What is personality, does personality have a beginning, will it have an end? (fb2)

Today in psychology there are more than 50 theories that describe the concept of “personality”. Each of them tells in its own way how the formation of personality takes place. But they are all united in the fact that each person lives through the stages of personality formation in a way that no one has lived before and no one will live after. ...

A fairly common question that worries modern society is why one person gets everything: he is successful in all spheres of life, respected and loved, while the other is so unhappy and only degenerates? To grasp the essence and answer this question , one should operate with knowledge of the factors of personality development that have a direct impact on the life of a particular person. It is extremely important to know how the stages of personality formation went through, what new abilities, properties and qualities appeared in the process of life, always taking into account the role of family and friends.

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Today in our article we will look at the process of personality formation , as well as what obstacles a person faces along this path.

Formation of human personality

The process of personality formation is the formation in each individual of certain human qualities that were acquired in the process of life. But what determines the manifestation of certain qualities in a person?

Factors that influence the development of personality

Education in childhood and self-education in adulthood. It is quite difficult to overestimate the importance of family in the development of personality. The educational function can be considered the main task of the social institution of the social unit - the family. As a rule, harmoniously developed children grow up in prosperous and full-fledged families. It is worth noting that the problems that a child encountered in childhood are like baggage that in the future prevents a person from fully developing. Every child copies the behavior of their parents and learns to be a full member of society. It is worth noting that children at an unconscious level copy the negative and positive qualities of their parents, values and ideals; we should also not forget about the usual types of thinking, strategies, behavior and lifestyles. Over time, parental instructions are transformed into an “inner voice”, and moral qualities such as morality, honor, conscience and others are actively formed. In the process of growing up, a person is guided by the knowledge he received from his parents.
Genetics. Each person is unique, and all because the same combination of genes is not found. A person acquires some of the components and characteristics of individuality at birth. Temperament is already determined from birth; a newborn can not only experience, but also express basic emotions. It is worth noting that family genetics is no less important than family upbringing, since mental illnesses can be transmitted genetically.
Life experience. Every event that happens in a person’s life affects his inner world, especially when it comes to significant events. Life experiences can transform or modify the direction or course of life. A person finds or loses motivation as a result of experiences, develops his abilities, develops character and willpower.
Culture and mentality . The mentality is influenced by the climate and environment in which representatives of a certain nationality live. In short, mentality can be described as “the character of the people.” For example, residents of warm countries are distinguished by their temperament, emotionality and activity. Morality, moral values and culture, which are widespread in society, are instilled in every person from birth and guide the process of personality development. For example, representatives of one culture are more reserved and forced to adhere to rules of behavior, while others may behave more freely, casually and naturally. Factors in the development of personality influence it every time a person is in a new sociocultural environment. Essentially, its formation is a series of entries into new social communities.

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Stages of personality formation

Adaptation - this phenomenon implies the desire of each individual to some extent become the same as the rest of the representatives of his environment. The process of personality formation is carried out through its adoption of forms of activity in the social environment.
The second, no less important stage is called “individualization”. When a person realizes that he is “like everyone else,” he begins to actively seek and demonstrate his individual characteristics in order to achieve personalization.
Integration - this concept defines not so much the formation of personality, but the development of the society where a person lives. Each individual, in order to interact with society, must harmonize his individuality with it, demonstrate those individual qualities that can be used for the benefit of people. If a person brings benefit to society, then he develops.

To summarize this section, I would like to note that if one of these stages has not been completed, then a phase of disintegration begins, accompanied by the rejection of a person by society. During disintegration, the process of formation stops and can be reversed, which entails degradation.

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Formation of a child's personality

The formation process begins in early childhood and can continue throughout life. It begins when the child reaches the ability to understand himself (age, approximately appearance, emotions, feelings).

When a child does not throw tantrums about a toy that was not bought for him in public in front of all the people, we can talk about his positive development. He begins to distinguish between what is good and what is bad, and to give up his immediate desires. Around the age of three, a child develops self-awareness.

Stages of development

An active and active person is more predisposed to development.
It is worth noting that for each age interval one of the activities is advanced and leading. The concept of leading activity was developed by the outstanding Soviet psychologist A. N. Leontev, who also identified the main stages of development. Somewhat later, his ideas were developed and slightly transformed by D. B. Elkonin and other scientists.

But what is the leading activity? This is a factor of activity and development that determines the formation of the basic psychological diversity of an individual at the next stage of his development.

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"According to Elkonin D.B."

Stages of personality formation according to Elkonin D. B. and advanced activities in each of them:

Infancy - communication with adults.
Early childhood is an active object-manipulative type of activity. Every child learns to use simple objects.
The preschool period can be described as a role-playing game. In a playful way, the child tries on the social roles of adults.
Junior school age is accompanied by fruitful educational activities.
Adolescence includes the beginning of intimate relationships with peers.

"According to Erickson E."

Erickson E. is a foreign psychologist whose periodization of individuality development has become the most famous.
According to the scientist, the process of personality formation occurs not only in youth, but also in periods of extreme old age. Psychosocial stages of development represent crisis time intervals of formation by an individual. Formation is overcoming conditional barriers (psychological stages) one after another. At each stage, a qualitative modification of a person’s inner world is carried out. The new formation of each stage is the result of human development at each stage passed.

It is worth paying attention that neoplasms can be not only positive, but also negative. As a matter of fact, their combination determines a person’s individuality. Erikson identified and described two advanced lines of development: abnormal and normal, in each of which he identified and compared psychological new formations.

Crisis stages of personality forging according to Erickson E

The first year of human life. During this time period, the family plays an extremely important role in development. Through parents, a child learns whether the world is kind to him. If the development is normal, then the child develops trust in the world, otherwise it is abnormal, accompanied by global distrust.
From 1 year to 3 years. If the formation process is normal, then the child develops not only independence, but also self-confidence. Otherwise, with an anomaly, there is hypertrophied shame and self-doubt.
From 3 to 5 years. Curiosity or indifference to people and the world, initiative or guilt, activity or passivity.
From 5 to 11 years. At this stage, the child learns not only to set goals, but also to achieve them, develop hard work, communication and cognitive skills, strive for success and independently solve their problems. If the formation deviates from the norm, then the new formations will be the futility of efforts to solve the assigned tasks, a feeling of meaninglessness, an inferiority complex.
From 12 to 18 years. During this stage of development, adolescents experience self-determination. Young people decide on their worldview, choose their future profession, and make plans. If deviations from the norm are observed, but the young man is immersed in his inner world, all attempts to understand himself become futile. Confusion in feelings and thoughts entails difficulties with self-determination, inability to plan for the future, and decreased activity. As a rule, in the latter case, the teenager becomes a conformist, not having his own worldview.
From 20 to 45 years. This time period refers to early adulthood. Normally, it is accompanied by a person’s desire to be a useful member of society. An individual manages to feel satisfied with life if he creates a family, has children and works. Early adulthood is a period when the role of the family again comes to the forefront, only in this case the family is no longer parental, but created independently. Positive new developments of this period include: sociability and intimacy. As for the negative ones, these include promiscuity, avoidance of close relationships and complete isolation. In this case, character difficulties border on mental disorders.
From 45 to 60 years - average maturity. A wonderful life stage of formation in the conditions of a diverse, creative and at the same time fulfilling life. A person is loved and respected by family, friends and colleagues, has reached certain heights in his career, teaches and raises children. If the formation occurs successfully, then the person works productively and actively on himself, if not, then there is a desire to escape from reality by “immersing himself in himself.” Such “stagnation” is accompanied by anger, selfishness, early disability, and loss of ability to work.
After 60 years - late adulthood. The period when a person begins to actively take stock of his life.

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The role of family in personality formation

Family is the first people a newborn meets, even if he doesn't realize it from the very beginning. Its development is influenced by the atmosphere in the house, the warmth of relationships between family members and their guests.

A person’s character is formed in the family, and continues in school, the second most important social institution. To get the desired result, parents must act together with school teachers, passing on their knowledge and skills to their children.

All qualities acquired by a person in the family remain with him throughout his life. The family provides the basis for the development of a future personality, which begins to be laid from the very first stages of a child’s life. The family educates a person, creates and destroys his worldview. A person develops his own “I”, he begins to express his own opinions and views.

In the early stages, family is everything to a person.
She raises him, teaches him, protects him and provides him with the necessary benefits. That is why any personality begins to form in the family. Personality formation and development was last modified: January 12, 2016 by Elena Pogodaeva

Fragment 3 E. V. Ilyenkov WHAT IS PERSONALITY?

Just as the category of value cannot be revealed by examining the physical and chemical composition of a gold coin or a paper note, the secret of personality cannot be reduced to the characteristics of the human brain. The presence of a medically normal brain is only one of the prerequisites for personality, but not the personality itself. It is revealed through the totality of social relations, and consequently, a dynamic ensemble of people connected by mutual ties.

Personality not only exists, but is first born precisely as a “knot” knotted in a network of mutual relationships. What really exists inside the body of an individual is not a personality, but its one-sided projection onto the screen of biology, carried out by the dynamics of nervous processes.

Personality arises within a system consisting of three moments that reveal the essence of human relationships: 1) a thing created by a person for a person, 2) another person who relates humanly to this thing, and through it to another person, 3) the person himself, located in a special, social relationship with oneself, but not directly, but indirectly through human-created tools of communication.

Human development can be represented as a process of displacement of the biological principle by another, non-biological one. Biologically, a person's forelimbs are not adapted to hold a spoon or a pencil, fasten buttons, or finger the keys of a piano. Morphologically they are designed for this. But that is why they are able to take on any type of work. Freedom from any pre-built morphological mode of functioning is their morphological advantage, thanks to which the limbs of a newborn can turn into human hands.

The expression “personal socialization” is not entirely appropriate. It is not the personality that is socialized, but the natural body of the newborn, which has yet to turn into a personality in the course of socialization. Personality has yet to emerge. And the act of her birth does not coincide either in time or in essence with the act of birth of the human body. Since the baby’s body is included in the totality of social relations from the first minutes, he is potentially already a person. Potentially, but not actual. A child will become a person only when he begins to perform activities. At first, with the help of adults.

Personality is determined not by the structure of the brain, but by the system of social relations of person to person, mediated through the things they create. In the field of the individual, the personality realizes itself as a social formation fundamentally different from the body and brain.

A real attitude towards oneself arises only in the process of real interaction between individuals. A real person often becomes convinced that “in reality” she is not at all what she imagined herself to be, that there are hidden forces within her that she did not even suspect. And they were hidden in the composition of the personality, but not in its self-awareness, in its ideas about itself. The attitude towards oneself is mediated by the attitude towards another with whom we interact, and is the essence of personal space.

A person, K. Marx wrote, is born without a mirror in his hands, so a person first looks like in a mirror, into another person. And only by recognizing a person in another, he then treats himself as a person.

A person’s individuality is manifested in details, for example, the style of a jacket or hairstyle, in curious features - in manner, facial expressions, words, i.e. in those conspicuous details that are designed to hide the lack of personality. The real personality, on the contrary, reveals itself in the creation of socially significant results, which are also called the “general result.” Plato and Spinoza, Beethoven and Napoleon, Tolstoy and Michelangelo are personalities who cannot be confused with anyone else, in whom a socially significant (i.e. significant for others) matter is concentrated, breaking the habitual, inert.

The scale of an individual is measured by the scale of their affairs, which are of interest not only to them personally, but also to many others. The wider the circle of these people, the more significant the personality. Therefore, personality is the individually expressed strength of the collective. And its uniqueness lies in the fact that in its own way it reveals something new for everyone, expressing the essence of themselves better than others. True individuality is always born at the forefront of the development of universal culture, in the creation of a product that becomes the property of everyone, and therefore does not die along with its organic body.

Adapted from the source: Personality Psychology. Texts. - M., 1982, p. 11 - 19.

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Repression as a type of psychological defense

This may be protection from negative manifestations of the surrounding world that affect the individual and carry a psycho-traumatic factor.
This is a process in which there is an involuntary movement into the unconscious of thoughts, memories, images, feelings and impulses that are unpleasant for a person. Repression is the most important way to resolve internal conflict through the purposeful exclusion of an antisocial motive or negative information from consciousness. Hurt pride, resentment or pride become a source of distorted motives for one’s own actions, so that the truth can be hidden not only from others, but also from oneself. Real, but not entirely pleasant, motives are easily replaced by others approved by society. Such mind games occur constantly in the life of every person, since the mechanism of repression is also adaptive in nature.

Repressing loss

Let's imagine a child who has lost his favorite toy, he is very sad and his parents unsuccessfully calm him down. Then the grandmother says that the toy was not lost forever and will definitely be found. Then the baby calms down, the thought of a hopeless loss changes to an optimistic mood, and very soon the child forgets about the old toy. If the process of repression had not occurred, then many people would have been terribly depressed about their misdeeds, losses and unfulfilled desires, unable to find the strength to accept reality.

Many scientists have studied the phenomenon of repression. But this topic was developed most thoroughly and deeply by Sigmund Freud, who worked with patients suffering from neuroses. The fundamental hypothesis was that if you transfer the unconscious into the conscious and find out the very repressed (attraction, thoughts, desires, information) that gives rise to the symptom, then the symptom will disappear. Freud viewed repression as an attempt to not accept the reality of an event that disturbs the individual. The result is a distortion of reality, substitution of events or their complete denial.

It is paradoxical that repression requires enormous energy expenditure from a person’s consciousness to maintain it. Therefore, neurotic individuals often experience lethargy, loss of strength, emotional exhaustion, and are often sick for a long time.

It was with the mechanism of repression that Freud associated the symptoms of hysteria, frigidity, impotence and psychosomatic diseases. The scientist noted that this mechanism is more often observed in infantile individuals with hysterical traits and in children. Freud identified two types of repression

primary repression (prevention of the initial instinctive impulse)
secondary, in which the hidden manifestation of the impulse is held in the subconscious

Repression, along with other mechanisms for protecting the individual, is a kind of regulator of mental homeostasis. If for some reason it is absent or not fully developed, for example, in people with psychopathic reactions, then there is a possibility of personality disintegration.

Repression as a defense mechanism leads not only to a distortion of one’s own motives and manifestations, but also to a selective approach in the social sphere of individuals.

Repression of true motives

Let's look at a simple example. The young woman studies at the institute and at the same time has a hobby that requires a lot of time. In this regard, she fails to provide proper comfort for her husband and child. Because of this, according to the wife, the husband sometimes comes home in the morning and is often irritable and rude towards her. Nevertheless, the woman tries to improve and create an idyll in the relationship and calls her husband “beloved, who loves me.”

The positive self-concept in this variant suffers a double blow. In reality, the woman is offended and lonely, but her consciousness does not leave the rosy illusion of a beautiful and friendly family. Stronger than resentment and melancholy for her would be the realization that she is not loved. The need to rebuild reality from scratch scares the Ego. Therefore, a woman ignores bad and disturbing thoughts, but she cannot eliminate anxiety at all. And now everything depends on how long the consciousness will cherish the obvious self-deception.

A psychologist worked with this family and identified the stages of development of the crisis. Initially, the wife developed anxiety for her husband’s life, as a result of which an inevitable feeling of the death of her loved one arose. The woman was sincerely worried and believed that only death could destroy a family. She periodically replayed episodes of road accidents involving her husband in her head. Various secret rituals and inventions were invented specifically to protect the husband on the way.

Sometimes a woman would smell women's perfume from her husband's shirt and joke about it. Not for a second did she seriously imagine the possibility of betrayal. One day this happened - my husband lied, saying that he was late at work, but he really wasn’t there. The woman found out about this, the thought of the accident did not occur to her, but there was no thought of betrayal either. She was seized with great anxiety and when her husband came, she demanded to tell everything. His answer was unexpected and stunning; as it turned out, the man was cheating all the time. This was a real blow, as it was time to rebuild my life.

The “moment of truth” came, crushing the long and painful repression, but at the same time the soul was healed, as consciousness became clearer and the real picture of the world became clearer for specific people.

Many facts from personal life are being repressed:

actions that do not paint a person;
some aspirations;
desires;
negative character accentuations;
hostility towards one's own friends and loved ones;
Oedipus complex.

Neurotic individuals are not aware of this at all and do not notice their negative traits - touchiness, anger, irony, etc. They do not see anything bad in this, treating them as normal manifestations that do not require change and even worthy of pride.

Methods for eliminating crowding out

To become a harmonious person, it is necessary to try in every way to comprehend the repressed, transforming it into the conscious. One of the methods used in psychology is writing an autobiography. A detailed description of the past is an excellent way to remember and realize everything that has been repressed in order to rethink, relive and make sure that the oppressive past does not interfere with living a full-fledged present. First you need to survive all the losses, the death of loved ones. You need to improve relationships with loved ones and realize the true reason for your hostility. Realize the desire to dominate real growth instead of tyrannizing household members.

The main task in the fight against repression is the awareness of that very repressed thing through psychoanalytic procedures used in psychology. But preventing the occurrence of this mechanism is also important - vigilance. To do this, you can keep a diary, noting your opinion on current events or discussions.

The stronger the adult’s position, the less will penetrate into our unconscious, therefore, the more will remain in the conscious. Because of this, so many repressions occur in childhood, since in childhood, by definition, there cannot be an adult position. The stronger a person’s spirit, the more he is able to comprehend and digest, even if the information is very painful. If a person is often offended, but at the same time tries to give himself an indifferent appearance, then the resentment is repressed. This, in turn, leads to inhibition of personal growth or even blocks it. If a person is offended, but the offense is present in the mind, then it will be easier and faster to forgive.

Determining whether resentment has been repressed or not is very simple. If, when remembering a person, the thought comes that there is no desire to communicate with him, or a wave of negativity towards him is overwhelming (without a specific reason), therefore, the resentment is repressed. In this case, you need to take a piece of paper and a pen and remember all the episodes in your life associated with this person. This method will definitely give results and the reason for the repressed resentment will certainly be found. Now you need to sincerely forgive the person and let go of the offense, even if it is not always easy. If, when remembering a specific person, positive emotions or a complete absence of emotions appear, then there are no repressed grievances. In psychology, this process is called reflection.

The repression mechanism also does not have the best effect on memory. Individuals who have a lot of repression are extremely forgetful and have memory problems.

It is possible and necessary to fight the repression mechanism. This will require considerable emotional reserves, since you will have to relive not the best moments of your life. But only after this a person will be able to free himself from illusions and go his own way.

Psychology as a science is constantly evolving, helping humanity to better understand and accept itself. The topic of defense mechanisms and repression has been fairly well studied. But scientists continue their research and experiments, expanding the horizons of knowledge.