Are individuals born or made? What is this concept in general, and how is it interpreted by the science of man - psychology? Is every person a person, and if not, how to become one? Read about all this in the article.

William James is considered to be the founder of personality psychology. He owns the philosophical theory of pragmatism, from which many modern trends in psychology have emerged.

James is the first transpersonal psychologist. According to his theory, personality is the interaction of instincts and habits with the volitional qualities of a person.

However, the very term "personality" belongs to N. M. Karamzin. In his understanding, a person is the master of fate, life, a spiritually rich and original person who is responsible for his actions. Based on this, it can be argued that a person is not born, but becomes.

• Personality is a product of the social in man. At birth, a person has only a biological element, but immediately begins his formation as a person, that is, he assimilates social experience.
• However, there are many approaches to the interpretation of the phenomenon of personality. You can read more about this in the article.
• In psychology, it is customary to distinguish the inner and outer world of the individual. You can read about the first element in the article. The outside world means the relationship of the individual with society, the social environment, education and formation as a subject of society.

In order to become a person, you need to make a lot of effort:

• master speech;
• with its help - motor, intellectual and sociocultural skills.

The formation of a person as a person is the result of his socialization. The more a person perceives and assimilates information, value orientations, traditions, the more developed personality he will become.

The concept of personality is closely related to the concept of the individual and individuality:

• An individual is a person as a representative of his species.
• Personality is the totality of a person's unique characteristics.

But what is interesting: a person can be an individual, but not be a person at the same time. Each person is unique, but not everyone becomes a person.

Thus, if we speak of a person as a person, then we mean a social element in our nature. While when discussing a person as an individual, the biological element plays an important role.

The process of personality formation is a holistic and interconnected process of formation, interests, worldview, beliefs and ideals of a particular person.

Personality structure

The structure of personality includes orientation, temperament, character, features of the flow of cognitive processes and feelings.

Personal orientation

It consists of:

• interests,
• tendencies,
• needs,
• motives,
• ideals.

Orientation determines the activity of the individual and the levels of its development. The main component of the orientation of the personality is a worldview (a system of views on the development of society, nature, consciousness, beliefs). You can read more about this element in the article.

Temperament

This is a set of individual personality traits that characterize the dynamic and emotional side of its activities and behavior. You can read more about temperaments.

Character

A complex of individual, most pronounced, stable traits. Through them, a person's attitude to reality is manifested. Behavior depends on character.

Capabilities

These are the properties of the psyche and its systems, expressed in different ways. The success of the development and implementation of activities depends on them.

Motivational-need sphere as the basis of personality

Needs - the motivating force of the activity of the individual.

• Need - the need of the body in certain conditions, without which life is impossible.
• A motive is an objectified need.
• The set of motives aimed at the goal is motivation.

The need to know the world is the most important for a person. It releases a person from the captivity of fears, misunderstandings and superstitions, allows you to be the creator of life.

Other spiritual needs are no less significant for the individual:

• in aesthetic pleasure;
• in labor;
• in social activities;
• in communication.

The development of needs (from the lowest to the highest) is a condition for the development of the personality.

Aspects of personality

• the properties of the person himself, or the intra-individual aspect;
• features of the interaction of the individual with other people, or the interindividual aspect;
• the impact of personality on other people, or the meta-individual aspect.

Through the analysis of these aspects, one can characterize the inner world of a person.

A person is a representative of a particular society or social group, engaged in a specific type of activity, aware of his attitude to the world around him and having certain individual psychological characteristics.

Difficulties in understanding a person as a person

The complexity of a clear representation and description of the phenomenon of personality lies in the ambiguity of the theory. The following problem areas can be identified:

• Often a person is identified with an individual.
• Sometimes a person is called a part of the inner world or features of the mental structure.
• The personality is regarded as a certain component, which includes something given from birth, and some unattainable ideal, and a set of social relations.
• How many sciences that study a person and researchers who ask this question exist, so many definitions of the term "personality" exist.

The personality is characterized by the system of its conscious relations. Recently, it has become popular to talk not only about the influence of social and biological factors, but also about the role of the situation as a deterrent element of the personality.

Afterword

Despite the fact that most scientists are of the opinion that individuals are made, not born, the question of whether all people are individuals continues to gather controversy and ambiguous opinions around itself.

• The questions of whether a child can be considered a person are controversial, although humanistic pedagogy claims that, of course, it is possible and necessary.
• Just as controversial is the understanding of a mentally ill person or a criminal as a person.
• Don't the phrases "asocial personality" or "degraded personality" look ridiculous?

As a result, everyone chooses which side he belongs to in these matters. In my opinion, each person (especially important for young children during education) can be treated as a potential personality, that is, they can be given a few points head start. However, this is possible until the person proves otherwise.

Introduction

1.1 General idea of ​​personality

2.2 Foreign theories

Conclusion

Literature

Introduction

Relevance course work. The upbringing of a growing person as the formation of a developed personality is one of the main tasks of modern society.

It is difficult to find a field of activity in which the use of psychological knowledge and methods would not be closely connected with the need to take into account the integrity of the individual as a subject and object of psychological influence. In psychological practice, it is impossible to "work" with only one part of the personality, a separate process, without affecting the entire personality and without changing anything in the system of its relations, in motives, experiences.

The personality is based on its structure - the connection and interaction of relatively stable components (sides) of the personality: abilities, temperament, character, volitional qualities, emotions and motivation.

Views on the psychological problems of the individual were formed by representatives of different schools and directions of domestic and foreign psychology. In modern psychology, there are seven main approaches to the study of personality. Each approach has its own theory, its own ideas about the properties and structure of the personality, its own methods for measuring them.

Personality theory is a set of hypotheses, or assumptions about the nature and mechanisms of personality development. Personality theory attempts not only to explain but also to predict human behavior.

Over the past century, psychology has become a developed field of knowledge and practice for many thousands of specialists. Internal specialization, coexistence within the framework of a single science of various schools and directions - all this undoubtedly testifies to the maturity of psychology as a science, the representatives of which, however, are still united by a keen interest in the problem of personality, a problem that has been and remains fundamental, key.

As an object of study, personality is unique in its complexity, since personality includes many components and processes.

The problem of personality is one of the central problems in theoretical and applied psychology. Numerous studies of domestic and foreign psychologists are devoted to various aspects of this problem, however, the complexity of the mechanisms of its formation and development determines the fact that with an abundance of scientific literature on the formation of personality, we are still far from a complete solution of issues related to the determinants of personal development and the main patterns of this process.

In psychology, there are different approaches to understanding the laws of personality development. However, the points of view on what laws the development of the personality is subject to differ significantly. These differences relate to the understanding of the driving forces of development, in particular the importance of society and various social groups for the development of the individual.

Personality is one of those phenomena that are rarely interpreted in the same way by two different authors. All definitions of personality are somehow conditioned by two opposing views on its development. From the point of view of some, each personality is formed and develops in accordance with its innate qualities and abilities, while the social environment plays a very insignificant role. Representatives of another point of view completely reject the innate internal traits and abilities of the individual, believing that the individual is a product that is completely formed in the course of social experience. Obviously, these are extreme points of view of the process of personality formation.

At the same time, in recent decades, the trend towards an integrated, holistic consideration of personality from the standpoint of different theories and approaches has been increasing.

Personality science is a discipline that seeks to lay the groundwork for a better understanding of human personality through the use of a variety of research strategies.

object term paper is personality in terms of psychology.

Item- understanding of the personality structure and personality theory of both domestic and foreign psychologists.

Target term paper: to study the prevailing in psychology ideas about the structure of personality.

Tasks:

1. Consider a general idea of ​​personality.
2. To reveal the essence of the concept of personality structure.
3. Consider the domestic approach to the study of personality structure.
4. Describe foreign theories.

Hypothesis. The structure of the mental life of the individual is formed by the correlation of mental processes, mental states and mental properties of the individual.

Chapter 1. Theoretical analysis of the concept of personality in psychology

1.1. General idea of ​​personality

In modern psychology there is no single understanding of personality. However, most researchers believe that a personality is an in vivo forming and individually unique set of features that determine the way (style) of thinking of a given person, the structure of her feelings and behavior.

In domestic psychology, personality is studied from two points of view:

• from the position of introducing the personality principle into the methodology and theory of psychology. It means that all mental processes - attention, memory, thinking - are active, selective, i.e. depend on the characteristics of the individual (motivation, interests, goals, character).
• from the point of view of studying the personality itself - its structure, features of formation and development, self-awareness and self-esteem.

Personality, according to Leontiev, is an internal moment of activity. The child becomes a personality only as a subject of social relations. The concept of personality is usually compared with the concept of the individual. "The concept of "individual" expresses the indivisibility, integrity and peculiarity of a particular subject, which arise already at the early stages of the development of life. An individual is a product of phylogenetic and ontogenetic development. Personality is a relatively late product of the socio-historical and ontogenetic development of a person; it is "produced", created by social relations into which the individual enters in his activity.

The unit of personality analysis is personal meaning as a reflection in the mind of a person of the relationship of motive to goal. Personal meaning is usually correlated with the concept of meaning. A.N. Leontiev argues that meaning cannot be used as a unit of personality analysis, since reality is reflected in it in a form independent of the individual, personality. "Meaning is that generalization of reality that is crystallized, fixed in its sensual carrier - usually in a word or in a phrase. This is an ideal, spiritual form of crystallization of social experience ..."

Raising the question of the connection between consciousness and activity required the disclosure of how and where this connection is formed. Personality, according to Rubinstein, is the basis of this connection. Behind the seeming simplicity of posing the question of the connection between consciousness and activity lies the difficulty of overcoming the separation of consciousness from the personality and substituting it in the place of personality.

Personality as a whole, according to S.L. Rubinstein, is expressed through the trinity: what a person wants (needs, attitudes), what he can (abilities, talents), what he himself is (needs and motives fixed in character). If earlier (in the 30-40s) the concept of personality was used to implement the principle of the unity of consciousness and activity, then in the 50s in the works "Being and Consciousness", "Principles and Ways of Development of Psychology" it correlates with the concept of determinism . With the help of this principle, it was necessary to show the specifics of mental activity, without disconnecting from connections with other phenomena of the material world. The essence of determinism is defined by Rubinstein through the dialectic of external and internal. Personality was considered as the highest level of organization of matter, as a regulator of consciousness in relation to activity. Personality and its mental properties are both the result and the prerequisite of activity.

An important point in the study of personality, according to Rubinstein, is the features of its inclusion in a wider context - not only in activity, but also in life. "The essence of the human personality," says Rubinstein, "finds its final expression in the fact that it has its own history."

According to L.I. Bozhovich, personality is interpreted as an integral psychological system that arises in the course of a person's life and performs a certain function in his relationship with the environment. Being accomplished on the basis of the assimilation of social forms of consciousness and behavior by a person, the formation of a personality frees him from direct subordination to the influences of the environment and allows a person not only to adapt to them, but to consciously transform both this environment and himself.

Psychologists V.I. Slobodchikov and E.I. Isaev give the following definition of personality: “Personality is the integrity of subjective reality and the way of being of a person in the system of relationships with others; personality is a subject freely defined in the space of culture and time of history.

According to Z. Freud, a person is a biological individuality closed in itself, living in society and experiencing its influences, but opposing it. It turns out that the source of personality activity is subconscious drives: sexual and death drives, which manifest themselves in a fatal way. Accordingly, the meaning of life consists in the satisfaction of these initial biological drives.

GW Allport formulated the well-known definition of personality as follows: "personality is a dynamic organization of those psychophysical systems in an individual that determine his behavior and thinking." Thus, he viewed personality as a constantly changing dynamic system.

In a broad sense, a person's personality is an integral integrity of biogenic, sociogenic and psychogenic elements.

The biological basis of personality covers the nervous system, the glandular system, metabolic processes (hunger, thirst, sexual impulse), gender differences, anatomical features, the processes of maturation and development of the organism.

The social "dimension" of the personality is determined by the influence of the culture and structure of the communities in which the person was brought up and in which he participates. The most important sociogenic components of the personality are the social roles performed by it in various communities (family, school, peer group), as well as the subjective "I", that is, the idea of ​​\u200b\u200bthe own person created under the influence of others, and the reflected "I", that is, a complex of ideas about ourselves, created from the ideas of other people about ourselves.

Personality is characterized, first of all, as a system of human relations to the surrounding reality. In analysis, this system can be divided into an infinite number of relationships of the individual to various objects of reality, but no matter how partial in this sense these relationships may be, each of them always remains personal. The most important and defining personality is its relationship to people, which are at the same time relationships.

The main characteristics of the personality are: activity, stability, integrity. Under activity is understood as the ability of a person to produce socially significant transformations of the environment, manifested in communication, joint activities, creativity and self-development . Sustainability- this is the relative constancy of personal properties.

Most psychologists believe that a person is not born as a person, but becomes. However, in modern psychology there is no unified theory of the formation and development of personality.

Psychology takes into account that a person is not only an object of social relations, not only experiences social influences, but refracts and transforms them, since gradually a person begins to act as a set of internal conditions through which the external influences of society are refracted. Thus, a person is not only an object and product of social relations, but also an active subject of activity, communication, consciousness, self-consciousness.

Personality is a social concept, it expresses everything that is supranatural, historical in a person. Personality is not innate, but arises as a result of cultural and social development.

1.2 The concept of personality structure

The structure of a personality is a system of ideas about a personality that generalizes the procedural-hierarchical substructures of a personality with the subordination of lower substructures to higher ones, including the substructures of abilities and character superimposed on them.

In understanding the structure of personality, it is necessary to adhere to the following requirements of an integrated approach.

Firstly, the structural organization of the personality is carried out on two interrelated grounds: on the basis of activity (as a system-forming factor in the development of the individual) and on the basis of social relations that it enters into in the course of its life activity.

Secondly, the subsystems of activity are at the same time its stages or stages, successively replacing and conditioning each other. Together, these stages form a single process of activity.

Thirdly, they also act as subsystems of the personality itself as a dynamic and self-developing integrity.

Fourthly, the structural elements of activity are included in the system of its social relations not completely, but only partially, mediating the links between the subjects and parties of these relations.

The first (“activity”) basis of personality structuring is used mainly in psychology, and the second (“relational”) basis is used in sociological science. An integrated approach allows you to combine both bases into a single structural and logical scheme.

The psychologist considers this structure from the point of view of the mental properties and qualities of a person. On the one hand, he singles out in it an “incentive” component that expresses a person’s attitude to his life and to the world as a whole (the orientation of the personality), and, on the other hand, an “executive” component that constitutes the conditions for the successful implementation of his activity (ability).

According to Z. Freud, a personality consists of three main systems: id (innate states and instincts of a person, which are a source of mental energy), ego (an executive organ of a personality that acts as an intermediary between the instinctive demands of the body and environmental conditions; its main purpose is the preservation and reproduction of the body) , superego (developing system of the individual, performing the functions of conscience as a moral self-control and representing the traditional values ​​and ideals of society). In a certain sense, the personality, functioning as a whole, includes the id as a biological component, the ego as a psychological component, and the superego as a social component.

According to the author of the analytical theory K. Jung, personality consists of several differentiated systems. The most important of them are the following: ego (conscious mind, center of consciousness), personal unconscious (individual experiences, suppressed and forced out of the sphere of consciousness) and its complexes (the “core” of the personal unconscious, an organized group of feelings and instincts), collective unconscious (leading system , acting as a repository of hidden memories inherited from ancestors) and its archetypes (universal thought forms or ideas that make up the content of the collective unconscious), attitudes (introversion and extraversion), functions (thinking, feeling, sensation and intuition) and self (the center of all personality).

The followers of Freud - E. Fromm, K. Horney, G. Sullivan and A. Maslow, a representative of humanistic psychology, understand the structure of personality somewhat differently. E. Fromm's personality structure is determined by existential needs (needs to establish connections, to overcome, in roots, in identity, in a system of views and devotion). The basis of personality, according to K. Horney, is neurotic needs, including the need for love and trust, for a leading partner, for limitations, for power, for exploitation, for social recognition, for self-admiration, for ambition, for self-sufficiency and independence, in perfection). In the structure of personality, G. Sullivan identifies such components as dynamisms (the smallest energy units of the psyche), personifications (individual images of oneself or others) and cognitive processes (experiences and representations).

In the humanistic psychology of A. Maslow (1908-1970), the structure of the personality is considered depending on its basic needs. These are physiological needs, the needs for security and protection, for belonging and love, for recognition and self-respect, for self-actualization and personal self-improvement. Meta-needs rise above them as existential values ​​(needs for knowledge and understanding, aesthetic needs).

In Russian literature, there are also various interpretations of the personality structure. The well-known domestic psychologist K.K. Platonov proposed a hierarchical structure of the personality, taking as a basis the relationship of biological and social, innate and acquired, procedural and content.

However, in the scheme proposed above, the personality structure includes the biological properties of a person, which contradicts the generally accepted view. According to another domestic psychologist A.N. Leontiev, the biologically determined prerequisites of a person (temperament and character, abilities and knowledge) should not be included in its structure. Personality first appears only in human society, and a person begins his history as an individual endowed with certain natural properties and abilities.

Therefore, temperament and character, abilities and knowledge are properties of the individual rather than personality. An individual is a genotypic formation, the formation of which occurs throughout life. Personality is a relatively late product of the socio-historical and ontogenetic development of man. A person is not born, one becomes in the process of carrying out activities in society.

Given the specific scientific data about a person that modern sciences have, we can distinguish three inextricably interconnected and interdependent levels of personality:

- biological, represented by certain genetically determined, psychophysiological inclinations: natural needs, predisposition to certain types of activities and behavior, to the development of intelligence, thinking, speech, etc.;

- spiritual, acting as an internal subjective reality, the ideal world of a person, his "I". More often this level is defined as psychological. However, the human psyche and spirituality are different concepts. Spirituality is formed as a result of the interaction of psychophysiological and sociocultural components;

- social, actually personal, includes those personality traits that are developed in the process of its participation in the life of society, social groups; value orientations, the totality of social knowledge, skills, habits, etc. necessary to perform numerous social roles.

Personality, therefore, appears as a structural integrity of psychobiological, spiritual and social components. And the whole set of properties due to these three above

levels of the human personality, arising and functioning in the process of its diverse life activity, under the influence of those social groups in which it is included, constitutes the structure of the personality.

As elements of the social structure of the individual, the following can be distinguished:

a) activity as a way of existence of the individual;

b) abilities and social needs determined by society;

c) the spiritual world of a person, as a set of scientific, aesthetic, moral, religious, everyday practical, and other knowledge; moral values, ideals, beliefs, interests, etc.; all the rational and emotional aspects of human life, its perceived and vaguely felt facets, as well as many other aspects, the state of a person’s spiritual life;

d) moral norms, principles, beliefs, attitudes that guide a person in his life;

e) skills, abilities.

So, in order to get an idea of ​​the variety of meanings of the concept of personality in psychology, let us turn to the views of some recognized theorists in this field. For example, Gordon Allport defined personality as what an individual really is - an internal "something" that determines the nature of a person's interaction with the world. And in the understanding of Erik Erickson, an individual goes through a series of psychosocial crises during his life and his personality appears as a function of the results of the crisis. George Kelly considered personality as a unique way of understanding life experience inherent in each individual. A completely different concept was proposed by Raymond Cattell, according to whom, the core of the personality structure is formed by sixteen initial features.

Despite some points of convergence, definitions of personality vary significantly among different authors. Most theoretical definitions of personality contain the following general provisions:

Most definitions emphasize individuality, or individual differences. Personality contains such special qualities, thanks to which this person differs from all other people. Moreover, it is only by examining individual differences that one can understand which specific qualities or combinations of qualities differentiate one personality from another.

In most definitions, a person appears as a kind of hypothetical structure or organization. An individual's behavior that is directly observable, at least in part, is seen as organized or integrated by the individual.

Most definitions emphasize the importance of looking at the personality in relation to the individual's life history or developmental prospects. Personality is characterized in the evolutionary process as subject to the influence of internal and external factors, including genetic and biological predisposition, social experience and changing environmental circumstances.

If we summarize the definitions of the concept of "personality" that exist within the framework of various psychological theories, then we can say that personality is traditionally understood as a synthesis of all the characteristics of an individual into a unique structure that is determined and changed as a result of adaptation to a constantly changing environment and is largely shaped by the reactions of others. on the behavior of this individual.

Chapter 2

2.1 Domestic approach to the study of personality structure

Each personological concept deals with relatively unchanging characteristics that people exhibit in different societies and at different times. These stable characteristics constitute the basic building blocks of the human psyche, like atoms or cells in the natural sciences. A simple example of a structural concept is the personality trait. A trait is seen as a stable quality and a person's tendency to behave in a certain way in different circumstances. Gordon Allport, Raymond Cattell, G. Eysenck, who studied personality traits, believed that it is better to present the structure of personality in terms of the traits that underlie behavior.

Others prefer to describe personality structure using the concept of personality type. The personality type is described using a combination of various traits, forming an independent category with clearly defined boundaries. (Introverts and extroverts).

Among domestic works on the theory of personality, its structure in psychology, the works of K.K. Platonova, A.G. Kovalev and V.N. Myasishchev.

The structure of personality according to Platonov is based on the concept of a dynamic functional structure of personality, let's consider it in more detail.

The dynamic functional psychological structure of personality has four substructures. Their selection is determined by the following criteria:

1) the necessity and sufficiency to include in them all the elements (features) of the personality;

2) the generally accepted classifications of personality traits and psychological concepts that have practically justified themselves;

3) the inverse proportionality of the gradients of social and biological conditioning of both individual personality traits and the substructures that unite them;

4) the specificity of hierarchically related types of formation of each of these substructures.

The first substructure combines orientation, attitudes, and moral personality traits. The elements (features) of the personality included in this substructure do not have direct natural inclinations and reflect the individually refracted class social consciousness. This substructure is formed through education. She is socially conditioned. Briefly, it can be called a substructure of personality orientation. It can be said in another way - these are attitudes that have become personality traits.

Taken as a whole, orientation in turn includes several hierarchically connected forms. This is primarily attraction as the most primitive biological form of orientation. It is clearly expressed in its specificity, but fuzzy in content, it is a vague need for something. Genetically the earliest and the simplest in terms of its physiological mechanisms, this form is included in the structure of all subsequent ones.

Desire is already a fully realized need and attraction to something quite definite. It can be passive, but when included in its structure, the volitional component becomes an aspiration.

Interest is a cognitive form of focus on objects. Genetically, it is based on an unconditioned orienting reflex associated with emotion, but in a person, interests always develop on the basis of a conditioned reflex of the second signaling system and in a complex manner, becoming curiosity. Interest may be passive, but when the volitional component of orientation, striving, is included in its structure, it becomes an inclination, which can be defined as interest and striving for a certain activity.

Concretized in an image or representation, the ultimate goal of inclination is the ideal. This goal can manifest itself in several forms: moral, aesthetic, cognitive (gnostic) and praxical ideal.

Worldview is a system of ideas and concepts learned by a person about the world and its laws, about the phenomena surrounding a person, nature and society. It may be vague or take the form of a cognitive ideal; passive worldview or become a conviction.

Beliefs are the highest form of orientation, the structure of which includes its lower forms and in which the worldview is associated with the desire to achieve ideals.

In the direction of the personality as a whole, it is necessary to distinguish between its level, breadth, intensity, stability and effectiveness. The same qualities of orientation, the essence of which is clear from their names, are also inherent in its indicated individual forms.

In the forms of personality orientation, both relationships and moral qualities of the personality are manifested. However, the attitude, as has already been shown, is not so much a property of the personality, but, first of all, a property of consciousness along with experience and cognition. At the same time, all forms of personality orientation are both its needs and potential (and may become actual) motives for activity. This most clearly manifests the principle of the unity of consciousness and activity.

The second substructure of the personality includes knowledge, skills, abilities and habits acquired in personal experience, through training, but already with a noticeable influence and biologically determined personality traits. It is sometimes called individual culture or preparedness; briefly it can be called a substructure of experience.

Skills and abilities are ways of objectifying a person in activity. It should be noted that it is through this substructure that the personality in its individual development is most clearly objectified, and it is through this substructure that the individual development of the individual accumulates the historical experience of mankind.

The third substructure covers the individual characteristics of individual mental processes, or mental functions, as forms of reflection. The influence of biologically determined features in this substructure can be seen even more clearly. This substructure, interacting with the rest, is formed through exercise. Briefly, it can be called a substructure of reflection forms.

The fourth substructure combines the properties of temperament (typological properties of the personality), the sex and age properties of the personality and its pathological, so-called organic changes. The necessary traits included in this substructure are formed (or rather, they are remade) by training. They are incomparably more dependent on the physiological and even morphological features of the brain than on social influences on a person, and therefore this substructure can be briefly called a biologically determined substructure.

These four substructures can contain all known properties (traits) of a person. The number of the latter is very large. Moreover, some of these properties relate mainly to only one substructure, for example: conviction and interest - to the substructure of orientation; erudition and skill - to the substructure of experience; decisiveness and ingenuity - to the substructure of forms of reflection; exhaustion and excitability - to a biologically determined substructure. Other properties lie at the intersections of these substructures. Having their own structure, they are the result of the interconnections of various substructures. As an example, we can name the morally educated will, which is the relationship between the substructure of direction and the substructure of forms of reflection; musicality as an interrelation of forms of reflection and experience; self-control as the interconnection of substructures of forms of reflection, biologically determined and, often, experience.

Each of these four substructures, considered as a whole, in turn has its own substructures, each personality trait is formed from more subtle connections.

However, the point of view of K.K. Platonov is disputed by individual psychologists.

The structure of personality, believes another psychologist A.G. Kovalev, is formed by the correlation of mental processes, mental states and mental properties of a person, that is, in the form of a unity of orientation of character, temperament and abilities.

A. G. Kovalev raises the question of the integral spiritual image of the personality, its origin and structure as a question of the synthesis of complex structures:

• temperament (structure of natural properties),
• orientation (system of needs, interests, ideals),
• abilities (a system of intellectual, volitional and emotional properties).

All these structures arise from the interrelation of the mental properties of the personality, which characterize a stable, constant level of activity, which ensures the best adaptation of the individual to the influencing stimuli due to the greatest adequacy of their reflection. In the course of an activity, properties are associated with each other in a certain way in accordance with the requirements of the activity.

Myasishchev has been talking about the structure of the personality since the 1930s, but he considers it only as one of the sides of the personality along with the direction, level of development and dynamics; he believes that "a structural characteristic illuminates a person from the side of his integrity or splitting, consistency or inconsistency, stability or variability, depth or surface, predominance or relative insufficiency of certain mental functions."

In his later speeches, V. N. Myasishchev uses the term "structure of personality relations", or "profile of relations."

2.2 Foreign theories

A large number of views on the problem of personality structure exist in foreign psychology. We will characterize only its most prominent representatives.

The most important contribution to the theory of personality was made by Sigmund Freud, who proposed the structure of the psyche (I, Super-I and It) in the theory of psychoanalysis.

The theory of personality developed by Z. Freud presented a person not as a rational being and aware of his behavior, but as a being in eternal conflict, the origins of which lie in another, wider sphere of the mental.

In general terms, the human psyche is represented by Freud as split into two opposing spheres of the conscious and the unconscious, which are essential characteristics of the personality.

But in the Freudian structure of the personality, these spheres are not presented equally: he considered the unconscious to be the central component that makes up the essence of the human psyche, and the conscious - only a special instance, built on top of the unconscious; the conscious owes its origin to the unconscious and crystallizes out of it in the process of the development of the psyche.

Although Freud's ideas about the structural levels of the human psyche changed throughout his theoretical activity, the fundamental division into the spheres of the conscious and the unconscious was preserved in one form or another in all the personality models he created.

However, in the early 1920s, Freud revised his conceptual model of mental life and introduced three basic structures into the anatomy of the personality. This has been called the structural model of personality, although Freud himself tended to regard them as processes rather than structures.

The personality model created by Freud appears as a combination of three elements that are in a certain subordination with each other: the conscious (“Super-I”), the preconscious (“I”) and the unconscious (“It”), in which the main structures of the personality are located.

"It" - the unconscious part of the psyche, a seething cauldron of biological innate instinctual drives: aggressive and sexual. "It" is saturated with sexual energy - "libido". Man is a closed energy system, the amount of energy in each person is a constant value. Being unconscious and irrational, "it" obeys the pleasure principle, i.e. pleasure and happiness are the main goals in human life. The second principle of behavior - homeostasis - a tendency to maintain an approximate internal balance. The level of "I" of consciousness is in a state of constant conflict with "it", suppresses sexual desires. Three forces act on the "I": "it", "super-I" and society, which makes its demands on a person. "I" tries to establish harmony between them, obeys not the principle of pleasure, but the principle of "reality". The "super-ego" serves as the bearer of moral standards; this is the part of the personality that plays the role of critic, censor, conscience. If the "I" makes a decision or performs an action in favor of the "it", but in opposition to the "super-I", then it is punished in the form of guilt, shame, remorse of conscience. The "super-ego" does not let instincts into the "I", and then the energy of these instincts is sublimated, transformed, embodied in other forms of activity that are acceptable to society and man (creativity, art, social activity, labor activity, in forms of behavior: in dreams , slips of the tongue, slips of the tongue, jokes, puns, in free associations, in the features of forgetting). If the energy of "libido" does not find a way out, then a person will have mental illness, neurosis, hysteria, longing. To save from opposition between "I" and " it" means of psychological defense are used: repression, suppression - involuntary elimination of illicit thoughts, feelings, desires from consciousness into the unconscious "it"; projection - an unconscious attempt to get rid of an obsessive desire, idea, attributing it to another person; rationalization - an unconscious attempt to rationalize, justify an absurd idea.The formation of the child's psyche occurs through overcoming the oedipal complex.

The theory of personality developed by Z. Freud can be attributed to the type of psychodynamic, covering the whole life of a person and used to describe him as a person, the internal psychological properties of an individual, primarily his needs and motives.

Freud was the first to characterize the psyche as a battlefield between the irreconcilable forces of instinct, reason and consciousness. The term "psychodynamic" refers precisely to this ongoing struggle between different aspects of the personality. Psychoanalytic theory as such exemplifies the psychodynamic approach - it gives the leading role to the complex interaction between instincts, motives and drives that compete or fight with each other for supremacy in the regulation of human behavior. The idea that the personality is a dynamic configuration of processes that are in endless opposition expresses the essence of the psychodynamic direction, especially in the interpretation of Freud. The concept of dynamics in relation to personality implies that human behavior is deterministic rather than arbitrary or random. The determinism assumed by the psychodynamic perspective extends to everything we do, feel, or think, including even events that many people view as pure coincidences, as well as slips of the tongue, slips of the tongue, and the like. This presentation brings us to the main and decisive theme developed by the psychodynamic direction. Namely, it emphasizes the importance of unconscious mental processes in the regulation of human behavior. According to Freud, not only are our actions often irrational, but the very meaning and causes of our behavior are rarely comprehensible.

Jung's views on human personality are perhaps the most complex, unorthodox, and most polemical in the personological tradition. He created a unique theory of great scientific interest, markedly different from all other approaches to the study of personality.

The essence of Jung's differences with Freud came down to an understanding of the nature of the unconscious. Jung believed that Freud wrongly reduced all human activity to a biologically inherited sexual instinct, while human instincts are not biological, but entirely symbolic in nature.

Jung believed that the human soul consists of 3 complex components: the ego, the unconscious and the collective unconscious.

The ego is responsible for awareness of both oneself, as a person endowed with certain traits, characteristics, skills, etc., and the perception of the outside world, the environment. Thanks to him, each of us retains the ability to distinguish ourselves from others (identify).

The personal unconscious acts as a large dark warehouse in which all our memories, conflicts, experiences, fears that we have forgotten or suppressed are stored. There lies everything that a person does not want to remember for one reason or another.

And finally, the layer of the human “soul” that he introduced is the collective unconscious, which is responsible for preserving information that was not received in our life, it captures our ancestors, thoughts and feelings common to all mankind, the entire past of mankind. It has evolved over centuries and millennia and is the same for everyone.
Jung suggested that archetypes are primary prototypes embedded in our collective unconscious. They are the same for everyone, which is confirmed by a certain type of response to certain situations by everyone. Archetypes allow you to quickly respond to a particular situation.

Jung believed that each archetype helps to classify certain feelings, themes, objects, relationships into types and combines them for itself. Thus, it is easier for a person to extract one or another emotion from himself. This unity is clearly seen in cross-cultural studies, where there are striking similarities in the symbols used by people.

So, in the history of personality psychology, several successive stages are clearly traced, in which certain approaches and accents dominated, an attitude to the real aspects of the personality, their special vision, was formed. Researchers of personality have attached particular importance either to the unconscious and consciousness, or to activity and reactivity, or to rationality and irrationality, and so on. As Gibson rightly notes, the subject of psychology has described a kind of circle - “from the power of subjectivity to the undivided dominance of objective phenomena and again to the recognition of subjective phenomena. In our opinion, the psychology of personality during the twentieth century went through a similar circle of its formation. According to some scientists and our opinion, the history of personality psychology follows in parallel the history of general psychology.

The problem of personality structure is closely related to the principle of systemicity, which involves studying an object from the point of view of its hierarchical structure and types of connection between individual levels.

Considering the structure of personality, most psychologists, both domestic and foreign, include in it temperament, abilities, character, orientation, a peculiar combination of which creates the uniqueness of human individuality.

Analytical psychology K.G. Young as the most adequate of the known systems. Unlike most of these theories, Jung, having developed and qualitatively reworked Freudianism, considers personality as an integral system, in addition to conscious elements, having both an individual and a collective unconscious component (archetypes as phenomena of the collective unconscious are the most important part of Jung's theory), a dynamic aspect of development in the form of libido. The structure of personality is seen as a system of ego, superego and id, and their interaction is much more complex than Freud's.

Conclusion

So, we can state that there are different approaches to the study of personality in domestic and foreign psychology; the concept of "personality" in each approach is specific.

Today, in Russian psychology, there is a widespread view of a person as an individual, personality and subject of activity, but there is no more or less generally accepted concept of personality.

The views of foreign psychologists on personality are characterized by even greater diversity. L. Hjell and D. Ziegler, in their well-known monograph, distinguish at least nine directions in personality theory. This is a psychodynamic (3. Freud) and a version of this direction revised by A. Adler and C. Jung, dispositional (G. Allport, R. Cattell), behaviorist (B. Skinner), social-cognitive (A. Bandura), cognitive ( J. Kelly), humanistic (A. Maslow), phenomenological (K. Rogers) and ego psychology, represented by the names of E. Erickson, E. Fromm and K. Horney.

In domestic psychology, much attention was paid to theoretical aspects, in Western psychology - to practical ones. The current state of domestic psychology largely characterizes the intensive process of mastering foreign experience, in particular, through the familiarization of Russian psychologists with world psychological literature. To date, we have had the opportunity to get acquainted with the best examples of psychological classics, and with the work of contemporary authors in the field of practical work.

In modern foreign psychology, there are various approaches to the definition of the concept of personality. The dissimilarity of all approaches to the definition of the concept of personality shows that the content of personality from the standpoint of different theoretical ideas is more diverse than the concept of "external social image". All approaches to this or that understanding of personality depend on the theoretical ideas of the personologist. Considering that a theory is a system of interrelated ideas, postulates, principles, aimed at explaining certain observations, it is always speculative in its essence and cannot be right or wrong.

Personality is a complex, internally structured entity. However, on the question of what structural elements form a personality, there are great disagreements. Understanding the internal structure of the personality is directly dependent on the interpretation of the concept of "personality". There are many different approaches and theories of personality in personality psychology. The psychodynamic type includes theories that describe a personality and explain its behavior based on its psychological, or internal, subjective characteristics.

Among the structural theories are theories for which the main problem is to clarify the structure of the personality and the system of concepts with which it should be described. Theories are called dynamic, the main theme of which is transformation, change in the development of the personality, i.e. its dynamics.

Numerous properties can be generalized and reduced to a holistic personality structure. Well-known domestic psychologist S.L. Rubinstein, summarizing the available approaches and views on the problem of personality, briefly expressed his understanding of its structure in three aspects:

• what a person wants (needs, motives, interests, values, ideals, etc.);
• what he is (character, abilities, etc.);
• what he can (experience, skills, knowledge, etc.).

The structure of personality has as its genetic source long-term and varied metamorphoses of mental phenomena, especially their integration by type. In this sense, the personality structure is a product of individual mental development, which acts in three ways: the ontogenetic evolution of psychophysiological functions, the formation of activity and the history of the development of a person as a subject of labor, cognition and communication, and finally, as a person’s life path - the history of personality. At the same time, the structure of personality, which has developed in the process of individual development of a person, itself determines the direction, degree of change and level of development of all phenomena of mental development. S. L. Rubinshtein saw precisely in this structure of personality, in the complex of personal properties, those internal conditions through which certain external factors act.

Based on the analysis of existing theories of personality, the following schematic definition can be proposed: personality is a multidimensional and multilevel system of psychological characteristics that provide individual originality, temporal and situational stability of human behavior.

On the basis of theoretical analysis, we confirmed the hypothesis that the structure of the mental life of a person is formed by the correlation of mental processes, mental states and mental properties of a person.

Literature

1. Ananiev B.G. The psychological structure of personality and its formation in the process of individual development of a person. // Psychology of Personality. T.2. Reader. - Samara: Ed. House "BAHRAKH", 2006.
2. Antsyferova L.I. Psychology of personality formation and development // Man in the system of sciences. M., 2006.
3. Asmolov A.G. Psychology of Personality. - M.: Academy Meaning, 2007.
4. Aho A. Hopcroft J., Ullman J. Motivational structure of personality. - M., 2007.
5. Bern E. Three aspects of personality. // Psychology of Personality. T.1. Reader. - Samara: Ed. House "BAHRAKH", 2006.
6. Bratus B.S. Semantic sphere of personality // Psychology of personality in the works of domestic psychologists. / Comp. L.V. Kulikov. - St. Petersburg, 2005.
7. Breslav G.M. Emotional features of personality formation in childhood. - M., 2007.
8. Gippenreiter Yu. B. Introduction to general psychology. M.: Publishing House of Moscow State University,
9. Dmitrieva N.Yu. General psychology. Lecture notes. — Eksmo-Press, 2008.
10. Isaev E.I., Slobodchikov V.I. Human psychology. M.: Ed. "School-press". 2006.
11. Zinchenko V.P. Meshcheryakov B.G. Psychological Dictionary, M.: Pedagogy-Press, 2006.
12. Kovalev A.G. Psychology of Personality. 3rd ed. revised and additional M., "Enlightenment", 2006.
13. Kulikov LV Psychology of personality in the works of domestic psychologists. Reader - SPb., "Peter" 1st edition, 2007.
14. Leontiev A.N. Activity. Consciousness. Personality. M., 2006.
15. Maklakov A.G. General psychology. - St. Petersburg, 2007.
16. Maslow A.G. Motivation and personality. SPb., 2006.
17. Myasishchev V. I. The structure of personality and the relationship of a person to reality. - "Reports at a meeting on the psychology of personality." M, 2007.
18. Myasishchev V.N. The concept of personality in the aspects of norm and pathology. // Psychology of Personality. T.2. Reader. - Samara: Ed. House "BAHRAKH", 2006.
19. Nemov R.S. Psychological dictionary. - M.: Humanitarian. ed. center VLADOS, 2007.
20. Allport G. Personality: a problem of science or art? // Psychology of Personality. Texts. Ed. Gippenreiter Yu.B., Puzyreya A.A. - M.: Publishing House of Moscow State University, 2005.
21. Orlov A.B. Empirical personality and its structure // Questions of psychology. - 2005. - No. 7.
22. Petrovsky A.V. Personality in psychology. - Rostov-on-Don, 2006.
23. Psychology of individual differences / Edited by Yu. B. Gippenreiter, V. Ya. Romanov. — 3rd edition, revised. and additional - M.: AST, 2008.
24. Psychological-pedagogical dictionary. /Comp. E.S. Rapatsevich.- Minsk: "Modern word", 2006.
25. Psychology: Textbook for liberal arts universities / Ed. V.N. Druzhinin. - St. Petersburg: Peter, 2006.
26. Rubinshtein S.L. Fundamentals of General Psychology. 2nd ed. M., 1946.
27. Sullivan G.S. Interpersonal theory in psychiatry. - M.: Yuventa, 2005.
28. Sergeants V.F. The structure of the personality and the concept of the functional system PK Anokhin. // Theory of functional systems in physiology and psychology. - M.: Nauka, 2005.
29. Z. Freud's theory of personality. // Psychology of Personality. T.1. Reader. - Samara: Ed. House "BAHRAKH", 2006.
30. The theory of personality by K. Jung. // Psychology of Personality. T.1. Reader. - Samara: Ed. House "BAHRAKH", 2006.
31. Tikhomirov O.K. Contribution of A.N. Leontiev in general psychology // A.N. Leontiev and modern psychology / Ed. A.V. Zaporozhets and others. Moscow: Moscow State University, 2007.
32. Freud Z. "I" and "IT". // Psychology of Personality. T.1. Reader. - Samara: Ed. House "BAHRAKH", 2006.
33. Khjell L., Ziegler D. Personality Theories. - St. Petersburg: Peter, 2006.
34. Shcherbatykh Yu.V. General psychology. — Peter, 2008.
35. Jung K.G. Psychological types. / Per. with him. / Under the total. ed. V.V.Zelinsky. - Minsk: Potpourri LLC, 2006.

Knowledge of the elementary foundations of psychology can play an important role in the life of any person. In order for us to most productively fulfill our goals and effectively interact with the people around us, we need to have at least an idea of ​​what personality psychology is, how personality develops and what are the features of this process. It is important to know what the constituent elements and personality types are. Understanding these issues, we get the opportunity to make our lives more productive, comfortable and harmonious.

The Personal Psychology lesson below is designed specifically to help you learn these important fundamentals and learn how to use them in practice as effectively as possible. Here you will get acquainted with how a person and the problem of personality are considered in psychology: you will learn its foundations and structure. You will also gain insight into personality research and many other interesting topics.

What is a personality?

In the modern world, there is no unambiguous definition of the concept of "personality" and this is due to the complexity of the phenomenon of personality itself. Any definition currently available is worthy of being taken into account in compiling the most objective and complete.

If we talk about the most common definition, then we can say that:

Personality- this is a person who has a certain set of psychological properties on which his actions are based, which are important for society; internal difference of one person from the rest.

There are several other definitions:

• Personality it is a social subject and the totality of his personal and social roles, his preferences and habits, his knowledge and experience.
• Personality is a person who independently builds and controls his life and bears full responsibility for it.

Together with the concept of "personality" in psychology, such concepts as "individual" and "individuality" are used.

Individual- this is an individual person, considered as a unique combination of his innate and acquired qualities.

Individuality- a set of unique traits and features that distinguish one individual from all others; originality of the personality and the human psyche.

In order for anyone who is interested in the human personality as a psychological phenomenon to have the most objective idea of ​​it, it is necessary to highlight the key elements that make up the personality, in other words, talk about its structure.

Personality structure

The structure of a personality is the connection and interaction of its various components: abilities, volitional qualities, character, emotions, etc. These components are its properties and differences and are called “features”. There are quite a lot of these features, and in order to structure them there is a division into levels:

• The lowest level of personality these are the sexual properties of the psyche, age-related, innate.
• The second level of personality these are individual manifestations of thinking, memory, abilities, sensations, perception, which depend both on innate factors and on their development.
• The third level of personality it is an individual experience, which contains the acquired knowledge, habits, abilities, skills. This level is formed in the process of life and has a social character.
• The highest level of personality- this is its orientation, which includes interests, desires, inclinations, inclinations, beliefs, views, ideals, worldviews, self-esteem, character traits. This level is the most socially conditioned and formed under the influence of upbringing, and also more fully reflects the ideology of the society in which the person is located.

Why are these levels important and why should they be distinguished from each other? At least in order to be able to objectively characterize any person (including yourself) as a person, to understand what level you are considering.

The difference between people is very multifaceted, because at each level there are differences in interests and beliefs, knowledge and experience, abilities and skills, character and temperament. It is for these reasons that it can be quite difficult to understand another person, to avoid contradictions and even conflicts. In order to understand yourself and those around you, you need to have a certain baggage of psychological knowledge, and combine it with awareness and observation. And in this very specific issue, knowledge of the key personality traits and their differences plays an important role.

Key personality traits

In psychology, personality traits are commonly understood as stable mental phenomena that have a significant impact on a person's activities and characterize him from the socio-psychological side. In other words, this is how a person manifests himself in his activities and in his relationships with others. The structure of these phenomena includes abilities, temperament, character, will, emotions, motivation. Below we will consider each of them separately.

Capabilities

Understanding why different people in the same living conditions have different results at the output, we are often guided by the concept of “ability”, assuming that it is they who influence what a person achieves. We use the same term to find out why some people learn something faster than others, and so on.

The concept of " capabilities' can be interpreted in different ways. Firstly, it is a set of mental processes and states, often called the properties of the soul. Secondly, it is a high level of development of general and special skills, abilities and knowledge that ensure the effective performance of various functions by a person. And, thirdly, abilities are everything that cannot be reduced to knowledge, skills and abilities, but with the help of which their acquisition, use and consolidation can be explained.

A person has a huge number of different abilities that can be divided into several categories.

Elemental and complex abilities

• Elementary (simple) abilities- these are abilities associated with the functions of the sense organs and the simplest movements (the ability to distinguish smells, sounds, colors). They are present in a person from birth and during life they can be improved.
• Complex abilities- these are abilities in various activities related to human culture. For example, musical (composing music), artistic (the ability to draw), mathematical (the ability to easily solve complex mathematical problems). Such abilities are called socially determined, because. they are not congenital.

General and special abilities

• General abilities- these are the abilities that all people have, but developed by everyone to varying degrees (general motor, mental). It is they who determine success and achievements in many activities (sports, learning, teaching).
• Special abilities- these are abilities that are not found in everyone and for which, in most cases, certain inclinations are required (artistic, graphic, literary, acting, musical). Thanks to them, people achieve success in specific activities.

It should be noted that the presence of special abilities in a person can be harmoniously combined with the development of general ones, and vice versa.

Theoretical and practical

• Theoretical ability- these are the abilities that determine the inclination of the individual to abstract-logical thinking, as well as the ability to clearly set and successfully complete theoretical tasks.
• Practical Ability- these are abilities that are manifested in the ability to set and perform practical tasks related to specific actions in certain life situations.

Educational and creative

• Teaching ability- these are abilities that determine the success of training, the assimilation of knowledge, skills and abilities.
• Creative skills- these are abilities that determine a person's ability to create objects of spiritual and material culture, as well as influencing the production of new ideas, making discoveries, etc.

Communicative and subject-activity

• Communication skills- these are abilities that include knowledge, skills and abilities related to communication and interaction with other people, interpersonal assessment and perception, establishing contacts, networking, finding a common language, disposition towards oneself and influencing people.
• Subject-activity abilities- these are abilities that determine the interaction of people with inanimate objects.

All types of abilities are complementary, and it is their combination that gives a person the opportunity to develop most fully and harmoniously. Abilities have an impact both on each other and on the success of a person in life, activity and communication.

In addition to the fact that the concept of “ability” is used to characterize a person in psychology, such terms as “genius”, “talent”, “giftedness” are also used, indicating more subtle nuances of the personality of a person.

• giftedness- this is the presence in a person from birth of inclinations for the best development of abilities.
• Talent- these are abilities that are revealed to the fullest extent through the acquisition of skills and experience.
• Genius- this is an unusually high level of development of any abilities.

As we mentioned above, a person's life outcome is very often related to his abilities and their application. And the results of the vast majority of people, unfortunately, leave much to be desired. Many people start looking for solutions to their problems somewhere outside, when the right solution is always inside a person. And you just have to look into yourself. If a person in his daily activities does not do what he has inclinations and predispositions, then the effect of this will be, to put it mildly, unsatisfactory. As one of the options to change things, you can use the exact definition of their abilities.

If, for example, you have an innate ability to lead and manage people, and you work as a goods receiver in a warehouse, then, of course, this occupation will not bring moral, emotional, or financial satisfaction, because you are doing something completely different deed. In this situation, some kind of managerial position is more suitable for you. You can start at least with a job as a middle manager. Innate leadership abilities, when used systematically and developed, will take you to a completely different level. Set aside time in your schedule to identify your inclinations and abilities, study yourself, try to understand what you really want to do and what will bring you pleasure. Based on the results obtained, it will already be possible to draw a conclusion on the topic in which direction it is necessary to move further.

To determine the abilities and inclinations, there are now a huge number of tests and techniques. You can read more about abilities.

An aptitude test will appear here soon.

Along with abilities, as one of the main personality traits, temperament can be distinguished.

Temperament

temperament called a set of properties that characterize the dynamic features of mental processes and states of a person (their occurrence, change, strength, speed, termination), as well as his behavior.

The idea of ​​temperament has its roots in the works of Hippocrates, an ancient Greek philosopher who lived in the 5th century. BC. It was he who defined the different types of temperaments that people use to this day: melancholic, choleric, phlegmatic, sanguine.

Melancholic temperament- this type is characteristic of people of a gloomy mood, with a tense and complex inner life. Such people are distinguished by vulnerability, anxiety, restraint, and also by the fact that they attach great importance to everything that concerns them personally. With minor difficulties, melancholics give up. They have little energy potential and get tired quickly.

choleric temperament- most characteristic of quick-tempered people. People with this type of temperament are not restrained, impatient, hot and impulsive. But they quickly cool down and calm down if they are met. Cholerics are characterized by perseverance and stability of interests and aspirations.

Phlegmatic temperament- These are cold-blooded people who are more prone to staying in a state of inactivity than in a state of active work. Slowly excitable, but cool down for a long time. Phlegmatic people are not resourceful, it is difficult for them to adapt to a new environment, reorganize in a new way, get rid of old habits. But at the same time they are efficient and energetic, patient, possess self-control and endurance.

Sanguine temperament such people are merry, optimistic, humorous and pranksters. Full of hope, sociable, easily converge with new people. Sanguine people are distinguished by a quick reaction to external stimuli: they can be easily amused or thrown into anger. Actively take on new beginnings, can work for a long time. They are disciplined, if necessary, can control their reactions and quickly adapt to new conditions.

These are far from complete descriptions of temperament types, but contain the most characteristic features for them. Each of them is neither good nor bad in itself, if you do not associate them with requirements and expectations. Any type of temperament can have both its disadvantages and its advantages. You can find out more about human temperament.

Having a good understanding of the influence of the type of temperament on the rate of occurrence of mental processes (perception, thinking, attention) and their intensity, on the pace and rhythm of activity, as well as on its direction, one can easily and effectively use this knowledge in everyday life.

To determine the type of temperament, it is best to use specialized tests compiled by experts in the field of personality studies.

Soon there will be a test to determine the temperament.

Another fundamental property of a person's personality is his character.

Character

character called acquired in certain social conditions, ways of human interaction with the outside world and other people, constituting the type of his life activity.

In the process of communication between people, character is manifested in the manner of behavior, ways of responding to the actions and actions of others. Manners can be delicate and tactful or rude and unceremonious. This is due to the difference in the nature of people. People with the strongest or, conversely, the weakest character always stand out from the rest. People with a strong character, as a rule, are distinguished by perseverance, perseverance, and purposefulness. And weak-willed people are distinguished by weakness of will, unpredictability, randomness of actions. The character includes many features that modern experts divide into three groups: communicative, business, strong-willed.

Communication features are manifested in a person's communication with others (isolation, sociability, responsiveness, anger, goodwill).

Business traits are manifested in everyday work activities (accuracy, conscientiousness, diligence, responsibility, laziness).

Volitional traits are directly related to the will of a person (purposefulness, perseverance, perseverance, lack of will, compliance).

There are also motivational and instrumental character traits.

Motivational traits - prompting a person to action, guiding and supporting his activity.

Instrumental features - give the behavior a certain style.

If you can get a clear idea of ​​the traits and characteristics of your character, this will allow you to understand the motivating force that guides your development and self-realization in life. This knowledge will allow you to determine which of your features are most developed and which need to be improved, as well as to understand through which features of yours you interact with the world and others to a greater extent. An in-depth understanding of yourself provides a unique opportunity to see how and why exactly you react to life situations and events, and what you need to cultivate in yourself so that your lifestyle becomes as productive and useful as possible and you can fully realize yourself. If you know the features of your character, its pros and cons, and begin to improve yourself, you will be able to respond in the best possible way in a given situation, you will know how to respond to harmful or beneficial influences, what to say to another person, responding to his actions and words .

Soon there will be a test to determine the traits of character.

One of the most important personality traits that have the most serious impact on the process of human life and its result is will.

Will

Will- this is the property of a person to make conscious control of his psyche and actions.

Thanks to the will, a person is able to consciously control his own behavior and his mental states and processes. With the help of the will, a person exerts a conscious influence on the world around him, making the necessary (in his opinion) changes.

The main sign of the will is connected with the fact that, in most cases, it is associated with the adoption of reasonable decisions by a person, overcoming obstacles and making efforts to implement the plan. A volitional decision is made by an individual in the conditions of oppositely directed needs, drives and motives that are opposed to each other and have approximately the same motive force, due to which a person always needs to choose one of two / several.

Will always implies self-restraint: acting in one way or another to achieve certain goals and results, realizing certain needs, a person acting on his own will must always deprive himself of something else, which, perhaps, he sees as more attractive and desirable. Another sign of the participation of the will in human behavior is the presence of a specific plan of action.

An important feature of volitional effort is the absence of emotional satisfaction, but the presence of moral satisfaction arising from the implementation of the plan (but not in the process of implementation). Very often, volitional efforts are directed not to overcome circumstances, but to "defeat" oneself, despite one's natural desires.

Mainly, the will is what helps a person to overcome life's difficulties and obstacles on the way; what helps to achieve new results and develop. As one of the greatest writers of the 20th century, Carlos Castaneda, said: “The will is what makes you win when your mind tells you that you are defeated.” It can be said that the stronger the willpower of a person, the stronger the person himself (of course, not physical, but internal strength is meant). The main practice for the development of willpower is its training and hardening. You can start developing your willpower with quite simple things.

For example, make it a rule to notice those things, the postponement of which devastates you, "sucks energy" and the implementation of which, on the contrary, invigorates, charges and has a positive effect. These are the things that you are too lazy to do. For example, tidy up when you don’t feel like it at all, do exercises in the morning, getting up half an hour earlier. An inner voice will tell you that this can be postponed or it is not necessary to do this at all. Don't listen to him. This is the voice of your laziness. Do as you intended - after that you will notice that you feel more energetic and cheerful, more powerful. Or another example: identify your weaknesses (this can be aimless pastime on the Internet, watching TV, lying on the couch, sweets, etc.). Take not the strongest of them and give it up for a week, two, a month. Promise yourself that after the appointed time you will return to your habit again (if you want, of course). And then - the most important thing: take a symbol of this weakness and constantly keep it with you. But do not fall for the provocations of the "old self" and remember the promise. This is the training of your willpower. Over time, you will see that you have become stronger and will be able to move on to the rejection of stronger weaknesses.

But nothing can compare in terms of the strength of the impact on the human psyche, as another property of his personality - emotions.

Emotions

Emotions can be characterized as special individual experiences that have a pleasant or unpleasant mental coloring, and are associated with the satisfaction of vital needs.

The main types of emotions are:

Mood - it reflects the general state of a person at a certain moment

The simplest emotions are experiences that are associated with the satisfaction of organic needs.

Affects are violent, short-lived emotions that are especially manifested externally (gestures, facial expressions)

Feelings are a spectrum of experiences associated with certain objects.

Passion is a pronounced feeling that (in most cases) cannot be controlled.

Stress is a combination of emotions and the physical state of the body

Emotions, especially feelings, affects and passions, are an invariable part of a person's personality. All people (personalities) are emotionally very different. For example, according to emotional excitability, the duration of emotional experiences, the predominance of negative or positive emotions. But the main sign of difference is the intensity of the experienced emotions and their direction.

Emotions have a characteristic feature to have a serious impact on a person's life. Under the influence of certain emotions at one time or another, a person can make decisions, say something, and perform actions. As a rule, emotions are a short-lived phenomenon. But what a person sometimes does under the influence of emotions does not always give good results. And since Since our lesson is devoted to how to improve your life, then we should talk about ways to have a favorable impact on it.

It is important to learn to control your emotions and not succumb to them. First of all, you need to remember that an emotion, whatever it may be (positive or negative), is just an emotion, and it will soon pass. Therefore, if in any negative situation you feel that negative emotions begin to prevail in you, remember this and restrain them - this will allow you not to do or say something that you may later regret. If, due to some outstanding positive events in life, you experience a surge of joyful emotions, then also remember this practice. This practice will allow you to avoid unnecessary energy costs.

Surely, you are familiar with the situation when, after some time after a moment of stormy joy or delight, you feel some kind of inner devastation. Emotions are always an expense of personal energy. No wonder the ancient Jewish king Solomon had a ring on his finger with the inscription: "This too shall pass." Always in moments of joy or sadness, he turned his ring and read this inscription to himself in order to remember the short duration of emotional experiences.

Knowing what emotions are and the ability to manage them are very important aspects in the development of a person and life in general. Learn to manage your emotions, and you will know yourself to the fullest. Such things as self-observation and self-control, as well as various spiritual practices (meditation, yoga, etc.) allow mastering this skill. You can find information about them on the Internet. And you can learn more about what emotions are in our acting training.

But, despite the importance of all the personality traits discussed above, perhaps the dominant role is occupied by another of its properties - motivation, since it affects the desire to learn more about yourself and immerse yourself in the psychology of the individual, on interest in something new, hitherto unknown, even if you are reading this lesson.

Motivation

In general, in human behavior, there are two complementary sides - it is motivating and regulatory. The incentive side ensures the activation of behavior and its direction, and the regulatory side is responsible for how the behavior develops in specific conditions.

Motivation is closely related to such phenomena as motives, intentions, motives, needs, etc. In the narrowest sense, motivation can be defined as a set of causes that explain human behavior. At the heart of this concept is the term "motive".

motive- this is any internal physiological or psychological urge that is responsible for the activity and purposefulness of behavior. Motives are conscious and unconscious, imaginary and really acting, meaning-forming and motivating.

The following factors influence a person's motivation:

A need is a state of a person's need for anything necessary for a normal existence, as well as mental and physical development.

An incentive is any internal or external factor that, together with a motive, controls behavior and directs it to achieve a specific goal.

Intention is a thoughtful and conscious decision that is consistent with the desire to do something.

Motivation is not fully conscious and indefinite (perhaps) a person's desire for something.

It is motivation that is the "fuel" of a person. Just as a car needs gasoline to keep going, so a person needs motivation to strive for something, develop, reach new heights. For example, you wanted to learn more about human psychology and personality traits, and this was the motivation for turning to this lesson. But what is a great motivation for one may be absolute zero for another.

Knowledge about motivation, first of all, can be successfully used for yourself: think about what you want to achieve in life, make a list of your life goals. Not just what you would like to have, but exactly what makes your heart beat faster and gets you emotionally excited. Imagine what you want as if you already have it. If you feel that this turns you on, then this is your motivation to act. We all have periods of ups and downs in activity. And it is in moments of recession that you need to remember what you have to move forward for. Set a global goal, divide its achievement into intermediate stages and start acting. Only the person who knows where he is going and takes steps towards it will reach his goal.

Also, knowledge about motivation can be used in communicating with people.

A great example is when you ask a person to fulfill some kind of request (for friendship, for work, etc.). Naturally, in return for a service, a person wants to get something for himself (regrettable as it may seem, but most people have a selfish interest, even if it manifests itself in someone to a greater extent, and in someone to a lesser extent). Determine what a person needs and this will be a kind of hook that can hook him, his motivation. Show the person his benefit. If he sees that, having met you halfway, he will be able to satisfy some essential need for him, then this will be almost a 100% guarantee that your interaction will be successful and effective.

In addition to the above material, it is worth mentioning the process of personality development. After all, everything that we have considered before is closely interconnected with this process, depends on it and at the same time influences it. The topic of personality development is very peculiar and voluminous for describing it as a small part of one lesson, but it is impossible not to mention it. Therefore, we will touch on it only in general terms.

Personal development

Personal development is part of the overall development of man. It is one of the main topics of practical psychology, but it is understood far from being unambiguous. When using the phrase "personal development" scientists mean at least four different topics.

1. What are the mechanisms and dynamics of personality development (the process itself is being studied)
2. What does a person achieve in the process of his development (results are being studied)
3. In what ways and means can parents and society form a personality out of a child (the actions of “educators” are being studied)
4. How a person can develop himself as a person (the actions of the person himself are studied)

The topic of personality development has always attracted many researchers and was considered from different angles. For some researchers, the greatest interest in personality development is the influence of socio-cultural characteristics, the ways of this influence and models of education. For others, the subject of close study is the independent development of a person as a person.

Personal development can be both a natural process that does not require outside participation, or a conscious, purposeful one. And the results will be significantly different from each other.

In addition to the fact that a person is able to develop himself, he can develop others. For practical psychology, assistance in the development of personality, the development of new methods and innovations in this matter, various trainings, seminars and training programs are most characteristic.

Basic theories of personality research

The main trends in personality research can be identified starting from about the middle of the 20th century. Next, we will consider some of them, and for the most popular (Freud, Jung) we will give examples.

This is a psychodynamic approach to the study of personality. The development of personality was considered by Freud in psychosexual terms, and he proposed a three-component structure of personality:

• Id - “it” contains everything inherited and incorporated in the human constitution. Each individual has basic instincts: life, death and sexual, the most important of which is the third.
• Ego - "I" is a part of the mental apparatus that is in contact with the surrounding reality. The main task at this level is self-preservation and protection.
• Super ego - "super self" is the so-called judge of the activities and thoughts of the ego. Three functions are performed here: conscience, self-observation and the formation of ideals.

Freud's theory is perhaps the most popular of all theories in psychology. It is widely known because it reveals the deep features and stimuli of human behavior, in particular the strong influence of sexual desire on a person. The main position of psychoanalysis is that human behavior, experience and knowledge are largely determined by internal and irrational drives, and these drives are predominantly unconscious.

One of the methods of Freud's psychological theory, when studied in detail, says that you need to learn how to use your excess energy and sublimate it, i.e. redirect to achieve specific goals. For example, if you note that your child is overly active, then this activity can be directed in the right direction - send the child to the sports section. As another example of sublimation, you can cite the following situation: you were standing in line with the tax office and faced with an impudent, rude and negative person. In the process, he yelled at you, insulted, thereby causing a storm of negative emotions - an excess of energy that needs to be thrown out somewhere. To do this, you can go to the gym or swimming pool. You yourself will not notice how all the anger will go away, and you will again be in a cheerful mood. This, of course, is a very trivial example of sublimation, but the essence of the method can be caught in it.

To learn more about the sublimation method, visit this page.

Knowledge of Freud's theory can also be used in another aspect - the interpretation of dreams. According to Freud, a dream is a reflection of something that is in the soul of a person, which he himself may not even be aware of. Think about what reasons could lead to the fact that you had this or that dream. The first thing that comes to your mind as an answer will make the most sense. And already, based on this, you should interpret your dream as a reaction of your unconscious to external circumstances. You can familiarize yourself with the work of Sigmund Freud "The Interpretation of Dreams".

Apply Freud's knowledge to your personal life: in exploring your relationship with your loved one, you can put into practice the concepts of "transference" and "counter-transference". Transfer is the transfer of feelings and affections of two people to each other. Countertransference is a reverse process. If you understand this topic in more detail, you can find out why certain problems arise in relationships, which makes it possible to resolve them as soon as possible. It has been written about in great detail.

Read more about Sigmund Freud's theory on Wikipedia.

Jung introduced the concept of "I" as the individual's desire for unity and integrity. And in the classification of personality types he put the focus of a person on himself and the object - he divided people into extroverts and introverts. In Jung's analytical psychology, personality is described as the result of the interaction of aspiration for the future and individually innate predisposition. Also, special importance is attached to the movement of the personality along the path of self-realization by balancing and integrating the various elements of the personality.

Jung believed that every person is born with a set of certain personal characteristics and that the external environment does not allow a person to become a person, but reveals the characteristics already embedded in it. He also identified several levels of the unconscious: individual, family, group, national, racial and collective.

According to Jung, there is a certain system of the psyche that a person inherits at birth. It has been developing for hundreds of millennia and makes people experience and realize all life experience in a very concrete way. And this concreteness is expressed in what Jung called archetypes that influence the thoughts, feelings and actions of people.

Jung's typology can be applied in practice to determine one's own type of attitude or the types of attitudes of others. If, for example, you notice indecisiveness, isolation, sharpness of reactions, a predominant state of protection from the outside, distrust in yourself / others, this indicates that your attitude / attitude of others is of an introverted type. If you/others are open, easy to contact, gullible, get involved in unfamiliar situations, neglect caution, etc., then the installation belongs to the extraverted type. Knowing your type of attitude (according to Jung) makes it possible to better understand yourself and others, the motives for actions and reactions, and this, in turn, will increase your efficiency in life and build relationships with people most productively.

Jung's analytical method can also be used to analyze one's behavior and the behavior of others. Based on the classification of the conscious and the unconscious, you can learn to identify those motives that guide you and the people around you in your behavior.

Another example: if you notice that your child, upon reaching a certain age, begins to behave hostilely towards you and tries to abstract himself from people and the world around him, then you can say with a high degree of certainty that the process of individuation has begun - the formation of individuality. This usually happens during adolescence. According to Jung, there is a second part of the formation of individuality - when a person "returns" to the world and becomes an integral part of it, without trying to separate himself from the world. The method of observation is excellent for revealing such processes.

Wikipedia.

Personality Theory by William James

He divides personality analysis into 3 parts:

• The Elements of Personality (which are grouped into three levels)
• Feelings and emotions caused by constituent elements (self-esteem)
• Actions caused by constituent elements (self-preservation and self-care).

Read more about this theory on Wikipedia.

Individual psychology of Alfred Adler

Adler introduced the concept of "lifestyle", which is manifested in the attitudes and behavior of a particular individual and is formed under the influence of society. According to Adler, the personality structure is unified, and the main thing in its development is the desire for superiority. Adler distinguished 4 types of attitudes that accompany lifestyle:

• Control type
• receiving type
• avoidant type
• socially useful type

He also proposed a theory that aims to help people understand themselves and those around them. Adler's ideas were the forerunners of phenomenological and humanistic psychology.

Read more about this theory on Wikipedia.

Psychosynthesis by Roberto Assagioli

Assagioli identified 8 zones (substructures) in the main structure of the mental:

1. lower unconscious
2. Middle unconscious
3. higher unconscious
4. Field of consciousness
5. Personal "I"
6. Higher "I"
7. collective unconscious
8. Subpersonality (subpersonality)

The meaning of mental development, according to Assagioli, was to increase the unity of the psyche, i.e. in the synthesis of everything in a person: body, psyche, conscious and unconscious.

Read more about this theory on Wikipedia.

Physiological (biological) approach (type theory)

This approach focused on the structure and structure of the body. There are two main works in this direction:

Typology of Ernst Kretschmer

According to her, people with a certain body type have certain mental characteristics. Kretschmer distinguished 4 constitutional types: leptosomatic, picnic, athletic, dysplastic. Read more about this theory on Wikipedia.

Work by William Herbert Sheldon

Sheldon suggested that the shape of the body affects the personality and reflects its features. He singled out 3 body classes: endomorph, ectomorph, mesomorph. Read more about this theory on Wikipedia.

Eduard Spranger's concept of personality

Spranger described 6 psychological types of a person, depending on the forms of knowledge of the world: Theoretical person, Economic person, Aesthetic person, Social person, Political person, Religious person. In accordance with the spiritual values ​​of a person, the individuality of his personality is determined. Read more about this theory on Wikipedia.

The dispositional direction of Gordon Allport

Allport put forward 2 general ideas: the theory of traits and the uniqueness of each person. According to Allport, each person is unique and its uniqueness can be understood by identifying specific personality traits. This scientist introduced the concept of "proprium" - that which is recognized as one's own in the inner world and is a distinctive feature. Proprium directs a person's life in a positive, creative, growth-seeking and developing direction in accordance with human nature. Identity here acts as an internal constancy. Allport also emphasized the indivisibility and integrity of the entire personality structure. Read more.

intrapsychological approach. Theory of Kurt Lewin

Levin suggested that the driving forces for the development of the personality are within itself. The subject of his research was the need and motives of human behavior. He tried to approach the study of personality as a whole and was a supporter of Gestalt psychology. Levin proposed his own approach to understanding personality: in it, the source of the driving forces of human behavior is in the interaction of a person and a situation and is determined by his attitude towards it. This theory is called dynamic or typological. Read more about this theory on Wikipedia.

Phenomenological and humanistic theories

The main causal means of personality here is faith in a positive beginning in every person, his subjective experiences and the desire to realize his potential. The main proponents of these theories were:

Abraham Harold Maslow: his key idea was the human need for self-actualization.

Existentialist direction of Viktor Frankl

Frankl was convinced that the key points in the development of the individual are freedom, responsibility and the meaning of life. Read more about this theory on Wikipedia.

Each of the theories existing today has its own uniqueness, significance and value. And each of the researchers identified and clarified the most important aspects of a person's personality and each of them is right in his field.

For the most complete acquaintance with the issues and theories of personality psychology, you can use the following books and textbooks.

• Abulkhanova-Slavskaya K.A. Development of personality in the process of life // Psychology of formation and development of personality. Moscow: Nauka, 1981.
• Abulkhanova K.A., Berezina T.N. Personal time and life time. St. Petersburg: Aletheya, 2001.
• Ananiev B.G. Man as an object of knowledge // Selected psychological works. In 2 volumes. M., 1980.
• Wittels F. Z. Freud. His personality, teaching and school. L., 1991.
• Gippenreiter Yu.B. Introduction to general psychology. M., 1996.
• Enikeev M.I. Fundamentals of general and legal psychology. - M., 1997.
• Crane W. Secrets of Personality Formation. St. Petersburg: Prime-Eurosign, 2002.
• Leontiev A.N. Activity. Consciousness. Personality. M., 1975.
• Leontiev A.N. Problems of the development of the psyche. M., 1980.
• Maslow A. Self-actualization // Personality Psychology. Texts. M.: MGU, 1982.
• Nemov R.S. General psychology. ed. Peter, 2007.
• Pervin L., John O. Psychology of personality. Theory and research. M., 2000.
• Petrovsky A.V., Yaroshevsky M.G. Psychology. - M., 2000.
• Rusalov V.M. Biological basis of individual psychological differences. M., 1979.
• Rusalov V.M. Natural prerequisites and individual psychophysiological features of the personality // Personality psychology in the works of domestic psychologists. SPb., Peter, 2000.
• Rubinshtein S.L. Fundamentals of General Psychology. 2nd ed. M., 1946.
• Rubinshtein S.L. Being and consciousness. M., 1957.
• Rubinshtein S.L. Man and the world. Moscow: Nauka, 1997.
• Rubinshtein S.L. Principles and ways of development of psychology. M., Publishing House of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, 1959.
• Rubinshtein S.L. Fundamentals of General Psychology. M., 1946.
• Sokolova E.E. Thirteen Dialogues on Psychology. M.: Meaning, 1995.
• Stolyarenko L.D. Psychology. - Rostov-on-Don, 2004.
• Tome H. Kehele H. Modern psychoanalysis. In 2 volumes. Moscow: Progress, 1996.
• Tyson F., Tyson R. Psychoanalytic theories of development. Yekaterinburg: Business book, 1998.
• Freud Z. Introduction to psychoanalysis: Lectures. Moscow: Nauka, 1989.
• Khjell L., Ziegler D. Personality Theories. SPb., Peter, 1997.
• Hall K., Lindsay G. Personality Theories. M., 1997.
• Khjell L., Ziegler D. Personality Theories. St. Petersburg: Peter, 1997.
• Experimental psychology. / Ed. P. Fress, J. Piaget. Issue. 5. M.: Progress, 1975.
• Jung K. Soul and Myth. six archetypes. M.; Kyiv: CJSC Perfection "Port-Royal", 1997.
• Jung K. Psychology of the unconscious. M.: Kanon, 1994.
• Jung K. Tavistock Lectures. M., 1998.
• Yaroshevsky M.G. Psychology in the XX century. M., 1974.

Test your knowledge

If you want to test your knowledge on the topic of this lesson, you can take a short test consisting of several questions. Only 1 option can be correct for each question. After you select one of the options, the system automatically moves on to the next question. The points you receive are affected by the correctness of your answers and the time spent on passing. Please note that the questions are different each time, and the options are shuffled.

In psychological science, the categories man, individual, personality, individuality belong to the basic categories. They are not purely psychological and are studied by all social sciences. Therefore, the question arises about the specifics of the study of these categories by psychology: all mental phenomena are formed and developed in activity and communication, but they do not belong to these processes, but to their subject - public individual, personalities.

The problem of personality also appears as an independent one. The most important theoretical task is to discover the objective foundations of those psychological properties that characterize a person as an individual, as an individuality and as a person. Man is born into the world as a man.

concept Human is the widest. This is the accepted classical scientifically generalized name for a special kind of living being - “reasonable man”, or homo sapiens. Everything is united in this concept: natural, biochemical, social, medical, etc.

Individual- a category indicating belonging to the human race. This concept expresses the generic affiliation of a person, i.e. every person is an individual. This is an emphasis on singularity (as opposed to a person) and indivisibility (as opposed to a person).

The individual emphasizes the biological in man, but does not exclude the social components inherent in the human race. A person is born as a concrete individual, but, having become a personality, does not cease to be an individual at the same time.

Personality- a person who develops in society and interacts and communicates with other people using language.

This is a person as a member of society, the result of formation, development and socialization. But what has been said does not mean that a person is only a social being, devoid of biological characteristics. In personality psychology, the social and biological exist in unity. To understand what a person is, it is possible only through the study of real social ties and relationships in which a person enters. It was not for nothing that S. L. Rubinshtein said that all psychology is the psychology of personality. At the same time, the category “man” and “personality” are not synonymous. The latter determines the social orientation of a person who becomes a personality, provided that he develops in society (for example, in contrast to “wild children”), interacts with other people (in contrast to those who are deeply ill from birth). Every normal person has several personality manifestations, depending on which part of society he is projected at the moment: family, work, study, friendship. At the same time, the personality is integral and unified, systemic and organized.

In psychology, there are other, narrower interpretations of the understanding of personality, when certain qualities are singled out, supposedly acting as integral attributes for it. Here it is proposed to consider as a person only someone, for example, who is independent, responsible, highly developed. Such criteria are, as a rule, subjective and difficult to prove.

The specificity of the social conditions of life and the way of human activity determines the features of its individual features and properties. All people have certain mental traits, attitudes, customs and feelings, each of us has differences in the cognitive sphere of personality, which will determine our individuality.

- this is a holistic model, a system of qualities and properties that fully characterizes the psychological characteristics of a person (person, individual).

All mental processes are carried out in some personality, but not all act as its distinctive properties. Each of us is in some ways similar to all people, in some ways only to some, in some ways not like anyone else.

In psychology, there are a huge number of models of the psychological structure of the personality, which stem from various theories about the psyche and personality, from different parameters and tasks. In our manual, we use a model of the psychological structure of the personality, based on a combination of two schemes, developed first by S. L. Rubinshtein, and then by K. K. Platonov.

One of the problems of studying personality is understanding its psychological structure. In the second half of the last century, Russian psychology developed an idea of ​​personality as the epicenter of the individual and the social. More and more domestic psychologists were inclined to the idea that it is the personality that is the knot of social relations, which means that the nature of the personality is concrete and historical; personality - a measure of individual activity, self-expression, self-actualization, self-affirmation, creativity; personality is the subject of history, existing in social integrity. Activity is recognized as the main determinant of the formation of a personality in domestic psychology. Activity is always subjective. The condition for its implementation and its main product is a person who always quite definitely relates to the world around him. His consciousness is conditioned by the structure of the activity itself, aimed at meeting the needs. What a person receives as a result of labor must first exist in his mind. In the representation, however, lies that which determines the structure of his personality.

Psychological structure of personality is a holistic systemic formation, a set of socially significant properties, qualities, positions, relationships, algorithms of actions and actions of a person that have developed during his lifetime and determine his behavior and activities.

The psychological structure of a personality is made up of its mental properties (orientation, character, temperament, abilities), life experience, characteristic mental states, individual characteristics of mental processes, self-consciousness, etc. The structure of the personality develops gradually in the process of its social development and is the product of this development, the effect of the entire life path of a person. The functioning of such education is possible only through the interaction of personal properties that are components of the personality structure.

In modern psychology, there are different points of view on the internal structure of the personality (Table 4).

Table 4

The structure of personality in the view of domestic psychologists

	Components of the personality structure
S.L. Rubinstein	Orientation Knowledge, skills, skills Individual typological features
V.N. Myasishchev	Orientation State of the art Dynamics of neuropsychic reactivity (temperament) Motivation Attitude and personality tendencies
A.G. Kovalev	Orientation Character Possibilities Exercise system
B.G. Ananiev	A certain complex of correlated properties of an individual Dynamics of psychophysiological functions and the structure of organic needs Status and social functions-roles Motivation of behavior and value orientations Structure and Dynamics of Relationships
A.N. Leontiev	According to the author, the personality structure is a relatively stable configuration of the main hierarchical, motivational lines within itself. The internal relations of the main motivational lines form, as it were, a general "psychological" profile of the personality. All this allows A.N. Leontiev to identify three main personality parameters: the breadth of man's connections with the world (through his activities) the degree of hierarchization of these connections, transforming bathed in a hierarchy of meaning-forming motives (motives-goals) the general structure of these connections, more precisely, motives- The process of personality formation according to A.N. Leontiev is the process of "becoming a coherent system of personal meanings"

The most famous is the dynamic functional psychological structure of the personality of K.K. Platonov (Fig. 3). Its concept is convenient in practical application (for example, when compiling a characterization of persons selected for law enforcement agencies).

Substructure elements

Ratio

biological

and social

Belief, worldview, personal meanings, interests

Social level (biological is practically absent)

Directional substructure

Socio-biological level (more social than biological)

Knowledge, skills, habits

Substructure of social experience

Biosocial level (more biological than social)

Features of cognitive processes (memory, attention, etc.)

Substructure of features of mental processes

Biological level (social is practically absent)

The speed of the course of nervous processes, the balance of the processes of excitation, inhibition, etc.; sex, age properties

Substructure of biopsychic properties

Rice. 3. Hierarchical structure of personality (K.K. Platonov)

Orientation. The personality traits included in this substructure do not have directly innate inclinations, but reflect the individually refracted group social consciousness. This substructure is formed through education and includes beliefs, worldviews, aspirations, interests, ideals, desires. In these forms of personality orientation, both relationships and moral qualities of the personality, and various types of needs are manifested. At the same time, one of the orientation components dominates and has a leading role, while the others play a supporting role. The dominant orientation determines the entire mental activity of the individual.

The substructure of the orientation of the personality is closely connected with legal consciousness, especially in the part that determines the attitude of the subject to the observance of the rule of law (moral principles, value orientations, worldview). The study of the orientation of an individual's personality makes it possible to determine his social views, way of thinking, leading motives, the level of his moral development and, in many respects, to predict his behavior and actions.

social experience. This substructure combines knowledge, skills, abilities, habits acquired on the basis of personal experience through training, but already with a noticeable influence of both biologically and even genetically determined personality traits (for example, the ability to quickly memorize, physical data underlying education motor skills, etc.). This substructure is sometimes called individual culture or preparedness, but it is better to call it experience briefly.

Through the substructure of experience, the personality is most clearly manifested in its development, in the choice of leading forms of activity, in the achievement of certain results. On the one hand, the success of mastering knowledge and skills is largely determined by the inclinations and abilities of a person, on the other hand, a huge role in the acquisition of knowledge and skills is played by the orientation of the personality and its motives.

Individual features of mental processes. This substructure combines the individual characteristics of individual mental processes, or mental functions: memory, sensations, perception, thinking, emotions, feelings, will, which are formed in the process of social life. Cognitive mental processes and other forms of reflection of reality, together with the knowledge and experience acquired by a person, largely determine such a complex integrative education of a person as intelligence, which positively correlates with mental development. The process of formation and development of individual characteristics of mental processes is carried out through exercises.

biopsychic properties. This biologically determined substructure unites the typological properties of the personality, its gender, age characteristics and pathological changes, which largely depend on the physiological and morphological features of the brain. The activity of this substructure is determined by the strength of nervous processes, and it is studied at the psychophysiological, and sometimes at the neuropsychological, down to the molecular level. The process of formation of this substructure is carried out by training.

Various traits and personality traits included in all of these substructures form the two most common substructures: character and abilities, understood as general integrative qualities of the personality (Fig. 4).

Rice. 4. Personality structure (K.K. Platonov)

Character, or the style of human behavior in a social environment is a complex synthetic formation, where the content and form of a person’s spiritual life are manifested in unity. Although the character does not express the personality as a whole, however, it represents a complex system of its properties, orientation and will, intellectual and emotional qualities, typological features, manifested in temperament. In the system of character, one can also single out the leading properties, which include primarily moral and volitional, which form its basis.

Capabilities ensure the success of the activity, they are interconnected and interact with each other. As a rule, one of the abilities dominates, others obey them. The subordinate ability strengthens the main, leading ability.

All these substructures are closely interconnected and appear as a single whole, expressing such a complex integrative concept as personality. Not only does each of these four substructures, considered as a whole, in turn have its own substructures, but each personality trait also has its own structure.

Applying in practice knowledge about the structure of personality, a lawyer masters an invaluable psychological "tool" of analysis in assessing a person, which is necessary for the right choice of methods and techniques for relationships with different categories of citizens and ways of self-improvement.