Personal Development

• Johari Window


  A helpful tool in discovering the self, allowing a review of your self, the things you know and still do not know, and what others see of you
• Big Five personality traits

  • Openness
  • Conscientiousness
  • Extraversion
  • Agreeableness
  • Neuroticism
• According to Socrates, self-knowledge was the most important thing to pursue in life, and admitting one's ignorance is the beginning of true knowledge
• According to Plato, the beginning of knowledge is self-knowledge
• Self


  What an individual sees, perceives, and defines oneself apart from others
• Dimensions of the self

  • Physical
  • Psychological
  • Spiritual
• Attitude


  A settled way of thinking and feeling about someone or something, typically reflecting in a person's behavior
• Components of attitude


  • Affect
  • Cognition
  • Behavior
• Implicit attitude


  Thoughts or feelings that conscious awareness does not cover
• Explicit attitude


  Can be perceived consciously and expressed accordingly
• Experience is the best teacher. Attitudes can form consequently through this, either from personal encounters or observed consequences
• How attitudes are formed

  • Experience
  • Rejection
  • Social factors
  • Learning
  • Operant conditioning
  • Modelling
• Self-concept


  Our cognition to ourselves, what we think and know about our identity, personality, and individuality
• Self-esteem


  Our attitude towards ourselves, given the negative or positive feedback we receive
• Holistic development


  The process of self-actualization and learning that combines the individual's mental, physical, social, emotional, and spiritual growth
• Malcognition


  Thoughts that potentially affect our attitude negatively are commonly associated with an irrational belief represented by a statement that echoes in our heads
• Maladaptive


  Thoughts that stop you from adapting to new or difficult circumstances
• As the human grows, its head-to-body weight proportion starts balancing, allowing the child to learn to walk. As the muscles, bones, and organs further grow into complexity and functionality, perception evolves the same. The ability to see clearer occurs, our capacity to learn language and mimic sounds begins, and our memory gets better
• Puberty


  When the body matures in all aspects, with its sexual characteristics — primed for the natural process of reproduction
• Piaget's stages of cognitive development


  • Sensorimotor
  • Pre-operational
  • Concrete operational
  • Formal operational
• Five areas of development

  • Physiological
  • Emotional
  • Cognitive
  • Social
  • Spiritual
• Formation of identity


  An ongoing process of forming one's identity, coming with risks we take to eliminate particular behaviors or keep the ones that seem satisfying, as we develop our own moral code
• Erikson's theory of psychosocial development


  Adolescents face a struggle with what they think of themselves and who they want to be, in the stage of forming identity versus confusion
• Spatial reasoning


  Especially in doing visual-spatial tasks
• Left Hemisphere


  • Associated with logical abilities
  • Damage to this is associated with speech abnormalities
  • Is also correlated with handedness
• Cerebral Cortex


  • 3 millimeter thick mantle with 6 layers that cover the surface of the brain
• Neurons


  Communicate with each other and it is the strength of these connections between neurons that determine the storage of knowledge
• Neurotransmitters


  • Found in the synapse
  • An increase or decrease in the level of our neurotransmitters can affect the way we behave
• Synapse


  A space in between the tail end of one neuron and the dendrites of another neuron
• Dopamine


  Has been associated with attention, memory, and cognition
• Endorphins


  Known to fight stress and pain
• Brain Dominance Theory vs Whole Brain Model

  • Brain Dominance Theory
  • Whole Brain Theory
• Brain Dominance Theory


  • States that our behavior is a function of the heightened activity of either left or right brain hemisphere
• Whole Brain Theory


  • Believe that the brain is divided into four quadrants where each quadrant is responsible for particular abilities
• Ned Hermann


  • American creativity researcher and author
  • Claims that people have their own thinking preferences in dealing with facts or feelings
• First Quadrant


  • Analytic
  • Auditory
  • Vocabulary
  • Likes and uses concrete words
  • A person who is logical, analytical, fact-based, and quantitative in thinking
• Second Quadrant


  • Auditory (grammar rules)
  • Logical Sequence
  • Upright Searing
  • Brighter Light
  • More sequential, organized, detailed, and well planned in dealing with facts
• Third Quadrant


  • Kinesthetic - Likes to move
  • Tactile (likes to touch)
  • Likes Music
  • Focuses on interpersonal, feelings, kinesthetics, and emotions
• Fourth Quadrant


  • Brainstorming
  • Imagery
  • Analogies/Myths
  • Mind-Mapping
  • More holistic in thinking, more intuitive, integrates, and synthesizes information
• Multiple Intelligences


  • Linguistic Intelligence
  • Logico-Mathematical Intelligence
  • Visual-Spatial Intelligence
  • Musical Intelligence
  • Bodily Kinesthetic Intelligence
  • Interpersonal Intelligence
  • Intrapersonal Intelligence
  • Naturalistic Intelligence