The article will consider the social activity of the individual and its types, factors of social activity, as well as what consequences it has for society. Also, attention will be paid to its main characteristics and ways of development.
General information
What is meant by activity? It should be noted that this is a generalized and at the same time complex concept. It is used to characterize living organisms. Speaking in general and in general, then activity is understood as the internal deterministic movement of living matter. But we are interested in a special case - the behavior of an individual in society. And, revealing the topic of the article, it should be said that the social activity of a person is the need of an individual to maintain or change the foundations of his life, according to his worldview and value orientations. The conditions and environment of manifestation is a complex of all factors that affect a particular individual in society. Social activity is most often manifested in attempts to change the circumstances of people's lives (or oneself), so that a person (orgroup) benefited. It should also be noted that there are ample opportunities for such activities. Of course, all activities are interconnected. But if a person can no longer walk, this does not mean at all that he will not take part in the life of society. This is possible due to the social nature of this type of activity.
Types and interactions
Social activity is most strongly associated with mental and physical manifestations. It determines their further development. At the same time, there are separate provisions on which the social activity of the individual most depends. Its characteristic can be expressed in three words: worldview, duty and will. True, different sciences have a slightly different vision on all this. To get acquainted with them, you can read the philosophical, psychological and sociological literature. Thus, activity can be considered not only as activity itself, but also as a measure of its orientation and the total ability of a particular subject to enter into diverse active relations with the existing objective reality. However, there is no generally accepted interpretation of this phenomenon. There are generalized and narrower interpretations.
Interpretation
So, researchers have no single interpretation. The social activity of the individual in psychology, philosophy and other sciences is considered from the point of view of individual opinions. Bringing them all is quite problematic. Therefore, they were combined by the author into three groups, which will be designated within the framework of this article:
- Social activity is a broader category than activity. In this case, it is understood that a person can exert a certain influence even by his mere presence.
- Social activity is identified with activity. In this case, it is implied that everything a person does is important for society.
- Social activity is a narrower category than activity. Adherents of such a statement are people who believe that not all human actions can be considered from a public point of view.
Research opinions
For a better understanding of the topic of the article, I suggest that you familiarize yourself with two approaches. The first one was proposed by S. A. Potapova, who considers the worldview and activity of the subject as part of one whole - social activity. However, not every action can be considered in this way. Only that activity is an indicator of social activity, which has certain quantitative and qualitative characteristics that are interconnected. Independence is also a prerequisite. In other words, activity should not be imposed from outside. It must be a product of human needs. That is, in order to recognize a particular individual as a socially active subject, you need to make sure that he consciously realizes his needs.
Interesting alsomethodological conclusion of VG Mordkovich. He considers activity as an essential feature of the subject. If someone else's will is imposed on a person, then he already becomes the bearer of activity. In other words, the individual turns from a subject into an object, which performs other people's tasks for which he does not need. To designate people of this type, the concept of "socially passive" was introduced. At the same time, it is noted that not all needs have a driving influence on activity, but only those of them, the satisfaction of which has social significance or affects certain public interests. The structure of the behavioral model in this case depends on the goals pursued by the subject and the preferred levers of influence.
Division by spheres
We have previously considered division based on theoretical approaches to study. If we look at the practical result, that social activity can manifest itself in the following areas of life:
- Labour;
- Socio-political;
- Spiritual.
Each species has its subspecies.
Features of the theoretical consideration
Social activity can be considered in two main aspects. In the first, it appears as a property of personality. Social activity in this case is considered as one that is due to natural data and characteristics that were formed and developed during the educational, educational, training and practical processes. In other words, this quality shows how a person relates to the social environment and how much he is able to solve emerging problems (both his own and those of other people). The second aspect considers activity as a certain measure of activity. In other words, a quantitative and qualitative assessment of the inclusion of the individual in the existing and functioning system of social relations is given.
Assessment of social activity
In order to assess how a person manifests himself, as a rule, indicators such as diligence and initiative are used. The first is understood as the ability of an individual to perform the tasks at the required level in accordance with the requirements, norms and rules. Normativity is often used to characterize performance.
As an example, we can recall factories and their existing wage systems, where people are paid for the quantity of products created not below a certain level of quality. If diligence is brought up from an early age, then initiative is born in childhood and gradually develops. It reaches peak values in adulthood, when a person creates the greatest number of different ideas. All of them are evaluated by the quality of study, social value, the direction of the initiative, the responsibility of the performer, duration, sustainability and frequency of manifestations. Also, those of them where a person acted as an organizer or performer can be summed up separately. There are, of course,other evaluation indicators, but these are the most universal. Let's look at a small example. In it, we will combine the information presented earlier.
Example of growing social activity
To simulate the conditions, let's imagine that the actions will unfold in the socio-political sphere. So we have an individual. He does not take any active actions and is an ordinary ordinary man in the street. At one certain moment, the insight “condescends” on him that something is going wrong in the public or political life of the state. He begins to collect information, attend various conferences, communicate with representatives of organizations that operate in this area. Thus, the individual becomes a passive participant in public life: he participates in it, but his possibilities of influencing it are close to zero. He shows social activity, but so far he is not a more or less significant participant, his social "weight" is very low. Over time, the individual begins to participate more actively in various events. Perhaps he even establishes his own public organization. This requires more time and effort from him, which must be devoted to the cause. Thus, social activity will grow. Moreover, this will not be work in vain, but to achieve certain goals that are pursued by a person.
Conclusion
Social activity is an important parameter when studying the involvement of the population in the process of government. Also if there isthoughts about large-scale state or public activities, then the activation of this characteristic of the population can serve very well.
