Appendix D

Below is how Covey depicts the philosophy of stimulus/response that is prevalent in our society today; the basic element of this is that there is no personal responsibility for our actions, only response in accordance with cultural or social conditioning (Covey, 1989, p. 68).

Covey (1989) contends that proactive people recognize that between the stimulus and the response they exercise the freedom to choose, and, in keeping with the thrust of his writing, describes these in terms of the first three Habits (p. 71, the identification of the Habits has been added).