Social behavior is a subject. Social action and social behavior

) which is studied by ethologists, zoopsychologists and other specialists.
Social behavior in animals is defined by Nicholas Tinbergen as the interaction between individuals of the same species, specifically emphasizing that not all group activity will be social. So, for example, the flight of animals from a forest fire is not “social behavior”, it is a reaction caused by the instinct of self-preservation.
The biological value of the social behavior of animals is that it allows them to solve adaptive problems that are impossible for an individual individual.

Science

Biosocial ecology is a scientific discipline that studies the biological basis of the social behavior of living organisms, including humans.

The concept that states that economic factors are decisive in explaining social behavior is the concept of economic determinism. Economic determinism)

see also

Literature

• Fet A.I. Instinct and social behavior. / 2nd ed. - M.: "Owl", 2008.
• Furnham Adrian, Haven Patrick"Personality and Social Behavior"

Notes

Links

• Belyaev V. A. Worldview and social behavior of the modern ruling elite of Tatarstan // Social sciences and modernity. - 2007. - No. 3. - P. 150-157

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See what “Social behavior” is in other dictionaries:

Animals, the social behavior of animals, a set of ethological mechanisms that regulate the spatial and demographic characteristics of a group of individuals (deme), determining the behavioral structure and organization specific to each species... ... Ecological dictionary

Animals' social behavior is regulated by spatial demographics. characteristics of a group of individuals (deme), determines the ethological specific for each species. structure and organization. S. p. is implemented in the form of all kinds of interactions between... ... Biological encyclopedic dictionary

social behavior- socialinis elgesys statusas T sritis Kūno kultūra ir sportas apibrėžtis Socialinių grupių ir jų narių elgimosi būdas atitinkamoje aplinkoje, to elgimosi standartai. atitikmenys: engl. social behavior vok. soziales Verhalten, n rus. social… …Sporto terminų žodynas

Social behavior- – 1. any behavior of an individual that is influenced by the presence, opinions, emotions, attitudes and actions of other people; 2. behavior of an individual that influences the opinions, feelings, actions of other people; 3. behavior learned as a result of an action... Encyclopedic Dictionary of Psychology and Pedagogy

SOCIAL BEHAVIOR- 1. Free meaning is any individual behavior that has social components. That is, behavior that is influenced by the presence, attitudes, or actions of others; behavior that influences the presence, attitudes, or actions of others; or … Explanatory dictionary of psychology

INADQUATE SOCIAL BEHAVIOR OF A TEENAGER- such behavior of a teenager that violates social norms accepted among adults, for example, rudeness, negligence, unnecessaryness, irresponsibility, refusal to fulfill one’s direct responsibilities... Glossary of terms for psychological counseling

Behavior is the ability of animals to change their actions under the influence of internal and external factors, a characteristic feature of the animal type of organization. Behavior has enormous adaptive significance, allowing animals to avoid negative... Wikipedia

Traditionally, animal behavior was studied by psychologists who used laboratory animals, such as rats, under conditions that allowed them to fully control the information they received and their learning capabilities. Collier's Encyclopedia

Aggressive behavior- a form of social behavior involving malicious direct or indirect interaction between people that threatens or causes harm to others. The cause of P. a. a person can be words, actions, the presence or appearance of people, to... ... Psychological Lexicon

behavior- ... behavior is a process of interaction between an organism and the environment. It is he [the mechanism of the conditioned reflex] that can explain and show how the hereditary behavior of a person, which constitutes general biological... ... Dictionary L.S. Vygotsky

Books

• Social world of man. Materials of the All-Russian conference "Man and the World: Social Behavior of the Individual in a Changing World", The publication is based on the materials of the All-Russian Scientific and Practical Conference "Man and the World: Social Behavior of the Individual in a Changing World" January 15 - 16, 2007... Category: Miscellaneous Series: The Language of Social Publisher: ERGO, Manufacturer: ERGO,
• Social world of man. Materials of the All-Russian conference "Man and the World: Social Behavior of the Individual in a Changing World", The publication is based on the materials of the All-Russian Scientific and Practical Conference "Man and the World: Social Behavior of the Individual in a Changing World" January 15 - 16, 2007... Category: Social psychology Series: The Language of Social Publisher:

Social behavior- the totality of actions and actions of individuals and their groups, their specific direction and sequence, affecting the interests of other individuals and communities. Behavior reveals the social qualities of a person, the characteristics of his upbringing, cultural level, temperament, his needs, and beliefs. It is where his attitude towards the surrounding natural and social reality, towards other people and towards himself is formed and realized. In sociology, it is customary to distinguish two forms of behavior - normative and non-normative. Social behavior is regulated by a system of rules, norms and sanctions, united by the process of social control.

Developing as a person, a person also changes the forms of his behavior. Therefore, it is an indicator of individual and personal development.

There is a wide variety of definitions of this term. Thus, according to K. Levin, it is a function of the individual in relation to his social environment. M.A. Robert and F. Tilman offer a target approach in defining this concept: “an individual’s behavior is a reaction aimed at changing the situation in order to satisfy his needs.” R.N. Harré introduces a normative connotation into the interpretation of the term: “behavior is a sequence of episodes, complete fragments, regulated by certain rules and plans.” The interactionist concept characterizes social behavior as an adaptation to the conditions of the social environment. Behavior is manifested by participation in a large collective process in which a person is involved. At the same time, both the personality itself and its behavior are a product of interaction with society.

What actions of an individual can be classified as social behavior?

Any actions performed by a person can have two sides: one and the same action can be both an act and an operation. Take, for example, the process of eating food. The very sequence of actions performed in this case reflects the purely technical side of the matter. Another question is how a person does it. There is already an element of behavior here. This manifests itself mainly when other persons are involved in the process. Even simple automatic actions under these conditions become socially oriented.

The purpose of most everyday actions performed by a person is to satisfy simple physiological needs. EAT. Penkov distinguishes three types of individual actions:

• a) actions-operations;
• b) purely individual actions, not socially oriented;
• c) social behavior itself, that is, a system of actions - actions regulated by a system of social norms. Social behavior is considered by the author as “such an action - an act that contains the moment of the individual’s relationship to the interests of the community.” Indeed, a person does not dare to carry out some actions at all if someone is nearby (for example, undressing or picking his nose). The mere presence of other persons, therefore, significantly changes the nature of a person's actions, turning them into social behavior.

According to V. Vichev, social behavior as a whole is a network of actions that differ from ordinary actions not only in their orientation toward other persons, but also in the presence of subjective factors, or motives, at their basis. In this case, the motive is considered as a conscious need, as goal setting and the choice of appropriate tactics for future action. Social behavior therefore appears to be a system of motivated actions that involve not just the satisfaction of a certain need, but also a certain moral goal, not always associated with the usefulness of the action performed for the individual himself.

Of course, there is a difference between the behavior of an individual in small and in large groups.

However, in both cases, the actions performed by the individual depend on the expected reactions. In addition, each element of behavior is individual and unique.

Behavior is characterized by social competence, which demonstrates how well the subject controls the situation, understands the essence of what is happening, knows the “rules of the game,” feels social differences, distances, and boundaries.

In the social behavior of a subject, four levels can be distinguished:

• 1) the subject’s reaction to the current situation or events;
• 2) habitual actions or deeds that express the subject’s stable attitude towards other subjects;
• 3) a purposeful sequence of social actions and behaviors to achieve more distant goals by the subject;
• 4) implementation of strategic life goals.

Summarizing all of the above, we can define social behavior as a system of individually formed reactions to the influence of the surrounding social environment, which determine the method of adaptation to it. Social behavior reveals preferences, motives, attitudes, capabilities and abilities of acting (interacting) social subjects (individual and collective level).

The social behavior of an individual (group) may depend on many factors, including: the individual emotional and psychological qualities of the subject and the subject’s personal (group) interest in current events.

Main types of social behavior:

• 1. Adequate and inappropriate behavior. Adequate behavior - consistent with the requirements of the situation and people's expectations. As a type of social behavior, adequate behavior within oneself is divided into:
  • a) conformal behavior;
  • b) responsible behavior;
  • c) helping behavior;
  • d) correct behavior;
  • e) syntonic behavior.

Types of inappropriate behavior:

• a) victim behavior;
• b) deviant behavior;
• c) delinquent behavior;
• d) demonstrative behavior;
• e) conflict behavior;
• e) erroneous behavior.
• 2. Right and wrong.

Correct - corresponding to accepted norms and rules, erroneous - not corresponding to norms and rules due to accidental error or ignorance.

3. Syntonic and conflict behavior.

The problem of regulating the social behavior of an individual is one of the socio-psychological problems that reflect the crisis state of modern Russian society, a change in its functional state, the destruction of the system of higher, transpersonal values ​​that determine the meaning of social and personal existence. The problem of regulating social behavior is associated with a person’s loss of previous social identifications and social roles, which were the primary basis for behavioral orientation. Mismatch in the value world of the individual, transformation of norms and ideals leads to disruption of the regulation of relations in society and increased irresponsibility of the individual for his social actions.

Currently, in social psychology there is growing interest in the problems of social behavior of the individual, the system of its regulation in connection with the uniqueness of the human personality, its actions and deeds. The tendency of researchers to consider problems associated with the study of the processes of self-organization and self-determination of the individual in the sphere of their social practice is becoming more noticeable.

In foreign studies, the problems of social behavior have established traditions. The representative of functionalism, W. James, reveals behavior as a function of consciousness in the survival of the organism. The founders of behaviorism B. Skinner and J. Watson proclaim behavior to be the subject of study in psychology. They define behavior as a system of externally registered reactions with the help of which an individual adapts to environmental stimuli.

Having abandoned the understanding of the linear determination of social behavior, this category was studied in more detail by E. C. Tolman (variable “I” - “individuality”), A. Bandura (imitation in social learning), D. Rotter (locus control), R. Martens, G. Tarde, G. Lsbon (the principle of imitation and mental contagion), D. Homane (direct contact between individuals), etc. The works of Western scientists reveal a complex system of determinants of social behavior and construct active methods of behavioral training that provide the opportunity to implement training, therapy and correction of social behavior.

There is a wide variety of definitions of the concept of “social behavior”. In the "field theory" K. Lewin considers social behavior as a function of the individual acting in relation to his social environment, and he identifies true or false needs as motives for behavior. In the target approach (M.A. Robert, F. Tilman), social behavior is understood as “a reaction aimed at changing the situation in order to satisfy one’s needs.” Interactionism (J. Mead, G. Blumer) reveals that social behavior is manifested through participation in a large collective process in which a person is involved and is based on interpretations of significant symbols that carry social information. The personality and its behavior in this case are a product of interaction with society.

The study of the problem of social behavior in domestic research for a long time was based on the activity approach, which was developed in the psychological schools of S. L. Rubinstein and A. N. Leontiev. In the activity approach, personality is considered as a condition and product of activity. For a holistic understanding of personality in the system of its social connections and relationships, the concept of “behavior” began to be used in Russian psychology only in the 80s. XX century Domestic psychologists consider needs (A.V. Petrovsky), feelings, interests, ideals, worldview (S.L. Rubinstein), and attitudes (A.G. Asmolov) as motivating forces of social behavior.

In the psychological dictionary, social behavior is defined as behavior expressed in the totality of actions and actions of an individual or group in society, and depending on socio-economic factors and prevailing norms. The source of behavior is needs, which act as a form of connection between a person and the social environment of his life. In this interaction, a person appears as an individual, in all the diversity of his social connections.

The signs of social behavior are its social conditioning, conscious, collective, active, goal-setting, voluntary and creative nature. In domestic psychology, the concept of behavior is considered in relation to the concepts of “activity”, “activity”, as well as “social activity”, “social activity”. The common generic basis of activity and behavior is activity.

The specificity of the species is that objective, practical activity determines the subject-object connections of a person with the environment, behavior - the subject-subject connection of the individual with the social environment. Behavior acts as a form of existence of a person who is a representative of a particular group, the uniqueness of whose behavior lies in the fact that it is social behavior.

Social behavior is an integral and dominant form of behavior and personality manifestation. All other types of activity in a certain way and to a certain extent depend on it, are conditioned by it. Social behavior includes a person’s actions in relation to society, other people and the objective world, regulated by public norms of morality and law. The subject of social behavior is the individual and the social group.

Social behavior is a system of socially determined actions by language and other sign-semantic formations, through which an individual or a social group participates in social relations and interacts with the social environment.

The structure of social behavior includes the following elements: behavioral act, action, deed, deed, which carry their own semantic load, specific psychological content and, in the aggregate, make up a holistic, purposeful social behavior of the individual.

Behavioral act represents a single manifestation of behavior, an element that reproduces the main links of its structure. The structure of a behavioral act can be considered from the perspective of the concept of functional systems by P.K. Anokhin. Studying the physiological structure of a behavioral act, P.K. Anokhin came to the conclusion that it was necessary to distinguish between two types of functional systems. Functional systems of the first type, using various mechanisms, automatically compensate for emerging shifts in the internal environment.

Functional systems of the second type provide an adaptive effect by going beyond the body through communication with the outside world, through changes in behavior, and underlie various behavioral acts, various types of behavior. According to P.K. Anokhin, the architectonics of functional systems that determine purposeful behavioral acts of varying degrees of complexity are composed of successively successive stages:

• – afferent synthesis,
• - decision-making,
• – acceptor of action results,
• – efferent synthesis,
• – formation of action,
• – assessment of the achieved result.

As we see, the structure of a behavioral act presents the main characteristics of behavior, such as purposefulness and the active role of the subject in organizing behavior.

Social Actions occupy a central place in social behavior. M. Weber, in the theory of social action, revealed its main features: the presence of a subjective meaning of possible behavior options, the conscious orientation of the subject to the response of others and its expectation. Social actions are aimed at changing the behavior and attitudes of other people, satisfying the needs and interests of those influencing them, and depend on the choice of effective means and methods for their implementation.

M. Weber distinguished goal-rational, value-rational, affective and traditional action, depending on the degree of participation of conscious, rational elements in it.

Purposeful action is based on the expectation of certain behavior of other persons and the use of it to achieve the individual’s goals. M. Weber believes that the individual whose behavior is focused on the goal, means and side results of his actions acts purposefully, who rationally considers the relationship of the means to the goal and side results..., i.e. acts not emotionally and not on the basis of tradition or habit, but on the basis of an analysis of a reasonable combination of personal and social goals.

The most common in real life are value-rational actions. They are based on a belief in the value of behavior, regardless of the consequences to which it may lead (principles or a sense of duty aimed at moral satisfaction). According to M. Weber, they are subject to “commandments” or “requirements”, obedience to which is the duty of every person. When implementing value-based and rational actions, the influencer fundamentally adheres to and fully relies on the values ​​and norms accepted in society, even to the detriment of his personal goals.

A traditional action is a habitual action that is performed primarily without reflection, on the basis of social patterns of behavior, habits and norms deeply internalized by individuals.

An affective action is an action caused by feelings, emotions, committed in a state of a relatively short-term but intense emotional state that arose in response to the desire for immediate satisfaction of the thirst for revenge, passion or attraction.

According to M. Weber, traditional and affective actions are not social in the full sense, since they are most often realized outside of awareness and comprehension, they are distinguished by a low degree of participation of conscious, rational elements.

Social actions have social significance. They are based on the clash of interests and needs of the social forces of society, in connection with which social actions act as a form and method of resolving social problems and contradictions. They differ in the types of social problems they solve (social, economic, development of spiritual life). The subjects of these actions are individuals and social groups acting in a certain situation and having socially determined motivation, intentions and relationships.

The psychological characteristics of social actions are determined by motivation, the attitude towards the “I” as the source and subject of actions, the relationship between the meaning and meaning of actions, rational and irrational, conscious and unconscious in their motivation, as well as the subjective meaning of the actions performed by a person.

The socio-psychological characteristics of social action are correlated with such phenomena as the perception of the social action of the immediate environment; its role in motivating social action; the individual’s awareness of belonging to a certain group as a motivating factor; the role of the reference group; mechanisms of social control of an individual’s social actions.

Deed is a personal form of behavior in which an independent choice of goals and methods of behavior is made, often contrary to generally accepted rules. Actions are not automatisms, reflexes, ballistic movements, actions - impulsive, habitual, heteronomic (carried out according to orders, service instructions, external requirements, according to a prescribed role).

An act includes a creative act of choosing goals and means of behavior, which sometimes comes into conflict with the established, habitual, routine. An act acts as a personally meaningful, personally constructed and personally implemented behavior (action or inaction) aimed at resolving the conflict. According to M. According to M. Bakhtin, an act has such mandatory properties as axiology (non-technical), responsibility, uniqueness, and eventfulness. The act arises due to the formation of self-awareness in adolescence (L. S. Vygotsky).

An act as the basic unit of social behavior is characterized by the presence of an internal plan of action, which represents a consciously developed intention, a forecast of the expected result and its consequences. An act can be expressed: by action or inaction; position expressed in words; an attitude towards something, formalized in the form of a gesture, a look, a tone of speech, a semantic subtext; action aimed at overcoming physical obstacles and searching for truth.

When assessing an action, one must take into account the system of social norms accepted in a given society. The moral meaning of the action is important for the action; the action itself should be considered as a way of carrying out the action in a specific situation. Actions are included in the system of moral relations of society, and through them - in the system of all social relations.

Act is a set of actions. In an act as an element of a person’s social behavior, activity is realized that has high social significance and effectiveness. The subject himself bears responsibility for socially significant results, even if it goes beyond his intentions. The responsibility of an individual is expressed in his ability to foresee the social and psychological consequences of his own activity and is based on socio-historical criteria for their assessment.

The purpose of an individual’s social behavior is to transform the world around him, to bring about social changes in society, socio-psychological phenomena in a group, and personal transformations of a person. The result of social behavior is the formation and development of interactions and relationships of the individual with other people and various communities. The variety of forms of social connections and relationships of an individual as a social and multifaceted phenomenon determines the types of his social behavior.

The basis for the socio-psychological classification of types of social behavior are the following criteria:

• 1) spheres of existence– nature, society, people (production, labor, socio-political, religious, cultural, everyday, leisure, family);
• 2) social structure of society(class behavior of social classes and strata; ethnic behavior, socio-professional, sex role, gender, family, reproductive, etc.);
• 3) urbanization process(ecological, migration);
• 4) system of social relations(production behavior (labor, professional), economic behavior (consumer behavior, distribution behavior, exchange behavior, entrepreneurial, investment, etc.); socio-political behavior (political activity, behavior towards authorities, bureaucratic behavior, electoral behavior and etc.); legal behavior (law-abiding, illegal, deviant, deviant, criminal); moral behavior (ethical, moral, immoral, immoral behavior, etc.); religious behavior);
• 5) subject of social behavior(social behavior, mass, group, collective, cooperative, corporate, professional, ethnic, family, individual and personal behavior);
• 6) activity-passivity of personality(passive, adaptive, conformal, adaptive, stereotypical, standard, active, aggressive, consumer, production, creative, innovative, prosocial, procreative, behavior to help other people, behavior to assign responsibility or attribution behavior);
• 7) way of expression(verbal, non-verbal, demonstration, role, communicative, real, expected behavior, indicative, instinctive, reasonable, tactful, contact);
• 8) implementation time(impulsive, variable, long-term).

Main the subject of social behavior is the individual, since in the diverse forms and types of social behavior the socio-psychological and personal aspects predominate. Researchers note that the system-forming quality of social behavior is normativity, therefore all types of social behavior are varieties of normative, prescribed behavior.

Behavior- a set of human actions performed by him over a relatively long period under constant or changing conditions.

Two people may be engaged in the same activity, but their behavior may be different. If activity consists of actions, then behavior consists of actions.

The concept of “social behavior” is used to denote human behavior in society.

Social behavior– human behavior in society, designed to have a certain influence on the people around them and society as a whole.

There are many types of so-called social behavior, the most important of which are: mass; group; prosocial; antisocial; helping; competitive; deviant (deviant); illegal.

Examples:

antisocial:
1) An 11th grade student sits on the last desk all the time, without communicating with any of the students.
2) Fight among 11th grade students.
competitive:A competition was held among the students of grade 11, the behavior of the students is competitive.
helping:a student of grade 11a, not understanding the topic in physics, asked her friend, also a student of grade 11a, to explain the material to her. This friend's behavior is helping.
deviant: 11th grade student Vasya Pupkin, without looking away from the computer all day, plays CS, this addiction is calledGambling (gaming addiction) is a form of deviant behavior.

Mass behavior – mass activity that does not have a specific goal and organization eg fashion, panic, social and political movements, etc.

Group behavior– joint actions of people in a certain social group, which is the result of processes occurring in it.

Prosocial behavior– human behavior based on prosocial motives, i.e. motives for providing people with kindness, help and support.

Example:

Creation of charitable foundations.

A man sitting on the sofa saw an advertisement. It said that you need to send an SMS, and the money raised from the SMS will go to help children.

In recent years, the following types of behavior have acquired particular significance for the state of society, the position of a person and his fate:

– associated with the manifestation of good and evil, friendship and enmity between people;

– associated with the desire to achieve success and power;

– associated with confidence or self-doubt.

Types of social behavior are based on patterns accepted in society, which include morals and customs.

Manners and customs, being unwritten rules, nevertheless determine the conditions of social behavior.

Sample assignment

A1. Choose the correct answer. Are the following statements about social behavior true?

A. Social behavior is manifested in purposeful activity in relation to other people.

B. Social behavior is based on patterns accepted in society, which include morals and customs.

1) only A is correct

2) only B is correct

3) both judgments are correct

4) both judgments are incorrect

Answer: 3.

Deviant behavior

Deviant behavior- this is behavior that deviates from generally accepted, socially approved, most widespread and established norms in certain communities at a certain period of their development.

Deviant- an individual who differs in his personal characteristics and behavioral manifestations from generally accepted norms: social, psychological, ethnic, pedagogical, age, professional and others.

Classification of deviant behavior

Definition of “deviant behavior” according to various sciences:

Social sciences: social phenomena that pose a real threat to the physical and social survival of a person in a given social environment, immediate environment, a group of social and moral norms and cultural values, disruption of the process of assimilation and reproduction of norms and values, as well as self-development and self-realization in that society, to which a person belongs.

Medical approach: deviation from the norms of interpersonal interaction accepted in a given society: actions, deeds, statements made both within the framework of mental health and in various forms of neuropsychic pathology, especially at the borderline level.

Psychological approach: Deviation from socio-psychological and moral norms, presented either as an erroneous antisocial pattern of conflict resolution, manifested in violation of socially accepted norms, or in damage caused to public well-being, others and oneself.

V. N. Ivanov distinguishes two levels of deviant behavior:

1. Pre-criminogenic: minor offenses, violation of moral standards, rules of conduct in public places, evasion of socially useful activities, use of alcohol, narcotic, toxic substances that destroy the psyche, and other forms of behavior that do not pose a danger.

2. Criminogenic: actions and deeds that are expressed in criminal offenses.

The “core” of deviant behavior in F. Pataki’s classification is:

- “pre-deviant syndrome” is a complex of certain symptoms that lead a person to persistent forms of deviant behavior. Namely:

• affective type of behavior;
• family conflicts;
• aggressive type of behavior;
• early antisocial behavior;
• negative attitude towards learning;
• low level of intelligence.

The classification of V.V. Kovalev is built on three different bases:

1) socio-psychological:

Anti-disciplinary behavior;

Asocial;

Illegal;

Auto-aggressive.

2) clinical-psychopathological:

Pathological;

Non-pathological deviations.

3) personal-dynamic.

The concept of “behavior” came to sociology from psychology. The meaning of the term “behavior” is different, different from the meaning of such traditional philosophical concepts as action and activity. If action is understood as a rationally justified act that has a clear goal, strategy, and is carried out using specific conscious methods and means, then behavior is just the reaction of a living being to external and internal changes. Such a reaction can be both conscious and unconscious. Thus, purely emotional reactions - laughter, crying - are also behavior.

Social behavior is a set of human behavioral processes associated with the satisfaction of physical and social needs and arising as a reaction to the surrounding social environment. The subject of social behavior can be an individual or a group.

If we abstract from purely psychological factors and think at the social level, then the behavior of an individual is determined primarily by socialization. The minimum of innate instincts that a person possesses as a biological being is the same for all people. Behavioral differences depend on qualities acquired during the process of socialization and, to some extent, on innate and acquired psychological individual characteristics.

In addition, the social behavior of individuals is regulated by the social structure, in particular the role structure of society.

A social norm of behavior is behavior that fully corresponds to status expectations. Thanks to the existence of status expectations, society can predict the actions of an individual in advance with sufficient probability, and the individual himself can coordinate his behavior with the ideal model or model accepted by society. Social behavior that corresponds to status expectations is defined by the American sociologist R. Linton as a social role. This interpretation of social behavior is closest to functionalism, since it explains behavior as a phenomenon determined by social structure. R. Merton introduced the category of “role complex” - a system of role expectations determined by a given status, as well as the concept of role conflict that arises when the role expectations of the statuses occupied by a subject are incompatible and cannot be realized in any single socially acceptable behavior.

The functionalist understanding of social behavior was subjected to fierce criticism from, first of all, representatives of social behaviorism, who believed that it was necessary to build the study of behavioral processes on the basis of the achievements of modern psychology. The extent to which the psychological aspects were really overlooked by the role interpretation of the command follows from the fact that N. Cameron tried to substantiate the idea of ​​the role determination of mental disorders, believing that mental illness is the incorrect execution of one’s social roles and the result of the patient’s inability to perform them in the way society needs. Behaviorists argued that in the time of E. Durkheim, the successes of psychology were insignificant and therefore the functionality of the expiring paradigm met the requirements of the time, but in the 20th century, when psychology reached a high level of development, its data cannot be ignored when considering human behavior.

People behave differently in one or another social situation, in one or another social environment. For example, some demonstrators peacefully march along the declared route, others seek to organize unrest, and others provoke mass clashes. These various actions of social interaction actors can be defined as social behavior. Consequently, social behavior is the form and method of manifestation by social actors of their preferences and attitudes, capabilities and abilities in social action or interaction. Therefore, social behavior can be considered as a qualitative characteristic of social action and interaction.

In sociology, social behavior is interpreted as: o behavior expressed in the totality of actions and actions of an individual or group in society and depending on socio-economic factors and prevailing norms; o external manifestation of activity, a form of transformation of activity into real actions in relation to socially significant objects; o a person’s adaptation to the social conditions of his existence.

To achieve life goals and when implementing individual tasks, a person can use two types of social behavior - natural and ritual, the differences between which are fundamental.

“Natural” behavior, individually significant and egocentric, is always aimed at achieving individual goals and is adequate to these goals. Therefore, the individual does not face the question of the correspondence between the goals and means of social behavior: the goal can and should be achieved by any means. The “natural” behavior of an individual is not socially regulated, therefore it is, as a rule, immoral or “unceremonious.”

Such social behavior is “natural”, natural in nature, since it is aimed at ensuring organic needs. In society, “natural” egocentric behavior is “forbidden”, therefore it is always based on social conventions and mutual concessions on the part of all individuals.

Ritual behavior (“ceremonial”) is individually unnatural behavior; It is thanks to this behavior that society exists and reproduces. Ritual in all its diversity of forms - from etiquette to ceremony - permeates all social life so deeply that people do not notice that they live in a field of ritual interactions. Ritual social behavior is a means of ensuring the stability of the social system, and an individual who implements various forms of such behavior participates in ensuring the social stability of social structures and interactions. Thanks to ritual behavior, a person achieves social well-being, constantly being convinced of the inviolability of his social status and the preservation of the usual set of social roles.

Society is interested in ensuring that the social behavior of individuals is of a ritual nature, but society cannot abolish “natural” egocentric social behavior, which, being adequate in goals and unscrupulous in means, always turns out to be more beneficial for the individual than “ritual” behavior. Therefore, society strives to transform forms of “natural” social behavior into various forms of ritual social behavior, including through socialization mechanisms using social support, control and punishment.

Such forms of social behavior as:

Cooperative behavior, which includes all forms of altruistic behavior - helping each other during natural disasters and technological disasters, helping young children and the elderly, helping subsequent generations through the transfer of knowledge and experience;
parental behavior - the behavior of parents towards their offspring.

Aggressive behavior is presented in all its manifestations, both group and individual - from verbal insults of another person to mass extermination during wars.

Social behavior of people

In the course of their lives, people constantly interact with each other. The diverse forms of interaction between individuals, as well as the connections that arise between different social groups (or within them), are usually called social relations. A significant part of social relations is characterized by conflicting interests of their participants. The result of such contradictions is social conflicts that arise between members of society. One of the ways to harmonize the interests of people and smooth out conflicts that arise between them and their associations is normative regulation, that is, regulation of the behavior of individuals using certain norms.

The word "norm" comes from Lat. norma, which means “rule, pattern, standard.” The norm indicates the boundaries within which this or that object retains its essence and remains itself. Norms can be different - natural, technical, social. The actions and actions of people and social groups who are subjects of social relations regulate social norms.

Social norms are understood as general rules and patterns, behavior of people in society, determined by social relations and resulting from the conscious activity of people. Social norms develop historically and naturally. In the process of their formation, refracted through social consciousness, they are then consolidated and reproduced in the relationships and acts necessary for society. To one degree or another, social norms are binding on those to whom they are addressed, and have a certain procedural form of implementation and mechanisms for their implementation.

There are various classifications of social norms. The most important thing is the division of social norms depending on the characteristics of their emergence and implementation. On this basis, five types of social norms are distinguished: moral norms, customary norms, corporate norms, religious norms and legal norms.

Moral norms are rules of behavior that are derived from people’s ideas about good and evil, justice and injustice, good and bad. The implementation of these norms is ensured by public opinion and the inner conviction of people.

Customary norms are rules of behavior that have become habitual as a result of their repeated repetition. The implementation of customary norms is ensured by the force of habit. Customs with moral content are called mores.

A variety of customs are traditions that express people’s desire to preserve certain ideas, values, and useful forms of behavior. Another type of customs are rituals that regulate the behavior of people in the everyday, family and religious spheres.

Corporate norms are the rules of conduct established by public organizations. Their implementation is ensured by the internal conviction of the members of these organizations, as well as by the public associations themselves.

Religious norms refer to the rules of conduct contained in various holy books or established by the church. The implementation of this type of social norms is ensured by the internal beliefs of people and the activities of the church.

Different types of social norms did not appear simultaneously, but one after another, as needed.

With the development of society they became more and more complex.

Scientists suggest that the first type of social norms that arose in primitive society were rituals. A ritual is a rule of behavior in which the most important thing is the strictly predetermined form of its execution. The content of the ritual itself is not so important - it is its form that matters most. Rituals accompanied many events in the life of primitive people. We know about the existence of rituals for seeing off fellow tribesmen on a hunt, taking office as a leader, presenting gifts to leaders, etc. Somewhat later, rituals began to be distinguished in ritual actions. Rituals were rules of conduct that consisted of performing certain symbolic actions. Unlike rituals, they pursued certain ideological (educational) goals and had a deeper impact on the human psyche.

The next social norms to appear, which were an indicator of a new, higher stage of human development, were customs. Customs regulated almost all aspects of the life of primitive society.

Another type of social norms that arose in the primitive era were religious norms. Primitive man, aware of his weakness before the forces of nature, attributed divine power to the latter. Initially, the object of religious worship was a really existing object - a fetish. Then man began to worship some animal or plant - a totem, seeing in the latter his ancestor and protector. Then totemism was replaced by animism (from the Latin “anima” - soul), i.e., belief in spirits, soul or the universal spirituality of nature. Many scientists believe that it was animism that became the basis for the emergence of modern religions: over time, among supernatural beings, people identified several special ones - gods. This is how the first polytheistic (pagan) and then monotheistic religions appeared.

In parallel with the emergence of norms of customs and religion in primitive society, moral norms were also formed. It is impossible to determine the time of their occurrence. We can only say that morality appears along with human society and is one of the most important social regulators.

During the period of the emergence of the state, the first rules of law appeared.

Finally, the last to emerge are corporate norms.

All social norms have common features. They represent rules of conduct of a general nature, i.e., they are designed for repeated use, and operate continuously over time in relation to a personally indefinite circle of persons. In addition, social norms are characterized by such features as proceduralism and authorization. The procedural nature of social norms means the presence of a detailed regulated order (procedure) for their implementation. Authorization reflects the fact that each type of social norms has a specific mechanism for implementing their requirements.

Social norms define the boundaries of acceptable behavior of people in relation to the specific conditions of their life. As already mentioned above, compliance with these norms is usually ensured by the internal beliefs of people or by applying social rewards and social punishments to them in the form of so-called social sanctions.

Social sanction is usually understood as the reaction of society or a social group to the behavior of an individual in a socially significant situation. In terms of their content, sanctions can be positive (incentive) and negative (punitive). There are also formal sanctions (coming from official organizations) and informal sanctions (coming from unofficial organizations). Social sanctions play a key role in the system of social control, rewarding members of society for fulfilling social norms or punishing for deviation from the latter, that is, for deviance.

Deviant behavior is behavior that does not meet the requirements of social norms. Sometimes such deviations can be positive and lead to positive consequences. Thus, the famous sociologist E. Durkheim believed that deviation helps society gain a more complete understanding of the diversity of social norms, leads to their improvement, promotes social change, revealing alternatives to existing norms. However, in most cases, deviant behavior is spoken of as a negative social phenomenon that harms society. Moreover, in a narrow sense, deviant behavior means deviations that do not entail criminal punishment and are not crimes. The totality of an individual’s criminal actions has a special name in sociology - delinquent (literally criminal) behavior.

Based on the goals and direction of deviant behavior, destructive and asocial types are distinguished. The first type includes deviations that cause harm to the individual (alcoholism, suicide, drug addiction, etc.), the second type includes behavior that harms communities of people (violation of rules of conduct in public places, violation of labor discipline, etc.).

While exploring the causes of deviant behavior, sociologists drew attention to the fact that both deviant and delinquent behavior are widespread in societies experiencing a transformation of the social system. Moreover, in conditions of a general crisis of society, such behavior can acquire a total character.

The opposite of deviant behavior is conformist behavior (from the Latin conformis - similar, similar). Conformist is social behavior that corresponds to accepted norms and values ​​in society. Ultimately, the main task of regulatory regulation and social control is the reproduction of a conformist type of behavior in society.

Norms of social behavior

In the process of their life, people enter into relationships with natural objects (material objects), as well as with each other.

People of the primitive communal system did not know the law and were guided in their activities by the rules that were established during the life of the tribe. Customs, traditions, myths, rituals, and ceremonies played a big role in their lives. During that distant period, religious norms also emerged. Law appeared much later, with the advent of such a social institution of society as the state.

Rules are used to regulate human behavior in his relations with nature, technology, or in the sphere of public relations. The variety of human activities in society leads to a variety of rules of behavior, the totality of which ensures the regulation of relationships.

The system of normative regulation is a set of social norms that regulate the behavior of people in society, their relationships with each other within the framework of associations, groups, and socio-technical norms that regulate their relationships with nature.

The concept of “norm” in the broadest sense means a rule, a model, a standard, a guiding principle. The significance of any norm is that it indicates the boundaries, limits within which this or that phenomenon or object exists, while maintaining its quality and without losing its essence. All norms used by people are divided into two groups: non-social (socio-technical) and social norms.

The border between them lies mainly in the subject of regulation. If social norms regulate relations between people and their associations, then technical norms regulate relations between people and the outside world, nature, and technology. These are relationships such as “man and machine”, “man and tools”, “man and production”. Technical standards include purely technical, sanitary and hygienic, environmental, biological, physiological, etc.

A. Non-social norms. These norms regulate a person’s relationship with nature, technology and represent a specific language of communication between a person and material objects. These include technical, agricultural, climatic, physiological, biological, chemical, sanitary and hygienic and other standards. A special place is occupied by technical standards based on knowledge of the laws of nature and aimed at regulating production processes, as well as serving the non-productive needs of people. They, in principle, can be installed (opened) by anyone. Failure to comply with technical or other non-social norms gives rise to negative consequences in response to specific human actions from the forces of nature or material objects. For example, violation of agrotechnical rules leads to a decrease in crop yields.

B. Social norms. These are rules of conduct that govern relationships between people. These are a kind of patterns, standards, scales of behavior of one person in relation to another, which apply to all cases of this kind and to which all persons who find themselves in a regulated situation must obey. Social norms take into account the interests of certain social groups and can be created by certain social groups, although there are many universal norms.

Social norms have the following common features:

Firstly, they regulate typical situations or types of social relations (behavior in a public place, attitude towards elders, demonstrations, etc.), and not an individual case or specific social relations.
Secondly, social norms are designed to be repeated many times. Having settled one situation, the social norm begins to operate again if a similar situation arises.
Thirdly, social norms are of a general nature, that is, they are designed not for one or several people, but for many people at once, not specified by name. They are characterized by non-personalization and vagueness of the addressee.
Fourthly, for violation of social norms, sanctions are imposed by people (individuals, organizations, state, society).

Social norms have the following characteristic properties:

1. Social norms - rules of behavior.

They establish patterns according to which people interact with each other, indicate what people's behavior should or can be.

2. Social norms are general rules of conduct.

The requirements of social norms are not designed for an individual person, such as individual rules, but for all people living in society. These rules apply constantly, continuously, in relation to all cases provided for by the rule.

3. Social norms are mandatory rules of behavior.

Since norms are designed to streamline social relations and harmonize the interests of people, the requirements of the norms are protected by the power of public opinion, and, if particularly necessary, by state coercion.

Thus, social norms are general rules of behavior that are continuously valid over time in relation to an indefinite number of people and an unlimited number of cases.

Numerous social norms operating in society constitute the rules of human coexistence. All of them are determined by historical, economic, political, social, everyday and other conditions existing in society.

Legal norms are an integral part of the system of social norms, but they are the most important part, bearing the main burden of regulating the life of society. This is due to the fact that they regulate vital issues: state power and subordination, the implementation of political activities, the rights and freedoms of citizens, forms of ownership, the use of labor and the sphere of distribution, issues of social protection, the military sphere, diplomatic, foreign policy and foreign economic activity. As part of the whole, legal norms should not contradict other social norms, otherwise the level and quality of their implementation decreases.

Social behavior of the individual

Social behavior of an individual is a complex social and socio-psychological phenomenon. Its emergence and development is determined by certain factors and is carried out according to certain patterns. In relation to social behavior, the concept of conditionality and determination is replaced, as a rule, by the concept of regulation. In its ordinary meaning, the concept of “regulation” means ordering, arranging something in accordance with certain rules, developing something in order to bring it into a system, balance it, establish order. Personal behavior is included in a broad system of social regulation. The functions of social regulation are: formation, assessment, maintenance, protection and reproduction of the norms, rules, mechanisms, and means necessary for the subjects of regulation that ensure the existence and reproduction of the type of interaction, relationships, communication, activity, consciousness and behavior of the individual. as a member of society. The subjects of regulation of the social behavior of an individual in the broad sense of the word are society, small groups and the individual himself.

In the broad sense of the word, the regulators of individual behavior are the “world of things,” “the world of people,” and the “world of ideas.” By belonging to the subjects of regulation, one can distinguish social (in a broad sense), socio-psychological and personal factors of regulation. In addition, the division can also be based on the objective (external) - subjective (internal) parameter.

External factors of behavior regulation. The individual is included in a complex system of social relations. All types of relations: industrial, moral, legal, political, religious, ideological determine the real, objective, proper and dependent relations of people and groups in society. To implement these relations, there are various types of regulators.

A wide class of external regulators is occupied by all social phenomena with the definition “social”, “public”. These include: social production, social relations (the broad social context of an individual’s life), social movements, public opinion, social needs, public interests, public sentiment, public consciousness, social tension, socio-economic situation. Common factors of universal human determination include lifestyle, lifestyle, level of well-being, and social context.

In the sphere of spiritual life of society, the regulators of individual behavior are morality, ethics, mentality, culture, subculture, archetype, ideal, values, education, ideology, media, worldview, religion. In the sphere of politics - power, bureaucracy, social movements. In the sphere of legal relations - law, law.

General socio-psychological phenomena that regulate social behavior include symbols, traditions, prejudices, moles, tastes, communication, rumors, advertising, stereotypes.

The personal components of socio-psychological regulators include; social prestige, position, status, authority, belief, attitude, social desirability.

The universal form of expression of social factors that regulate behavior is social norms. Social norms represent a guiding principle, a rule, a model, standards of behavior accepted in a given community that regulate the relations of people. Social norms differ in their content, in their spheres of action, in their form of sanction, in their mechanisms of dissemination, and in their socio-psychological mechanisms of action. For example, legal norms are developed, formulated, approved by special government agencies, established by special legislative means, and supported by the state. They are always verbalized, reflected in verbal constructions, objectified in sets of laws, codes, charters, and reflected in regulations. In addition to written and unwritten universal human norms that allow one to evaluate behavior and regulate it, there are norms accepted in a particular community. This community can be both formal and informal, sometimes quite narrow in composition. Often these norms regulate negative, from the point of view of the majority and the state, asocial forms of behavior. These are group norms that regulate the behavior of individual groups and individuals. Based on this, for example, illegal, criminal behavior belongs to the category of normative behavior, i.e. regulated by certain standards.

Ethical norms - norms of morality and ethics - develop historically, regulate people's behavior, correlating it with absolute principles (good and evil), standards, ideals (justice). The main criterion for the morality of certain norms is the manifestation in them of a person’s relationship to another person and to himself as a truly human being - a person. Moral norms are, as a rule, unwritten norms of behavior. Moral norms regulate social behavior, group and personal.

Religious norms are close in their psychological content, method of origin and mechanism of influence to ethical norms. They are distinguished from universal moral norms by their confessional affiliation, a narrower community that defines norms and accepts them as regulations and rules of behavior (commandments of different religions). These norms differ in the degree of their normativity (rigidity); the actions of religious norms are fixed in church canons, sacred scriptures and commandments, in unwritten rules of relation to divine, spiritual values. Sometimes religious norms have a narrow local area of ​​distribution (norms of behavior of individual religious sects and their representatives). Sometimes the norm is valid within one locality (“each parish has its own charter”).

Rituals belong to the category of non-absolutely directive norms of social behavior of an individual. Rituals are conventional norms of behavior. This is “first of all, the visible action of a person or persons calling on everyone who is present to pay attention to some phenomena or facts, and not only to pay attention, but also to express a certain emotional attitude, to contribute to the public mood. In this case, certain principles are required: firstly, the generally accepted convention of action; secondly, the social significance of the phenomenon or fact on which the ritual is concentrated; thirdly, its special purpose. The ritual is intended to create a unified psychological mood in a group of people, to call them to a single active empathy or recognition of the importance of a fact or phenomenon.”

Along with the social norms of macrogroups, political, legal, ethnic, cultural, ethical, moral norms, there are norms of numerous groups - both organized, real, formalized in a particular structure of society or community, and nominal, unorganized groups. These norms are not universal; they are derived from social norms; they are private, special, secondary formations. These are group, socio-psychological norms. They reflect both the nature, content and form of more general forms, and the specific nature of the community, group, character, form, content of relationships, interactions, dependencies between its members, its particular features, specific conditions and goals.

Group norms of an individual’s social behavior can be formalized or informal. The formalized (formalized, manifested, fixed, externally presented) nature of the normative regulation of behavior is presented in the organization as the main form of social association of people. In it there is a certain system of dependent and due relationships. All organizations use a variety of norms: standards, models, templates, samples, rules, imperatives of behavior, actions, relationships. These norms regulate, authorize, evaluate, coerce, and encourage people to carry out certain actions in the system of interactions and relationships between people, in the activities of the organization as an integral social entity.

Socially deviant behavior

To study social deviant behavior in psychology, a separate branch arose - deviantology (deviation from the Latin “deviantio” - deviation) or psychology of deviant behavior.

The concepts of “deviation”, “deviant behavior”, “social deviation” and “social deviant behavior” are identical and synonymous. This is a different name for stable behavior of an individual that deviates from common, generally accepted, established norms, stereotypes, and patterns of behavior in society.

The most dangerous and, unfortunately, often observed forms of deviation in society are:

Crime (delinquency),
administrative violations,
alcoholism,
addiction,
suicide,
prostitution,
vagrancy.

Society also considers and condemns smoking, promiscuity, betrayal, adultery, unwillingness to work, lies, rudeness, scandalousness, cruelty, gambling addiction and other behavior of this kind as deviation.

Deviant behavior is any immoral action, act, way of life. Such behavior harms both the individual himself, who has directed his life in a negative direction, and the people around him and society, therefore it is formally or informally sanctioned by society.

For example, a crime is followed by criminal punishment (formal sanction) for the offender and there is condemnation of his act by people (informal sanction).

There are no formal sanctions without informal ones, but informal ones can be applied separately. For example, for a scandal in a public place, the instigator of a quarrel will not be sent to prison, but his immediate environment may well “punish” him with isolation, that is, the cessation of communication and relationships.

Although not all experts agree with this classification, however, in addition to deviation with a “minus” sign, deviation with a “plus” sign also stands out.

Positive social deviances:

Heroism, self-sacrifice,
innovation, invention,
work enthusiasm, initiative,
application of talent
sports records,
charity,
other actions and behavior that are useful for society, but deviate from norms and rules.

In addition to positive and negative, several other types of deviations are distinguished for various reasons.

From a psychological point of view, the classification of deviant behavior based on the “frequency of deviance” is interesting:

1. Primary deviation. An individual violates social norms from time to time, but society continues to treat him as a relatively normal citizen.
2. Secondary deviation. The individual begins to be treated in a special way, as a deviant, and the number of deviations he commits increases. Or in the reverse order: a person more often “stumbles,” as a result of which he is labeled a “deviant.”

Hence the conclusion follows: a society that fights deviants itself gives birth to them.

Deviation is an inevitable phenomenon; there will always be a certain percentage of citizens deviating from the accepted order in society. Therefore, today the task of completely eradicating deviations is not set, but society still interferes in the lives of deviants: it introduces prohibitive measures and sanctions (forced treatment, placement in correctional institutions, etc.) or provides them with social support and assistance (shelters, hospitals, crisis centers are created centers, helplines, etc.).

Three problems of deviantology

It seems that everything is extremely simple: there is normal, usual behavior accepted in society, and there is behavior that deviates either in a negative or in a positive direction.

But deviation is a much more complex phenomenon, and this complexity is determined mainly by three problems:

1. The boundaries of the social norm are not precise, but rather conditional and blurred.
2. The insolubility of the dilemma “Freedom or necessity?” The choice to act as one should, as dictated by society, moral and legal norms, or to act freely as one wants - in the end, remains a personal matter for everyone.
3. There is simply no such thing as a citizen who is absolutely normal in all respects!

A person can, having committed a crime (negative deviation), save many people (positive result), and another, seemingly making a brilliant discovery (positive deviation), harm all of humanity (negative result).

Human behavior is relative and contradictory, it is very complex, multifaceted, determined by many factors, and therefore often cannot be assessed on a scale of “good and evil,” but there is no other evaluation criterion.

It is moral norms that determine who is to be condemned and punished and who is not, since they underlie written and unwritten laws. But judging a person strictly as “good” or “bad” is like looking at a three-dimensional cube from only one side and recognizing it as a flat square.

Criminals, hermits, revolutionaries, homeless people, geniuses, saints, discoverers - all these are deviants, that is, people who differ from the “average” in character and behavior.

Not only an individual, but also a group of people, a community, an organization or a subculture can be deviant.

Reasons for deviant behavior

The psychology of deviant behavior today is mainly concerned with the study of the causes, conditions and factors of the emergence of negative social behavior of an individual deviating from the norms and traditions. If you know the causes of its occurrence, you can prevent negative deviation.

Prevention and prevention are always, undoubtedly, better and more effective than the fight against an already developed anomalous phenomenon (especially since the fight against deviation is, by and large, useless).

Various scientists (not only psychologists, but also cultural scientists, biologists, sociologists) have identified the following possible causes of negative deviation:

Innate criminal tendencies of an individual,
innate and natural aggressiveness of a person, which could not be leveled out in the process of socialization,
mental defects, dementia,
psychopathy, psychosis, neurosis,
anomie - the collapse in society itself of the system of values ​​and norms that ensure social order,
conflict between the dominant culture and a subculture or the culture of an individual.

Negative deviant behavior is destructive and/or self-destructive, and therefore leads to social maladaptation of the individual, although positive deviant behavior can also lead to it. In any case, the deviant temporarily or permanently does not fit into society, experiences difficulties with adaptation and self-realization due to the fact that he is “not like everyone else.”

Sociologist R.K. Merton identified five ways for an individual to adapt to society:

1. Submission – the individual’s agreement with the goals of society and the chosen means of achieving them.
2. Innovation – submission to the goals of society, but disobedience to the chosen means.
3. Ritualism – aimless and mechanical adherence to traditions due to the denial of goals.
4. Retreatism is withdrawal from society due to disagreement with both its goals and the means of achieving them.
5. Rebellion is an attempt to radically change both the goals and means of society.

In fact, all types of adaptation, except for the first (subordination) are types of social deviant behavior. Both the pedantic bureaucrat (adaptation type - ritualism) and the rebel (adaptation type - rebellion) deviate from the rules, trying to adapt to society.

People very often deviate from norms and rules and do not live up to social expectations because they strive to act in their own way, in a special way, freely and unconventionally.

But if you want to be different from everyone else, it is important not to forget why social norms were actually invented - to regulate social life, so that order, stability, and peace are maintained in society. Even if the established order is far from perfect and infringes on individual freedom, the structure of society still rests on it.

For example, there is a rule “Cross the road only when the traffic light is green”, it limits the freedom of choice of actions for a pedestrian, but without this traffic rule there will be no order on the roads, this restriction is necessary for the well-being of the pedestrians themselves.

You always need to think, reflect and clearly understand in what situations you can afford to be a rebel, and in what situations, for your own good and the good of the whole society, it is better to remain a respectable and law-abiding citizen.

Behavior of social systems

A system is an ordered set of elements interconnected and forming some kind of integral unity. This definition is inherent in all systems.

The definition of a system assumes:

Vision of elements, components of the system as a whole;
understanding the connections between system elements;
interaction of system elements with each other;
isolation of the system from the environment;
interaction of the system with the environment;
the emergence as a result of the above-mentioned phenomena of new phenomena, states and processes.

The concept of a social system is one of the basic concepts of sociology, as well as the sociology of management.

A social system is a holistic formation, the main elements of which are people, their relationships and interactions.

A social system is an association of people who jointly implement a certain target program and act on the basis of certain norms, rules, and procedures.

Main characteristics (signs) of the social system:

1. hierarchy of statuses of its elements;
2. the presence of a self-government mechanism in the system (subject of management);
3. varying degrees of self-awareness of objects and subjects of management;
4. the presence of different holistic orientations of its elements;
5. the presence of formal and informal interpersonal and intergroup relations.

Properties of the social system:

1. Integrity. A system is a collection of elements; it represents the connections between them, which are ordered and organized. Integrity is characterized by the strength of adhesion or the strength of connection between the elements of the system and between the subject and object of control. Integrity is maintained as long as the strength of connections within the system exceeds the strength of connections of the same elements with elements of other systems (staff turnover);
2. Structurality – the internal structure of something, the arrangement of elements. The structure retains the basic properties of the system under various internal and external changes. The social structure includes division by socio-demographic (gender, age, education, marital status, nationality, total work experience, income level); and qualification (profession, qualifications: position held, length of service in this position, level of special education). The structure, on the one hand, shows the dismemberment of the system, and on the other, the interconnection and functional dependence between its elements (components), which determines the properties of the system as a whole;
3. Hierarchy is the principle of structural organization of complex, multi-level systems, ensuring orderly interaction between the levels of the system. The need for hierarchical construction of systems is due to the fact that the management process is associated with the receipt, processing and use of large amounts of information. There is a redistribution of information flows, as it were, across the stages and functional services of the management structure (pyramid). In social systems, hierarchy is a system of positions, titles, ranks, arranged in order of subordination from lower to higher and observance of subordination between them. Bureaucratic organizations with a closely organized structure are characterized by a strict system of subordination.

The hierarchical structure of the management system determines the following tasks:

Clearly define the hierarchy of goals in management concepts and practices (tree of goals);
monitor and constantly adjust the measure of centralization and decentralization, i.e. a measure of dependence and autonomy between levels of management;
work out organizational and legal norms, dispersal of decision-making centers, levels of responsibility and power;
create conditions and develop procedures for the development of self-government and self-organization skills;
identify and take into account in the management process the hierarchy of needs and motives of employees at different structural levels;
analyze the hierarchy of values ​​shared by various groups of personnel to develop and implement an organizational culture program;
take into account hierarchical weight in management practice, i.e. the importance of individual groups and individuals in the structure of informal relations.
4. Entropy – a measure of uncertainty in the behavior and state of a system, as well as a measure of the irreversibility of real processes in it; the degree of disorder of the system is the low level of its organization. This state is, first of all, associated with a deficiency of organizing information, with the asymmetry of information exchange between the subject and the object of management. Information performs a vital social function. It determines human behavior in general, and organizational behavior in particular. Well-established information exchange reduces the entropy (uncertainty) behavior of individuals and the system as a whole. In sociology and management psychology, deviant behavior is called deviant. It disrupts the organizational order, which can lead to the destruction of the system. This is a trend that actually exists in every system and therefore management actions are needed to localize it. For this, 4 types of influence are used:
direct external control with the application of necessary sanctions;
internal control (self-control) – cultivation of norms and values ​​that correspond to a given organizational culture;
indirect control associated with a person’s identification with reference groups and individuals;
expanding capabilities to meet critical needs within specific systems.
5. Self-government - the general state of systems depends on the quality of management and (or) the ability to self-organize. Any social system for its survival, functioning and development self-organizes and self-governs. These properties are realized under the influence of objective and subjective factors.

Objective ones include:

Significant needs of society, sectors of the national economy, settlements of various sizes, labor organizations and the individual;
decrees, orders, laws, charters;
political system;
level of development of productive forces;
space and time as objectively acting;
social roles as models of expected behavior;
management principles;
traditions, values, norms and other cultural universals.

Subjective factors:

Goals, ideas, their organizational potential;
community of interests;
trust between people (manager and performer);
the personality of the leader, his organizational abilities and leadership qualities;
initiative, enterprise of individuals or groups of people;
professionalism of organizational and managerial activities.

The combination of these factors reproduces the network of functional connections and ensures order in the system.

Adaptability. Each system depends on the environment and its changes, therefore, in the management process it is necessary to ensure external adaptation of the system through internal integration of its elements, adequate to the external environment. Internal restructuring should be elastic and soft. In this regard, Parsens' concept of structural-functional analysis is interesting. His key idea is the category of equilibrium; he understands a special state in the interaction of a system with the external environment.

This equilibrium state is ensured by the following factors:

The ability of the system to adapt to the external environment and its changes;
goal setting – developing goals and mobilizing resources to achieve them;
internal integration – maintaining internal organizational unity and orderliness, limiting possible deviations in organizational behavior;
maintaining value patterns, reproducing value systems, norms, rules, traditions and other cultural components of the system that are significant for individuals.

The equilibrium state of the system is influenced differently by socio-demographic and professional groups. The degree of influence of each group depends on the extent to which its representatives recognize the goals and norms of the system and implement them in their behavior. With an insufficient level of self-government, the need for managerial influence by the power structures of the system arises.

Self-development is the presence in the system of driving forces that understand the need for development and are capable of making this process manageable. Important aspects:

Do the elements of the system have a need for self-development, how meaningful is it and how is it objectified?
to what extent individuals, as elements of the system, are aware of the relationship between their own development and the development of the system;
awareness by the subject of management of this system of the first and second aspects, and most importantly, awareness of his role as a “generator of ideas” for the development of the system and organizer of the process of materialization of these ideas.

Factors that hinder the self-development of the system:

Lack of leaders and creative individuals;
frequent changes of managers;
instability of management strategy;
idleness of the leadership and management apparatus at all levels;
lack of attention to employee needs;
low professionalism of employees and managers;
bureaucratization – excessive dependence of the structural components of the system, especially vertically.

Scale determines the structure of a social system. The structure of society is more complex and multifaceted than the structure of a labor organization.

Social norms of human behavior

Social norms can be classified on different grounds:

Firstly, by the method of their formation: social norms can be formed spontaneously, i.e. themselves, but they can only as a result of the conscious activity of people.
Secondly, by the way they are consolidated: social norms can be written or oral.
Thirdly, depending on the characteristics of their origin and implementation (this is the most important classification of social norms): moral norms, norms of customs, traditions and business practices, corporate norms, religious norms, political norms and legal norms.

Moral norms are people’s views and ideas about good and evil, good and bad, honor, conscience, duty, justice, etc. This is an assessment of someone else’s and one’s behavior from the point of view of decency, fairness, honesty, etc.

Moral norms are supported by the force of public opinion or the inner conviction of a person.

Morality presupposes a value assessment of an individual not only towards other people, but also towards oneself, a sense of personal dignity and self-esteem of one’s behavior.

The highest moral principles for a person are his:

Conscience;
decency;
honesty;
awareness of one's own debt.

Customs, traditions and business practices

Customs are historically established rules of human behavior as a result of repeated actions and entrenched in certain norms.

Varieties of customs include rituals and ceremonies - the performance of certain symbolic actions.

Traditions are close to customs; they are also historically established rules that are passed on from one generation to another and support family, national, and state foundations.

Business customs are rules of human behavior that develop in connection with the communication of people in the production, educational, and scientific spheres.

These rules provide for a certain order in any area; they are local in nature.

For example, it is customary at school for students to stand up when the teacher appears in the classroom. Or the organization holds planning meetings at a specific time.

Corporate norms are rules of conduct that govern the relationships between people who are members of various parties, trade unions, voluntary societies (youth, women's, creative, scientific, cultural and educational, sports and recreational and other associations).

These rules establish the procedure for the creation and activities of all these societies, as well as their relationships with government bodies and other organizations.

Corporate norms are created by public associations themselves and are prescribed in charters and other constituent documents.

Corporate norms are binding only for members of such associations.

If members of associations violate corporate norms, various sanctions are applied to them - reprimand, exclusion from the association, etc.

Some of the most important aspects of the organization and activities of public associations are also regulated by legal norms.

Legislation determines the procedure for the formation and activities of certain public associations.

The Constitution of the Russian Federation enshrines the right of every citizen to association; the constitution provides for freedom of public associations.

The ban is imposed only on criminal associations that use violent methods.

Religious norms

Religious norms are rules that are established by various church denominations. Religious norms are mandatory for believers.

Religious norms are set out in religious books, for example, in the Bible, Koran, Talmud, etc., in addition, church organizations and church leaders adopt various acts.

Religious norms determine the order of church rites, services, fasting, etc.

Religious norms can also establish moral rules, for example, commandments from the Old Testament - do not kill, do not steal, honor your parents, etc.).

Political norms

Political norms regulate relations between classes, estates, nations, other social parties and other public associations). These relations are aimed at winning or strengthening state power.

Political norms can be stated in the form of political slogans (for example, the principle of democracy, freedom of speech, etc.), as well as in the form of specific norms - privatization, pension program, education reform, etc.).

Political norms can be set out in their works by philosophers, politicians, leaders of political parties, social movements; their views can be heard in public speeches, read in the charters and programs of parties and other public associations.

Political norms may relate to government power, forms of government, and various programs.

Rules of law are generally binding rules established for citizens by the state. Rules of law are an expression of the state will, issued by the state in a certain form (law, resolution, decree, etc.).

Violations of legal norms are punishable by the state.

Types of legal norms for various reasons:

By branch of law - civil, labor, administrative, criminal, etc. rights;
according to the functions performed by the rules of law - these are regulatory and protective;
by the nature of the rules of conduct: obligatory, prohibitive, empowering;
by the circle of persons to whom the rules of law apply: general (all persons living in the territory where these rules apply) and special (certain categories of persons - pensioners, students, military, etc., for whom these rules are mandatory).

Common features of social norms

All types of social norms have common features: these are rules of behavior that are mandatory for a certain circle of people or for society as a whole. They must be applied constantly, the procedure for their application is regulated, and violations are punishable.

Social norms set the boundaries of human behavior that are acceptable in a certain life situation. Social norms are observed, either due to a person’s inner conviction, or due to possible sanctions.

A sanction is the reaction of people (society) to the behavior of a person in a specific situation. Sanctions can be rewarding or punitive.

Sanctions perform the necessary function of monitoring the implementation of social norms.

Social behavior of the individual

1. Self-awareness is:

A person’s awareness of his actions, feelings, thoughts, motives of behavior, interests, and his position in society.
a person’s awareness of himself as an individual capable of making decisions and bearing responsibility for them.

2. Self-knowledge – a person’s study of his own mental and physical characteristics.

3. Types of self-knowledge: indirect (through introspection), direct (self-observation, including through diaries, questionnaires and tests), self-confession (a complete internal report to oneself), reflection (thinking about what is happening in the mind), knowing oneself through knowledge of others, in the process of communication, play, work, cognitive activity.

In fact, a person is engaged in self-knowledge throughout his entire adult life, but is not always aware that he is carrying out this type of activity. Self-knowledge begins in infancy and ends with the death of a person. It is formed gradually as it reflects both the outside world and self-knowledge.

Knowing yourself by knowing others. At first, the child does not distinguish himself from the world around him. But at the age of 3-8 months, he gradually begins to distinguish himself, his organs and the body as a whole from the objects around him. This process is called self-recognition. This is where self-knowledge begins. The adult is the main source of the child’s knowledge about himself - he gives him a name, teaches him to respond to it, etc.

The well-known words of a child: “I myself ...” mean his transition to an important stage of self-knowledge - a person learns to use words to designate the signs of his “I”, to characterize himself.

Cognition of the properties of one’s own personality occurs in the process of activity and communication. In communication, people get to know and evaluate each other. These assessments affect the individual's self-esteem.

4. Self-esteem is an emotional attitude towards one’s own image (always subjective). Self-esteem can be realistic (in people oriented towards success), unrealistic (inflated or underestimated in people oriented towards avoiding failures).

5. Factors influencing self-esteem:

Comparison of the real “I” with the ideal,
evaluating other people and comparing yourself with them,
the individual's attitude towards his own successes and failures.

6. The image of “I” (“I”-concept) is a relatively stable, more or less conscious or recorded in verbal form, a person’s idea of ​​himself. Self-knowledge is closely related to the phenomenon of reflection, which reflects the process of an individual’s thinking about what is happening in his mind. Reflection includes not only a person’s own view of himself, but also takes into account how those around him, especially individuals and groups that are significant to him, see him.

7. Behavior is a set of human actions performed by him over a relatively long period under constant or changing conditions. If activity consists of actions, then behavior consists of actions.

8. An act is an action considered from the point of view of the unity of motive and consequences, intentions and deeds, goals and means.

The concept of social behavior is used to denote human behavior in society.

9. Social behavior is the behavior of a person in society, designed to have a certain influence on the people around him and society as a whole.

10. Types of social behavior:

Mass (mass activity that does not have a specific goal and organization) - group (joint actions of people);
prosocial (the motive of activity will be good) – asocial;
helping – competitive;
deviant (deviating) – illegal.

11. Significant types of social behavior:

Associated with the manifestation of good and evil, friendship and enmity;
associated with the desire to achieve success and power;
associated with confidence and self-doubt.

12. Morals - typical reactions to certain events repeated by many people; transform as people become aware. Based on habits.

Customs are a form of human behavior in a certain situation; customs are followed unswervingly, without thinking about their origin and why they exist.

Social responsibility is expressed in a person's tendency to behave in accordance with the interests of other people.

13. Deviant (deviant) behavior is behavior that contradicts the legal, moral, social and other norms accepted in a given society and is considered by most members of society as reprehensible and unacceptable. The main types of deviant behavior are: crime, drug addiction, prostitution, alcoholism, etc.

14. Delinquent behavior (from Latin delictum - misdemeanor, English - delinquency - offense, guilt) - antisocial illegal behavior of an individual, embodied in his actions (actions or inactions), causing harm to both individual citizens and society as a whole.

Deviant behavior can be collective and individual in nature. Moreover, individual deviation in some cases transforms into collective deviation. The spread of the latter is usually associated with the influence of a criminal subculture, the carriers of which are declassed elements of society.

Types of deviant behavior:

Innovation (acceptance of goals, denial of legal ways to achieve them);
Ritualism (denial of accepted goals while agreeing with the means);
Retreatism (rejects both goals and methods);
Riot/Rebellion (not only rejection, but also an attempt to replace it with one’s own values).

All deviant behavior is deviant behavior, but not all deviant behavior can be classified as delinquent behavior. Recognition of deviant behavior as delinquent is always associated with the actions of the state represented by its bodies authorized to adopt legal norms establishing in legislation a particular act as an offense.

Forms of social behavior

The topic of social behavior is of great importance in modern social psychology. Social behavior involves psychological influence on people and the occupation of a specific position among them. As a rule, this type of behavior is considered as the opposite of individual behavior, which, in turn, is not related to the position a person occupies in society, and to the relationships that develop between him and the people around him, and is also not designed to affect individual people. or society as a whole of any influence.

Psychologists distinguish several types of social behavior. We will consider the following:

Mass behavior;
Group behavior;
Gender-role behavior;
Prosocial behavior;
Competitive behavior;
Obedient behavior;
Deviant behavior;
Illegal behavior;
Problem behavior;
Attachment type behavior;
Maternal behavior;
Some other forms.

Let's look at each type in more detail.

Mass behavior

Mass behavior is poorly controlled social activity of a large number of people who are not organized and do not pursue a specific goal. It is often called spontaneous behavior. Examples include fashion, rumors, panic, various religious, political and economic movements, etc.

Group behavior

Group behavior refers to the actions of people who are united in a social group. Most often it occurs due to special processes occurring in such groups. It differs in that group members act in concert, constantly interacting with each other, even when they are outside the group.

Sex role behavior

Gender-role behavior is behavior that is characteristic of people of a particular gender and is associated with the main social roles performed by these people in the life of any society.

Mass, group and sex-role command is characteristic of groups and individuals and depends on what social functions they perform and what goals they pursue. The following types of social behavior describe a person in the process of his interaction with other individuals.

Prosocial behavior

The basis of a person’s prosocial behavior is his desire for help and support from others. When prosocial behavior is aimed at directly helping someone who needs it, then it is called helping behavior.

Competitive Behavior

Competitive behavior is when people around him are perceived by a person as potential or real competitors, and he enters into struggle or competition with them. This behavior is designed to achieve advantage and victory. Functionally or meaningfully associated with competitive behavior are type A behavior, according to which the person is impatient, irritable, hostile and distrustful, and type B behavior, according to which the person does not seek to compete with anyone and expresses a friendly attitude to everyone.

Obedient behavior

Obedient behavior refers to forms of social behavior that ensure civilized and cultural interaction between people. Quite often, this type of behavior is called law-abiding behavior, and in contrast to it is called deviant, illegal and problematic behavior.

Deviant behavior

Deviant behavior is behavior that goes against accepted social, moral and/or ethical norms in society. Despite this, deviant behavior cannot be called illegal, which requires conviction under the law.

Illegal behavior

Illegal behavior is behavior that violates established social norms. This form of behavior presupposes conviction by a court - a person can receive punishment for it, based on the current legislation.

Problem behavior

Problem behavior refers to any behavior that causes psychological problems in a person. In most cases, problem behavior consists of behaviors that are incomprehensible and unacceptable to others and may be maladaptive, destructive, or antisocial.

In addition to other forms of social behavior, one can also find those that characterize close relationships between people. These types are attachment behavior and maternal behavior.

Attachment behavior

Attachment behavior is expressed in a person’s desire to be close to others all the time. This form of behavior manifests itself already in childhood, and the object of attachment in most cases is the mother.

Maternal behavior

In general, maternal behavior is the behavior inherent in mothers in relation to their children, as well as the behavior of any person in general, which is similar to the behavior of a mother in relation to a child.

There are also some other forms of social behavior that are interconnected with the relationships of people developing in society. Such behavior can be called behavior the purpose of which is to avoid failures and achieve success, gain power or subordination to someone; confident or helpless behavior, as well as some others.

Other forms of social behavior

The desire for success is a special form of social behavior that influences a person’s success and, to a certain extent, his fate. The desire for success was most developed in the last century, and today it characterizes a huge number of successful people.

Avoiding failure is an alternative form of striving for success. This type of behavior manifests itself in a concern about not being last among other people, not being worse than them, not becoming a loser.

We can also distinguish such types of social behavior as the desire to communicate with other people and its opposite – avoidance of people. A separate form can be called the desire for power and the desire to maintain power if a person already has it. The opposite of the last two is the desire for submission.

Another form of social behavior that scientists have paid attention to is confident behavior, when a person is self-confident, strives for new achievements, sets new tasks for himself, solves them and achieves new results.

However, it is quite common to see how capable people who want to achieve success and have the ability to do so fail due to uncertainty and excessive anxiety in cases where they should not have been shown. This behavior is called helpless behavior, and is defined as behavior in which a person, having everything he needs to achieve success, remains inactive, thereby dooming himself to failure.

Recently, the attention of sociologists has been attracted precisely by those types of social behavior that have the greatest impact on the state of society, the position of an individual and his fate.

These can be considered all kinds of manifestations of good and evil, friendliness or hostility, the desire for success and power, confidence or helplessness. Among the manifestations of good and evil, much attention is paid to altruism and prosocial behavior.

As for antisocial behavior, among its forms, manifestations of aggression are especially studied. It is also interesting that aggression and aggressive behavior have become of interest to scientists for the reason that hostile behavioral forms and hostility between people have generally existed for many centuries, and for some researchers aggression is a form of social behavior that cannot be eliminated from the life of society.

Formation of social behavior

The development of a child’s personality begins at an early age, when parents accustom the child to his role in society and family. The formation of a child’s social behavior begins from the first days of life, during the first contacts with the mother, when the mother instills in the child the necessary hygiene skills, feeds at a certain time, plays and communicates with the baby. At the age of 1.5 to 2.5 years, a child begins to have certain responsibilities: using a spoon while eating, putting away toys, washing hands, going to bed on time, combing his hair, saying hello when meeting, changing into indoor shoes and a number of other children’s responsibilities .

As our study of the behavior of younger preschoolers from 2.5 to 3 years old and from 3 to 4 years old, admitted to the first junior and second junior groups of kindergarten at the beginning of the school year, shows, most children do not have independent social skills even in the fourth year of life. Constant help from parents, often parental illiteracy, haste in instilling useful skills of independent social behavior leads to disappointing results: parents pay little attention to nurturing independence in children, which begins precisely with the ability to serve themselves.

Children new to kindergarten cannot use a spoon independently, expecting the teacher to feed each of them; they do not begin to eat without the help of an adult, dress, undress, perform hygiene procedures, use the toilet, fasten and unbutton buttons, and use a napkin at the table. Of the 17 children aged 2 to 3 years old who came to the first junior group of the kindergarten, only 4 children could eat food at the table independently, with the help of a spoon, 3 children put on jackets themselves for a walk, and children aged from a little over 3 years to A 4-year-old cannot put on pants or a jacket on his own, much less zip up his clothes. Almost all children could not wash their hands with soap on their own. More than a third of children came to kindergarten in diapers, although their age exceeded 2 years 4 months. 12 children could not use a comb independently.

Pupils who come to the second junior group of kindergarten for the first time do not listen to the simple organizational guidelines of the teacher, express their thoughts and aspirations with interjections, at best - one or two, not even everyday words, but in syllables that are more like babbling speech. From conversations with parents, we found out that mothers and fathers, solely out of a desire to help the child, and perhaps from a lack of time or patience, do not instill in the child the skills of independent behavior, they do everything for the child themselves, because “he spends a long time digging around,” “I I’d rather put it on myself,” thus depriving their children of the opportunity to express themselves in a home environment, they do not develop the simplest everyday skills, hoping that “they will teach them in the garden.” And how difficult it is sometimes for a teacher when most of the group, not only at 2-3 years old, but also the second youngest, and even the middle one, at 5 years old, cannot get ready for a walk and put on their own clothes.

Finally, the majority of parents who have children even 4-6 years old prevent most of the child’s simplest actions of self-care, moving in space for the right object, and mastering the world around him. The child touches objects less and receives less information from his senses. This results in a distortion of ideas, a lack of basic everyday concepts about the external environment.

In addition to the lack of behavioral skills adequate for the period of early preschool age, manifestations of immaturity in the emotional and volitional sphere are observed in the form of impulsiveness, excitability, decreased motivation for voluntary activity, low level of involvement in activities, and inability to maintain consistency in completing tasks. These children are characterized by increased psychophysical fatigue and tend to simplify their activities or abandon them. For example, when dressing independently for a walk, preschoolers do not put on a number of warm clothes that adults must put on them, but immediately put on boots and a jacket and go to the door, at the table they do not eat all the food from the plate, and when washing their hands they do not take care that how clean they washed their hands. When drawing on a sheet of paper, they often use the table surface to continue the drawing, since during drawing they did not make sure that the drawing did not go beyond the edge of the sheet or beyond the outline.

Speech deficiencies are noticeably manifested in violations of sound pronunciation, the everyday nature of vocabulary, and difficulties in mastering pronunciation norms. A significant proportion of children (more than 58%) need consultations with a speech therapist already in early preschool age due to impaired phonemic hearing, or physiological dyslalia, which turns into a more stable form - phonetic-phonemic underdevelopment of speech by the age of five.

The child’s activity in verbal contacts, finding his place in the group, his demand for communication with other children in the group, compliance with his personal interests in the social side of the group’s life - already by 4-5 years old, in the middle group of kindergarten, helps the child become socially significant in the children's community, to become an individual.

And vice versa, a decrease in speech and cognitive activity in children not only of primary preschool age, but also in children of the senior and preparatory groups with a limited supply of ideas about the world around them, a lack of practical age-related skills in orienting themselves in the space of a room, a play table, on a site in a kindergarten and other basic knowledge about the environment does not allow the child to find interlocutors and friends in the group.

In kindergarten, children should be able to dress themselves independently from early childhood, use a knife and fork at dinner from middle age, and use a napkin from early preschool age. Imperfect mastery of basic everyday skills or their absence in middle and senior preschool age speaks not only of undeveloped self-care skills, but also of a lack of ideas about the environment that correspond to the age-related indicators of the child’s development.

Our work on developing children’s social adaptation skills in kindergarten has shown that after the first three to four months of developing children’s self-service skills, organizing and conducting classes, preschoolers begin to navigate the space of a group, bedroom, toilet, locker room, use a spoon independently, and master hygiene skills, know their place in classes, and get ready for a walk themselves. The process of attention becomes more focused and longer, which has a positive effect on the quality of assimilation of program material in the classroom. Purposeful work on the formation of speech leads to the fact that children more easily enter into verbal contacts with others, language symbols acquire more solid reinforcement with the help of reality due to interaction with the objective environment.

In the game, in addition to manipulations, the beginnings of objective activity appear, and by the middle of the junior group, play together appears, and by the senior preschool age, when organizing play situations and play corners in the group, children play plot-role-playing games with rules. The dynamics of the development of social skills are becoming positive. Children of the senior and preparatory groups are on duty in the dining room, cleaning and washing toys, wiping tables and chairs, and can monitor the completion of tasks. The process of formation of social behavior must be continued further in school education, which most often occurs in the process of the emergence of a new type of activity - educational. The main task of working on social adaptation to the outside world in kindergarten is to develop the child’s skills of independent activity and integrate him into the world around him.

Social behavior of teenagers

In adolescence, the system of relationships with others and the social environment acquires paramount importance, which in turn determines the direction of the adolescent’s mental development. Manifestations of adolescence are determined by specific social circumstances and changes in the teenager’s place in society. The teenager enters into new relationships with the world of adults and, consequently, his social position in the family, school, and on the street changes. In the family, he is given more responsible responsibilities, and he himself strives for more “adult” roles, copying the behavior of his older comrades. The meaning of the concept of a teenager’s social environment includes the totality of relationships that develop in society, ideas and values ​​that are aimed at personal development. Communicating in a social environment, adolescents actively master norms, goals and means of behavior, and develop evaluative criteria for themselves and others.

In a normal environment at school and at home, the immediate environment has a great influence on the actions, thoughts and views of a teenager: he listens to the opinions of his parents, communicates well with friends. If a teenager does not find understanding among people from the immediate environment, then the distant environment (the world of strangers) can have a greater influence on the consciousness, worldview and actions of the teenager than people from the immediate environment. The further away a teenager’s social circle is, the less trust he feels in him. Parents or a school who, for some reason, lose authority for a teenager find themselves outside his circle of trust.

The influence of the social environment on a teenager

Psychologists say that a teenager’s dependence on the social environment is as pronounced as possible. With all his actions and actions, a teenager is focused on society.

For the sake of status and recognition, teenagers can make thoughtless sacrifices, come into conflict with their closest people, and change their values.

The social environment can influence a teenager, both positively and negatively. The degree of influence of the social environment depends on the authority of the participants and the teenager himself.

The influence of communication with peers on a teenager

Speaking about the influence of the social environment on the formation of a teenager’s personality and behavior, we should consider the specifics of communication with peers.

Communication is important for several reasons:

A source of information;
interpersonal relationships;
emotional contact.

External manifestations of communicative behavior are based on contradictions: on the one hand, a teenager wants to be “like everyone else,” and on the other, at all costs, he strives to stand out and distinguish himself.

The influence of communication with parents on a teenager

In adolescence, the process of emancipation of a teenager from his parents and the achievement of a certain level of independence begins. During adolescence, emotional dependence on parents begins to burden the teenager, and he wants to build a new system of relationships, the center of which will be himself. Young people develop their own value system, which is often radically different from the one their parents adhere to. Thanks to the accumulated knowledge and experience, a teenager has an important need to understand his personality and his place among people.

To help a teenager successfully adapt to society, those closest to him should show flexibility and wisdom.

Social behavior of a person in society

From an early age to old age, an individual is forced to interact with his own kind. The formation of personality in society is influenced by upbringing, education and even spontaneous factors, that is, unplanned influences that arise in the process of assimilation of people in groups. The set of behavioral principles according to which an individual person reacts to life in society is called social behavior.

Some general points

Each person has to master several roles.

They change due to the individual entering different phases of development:

Childhood - here the assimilation of elementary rules, primary socialization takes place;
youth - active interaction with peers, secondary socialization;
maturity - becoming an independent figure in society;
old age - withdrawal from active activity.

Each stage has its own set of behavioral skills and status roles. An individual’s behavior is determined by motivation, the degree of participation in his chosen social process.

Social roles of the individual

Social behavior should be considered as opposed to individual behavior.

It is designed to exert a psychological influence on others, to allow an individual to occupy his niche in society and is conventionally divided into types:

1. Prosocial: “helping”, “obedient”.
2. Competitive by type A, by type B.
3. Scandalous, “shocking.”
4. Antisocial, asocial: deviant, problematic, illegal.
5. Other varieties.

Prosocial or “correct” behavior

Prosocial is behavior in which an individual strives to provide all possible and voluntary help to others. This rightfully includes “obedient” and “helping” behavior. These forms are welcomed by all cultures and traditions. They are considered a smart way to interact.

Individuals who fall under the above-mentioned types are credited with good manners and good manners, they are set as an example, and they are encouraged in every possible way in society.

Competitive by several types

With competitive behavior, an individual sees potential rivals in the surrounding members of society and subconsciously begins to compete with them in everything: from external data, mental abilities to the level of their own well-being.

Type A competitive behavior involves a person displaying hostility towards his rivals, constant irritability due to other people's successes, and expressing distrust even to loved ones. Type B, in turn, distinguishes people by their friendliness.

Scandalous, "shocking"

This type can be observed in public figures, for example, politicians, journalists, artists. Some famous people are able to turn on entire crowds of people with their emotional state. Their personal interest in success overshadows other aspects of life. At the same time, they receive response and support from supporters.

There is only one goal - to manipulate others to achieve their own heights of success. At the same time, they use prohibited methods of fighting among themselves and even widespread lies. For example, having come to power, not all politicians rush to fulfill what they “promised.”

Antisocial and asocial

The direct opposite of “obedient” and “helping” is considered “problematic” behavior. Individuals to whom it is inherent find themselves in unpleasant situations, most often acting against the moral norms accepted in society. It should be noted that problem behavior causes rejection in many individuals.

“Problem” behavior is closest to deviant and delinquent, that is, illegal. All deviations from accepted etiquette and conventional norms are sharply condemned by the public.

Antisocial, in contrast to the previous “correct” types, involves hostility and an aggressive attitude. Such forms of behavior have been studied by specialists for many decades and are considered irreparable. In a crisis they can be total in nature.

Other types

In addition to the standard gradations of types of social behavior, experts distinguish in a separate section the socialization of people within communities of various sizes: mass, group.

The most difficult thing to manage is mass behavior, especially among large masses organized spontaneously. These include fashion, rumors, various political and religious movements. Group behavior is usually called the actions of small or medium-sized communities and groups. For example, a work team, a classroom.

We must not forget that all gradations are relative. Sometimes you can observe how people’s habitual actions change to the opposite under the influence of certain conditions. Therefore, one or another type of behavior cannot be considered sustainable.

Regulation of social behavior

Social behavior of an individual is a complex social and socio-psychological phenomenon. It is included in a broad system of social regulation. The functions of social regulation are: formation, assessment, maintenance, protection and reproduction of the norms, rules, mechanisms, and means necessary for the subjects of regulation that ensure the existence and reproduction of the type of interaction, relationships, communication, activity, consciousness and behavior of the individual as a member of society. The subjects of regulation of the social behavior of an individual in the broad sense of the word are society, small groups and the individual.

In the broad sense of the word, the regulators of individual behavior are the “world of things,” “the world of people,” and the “world of ideas.” By belonging to the subjects of regulation, one can distinguish social, socio-psychological and personal factors of regulation. In addition, the division can also be based on the objective (external) - subjective (internal) parameter.

A wide class of external regulators is occupied by all social phenomena with the definition “social”, “public”.

These include:

Social production,
social relations (the broad social context of an individual’s life),
social movements,
public opinion,
social needs,
public interests,
public sentiment,
public consciousness,
social tension,
socio-economic situation

Common factors of universal human determination include lifestyle, lifestyle, level of well-being, and social context.

In the sphere of spiritual life of society, the regulators of individual behavior are morality, ethics, mentality, culture, subculture, ideal, values, education, ideology, media, worldview, religion. In the sphere of politics - power, bureaucracy, social movements. In the sphere of legal relations - law, law.

Universal human regulators are: sign, language, symbol, traditions, rituals, customs, habits, prejudices, stereotypes, media, standards, labor, sports, social values, environmental situation, ethnicity, social attitudes, everyday life, family.

A narrower scope of external regulators consists of socio-psychological phenomena. First of all, such regulators are: large social groups (ethnicity, classes, strata, professions, cohorts); small social groups (community, group, community, team, organization, opponent circle); group phenomena - socio-psychological climate, collective ideas, group opinion, conflict, mood, tension, intergroup and intragroup relations, traditions, group behavior, group cohesion, group self-referentiality, level of development of the team.

General socio-psychological phenomena that regulate social behavior include symbols, traditions, prejudices, fashion, tastes, communication, rumors, advertising, and stereotypes.

The personal components of socio-psychological regulators include: social prestige, position, status, authority, belief, attitude, social desirability.

The universal form of expression of social factors that regulate behavior is social norms. Their detailed analysis is contained in the works of M. I. Bobneva. Social norms represent a guiding principle, a rule, a model, standards of behavior accepted in a given community that regulate the relations of people. Social norms differ in their content, in their spheres of action, in their form of sanction, in their mechanisms of dissemination, and in their socio-psychological mechanisms of action.

In addition to written and unwritten universal human norms that allow one to evaluate behavior and regulate it, there are norms accepted in a particular community. This community can be both formal and informal, sometimes quite narrow in composition. Often these norms regulate negative, from the point of view of the majority and the state, asocial forms of behavior. These are group norms that regulate the behavior of individual groups and individuals.

Ethical norms - norms of morality and ethics - develop historically, regulate people's behavior, correlating it with absolute principles (good and evil), standards, ideals (justice). The main criterion for the morality of certain norms is the manifestation in them of a person’s attitude towards another person and towards himself. Religious norms are close in their psychological content, the method of origin and the mechanism of influence to ethical norms. They are distinguished from universal moral norms by their confessional affiliation, a narrower community that defines norms and accepts them as regulations and rules of behavior (commandments of different religions).

Rituals belong to the category of norms of social behavior of an individual. Rituals are conventional norms of behavior. In this case, certain principles are required: firstly, the generally accepted convention of action; secondly, the social significance of the phenomenon or fact on which the ritual is concentrated; thirdly, its special purpose. The ritual is intended to create a unified psychological mood in a group of people, to call them to a single active empathy or recognition of the importance of a fact or phenomenon.

Group norms of an individual’s social behavior can be formalized or informal. The formalized (formalized, manifested, fixed, externally presented) nature of the normative regulation of behavior is presented in the organization as the main form of social association of people. There is a certain system of dependent and due relationships in it. All organizations use a variety of norms: standards, models, templates, samples, rules, imperatives of behavior, actions, relationships. These norms regulate, authorize, evaluate, coerce, and encourage people to carry out certain actions in the system of interactions and relationships, in the activities of the organization as an integral social entity.

Internal regulators of behavior. The regulatory function of the mental in behavior and activity manifests itself with varying degrees of severity and intensity in different blocks of mental phenomena. The largest blocks: mental processes, mental states and psychological qualities.

As part of mental processes, cognitive processes act as internal regulators, through which a person receives, stores, transforms, and reproduces information necessary for organizing behavior. A powerful regulator of interaction and mutual influence of people is oral and written speech. As part of mental processes, specific regulatory loads are carried by such phenomena as insight, intuition, judgments, and inferences.

Mental states constitute an important arsenal of internal regulators of behavior: affective states, depression, expectations, relationships, moods, mood, obsessive states, anxiety, frustration, alienation, relaxation.

Psychological qualities of a person provide internal subjective regulation of social behavior. These qualities exist in two forms - personal properties and socio-psychological qualities of the individual. The first include internal locus of control, meaning of life, activity, relationships, identity, personality direction, self-determination, self-awareness, needs, reflection, life strategies, life plans.

Socio-psychological personal phenomena as internal regulators of behavior include dispositions, achievement motivation, social need, and affiliation. attraction, goals, assessments, life position, responsibility, attitude, status, fear, shame, expectations, anxiety, attribution.

Volitional processes (desire, aspiration, struggle of motives, decision-making, implementation of volitional action, commission of an act) serve as the final stage of social regulation of behavior.

It would be wrong to imagine that external and internal regulators exist side by side, relatively independently of each other. External regulators act as external causes of an individual’s social behavior, and internal regulators serve as the prism through which the action of these external determinants is refracted. A person’s assimilation of norms developed by society is most effective when these norms are included in the complex inner world of the individual as its organic component. As a result of the dialectical interaction of external and internal regulators, a complex psychological process of development of consciousness, moral beliefs, value orientations of the individual, the development of social behavior skills, the restructuring of the motivational system, the system of personal meanings and meanings, attitudes and relationships, the formation of the necessary socio-psychological properties and a special structure are carried out personality.

The mechanisms of social regulation of individual behavior are diverse. Social and psychological mechanisms of regulation include all means of influence - suggestion, imitation, reinforcement, example, infection; advertising and propaganda technologies; methods and means of social technology and social engineering; social planning and social forecasting; mechanisms of management psychology.

The process of regulating behavior is carried out in the course of active and passive assimilation of norms and rules, exercise, repetition, socialization and education of the individual.

As a result of behavior regulation, people interact, their joint activities take place, relationships develop, and the process of communication takes place. The overall result of the action of social regulation mechanisms can be manipulation of the individual, modification of individual behavior, and social control.

The elements of the social control system are:

Technological, including the technical link - technical equipment, measuring instruments, etc., in general, items intended for control purposes; technological link in the narrow sense - a set of instructions, methods of organizing control.
- Institutional - separate specialized institutions engaged in a certain type of social control (commissions, control committees, administrative apparatus).
- Moral - public opinion and personality mechanisms in which the norms of behavior of a group or individual are recognized and experienced as the individual’s own requirements. This also determines a person’s personal participation in the implementation of a certain type of social control through technological, organizational mechanisms and public opinion. The personality acts as an object and subject of social control.

Creation of external regulators of behavior (norms, rules, samples, instructions, codes);
regulation of behavior;
its assessment;
determination of sanctions.

The channels for regulating the social behavior of an individual are:

Small groups;
joint activities of people;
communication;
social practice;
mass media.

To understand the mechanism of the regulatory action of social control, the features of informal control are important. It is based not on a person's proper position, but on his moral consciousness. Every person who has a moral consciousness can be a subject of social control, that is, capable of evaluating the actions of others and his own actions. Every action committed in a group is the object of informal control - criticism, condemnation, contempt.

The most important psychological mechanisms of informal psychological control are a sense of shame, conscience, and public opinion. In them and through them, the interaction of external and internal regulators, the interaction of morality and social psychology of the individual is most clearly expressed.

Features of social behavior

Features of social behavior:

Impulsiveness;
weak behavioral control;
need for mental stimulation;
irresponsibility;
problem behavior in childhood;
antisocial behavior in adulthood.

The 21st century is called the century of information technology and telecommunications systems, and this means not only improving the quality of life of people, but also the generation of new problems. The information environment changes people’s understanding of space and time, affects a person’s personality, the system of his relations with the outside world, causing a number of psychological changes.

The computerization of our society has acquired an avalanche-like character. It is no longer possible to imagine a modern educational institution or organization without computer networks, which are increasingly involved in the life of a person and society as a whole.

Along with this, the urgent problem of identifying and assessing the possible psychological consequences of informatization and pathological use of the Internet arises, designated in foreign literature by I. Goldberg and K. Young as “Internet addiction.”

“Internet addiction” (Internet Addiction Disorder or IAD, virtual addiction, Netaholic) is defined as “an obsessive desire to access the Internet while off-line, and an inability to exit the Internet while on-line.” The term addiction was proposed by I. Goldberg.

Kimberly Young lists 4 symptoms of Internet addiction:

1. Obsessive desire to check e-mail;
2. Constantly waiting for the next Internet connection;
3. Complaints from others that a person spends too much time on the Internet;
4. Complaints from others that a person spends too much money on the Internet.

The spread of computer games, the use of the computer as a learning tool within the educational process - all this has a certain impact on the psyche and personal characteristics of a person. Currently, the most common form of Internet addiction among teenagers is gaming. This is due to the fascination of many games and the opportunity that games provide for self-identification with a wide variety of characters.

People suffering from computer addiction are withdrawn and alienated. They are characterized by greater anxiety, rigid unchanging opinions and attitudes; They react painfully to the slightest failures, are more hostile towards other people, more often show open or veiled cruelty, and often express dissatisfaction with others.

According to Yu. Shevchenko, play gives a child those emotions that life does not always provide. This is a wide range of emotions, the child in the game gains power over the world. A computer mouse becomes an analogue of a magic wand, thanks to which, with virtually no effort, a child becomes the ruler of the world. This especially attracts children who painfully feel their failure, who, for one reason or another, are unable to follow the path of “joyful growing up” in life.

According to S. Blinov, computer games instill aggressiveness in a person. Recently, cruel games have appeared in which there is unmotivated aggression and the destruction of all living things in the virtual world.

Social behavior of the organization

In contrast to sociological behaviorism, which considers the concept of “motive” as the “phlogiston of sociological science” of the 20th century, another direction of sociology as a science of social behavior focuses specifically on the study of motives, drives, values, goals and other factors of human consciousness. The main tendency of this direction was most fully expressed by M. Weber’s theory of social action.

Social action is the simplest unit of social activity, a concept introduced into scientific circulation by M. Weber to designate the action of an individual consciously focused on the past, present or future behavior of other people, and “others” is understood as individuals - acquaintances or strangers, and an indefinite number of complete strangers.

According to Weber, an action becomes social under two conditions: 1) if it is a conscious action and has some degree of rational comprehension, and 2) if it is focused on the behavior of other people. The main thing here is the conscious orientation of the acting individual towards the reaction of other people with whom he expects to interact; Weber defines this orientation using the concept of “expectation.” An action that does not contain such an expectation at least to a minimal extent and does not presuppose a certain degree of awareness of this expectation is not social.

Weber's concept of social action received its further development, accompanied by an increasingly deeper and more decisive transformation of its starting concepts, from T. Parsons, who included it in his general theory of human social behavior. Without accepting completely independent restrictions, subject to the fulfillment of which Weber could only interpret social action as the action of an independent and free, conscious and responsible individual for his actions, Parsons introduces into the interpretation of the concept two points that determine it, forcing us to understand social action as an element of a more a broad and comprehensive system - a system of human action in general. At the same time, the understanding of action became increasingly closer to the understanding of behavior. Since we were talking about conscious human action, its very “consciousness” was considered as a consequence of consciousness, making the conscious dependent on the “unconscious”. Since we were talking about human action, consciously oriented toward the behavior (and expectation) of “another,” “others,” this orientation was also interpreted in terms of not cause, but effect: it was made dependent on those acting, as it were, “behind their backs.” » individuals mechanisms for the “institutionalization” of values ​​and “patterns” of culture, turning them into compulsory norms of human behavior, mandatory “requirements” imposed on it.

The “general system of human action,” including, along with the “social system,” also the “personal system” and the “cultural system,” thus appeared as a system of determinations that again transformed the subjects of social action from the cause of certain social processes into a consequence, and not only social, but also sociocultural, deep psychological mechanisms that determine human behavior.

In this study, the author will consider social behavior as an external manifestation of activity in which a person’s specific position and attitude are revealed. This is a form of transforming activity into real actions in relation to socially significant objects. The mechanisms of self-regulation of an individual’s social behavior are the individual’s dispositions, which are formed as a result of the interaction of incentives and motives in specific environmental conditions.

There are four levels of social behavior of an individual:

The first level is the subject’s reaction to the current objective situation, to specific and rapidly changing influences of the external environment. These are behavioral acts.

The second level is formed by habitual actions or actions, acting as elements of behavior, as its purposeful acts. Action is a process subordinated to the idea of ​​the result that should be achieved, that is, a process subordinated to a conscious goal. Or in other words, an act is an action that is perceived and recognized by the acting subject himself as a social act, as a manifestation of the subject, which expresses a person’s attitude towards other people. An act is a socially significant unit of behavior that allows one to establish a correspondence between the social situation and the social need of the subject.

The third level is a purposeful sequence of actions or social actions in one or another area of ​​life, where a person pursues significantly more distant goals, the achievement of which is ensured by a system of actions.

The fourth level is the level of realization of life goals. This level of individual behavior is of paramount importance for sociology, since it is associated with the process of realizing a goal that is vital for the individual - transforming the ideal into the real. At all four levels, a person’s behavior is regulated by his dispositional system, however, in each specific situation and depending on the goal, the leading role belongs to a certain level of disposition or even a specific dispositional formation.

Sociology studies all levels of a person’s social behavior and all levels of his dispositional system, that is, attitudes. However, the third and fourth levels of individual behavior are of greatest importance for sociology.

Let's try to highlight the most striking characteristics of social behavior.

According to the author, social behavior is not some kind of system of human actions in society - in any case, in this case it is not too clear what exactly is considered “action in society.” Social behavior arises as an inevitable interpenetration of the world of society and the human world, both in acts of communication and in acts of mental activity. Such behavior is the constant formation of what is actually human in our world, the constant comparison of social situations with mental attitudes.

The “share” of the actual social behavior of subjects in the general processes of their lives varies, depends on the attitudes of the person himself (for example, to reduce communication in a state of melancholy), going to zero in a state of passion, and on the specifics of social situations - for example, the sociality of behavior drops sharply during hand-to-hand combat, ideological indoctrination, etc.

According to the first criterion, social behavior is behavior oriented towards stereotypical universal values ​​(caring for children, acts of mercy, etc.). Let us call such a criterion conventional, since it describes as social those systems of intentions and corresponding actions that are considered as such by the largest number of people for the greatest amount of time - without special appeals to the essence of the phenomenon. But, one way or another, such actions are typical for all civilizations and therefore are an expression of some attribute of sociality.

According to the second criterion (in the diagram - 2), intersecting with the range of phenomena described by the first, social are those intentions and actions that are directly caused by the determining motivation for success in a small group (to become a leader, earn money, make a career, etc.).

According to the third criterion (in the diagram - 3), social are conscious actions for self-development of abilities, skills and knowledge that are objectively necessary for carrying out actions according to criteria 1 and 2.

There are very few behavioral phenomena that can be described simultaneously by all three criteria (for example, the self-training of a preacher in a Christian church seeking to achieve popularity and fame). Such phenomena can be described as “absolutely social behavior.” In all other cases, including the intersection of two criteria, the level of sociality of a person’s behavior is lower, in the absence of “hits” on at least one criterion (for example, an act of pure intuition, affect, etc.) - the behavior is not functionally oriented towards society, which can be wrong rarely (for example, a fan who jumped onto the football field and began to hit the referee who showed a “yellow card” to a player of one of the teams).

The historical movement of society became possible precisely because of the focus of anthropogenesis on action. Moreover, initially, even the wrong action of a primitive man was more valuable to the race than reflections (or something similar to it) about failure. The experience of mistakes and successes was stored in oral tradition, art, group knowledge of elders, etc. Individual failures were, as it were, “extinguished” by group experience, the effects of group behavior.

This state of affairs inevitably contains three groups of contradictions:

1. between the mechanism of group behavior - on the one hand, and on the other hand - forcibly introduced values ​​on the part of energetic leaders who are formed by significant “support groups” of supporters (“political power over the individual”).

The result of this contradiction was the emergence of values ​​that were stable for a huge number of people, which can be formulated as follows:

- “it is bad, unprofitable, dangerous, and not prestigious to leave the zone of social power. It allows me to earn the respect of loved ones, peace of mind, and at the same time get what I want - material well-being, power, etc. Those who intentionally or spontaneously leave social power (hermits, madmen, people in a state of passion, etc.) should be condemned psychologically, under which conditions they cannot be a standard for me.”
- “Those who hold political power live lives that inspire envy. Having that kind of power is good. But it must be obtained, if possible, without violating the traditions of “social” power.

2. Contradictions between the orientations conscious of the individual and society as a substance. Therefore, the behavior of most people is adaptive, forcedly aimed at accumulating skills and the ability to live in different groups, where the branches of political and social power are intertwined. The beliefs, values, and stereotypes consciously developed by a person are much more complex; they are redundant in relation to the goals of mastering traditional group norms. The level of social claims, fears and expectations of a person very inaccurately corresponds to the range of proposed group choices.

3. The contradiction between the individual’s orientation towards communication, being in a social group and the psychological processes of a different, asocial orientation.

Social behavior is not threatened by the growth of social freedom, apparently because the convention of purely social “permissive norms” is obvious.

A person cannot be fully adapted to the social world. Under no circumstances can his behavior be exclusively social. The social quality of his life once upon a time, under still unclear conditions, gave birth to a strange phenomenon of an “explosion” of the psyche, philosophically surprisingly similar to the Big Bang 20 billion years ago in the Megaworld. The result of the “psychic explosion” was the general outward focus of the psyche, on communication, the formation of groups and the use of such groups as special ones, born, in fact, by man, and not by nature, dramatically transforming natural laws. In them, people, using each other as a means of achieving goals, unnoticed by themselves, adjust their goals in accordance with the settings of the special phenomenon of their own communication and association in groups of political power and ideology.

Most likely, this hypothesis of an “explosive psyche” follows from the riddle of the initial technologization of the mind. From the moment of using the first tools of labor, a person transfers the technological relationship to another person, which already contains the organization of labor, specialization of management, etc.

The number of incentives for self-knowledge of a person’s actual social behavior is not large, in contrast to incentives of the opposite kind, and this state of affairs, resulting from the hypothesis of an “explosive” psyche, is the basis of ideological interactions and phenomena of psychological phenomena (for example, crowd effects) and, especially, perception of the image of an object or phenomenon.

So, social behavior represents a compromise specific to each subject in the struggle between the three above groups of contradictions in general human behavior.

Social behavior is oriented towards both individual and group social experience.

Let us emphasize once again that the above understanding of social behavior is necessary in order to show the most general mechanisms of motivation for images: the objectification of the desire to possess something that, according to group norms, is prestigious and promises group protection, which has established itself as a group value at the symbol level. This will be discussed in the following sections of the work.