An Introduction to Personality Development: Connecting with People

Personal Development Courses offer so many programs when it comes to personality development: connecting with people. Connecting with people means a whole lot of things when we speak of personality development and may also mean another thing, relationships. Relationships defined as friendship, marriage, love, by choice, by birth and any other relationship that binds and connects people with other people. Relationships are bound by what makes them work out, why they go wrong, why they are precious and how to keep them. In other words, everything that defines a relationship is the same essentials that define a social network.

Social networking is founded on communication. Communication may not necessarily mean being verbal. Communication is founded on expression. Expression likewise does not necessarily mean being vocal and again, expression is founded on connection. Connection entails the ability to reach out, to understand, to accept and to have a harmonious co-existence with others, all characteristics of which is embedded in behavior.

Human behavior has a whole lot of factors that affect it. Culture, upbringing, nature, nurture, norms, religious affiliation, social orientation are but a few things to consider when behavior is accounted for. All these external factors are needed for one to understand why the person acted the way he or she did in a given instance. The bottom line is, individuals are as unique as they are and being unique their actions seldom conform to what we think should be. Harmonious relationships are founded on understanding in the broadest sense of the word regardless of whether we agree with the behavior or not.

People learn not solely from their own actions but learn also through observing the actions of other people.  This observation does not only help the person understand the other but it also gives him an idea of how he is to behave in later occasions. Such reaction and counter-reaction becomes the basis for social learning. When one offers his hand in friendship or any relationship at that, he at times does so with misgivings. If he senses a rejection, his hand is instinctively withdrawn. Social learning is dictated by such a norm: the reluctance of being open, the instinct of being rejected and the counter-action based on what we sense the other person does.

Social learning as part of Personal Development Courses has three basic concepts: 1) observation is needed for learning; 2) learning is based on mental states; and 3) change of behavior is not necessarily always due to learning.

The first concept stating that observation is needed for learning is just as we have explained earlier. It is human nature for one to observe the others’ action and counter-reaction and from there to learn. Learning does not mean following what has been done nor reacting to circumstances. Learning means being able to understand the circumstances warranted and from there learn what is the best course of action to take given the same circumstances.

The second step deals about mental states. Nurture as much as nature has a great effect on people much more on their behavior. Behavior in such cases are dependent on the environment and outside forces that lead to internal emotions such as satisfaction, accomplishment, and even pride. These emotions dictate behavior as much as these values have been inculcated into the person during their upbringing.  Behavior is dictated by how one feels about doing something. Satisfaction, pride and self-accomplishment are motivation factors too.

The third step speaks about changes in behavior as dictated by learning.  Learning can also be without any change in behavior. Confusing? Let us look at four processes that dictate human behavior namely: attention, retention, reproduction and motivation.

Attention has to be done fully without distractions else learning would not be so.

Retention is based on how many details you were able to remember when your attention has not been distracted.

Reproduction means being able to reenact or perform such behaviors that your were able to retain.

And finally, motivation, meaning the reason for you to be able to reproduce the behavior or at times the reason for which you would not like to repeat such action. This final step is the best way to explain how learning can be done regardless if we change our behavior or not, depending on the pros and cons of what the aforementioned behavior has taught us. It is with that that learning is a matter of knowing what to follow and what not to follow.