Knowledge of the basics of psychology can be useful in life to each of us. They will allow you to achieve your goals as productively as possible. Understanding the psychological structure of the individual will make it possible to effectively interact with people. This will require an idea of ​​how each individual develops and what features this process has. To make life more harmonious, comfortable and productive will allow knowledge of the constituent elements, as well as personality types. Let’s try to master these fundamentals that are so important for each of us.
What is a person?
That reality, which is described by this concept, finds its manifestation in the etiology of the term. Initially, the word "personality", or persona, called acting masks assigned to certain types of actors. In the Roman theater, the name was somewhat different. There, acting masks were called “masks”, that is, persons 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 identity of the judge, the identity of the father, etc. Which of these can be concluded? In its original meaning, the concept of “personality” indicated a specific function of a person or his social role.
Today, psychology interprets this term in a slightly different way. It indicates the personality as a socio-psychological formation, formed due to the life of the individual in society. A person, being a collective being, when entering into relations with people around him, without fail acquires new qualities that he previously did not have.
It is worth noting that the phenomenon of personality is unique. In this regard, this concept today has no 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 means the internal difference of a person from all others.
Also, a person is understood as a social subject in conjunction with his social and individual roles, habits and preferences, his experience and knowledge.
This concept also means a person who independently builds and controls his life, is fully responsible for it.
Related concepts
The term “personality” is often used with such words 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 the individual.
What is man? The concept is referred to generic. It indicates that the creature is at the highest step in the development of nature. This concept affirms genetic predetermination in the development of human qualities and traits.
An individual is understood as an individual member of society, considered as a unique combination of the innate and acquired qualities that he has. Those specific properties and abilities that people have (consciousness and speech, labor, 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 can independently develop a system of concepts and logical thinking. To do this, he must participate in work and in various types of social activities. The result of this is the development of specific features that have already been previously formed by humanity. Being living creatures, people obey the 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 closely related to “personality” is the “individual”. This term refers to a single representative of homo sapiens. In this capacity, all people have differences not only in their morphological characteristics (eye color, height, body constitution), but also in psychological properties, expressed in emotionality, temperament and abilities.
The term "individuality" is understood as the unity of a person’s unique personal qualities. This concept means the uniqueness 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” reduces to the designation of a person’s spiritual qualities, and his essence is connected with a person’s ability to be himself, showing independence and independence.
Stages of personality research
The problem of understanding the essence of man as a socio-psychological formation has not been solved to this day. She continues to remain on the list of the most intriguing secrets and difficult tasks.
In general, various socio-psychological theories contribute to the understanding of 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 succeeded in creating an adequate personality theory.
Theoretical studies in this direction have been conducted since ancient times. Their historical period can be divided into three stages. It is philosophical and literary and clinical, as well as experimental.
The origins of the first of these 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 during this period were issues relating 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 a person has and everything that he considers to be his own.
At the beginning of the 19th century. problems of personality psychology have become a subject of interest for psychiatrists. They began to systematically monitor the personality of patients in a clinical setting. In this case, 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. The general scientific conclusions concerning the nature of the human person saw the light. In this case, various factors (biological, psychological) were taken into account. The personality structure at this stage began to manifest itself more fully.
The clinical period lasted until the beginning of the 20th century. After this, personality problems came to the attention of professional psychologists who previously turned their attention only to the study of the conditions and cognitive processes of a person. These specialists have given research in the field described an experimental character. Moreover, for accurate verification of the hypotheses put forward and obtaining the most reliable facts, mathematical and statistical data processing was carried out. Based on the results obtained, personality theories were built. They included already not speculative, but experimentally verified data.
Personality theories
This term refers to a set of assumptions or hypotheses about the mechanisms and nature of human development as a socio-psychological formation. Moreover, each of the existing personality theories makes attempts not only to explain the behavior of the individual, but also to predict it. To date, there are several.
Among them:
- Psychodynamic theory of personality. Her second, more famous name is "classical psychoanalysis." The author of this theory is a scientist from Austria Z. Freud. In his writings, he regarded 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 the individual totality of individual defense 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 prominent representative of the analytical approach to this problem can be called Swiss researcher C. Jung. According to his theory, a personality is a combination of inherent and also archetypes realized by it. Moreover, the psychological structure of the personality is determined by the individual peculiarity of the relationship. They relate to certain blocks of the conscious and unconscious, the properties of archetypes, as well as the introverted and extroverted installation of the individual.
- Humanistic. The main representatives of this personality theory are A. Maslow and C. Rogers. In their opinion, the main source in the development of individual qualities of a person are innate tendencies that suggest self-actualization. And what does the concept of "personality" mean? In 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 correlation between the real and ideal “I”. Moreover, 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 possesses.
- Cognitive. The essence of this theory of personality is close to the humanistic one considered above. But at the same time, she 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 happened to him and what events await him in the future. According to this theory, a person is understood as a system of individual organized designers. They are the processing, perception and interpretation of human experience. 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 designers.
- 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, a combination of internal factors, including self-efficacy, subjective significance, and accessibility. Briefly summarizing the psychological structure of the personality according to behavioral theory, then, according to its author, it is a complex 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 Russian psychology. The greatest contribution to the development of the activity hypothesis was made by A. V. Brushlinsky, K. A. Abulkhanova-Slavskaya and S. L. Rubinstein. In the framework of this theory, a person is a conscious object that occupies a certain position in society. Moreover, 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 the individual.
- Dispositional. Proponents of this theory believe that the individual, as his main sources for development, uses factors characteristic of genetic interaction. Moreover, this hypothesis has various directions. Representatives of some of them believe that genetics has the main influence on the personality. There is clearly the opposite opinion. Representatives of slightly different directions of dispositional theory argue that the main influence on an individual is nevertheless provided by the environment. Nevertheless, a dispositional consideration of the problem points to the person as a complex system of temperament or formal-dynamic qualities. This also includes the main features of a person and his socially-conditioned properties. The psychological characteristic of the personality structure given by representatives of dispositional theory is expressed in an organized hierarchy of certain biologically determined qualities. Moreover, they are all 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 personality is a combination that includes substantial properties. They also have an effect on a person’s personality.
Personality structure
This concept in psychology does not in any way affect the individual’s relationship with the environment and society. It considers them only from the point of view of certain properties.
The concept and psychological structure of personality began to be studied in more detail in the second half of the 20th century. During this period, researchers began to represent each person as the epicenter of the social and the individual. An increasing number of domestic psychologists began to incline to the idea that the personality is a complex node into which social relations are woven. This allowed us to conclude that this concept is a certain measure of self-expression, individual activity, creativity, and self-affirmation. In addition, the person began to be regarded as a subject of history, able to exist only in social integrity.
The main prerequisite for its formation in this case is activity. This fact is finally recognized by domestic researchers. What is the relationship between activity and personality? The psychological structure of activity allows us to judge it as a subjective factor. Moreover, its main product and condition of existence is the man himself, in a certain way related to the world around him. The consciousness of people is formed on the basis of the structure of activities, the main purpose of which is to satisfy needs. Those benefits that a person receives as a result of his labor, first of all, take place in his presentation. This is also the basis for what determines the personality structure 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 combination of certain socially significant qualities, relationships, attitudes, actions and algorithms of human actions that have developed in his lifetime and which determine his activity and behavior.
The most important elements of the psychological structure of the 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-awareness, etc. Moreover, all these features 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 traveled by a person. How does this education function? This becomes possible with the interaction of all components of the psychological structure of the personality. They represent the individual qualities of a person. Let's consider them in more detail.
Directivity
This is one of the main elements of the psychological structure of personality. What is the focus?
This is the first component in the psychological structure of personality. The personality orientation embodies its interests, attitudes and needs. One of these components determines all human activities. . . , -. .
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Character
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The individual components of character are connected with each other and are interdependent. In general, they form a single organization. It is called the structure of character. This concept includes two groups of traits, that is, those or other personality traits that regularly appear in the most diverse areas of human activity. It is for them that one can give an assumption about the possible actions of the individual under certain conditions.
The first group includes traits that express the orientation of the personality, that is, its goals and ideals, inclinations and interests, attitudes and sustainable needs. This is a whole system of relations between a person and the surrounding reality, which is a characteristic of only this individual methods for the implementation of such relations. The second group includes strong-willed traits of character. Emotional manifestations are also considered in it.
Will
The concept and psychological structure of personality include this component as well. What is the will? This is the ability of a person to consciously regulate his actions and actions, requiring 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, a motive is increasingly being put forward, the essence of which is determined by human needs and those phenomena that are directly related to them.
Will is one of the specific and essential properties in the behavior of people. Moreover, it has a conscious character. A similar 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 before the start of the activity. By most psychologists, will is seen as the conscious nature of behavior. Such an opinion allows us to define any human activity. It can be considered one of the directions of expression of will, since such activity presupposes the existence of a conscious goal. Moreover, the main nature of this component can be found in the structure of all human behavior as a whole, and for its clarification it will be necessary to identify the peculiarity of the content side of actions, their motive and source.
Temperament
This element in the psychological structure of personality is the dynamics and energy of human behavior. Based on temperament, the speed, strength and brightness of an 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:
- Rampant. This type of higher nervous activity is unbalanced, mobile and strong. It corresponds to the temperament of choleric.
- Alive. This is a balanced, but at the same time mobile and strong type of nervous system. It is characteristic of sanguine people.
- Calm. By it is meant an inert, balanced and strong type of NS. Such a temperament can be found in phlegmatic people.
- Weak. Inactive, unbalanced and weak type of NS. This temperament is found in melancholy.
The differences that exist between people are quite multifaceted. That is why sometimes it becomes so difficult to understand a person, to avoid conflicts with him and to take the right line of behavior. In order to better understand other people, we need the psychological knowledge given in this article, which should be used in combination with observation.