Sarjveladze N.I. Personality and its interaction with the social environment

a) Social activities. Communication and isolation as forms of interaction. The main way of human existence, the manifestation of his social essence, is existence in the form of activity. For the existence of an individual, its constant interaction with the social environment is necessary. This interaction is carried out, on the one hand, as consumption and cognition of the social environment, and, on the other, as a change in this environment.

The main forms of such interaction are communication and isolation. In modern sociological literature, communication is viewed as a complex and diverse process, manifested in the form of interaction, relationships, mutual understanding and empathy. Isolation is another mutually opposite side of the interaction of the individual with the social environment. The personality not only strives for communication with its environment, but also for isolation, the content of which lies in the acquisition by a person of his social essence through the formation of individuality.

b) Needs and interests. The main source of human activity is needs. It is the needs that act as the direct force that sets in motion the mechanism of human activity. In the most general sense, need is a reflection (manifestation) of the contradiction between what is available (matter, energy, information) and what is necessary for the preservation and progressive change of the self-developing system of the organic world. Human need is a manifestation of the contradiction between what is available (matter, energy, information) and what is necessary for the preservation and development of man as a biosocial system. In real life (with awareness) it acts as a need, attraction, desire for something (substance, energy, information). It must be emphasized that the desire to satisfy a need is associated not only with establishing balance in the person-environment system (relieving tension through eliminating contradictions), but also with the development of personality.

The starting point in this process is that each individual coordinates his actions with the specific state of the social environment. The normal behavior of any person is a compromise between the possibilities inherent in circumstances and human needs that constantly need to be satisfied.

The manifestation of these needs, and, consequently, the possible behavior of a person, is the action of three factors: the desire for maximum satisfaction, the desire to limit oneself to a minimum of troubles (to avoid suffering), learned cultural values ​​and norms, as well as rules and norms accepted in the surrounding social environment. Their classification is important for understanding the essence of needs.

c) Classification of needs. Material and spiritual needs. Attempting to classify needs presents significant difficulties. In the most general form, a distinction is made between biological and social needs. Biological (physiological) needs are the needs of a person’s physical existence that require satisfaction at the level of cultural and historical standards of society and the specific community to which the person belongs. Biological needs are sometimes called material needs. We are talking about the immediate needs of people, the satisfaction of which presupposes the availability of certain material resources - housing, food, clothing, shoes, etc.

Social (spiritual) needs presuppose the desire to possess the results of spiritual production: familiarization with science, art, culture, as well as the need for communication, recognition, and self-affirmation. They differ from the needs of physical existence in that their satisfaction is associated not with the consumption of specific things, not with the physical properties of the human body, but with the development of the individual and society as sociocultural systems.

d) Basic and secondary needs. The process of needs formation includes both the renewal of existing ones and the emergence of new needs. To properly understand this process, all needs can be divided into two main types: elementary and secondary.

The elementary ones include the needs for things and conditions of existence, without which the person will die: any food, any clothing, any home, primitive knowledge, rudimentary forms of communication, etc. The secondary ones include the needs of a higher level, providing for the possibility of choice.

Secondary needs arise with sufficiently high forms of organization of social life. In the absence of choice or opportunities for its implementation, secondary needs either do not arise or remain in their infancy.

The ability to satisfy elementary and secondary needs determines the standard of living, located on a scale of two polarities: need (lack of satisfaction of elementary needs) and luxury (the maximum possible maximum in satisfying secondary needs with a given development of society).

Along with individual needs, group needs arise in society (from small groups to the country as a whole). When interacting with other groups (social communities), they manifest themselves as social needs. When recognized by the individual, they act as a social interest. When considering the properties of human needs, it is necessary to take into account that they do not exist on a “parity” basis, but according to the principle of dominance. Some turn out to be more urgent for the subject, others less so.

e) Basic need. Recently, more and more attention of sociologists has been attracted by the idea of ​​identifying a basic need that can find a way out in satisfying any other existing need. The idea of ​​identifying a basic need involves providing an explanation for the behavior of an individual in various life situations.

This need is the need for self-affirmation. Through what need the basic, defining need finds its way out depends on many factors. Such factors may be the abilities of the individual, the conditions of his formation and life, the goals pursued by society in the process of socialization of the individual. It is the need for self-affirmation that determines various types of self-realization.

The need for self-affirmation, unlike other needs, does not have a predetermined direction. If, for example, creative needs are realized in creative activity, the need for equipping with skills in cognitive activity, material needs - in the consumption of material goods, then the need for self-affirmation can be satisfied through the satisfaction of any of the human needs. The way to satisfy the basic need for self-affirmation depends on the individual’s abilities, the level of development of society, etc.

Self-affirmation can also manifest itself in antisocial activities, in the form of deviant behavior. Life knows many examples when the self-affirmation of a personality did not occur through the revelation of its essential powers, but through immoderate consumerism, thirst for power, anomic sexual behavior, etc.

f) Forms of manifestation of needs. Of course, it would be wrong to assume that needs directly determine human behavior. There are several intermediate steps between environmental influence and human activity. Needs are subjectively manifested in the form of a person’s interests, aspirations, and desires. Then inevitably follow such acts as motivation, attitude and, finally, action.

Satisfying needs through fixed activities, a person forms in his consciousness a dynamic system of stable feelings, habits, skills and knowledge that make up the personality’s experience. Being an integral part of the individual’s consciousness, experience is the final set of fixed external influences, transformed through the prism of needs. The socially determined process of accumulation, preservation and reproduction of experience and knowledge constitutes the memory of the individual. The experience of past generations, which does not have sufficient scientific substantiation, is passed on to the next generation and used by it, and is consolidated in traditions.

g) Motivation for social activities. The interaction of needs, value orientations and interests forms a mechanism for motivating social activity. Motivation is understood as a set of stable impulses (motives) of an individual, determined by its value orientation. Through this mechanism, the individual becomes aware of his needs as interests. In the motivation mechanism, interest acts as a focus of attention, as a dominant need that arises in a specific situation.

The interests of individuals manifest themselves in real life as social laws, act as a determinant of their behavior, and form the goals of their activities. A goal in this sense is understood as an expected and desired result of an activity, determined by the desire for its implementation (objectification).

The goal of activity as an ideal prototype of the future is formed on the basis of the interests of the social subject.

Motives for activity are the needs and interests reflected in people’s minds, acting as incentives for activity. Motive acts as an internal reason (motivation) for activity. During the transition from interest to the goal of activity, external incentives or incentives may also arise.

The stimulus comes in the form of information about a change in a specific situation in a society or group or in the form of direct practical action. A motive is a stimulus transformed into a goal. The motive for activity is formed through individuals’ awareness of the content of value attitudes and acts as a factor leading to the transformation of attitudes into active activity.

h) Personality disposition. As a result of the interaction of motives and incentives, personality dispositions are formed, acting as mechanisms of self-regulation of the individual’s social behavior. The disposition of the individual, expressed in his attitude, is manifested in social behavior.

Personal disposition means a person’s predisposition (attitude) to a certain perception of the conditions of activity and to a certain behavior in these conditions on the basis of ideals, norms and life values.

Personal behavior is regulated by a general dispositional system. In the process of a person’s life, his dispositional system performs the function of a regulator of behavior and manifests itself as an attitude towards the environment.

Attitude is the focus of activity (activity and behavior) of a particular person towards establishing and maintaining connections with other people based on his interests. In this sense, social relations are the interaction of interests of subjects (individuals) who establish connections with each other depending on their goals and beliefs, on their understanding of the meaning of their activities.

The considered socio-psychological forms in which the individual processes external influences form a certain social system that has characteristics, the knowledge of which is extremely important for understanding the mechanism of interaction of the individual with the social environment.

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It is worth saying - position II. Since the mode of relations will be a constitutive factor of personality, both poles of these relations – personality and social environment – ​​should be considered in their unity, which allows us to consider it more adequate to talk about the system “personality – social world” rather than using the expression “personality and social environment”.

Within the framework of this position, we can once again raise the issue of the unity of the internal and external in the life world of the individual, once again recall that D.N. Uznadze derived the characteristics of the subject of consciousness and activity from a special, in his expression, sphere of reality-attitude, which was thought of as a unity of internal (needs) and external (situation) factors. A. Angyal developed a thought similar to the general psychological concept of D. N. Uznadze. Just like D.N. Uznadze, he operated with the concepts of “biosphere” and “installation”. The fundamental position of A. Angyal’s holistic concept, as already noted when discussing the first opposition, was that the individual and the environment form an organic whole, and the expression of such integrity will be a special sphere of life - the biosphere. Between the individual and the environment, the author continues, there is no clear line of demarcation. “The point where the first would end and the second would begin would be imaginary and conventional, since the individual and the environment would be separate aspects of the same reality. The material was published on http://site
Therefore, concludes A. Angyal, there is an “individual-environment” integrity, not an individual and the environment.”

We can say that if we operate with the expression “personality and environment,” then the conjunction in this case may mean a dualistic understanding of the connection between the individual and the world: the individual is at one pole, the social environment is at the other, and the relationship and interaction between them can be understood as the interconnection of “closed” “entities”. Another major representative of foreign psychology (and social psychiatry) G. S. Sullivan speaks about the organic relationship between the individual and the environment, about the inextricable connection of the individual with the social environment. It is appropriate to note that, based on the principle of communal existence taken from biology, G. S. Sullivan writes that the organism is completely dependent on interchange with the environment and other organisms.

The author believes that a living being is in a constant relationship of metabolism with the “physico-chemical universe and dies out if it ceases. The human standard of living is specific in that it requires interchange with the environment that contains culture. When G.S. Sullivan says that a person differs from other living beings in that he is in a relationship with the world of culture, then with this he emphasizes the idea that a person needs interpersonal relationships, i.e. interpersonal exchange, since culture itself will abstraction of interhuman relations. Based on this, the author gives a socio-psychological definition of personality: personality ϶ᴛᴏ “a relatively stable pattern of recurring interpersonal situations that characterize human life - The word “pattern” means that it covers all recurring interpersonal relationships, the differences between them are insignificant. In interpersonal relationships, significant changes occur when the personality changes."

In the “personality – social world” system we are considering, it is the social environment, and not the physical or biological environment, that acts as a correlate of personality. This is quite understandable if we consider that when constructing hierarchical levels of human activity, the individual is always correlated with the social environment. Thus, Sh. A. Nadirashvili identifies three levels of human activity - individual, subjective and personal. The individual level of activity refers to those aspects of the environment that are relevant to the biological needs of a person (the concept of “individual” in this concept is identified with the concept of “organism” or “biological individual”) and its psychophysical operational capabilities. Activity at the subject level contains a problematic situation, that is, those characteristics of the environment that contribute to the suspension of acts of impulsive behavior and the actualization of a specific act of objectification. Activity at the personal level is aimed at social norms, expectations, interpersonal relationships and, thus, interaction with society is essential to the personal level of activity. A somewhat different classification of levels is offered by I. S. Kon and V. V. Stolin. These authors distinguish the levels of (a) the organism (according to Stolin) and the individual (according to I. S. Kon), (b) the social individual and (c) the personality. These authors highlight these levels in the context of studying the sphere of self-awareness. It would be possible to give an overview of other attempts to construct hierarchical levels of human activity, but in the context of the issue under consideration there is no need for this, since in all these works, despite their dissimilarity and, at times, fundamental differences, the invariant point is the correlation of the social environment with the personal level of activity.

Thus, the concept of the “personality – society” system will be the abstraction with which one should begin to identify specific forms of individual life activity. The path of such ascent to the concrete lies through the identification of individual structural units and dynamic tendencies of the personality.

A person, living in society, cannot help but interact with it, cannot distance himself from the social environment, since it surrounds him. From birth, a person acquires certain skills, abilities, abilities, and learns norms of behavior, i.e. socialized. Socialization is the process of assimilation by a human individual of a certain system of knowledge, norms and values, allowing him to function as a full member of society. TSB. -- 1969--1978. I.S. Con.

URL:http://slovari.yandex.ru/%D1%81%D0%BE%D1%86%D0%B8%D0%B0%D0%BB%D0%B8%D0%B7%D0%B0%D1 %86%D0%B8%D1%8F/%D0%91%D0%A1%D0%AD/%D0%A1%D0%BE%D1%86%D0%B8%D0%B0%D0%BB%D0 %B8%D0%B7%D0%B0%D1%86%D0%B8%D1%8F/ (accessed November 29, 2014)

Socialization includes education and upbringing, as well as the entire sum of an individual’s unplanned actions that influence him and influence the development of his personality. Socialization occurs in a person throughout his life.

Socialization is divided into primary and secondary. Primary and secondary socialization in the scientific literature are linked by:

• 1. with the first and second half of life;
• 2. with formal and informal institutions. Socialization of personality. URL: http://studentu-vuza.ru/sotsiologiya/lektsii/sotsializatsiya-lichnosti.html (accessed November 29, 2014)

Primary socialization involves a person’s assimilation of social norms in the first half of life, namely in childhood and adolescence, and secondary socialization covers maturity and old age, that is, the second half of life.

In world sociology, terms such as “primary” and “secondary” socialization are used. Primary groups are small communities where people know each other well and there is a trusting relationship between them. Secondary groups are large social communities between which only formal relations arise. The primary groups include the family, a group of peers, and the secondary groups include the army, school, college, etc.

These groups are necessary for a person, both the primary group and the secondary one. The degree of influence, the time that an individual devotes to them, is distributed differently at each stage of life. Therefore, each person follows his own “path” of development.

The socialization of the individual includes the transfer of the social experience of mankind, therefore the preservation, transmission and assimilation of traditions are inseparable from people’s lives. With their help, new generations are involved in solving economic, social, political and spiritual problems of society.

In modern conditions, the process of socialization makes new demands on the spiritual appearance, beliefs and actions of people. This is due, firstly, to the fact that the implementation of socio-economic, political and spiritual changes can be feasible for highly educated, highly qualified people who consciously participate in their implementation. Only a person deeply convinced of the necessity of the planned transformations can be an active, effective force in the historical process.

Secondly, the extreme complexity of the process of personal socialization requires constant improvement of the means of its implementation. They need updating, daily search, specifying and clarifying the place and responsibility of a person in solving both public and personal problems.

Thirdly, the socialization of the individual is an integral part of solving all social problems. Life convincingly demonstrates that this is such an interconnected process that it can equally intensify (or slow down) the social process many times over if objective changes, as well as changes in the consciousness and behavior of people, are not taken into account.

Fourthly, the socialization of personality involves overcoming negative phenomena in the minds and behavior of people. Until now, the sociology of personality has not been able to answer the following questions: why do some people who have the same starting point become hooligans, drunkards, and thieves? why does the other part turn into bureaucrats, sycophants, people pleasers, careerists, etc.? Socialization. URL: http://www.univer.omsk.su/omsk/socstuds/person/social.html (accessed November 30, 2014)

Socialization presupposes a change in a person not only of one thing, but of the entire complex of socially significant qualities of a person. It covers the entirety of knowledge, hard work, fashion, beauty, conviction, etc. It is important to overcome stereotypes and atavisms in people’s consciousness and behavior.

The formation of a person’s personality occurs in society. These are two interrelated social phenomena. Personality and do not exist separately. They are the subject of close interest and study of the entire complex of socio-economic disciplines: history, economics, psychology, philosophy and sociology.

How do individuals and society interact?

Who is the subject and object of this mutual influence? What are the patterns of personality integration in society? We will try to answer questions and outline modern approaches to the nature of the relationship between man and the world around him.

Man as an individual

The birth of a person is reflected through a set of metric indicators, which together provide information about the individual. Height, weight, health, nationality, place and date of birth are the basic characteristics with which a person comes into the world.

In the process of development, a person as an individual interacts with the outside world. And the path of his development is as individual and unique as his anthropometric portrait.

Each individual has a family or is left without one, was born in an economically prosperous metropolis or in a remote village - all these are factors in the social environment that have a direct impact on the formation of character, views, culture and the method of further socialization.

In the process of becoming a member of society, an individual acquires psychological characteristics, habits, attitudes, and behavioral characteristics. He becomes an individual in society. And only the full right to which is officially regulated by the age of majority transforms individuality into a personality.

Stages of socialization

Socialization is the process of integration of an individual into society, as a result of which at each stage he acquires the qualities of a full member. Personality and social environment are dynamic units. At all stages of their interaction or refusal to interact, a change in subject-object roles occurs.

Three stages of personality socialization can be distinguished:

• The period of entry into society: mastering norms and requirements, developing communicative methods of interaction with the outside world.
• The period of self-actualization in society: determination of personal characteristics, one’s position, status, social preferences.
• The period of integration: the formation of personality and active interaction between the social environment and the individual.

All three periods are not strictly tied to age stages and can be carried out synchronously in each age period.

Entering society

Conventionally, the beginning of socialization can be attributed to the age stages of infancy and childhood. This period is characterized by the acquisition of initial experience of interaction between individuality and society. Social environmental factors directly influence the formation of a person’s attitude towards the world.

If this is a socially unfavorable environment, then it can form a negative scenario for the individual’s behavior and lead in the future to an antisocial lifestyle. There are other examples: if during the period of personality formation a person makes a choice not in favor of the negative environment around him, he has every chance to change his environment.

In any case, the characteristics of the social environment leave an imprint on the initial experience. An indicator of the level of personality is freedom of choice. Every person has the right to follow the norms of society to the extent that corresponds to his personal nature.

Self-actualization in society

During this period, the formation of a person’s position in society occurs.

In adolescence, when a re-evaluation of the world around us and one’s place in it occurs, an active process of social self-identification takes place, a person declares himself and his place in society.

This is a rather painful process for the individual. Sometimes for the immediate environment. The social environment and the socialization of the individual in it is a two-way process. By declaring his place, a person thereby demands to determine the attitude of other members of society towards himself, to “conquer” his personal space from the world. Often this involves the interests of other people.

The ability to come to an agreement and find a common interest is required by both the individual and the society interested in successful adaptation and receiving social benefit from a new member of the community.

Integration into society

The most important period for society and people is the stage of integration, when an already accomplished person realizes himself. The individual and the social environment are interested in each other. If at the first and second stages of the process of entering society, a person as an individual more often acted as an object of relations, society taught him to be its member, then during the period of integration a person already appears, with an active position as a subject of social interactions.

What does this mean?

• A person is included in the production, distribution and consumption of a social product.
• He fully exercises his rights and bears responsibility for the consequences of his activities to society.
• Determines his civic position in the state.

Thus, the individual, without ceasing to be an object of society, acts as a subject of management of the community in which he has been socialized and influences it.

Conventions of the stages of socialization

All these stages of socialization are conditional in their horizontal historical orientation. At each stage, the role and status of an individual can change; in different conditions, the same person can perform different social roles and statuses.

The stage of entering society can be repeated at any period of the individual’s social maturity, with the status of either a social community, a professional community, or in other similar cases.

Plays an important role If a person changes jobs or gets married, then he is forced to go through the process of socialization again. Determine to what extent he is satisfied or not with the new socio-cultural environment, and make a choice as a free individual.

Relationships between the individual and society

An individual at birth becomes an individual in the process of interaction with other people and is formed as a socially significant person. Personality is the result of social evolution, limited to the experience of one person from an individual to a full member of society.

The quality of the social environment is an important characteristic for the development of personality.

On the other hand, pure copying and reproduction of the values ​​of society is not enough for the prospects for the development of society. And here lies the potential of the individual.

Personal freedom forces us to change the boundaries of society's ability to ensure this right. This is the purpose of the individual - improving the world around him through active participation both in the method of production of goods and in the architecture of knowledge.

Role and status of the individual

A person in society has a certain social status - a set of social characteristics that determine his place in the social hierarchy.

In accordance with it, a certain social image of a person and an a priori form of attitude of other people towards him in a limited social circle are formed.

In society, each member performs social roles. This is a model of individual behavior characteristic of the social circle of society. It happens that a person’s individual merits become unacceptable traits for society. For example, a brilliant person is a person who is extremely inconvenient for his immediate environment; his talent neutralizes the interests of his family, and he often finds it difficult to fit into the norms of his immediate environment.

Social paradigm and freedom

Personality is the result of the socialization of the individual into society. Let us ask the question of whether society always corresponds to the level of individual freedom. And where are the criteria, how much does society meet her interests, and should she follow the standards set by this society? Personality and social environment - where is the line of freedom at this intersection?

Society is a living organism. And, just like a person, it has a different orientation - humane and inhumane in relation to its members. History provides a lot of examples for this.

Society in relation to a specific person acts as a social paradigm, a model with values ​​given by history and time. The characteristics of the social environment differ significantly within the social paradigm.

Behavior model

The model of Soviet society as a social paradigm set the vector of strict compliance of each member of society with state standards. Freedom was limited by the norms of communist morality - to be like everyone else. Actually, it was a given lack of freedom into which a person found himself at birth. The person was at risk of losing either his head or other important organs.

The fate of lonely heroes who do not give up the right to freedom of choice is, alas, sad. But only they can rightfully be considered individuals, since the main characteristic of these people is freedom of choice.

About society and man

Man is a social being; he cannot fulfill his destiny outside of society.

An important motive for progress is the individual and the social environment in which it could be realized. One of the well-known forms of recognition by society of a person’s merits is the awarding of the title of Nobel Prize laureate. These are people whose personal contributions are recognized as socially significant for the progress of society. These are people who have not only achieved grandiose goals, but are spiritually rich, independent in their ability to be free, worthy members of human society.

Albert Einstein, physicist, author of the theory of relativity, said worthy words: more important than achieving success in life is understanding its meaning. Very relevant words for today, considering that the Internet is littered with ways of “how to become successful,” and this success is measured by the size of your wallet.

The great Irish playwright, a man with a great sense of humor, said: get what you want, or you will have to love what you get. These words have a deep meaning. He encourages a person to develop the world around him, set goals worthy of him and not be limited by what society is ready to give.

Let us analyze and specify the position on the unity of synergy and opposition. The illegitimacy of absolute opposition between the individual and the social environment according to the parameters of entropy and negentropy has already been noted. The argument for such illegality is that such absolutization bypasses facts indicating that an individual reproduces in himself value orientations and norms and stereotypes of the world of social relations. Let us repeat the proposition that the social environment influencing the personality and shaping it is characterized by organization, stability, consistency, in short, negentropy (for example, educational models existing in the macro- and microsocial environment, rituals, traditions, social norms, etc.) . These socially determined ways of life are internalized and reproduced by the individual. Such reproduction by the individual can be carried out in such a way that on his part the opposite, i.e., entropic tendency will not be opposed: in a certain way, organized and structured social influence can “meet” with the corresponding readiness (installation ) on the part of the subject to respond in the same organized, consistent and sustainable manner. In this case, an individual organized in a certain way interacts in a stable way with the organized social environment; There is a synergy of interaction between the individual and society.

However, such synergy is not the only way of interaction. Other variants of it are also possible, for example, a variant of the relationship, when the environment acts in a negentropic manner, and the personality counteracts in an entropic manner. The opposite is also possible, when the characteristics of the environment predominantly include entropic tendencies, and the personality is “tuned” to negentropic resistance. Those variants of interaction methods are also possible when both the social environment and the individual, each individually, are carriers of polar opposite tendencies of stability and variability. This leads us to the need to search for possible states of the “personality - society” system in terms of the relationships between entropic and negentropic dynamic tendencies. For this purpose, the “personality - society” axis should be coordinated with the “entropy - negentropy” axis. The possible results of this operation will be outlined below.

2. POSSIBLE OPTIONS

SOCIAL AND INTRAPERSONAL INTERACTION

BY PARAMETER OF LIFE ACTIVITY MODALITY

Regulation VIII. The activity of any modality, be it adaptive or transformative human activity, can have as an intentional object (1) the external world and (2) the “I” of the individual, which is reflected in four initial dynamic tendencies: (1) adaptation to the environment, (2) self-adaptation, (3) environmental transformation and (4) self-transformation; Correlating with each other, as well as with their contradictory poles, they form concretely possible patterns of interaction of the individual with the social world and with himself.

As noted, in terms of analyzing the modality of activity, oppositions can be distinguished - “adaptation - transformation”, “adaptation - disadaptation”, “transformation - stagnation”. Of these, the main one is the opposition “adaptation - transformation”. However, adaptive and transformative activity in their “pure” and extreme manifestations are only abstracts, and their filling with concrete content requires, first of all, clarification of what the personality adapts to and what is the subject of transformation. This means indicating the intentional object of the individual's adaptive and transformative activity. To define it in the context of our research conceptual apparatus, it is necessary to proceed from the fact that the central topic of our discussion is the “person - society” system. Consequently, in our theoretical construction, the basic concepts with which all others will be correlated are the concepts of “personality” and “society”, and the main invariant axis with two extreme poles, around which all other (variable) axes should rotate, is the “personality” axis - society." For the purpose of certain convenience in operating with concepts, in many places in this text, “personality” will sometimes be replaced by the word “I”, and “society” or “social world” by the word “other (others)”; Accordingly, the “personality - society” axis will sometimes be presented as “I - others”.

So, our first task is to determine the intentional objects of the adaptive and transformative activity of the individual, i.e., to determine what they can be aimed at. Bearing in mind the central and invariant axis in our reasoning - “personality - society”, the conclusion suggests itself: the adaptive or transformative activity of the individual can be directed (1) to the social environment and (2) to himself. By rotating the main axis of the modality of personality activity - "adaptation - transformation" - around the invariant axis "personality - social environment" we obtain the following image (see Table 7).

There are four initial dynamic trends here. Let's describe each of them separately.

1. Adaptation to the social environment

Adaptive strategy in the social activity of an individual is the most studied topic in personality psychology and social psychology. One significant point should be added to this: adaptive processes are usually considered within the framework of the study of a person’s relationship to the external environment and the importance of adaptive processes directed towards oneself is not adequately taken into account.

The individual is constantly faced with the task of adapting to society. Society places certain expectations and expectations on a person so that he builds his behavior in accordance with them. Society applies certain sanctions when individual behavior meets or fails to meet the specified expectations and requirements. As T. Shibutani notes, social adaptation and coordination of actions in the process of joint activity is built on the basis of “I”-images of a person, which record the expectations and prescriptions of others regarding a given individual - the bearer of these “I”-images. Through this mechanism of taking others into account in oneself, it is possible to exercise social control and self-control of individual behavior.

The internalization of social norms and values, the process of socialization of the individual, has an adaptive function. Adaptation to one’s social status and acceptance of a certain social role is associated with the formation of a sense of belonging to a certain community (national, ethnic, professional, age, etc.) and involvement in it as a kind of collective organism, characterized by specific methods of self-preservation and self-maintenance (traditions) , rituals, stereotypes and patterns of behavior, etc.). Thus, the individual becomes involved in a certain culture and subculture. This kind of involvement and participation are associated with the presence of the “we” system, which in historical and psychological terms, although it preceded the emergence of the sense of “I”, however, in modern times - in the era of bourgeois individualism, mutual alienation and lack of communication - its acquisition for the individual is becoming more and more became more problematic. E. Fromm, for example, considered issues of mental health and illness from the angle of the consequences of the separation of people from the community and from each other, as well as the search for ways of inclusion, which under capitalism are expressed in unhealthy tendencies of flight from freedom, conformity and social uniformity.

Adaptation to the social environment, as a strategic line of interaction between an individual and the environment, always has its expression in certain cognitive, emotional and motivational-volitional processes. Moreover, it is based on them. First, adaptation to the social environment depends on how a person defines the situation. This position has become fundamental in the research of cognitively oriented social psychologists. Secondly, emotional states associated with adaptation (satisfaction, positive attitudes towards others and their acceptance, a sense of social security and a sense of security, etc.) or maladjustment (dissatisfaction and frustration, anxiety, negative attitudes towards others, rejection of others, a feeling of social insecurity and insecurity, etc.) play a huge role in the internal life of a person, in the regulation of his behavior and the system of interpersonal relationships. Thirdly, the state of maladjustment is usually a specific background for the emergence or functioning of certain needs emanating from the tendency to “be” or the desire to “have”: in some cases, the essence of these motivational forces is expressed in the tendency to “be like others”, in other cases - in an effort to “control oneself” in order to adapt one’s behavior to the stereotypes generally accepted in one’s subculture. Psycho-consulting practice has rich opportunities for collecting information about an individual’s social-adaptive strategies. Quite often in this practice one has to deal with certain symptoms of maladaptation, with the desire to overcome various kinds of barriers in communicating with people. Their high frequency makes it possible to refuse to use any generalized material or a separate illustrative case. The effectiveness of psychoconsultative and psychocorrectional work depends on how much the psychologist will contribute to the actualization of cognitive, emotional and behavioral reserves of adaptation in their unity. At the same time, in terms of the cognitive side, the most effective is not the presentation of thoughtful and clear recommendations of behavior in itself for their intellectual development by the client, but the encouragement for insight activity, for rethinking one’s own life situation through one’s own efforts, for comprehending and discovering original “psychotechnical” methods of overcoming adaptation difficulties. In terms of updating the emotional reserves of socio-psychological adaptation, a necessary, but not sufficient, condition on the part of the psychologist is the establishment of a trusting and positive-emotional atmosphere, empathy with the world of the counselee’s experiences. It is also important to help the client do some “work” with the experience, to feel the amplitude of the polarities “grief, unhappiness - joy, happiness”, to simulate the emergence of all kinds of negative and positive feelings associated with adaptation and disaptation. As for the behavioral aspects, on the one hand, a huge literature on behavior therapy is devoted to the use in psychotherapeutic practice of methods of developing conditioned reflexes and operant conditioning in order to adapt the individual to his environment. On the other hand, the method of psychodrama in that part of it, which consists in accepting and playing the roles of other people, certainly helps to expand the range of adaptive capabilities of the individual. Attracting attention are those forms of individual and group work with people, the essence of which is not in “rehearsing” a ready-made pattern of behavior and fixing it, but in encouraging them to make a responsible decision and choose a line of behavior at their own “own peril and risk”, in increasing the ability to be responsible for their own behavior. their choice and action, in expanding the range of possible ways of behavioral solutions to various life problems and in removing a rigid attitude - as if there is only one such way.