Collection approach. It is connected with the fact that in psychology the idea of the essence of the psychological category of personality has changed. Initially, the idea of it was based on the enumeration components, forming the personality as a certain mental reality. In this case, personality acts as a set of qualities, properties, traits, and characteristics of the human psyche. This approach was called “collector’s” by A.V. Petrovsky. The personality turns into a kind of container, the category of personality loses its psychological essence.
Rice. 4. Basic substructures as levels of personality according to K.K. Platonov
Structural approach. In the 60s of the twentieth century, the question arose about structuring numerous personal qualities. Since the mid-1960s, attempts have been made to elucidate the general structure of personality. Very characteristic in this regard is the approach of K.K. Platonov, who understood personality as a kind of bio-psycho-social hierarchical structure. He identified substructures in it: orientation, experience (knowledge, abilities and skills), individual characteristics various forms reflections (sensation, perception, memory, thinking), combined properties of temperament (Fig. 4).
Systems approach. The ideas of A.N. Leontiev are of greatest interest in the concept of a systems approach. Personality, in his opinion, is psychological education a special type generated by life in society. Subordination various activities creates the basis of personality, the formation of which occurs in the process of social development (sociogenesis). He did not refer to the concept of personality as genotypically determined human characteristics (constitution, type nervous system, temperament, biological needs, affectivity, natural inclinations, as well as lifetime acquisitions of knowledge, including professional ones). The categories listed above constitute the individual properties of a person. The concept of an individual according to A.N. Leontiev reflects the integrity and indivisibility of a particular person as a separate individual of a given biological species, distinguishing him from representatives of other species. He believed that individual properties can change many times during a person’s life, but this does not make them personal. The properties of an individual do not transform into personality properties; even when transformed, they remain individual properties, constituting only prerequisites and conditions for the development of personality. The ideas were continued by A.V. Petrovsky (personality is a systemic social quality acquired by an individual in objective activity and communication, the level and quality of representation of social relations in the individual).
According to I. B. Kotova, in Russia there were four historically established ways of existing the idea of personality, or four types of constructing scientific knowledge about personality.
1. Late XIX– beginning of the 20th century The transformation of a person into an individual is a socially desirable outcome of development. This is the period of the emergence of holistic psychological and philosophical concepts of personality, among which the concepts of V. M. Bekhterev, M. M. Bakhtin, A. F. Lazursky, S. L. Frank stand out. Issues related to the identification of units of the system of human knowledge, in particular the uniqueness and individuality of the individual, and issues of characterology were actively developed.
2. 30-60s XX century Preservation of the essence of the individual in a clash with society. The personal principle was actively defended by S. L. Rubinstein, B. G. Ananyev, K. K. Platonov.
3. Mid 60s – late 80s. XX century The period of creation of the concept of “new Soviet man", the need for which was determined by the ideological order of the CPSU. All psychology, and above all personality psychology, has lost the true subject of its research, which is confirmed by B. G. Ananyev: “The field of personality psychology in its current state represents a very vague formation in the structure psychological science».
4.90s XX century. Personality again becomes the measure and basis of all psychological phenomena. This is a period of exploration of new facets of personality: the spiritual world, non-adaptive activity, the value-semantic sphere, personalization. The works of A. G. Asmolov, B. S. Bratus, D. A. Leontyev, A. B. Orlov, V. A. Petrovsky became striking in this regard.
Despite its long history, personality psychology remains, unfortunately, at the level of descriptive psychology. Modern personality psychology is more often presented as the history of psychological concepts and theories of personality, that is, in essence, it is the history of psychology. The issues of determining the disciplinary status of personality psychology, searching for signs of a general psychological theory of personality, its structure, characteristics, categories of development, as well as definitions of personality are still debatable.
Definitions of personality. In modern psychological science there is no unambiguity or even elementary consistency in the understanding of the very term “personality”. The concept of “personality” is often confused with the concepts of “individual”, “man”, “individuality”, “subject of activity”, “character”, “temperament”. Moreover, each researcher brings his own special emphasis to this mixture.
One of the founders of the definition of personality in psychological aspect Gordon Allport is considered to be. Having proposed about 50 definitions, in 1937 he settled on the fact that personality is a dynamic organization in a person of those mental and physiological systems that determine his thinking and behavior.
Today in psychology there are a huge number of different definitions of personality. The following main definitions can be distinguished:
· many features;
· a certain type (combination of types) associated with certain characteristic features behavior;
· system of constructs;
· system of personal meanings;
· subject of relations;
· social quality in a person;
· some psychophysiological unity, including the physical and social environment;
· active self of the subject, etc.
Personality is traditionally defined as the synthesis of all the characteristics of an individual into a unique structure, which is determined and changed as a result of adaptation to an ever-changing environment and is largely shaped by the reactions of others to the behavior of a given individual. Thus, personality is social in nature, relatively stable and emerges throughout life, a psychological formation that is a system of motivational-need relationships that mediate the interactions of subject and object (A.B. Orlov).
The psychological dictionary offers us the following definition: “Personality is social side, social quality in a person. This is a specific person, a representative of certain social communities (nation, class, collective), engaged in certain types of activities, aware of his attitude towards environment and has its own individual characteristics.”
According to one of the modern textbooks on general psychology, personality “is a specific person, taken in the system of his stable socially conditioned psychological characteristics, which manifest themselves in social connections and relationships, determine his moral actions and are of significant importance for himself and those around him.”
YES. Leontiev considers personality as a structure that regulates a person’s life relationships. “Personality as a psychological formation, as a regulatory system, is constituted by the functions of the subject separating himself from the surrounding world, highlighting, presenting and structuring his relations with the world and subordinating his life activity to the stable structure of these relations, as opposed to momentary impulses and external stimuli.” Life relationships are defined here as objectively existing relationships between a person and the world, accessible for analysis not only to their subject, but also to an outside observer. The opportunity for a person to discover his life relationships appears in his experiences; experiences manifest these life relationships.
In most definitions, personality is understood as a person in the totality of his social and vital qualities acquired by him in the process of social development. Some authors also attribute to personality the characteristics of the psychophysiological and constitutional organization of a person, but we, following A. N. Leontiev, D. A. Leontiev, V. S. Merlin, believe that they are only prerequisites that influence some personality characteristics, but not related to the personality itself, these features constitute the individual properties of a person. Most often, the content of this concept includes stable human properties that determine actions that are significant in relation to other people.
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 the “set” of characteristics taken into account is significantly expanded.
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 history domestic psychology picture of psychological essence 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 came up on the agenda. Since the mid-60s, attempts have been made to elucidate the general structure of personality. The approach of V.V. Platonov, who understood personality as a kind of biosocial hierarchical structure, is very characteristic in this direction. 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 provides the basis for the formation of personality: if personality is based on relationships of subordination of species human activity, then the basis for identifying the personality structure 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 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 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 of nervous system, temperament, dynamic forces 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 of a given biological species, and secondly, the characteristics of a particular representative of the species, distinguishing 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 special quality, which is acquired by an individual in society, through the entirety of its relations, social in nature, into 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 others. 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, the individual in his active social essence No.
The personality of each person is endowed only with its own inherent combination of traits and characteristics that form its individuality - a combination psychological characteristics a person, constituting 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 relationships, they turn out to be insignificant for assessing the individual’s personality and do not receive conditions for development, just as only personality traits, to the greatest extent “drawn in” into the leading one for a given social community activity. Individual characteristics of a person do not appear in any way until a certain time, until they become necessary in the system of interpersonal relationships, the subject of which is this person as a person. 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. We are talking 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. Leontyev, we can conclude that all branches of psychological science consider 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.
For a long time, people have noticed the dependence of their behavior on the social environment and on their own psyche, which encouraged them to adapt to living conditions and at the same time demonstrate the ability to make free choice.
In the history of psychology, such a combination of the psyche and external influences and stimuli is recorded in numerous theoretical concepts for studying the problem of the relationship between the “individual” and the “social” in the individual, which is based on philosophical foundations, psychological research, anthropologically, according to which man is, first of all, a biological being. Its role and place in society is determined, and the priority of the social environment in the formation of personal development is taken as a basis.
Socio-psychological theories of personality, considering it in different aspects, are based both on the interests of the individual, the priority of his communicative and moral potential in professional growth, his knowledge, style and culture of communication, and on the importance of society, social relations in the formation of personality. And the theoretical justification depends on what prevails certain type And social program individual behavior, a certain strategy of action, and other socio-psychological characteristics of a person.
Modern teachings about man theoretically and experimentally prove that human psyche is not a result or a direct continuation of the natural development of elementary forms of behavior, the mental life of animals; a person’s mental functions are formed in the process of his development and formation in society, through his assimilation of social experience.
Moreover, the process of assimilation itself is a specific form mental development, inherent only to humans. Here we're talking about not only about higher mental functions (involuntary attention, logical memory, abstract thinking), but also about such simple and seemingly innate functions (such as tonal hearing, in particular), which are of a social nature and are formed throughout life.
The functional systems of the brain themselves, being the material substance of mental functions, do not appear ready-made for the birth of a child and do not mature independently, but are formed in the process of communication and objective activity of the child (according to A. Luria). No natural programs social behavior person, because social life is not a constant system of factors: it sometimes changes much faster than one generation is replaced by the next.
Some psychologists, studying personality, try to idealistically present its introduction into the culture of society as a purely “spiritual process.” Representatives of symbolic interactionism consider socialization as a process of assimilation by an individual of a system social roles, what happens in the primary group by “taking on the role of another.”
Other theorists interpret the socialization of the individual as a transition from purely biological to social stages development, understanding by socialization the process of learning and adaptation. In fact, social relations, by their action, transform natural functions into social ones, putting them at the service of social development.
Thus, the social does not destroy the biological, it removes the biological in man, introduces him into new systems of connections and relationships, controlled by qualitatively new laws social form movements.
So, psychology has formulated two conclusions in the process of its development, which mutually negate each other:
- mental processes and states are predetermined by the influence of the external environment;
- mental phenomena are the result of self-determination, are structural components a single antinomy.
Each of these statements is equally logical in a system that is both self-determinant and one that arises from the influence of the social environment.
Regarding the social movement, which acts as a special, highest form of self-development of matter, it has different levels and different manifestations:
- firstly, it covers historical movement societies, classes, national groups;
- secondly, it embodies the development of man as the main point of everything historical process, the denouement of the social individual.
Psychology, in analyzing problems related to the doctrine of social movement, highlights its own special aspects:
- identifying its patterns, such as, for example, operating with ideal objects;
- formation of the subject’s internal position;
- its development in the process of its own activities and others, most of which still require further research.
At the same time, the main thing should be emphasized: since the time when man was able to create a new objective world, the civilization that is guided by it and with which the field of symbols and the development of relationships is connected, it has separated from the animal world and is developing according to fundamentally new laws of social movement, which makes it human and develops as an individual.
A scientific approach to characterizing the relationship between “social” and “individual” in human development presupposes an understanding of personality as an integral system with its professional, national, family, psychological and other characteristics that are formed in the process of a person’s relationships with other people and social groups.
At the same time, the concept of “social” covers the conditions of human life in society, the characteristics of social relations, the nature of production and social institutions, the specifics of the education system, the dissemination of information, which determine and in turn are determined by the social activity of the individual, his creative initiative.
So, the human individual in his life development reproduces the achievements of the history of human culture and civilization.
This process is qualitatively unique and differs significantly from the ontogenesis of animals:
- properties that have developed as a result of the evolution of animals are determined by the morphological characteristics of the organism, which are hereditarily fixed in changes;
- achievements in human development are recorded in the results of his activities, in the instruments of production created by him, in speech, in works of science, literature, art, etc.
From the moment of birth, a person is in a world of his own kind, in socio-economic, political, socio-psychological conditions; among objects filled with human content that has social functions.
He uses objects and means created in the history of mankind, he speaks language as a socially formed tool of thinking, with the help of which he assimilates universal human experience and communicates with other people. These processes of human assimilation of social experience and culture involve vision, hearing, smell, taste, thinking, feelings, desires, etc.
Moreover, these organs themselves, these are the possibilities of perceiving the world - in colors, music, words - all this is conquered by man and is assimilated by him in constant interaction with other people, as a result of studying phenomena, objects, in the process of transforming activity. Consequently, with the genetic programming of all biological characteristics inherent in a person, the human psyche is not inherent in genes, the features of the human psyche are formed with the help of social practical activities other people.
Of course, each person has unique individual characteristics of the body, including the nervous system. But the characteristics, properties of the organism, hereditary, genetically determined, do not constitute a factor, but only (according to P. Galperin) a necessary physiological basis, a condition, but not a reason for the development of a person as a member of society. The data of modern psychology convinces us that necessary qualities personalities can be formed in everyone healthy person in the process of organizing its life activity at any natural features nervous system. That is everything normal people capable of almost unlimited spiritual development.
The formation of personality is the cultural and historical reproduction of the individual as a person who is the bearer of the generic essence of humanity, it is the appropriation of socially developed abilities by him through mastering methods of activity.
In order to take advantage of the wealth accumulated by humanity and its achievements, each new generation must master them, and for this it itself must carry out activities that would be adequate to the activities of previous generations embodied in it. Such activity is not given to the individual in a ready-made form and is not inherent in his carnal nature, but is presented in the results and experience of people’s activities, the appropriation of which, the mastery of experience, is the form within which the development of the psyche, consciousness of a person, his personality takes place.
At the same time, what is important in solving the problem of the relationship between the “individual” and the “social” in the formation and development of the socio-psychological capabilities of the individual is the role of the individual’s own activity in his interaction with the social environment.
S. Rubinstein argued that the development of the “individual” is the ability of the individual to become a subject, achieving in this formation top level subjectivity. Thus, the internal nature of the personality is manifested only through the reflection of the external.
So, the psyche is both reality and a reflection of reality. The basis for these arguments of the scientist is the thesis that the “social” (external) correlates with the “individual” (internal), acts through it and in this sense depends on it. At the same time, the internal also has its own direct source of activity and development, the result of which is not only the transformation of the external social environment, but also the formation of a specifically holistic, relatively independent inner world of the individual. At the same time, the contradiction between external and internal becomes a source of personal development in society.
This formulation of the question makes a person both dependent on society and a self-sufficient, free person.
In psychology, we come across the following signs of freedom of psychological phenomena:
- the ability of a person to be determined in his activities regardless of external factors (due to the fact that he can arbitrarily give preference to certain of the needs that are generated by these factors);
- the ability of a person to create a fundamentally new product, which was not in his experience of building a program of behavior and activity based on accumulated experience.
Under such conditions, the human psyche is capable of not only obeying external factors, but also to act independently. However, no external influences by themselves can cause human activity if they do not become motives and do not receive subjective comprehension in the individual.
Thus, analysis of the relationship between “individual” and “social” makes it possible to reveal the essential, typical in a person, which is naturally formed in a specific historical system of social relations, within a certain class or social group, social organization to which the person belongs. At the same time, when we talk about the individual as a member of social groups and classes, social institutions and social organizations, we mean not the properties of individuals, but social types personalities.
The main element of any social systems is people, their development, formation and formation in society is carried out through various social communities: social groups, social institutions, social organizations, as well as social relations accepted in society, norms, values, traditions, i.e. through culture.
Thus, an individual, having entered into a multitude of social systems, each of which exercises a systematic influence on him, becomes not only an element social system, but also itself represents a system that has a complex structure. Joining public relations, the personality is simultaneously their subject and object. This means that what they say is correct: what people are like is what society is like. But another statement is no less true: “What kind of society are the members of this society,” from which it follows that not only a person’s life activity characterizes the qualitative uniqueness of society, but also society forms the individual as a person capable of communication, interaction, creative activity, manifestation of professionalism and one’s own “I”.
Since an essential feature of modernity is the actualization of a systematic approach to the analysis of the characteristics of the manifestation of socio-psychological properties of the individual, its development and formation is considered in the unity of internal mental and external practical activity: on the one hand, the socio-psychological properties of the individual are manifested, formed and developed in society, with the other - in a social environment, having big amount degrees of freedom are largely determined by the personal communicative qualities and capabilities of the individual.
This helps to strengthen the requirements for the communicative behavior of the individual, increases his communicative competence, makes the success of her activities dependent on her own communicative knowledge, skills and abilities.
Communicative competence in this context is interpreted as an integral quality of the individual, which permeates all of his professional and personal formations, as the formalization of an individual program of behavior in the system of social relations, motivational belonging to a certain social environment, a focus on the development of communicative abilities, the desire to preserve and develop socially. psychological traditions of a specific social institution and the group in which its socialization occurs, in general, as the formation of an individual’s communicative lifestyle.
The development and formation of personality in society is a process when, with the assimilation of experience, including socio-psychological, and living conditions, a transition is made from the abstract possibility of owning social status into a real possibility and the transformation of the latter into reality as a result, the totality of all realized opportunities provided to the individual.
Consequently, the development and formation of an individual in society is always characterized by the dialectic of the possible and the actual, the necessary and the sufficient. This process may also combine:
- affirmations and negations;
- socialization, desocialization and resocialization;
- the level of elementary self-determination, orientation mainly towards external regulators and the level of self-regulation, self-actualization, self-development, independence from external determination;
- freedom and necessity;
- creation and reproduction;
- individualization and depersonalization;
- progressive - progressive and regressive in specific manifestations;
- crisis and stable periods of an individual’s life as a coordination of the “individual” and “social” in the process of socialization;
- dignity as the basis of well-being social life personalities in social group and loss of feeling by the individual social reality and so on.
When we talk about the development of an individual, we mean the formation not of an abstract personality that is outside of space and time, but of a person who acts and develops in a certain socio-cultural environment and at a certain stage in the development of society.
Thus, it is impossible to identify, analyze and understand the foundations on which knowledge about a person’s assimilation of the norms and values of society, about its formation and development is based without studying the sociocultural, ethnopsychological influences on the individual. At the same time, it is important to emphasize that changes occur not only in the individual, not only the individual is active, both in relation to himself and in relation to the group, the social environment, but the society itself in which this personality develops is changing, the society itself actively influences her.
The socio-psychological, political, economic process can both promote the progressive development of a person and inhibit it. Consequently, adequate ideas about the development of the individual in society can be obtained only in the process of considering the named components in unity and in the absence of an increase or decrease in one or the other (person or society).
Personality in interethnic relations is a carrier system quality endowed with a group, an exponent of what is nationally unique, typical of a particular ethnic community, a person who expresses a wide spectrum systems approaches his nation to the surrounding reality and other ethnic groups. It also talks about the influence of the culture of a particular social community on the formation of an individual, which is expressed in his assimilation of the values, norms, and goals of the social group.
Consequently, we can talk about a new vision of the problem of planning personal development, the system of formation and formation of an individual in a social environment, taking into account in this process the individual uniqueness of a person, the possibility of him performing the same activity in psychologically different ways, reflection and the internal mechanism of personality development, attitude towards the individual as the highest value, as a bearer of the national worldview, public interests and sentiments. With this approach, it is possible to establish a number of factors between the concepts of “personality” and “society”, to determine objective and subjective conditions for the effectiveness of the development of an individual in society.
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, the main ones of which we will study in other sections of this discipline. Each of the theories sees and constructs personality in its own way, focusing on some of its aspects and leaving others out of the picture (or giving them a secondary role).
According to the authors of the monograph “Theories of Personality” by L. Kjell and D. Ziegler, “not a single outstanding theory can be fully and correctly understood” in relation to the definition of human nature, “differences between theories reflect more fundamental differences between their creators” .
L. Kjell and D. 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. They are:
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 development factors) – 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.
The genesis of human development itself is determined 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.
Can be designated possible metapositions in the interpretation of personality:
personality as a profile of psychological traits(factor theory of traits by R. Cattell, dispositional theory of personality by G. Allport, factor theory of personality by H. Eysenck, etc.);
personality as human experience(psychoanalytic personality theory of S. Freud, behaviorism, partly (if we mean internal experience, personal experiences) humanistic psychology, personality research in the context of the life path) ;
personality as temperament and age(personality theories of G. Eysenck and E. Erikson) ;
personality as an interiorized ensemble of social relations(almost all theories of Soviet psychology: L.S. Vygotsky, A.N. Leontiev, S.L. Rubinstein, K.K. Platonov) .
The concepts of “person”, “individual”, “subject”, “personality”, “individuality”
Human- the most common concept in psychology is the concept of man - a certain biological being with articulate speech, consciousness, the ability to create tools and use them, etc. Man is a generic concept, indicating that a creature belongs to the highest degree of development of living nature - to the human race. The concept of “man” affirms the genetic predetermination of the development of actually human characteristics and qualities.
Individual is a single representative of the species "homo sapiens". As individuals, people differ from each other not only in morphological characteristics (such as height, bodily constitution and eye color), but also in psychological properties (abilities, temperament, emotionality).
Individuality- this is the unity of the unique personal properties of a particular person. This is the uniqueness of his psychophysiological structure (type of temperament, physical and mental characteristics, intelligence, worldview, life experience).
There are two levels in the development of individuality:
The first level is associated with the structural features and dynamics of the nervous system;
The second is that the combination of various traits provides the originality of human behavior and cognition, which manifests itself in a person’s individual lifestyle.
Subject- this is a person in the totality of such mental characteristics that allow him to carry out actions, activities and behavior in general. The concept of “subject” suggests that activity and energy come only from him, and not from the outside, i.e. the subject himself chooses the objects of his attention, communication, friendship.
Personality- one of the central themes of modern psychology.
Personality in the broadest sense is what internally distinguishes one person from another, a list of all its psychological properties. This concept of “personality” includes characteristics of a person that are more or less stable and testify to the individuality of a person, determining his actions that are significant for people. A personality in an intermediate, average understanding is a social subject, a social individual, a set of social and personal roles. Personality in the narrowest sense is a cultural subject, a self. This is a person who builds and controls his own life, a person as a responsible subject of will.
Personality structure (according to K.K. Platonov)
K. Platonov based the structuring of personality on the grouping of psychological traits into logically integral substructures: biologically determined and socially determined. Substructures, in turn, have their own levels:
The lowest level is those human traits that are biologically determined: the age and gender properties of his personality, temperament, and characteristics of the nervous system. At the next level there is a substructure, which includes the characteristics of various mental processes: memory, thinking, perception, innate abilities.
The next substructure includes human experience, i.e. those knowledge and skills that were acquired in the process of social life. And finally, at the highest level is the orientation of the individual, i.e. features of a person’s worldview and character, his self-esteem, interests and hobbies. All this diversity forms the holistic psychological structure of the individual.
W. James' theory of personality
According to James, the empirical “I” (Personality) combines:
1. Physical personality (the attitude towards it of its own bodily organization, family and home, etc. is also taken into account).
2. Social personality, which is defined as a form of acceptance of personality in each individual by other people.
3. Spiritual personality, which serves as the unity of spiritual capabilities, properties, qualities and states (for example, desires, thinking).
Personality: this is something that is capable of storing memories of itself and at the same time perceiving itself as one and the same (same as before). It was precisely this vision of this issue that was supported and developed by James, who represented personality as the sum of everything that a person can define and call his own. Such definitions identify the concept of personality with the concept of self-awareness, therefore it is more reasonable to formulate personality through the prism of social relationships. Then the personality acts as a system of social behavior of the individual. Self-esteem, formed by an individual’s assessment of other people and vice versa, is the main formation of the individual. Particular attention is paid to the identification of the individual himself.
Personality structure according to S. Freud
Freud compared the structure of personality to an iceberg, in which the surface, one tenth of it, is consciousness, and the rest of the underwater part is the unconscious. Freud understands the human psyche as a structure consisting of three layers or components: It (id), I (ego), Super-ego (superego). He believes that a person, or rather his personality, is formed gradually, from the moment of birth, successively passing through several stages, taking into account natural abilities and his environment - family, society, school, etc.
Freud's unconscious It is the deepest, inherited part of the human mind, in the depths of which there are secret emotional movements, reminiscent of ancient demons and expressing the unconscious desires of man. It consists of three elements: the eros drive (libido), the death drive and repressed elements separated from the ego through resistance. These impulses are guided by the pleasure principle. This instance of the psyche is accessible to direct research only through such manifestations as dreams, symptoms of illness and behavioral errors. This is a dark and inaccessible part of our psyche, the most archaic and ancient. She is inherently irrational and immoral.
The Conscious Self is the link between the It and the outside world. If It needs to satisfy its drives, then the I decides whether there is a possibility for this. The self is subject to the reality principle. The functions of the ego include self-preservation of the body, recording of experience external influences in memory, avoidance of dangers and threats, control over the demands of instincts (coming from the id).
Correlations between the concepts of “personality” and “individual” according to A.N. Leontiev
Leontyev considered a person as the totality of all human qualities.
The concept of an individual contains an indication of a person’s similarity to all other people, of his commonality with the human race.
2 signs:
1. Indivisibility or integrity of the subject.
2. The presence of special (individual) properties that distinguish it from other representatives of the same species.
Personality is a systemic and therefore supersensible quality. “The concept of personality expresses the integrity of the subject of life. People are not born with a personality, they become a personality... Personality is a relatively late product of the socio-historical and ontogenetic development of man.”
Thus, every person is an individual, but not every individual is a person, only the one who is a cat. acquired social individuality, and removed his biological individuality. Every Personality is a person as a social individual.
Analytical theory of personality (C.G. Jung)
The philosophical basis of Jung's theory is the teleological assumption of organismic purposefulness, thanks to which the transformational processes of individualization unfold in each person along the paths already inherent in the unique potential of the psychological center, called by Jung the Self.
The concept of Self emphasizes the importance of balance and wholeness, but goes far beyond this by recognizing that a spiritual basis and a transcendent source of creative power resides within the potential for growth within the soul of every person.
The Self is an archetype (the original innate mental structures that make up the content of the collective unconscious) of order, which is the center of the integrity of a person’s conscious and unconscious mental existence and the principle of their unification.
Humanistic theory of personality (C. Rogers, A. Maslow)
Representatives of humanistic psychology view people as active creators of their own lives, with freedom of choice, highly conscious and intelligent, striving for personal growth and self-sufficiency.
K. Rogers developed a number of concepts describing personality traits and its development:
1) the trend of actualization is the only motive that inspires and regulates all human behavior. According to the author, to actualize oneself means to preserve and develop oneself, to maximize the best qualities of one’s personality.
2) the entire life experience of a person is evaluated - thanks to the "organismic evaluative process" - from the standpoint of how well it serves the tendency of actualization.
3) the core of personality, according to K. Rogers, is the I-concept, or Self, which is a person’s concept of what he is.
This system includes the real Self - those characteristics that a person perceives as part of himself, including a set of “role images of the Self” (parent, spouse, employee, athlete, etc.), reflected in different life contexts. It also includes the ideal self - those characteristics that a person would like to have, but does not yet have. A person values these characteristics and strives to possess them;
The main concept developed by A. Maslow is the hierarchy of needs model. The author put forward a number of related provisions that describe the development of personality and its characteristics:
1) man is a “desiring being.” A person rarely has a state of complete, complete satisfaction, lack of desires. People almost always want something.
2) a person is a single, unique whole.
3) the hierarchy of needs, according to A. Maslow, applies to all people.
4) every person by nature has the potential for positive growth and improvement.
5) self-actualization, according to A. Maslow, is a person’s desire to become what he can become. A person who has achieved self-actualization is one who has achieved the use of all his talents and has fully realized his potential, independence from it.
Cognitive theory of personality (J. Kelly)
In his opinion, the only thing a person wants to know in life is what happened to him and what will happen to him in the future.
The main source of personality development for Kelly is the environment, the social environment. Cognitive theory of personality emphasizes the influence of intellectual processes on human behavior. In this theory, any person is compared to a scientist who tests hypotheses about the nature of things and makes predictions about future events. Any event is open to multiple interpretations.
Behavioral (behaviourist) theory of personality
Spence's theory of personality
Behaviorist theory of personality according to which the strength and effectiveness of the subject’s reactions depends on the potential of excitation. This potential, in turn, depends on two main factors: the strength, strength of the skill and the strength of motivation (motive, emotion). Strong emotional and motivational arousal can be associated with both high and low strength and effectiveness of the subject’s reaction.
Dispositional theory of personality (G. Eysenck, G. Allport)
The dispositional direction in the study of personality is based on two general ideas.
The first is that people have a wide range of predispositions to respond in certain ways in different situations (that is, personality traits). This means that people demonstrate a certain consistency in their actions, thoughts and emotions, regardless of the passage of time, events and life experience. In fact, the essence of personality is determined by those inclinations that people carry throughout their lives, which belong to them and are inseparable from them.
The second main idea of the dispositional direction relates to the fact that no two people are exactly alike.
One of the most influential dispositionalists, Gordon Allport, believed that each personality is unique and that its uniqueness can best be understood through the identification of specific personality traits. Allport's emphasis on the uniqueness of the individual is, however, only one side of his theoretical position. Much attention is also paid to how human behavior is influenced by cognitive and motivational processes. A distinctive feature of Allport's theoretical orientation is his belief that human behavior is always the result of some configuration of personality traits.
