Personality and Theory

Sociologist Herbert Mead developed a theory known as social behaviorism, which helped explained why past social experiences help form an individuals’ personality. Mead did not believe that personality was developed by drives or biologically, but more on terms socially. He stated that the self only developed when people interact with one another.

Without the interaction of other people an individual can′t develop a personality. An example of this is if a child is left in total isolation for a long period of time then they don′t mature both physically or mentally.

Social experience is crucial, and this includes the exchange of symbols. It is only people who attach meanings to words and symbols. If you tell a dog to sit and it obeys then you may give it a snack. However, this doesn’t mean it knows why to sit down, but it does so to get food. You can tell a dog to sit for numerous of reasons such as wanting to impress your friends, or to calm it down because it is running all over the place.

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How Strong is the Power of Place?

Recently I was thinking about the extent to which we as human beings are affected by our environment and how we can also be independent of it.

On the face of it, it’s easy to believe that we will generally feel better if we are in a beautiful place, close to nature, away from the noise and pollution of the urban sprawl. And perhaps that is generally the case when we are on vacation, ‘getting away from it all’, when we are not only in a more pleasant environment but are also away from the stress of the workplace. But life’s not that simple, and there’s not necessarily a direct link between the place where we are and how we feel, especially if all is not right in our internal world.

I clearly remember a conversation I had with a European couple a few years ago. They had left their high-stress careers in advertising in a crowded capital city to run a dive centre on a small Indonesian island near Bali, a real paradise of white sand and palm trees.

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Developing Personal Resilience

Last weekend, I attended a day-long personal development
workshop in a meditation and retreat centre down by the
River Cam here in Cambridge.

There were about 20 participants, so the atmosphere was very
different from some of the big-ticket personal development courses
I have attended in the past. The small number of people
made for some good discussions within the group, and I’d like to
tell you a bit about our conversation on the subject of
resilience and dealing with adversity.

Difficult situations affect all of us at various points in our
lives, and for some people they get to crisis point. At these
times, such strong emotions are swirling around that it is often
difficult to be sufficiently in control of ourselves to take the
actions required to best manage the situation. I know from my
own experience that it be really hard to meditate or do
relaxation exercises to ‘calm down’ under such pressure.

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