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Worldview By The Time Any Questionnaire

¶ … worldview?

By the time any person is old enough to be consciously aware of his surroundings, the individual has already begun absorbing many different types of messages about self, others, and society. Throughout the socialization process, every person is continuously influenced by behavior, beliefs, and interpersonal relationships within the family, the immediate external community, and the wider external community. By the time any person reaches adulthood, the individual regards certain ideas, beliefs, and too many superficial and arbitrary norms and expectations to count as "normal." The combined set of all of any person's norms, values, beliefs, and expectations constitutes his or her worldview.

Why is it important to have a worldview?

In some respects, the elements of a person's worldview are the core of that person's intellectual relationship with the external world. A worldview could be considered essential "software" to the "hardware" of the human being. It provides the history of the development of any person's beliefs about the world and about his or her relationship to the world and the person's beliefs about fundamental ideas. Without an intact worldview, a person would have no existing system of fundamental beliefs or values. For those of us with strong religious beliefs and values, one of the most important elements of our worldview is that it permits us to maintain and pass along our most crucial core values.

What role do assumptions have in a personal worldview?

Assumptions are, in many respects, the core of worldviews. That is because by the time a person is old enough to have conscious beliefs and values and ideas about significant issues, he or she has already absorbed virtually every part of his or her worldview from others. Certain aspects of a person's worldview are functions of his or her society; other aspects are functions of experiences and messages absorbed within the family of origin; and still others reflect culture and other group identities. By definition, any foundational ideas that precede conscious thought or deliberation are initial assumptions. In principle, the mature and intelligent and educated adult strives to control, understand, and change any parts of one's worldview that he or she recognizes as being a product of unproductive beliefs or tendencies learned from others. Ultimately, that person's worldview reflects a mixture of initial assumptions and conscious thought and decisions throughout life.

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