Module-Introduction

Individual Behaviour
Every person differs from the other, either physically or psychologically. Even the twins are no exception to
this. They differ in some aspects or other. Particularly when we look at people from psychological point of view
these differences are very evident. In many instances even the children differ from their parents.
They will have some similarities with some forefathers or grandparents instead of their parents. What makes
these differences to exist? What are the causes? The answer to these queries can be traced from two factors, viz.,
heredity and environment.
The basic sources of personality development are heredity and environment.
1. Heredity:
Heredity refers to the genetic inheritance received by every individual at the time of conception. The physical
characteristics such as height, weight, colour of eye and skin, social and intellectual behaviour are determined
by heredity. Differences in these characteristics are due to the change in the genes transmitted. Fraternal twins
also differ from each other, because they are born out of different genes. However, we find more resemblances
in identical twins because they are born out of monozygotic.
• Genetic makeup
• Inherited from parents
• Colour of eyes and skin
• Height
• Certain traits like Intelligence, anxiety, anger etc.
• Humans have very little control on this factor.

2. Environment:
In simple terms environment means the society, the fields of society and even the whole world. But here, the
word environment is restricted to mean the environment within mother’s womb and just born, as well as the
environment around the individual. Like heredity, environment also has been found to play a very important
role in determining the behaviour and personality development of an individual. The environmental influences
are those which act upon the organism at the earlier stages of development, i.e., before and also after birth.
Environment includes all the extrinsic forces, influences and conditions which affect the life, nature, behaviour,
the growth, development and maturation of living organism.
The home atmosphere, parental love and affection, association with sibling, neighbours, peers, teachers, etc.
will create an entirely different and new atmosphere. This is called social environment. All the social factors
stated above shape the personality of the child.
There is a long standing controversy regarding the importance of heredity and environment. Supporters of
heredity say that the environment cannot change a dog into a goat. On the other hand, the environmentalists are
of the opinion that for the development of a plant only seed is not important but also environment like sunlight,
manure, water, etc.
Innumerable studies have been conducted on both sides. However, the results indicate that heredity and
environment are interdependent forces. Whatever the heredity supplies, the favourable environment brings it
out. Personality characteristics attained by heredity are shaped by environment.
• Upbringing after birth
• Parents and Siblings
• Early childhood
• Education
• Friends and Significant others
• First Work Environment
3. Situation
An individual’s personality, while generally stable and consistent, does change in different situations. The
varying demands of different situations call forth different aspects of one’s personality. All those positive as
well as negative events during one’s lifetime, Ups and Downs in life that teaches us certain lessons of life.
Human personality is also influenced by situational factors.

The basic model of individual behaviour shows us the antecedents and consequences that can be seen with the
interaction and intersection of the elements as seen in the diagram.

Personality- Definition
-The sum total of ways in which an individual reacts andinteracts with others.
-The unique and relatively stable patterns of behaviour,thoughts, and emotions shown by individuals

The Big Five Model

Openness to experience. The openness to experience dimension addresses range of interests and fascination
with novelty. Extremely open people are creative, curious, and artistically sensitive. Those at the other end of
the category are conventional and find comfort in the familiar
Conscientiousness. The conscientiousness dimension is a measure of reliability. A highly conscientious person
is responsible, organized, dependable, and persistent. Those who score low on this dimension are easily
distracted, disorganized, and unreliable.
Extraversion. The extraversion dimension captures our comfort level with relationships. Extraverts tend to be
gregarious, assertive, and sociable. Introverts tend to be reserved, timid, and quiet.
Agreeableness. The agreeableness dimension refers to an individual’s propensity to defer to others. Highly
agreeable people are cooperative, warm, and trusting. People who score low on agreeableness are cold,
disagreeable, and antagonistic.
Emotional stability/ Neuroticism. The emotional stability dimension—often labelled by its converse,
neuroticism—taps a person’s ability to withstand stress. People with positive emotional stability tend to be calm,
self-confident, and secure. Those with high negative scores tend to be nervous, anxious, depressed, and insecure.
Job fit
Job fit is critical to every employee’s success – and ultimately, your business’s success as well.
Job fit is a concept that explains whether the intersection between an employee's strengths, needs and experience,
and the requirements of a particular job and work environment—match—or not. When the two interests match,
an employee and your organization experience a good job fit.

Employers pay attention to the skills and experience that a potential employee brings to the interview table.
Fewer employers actively assess whether the candidate will fit well into the culture of the organization. Even
fewer look at the total picture and assess the candidate's job fit.
Holland’s Theory of Vocational Choice
John Holland, professor emeritus psychologist at John Hopkins proposed a theory that personality factors of an
individual influences their career choices. They intend to work with people who have same preferences as them
at work, chose to prefer job where their present skill and abilities can be optimally used to improve their career
graphs while also be satisfied with their job performance .

Holland described six personality types are visually represented by a hexagonal model. The types are

The typology inherent in Holland’s theory organizes the voluminous data about people in different jobs and the
data about different work environments to suggest how people make vocational choices and explain how job
satisfaction and vocational achievement occur.

1. Most people possess one of six modal personality types: Realistic (R), Investigative (I), Artistic (A),
Social (S), Enterprising (E), or Conventional (C). Table below summarizes each of the six “RIASEC”
types and gives examples of occupations associated with them. Each environment is dominated by a
given type of personality and is typified by physical settings posing special circumstances.
2. People search for environments that allow them to exercise their skills and abilities, express their
attitudes and values, and assume agreeable circumstances and roles.
3. A person’s behaviour is determined by an interaction between his or her personality and the
characteristics of the environment. Based on an individual’s personality pattern and the pattern of the
environment, some outcomes of such a pairing can, in principle, be forecasted using knowledge of
personality types and environmental models. Such outcomes include choice of vocation, job changes,
vocational achievement, personal competence, and educational and social behaviour.
4. The degree of consistency within a person or an environment is also defined using the hexagonal model.
Adjacent types on the hexagon are most consistent, or have compatible interests, personal dispositions,
or job duties. Opposite types on the hexagon are most inconsistent, or combine personal characteristics
or job functions that are usually unrelated.
5. The degree of differentiation of a person or an environment modifies predictions made from a person’s
typology, from an occupational code, or from the interaction of both. Some persons or environments are
more closely defined than others; for instance, a person may closely resemble a single type and show
little resemblance to other types, or an environment may be dominated largely by a single type. In
 contrast, a person who resembles many types or an environment characterized by about equal numbers
of workers in each of the six types would be labelled undifferentiated or poorly defined.

Practical Applications of Holland’s theory of Vocational Choice

Career development professionals’ primary uses of Holland’s theory of vocational choice pertain to
orienting clients to the world of work, providing a systematic means for career exploration, and,
ultimately, facilitating career decision making and planning. Many clients find the theory’s basic tenets
pragmatic and easy to grasp. In addition, many career-related resources incorporate Holland’s theory.
These factors, in addition to its longevity, substantial research base, and renown among career-
development professionals, have contributed to the theory’s popularity and utility. A complex
workplace, numerous known and unknown career decisions, personal and workplace uncertainties, and
many uncontrollable factors pose daunting concerns to many people who confront career decisions. By
imposing order and structure, Holland’s theory offers a means of helping both career counsellors and
clients make career decisions that promise fulfilment. Awareness of a proven, practical method for easing
the process can be empowering. The theory’s research and applied bases, along with its structure and
inherent systematic processes, offer clients assurance as they acquire a better understanding of
themselves and their options.

• Realistic (R)- The ‘Do-er’

• Investigative (I) — The ‘Thinker’
• Artistic (A) — The ‘Creator’
• Social (S) — The ‘Helper’
• Enterprising (E) — The ‘Persuader’
• Conventional (C ) — The ‘Organiser’
•
Beat Generosity Burnout/ Generosity Spectrum – by Prof Adam Grant

This Harvard Business Review on the research done by Professor Adam Grant and Reb Rebele, details how to
identify the Takers, Matchers, Self- Protective Givers, Selfless Givers.
“Although givers are the most valuable people in organizations, they’re also at the greatest risk for burnout.
When they don’t protect themselves, their investments in others can cause them to feel overloaded and fatigued,
fall behind on their work goals and face more stress and conflict at home.” The norm is the expectation that we
should give, give, give. We readily agree, reactively, too many requests that are not in our best interest and
ultimately our company. In particular, Employees in the HR Department, including Payroll Administrators, are
constantly criticised for not being ‘a peoples’ person’ because they put in boundaries. Those who don’t put
those boundaries in place and don’t proactively respond to requests, giving each ‘demand’ thought, face burnout.
Lack of efficiency. Competency is eroded.

Emotions
In psychology, emotion is often defined as a complex state of feeling that results in physical and psychological
changes that influence thought and behavior. According to the American Psychological Association (APA),
emotion is defined as “a complex reaction pattern, involving experiential, behavioral and physiological
elements.”
Emotional competence
Emotional competence refers to a person's ability in expressing or releasing their inner feelings (emotions). It
implies an ease around others and determines one's ability to effectively and successfully lead and express
WHAT IS EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE OR EQ?
Emotional intelligence (otherwise known as emotional quotient or EQ) is the ability to understand, use, and
manage your own emotions in positive ways to relieve stress, communicate effectively, empathize with others,
overcome challenges and defuse conflict. Emotional intelligence helps you build stronger relationships, succeed
at school and work, and achieve your career and personal goals. It can also help you to connect with your
feelings, turn intention into action, and make informed decisions about what matters most to you.

Why Emotional Intelligence is Important

It’s a scientific fact that emotions precede thought. When emotions run high, they change the way our brains
function, diminishing our cognitive abilities, decision-making powers, and interpersonal skills. Understanding
and managing our emotions and the emotions of others supports us to be more effective in our personal and
professional lives.
At a personal level, emotional intelligence helps At work, emotional intelligence can help us:
us:
 Have uncomfortable conversations without  Resolve conflicts
hurting feelings  Coach and motivate others
 Manage our emotions when stressed or feeling  Create a culture of collaboration
overwhelmed  Build psychological safety within teams
 Improve relationships with the people we care  It is easier to work well under constantly
about changing circumstances and to act on your ideas
 good understanding of yourself (Self- in ways that benefit the organization.
Awareness), your strengths, and your
weaknesses is essential to superior performance
when on the job
APPLICABILITY OF EI ON OTHER FACTORS
Motivation and Creativity-It is no surprise that moods and emotions significantly affect our psyche. When we
feel good about ourselves and the world around we tend to find greater intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. In
turn, this motivation helps us express out personality better and be more creative and optimistic. EI relates to
contemporary theories of motivation that are based on evaluation of your social awareness and emotional
responsiveness in a given situation. Thus, being emotionally intelligent, being aware of emotions and their
causes can help stay attuned to motivated attitude, express and project it on others, and produce better results at
work and in personal life. Additionally, EI contributes to ethical behavior and creates positive work
environment, influencing employees‘ job attitudes in a healthy way.
Job Performance- Expressing organizationally desired emotions during interpersonal interactions at work can
be tiresome and counter-productive for employees. The true challenge arises when employees have to project
one emotion while simultaneously feeling another. This disparity is called emotional dissonance. Accumulated
feelings of frustration, anger, and resentment lead to exhaustion and burnout. Felt emotions are an individual‘s
actual emotions. In contrast, displayed emotions are those that the organization requires workers to show and
considers appropriate in a given job: ―Effective managers have learned to be serious when giving an employee
a negative performance evaluation and to hide their anger when they‘ve been passed over for promotion.
Therefore, at work people have to get used to constant ―acting. This acting can be acquired on either surface
or deep level. Surface acting is hiding one‘s inner feelings and foregoing emotional expressions in response to
display rules. On the other hand, deep acting is trying to modify one‘s true inner feelings based on displayed
rules. Surface acting deals with one‘s displayed emotions, and deep acting deals with one‘s felt emotions.
Research shows that surface acting is more stressful to employees than deep acting because it entails ―feigning
one‘s true emotions. Being emotionally intelligent helps acquire deep acting skills and cope with emotional
stress and burnout at work. Several studies suggest that EI plays an important role in job performance. One study
looked at the successes and failures of eleven American presidents – from Franklin Roosevelt to Bill Clinton.
They were evaluated on six qualities- communication, organization, political skill, vision, cognitive style, and
emotional intelligence. It was found that the key quality that differentiated the successful from the unsuccessful
was emotional intelligence.
Decision Making- Many researchers agree that the key to good decision making is to employ both thinking and
feeling in one‘s decisions. Positive moods and emotions seem to help decision making. People experiencing
positive emotions are more likely to use heuristics to help make good decisions quickly. Positive emotions also
enhance problem-solving skills so that positive people find better solutions to problems.
Negotiation- Everybody knows that negotiation is an emotional process. Being aware of emotions and moods
of oneself and others can help manage stressful situations and improve conflict resolution. Active listening
techniques and reading non-verbal cues to recognize and understand emotions are elements of both EI and
successful negotiations.
Leadership- Effective leaders rely on emotional appeals to help convey their messages. ―When leaders feel
excited, enthusiastic, and active, they may be more likely to energize their subordinates and convey a sense of
efficacy, competence, optimism, and enjoyment. Therefore, successful leaders are also emotionally intelligent.
Personal Growth- Being able to identify and manage emotions is about staying aware and open to change.
Emotional intelligence conditions a person to be flexible, responsive to others, and strong in the core. Research
shows that emotionally intelligent people achieve better results at work, school, and personal life and are more
successful and fulfilled. They also insist on that personal growth can be achieved through developing EI
competences.
Globalization and Diversity- The frequency and intensity of emotions vary across cultures. In China, people
report experiencing fewer positive and negative emotions than people in other cultures, and the emotions they
experience are less intense. Therefore, norms for the expression of emotions differ across cultures. It may seem
that being emotionally intelligent in one culture may not guarantee success across other cultures. However, the
evidence suggests that EI is a multifaceted ability that transcends cultural boundaries and allows a person to
attune to diverse backgrounds.
EMOTIONAL CONTAGION
Social interactions can trigger emotional contagion between individuals resulting in behavioral synchrony. One
underlying concept to help explain these types of phenomena is called “emotional contagion”. Authors of the
book “Emotional Contagion” describe it as “the tendency to automatically mimic and synchronize facial
expressions, vocalizations, postures, and movements with those of another person and, consequently, to
converge emotionally.” In other words, it’s about “catching” the feelings of another person.

Emotional contagion can involve the spread of both negative and positive emotions, which can occur either
consciously or unconsciously, although usually in subtle and unintentional ways. Research shows
emotional contagion is detectable in how verbal and nonverbal cues are processed by. Emotional intelligence,
specifically recognition, and understanding can help us in identifying how we process emotional cues.
Particularly, studies have found that our conscious assessments of other peoples’ feelings are influenced more
by what others said—and in contrast, peoples’ own emotions are influenced more by nonverbal cues and
opposed what they were really feeling. The act of being emotionally contagious is universal and automatic.
Because certain people and moods can be more contagious or susceptible to emotional contagion, research has
also found that the energy in those moods influences can be more powerful than the actual emotion displayed.
Emotional Contagion can ultimately affect our moods and the moods of others.

EMOTIONAL LABOR
Emotional labor is a form of emotional regulation wherein workers are expected to display certain emotions as
part of their job, and to promote organizational goals. The intended effects of these emotional displays are on
other, targeted people, who can be clients, customers, subordinates or co-workers. By definition (Hochschild,
1983, The Managed Heart), emotional labor refers to regulating or managing emotional expressions with others
as part of one’s professional work role.
What are some examples of Emotional Labor?
-As a form of labor, emotional labor is most prototypically in jobs that require “service with a smile”, or any
front-line, public-facing job interacting with clients, customers, and patients. At times, employees may have to
emotionally labor with co-workers and supervisors to get their work done.
-To perform emotional labor, employees may use deep acting to modify their inner emotions, like “pump
themselves up” before going out on the work floor (for example, a teacher may do this on the first day) or doing
pep talks (for example, flight attendants reminding themselves that passengers are their guests on this flight).
-It can also involve surface acting, when employee hide their inner emotions and fake a smile, which is likely
when they are tired or when facing a rude customer or upset patient.

Here are some common strategies that organizations use to help their staff deal with the demands of emotional
labor:
• Teach 'display' rules – These are organizationally approved norms or standards that workers learn
through observation, instruction, feedback, and reinforcement. Staff are taught how to act, and they may even
be given scripts to use when dealing directly with clients. Therapists are taught to act neutrally, retail workers
are taught to act positively, and bill collectors are often taught to act aggressive. Combining these display rules
with company culture is very important.
• Offer staff assistance programs – Organizations invest in the care and development of their workers by
providing access to stress management and emotional health services. This strategy recognizes that emotional
labor can be hard work.
• Teach problem-solving techniques – To move workers beyond using scripts or relying on other display
rules, some companies help their staff solve problems more effectively. This helps people build confidence, and
reduce their negative reactions to angry or unpredictable situations. The better that workers are able to deal with
problems, the more likely they are to resolve interpersonal issues before they lead to negative emotions.
• Improve emotional intelligence – The ability to recognize other people's emotions is an effective way to
reduce the burden of emotional labor. Building empathy and using other emotional intelligence tools help reduce
the likelihood that emotional conflict will lead to emotional exhaustion.
• Share knowledge – One of the most effective ways to help people deal with the realities of emotional
labor is to share success stories. Allow staff to learn how others successfully deal with the impact of emotional
conflict.
• Bring emotional labor into the performance evaluation process – Organizations can recognize the
importance of emotional labor by measuring workers' emotional effort factors and commitment to customer
service. How well do workers deal with angry people? What type of attitude do they bring to work every day?
Do they show tolerance and patience? When workers are rewarded for their emotional labor, it provides an
incentive for them to show organizationally accepted emotions more often.

EMOTIONAL DISSONANCE.
In 1983, Arlie Russell Hochschild, who wrote about emotional labor, coined the term emotional dissonance. In
the workplace, emotional dissonance is the conflict between emotions experienced by the employee and those
required by the organization. Emotional dissonance occurs whenever expressed emotions are in conformity with
organizational norms, but are clashing with true feelings. There are various studies that support the fact that
emotionally demanding situation also result in emotional dissonance. The work factors like role incongruence,
lack of support, role conflict, organization culture and lack of appreciation give rise to negative emotion as well
to the negative effect of emotional work. Also emotional dissonance along with these factor when coupled with
emotionally demanding situation worsen emotional dissonance.
 In surface acting, the alternative strategy, employees modify their displays without shaping inner feelings. They
conform to the display rules in order to keep the job, not to help the customer or the organization, ("faking in
bad faith"). Though both forms of acting are internally false, they represent different intentions. That is, when
engaging in deep acting, an actor attempts to modify feelings to match the required displays, in order to seem
authentic to the audience ("faking in good faith"). Deep acting is argued to be associated with reduced stress and
an increased sense of personal accomplishment; whereas surface acting is associated with increased stress,
emotional exhaustion, depression, and a sense of inauthenticity
Various ways to ease or reduce negative effect of emotional work include
Identity i.e., helping employee maintain their identity than letting job defining who they are
Power i.e., providing job control to employees to some extent, use of hidden transcripts,
Role distancing behavior i.e., teaching employee to detach themselves from their job role to feel at ease,
Strategic interaction and organization identification
Use of appraisal training can also help change felt emotion to organization desired emotion by reappraising work
situation in positive light.
Training into deep acting, training to increase tolerance, and employer preparing employee for interaction reduce
emotional dissonance

EMOTIONAL HYGIENE AND EMOTIONAL FIRST AID BY PROF. GUY

WINCH
5 Ways to Improve Your Emotional Health (excerpts from an article)

Dr. Guy Winch gave a TED Talk on "How to Practice Emotional Hygiene. He says “If you don’t know what
emotional hygiene is, don’t worry; most people don’t. Here’s a brief definition:

In much the same way that dental hygiene involves brushing our teeth and flossing every day, and personal
hygiene involves cleaning ourselves and taking care of physical injuries when we sustain them, emotional
hygiene refers to being mindful of our psychological health and adopting brief daily habits to monitor and
address psychological wounds when we sustain them. Currently, our general neglect of our emotional hygiene
is profound. How is it we spend more time each day taking care of our teeth than our minds? We brush and floss
but what daily activity do we do to maintain our psychological health?

It seems that all our attention goes toward our physical health with none left over for our psychological health.
How many habits have you adopted and changed over the years to better your physical health? Now ask yourself
what habits you’ve adopted to better your psychological health: Do you monitor psychological injuries such as
failure or rejection when you sustain them, to make sure your self-esteem recovers and rebounds? Here are five
tips for improving your emotional hygiene:

1. Pay Attention to Emotional Pain

If a physical ache or pain doesn’t get better in a few days, you probably take some kind of action. The same
should be true of psychological pain. If you find yourself hurting emotionally for several days because of a
rejection, a failure, a bad mood, or any other reason, it means you’ve sustained a psychological wound and
you need to treat it with emotional-first-aid techniques.

2. Stop Emotional Bleeding

Many psychological wounds launch vicious cycles that only make the pain worse. For example, failure can
lead to a lack of confidence and feelings of helplessness that only make you more likely to fail again in the
future. Having awareness of these consequences, catching these negative cycles, and stopping your emotional
bleeding by correcting them is crucial in many such situations.
3. Protect Your Self-Esteem
Our self-esteem acts as an emotional immune system (learn more here) which can buffer us and lend us greater
emotional resilience. Therefore, we should get in the habit of monitoring our self-esteem, boosting it when it
is low, and avoiding negative self-talk of the kind that damages it further.

4. Battle Negative Thinking

It is natural to think about distressing events, but when our thinking becomes repetitive we are no longer
problem-solving, we are ruminating. Ruminating can be very costly to our psychological health, as well as to
our physical health, and can put us at risk for clinical depression and even cardiovascular disease. We have to
battle negative thinking and avoid falling into the habit of over-focusing on distressing events.

5. Become Informed About the Impact of Psychological Wounds

There is much more we need to learn about emotional hygiene and how to treat psychological wounds.
Fortunately, much information is available in this blog as well as elsewhere on PsychologyToday.com. When
you learn how to treat psychological wounds—and teach your children how to do so as well—you will not
only build emotional resilience, you will thrive.

7 ways to practice emotional first aid (excerpts from an article)

Psychologist Guy Winch lays out seven useful ways to reboot your emotional health … starting right
now.

You put a bandage on a cut or take antibiotics to treat an infection, right? No questions asked. In fact,
questions would be asked if you didn’t apply first aid when necessary. So why isn’t the same true of our
mental health? We are expected to just “get over” psychological wounds — when as anyone who’s ever
ruminated over rejection or agonized over a failure knows only too well, emotional injuries can be just as
crippling as physical ones. We need to learn how to practice emotional first aid. Here are 7 ways to do so:

1.Pay attention to emotional pain — recognize it when it happens and work to treat it before it feels all-
encompassing.
The body evolved the sensation of physical pain to alert us that something is wrong and we need to address it.
The same is true for emotional pain. If a rejection, failure or bad mood is not getting better, it means you’ve
sustained a psychological wound and you need to treat it. For example, loneliness can be devastatingly
damaging to your psychological and physical health, so when you or your friend or loved one is feeling
socially or emotionally isolated, you need to take action.

2. Redirect your gut reaction when you fail.

The nature of psychological wounds makes it easy for one to lead to another. Failure can often drive you to
focus on what you can’t do instead of focusing on what you can. That can then make you less likely to
perform at your best, which will make you even more focused on your shortcomings, and on the cycle goes.
To stop this sort of emotional spiral, learn to ignore the post-failure “gut” reaction of feeling helpless and
demoralized, and make a list of factors that you can control were you to try again. For instance, think about
preparation and planning, and how you might improve each of them. This kind of exercise will reduce feelings
of helplessness and improve your chances of future success.

3.Monitor and protect your self-esteem. When you feel like putting yourself down, take a moment to be
compassionate to yourself.
Self-esteem is like an emotional immune system that buffers you from emotional pain and strengthens your
emotional resilience. As such, it is very important to monitor it and avoid putting yourself down, particularly
when you are already hurting. One way to “heal” damaged self-esteem is to practice self-compassion. When
you’re feeling critical of yourself, do the following exercise: imagine a dear friend is feeling bad about him or
herself for similar reasons and write an email expressing compassion and support. Then read the email. Those
are the messages you should be giving yourself.

4.When negative thoughts are taking over, disrupt them with positive distraction.

When you replay distressing events in your mind without seeking new insight or trying to solve a problem,
you’re just brooding, and that, especially when it becomes habitual, can lead to deeper psychological pain. The
best way to disrupt unhealthy rumination is to distract yourself by engaging in a task that requires concentration
(for example, do a Sudoku, complete a crossword, try to recall the names of the kids in your fifth grade class).
Studies show that even two minutes of distraction will reduce the urge to focus on the negative unhealthily.

5.Find meaning in loss.

Loss is a part of life, but it can scar us and keep us from moving forward if we don’t treat the emotional wounds
it creates. If sufficient time has passed and you’re still struggling to move forward after a loss, you need to
introduce a new way of thinking about it. Specifically, the most important thing you can do to ease your pain
and recover is to find meaning in the loss and derive purpose from it. It might be hard, but think of what you
might have gained from the loss. Consider how you might gain or help others gain a new appreciation for life,
or imagine the changes you could make that will help you live a life more aligned with your values and purpose.

6.Don’t let excessive guilt linger.

Guilt can be useful. In small doses, it alerts you to take action to mend a problem in your relationship with
another person. But excessive guilt is toxic, in that it wastes your emotional and intellectual energies, distracts
you from other tasks, and prevents you from enjoying life. One of the best ways to resolve lingering guilt is to
offer an effective apology. Yes, you might have tried apologizing previously, but apologies are more complex
than we tend to realize. The crucial ingredient that every effective apology requires — and most standard
apologies lack — is an “empathy statement.” In other words, your apology should focus less on explaining why
you did what you did and more on how your actions (or inactions) impacted the other person. It is much easier
to forgive someone when you feel they truly understand. By apologizing (even if for a second time), the other
person is much more likely to convey authentic forgiveness and help your guilt dissolve.

7.Learn what treatments for emotional wounds work for you.

Pay attention to yourself and learn how you, personally, deal with common emotional wounds. For instance, do
you shrug them off, get really upset but recover quickly, get upset and recover slowly, squelch your feelings, or
…? Use this analysis to help yourself understand which emotional first aid treatments work best for you in
various situations (just as you would identify which of the many pain relievers on the shelves works best for
you). The same goes for building emotional resilience. Try out various techniques and figure out which are
easiest for you to implement and which tend to be most effective for you. But mostly, get into the habit of taking
note of your psychological health on a regular basis — and especially after a stressful, difficult, or emotionally
painful situation.

ATTITUDE
An attitude is a psychological tendency that is expressed by evaluating a particular entity with some degree of
favour or disfavour- Eagly & Chaiken
There are Three Basic Components of Attitudes