According to Ananiev's theory, a person as an individual is characterized. Theories of personality (Ananiev B., Myasishchev V.N.). The role of B.G. Ananiev in the history of the development of domestic psychology

The concept of "individual" is the root word for the central construct in differential psychology "individuality". The term "individual" means, on the one hand, "a single inseparable being," acting as a whole, and, on the other hand, an individual representative of the human community.

The human psyche includes structures such as individual, personality and subject of activity. The individual properties of a person consist of age-sex and individually typical properties. Age-related properties are consistently deployed in the process of formation, growth of the individual, and exist in the form of sexual demorphism, the intensity of which changes with age. Individual-typical properties form constitutional features (physique and biochemical individuality), neurodynamic properties of the brain, features of functional geometry hemispheres(symmetry-asymmetry of the functioning of paired receptors and effectors). The primacy of individual properties lies in the fact that they exist at all levels, including cellular and molecular. The interaction of primary individual properties includes the dynamics of psychophysiological functions (sensory, mnemonic, verbal-logical, etc.) and the structure of organic abilities. These derivatives of primary properties are called secondary. Actually mental integration of individual properties is represented in temperament and deposits. The main form of development of individual properties is ontogenesis, which is carried out according to a certain phylogenetic, species program, but is constantly modified under the influence of social factors. Therefore, as the ontogenetic stages themselves unfold, the factor of individual variability increases, which is associated with active the influence of the social properties of the personality on the structural and dynamic features of the individual.

Personality- the psychological carrier of social properties.

In "the concept of "personality" those signs are fixed that are determined by the individual's belonging to society (social quality)."

The starting point of personality properties (according to Ananiev B.G.) is its status in society(economic, political, legal, ideological, etc. position in society), as well as the status of the community in which this person was formed and shaped. On the basis of status and in constant relationship with it, systems of social functions, roles, as well as goals and value orientations are built. Status, roles and value orientations form the primary personal properties, defining secondary properties, - features of motivation of behavior and structure public behavior. The integrative effect of the interaction of primary and secondary personality traits, the result of this interaction is the character of a person and his inclinations. The main form of development of a person's personal properties is his life path in society, his social biography, which “highlights the moments of start and finish of the main activity in society, the stages of the creative evolution of the individual, periods of rise and fall, the main events of personal life and activity, closely intertwined with major events era and social development of the country.



Man as a subject of activity predominantly considered as a subject of labor, knowledge and communication. The structure of a person as a subject of activity is formed from certain properties individual and personality corresponding to the subject and means of activity. The initial characteristics of a person as a subject are consciousness (as a reflection of objective reality) and activity (as a transformation of reality). Man "as a subject of practical activity is characterized not only by his own properties, but also by those technical means labor, which act as a kind of amplifiers, accelerators and converters of its functions. As a subject of theoretical activity, it is equally characterized by knowledge and skills associated with operating specific sign systems.

Individuality- integral biopsychosocial characteristics of a person

Man as an individual is understood by Ananiev as "the unity and interconnection of his properties as a personality and a subject of activity, in the structure of which the natural properties of a person as an individual function." The beginning of individuality is determined by the individual with his complex of natural properties. In particular, motivational formations were initially included in the structure of mental processes of perception. Motivation “is a factor in individual development in four directions: organic, gnostic, ethical and aesthetic. The organic direction is associated with the maintenance of the main unconditioned reflexes to maintain the constancy of matter and the internal environment, defensive and protective, reproduction and parental functions, reflexes to environmental stimuli, etc. Due to the historical development of knowledge (in the unity of its sensual and logical sides), the need for knowledge and the methods by which it is formed , is one of the basic spiritual needs of the individual: this gnostic motivation affects the various levels of a person's life and his perceptual properties. Ethical motivation expresses a person's need for people and social connections. Aesthetic motivation is probably built on the basis of the interaction of gnostic and ethical motives and is the most complex type of perception as enjoyment of the aesthetic properties of objective reality.



Individuality- special in an individual, a combination of only his inherent features (in particular, personality traits), which makes a person and his personality a single embodiment of the typical and universal. Individuality can neither be identified with personality, which is often done, nor separated from it. A person is always unique and, therefore, individual. But the individuality of a person is manifested not only in his personality, but also in his body (K. K. Platonov).

Individuality characterizes, first of all, the characteristics of a person as a person.. Individuality- a person characterized by his socially significant differences from other people; the originality of the psyche and personality of the individual, its uniqueness. S. L. Rubinshtein in his fundamental work “Fundamentals general psychology He devoted only a few lines to individuality, but emphasized an important way of its formation - an individual life path.

Myasishchev's concept of personality

Analyzing the views of V. N. Myasishchev on personality, at least two provisions should be emphasized that are significant for theoretical understanding of the problem of personality.

1) Myasishchev first who put the question of personality structure. “The structural characteristic illuminates a person for us from the side of his integrity or splitting, consistency or inconsistency, stability or variability, depth or surface, predominance or relative insufficiency of certain mental functions.” This fundamental position determined the specifics of his views on the structure of personality, where there are no separate components, but there is a psychological given - an attitude that closes on itself all other psychological characteristics of a person. It is the attitude that is the integrator of these properties, which ensures the integrity, stability, depth and consistency of the individual's behavior. K. K. Platonov reproaches V. N. Myasishchev for taking orientation, temperament and emotionality beyond the limits of the personality structure. Concerning focus , then, according to V. N. Myasishchev, “expresses the dominant attitude, or his intergral». Emotionality also presented one of the components in structure relationship itself. Temperament, the introduction of this structural element into the functional formation, which is the personality, becomes simply illogical.

2) Developing the ideas of A. F. Lazursky about the relationship of personality, V. N. Myasishchev builds his concept of personality, central element which is conceptattitude.

Personal attitude- this is an active, conscious, integral, selective connection of a person based on experience with various aspects of reality. According to V. N. Myasishchev attitude is a system-forming element of the personality, which appears as a system of relations. At the same time, an important point is the idea of ​​a person as a system of relations structured according to the degree of generalization - from the subject's connections with individual aspects or phenomena of the external environment to connections with the whole reality as a whole. Personal relations themselves are formed under the influence of social relations.

From the moment of birth, a person is forced to enter into social relations, which, refracting through “internal conditions”, contribute to the formation, development and consolidation of personal, subjective relations of a person. These relationships express the personality as a whole and constitute the inner potential of a person. It is they who reveal for the person himself his hidden, invisible capabilities and contribute to the emergence of new ones. The author emphasizes regulatory role of attitude in human behavior.

Relationship structure. V. N. Myasishchev singles out in relation to "emotional", "evaluative"(cognitive, cognitive) and " conative» (behavioral) side. Each side of the relationship is determined by the nature of the vital interaction of the individual with the environment and people, including various moments from metabolism to ideological communication.

Emotional the component contributes to the formation of the emotional attitude of the individual to the objects of the environment, people and himself.

Informative(evaluative) contributes to the perception and evaluation (awareness, understanding, explanation) of environmental objects, people and oneself.

Behavioral The (conative) component contributes to the implementation of the choice of strategies and tactics of the individual's behavior in relation to objects of the environment that are significant (valuable) for her, people and herself.

Relationship types. First of all, they are divided into positive and negative both in terms of emotional and rational assessments.

behavioral relationship side expressed through needs, since the need itself points to its object, thereby also gives an indirect indication of the method of achieving this subject.

emotional relationship side expressed through affection, love, sympathy and opposite feelings- hostility, enmity, antipathy.

Cognitive or evaluation side manifested in the moral values ​​adopted by the person, developed beliefs, tastes, inclinations, ideals.

About the development of relations.

If a personality is a system of its relations, then the process of personality development is determined by the course of development of its relations. V. N. Myasishchev points out that initial period of increasing selectivity of behavior human characterized by a pre-attitude, wherein there is no element of consciousness. Something that a person is not aware of prompts him to activity (unconscious motivation of behavior).

In the future, at 2-3 year old child develops pronounced selectivity of attitude- to parents, teachers, peers.

At school age, the number of relationships increases, extra-family duties arise, educational work, the need for arbitrary control of one's behavior.

In high school age principles, beliefs, ideals are formed.

Attitude and attitude.

The need to compare these psychological concepts due to the fact that each of them claimed the role of a comprehensive psychological category. It is not surprising, therefore, that a special symposium was held in 1970, devoted to clarifying the role and place of attitude and attitude in medical psychology.

And relationships and attitudes V. N. Myasishchev considers as and integral mental formations, which arise in the process of individual experience. Installation unconscious and therefore she impersonal, a attitude consciously, “although, as V. N. Myasishchev emphasizes, its motives or sources may not be recognized". Another difference between attitude and attitude is that attitudecharacterized by selectivity andinstallationreadiness.

Thus, attitudes and attitudes are mental formations that are distinct from each other. Insofar as relationship concept irreducible to other psychological categories (attitude, needs, motives, interests, etc.) and not decomposable into others, it is independent class psychological concepts.

Approach to Leontiev's personality

Unlike previous and subsequent domestic concepts of personality, this one is characterized by a high level of abstractness. For all its difference from others, there is a common premise with them. Its essence is that, according to A.N. Leontiev, “human personality is “produced” - created by social relations”. Thus, it is obvious that the basis of ideas about the personality of domestic psychologists is the Marxist postulate about it as a set of social relations. However, the interpretation of these relations is different. How does A. N. Leontiev understand them? In the above definition, an essential addition appears: "the personality is created by social relations, into which the individual enters in his objective activity."

Thus, the category of the subject's activity comes to the fore, since “it is the activity of the subject that is the initial unit of the psychological analysis of the personality, and not actions, operations or blocks of these functions; the latter characterize activity, not personality.

What are the consequences of this fundamental position?

A.N. Leontiev manages to draw a dividing line between the concepts of the individual and the personality. If an individual is an indivisible, holistic, genotypic formation with its own individual characteristics, then a personality is also a holistic formation, but not given by someone or something, but produced, created as a result of many objective activities. So, the provision on activity as a unit of psychological analysis of personality is the first fundamentally important theoretical postulate of A.N. Leontiev.

Another equally important postulate is the developed by A.N. Leontiev's position S.L. Rubinstein about the external, acting through internal conditions. A.N. Leontiev believes that if the subject of life has an “independent force of reaction”, in other words, activity, then it is fair: “the internal (subject) acts through the external and thereby changes itself.”

So, the development of personality appears before us as a process of interactions of many activities that enter into hierarchical relations with each other. Personality acts as a set of hierarchical relations of activities. Their feature is, according to A.N. Leontiev, in "connectedness" from the states of the organism. “These hierarchies of activities are generated by their own development, they form the core of the personality,” notes Leontiev. But the question arises about the psychological characterization of this hierarchy of activities.

For the psychological interpretation of the "hierarchies of activities" A.N. Leontiev uses the concepts of "need", "motive", "emotion", "meaning" and "meaning". Note that the very content of the activity approach changes the traditional relationship between these concepts and the meaning of some of them.

In essence, the need is replaced by a motive, since before its first satisfaction, the need “does not know its subject and therefore it must be discovered. Only as a result of such a discovery, the need acquires its objectivity, and the perceived (imagined, conceivable) object acquires its motivating and guiding activity, i.e., becomes a motive. In other words, in the process of interaction of the subject with objects and phenomena of the environment, their objective meaning is revealed to him. Meaning is a generalization of reality and "belongs primarily to the world of objective historical phenomena." Thus, the hierarchy of activities before our eyes turns into a hierarchy of motives.

The main tasks solved by this concept:

  • The study of man as a whole, as an individual
  • Study of personality structure
  • Research into the ontogeny of individuality.

According to B. G. Ananiev, the unity of the biological and social in a person is ensured through the unity of such macrocharacteristics as an individual, personality, subject and individuality.

The bearer of the biological in man is mainly the individual. A person as an individual is a set of natural, genetically determined properties, the development of which is carried out in the course of ontogenesis, resulting in the biological maturity of a person. A person as an individual and his development in ontogenesis are studied in general, differential, developmental psychology, psychophysiology, ontopsychophysiology.

The social is represented in a person through the personality and the subject of activity. At the same time, we are not talking about the opposition of the biological and the social, if only because the individual in the course of individual life is socialized and acquires new properties. On the other hand, a person can become a personality and a subject of activity only on the basis of certain individual structures.

Each person as a person goes through his life path, within which the socialization of the individual takes place and his social maturity is formed. Personality is a set of social relations: economic, political, legal. A person as a person is studied - general, differential, comparative psychology, psycholinguistics, psychology of relationships, psychological doctrine of motivation.

However, a person is not only an individual and a person, but also a carrier of consciousness, a subject of activity that produces material and spiritual values. A person as a subject appears from the side of his inner, mental life, as a carrier of mental phenomena. The structure of a person as a subject of activity is formed from certain properties of an individual and personality that correspond to the subject and means of activity. The basis of the objective activity of man is labor and therefore he acts as the subject of labor. The basis of theoretical or cognitive activity is the processes of cognition, and therefore a person appears as a subject of cognition. The basis of communicative activity is communication, which allows us to consider a person as a subject of communication. Properties of the subject - a set of activities and measures of their productivity. The main form of development of the subject is the history of human production activity, the history of its formation professional activity. The result of the implementation various kinds activity of a person as a subject is the achievement of mental maturity. A person as a subject of activity is studied by the psychology of cognition, creativity, labor, general and genetic psychology.

Thus, each person appears as a kind of integrity - as an individual, personality and subject, due to the unity of the biological and social. As an individual, he develops in ontogenesis, and as a personality, he goes through his life path, during which the socialization of the individual is carried out.

However, for each of us it is also obvious that we all differ from each other in our temperament, character, style of activity, behavior, etc. Therefore, in addition to the concepts of the individual, personality and subject, the concept of individuality is also used. Individuality is a unique combination in a person of his traits from all three of the above substructures of the psyche. A person as an individual, personality and subject of activity can be attributed to certain classes, groups and types. But as an individual, he exists in the singular and is unique in the history of mankind. One can understand individuality only by combining all the facts and data about a person in all aspects of his being. From this point of view, individuality is a functional characteristic of a person, manifesting itself at all levels of its structural organization - an individual, a personality, a subject of activity. It is at the level of individuality that the highest achievements of a person are possible, since individuality is manifested in the interconnection and unity of the properties of a person as an individual, personality and subject of activity.

Personality is a component of individuality, its characteristics as a social individual, object and subject historical process. Personality is the “top” of the entire structure of human properties. The development of personality is guided by the development of individuality.

Individuality is a product of the fusion of social and biological in the individual development of a person. Individuality directs the development of the individual, personality and subject in overall structure, stabilizes it, interconnects properties and is an important factor in high viability and longevity. Individuality is the "depth" of the individual and the subject. The originality and originality of individuality are manifested in the ratio of open and closed systems, revealing a person as a subject of activity and a subject of mental activity.

The concept of B.A. Ananiev is based on theoretical and experimental studies of the individual development of a person in the system of synthetic human knowledge. According to B.A. Ananiev, human evolution is a single process in all its multiplicity of states and properties, determined by the historical conditions of human life in society. Man like open system, being in constant interaction with nature and society, carries out the individual development of its human properties in a person with its social connections and a subject of activity that transforms reality. But a person is also a closed system due to the internal interconnectedness of the properties of the personality, the individual and the subject that make up the core of his personality (self-consciousness and "I"). The uniqueness of individuality is manifested in the transition of internal tendencies and potencies into products. creative activity personality, changing the world around and its social development.

The personality structure is built simultaneously according to the subordinate principle of subordinating more general properties to elementary, particular social and psychophysiological properties and the coordination principle, in which the interaction of correlated properties is combined with their relative autonomy (for example, a system of value orientations, attitudes).

The personality structure includes the following properties:

  • a certain complex of correlated properties of an individual (age-sex, neurodynamic, constitutional-biochemical);
  • the dynamics of psychophysiological functions and the structure of organic needs, also referred to as individual properties. The highest integration of individual properties is represented in temperament and inclinations;
  • status and social functions-roles;
  • motivation of behavior and value orientations;
  • structure and dynamics of relations.

The integration of personality traits is represented in the character of a person and his inclinations. Personality structure, according to B.A. Ananiev, is formed in the process of individual psychological development, acting in three planes:

  • ontogenetic evolution of psychophysiological functions;
  • the formation of activity and the history of human development as a subject of labor, cognition and communication;
  • life path of a person (history of personality).

B. G. Ananiev believes that the personality structure is built according to two principles at the same time:

  • subordinate, or hierarchical, in which more complex and more general social properties of the personality subordinate more elementary and private social and psychophysiological properties;
  • coordination, in which the interaction is carried out on a parity basis, allowing a number of degrees of freedom for the correlated properties, that is, the relative autonomy of each of them.

Psychological characteristics of the individual

Describing an individual, B. G. Ananyeva distinguishes two classes of properties in his structure: age-sex and individual-typical. These properties constitute the most immediate, phenomenal picture human behavior in the real life.

The class of age properties consists of all the properties of an individual that characterize his development in the course of ontogenesis, and the group of sex properties consists of those individual properties that reflect the specific features of the sex. In other words, age-sex properties are all the properties of an individual, which reflect the age and sex characteristics of his development. The allocation of age-sex properties as a separate class means the need to study constitutional, neurodynamic and psychodynamic properties, taking into account age and gender. Such an account makes it possible to obtain micro-age and sex characteristics of the studied properties, which is very important for their diagnosis and assessment of the level of development.

The point is also that age and sex differences can overlap, mask or neutralize proper constitutional, neurodynamic or psychodynamic differences. Along with this, the facts of the presence of the so-called sensitive periods of development, which are especially pronounced in childhood and adolescence, are well known. It is precisely for the confident identification of general structural features in the development of the properties of an individual that comparative age and sex comparisons of the studied properties are necessary.

The class of individual-typical properties is represented by general somatic or constitutional properties, neurodynamic properties and bilateral features. General somatic or constitutional properties include endocrine and biochemical characteristics, the general type of metabolism (metabolism in the body), morphological structures of the body as a whole (human constitution). Neurodynamic properties characterize the features of the nervous system, while bilateral properties characterize the functional geometry of the body in the form of symmetry or asymmetry of the structural and dynamic characteristics of the body and individual motor and sensory systems.

Age-sex and individual-typical properties are primary, and their interaction determines the dynamics of secondary properties. The derivative effects of this interaction is a group of secondary properties, which is represented by psychophysiological functions - sensory, mnemonic, verbal-logical, etc. and organic needs. In turn, the highest integration of these properties is represented, on the one hand, in temperament, and on the other, in inclinations.

Functions of individual properties in human development

All properties of the individual are included in the structure of personality. Therefore, it is impossible to make a psychological portrait of a person, ignoring her individual characteristics.

The psychophysiological properties of an individual form the basis of sensations and perception, ideas and imagination, memory and attention, thinking, emotional experiences, i.e. everything that makes up the sensory fabric of a person’s mental activity, the content of his consciousness (they are not considered by us, since they are the subject of general psychology).

Inclinations and temperament determine the range of the pace of mastering and performing operations and methods of action. In turn, the emotional properties of temperament determine the energy range of motives, and at the same time the brightness and variability of emotional experiences associated with them. In other words, inclinations and temperament determine the form of manifestation of personal characteristics.

Individual properties in relation to the person and the subject of activity can be:

  • one of the conditions for their development (for example, inclinations in relation to abilities);
  • their private content (for example, sensations, perception, ideas, imagination, memory, emotions constitute the sensual side of consciousness);
  • mechanism of functioning (for example, psycho-physiological functions in relation to the actions and operations of the subject of activity);
  • one of the factors of development (for example, temperament in relation to the abilities and motives of the individual).

One of the main functions of individual properties can be defined as a conservation function, since it is they that determine the range of dynamic and energy indicators, the resource capabilities of a person.

Another important function - the function of change - is that individual properties determine the pace of transition from one state to another, from one emotion to another, from one operation, skills to another, thereby ensuring the plasticity of behavior.

Constitutional properties of the individual

The structure of individual-typical properties includes constitutional and neurodynamic ones.

Allocate the general and private constitution of a person.

Under the general constitution is understood the totality of the most significant individual characteristics and properties fixed in heredity and determining the specifics of all reactions of the organism to the influence of the environment. In other words, the general constitution is the general characteristic of the body. It can be assumed that the basis of the general constitution is the human genotype. The existence of a common constitution is evidenced by numerous connections between various body systems, for example, the central nervous system with the endocrine, autonomic, cardiovascular, respiratory and digestive systems.

In the structure of private constitutions, two main classes are distinguished: the class of morphological constitutions and functional ones. Morphological constitutions are represented by chromosomal and bodily ones, and functional constitutions are represented by biochemical, physiological and neurodynamic ones.

Since physique, in comparison with other types of constitutions, is an easily observed characteristic of an organism that characterizes it as a whole, it is precisely this that occupies a central, and sometimes the only place in the concept of “human constitution”. Therefore, strictly speaking, when describing the constitutional features of an individual, it is necessary to keep in mind the entire spectrum of constitutional features of a person.

The constitution is understood as the sum of all individual properties that are based on heredity, i.e. laid down genotypically. The concept of the constitution applies to both the bodily and the mental.

Emphasizing the connection of the general constitution with the genotype, the researchers thereby emphasize that a significant part of the constitutional properties are due to genotypic factors. Morphological, physiological and psychodynamic qualities of a person are largely determined by genotypic influences, and morphological features- to a greater extent than psychophysiological. In men, there is a greater hereditary conditionality of signs than in women. For example, the heritability coefficient for boys ranges from 0.36-0.94, and for girls - 0.26-0.69. These data are in good agreement with the hypothesis that the female sex acts as a "custodian" of the traits of the species, while the male sex performs the function of "trial variants" of modifications for new traits.

The connection between constitutional features and the human psyche was noticed long ago. Another Hippocrates in about 430 BC. described two sharply different types of people: habitus apoplectikus and habitus phitisicus. The first is dense, muscular, the strong man, and the second is thin, graceful, weak.

Today there are more than 20 classifications of body types. The reason for this diversity lies in the fact that different researchers based their classification on different features, emphasizing only one side of the human bodily organization. However, upon closer examination, one can find much in common between them, which is expressed, as a rule, in a 3-4-member classification. The most famous constitutional theories of Ernst Kretschmer and William Sheldon.

E. Kretschmer, summarizing his own observations, as well as the observations of other psychiatrists and anthropologists, suggested that there is a close relationship between the human constitution and the properties of temperament. E. Kretschmer described 4 body types and their corresponding types of temperament.

Body types:

  • Asthenic (leptosomal)
  • Athletic
  • Picnic
  • dysplastic

Temperament types:

  • Shizotimny
  • Ixotyme
  • Cyclothymic

Asthenic type - these are people, as a rule, of high stature (they may be of medium height) with a fragile physique, a flat chest, an elongated face, a long and thin nose. The shoulders are narrow, the lower limbs are long and thin. E. Kretschmer described their appearance as follows: "sarcastically rude or grumblingly stupid, or bile-ironic, or mollusk-like, timid, silently hiding."

Asthenics have a schizotyme temperament. His most common characteristics include unsociableness, isolation, restraint, seriousness (lack of a sense of humor). The next group of qualities are shyness, timidity, sentimentality, high sensitivity, excitability, nervousness. They love books and nature. The third group of temperament properties combines suggestibility, good nature, honesty, indifference, stupidity and stupidity.

Obviously, the second and third groups of temperament traits seem to oppose each other. If representatives of the second group show high mental sensitivity, then representatives of the third group, on the contrary, show signs of mental insensitivity, up to emotional dullness. Therefore, E. Kretschmer singled out among schizotimics "gentlemen, idealistic dreamers, cold domineering natures, egoists and weak-willed crackers." For most of them, the main thing in their life is themselves, i.e. the focus on oneself, one's "I" is pronounced. This characteristic indicates that the schizotyme temperament is between the poles of irritability and emotional dullness. Therefore, most schizotimics differ not only in excessive sensitivity or coldness, but both at the same time, in different combinations.

In this regard, it is appropriate to recall the self-characterization of A. Yu. Strindberg: “I am hard as iron, and yet full of feelings to the point of sentimentality.”

The schizotyme temperament manifests itself in some features intellectual activity. They have well-developed attention, including attention distribution, long-term memory and verbal intelligence. Hence the tendency to abstract thinking. Short-term memory, non-verbal intelligence and the speed of formation of visual-motor connections are worse developed. The dynamics of mental labor is characterized by a gradual buildup. Optimum mental performance is achieved by the middle or end of the working day, but at the same time they can work for a long time, without signs of increasing fatigue, without interruptions. Rare, but lengthened pauses during work are characteristic.

Athletic the type is characterized by a well-developed skeleton and muscles. These are people of medium or high stature, with broad shoulders, a stately chest, narrow hips, convex facial bones.

Athletic body type corresponds to xothymic temperament. These are independent, energetic, self-confident and unimpressive people, with restrained gestures and facial expressions, in communication they can be bold and unceremonious, they like to subordinate others to themselves. They have a high vitality, love adventure and risk. In life, the main thing for them is business.

Picnic people of small or medium height have a body type, with a dense figure prone to obesity, soft muscles, a large belly, a round head on a short and massive neck, a soft wide face.

People with a picnic physique correspond to a cyclothymic temperament. These are direct and uncomplicated natures, whose feelings lie on the surface and are easily understood by others. The most typical features of temperament are sociability, kindness, sincerity. The mood of cyclothymics fluctuates between cheerfulness and sadness. Therefore, some of them are cheerful, witty, lively and hot people, while others are quiet, calm, impressionable and gentle.

Cyclothymics are not people of strict sequence and thoughtful system. They lack a firm and unyielding determination to stand up for anything. Therefore, they have no desire to rebuild the world, just as there is no tragically sharpened conflict with this world.

Cyclothymics are characterized by some features of intellectual activity that distinguish them from schizothymics. They have better developed short-term memory, the speed of formation of visual-motor connections and non-verbal intelligence, e. figurative components of mental activity. They are quickly included in the work, they can quickly switch from one type of activity to another, but at the same time they get tired quickly.

Man with dysplastic physique has a poorly formed, irregular physique. Therefore, E. Kretschmer failed to identify the appropriate type of temperament.

W. G. Sheldon, with his work in the 40s of the twentieth century, continued the study of the relationship between the structure of the body and character, begun by E. Kretschmer. His approach is distinguished by the following two innovations.

The first of these is that, unlike E. Kretschmer, the initial concept for him is not a type as a combination of physical and psychological traits, but a component of physique. Based on a rigorous analysis of photographs of 4,000 students taken from the front, side and back, Sheldon identified three primary components of the physique. He named them after the germ layers - endomorphic or inner germ layer mesomorphic- middle germ layer ectomorphic- external germ layer. Bones, muscles, heart, blood vessels develop from the first. People classified by Sheldon as this type are characterized by a general spherical shape, the presence of a large abdomen, a large amount of fat on the shoulders and hips, large internal organs, a round head, flaccid arms and legs, undeveloped arms and legs.

Internal organs develop from the mesomorphic leaf. This type of person is characterized by broad shoulders and chest, muscular arms and legs, a massive head, and a small amount of subcutaneous fat.

From the ectoderm develop the nervous system and the brain, the receptor apparatus. Therefore, people of this type are characterized by thin and long arms and legs, a narrow chest, underdeveloped muscles, the absence of a subcutaneous fat layer, an elongated face with a high forehead, and a well-developed nervous system.

Already at the first comparison of the typology of W. Sheldon with the typology of E. Kretschmer, the coincidences between endomorphs and picnics, athletes and mesomorphs, ectomorphs and asthenics are obvious.

Sheldon's other innovation was to quantify each component in each individual person. At one time, Kretschmer was also aware of the need for this, when, within the framework of each type of temperament, he singled out three subtypes. Sheldon took this idea to its logical conclusion by proposing a subjective scaling procedure on a seven-point scale, where 1 represented the absolute minimum of the severity of this component, and 7 the absolute maximum. For example, an individual whose somatotype was rated as 4-6-1 has an approximately average degree of endomorphy, a high degree of mesomorphy, and a complete absence of ectomorphy.

Having studied the characteristics of the temperament and personality of individuals assigned to a particular somatotype, Sheldon established significant relationships between certain body components and the “primary components of temperament”.

Table. The ratio of somatotype and temperament according to W. Sheldon


Somatotype

Endomorphy

Mesomorphy

Ectomorphy

temperament type

Viscerotonia

Somatotonia

Cerebrotonia

Each type of temperament was characterized by 20 traits. At the same time, each trait was assessed on a 7-point scale, which ultimately made it possible to assess temperament using a quantitative index (similar to the somatotype index). So the index of the extreme viscerotonic was 7-1-1, the extreme somatotonic - 1-7-1, and the extreme cerebrotonic - 1-1-7.

Table. W. G. Sheldon temperament scale


Viscerotonia

Somatotonia

Cerebrotonia

one . Relaxation in posture and movement

one . Confidence in posture and movement

one . Restraint of manners and movements

2. Love for comfort

2. Excessive physiological reactivity

Viscerotonia

Somatotonia

Cerebrotonia

3. Slow reactions

3. Energy

3. Increased reaction rate

4. Love for food

4. The need for movement and pleasure from them

4. Prone to solitude

5. Socialization of food needs

5. Need for dominance

5. A tendency to reason, an increased level of attention

6. The pleasure of digestion

6. Risk appetite

6. Secrecy of feelings, emotional restraint

7. Love for companies, friendly outpourings

7. Determined manners

7. Restless movements of the eyes and face. Self-control of facial expressions.

8. Sociophilia (tendency to public life)

8. Courage

8. Social phobia (fear of social contacts)

9. Friendly with everyone

9. Aggressiveness

9. Difficulties in establishing social contacts

10. Thirst for praise and approval

10. Emotional callousness, psychological insensitivity

10. Difficulty in acquiring new habits, avoiding standard actions.

11 Orientation to other people

11 Claustrophobia (fear of enclosed spaces)

11 Agoraphobia (fear of open spaces)

12. Emotional stability

12. Lack of pity and tact

12. Unpredictable behavior

13. Tolerance

14. Serene contentment

14. Spartan indifference to pain

14. Oversensitivity to pain

15. Deep sleep

15. Noisy behavior

16. Poor sleep, chronic fatigue

16. Lack of explosive emotions and actions

16. Appearance corresponds to older age

16. Youthful liveliness of manners and appearance

17. Ease in communication and expression of feelings

17. Objective thinking directed outward. Hiding in feelings and emotions

17. Concentrated, secretive and subjective thinking

18. Sociability and gentleness in a state of intoxication

18. Aggressiveness and persistence in a state of intoxication

18. Resistance to alcohol and other depressants

19. The need for people in a difficult moment

19. The need for action in a difficult moment

19. The need for solitude in a difficult moment

20. Focus on children and family

20. Orientation towards youth goals and activities

20. Orientation to the later periods of life

Concluding a brief description of constitutional properties, we note one more important consequence. It is shown that there is a certain relationship between the somatotype and a person's predisposition to certain diseases. For example, some constitutional differences have been found to precede the onset of pulmonary tuberculosis. As a rule, this disease is characteristic of people with low weight in relation to height (asthenic or ectomorphic type).

Myocardial infarction is more common in people with a large weight in relation to height (pycnic or endomorphic type). But the connection between body type and mental illness is especially pronounced, as discussed above.

The constitutional approach, which actively declared itself in the 20-40s of the twentieth century, nevertheless, did not allow revealing the deep foundations and connections that explain the relationship between mental and somatic (bodily) properties and one or another type of temperament. Therefore, without rejecting the achievements of this approach, other genotypic bases of mental properties should also be considered. This should be called human neurodynamics.

Neurodynamic properties of the individual

The reason for the individual characteristics of human behavior is due, among other things, to the properties of the nervous processes of excitation and inhibition and their various combinations.

IP Pavlov believed that the properties of nervous processes determine the type of higher nervous activity, which in turn is closely related to one or another type of human temperament.

These properties are:

  • strength of the nervous system, i.e. its ability to withstand heavy and prolonged loads. It is characterized by endurance and performance of nerve cells;
  • weakness of the nervous system is a property, in meaning, the opposite of strength;
  • balance determines the balance between the processes of inhibition and excitation;
  • mobility as an indicator of the speed of change in the processes of excitation and inhibition. Mobility ensures that the individual adapts to sudden and unexpected changes in the environment.

The table shows the ratio of types of the nervous system and temperament.

Table. The ratio of types of the nervous system and temperament


Types of the nervous system

Rampant

Inert

Features of nervous processes

Equilibrium

Unbalanced

Balanced

Balanced

Unbalanced

Mobility

Mobile

Mobile

Inert

Movable or inert

Temperament

sanguine

Phlegmatic person

Melancholic

Research at the school of B. M. Teplov and V. D. Nebylitsyn expanded the understanding of the list of basic properties of the nervous system. The following additional basic properties of the nervous system have been experimentally established:

  • dynamism - the ease, speed with which the nervous system generates the process of excitation or inhibition. In other words, dynamism characterizes the ease and speed of the development of conditioned reflexes;
  • lability - the rate of occurrence and termination of the excitable and inhibitory process. Along with this, an important positive property of the weak type was found - high sensitivity.

In the studies of V. S. Merlin and his collaborators, numerous connections were established between the properties of the nervous system and the properties of temperament. Practically there was not a single property of temperament that would not be associated with some property of the nervous system. At the same time, the same property of temperament can be associated both with a separate property of the nervous system, and with several. Thus, each property of temperament is dependent on several properties of the nervous system.

The combination of properties of the nervous system determines not only one or another type of temperament. Relationships between individual properties of the nervous system and personality properties have been established.

Thus, the strength of the excitatory process is the basis of working capacity, endurance, courage, courage, courage, ability to overcome difficulties, independence, activity, perseverance, energy, initiative, determination, ardor, risk-taking.

The strength of the inhibitory process underlies caution, self-control, patience, secrecy, restraint, composure.

Unbalance due to the predominance of excitation over inhibition causes excitability, risk appetite, ardor, intolerance, the predominance of perseverance over compliance. Action is inherent in such a person than waiting and patience.

Unbalance due to the predominance of inhibition over excitation causes caution, restraint and restraint in behavior, excitement and risk are excluded. In the first place, calmness and caution.

The balance (balance) of inhibition and excitation implies moderation, proportionality of activity, degree.

The mobility of the excitatory process is associated with the ability to quickly interrupt the work begun, stop halfway, quickly calm down. At the same time, it is difficult to develop perseverance in activity.

The mobility of the inhibitory process is associated with the speed of speech reactions, liveliness of facial expressions, sociability, initiative, responsiveness, dexterity, and endurance. It is difficult for such a person to be secretive, attached and constant.

Psychodynamic properties of the individual

The psychodynamic level of an individual is a stable unity of his psychodynamic properties. The structure of the psychodynamic properties of the individual is made up of temperament, sensitivity and general abilities. It should be pointed out that temperament is the central formation in the structure of the psychodynamic properties of the individual.

Temperament
It is well known that people differ from each other not only in the level of achievements, personality traits or intellect, but also in the ways of expressing their emotions and feelings, different ways communication and behavior, and finally, different methods of mental activity. Of course, these differences are influenced by the constitutional and neurodynamic properties of a person. The quintessence of these differences lies in the temperament of a person.

Temperament is the biological pole of integration psychological properties. It is integrated into the personality structure and, as B. G. Ananiev said, is its natural basis. This is evidenced by the facts of the influence of the properties of temperament on the formation of personality. For example, sensitivity to critical life events, the very definition of an event as critical by a person is associated with such properties of temperament as anxiety, activity, energy. On the other hand, personality traits also affect temperament. For example, temperamental differences between people are manifested with an active attitude of a person to a situation. The differences in temperaments are especially pronounced in extreme situations when there is a strong motive, and the maximum tension of forces and a rapid change in the methods of activity are required.

Temperament, as the central formation in the structure of psychodynamics, determines the formal-dynamic, procedural side of the human psyche, and when it is characterized, it answers the question "how". Thus, temperament characterizes a person from the side of the dynamic features of his mental activity, i.e. tempo, speed, rhythm, intensity, i.e. everything that makes up the dynamics of mental processes and states. Consequently, temperament characterizes not the level of a person's achievements (people of different temperaments can achieve equally high achievements), but the way of achievements. It is this characteristic of temperament that closely links temperament with inclinations, since both of them characterize the dynamic side of mental activity. Temperament is a non-specific characteristic of mental activity, since it manifests itself in all its spheres: emotional, cognitive, volitional.

When characterizing the neurodynamic properties of an individual, we have already spoken about the types of temperament known since the time of Hippocrates. However, along with these well-known types, there are others, perhaps less well-known, but very remarkable typologies.

The authors of one of them are the Dutch psychologists G. Heimans and E. Wiersma. Having developed a special questionnaire containing 90 questions, they examined 2,500 adults and children, as a result of which they were able to identify three bipolar characteristics of temperament.

  1. Emotionality is the absence of emotionality, characterizing the frequency and strength of a person's emotional reactions.
  2. Activity - passivity (in work, study, leisure).
  3. Primary - secondary. People with a developed primary function strongly and immediately react to environmental stimuli, and the effect of these reactions quickly fades. In people with a pronounced secondary function, the initial reaction to the stimulus is weak, and the effect further intensifies and persists for a long time. A parallel can be drawn between primary function and extraversion and secondary function and introversion.

As a result of combining these three characteristics of temperament, eight different types of temperament can be obtained.

Emotionality

Activity

Primary (P) or Secondary (S) function

Temperament

sentimental

very active

passionate

sanguine

phlegmatic person

amorphous, careless

J. Gilford proposed a 13-factor theory of temperament, which he developed over 20 years. He identified the following factors:

  • General activity. The individual is energetic, moves quickly and works quickly, enterprising and sometimes impulsive.
  • dominance. The individual is persistent, looking for opportunities to become a leader, not afraid of social contacts, openly expresses his thoughts.
  • Courage. Typically male interests prevail (both professional and everyday), knows how to hide his feelings, does not give in to fear, does not cause sympathy among others.
  • Self-confidence. The individual relies on himself, is balanced in communication, is satisfied with his position, does not withdraw into himself.
  • Calmness (self-control). The person is calm, cheerful, able to quickly focus on the problem, not subject to fatigue and irritability.
  • Sociability. The person is prone to communication, not timid, not shy, not looking for solitude.
  • reflexivity. The person is thoughtful, prone to introspection, curiosity, analysis of other people.
  • Depression. Emotional and physical depression, anxiety and fear, mood is changeable.
  • Emotionality. Easily excitable, stable over time, but very superficial and infantile emotions.
  • Restraint. The person is well in control of himself, rather serious than carefree, with a developed sense of responsibility.
  • Impartiality. A person approaches problems objectively and realistically, is sensitive to changes in relation to others, is not prone to suspicion, is impressionable.
  • benevolence. The person is friendly and gentle in handling, does not show hostility, does not show aggression.
  • Tolerance. A person does not criticize others, is trusting, more turned to others than to himself.

As a result of the factorization of these factors, four superfactors were identified: "temper-restraint", "realism", "emotionality" and "social adaptability". These factors are independent of each other, however, researchers have not been able to develop diagnostic tests that could identify these factors when examining a person.

L. Thurstone, having applied the factorial procedure to the known 13 factors of J. Gilford, singled out seven factors of the second order. This procedure, known as "L. Thurstone's Temperamental Scale, has found its application in psychodiagnostics and is as follows:

  • Active. Such individuals work quickly, they are impatient, constantly in action, prone to haste.
  • Energetic. These are physically vigorous people, they love work that requires muscular effort.
  • impulsive. Quickly make decisions, easily move from one task to another, carefree and frivolous.
  • Dominant. They tend to lead others, take responsibility, willingly speak in public, organize social events.
  • stable. They are characterized by equanimity, an even mood, they easily concentrate even in adverse conditions, easily interrupt the work they have begun or continue it if the situation requires.
  • Sociable. Sociable, easy to make acquaintances, complaisant, friendly, prone to cooperation.
  • reflexive. Prone to reflection, prefer theoretical activity, calm, willing to work in solitude, love activities that require precision rather than speed.

According to the authors of factor theories, to know a person's temperament means to determine the value of each of the known factors that make up the structure of temperament. A significant drawback of these concepts is that, with the same source material, the quantity and quality of the allocated factors change. This leads to the fact that temperament structures are fundamentally different from each other, which casts doubt on the issue of distinguishing really stable properties in these factor structures that change little under the influence of the external environment. Thus, major problem the study of temperament is the allocation in its structure of relatively stable properties that change little under the influence of environmental influences.

The study of types of temperaments has become widespread in Russian psychophysiology. We have already spoken about the typology of temperaments, based on the typology of the types of higher nervous activity of IP Pavlov. This tradition was developed in the works of A. G. Ivanov-Smolensky, N. I. Krasnogorsky, B. M. Teplov, V. D. Nebylitsin and others. As evidence accumulates, researchers attach less and less importance to magic number"four". The importance of certain basic properties of the nervous system is emphasized, while the problem of division into types recedes into the background. Nevertheless, despite the fact that different authors used different criteria for dividing the types of temperament, their typologies, as a rule, retained its four-term structure.

These typologies are united by the fact that different types of temperament are assigned different abilities to form conditioned reactions. Since the formation of conditional connections is a certain form of learning, we can say that the speed of learning is the most important and hallmark some type of temperament.

The characterization of temperament, as the natural basis of personality, would be incomplete without a description of its basic properties.

Currently, the main properties of temperament include the following:

General mental activity individual, the essence of which lies in the tendency of a person to self-expression, effective development and transformation of the external environment. The degrees of activity range from lethargy, inertia and passive contemplation to higher degrees of energy, powerful swiftness of action and constant uplift.

Motor or propulsion component. Closely related to the previous one. The leading role in it is played by the qualities associated with the motor and speech-motor apparatus. This component is very evident, it manifests itself in the movements, speech of the individual, in particular, the amplitude of his movements, the rate of speech, strength, agility of movements and other motor indicators. Based on them, we most often make up our first impression of a person’s temperament.

Emotionality- the next main property of temperament, is a kind of symptom complex of properties and qualities that characterizes the features of the emergence, course and cessation of various affects, feelings and moods. The main characteristics of emotionality are impressionability, impulsiveness and emotional lability.

Impressionability expresses the emotional susceptibility of the individual, his sensitivity to emotional influences, the ability to find a basis for an emotional reaction where such soil does not exist for other people. It has a lot to do with sensitivity, both sensory and emotional. Therefore, in some people, "it rips off all the skin from the heart", while others - "thick-skinned" react very poorly to the environment.

Impulsiveness characterizes the speed with which emotion becomes the motivating force of an action or deed without their preliminary reflection and conscious decision to carry them out.

Under emotional lability commonly understood as the rate at which a given emotional condition or there is a change from one experience to another. It depends on emotional lability how quickly and strongly a person lights up and how quickly he fades away.

Often, the properties of temperament include extraversion - introversion, which are associated with strength - weakness of nervous processes.

Reactivity. Under it understand the level of intensity of reactions of the individual in response to various stimuli. The more intense the response, the higher the reactivity. Individuals with low reactivity react to stimuli according to the law of force: an increase in the strength of the stimulus leads to a corresponding increase in the intensity of the reaction. The behavior of highly reactive individuals does not obey the law of force: even with a weak stimulus, their reaction can be much higher than required. Reactivity is the stronger, the higher the excitability of the individual. A negative relationship has been established between the reactivity and activity of the individual. Highly reactive individuals are usually characterized by reduced activity, their activity is not very intense. Low-reactive individuals are characterized by high activity. Concluding the characterization of temperament, we repeat that its properties are the most constant and unchanging characteristics of an individual.

Sensitivity
Sensitivity as a special property of human sensory organization characterizes the general "mode of sensitivity". This means that Sensitivity is a general, relatively stable feature of an individual. At the same time, an experimental study of sensitivity allows us to conclude that the absolute sensitivity of the visual, auditory, and tactile analyzers is relatively independent. That is why individual differences between analyzers in humans are pronounced. These differences themselves are due to congenital or hereditary features of the morphological organization of a person. Relationships between physique and sensitivity have been experimentally established. It can be assumed that the general constitution acts as common factor, which combines all natural properties into a single whole.

At the end of the analysis of individual properties of a person, it should be emphasized that there are branched reliable connections between different levels of primary and secondary properties of an individual. Connections have been established between the bodily constitution and sensitivity, between neurodynamic and such psychodynamic properties as temperament and general abilities. An experimental study of these connections revealed the importance of the general constitution as a general factor that determines the development of a person at the level of the individual.

It has also been established that the connections between the distinguished levels of individual properties - constitutional, non-dynamic and psychodynamic - are not equivalent. It is shown that the neurodynamic properties of an individual (neurodynamic constitution) contains more prognostic information about psychodynamic properties than body type. All this indicates that the structure of individual properties is a developed, hierarchically organized, stable system.

Psychological characteristics of personality

When starting an empirical psychological characterization of a person, it is important to formulate the main vector of analysis. The need for it is due to the complexity and inconsistency of the object itself.

B. G. Ananiev believed that for a correct understanding of the personality, it is necessary to analyze the social situation of the development of the personality, its status and the social position it occupies. Indeed, if we recognize that the personality is formed in activity, then this activity is carried out in a specific social situation. But, acting in it, any person occupies a certain status, which is set by the existing system of social relations. The status of a person is objective and can be perceived by a person adequately or inadequately, actively or passively. The main thing is that it determines the place of the individual in society. For example, in the social situation of a family, one takes the status of a father, the other - a son, and so on. Along with the status of the individual, each person also occupies a certain position, which characterizes the subjective, active side of the position of the individual in one or another social structure. The level and content of the position are determined by the content of the personality's activity.

The position of a person, as an active, subjective side of his status, is a system of relations of a person (to people around him, to the objective environment, to himself) of the attitudes and motives that guide him in his activity, the goals and values ​​to which this activity is directed. In turn, this whole complex system of properties is realized through the roles played by the individual in given social situations development.

Thus, studying the dynamic tendencies of the personality - its needs, motives, interests, desires, attitudes, value orientations, ideals, finally, its orientation, i.e. what a person wants, what is attractive to her, what she aspires to - one can understand and explain the content of the social roles she performs, the status and position she occupies.

However, the quality of the performance of roles, status and position are determined not only by the dynamic tendencies of the individual, but also by its potential for individual mental development, its capabilities - inclinations, special abilities, and giftedness.

It is no coincidence that therefore S. L. Rubinshtein emphasized that when studying the mental appearance of a person, it is necessary to answer the question: what can a person do? The answer to it can be obtained by studying the above personality parameters.

The status of a person and his social roles, needs and motives, attitudes and value orientations, the structure and dynamics of personality relations, realized through the opportunities given to a person, turn into a system of stable personality traits that express his attitude towards people, the objective environment and himself - character traits.

All of the listed psychological characteristics of a person - dynamic, tendencies, opportunities and character - characterize her to us as she appears to the people around her. However, a person lives not only for others. He lives for himself. He is aware of himself. He tries to answer the questions: who am I, what am I? He is aware that he is a subject, a bearer of numerous psychological properties and qualities. The property of a person to realize himself as a subject with his own psychological and socio-psychological characteristics is called self-consciousness.

Thus, proceeding to the psychological characteristics of the personality, we must consider, firstly, its dynamic tendencies - the needs and motives, attitudes, value orientations and attitudes of the personality, integrated into its orientation. Secondly, its capabilities, realized through inclinations, abilities, giftedness, intelligence. Thirdly, the character and self-awareness of the individual.

Personal needs

As E. P. Ilyin notes, the problem of needs as an independent scientific problem began to be discussed in psychology relatively recently, in the first quarter of the 20th century. Prior to this, needs were considered among various emotional manifestations, and sometimes as instincts (for example, Freud's death and life instincts).

The concept of need
It is generally recognized that needs are the driving force of human activity and behavior. At the same time, there is a wide range in understanding the essence of needs - from a biological interpretation to a socio-economic one. Consider the most common among them.

Need as a need is a state of an individual created by the need he experiences in objective conditions, objects, objects, without which the development and existence of living organisms is impossible.

However, the need state in a person is also possible with an excess of something, in connection with which there is a need to get rid of this excess. Close to this is the understanding of the need as a reflection of the need in the human mind.

Need as dependence is a state of the organism, expressing its dependence on specific conditions of existence. However, dependence only shows what kind of relationship exists between the organism and the external environment, but does not reflect the essence of needs.

It should be noted that the above two definitions of needs are the most common. However, along with them, there are other views.

Need as a relationship. In this case, the need is understood as a relationship between the subject and the world (D. A. Leontiev). This is more of a philosophical approach to understanding needs than a psychological one. But at the same time, the actual psychological content of needs disappears.

Need as the absence of a good. The state of the absence of a good is a need. The object of need in this case is the missing good. If in the previous definition the psychological approach was replaced by a philosophical one, then in this case it was replaced by a socio-economic one.

Need as a deviation from the level of adaptation. A need is defined as a deviation of some reality, internal or external, from established expectations about this reality. A person, for example, is accustomed to a certain kind of communication or enjoys a certain type of food, or a certain environment. Deviation from this level habitual for a person makes him need to restore the expected state. Other examples: familiar surroundings cause boredom, which is experienced as a need for novelty. The achieved result ceases to satisfy the person, which activates the need for achievement.

Need as a state. Indeed, the experience of need testifies to changes in the state of the body and personality. Whether this state is the only expression of a need is another matter.

In itself, the need state only signals that the satisfaction of the need has encountered difficulties. Therefore, the need state makes a person only look for the cause of suffering.

Need as a dynamic state (K. Levin). Kurt Lewin understood a need as a dynamic state (activity) that occurs in a person when an intention or action is carried out. Obviously, every need tends to be satisfied. The satisfaction process consists in the discharge of dynamic tension. Thus, a need is a kind of tense system (intention) that arises in a certain situation, ensures human activity and strives for relaxation (satisfaction). It follows from this that the dynamic state, tension is the decisive factor that determines human behavior.

An analysis of the above definitions of needs shows that they all contain facts that must be taken into account in order to understand the essence of needs.

First, it becomes obvious the need to separate needs into the needs of the body and the needs of the individual. At the same time, the needs of the body (needs) can be divided into unconscious (not felt) and conscious (felt). The needs of the individual are always realized either at the level of sensations (biological needs) or at the level of understanding (social needs).

Secondly, it is also obvious that the need is closely related to the need. However, the body's need for something reflects its objective state, and the need of the individual is associated with the awareness of the need, i.e. has a subjective side.

Thirdly, it is clear that it is impossible to exclude from the needs of the individual the need state reflected in the consciousness of the subject and signaling the need to satisfy the desire that has arisen.

Finally, fourthly, the very emergence of a need is a mechanism that triggers a person's activity to achieve a goal that can satisfy his need.

Taking into account the above facts allows us to define the need of the individual as a state of internal tension experienced by a person, arising as a result of the reflection of the need in the mind and inducing mental activity associated with goal-setting.

Stages of formation and functions of needs
The process of acknowledging the need implies its stage-by-stage nature. This has been well illustrated by the development of male sexual desire.

The 1st stage is the latent or stage of need formation, during which a specific adjustment of sensitivity to external stimuli takes place.

Stage 2 - unconscious modality of need (motivation). It is characterized by the appearance in the subject of a sensation of some new state for himself. Psychologically, this is experienced as a growing sense of anxiety. The energy of motivation is not yet specific, which can motivate any other behavior.

Stage 3 - the stage of awareness of the need. It is characterized by the appearance of sexual desire. The reports of the subjects testified to the appearance of pleasant sensations, thoughts, dreams and plans of a sexual nature.

Functions of needs
There are two main functions of the needs of the individual: signal and incentive.

The first is that the emergence of a need signals a person about the appearance of a deficit, a change in state (physical or mental), the need for something. It is the altered state, conscious or unconscious by a person, that is the signal that triggers the activity.

The second function is to stimulate activity, activity to satisfy a need, in order to eliminate or strengthen the need state. The need acts as a source of activity, a stimulus of activity, human behavior.

Classification and types of needs
Both in domestic and foreign personality psychology there are many classifications of needs. The previous analysis of the essence of need, which revealed the ambiguity of approaches, explains many classifications of needs. Some authors, for example, Murray counted more than 140 human needs. Nevertheless, certain traditions in the classification of needs have developed in both domestic and Western psychology.

There are two classifications of needs. In the first of them, all needs are divided into biological (material), social and ideal (spiritual).

The realization of biological needs ensures the individual and species existence of a person. These are the needs for food, clothing, sleep, shelter, security, sexual needs, the need to save energy.

Social needs reflect the needs of a person to belong to any group, in recognition, dominance, leadership, self-affirmation, attention and affection of others, in respect and love, discipline, independence-dependence.

Ideal needs are the needs of knowledge of the surrounding world, the meaning of one's existence, self-respect and self-realization, proper cognitive needs, aesthetic needs.

Another classification divides all types of needs into two large classes: the needs of conservation (needs) and development (growth). The first class includes:

  • physiological (hunger, thirst, sleep, activity, sex) (according to A. Maslow)
  • the need for security (according to A. Maslow) and preservation (according to K. Obukhovsky)
  • abundance (fullness of satisfaction of biological needs) (according to R. Akoff)
  • biological (according to P. V. Simonov)
  • material (according to F. M. Dostoevsky).

The second class of needs is:

  • need for respect and love
  • self-respect
  • self-actualization (according to A. Maslow)
  • cognitive, including knowledge of the meaning of life
  • needs for emotional contact, (according to K. Obukhovsky)
  • social and ideal needs (according to P. V. Simonov).

Thus, it can be seen that almost the same needs are shuffled among themselves depending on the way they are classified. The above classifications make it possible to single out the most significant needs from the point of view of the practical behavior of the individual.

Need for achievement (success). It expresses the desire of a person to improve performance. The need for achievement is most closely related to performance success. As a rule, this need is most fully satisfied among people with a high level of skill. In women, this need is more pronounced than in men.

In people with a weak need for achievements, it is weakly expressed intrinsic motivation activities. At the same time, they are more driven by defensive motivation (motivation to avoid failure: not to get a bad grade, not to be expelled or fired, etc.). The need for achievement is directly and positively correlated with activity in scientific work.

Need for affiliation (interpersonal communication). This need involves a high level of empathy. This need should be distinguished from the need for patronage, help, recognition from others. All of these are different aspects of the need for affiliation.

An experimental study of this need revealed the following facts. With an average level of need for affiliation, students have a positive effect on academic performance. A strong level is negatively associated with success. In women, this type of need is more pronounced than in men. In addition, the need for affiliation significantly affects the degree of student satisfaction with learning. Moreover, this influence is stronger in men than in women. At the same time, the need for affiliation has practically no effect on facilitating learning activities. Moreover, individuals with a high level of this need have slightly increased learning difficulties. With age, the need for affiliation decreases. It has been found to be positively correlated with anxiety.

Need for dominance- arises and is satisfied in the process of communication. Along with this need, they talk about the need for self-affirmation, leadership, independence, and responsibility.

All these are different needs, a significant component of which belongs to the need for dominance.

Data from an experimental study of this need revealed its contradictory effect on academic performance. For example, the desire for dominance, unrelated to other needs, reduces the academic success of students. The stronger the need for dominance, the less likely it is to pass the session with excellent marks. At the same time, the probability of passing the session is no less than good, no longer depends on the degree of development of the need for dominance.

The positive relationship of this need with the need for achievement has positive influence educational success. Students with a high level of need for dominance experience fewer learning difficulties. Apparently, this type of need increases general level motivation, thereby facilitating learning activities. In women, the effect of dominance on learning facilitation is more pronounced. At the same time, the effect of relief increases with the growth of academic performance. Need for knowledge. Interestingly, the cognitive need, at least among students of medical universities, has a less stimulating ability than the need for achievement. It is shown that the probability of learning excellently under the influence of the cognitive need increases by 1.5 times, and under the influence of the need for achievement by 2 times! It is also interesting that students with an average level of cognitive need have the greatest satisfaction with learning. Students with a high level of the same need are less satisfied with learning. But the cognitive need has a significant impact on the facilitation of learning: the higher the need, the easier it is to learn.

Studies show that the same need can increase one performance indicator and reduce another. In addition, it can be seen that the direction and intensity of the influence of different needs on the same performance indicator are different. All this testifies to the many-valued relationships between needs and the activities stimulated by them.

Personality motives

The problem of motives and motivation of behavior is one of the core and most difficult in psychology. “The difficulty here lies in the fact,” wrote B. F. Lomov, “that the systemic nature of the mental is most clearly manifested in motives and goals; they act as integral forms of mental reflection. At one time, Hegel expressed his understanding of man in this way: "The subject is the activity of satisfying instincts." It is no accident, therefore, that many psychologists have emphasized that needs and motives form the core of a person's personality.

Despite the outstanding significance of the problem itself, psychologists to this day are not even able to define the concepts and relationships between them. Things sometimes come to the point that it is proposed to remove this or that psychological category from the agenda altogether. Therefore, A. N. Leontiev sadly stated in his time that the problem of motivation and motives reminds him of a bag into which a variety of concepts were poured.

When looking for an answer to the question, “what are motives”, you need to remember that this is also the answer to the questions: “why”, “why”, “why”, “why does a person behave this way and not otherwise”? Most often it happens that what is taken as a motive allows you to answer only one or two of the listed questions, but never all. This reduces the explanatory potential of the given definition, and psychologists begin to search for another, more adequate to the task.

Indeed, a variety of psychological phenomena were named as motives. These are intentions, ideas, ideas, feelings, experiences (L. I. Bozhovich); needs, drives, urges, inclinations (X. Hekhauzen); desires, desires, habits, thoughts, sense of duty (P. A. Rudik); moral and political attitudes and thoughts (G. A. Kovalev); mental processes, states and personality traits (K. K. Platonov); objects of the outside world (A. N. Leontiev); installations (A. Maslow); conditions of existence (K. Vilyunas); motives on which the purposeful nature of actions depends (V. S. Merlin); consideration on which the subject must act (F. Godefroy). In fact, such a diversity of views should not be surprising, if we agree that human behavior itself is very diverse.

Most psychologists agree that most often a motive is either an impulse, or a goal (object), or an intention, or a need, or a property of a person, or her state.

Motive as a goal (subject). The prevalence of this point of view is due to the fact that the adoption of a goal (object) as a motive answers the questions “why” and “why” the behavior is carried out, i.e. explains the purposeful, arbitrary nature of human behavior.

It is the object that gives purposefulness to a person's motives, and the motives themselves have meaning. From this follows the meaning-forming function of the motive. However, if one can agree with this point of view, then only in that part of it that an object can become a stimulus for a need, but not for human activity. Moreover, this view of motive does not answer the question: "why is this goal and this method of achieving it chosen?"

Motive as a need. This point of view on the motive gives an answer to the question: “why is human activity carried out”, since the need itself contains the active desire of a person to transform the environment in order to satisfy the need. Thus, the source of energy for volitional activity is explained, but it is impossible to get answers to the questions “why” and “why” a person shows this activity.

Motive as intention. Knowing a person’s intentions, one can answer the questions: “what does he want to achieve?”, “what and how does he want to do?” and thereby understand the basis of behavior. Intentions then act as motives when a person either makes a decision, or when the goal of the activity is distant and its achievement is delayed. In the intention, there is the influence of the need and intellectual activity of a person, associated with the awareness of the means to achieve the goal. It is obvious that intention has motivating power, but it does not reveal the causes of behavior.

Motive as a stable property of personality. Such a view of the motive is especially characteristic of Western psychologists, who believe that stable personality traits determine human behavior and activity to the same extent as external stimuli. To the motivational personality traits, some psychologists include anxiety, aggressiveness, the level of claims and resistance to frustration. However, the adoption of stable personality traits as a motive does not solve the problem entirely, since in this case it is possible to get an answer to the question: why this particular goal, this method of achievement was chosen, but it is impossible to get answers to other questions formulated above.

Motive as motivation. The most common and accepted point of view is the understanding of the motive as an incentive. Since motivation determines not so much physiological as mental reactions, it is associated with the awareness of the stimulus and giving it some significance. Therefore, most psychologists believe that a motive is not just any, but a conscious impulse that reflects a person’s readiness for action or deed. Thus, the stimulus of the motive is the stimulus, and the stimulus of the act is the internal conscious impulse. In this regard, V. I. Kovalev defines the motive as follows: motives are conscious motives for behavior and activity that arise in the highest form of reflection of needs, i.e. their awareness. From this definition it follows that the motive is a conscious need. Motivation is seen as a desire to satisfy a need.

It is clear that the adoption of motivation as a motive reveals its energetic side, but does not provide answers to other questions. It is also clear that an attempt to find a single determinant when determining a motive is a dead end, since behavior as a systemic formation is conditioned by a system of determinants, including at the level of motivation. Therefore, monistic approaches to understanding the essence of the motive do not justify themselves, which forces us to replace it with a pluralistic one.

In this regard, as E. P. Ilyin emphasizes, “all of the listed psychological phenomena ... can influence the formation of a specific motive, but none of them can replace the motive as a whole, since they are only its components.” It is no coincidence, therefore, that recently the idea that the determination of human behavior is carried out not by separate, albeit very significant, but disparate factors, but by their combination, has been increasingly heard. Therefore, for a correct understanding of the psychological content of the motive, it is necessary to use all the psychological phenomena listed above, no matter how cumbersome and indigestible it may seem. With this understanding, it is legitimate to consider the motive as a complex integral psychological formation.

Therefore, the motive of a person is both a need, and a goal, and an intention, and an incentive, and a property of a person that determines a person's behavior. What are the structure, parameters and functions of the motive?

Structure, characteristics and functions of the motive
The structure of each specific motive acts as the basis of the action, the act of a person. E. P. Ilyin distinguishes 3 blocks in the structure of the motive:

  • the need block, which includes biological, social needs and obligation;
  • internal filter block, which includes preference for external features, internal preference (interests and inclinations), declared moral control (beliefs, ideals, values, attitudes, beliefs), undeclared moral control (level of claims), assessment of one’s capabilities (i.e. e. their knowledge, skills, qualities), assessment of their condition in this moment, taking into account the conditions for their achievement of their goals, foreseeing the consequences of their actions, deeds, activities in general;
  • the target block, which includes the need goal, the objectified action and the process of satisfying the need itself.

The composition of the motif may include one or more components from a particular block, one of which may play a major role, while others may play an auxiliary, accompanying one. Thus, several reasons and goals are reflected in the structure of the motive. In addition, such an understanding of the motive allows us to take a fresh look at the so-called polymotivated human behavior. In fact, this behavior is based on not one, but several reasons, several components that make up the structure of the motive.

The most important characteristics of the motive are the strength and stability of the motive.

The strength of the motive acts as an indicator of the irresistible desire of the individual and is assessed by the degree and depth of awareness of the need and the motive itself, by its intensity. The strength of the motive is due to both physiological and psychological factors. The first should include the power of motivational excitement, and the second, knowledge of the results of activity, understanding of its meaning, a certain freedom of creativity. In addition, the strength of the motive is determined by emotions, which is especially pronounced in childhood.
At one time, J. Atkinson proposed a formula for calculating the strength of a motive (aspiration): M \u003d I x B x Z, where: M is the strength of the motive, I is the motive for achieving success as a personal property, B is the subjectively assessed probability of achieving the goal, Z - personal meaning achieving this goal.

The stability of a motive is assessed by its presence in all major types of human activity, by the preservation of its influence on behavior in difficult conditions of activity, by its preservation over time. In fact, we are talking about the stability (rigidity) of attitudes, value orientations, and intentions.

The main functions of motives are the following:

  • a motivating function that characterizes the energy of the motive, in other words, the motive causes and determines the activity of a person, his behavior and activities;
  • guiding function, which reflects the orientation of the energy of the motive to a specific object, i.e. the choice and implementation of a certain line of behavior, since a person always strives to achieve specific goals. The guiding function is closely related to the stability of the motive;
  • a regulatory function, the essence of which is that the motive predetermines the nature of behavior and activity, on which, in turn, the realization in human behavior and activity of either narrow personal (egoistic) or socially significant (altruistic) needs depends. The implementation of this function is always associated with a hierarchy of motives. Regulation consists in what motives are the most significant and, therefore, to the greatest extent determine the behavior of the individual.

Along with the above, there are stimulating, managing, organizing (E. P. Ilyin), structuring (O. K. Tikhomirov), meaning-forming (A. N. Lentiev), controlling (A. V. Zaporozhets) and protective (K. Obukhovsky) motive functions.

Classification of motives
It is generally recognized that there is no single classification of motives that satisfies all. There are exactly as many classifications of motives as there are grounds for their classification.

One of these grounds may be the content of needs. From this point of view, there are biological and social motives, motives for achieving and avoiding failure, self-respect and self-actualization.

The allocation of personal and social motives, egoistic and socially significant, ideological and moral is significantly associated with the attitudes of the individual.

Motives are distinguished by types of activity: motives of communication and play, teaching and professional activity, and manifestations by time: permanent (acting over a long period of life), situational (due to the content and duration of the situation) and short-term (for a limited period of time).

According to the strength of manifestation, motives are divided into strong, moderate and weak, and according to the degree of stability they are divided into strong, medium and weakly stable.

Motivational formations and motivational personality traits
Both in everyday life and in psychological literature, along with the concept of motives, we often talk about our desires, inclinations, intentions, various interests of the individual, which also encourage a person to act and are often mistaken for the motives of his behavior. All of them in one way or another characterize the motivational sphere of the personality and are included in the group of so-called motivational formations of the personality. According to E.P. Ilyin, motivational formations are the result of the degree of awareness of the causes of the motivation that has arisen, as well as the degree of satisfaction of the need (achievement of the goal). Since both can be of varying degrees of severity, there are various motivational formations of the individual.

These include motivational attitudes (intentions), inclinations, desires and desires, as well as various interests of the individual.

“A motivational attitude is a planned but delayed intention that will be carried out when the right situation or occasion arises.” In essence, this is “a latent state of the dominant, a readiness to satisfy a need, to realize an intention” (E. P. Ilyin). Her hallmarks are the remoteness of the purpose of the activity and the impossibility of its direct satisfaction. That is why the concept of a motivational attitude coincides with intention.

Attractions, desires, desires. There are two approaches to defining these concepts.

The first of them tries to differentiate them from each other, to find in each of them its own psychological content. In the most striking form, this approach is presented in the works of S. L. Rubinshtein.

In his opinion, "attraction is an organic need, reflected in an organic (interoceptive) sensitivity." It has a somatic source - irritation coming "from within the body." Thus, attraction is one of the forms of manifestation of needs, First stage in her awareness.

As the subject realizes his need, the need turns into desire. S. L. Rubinshtein emphasizes that desire reflects its objective certainty, i.e. there is an awareness of the object of satisfying the need. Thus, desire includes the knowledge of the subject about the purpose of the action.

Desire is the aspiration of the subject to master the object of desire, i.e. to achieve the goal. Desire, according to S. L. Rubinshtein, arises when not only the goal is desired, but also the action that leads to it.

Other researchers believe that attraction, desire, desire are rather synonyms, expressing different aspects and shades of the same experiences, and therefore suggest using the term attraction (V.S. Deryabin). E. P. Ilyin, summing up the results of the analysis of these concepts, concludes that attempts to distinguish between these concepts are not very productive, especially in relation to desires and desires. Moreover, in his opinion, “desire (desire) most likely acts as a collective, generalized term for designating various motivational formations.” Attraction can be considered as a kind of desire.

Interests. One of the motivational formations that motivate human behavior is interest. What is its psychological content, its specific difference from other motivational formations?

Analyzing the psychological content of interest, psychologists, as a rule, single out needs and a positive experience of this need in them. In this regard, B. I. Dodonov singles out procedural and procedural-target interests. In procedural interests, the enjoyment of experiences from certain types of activity is emphasized. However, purely procedural interests occupy an insignificant place in a person's life. A person strives not only to experience pleasant emotions, enjoy them, but also to satisfy their needs. Therefore, in the procedural-target interests, there is a simultaneous satisfaction of needs that are significant for a person and enjoyment from the pleasant emotions experienced at the same time. “Satisfying one’s procedural-targeted interest, writes B. I. Dodonov, a person acts both for the sake of the pleasure received and for the sake of his own goal.” The author concludes that interest “is a special psychological need of a person for certain objects and activities as sources of desired experiences and means to achieve a desired goal. It is no coincidence that A. Maslow noted that the achievement of interests rewards a person with “peak experiences”, during which he feels great ecstasy, reverence and delight.

Motivational properties (features) of personality
Under the motivational properties (features) of the personality, it is customary to understand the fixed and preferred ways of forming motives.

The level of claims is determined by the degree to which the subject achieves the goals that he himself sets for himself and seeks to achieve. The level of claims stimulates the activity of the subject, his self-esteem is associated with it, it determines not only behavior, but also influences the formation of character.

For the first time this psychological phenomenon was discovered by Ferdinand Hoppe in the school of K. Levin. They discovered a number of specific patterns:
1) the activity is terminated after success, if the increase in the level of claims due to the reached frontier of possibilities or due to the structure of the task itself is impossible;
2) activity stops after a series of failures, if the slightest opportunity to achieve success is lost;
3) a single success after many failures leads to the termination of the activity if the failures proved the impossibility of success at higher levels of aspiration.

In general, aspiration levels have been shown to increase after success and decrease after failure.

It has been experimentally shown that in anxious (introverted) people the level of claims corresponds to their real intellectual level.

Rigid, low-plasticity, as well as extroverted personalities often inadequately assess their abilities, tend to either overestimate or underestimate their level of claims. For example, neurasthenics, in comparison with normal people, set higher goals for themselves, and hysteroid personalities set minimal goals in comparison with the average level of their achievements. Achievement motive as a person’s steady desire to achieve the highest possible result, the desire to do the job well and quickly. First identified by Murray. Subsequently, it was differentiated into the motive of success and the motive of avoiding failure.

With a pronounced motive for success, people, as a rule, are guided by success, while preferring tasks of average difficulty, i.e. risk very prudently. Such people are characterized by: great activity, self-confidence, high self-esteem, women value their business qualities more highly and strive to achieve in meaningful activities for them, while men value the qualities of a public figure more and strive for recognition and rivalry.

If the motive for avoiding failure is pronounced, people choose either easy tasks for themselves that guarantee their success, or very difficult ones (in this case, failure is not perceived as a personal failure, but as a consequence of circumstances that come and do not depend on the individual).

The motive of affiliation (the desire of a person to be in the company of other people). A high degree of expression of this motive forms a relaxed, confident, open style of communication. This motive is positively connected with a person's desire for approval from others, with the desire for self-affirmation. Such people are active and proactive in communication, relationships with others are built on the basis of mutual trust.

The reverse side of this motive is the motive of rejection, i.e. fear of a person to be rejected by other people, as a result of which a person is dominated by uncertainty, stiffness, awkwardness.

The motive of power, understood as the potential for influence. The dominance of this motive is said when a person receives satisfaction from control over other people, from the ability to judge, establish norms and rules of behavior.

This motive is based on a superiority complex, which, according to A. Adler, is an innate and fundamental motive of human life. For the first time, this striving for superiority begins to be realized by a child in the 5th year of life, when a life goal begins to form. Unclear and mostly unconscious at the beginning of life, this goal eventually becomes a source of motivation, a force that organizes our life and gives it meaning. According to A. Adler, superiority as a goal can take both a destructive and a constructive direction. A destructive direction is characteristic of people who do not adapt well to society, which forces them to resort to selfish behavior in the struggle for superiority over others. Well-adapted people show their superiority in a constructive way, in a way that relates to the well-being of others.

Some researchers, in particular R. Meili, attribute anxiety, aggressiveness and frustration resistance to motivational personality traits. Strictly speaking, all these properties are rather related to the psychodynamic parameters of the individual, since they determine the dynamics of mental activity. Nevertheless, it is difficult to dispute their powerful influence on human behavior, especially in childhood, adolescence and adolescence, when involuntary features are still inherent in mental activity.

Personal anxiety is understood as an increased tendency to experience anxiety in various life situations. An anxious person is characterized by a constantly experienced feeling of tension and severe forebodings, ideas about his social incapacity, humiliation in relation to others, an increased concern for criticism addressed to him, unwillingness to enter into social contacts without guarantees of being liked, avoidance of social or professional activities associated with intense and meaningful social contacts, beyond being sensitive to rejection and criticism.

Closely related to anxiety is another motivational personality trait - aggressiveness, considered as a person's reaction to frustration.

Personal motivation
Currently, there are two approaches to the definition of motivation.

The first of them considers motivation as a structural formation, as a combination of factors or motives. It is followed by many psychologists, both domestic and foreign. “Motivation is a set of factors that determine behavior. This concept describes the relationship that exists between an action and the causes that explain or justify it” (J. Godefroy). V. I. Kovalev speaks more definitely: “We understand motivation as a set of motives for behavior and activity.” All points over i in the framework of this approach are placed by V. D. Shadrikov. According to his scheme, motivation is conditioned by the needs, goals of the individual, the level of claims, ideals, conditions of activity (both objective and subjective - knowledge, skills, abilities, character), worldview, beliefs, personality orientation, etc. Based on these factors, a person makes a decision.

Within the framework of the second approach, motivation is considered as a dynamic formation, as a process that maintains a person's mental activity at a certain level. It also has its many supporters.

“Motivation is a process of mental regulation that affects the direction of activity and the amount of energy mobilized to perform this activity,” writes V. N. Kunitsyna.

According to V. I. Kovalev, the process of the emergence of a motive unfolds as follows. The emergence of a need => awareness of a need => meeting a need with a stimulus => transformation (usually by means of a stimulus) of a need into a motive =» awareness of the motive. In the process of awareness, the motives of behavior are built into a certain hierarchy. Some of them occupy a more significant, others - a less significant position.

A. G. Kovalev describes the process of motivation as follows. The feeling of hunger causes in the mind the image of an object that could stimulate the need. Under the influence of this image, the subject has an impulse (impulse) to act, which corresponds to the situation ( external conditions) with personal attitudes (internal conditions), which ultimately leads to setting a goal and developing an action plan.

E. P. Ilyin offers a more detailed scheme of the motivational process (when the stimulus is the need of the body), the result of which is a motive.

Stage 1 is the stage of formation of the primary (abstract) motive. Its essence is in the formation of the needs of the individual and the motivation for search activity.

In order for an organic need (need) to become a need of the individual, the subject must accept it as personally significant. In this case, it will begin to be experienced by a person, which is expressed in internal tension and the desire of a person to get rid of it.

At this stage, the subject of satisfaction of the need is maximally generalized (for example, I need to eat, but I don’t know yet what exactly I want or will eat), i.e. there is a so-called abstract goal.

Its appearance leads to the formation of motivation and the search for a specific object to satisfy the need. The appearance of an impulse means the end of the formation of a primary motive, the structure of which includes a need, a goal, an impulse to search for a specific goal.

Stage 2 is a search external or internal activity. If a person finds himself in an unfamiliar environment or does not have the required information, he is forced to search for a real object in external environment(“Whatever turns up, then I’ll eat it”).

Internal search activity is associated with a mental enumeration of specific items to satisfy needs. In fact, this is the stage of intellectual processing of a need and its embodiment in a plan, a goal. The task of this stage is to determine the subjective probability of success.

At the 3rd stage, the choice of a specific goal and the formation of the intention to achieve it are carried out. At the previous stage, the goal was defined. At the same time, it appears as an image of the future result. It is well known that the most painful procedure for a person is the selection procedure. Since any goal is also characterized by its level (what should be the result: high or low), the choice of goal is determined by the level of aspiration, in particular, the need to achieve or avoid failure.

Thus, at this stage, there is an intention to achieve the goal, expressed in a conscious intentional impulse to action. It is this impulse that leads to the action of a person, and with its occurrence, the formation of a specific motive ends.

Thus, in the view of E. P. Ilyin, motivation appears as a process of formation of a motive.

However, along with such an understanding, another thing is also possible - motivation is a set of motives for behavior and activity. In this case, to assess motivation, the same parameters are used - strength and stability, as in the assessment of the motive. Along with them, others are used - multiplicity, structure, hierarchy.

Plurality characterizes the development of content, i.e. enough motives. The structure of motivation is assessed by how these motives are interconnected within the same level. Hierarchy is determined on the basis of the dominance of different groups of motives.

An expressive example of this is the well-known hierarchy of motives of A. Maslow, which opens with physiological needs, includes the needs of security, needs and love, self-esteem and ends with the needs of self-actualization.

The hierarchy of personality needs and their corresponding motives, in fact, expresses its general dynamic trend - the orientation of the personality - the system-forming quality of the personality, a kind of integrator of all the dynamic tendencies of the personality. As S. L. Rubinshtein noted, “the problem of orientation is, first of all, the question of dynamic tendencies that determine activity as motives, themselves, in turn, being determined by its goals and objectives.” Therefore, the orientation of the personality is manifested in all types of needs, motives and motivational formations. It is the orientation that determines the psychological appearance of the individual. It is in the orientation that the goals in the name of which the personality acts, motives, and its subjective relations are expressed. Therefore, defining the orientation of the personality, we can say that it expresses the attitude of the personality to the goals of its activity at the emotional, cognitive (cognitive) and behavioral levels.

The orientation expresses the meaningful, qualitative moment of the need-motivational sphere of the personality as the totality of all needs, motives, motivational formations and personality traits that are formed and developed during her life. Of course, this sphere itself is dynamic and therefore changes depending on the circumstances of a person's life. However, something else is also obvious: some motives turn out to be quite stable and dominant, which form a kind of personality core. It is in them that the orientation of the personality is manifested.

The need-motivational sphere of the personality is a kind of foundation on which the life goals of the personality are formed, which determine its life path. AT life goals personality finds its expression the concept of life created by it, its meaning, according to which the life path of the personality is built. Since the orientation expresses the attitude not only to the goals of activity, but also to the goals - the values ​​of life, so far in the light of one or another orientation, the life path of the individual is built.

A person is characterized not only by what she wants, what she strives for, but also by what she can, what she is capable of. But abilities characterize not only the capabilities of a person. They are inextricably linked with inclinations, i.e. include the moment of direction. It is possible to understand a person's abilities in the course of analyzing the life activity of a person.

Personality abilities

For many years, two widely spread definitions of inclinations and abilities have been wandering from one textbook to another, which are unlikely to carry a proper psychological content.

Inclinations are the anatomical and physiological features of a person that underlie the development of abilities.

Abilities are individual psychological characteristics that are formed in activity on the basis of inclinations, on which the possibility of implementation and the degree of success of the activity depend.

Their derivatives follow from these definitions: the definitions of special and general giftedness.

Special giftedness is a qualitatively peculiar combination of abilities that creates the possibility of success in an activity, and general giftedness is a giftedness for a wide range of activities or a qualitatively peculiar combination of abilities on which the success of various activities depends.

Already when reading the definition of abilities, the question arises: “And on what mental properties of an individual, personality or subject does the “possibility of implementation and the degree of success of an activity” depend?

It does not bring any clarity and clarification that "abilities are individual psychological characteristics." It is obvious that these are not only abilities, but characterological properties of the personality, and intellectual properties.

And even the well-known position of S. L. Rubinshtein that abilities are formed in activity has a philosophical and pedagogical significance rather than a purely psychological one. Obviously, if "the psyche is formed in activity", then this is inherent in all its properties.

It is hardly possible to consider productive and attempts to determine the prerequisites of abilities in the form of some internal conditions, in particular, activity. Activity, along with the genotype and environment, is one of the factors in the mental development of a person in general, and therefore does not clarify the understanding of the psychological essence of abilities.

As for giftedness, today it is generally recognized that there is no single scientifically based concept of giftedness.

The foregoing does not mean that psychologists have not made any progress in the study of the psychological mechanisms of abilities. But this promotion concerns, first of all, special abilities. So, B. M. Teplov managed to establish the content of musical abilities, K. K. Platonov - flying; F. N. Gonobolin, N. D. Levitov, N. V. Kuzmina revealed the content of pedagogical abilities, and V. I. Kireenko - fine. The paradox lies in the fact that the psychological content and structure of a person's general abilities remain unknown.

Nevertheless, the category of abilities is one of the most important psychological concepts. Therefore, there is a need for their psychological understanding. To date, in domestic psychology, there are two traditions in the study and understanding of human abilities.

The first of them is connected with the study of the psychophysiological foundations of abilities, laid down by the works of B. M. Teplov and V. D. Nebylitsin and developed in the works of E. A. Golubeva and V. M. Rusalov.

At the same time, general abilities are understood as a set of potential (hereditary, innate) psychodynamic characteristics of a person that determine his readiness for activity. The general abilities of a person are manifested in the general working capacity of a person, direct and indirect types of activity, non-derivative and derivative types of self-regulation of mental activity. In other words, the prerequisites for the implementation of activities are general performance, activity and self-regulation. This conclusion is confirmed, on the one hand, by the facts of a close connection between the level of activity and the success of activities, in particular mental ones, and, on the other hand, by the connections between the level of achievements and the method of regulation of activity.

It is believed that activity as a parameter of general abilities is based on the speed of prognostic processes and the variability of the speed of mental processes. In turn, self-regulation can be described by the action of three factors: the sensitivity of the individual, plasticity and a certain rhythm of installation.

Detailing the psychophysiological foundations of general abilities, they associate different types activity with the dominance of the cerebral hemispheres. "Right hemispheric" are distinguished by a strong highly activated and labile nervous system, the development of non-verbal cognitive functions, and the activity of the involuntary sphere. Such people learn better, solve problems well in conditions of time pressure, prefer intensive forms of education. "Left hemispheres" are distinguished by a weak, low-activated inert nervous system, they better assimilate humanitarian subjects, plan their activities better, they have a better developed self-regulating arbitrary sphere.

Obviously, representatives of the psychophysiological direction of studying abilities directly connect them with the characteristics of the human nervous system and his temperament. Of course, it is impossible to ignore this connection, if only because the temperamental properties of the individual mediate the manifestation of abilities, helping their functional training and development. At the same time, psychophysiologists' own data hinder the wide dissemination of their views on the nature of abilities. It is well known that the level of general intelligence depends more on the genotype than on the environment.

Another tradition in the study of abilities rests on a systematic approach and is being developed by V. D. Shadrikov and his students. VD Shadrikov believes that the ability itself expresses a property or a set of properties of an object (thing) that manifest itself in the process of functioning. For example, “an ax is able to cut a tree”, “an atom is able to divide”, etc. In other words, ability is a functional property that manifests itself in the course of interaction, the functioning of the system.

The abilities themselves as properties of an object are determined by the structure of this object and the properties of its elements. Consequently, mental ability is a property of the nervous system, in which the function of reflecting the objectively existing world is realized. This is the ability to feel, perceive, think, etc.

The brain is a supersystem that is formed from individual functional systems that implement individual mental functions. Each property is realized by a functional system, for the sake of which it was formed in the course of evolution. The property appears in the activity. As a result, abilities can be defined as properties of a functional system that implement individual mental functions.

Mental functions have properties that have intensity, a measure of severity, which distinguishes the measure of individual severity of abilities, the degree of their manifestation in different people. Consequently, abilities can be defined as properties of functional systems that implement individual mental functions that have an individual measure of severity, manifested in the success and qualitative originality of activity.

Such an approach to understanding abilities allows, according to V. D. Shadrikov, to find the right balance between inclinations and abilities. If abilities are the properties of functional systems, then the elements of these systems are individual neurons and neural circuits specialized for their purpose. The properties of these neurons and neural circuits can be defined as special inclinations. In turn, it is known that performance, activity, voluntary and involuntary regulation, mnemonic abilities depend on the properties of the nervous system, and verbal and non-verbal abilities are determined by the specialization and interaction of the cerebral hemispheres. In this regard, the general properties of the nervous system, manifested in the productivity of mental activity, can be attributed to general inclinations. Thus, both abilities and inclinations are properties. Abilities are properties of functional systems. Makings - the properties of the components of these systems. With the development of the system, its properties change, which are determined both by the elements of the system and by the links between them.

Thus, the concept of abilities by V. D. Shadrikov reveals the essence of abilities and inclinations as psychological concepts and clarifies the nature of the relationship between them.

To understand the structure of abilities, it is useful to use the ideas of B. G. Ananiev on the comprehensive study of mental functions. In the structure of mental properties, B. G. Ananiev identifies functional, operational and motivational mechanisms.

Functional mechanisms in the early stages of the development of mental function implement a phylogenetic program and are determined by such properties of individual development as age-related and individually-typical (constitutional, neurodynamic, psychodynamic) features. They are formed long before the emergence of operational mechanisms, constituting their internal basis. In other words, the basis of functional mechanisms is the genotypic program of ontogenetic properties of a person. This program is implemented in the process of human life, "through the formation, differentiation and generalization of conditioned connections, in which the training of functions is carried out." This means that in the course of its implementation, the so-called operational mechanisms of a particular mental function are formed. Thus, for each mental function, its own operating mechanisms are formed. For example, for perception, they will be measuring, commensurate, construction, corrective, control and other actions. Functional and operational mechanisms closely interact with each other: for the emergence of operational mechanisms, a certain level of development of functional mechanisms is required, and with the emergence of the former, the latter also enter a new phase of development.

So, the functional mechanisms, according to B. G. Ananiev, are a factor that ensures the normal course of the interaction of the organism with the environment, its health. They are determined by the "natural organization of the human individual" and refer to the characteristics of a person as an individual.

Operating mechanisms provide not only the realization of functional potentials, but also the necessary changes that resist their weakening. They act as a factor in stabilizing the function. Operational mechanisms "are not contained in the brain itself, ... they are assimilated by the individual in the process of upbringing, education, in his general socialization" and refer to the characteristics of a person as a subject of activity.

Motivational mechanisms determine the "orientation, selectivity and intensity" of the manifestation of mental function, determine the course of individual development of mental function and characterize a person as a person.

Based on these ideas, B. G. Ananiev, V. D. Shadrikov distinguishes, first of all, the functional and operational components in the structure of abilities. In the process of activity, there is a subtle adaptation of operational mechanisms to the requirements of reality.

Such an understanding of the structure of abilities helps to solve the problem of the relationship between the biological and social foundations of mental activity, on the one hand, and to better understand the psychophysiological foundations of abilities, on the other.

Giftedness is characterized by V. D. Shadrikov as a holistic manifestation of abilities in activity, as common property integrated in the activities of a set of abilities. The measure of the manifestation of giftedness is determined by the measure of the manifestation of individual abilities and the degree of integration of these abilities.

Concluding the analysis of abilities, let us dwell on a brief operational description of the general abilities of a person. It is believed that general abilities are the psychological basis for successful human cognitive activity.

The first attempt to systematize and analyze these abilities in Russian psychology was made by V. N. Druzhinin. In the structure of general abilities, he singles out intelligence (the ability to solve problems based on the application of existing knowledge), learning ability (the ability to acquire knowledge), and creativity (the ability to transform knowledge with the participation of imagination and fantasy).

M. A. Kholodnaya, within the framework of the concept of intellect developed by her as a form of organization of mental (mental) experience, expands and refines the classification proposed by V. N. Druzhinin. It distinguishes convergent abilities, creativity, learning and cognitive styles.

According to M. A. Kholodnaya, convergent abilities reveal themselves in terms of the correctness and speed of finding the only possible answer in accordance with the conditions of the problem. They can be represented by the following intellectual properties:

  • level properties that characterize the achieved level of development of cognitive (verbal and non-verbal) functions. As a rule, they are diagnosed using D. Wexler and R. Amthauer intellectual scales.
  • combinatorial properties of the intellect, which characterize the ability to identify various kinds of connections, relationships and patterns. Diagnosed using Raven's progressive matrices.
  • procedural properties of the intellect, which characterize the elementary processes of information processing, operations, techniques and strategies of intellectual activity. The assessment of these properties is based on an assessment of the measure of the influence of motivation on the success of mental skills, the formation of basic cognitive actions and operations of analysis, synthesis and generalization of the conditions and requirements of the task.

Creativity- this is the ability to generate many original ideas and use non-standard methods of intellectual activity in unregulated conditions of activity. In other words, creativity in a broad sense is creative intellectual abilities. In a narrow sense, creativity acts as divergent thinking - intellectual abilities, manifested in the willingness to put forward many correct ideas about the same object.

The criteria for creativity are: fluency (the number of ideas that arise per unit of time); originality (the ability to produce unusual ideas that differ from the generally accepted ones; susceptibility (sensitivity to unusual details, contradictions and uncertainties, the willingness to quickly switch from one idea to another); metaphorical (willingness to work in a completely unusual context, a tendency to symbolic, associative thinking, the ability to see in the simple complex, and in the complex - simple).

Learnability- this is a general ability to assimilate new knowledge and ways of activity (in a broad sense); indicators of the rate and quality of mastering knowledge, skills and abilities (in the narrow sense). The main criterion of learning in a broad sense is - "economical thinking", i.e. brevity of the path in self-identification and formulation of patterns in the new material. The criteria for learning in the narrow sense are: the amount of dosed assistance that the student needs; the ability to transfer acquired knowledge or methods of action to perform a similar task.

Cognitive styles- these are psychological differences between people that characterize the originality of their inherent ways of studying reality. Cognitive style expresses the specifics of human intellectual activity. There are three types of style properties of intelligence: cognitive styles, intellectual styles and epistemological styles.

cognitive styles- individually unique ways of processing information about the current situation. The most common are:

  • Field dependence-field independence. Representatives of the first trust more visual visual impressions in the situation of assessing the position of an object in
  • space. Representatives of the second rely more on internal proprioceptive impressions, quickly and accurately single out any detail from a holistic spatial context.
  • Impulsivity-reflexivity. "Impulsive" quickly put forward hypotheses in a situation of indeterminate multiple choice, but at the same time they make many mistakes. "Reflexive" react slowly in such a situation, but make fewer mistakes due to careful preliminary analysis.
  • Analytic-synthetic. "Analysts" focus on the differences of objects, paying attention to their details and features. Representatives of the synthetic style are guided by the similarity of objects, classifying them according to some generalized categories.

Intelligent Styles These are individual ways of posing and solving problems. There are executive, legislative and evaluative styles.

Executive style. Its representatives are guided by generally accepted norms, act according to the rules, prefer to solve pre-formulated and clearly defined problems.

Legislative style. People of this type in their intellectual activity ignore the norms and rules typical for most people. They can even change their own previously developed principles of approach to the problem. They are not interested in details. They feel intellectually comfortable within their own system of ideas and when they can develop new approaches to the problem themselves.

Appraisal style. Representatives of this type are focused on working with ready-made systems that need to be put in order. They tend to analyze, criticize, evaluate, improve problems.

All these styles reveal themselves at the same high level of intellectual development. It must be borne in mind that each person has a certain balance of these styles. In comparison with cognitive ones, they are more generalized.

Epistemological styles- these are individually peculiar ways of a person's cognitive attitude to the world, manifested in the features of an individual "picture of the world". There are three types of styles.

Empirical style is a style in which a person builds his "picture of the world" on the basis of direct perception and subject-practical experience. The truth of judgments is always confirmed by references to facts, reliability and repeatability of observations.

The rationalistic style is a style in which the built "picture of the world" is mediated by logical conclusions and "theories". The main criterion for the reliability of the constructed picture is its logical stability.

Metaphorical style is a style manifested in a tendency to maximize the variety of impressions and combine distant areas of knowledge. Checking the reliability of the "picture of the world" is carried out by referring to intuition.

Cognitive styles, according to M.A. Kholodnaya, can be considered as a special kind of intellectual abilities.

Thus, the properties of intelligence (cognitive abilities) can be described at the operational level.

Personality character

The history of the psychological study of human character is opened by the works of Plato, Theophrastus and Hippocrates. Plato owns the first typology of character, based on ethical principles. However, the most famous was the typology of Hippocrates. Subsequently, two directions in the study of character took shape in psychology.

Within the framework of the first direction, the idea of ​​the dominant conditionality of a person's character by his individual characteristics dominated. At first, they were features of the brain, which is most clearly represented in the phrenological maps of F. Gall, which listed 27 human abilities that are directly related to the structural features of the brain.

In the future, thanks to the work of E. Kretschmer and U. Sheldon's mind-character dichotomy is giving way to the body-character dichotomy. This tradition turned out to be very stable and many typologies of character are based on the recognition of the dominant connection between the physical and the mental. So, for example, K. Jung, back in 1928, emphasized that “character is a stable form of human existence, and the form of both physical and mental kind ... In fact, the mutual penetration of bodily and mental signs is so deep that, according to the properties of the body we can not only draw ... conclusions about the qualities of the soul, but we can also judge the corresponding bodily forms from the spiritual characteristics.

Within the framework of this direction, character types were directly associated with temperament types, and the latter with constitutional types. These are the typologies of the characters of Hippocrates, F. Gall, F. Giordano, E. Kretschmer, W. Sheldon, C. Jung, models of K. Leonhard, P. B. Gannushkin and A. Lichko. The common denominator for these typologies, as well as psychoanalytic typologies, is the motivational aspect of personality beyond any ethical or moral assessments. In these typologies, first of all, the importance of hereditary, natural, somatic or psychodynamic, i.e. energizing component. Its nature can be determined either by constitutional, temperamental features, or by the hereditary component of the "Ego".

Another powerful direction in the study of character can be defined as culturological or cultural-anthropological. The main idea expressed by representatives of this trend is that a person is a product of culture, a person's personality expresses culture, which is reflected in its individual behavior.

E. Fromm noted that the leading human need, which constitutes the very essence of human existence, is the need for communication with the outside world. Thus, the ethical and moral aspect of the personality is emphasized in the character structure. This means that society, culture, influencing cash, its formation and development, determine the general personality traits typical of the majority of this group, which finds its expression in the social character or "basic personality" - the equivalent of the concept of "social character".

“Social character, according to V. N. Kunitsyna, is a set of essential features that are characteristic of a certain group of people and are a product of social development.” It is also obvious that these essential features» differ from each other in relation to each specific individual due to the relations that are developed and fixed in his behavior between him as a subject and the surrounding reality. Therefore, along with social character, in relation to the personality of a person, it is necessary to single out an individual character. Thus, within the framework of the cultural-anthropological direction, concepts of a social and individual nature are being developed. The first who tried to separate these concepts among themselves was Erich Fromm.

The individual character of a person, he wrote, "is what makes people of the same culture different from each other." Why does a person need character? Answering this question, E. Fromm emphasizes that, in accordance with his character, a person, firstly, reaches a certain level of correspondence between internal and external situations, secondly, character performs the function of selecting ideas and values, and thirdly, character forms the basis for the adaptation of the individual to society.

The process of formation of a person's individual character is a process of collision of a person's individual experiences, experiences conditioned by culture with the individual properties of a person, his constitutional, neurodynamic and psychodynamic features. One cannot but agree with E. Fromm, who noted that “for two people, the environment is never the same, because the peculiarities of the constitution make them perceive the same environment more or less differently.”

We talk about the character of a person, trying to explain certain acts or actions committed by him. At the same time, we mean those personality traits that leave a certain imprint on all behavior and express a specific attitude of a person towards the world, other people and himself.
We say: “this person has a strong character”, thus implying stable manifestations of the properties of his personality, which rather rigidly determines behavior, distinguishing him with a definite attitude towards the environment. We often use the exact opposite formulation: "a spineless person", meaning a person deprived of this inner certainty, when each act depends more on the external situation than on himself. Thus, the character manifests the certainty of a person as a subject of activity, which, standing out from his environment in a certain way, relates to it, people and himself.

However, there is no absolute certainty, regardless of anything. Any certainty is always a certainty in relation to something. Therefore, the certainty of character is a concrete certainty in relation to something, to something that a person is not indifferent to. The presence of a character in a person implies the presence of something very significant in life, on which the motives, goals of actions, the tasks that he sets, the direction of his personality depend.

“Character is expressed in the orientation of the personality, its attitudes and significant relationships that regulate and control all manifestations of a person,” noted S. L. Rubinshtein. Therefore, the main question in determining the character is the question of the goals, tasks and values ​​that are significant for a person, which reflect one or another sphere of the relationship of a person with the world. It becomes clear the firmness and perseverance shown by a person in relation to a certain part of this sphere and spinelessness, uncertainty in another part of it. Thus, the significance of character is determined by a set of goals, values ​​expressed in the relationship of the individual to one or another part of the objective world, people or himself. The foregoing allows us to define character as a system of relations of an individual to the objective world, people and himself. This definition gives the key to understanding the structure of character, as a set of certain traits, as well as the sequence of their formation in ontogenesis.

B. G. Ananiev believes that the first in the process of character formation is the relationship of the individual to other people, which, being fixed in life, turn into the most common and primary features, the so-called communicative character traits. Indeed, a person becomes the subject of relations as he develops in a multitude of ways. life situations as an object of relations on the part of other people. The transition of these relations into intra-individual relations is necessary condition formation of personality and its character. Incidentally, the infant's first leading activity in ontogeny is the child's direct-emotional communication with the people around him. Thus, ontogenesis itself sets a certain sequence in the formation of character traits. In turn, communicative character traits become an internal basis for the formation of other traits - object-effective ("business") traits of a person's character. They are formed on the basis of relations that arise between the subject and the objective objective environment surrounding him, interaction with which implies its cognition and objective activity. It is the acceptance by the subject of these relations as personally significant that contributes to the formation of intellectual, volitional and so-called "business" personality traits. Their subsequent consolidation contributes to the translation of these properties into stable character traits. If we turn again to the ontogeny of the child's mental development, it is easy to see that the infant's direct-emotional communication, as the basis of his communicative qualities and properties, is replaced by objective activity leading in early childhood. Its implementation forms the basis for the formation of appropriate personality traits in the child.

Finally, the third system of relations that objectively takes place is the system of relations of the individual to himself. They are formed later than others, which is due to the late formation of the "I"-concept and self-awareness of the individual. As B. G. Ananiev notes, in all types of activity these relations follow the relations to the situation, object, means of activity, other people. Significant experience of many such self-awareness as the subject of behavior is required for these attitudes towards oneself to turn into reflective properties of character. They are most closely related to the goals of life, value orientations, perform the function of self-regulation and control of self-development.

It is these properties, being the latest and dependent on all previous ones, that complete the structure of the character and determine its integrity. In this regard, worldly formulas such as "good" and "bad" character receive a completely different content. It must be assumed that the so-called "bad" character is an incomplete character, it does not have integrity, due to the absence of any features. And vice versa, a “good” character is always a complete holistic structure, in which all the main blocks (features) are present; they are well coordinated, “fitted” to each other, representing not only structural integrity, but also functional integrity.

Such an approach to understanding character has a number of advantages: firstly, character is not built on separate essential properties, but is a holistic and complete structure of traits, and secondly, each trait is a syndrome that expresses a certain attitude of the individual to reality.

Among foreign concepts individual character, the concept of E. Fromm was most widely used.

If in the concept of B. G. Ananiev a character trait is understood as an attitude of a person, then Fromm’s character orientation. This or that orientation expresses the dominant social attitudes. In this sense, both of these concepts are quite close to each other. At the same time, these are concepts that differ from each other. The external determinants of personality relations are the objective objective environment, people and the inner world of the person himself, his “I”, interaction with which contributes to the formation of appropriate personality relations, fixed in character traits. The determinants of Fromm's orientations are the location of the "source of all blessings", the attitude of a person to these sources, fixed in the ways to achieve these benefits.

In this regard, Fromm initially divides all orientations into fruitful and unfruitful. A person with a fruitful orientation sees this source in himself, he perceives himself as the embodiment of all his strengths and capabilities. People with unproductive orientations, firstly, see the sources of benefits outside themselves, and, secondly, they choose unproductive ways to achieve these benefits.

E. Fromm refers to unfruitful orientations as receptive, exploitative, acquisitive and market orientations, which underlie their respective characters. Opposing them is a fruitful orientation.

A receptive or taking orientation is formed in a person when it seems to him that the source of wealth lies outside him and the only way to get what he wants is to get it from this external world. They want to receive love, but they are not able to give it, they are ready to receive ideas, because they cannot produce them; they always need someone who can give them information and therefore, left to their own devices, they are paralyzed.

The exploitative orientation differs from the previous one in that people of this type do not expect to receive anything as a gift; they take away what they want by force or cunning. These people steal and appropriate everything: love, ideas, things. Every other person is treated as an object of exploitation and judged by his usefulness.

The possessive orientation is based on the fact that people who adhere to it do not believe that someone can give them (receptive orientation) or they can steal or appropriate (exploitative orientation). Therefore, security can be ensured through saving and acquisitiveness, and spending is perceived as a personal threat. How can one not remember Pushkin miserly knight!

The essence of market orientation is that it does not develop in a person any specific and permanent type of relationship (unlike the previous ones). The very variability of attitudes is the only stable property, the purpose of which is to sell oneself, one's knowledge, services, skills, etc. A person with a market character develops in himself only that which can be put up for sale. Therefore he has
there may be fixed attitudes, values, or beliefs. Sustainability, individuality is a barrier to selling. Therefore, the market personality is free from any individuality.

Fromm, characterizing unfruitful orientations, believes that any of them has not only negative, but also positive side, which is due to the level of fruitfulness in the integral structure of character.

A fruitful orientation is the ability of a person to use all his strengths and realize the possibilities inherent in himself. A person with a fruitful orientation perceives himself as the embodiment of his forces and, using them, he finds himself free and independent from whoever wants to control his forces.

Concluding the analysis of character as a system of personal relations (fromm's tendencies), let us once again emphasize its dependence not only on the individual traits of a person, but also on his environment, in particular, the system of values ​​that prevails in it. This system of personal relations, reflecting the essential goals, ideals and values ​​of a particular era, has a certain cultural and historical mobility.

An example of this is the data of E. B. Shiryaev on the dynamics of values ​​in different historical periods of time in Russia.

Values

Collectivism

Practicality

Aggressiveness

Optimism

industriousness

Obsession

Self-awareness of the individual

The study of personality does not end with the study of its mental properties - temperament, motives, abilities, character. The final stage is the study of the self-awareness of the individual. For many years, self-consciousness was Cinderella in Russian psychology. And only with the active penetration of the ideas of humanistic psychology, the problem of self-consciousness began to be actively developed.

Self-consciousness is a necessary condition for the existence of personality. Without it, there is no personality. A person is aware not only of the surrounding reality, but also of himself in his relations with others. Therefore, S. L. Rubinshtein is right when he noted that the study of personality “ends with the disclosure of the personality’s self-consciousness.”

The formation of self-consciousness is included in the process of becoming a personality and therefore it is not built on top of it, but is one of the components of the personality. In this regard, it is possible to understand the structure of self-consciousness, the stages of its formation in the course of the formation and development of the personality itself, starting from its first steps in life.

The purpose of the development of self-consciousness is to realize the personality of his "I", his separation from other people, which finds its expression in the growing independence and independence of the subject.

The self-consciousness of a person is a set of her ideas about herself, expressed in the “concept -“ I ”and the assessment by the person of these ideas - self-esteem.

Mechanisms of self-awareness
The first of these is the ability to realize mental phenomena.

Already during the first year of life, the child develops the ability to separate himself from his visual images, i.e. realize that the world exists independently of it, but is perceived through images. This ability, which is formed during the first year of life and develops subsequently, constitutes the very possibility of a person's awareness of his mental processes, experienced mental states, mental properties and qualities. According to V. V. Stolin, consciousness is based on splitting, i.e. a person’s ability to distinguish from the environment what he is now perceived to see is”), then by what visible signs he perceives and distinguishes an object from the environment (“I understand what I see”), and the observer’s own position associated with the body scheme ( “I somehow relate to what I see”). This ability allows a person to realize himself, his separation from the world, other people, i.e. highlight your phenomenal "I".

However, having distinguished himself from the environment, the child, interacting with the environment itself and people, somehow manifests himself, in other words, his acting "I" contributes to the formation of his phenomenal "I" or "I"-concept.

The main mechanism for the formation of the "I"-concept, i.e. the actual self-consciousness of the individual are the phenomena of subjective assimilation and differentiation. V. V. Stolin identifies the following phenomena:

  1. acceptance of the point of view of another on oneself (direct assimilation or indirect, another point of view);
  2. direct and indirect suggestion to the child by the parents, as a means of assimilation by the child of the assessments, norms, standards, ways of behavior, etc. transmitted to him;
  3. transmission to the child by the parents of specific assessments, standards, which forms the level of expectations and the level of claims in the child;
  4. child control system;
  5. the system of intercomplimentary relations (the system of transactions according to E. Berne);
  6. family identity, i.e. involvement of the child in real relationships in the family.
  7. identification mechanism.

The action of these mechanisms helps to answer the question: “how does the process of filling the “I”-concept take place, i.e. whereby ideas about oneself are assimilated and appropriated. Let us briefly comment on the operation of these mechanisms.
1. Acceptance of another's point of view on oneself.“Human consciousness is a transformed and inwardly transferred point of view of others about the subject,” such is the opinion of J. Mead, the author of the theory of symbolic interactionism.
Indeed, in the process of interpersonal interaction, the child learns the points of view of other people that are significant for him and, appropriating them to himself, forms self-consciousness. In the process of accepting the point of view of others, it is important to evaluate yourself, based on the attitude of other people. What is learned by the child?

These are: a) values, parameters of assessments and self-assessments, norms; b) the image of oneself as a carrier of certain abilities and qualities; c) the attitude of parents towards themselves, expressed by them through emotional and cognitive assessments; d) self-esteem of the parents themselves, i.e. the self-esteem of the parents or one of them may become the self-esteem of the child; e) a way of regulating the child's behavior by parents and other adults, which becomes a way of self-regulation.

2. Direct and indirect suggestion. What do they want to instill and inspire their child? It is impossible to list everything, let's name only some phenomena: strong-willed and moral qualities, discipline, interests, abilities, evaluative characteristics.

3. Broadcast to the child grades, standards. Parents always arm the child with his specific assessments, goals of behavior, ideals, plans, standards for the performance of actions. If they are all realistic, i.e. correspond to the capabilities of the child, then reaching them, he also increases his self-esteem, his level of claims, thereby forming a positive "I"-concept.

4. Control system. It's about about the influence of the system of control over the child, the style of education chosen by the parents on the "I"-concept of the child. Control over the child's behavior can be exercised either through granting autonomy to the child or through strict control. In addition, control itself can be exercised in two ways: either by maintaining the fear of punishment, or by causing feelings of guilt or shame. Finally, control can be completely consistent, or random and unpredictable. From the point of view of the emerging self-awareness, it is important to be aware of how the control system used by parents is transformed into a system of self-control over the behavior of the child himself.

For example, rigid discipline is transformed into self-discipline, and control through fear is transformed into self-control with constant regard for the opinions of others and avoidance of negative opinions about oneself. The predictable or unpredictable nature of parental controls can be transformed into personal quality as internality-externality of behavior.

5. The system of complimentary relationships. We are talking about the nature of the relationship that develops between parents and the child, which may involve:

a) equality of communicating; b) functional inequality, i.e. inequality set by the situation, the status of those communicating, etc.; c) a system of transactions - the actions of the subject, aimed at another in order to cause in him the state and behavior desired by the subject (transactions according to E. Berne).

Obviously, most often the relationship between parents involves functional inequality, but with age they can change to equal.

6. Involving the child in real relationships in the family. We are talking about the role of the family in shaping the child's self-awareness. First of all, it is necessary to characterize the so-called family identity, i.e. a set of ideas, plans, mutual obligations, intentions, etc., that create a family "WE". It is this, this family "WE" that is included in the content of the individual "I" of the child. In addition, the child's self-awareness will be determined and psychological structure families, i.e. by that invisible network of demands made by family members on each other. In this regard, families differ in:

Families with rigid impenetrable boundaries between its members. Parents most often do not know anything about the life of the child, and only some dramatic event can activate intra-family communication. Such a structure is a barrier to the formation of a family identity in a child. The child is, as it were, excluded from the family;

Families with diffuse, confused boundaries (pseudo-reciprocal families). They encourage the expression of only warm, loving, supportive feelings, and hostility, anger, irritation and other negative feelings are hidden and suppressed in every possible way. Such an undifferentiated family structure creates difficulties for the child in self-determination, in the formation of his "I", the development of independence.
The presented characteristics of different families are two opposite poles, and in the center between them is a normally functioning family.

7. Identification. One of the mechanisms for the formation of self-consciousness is identification, i.e. likening oneself in the form of experiences and actions to another person. Identification is both a mechanism for the formation of personality attitudes and a mechanism psychological protection. The action of this mechanism is well illustrated by 3. Freud in his theory of the psychosexual development of the child, in particular at the third - phallic stage of development.

Stages of development of self-consciousness
The stages of the formation of self-awareness coincide with the stages of the mental development of the child - the formation of his intellectual and personal spheres, which unfold from birth to adolescence inclusive.

The first stage is associated with the formation of a body schema in an infant - a subjective image mutual position states of movement of body parts in space. This image is formed on the basis of information about the position of the body and its parts in space (proprioceptive information and the state of movement of organs (kinesthetic information). The body schema extends beyond the physical body and may include objects that have been in contact with it for a long time (clothes) Sensations arising in a child on the basis of proprioceptive and kinesthetic information create in him an emotionally colored impression of comfort or discomfort, i.e. what can be called the well-being of the body.Thus, the body schema is initially the first component in the structure of self-consciousness.

The next step in the formation of self-awareness is the beginning of walking. At the same time, it is not so much the technique of mastery that is essential, but the changes in the relationship of the child with the people around him. The relative autonomy of the child in his movement gives rise to a certain independence of the child in relation to other people. The first idea of ​​the child about his "I" is connected with the realization of this objective fact. S. L. Rubinshtein emphasized that there is no “I” outside of the relationship to “YOU”.
The next stage in the development of self-awareness is associated with the gender-role identity that is being formed in the child, i.e. attribution of oneself to sex and awareness of the content of the sexual role. The leading mechanism for the assimilation of the sex role is identification, i.e. likening oneself in the form of experiences and actions to another person.

An important stage in the formation of self-awareness is the child's mastery of speech. The emergence of speech changes the nature of the relationship between the child and the adult. Mastering speech, the child gets the opportunity to direct the actions of other people at will, i.e. from the state of the object of the influences of those around him, he passes into the state of the subject of his influences on them.

The structure of self-consciousness
In the structure of self-consciousness, it is customary to single out: “I” is real, i.e. a set of ideas about oneself in the present, "I"-ideal - i.e. what I would like to be in general, “I” is the past, i.e. a set of ideas about one's past "I", "I" - the future, i.e. totality about yourself in the future.

Functions of self-awareness
The leading function of self-consciousness is the self-regulation of personality behavior. It is the totality of ideas about oneself and the evaluation of these ideas that constitute the psychological basis of the individual's behavior. A person in his behavior can afford exactly as much as he knows himself. This formula largely determines the self-sufficiency of the individual, the degree of his self-confidence, independence from others, freedom in behavior and awareness of the limitations of this freedom.

Psychology of individuality

The analysis of human psychology is completed by the psychological characteristics of individuality. B. G. Ananiev was the first in psychology to try to give psychological characteristics category of personality.

In psychology, there are several traditions of understanding individuality.

Initially, individuality was considered as a singularity, as a unique combination of personality traits that are different in severity, but inherent in everyone without exception. However, a pronounced feature is hypertrophy, and from this point of view, the brighter the individuality, the closer the person is to pathology. Therefore, such an understanding of individuality is the identification of a vector of potential pathological changes in personality.

Another understanding of individuality is associated with the allocation of individual personality traits inherent only to him, genetically related to some random circumstances. In this case, individuality acts as a kind of addition to the personality - the carrier of essential properties and qualities and is defined as a set of individual and personality traits that distinguish one person from another.

Finally, the third understanding of individuality is associated with the works of B. A. Ananiev, who saw in it a fundamentally new level in the structure of man.

According to V. M. Bekhterev, the basis of individuality is in the harmony of parts. Individuality, he continued, always represents a certain harmony and has its own form and its own relative stability of the system. Therefore, if a person is a system that includes different levels of its organization - an individual, a personality and a subject of activity, then following the logic of V. M. Bekhterev, then harmonious relations between them are the foundation of the individuality of a person as a system. In this regard, the idea of ​​B. G. Ananyev is understandable that it is in individuality that “the inner loop of regulation of all the properties of a person as an individual, personality and ... subject of various activities is closed”. This, as well as Ananiev's statement that "individuality is the depth of personality" emphasizes the functional nature of individuality.

Each person as a whole is always an individual, a person, and a subject of activity. However, not everyone is an individual, not in the sense of individual differences at each level of the organization, but in the sense of their harmonious relations, the unity of multi-level properties. It is this unity that forms the basis for the most complete development and expression of a person's abilities, helps him make his own unique contribution to social development. Individuality expresses the unity of all levels of human organization. What is the psychological content of individuality?

The psychological content of individuality more fully than others expresses the concept of wholeness. This is confirmed by the results of a theoretical analysis of the nature of the interaction of various levels in the human structure, and its experimental verification.

The role of the system-forming quality (factor) at the level of the individual, in the structure of which the natural properties of the individual also function, is performed by the orientation of the individual. At the level of the subject of activity, a similar role is played by the individual style of activity.

Interacting with each other, the orientation of the personality and the individual style of activity ensure the commonwealth of all levels, which is expressed in the unity of the personal and activity characteristics of a person. This unity of the individual and the subject of activity finds its expression in the successful labor, cognitive and communicative activity of a person, causing the uniqueness of his contribution to the public fund.

Once again, we repeat the idea that each person appears simultaneously as an individual, and as a person, and as a subject of activity, but not everyone succeeds in becoming an individual. It is also true that each person is a structural whole, but not everyone manages to become a whole person, i.e. to achieve a harmonious interaction of all qualities, properties, methods of activity.

Indeed, few manage to express all their potentialities, achieve the highest results in a particular type of activity, make it as productive and creative as possible. But those who manage to do this, we speak of as people in the highest degree successful and fruitful. Consequently, maximum success is a function of two closely interrelated system-forming factors - the orientation of the individual and the individual style of activity. It is important to point out the nature of this interaction. The leading factor in this pair is the orientation of the individual, since it is on the basis of a positive attitude of the individual to the goals of his activity that ways of achieving goals that are significant for the individual are sought, found and brought into an expedient system.

The driven position of the style of activity is due to the fact that the style of activity, taken separately, without a highly developed ability, cannot provide highly effective activity. In general, the development of the ability is possible only in the context of a pronounced orientation of the personality, since only a goal that is significant for the personality induces it to form an optimal system of actions aimed at achieving this goal.

Based on what has been said, it can be argued that integrity is the psychological equivalent of a person's individuality; it is the psychological mechanism that determines the maximum level of human achievement in a particular activity. Thus, the integrity of a person is the unity of system-forming factors - the orientation of the personality and the individual style of activity, presenting in the structure of a person the levels of the individual, personality and subject of activity. Since the results of human functioning at the level of the individual and the subject of activity are integrated in integrity, it is decisive for understanding the psychological mechanism of success, i.e. achievement by a person of the highest achievements in any field of human activity.

The initial, generic for all psychology, and for differential psychology in particular, is the concept of "man". At the same time, a person is considered, first of all, as a biological being belonging to the class of mammals. kind of homo sapiens. From other human biological species, they differ:

higher animals Man
Anatomical and morphological differences The beginnings of bipedal locomotion in primates; less developed brain structure; organs of sound reproduction are not adapted for speech bipedalism; complex brain organization (presence of developed frontal lobes, etc.); the presence of a perfect speech apparatus
Differences in the organization of the psyche Instinctively similar psyche; conceptual and abstract thinking; in the psyche, the structure-I is not distinguished as the basis of consciousness and self-consciousness There are higher levels of the mental hierarchy - conceptual thinking, conscious regulation, moral experiences, self-concept, worldview
Differences in interaction with the world (as subjects) Adaptive and Adaptive Activity Based on Predominantly Automated Behavior Conscious constructive and transformative activity; availability of culture, art, creativity; intelligent knowledge of oneself and the world

Knowledge of the nature of human individuality

organism- the corporal factor of individuality.

The biological coordinate of a person defines him as a living bodily being. The closest to this definition is the concept of "organism", which in a broad sense can include anatomical and morphological structure, physiological and nervous processes, and finally, higher nervous activity along with the mechanisms of the sense organs. In modern differential psychophysiology and personality psychology, the concept of "organism" is closely related to such features as "specifics of bodily organization", "biochemical individual characteristics" and neurophysiological foundations of individuality. "The concept of "organism" is more suitable for research by biologists and physiologists than psychologists.

Individual- a precondition for personality.

The concept of "individual" is the root word for the central construct in differential psychology "individuality". The term "individual" means, on the one hand, "a single inseparable being (from Lat, individuum - indivisible)," acting as a single whole, and, on the other hand, an individual representative of the human community.

Theory of development of individuality Ananyeva B.G.

The human psyche includes such structures as the individual, personality and subject of activity. Individual properties of a person consist of age-sex and individually typical properties. Age-related properties are consistently deployed in the process of formation, growth of the individual, and exist in the form of sexual demorphism, the intensity of which changes with age. Individual-typical properties form constitutional features (physique and biochemical individuality), neurodynamic properties of the brain, features of the functional geometry of the cerebral hemispheres (symmetry-asymmetry of the functioning of paired receptors and effectors). The primacy of individual properties lies in the fact that they exist at all levels, including cellular and molecular. The interaction of primary individual properties includes the dynamics of psychophysiological functions (sensory, mnemonic, verbal-logical, etc.) and the structure of organic abilities. These derivatives of primary properties are called secondary. Actually mental integration of individual properties is represented in temperament and inclinations. The main form of development of individual properties is ontogenesis, which is carried out according to a specific phylogenetic, species program, but is constantly modified under the influence of social factors. Therefore, as the ontogenetic stages themselves unfold, the factor of individual variability increases, which is associated with the active influence of the social properties of the personality on the structural and dynamic features of the individual.

Personality- the psychological carrier of social properties.

In "the concept of "personality" those signs are fixed that are determined by the individual's belonging to society (social quality)."

Starting point properties personalities(according to Ananiev B.G.) is its status in society (economic, political, legal, ideological, etc. position in society), as well as the status of the community in which this personality was formed and formed. On the basis of status and in constant relationship with it, systems of social functions-roles, as well as goals and value orientations, are built. Status, roles and value orientations form primary personal properties that determine secondary properties - features of behavior motivation and the structure of social behavior. The integrative effect of the interaction of primary and secondary personal properties, the result of this interaction is the character of a person and his inclinations. The main form of development of a person’s personal properties is his life path in society, his social biography, in which “the moments of start and finish of the main activity in society, stages of the creative evolution of the individual, periods of rise and fall, the main events of personal life and activity, closely intertwined with the most important events of the era and the social development of the country.

Man as a subject of activity predominantly considered as a subject of labor, knowledge and communication. The structure of a person as a subject of activity is formed from certain properties of the individual and personality, corresponding to the subject and means of activity. The initial characteristics of a person as a subject are consciousness (as a reflection of objective reality) and activity (as a transformation of reality). A person “as a subject of practical activity is characterized not only by his own properties, but also by those technical means of labor that act as a kind of amplifiers, accelerators and converters of his functions. As a subject of theoretical activity, it is equally characterized by knowledge and skills associated with operating specific sign systems.

Individuality is an integral biopsychosocial characteristic of a person

Man like individuality is understood by Ananyev as "the unity and interconnection of his properties as a personality and a subject of activity, in the structure of which the natural properties of a person as an individual function." The beginning of individuality is determined by the individual with his complex of natural properties. In particular, motivational formations were initially included in the structure of mental processes of perception. Motivation “is a factor in individual development in four directions: organic, gnostic, ethical and aesthetic. The organic direction is associated with the maintenance of the main unconditioned reflexes to maintain the constancy of matter and the internal environment, defensive and protective, reproduction and parental functions, reflexes to environmental stimuli, etc. Due to the historical development of knowledge (in the unity of its sensual and logical sides), the need for knowledge and the methods by which it is formed is one of the basic spiritual needs of the individual: this gnostic motivation affects the various levels of a person's life and his perceptual properties. Ethical motivation expresses a person's need for people and social connections. Aesthetic motivation is probably built on the basis of the interaction of gnostic and ethical motives and is the most complex type of perception as enjoyment of the aesthetic properties of objective reality.

Individuality is something special in an individual, a set of features inherent only to him (in particular, personality traits), which makes a person and his personality a single embodiment of the typical and universal. Individuality can neither be identified with personality, which is often done, nor separated from it. A person is always unique and, therefore, individual. But the individuality of a person is manifested not only in his personality, but also in his body (K. K. Platonov).

Individuality characterizes, first of all, the characteristics of a person as a person. Individuality - a person characterized by his socially significant differences from other people; the originality of the psyche and personality of the individual, its uniqueness. S. L. Rubinshtein in his fundamental work “Fundamentals of General Psychology” devoted only a few lines to individuality, but he emphasized an important way of its formation - an individual life path.

Activity theory - a school of Soviet psychology founded

A. N. Leontiev and S. L. Rubinstein in 1920 - 1930 of the 20th century.

Rubinstein and Leontiev developed the theory in parallel and independently of each other. At the same time, they relied on the works of L. S. Vygotsky and on the philosophical theory of K. Marx, so their works have much in common.

The basic thesis of the theory is formulated as follows: it is not consciousness that determines activity, but activity that determines consciousness.

On the basis of this provision, in the 1930s, Rubinstein formed the basic principle: "the unity of consciousness and activity." The psyche and consciousness, being formed in activity, manifest themselves in activity. Activity and consciousness are not two different sides of inverted aspects, they form an organic unity (but not identity). Activity is not a set of reflex reactions to an external stimulus, as it is regulated by consciousness. Consciousness is considered as a reality that is not given to the subject directly for his self-observation. Consciousness can be known only through a system of subjective relations, including through the activity of the subject, in the process of which the subject develops. Leontiev clarifies Rubinstein's position - consciousness does not just manifest itself as a separate reality, consciousness is built-in and inextricably linked with it

Activity theory - a system of methodological and theoretical principles for the study of mental phenomena. The main subject of research is activity that mediates all mental processes. S. L. Rubinshtein formulated the principle of the unity of consciousness and activity, and A. N. Leontieva developed the problem of the commonality of the structure of external and internal activity. Activity is a set of actions aimed at achieving goals

11. Theories of personality (Ananiev b.G., Myasishchev V.N.)

Personality psychology is a branch of psychology that studies personality and various individual processes. The emphasis is on an attempt to create a coherent picture of the individual in its relationship with the world, life, society, and others. In addition, the dynamic aspects of mental life, individual differences are studied.

11.1. The concept of personality V.N. Myasishcheva

V.N. Myasishchev characterizes the unity of the personality: by orientation (dominant relationships: to people, to oneself, to objects of the outside world), the general level of development (in the process of development the general level of development of the personality rises), the structure of the personality and the dynamics of neuropsychic reactivity (meaning not only dynamics of higher nervous activity, but also the objective dynamics of living conditions).

From this point of view, the structure of personality is only one of the definitions of its unity and integrity, i.e. a more particular characteristic of the personality, the integration features of which are associated with the motivation, attitudes and tendencies of the personality.

11.2. The concept of personality b.G. Ananyeva

B.G. Ananiev believes that the personality structure includes the following properties:

a certain complex of correlated properties of an individual (age-sex, neurodynamic, constitutional-biochemical); the dynamics of psychophysiological functions and the structure of organic needs, also referred to as individual properties. The highest integration of individual properties is represented in temperament and inclinations; status and social functions-roles; motivation of behavior and value orientations; structure and dynamics of relations.

Theory of activity (Leontiev A.N.)

Activity theory - a school of Soviet psychology founded

A. N. Leontiev and S. L. Rubinstein in 1920 - 1930 of the 20th century.

Rubinstein and Leontiev developed the theory in parallel and independently of each other. At the same time, they relied on the works of L. S. Vygotsky and on the philosophical theory of K. Marx, so their works have much in common.

The basic thesis of the theory is formulated as follows: it is not consciousness that determines activity, but activity that determines consciousness.

On the basis of this provision, in the 1930s, Rubinstein formed the basic principle: "the unity of consciousness and activity." The psyche and consciousness, being formed in activity, manifest themselves in activity. Activity and consciousness are not two different sides of inverted aspects, they form an organic unity (but not identity). Activity is not a set of reflex reactions to an external stimulus, as it is regulated by consciousness. Consciousness is considered as a reality that is not given to the subject directly for his self-observation. Consciousness can be known only through a system of subjective relations, including through the activity of the subject, in the process of which the subject develops. Leontiev clarifies Rubinstein's position - consciousness does not just manifest itself as a separate reality, consciousness is built-in and inextricably linked with it

Activity theory - a system of methodological and theoretical principles for the study of mental phenomena. The main subject of research is activity that mediates all mental processes. S. L. Rubinshtein formulated the principle of the unity of consciousness and activity, and A. N. Leontieva developed the problem of the commonality of the structure of external and internal activity. Activity is a set of actions aimed at achieving goals

Personality psychology is a branch of psychology that studies personality and various individual processes. The emphasis is on an attempt to create a coherent picture of the individual in its relationship with the world, life, society, and others. In addition, the dynamic aspects of mental life, individual differences are studied.

11.1. The concept of personality V.N. Myasishcheva

V.N. Myasishchev characterizes the unity of the personality: by orientation (dominant relationships: to people, to oneself, to objects of the outside world), the general level of development (in the process of development the general level of development of the personality rises), the structure of the personality and the dynamics of neuropsychic reactivity (meaning not only dynamics of higher nervous activity, but also the objective dynamics of living conditions).

From this point of view, the structure of personality is only one of the definitions of its unity and integrity, i.e. a more particular characteristic of the personality, the integration features of which are associated with the motivation, attitudes and tendencies of the personality.

11.2. The concept of personality B.G. Ananyeva

B.G. Ananiev believes that the personality structure includes the following properties:

a certain complex of correlated properties of an individual (age-sex, neurodynamic, constitutional-biochemical); the dynamics of psychophysiological functions and the structure of organic needs, also referred to as individual properties. The highest integration of individual properties is represented in temperament and inclinations; status and social functions-roles; motivation of behavior and value orientations; structure and dynamics of relations.