Levels of social structure of personality. Concept and social structure of personality

When studying the social behavior of individuals, sociologists have to deal with a number of complex theoretical problems, without solving which it is impossible to build a concept of personality that meets scientific criteria and needs modern practice. Such problems include the social structure of the individual.

Structure of any complex phenomena, and of course this includes human personality, represents a collection, hierarchy and specific interaction various elements. Any structure has a certain stability and at the same time is subject to various changes - progress and regression - up to collapse, which is characterized by the concept of destruction. Destructive phenomena in the personality structure lead to various kinds deviations called deviant behavior.

To a first approximation, personality can be considered as the structural value of biogenic, psychogenic and sociogenic components, which gives grounds for identifying the biological, psychological and social structures of personality, studied respectively by biology, psychology and sociology. The biological structure of personality cannot, of course, be taken into account by sociology, not only in terms of deformation of this structure, since this disrupts normal interactions between people. A sick or disabled person cannot perform all the functions that are inherent in a healthy person. More socially related psychological structure personality, including the totality of emotions, experiences, volitional aspirations, memory, abilities, etc. What is important here is not only various types of deviations, but also the normal mental field that accompanies the individual’s activity. But the sociological structure of personality is not reduced to a set of mental, essentially subjective, qualities.

Consequently, when determining the social structure of an individual, the matter cannot be reduced only to the subjective side. After all, the main thing in a person is his social quality.

The sociological structure of the individual includes a set of objective and subjective properties of the individual that arise and function in the process of his various activities, under the influence of those communities and associations to which the person belongs. Hence, the most important characteristic of the social structure of a person is his activity as independence and as interaction with other people, which is fixed by the concept of the subject of activity. An analysis of the structure of a personality without an analysis of the forms of its activity is impossible.

Freud's theory identifies three parts in the mental structure of personality: Id ("It"), Ego ("I") and Superego ("super-ego")

The id (“It”) is a source of energy aimed at obtaining pleasure. When energy is released, tension is relieved and the person experiences a feeling of pleasure. “It” encourages us to have sex, as well as to carry out body functions such as eating and going to the body.

The ego (“I”) controls a person’s behavior, to some extent resembling a traffic light that helps a person navigate the world around him. The ego is guided primarily by the reality principle. The ego regulates the selection of an appropriate object to overcome the tension associated with the id. For example, when the Id is hungry, the Ego forbids us to eat car tires or poisonous berries; the satisfaction of our impulse is postponed until the moment of choosing suitable food.

The superego is an idealized parent; it performs a moral or evaluative function. The superego regulates behavior and strives to improve it in accordance with the standards of parents, and subsequently society as a whole.

These three components actively influence the formation of the child’s personality. Children must follow the reality principle, waiting until the right time and place presents itself to give in to the pressure of the id. They must also submit to the moral demands made by their parents and their own emerging superego. The ego is responsible for actions that are rewarded or punished by the superego, in connection with which the person experiences a feeling of pride or guilt.

In addition, if we consider personality as a system, then we can distinguish two main subsystems, or two worlds of personality:

one is the inner, world of consciousness, hidden from others and often incomprehensible and unconsciously “living” for the individual himself;

the second is active, open to people, allowing them not only to observe external manifestations personality, but also to penetrate into it inner life, to guess what passions and their struggles take possession of a person.

The inner and outer worlds are closely connected. However, in each specific case this relationship turns out to be ambiguous. One of its poles is the correspondence, the “coincidence” of acts of consciousness and behavior, while the other is the opposite, their complete inconsistency with each other, opposition.

For sociology, the most significant is the understanding of the transition, the transformation in the structure of the personality of a fact, a moment, a situation of activity. This process covers both types of personality structures, and it is this process that should be considered the “core” of personality as a system.

Let's start looking at inner world person. Here are needs, interests, goals, motives, expectations, value orientations, attitudes, and dispositions. Thanks to their relationship, intrapersonal motivational and dispositional mechanisms exist.

The motivational mechanism includes the interaction of needs, value orientations and interests, the end result of which is their transformation into the goal of the individual. Needs act (in relation to the individual) as the initial drivers of his activity, reflecting the objective conditions of human existence, being one of the most important forms of communication between the individual and the outside world. This connection can manifest itself in the form of natural (need for food, clothing, shelter, etc.) and social (need for various forms activities, communication). At the same time, there is no sharp line between them, since the need for clothing, housing, and even food acquires a social “shell.” This is especially typical for periods of crisis development of society.

Being conscious, needs turn into the interests of the individual. They reflect a person’s attitude to the conditions of life and activity, which determines the direction of his actions. In fact, it is interests that largely determine the motives of an individual’s behavior. They turn out to be the main causes of action. “A closer examination of history,” Hegel wrote, “convinces us that people’s actions arise from their needs, their passions, their interests... and only they play main role".

Important element internal structure personality and the regulator of its behavior - value orientations. They reflect the individual’s orientation towards certain values and interests, and a preferential attitude towards one or another of them. Therefore, value orientations, as well as needs and interests, are one of the main factors regulating the motivation of activity. It is in value orientations, as in something concrete and definite, that the interests of an individual can manifest themselves.

Needs and interests, reflected in people’s consciousness, refracted through value orientations, lead to the formation of specific internal motivators of action, which are usually called motives of activity. This creates a mechanism of motivation, which involves implementation in the purposeful activity of the individual. The purpose of this activity is to achieve specific purpose, crowning “the efforts of this mechanism.”

Another “intrapersonal” mechanism is associated with the “dispositional” structure of personality. The disposition of a person is his predisposition to certain behavior in specific conditions, the ability to make a choice of activities. IN in a certain sense disposition is the personality orientation that precedes behavior. The mechanism itself includes the interaction of motives and incentives leading to the emergence of personality attitudes. The result of this interaction is the emergence of dispositions.

What do these elements of personality structure mean? Motives are usually understood, as noted above, as internal direct motivators to activity, which reflect a person’s desire to satisfy his needs and interests. In contrast to motives, incentives act as external incentives to activity. They usually mean numerous factors of an economic, social, political and other nature operating in the structure of an individual’s environment. Attitudes are a general orientation, the focus of consciousness on a particular phenomenon (process) of reality. Social attitudes are one of the most important regulators of an individual’s social behavior, expressing his predisposition and readiness to act in a certain way in relation to a given object. Attitudes characterize the individual’s attitude towards the environment and other people. Therefore, attitudes precede activity in time; they reflect “targeting one or another vector” of behavior. In Western sociology, attitudes are usually called “attitudes” (since the times of W. Thomas and F. Znaniecki, who introduced this term into a broad scientific circulation and did a lot to study it: In accordance with V.A. According to Yadov’s dispositional theory of self-regulation of an individual’s social behavior, there are three levels of dispositions. The highest level is the level of formation of a person’s concept of life and its implementation in value orientations. In other words, at this level, dispositions regulate the general direction of behavior and the interests of the individual. At the average level, self-regulation is carried out in the form of the formation of a generalized attitude of the individual towards social facilities. As for the lower level, the formation of attitudes also occurs here, but of a more specific, situational nature, associated with the self-regulation of behavior in completely specific, directly given conditions. Externally observable actions of people leave a second aspect of activity - behavioral, in which value orientations, attitudes, and dispositions of the individual are directly and concretely reflected. Naturally, the question arises about the structure of such externally observable activity. Note that sometimes the structure of activity is identified with the structure of observed activity. This approach is, to say the least, inaccurate. But it is possible to understand its authors, because in this case they contrast the structures of consciousness and behavior of the individual, without attributing the former to the structure of activity.

The structure of activity is determined by the objective need to perform certain actions for the reproduction, functioning and development of the individual. It is determined (at the level of a specific individual) by its demographic, social, professional position, place occupied in the system of social connections and relationships. Bearing in mind the structure in its “external” expression, we note that it can also act as a unique typology of individual activity.

In socio-philosophical terms and at the level of general sociological theory, depending on the nature of the individual’s relationship to the world around him, activity is divided into material and spiritual, theoretical and practical. It is in these forms that the individual masters the surrounding world. Another classification of activity can be considered in connection with the individual’s attitude to the objective course of the historical process, distinguishing between progressive and reactionary, revolutionary and counter-revolutionary activity. The criterion for obtaining a new result is the basis for identifying creative or reproducing (reproductive) activity. An individual’s activities can also be innovative and routine.

Of course, the named forms and activities personalities can be studied not only within the framework of general sociological theory, but also translated into the language of empirical sociological research. However, due to sufficient general this is not easy to do.

On the other hand, there are structures of activity that are studied primarily at the level of special sociological theories and empirical research. Here, first of all, it is necessary to note the structure, the basis of which is the differentiation of activities in certain areas. This can be economic, political, social, as well as production and labor, household, and educational activities.

It is clear that there are many options for structuring an individual’s activity. It is determined by the wealth of human life. All these forms and activities caused by the system public relations, the inner world of the individual and the way of behavior, characterize her way of life. It seems that in the process of sociological research of personality, lifestyle turns out to be a central concept, a kind of dominant and at the same time link between her inner world, state of consciousness and the method and nature of behavior in which the external side of activity is revealed.

Concluding our consideration of the mechanisms and structures of personality, we present a diagram in which they are reflected. Like anything graphic image, it is conditional, but its advantage is that using the scheme you can get visual representation about the issues raised above.

Before an individual becomes a person in the proper sense of the word, he has to go through a long process of socialization. Despite the widespread use of the term “socialization,” it has not received an unambiguous interpretation. Moreover, sometimes synonymous concepts are used. It is necessary to distinguish from socialization adaptation (a time-limited process of getting used to new conditions), learning (acquisition of new knowledge), education (the purposeful influence of socialization agents on the spiritual sphere and human behavior), maturation (the socio-psychological development of a person in the age range from 10 to 20 years), maturity (physical and physiological process of strengthening the human body in adolescence and youth).

Socialization processes are also studied within the framework of social psychology, and in sociology, which, of course, determines its specificity in the interpretation of this process in these sciences.

Understanding the process of socialization is associated with the idea of personality development, while the latter is seen as becoming active social subject. “Socialization is a two-way process, which includes, on the one hand, the individual’s assimilation of social experience by entering the social environment, a system of social connections; on the other hand, the process of active reproduction of the system of social connections by the individual due to his active work, active inclusion in the social environment." Socialization covers all processes of an individual’s familiarization with culture and social experience, with the help of which he gains the ability to participate in the life of society.

However, a person not only assimilates social experience, but also transforms it into his own attitudes, beliefs, and value orientations. In other words, the reproduction of social experience is impossible without the active participation of the person himself, which also implies further development of this experience. Therefore, in socialization a person acts as both an object and a subject of social relations. When assimilating social experience, a person appears in the role of an object of influence; however, this impact takes place with the personal participation of the person himself, where he already reveals himself as a subject.

So, in its content, socialization is the process of personality formation, which begins from the moment a person is born. As noted, there are usually three areas in which the formation of personality takes place: activity, communication and self-awareness. A person’s entry into these spheres is characterized by a constant expansion and complication of the social connections into which he enters. Thus, in socialization there is the development of more and more new types of activities, orientation in the system of connections present in each type of activity and between it various types, centering around the main chosen type, i.e., the process of expanding the capabilities of the individual as a subject of activity is underway. Communication in the context of socialization is also considered in terms of its expansion and deepening. As for self-awareness, its development means the formation in a person of an image of his “I”, understood as the definition of one’s own identity, a certain integrity.

The socialization of the individual occurs under the influence of many conditions and factors, both socially controlled, directionally organized, and spontaneous. IN in general terms it is an attribute of an individual’s lifestyle and can be considered as its condition and result.

Certain stages of the socialization process are also distinguished. Since this topic was studied in detail in Freudianism, it was in this direction that the tradition of determining the stages of socialization developed. Currently, it is quite common in sociology and social psychology to distinguish such stages of socialization as childhood, adolescence and adolescence. As for determining further stages, the issue remains debatable. To resolve this difficulty, sociology began to apply an approach in which the stages of socialization are distinguished depending on a person’s attitude to work. Hence, socialization includes pre-labor, labor and post-labor stages. The pre-labor stage covers the period in a person’s life before the start of his working activity. In turn, this stage is divided into early socialization (from the birth of a child to his entry into school) and the educational stage (training at school and other educational institutions).

The labor stage of socialization extends to the period of maturity. At this stage, the personality not only assimilates experience, but also actively reproduces it. Post-work socialization is associated with the continuation of this process even after the cessation of a person’s active participation in work.

In connection with the stages of the socialization process, agents and institutions of socialization are distinguished in sociology. Socialization agents are specific people responsible for teaching cultural norms and mastering social roles. Formations in which the transmission of social experience occurs are called institutions of socialization. Socialization institutions are institutions and organizations that influence and guide the socialization process. These are the family, preschool children's institutions, schools, other educational and educational institutions, the workforce, reference groups that do not have an asocial orientation, etc. Socialization is understood as the self-development of an individual in the process of his interaction with various social groups, as a result of which a certain life position personality.

In the sociological literature, much attention is paid to issues of political and legal socialization. IN national sociology political socialization means political development personality as a process of active assimilation of ideological, political values and norms of society and their formation into a conscious system of socio-political attitudes that determines the position and behavior of the individual in political system society.

As for legal socialization, it is considered as the process of an individual acquiring legal knowledge and experience legal communication. In the process of legal socialization, methods of behavior that comply with the rules of law are mastered. “Legal socialization of the individual is the inclusion in the value-normative system of the individual of those values that are protected by law.”

So, socialization is the individual’s mastery of social requirements and functions as an indispensable inclusion in the social community.

Among other processes where the individual acts as an object of social relations, social and role identification stand out. In the processes of social identification, an individual becomes identified with a particular social group, he becomes aware of his belonging to a given community, norms, ideals, and values shared by a particular social group are acquired and assimilated. In role identification, there is an individual’s acceptance of social specified functions and group requirements as meeting the interests and needs of the subject.

One of the main goals of socialization and identification is adaptation, adaptation of a person to social reality. But at the same time there are negative consequences such adaptation and one of them is conformism. It means passive acceptance of the existing order of things, opinions, etc. In sociology, conformism is distinguished as a social phenomenon, when they talk about a certain uniformity in society, about the leveling of personality, and as a certain (conformal) human behavior, which is caused by fear of sanctions or unwillingness to stay in isolation and his acceptance of the positions and opinions of the group under its pressure. Conformity occurs where the presence of a conflict between the opinion of the individual and the opinion of the group is recorded and the overcoming of this conflict in favor of the group. In this case, a distinction is made between external conformity (the opinion of the group is accepted by the individual purely externally) and internal conformity (when the individual actually assimilates the opinion of the majority).

Natural adaptation of the individual to life circumstances cannot be confused with opportunism, which is the basis of her conformist behavior.

When studying the processes of personal socialization, the identification of reference groups is important. Reference groups are groups with the values, norms and attitudes of which an individual correlates his behavior in order to accept these norms and values or compare with them. Great importance this topic has rights in sociology, since it is necessary to identify and study reference groups that have an asocial orientation and actively influence the process of formation of negative characteristics of emerging individuals.

Socialization goes through stages that coincide with life cycles. Life cycles associated with a change in social roles, acquisition of a new status, change familiar image life, etc. Entering a new cycle, a person falls under the influence of two processes: desocialization and resocialization. Unlearning from previous rules of behavior, roles, shared values and norms is called desocialization, and the next stage of learning new norms, roles, rules of behavior is called resocialization. Desocialization and resocialization are two sides of the process of adult, or continued, socialization. Desocialization can be so deep that it leads to the destruction of the basis of personality and then the process of resocialization becomes impossible. However, not only desocialization, but also resocialization can be profound.

Let us note that agents and institutions of socialization perform not only a function related to teaching an individual cultural norms and patterns of behavior, but also a control function, i.e., how firmly, deeply and correctly the norms and roles are learned. At the same time, reward and punishment are effective techniques and social control, and socialization in general.

Sociology attaches great importance to the problems of studying the individual as a subject of social relations. Fixing the position of the individual as a subject of these relations is carried out in such concepts as “normative consciousness”, “value orientations”, “motivation”, “ social attitudes", "social behavior", etc. Already at the stage of assimilation of social experience, activity and individual characteristics of the individual appear. “The proposition that human behavior is socially determined and that he himself is an object social relations, i.e., actions taken by society and its institutions constitute only part of the problem of interaction between man and society.”

Accordingly, another part of the problem concerns the impact of a person on society, which involves considering him in the role of a subject of social relations.

A person’s subjectivity is associated with his ability to transform his own life activity into an object of practical transformation. The formation of a subject of activity is the process of an individual mastering its structural components: meaning, goals, tasks, ways of transforming the world by man.

The reality and necessity of communication are determined by the joint life activities of people. It is in the process of communication and only through communication that the essence of a person can manifest itself. Direct emotional communication between a child and his mother is his first experience of communication, where he acts as a subject. IN further man expands his circle of contacts, actively influencing other people in this process.

Along with social adaptability developed personality has personal autonomy, its own individuality. In crisis situations, such a personality retains its own life strategy, remains committed to its positions and value orientations, which indicates its integrity and sustainability.

When studying the social behavior of an individual, sociologists have to face a number of complex theoretical problems, without solving which it is impossible to construct a concept of personality that meets scientific criteria and the needs of modern practice. Such problems include the social structure of the individual.

The structure of any complex phenomena, and the human personality certainly belongs to them, is a collection, hierarchy and a certain interaction of various elements. Any structure has a certain stability and at the same time is subject to various changes - progress and regression - up to collapse, which is characterized by the concept of destruction. Destructive phenomena in the personality structure lead to various kinds of deviations, called deviant behavior.

To a first approximation, personality can be considered as the structural value of biogenic, psychogenic and sociogenic components, which gives grounds for identifying the biological, psychological and social structures of personality, studied respectively by biology, psychology and sociology. The biological structure of personality cannot, of course, be taken into account by sociology, not only in terms of deformation of this structure, since this disrupts normal interactions between people. A sick or crippled person cannot perform all those functions that are inherent in a healthy person. More connected to the social is the psychological structure of the individual, including the totality of emotions, experiences, volitional aspirations, memory, abilities, etc. What is important here is not only various types of deviations, but also the normal mental field that accompanies the individual’s activity. But the sociological structure of personality is not reduced to a set of mental, essentially subjective, qualities.

Consequently, when determining the social structure of an individual, the matter cannot be reduced only to the subjective side. After all, the main thing in a person is his social quality.

Freud's theory identifies three parts in the mental structure of personality: Id ("It"), Ego ("I") and Superego ("super-ego")

In addition, if we consider personality as a system, then we can distinguish two main subsystems, or two worlds of personality:

One is the internal, world of consciousness, hidden from others and often incomprehensible and unconsciously “living” for the individual himself;

The second is active, open to people, allowing them not only to observe external manifestations of personality, but also to penetrate into its inner life, to guess what passions and their struggles take possession of a person.

On the contrary, their complete inconsistency with each other, opposition.

Let's begin to consider the inner world of a person. Here are needs, interests, goals, motives, expectations, value orientations, attitudes, and dispositions. Thanks to their relationship, intrapersonal motivational and dispositional mechanisms exist.

The motivational mechanism includes the interaction of needs, value orientations and interests, the end result of which is their transformation into the goal of the individual. Needs act (in relation to the individual) as the initial drivers of his activity, reflecting the objective conditions of human existence, being one of the most important forms of communication between the individual and the outside world. This connection can manifest itself in the form of natural (the need for food, clothing, shelter, etc.) and social (the need for various forms of activity, communication). At the same time, there is no sharp line between them, since the need for clothing, housing, and even food acquires a social “shell.” This is especially typical for periods of crisis development of society.

An important element of the internal structure of a personality and a regulator of its behavior is value orientations. They reflect the individual’s orientation towards certain values and interests, and a preferential attitude towards one or another of them. Therefore, value orientations, as well as needs and interests, are one of the main factors regulating the motivation of activity. It is in value orientations, as in something concrete and definite, that the interests of an individual can manifest themselves.

Personality structure. Personality is a stable system of completely individual, psychological, and social characteristics. Psychology, as a science, considers only psychological characteristics, which form the structure of personality. The concept and structure of personality is a controversial issue among many psychologists; some believe that it cannot be structured and rationalized in any way, while others, on the contrary, put forward new theories of personality structure. But still, there are certain characteristics that, one way or another, exist, and they are worth describing.

It is the most important component of personality; it demonstrates all human relationships in the world. Attitude to other individuals, to some object, situation and, in general, to the whole reality that surrounds him.

– this is a manifestation of the dynamic properties of human mental processes.

is a set of individual typological characteristics that contribute to the manifestation of success in certain activities.

The orientation of a person determines her inclinations and interests in a particular subject of activity. Volitional qualities reflect the readiness at some point to prohibit oneself, but to allow something.

Emotionality is an important component of the personal structure; with its help, a person expresses his attitude towards something through a certain reaction.

A person is a totality that determines a person's behavior. Social attitudes and values play a major role in a person. It is them that society perceives in the first place and determines its attitude towards the individual. This list of characteristics is not exhaustive; in different personality theories you can find additional properties, highlighted by different authors.

Psychological structure of personality

Personal structure in psychology is characterized through certain psychological properties, without particularly affecting its relationship with society and the entire world around it.

Personality structure in psychology briefly. There are several components in personality psychology.

The first component of structure is directionality. The focus structure covers attitudes, needs, interests. One component of orientation determines human activity, that is, it plays a leading role, and all other components rely on it and adapt. For example, a person may have a need for something, but, in fact, he has no interest in a certain subject.

The second component of the structure is capabilities. They give a person the opportunity to realize himself in a certain activity, achieve success and new discoveries in it. It is the abilities that constitute a person’s orientation, which determines his main activity.

Character, as a manifestation of personality behavior, is the third component of the structure. Character is the property that is most easily observed, so a person is sometimes judged simply by her character, without taking into account abilities, motivation and other qualities. Character is complex system, which includes emotional sphere, intellectual abilities, volitional qualities, moral qualities, which mainly determine actions.

Another component is the system. ensures proper planning of behavior and correction of actions.

Mental processes are also part of the personality structure; they reflect the level of mental activity, which is expressed in activity.

Social structure of personality

When defining personality in sociology, it should not be reduced exclusively to the subjective side; the main thing in the structure is social quality. Therefore, a person must determine objective and subjective social properties that form his functionality in activities that depend on the influence of society.

Personality structure in sociology briefly. It constitutes a system of properties that are formed on the basis of his various activities, which are influenced by society and those social institutions in which the individual is included.

Personal structure in sociology has three approaches to designation.

Within the first approach, a person has the following substructures: activity - purposeful actions of a person in relation to some object or person; culture – social norms and the rules that guide a person in his actions; memory is the totality of all knowledge acquired through life experience.

The second approach reveals the personal structure in the following components: value orientations, culture, social statuses and roles.

If we combine these approaches, then we can say that personality in sociology reflects certain properties character that it acquires in the process of interaction with society.

Personality structure according to Freud

The structure of personality in Freudian psychology has three components: Id, Ego and Super Ego.

The first component of the Id is the oldest, unconscious substance that carries human energy, responsible for instincts, desires and libido. This is a primitive aspect, operating on the principles of biological attraction and pleasure, when the tension of sustained desire is discharged, it is carried out through fantasies or reflex actions. It knows no boundaries, so its desires can become a problem in a person’s social life.

The Ego is the consciousness that controls the It. The ego satisfies the desires of the id, but only after analyzing the circumstances and conditions, so that these desires, when released, do not contradict the rules of society.

The super ego is the repository of a person’s moral and ethical principles, rules and taboos that guide his behavior. They are formed in childhood, approximately at 3–5 years, when parents are most actively involved in raising the child. Certain rules are entrenched in the child’s ideological orientation, and he complements it already own standards which he acquires through life experience.

For harmonious development, all three components are important: Id, Ego and Super Ego must interact equally. If any of the substances is too active, then the balance will be disrupted, which can lead to psychological abnormalities.

Thanks to the interaction of the three components, protective mechanisms are developed. The main ones are: denial, projection, substitution, rationalization, formation of reactions.

Denial suppresses the internal impulses of the individual.

Projection is the attribution of one's own vices to others.

Substitution means replacing an inaccessible but desired object with another, more acceptable one.

With the help of rationalization, a person can give a reasonable explanation for his actions. Formation of a reaction is an action used by a person, thanks to which he takes an action opposite to his forbidden impulses.

Freud identified two complexes in the personality structure: Oedipus and Electra. According to them, children view their parents as sexual partners and are jealous of the other parent. Girls perceive their mother as a threat because she spends a lot of time with her dad, and boys are jealous of their mother before their father.

Personality structure according to Rubinstein

According to Rubinstein, personality has three components. The first component is directionality. The structure of orientation consists of needs, beliefs, interests, motives, behavior and worldview. A person’s orientation expresses his self-concept and social essence, orients a person’s activity and activity regardless of specific environmental conditions.

The second component consists of knowledge, ability and skills, the main means of activity that a person acquires in the process of cognitive and objective activity. Having knowledge helps a person to navigate well outside world, skills ensure the performance of a specific activity. Skills help achieve results in new areas of subject activity; they can be transformed into abilities.

Individual - typological properties constitute the third component of personality; they manifest themselves in character, temperament and abilities, which ensure the originality of a person, the uniqueness of his personality and determine behavior.

The unity of all substructures ensures adequate functioning of a person in society and his mental health.

Also in a person, it is possible to determine certain levels of organization that implement it as a subject of life. Living standard - it includes life experience, moral standards, and worldview. The personal level consists of individual characterological characteristics. Mental level make up mental processes and their activity and specificity.

For Rubinstein, personality is formed through interaction with the world and society. The core of personality includes the motives of conscious actions, but also, a person has unconscious motives.

Personality structure according to Jung

Jung identifies three components: consciousness, the individual unconscious and the collective unconscious. In turn, consciousness has two substructures: the persona, which expresses the human “I” for others, and the self as it is – the ego.

In the structure of consciousness, the person is the most superficial level (conformity archetype). This component of the personality structure includes social roles and statuses through which a person is socialized in society. This is a kind of mask that a person puts on when interacting with people. With the help of persona, people attract attention to themselves and make an impression on others. Behind external signs, symbols of covering oneself with clothes, accessories, a person can hide his true thoughts, he hides behind external properties. Symbols of confirmation of social status, for example, a car, expensive clothes, a house, also have an important place. Such signs can appear in the symbolic dreams of a person worried about his status when he dreams, for example, of an object that he is afraid of losing in real life, he loses it in his sleep. On the one hand, such dreams contribute to an increase in anxiety and fear, but on the other hand, they act in such a way that a person begins to think differently, he begins to take the thing lost in a dream more seriously in order to preserve it in life.

The ego is the core of personality in its structure and combines all known to man information, his thoughts and experiences, and is now aware of himself, all his actions and decisions. The ego provides a sense of coherence, the integrity of what is happening, the stability of mental activity and the continuity of the flow of feelings and thoughts. The ego is a product of the unconscious, but is the most conscious component because it acts from personal experience and based on acquired knowledge.

The individual unconscious is thoughts, experiences, beliefs, desires that were previously very relevant, but having experienced them, a person erases them from his consciousness. Thus, they faded into the background and remained, in principle, forgotten, but they cannot simply be repressed, therefore the unconscious is a repository for all experiences, unnecessary knowledge and transforms them into memories, which will sometimes come out. The individual unconscious has several component archetypes: shadow, anima and animus, self.

The shadow is the dark, bad double of the personality; it contains all the vicious desires, evil feelings and immoral ideas, which the personality considers very low and tries to look less at his shadow, so as not to face his vices openly. Although the shadow is a central element of the individual unconscious, Jung says that the shadow is not repressed, but is another human self. A personality should not ignore the shadow, it should accept its dark side and be able to appreciate its good features in line with those negative ones lurking in the shadows.

The archetypes representing the beginnings of women and men are the anima, which is represented in men, the animus - in women. The animus endows women with masculine traits, for example, strong will, rationality, strong character, anima allows men to sometimes show weaknesses, lack of strength of character, and irrationality. This idea is based on the fact that the bodies of both sexes contain hormones of the opposite sexes. The presence of such archetypes makes it easier for men and women to find a common language and understand each other.

Chief among all individual unconscious archetypes is the self. This is the core of a person, around which all other components are gathered and the integrity of the personality is ensured.

Jung said that people confuse the meaning of ego and self and give more importance to the ego. But the self will not be able to take place until the harmony of all components of the personality is achieved. The self and ego can exist together, but the individual needs certain experiences to achieve a strong ego-self connection. Having achieved this, the personality becomes truly holistic, harmonious and realized. If a person’s process of integration of his personality is disrupted, this can lead to neuroses. And in this case, analytical psychotherapy is used, aimed at optimizing the activities of the conscious and unconscious. Basically the goal of psychotherapy is to work with the "extraction" of the unconscious emotional complex and work with it so that the person rethinks it and looks at things differently. When a person becomes aware of this unconscious complex, he is on the path to recovery.

Personality structure according to Leontiev

The concept and structure of personality in A. N. Leontyev goes beyond the plane of relations to the world. Behind its definition, personality is another individual reality. This is not a mixture biological features, is a highly organized, social unity of features. A person becomes a personality in the process of life activity, certain actions, thanks to which he gains experience and socializes. Personality is experience itself.

Personality is not a complete person, as he is with all his biological and social factors. There are features that are not included in personality, but until it has manifested itself it is difficult to say in advance. Personality appears in the process of relations with society. When a personality arises, we can talk about its structure. The entire personality is a connected, integral unity, independent of the biological individual. An individual is a unity of biological, biochemical processes, organ systems, their functions, they do not play a role in the socialization and achievements of the individual.

Personality, as a non-biological unity, arises in the course of life and certain activities. Therefore, what emerges is the structure of the individual and a personal structure independent of him.

Personality has a hierarchical structure of factors formed historical course events. It manifests itself through differentiation different types activities and their restructuring, in the process secondary, higher connections arise.

The personality behind A. N. Leontiev is characterized as a wide variety of actual relationships of the subject that determine his life. This activity forms the foundation. But not all a person’s activities determine his life and build his personality. People do many different actions and deeds that have no direct relation to the development of the personal structure and may simply be external, not truly affecting the person and not contributing to its structure.

The second thing through which a personality is characterized is the level of development of connections between secondary actions, that is, the formation of motives and their hierarchy.

The third characteristic that denotes personality is the type of structure; it can be monovertex or polyvertex. Not every motive for a person is the goal of his life, is not his pinnacle, and cannot withstand the entire load of the pinnacle of personality. This structure is an inverted pyramid, where the top, together with the leading life goal, is at the bottom and bears all the burden associated with achieving this goal. Depending on the main life goal set, it will depend on whether it can withstand the entire structure and the actions associated with it and the experience gained.

The basic motive of the individual must be defined in such a way as to support the entire structure. The motive sets the activity; based on this, the personality structure can be defined as a hierarchy of motives, a stable structure of the main motivational actions.

A.N. Leontyev highlights in personality structure three more basic parameters: the breadth of a person’s relationship with the world, the level of their hierarchy and their joint structure. The psychologist also identified one interesting aspect theories as the rebirth of personality, and an analysis of what is happening to it at this time. A person masters his behavior, new ways of resolving motivational conflicts that are associated with consciousness and volitional properties are formed. An ideal motive that is independent and lies outside the vectors can resolve the conflict and act as a mediating mechanism in mastering behavior. external field, which is capable of subordinating actions with antagonistic directions external motives. Only in the imagination can a person create something that will help him master his own behavior.

Personality structure according to Platonov

In K.K. Platonov the personality owns hierarchical structure, in which there are four substructures: biological conditioning, forms of display, social experience and orientation. This structure is depicted in the form of a pyramid, the foundation of which is formed by biochemical, genetic and physiological characteristics of an individual as an organism, in general, those properties that give life and support human life. These include the following: biological characteristics, such as gender, age, pathological changes depending on morphological changes brain

The second substructure is forms of reflection, depending on mental cognitive processes- attention, thinking, memory, sensations and perception. Their development gives a person more possibilities be more active, more observant and better perceive the surrounding reality.

The third substructure contains social features a person, his knowledge, skills that he acquired through personal experience through communication with people.

The fourth substructure is formed by a person’s orientation. It is determined through the beliefs, worldview, desires, aspirations, ideals and drives of a person, which he uses in his work, work or favorite pastime.

Elements of the social structure of personality.

Individuality. Approaches to study.

The concepts of “person”, “individual”, “personality”, “individuality”. The problem of studying personality in sociology is one of the central ones, since to understand the essence social phenomena It is extremely important to understand what drives the actions of each individual person. Individual behavior represents the basis for understanding the life of an entire social group or society. In the course of studying personality, it is necessary to answer questions about the formation of personality, the place occupied by the personality in social space, the inclusion of the personality in social groups, the personality’s perception of cultural norms, and deviations from them. The quality of life and the existence of civilization will depend on how much we advance in understanding ourselves and others. Sociology answers the question of how the relationship between an individual and society is built, which predetermines human behavior.

Like all material objects, society includes an individual person as its initial element. H man- this is common generic concept, distinguishing a rational being from all other objects of nature, a biosocial category. An individual person in his natural characteristics acts as a subject of research medical sciences(anatomy, physiology) and psychology. A single representative of any social community in sociology it is customary to understand how individual. It means a further indivisible particle of society, a “social atom”. Individual person is considered not only as an individual representative of the human race, as a generic concept, but also as a member of some social group.

At the same time, a person also acts as a bearer of social qualities and properties, a certain combination of which defines him as personality; It is in this concept that man acts as the initial element of social structure. So, today in sociology the concept of “personality” is used in two meanings: 1) to designate the individual as a subject of relationships and conscious activity; 2) to designate a sustainable system socially significant features characterizing the individual as a member of society. Personality is the source of social life, its real carrier, doer. Here are used social characteristics, showing her belonging to any social group (personality of a worker, student, businessman, etc.).

There are similarities between the concepts of “personality” and “individuality”, but there are also differences. Concept individuality usually associated with such epithets as “bright”, “creative”. Individuality is defined as a set of traits that distinguish one individual from another. Individuality can be defined as a set of traits that distinguish one individual from another different levels: biological, psychological, social, etc.
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Individuality is not just the “atomicity” of a person, but rather a characteristic of his uniqueness and originality. In individuality, originality is valued, in personality - relative autonomy. The autonomy of the individual was highly valued by outstanding philosophers, for example, I. Kant meant by this quality a person’s ability, thanks to a certain life principles to be “master of yourself.”

Personality is an integral social quality that is formed in an individual in the process of his inclusion in the system of social relations, his mastery of the material and spiritual products of human culture. Features of the physical and neuropsychological organization of an individual are one of the conditions for the formation of personality, but its essence is determined by social factors. Individual, unique, unique, and generally significant traits are intertwined in a personality. The individual, as an active element of the social system, exercises freedom of choice, creates projects for his life, sets goals and mobilizes to achieve them. own will and activities, achieves constant changes in objective social structures, in the system of social relations. In turn, objective social reality determines the direction and content of the process of personal self-creation. Basic concepts of personality. Z. Freud's concept. S. Freud (1856-1939) believed that 90% of the activity of the human brain reflects animal instincts and fears, and only 10% contains acquired knowledge. The features of the biological heritage are complemented by the innate vital needs of a person (needs for food, activity, safety, etc.). The social arose in man along with the tribal system. Then, with the advent of classes, human social behavior becomes more complex. 3. Freud viewed a person as a system of needs, and society as a system of prohibitions, taboos. The unconscious (sexual) aspirations of an individual form its potential and the main source of activity, and set the motivation for its actions. Due to the impossibility of satisfying them due to social normative restrictions, a person is forced to constantly seek a compromise between a deep drive and a socially acceptable form of its implementation.

Freud created a three-level model of personality: 1) the lowest layer (It, or Id), represented by unconscious impulses and “ancestral memories”; 2) middle layer (I, or Ego); 3) the upper layer (Super-I, or Super-Ego) - the norms of society perceived by a person. The most aggressive layers are the id and the superego. They “attack” the human psyche, due to which he is constantly in conflict with the social environment. As society develops upper layer(The superego) inevitably increases, and therefore all human history is viewed by Freud as a history of increasing psychosis.

Behavioral concept. The behavioral concept views activity as a system of reactions to various stimuli. What do they think? B. Skinner, J.Homans, human behavior is conditioned and controlled social environment through language, customs, social institutions, media, etc. Interacting with other people, an individual in any social group fights for his interests. If his behavior is encouraged, then he will be loyal to others and to the social system; if he does not receive recognition, he will behave differently. But every person strives to avoid punishment and receive rewards, ᴛ.ᴇ. behavioral sociology The main role is assigned to the system of incentives, drawing a direct analogy between the behavior of humans and animals.

Any “good” can be used as incentives: knowledge, power, comfort, respect, fame, money, loyalty of authorities, etc. The more valuable a reward is to a person, the more often he will demonstrate the corresponding behavior. At the same time, the more often a person experiences rewarding influences from others, the less valuable each similar subsequent action becomes for him. Voluntary interaction between partners exists as long as each of them believes that he is winning, ᴛ.ᴇ. that his “contribution” to the situation is less than the reward he receives.

Activity approach. Within the framework of the cultural-historical school L.S.Vygotsky ( 1896-1934) there was an understanding of man as an active being, pursuing his own goals and objectives, whose behavior and actions cannot be explained only from the point of view of rationality. At the root of personality lies the richness of a person’s connections with the world, manifested in objective activity, communication, and cognition. The central category of analysis, which provides the key to understanding personality, is activity. It is considered in structural and functional aspects: structural clarifies the structure of an activity, defines its elements, functional focuses on how the activity is carried out.

So, the study of a person’s activity comes down to the following: 1) determining the dominant type of activity (professional, educational, entertaining, etc.); 2) clarification of the principle of carrying out activities - forced or free, alienated or non-alienated; 3) studying the nature of the connection between different types of activities (harmonious or disharmonious), the degree of their hierarchization; 4) study of the level of implementation of each type of activity. None of the above options for understanding personality exhausts this phenomenon entirely; each of them considers its individual manifestations.

Status-role concepts of personality. Role theories personalities ( J. Mead, R.Linton, R. Dahrendorf) study the processes of an individual’s mastery of socially assigned functions-roles in a system of social interactions. In the process of activity, a person interacts with various social groups. There is practically no such situation when a person completely belongs to any one group: a person is a member of a family, a team of an enterprise, or a public organization. In each group he ranks different position in relation to other members of the group. For example, the director of an enterprise, coming to a sports society, will occupy a low position there. Social status defined as the rank or position of an individual in a group. The social organization of society must be presented in the form of a complex, interconnected system of social statuses occupied by individuals as members of society, citizens of the state.

To analyze the degree of inclusion of an individual in various groups and positions, ĸᴏᴛᴏᴩᴏᴇ he occupies in them, the concept of “social role” is also used. Social role- this is the behavior expected from someone who has a certain social status: you can name the status of children, the status of soldiers, officials, etc. A person may have big number statuses, and those around him have the right to expect him to perform roles in accordance with these statuses. In other words, status is a set of rights, privileges and responsibilities, and a role is an action within this set. Cultural norms are acquired mainly through training: a person becomes familiar with the customs, moral norms and laws characteristic of the status of a given role. All social statuses can be divided into two basic types: prescribed(heritable characteristics - race, gender, social origin) and achieved statuses and roles(education, merits, position). Most fully reflects social role personality in unity with its social position concept “social status of the individual”.

Elements of the social structure of personality. Personality can be considered as integrity biological, psychological And social structures. More related to the social structure of an individual is its psychological structure, which includes the totality of emotions, experiences of the individual, its volitional aspirations, memory, abilities, etc. Social structure personality includes a set of objective and subjective social properties of the individual, formed and functioning in the process of his various activities under the influence of the communities to which he belongs. The most important characteristic of the social structure of an individual is his activity, understood as self-activity and as interaction with other people, which is captured by the concept of “subject of activity”. An analysis of the structure of a personality without an analysis of the forms of its activity is impossible.

In the social structure of the individual, the following elements can be distinguished: 1) Lifestyle, or such activities, as labor, socio-political, cultural-cognitive, family and everyday life (work is perceived as the central link in the personality structure); 2) objective social needs personalities that determine her behavior; 3) ability to creative activity , knowledge, skills(they distinguish a mature personality from an individual at the stage of formation); 4) degree of mastery cultural values society, ᴛ.ᴇ. spiritual world personalities; 5) moral standards and principles, which guide the personality; 6) beliefs- the deepest principles that determine the main line of human behavior and form the core of the personality structure.

So, the personality structure is a totality, a hierarchy and a certain interaction of various elements. The social structure of an individual is constantly changing, since his social environment is constantly changing ("close" - relatives, friends, acquaintances, etc. and "distant" - society as a whole). The person receives new information, new knowledge that turns into beliefs. In turn, beliefs determine the nature of a person’s actions; in this regard, socialization should be understood as a change in the social structure of an individual in accordance with the requirements of society. Personality is subject to both progressive and regressive changes, up to decay, which is characterized by the concept of destruction, and lead to deviations and deviant behavior.

Dispositional concept and personality structure. The importance of ideological and value-normative factors in the life of an individual is explained by the dispositional (Latin disposition) theory of self-regulation of an individual’s social behavior. It developed on the basis of combining two approaches - sociological, showing the social conditionality of an individual’s activity, and socio-psychological, describing the motivational structure of an individual. The founders of this theory were American sociologists F.V.Znanetsky And W. Thomas, developed Russian - V.A.Yadov And D.N.Uznadze. Disposition presupposes that an individual has a readiness to respond effectively to the macro- and microenvironment, to a changing situation. Socio-psychological prerequisites and the diversity of an individual’s relationships to the conditions of his activity were identified as a system-forming feature.

V.A. Yadov divides dispositions into higher and lower. The higher ones regulate the general direction of behavior and include: 1) the concept of life and value orientations; 2) generalized social attitudes towards typical social objects and situations, 3) situational social attitudes as a predisposition to perception and behavior in given specific conditions. Lower dispositions - behavior in certain areas of activity, the direction of actions in typical situations. Higher personal dispositions, being a product of general social conditions and reflecting the main needs of the individual, actively influence lower dispositions. In system value orientations a central axis must be identified, organizing the hierarchy of values and personality structure: this “life position of the individual”. It captures a person’s stable orientation towards certain values and is present in every person, even those who are not aware of it.

Social typology of personality. One of the central tasks of sociology is the development of a personal typology. Studying various groups of people and their social functions, sociology is interested in their generalized, typical characteristics. The problem is to determine the traits of a certain abstract personality that most fully expresses the essence of a given social group. Social personality type- a product of a complex interweaving of historical, cultural and socio-economic conditions of human life.

In sociology there are various options social typology of personality. So, M.Weber takes specificity as the basis for typing social action, the degree of its rationality, K. Marx- formational and class affiliation. E. Fromm(1900-1980) defined the social personality type as the dominant type of character that is inherent in most members of the same culture, in contrast to the individual character, which varies among people. The importance of social character, E. Fromm believes, is that it allows you to most effectively adapt to the requirements of society and gain a sense of safety and security. Analyzing the history of mankind, E. Fromm identifies several types of social character: receptive(passive), exploitative, cumulative, market.

In modern sociology, personality typology based on value orientations has become widespread: 1) traditionalists are focused mainly on the values of duty, order, discipline, and obedience to the law, and their desire for self-realization and independence is less pronounced; 2) at idealists a strongly expressed critical attitude towards traditional norms, independence and disdain for authority, and an attitude towards self-development at any cost; 3) for frustrated personality type is characteristic low self-esteem, depressed, depressed state of health, feeling thrown out of the flow of life; 4) realists combine the desire for self-realization with developed sense duty and responsibility, healthy skepticism with self-discipline and self-control; 5) hedonistic materialists are focused on obtaining pleasure: this pursuit of the pleasures of life most often takes the form of satisfying consumer desires.

In sociology there are also modal, ideal And basic personality types. Modal- the type that actually predominates in a given society or in social groups Oh. Ideal the personality type is not tied to specific conditions, for example, a comprehensively and harmoniously developed personality in K. Marx or ʼʼ new personʼʼ E. Fromm. Basic type the best way meets needs modern stage social development. Associated with the basic personality type is a system of socio-legal and moral norms, reflected in constitutions, laws, public consciousness, different types of worldviews, etc. The social type of personality is a reflection of how the social system shapes a person’s value orientations and through them influences his actual behavior.

So, market relations contribute to the development of pragmatism, cunning, prudence, selfishness, careerism and forced cooperation. And the sphere of family and personal life forms emotionality and heartfelt affection. At the same time, the reverse mechanism is also well known in sociology - the influence of personal qualities on the emergence and development of social (including economic) relations of a certain type. M. Weber argued that it was changes in the sphere of consciousness, the restructuring of value orientations and attitudes towards work that gave impetus to the emergence of capitalism. A complex of certain personal qualities can accelerate social development, or, on the contrary, it can hinder it or make it completely impossible.

Foreign sociology studies the social characters characteristic of representatives of certain social groups: the type of “organizational person”, “model personality”, basic personality type, etc.
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There are applied developments (typology) that serve as instructions for managers. An example is the popular work “Types of People and Business”. Its authors answer the question of how sixteen personality types determine success at work. Some foreign researchers six basic types personalities: theoretical, economic, political, social, aesthetic And religious. The basis for identifying these types is the prevailing social orientations. For example, the type of economic person is characterized by the search for material well-being.

The works of such Russian thinkers as N.A. Berdyaev, I.A.Ilyin, N.K. Mikhailovsky, V.V.Rozanov, A.F. Lazursky, M.M. Rubinstein, V.S. Soloviev, S.L.Frank, and etc.
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In modern Russian sociology, concepts in which personality types are carriers of characteristics of certain communities (classes, social groups) are widespread. The stratification of society makes the formation of different personality types inevitable (the personality of a worker, an intellectual, a manager, a doctor, an engineer, etc.). There are many national personality types.

In modern Russia, the concept has developed marginal(borderline) type of personality who has broken with his social environment, but has not adapted to the new one. Today, a radical breakdown of the previously established personal-typological structure of society is taking place. The social statuses of social groups are changing and social types personalities. The formation of a new personal typology occurs with great difficulty; new basic personality types have not yet been fully formed. The person of the trading type, the speculator, has gained a certain popularity. The media and courts note the widespread prevalence of the mafia type of personality, which is fraught with the most severe consequences for society.

Topic 4. Lecture 2. Socialization of personality. (2 hours).

Elements of the social structure of personality. - concept and types. Classification and features of the category "Elements of the social structure of the individual." 2017, 2018.