It is true that things in our world could be improved and that events that happen to us are

unfortunate. However, when you consistently talk about how terrible and awful something is,

you will eventually convince yourself that what you are thinking and saying is right. This kind

of self-talk causes you to feel angry, depressed, and therefore stressed. In some instances,

something is so terrible or awful that you convince yourself that "you can't stand it" or "you

can't bear it". Would not it be far less stressful and certainly more rational for your self-talk to

be: “This situation is going to be difficult for me, but I will work hard and use all my possible

attitude and abilities to be as successful as I can be”.

Overgeneralizations. We often make overgeneralizations based on a single incident or

piece of evidence, and we ignore everything else that we know about ourselves and others: all,

every, none, never, always, everybody, and nobody. Overgeneralizations frequently lead to

human worth statements about ourselves and other people. Some people make mountains out

of molehills. Sometimes we use overgeneralizations when we exaggerate shortcomings of

others: “You never listen to me. You never do anything for me”. Statements such as these lead

to anger, resentment, alienation from other people, and more stress. Would not it be more

accurate to say: “Sometimes you do not listen to me ”.

I. Find in the Glossary the definitions of the key terms and give their Russian

equivalents.

II. Find in the text words which can be used as terms in other branches of

science. What do they mean?

III. Answer the following questions:

1. What is the difference in irrational and rational beliefs?

2. How often do you use ‘should’ statements, awfulizing statements,

overgeneralizations? Why?

3. How do you think irrational self-talk contributes to a common situation

becoming more stressful?

THEME DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

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1. What is your personal definition of stress?

2. What types of situations are most stressful to you?

3. Which personality type (A, B, or C) best describes the way you prefer to live your

life?

4. How does stress affect you physically as well as behaviourally?

5. How do you personally cope and manage stress?

THEME VII . WHAT IS IMPORTANT TO ME

Key Terms: acting, attitudes, belief, choosing freely, cognitive dissonance, conceived values,

ethics, full value, idea-oriented value system, individuation, intangible values, moral values,

non-moral values, operative values, people-oriented value system, prejudice, prizing,

stereotyping, tangible values, thing-oriented value system, value indicators, value system,

value, values clarification.

Read the following text and guess the meaning of the key terms.

TEXT 1. TYPES OF VALUES AND HOW DO THEY DEVELOP

Today, people are confronted by many more choices than in previous generations. There

was a time when children grew up knowing to a far greater extent than we, what roles they

would live, and what they would believe in. They didn’t have to choose who and what they

would be. Actually, these issues were decided before they were born. Today, though, we must

make decisions about issues that were never before even called into question. We must not only

make these decisions for ourselves, we must often reevaluate our choices every couples of years.

And, it is for this reason that people are asking more value questions. First of all, we need to

identify what values are.

Authors have written extensively about the meaning of the term ‘value(s)’. For example, a

value is the degree of importance we attach to various beliefs, ideas, objects, or things. Although

the term value(s) is often used loosely, it should be synonymous with personal beliefs about the

“good”, the “just”, and the “beautiful”, personal beliefs that propel us to action, to a particular

kind of behaviour and life (Hunter Lewis, 1990). We could conclude that our values give rise to

our personal goals and tend to place limits on the means we shall use to reach them. Because we

have many values, it is, therefore, appropriate to speak of our set of values or our value system.

A set of values is more than just a set of rules and regulations. Instead, it is the underlying

system of beliefs about what is important in life to a person. Actually, our value system

represents the blueprint or guideline for the choices and decisions we make throughout our life.

Every individual operates according to a system of values, whether it is verbalized and

consistently worked out or not. Although everyone’s value system is in some degree unique, an