We were discussing how the new science around the interaction of DNA, personality, behavior and environment will impact the way future generations learn. The hypothesis was that in the future this new way of understanding the mind will liberate students and teachers alike from the limitations of previous learning models.
Combined with powerful online learning tools, we may finally be able to treat each student as an individual and respond to their needs more appropriately. For some this may mean that they are able to complete 12 years of education in 6. For others it will mean they can get specific assistance in areas of need, or accelerated learning in areas of aptitude.
It's my mission to bring this information to public consciousness and thereby provide parents, teachers and educationalists with tools to understand and manage differences in personality, learning styles, energy levels and attitude within themselves and their students.
Which brings me to a study I found recently about how what we say about others says more about us than the people we are actually judging.
A new study (excerpt below) shows that our own emotional maturity and happiness determines how we judge others. Many children are labeled at a young age by a teacher as difficult, unwilling to learn, or unable to keep up. According to a study published in August this year in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology - what we say about others, and how we judge them says a lot more about us. It is a reminder that anyone in a position of authority should take care how they label those in their care.
This ties in with the Energy Bucket's 6 Key Principles of Energy Management. Paying attention to the words we say and the way we talk about others and the world can tell us a lot about our charge. If as educators we are mindful of this, it can help us to see learners as individuals, and resist the temptation to label. Read on...
What You Say About Others Says a Lot About You, Research Shows
ScienceDaily (Aug. 3, 2010) — How positively you see others is linked to how happy, kind-hearted and emotionally stable you are, according to new research by a Wake Forest University psychology professor.
The study appears in the July issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Peter Harms at the University of Nebraska and Simine Vazire of Washington University in St. Louis co-authored the study.
The researchers found a person's tendency to describe others in positive terms is an important indicator of the positivity of the person's own personality traits. They discovered particularly strong associations between positively judging others and how enthusiastic, happy, kind-hearted, courteous, emotionally stable and capable the person describes oneself and is described by others.
"Seeing others positively reveals our own positive traits," Wood says.
The study also found that how positively you see other people shows how satisfied you are with your own life, and how much you are liked by others.
In contrast, negative perceptions of others are linked to higher levels of narcissism and antisocial behavior. "A huge suite of negative personality traits are associated with viewing others negatively," Wood says. "The simple tendency to see people negatively indicates a greater likelihood of depression and various personality disorders." Given that negative perceptions of others may underlie several personality disorders, finding techniques to get people to see others more positively could promote the cessation of behavior patterns associated with several different personality disorders simultaneously, Wood says.
This research suggests that when you ask someone to rate the personality of a particular coworker or acquaintance, you may learn as much about the rater providing the personality description as the person they are describing. The level of negativity the rater uses in describing the other person may indeed indicate that the other person has negative characteristics, but may also be a tip off that the rater is unhappy, disagreeable, neurotic -- or has other negative personality traits.
Raters in the study consisted of friends rating one another, college freshmen rating others they knew in their dormitories, and fraternity and sorority members rating others in their organization. In all samples, participants rated real people and the positivity of their ratings were found to be associated with the participant's own characteristics.
By evaluating the raters and how they evaluated their peers again one year later, Wood found compelling evidence that how positively we tend to perceive others in our social environment is a highly stable trait that does not change substantially over time.
Editor's Note: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment.
Lis Faenza has spent most of her life endeavoring to understand energy and its interaction with our DNA. Recent findings in quantum physics and quantum biology have shed light on what is going on. It's Lis' mission to bring this information to the general public. Combined with her expertise in human performance, these insights offer new approaches to our understanding of communication and learning.
To find out more about the latest research into the relationship between genes, behaviour, energy and bullying, please see "The Energy Bucket" and 'The DNA of Bullying," available as e-books from our online store at http://www.thebucketrevolution.com
