Individual’s ability to cope effectively with the Environment

Adjustment is concerned with the individual’s ability to cope with the environment. It is a general term that denotes either good or successful adjustment or fits the purpose for which he is intended. The housewife organizes her daily routines to meet the needs and is concerned with the adjustment of worker responsibilities. We constantly attempt to meet our needs and interests. At the same time, we are engaged in the process of adjusting ourselves-our attitudes and behaviors to meet the satisfactorily the demands made up on our personal problems and our social relationships. Poor environmental conditions and/or deficient personality are more than likely to encourage the development of maladjustment that can be harmful both to the individual himself and to those other persons whose lives are affected by his demonstrated attitudes and behavior.

Process of human adjustment. There are two points to view concerning the process of human adjustment. According to one point of view an individual is personally responsible for his attitudes and behavior in all areas of his/her life and relationships. Emphasis is placed on the ability to chart his course of action. He is master of his fate. The other school of thought claims that an individual’s beliefs, attitudes, and general pattern of adjustment of any one time are determined to a great extent by the effects on his developing personally, of his previous experiences and his present environmental influences. Whether, human needs must be aroused and then satisfied.

And individual’s degree of successful life adjustment is closely related to past experience, environmental influences and personal strengths. An individual possesses the power to select and to apply to himself the environmental elements and the experiences that may seem to him to be best suited to satisfactory adjustment.

An individual’s adjustment is adequate wholesome or healthful to the extent that he has established a harmonious relationship between himself and the condition and social environment. An individual who is unable to surmount obstacles in his path to achievement or when is rejected by the members of his group may become inadequately adjusted. Complete rejection or repeated failure to achieve is likely to be conducive to maladjustment.

Among the criteria that encompass are the possession of

• A wholesome outlook on life.
• A realistic perception of life.
• Emotional and social maturity.
• A good balance between the inner and outer forces that activate behavior.

Human beings are alike in many ways but they differ from one another in physical constitution and health status, degree of mental alertness and emotional status. Temperamental differences show themselves in individual likes and dislikes, compelling interests and ambitions and attitudes and behavior toward other ‘people’. As one attempts to adjust in his interaction with environmental elements, he may either attempt to adapt to them or try to change them in light of his own interests and needs. The child or adolescent attempts to adjust to interpersonal relationship in such ways as to find a respected place for himself / herself in various groups. Hence, he is encouraged, for example, to consider the interests and needs of other person as well as his own. Interaction between ourselves and our environment is an integral part of our living.

Adjustment is a continuous process that tends to bring out more or less changing attitudes throughout the individual’s life. For example, a person who has spent much of the life to rural areas removed from the meeting of various types of group usually find his attitudes affected toward this new groups by his moving to an urban community in which they are found. During his or her entire life time every human being is struggling toward the attainment of one another goal- self-expression, self-realization, self-esteem, adventure, economic and social security and the like. A person’s compulsion toward activity and its overt manifestation are influences by the interests, ambitions and altitudes of other persons. When an individual and the other members of his or her group are motivated by similar interests and ambitions, their cooperative activities tend to be productive of individual and group satisfaction and interadjustment.