The Resilient Self and Personality Theories Summarized

The Resilient Self in Society

  • Resiliency: Ability to cope with stress, maintain a positive attitude, and grow.

  • High Resilience: Linked to life satisfaction, mental health, social support, optimism, and social skills.

  • Low Resilience: Associated with depression, anxiety, hopelessness, and social distancing.

Becoming Resilient

  • Key factors: Self-awareness, self-care, mindfulness, positive relationships, and vocation.

  • Stress Inoculation Theory: Raising resilient individuals through exposure to age-appropriate stress.

Understanding Stress

  • Stress: Response to events that disturb physical/psychological equilibrium.

  • Stressors: Can be negative (e.g., loss) or positive (e.g., marriage).

Stress Reactions

  • General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS): Stages - Alarm, Resistance, Exhaustion.

  • Fight or Flight Response: Differentiated responses based on gender; males - fight or flight; females - tend-and-befriend.

Carl Rogers' Theory of Personality

  • Fully Functioning Person: Open to experiences, able to voice and accept true feelings.

  • Development of 'me' concept: Influenced by interactions and acceptance from parents.

Positive Regard and Self-Regard

  • Positive Regard: Need for feeling accepted and loved, originating in others.

  • Self-Regard: Develops as children learn to view themselves positively.

  • Conditions of Worth: Learning what leads to acceptance or rejection by others.

Self-Incongruence

  • Definition: Mismatch between self-perception and perceptions of others.

  • Consequences: Can lead to disorganization and hinder development of a fully functioning person.

Sigmund Freud's Theory of Personality

  • Consciousness Levels: Conscious, Pre-conscious, Unconscious.

  • Personality Structure: Id (instinctual), Ego (executive mediator), Superego (internalized ideals).

Developmental Stages in Freud’s Theory

  • Stages: Oral, Anal, Phallic, Latency, and Genital; each with its milestones and potential fixations.

Behavior and Learning

  • Albert Bandura's Social Learning Theory: Highlights modeling and reciprocal determinism in shaping behavior.

  • Observational Learning: Learning through observing others, as illustrated by 'Bobo doll' research.