The concept of personality and its structure

Abstract on the academic discipline “Psychology”

on the topic: “Personality Psychology”

Plan

1. Introduction.

2. The concepts of man, personality, individual, individuality.

3. Psychological structure of personality.

4. The connection between personality and activity. Formation and development of personality.

5. Conclusion.

6. List of references.

1. Introduction.

The subject of psychology is individual mental processes, their patterns and characteristics, as well as the psychological uniqueness of the personality of a certain carrier of these processes - a person. Psychology divides a person into three “entities”: personality, individual, individuality. These concepts reveal the characteristic aspects of a person’s individual life.

A person is called a specific person, distinguished by certain characteristics - mental and physical.

Domestic psychologists, speaking about personality, always had in mind a person as a unit of society. Outside of society, the individual is unthinkable. A person is invariably a unit of one or another community - a family, a school, a work team at an enterprise. Active human activity in a team, the relationship between the team and the individual significantly determine the formation of special personality traits.

Personality is always distinguished by certain psychological characteristics.

These include interests, worldview and ideals, needs, political beliefs, character and temperament, mental and physical abilities of a person. The psychological uniqueness of the individual is historically determined. It received its development in the course of social and labor activity, as a result of which it expresses the social human essence, characterizes the traits that have developed in a person as a unit of society. Considering it as a product of human biological development is excluded.

The relationship between an individual as a product of anthropogenesis, an individual who has adopted the historical experience of society, and an individual who transforms the world can be expressed by the formula: “One is born an individual. They become a person. Individuality is defended."

2. The concepts of man, personality, individual, individuality.

Together with the term “personality” the concepts “individuality”, “individual”, “person” are used. These concepts are meaningfully interconnected.

Man is a generic concept, marking the belonging of a creature to the highest degree of development of living nature - to the human race. The concept of “man” establishes the genetic determinism of the development of human qualities and characteristics.

An individual is the only representative of the species “homo sapiens”. People, as individuals, differ from each other in morphological characteristics - eye color, bodily constitution, height, as well as psychological properties - emotionality, temperament, abilities.

Individuality is a set of unique personal properties of a certain person. In other words, the uniqueness of his psychophysiological structure is life experience, intelligence, type of temperament, worldview, mental and physical characteristics.

A person is a social being, involved in social relations, performing a specific social role, taking part in the development of society.

Personality is a product and object of social relations, is subject to social influence, and also transforms and refracts it. It represents a community of internal conditions through which the external influence of society is refracted.

These internal conditions are a combination of:

socially determined qualities;
hereditary and biological properties.

A personality is not only a product and object of social relations, but also a highly active subject of self-knowledge, activity, consciousness, and communication.

The development of personality is determined by activity, its activity - and also personality is actually expressed.

However, while there are personality qualities in which the role of biological factors is significant, there are qualities in which social ones are leading. A person is not born a mature personality, he becomes one as he develops.

Correspondence to personality and individuality are two different definitions of a person, two ways of his existence. The divergence of these concepts is expressed in the presence of two different processes of formation of individuality and personality.

The formation of personality is a process of human socialization, which consists in his comprehension of the social, tribal principle. This comprehension invariably occurs in the definite historical conditions of human existence. The formation of personality is associated with the acquisition by an individual of social roles and functions produced in society, social rules and norms of behavior, and the development of skills to build relationships with others. A mature personality is the subject of responsible, independent and free behavior in society.

The formation of individuality is the process of individualization of an object. Individualization is a process of personal isolation and self-determination, emphasizing the individual in society, asserting his originality, uniqueness and isolation. Having formed into individuality, a person is an original, creatively and actively manifested person in the existence of a person.

The understanding of “individuality” and “personality” captures different aspects, various dimensions of the human spiritual essence. The content of this difference is very expressed in the language. When talking about a person, they usually use epithets - independent, energetic, strong, thereby highlighting her active representativeness in the eyes of other people. When talking about individuality they use creative, unique, bright, implying the qualities of an independent nature.

3. Psychological structure of personality.

The psychological structure of the personality is an integral form, a system of properties and qualities that fully characterizes the psychological specificity of the personality (individual, person).

Mental processes, in their entirety, occur in the individual, but not each acts as its distinctive property. Each person has some similarity with other people, some only in individual cases, or has no similarity at all.

Psychology contains many models of the psychological structure of personality, arising from various paradigms about personality and psyche, from various tasks and parameters. An interesting model of the psychological structure of the individual, based on the combination of two schemes, created by S.L. Rubinstein, and then K.K. Platonov.

This basis of the model comes from the personal-active approach. The structure contains six interdependent substructures. They are identified conditionally only for the purpose of obtaining a certain scheme of a complete personality.

The following psychological components or substructures are distinguished in personality.

Self-awareness. The center of consciousness is self-consciousness, or the consciousness of one's own “I”. Self-awareness and consciousness of the external world are formed and develop interdependently and simultaneously. At the level of self-awareness, a sense of internal integrity is formed, the constancy of the personality, capable of being itself in every changing situation.

Self-awareness is associated with a sense of one’s own exclusivity, supported by the continuum of one’s temporary experiences - any mentally healthy person has hopes for the future, experiences the present, and does not forget about the past. The main function of self-awareness is to provide a person with access to the results and motives of his actions, to provide the opportunity to realize what he really is.

Personality orientation. Direction is the most important property of a person, in which significant tendencies in human behavior and the dynamics of his development as a spiritual and social being are expressed. The orientation of the individual is the leading psychological property of the individual, representing the system of his motivations for activity and life. Basically, all scientists believe that the main component of the personality structure, its system-forming characteristic, is the orientation of the individual. Especially in this property, the goals that motivate a person to action, her individual relationships to various aspects of reality, and her motives are manifested.

Direction has a concentrating effect on elements of the personality structure - the development of abilities or the expression of temperament, as well as on mental states - overcoming stress, the entire sphere of mental processes. Orientation is realized in different forms - attachments, predispositions, tastes, value orientations, dislikes or likes and is expressed in different spheres of human life. In psychology, the orientation of a person is established in the form of a system of constant ideals, interests, needs - everything that a person desires. Direction is the basis of the main behavioral guidelines. A person with a clearly demonstrated positive orientation is highly socially active, hardworking, and purposeful.

Temperament and character. Character is a complex of more clearly formed and relatively stable traits that are indicative of a particular person and are regularly revealed in his behavior. Direct is associated with temperament, which determines the external form of manifestation of character and layers a specific imprint on its various expressions. However, temperament is determined by the innate properties of higher nervous activity and does not actually change during human life.

Temperament is the general biological basis on which the formation of the individual as a social being is carried out. Character is formed during upbringing; it reflects the circumstances of human life and can change when these circumstances change. In the organization of character, among other things, basic properties are highlighted. These include initially moral and then volitional qualities that provide a specific behavioral style and method of solving practical problems.

Mental processes and states. Mental processes are a dynamic reflection of reality in different configurations of mental phenomena - personal manifestations of thinking, perception, memory, abilities, sensations caused by innate factors, training, development and improvement of these qualities.

A mental state is a relatively stable level of mental activity formed at the current moment, manifested in decreased or increased activity of the individual.

Abilities and inclinations. Inclinations are individual genetically determined anatomical and physiological characteristics of the nervous organization, forming an individual-natural basis for the formation of abilities and their further development. Abilities are mental properties of a person that guarantee the successful development of any activity. The study of abilities is carried out with the aim of understanding human intelligence and establishing a person’s suitability for a particular type of activity. As a rule, general and special abilities are emphasized.

General abilities include a person’s general performance, predisposition to work, ease of memorization, richness of imagination, as well as logic, depth, flexibility and breadth of mind. General abilities are needed to succeed in every activity. Special abilities are necessary to work effectively in any particular activity. Among them, it is necessary to especially note organizational, pedagogical, linguistic, and managerial abilities. Special abilities also include diagnostic, creative, and cognitive abilities. When assessing people, determining whether they have abilities and their level of development is of significant importance. The highest degree of development of human abilities is called talent.

Mental experience of the individual. Personal experience is a person’s acquisition of social experience—socialization. This experience contains the skills, abilities, and knowledge necessary for his life:

skills—automated elements of targeted, directed, conscious activity;
skills - human ability, based on skills and knowledge, to perform work in a timely, efficient and high-quality manner under new circumstances;
knowledge is the concept of scientific definitions about the laws of society, nature, the formation of man, his development, as well as his consciousness.

4. The connection between personality and activity. Formation and development of personality.

In the formation and development of the human personality, biological factors play a significant role: physiological characteristics of lifestyle, stay in the environment, heredity. Nevertheless, a person is not born, but becomes a person.

There is a variety of opinions about how the very structure of development and personality formation is carried out. These discrepancies are due to different understandings of the importance of social groups and society for the development of the individual, in addition, periods of development and patterns, opportunities to speed up the development process, crises of personality development and other issues.

The psychoanalytic paradigm understands development as the adaptation of human biological nature to existence in society, the development of established protective elements and ways of satisfying needs.

The trait paradigm builds its understanding of development on the lifetime formation of all personality traits, and evaluates the process of their emergence, stabilization and transformation as dependent on other, non-biological laws.

In the social learning paradigm, the process of personality development is considered as the formation of established methods of interpsychic human interaction. Humanistic psychology positions the development and formation of personality as the formation of a person’s “I”, the acceptance of his self.

There is a cycle of efforts to bring a certain standard form to the development of personality, perceiving this development as a chain of periods. E. Erikson declared the principle of genetic predetermination of periods of personal formation and development. He also emphasized and presented a description of eight psychological crises in the lives of all people:

Crisis of trust - mistrust - at the age of the first year of life.
Independence is opposed to shame and doubt - at the age of 2-3 years.
The emergence of entrepreneurial spirit is opposed to feelings of guilt - at the age of 3-6 years.
Hard work is opposed to an inferiority complex - at the age of 7-12 years.
Personal self-determination is opposed to conformism and individual dullness - at the age of 12-18 years.
Sociability and intimacy are contrasted with personal psychological isolation - at the age of approximately 20 years.
Attention to the upbringing of the new generation is opposed to “immersion in oneself” - in the interval of 30 and 60 years.
Satisfaction with life lived is opposed to despair - at the age of over 60 years.

The formation of personality in Erikson’s paradigm is implied in the form of a change of periods, in any of which a high-quality modification of the inner human world and decisive changes in a person’s relationships with others are carried out. Ultimately, a person as an individual acquires something new, characteristic only of this period of development and retained by him throughout his entire existence. New personality traits are formed only on the basis of previous development.

According to domestic psychologists, a person as an individual develops during the upbringing and socialization of the individual. Man is a social creature; from birth he is surrounded by others like him, he is included in various types of social interaction.

The acquisition of the first social experience takes place in the family, even before the formation of speech. Next, a person constantly acquires new experience, which turns out to be a natural part of his personality. This process is called socialization, which is inseparably associated with joint human activity and communication.

The problem of the relationship between personality and activity was first raised by L.S. Vygotsky in the direction of the cultural-historical paradigm. He used a general historical rule in the study of periods of age-related development and revealed that action appears to be the unit of analysis in the development of the child’s psyche.

Back in the 30s of the last century, the development of this opinion was continued by famous researchers of the Kharkov school: P.Ya. Galperin, A.N. Leontyev, L.I. Bozhovich, A.V. Zaporozhets. The research they carried out led to an understanding of the significance of activity in human development. Later, A.N. Leontyev revealed that the criterion for the periodization of mental development is the leading activity, the form and content of which are determined by the specific historical circumstances of the child’s development.

In the early 70s D.B. Elkonin created a paradigm for the periodization of age-related development, based on the opinion of a methodical change in the configurations of leading activities. Having analyzed all types of children's leading activities from birth to adolescence inclusive, he divided them into two large groups.

The first group includes types of activities in which, in the child-adult system, the norms of relationships between people, motives and goals are mastered. This group includes role-playing play, intimate and personal communication of adolescents, and direct emotional communication of an infant.

The second group includes types of activities that are mastered in the child-object system, focused on mastering socially produced ways of acting with objects, and standards that emphasize various important aspects of objects. The types of activities of this group differ significantly from each other: the manipulative-objective activities of an early child, the educational activities of a younger schoolchild, and the educational and professional activities of an older teenager. Formally, these types of activities have significant differences, but they are all components of human culture.

In the case of the arrangement of existing types of leading children's activities in accordance with the methodology in which they are leading at various stages of periodization of age development, in this case the following description will occur.

The first group - direct-emotional communication - birth - 1 year;

The second group - object-manipulative activities - 1 - 3 years;

The first group - role-playing game - 3 - 7 years;

The second group - educational activities - 7 - 10 years;

The first group - intimate-personal communication - 11 - 14 years old;

The second group - educational and professional activities - 14 - 17 years old.

Consequently, in the development of a child, there are periods during which the predominant assimilation of motives, tasks and norms of relationships between people takes place - on the basis of them, the motivational-need personal sphere is formed, and stages in which the predominant assimilation of socially produced ways of acting with objects takes place - on the basis They develop the child’s intellectual and cognitive capabilities, their operational and technical abilities.

Methodically increasing types of activities are inevitably replaced by types of one group for another. Periods, in the case of the predominant development of the motivational-need sphere, are reasonably followed by periods in the case of the predominant formation of the child’s operational and technical capabilities, and vice versa.

Thus, D.B. Elkonin combined the process of personality development, perceived as a gradational complication of the motivational-need sphere, with the resulting process of development and gradational complication of different types of objective activities, which a person must master in the course of his own development.

5. Conclusion.

Personality appears to be a complete and, thus, more complex object of psychology. In its popular meaning, it links all of psychology into a single whole, and there is no such study in this science that would not contribute to the understanding of personality. Anyone who studies personality cannot neglect other areas of psychology.

There are a large number of approaches to personality research. This is completely natural in a field in which any experience belongs only to a particular precedent, completely beyond any comparison of the complexity of the object itself. There is the possibility of considering personality through structure, or taking into account physiological reactions, or through the connection of mental, physical aspects of personality.

Initially, a born individual containing only natural mental functions, over time, as he joins society, he becomes socialized, i.e. transforms into a personality. Along with this, the sociocultural environment is a source that nourishes the development of the individual, instilling in her roles, values, and social norms. And, ultimately, the individual who himself influences society appears to be an individual.

The age-specific periods of personality development are quite fascinating. The body has an amazing memory and questions that arise during the periods of infancy and early childhood leave a mark on the subconscious for life, in other words, everything that was “not given” to the child after birth will undoubtedly manifest itself later.

Thus, the practical purpose of psychology as a science is the education of a person of high morality and ethics - an “ideal” person. More precisely, identifying and solving problems when raising such a person, or nurturing maximum individuality in a person.

6. Bibliography.

1. D.B. Elkonin, Selected psychological works. - M.: Pedagogy, 1989. - 560 p.

2. L.S. Vygotsky, Psychology of human development. - M.: Eksmo Publishing House, 2005. - 1136 p.

3. B.G. Ananyev, Personality structure. // Personality psychology in the works of domestic psychologists. Reader. / Comp. Kulikov A.V. - St. Petersburg: Peter, 2000. - 501 p.

4. L.I. Bozovic, Personality and its formation in childhood. - St. Petersburg: Peter, 2008. - 400 p.

5. R.S. Nemov, Psychology. In 3 books. Book 1: General fundamentals of psychology: A textbook for students of pedagogical universities. – 3rd ed. – M.: Vlados, 2004. – 632 p.

6. V.P. Simonov, P.M. Ershov, Temperament. Character. Personality. M.: Nauka, 2003. – 564 p.

Concepts of personality structure in Russian psychology

Rubinstein's concept: Personality consists of the following four components:
Character is a set of individual properties of a person, determined by his relationship to the world and to himself and manifested in forms of behavior typical for a given person.
Temperament is a set of formal-dynamic personality properties.
Abilities are individual personality properties that determine the success of a person’s activities.
Platonov's concept: Personality consists of the following components, which can be considered as levels:
Individual social experience (knowledge, skills, abilities and habits acquired by a person) is formed mainly in the learning process and has a social character.
Individual characteristics of mental processes (individual manifestations of memory, perception, sensations, thinking, abilities) depend both on innate factors and on training, development, and improvement of these qualities.
Biologically determined personality properties (temperament, gender and age characteristics) are the lowest level of personality structure.
Ananyev's concept
Character
Social status Social roles
Focus
Features of social behavior The nature of communications and relationships with other people
Temperament

Character
Social status	Social roles
Focus
Features of social behavior	The nature of communications and relationships with other people
Temperament