Psychological adaptation is a process during which a person adapts to new or unusual values and systems of professional or social ties adopted in a particular society. Absolutely everyone faces it, and in the most various life spheres. Since this topic is of certain interest from a psychological point of view, it is worth paying attention to its consideration a little more now.
Socio-psychological adaptation
This is the first type of the process under consideration, which is usually distinguished separately. This term means the purposeful, actively carried out by a person assimilation of the values, rules and norms of society. Moreover, both global and the one in which he lives. This refers to the immediate environment - a family, a kindergarten, a school, a lyceum, a group at the university, a company of comrades, a work collective.
Social psychological adaptation is a process that is impossible without communication and interaction with other people. It is built on such "pillars" as:
- education;
- general education;
- professional and labor training.
The process takes a different time. It all depends on the situation to which a person needs to adapt, as well as on his individual characteristics. It can be argued that he successfully socialized if, according to the results of this process, he succeeds:
- align their goals with social values;
- coexist with other people, remaining yourself;
- make the right decisions;
- make plans for the future;
- take the initiative;
- gain new skills, abilities and knowledge, develop existing ones;
- establish emotionally rich and intimate relationships with other people.
All this helps a person not only to function safely in society, but also to adapt his environment for himself. He easily changes, creates and transforms the conditions in such a way that they satisfy his needs and contribute to the achievement of certain goals.
Problems with adaptation in society
They occur in many people. And this is called maladaptation. It happens in those situations when a person is unable to cope with the difficulties of the new conditions for him, to assert himself and to establish relationships with others. It is difficult for him to take a comfortable position.
Problems arise for two reasons. These are either external, environmental factors (society itself), or personal characteristics of a person (uncertainty, lack of sociability, etc.).
The first reason does not depend on the will of man. But internal factors - in most cases this is a very specific psychological problem. And a person, as a rule, knows about its presence. But either does not want or cannot eliminate.
Also, difficulties with adaptation are experienced by individuals whom society systematically infringes upon, suppresses, and makes excessive demands on them. Because of this, many people "break down", which often leads to psychopathology.
The most obvious sign of maladaptation is a painful experience of intrapersonal or interpersonal conflicts. And this becomes the reason because of which a person is unable to satisfy his needs or meet the requirements of society.
Why are there problems?
An answer to this question is necessary. Psychological adaptation is a very complex process. The problems associated with it were studied by many domestic and foreign experts. Among them, J. Kelly, S.L. Rubinstein, L.S. Vygotsky, A. Adler, Z. Freud, C. Rogers and many others.
Of particular interest are the views and methods of socio-psychological adaptation of Abraham Harold Maslow. He claims that problems with this process in a person arise due to the presence of metapathologies. These are mental disorders that develop due to the real or perceived inability to satisfy one's meta-needs.
This theory has made a significant contribution to understanding the topic of maladaptation, so it should be considered separately.
Meta-needs and metapatology
These concepts are directly related to the topic of psychological adaptation. Meta-needs are the highest human needs. These include:
- Liberty.
- Integrity.
- Beauty.
- Justice.
- Self esteem.
- Thanks.
- Self-realization.
- Creative self-actualization.
- Honour.
- Self-transcendence.
If a person does not receive any of the above (that which is very important and valuable for him), then metapatologies are formed:
- Anger and hatred.
- Inability to love and show feelings.
- Apathy.
- Loss of interest in life.
- Egocentrism.
- Depressiveness
- Despair.
- The habit of shifting responsibility to others.
- Impatience.
- Vulgarity.
Naturally, metapatologies interfere with the process of psychological adaptation. Because they become a distortion of value development. Many people are deprived of justice, honesty, kindness, and therefore compassion, nobility, respect for other people, their views, values and feelings are alien to them.
The ideal man is not born. But you need to strive for self-improvement. The more harmonious and holistic a person becomes, the easier psychological adaptation is given to him. And this greatly facilitates life in society.
How to adapt?
This question is asked by many people. Adaptation is a complex and continuous process. Almost every person is constantly in a changing environment. Kindergarten, school, university, army, one job, another, transfer to a new place ... A person is simply forced to look for ways to “place” himself in a particular situation and setting as comfortable and convenient as possible.
And relationships with other people help adapt. This is a way to get support. To establish a relationship is with those people who seem to a person like him. If he likes someone, then there is a chance that it will turn out to be mutual - that’s how people work. Unobtrusively showing benevolence, a person receives it in response.
Many adaptation problems arise precisely because it is difficult for them to find a common language with others, get used to new people, get to know each other. Nowadays, learning to communicate is not so difficult - there is the Internet and social networks where you can make virtual friends and try to build relationships with them first.
But what in reality? They say that to get the location of people, you don’t even need to talk. Just listen carefully to others. A good listener is worth its weight in gold, because in our time most people only talk about themselves.
Sooner or later, such a person begins to ask for advice, get an opinion, ask for an assessment. And thus integration takes place in society. The main thing is not to be a listener to the detriment of yourself, that is, to spend on it only some part of your free time.
Adaptation in childhood
One of the most crucial stages in the life of any person. Each of us went through psychological adaptation to school.
Admission to this educational institution is an exciting and difficult period, both for a first grader and for his parents. Everything changes: from the social situation to the child’s social circle. The requirements for him are increasing, the range of responsibilities is expanding significantly. And how successful the psychological adaptation to learning will be will determine its academic performance, well-being and even health.
Psychologists age 6-7 years are called crisis. It is at this stage that the formation of needs for initiative, activity and independence is necessary. The child loses his spontaneity, his self-esteem begins to form, he tries himself in the role of a schoolboy, student. Gaming activity recedes into the background, studies come to the fore. Naturally, the child begins to strive for independence. In addition, it was during this period that verbal-logical thinking, attention and memory actively developed.
In addition to all this, he also has to adapt to unusual conditions. Acquaintance with classmates, building relationships with a teacher, the need to patiently sit still for a long time and observe discipline. For a child, this is very difficult, because all of the above requires organization and responsibility.
It is not surprising that difficulties result in such consequences as poor appetite, increased fatigue, headaches, moodiness, depression, frequent mood swings, even anger and a negative attitude towards learning happen.
To prevent this from happening, parents and teachers should help the child. Respect, love, support, as well as a competent explanation of what is happening in simple words - this is very important. As a rule, within two to three months, children join school life.
Inconsistency
This word perfectly describes the process of adaptation. Why? Because, on the one hand, a person must "merge" into society. But on the other hand, isolate oneself from him in order to remain himself.
It is very difficult to maintain equilibrium, because in our time, under the conditions of comprehensive changes, it is violated. Due to fundamental changes in almost all areas of life, the functions of the institutions of socialization have become different.
Modern people often simply do not keep pace with such a rapid course of events. Many cannot even understand what they should be guided by - life values are changing, and life goes on in such a rhythm that some people cannot stop and reflect on what they actually exist for.
Social institutions
It is through them that the process of socialization is carried out. It is their task to correct and shape social qualities, to activate or limit the impact on people of certain factors.
Since many old institutions have been lost, it is necessary to develop new technologies for socialization. Their implementation will not only satisfy the needs of society, its individual groups and individuals. This will contribute to the fact that a person will begin to learn to “process” the principles of his behavior, to correlate it with certain situations and conditions.
Professional Adaptation
This is another noteworthy concept. In this case, other psychological features of adaptation are distinguished. This is due to circumstances of an internal and external nature. Indeed, in this case, we consider the process of a person entering the professional environment and interacting with it.
What exactly include factors of psychological adaptation:
- Features of the goals and content of the organization, the means and technologies used by it.
- The uniqueness of the social and working conditions in which people work.
Internal circumstances are the level of adaptive potential. External ones, to which professional areas and subject areas belong, are a kind of “field” on which a person has to realize himself. What exactly are his tasks:
- Get used to the "rhythm" of the organization: to the regime, the intensity of activity, goals, means, technologies.
- Adapt to the requirements of labor and production discipline, learn organizational rules and norms.
- To master professional role-based social functions.
- Start to correspond to your social and professional status (teacher, medic, lawyer, etc.).
- Adopt socio-psychological role functions, unwritten norms, values, rules, relationships in the organization and the work collective.
- Pour into those social circumstances in which professional activity takes place (political, legal, ethnic, religious sphere).
All of the above requires a certain level of preparedness. As a rule, the implementation of these tasks is not very difficult for a person, since he is already familiar with socio-psychological adaptation. The technique, of course, is somewhat different, since the situation is different, but at least he knows what awaits him.
Environmental adaptation
This topic also needs to be addressed. Ecological adaptation is a psychophysiological reaction of a person and his body to changing environmental conditions, in which the biological and genetic features of higher regulatory functions are involved.
Theoretical analysis showed that the study of this topic is the most difficult problem of the interaction of people with the environment from the point of view of clinical physiology. This topic remains relevant until now.
The main feature of socio-psychological adaptation to the effects of environmental factors (social and emotional) depends on gender identity (role relationships in society) and the so-called psychological gender (androgyny, masculinity, femininity). But neither inversion nor complete coincidence is a guarantee that a person will quickly get used to constantly changing external conditions.
As a result of the diagnosis of psychological adaptation in ecology, only one thing is clear - this process is directly related to both the biological and the psychophysiological level.