CHAPTER NINE

INTRA-PERSONAL AND INTERPERSONAL SKILLS

 Self-Concept and Self-Awareness
. Self-concept
The self is a reflexive phenomenon that develops in social interaction and is based
on the social character of human language(Gecas, 1982).

The concept of self provides the philosophical underpinning for social-

psychological inquiries into the self-concept.

The "self-concept," on the other hand, is a product of this reflexive activity.

It is the concept the individual has of himself/herself as a physical, social, and

spiritual or moral being.

Self-concept has the following important features:

It is the totality of ideas that a person holds about the self

It includes everything the person believes to be true about himself/herself

It is composed of relatively permanent self-assessments that of course changes

over time with life experiences and relationships

It is not restricted to the present. It also includes past and future selves

It is a multi-dimensional construct that refers to an individual's perception of

"self" in relation to a number of characteristics, such as academics, gender roles,
racial identity, and many others

It guides our actions, motivations, expectations and goals for future.

Self-awareness
Self-awareness is having a clear perception of your personality, including
strengths, weaknesses, thoughts, beliefs, motivation, and emotions.

It is an attribute of one‘s self-concept that allows understanding other people‘s

attitudes and responses to them.

High self-awareness is a solid predictor of good success in life, perhaps because a

self-aware person knows when an opportunity is a good fit for them and how to
make an appropriate enterprise work well.

However, most of us are hardly aware of why we succeed or fail; or why we

behave as we do.

Here are some suggestions to start building self-awareness:

 Practice mindfulness
 Become a good listener
 Become more self-aware
 Open your mind to new perspectives
 Develop self-esteem
 Look at yourself objectively
 Take feedback from others
 Know your strengths and weaknesses
 Set intentions and goals

Self-esteem and self-confidence

Self-esteem
"Esteem" is derived from the Latin aestimare, meaning "to appraise, value, rate,
weigh, and estimate,’’

Self-esteem is our cognitive and, above all, emotional appraisal of our own worth.

It is the matrix through which we think, feel, and act, reflects and determines our
relation to ourselves, to others, and to the world.

Self-esteem deals with the evaluative and emotional/affective dimensions of the

self-concept.

Self-esteem refers to an individual's overall self-evaluation.

It is the judgment or opinion we hold about ourselves.

Its the extent to which we perceive ourselves to be worthwhile and capable

human beings.

Bases of self-esteem
 Self-esteem based on a sense of competence, power, or efficacy and
 Self-esteem based on a sense of virtue or moral worth.

The importance of this distinction lies in the suggestion that these two bases of
self-esteem may be a function of different processes of self-concept formation
and that they constitute different sources of motivation.

Briefly, competency-based self-esteem is tied closely to effective performance.

As a result, it is associated with self-attribution and social comparison processes.

Self-esteem based on virtue (termed self-worth) is grounded in norms and values

concerning personal and interpersonal conduct e.g. justice, reciprocity, and
honour.

Self-confidence
The term confidence comes from the Latin ‘fidere’, "to trust."
To be self-confident is to trust in oneself, and, in particular, in one‘s ability or
aptitude to engage successfully or at least adequately with the world.

Just as self-confidence leads to successful experience, successful experience leads

to self-confidence.

Although any successful experience contributes to our overall confidence, it is, of

course, possible to be highly confident in one area, such as cooking or dancing,
but very insecure in another, such as mathematics or public speaking.

Self-confidence is the belief in oneself and abilities, which describes an internal

state made up of what we think and feel about ourselves.

Sometimes, people use self-confidence and courage interchangeably.

However, they have differences. In the absence of confidence, courage takes

over.

Confidence operates in the realm of the known, whereas courage in that of the
unknown, the uncertain, and the fearsome.

Strategies help to improve self-confidence are practicing self-acceptance, focus on

your achievements, making personal changes, seeking out positive experiences
and people, positive affirmations, and rewards and support

Self-control
Self-control is achieved by refraining from actions we like and instead performing
actions we prefer not to do as a means of achieving a long-term goal.

Anger management
Anger is a state of emotion where a person is irritated by block of interests, loss
of possession or threats to personality.

Techniques for managing anger:

  Recognize anger as a signal of vulnerability - you feel devalued in some
way.
 When angry, think or do something that will make you feel more valuable,
i.e., worthy of appreciation.
 Do not trust your judgment when angry. Anger magnifies and amplifies only
the negative aspects of an issue, distorting realistic appraisal.
 Try to see the complexity of the issue. Anger requires narrow and rigid
focus that ignores or oversimplifies context.
 Strive to understand other people's perspectives.
 Do not justify your anger. Instead, consider whether it will help you act in
your long-term best interest.
 Know your physical and mental resources. Anger is more likely to occur
when tired, hungry, sick, confused, anxious, preoccupied, distracted, or
overwhelmed.
 Focus on improving and repairing rather than blaming. It's hard to stay
angry without blaming and it's harder to blame when focused on repairing
and improving.
 When angry, remember your deepest values.

Emotional intelligence and managing emotion

Emotional intelligence refers to the ability to identify and manage one‘s own
emotions, as well as the emotions of others.

It includes at least three skills

 emotional awareness, or the ability to identify and name one‘s own

emotions;
 the ability to harness those emotions and apply them to tasks like thinking
and problem solving
 the ability to manage emotions, which includes both regulating one‘s own
emotions when necessary and helping others to do the same.
Emotional intelligence describes the ability, capacity, skill, or self- perceived
ability to identify, assess, and manage the emotions of one’s self, of others, and of
groups.

People who possess a high degree of emotional intelligence know themselves

very well and are also able to sense the emotions of others. They are affable,
resilient, and optimistic.

Individuals have different personalities, wants, needs, and ways of showing their
emotions.

In the most generic framework, five domains of emotional intelligence are divided
into personal (self-awareness, self-regulation, and self-motivation) and social
(social awareness and social skills) competences.

Stress, Coping with Stress and Resilience

Stress generally refers to two things:

 The psychological perception of pressure, on the one hand, and

 The body's response to it, on the other, which involves multiple systems
from metabolism to muscles and memory.

Some stress is necessary for all living systems as it is the means by which you
encounter and respond to the challenges and uncertainties of existence.

However, prolonged or repeated arousal of the stress response, can have harmful
physical and psychological consequences, including heart disease, diabetes,
anxiety, and depression.

Mainly, stress comes from three categories of stressors: catastrophes, significant

life changes, and daily hassles.

Coping with stress

There are two ways of dealing with stress: problem focused and emotion-focused.
Problem focused- when we feel a sense of control over a situation and think we
can change the circumstances or change ourselves, we may address stressors
directly, with problem - focused coping.

Emotion-focused - When we cannot handle the problem or believe that we

cannot change a situation, we may turn to emotion-focused coping.

Several factors affect the ability to cope successfully, including feelings of

personal control, outlook, and supportive connections.

Resilience
Resilience is about getting through pain and disappointment without letting them
crush your spirit.

In other language, resilience is the quality to come back at least as strong as

before after being knocked down by adversity.

In the process of resilience, individuals focus on finding a way to rise from the
failure rather than letting difficulties or failure overcome them.

It means "bouncing back" from difficult experiences (APA definition).

A positive attitude, optimism, the ability to regulate emotions, and the ability to
see failure as a form of helpful feedback are resilience strategies.

Resilience is not some magical quality but it takes real mental work to transcend
hardship.

Even after misfortune, resilient people are able to change course and move
toward achieving their goals

Being resilient does not mean that a person does not experience difficulty or
distress.

Resilience is not a trait that people either have or do not have. It involves
behaviours, thoughts and actions that can be learned and developed in anyone.
Strategy to build resilience
 Making connections with family and friends
 Avoiding seeing crises as insurmountable problems
 Accepting that change is a part of living
 Moving toward your goals
 Taking decisive actions
 Looking for opportunities for self-discovery
 Nurturing a positive view of yourself
 Keeping things in perspectives
 Maintaining a hopeful outlook
 Taking care of yourself.

Critical thinking and creative thinking

Critical thinking is "Purposeful, self-regulatory judgment which results in:

 interpretation,
 analysis,
 evaluation, and
 inference, as well as explanation of the evidential, conceptual,
methodological, contextual considerations upon which judgment is based’’

It is also regarded as intellectually engaged, skilful, and responsible thinking that

facilitates good judgment because it requires the application of assumptions,
knowledge, competence, and the ability to challenge one's own thinking.

When using critical thinking, individuals step back and reflect on the quality of
that thinking

Creative thinking
The ability to connect the seemingly unconnected and meld existing knowledge
into new insight about some element of how the world works.

Creative thinking is seen as imaginative, constructive, and generative thinking.

Includes decision-making/problem solving skills and information gathering skills.

Critical thinking

 Analytic
 Convergent
 Vertical
 Probability
 Judgment
 Hypothesis testing
 Objective
 Answer
 Closed
 Linear
 Reasoning
 Logic
 Yes but

Creative thinking
 Generative
 Divergent
 Lateral
 Possibility
 Suspended judgment
 Hypothesis forming
 Subjective
 An answer
 Open-ended
 Associative
 Speculating
 Intuition
 Yes and
Attributes of critical thinkers
 Be capable of taking a position or changing a position as evidence
dictates
 Remain relevant to the point
 Seek information as well as precision in information
 Be open minded
 Take the entire situation into account
 Keep the original problem in mind
 Search for reasons
 Deal with the components of a complex problem in an orderly
manner
 Seek a clear statement of the problem
 Look for options
 Exhibit sensitivity to others' feelings and depth of knowledge
 Use credible sources

Problem solving and decision making

Problems are a central part of human life and it is almost impossible to avoid it.

There are two classes of problems:

 Well-defined problems are those problems whose goals, path to solution,

and obstacles to solution are clear based on the information given.
 Ill-defined problems are characterized by their lack of a clear path to
solution.

Such problems often lack a clear problem statement as well, making the task of
problem definition and problem representation quite challenging.

 Problem solving is a process in which we perceive and resolve a gap

between a present situation and a desired goal, with the path to the goal
blocked by known or unknown obstacles.
Steps in problem solving
 Recognize or identify the problem.
 Define and represent the problem mentally.
 Develop a solution strategy alternatives and select the best one.
 Organize knowledge about the problem and avail the necessary resources.
 Allocate mental and physical resources for solving the problem.
 Monitor his or her progress toward the goal.
 Evaluate the solution for accuracy

Decision making
Decision-making is a selection process where one of two or more possible
solutions is chosen to reach a desired goal.

The steps in both problem solving and decision-making are quite similar. In fact,
the terms are sometimes used interchangeably (Huitt, 1992).