How to Differentiate Between Personal & Social Barriers

Remove personal barriers to connect with others.

Barriers are often invisible forces we can feel but cannot see. Differentiating between personal and social barriers is an important step in determining a course of action. Identifying a personal barrier forces you to face and confront your individual behavior. Alternatively, acknowledging a social barrier succeeds in pointing out limitations set by a group, organization or society. Finding barriers and overcoming them is a beneficial way to continue to grow within yourself and the world around you.

Instructions

1. Recognize the difference in blockages to internal and external motivation. Internal motivation -- personal -- stems from natural passions and tendencies toward certain vocations that reside inside of you. External motivations, such as money and adulation -- social -- compel you to action through means outside of yourself. Being deficient in internal motivation creates a barrier for personal growth. Failing to act on external motivations prevents social development and professional advancement.

2. Examine your cultural values and how they make you see the world. Growing up in a culture where you are pressured to look better and achieve more than other people can foster a lack of self-esteem -- a personal barrier -- in an individual. Alternatively, a lack of hygiene and cleanliness can build social barriers between indigenous people and persons living in industrial, upper middle class societies.

3. Identify distinct barriers in academic and workplace situations. Personal barriers generate from an intrinsic state -- shyness or a feeling of inadequacy, for example. Personal barriers in these settings can prevent a person from speaking up in class or taking on a challenging project. Social barriers, on the other hand, manifest in outside forces and institutional blockages -- failing to receive admission based on race or lack of a promotion due to one's sex, for instance.

4. Take into account religious differences between people. Notice how fundamental Christians, for example, deal with personal barriers including guilt and shame. A fundamental Christian may choose unfettered prayer and seeking forgiveness from God as the only means to feeling repentance. Social barriers can manifest with conflicts in world views between fundamental Christians and atheists -- persons who deny God's existence -- for example.

References

• National Institute of Health: Personal and Social Barriers
• Learning Matters: Personal and Social Barriers
• BioMed Central: Social Barriers Involving Hygiene
• British Journal of Psychiatry: Barriers Between Religion and Psychiatry