Different approaches to understanding personality. Modern approaches to human understanding. Biological, psychological and sociological schools in the doctrines of man

In psychology, there are different approaches to understanding personality.
1. A personality can be described in terms of its motives and aspirations that make up the content of its “personal world”, i.e., a unique system of personal meanings, individually unique ways of ordering external impressions and internal experiences.
2. Personality is considered as a system of traits - relatively stable, outwardly 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.
3. The personality is also described as the active “I” of the subject, as a system of plans, relationships, orientation, semantic formations that regulate the exit of its behavior beyond the initial “plans.
4. Personality is also considered as a subject of personalization, i.e., the needs and abilities of an individual to cause changes in other people (199, pp. 17-18).

Personality is a social concept, it expresses everything that is supranatural, historical in a person. Personality is not innate, but arises as a result of cultural and social development (53, p. 315).

A person is a person who has his own position in life, to which he came as a result of great conscious work. Such a person is not only distinguished by the impression he makes on another; he consciously separates himself from the environment. He shows independence of thought, non-banality of feelings, some kind of composure and inner passion. The depth and richness of a person presupposes the depth and richness of her connections with the world, with other people; the rupture of these ties, self-isolation devastates her. A person is only a person who relates in a certain way to the environment, consciously establishes this attitude in such a way that it manifests itself in his entire being (216, pp. 676-679).

Personality is a specifically human formation, which is "produced" by social relations, into which the individual enters in his activity. The fact that in this case some of his features as an individual also change is not a cause, but a consequence of the formation of his personality. The formation of personality is a process that does not directly coincide with the process of intravital, naturally ongoing changes in the natural properties of an individual in the course of his adaptation to the external environment (144, pp. 176-177).

Personality is a socialized individual, considered from the side of his most significant socially significant properties. A person is such a purposeful, self-organizing particle of society, the main function of which is the implementation of an individual way of social existence.

The functions of a person's behavior regulator are performed by his worldview, orientation, character, and abilities.

A person is not only a purposeful, but also a self-organizing system. The object of her attention and activity is not only the outside world, but also herself, which manifests itself in the feeling of “I”, which includes self-image and self-esteem, self-improvement programs, habitual reactions to the manifestation of some of their qualities, the ability to self-observation, self-analysis and self-regulation (74, pp. 37-44).

What does it mean to be a person? Being a person means having an active life position, which can be said like this: I stand on that and I can’t do otherwise. Being a person means making choices that arise due to internal necessity, assessing the consequences of the decision made and holding on to them. answer to yourself and the society in which you live. Being a person means constantly building oneself and others, owning an arsenal of techniques and means with which one can master one's own behavior, subordinate it to one's power. To be a person means to have the freedom of choice and to bear its burden throughout life (24, p. 92).

In psychology, there are many attempts to identify the core of personality. The available approaches can be systematized as follows.
1. Significant separation of the concepts of “man”, “individual”, “subject of activity”, “individuality” (in the sense of the uniqueness, originality of each person) and “personality”. Therefore, it is impossible to reduce the concept of “personality” to the concepts of “man”, “individual”, “subject”, “individuality”, although, on the other hand, personality is both a person, and an individual, and a subject, and individuality, but only in to the extent, from the side that characterizes all these concepts from the point of view of the inclusion of a person in social relations.
2. It is necessary to distinguish between an “expanding” understanding of a person, when a person is identified with the concept of a person, and a “peak” understanding, when a person is considered as a special level of human social development.
3. There are different points of view on the correlation of biological and social development in the individual. Some include the biological organization of a person in the concept of personality. Others consider the biological as predetermined conditions for the development of a personality, which do not determine its psychological traits, but act only as forms and ways of their manifestation (A. N. Leontiev).
4. A person is not born, a person becomes; personality
formed relatively late in ontogeny.
5. Personality is not a passive result of external influence on the child, but it develops in the process of his own activity (180, pp. 25-27).

Personal development. A personality cannot develop within the framework of the processes of assimilation, consumption alone, its development presupposes a shift in needs to creation, which alone knows no boundaries (144, p. 226).

There are two types of patterns of age development of the individual:
1) psychological patterns of personality development, the source of which is the contradiction between the personality’s need for personalization (the need to be a personality) and the objective interest of the communities that are referent to him to accept only those manifestations of individuality that correspond to the tasks, norms, values ​​and conditions for the development of these communities;
2) the patterns of personality development both as a result of entering new groups for it, which become reference for the individual, acting as institutions of his socialization (family, kindergarten, school, work collective, etc.), and as a result of changes in his social positions within a relatively stable group.

The transition to the next age stage is not spontaneous, it is determined by the peculiarities of the development of society, which stimulates the formation of appropriate motivation in the child (198, pp. 19-26).

The development of a personality is necessarily connected with its self-determination, with the type and method of resolving contradictions with social reality, one's own life, and people around.

The initial level of organization of life and the quality of the personality is, as it were, the dissolution of the personality in the events of life. Then, at the next level, the personality begins to stand out, to self-determine in relation to events; here the variability of personality, parallel to the variability of events, already ceases. At the highest level, a person not only determines himself in relation to the course of individual events, to one or another of his own actions, desires, etc., but also in relation to the course of life as a whole. The personality begins to more and more consistently and definitely pursue its own line in life, which has its own logic, although not necessarily leading to external success or satisfaction of social expectations (4, pp. 34-36).

In domestic social psychology, there are many approaches to understanding the personality. Let's consider the main ones.

1) An integrated approach to the study of personality was formulated and developed by a famous Soviet psychologist B.G. Ananiev. He identified hierarchically subordinate levels of human organization: individual, personality, individuality. In his opinion, individuality is formed on the basis of the relationship between the characteristics of a person as a person and as a subject of activity, which are determined by individual natural properties.

Ananiev believed that in the study of a person as a person, the following stands out:

- personality status, i.e., its position in society (economic, political, legal, etc.);

- public functions carried out by a person depending on this position and historical era;

- motivation of her behavior and activities depending on the goals and values ​​that form the inner world;

- outlook and the totality of the relationship of the individual to the world around him (nature, society, work, other people, himself);

- character;

- inclinations.

This whole complex system of subjective properties and qualities of a person, his socio-psychological phenomena determines his activity and behavior.

2) Activity approach to the study of personality was developed by one of the famous Soviet psychologists - A. N. Leontiev. In his opinion, human activity generates all mental phenomena, qualities, features, processes and states. Unlike the individual, the personality “is in no sense a precursor to his activity, like his consciousness, it is generated by it” (Leontiev, 1975, p. 173). In Leontiev's concept, the categories of personality, consciousness, activity appear in their dialectical interaction, trinity. Leontiev applied the analysis of the structure of activity to the characterization of personality. As you remember, the main psychological components of activity are its motives: incentive motives and sense-forming motives, and the hierarchical connections of motives form the core of the personality.

3) Structural-dynamic approach to the study of personality combines a number of psychological theories, the construction of which is based on the principle of structurality. This approach can be attributed to the point of view K.K. Platonov, according to which the personality structure consists of four substructures:

1)Substructure of directionality and personality relationships, which manifest as its moral traits. This structure includes: inclinations, desires, interests, inclinations, ideals, views, beliefs of a person, his worldview. The substructure of the orientation of the personality is most socially conditioned, formed under the influence of upbringing in society, and most fully reflects the ideology of the community in which the person is included.



2)Individual social experience of the individual, combines knowledge, skills, abilities and habits acquired in personal experience through training, but already with a noticeable influence of both biologically and even genetically determined personality traits. This substructure, explains Platonov, is sometimes called individual culture or preparedness, but it is better to call it briefly experience.

3)Individual features of human mental processes, or mental functions, understood as forms of mental reflection: memory, emotions, sensations, thinking, perception, feelings, will. The influence of biologically determined features in this substructure can be seen even more clearly, since the forms of reflection are functions of the brain and depend on its state. It, interacting with the other three substructures, is formed mainly through training and exercise. .

4)biologically determined substructure, which includes typological properties (temperament), age and sex properties of the personality. Personality properties included in this substructure are incomparably more dependent on the physiological characteristics of the brain, and social influences only subordinate and compensate for them. Therefore, this substructure, according to Platonov, can be briefly called biopsychic. .

According to Platonov, these substructures differ in the "specific weight" of social and biological content, it is in the choice of these substructures as the subject of analysis that general psychology differs from social psychology.

General psychology focuses on three substructures: biological(gender, age, temperament), psychological(memory, emotions, thinking) and social experience(knowledge, skills, abilities, habits), and on the share social psychology remains the fourth substructure focus(beliefs, worldview, personal meanings, interests).

4) From the standpoint of social psychology, it is important to consider the point of view A.V. Petrovsky on the understanding of personality . The personality is considered by him not as an individual taken in an abstract social environment, but, first of all, as a person who defines himself through a group, through society. The need for personification is the starting point of personality analysis. That is why A. V. Petrovsky calls his theory the concept of personalization. They distinguish three main processes:

1) adaptation - as the appropriation of social norms and values ​​by an individual, that is, the formation of a socially typical;

2) individualization - as the discovery or affirmation of the "I", the identification of one's inclinations and capabilities, character traits, that is, the formation of individuality;

3) integration - as a change in the life of the surrounding people, the implementation of contributions and their acceptance by others and thereby the assertion of one's otherness in other people, that is, the formation of the universal.

Thus, in the structure of a person's personality, according to A.V. Petrovsky, includes three generators, three subsystems: the individuality of the individual, its representation in the system of interpersonal relations and in other people. A.V. Petrovsky identifies three blocks in the personality structure:

1) intra-individual subsystem - qualities inherent in an individual subject (individuality);

2) interindividual subsystem - the space of interindividual relations, the representation of the individual in the system of interpersonal relations;

3) the meta-individual subsystem is the representation of the personality in other people, which thereby affects its behavior, self-determination, etc.

The concept of "personality" means a holistic person in the unity of his individual abilities and the social roles he performs. The concept of "personality" must be distinguished from the concepts of the individual and individuality. The term "human individual" denotes belonging to the human race and does not include specific intellectual or emotional-psychological characteristics inherent in individuality.

Personality is a complex socio-psychological phenomenon, the analysis of which can be carried out from the standpoint of philosophy, psychology and sociology.

The problem of personality in philosophy is, first of all, the question of what place a person occupies in the world, what a person can become, that is, can a person become the master of his own destiny, can a person “make” himself.

Christianity gave a different understanding of personality, interpreting personality not as a relationship, but as a special entity, an intangible substance, a synonym for an intangible soul.

There was also a dualistic understanding of personality. In the philosophy of the New Age, starting with Descartes, the problem of self-consciousness as a relationship of a person to himself comes to the fore, while the concept of “personality” seems to merge with the concept of “I”, the identity of the person is seen in her consciousness.

The German philosopher I. Kant believed that a person becomes a person thanks to self-consciousness, it is self-consciousness that guides a person and allows him to subordinate his “I” to the moral law. .

In psychology, personality is understood as such characteristics of a person that are responsible for the coordinated manifestation of his feelings, thinking.
and behavior, these interrelated characteristics must be manifested in a sustainable and purposeful manner. Steady and stable aspects of personality are manifested through the structure of personality. The main structure-forming elements of personality act as if building blocks of personality theory. Such backbone elements of the personality structure are habit, attitude, ideal, reaction, trait, type. The structure-forming elements listed in this order do not exhaust the question of personality structure. Different conceptual ways of thinking about the organization of these elements can be used. However, let us return to the listed structural elements of personality. The concept of "trait" means the consistency and stability of individual reactions to various situations, and through these reactions one or another person can be characterized.

Factors influencing the formation of personality

First of all, the formation of personality is influenced by the genetic characteristics of the individual, received by him at birth. Hereditary traits are the basis for the formation of personality. Such hereditary qualities of an individual as abilities or physical qualities leave an imprint on his character, the way he perceives the world around him and evaluates other people. Biological heredity largely explains the individuality of the individual, its difference from other individuals, since there are no two identical individuals in terms of their biological heredity.

The second factor influencing the formation of a person's personality is the influence of the physical environment. Obviously, the natural environment that surrounds us constantly influences our behavior and participates in the formation of the human personality. For example, we associate the emergence of civilizations, tribes, and individual population groups with the influence of climate. People who grew up in different climates are different from each other. The most striking example of this is the comparison of the mountain inhabitants, the inhabitants of the steppes and the people inhabiting the jungle. Nature constantly influences us, and we must respond to this influence by changing our personality structure.

The third factor in the formation of a person's personality is considered to be the influence of culture. Any culture has a certain set of social norms and shared values. This set is common to members of a given society or social group. For this reason, members of every culture must be tolerant of these norms and value systems. In this regard, the concept of a modal personality arises, embodying those general cultural values ​​that society instills in its members in the course of cultural experience. Thus, modern society, with the help of culture, seeks to form a sociable personality, easily making social contacts, ready for cooperation. The absence of such standards puts a person in a position of cultural uncertainty, when he does not master the basic cultural norms of society.

The fourth factor that forms a person's personality is the influence of the social environment. It should be recognized that this factor can be considered the main one in the process of forming the personal qualities of an individual. The influence of the social environment is carried out through the process of socialization. Socialization is a process by which an individual assimilates (internalizes) the norms of his group in such a way that through the formation of his own I, the uniqueness of this individual or personality is manifested. Personal socialization can take many forms. For example, socialization is observed through imitation, taking into account the reactions of other people, generalization of different forms of behavior. Socialization can be primary, that is, taking place in primary groups, and secondary, that is, taking place in organizations and social institutions. Unsuccessful socialization of the individual to group cultural norms can lead to conflicts and social deviations.

The fifth factor that forms the personality of an individual in modern society is the individual experience of a person. The essence of the influence of this factor lies in the fact that each person finds himself in different situations, during which he is influenced by other people and the physical environment. The sequence of such situations is unique to each person and is oriented toward future events, based on positive and negative perceptions of past situations. A unique individual experience is one of the most significant factors in the formation of a person's personality.

Needs and their types

Types of human needs

· organic. These needs are connected with the development of man, with his self-preservation. Organic needs include many needs: food, water, oxygen, optimal ambient temperature, procreation, sexual desires, existence security. These needs are also present in animals. Unlike our smaller brothers, a person needs, for example, hygiene, culinary processing of food and other specific conditions;

· material Needs are based on their satisfaction with the help of products created by people. These include: clothing, housing, transport, household appliances, tools, as well as everything that is necessary for work, recreation, everyday life, knowledge of culture. In other words, a person needs the goods of life;

· social. This type is associated with the need for communication, position in society, a certain position in life, gaining respect, authority. A person cannot exist on his own, so he needs to communicate with other people. Social needs have arisen since the development of human society. Thanks to such needs, life becomes the most secure;

· creative types of needs represent satisfaction in different types of activity: artistic, scientific, technical. People are very different. There are those who cannot live without creativity. They even agree to give up something else, but they cannot exist without it. Such a person is a high personality. Freedom to engage in creativity for them is above all;

· moral self-improvement and psychological development - these are the types of human needs, in which he ensures his growth in the cultural and psychological direction. In this case, a person strives to become deeply moral and morally responsible. Such needs contribute to the introduction of people to religion. Moral self-improvement and psychological development become the dominant needs for people who have reached a high level of personality development.

Since ancient times, people have noticed the dependence of their behavior on the social environment and on their own psyche, which prompted them to adapt to the conditions of life and at the same time show 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 “individual” and “social” in a person, which is based on philosophical foundations, psychological studies, anthropologically, according to which a person is primarily a biological being. Its role and place in society are determined, the priority of the social environment in the formation of personality development is taken as a basis.

Socio-psychological theories of personality, considering it in different aspects, proceed both from the interests of the individual, the priority of his communicative, moral potential in professional growth, his knowledge, style and culture of communication, and the importance of society, social relations in the formation of personality. And the theoretical substantiation of a certain type and social program of an individual's behavior, a certain strategy of action, and other socio-psychological characteristics of a person depends on what prevails.

Modern teachings about man theoretically and experimentally prove that the human psyche is not the result or direct continuation of the natural development of elementary forms of behavior, the mental life of animals; the mental functions of a person are formed in the process of his development and formation in society, through the assimilation of social experience by him.

At the same time, the process of assimilation itself is a specific form of mental development, inherent only to a person. Here we are talking not only about higher mental functions (involuntary attention, logical memory, abstract thinking), but also about such simple and seemingly innate functions (such as, in particular, pitch hearing) that have a social nature and are formed in the course of 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). There are no natural programs of human social behavior, because it is social life that is not a constant system of factors: it sometimes changes much faster than one generation is replaced by the next.

Individual 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 of social roles, which occurs in the primary group by “accepting the role of another”.

Other theorists interpret the socialization of an individual as a transition from purely biological to social stages of development, understanding socialization as a process of learning and adaptation. In fact, social relations, by their action, transform natural functions into social ones, placing them at the service of social development.

Thus, the social does not destroy the biological, it removes the biological in a person, introduces him into new systems of connections and relations, controlled by qualitatively new laws of the social form of movement.

So, in the process of its development, psychology has formulated two conclusions that mutually negate each other:

  1. mental processes and states are predetermined by the influence of the external environment;
  2. mental phenomena are the result of self-determination, they are structural components of a single antinomy.

Each of these statements is equally logical in a system that is both self-determinant and one that emerges 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, an unequal nature of manifestation:

  • firstly, it embraces the historical movement of societies, classes, national groups;
  • secondly, it embodies the development of man as the main moment of the entire historical process, the denouement of the social individual.

Psychology, in analyzing the problems associated with the doctrine of social movement, highlights its special aspects:

  • revealing its patterns, such as, for example, operating with ideal objects;
  • formation of the internal position of the subject;
  • its development in the process of its own activity and others, most of which still require their own research.

At the same time, the main thing should be emphasized: since the time when a person managed to create a new objective world, a civilization that is guided by it and with which the field of symbols and the development of relations is connected, it has separated from the animal world and has been developing according to fundamentally new laws of social movement, which makes him a man, develops him as a person.

The scientific approach to the characterization of the relationship between "social" and "individual" in human development involves understanding the personality as an integral system with its professional, national, family, household, psychological and other features that are formed in the process of a person's relationship with other people, 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 ontogeny of animals:

  • the properties that have developed as a result of the evolution of animals are determined by the morphological features of the organism, which are hereditarily fixed in changes;
  • achievements in human development are recorded in the results of his activity, 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 the world of his own kind, in socio-economic, political, socio-psychological conditions; among objects filled with human content, having social functions.

He uses objects and tools created in the history of mankind, he knows the language as a socially formed tool of thinking, with the help of which he assimilates universal human experience and communicates with other people. Vision, hearing, smell, taste, thinking, feelings, desires, etc. participate in these processes of assimilation of social experience and culture by a person.

At the same time, these organs themselves, these are the possibilities of perceiving the world - in colors, music, words - all this is conquered by a person 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 features inherent in a person, the human psyche is not embedded in the genes, the features of the human psyche are formed with the help of the social and practical activities of other people.

Of course, each person has peculiar individual characteristics of the body, including the nervous system. But the features, properties of the organism, hereditarily, genetically determined, are not 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 convince us that the necessary personality traits can be formed in every healthy person in the process of organizing his life with any natural features of the nervous system. That is, all normal people are capable of almost unlimited spiritual development.

The formation of a personality is the cultural and historical reproduction of an 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 the mastery of methods of activity.

In order to take advantage of the wealth accumulated by mankind, its achievements, each new generation must master them, and for this it must itself carry out such activities that would be adequate to the activities of previous generations embodied in it. Such activity in a finished form is not given to an individual and is not embedded in his carnal nature, but 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, the role of the individual's own activity in his interaction with the social environment is important in solving the problem of the correlation of "individual" and "social" in the formation and development of the socio-psychological capabilities of the individual.

S. Rubinshtein argued that the development of the "individual" is the ability of the individual to become a subject, reaching the highest level of subjectivity in this formation. Thus, the inner nature of the personality is manifested only through a reflection of the outer.

Thus, the psychic is both a 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 integral, relatively independent inner world of the individual. At the same time, the contradiction between the external and internal becomes a source of development of the individual in society.

Such a statement of the question makes a person both dependent on society and a self-sufficient, free person.

In psychology, one comes across such signs of the freedom of psychological phenomena:

  • the ability of a person to be determined in his activity 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 able not only to obey external factors, but also to act independently. However, no external influences by themselves can cause a person's activity, if they do not become motives, do not receive subjective comprehension in the personality.

Thus, the analysis of the relationship between "individual" and "social" makes it possible to reveal in the individual the essential, typical, which is naturally formed in a specific historical system of social relations, within a certain class or social group, social organization to which the individual belongs. At the same time, when it comes to a person as a member of social groups and classes, social institutions and social organizations, then we mean not the properties of individuals, but social types of personalities.

The main element of any social systems is people, their development, formation and formation in society is carried out through a variety of 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 many social systems, each of which exerts a systematic influence on him, becomes not only an element of the social system, but also represents a system that has a complex structure. Being attached to social relations, a person is simultaneously their subject and object. So, they say correctly: what kind of people - such a society. But another statement is no less true: “What kind of society are the members of this society”, from which it follows that not only human life activity characterizes the qualitative originality of society, but society also forms an individual as a person capable of communication, interaction, creative activity , the manifestation of professionalism and one's own "I".

Since an essential sign of modernity is the actualization of a systematic approach to the analysis of the features of the manifestation of the socio-psychological properties of the personality, its development and formation is considered in the unity of internal mental and external practical activities: on the one hand, the socio-psychological properties of the personality are manifested, formed and developed in society, with the other - in the social environment, having a large number of degrees of freedom, is largely determined by the personal communicative qualities and capabilities of the individual.

This contributes to strengthening the requirements for the communicative behavior of the individual, increases her communicative competence, makes the success of her activity dependent on her own communicative knowledge, skills and abilities.

Communicative competence in this context is interpreted as an integral quality of a personality that permeates all of its 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, focus on the development of communication skills, the desire to preserve and develop socially — psychological traditions of a particular social institution and the group in which it is socialized, in general, as the formation of an individual's communicative lifestyle.

The development and formation of a personality in society is a process when, while assimilating experience, including socio-psychological, and living conditions, a transition is made from an abstract opportunity to own a social status into a real opportunity and the transformation of the latter into reality as a result, the totality of all realized opportunities provided individual.

Consequently, the development and formation of an individual in society is always inherent in the dialectic of the possible and the real, the necessary and the sufficient. This process may also include:

  • affirmations and denials;
  • socialization, desocialization and resocialization;
  • the level of elementary self-determination, focusing mainly on 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;
  • progressively - progressive and regressive in specific manifestations;
  • crisis and stable periods of an individual's life as an agreement between "individual" and "social" in the process of socialization;
  • a sense of dignity as the basis for the well-being of the social life of an individual in a social group and the loss of an individual's sense of social reality, etc.

When it comes to the development of an individual, it does not mean the formation 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 the assimilation of the norms and values ​​of society by a person, about its formation and development is impossible 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 is changing in which this individual develops, the society itself actively influences her.

The socio-psychological, political, economic process can both contribute to the progressive development of a person and slow it down. Consequently, adequate ideas about the development of the individual in society can only be obtained in the process of considering these components in unity and in the absence of an increase or underestimation of one or the other (person or society).

A person in interethnic relations is a carrier of a systemic quality that a group is endowed with, a spokesman for a nationally unique, typical for a particular ethnic community, a person who expresses a wide range of systemic approaches of his nation to the surrounding reality and other ethnic groups. It also talks about the influence of the culture of a separate social community on the formation of an individual, which is expressed in the assimilation of values, norms, and goals of a social group.

Therefore, 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 originality of a person, the possibility of him performing the same activity in psychologically different ways, reflection and the internal mechanism of personality development, attitudes towards to the individual as the highest value, as the 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 the objective and subjective conditions for the effectiveness of the development of an individual in society.

Pedagogical studies

MODERN SCIENTIFIC PSYCHOLOGICAL AND PEDAGOGICAL APPROACHES TO UNDERSTANDING CREATIVE PERSONALITY

O. G. Asfarov

MODERN SCIENTIFIC PSYCHOLOGICAL-PEDAGOGICAL APPROACHES TO UNDERSTANDING OF CREATIVE PERSONALITY

The article deals with the notion "creative personality" and its interpretation in up-to-date psychological-pedagogical literature. The principal idea of ​​the article is to cast light on the modern scientific approaches to the understanding of creative personality which are developed and carried out by native and foreign scholars in the sphere of psychology and education science.

The article is devoted to the concept of "creative personality", its interpretation in modern psychological and pedagogical literature. The main idea of ​​the article is to reveal modern scientific approaches to understanding the creative personality, developed and implemented by both domestic and foreign scientists in the field of psychology and pedagogy.

Key words: personality, creativity, creative personality, giftedness, personality development.

The modern requirements imposed by society and the state on the system of vocational education determine the objective need to pay great attention not only to the process of the actual professional training of the future specialist, but also to the process of forming certain personal qualities in him, which contribute to a more complete disclosure and improvement of professional qualities. An important task of vocational education institutions at all levels is the preparation of a competitive, competent personality of a specialist, one of the characteristics of which is the ability to create new product samples and professional actions through creativity. This makes it important to interpret the concept of "creative personality" in relation to the current level of development of psychological and pedagogical science (both domestic and foreign) and the social demands of society, determined by the specifics of the current level of its social development.

From a psychological point of view, a personality is “a phenomenon of social development, a concrete living person with consciousness and self-consciousness; it is a self-regulating dynamic functional system of properties, relations and actions continuously interacting with each other, which are formed in the process of ontogenesis” (3).

The modern pedagogical dictionary considers a person from the position of “a person as a participant in the historical and evolutionary process, acting as a bearer of social roles and having the opportunity to choose a life path, during which he transforms nature, society and himself” (1).

Social sciences consider personality as a special quality of a person acquired by him in the process of joint activity and communication. From the point of view of philosophy, personality is the main social value, the essence of which is the ability for self-realization, self-determination and productive creative activity.

The analysis of personality theories must undoubtedly begin with the conceptions of man developed by such great classics as Hippocrates, Plato and Aristotle. An adequate assessment is also impossible without taking into account the contribution made by dozens of thinkers, for example: Aquinas, Ventham, I. Kant, D. Locke, F. Nietzsche, N. Machiavelli, who lived in an intermediate era and whose ideas can be traced in modern ideas.

Later, many philosophers also investigated what constitutes the essence of a person's personality, what are the necessary and essential conditions for its formation and development, what are the characteristics of its main manifestations. Among them are M. M. Bakhtin, G. V. F. Hegel, E. V. Ilyenkov, G. Marcuse, M. K. Mamardashvili, V. V. Rozanov, A. M. Rutkevich, V. S. Solovyov , L. S. Frank, E. Fromm, M. Heidegger, M. Scheler and others.

The problem of the formation and development of personality is presented in the works of teachers (V. I. Zagvyazinsky, Yu. N. Kulyutkin, A. K. Markova, V. A. Slastenin, V. V. Serikov, and others). The worldview of the individual and its structure were considered by philosophers, psychologists, teachers (R. A. Artsishevsky, V. I. Blokhin, L. N. Bogolyubov,

A. I. Bychkov, K. E. Zuev, G. V. Klokovoy, V. A. Morozov, E. I. Monoszon,

V. V. Orlov, K. G. Rozhko, V. F. Chernovo-Lenko, etc.).

Both domestic and foreign psychologists have deeply and comprehensively studied the problem of personality and individuality, for example, A. G. Asmolov, B. G. Ananiev, V. K. Vilyunas, L. S. Vygotsky, A. N. Leontiev, A. V. Petrovsky, S. L. Rubenshtein, V. I. Slobodchikov, P. Fress, etc.).

Abroad, the tradition of clinical observation, starting with Charcot (J. Charcot) and Janet (P. Janet) and, more importantly, including Freud (S. Freud), Jung (S. G. Jung) and McDougall (W. McDougall) determined the essence of personality theory more than any other single factor. These scientists interpreted personality as an ensemble of irrational unconscious drives.

Another scientific direction is associated with the Gestalt tradition and William Stern (W. Stern). These theorists were greatly impressed by the idea of ​​the integrity of behavior and were accordingly convinced that a partial or fragmentary study of the elements of behavior could not lead to the truth. This point of view is deeply rooted in current foreign theories of personality.

The emergence of experimental psychology as an independent direction stimulated interest in carefully controlled empirical research of personality, a better understanding of the nature of theoretical constructions and a more detailed assessment of methods of behavior modification.

At the same time, if the main ideas of personality theorists came primarily from clinical experience, then experimental psychologists drew ideas from discoveries made in the experimental laboratory. While in the forefront of early personality theorists we see Charcot, Freud, Janet, McDougall, Helmholtz, Thorndike (E. L. Thorndike), Watson (J. V. Watson) and Wundt played a corresponding role in experimental psychology (W. Wundt). Experimentalists were inspired by the natural sciences, while personality theorists remained closer to clinical data and their own creative reconstructions. One group at-

vetoed intuition and insights, with a certain amount of contempt for the blinders that science imposes with its severe limitations on the imagination and narrow technical capabilities. The other supported the demands for rigor and precision of limited research and was disgusted by the rampant use of clinical judgment and imaginative interpretation.

Behaviorism actually removed the problem of personality, which had no place in the mechanistic scheme "S-R" ("stimulus-response"). Very productive in terms of specific methodological solutions, the concepts of K. Levin, A. Maslow, G. Allport, K. Rogers reveal a certain limitation, which manifests itself: in physicalism (the transfer of the laws of mechanics to the analysis of personality manifestations, for example, in K. Levin), in indeterminism in humanistic psychology and existentialism.

A significant part of the work of domestic researchers of the twentieth century is devoted to the formation of a dialectical-materialistic, Marxist-Leninist, communist or scientific worldview by means of various educational subjects.

In Russian psychology, a person as a person is characterized by a system of relations conditioned by life in society, of which he is the subject. In the process of interaction with the world, an actively acting person acts as a whole in which the knowledge of the environment is carried out in unity with the experience. Personality is considered in the unity (but not identity) of the sensual essence of its bearer - the individual and the conditions of the social environment (B. G. Ananiev, A. N. Leontiev).

The natural properties and characteristics of the individual appear in the personality as its socially conditioned elements. So, for example, brain pathology is biologically determined, but the character traits generated by it become personality traits due to social determination. Personality is the mediating link through which external influence is connected with

its effect in the psyche of the individual (S. L. Rubinshtein).

The emergence of personality as a systemic quality is due to the fact that an individual, in joint activity with other individuals, changes the world and through this change transforms himself, becoming a personality (A. N. Leontiev).

According to domestic scientists, personality is characterized by:

Activity, that is, the desire of the subject to go beyond his own limits, expand the scope of his activities, act beyond the boundaries of the requirements of the situation and role prescriptions (achievement motivation, risk, etc.);

Orientation - a stable dominant system of motives: interests, beliefs, ideals, tastes, etc. - in which human needs manifest themselves;

Deep semantic structures (“dynamic semantic systems”, according to L. S. Vygotsky), which determine her consciousness and behavior, are relatively resistant to verbal influences and are transformed in the joint activity of groups and collectives (the principle of activity mediation);

The degree of awareness of one's attitude to reality: attitudes (according to V. N. Myasishchev), attitudes (according to D. N. Uznadze, A. S. Prangishvili, Sh. A. Nadirashvili), dispositions (according to V. A. Yadov) etc.

Personality as a subject of interpersonal relations reveals itself in three representations that form a unity (V. A. Petrovsky):

1) Personality as a relatively stable set of its intra-individual qualities: symptom complexes of mental properties that form its individuality, motives, personality orientations (L. I. Bozhovich), personality character structure, temperament, abilities (works by B. M. Teplov, V. D Fiction-na, V. S. Merlin, etc.).

2) Personality as the inclusion of an individual in the space of inter-individual relations, where relationships and interactions that arise in a group can be interpreted

as carriers of the identity of their participants. Thus, for example, a false alternative is overcome in understanding interpersonal relationships either as group phenomena or as personality phenomena: the personal acts as a group, the group - as a personal one (A.V. Petrovsky).

3) Personality as an “ideal representation” of an individual in the life of other people, including outside of their actual interaction, as a result of the semantic transformations actively carried out by a person in the intellectual and affective-need spheres of the personality of other people (V. A. Petrovsky).

Today, in the 21st century, humanity is faced with the growth of various crises - environmental, informational, cultural, demographic, national, etc. , I. Yakimanskaya and others). The solution of these problems involves a change in the human mentality, value orientations, methods of activity, behavior and lifestyle, both on an individually personal and on a universal scale (V. I. Belozertsev, A. V. Buzgalin, B. T. Grigoryan, P. S. Gurevich, R. S. Karpinskaya, I. I. Kravchenko, N. N. Moiseev, E. Fromm, W. Frankl, G. I. Schwebs, A. Schweitzer, K. G. Jung, K. Yas - Persian, Yu. V. Yakovets and others).

In this regard, there is a need to clarify the concept of "creative personality" and analyze existing ideas about the structure of a creative personality.

There are two main points of view on the creative person. According to one, creative ability to one degree or another is characteristic of every normal person. It is as integral to a person as the ability to think, speak and feel. Moreover, the realization of creative potential, regardless of its scale, makes a person mentally normal. To deprive a person of such an opportunity means to cause him neurotic

sky states. Some psychoneurologists see the essence of psychotherapy in the cure of neuroses by awakening the creative aspirations of a person.

According to the second point of view, not every (normal) person should be considered a creative person, or a creator. This position is connected with a different understanding of the nature of creativity. Here, in addition to the unprogrammed process of creating a new one, the value of a new result is taken into account. It must be universally valid, although its scale may be different. The most important feature of the creator is a strong and stable need for creativity. A creative person cannot live without creativity, seeing in it the main goal and the main meaning of his life.

The view of creativity as a universal trait of a person's personality presupposes a certain understanding of creativity. Creativity is supposed to be a process of creating something new, and the process is not programmed, unpredictable, sudden. This does not take into account the value of the result of a creative act and its novelty for a large group of people, for society or humanity. The main thing is that the result should be new and meaningful for the “creator” himself. An independent, original solution by a student of a problem that has an answer will be a creative act, and he himself should be evaluated as a creative person.

As G. K. Selevko notes, according to modern psychological and pedagogical science, creativity is a conditional concept, it can be expressed not only in the creation of a fundamentally new one that did not exist before, but also in the discovery of a relatively new one (for a given area, a given time, in a given place , for the subject itself) (2).

Some researchers believe that creativity as a separate entity does not exist (A. Maslow, D. B. Bogoyavlenskaya, etc.).

Another point of view suggests that creativity is determined primarily by the level of development of the intellect and manifests itself at a high level of development of any abilities.

stey (S. L. Rubinshtein, A. V. Brushlinsky, R. Sternberg). At the same time, intellectual giftedness acts as a necessary but not sufficient condition for creativity. The main role in the determination of creativity is played by motives, values ​​and personality traits.

The third point of view on the creative ability of the individual is that it is singled out as an independent factor independent of the intellect (J. Gilford, Ya. A. Ponomarev).

In accordance with this, several areas of study of creativity have developed in psychological and pedagogical science: 1) the history of studying the problem of creativity, creative abilities and creative activity, analysis of the current stage in the development of the psychology of creativity (A. Yu. Kozyrev, A. T. Shumilin, Ya. A Ponomarev, Yu. F. Barron); 2) the essence of creativity and creative activity, the components of creative thinking (A. Yu. Kozyrev, A. T. Shumilin, R. Mooney, R. Taylor, E. de Bono, N. S. Leites, A. M. Matyushkin); 3) the development of creative thinking, creative abilities, the connection between the psychology of creativity and pedagogy (L. S. Vygotsky, A. N. Luk, E. de Bono, G. Neuner, S. L. Rubinshtein).

Ya. A. Ponomarev in his research notes that in the middle of the twentieth century, the psychology and pedagogy of creativity approached a new stage in their development. Particularly dramatic shifts have taken place in the psychology of scientific creativity: its authority has increased, and its content has become deeper. She has taken a leading place in the study of creativity. The scientist believes that the conditions for a new stage in the development of the psychology of scientific creativity arose in the situation of the scientific and technological revolution, which significantly changed the type of social stimulation of scientific research. For a long time, society did not have an acute practical need for the psychology of creativity, including scientific creativity.

In other words, in science there has been a general trend in the study of creativity, which is expressed in a gradual movement from an undivided, syncretic description

of the phenomena of creativity, from attempts to directly cover all these phenomena in all their specific integrity to the development of an idea of ​​the study of creativity as a complex problem - in moving along the line of differentiation of aspects, identifying a number of patterns that are different in nature, determining creativity.

It should be noted that creativity as a subject of scientific research has its own specifics: when you try to strictly scientific description, the very subject of research disappears - an elusive creative process; on the other hand, an attempt to approach the innermost nature of creativity may lead too far away from the accepted canons of science.

Much here depends on how the researcher outlines his subject of research - what, in fact, is understood by creativity. For example, E. Taylor, considering creativity as a solution to problems, identifies six groups of definitions of creativity: 1) definitions of the "Gestalt" type, which emphasize the creation of a new integrity; 2) definitions focused on the "final product", or "innovative" definitions, which emphasize the production of something new; 3) "aesthetic" or "expressive" definitions that emphasize self-expression; 4) "psychoanalytic" or "dynamic" definitions, in which creativity is defined in terms of the interaction of "I", "It" and "Super-I"; 5) definitions in terms of “solution-oriented thinking”, which emphasize not so much the solution as the thought process itself; 6) various definitions that do not fit into any of the above categories.

P. Torrance, having analyzed various approaches and definitions of creativity, singled out the following types of definitions of creativity: definitions based on novelty as a criterion of creativity; definitions in which creativity is opposed to conformity; definitions that include a process.

The scientist himself proposes to define creativity as a process, pointing out that having defined creativity as a process, one can raise questions about what type of person one needs to be in order to implement such a process, what environment contributes to it, and what product is obtained as a result of the successful completion of this process.

Of great importance is the revival of the original idea of ​​mental abilities and, accordingly, of mental giftedness. As you know, the mind was traditionally considered, first of all, not actions based on imitation or a certain algorithm (which was mainly revealed with the help of intelligence tests), but independent acquisition of new knowledge, their discovery, transfer to new situations, solving new problems, i.e. creativity (creativity).

This idea is largely due to the study of the problems of productive thinking in Western European and American psychology (M. Wertheimer, D. Gilford, K. Dinker, W. Lowenfeld, W. Keller, K. Koffka, N. Mayer, L. Sekeeb, P. Torrens and others), in domestic psychology this direction is represented by the works of S. A. Rubinshtein, A. V. Brushlinsky, Z. I. Kalmykova, B. M. Kedrova, A. M. Matyushkin, O. K. Tikhomirov and others

This scientific direction closely links the concepts of "creative personality" and "gifted personality", contributing to the emergence of concepts and scientific theories that integrate them.

Among modern foreign concepts of giftedness, the most popular is the concept of giftedness by J. Renzulli. According to J. Renzulli, giftedness is a combination of 3 characteristics: intellectual abilities (above average), creativity and perseverance (task-oriented motivation). In addition, his theoretical model takes into account knowledge (erudition) and a favorable environment. This concept is very popular and is actively used to develop applied problems. On the

many modified versions have been developed on its basis.

P. Torrens in his own concept uses a similar triad: creativity, creative skills, creative motivation. The methods of diagnosing creativity developed by him on the basis of his own concept of giftedness are widely used all over the world in identifying gifted children. His model largely resembles that of J. Renzulli.

In many ways, it resembles the idea of ​​J. Renzulli "Multifactorial model of giftedness" by F. Monks. It offers slightly different parameters: motivation, creativity and exceptional ability (the outer side of giftedness).

Another modified and additional version of the J. Renzulli model is proposed by D. Feldhusen: consisting of 3 intersecting circles (intellectual abilities, creativity and perseverance), the core should be supplemented by the "I - concept" and self-respect.

There is also a model focused on specific pedagogical tasks. According to this variant, three levels are distinguished in giftedness: genotypic, mental and phenotypic. On the border of the genotypic and mental levels, there is a triad similar to the triad in D. Renzulli's model: creativity, abilities above average, motivation. Thus, a model focused on specific pedagogical tasks emphasizes the importance and necessity of exceptional creativity as a characteristic of a creative person only at the first two, lower levels of giftedness, while at the highest level it is necessary to form the creative person itself as a multi-level integrative phenomenon.

A compatriot of P. Torrens -V. Lowenfeld was one of the first to introduce the concept of "creative intelligence" into scientific use. By this was meant a certain conglomeration of intellectual and creative abilities. This idea was confirmed and further developed in the work

max A. Osborne, D. McKinnon, K. Taylor and other researchers. These conceptual models for solving a number of applied psychological and pedagogical problems.

After the idea that creativity was inherently different from intelligence was put forward, interest in experimental research on creativity increased significantly, and the number of such studies increased significantly, starting with the work of J. Gilford, who put forward the concept of divergent thinking.

The conducted studies have one thing in common: the ability to be creative is defined as the ability to create something new, original.

From our point of view, the presence of a product or a method of solving a problem is essential in the definition of creativity. W. A. ​​Hennessy and T. M. Amabile point out that although most authors consider creativity as a process, their definitions most often use product definitions as a hallmark of creativity. In most definitions of creativity, these characteristics of a product are novelty and adequacy. In many studies, such a "product" is the result of performing tests for creativity; or - it is an expert evaluation of products, while the authors are most concerned about the fact that "most researchers, both using tests of creativity and using subjective product evaluation, do not have clear operational definitions." Scientists note that a product or idea is creative to the extent that experts recognize it as creative.

In general, it should be noted that the problem of a creative personality has a pronounced interdisciplinary character, requiring a researcher to take a multidisciplinary, integrative approach to its consideration. Being the subject of attention of many domestic and foreign scientists in various fields of science (philosophy, psychology, pedagogy, etc.) throughout the history of the development of science, the concept of "creative personality" nevertheless has not acquired a single version of its definition. Some scientists-researchers consider it in the context of the giftedness of the individual, others - as an absolutely independent phenomenon, not related to giftedness and talent.

LITERATURE

1. Pedagogical dictionary / ed. V. I. Za-gvyazinsky, A. F. Zakirova. - M., 2008. - 352 p. - S. 233.

2. Selevko G. K. Encyclopedia of educational technologies: in 2 volumes - M., 2006. - T. 2. - P. 96.

3. Dictionary of a practical psychologist / comp. S. Yu. Golovin. - Minsk, M, 2000. - 800 p. - S. 256.

Asfarov Oleg Georgievich, State Educational Institution of Secondary Vocational Education Georgievsky Regional College "Integral", Georgievsk, Stavropol Territory, lecturer; Competitor of the Department of Theory and Practice of Education Management, Stavropol State University. The sphere of scientific interests is a creative personality, the formation and development of a creative personality, the activities of institutions of the vocational education system for the formation and development of a creative personality. [email protected]