IN modern psychology There is no unambiguous understanding of such a phenomenon as personality, and this is understandable, since personality is a capacious and multifaceted concept. In psychology there are different approaches to understanding personality.
A personality can be described from the point of view of its motives and aspirations, which constitute its content " personal world", i.e., a unique system of personal meanings, individually unique ways of organizing external impressions and internal experiences.
Personality is considered as a system of traits - relatively stable, externally manifested characteristics of individuality, which are imprinted in the subject’s judgments about himself, as well as in the judgments of other people about him.
Personality is also described as the active “I” of the subject, as a system of plans, relationships, orientation, and semantic formations that regulate the departure of its behavior beyond the limits of the original plans.
The personality is also considered as a subject of personalization, i.e. the individual's needs and abilities to bring about change in other people.
Personality is a social concept; it expresses everything that is supranatural and historical in a person. Personality is not innate, but arises as a result of cultural and social development.
Personality is a specifically human formation that is “produced” by social relations into which the individual enters in his activities. The fact that at the same time some of his characteristics as an individual change is not the cause, but the consequence of the formation of his personality. The formation of personality is a process that does not directly coincide with the process of lifetime, naturally ongoing changes in the natural properties of an individual in the course of his adaptation to the external environment.
Personality is a socialized individual, considered from the perspective of his most significant socially significant properties. The personality is such a purposeful, self-organizing particle of society, the most important function which is the implementation of an individual way of social being.
In one of the first generalizing works on personality psychology, A. G. Kovalev proposed to distinguish three formations in personality: mental processes, mental states and mental properties, and B. G. Ananyev put forward the idea of an integrated approach to personality formation, when a “set” of characteristics, taken into account, expands significantly.
The issue of personality structure was especially covered by K.K. Platonov, who identified different substructures in the personality structure, a list of which varied and in the latest edition consisted of four substructures, which are also levels of personality formation:
biologically determined substructure (which includes temperament, gender, age, and sometimes pathological properties of the psyche);
psychological substructure, including individual properties individual mental processes that have become properties of the individual (memory, emotions, sensations, thinking, perception, feelings and will);
substructure of social experience (which includes the knowledge, skills, abilities and habits acquired by a person);
) substructure of personality orientation (within which there is, in turn, a special hierarchically interconnected series of substructures: drives, desires, interests, inclinations, ideals, custom painting peace and highest form orientation - beliefs).
In the history of Russian psychology, the idea of the psychological essence of personality has changed several times. Initially, it would seem that the most reliable way to overcome theoretical difficulties associated with the need to conceptualize personality specifically as a psychological category is to list the components that make up personality as a certain psychological reality. In this case, personality acts as a set of qualities, properties, traits, characteristics of the human psyche. This approach to the problem was called by Academician A.V. Petrovsky “collector”, because in this case the personality turns into a kind of “container”, a container that absorbs traits of temperament, character, interests, abilities, etc. The task of the psychologist in this case comes down to cataloging all this and identifying the individual uniqueness of its combination in each individual person. This approach deprives the concept of personality of its categorical content.
Already in the 60s, psychologists realized dissatisfaction with the results of this approach. The issue of structuring numerous personal qualities. Since the mid-60s, attempts have been made to elucidate the general structure of personality. Very typical in this direction is the approach of V.V. Platonov, who understood personality as a kind of biosocial hierarchical structure. The scientist identified the following substructures in it: orientation, experience (knowledge, abilities, skills); individual characteristics of various forms of reflection (sensation, perception, memory, thinking) and, finally, the combined properties of temperament. The main drawback of this approach was that the general structure of personality was interpreted mainly as a certain set of its biological and socially determined characteristics. As a result, the problem of the relationship between the social and biological in personality became almost the main problem in personality psychology. However, in fact, the biological, entering the human personality, becomes social.
By the end of the 70s, the focus on a structural approach to the problem of personality was replaced by a tendency to use a systematic approach. In this regard, it is of particular interest to turn to the ideas of A.N. Leontiev, whose ideas about personality are described in detail in his latest works. Before moving on to the characteristics of personality formation, he formulates some general premises for considering personality in psychology. Their essence boils down to the fact that the formation of personality is inextricably linked with activity. The key to a scientific understanding of personality can only be the study of the process of generation and transformation of a person’s personality in his activities. Personality appears in such a context as, on the one hand, a condition of activity, and on the other hand, as its product. This understanding of this relationship also provides the basis for the formation of personality: if personality is based on the relationships of subordination of types of human activity, then the basis for identifying the structure of personality should be the hierarchy of these activities.
Let us briefly characterize the features of A.N. Leontiev’s understanding of personality. Personality, in his opinion, is psychological education a special type generated by human life in society. The subordination of various activities creates the basis of personality, the formation of which occurs in ontogenesis. It is interesting to note those features that A.N. Leontiev did not attribute to personality, primarily the genotypically determined characteristics of a person: physical constitution, type nervous system, temperament, dynamic forces of biological needs, natural inclinations, as well as lifetime acquired skills, knowledge and abilities, including professional ones. The above constitutes the individual properties of a person. The concept of an individual, according to A.N. Leontiev, reflects, firstly, the integrity and indivisibility of an individual individual of a given biological species, secondly, the characteristics of a particular representative of a species that distinguish it from other representatives of this species. Individual properties, including genotypically determined ones, can change in many ways during a person’s life, but this does not make them personal. Personality is not an individual enriched by previous experience. The properties of an individual do not transform into personality properties. Although transformed, they remain individual properties, not defining the emerging personality, but constituting the prerequisites and conditions for its formation.
Personality in psychology is a systemic social quality acquired by an individual in objective activity and communication and characterizing the level and quality of representation of social relations in an individual.
What is personality as a special social quality of an individual? All domestic psychologists deny the identity of the concepts “individual” and “personality”. The concepts of personality and individual are not identical; this is a special quality that is acquired by an individual in society, through the entirety of its relations, social in nature, in which the individual is involved... personality is a systemic and therefore “supersensible” quality, although the bearer of this quality is a completely sensual, bodily individual with all his innate and acquired properties."
Now we need to clarify why personality is spoken of as a “supersensible” quality of an individual. It is obvious that the individual has completely sensory (that is, accessible to perception through the senses) properties: physicality, individual characteristics of behavior, speech, facial expressions, etc. How then are qualities discovered in a person that are not seen in their directly sensory form? Personality embodies a system of relations, social in nature, which fit into the sphere of existence of the individual as his systemic (internally dissected, complex) quality. Only an analysis of the “individual-society” relationship makes it possible to reveal the foundations of the properties of a person as an individual. To understand the basis on which certain personality traits are formed, it is necessary to consider her life in society, her movement in the system of social relations. The inclusion of an individual in certain communities determines the content and nature of the activities they perform, the range and methods of communication with other people, that is, the features of his social existence and way of life. But the way of life of individual individuals, certain communities of people, as well as society as a whole is determined by the system of social relations. Psychology can solve such a problem only in contact with other social sciences.
Is it possible to directly deduce psychological characteristics of this or that personality from socio-historical laws? You can characterize a person only by seeing him in the system interpersonal relationships, in joint collective activity, because outside the collective, outside the group, outside human communities, there is no personality in its active social essence.
The personality of each person is endowed only with its own inherent combination of traits and characteristics that form its individuality - a combination of psychological characteristics of a person that make up his originality, his difference from other people. Individuality is manifested in character traits, temperament, habits, prevailing interests, quality cognitive processes, in abilities, individual style activities. Just as the concepts individual and personality are not identical, personality and individuality, in turn, form unity, but not identity. If personality traits are not represented in the system of interpersonal relations, they turn out to be insignificant for assessing the individual’s personality and do not receive conditions for development, just as only individual traits that are most “involved” in the leading activity for a given social community act as personality traits. The individual characteristics of a person do not appear in any way until a certain time, until they become necessary in the system of interpersonal relations, the subject of which is the given person as an individual. So, individuality is only one of the aspects of a person’s personality.
Returning to the question of A.V. Petrovsky and V.A. Petrovsky’s understanding of the essence of personality, it is necessary to dwell on one more aspect - their understanding of the structure of personality when it is considered as a “supersensible” systemic quality of an individual. Considering personality in the system of subjective relations, they identify three types of attribution (attribution, endowment) of an individual’s personal existence (or 3 aspects of interpretation of personality). The first aspect of consideration is intra-individual personal attribution: personality is interpreted as a property inherent in the subject himself; the personal turns out to be an immersion in the inner space of the individual’s existence. The second aspect is interindividual personal attribution as a way of understanding personality, when the sphere of its definition and existence becomes the “space of interindividual connections.” The third aspect of consideration is meta-individual personal attribution. Here attention is drawn to the impact that, voluntarily or unwittingly, an individual has with his activities (individual or joint) on other people. Personality is perceived from a new angle: its the most important characteristics, which they tried to discern in the qualities of an individual, it is proposed to look not only in himself, but also in other people. In this case, personality acts as the ideal representation of the individual in other people, his personalization. The essence of this ideal representation is in those real effective changes in the intellectual and affective-need sphere of another person that are produced by the subject’s activity or his participation in joint activities. The “otherness” of an individual in other people is not a static imprint. It's about about an active process, a kind of continuation of oneself in another, as a result of which the personality finds a second life in other people. Of course, a person can be characterized only in the unity of the three proposed aspects of consideration.
In a consistent analysis of various approaches to the problem of personality formation, formulated by L.S. Vygotsky, S.L. Rubinstein, A.N. Leontiev, we can conclude that all sections psychological science consider the personality as initially given in the system of social connections and relationships, determined by social relations and, moreover, acting as an active subject of activity. In other words, when considering the problems of personality formation, one cannot separate from considering the problems of the group.
Our personality depends not only on heredity. The experience of the first years of life leaves a deep imprint on her. One can even say that the phases that a child goes through during this “forgotten” period are the most important for the formation of his personality, for the socialization of the individual.
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1. Man, individual, personality. Understanding personality as an object of knowledge
We will not sin against the truth if we say briefly: from an objective point of view, a personality is a mental individual who appears to be an independent being in relation to the surrounding external conditions.
Personality is the highest integral concept. Personality is characterized, first of all, as a system of a person’s relationship to the surrounding reality. In analysis, this system can be divided into an infinite number of relationships between the individual and various subjects reality, but no matter how partial these relationships may be in this sense, each of them always remains personal. The most important thing that defines a person is her relationship with people, which is also a relationship.
But personality is a holistic formation of a special kind. Personality is not an integrity determined genotypically: one is not born as a person, one becomes a person.
Personality, like the individual, is a product of the integration of processes that carry out the life relations of the subject.
Man is on the one hand, on the other sides energetic being, on the third side exists V o public. This is a creature that embodies the highest level of development of life, a subject of socio-historical activity.
A person is born into the world already a human being. The structure of the body determines the possibility of walking upright, the structure of the brain - potential developed intelligence l ect, structure p uk - the prospect of using o tools, etc., with all these capabilities it differs from a baby animal. Man as subject and product labor activity in society is a system in which the physical and psychological are genetically determined and formulated. The concept of “individual” expresses the gender identity of a person.
"Individual" - a person as a single natural being, a representative of a species, a carrier individual traits. Most common characteristics:
Integrity psychophysical organizations;
- stability in interaction with the outside world;
Activity.
Coming into the world , a person becomes a person.
"Individual" is a hypothetical formation - a set of hereditary traits.
"Personality" is a social concept , which is greatly influenced by the environment; the same person, but viewed as social being.
2. Eysenck's theory of personality types
A similar procedure was used by the British psychologist Hans Eysenck, who obtained two personality factors: introversion-extroversion (a parameter first introduced by psychoanalyst Carl Jung) and emotional stability-instability, which he called neuroticism (Eysenck , 1953). (Eysenck also proposed a third parameter, but it is not as accepted and researched as the other two [ Eysenck & Eysenck , 1976]). Introversion-extroversion means how much a person is mainly oriented inward, toward himself, or outward, toward the outside world. At the introverted end of this scale are individuals who are shy and prefer to work alone; they tend to withdraw into themselves, especially during times of emotional stress or conflict. At the extraversion pole are individuals who are sociable and prefer occupations that allow them to work directly with other people; during times of stress they seek company. Neuroticism (stability - instability) is a parameter of emotionality, at the neurotic, or unstable, pole of which there are gloomy, anxious, temperamental and poorly adjusted individuals, and at the other, stable pole - calm, well-adapted individuals. assembled individuals. In Fig. it is shown how these two parameters form a number of subfeatures associated with these factors.
3 . Personality structure according to Freud
Has three components:
- “It” is the most primitive matter that embraces everything innate, subordinate to the object of pleasure and knowing nothing about reality;
- “I” is consciousness. Follows the principle of reality , producing I row of fur A nisms that allow adaptation to the environment.
- "Super-I" - the source of moral and religious oh feelings, controlling and naka forming agent, product T influence coming from other people. Arose A no in early childhood.
The "it" is in conflict with the "super-ego".
Defense Mechanisms:
Negation;
Suppression of internal impulses coming from the “Super-I”;
Rationalization is a way to rationally justify any actions that contradict internal n to them standards;
For m formation of reactions - when people express an unpleasant motive for themselves in a motive of the opposite type;
Projection - attributing one's shortcomings to other people;
Intel l actualization is an attempt to escape from a threatening situation through abstraction;
Substitution - partial satisfaction of an unacceptable moral motive V in a completely acceptable way.
The personality structure consists of id (it), ego (me) and superego (super-ego). The highest task of the psyche is to maintain an acceptable level of dynamic balance, which maximizes pleasure, perceived as a reduction in tension. The main task of psychoanalysis is to strengthen the ego, to make it independent of the overly demanding attention of the superego and to increase its capacity to consider previously repressed or hidden contents. Freud proposed a description of the psychosexual phases of development. The ways of satisfying desires and the physical zones of satisfaction change in each phase. The individual sequentially passes through the oral, anal and phallic phases of development. Problems associated with the Oedipus complex occur during the phallic phase. The latent period continues until the individual enters the genital phase of development. Fixation occurs when a person becomes excessively stuck. at a certain phase.
4 . AND Adler's individual psychology
He suggested that each individual has certain weak spots- organs especially susceptible to disease. Adler also noted that organic weakness could be overcome through diligent training and exercise. In fact, a weak organ can be developed to such an extent that it becomes the most important strength of a person.
He coined the term inferiority complex. According to Adler, children are deeply affected by their sense of inferiority, which is an inevitable consequence of the child's size and lack of power. Adler’s own childhood impressions led him to the need to highlight this idea:
Adler believed that a child's life experiences make him feel weak, inadequate, and frustrated. Children are relatively small and helpless in the adult world. For a child, controlling his own behavior and breaking free from the control of adults is the most important task. From this point of view, strength looks like the first good, and weakness - like the first evil. The struggle to achieve power is an early childhood compensation for feelings of inferiority.
However, he did not equate aggression with hostility, but rather with initiative and the ability to overcome obstacles, such as in aggressive sales tactics. Adler argued that aggressive tendencies in humans are decisive for individual and species survival. Aggression can manifest itself as the will to power - a phrase from Nietzsche that Adler used. Adler noted that both men and women often use sexuality to satisfy their desire for power.
Later, developing his theory, Adler considered aggression and the will to power as manifestations of a more general motive - the goal of achieving superiority or perfection, that is, the desire to improve oneself, develop one's abilities and capabilities. Adler believed that all healthy individuals are guided by the desire for improvement, for constant improvement: “The desire for improvement is innate in the sense that it is a part of life, a motivating force, something without which life would be unthinkable.”
The goal of achieving superiority has its roots in the evolutionary process of constant adaptation to the environment. All species must evolve in the direction of the most efficient adaptation, otherwise they will become extinct. Thus, the individual is forced to look for more harmonious relations with the outside world.
Life goals. According to Adler, the goal of conquest environment- is too broad a concept to logically explain how people choose their line in life. Therefore, Adler put forward the idea that a person develops a specific life goal, using it as a guide. A person's life purpose is influenced by his personal experience, his values, inclinations and personal characteristics. Life purpose is not a clear and conscious goal.
The formation of life goals begins in childhood as compensation for feelings of inferiority, insecurity and helplessness in the adult world. Life goals usually serve as a defense against feelings of powerlessness, a bridge from an unsatisfactory present to a bright, fulfilling future life that is within our control. Then, when we become adults, we may have clear, logical reasons for our career choices. However, the life goals that guide us and motivate us to action are formed in early childhood and remain hidden from consciousness. As an example, Adler pointed out that many doctors, like himself, choose their careers during childhood, hoping to thereby cope with their fears about death.
5 . Personality structure according to Platonov
Platonov’s approach understands personality as a certain biosocial hierarchical structure. He identified the following substructures: orientation, experience (knowledge, ability, skills); individual characteristics of various forms of reflection (sensation, perception, memory), and, finally, the combined properties of behavior. Disadvantage: the general structure of personality was interpreted as a certain set of its biological and socially determined characteristics.
I. Knowledge, abilities, skills are the fundamental links that determine a person’s work activity. In the process of labor, not only is the product of labor Ia born, but it itself is formed m is expressed in work. In work activity - the relationship between II and III.
II. Perception - awareness of the senses n about this object and phenomenon.
Sensation is a reflection of a separate feeling V e n good quality.
Memory is a mental process that is the recording, storage and subsequent reproduction of past experiences.
Thinking is a process cognitive activity, characterized by indirect and both b pure reflection of reality.
III. Temperament is an individually unique property of the psyche that determines the dynamics of a person’s mental activity, which manifest themselves everywhere to the same extent.
Character is a set of stable individual characteristics of a person that develop in activity and communication.
6 . Memory, classification of types of memory by various bases - Ribot's law
Memory, from the point of view of a psychologist, is not a mental ability - a property or function of the psyche - that could be known through sophisticated introspection. The term “memory” allows us to combine a set of activities , including both biophysiological and mental processes, the implementation of which at a given moment is due to the fact that some previous events, close or distant in time, significantly modified the state of the organism.
The genesis of any act of memory includes essentially three phases: a) the memorization phase, when the individual imprints certain material depending on the requirements of the situation; sometimes this phase is reduced to a momentary perceptual act, but it can also be characterized by more or less complex activity , which manifests itself with successive repetitions and leads to gradual assimilation of the material; b) the conservation phase, covering more or less a long period the time during which the memorized material is stored in a hidden state; c) finally, the phase of reactivation and actualization of the learned material, causing mnemonic processes accessible to observation.
Types: Motor, emotional, figurative, verbal-logical.
7 . Feelings of loneliness and alienation and fur anisms of escape from them according to Fromm
The most important theme of Fromm's works is the theme of human loneliness and isolation due to alienation from nature and other people. This state of isolation is not found in any other animal species; this is a purely human situation. For example, a child, freed from initial ties with his parents, feels isolated and helpless. A slave, perhaps, gains freedom only to feel thrown into a largely alien world. As a slave, he belonged to someone and felt connected to the world and other people, even without being free. In the book ".Escape from freedom" (1941), Fromm develops the thesis that over the centuries, people, gaining more and more freedom, felt increasingly lonely. Freedom, therefore, turns out to be a negative state from which people try to escape.
What's the solution? A person can either unite with others in a spirit of love and cooperation, or seek security in submission to authority or in a conforming position towards society. In one case, people use freedom to create a better society; in another, they acquire new shackles. "Escape from freedom" was written during the Nazi era, and it shows that this form of totalitarianism was attractive to people because it offered security. But, as Fromm shows in subsequent works (1947, 1955, 1964), any form of society created by humanity, be it feudalism, capitalism, fascism, socialism or communism, represents an attempt to resolve a basic human contradiction. This contradiction lies in the fact that man is both a part of nature and separate from it, in that he is both an animal and a human being. Like an animal, man has certain biological needs that must be satisfied. As a human being, he has self-awareness, intelligence, imagination. The uniquely human experiences are feelings of tenderness, love and empathy, relationship, interest, responsibility, identity, honesty, vulnerability, transcendence and freedom, values and norms (1968). This duality - being animal and being human - constitutes the basic contradiction of human existence. "Understanding human soul must be based on an analysis of human needs growing out of the conditions of its existence" (1955, p. 25).
What are these needs that grow out of the conditions of human existence? There are five of them: the need for connection with others; the need for transcendence; need for rootedness; the need to be yourself; need for an orientation system. The need for connection (also called the need for attachment in The Revolution of Hope (1968)) stems from the fact that people, becoming human, find themselves torn from the original animal unity with nature. “An animal by nature has what allows him to cope with emerging situations” (1955, p. 23), but man, with his capabilities of reflection and imagination, has lost this intimate connection with nature. Instead of these instinctive connections that animals have, people are forced to create their own relationships, of which the most satisfying are those based on productive love. Productive love always involves mutual care, responsibility, respect and understanding.
The desire for transcendence corresponds to the human need to rise above one’s animal nature, not to remain a creature, but to become a creator. If insurmountable obstacles arise in the way of creative aspirations, a person becomes a destroyer. Fromm emphasizes that love and hate are not mutually exclusive feelings; both are a response to man’s need to overcome his animal nature. Animals can neither love nor hate - this is only possible for humans.
8 . The content of the levels is subconscious th and the unconscious according to Freud
He likened the psyche to an iceberg, where the small part protruding above the surface of the water represents the area of consciousness, while the much larger mass below water surface represents the area of the unconscious. In this vast space of the unconscious one can find drives, passions, repressed thoughts and feelings - a gigantic underworld of invisible vital forces that exercise imperative control over the conscious thoughts and actions of the individual. From this point of view, psychology, limited to the analysis of consciousness, is absolutely inadequate for understanding the fundamental motives of human behavior
Abraham Maslow. The psychology of Abraham Maslow (1908-1970) echoes the psychology of Carl Rogers in many ways. Maslow first became interested in behaviorism and conducted research on sexuality and dominance in primates. He was already moving away from behaviorism when his first child was born, after which he noted that anyone observing a child could not be a behaviorist. He was influenced by psychoanalysis, but over time he began to criticize its theory of motivation and developed his own. In particular, he proposed a hierarchy of needs, rising from basic biological needs to more complex psychological motives that become important only after satisfaction. meeting basic needs . The needs of one level must be at least partially satisfied before the needs of the next level begin to significantly determine actions. If food and security are difficult to obtain, then the satisfaction of these needs will dominate a person's actions and higher motives will not have of great importance. Only when organic needs can be easily satisfied will the individual have time and energy for aesthetic and intellectual interests. Artistic and scientific endeavors do not thrive in societies where people must struggle for food, shelter, and safety. The highest motive - self-actualization - can be realized only after all other needs are satisfied.
7. Self-actualization needs: find self-realization and realize your potential.
6. Aesthetic needs: symmetry, order, beauty.
5. Cognitive needs: to know, understand, explore.
4. Self-esteem needs: to achieve, to be competent, to receive approval and recognition.
3. The need for intimacy and love: to be attached to others, to be accepted, to belong to someone.
2. Security need: to feel protected and safe.
1. Physiological needs: hunger, thirst, etc.
Carl Rogers. Like Freud, Carl Rogers (1902-1987) developed his theory from work with clinical patients ( Rogers , 1951, 1959, 1963, 1970). Rogers was struck by the inner tendency he observed in individuals to move toward growth, maturation, and positive change. He became convinced that the main force motivating the human body is the tendency to actualize all the body's abilities. A growing organism strives to realize its potential within the limits of its heredity. A person may not always clearly see which actions lead to growth and which lead to regression. But when the path is clear, the individual chooses to grow rather than regress. Rogers did not deny that there are other needs, including biological ones, but he considered them auxiliary to the improvement motive.
Carl Rogers believed that individuals have an innate tendency to grow, achieve maturity, and experience positive change. He called this tendency the tendency towards actualization.>
Rogers' belief in the primacy of actualization forms the basis of his non-directive, client-centered therapy. This psychotherapeutic method assumes that each individual has the motive and ability to change and that the individual himself is most competent to decide in what direction these changes should occur. In this case, the psychotherapist plays the role of a probing system, and the patient explores and analyzes his problems. This approach differs from psychoanalytic therapy, during which the therapist analyzes the patient's history to identify the problem and develop a course of treatment.
"I". Central to Rogers' theory of personality is the concept of "I". "I" or "the concept of self" (Rogers uses these terms interchangeably) became the cornerstone of his theory. The “I” includes all the ideas, perceptions and values that characterize the “I”; it includes the awareness of “what I am” and “what I can.” This perceived “I”, in turn, influences a person’s perception of both the whole world and his behavior. For example, a woman who sees herself as strong and competent perceives and acts on the world very differently than a woman who sees herself as weak and worthless. The “concept of self” does not necessarily reflect reality: a person can be very successful and respected and still consider himself a failure.
According to Rogers, the individual evaluates each of his experiences from the point of view of his “concept of self.” People want to behave in ways that fit their self-image; sensations and feelings that are not consistent with the self-image pose a threat, and their access to consciousness may be blocked. This is essentially the same Freudian concept of repression, but for Rogers such repression is neither inevitable nor permanent (Freud would say that repression is inevitable and that some aspects of an individual's experiences remain in the unconscious forever).
The more areas of experience a person denies because they do not correspond to his “concept of self,” the deeper the gap between self and reality and the greater the possibility of maladjustment. An individual whose “concept of self” does not correspond to his personal feelings and experiences has to defend himself from the truth, since the truth leads to anxiety. If this discrepancy becomes too great, defenses can break down, leading to severe anxiety and other emotional disturbances. In a well-adjusted person, on the contrary, the “concept of self” is consistent with thoughts, experiences and behavior; The “I” is not rigid, it is flexible and can change as it masters new ideas and experiences.
In Rogers' theory there is another “I” - the ideal. We all have an idea of what we would like to be. The closer the ideal “I” is to the real one, the more fulfilling and happy a person becomes. A large discrepancy between the ideal and real “I” makes a person unhappy and dissatisfied. Thus, two types of inconsistency can develop: one between the “I” and the experienced reality, the other between the “I” and the ideal “I”. Rogers has made several hypotheses about the development of these inconsistencies. In particular, he believed that people began to function more fully if they cultivated an unconditional positive attitude. This means that they feel valued by their parents and others, even though their feelings, attitudes, and behavior are less than ideal. If parents offer only a conditionally positive attitude, appreciating the child only when he behaves, thinks or feels correctly, the child’s “concept of self” is disrupted. For example, feelings of competition and hostility towards a younger brother or sister are natural, but parents do not allow them to hit and usually punish them for such actions. The child must somehow integrate this experience into his “concept of self.” He may decide that he is doing something wrong and feel ashamed. He may decide that his parents don't love him and therefore feel rejected. Or he may deny his feelings and decide that he does not want to hit the baby. Each of these relationships contains a distortion of the truth. The third alternative is the easiest for the child to accept, but in doing so, he denies his real feelings, which then become unconscious. The more a person is forced to deny his own feelings and accept the values of others, the more uncomfortable he feels. The best way for parents to do so is to acknowledge the child's feelings as they are, but explain why hitting is unacceptable.
According to Rogers, people are likely to function more effectively if they receive unconditional positive evaluation, that is, if they feel that their parents value them regardless of their x feelings, attitudes and behavior.
9. Kelly's personality construct theory
George Kelly (1905-1966) was one of the first personality psychologists to place cognitive processes at the center of individual functioning. While humanistic psychologists are interested in how individuals perceive themselves and their personal worth, Kelly's personality construct theory follows a more cognitive approach to the phenomenology of the individual. Kelly objected to the fact that personality psychologists tend to describe individuals according to parameters they have constructed themselves; he believed that the goal should really be to discover the parameters that individuals themselves use to interpret, or construct, themselves and their social world. These parameters are basic elements analysis in Kelly's theory of personal constructs , 1955).
In general, Kelly believed that the individual should be viewed as a scientist, driven by intuition. Like a representative of formal science, an individual observes the world, formulates and tests hypotheses about it, and builds theories about it. Like the psychologists who study them, people, as subjects, also construe or abstract behavior—categorize, interpret, name, and make judgments about themselves and their worlds.
Like scientists trying to predict events, people want to understand the world in order to , to predict what will happen to them. Kelly argued that each individual uses a unique set of personality constructs to interpret and predict events. These constructs, as a rule, take the form of “either-or”: a new acquaintance is either friendly or unfriendly; either smart or stupid; either a funny guy or a bore and so on. However, two people meeting the same individual may use different constructs when evaluating that individual: someone who appears friendly and intelligent to one person may appear unfriendly and stupid to another. These differences are also expressed in different behavior: One person may react positively to a new acquaintance, while another will avoid him. These behavioral differences also lead to differences in personality.
According to Kelly, personality constructs take an either/or form. A new acquaintance is either friendly or cold; either smart or stupid; either funny or boring.
Since typical personality tests did not satisfy Kelly's basic criterion that an individual should be assessed on his own terms, he developed his own test to identify a person's personality constructs - the role construct test, or "rep test" (Role test). Construct Repertory Test , Rep Test ). In this test, subjects fill the matrix, or grid . The top of the grid lists the people who are important to the individual. They can be suggested by the tester or the subject himself, but they include “I myself,” and sometimes “My ideal Self.” In each row of the grid, the tester circles three cells. For example, in the first row of the grid, he circled the cells in the columns “Myself,” “My Mother,” and “My Best Friend.” The subject is asked to imagine these three people and put a cross in two boxes under the names of the two people who are most similar to each other, but different from the third person. As shown in the first line, this male subject believes that he and his mother are most similar. He is then asked, “In what ways are you similar to your mother but different from your best friend?” In this case, the subject indicated that both he and his mother were witty. This description is called its construct. Next he is asked: “How is your friend different from you and your mother?” He replies that his friend has no sense of humor. This description is called contrast. Thus, for a given subject, the parameter witty-without a sense of humor is one of the personal constructs with the help of which he interprets or interprets his world of interpersonal relationships.
Kretschmer. People with a certain body type have certain mental characteristics:
Leptosomatic - fragile, tall, flat chest, narrow shoulders, long and thin limbs.
Picnic - fat, corpulent, average height, big belly, short neck.
Athletic - muscular, strong, tall, broad-shouldered.
Dysplastic is a shapeless, irregular, disproportionate structure.
Three types of temperament:
A schizothymic person is leptosomatic and dysplastic, closed, prone to hesitation, stubborn, and resistant to change.
Ixothymic - athletic, calm, unimpressive, with low flexibility of thinking.
Cyclotomic - picnic, emotions fluctuate between joy and sadness, easily contacts people.
1. Extroverts - reaction and activity depend on external impressions. Open, cheerful.
2. Introverts - reactions and activities depend on images and ideas and thoughts related to the past and future. Closed, suspicious
10. Psychology of conflict
Communication - a set of connections and mutual influence of people that develop in their joint activities. It assumes some result - a change in the behavior and activities of other people. Each person performs a certain role in society. The multiplicity of role positions often gives rise to their collision - role conflicts. In some situations, ant is detected A gonism of positions, reflecting the presence of mutually exclusive values, tasks and goals, which sometimes results in interpersonal conflict.
In activities, the causes of conflict are: substantive and business disagreements, divergences of personal interests.
The cause of the conflict is unresolved semantic barriers in communication.
Conflict is an extreme case of aggravation of contradictions. This phenomenon is natural - it can and should be controlled.
Structure of the conflict:
1. The carriers of contradictions are opponents;
2. Their capabilities are determined by rank:
First rank - represents yourself and your goals in the conflict;
The second rank is groups and group goals;
The highest rank is a person who defends the laws of the state;
Zero rank - With since then with with amim With both.
3. Object or subject of contradiction.
Object + Opponent = Conflict situation.
Conflict situation + Incident = Conflict.
Conflicts can be objective and subjective.
Personalities: situational-conflict and permanent-conflict (conflict - main personality trait).
Stress is an emotional state that occurs in response to various extreme influences. Types of pages EU owls: physiological, psychological, informational, emotional (in situations of danger, resentment).
Stages of stress:
The alarm reaction is the mobilization of the body's defenses, a redistribution of the body's resources occurs.
Stabilization.
If stressful situation persists - exhaustion, deterioration of health viya.
Emotions - This is a direct temporary experience of a feeling. Basic emotions: joy, surprise, suffering, anger, disgust, contempt, fear, shame.
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Personality- a basic concept in psychology, studied by all social sciences, and there is no general definition. B.G. Ananyev identified 4 levels of human organization: individual, subject of activity, personality, individuality (Leningrad School). Individual- a representative of a biological species, has certain congenital features(the structure of the body is the ability to walk upright, the structure of the brain is the development of intelligence, the structure of the hand is the ability to use tools, etc.), that is, an individual is the belonging of a particular person to the human race. The most general characteristics of an individual: the integrity of the psychophysiological organization; sustainability in interaction with the outside world; activity. Subject of activity– the bearer of consciousness, which is formed and developed in the process of activity. Personality– by being included in the system of social relationships and processes, a person acquires a special social quality – he becomes a personality. Individuality– the uniqueness and originality of a particular person, expressed in the characteristics of the development of lower levels (individual, subject, personality). Individuality is manifested in the traits of temperament, character, specific interests, qualities of perceptual processes and intelligence, needs and abilities of the individual. A prerequisite for the formation of human individuality are anatomical and physiological inclinations, which are transformed in the process of education, which has a socially determined character, giving rise to a wide variability of manifestations
Thus, personality– this is the most significant level of human organization, that is, a feature of his development as a social being.
The relationship between the individual as a product of anthropogenesis, personality as a product of socio-historical experience, individuality as a transformer of the world, is expressed in the formula: “One is born an individual. They become a person. Individuality is defended." An individual experiences a socially conditioned need to be an individual and discovers the possibility of this in socially significant activities: this determines the development of a person as an individual. For a child, this happens with the help of an adult. Personal development is controlled by a system of motives, and the activity-mediated type of relationship with the most reference group is the determining factor of development.
Personality and individuality form unity, but not identity, since individual characteristics may not be represented in forms of activity and communication that are essential for the group in which the individual is included. If personality traits are not represented in interpersonal relationships (for example, habits), then they turn out to be insignificant for personality assessment and do not receive conditions for development. So, for example, agility and determination, being personality traits of a teenager, do not appear as a characteristic of his personality until he was included in a sports team. That is, individual characteristics do not declare themselves (do not acquire personal meaning) and do not develop until they become necessary in the system of interpersonal relationships of a person.
Functional approach– the role of consciousness is to give a person the opportunity to adapt to different situations. This occurs either by repeating already developed forms of behavior, or by changing them depending on circumstances, or by mastering new actions, if the situation requires it (W. James).
Personality, from the point of view behaviorists, nothing more than a set of behavioral reactions inherent to this person. The “stimulus-response” formula was the leading one in behaviorism. Personality is an organized and relatively stable system of skills. The latter form the basis of relatively stable behavior; they are adapted to life situations, the change of which leads to the formation of new skills.
Gestalt psychology arose in the twenties of the twentieth century and has a pronounced integrative character. M. Wertheimer, W. Köhler and K. Koffka (the founders of the new direction) decided that human behavior and consciousness cannot be studied separately. The human consciousness collects parts of experience into a certain integral structure, which is called a gestalt. According to this school of thought, the whole is not simply the sum of its parts. The task of psychologists is not to study individual processes perception, but an explanation of the principles by which these parts are grouped. This knowledge is used to explain a person’s behavior and help him become a more harmonious person.
At the beginning of the 20th century. appeared psychoanalysis. The psychoanalytic direction turned to the study of unconscious mental processes. Impulses from the unconscious area of the psyche (drives, repressed desires, experiences) have a strong influence on the actions and states of a person, although he does not suspect this, he often does not know why he does something. Unconscious ideas hardly pass into consciousness, remaining unconscious due to the work of two mechanisms - repression and resistance. Therefore, unconscious ideas, having a large energy charge, break into the conscious life of the individual, taking on a distorted or symbolic form (three manifestations of the unconscious - dreams; erroneous actions: slips of the tongue, slips of the tongue, forgetting things; neurotic symptoms). Thus, the essence of Freud's teaching is the recognition of the fatal antagonism between repressed experience and consciousness, which leads to antagonism between man and the social environment.
Humanistic(existential) psychology subject psychological research assumes a healthy creative personality of a person. In contrast to Freudianism and behaviorism, which evaluate a person as completely dependent either on the environment or on unconscious instincts, humanistic psychology views him as responsible for his destiny, freely making a choice among the opportunities provided, striving for self-improvement, being in the process of becoming, changing throughout his entire life. life.
Representatives cognitive psychology (from Latin cognitio - knowledge) George Kelly (1905-1966) and others assign a decisive role in the behavior of the subject to knowledge. Every person is a kind of researcher, striving to understand, interpret, anticipate and control the world of his personal experiences, drawing conclusions based on his past experiences and making assumptions about the future. And although objective reality exists, people perceive it differently, since any event can be viewed from different angles.
In the history of Russian psychology, the idea of the psychological essence of personality has changed several times.
Structural approach(K.K. Platonov) understood personality as a certain biosocial structure, in which he identified the following substructures: orientation; experience (knowledge, abilities, skills); individual characteristics of various forms of reflection (sensation, perception, memory, thinking) and, finally, the combined properties of temperament.
Systems approach(Alexey Nikolaevich Leontyev). Personality is considered as a special type of psychological formation generated by a person’s life in society. The subordination of various activities creates the basis of personality, the formation of which occurs in the process of social development (ontogenesis).
The human psyche and personality are so multifaceted and complex that at the present stage of development, psychology has not yet achieved complete knowledge of the secrets of the human soul. Each of the existing theories and concepts reveals only one of the facets of the human psyche, reveals certain real patterns, but not the whole truth about the essence of the human psyche. Therefore, it is unacceptable to absolutize any one theory and reject all others. Most modern psychologists agree that when analyzing the psyche and personality structure, one should take into account the biological and social nature of a person (social relationships, internalized social norms), conscious and unconscious mental spheres, the unity of cognitive-intellectual, emotional-motivational, behavioral-volitional areas, as well as the essence of personality.
Personality- this is a person in the totality of his social qualities, formed in various types social activities and relationships.
Currently, a number of approaches to understanding personality have emerged:
1) biological;
2) sociological;
3) individual psychological;
4) socio-psychological, etc.
From point of view biological approach, personality development is the unfolding of a genetic program.
From point of view sociological approach, personality is a product of cultural and historical development.
From point of view individual psychological approach, personality development is influenced by such features as human constitution, type of nervous system, etc.
Social-psychological approach to understanding personality explains the mechanisms of personality socialization; reveals its socio-psychological structure; allows you to diagnose this structure of personality characteristics and influence it.
Personality structure consists of four substructures:
1) Substructure of personality orientation and relationships , including the drives, desires, interests, inclinations, ideals, views, beliefs of a person, his worldview. The substructure of personality orientation is the most socially conditioned, formed under the influence of upbringing in society, and most fully reflects the ideology of the community in which the person is included.
2) Individual social experience of a person , which includes the knowledge, skills, abilities and habits acquired by a person. This substructure is formed primarily during the learning process and is of a social nature.
3) Individual characteristics of human mental processes , i.e. individual manifestations of memory, perception, sensations, thinking, abilities, depending both on congenital factors and on training, development, and improvement of these qualities.
4) Biologically determined substructure , which includes typological, age, and gender characteristics of the individual, i.e. biopsychic
- Socialization of personality. Stages, factors and content of the socialization process.
The concept of socialization. Stages: adaptation, individualization, interiorization. Mechanisms of socialization: gender-role identification, social assessment of desired behavior, imitation, imitation and identification, social facilitation. Factors: microfactors, mesafactors, macrofactors.
Socialization- this is the process and result of the individual’s assimilation and active production of social experience, which is carried out in communication, activity and behavior.
THERE ARE THE FOLLOWING STAGES OF SOCIALIZATION:
1. Primary socialization, or adaptation stage(from birth to adolescence, the child assimilates social experience uncritically, adapts, adapts, imitates).
2. Individualization stage(there is a desire to distinguish oneself from others, a critical attitude towards social norms of behavior). IN adolescence The stage of individualization, self-determination “the world and I” is characterized as intermediate socialization, since everything is still unstable in the worldview and character of the teenager.
3. Integration stage(there is a desire to find one’s place in society, to “fit in” with society). Integration proceeds successfully if a person’s characteristics are accepted by the group, by society.
4. Labor stage of socialization covers the entire period of a person’s maturity, the entire period of his working activity, when a person not only assimilates social experience, but also reproduces it due to the person’s active influence on the environment through his activities.
5. Post-work stage of socialization considers old age as an age that makes a significant contribution to the reproduction of social experience, to the process of transmitting it to new generations.
Mechanisms of socialization:
One of the first to be identified is a mechanism that can be designated How unity of imitation, imitation, identification .
Unity of imitation, imitation, identification - a person's desire to reproduce the perceived behavior of other people.
The mechanism operates through social interaction of people. Many social relationships can be represented in the teacher-student model. This refers not only to the relationship between adults and children, but also to the relationship between adults who reproduce the experiences of others, strive to copy certain patterns of behavior, and identify themselves to one degree or another with social roles. But this fur has a leading role in the process of growing up. A child, imitating his parents, imitates their words, gestures, facial expressions, actions and deeds.
There is also a mechanism gender role identification - the subject’s assimilation of psychological traits and behavioral characteristics characteristic of people of a certain gender.
Mechanism of social assessment of desired behavior carried out in the process of social control. It works on the basis of the principle of pleasure - pain, studied by S. Freud - the feelings that a person experiences in connection with rewards (positive sanctions) and punishments (negative sanctions) coming from other people.
Social facilitation involves the stimulating influence of some people on the behavior, activities and communication of others.
Social inhibition manifests itself in the negative, inhibiting influence of one person on another.
The entire set of factors under the influence of which socialization is carried out can be divided into three groups :
megafactors- space, planet, world, which to one degree or another through other groups of factors influence the socialization of all inhabitants of the Earth;
macro factors- country, ethnic group, society, state that influence the socialization of everyone living in certain countries;
mesofactors- conditions of socialization large groups people identified: by area and type of settlement in which they live (region, village, city, town); by belonging to the audience of certain mass communication networks (radio, television, etc.); by belonging to certain subcultures;
microfactors- directly influencing specific people who interact with them - family and home, neighborhood, peer groups, educational organizations, various public, state, religious, private and counter-social organizations, microsociety.
The difference in approaches to understanding personality is due to the complexity and ambiguity of the “personality” phenomenon itself. There are many theories of personality. Each of the theories sees and constructs personality in its own way, focusing on some of its aspects and leaving others out of the equation (or giving them a secondary role).
According to the authors of the monograph “Theories of Personality” by Kjell and Ziegler, “no theory of any importance can be fully and correctly understood” with regard to the definition of human nature, “the differences between theories reflect more fundamental differences between their creators.”
Kjell and Ziegler, having analyzed the most well-known psychological theories of personality, present 9 bipolar scales expressing the basic principles about human nature of various schools and directions:
- 1. Freedom - Determinism (responsibility).
- 2. Rationality - Irrationality.
- 3. Holism (integrity) - Elementalism.
- 4. Constitutionalism (biological) - Environmentalism (social).
- 5. Changeability (evolutionism) - Immutability.
- 6. Subjectivity - Objectivity.
- 7. Proactivity ( internal factors development) - Reactivity (behavior - reaction to external stimuli).
- 8. Cognizability - Unknowability.
- 9. Homeostasis (maintaining internal balance) - Heterostasis (personal growth and self-development).
The given scales represent the extreme poles that representatives of various psychological theories of personality adhere to. Moreover, these poles, as a rule, are opposed to each other, when some scientists rely on one of them, while others defend the predominant meaning of the opposite. But another interpretation of these scales is possible within the framework of the principle of stable disequilibrium.
Genesis itself human development caused by the interaction of opposite principles. Such interaction gives rise to complexity and inconsistency in a person’s mental life and behavior. And this interaction is generated by a state of dynamic disequilibrium, in which there are two opposite principles, which determines the movement along the path of a person’s mental development and his integrity. We can say that the state of dynamic disequilibrium is the potential for human development.
We can identify possible metapositions in the interpretation of personality:
- · personality as a profile of psychological traits (Cettell’s factor theory of traits, Allport’s dispositional theory of personality, Eysenck’s factor theory of personality)
- · personality as a person’s experience (Freud’s psychoanalytic theory of personality, behaviorism, partly (if we mean internal experience, personal experiences) humanistic psychology, personality studies in the context of the life path)
- · personality as temperament and age (personality theories of Eysenck and Erikson).
- · personality as an interiorized ensemble of social relations (~ all theories of Soviet psychology: Vygotsky, Leontiev, Rubinstein, Platonov).
- 3. The concept of “individual” and its characteristics
- 4. The essence and content of the concept of “individuality”
- 5. The problem of the relationship between the concepts of “personality”, “individual”, “individuality”
All psychological knowledge in one way or another relates to personal issues and contributes to the understanding of personality. The complexity of this phenomenon is explained by the fact that not only is there no single theory of personality, but, as a consequence, there is also no single, generally accepted definition of personality.
The word “personality” itself, like many other psychological concepts, is widely used in everyday communication. When they want to characterize a subject, they often talk about him either as a person, or as an individual, or as an individual. But these concepts are different, although they contain much in common.
3. An individual is a specific person, a single representative of a biological species, an individual. Those. the concept of “individual” embraces a biological element. Natural human properties are divided into: age, gender, neurodynamic and constitutional.
The individual is the starting point for the formation of personality. Personality will then be the result of the development of the individual, the most complete embodiment of all human qualities. Natural prerequisites in themselves do not determine personality traits.
The importance of individual properties, but not in themselves, but reflected in the consciousness of the subject, is evidenced by reflections inspired by the rapid development of genetic engineering and its capabilities for designing the human body in accordance with given parameters. So, if a growing person learns about the design procedure that other people subjected him to in order to change the genetic structure, then the prospect of an artificially created creature may well displace such a person’s perception of himself as a naturally growing bodily being. The reification of human life leads to the transformation of the individual into a thing, into an object for manipulation. For effective development, a person must be authentic and aware of this authenticity, have certainty towards his bodily existence.
But we must also remember that an individual is not just a bundle of nerves, a system of muscles and blood circulation. Human corporeality is subject to the laws of psychological life, the life of the spirit. This idea has proven correct under extreme conditions.
Human corporeality, like his psychological essence, has been largely “cultivated.” Left to its own devices, the child's body would remain a purely biological organism - an animal: a baby, not rooted in society, would never get on its feet and walk. The child is forced to walk upright in order (and only in order) to free his forelimbs for labor, i.e. for functions imposed by cultural conditions, the forms of objects created by man for man, and the need to manipulate these objects in a human way. The same is true with the articulatory apparatus and with the organs of vision. From birth they are not organs of the human personality; they can only become such in the process of their culturally programmed method of use. Culture, lifestyle, the nature of a person’s relationships with other people change his physicality, his appearance.
4. Individuality is the uniqueness, inimitability, and originality of a person, realizing itself in the design and choice of one’s life path, carried out on the basis of the values inherent in a given socioculture. Individuality is a person in all his originality and his physical, physiological, psychological and social qualities and properties. Individuality is a person’s difference from others, his isolation from the world of his own kind.
Not only people have individuality. Everyone knows how different domestic animals are from each other - dogs, cats: each has not only its own appearance, but also its own “character”. However, no one ever talks about the personality of even a very smart shepherd dog.
There is no doubt that all newborn babies are similar to each other only at first glance. In fact, each of them is already an individuality, but, of course, not yet a person. A person becomes a person, and is not born one. As psychologist Asmolov says, “they are born a person, they become a person, and they defend their individuality.”
Asmolov’s words contain another important difference between individuality and personality: individuality is formed and developed by self-determination and even the isolation of a person from society, and personality - through the individual’s acceptance of developed social roles, norms and rules of behavior. Personality is personification social relations, and individuality is separation from these relationships.
Listening to yourself in a specific life situation in order to make up your mind, not to miss something important at this point in your life’s path, not to miss yourself - all this is the formation of individuality. Slobodchikov and Isaev write: “If personality is the definition of a person’s position in relationships with others, then individuality is the definition of one’s own position in life, the very certainty within one’s life itself. If personality arises in a person’s meeting with other people, then individuality is a meeting with oneself, with oneself as an Other, who now no longer coincides with oneself or with others in the main content of one’s former life.”
Meeting oneself allows a person to find his own way of life, which is not reducible to various patterns and scenarios. The common expression “to be yourself” obviously means to live in accordance with one’s essence, to live in the only way suitable for me. The uniqueness and originality of a person’s appearance, his abilities, his experiences, the uniqueness of his style of activity, communication and way of thinking - all this determines the one and only way of life. And the fate of man, which is also unique.
One might ask: what is the evolutionary meaning of personal individuality? Asmolov offers the answer: “...Behind the manifestations of individuality are the potential possibilities of the endless lines of the creative evolutionary process of life.” Thanks to individuals, society modernizes and develops.
Individuality presupposes not only uniqueness, but also a certain level of development of self-awareness, the embodiment of mental and creative forces in the main work of one’s life. And therefore, individuality is the authorship of one’s own life, when a person can “say himself,” as Buyakas put it, in order to reveal himself in all his unique fullness. However, any person, regardless of any achievements or feats, status or education, whether he wants it or not, is different from others. And individuality, therefore, is his constant companion.
Differences in the formation of individuality and personality only emphasize their interdependence. After all, individuality includes not only the unique features of the functioning of the body, but also the unique properties of the individual. This allows personality to be defined through individuality. “Personality,” writes Golubeva, “is a holistic individuality in its social content and quality.”
Personality is a systemic social quality acquired by an individual in objective activity and communication and characterizing the level and quality of representation of social relations in the individual.
Those. Most often, the word “personality” denotes individuality in its social connections and relationships. Personality arises as a result of the cultural and social development of a person, i.e. it captures everything that is supernatural in a person, acquired as a result of an individual life history among other people. Therefore, personality can only be understood when considering the individual in society, and even in a broader context - as “the existence of a person in the world.”
As the famous philosopher Ilyenkov noted, “ human personality can rightfully be considered as a single embodiment of culture, i.e. universal in man." The “body” of the individual is the inorganic body of culture as a way and form of human existence. Outside the social context, cultural life it is impossible to answer the question of what personality is. The sociocultural conditioning of the personality is manifested in the fact that in the body, not a single specifically human action occurs on its own, because Only those functions of the human body are programmed in genes that provide purely biological existence, but not its social-human form.
“The concept of “personality” is... a social, reflected concept,” Vygotsky noted, “built on the basis of the fact that the child applies to himself those methods of adaptation that he applies to others. That is why we can say that personality is the social in us.” And again: “Personality... is not innate, but arises as a result cultural development, therefore “personality” is a historical concept. It embraces the unity of behavior, which is distinguished by the sign of mastery.”
“Personality existed and exists in a completely real space, where there are all those things in relation to which and through which a person’s body is connected with the body of another person “as if into one body,” as Spinoza once said, into one “ensemble,” as Marx preferred to say, into one cultural-historical formation, as we will say today, into a “body” created not by nature, but by the labor of people transforming this nature into their own “inorganic body.”
However, the essence of a specific, individual personality includes only that part of the totality of social relations in which a person is included in the real process of his life. Objectively existing in a system of diverse social relations, a person is included in them in different ways. The uniqueness of a particular personality is precisely manifested in the choice, selection of those spheres of social experience, those activities, those relationships that the person appropriates and makes his own.
Rezvitsky: “If a human individual cannot become a person without mastering his social essence, then a person cannot acquire his independent existence without becoming an individual. Personality, therefore, is social in its essence, but individual in its mode of existence. It represents the unity of the social and the individual, essence and existence.”
Personality presupposes a certain level of mental development, when a person has formed his own views and attitudes, principles and positions, moral requirements and assessments, making him relatively stable and independent of environmental influences alien to his own beliefs, from private situations and incentives. A person’s personality is the most generalized mental system of his life. A person does not receive a personality by inheritance, but becomes one as he develops, in the process of communicating with other people and enriching himself with the experience of previous generations.
A necessary characteristic of a person is his activity. A person at this level of development is capable of consciously influencing the surrounding reality, changing it for his own purposes, and also changing himself for his own purposes, being the cause of himself, as ancient philosophers wrote.
A person, who is an individual, has a level of mental development that makes him capable of managing his behavior and activities, and to a certain extent, his mental development. This feature must be taken into account so as not to reduce the understanding of personality only to the totality of the social roles it has acquired. Stirlitz perfectly played the role of a German officer, a citizen of Nazi Germany, but his true personality was expressed in something else.
Another situation is also possible: external stamps, the mask is glued to the face so firmly that he cannot get rid of it. The mask can replace the personality (it is not the dog that wags the tail, but the tail that wags the dog).
It is not the role itself that characterizes a person, but his attitude to this role, independence and responsibility in fulfilling its instructions, as well as the conscious choice of a specific role from the range of available ones. Those. It is not so much the role that is important as its bearer. The significance of the individual lies in his enrichment of the role and the surrounding world as a whole. This understanding of personality allows us to look at a person as a being who overcomes the barriers of his natural and social limitations. From here arises the conviction that it is not nature that makes people, but people make themselves, that personality is not what the environment has done to a person, but what a person has done to himself. This idea is perfectly expressed by Hegel’s formula: “Circumstances or motives dominate a person only to the extent that he himself allows them to do so.”
Another aspect: personality is included in the process of creation, it is inseparable from creativity. In this sense, says Davydov, a simple worker, by virtue of the fact that he increases the treasury of social wealth, is a person. The most widespread, most widespread is creativity in the sphere of morality, since each individual every time anew and for the first time must make discoveries of a moral order, resolving conflicts moral life in a decent human way.
So, every person has the opportunity to think: am I a person or am I still not. And clear criteria are proposed: have your own convictions, do not refer to the fact that someone somehow influenced you in the wrong way and led you in the wrong direction. Influence and lead yourself, change yourself, align yourself with the ideal. If, of course, you have one, if you are... a person. To be an individual means to make a choice, to assume the burden of responsibility for a certain social, intellectual movement. The loss of independence in life makes a person completely impersonal; with its weak manifestation, we can talk about a weak or passive personality.
“If personality is the definition of a person’s position in relationships with others, then individuality is the definition of one’s own position in life, the very certainty within one’s life itself. If personality arises in a person’s meeting with other people, then individuality is a meeting with oneself, with oneself as an Other, who now no longer coincides with oneself or with others in the main content of one’s former life.”
That. we see that the development of a person’s personality can be represented as the process of its entry into a new social environment and integration into it. Personality arises thanks to other people according to the principle “from outside to inside” (interiorization), and then it can exist and develop thanks to its participation in the life of society and influence on other people according to the principle “from inside to outside” (exteriorization). And if we talk about the development of personal properties, then, according to Ananyev, the main form of their development is “ life path a person in society, his social biography.”
6. Structural and system-structural approaches to personality research
The complexity and ambiguity of personality is most conveniently explained through the concept of “system”. A person is a complex formation because it is a system.
We already know well that we cannot equate the concepts of “personality” and “person,” “personality” and “individual.” Of course, as Petrovsky and Yaroshevsky write in their work “Fundamentals theoretical psychology", "the individual's soma, his endocrine system, the advantages and defects of his physical organization influence the course of his mental processes, the formation of mental characteristics. But it does not follow from this that a “quarter” or “third” of his personality - as a special substructure - should be given over to biology. The biological, entering the human personality, becomes social, passes into the social. For example, brain pathology gives rise to biologically determined psychological traits in a person, in the structure of his individuality, but they become personal traits, specific personality traits, or do not become due to social determination. Did this individual as a person simply remain mentally disabled or did he become revered as a “fool”, “blessed”, i.e. a kind of historical figure, to whose prophecies people listened in ancient times, depended on the historical environment in which his individual psychological traits were formed and manifested.”
That is why in the history of psychology, the orientation towards a structural approach to the problem of personality is being replaced by a tendency to use a systematic approach.
But what is that special psychological systemic quality that is not reducible to the individual, natural qualities of a person? According to Leontyev, “the problem of personality forms a new psychological dimension: other than the dimension in which research is carried out on certain mental processes, individual properties and states of a person; this is a study of his place, position in the system, which is a system of social connections, communications that open to him; this is a study of what, for what and how a person uses what is innate to him and acquired by him...” Thus, the desired system-forming property is the active mediation of interpersonal relationships.
By joining the network of social relations, being an active participant and creator, a person develops his subjectivity and self-awareness.
The concept of “system” is defined as a set of elements that are in relationships and connections with each other, which form a certain integrity, unity.
The following appear as general characteristics of a “system” in a variety of systems studies:
- 1. Integrity - the irreducibility of any system to the sum of its constituent parts and the irreducibility of its properties as a whole from any part of the system;
- 2. Structurality - connections and relationships of system elements are ordered into a certain structure, which determines the behavior of the system as a whole;
- 3. The relationship of the system with the environment, which can be “closed” (not changing the environment and system) or “open” (transforming the environment and system) in nature;
- 4. Hierarchy - each component of the system can be considered as a system that includes another system, i.e. each component of the system can simultaneously be an element (subsystem) of a given system, and itself include another system;
- 5. Multiplicity of description - each system, being a complex object, in principle cannot be reduced to just one picture, one display, which presupposes for a complete description of the system the coexistence of many different representations of it.
Along with these general characteristics of any system, a number of more specific characteristics stand out, for example, the purposefulness of complex technical, living and social systems, their self-organization, i.e. the ability to change one's own structure, etc.
The involvement of the individual in different social groups and necessitates the orientation of the complementary or mutually exclusive goals of these groups, the development of self-awareness of the individual as a functional organ that provides such orientation.
Acting as an “element” of the system, the individual is at the same time a special “element” that, under certain historical circumstances, can accommodate the system and lead to its change. A paradox arises that relates to one of the paradoxes of systemic thinking: “element in the system” and “system in the element”, “person in the system of society” and “society in the system of the individual.” In the process of personality development, there is a kind of collapse of the space of social relations into the space of the individual.
Wagner discovers a pattern: the more developed a particular community is, the greater the variability in the manifestations of the individuals included in this community.
Purposeful joint activity acts as a system-forming basis that ensures a person’s involvement in the world of culture and his self-development.
There are many different theories of personality that describe its basic manifestations and structure in different ways. The structure makes it possible to see what components a personality consists of and what are the connections between them. Knowledge of personality structure orients a person toward a better understanding of himself and others, helps him act more subtly in his inner world, as well as in social relationships.
The famous Soviet psychologist Platonov, based on the criterion of the relationship between the social and the biological, identified its various substructures or levels in the personality structure:
- 1) biologically determined substructure (which includes temperament, gender, age, and sometimes pathological properties of the psyche);
- 2) psychological substructure, including individual properties of individual mental processes that have become properties of the individual (memory, emotions, sensations, thinking, perception, feelings and will);
- 3) the substructure of social experience (which includes the knowledge, skills, abilities and habits acquired by a person);
- 4) substructure of personality orientation (within which there is a special hierarchically interconnected series of substructures: drives, desires, interests, inclinations, ideals, individual picture of the world and the highest form of orientation - beliefs).
In addition, the personality structure has two general integrative substructures (character and abilities), which, unlike hierarchical substructures, permeate all four levels of the hierarchy, absorbing qualities from the substructures of each identified level. Thus, personality can be represented as a structural system that has horizontal and vertical dimensions.
