Exercise 4:

Think about the features of a person with high personal culture? List 5 features that characterize a person with high personal culture.

The principles of personal culture enter practically every sphere of life, defining norms of conduct and regulating interpersonal relations. Personal culture at home is slightly different than at work, but in practice it is based on similar principles. In general, personal culture is a set of norms that facilitate coexistence with other members of society. These are not strict rules that should be memorized - personal culture is rather certain social skills that in many situations make life easier. Knowing the rules of good manners increases self-confidence and makes it easier to enter into relationships with other people.

In the colloquial, narrower sense, it is said that someone is a man of high personal culture, that is, he is a well-mannered person scrupulously following the rules of morality and politeness. However, each of us should have high personal culture, regardless of the place of employment. However, there are job offers in which employers mark this feature as superior. It is needed not only in specialized industries, but also in contacts with customers.

A person's personal culture is more than just polite and courteous behaviour towards others. It consists of various attitudes, which for some are obvious, because they have been assimilated with upbringing, while others simply have to learn them. Personal culture consists of the rules concerning:

• socializing depending on the situation

• behaviour in special situations (foreign guests, conflict)

• saying hello,

• eating meals as well as appropriate posture while eating

• selection of a dress code adequate to the situation - that is, how to choose the right clothes for a given situation in order to feel comfortable and not to offend anyone,

• social norms (including body language)

Personal culture is closely related to the concept of savoir-vivre, i.e. the principles of good manners. Why is it worth getting to know them? Savoir-vivre applies to virtually every sphere of our life and serves to facilitate everyday social activities. The rules of savoir-vivre define in detail the norms of behaviour in a specific situation - who should we greet first, how to dress appropriately to the situation and how to behave in the company of a specific group of people.

It is worth knowing the rules of savoir-vivre, if only to be able to break some of them consciously. As the maxim of specialists in diplomacy and good manners says: "It is not an art to know the rules - the trick is to know when they can be broken".

Each society allows an individual a certain margin of originality, some deviations from generally accepted patterns. This margin may be wider or narrower depending on the social role and position of the individual in the community.

It should be remembered that a different scope of freedom is left to artists, creators, scientists, materially independent people, and another, more limited, e.g. to judges, teachers, doctors, state officials, economists, police officers, and entrepreneurs.

Analysing each aspect of personal culture in detail, the following can be distinguished:

1. Intellectual qualities, which include: way of thinking, understanding concepts, efficiency of thinking processes (analysis, synthesis, generalization, concretization, abstract), intelligence (understood not as eloquence, but as the ability, the ability to adapt to new, changing living conditions and work).

2. Emotional sensitivity, that is: compassion (empathy), shared experience, identification, understanding, forbearance, tolerance, etc. It is mainly about the ability to empathize with other people's emotional states and respect them. In addition, it is worth mastering the ability to control your emotions and temperamental traits as well as a sense of humour.

3. Directional development of personality, including views, attitudes, beliefs, life and professional ideals;

4. Conduct and behaviour, in particular:

• adherence to good manners and manners,

• the language we use in dealing with others,

• tactful behaviour towards others, showing respect, interest,

• readiness to help,

• using decent methods of operation:

5. Effectiveness of activities and products of this activity. Undoubtedly, an element of personal culture is the effectiveness (efficiency) of conduct and the quality of products resulting from the behaviour and work of an individual;

6. Ethical values, otherwise internalized rules and norms of socio-moral behaviour; and at the same time openness to contacts with other people and the ability to cooperate and coexist;

7. Taking care of health and personal hygiene as well as appearance and beauty