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Personal Integrity in Relationships

What is personal integrity?  There are many definitions of personal integrity.  I like the Wikipedia definition of Integrity, as follows:

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Integrity is a concept of consistency of actions, values, methods, measures, principles, expectations, and outcomes. In ethics, integrity is regarded as the honesty and truthfulness or accuracy of one's actions. Integrity can be regarded as the opposite of hypocrisy,^[1] in that integrity regards internal consistency as a virtue, and suggests that parties holding apparently conflicting values should account for the discrepancy or alter their beliefs.

The word "integrity" stems from the Latin adjective integer (whole, complete).^[2] In this context, integrity is the inner sense of "wholeness" deriving from qualities such as honesty and consistency of character. As such, one may judge that others "have integrity" to the extent that they act according to the values, beliefs and principles they claim to hold.

A value system's abstraction depth and range of applicable interaction may also function as significant factors in identifying integrity due to their congruence or lack of congruence with observation. A value system may evolve over time^[3] while retaining integrity if those who espouse the values account for and resolve inconsistencies.^[4]

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In context of relationships, one of the most important lines from the above definition is this:  “…integrity regards internal consistency [bold mine], as a virtue, and suggests that parties holding apparently conflicting values should account for the discrepancy or alter their beliefs.”

This is one of the greatest challenges for anyone who is in a relationship because it involves being able to see “the other” as a separate entity from yourself, who has his/her own set of opinions, beliefs, thoughts, values and behaviors.  This does not mean that we agree with everything that another thinks or does; and in fact, we may even lose respect for the behavior of another.  We may even, at times, violate our own integrity, causing confusion for ourself and a loss of respect for ourself with regard to a particular behavior.  But at the very least, we can start to see where we begin and stop and where another person begins.

Evaluating your own values, beliefs and actions is a worthwhile exercise in attempting to understand who you are and who you want to be.  When any of us experience confusion in our mind, one of the ways to sort out this confusion might be to step back and evaluate what your values and beliefs are.  If there is incongruency between your values and beliefs and that of your actions, you will tend to be at odds with yourself.  Taking a closer look at this incongruency can help you to choose behaviors and actions that are in line with your core beliefs and values. 

An exercise you may want to try is this:

Take out a notebook and write down what you identify as your core values.

Evaluate those values against your behaviour and see if they align.  For example, if you value kindness, are you being kind to people or are you treating them rudely or bullying them.   If you value honesty, do you find yourself telling lies or omitting truth or are you being honest.  If you value equality, do you treat people no less than and no greater than or do you treat people as inferior to yourself.  These are a few examples. 

The other part of this exercise is to generate consistent, moment-by-moment awareness of your behavior and keep checking in with yours behavior is congruent or incongruent with your values. 

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A characteristic I observe in some people, unfortunately, is entitlement.  Entitlement occurs when people behave in a way that they feel "entitled" to say or do things to people that are mean-spirited, bullying and rude.  People who have an attitude of entitlement justify their actions by saying or thinking things like:  "well I'm just being honest," "they had it coming to them," "she/he provoked me," "she/he is not very smart - I had to set the record straight," or "I want what I want and it doesn't matter how I get it."  This kind of an attitude is reflective of people who take a "one-up" position over another.  It is not based on respect for another's rights.  There is no empathy with this kind of thinking.  This person will say and do things in whatever way they want and the other person will be the object of the bully's entitlement.

Each of us may want to give thought as to whether we behave in a way that reflects an attitude of entitlement.  If so, we might want to consider using empathy as a tool to build bridges with other people.

Be curious.  Have fun.

Barbara