Activity 1.1: Development of the self in society
Out of all the positive or negative influences that affect your relationships and have an impact on your life; your family is the most significant one. Parents who do not allow their children to use social media, such as Facebook, BBM, or twitter, this is an example of where our family impacts your relationships. This is because now their Son/Daughter has to find other ways of communicating with their friends. This may affect their lives positively as they may develop better communication skills, which they might have lacked if allowed to use social media.
The values that you front have great impact on your relationships. For example if you are accountable for your actions then your relationships will be affected as your will take responsibility for problems that occur in your relationships and therefore be able to fix them. Another example is if you have the value of being non-sexist, this would apply more to men and will benefit you in your relationships with women as you will have an equal relationship which would lead to less conflict. In most families, the culture, religion and background of the family affect relationships. For example, in some cultures the parents choose who their son or daughter will marry. This is called an arranged marriage, and is not based on love or freedom of choice. This kind of a relationship will also impact your life as you are forced to live with someone that you might not have wanted to marry.
In countries such as Egypt and Ghana, where both Christian and Muslim societies occur that are distributed equally; cultural views may affect relations between the two religions. Countries like these suffer from violence directed between the two religions. This has a negative impact on the relationships between people from the two religions
IN the case of violence in religion separated countries, one way in which you can improve the relationship