Personal Development

First Quarter (1st)

SELF-CONCEPT INVENTORY
Nature vs Nurture
The nature vs nurture debate in psychology is concerned with the formation of a person's characteristics and
behavior123. It is a timeless debate over whether inherent factors (such as biological and genetic factors) or
external factors (such as experience and environmental influences) are the primary force in determining a
person’s personality traits and their likelihood of experiencing mental health conditions throughout their lives

JOHARI’S WINDOW
o Psychologists Joseph Luft (1916-2014) and Harrington Ingham (1916-1995) devised a technique/model (1955)
to help people better understand themselves as well as their relationship with others.
o One great way of assessing the self and know how much the individual knows the self is by asking the people
around them. Though this may be awkward, particularly when asking someone straightforwardly.
o Know that even your friends can be a great source of information, whether it be positive or negative about the
self.
o To avoid being awkward and extract the best possible self-assessment without compromising the individual.

SELF- in contemporary literature and even common sense, is commonly defined by the following
characteristics-Stevens, 1996
• SEPARATE • CONSISTENT
• SELF-CONTAINED • UNITARY
• INDEPENDENT • PRIVATE

SELF- CONCEPT
This is a collection of beliefs about one’s basic nature, unique qualities, and typical behavior.
We have separate concepts of our physical, social, emotional and intellectual selves; yet we are still
referring to one single entity that is unique and very distinct from others (Don Hamachek, 1992).
Our various self-concepts are characterized by relatively distinct thoughts and feelings. That is, we may
have considerable information about our social skills and feel quite confident with regard to them but have
limited information about our physical skills and feel less confident about this aspect of our self. When a
particular self-concept is operating, its attendant thoughts and feelings will strongly influence the way we
process self-relevant information (Fiske & Taylor, 1991).

CATEGORIES
ACTUAL SELF
• Characteristics you are nurtured or in some case born to have
• Present self that you see on the daily basis.
IDEAL SELF
• The self you aspire to be
• The one that you hope will possess similar characteristics to that mentor or some other worldly figure.

FACTORS THAT SHAPE SELF-CONCEPT

1. Your own observation- In the process of self-introspection, that may help you re-evaluate your
motivations and, in real-time, observing what you do at this moment is one of the significant
information about your interest or dislike.
 2. Feedback from others- Positive and negative criticisms also create an impact on self-concept. People
talk about us or how they discriminate us give an important aspect in shaping the self-concept. The
amount of criticism, feedback we sometimes freely give, helps shape the current self-concept of what
we choose to be or not.
3. Cultural values/Cultural Guidelines- Self-concept is also indirectly influenced by cultural values. In
the study of Cultural Psychology, in this age of technology and social media, we accept our differences,
especially on how we accept the culture and beliefs of others.

PERSONAL EFFECTIVENESS
● making use of all the personal resources – talents, skills, energy and time, to enable you to achieve life
goals.
● Your knowledge of yourself and how you manage yourself impacts directly on your personal
effectiveness.
● Being self-aware, making the most of your strengths, learning new skills and techniques and behavioral
flexibility are all keys to improving your personal performance.
● Our personal effectiveness depends on our innate characteristics – talent and experience accumulated
in the process of personal development.

Talents first are needed to be identified and then developed to be used in a particular subject area (science,
literature, sports, politics, etc.)
Knowledge is required for setting goals, defining an action plan to achieve them and risk assessment.
Skills also determine whether real actions are performed in accordance with the plan. If the same ability is
used many times in the same situation, then it becomes a habit that runs automatically, subconsciously.
Experience includes knowledge and skills that we acquire in the process of cognitive and practical activities.

SKILLS THAT WILL GREATLY INCREASE EFFICIENCY OF A PERSON

1. Determination. It allows you to focus only on achieving a specific goal without being distracted by less
important things or spontaneous desires. It may be developed with the help of self-discipline exercise.
2. Self-confidence. It appears in the process of personal development, as a result of getting aware of yourself,
your actions and their consequences. Self- confidence is manifested in speech, appearance, dressing, gait,
and physical condition. To develop it, you need to learn yourself and your capabilities, gain positive attitude and
believe that by performing right actions and achieving right goals you will certainly reach success.
3. Persistence. It makes you keep moving forward regardless of emerging obstacles – problems, laziness, bad
emotional state, etc. It reduces the costs of overcoming
4. Managing stress. It helps combat stress that arises in daily life from the environment and other people.
Stress arises from the uncertainty in an unknown situation when a lack of information creates the risk of
negative consequences of your actions. It increases efficiency in the actively changing environment.
5. Problem-solving skills. They help cope with the problems encountered with a lack of experience. It
increases efficiency by adopting new ways of achieving goals when obtaining a new experience.
6. Creativity. It allows you to find extraordinary ways to carry out a specific action that no one has tried to use.
It can lead to a decrease or an increase of costs, but usually the speed of action is greatly increased when
using creative tools.
7. Generating ideas. It helps you achieve goals using new, original, unconventional ideas. Idea is a mental
image of an object formed by the human mind, which can be changed before being implemented in the real
world. For generating ideas, you can use a method of mental maps, which allows you to materialize, visualize
and scrutinize all your ideas, which in turn contributes to the emergence of new ideas.

These are just some, but the most important personal effectiveness skills which make the achievement of any
goal easier and less costly.