MODULE 1: Introduction to Personal Development

Part 1: Development and Self- Awareness

 Criteria for Development → process of CHANGE
1. Progressive
 ‘Increasing’ or ‘advancing’ (in quantity, quality, or both) i.e., traits, abilities, skills

2. Time-Oriented
 Development is a PROCESS
 Des NOT happen overnight
 Right time for developmental change to take place and become evident

3. Natural & Self- Regulated

 Innate to human beings
 Biologically predisposed characteristics ← changes of development
 May also be propelled by a person’s control, choice, and regulation (e.g., learning)

SELF-AWARENESS
 Criteria for Self-Awareness
1. Reflective
 How well do you know yourself?
 What are your strengths and weaknesses?
 Who has been the most influential person in your life?
 What are your tendencies?
 What are your aspirations in life?

2. Objectivity
 Listen to how others describe us

3. Open mindedness
 Being open to others’ comments and criticisms
 Help in being aware of our actions and more sensitive about how others might see us
 Constructive use of feedback to improve ourselves

Part 2: Stages of Human Development → characterized by changes

→ no changes = no development

STAGES PERIOD CHARACTERISTICS

1. Prenatal Stage Fertilization - Birth Physical changes through human bio-

reproductive mechanisms

2. Infancy Stage Birth - End of 2nd week - A period of radical adjustment

- Shortest stage of human development

3. Babyhood End of 2nd week - 2nd True Foundation Age

Stage year

4. Childhood End of 2nd year - Honing Age

Stage Sexual maturity
 4.1 Early 2nd year - 6 years old Problem Age
Childhood

4.2 Late End of 6 years - Sexual Conformity Age

Childhood maturity

5. Puberty Stage [GIRLS] 10 - 14 years Onset of Sexual Development

[BOYS] 12 - 16 years

6. Adolescence 13 - age of legal A period of storm and stress

maturity

6.2 Early 13 - 17 years

Adolescence

6.3 Late 17 years - age of legal

Adolescence maturity

7. Adulthood 18 years - Death

Stage

7.1 Early 18 years - 40 years Reproductive Age

Adulthood

7.2 Middle 40 years - 60 years Period of Social Isolation and Empty Nest
Adulthood

7.3 Late 60 years - Death - Period of Decline

Adulthood - Closing Curtain of Life Span

Part 3. Factors of Personal Development (3)

1. Social Factor
 Influences of different social agencies (different groups of people to which one identifies
oneself/interacts with on a daily basis)
 Family → “nursery of human nature”
→ group where an individual primarily obtained natural (hereditary)
characteristics
→ group where the formation of basic personality traits are developed

 Peer Group → when an individual starts expanding his connection outside the
home

 People and Groups in a larger society (school, church, civic organizations) →

several more characteristics accumulate and integrate to an individual forming
the person’s social identity

2. Hereditary Factor
 Strongly imposes and draws out natural attributes of a person that are transmitted
through genes from generation to the next
 Non-negotiable factors
 Fixed and permanent
  Heredity = biological process; genetic information of parents are passed onto offspring
= physical characteristics develop acdg. to the DNA* blueprint embedded in our genes
= great similarities (physical features) to biologically-related people
*self-replicating material; main constituent of chromosomes; carrier of genetic
information

3. Person-Volition Factor
 “I can be whatever I want to be”
 “My self is a product of choice”
 “I am what I want to be”
 People have the power to change and to develop acdg. to one’s will and choice

[VIDEO]
 Common problems:
 Depression
 Suicide

 Protective Factors:
 Faith/Spiritual Meaning
 Non-parental connection

 Contributing Factors
1. Adolescence
 Struggle with perspective taking
 Sadness, loneliness, loss, isolation
 negativity/ pessimistic
 Struggle with identity
 “Self”
 Hopelessness
 Broken relationships
 Impulsive
 Misread facial expressions
 Outbursts

2. Culture
 Plugged into technology rather than people
 “Looking good” > promoting relationships
 * Culture of WE than ME!!!

 ABCs & ME
A - cceptance
B - elonging
C - ontrol
M - eaningful E - xistence

4 Gems (solutions): help adolescents promote/ maintain positive connections

1. Empathy
 Gateway
 Telling backstories form meaningful connections
 Focused on others
  Understand
 Explores who you are

2. Gratitude
 Via thank you notes → increased connection, positive mood, optimistic attitude, other-
oriented, appreciate life

3. Forgiveness
 Control
 Repaired relationships
 Empowered
 Reframe
 Positive emotion

4. Humility
 Values others
 Deep connections
 Repairs connections
 Acceptance + Belonging

Module 2 Part 1

During Adolescence: A Time of Change

BABYHOOD ----> CHILDHOOD --- (PUBERTY) -----> ADOLESCENCE -----> ADULTHOOD

/ | \
/ | \
A transition age | A threshold of adulthood
A time of storm and stress
 Adolescence Stage
 Teenage years (13 y/o - 18 y/o) to end of 19 y/o (age of legal maturity)
 “An individual who is no longer a child, but is not yet an adult”

 ADOLESCENCE: A TRANSITION AGE

“TRANSITION” → TRANSIT → Moving from one point to another
 Stage requires various adjustments due to several expectations attributed to this
life period: Behavioral, Attitudinal, Intellectual, Interpersonal, etc.

 AREAS OF TRANSITION
1. Physical/ Physiological
[BOYS]: Voice, Body, Height
[GIRLS]: Physical Appearance
 Attributed to the secretion of hormonal and other bodily chemicals inside our
bodies
 Make individuals self-conscious and uncomfortable
 Inevitable
 Integral episodes of natural human development
 sexual/biological reproduction (one important purpose of physiological
transitions)
2. Social/Interpersonal
 Shy → outgoing personality
 Start conversations
 Social Sensitivity
 Additional Friends (Interacting w/ people)
 More mature social expectations
 Let go of childish behavior
 Start assuming mature responsibilities
 Start claiming independence from familial influences and pressures
 Tend to rely more on peers and outside influences

3. Emotional/Affective
 Simple → Complex Emotions (Complicating emotional experiences)
 Emotional Awareness
 FRIENDS → first outlet of emotions
 Unconsciously redefine the emotion by feeling it in a variety of ways (familial,
platonic, romantic) and extending emotion to people outside the family
 Ranges, varieties, intensities of emotional experiences dictate how they react
and resolve related issues

4. Mental/Cognitive/Intellectual
 Problem solving
 Decision making
 Plain concrete thinking → Abstract thinking w/c leads to analyzing concepts at
the theoretical level
 Overcoming Emotional Hijack
 Intellectual Autonomy (Ability to decide for yourself w/o the destruction of other
people)
 Unfolding of certain capacities of brain
 Some advanced function (brain) increases
 Advances one’s cognitive capacities (creativity, problem solving skills, memory
and retention, and analytical skills)

5. Spiritual/Moral
 Knowing what is good and evil or knowing what is right from what is wrong
 More understanding
 More patience
 Ability to do good to others despite challenging situations
 “Most difficult”
 Continues to learn many things in life; certain expectations and rules of society
and humanity provide guidance/ compass to one’s behavior

ADOLESCENCE: A THRESHOLD OF ADULTHOOD

THRESHOLD → Boundary, end, or beginning

 Phase of significant transitions and changes
 AGE-BASED → once you’ve reached 18, you’re already an adult
 STATUS-BASED → when you settle down & start having your own family, then you’re
already an adult
THRESHOLD 1: LEAVING THE CHILDISH WAYS
 Avoiding being too playful
 More open-minded
 “Not all the things we want, we get”
 Maturity

THRESHOLD 2: ONSET OF SELF-PARENTING → one’s ability to analyze, control, and decide

on behaviors using intrapersonal conversation within oneself between the self as a child and the
self as a parent
 Self-reflection & self-talk
 Mental scenario of conversation between an adult and a child self occurs
 Growing maturity on a person particularly in evaluating one’s behavior
 Independency

THRESHOLD 3: FUTURE ORIENTATION

 Covers the holistic aspects of personal maturity
 Physical, emotional, and mental maturity
 Develop consciousness concerning several things in life; including foresight of future life
 “What is your purpose in life?”

Part 2: Understanding the Adolescence: A challenging time

 Both immensely exciting and highly stressful
 EXCITING:
 One’s growing independence
 Meeting new friends
 Expanding horizon of physical and social activities
 Feeling in love
 “Best years of your life”

 STRESS
 Feelings of tension, frustration, worry, sadness, and withdrawal that commonly last from
a few hours to a few days (Walker, 2005)
 May elevate into MORE serious conditions (Depression)

A TIME OF STORM AND STRESS

 Major Stressors among adolescents
1. School Situations
 grades/projects/deadlines
 Relationships with teachers
 Bullying

2. Family Situations
 Relationship with parents
 Sibling rivalry
 Financial problems

3. Interpersonal/ Social Situations

 Relationship w/ bf or gf/ neighbors/ friends

4. Personal Situations
  Feelings w/n oneself
 Negative evaluation of oneself: feeling worthless, conservative w/ the physical
appearance
 Symptoms of Stress
 Feeling of nervousness/anxiety
 Feeling exhausted/tired
 Feeling sad
 Feeling overwhelmed
 Procrastination / inability to perform responsibilities
 Negative thoughts
 Disruptions in eating and sleeping habits

 Dealing with Stress

 Engage in physical activities (regular exercise, sports, recreational activities)
 Get enough sleep (8-9 hours)
 Balance your time and priorities; Learn how to arrange activities acdg. to importance and
accomplish them one at a time
 Talk about your experience. It is important that your fear, sadness, and frustrations are
expressed

+++ STRESS → DEPRESSION → most alarming

| → prevalent mental health issue at this time of development
| → associated w/ other risky outcomes (suicidal behavior &
substance abuse) | → leading cause of mortality among adolescents
| * In 2020, might be leading cause of mortality for all age groups
|
|
Mental state marked by three main group of symptoms:
1. Sad mood - negative self-evaluation
2. Vegetative Features - loss of interest in activities, fluctuating sleeping patterns,
insomnia
3. Psychomotor Symptoms - slurred speech, feeling tired always

 Effects of Depression:
 Interpersonal Impairment
 Functional Impairment
 Subjective/Personal Impairment

 Factors/Causes of Depression
 Biological Factors
 Cognitive Factors
 Social Factors
 Contextual Factors

 Response to Depression: An early detection of warning and signs of the onset of

depression would be critical to address this issue
 [SCHOOL/WORK]: Consult your situation to mental health professionals
 [HOME]: Openly discuss with family members
 Express this with your close friends
SUBSTANCE ABUSE DURING ADOLESCENCE
 Illegal drugs, alcohol, tobacco → leading illicit substances adolescents use in a variety of
levels of consumption (from use to abuse)

U
Risk factors

1. Substance Behavior  Early Initiation

 Lack of belief that use will harm

2. Psychological  Truancy
 Conduct problems
 Early delinquency
 Non-conformity
 Depression

3. Family  Lack of parental support

 Parental Substance use

4. Social-community  Low resistance to peer influence

 Peer substance use
 Low attendance at religious institutions
 High density residence

5. Education  Low expectations for education

 Low achievement in middle school

 Response to Substance Abuse

 Identifying & Pinpointing the risk factors
 Resolving issues associated with the identified risk factors

 Sexual Activity During Adolescence

 Cultural impact
 Factors influence young people’s engagement to this activity:
1. Psycho-Biological Factor
 Sexual development of body
 Sexual awareness #
 Identity formation towards adulthood

2. Psycho-Social Factor
 Influences from friends → premature engagement to sexual activity
 Peer’s sexual norms conformation
 Family relationships and structure influence sexual cognition and behavior
 Poor parental supervision, older siblings’ sexual activities, family’s orientation
and values regarding sexual activities and orientation

 RISKS OF PREMATURE SEXUAL ACTIVITIES → issue of morality

 Early Pregnancy
 Exposure to Sexually-Transmitted Diseases (STDs)
Module 3 Part 1. The Physical Aspect
The Physical Dimension of Parenthood
 The body is a marvelous, complex and finely tuned vessel that interact with the
environment and other human beings
 The physical aspect is the concrete and tangible dimension of the person that can be
directly observed and examined

Factors of Physical Development:

1. Heredity - transmission (that happens during the union of egg cell and sperm cell) of
traits from parents to offspring
 Our physical look highly depends on what our parents genetically transferred/
passed unto us
2. Maturation - completion of growth of genetic character due within an organism or the
unfolding of an individual’s inherent traits or potential
 Biological changes in our body such as height, weight, and modulation of our
voices, for example.
3. Environment - includes ALL the conditions inside and outside an organism that in any
way influence our growth, development, and life processes
 Includes the people around us (family, friends, teachers, and even strangers)
 Includes different establishments and places (house, school, community, and
even the larger society)

Improving Physical Characteristics:

 How to improve Physical Looks
 Be hygienic
 Engage in working out/ physical exercise
 Balanced diet

Part 2. The Emotional Aspect

Human Beings are Emotional Beings
 It is natural for human beings to feel something and to react based on these feelings
 We are innately predispose to emotional experiences and emotional responses

What is Emotion?
Emotion - basic element of communication and socialization with other people
 Complex psychological state that involves 3 distinct components:
 Subjective Experience (Situation)
 Physiological Experience (Physical)
 Behavioral/Expressive Response (Actions)
 Paul Ekman (1972) stated that there are 6 basic emotions that are universal across
human cultures:
→ Fear
→ Disgust
→ Anger
→ Surprise
→ Happiness
→ Sadness

 Esther Esteban (1990) proposed eleven basic emotions that are important in our lives:
→ Love → Aversion
 → Desire → Sorrow
→ Joy → Despair
→ Hope → Fear
→ Courage → Anger
→ Hatred

 Importance of Emotion
1. Essential to one’s physical survival or mental health
2. Helps distinguish whether certain emotions are socially appropriate
3. Emotions motivate behavior
4. Emotions play an essential role in creativity and intellectual curiosity

Emotional Intelligence
 Ability to perceive emotions
 Way to access and generate emotions so as to assist thought
 Form of understanding emotions and emotional knowledge, and to reflectively regulate
emotions so as to promote emotional and intellectual growth

 5 Competencies for Building emotional intelligence:

1. Self Awareness - ability to understand personal moods and drives, as well as their
effects on others
2. Self Regulation - ability to control disruptive impulses and moods
 The propensity to suspend judgement and to think before acting
3. Self Motivation -passion to work for internal reasons that goes beyond money and
status
4. Empathy - ability to understand the emotional makeup of other people
 A skill in treating people according to their emotional reactions
5. Emotional Regulation - the individual’s ability to inhibit and modulate emotional arousal
 Involves an attempt to influence emotions

 Effective ways to communicate your emotions:

 Identify your emotions
 Choose how to communicate your emotions
 Own your feelings
 Monitor your self-talk
 Respond sensitively when others communicate emotions

 Healthy way of Emotional Regulation

 Talking with your friends
 Resting/Sleeping
 Talking with your family/ parents
 Listening to music, writing journals

 Unhealthy way of Emotional Regulation

 Eating unhealthy foods
 Displacing anger on others
 Smoking, Drinking alcoholic beverages

Part 3. The Mental Aspect

Human Beings: Intelligent Beings
Mental/Intellectual Aspect
 Makes human beings superior over other life forms
 The superior characteristics of human beings to think, learn, rationalize, and perform
more complex intellectual tasks significantly contribute to the development not only to
oneself but of the larger society and the world

What is Intelligence?
Intelligence
 Variations in the ability to learn, to get along in society, and to behave according to
contemporary social expectations
 Ability to learn/profit from formal instruction
 Overall ability to act purposefully, to think rationally, and to deal effectively with the
environment
 Collection of mental abilities that enables us to learn from experiences, to adapt to our
changing environment, to work in a goal-directed manner, and to solve problems and to
think creatively

 Intelligence is purposeful
 Intelligence is a functional ability that a person uses to benefit from learning experiences
 This makes people remember, understand, analyze, and evaluate situations and
problems that demand decisions and solutions

 Intelligence is an adaptive mechanism

 Intelligence is useful in adapting to/ coping with the demands of environment, both
physical and social
 The human intellectual abilities had been used by people for their survival to the
complexities of environment
 People learned many things (food production, construction of shelters, technology
development, etc.), or what we call as “products of human intelligence” that have been
instrumental for human survival and adaptation

 Intelligence is multidimensional
 Should NOT be defined unilaterally such as academic or school intelligence
 There are many forms/ types of intelligences

 Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences Theory

 Verbal - Linguistic
 Logical - Mathematical
 Visual - Spatial
 Musical
 Naturalistic
 Bodily - Kinesthetic
 Interpersonal
 Intrapersonal

The Mechanism of Human Learning

 All human beings can learn, but not in the same way or in the same time
 Learning = capacity to acquire, process, and make meaning of information to produce
actions or performance
  All human beings have the natural capacity to benefit from experiences

What is Learning?
Learning - a relatively permanent change in behavior that occurs as a result of experience

How Does Learning Take Place?

Level 1. The Sensory Level
 Learning requires stimulation and activation of senses (visual, auditory, olfactory,
kinesthetic, gustatory)

 “The more senses are involved, the Better Learning will take place...”

Level 2. The Mental Level

 After receiving learning information via sensory level, these information proceed to the
brain for mental processing

 Certain relevant cognitive faculties will be activated and help in storing and making the
information available for use and for higher processing
 The cognitive faculties that will help in processing raw information that pass through the
senses are:
1. Memory - helps us recall, remember, and retain any information for future use
 Any information that is not anymore accessible for use can be considered
unlearned information
  Memory and Forgetting → even if the information reached the long-term memory, this
does not guarantee permanence and some information may not be any more retrieved
and accessed for use.
 Decay of information due to disuse. Information, knowledge, or abilities that are not
used for a long-time tend to be forgotten.
 Interference: new vs. old information. Some new information tend to overwrite old
information. The interference happens when there is a large semblance and relatedness
of information (old and new).
 Repression. This is also known as voluntary forgetting. This is a conscious effort of a
person to forget an undesirable information ( bad experiences, embarrassing moments,
etc.)

2. Comprehension - performs higher function than the memory

 “We can always memorize items through rehearsal, but this does not guarantee that we
understand these items.”
 The potential of applying the knowledge of the memorized items will be very limited
 Strengthens the retention of information to our long-term memory simply because “ the
more we understand something, the more we remember it.”

3. Estimation - helps us in making quick approximation of value, form, quantity, and quality
of any relevant information

4. Imagination - ability to create mental pictures or representations of learning information

 People can make more sense of the information present in a learning situation
 Imagination plays the most crucial role to ensure successful learning

Level 3. The Motivational Level

 Learning depends significantly on the sensory and mental mechanisms
 The person has to be motivationally engaged in the entire process of learning to ensure
that learning will succeed
Cerebral Cortex Principles
 The human brain is composed of several parts that perform important functions
 Cerebral Cortex → Biggest part of the brain
→ can be described using the following principles:
 1. Localization of Function - specific mental processes are correlated with
discrete regions of the brain
2. Hemispheric Specialization - each lobe of the brain has specialized functions

The Cortical Lobes

1. The Frontal Lobe - motor function, problem solving, spontaneity, memory, language,
initiation, judgment, impulse control, and social and sexual behavior

2. The Parietal Lobe - can be divided into 2 functional regions

 One involves sensation and perception.
 Second is concerned with integrating sensory input, primarily with the visual system.
 The first function integrates sensory information to form a single perception (cognition)
 The second function constructs a spatial coordinate system to represent the world
around us.

3. The Occipital Lobe - center of our visual perception system

 Not particularly vulnerable to injury because of their location at the back of the brain

4. The Temporal Lobe - Kolb & Wishaw (1990) have identified 8 principle symptoms of
temporal lobe damage:
a. Disturbance of auditory sensation and perception
b. Disturbance of selective attention of auditory and visual input
c. Disorders of Visual perception
d. Impaired organization and categorization of verbal material
e. Disturbance of Language Comprehension
f. Impaired long-term memory
g. Altered personality and affective behavior
h. Altered sexual behavior

 Functions of the Temporal Lobe:

 Hearing ability
 Memory acquisition
 Some visual perceptions
 Categorization of objects

Hemispheric Specialization
 Division of the brain into 2 hemispheres (left and right hemispheres of the cortex) that
perform important functions to human intelligences and learning capacities