Personal Growth Tips

Each passing day proves a reality which is that human’s life is deeply influenced by all kind of models. Either it’s the case of living models or the ones “imprinted” upon the social memory of humankind, the sphere of theirs activity (science, art, music, politics) or the status of public persons or unknown ones (persons that only we recognize), there isn’t one who doesn’t have somebody as a model. Some of us have not only one, but various models, a one for every area which makes a point of interest for us.

Probably every one of us remembers about our first “confessions” regarded our model, obviously from parent’s stories. The most frequent question of our childhood or youth “what do you want to become when you’ll grow up” got answers as “I want to be a singer like… /a painter like…/or just like my mother”.

Child or adult, we both looking up to a model and we identify ourselves with him mostly because the process of our own development needs certain milestones. We all must have some guidance in our life to ease our social integration and to perform in career and family.

The relation between us and our model starts as an appropriation process when we try to “still” all the good parts and positive ideas that we agreed to from him. In a more or less obvious way, we imitate the most representative attitudes and behaviors of his personality because makes us feel right and capable of being for a moment just like the model.

In time, this emotional and unfiltered “absorption” of anything it comes from our model it must become more selective, more critical and centered on a specific target-the one of maintaining a benefic relation with our model, mutually advantageous. This means to avoid being annihilated by his personality and to use those personal positive aspects of him in our own evolution as a unique person.

Considering the fact that a secret of life is also to know when to stop or how far to push an action, the model’s power must be controlled as well. We need to be vigilante and draw a line between us and our model so we won’t be assimilated or become emotionally or cognitive addicted to him. What I’m trying to say can be express like this: “I admire my model for the way he writes, but I have to find my own style to write; I appreciate my model for his remarkable paintings, but I need to see which painting technique is suitable for me”.

So when a model’s impact is negative on us? The answer centers on the moment when we are feeling and thinking more like him than like us; when we are being more emotional than cognitive around him or when we talk about him; when we let him to “govern” our own existence. And, probably, these “dangers” are more imminent in the situation of a living model. In that particular instant, the model-person changes into an idol and the normal admiration and appreciation develop into an exaggerated worship called fanatic attitude.

Don’t let your model to take over your own life!-Psychologist, Nicoleta Cramaruc

Comments as “you have a bad attitude! Do something about it” are more and more frequently heard in communication situations. If taking such a remark is uncomfortable enough, changing attitudes is more difficult because of the close connection between social attitude and status. The higher is social status, the harder become the attitude change process.

Since attitude is not native, but learned from different situations, anything that’s learned can be unlearned or changed in time. Psychologists have identified three main approaches to attitude change.

The cognitive one is based on changing the way people think about an attitude object by using information or persuasive communication to induce a dissonance between the old attitude and the new one. According to this assumption, we are capable of holding two contradictory beliefs as long as we are not aware of them. In the moment we become conscious, cognitive dissonance appears.

The immediate step is to get rid of the discrepancy and to reduce dissonance. The most efficient strategy relies on providing relevant information at just the right time. Don’t overwhelm somebody with a lot of observations about his inappropriate attitude from the very start because he will persist in his attitude as a self-protection reaction.

Behavioral approach implies using both reinforcements and punishments. It is known that we reiterate the rewarded behavior and we try to avoid the not rewarded ones. Rewarding positive /desired attitudes and not negative /undesirable ones it’s increasing the chance that a positive attitude will be expressed again. Further more the attitude will be included into our belief and behavior system.

For the attitude change to work a few principles has to be respected as: the reinforcement should be specific (concrete reward); the reward must be obviously linked to the desirable attitude (the motive must be clear); the reward should be intermittent (every time the attitude is shown); the reward must be seen as desirable (the persons offering the reward has to be likable).

The last approach, the social one, valorizes our tendency to copy the beliefs and behaviors of people we admire. Attitudes are learned through our interactions with the social world. The phenomenon is actually visible in a group when being accepted is requiring that we agree to the group’s norms. So, in the end, we adopt those attitudes as our own.

There are two social processes shape attitudes and behaviors. One of these two is modeling which means that group members tend to imitate the highest status individuals in it. The other is consensus reached when everyone understands a certain issue and those continuing to doubt the group decision comprehend it without sabotaging it.

All the exposed ideas underlines that attitude is indeed everything in social relations. Attitude defined as a person’s state to respond to stimulus from outside must be appropriate to the social context. If you discover having an incompatible attitude, make the effort to change it for your own good and interior equilibrium! Psychologist, Nicoleta Cramaruc

Life has offered me until know the privilege to meet and to observe people having various status more or less important in this society. In these interactions, in my mind it often appeared two questions: they are enough “interested” to have a realistic self-perception? If, at a certain moment, they discover that they have a utopian but positive self-perception will they make the effort to change it for the real one no matter what?

For someone to reach and to keep a realistic self-perception is helpful to better understand the types of the perceptions involved in. The real self-perception can be “found” somewhere between our perception on us and others perception on us because the objectivity is obtained from every one’s subjectivity.

No one knows us more than we do. The first notable element is our perception on us based on our abilities to self-knowledge and also on our interior demands. So, is necessary for every person to avoid not only high estimation but also the low one to be able to distinguish a realistic self-perception from a utopian one. This mean we have to maintain our self-appreciation to the most reasonable level even our tendency to present us in a positive light is tempting.

To get to know ourselves we can also make us of others perception on us. This aspect depends not only on our abilities to make ourselves well-known by showing relevant behaviors but also on other ones abilities to correctly decode the observed attitudes. Sometimes an attitude could be incorrectly comprehended by a social partner and therefore any of us has to make sure his “message” is totally understood.

As we know the social has a major influence on our behaviors and perceptions and it’s like a marker for us. The psychologist L. Festinger explained in his social comparison theory that we elaborate our perception on us by comparing our own abilities and attitudes with other one’s, by evaluating our own opinions depending on what the others think.

Living in a society it’s “forcing” us to participate to this comparison process, but in the same time it puts us in a vulnerable position by being all day under external influences which increase internal psychical pressure. The influence we talk about is also revealed by the “looking glass self” concept of the psychologist C.H. Cooley. According to him we think about how we appear to others, how they consider our appearance and of course about the pride or shame we feel as a result of an interaction.

So, someone next to you can induce yourself a positive or negative utopian self-perception from different reasons. Think about this situation: you are constantly hearing appreciations like “you are so intelligent /so beautiful” or the reverse “you are so stupid /so not so beautiful”. Even some of these remarks are not real you could end up believing it. In cases like this, if you are a responsible person, either you honestly introspect yourself looking for the truth or you pay more attention to what other people around you has to say.

Getting back to my initial questions, not all of us are willing to give up on an idealistic self-perception even it affects us by believing in something that’s not real. A positive self-perception even unrealistic is flattering for our ego and that is more difficult to give it up for the real one when we have a high self-esteem level and a social position and an image to protect.

Personally, I consider it’s healthier for our long-term mental evolution to know the real us, our skills and our limits too, even truth doesn’t always give us a psychological comfort. We owe ourselves to find out who we really are and never to consciously fool ourselves for immediate goals or for gaining someone else’s pleasing opinion. – Psychologist, Nicoleta Cramaruc

Thinking is that mental process which allows us to know and act in this world. It use information as input and its results are ideas and actions. Thinking doesn’t stop even when we are sleeping, so it is crucial to be aware what we are thinking about, because our thoughts produce our moods, our acts and finally our lives.

Contemplative Thinking is a solipsistic phenomenon, it is content with its own activity, and its final purpose is its own process. Actionable Thinking is an extrovert process, because, in this case, someone doesn’t think for the sake of thinking, but for the sake of action. Even more, action in itself isn’t the final purpose but Results. So, a simplistic scheme will look like this: Actionable Thinking —> Action —> Results.

In the case of Contemplative Thinking, the venerated value is Knowledge. It is the interest of knowing that drive contemplative thinking. Most valued, in the case of Actionable Thinking, isn’t Action, as it may seem, but Results. There are actions without results, without aimed results. In this situation, we can say that Actionable Thinking and process of action was wrong or unproductive, and that they must be revised and adjusted to attain the aimed results.

Even if Contemplative Thinking is thinking for the sake of thinking, it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have Results. First of all, it is a kind of an Act, the Act of contemplative thinking. Second, it produces results, even if contemplative thinking doesn’t aim to results. The results of this kind of thinking are Ideas. Most of these Ideas are as contemplative as the activity that produced them. But, contemplative thinking produces also Actionable Ideas, and some of the contemplative ideas may suggest actionable ones.

People who are governed by the Contemplative Thinking are like philosophers; they produce Ideas and are less inclined to act. People ruled by Actionable Thinking are like fighters, they want to act and transform the world. They like to act and are less inclined to think. But, there are also people who like to think as well as to act, I like to name them “Thinking Actors”, they produce ideas and also implement them.

How do you think? Which kind of thinking dominates your consciousness?