Approaches to the interpretation of personality structure. Basic psychological approaches The concept of personality in scientific research

Personality is a person taken in the system of his psychological characteristics that are socially conditioned, manifest themselves in social connections by nature and relationships are stable, determine the moral actions of a person that are of significant importance for himself and those around him.

Mental life has a certain structure. In psychological science we can find the identification and description three components of personality:

1. Personality orientation. It includes various properties, a system of interacting needs and interests that make up the worldview of the individual, i.e., in other words, the orientation of the individual is the system of its relations to the world around it, these are the motives of the individual’s behavior.

2. Personal capabilities. This component includes that system of abilities and inclinations that ensures success in some type of activity.

3. Steel human behavior. First of all, this includes temperament and character. In the character system, one can distinguish, firstly, moral qualities and properties (attitude towards people, responsibility), and secondly, volitional qualities.

Structure in the general understanding is a set of stable connections between many components of an object, ensuring its integrity and identity to itself. When the structure of personality is considered, many questions arise: what is included in the components of personality, what connections between the selected components are system-forming. This leads to the fact that almost every specialist who studies personality creates his own personality structure. In Russian psychology, there are a number of attempts to present the structure of personality (A.G. Kovalev, V.S. Merlin, K.K. Platonov, V.A. Krutetsky, A.I. Shcherbakov).

Among the large number of personality structures proposed by domestic psychologists, the most generally accepted is structure of K. K. Platonov. He identified four main components in the personality structure: orientation, experience, mental processes and biopsychic properties. Direction, according to K.K. Platonov, is directly related to the beliefs, worldview, ideals, inclinations, interests, desires and inclinations of the individual, and all these components are socially conditioned.

Personal experience is directly manifested in habits, abilities, skills, and knowledge. These structural components of personality are also predominantly socially determined, although the role of biological factors, especially innate inclinations, is more significant here than in relation to direction.

Mental processes, such as sensations, perceptions, memory, thinking, imagination, as well as will and feelings, despite significant individual characteristics, represent system-forming components of personality. In human personality, these processes, unlike animals, are predominantly social in nature.

Biopsychic properties are manifested in temperament, gender and age characteristics, and in congenital pathological abnormalities in the development of the body. These components of personality are determined by heredity and have practically no social origin.

Separately, this structure presents two more system factors - abilities and character. They seem to be superimposed on all other components, since they are directly related to orientation, experience, mental processes, and biopsychic properties.

A.V.Petrovsky and V.A.Petrovsky understood 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 the individual’s personal existence (or three aspects of the interpretation of personality).

The first aspect to consider is intra-individual personal attribution: personality is interpreted as a property inherent in the subject himself;

the personality finds itself immersed in the internal space of the individual’s existence.

Second aspect - 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 and joint) on other people. Personality is perceived from a new angle: its most important characteristics, which were tried to be seen as an individual, are proposed to be looked for 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 otherness in them. The essence of this ideal representation is in technical, effective changes in the intellectual and affective-need sphere of another person, which are produced by the activity of the subject 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. Continuing in other people, with the death of the individual the personality does not completely die. The individual, as the bearer of personality, dies, but, personalized in other people, continues to live. In the words “he lives in us even after death” there is neither mysticism nor metaphor, this is a statement of the fact of the ideal representation of the individual after his material disappearance. Thus, a person can be characterized only in the unity of all three proposed aspects of consideration.

Towards the study of personality

Modern psychology has developed stable approaches to the study of personality, the most famous of which are: psychodynamic, behavioral, activity, cognitive, existential And transpersonal. The last two are often combined under the term "humanistic approach."

Each of these directions contains more or less complex theoretical constructs, an experimental and experimental basis for their inherent views. Some of the approaches are very robust concepts, e.g. systems of views on the psychological nature of personality (psychodynamic, humanistic, activity approaches). Others are scientific theories, e.g. experimentally supported hypotheses regarding scientifically comprehended truths that reflect the psychological nature of the individual (behavioral and cognitive approaches).

In addition, within the framework of these approaches, numerous related theories and methods of personality research have been developed in development or in opposition to them. So modern personality psychology acts as an independent scientific discipline.

Psychodynamic approach to personality research. This approach represents the first theoretical concept of personality in psychology. Its author is Sigmund Freud (1856 - 1939), the great Austrian psychologist, founder of psychoanalysis. According to S. Freud, a person is a being controlled by the dynamics of unconscious drives (hence the term “psychodynamic”), and personality is a stable human “I”, which has the following structure: Id (“It” in Latin) – Ego (actually “I” in Latin) – SuperEgo (super-I). The id is the seat of instinctual drives and is subject to the pleasure principle. Ego is the central authority of self-regulation and is guided by the reality principle. SuperEgo is the moral authority of the personal “I”, which evaluates a person’s actions from the point of view of their social acceptability. According to S. Freud, the Ego protects itself from unacceptable experiences from the Id or SuperEgo with the help of defense mechanisms. Defense mechanisms are psychological actions that relieve tension from the Ego. There are only about two dozen of them: repression, replacement, rationalization, projection, denial, regression, compensation, sublimation, etc. Since a person has two main drives - to life (libido) and to death (mortido), it is the dynamics of these drives in the course of life and the distortion of the perception of reality under the influence of defense mechanisms constitute the true intrigue of the existence of the individual (in the psychodynamic approach). Together with S. Freud, scientists such as Carl Jung, Alfred Adler, Melanie Klein, Heinz Kogut, Karen Horney, Wilhelm Reich, Erik Erikson and others made a great contribution to the study of personality psychology within the framework of this approach.

Behavioral approach. Unlike the psychodynamic approach, in which the main attention is paid to the history of the development of the individual and his internal experiences, the behavioral approach focuses on the interpretation of the individual as a set of behavioral stereotypes, caused by a combination of learning and responses to stimuli. The founders of the behavioral approach were American John Watson (1878 – 1958), Russian physiologist I.P. Pavlov (1868 – 1936), the American Barres Skinner (1904 – 1988), etc. B. Skinner was particularly notable for his radical contributions to the psychological nature of personality. B. Skipner attributed the concept of personality to the group of contrived ones along with the concepts will, creativity, freedom, dignity. According to B. Skinner, “ personality- This behavioral repertoire corresponding to a particular set of circumstances.” And human behavior is only a function derived from social conditions. In the behavioral approach, personality is thus treated not as a universal quality of a person, but as a product of circumstances. The qualities of the individual himself (honesty, self-control, sociability, etc.) are products of social reinforcements in specific circumstances.

Activity approach. Developed in the 30s by Soviet scientists L.S. Vygotsky (1896 – 1938), S.L. Rubinstein (1880 – 1959) and A.N. Leontiev (1903 – 1979), the activity approach differs from the behavioral approach in the interpretation of personality in several fundamental ways. Firstly, the activity approach puts at the forefront the system of human motives, the hierarchy of which determines focus personality. Secondly, it interprets personality as a hierarchy of activities, deducing the value of an individual from the social and spiritual significance of her activities and the means she uses. Thirdly, the activity approach attached and attaches great importance to abilities as a means of formation functional organs(see 20.2) and creating, in fact, a personality in the process personalization individual i.e. distinguishing him from initially complete and undivided social dependence (infant) into a full-fledged figure. The scale of an individual’s activity, its social and spiritual value for living and future generations is the measure of personality in the activity approach. Personal structure here includes: biological component personality (temperament, character, inclinations-abilities), experience component(acquired and developed knowledge, skills and abilities) and directional component(system of motives, beliefs, value meanings).

Cognitive approach. Introduced in psychology personality construct theory George Kelly (1905 – 1965), factor theory of personality traits Raymond Cattell (1905 – 1994), factor theory of personality types Hans Eysenck (1916 – 1997) and a number of others, the cognitive approach uses the ability of a person’s logical thinking when creating (constructing) a picture of the world, as well as various procedures for measuring mental personality traits.

Thus, the American psychologist J. Kelly, in his theory of personal constructs, proceeded from the fact that personality is not a fixed entity. Vice versa: What man does How does, defines his personality. In the theory of J. Kelly, three main points are basic for understanding personality: role, construct And design. Personality, therefore, in J. Kelly’s theory, is set of roles(father, son, teacher, etc.), set of constructs(meaningful statements regarding the basis for the classification of vital relationships) and prevailing methods creating constructs. To understand the essence of this theory, it is enough to take several small pieces of paper (3 cm x 4 cm) and write on each of them the “role” of the people most significant to you: father, mother, friend, teacher, brother, etc. Then you should take three such pieces of paper in any combination and answer one question each time: how are two of these people similar and how are they different from the third? Essentially, every time you or the subject follow the logical rule of exclusion of the third, formulating construct, i.e. basic rule in your own interpretation of the world. The number and variety of constructs is the most important criterion in the interpretation of personality.

The American R. Cattell believed that personality is what allows one to predict how a person will behave in a given situation, i.e. a set of rules that govern human behavior in all types of situations. R. Cattell, through mathematical measurements, identified general, unique, basic And superficial personality traits. He then classified them into temperamental, motivational and aptitude. As a result, in its structure personality includes the following components: 35 first-order personality traits (23 normal and 12 pathological), 8 second-order, 10 basic motivational drives (hunger, anger, curiosity, etc.) and two types of intelligence - mobile and crystallized (learning outcome). Summarized in the most common 16-factor scheme of personality traits (properties), this theory has become widely used in practice thanks to the personality test of the same name by R. Cattell.

The British psychologist G. Eysenck, like R. Cattell, relying on mathematical methods of analysis, identified several dozen traits in the personality structure, however, unlike R. Cattell, he established their dependence on the highest levels of organization of personality behavior - personality types. He singled out the last three: extroverted, neurotic And psychotic. The hierarchy of personal structure is a distinctive aspect of G. Eysenck's theory. Psychotic personality type is characterized by such traits as: aggressiveness, self-centeredness, impulsiveness, etc. Extraversive– sociability, activity, courage, carelessness, etc. Neurotic– anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, shyness, etc. According to G. Eysenck, genetic factors are decisive for individual behavior.

The personality theories of R. Cattell and G. Eysenck are also called personality trait theories.

Existential - transpersonal(humanistic approach). This approach to analyzing and understanding personality is based on the fact that every person has a need for personal development, i.e. in revealing the potential of all one’s abilities in the pursuit of a certain ideal. The founder of the humanistic approach to personality is the American psychologist Abraham Maslow (1908 – 1970). One of the main concepts for characterizing personality, according to A. Maslow, is the concept of “self-actualization,” i.e. full disclosure and application of one’s talents. According to A. Maslow, a self-actualized personality is distinguished by the following features: acceptance of oneself and others; spontaneity (naturalness), the need for privacy; independence, democracy, freshness of perception, goodwill, creativity, the ability for intense (peak) experiences.

Later, Maslow’s ideas were developed in the works of Carl Rogers and Stanislav Grof. And the actual existential view of personality problems was developed in the works of the American psychologist Rollo May (1909–1994), who, based on the works of European philosophers, developed a concept of personality in which the key concepts are anxiety, guilt, freedom, myth, fate, intentionality (ability to active action) formed the framework of the personal structure.

All of the above approaches show that human personality is a complex formation, including complexes of stable and changeable characteristics, determined by both genetic and sociocultural factors, among which the leading place belongs to the processes that allow a person to reproduce the human type of life. At the same time, the nature and properties of personality can be interpreted differently. But in fact, the real prospects for the formation and flourishing of a person’s personality are determined by the efforts of people to create a truly just and humane human society.

Personality formation

The formation of personality represents the unity of the processes of its formation and development. Each type of concepts and theories discussed in the previous paragraph is associated with a special idea of ​​personality development. Psychoanalytic concept understands development as the adaptation of a person’s biological essence to the norms and requirements of society, the development in a person of compensatory methods of action that reconcile him with the prohibitions and norms of society. Behavioral concept proceeds from the fact that the main thing for personality development is the organization of such incentives that would modify human behavior towards the acquisition of socially desirable stereotypes. Cognitive theories(including theories of personality traits) base their hypotheses about personality development on the fact that some personality traits are genetically determined and innate, while others are formed during life through certain interpersonal interactions. At the same time, both behavioral and cognitive concepts are combined in the concept of “socialization,” emphasizing the fundamental importance of social institutions in their influence on the formation and formation of personality. Humanistic approach interprets the process of personality formation as the realization of one’s own potentials and abilities. At the same time, one cannot help but notice that most of these concepts and theories abstract from real processes in society, from the real place of a particular person in social life, in production relations, and property relations. They abstract from the actual defenselessness of man before the monstrous power of modern industrial-bureaucratic corporations and systems. They do not consider the real dependencies of a person and the possibilities of his development, taking into account the specific social conditions in which he finds himself. Therefore, most likely it is activity approach, which places the person as an agent at the forefront, and the production system as the embodiment of real power and proprietary relations, is able to objectively and impartially analyze and develop the theory and practice of full-fledged personal development. After all, it is absolutely clear that if society does not resolve the issues of fair distribution of property relations, providing all children with the opportunity to study according to their abilities, and not according to the financial resources of their parents, it is pointless to talk about personal development as a prospect for everyone. Only the introduction of all members of society, from early childhood, to high human culture, genuine science and various types of socially significant activities can be the key to the full personal development of each new person, who is born a helpless baby and can be personalized into a comprehensively developed personality. A person who moves all of humanity forward towards new ideals of truth, goodness and beauty.

L. Feuerbach: Personality is a product of nature. Like you, I have an anthropological idea of ​​personality as a bearer of universal human properties.

Role theory of personality - ideas about personality as a system of role behavior under the influence of social expectations. (T. Parsons) sociological personality is considered primarily as an object and product of social relations. (E. Durkheim)

Existentialists: J.P. Sartre, K. Yaspersonalistic essence of personality in its absolute spiritual independence and uniqueness.

Individuality is defined as a set of traits that distinguish a given person from other people and determine the uniqueness of his psyche and personality. At birth, a person is limited only by the properties of his body (hair color, timbre of voice, skin pattern on the fingers, etc.) Acquiring new experiences and performing other social roles entail a further change in individuality. Characterized not only by unique properties, but also by the originality of the relationships between them

The concept of “personality” is not a person born as a result of the socialization of an individual, who assimilates the traditions and system of value orientations developed by mankind and corresponds to those of its properties that are socially typical and characterize it as a representative of many large and small groups.

A mature personality is characterized by: Integrity - a person behaves predictably in different conditions; Hierarchy; a person’s ability to manage his biological needs + active life position

properties that characterize a person as a biological organism; individuality; properties that are socially typical; personality; properties of a person that form the basis of his individuality.

Personality structure is a specific organization of qualities, abilities, motives, values ​​inherent in a given individual, forming his unique personality in various manifestations.

Personality structure according to S. Freud EGO ID “pleasure principle” primitive, instinctive and innate aspects of personality, something dark, biological, chaotic, not knowing the laws, not obeying the rules. (from the Latin “I”) is the part of the psyche responsible for making decisions. The ego seeks to express and satisfy the desires of the id in accordance with the restrictions imposed by the external world. “executive organ” of the individual: the area of ​​intellectual processes and problem solving.

e t a l yuch - vk k b y V est bnost S o o s y s p e c k i t y ch ity, poured into the creo cen k ban o am o nyh s ni e oral niknov y mz i vo twa vin chuvs EGO – and deal. It is formed from the surroundings about what is highly valued, acquired or in a person; How to choose a standard for your high standards that must be met. And if the goal is achieved, it evokes a feeling of self-esteem and pride. Super - EGO

The superego is considered to be formed when parental control is replaced by self-control. The super-ego, trying to completely inhibit any socially condemned impulses on the part of the Id, tries to direct a person to absolute perfection in thoughts, words and actions. Tries to convince the Ego of the superiority of idealistic goals over realistic ones.

Pavlova Anelya Vasilievna

a history teacher

Municipal educational institution secondary school No. 12, Vyshny Volochok, Tver region.

Testing on the topic: Personality, interpersonal relationships.

2 Which approach to the interpretation of personality is redundant on the list?

A) anthropological b) sociological

C) personalistic d) scientific

2. Which approach interprets personality as a bearer of universal human properties?

A) anthropological b) sociological c) personalistic d) scientific

3. Correlate the name of the scientist and his approach to the interpretation of personality.

A) anthropological b) sociological c) personalistic

1) L. Feuerbach 2)K. Jaspers 3) E. Durkheim

4. The unique properties and originality of the relationships between them are:

A) individual b) individuality c) personality

5. The specific organization of qualities, abilities, motives, values ​​inherent in a given individual, forming his unique personality in various manifestations is……………

6. Personality structure: (complete the missing element of the table).

7. Correlate the concept and definition.

A) The level of consideration of personality from the point of view of individual differences from other people

B) personality is considered from the point of view of qualities that appear only when interacting with other people.

C) determines the impact of a person on other people.

1) meta-individual 2) intro-individual 3) inter-individual

8. Exclusively primitive, instinctive and innate aspects of personality, something dark, biological, chaotic, not knowing the laws, not obeying the rules. Freud defined it as

…………………………………..

9. Evaluate the following statements:

A. From the point of view of the Russian psychologist L. S. Vygodsky, the psychological and biological age of a person completely coincide.

B. The time scale, including events that happened before a person’s life and will happen after his death, is called historical time.

1) only A is true 2) only B is true 3) both statements are true 4) both are false

10. The highest form of personality orientation is called:

A) aspirations B) beliefs C) desires D) attractions

11. Correlate the concept and definition.

A) A person’s system of views on the world around him and his place in it.

B) A conscious need of an individual that encourages him to act in accordance with value orientations.

C) Willingness to act selflessly for the benefit of others, regardless of one’s own interests.

D) Deep feelings, grief

1) altruism 2) worldview 3) belief 4) frustration

12. Which of the following terms is redundant?

Facial expressions, speech, posture, gestures.

13. Correlate the type of interlocutor and the definition.

A. He does not immediately join the conversation; he needs time to first think about it and draw up a plan for his actions.

B. They easily switch to communication from any other activities, they are contactable, although they are easily distracted.

B. He is usually an ideal listener, speaks thoughtfully, tries to choose the most accurate words, and does not like to be interrupted.

G. Dozens of versions come to his mind, which, however, are easily replaced by others.

D. Not inclined to external communication. He often feels that he will not be understood.

1) introvert 2) rigid 3) mobile

14. Correlate the concept and definition.

A) a stable, and often simplified, image of a phenomenon or person that develops in conditions of a lack of information

B) this is comprehension of the emotional state of another person, so to speak, “feeling”

C) people’s perception, understanding and evaluation of social objects

1) empathy 2) perception 3) stereotype

Key.

A1, B3, B2

Personality structure

Values, ideals, beliefs

A2, B3, B1

Eid

A2, B3, B1, G4

Speech

A2, B3, B2, D1

A3, B1, B2

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 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.

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 personality theory, 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 being 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 physicality, like its 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 the personification of social relations, and individuality is separation from these relations.

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, “the 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 context of social and cultural life, it is impossible to answer the question of what a person 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 ensure 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 of 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, the most widespread is creativity in the sphere of morality, since each individual each time anew and for the first time must make discoveries of the moral order, resolving the conflicts of moral life in a worthy 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 “a person’s life path 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 of 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 inclusion of an individual in different social groups necessitates the need to orientate the complementary or mutually exclusive goals of these groups, and to develop the individual’s self-awareness 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.