1. Personality, Self-Esteem, and Emotions
Chapter 2
Personality, Self-Esteem, and Emotions

2. Describing Personality
Personality: consists of the behaviors, attitudes, feelings and ways of thinking that make you an individual.
Identity: sense of self
5 Central Traits: describe how people behave, relate to others, and react to change.
Extroversion: this trait describes how much you like being with other people.
Characteristics: outgoing, talkative, sociable
Opposite: Introvert – tends to be shy, quiet, and reserved.
Agreeableness: this trait describes your tendency to relate to other people in a friendly way.
Characteristics: cooperative, forgiving, good-natured; think others are honest and trustworthy.
Opposite: Disagreeable – tend to be suspicious or hostile; think others are unreliable
Describing Personality

3. Conscientiousness: this trait describes how responsible and self-disciplined you are.
Characteristics: dependable, organized, make good decisions.
Opposite: careless, unorganized, easily distracted, make quick decisions without thinking them through
Emotional Stability: this trait describes people who tend to focus on the positive side of things.
Characteristics: relaxed, secure, calm
Opposite: emotionally unstable – fearful, worried, angry – tend to focus on the negatives and expect the worst in situations.
Openness to Experiences: this trait describes people who are likely to have a wide range of interests.
Characteristics: curious, imaginative, creative, independent
Opposite: less independent, likely to do what everyone else is doing

4. How Personality Forms
Heredity - refers to traits you are born with, ones you inherit from your parents.
Environment – the environment you are raised in and experiences you have during your life.
Influences on personality
Family
Friends
Culture

5. Self-Esteem and your Health
Self-esteem: refers to how much you respect yourself and like yourself.
Self-concept: refers to the view you have of yourself. (how you see yourself)
Levels of Self-Esteem
High: people with a high self-esteem accept themselves for who they are.
Characteristics: self-acceptance; realistic; has positive attitude; forms close relationships
Low: people with a low self-esteem don’t have much respect for themselves.
Characteristics: lack of self-respect; judging oneself harshly; insecure; negative thoughts
Connect to your life: Do you have high or low self-esteem? How does your self-esteem affect the way you behave?
Self-Esteem and your Health

6. Improving Your Self-Esteem
**Don’t base your self-esteem solely on other people’s opinions of you. Focus on your accomplishments, your talents, and your contributions to your family and community.
Ways to improve your self-esteem:
Make a list of your strengths and weaknesses.
Set ambitious, but realistic goals for yourself.
Don’t be too hard on yourself – know it’s okay to make mistakes.
Rely on your values.
Learn to accept compliments.
Look beyond your own concerns – do something nice for others.
Don’t focus too much on appearance.

8. Expressing Your Emotions
Emotion: a reaction to a situation that involves your mind, body, and behavior.
Primary Emotions: emotions that are expressed by people of all cultures.
Happiness
Sadness
Anger
Fear
Learned Emotions: emotions that are not expressed the same way by all people, also known as social emotions; depend on the social environment in which a person grows up.
Love
Guilt
Shame
*Can you think of some other learned emotions?
Expressing Your Emotions

9. Recognizing Your Emotions
Step 1: Name the emotion you are feeling.
Step 2: Determine what triggered the emotion.
Step 3: Think of similar experiences.
*Connect to your life: Which is more difficult to do, name the emotion you’re feeling or pinpoint it’s source? Why?
Recognizing Your Emotions

10. Coping With Your Emotions
Coping strategy: a way of dealing with an uncomfortable or unbearable feeling or situation.
Defense mechanisms: coping strategies that help you to protect yourself from difficult feelings.
Common Defense Mechanisms
Denial
Refusing to recognize an emotion or a problem.
Compensation
Making up for weaknesses in one area by excelling in another area.
Rationalization
Making excuses for actions or feelings.
Reaction Formation
Behaving in a way opposite to the way you feel.
Projection
Putting your own faults onto another person.
Regression
Returning to immature behaviors to express emotions.

11. Confront the situation; take action to improve the situation.
Helpful Ways of Coping
Confront the situation; take action to improve the situation.
Release your built up energy by being active in some way.
Take a break by relaxing, listening to music, reading a book, writing about your feelings, etc.
Talk through your feelings with someone you trust.
Harmful Ways of Coping
Withdrawing from friends or family.
Using alcohol or drugs.
Self-harm.
Helpful Ways of Coping