Abstract
Virtues are inherent among people. Virtues are positive qualities possessed by every individual and that which makes the person morally upright. The virtues that people possess tend to impact their cognitive, emotional, and behavioural well-being. This paper presents three of my top virtues namely honesty, self-regulation, and humility. The three virtues are examined based on their impacts on cognitive, emotional, and behavioural health.
Value refers to a human’s ability to sense whether happenings in the environment are relatively desirable (Dolan, 2002, 1191). Dolan (2002) describes emotion as something that is apparent in what people remember and notice but that emotion is not the everyday events per se but the feelings of sorrow, joy, pain, and pleasure. Emotion offers the primary currency in human dealings as well as the motivational power for what is preeminent and despicable in human behaviour. On the other hand, the development of the learning of cognition as a subject within psychology started with the cognitive revolution (Phelps, 2006, p. 27). Cognition is characterized as a response to the domination of behaviourism in the past century. Cognition and emotion interact with each other. Both cognition and emotion makes up the human behaviour.
In the activity titled Virtues in Action Survey and Paper, three of my character strengths that emerged the most were as follows: honesty, self-regulation, and humility. Based on the survey, honesty is about being a real person, down to earth and without pretentions, and living life in an authentic and genuine way. On the other hand, self-regulation regulates what the emotions and actions. Through self-regulation, the person becomes disciplined and in control of emotions and appetites. Humility, on the contrary, does not search for the spotlight but rather have preference in letting the accomplishments speak. Honesty, self-regulation, and humility benefits the cognitive, emotional, and behavioural health in certain ways.
Honesty provides honest information to a person’s emotion. In the absence of honesty, the person tends to cover up the real feelings and succumb to pretention that all is well when reality is the person feels the other way around. For instance, a person who bereaves over the death of a loved one tends to conceal the reality that he or she is hurting. That person would usually put up a façade to make people believe that the death of a loved one has already been accepted. In another way, a person engaging in a cognitive behavioural therapy must display honesty in order for the therapist to know the root of the problem.
Through self-regulation, the person becomes responsible in taking control over emotions and cognition. When a loved one passes away, other people encounter difficulty in accepting that reality. Hence, they often turn to alcohol and other harmful behaviours to protect themselves from the pain. In this case, self-regulation is absent in that individual. A self-regulated person is able to accept the feelings of hurt and loss and becomes accepting of the fact that death is a part and parcel of living.
In the aspect of humility, a person who is humble has the capacity to face reality that life is made up of failures and successes. Further, the person is aware that victory is not always at one side. While one may experience failure right now, there is still hope for success in the next venture. By being humble, the emotions and cognitions of the individuals become more open in accepting the faculties of being human.
Honesty, self-regulation, and humility are three of the virtues that enable people to be healthier and more optimistic on their outlook in life. These three virtues make up for a healthier cognitive, emotional, and behavioural well-being.
References
Dolan, R. (2002). Emotion, cognition, and behaviour. Science, 298(5596), 1191--1194.
Phelps, E. (2006). Emotion and cognition: insights from studies of the human amygdala. Annu. Rev. Psychol., 57, 27--53.
