Knowing the basics of psychology can be useful in life to each of us. They will help you achieve your goals in the most productive way. Understanding the psychological structure of the personality at the same time will provide an opportunity to effectively interact with people. This will also require an idea of how the development of each individual takes place, and what features this process has. Knowledge of the constituent elements, as well as personality types, will also make life more harmonious, comfortable and productive. Let's try to master these basics, which are so important for each of us.
What is a personality?
The reality that is described by this concept finds its manifestation in the very etiology of the term. Initially, the word "personality", or persona, was used to refer to actor's masks assigned to certain types of actors. In the Roman theater, the name was somewhat different. There the actors' masks were called"masks", that is, faces facing the audience.
Later, the word "personality" began to mean the role, as well as the actor himself. But among the Romans, the term persona acquired a deeper meaning. This word was used with the obligatory indication of the social function that was inherent in the role. For example, the personality of the judge, the personality of the father, etc. What conclusion can be drawn from this? In its original meaning, the concept of "personality" indicated a certain function of a person or his social role.
Today, psychology interprets this term somewhat differently. It points to the personality as a socio-psychological formation, formed due to the life of the individual in society. Man, being a collective being, when entering into relations with the people around him, will certainly acquire new qualities that were previously absent from him.
It is worth noting that the phenomenon of personality is unique. In this regard, this concept today does not have an unambiguous definition. So, a person is called a person who has a certain set of psychological properties that are the basis for his actions that are significant for society. The same term also means the internal difference of a person from everyone else.
Also, a person is understood as a social subject in conjunction with his social and individual roles, habits and preferences, his experience and knowledge.
Means this concept and a person who independently builds and controls his life, is fully responsible forher.
Related Concepts
The term "personality" is often used with words such as "person" and "individual". In terms of content, all these terms are not identical, but it is simply impossible to separate them from each other. The fact is that the analysis of each of these concepts allows you to more fully reveal the meaning of personality.
What is a person? This concept is classified as generic. It indicates the presence of a being at the highest step in the development of nature. This concept asserts a genetic predetermination in the development of human qualities and characteristics.
Under the individual understand a separate member of society, considered as a unique set of his innate and acquired qualities. Those specific properties and abilities that people have (consciousness and speech, labor activity, etc.) are not transmitted to them by biological heredity. They are formed throughout life with the assimilation of the culture that was created by previous generations. Not a single person is able to independently develop a system of concepts and logical thinking. To do this, he must participate in labor and in various types of social activities. The result of this is the development of specific features that have already been previously formed by mankind. As living beings, humans are subject to basic physiological and biological laws. If we consider their life from a social point of view, then here they are completely dependent on the development of social relations.
Another concept, closelyassociated with "personality" is "individual". This term refers to a single representative of homo sapiens. In this capacity, all people differ not only in their morphological features (eye color, height, bodily constitution), but also in psychological properties, expressed in emotionality, temperament and abilities.
The term "individuality" means the unity of a person's unique personal properties. This concept means the originality of the psychophysical structure of each of us, which includes the type of temperament, intelligence, mental and physical characteristics, life experience and worldview. This versatility of the concept of "individuality" is reduced to the designation of the spiritual qualities of a person, and its essence is associated with a person's ability to be himself, showing independence and independence.
Stages of personality research
The problem of understanding the essence of a person as a socio-psychological entity has not been resolved to this day. She continues to be on the list of the most intriguing mysteries and difficult tasks.
In general, various socio-psychological theories contribute to the understanding of the personality and the ways of its formation. Each of them gives its own explanation of why there are individual differences between people and how an individual develops and changes throughout his life. However, scientists argue that no one has yet been able to create an adequate theory of personality.
Theoretical research in this direction was carried out withancient times. Their historical period can be divided into three stages. It is philosophical-literary and clinical, as well as experimental.
The origins of the first of them can be found in the writings of ancient thinkers. Moreover, the philosophical and literary stage lasted until the beginning of the 19th century. The main problems that were considered in this period were issues related to the social and moral nature of man, his behavior and actions. The first definitions of personality given by thinkers were very broad, including everything that is in a person, and everything that he considers his own.
At the beginning of the 19th c. problems of personality psychology have become the subject of interest of psychiatrists. They engaged in systematic observation of the personality of patients in clinical settings. At the same time, the researchers studied the life of the patient. This allowed them to more accurately explain his behavior. The results of such observations were not only professional conclusions directly related to the diagnosis of mental illness and their treatment. General scientific conclusions concerning the nature of the human personality also saw the light. At the same time, various factors (biological, psychological) were taken into account. The structure of the personality at this stage began to manifest itself more fully.
The clinical period lasted until the beginning of the 20th century. After that, personality problems came to the attention of professional psychologists, who previously paid their attention only to the study of human states and cognitive processes. These specialists gave experimental character to researches in the described area. AtAt the same time, in order to accurately test the hypotheses put forward and obtain the most reliable facts, mathematical and statistical data processing was carried out. Based on the results obtained, theories of personality were built. They included no longer speculative, but experimentally verified data.
Personality theories
This term is understood as a set of assumptions or hypotheses about the mechanisms and nature of human development as a socio-psychological entity. Moreover, each of the existing theories of personality makes attempts not only to explain the behavior of the individual, but also to predict it. To date, there are several.
Including:
- Psychodynamic theory of personality. Its second, better known name is "classical psychoanalysis". The author of this theory is a scientist from Austria Z. Freud. In his writings, he considered personality as a system of aggressive and sexual motives. At the same time, he explained that these factors are balanced by protective mechanisms. What is the psychological structure of personality according to Freud? It is expressed in an individual set of individual protective mechanisms, properties and blocks (instances).
- Analytical. This theory of personality is inherently close to the conclusions of Z. Freud and has a large number of common roots with them. The most striking representative of the analytical approach to this problem can be called the Swiss researcher C. Jung. According to his theory, personality is a combination of innate and realized archetypes. Whereinthe psychological structure of the personality is determined by the individual uniqueness of the relationships. They concern certain blocks of the conscious and unconscious, the properties of archetypes, as well as the introverted and extroverted attitude of the individual.
- Humanistic. The main representatives of this theory of personality are A. Maslow and K. Rogers. In their opinion, the main source in the development of a person's individual qualities are innate tendencies that imply self-actualization. What does the term "personality" mean? Within the framework of humanistic theory, this term reflects the inner world that is characteristic of the human "I". What can be called the psychological structure of personality? This is nothing more than an individual relationship between the real and the ideal "I". At the same time, the concept of the psychological structure of the personality of this theory also includes that individual level of development that the need for self-actualization has.
- Cognitive. The essence of this theory of personality is close to the humanistic theory considered above. But at the same time, it still has a number of rather significant differences. The founder of this approach, the American psychologist J. Kelly, expressed the opinion that every person in his life wants to know only what has already happened to him and what events await him in the future. According to this theory, personality is understood as a system of individual organized constructors. It is in them that the processing, perception and interpretation of the experience gained by a person takes place. If we consider briefly the psychological structure of personality, then, according to the opinion,expressed by J. Kelly, it can be expressed as an individual and peculiar hierarchy of constructors.
- Behavioral. This theory of personality is also called "scientific". This term has its own explanations. The fact is that the main thesis of behavioral theory is the assertion that a person's personality is a product of learning. It is a system that includes, on the one hand, social skills and conditioned reflexes, and, on the other hand, a combination of internal factors, including self-efficacy, subjective significance, and accessibility. If we briefly state the psychological structure of the personality according to behavioral theory, then, in the opinion of its author, it is a complexly organized hierarchy of social skills or reflexes. The leading role in it is given to the internal blocks of accessibility, subjective significance and self-efficacy.
- Activity. This theory of personality is most popular in domestic psychology. The greatest contribution to the development of the activity hypothesis was made by A. V. Brushlinskii, K. A. Abulkhanova-Slavskaya, and S. L. Rubinshtein. Within the framework of this theory, a person is a conscious object that occupies a certain position in society. At the same time, it performs a certain socially useful function. What is the psychological structure of a person's personality? It is a complexly organized hierarchy of certain blocks, consisting of orientation, self-control, character and abilities, individual properties, as well as systemic existential and existential qualities of an individual.
- Dispositional. Proponents of this theory believe that personality uses factors characteristic of gene-environment interaction as its main sources for development. Moreover, this hypothesis has different directions. Representatives of some of them believe that genetics has the main influence on personality. There is also a clearly opposite view. Representatives of several other areas of dispositional theory argue that the environment still has the main influence on the individual. Nevertheless, the dispositional consideration of the problem points to the personality as a complex system of temperament or formal dynamic qualities. This also includes the main features of a person and his socially determined properties. The psychological characteristic of the personality structure, given by the representatives of the dispositional theory, is expressed in an organized hierarchy of certain biologically determined qualities. Moreover, all of them are included in certain ratios, which allows the formation of certain types of traits and temperament. In addition, one of the elements of the structure of the psychological properties of a person is a set that includes content properties. They also influence a person's personality.
Personality structure
This concept in psychology in no way affects the relationship of the individual with the outside world and society. It considers them only in terms of certain properties.
The concept and psychological structure of personality began to be studied in the second half of the 20th century in the most detailed way. During this period, eachresearchers began to represent a person as the epicenter of the social and individual. An increasing number of domestic psychologists began to lean toward the idea that a person is a complex knot into which social relations are woven. This led to the conclusion that this concept is a certain measure of self-expression, individual activity, creativity, self-affirmation. In addition, the individual began to be regarded as a subject of history, capable of existing only in social integrity.
The main prerequisite for its formation is activity. This fact is finally recognized by domestic researchers. What is the relationship between activity and personality? The psychological structure of activity makes it possible to judge it as a subjective factor. At the same time, its main product and condition of existence is the person himself, in a certain way related to the world around him. The consciousness of people is formed on the basis of the structure of activity, the main purpose of which is to satisfy needs. Those benefits that a person receives as a result of his work, first of all, take place in his mind. It also contains what determines the structure of the personality of each of us.
So what does this concept mean? The psychological structure of personality in psychology is a systemic holistic education. It is a set of certain socially significant qualities, attitudes, positions, actions and algorithms of human actions that have developed in him during his lifetime and which determine his activity and behavior.
The most important elements of the psychological structure of a personality are its properties such as character and orientation, abilities and temperament, life experience, personal characteristics of the psychological processes occurring in the individual, mental states characteristic of a particular person, self-consciousness, and so on. Moreover, all these traits are acquired by people gradually, in parallel with the process of learning social skills.
The development of the psychological structure of personality is a product of the life path passed by a person. How does this education function? This becomes possible through the interaction of all components of the psychological structure of the personality. They represent the individual qualities of a person. Let's take a closer look at them.
Direction
This is one of the basic elements of the psychological structure of the personality. What is orientation?
This is the first component in the psychological structure of the personality. The orientation of the personality personifies its interests, attitudes and needs. One of these components determines all human activity. He plays a leading role. All the other elements of the psychological structure of the personality in the field of orientation only adapt to it and rely on it. So, a person may have a need for something. However, he does not show any interest in a certain thing.
Abilities
This is the second of the existing elements of the psychological structure of personality. Abilities provide a person with the opportunity of self-realization in a certain field of activity. They areare individual psychological qualities of a person that ensure the success of a person in communication and work. At the same time, abilities cannot be reduced to the skills, abilities and knowledge that a person has.
After all, this element in the socio-psychological structure of the personality only ensures their easier acquisition, further fixation, as well as effective application in practice.
Abilities are classified into:
- Natural (natural). Such abilities are associated with the innate inclinations of a person and are due to his biological characteristics. Their formation occurs with the individual's life experience and with the use of learning mechanisms, which are conditioned reflex connections.
- Specific. These abilities are general, i.e., determining the success of a person in various areas of activity (memory, speech, etc.), as well as special, characteristic of a particular area (mathematics, sports, etc.).
- Theoretical. These abilities in the psychological structure of the personality determine the inclination of the individual to abstract and logical thinking. They underlie the success of a person to the implementation of specific practical actions.
- Educational. These abilities have a direct impact on the success of the pedagogical impact on a person, the assimilation of skills, abilities and knowledge that comes to the formation of basic life qualities.
There are also abilities to communicate with people, objective activities associated withinteraction of people with technology, nature, artistic images, symbolic information, etc.
It is worth noting that abilities are not static formations. They are in dynamics, and their initial formation and further development is the result of activities organized in a certain way, as well as communication.
Character
This is the third most important of all the existing components of the psychological structure of personality. Character is manifested through human behavior. That is why identifying it and observing it in the future is a simple task. It is not for nothing that a person is most often judged only by his character, without taking into account abilities, orientation and other qualities.
When studying the features of the psychological structure of personality, character appears as a rather complex category. After all, it includes the emotional sphere, strong-willed and moral qualities, as well as intellectual abilities. All of them together mainly determine actions.
Individual components of character are connected with each other and are mutually dependent. In general, they form a single organization. It is called character structure. This concept includes two groups of traits, that is, certain personality traits that regularly manifest themselves in various areas of human activity. It is on their basis that one can make an assumption about the possible actions of an individual under certain conditions.
The first group includes features that express orientationpersonality, that is, its goals and ideals, inclinations and interests, attitudes and stable needs. This is a whole system of relations between a person and the surrounding reality, which is a characteristic method of implementing such relations only for this individual. The second group includes volitional character traits. Emotional manifestations are also considered in it.
Will
The concept and psychological structure of personality include this component. What is will? This is the ability of a person to consciously regulate his actions and actions that require a certain overcoming of external and internal difficulties.
Today, the concept of will has begun to lose its scientific value in the field of psychology. Instead of this term, more and more often they put a motive, the essence of which is determined by the needs of a person and those phenomena that are directly related to them.
Will is one of the specific and essential properties in human behavior. However, it is conscious. This circumstance allows a person to be at a level inaccessible to animals. The presence of the will enables people to realize the goal, as well as the means necessary to achieve it, which are determined even before the start of the activity. Most psychologists consider will as a conscious character of behavior. Such an opinion allows us to define any human activity. It can be considered one of the areas of expression of will, since such activity presupposes the presenceconscious goal. Moreover, the main nature of this component can be found in the structure of all human behavior as a whole, and to clarify it, it will be necessary to identify the feature of the content side of actions, their motive and source.
Temperament
This element in the psychological structure of personality represents the dynamics and energy of human behavior. Based on temperament, the speed, strength and brightness of the individual's emotional response are manifested.
This element of the psychological structure of personality is innate. Its physiological foundations were studied by Academician I. P. Pavlov. In his works, the scientist drew attention to the fact that temperament depends on the type of nervous system, which were characterized by him as follows:
- Unrestrained. This type of higher nervous activity is unbalanced, mobile and strong. It corresponds to the temperament of the choleric.
- Alive. This is a balanced, but at the same time mobile and strong type of nervous system. It is typical for sanguine people.
- Calm. It is understood as an inert, balanced and strong type of NS. This temperament can be found in phlegmatic people.
- Weak. Sedentary, unbalanced and weak type of NS. This temperament is found in melancholics.
The differences that take place between people are quite multifaceted. That is why it sometimes becomes so difficult to understand a person, avoid conflicts with him and adopt the right line of behavior. In order to better understand other people, we needthe psychological knowledge given in this article, which should be applied in combination with observation.
