personal decisions in relation to
what one wants to be in the future and establishing meaningful relationships with
others

Erik Erikson’s Psychosocial Development

- has eight stages of development which defines each stage of human
development with a crisis or a conflict
- the stages are borderless and flowing, not strictly fixed and definite
- Erik Erikson maintained that personality develops in a predetermined order, and
builds upon each previous stage. This is called the epigenetic principle.

Puberty
- Puberty involves the physical changes that happen during the adolescent stage.
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- During puberty, the adolescent body matures sexually.

- Cognitive development also happens during adolescence as the brain continues
to grow and develop.
- New cognitive skills develop such as reasoning, abstract and hypothetical
thinking, and increased intelligence
- Cognitively, the adolescents are now formal operators (Piaget's Stages of
Cognitive Development)

Moral Development
- Lawrence Kohlberg believed in Piaget's theory and expanded to add complex
comprehension.
- Kohlberg's stages of moral development has levels with two stages each founded
on Piaget's theory
- Morality, according to Kohlberg is the individual's capacity to know what is right
from what is wrong
- Moral is “the perceived sense of right that either comes from societal, group, or
personal preferences”

Social Development
- happens during adolescence when adolescents desire for more autonomy and
independence from their families
- their friends and peers become their primary influence, taking over the previous
role their parents had

Idealism and experimentation are hallmarks of the adolescence stage.

- Beliefs and values are formed at this stage, sometimes even questioning the
existing and accepted norms.
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- With puberty , the adolescence also goes into experimentation of their bodies,
exploring their sexuality, as well as substances such as alcoholic drinks or drugs,
which may result in addiction or crime.

Self-identity or self-concept
evolves from an individual's own set of beliefs and value system, in the roles he has
identified for himself, the responsibilities he recognizes and owns, and the expectations
others have on him.

Lesson 3b: Developmental Task of Adolescence

Developmental Task for a Filipino Adolescent

1. Developing occupational skills - skills that can help the adolescent develop
responsibility as a preparation for gainful employment ahead.
2. Self-reliance - the ability to identify their own skills and knowledge, capabilities,
and resources to engage in meaningful activities and not rely too much on
others.
3. Ability to manage their finances
- be able to discern what's the difference between “wants” and “needs” and
to learn self-control when handling their finances.
- learn financial literacy
4. Social responsibility
- should be able to see beyond themselves
- take into consideration the greater community around them
- see their role in improving and developing these communities, serving as
change agents

5. Mature work orientation

- develop pride in what they do
- raise standard of excellence in the quality of their work
6. Personal responsibility
- be fully responsible for your own decisions and actions by owning them
- become aware of the consequences of your decisions and own the results
7. Positive attitude toward work
“Work is love made visible.”
(Kahlil Gibran)
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- developing a healthy and positive attitude toward work means that we see
work as an expression of our love for people who are important to us,
including ourselves

Additional list of Developmental Tasks a Filipino Adolescent should acquire:

1. Being courageous in standing up and being different from your friends
2. Developing self-esteem
3. Being true to yourself and avoiding the tendency to please others
4. Learning how media and advertising are trying to influence your thinking and
feeling
5. Becoming aware, critical, and being involved with social issues
6. Embracing a healthy lifestyle
7. Developing your spirituality