Integrity

in-teg-ri-ty pronunciation: [in-teg-ri-tee]

noun

from the Latin root, "integritas"meaning wholeness, soundness,untouched, whole and entire.

Psychological Integrity of the Self:

"Where the entire internal structure of the individual, the complex and contradictory motivations, intentions, emotions, feelings and thoughts are democratically made available for investigation and understanding both for the self and for others. An individual with integrity generates behaviors, actions, speech and work that authentically represent his or her interior condition, to the extent appropriate and possible, in every given circumstance. Such an individual maybe held accountable and responsible for not being true or coherent with the facts of his or her inner life." -– Peter & Jaworski

(Despite a concerted effort at integrity and authenticity, it is possible that there is a split-away, unconscious self to which the individual might not have access… that could be continually undermining the individual’s psychological integrity…)

Essential Principles:

Purity, congruence and alignment of inner motivations, intentions, emotions, thoughts and feelings of an individual or system…
Externally visible decisions, actions, speech and relationships representative and accountable to internal motivation…
Deep investment of psychic and emotional energy, to dynamically stay connected to an experiential understanding and feeling of this value…
Willingness to risk life and property, to protect and cherish this value…
Profound capacity for self-knowledge…
Courage to face unpleasant facts about the self or the system whose integrity is in question…
Demands high level of intelligence, cognition and emotional maturity…

Integrity of Systems and Things:

“One may speak of the integrity of a wilderness region or an ecosystem, a computerized database, a defense system, a work of art, and so on. When it is applied to objects, integrity refers to the wholeness, intactness or purity of a thing—meanings that are sometimes carried over when it is applied to people. A wilderness region has integrity when it has not been corrupted by development or by the side-effects of development, when it remains intact as wilderness. A database maintains its integrity as long as it remains uncorrupted by error; a defense system as long as it is not breached. A musical work might be said to have integrity when its musical structure has a certain completeness that is not intruded upon by uncoordinated, unrelated musical ideas; that is, when it possesses a kind of musical wholeness, intactness and purity.” – Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

"Character trait in which people are true to themselves, accurately representing--privately and publicly--their internal states, intentions, and commitment." --Seligman & Peterson