The term “individual” is translated from Latin as “indivisible.” It is given the following definition. An individual is a specific individual that combines a set of qualities given at birth and properties acquired during life. In sociology, he is an individual representative of the human species.
An individual is a human being who carries within himself a set of genetically endowed qualities, as well as individual characteristics acquired in society. It shows that a person belongs to a certain species.
Everyone is born an individual. Over time, people gain experience and move to a new level, becoming individuals.
The concept of “individual” in psychology
When studying personality, various methods are used. First, consider the individual. In this case, a person is studied not just as a representative of the human race, but as a member of a specific group of society.
The concept of “individual” in psychology is used in a broad sense. It is based on the presence of integrity and unity of the subject and the characteristics inherent in it. In psychology, an individual is the result of the development of life, a product of interaction with the environment. As a carrier of the biological in every person, it represents a complex of conditioned properties given to him by nature, during the development of which people become mature. This means that each of us is a bearer of certain qualities inherent from birth, which change and become more complex during life.
Individuality in psychology
In this regard, the concept is related to the term “individual” - a representative of a community of people.
In this understanding of psychologists, the differences between people consist of physiological and mental characteristics. Among the first: height, hair color, eyes. Secondly, there is a set of abilities, a type of temperament, and a level of emotionality. The formation of individuality always takes place differently for everyone. A person becomes isolated on a personal level and goes through a process of self-determination. As a result, he feels unique and unrepeatable.
An individual personality is always original, takes an active social and creative position, and manifests itself in a large number of life forms. This often occurs during the process of socialization. First, a person learns the norms and rules of behavior accepted in society, and then forms an individual interpretation of diverse patterns of behavior and communication.
A characteristic reflection of the concept of individuality has become such epithets as creativity, originality, brightness, talent. As for personality, words such as fortitude, energy, determination, and independence are most often used here.
Psychologists often equate the concept of individuality with personality. This applies to interpretation options that are taken in a broad sense and mean all the distinctive features that are characteristic only of a particular person. But more often, scientists attribute individuality to personal properties.
Charismatic personality - what is it like?
Properties that characterize an individual
Each concept has certain features. An individual in psychology is characterized by certain properties. These are, firstly, gender, age, physique, nervous system and functioning of brain activity. Secondly, the properties of an individual include temperament and human inclinations.
Age qualities determine all the characteristics of a person that identify his formation in the process of ontogenesis. Sexual - those properties that reflect the distinctive features of gender.
Individual-typical parameters are represented by general somatic or constitutional qualities, neurodynamic and bilateral distinctive features. The first include endocrine-biochemical properties, a single type of metabolism, and the morphological texture of the body in general. Neurodynamic characteristics determine the distinctive aspects of the psyche, and bilateral characteristics determine the highly functional geometry of the body, a repeating type of symmetry or asymmetry of the structural-dynamic features of the body and individual motor and sensory systems.
Forming factors
A person’s individuality and its formation are influenced by various factors.
Heredity
Determines the appearance and some behavioral traits unique to this person.
Upbringing
Forms behavioral stereotypes, life attitudes, worldview, attitude towards work, the environment, and people. Brings its own flavor to each of the listed aspects, the totality of which subsequently becomes what is called individuality. For example, everyone in childhood is taught to take care of nature. However, someone complements this stereotype by going for a walk in the evenings with a garbage bag and collecting candy wrappers and bottles from the lawns, because this is what he did with his parents as a child. This is his individual characteristic, formed by family upbringing.
Socialization
Determines behavior patterns and self-esteem. If, for example, at school a person was constantly belittled and not allowed to express his opinion, the level of individualism will be low.
Self-development
Even if heredity, upbringing and socialization have not formed individual traits and patterns of behavior in a person, he can always develop them on his own. There are many ways.
Features of mental development
The type of nervous system and character accentuations can form behavioral patterns that do not coincide with stereotypes. However, most often they are dictated by various personality disorders. As an example, we can cite world famous people who were distinguished by their bright individuality, but at the same time had severe mental illnesses: Isaac Newton (diagnosed with paroxysmal progressive schizophrenia), Vincent Van Gogh (he was treated many times in mental health clinics), Ernest Hemingway (had suicidal tendencies).
Psychological characteristics of the individual
An individual is considered an exact bearer of all these common traits of people. The properties of an individual in psychology are characterized by the integrity of the psychophysical organization of the body, resistance to reality and activity.
In another way, this concept can be explained as a specific person living as an individual from birth to the end of life. This is the initial state of an inhabitant of our planet in his ontogenetic development and phylogenetic formation. It represents a concrete product of the creation of life, interaction with surrounding criteria, and not conditions taken from nowhere.
It is impossible to portray a personality without considering his individual characteristics. They are the foundation of human content. The conditions for the development of a particular representative of Homo sapiens depend on them, for example, on those inclinations that were genetically invested in him.
It is worth noting that an individual has two main functions. One of them can be qualified as conservation, because it directly characterizes the spectrum of dynamic and energetic characteristics and resource abilities. The other, the function of change, is the plasticity of behavior.
Meaning of the word individual
Examples of the use of the word individual in literature.
Like them, in his quest to explain altruism, he makes the ethical personality in man inactive and in return raises society to the role of the ethical personality, in order to then connect individuals through transmissions with this source of energy.
The transition of egoism to altruism is impossible even when this process is transferred from the sphere of the individual to the sphere of the clan.
It is not formed spontaneously as a simple attribution of some discourse to some individual.
Where possible, non-verbal support was also used: from simply touching or holding the patient's hands to cradling, caressing and rocking him. At such moments, verbal contact was kept to a minimum, taking the form of encouraging the individual not to shy away from any emerging experience and to fully express his feelings .
A being or Being that realizes itself in the world, and the individual and the collective are impartially considered as equal forces of its self-expression.
In this approach, all these delirious ghosts and automatically acting individuals seem less hateful if we reflect on the unconscious motives, on the deep reasons for their violence: do they not feel that the time allotted to them is shortening day by day and that the denouement already close?
Suppressors were responsible for timely implantation of suppressors into the brains of individuals and periodic testing of their functionality.
Isn’t the generally recognized disruption of the maturation process and the associated intellectual, sexual, emotional and psychomotor problems, the immaturity of individuals stuck in childhood, the logical conclusion and full embodiment of hereditary technological vices?
This drama is realized by every person as they grow up and age and leads in most cases to the individual’s justified desire to leave this world, where there is neither goodness, nor the joy of human communication, nor true and shared love.
It is simply a larger vital ego, a more complex vital organism, which absorbs the individual and subjects him to the more efficient competitive and cooperative unit of life.
The only difference is that the social soul is much more complex, since its physical being is composed of a great many mental individuals with partial self-consciousness, and is not a simple amalgamation of cells existing on the level of the vital subconscious.
In the family, the individual seeks satisfaction of the vital instinct of possession, as well as the joy of love and friendship and the fulfillment of his other vital instinct - the instinct of reproduction.
It is found first in the ideal of family life, according to which the individual places himself in a subordinate position and finds vital satisfaction and practical fulfillment not in his own individuality, which prevails over everything else, but in the life of the wider vital ego.
At the age of approximately forty-two years, according to our time calculation, the individual, who is in the producer stage, feels an urgent need to eat the root of a certain species of shrub.
For true harmonization of interests, the interests of all significant groups and individuals should be highlighted.
Source: Maxim Moshkov library
Man as an individual
Every generation of people wonders about the information genetically embedded in it. After all, a person is a phenomenon, which is characterized by various properties given to him from his very birth. He is a child of nature, a being who has an organism and interacts with the world around him, although he is different from other living beings. A person is subject from birth not only to the laws of the universe, but also to the rules of society.
The functioning of an individual is a continuation of evolution. With each new generation, human qualities and properties become more complex. The characteristics of an individual include all these changes. A person is considered with all his natural foundations and his inherent psychology, temperament and inclinations.
Man as a personality
By calling ourselves people, we only separate ourselves from other living beings. Not every person can call himself a person. Because in order to become one, you need to reach a certain stage of development.
First of all, a person as an individual must be significant and active in society, that is, he must successfully interact with it. After all, he is part of the social environment and cannot exist without it.
Every person goes through certain stages of development. He is taught everything that the people around him can convey. It is through such interaction that personality is formed. All his thoughts and actions are generated by the influences of society, although they are of an individual nature. This means that the individual is not separated from society; his behavior depends on the conditions of the social environment in which he develops.
The essence of human individuality and factors of its development
Note 1
The exceptional properties of each person are formed in the area of three components. Individuality manifests itself in various spheres: mental, emotional, volitional, or simultaneously in all areas of human activity.
A person’s unique mental abilities are manifested in his ability to pay attention to what is inaccessible to other people, to assimilate information data in a certain way, at a more accelerated pace.
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Unique emotional qualities are manifested in the characteristics of a person’s mood, its manifestations and changes, and the manifestation of feelings in specific situations.
Individuality of volitional qualities presupposes differences in the characters of people, the manifestation of willpower, courage, bravery, and endurance.
Individuality develops under the influence not only of the internal development of the individual, but also through external influence factors. Thus, the media have a great influence on the formation of individuality. Various television programs lead to a one-sided perception of reality due to the suppression of thought processes by vivid screen images. A person experiences dysfunction in conducting analysis and self-analysis.
Note 2
The development of a person's individuality and the degree of its manifestation are determined by the complex interaction of these three elements of uniqueness and the amount of participation of each of them.
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The formation of individual qualities is greatly influenced by a person’s environment, his location in nature and society. Individuality is not a stable phenomenon. It can change during human life.
Factors in the development of individuality comprise three main groups:
- Heredity and physiological characteristics. It is assumed that human characteristics are genetically determined in external physical qualities and character traits.
- External environment. This includes where a person lives, the society in which he lives and the family in which he grew up. Their cultural tendencies and social stereotypes influence the formation of behavioral characteristics, the development of development directions, etc.
- Person's character. His further development and the formation of exceptional properties depend on the genetically inherent character traits of a person.
Figure 1. Three components of personality. Author24 - online exchange of student work
Human individuality is a fairly comprehensive concept. It is characterized by the following features:
- love and faith. Through love, a person’s attachment to other people, society, and nature is formed. Faith helps to maintain strength in difficult situations, so to speak, “keep afloat”;
- sensitivity. This trait reflects a person’s ability to show empathy, mercy, and compassion towards other people. If a person has such a property, then he will be well accepted in society;
- constancy. This trait is good when building a communication system in society. It makes a person a desirable partner, since he is distinguished by the stability of his behavior and predictability;
- dogmatism. The perception of the surrounding world is quite limited for such a person. He chooses for himself an authority and a dogma that he will follow, comparing all people with them and evaluating them from this point of view;
- self-esteem. An adequate and reliable assessment of oneself and one’s capabilities helps a person achieve success in life;
- self-control. A person must be able to coordinate his behavior, actions and deeds, be aware of their motives and correctly set priorities;
- synthesis of information. If a person has this trait, then he will be able to perceive data and process it, decomposing it into parts and integrating information resources. It is the skills of data synthesis that indicate a person’s ability to analyze various situations, processes and phenomena and make clearer and more informed decisions in various areas of life.
In psychology, there is a wide variety of tests to determine personality types and personality. Science conducts research in this area and develops a variety of tests that allow us to determine the individual qualities of a person and his personality type. This may be relevant in the professional sphere. For example, when applying for a job, through testing, you can identify the individual traits of candidates and make a choice in favor of a particular one, based on the properties that are necessary to occupy a given position.
Definition of personality
A person is a member of society. Personality is the result of interaction with the social environment. But it consists not only of the qualities of society, but also of certain biological properties given to it from birth. In psychology, the social and genetic are always interconnected. But, nevertheless, the concepts of “person” and “personality” are not synonymous. The latter is always associated with development in the social environment. The concept of “person” is more simplified in psychology. Individual is a more synonymous term for it.
Personality interacts with other people, develops psychologically, and has its own individual manifestations, which depend on who they are aimed at. For example, family, friends or colleagues.
The personality is always organized, highly developed and responsible. It is these features that separate it from the concept of “individual” and raise it to a higher level.
What is the difference between an individual and an individual?
Every person is an individual and an individual at the same time, only this manifests itself in different life situations. A person who does not include personality is a primitive creature, on a par with primates.
For example, if you come to the bank and want to get a loan, then you provide your passport - at that moment, you are an individual.
But if you want to stand out from the crowd or be outside the crowd, then you are already an individual. An individual is defined by character and socialization in society.
How does an individual differ from a personality?
As mentioned above, the concept of “human” only distinguishes people from the rest of the animal world. To better understand it, you need to know its characteristics. That's who he is. By calling a person simply an individual, we mean that he carries within himself certain human traits that are passed on to him from birth, that is, he is a carrier of genetic information. Personality is a more complex structure. It differs from the individual in its highly developed and ability to successfully interact with other people.
Not every individual can become a person. To become a member of society, you need to improve your psychological traits, independently acquire new skills and use them. This means that in psychology, an individual is just a living being belonging to the human race. And personality is a concept associated with interaction in society and fulfilling one’s role in it.
Definition - what is an individual
An individual in social science is absolutely any person with a characteristic set of characteristics that determine his belonging to Homo sapiens (translated from the Latin word individuum literally means indivisible ).
Some qualities are given to him at birth, others are acquired in the process of interaction with society. For example, I, as a person, differ from a dog in that I walk upright on two legs, I have hands - tools that I use in activities.
In addition to instincts, I have thinking, memory, perception, consciousness (what is this?) and other mental processes. I can create something new, improve the old, and many other things that are unusual for a dog. Therefore, I will never become her, and she will never become me (although, who knows). She and I are individuals, but belonging to different living groups.
An individual is an impersonal concept : it does not take into account gender, age, or service to the Fatherland. Everyone is born as such and continues to be such throughout their lives. Human? So, an individual.
Properties of an individual (human)
In psychology, the definition of an individual is not limited only to his belonging to the human race. An individual is someone who also belongs to a particular social group. Based on these facts, three signs are identified that indicate that we have an individual:
- integrity and commonality of psychophysiological traits;
- the ability to adapt to society and the surrounding reality;
- own position and corresponding activity.
The short answer to the question “who is an individual” is this particular person .
Personality Study
In psychology, there are various methods for studying a person. Personality is studied using the following approaches.
The first of them is called biogenetic. The basis of this direction is the study of the biological maturation of personality.
The next approach is sociogenetic. He considers the birth of a person with certain inherent properties and his acquisition of other qualities through interaction with the social environment in which he is located.
The third approach to the study of personality is psychogenetic. It considers both the biological data invested at birth and social conditions. However, in the first place when studying is the development of mental processes and intelligence.
When studying a person, one can see the processes of an individual becoming a personality and even vice versa.
The concept of "individuality"
Each person is unique and different from others. To define the uniqueness of a person, the term “individuality” is used. It means uniqueness, difference. At the same time, individuality can be expressed from a biological point of view, psychological development, as well as in interaction with society.
It is worth noting that not every individual can be unique. This is again related to development. In psychology, an individual is, first of all, just a person endowed with those qualities and characteristics that are given to him genetically. Individuality implies not only biological data, but also acquired properties that distinguish it from all other representatives of humanity.
The properties of an individual in psychology are not considered as a wide range of qualities. Individuality refers to the various unique characteristics of a person.
Individual and Personality Differences
The duality of human nature, his biosocial essence has repeatedly become the object of study by many philosophers, sociologists and psychologists. The representative of the Russian philosophical school N.A. Berdyaev classifies the concept of personality as a religious-spiritual category, and the concept of an individual as a naturalistic-biological category.
A precise description of the differences between an individual and a personality was given by the famous psychologist A.G. Asmolov, who claims that one is born as an individual, but becomes a person.
- Development
An individual is a specific person characterized by activity, mental and physical integrity, and a stable attitude towards the surrounding reality.
The life of an individual is aimed at satisfying his own needs. Needs are a kind of stimulus that encourages targeted actions. The lowest are natural needs; their satisfaction is aimed at ensuring the functioning of the body to maintain life. A person provides himself with food, drink, clothing, creates conditions for sleep, for living and for developing relationships with individuals of the opposite sex.
Life in society makes a person dependent on social relations. Satisfying the need for communication raises the individual to the next level of development, encouraging him to engage in cultural activities. He begins to manifest himself as a member of society, as an individual, realizing his place in it and realizing his spiritual needs. The social affiliation of an individual expresses his personal essence.
- Consciousness
When interacting with the outside world, a person develops such a sign of mental activity as consciousness. A conscious individual is a personality.
Thus, through its own needs and awareness of interaction with society, a human individual becomes a person.
- Mental activity
The presence of a developed brain in humans is its distinctive biological feature. The development of mental activity in an individual is the foundation for the emergence of unique distinctive features that characterize him as a human personality.
Distinctive features are:
- a set of knowledge, skills, abilities, formed in the process of learning the methods of human activity;
- the ability to self-assess and analyze one’s own actions, necessary for the formation of personal characteristics;
- adequacy of perception of the assessment of others.
The listed traits carry the characteristics of socialization, while the traits of an individual differ only in their biological and physiological set of qualities.
- Social status
The evolution of man is a long journey, as a result of which he took the highest point in the hierarchy of the animal world. In its individual development, each individual goes through an equally complex path of transition from individual to personality, forming individual qualities that distinguish human individuals from each other and set them apart from the general mass.
This process cannot be considered separately from society, since it is society that gives the direction of development and forms ideological ideas and principles. Any society is capable of forming a personality that meets its needs. The higher the level of development of spirituality and morality in society, the higher the demands for the formation of a highly moral spiritual person.
A free society gives rise to a free person, characterized by a strong individuality, capable of self-expression and creativity. And any personality grows from an individual endowed genetically with the ability to develop.
The differences between an individual and a personality lie in the attitude towards recognition in society. The individual does not feel the need to prove his advantages over his fellows, and the individual performs actions for the sake of recognition and status.
Social status is a person’s place, the niche he occupies in society and depends on gender, age, education, and profession. Unlike the individual, at this stage there is an awareness of one’s status, which can have a temporary characteristic: be permanent (man, son, father, husband) or temporary (student, salesman, passenger, patient).
Individuality and personality
A person, as a rule, develops during his lifetime, acquiring various qualities that distinguish him from others, that is, he moves away from the definition of “individual”. Individuality, personality in psychology - these concepts reflect this transition. They mean that a person is endowed with those properties that distinguish him from other people.
An individual does not have individuality, but personality is characterized by it. As stated earlier, this is all related to human development. Someone who does not develop, possesses only the genetic information transferred to him, is designated by the term “individual”. This is the definition of human height in psychology. Thus, we see how personality emerges from the individual. But it is worth remembering that not every person is an individual. Individuality and individuality are not identical concepts. For a person to become individual, he must become a personality. This concept is synonymous with the definition of “individuality”. That is, both of these terms denote a highly developed person who is able to successfully interact with the social environment.
Human individuality - what is it?
Individuality is the characteristics of a particular person that fundamentally distinguish him from other people.
The brighter these manifestations, the more a person stands out from the crowd. Individuality cannot be imagined without another important concept that has a place in psychology and has become fundamental in many of its teachings. This is a personality. This includes a person's inherent moral traits.
An accomplished person is always perceived in a positive sense. Personal qualities:
- Artistry, the ability to present oneself in society.
- Ability to dress with taste.
- Competent gestures.
- Clear, competent speech.
- Good manners.
- Resourcefulness, the ability to behave with dignity in any situation.
- The ability to care for one's neighbor, compassion for others.
- Freedom of thought, ability to think.
- Positive outlook.
- Wisdom.
- Constant desire for self-improvement.
And this is not even a complete list, but only the most important personality qualities.
Psychologists say self-improvement is hardly the most important thing of all. Also in this series are determination, willingness to cooperate, and responsibility. The concept of personality, keeping pace with individuality, is the most perfect type of “Homo sapiens”. The moral qualities of this person reached the greatest heights. In this regard, psychologists are accustomed to asserting that not everyone who stands out from the crowd is an individual and vice versa.
A person’s individuality is a set of properties characteristic only of that particular person. Qualities come from different components: a variety of character and temperament, features of physiology, psyche, experience, worldview. Very often, the presence of certain individual traits is influenced by profession and personal preferences (in food, clothing, etc.).
Who do you see first? Your answer will show your personality!
Correlation of the concepts “individual”, “individuality”, “personality”
Man is noticeably different from all living beings. Personality, individual, individuality - these concepts can divide people into several categories, which makes them more complex in relation to other representatives of the animal world.
Any creature that belongs to the human race can be called by one term - an individual. But not every creature can be called a person. As mentioned earlier, to become a person, you must be highly developed. Also lead an active and successful life in society. That is, the concepts of “individual” and “personality” are not related. They are in a sense opposite. The same can be said about the relationship between the terms “individual” and “individuality”. The last concept characterizes personality. Individuality is an indicator of a person’s highly developed state.
The relationship between the concepts of “individual,” “individuality,” and “personality” should be considered as a kind of human evolution. At birth, he is in the first stage of development. Over time, he gains new properties that are mixed with his genetic information. It becomes unique, that is, it acquires individuality. Later he develops psychologically, becomes conscious, active, responsible, capable of successful interaction with the social environment. He can already be called a personality.
Thus, people can be divided into two broad categories. A non-developing person who uses only the basic properties given by nature, an uneducated person who does not play a special role in society, belongs to the first group. This is an individual. Individuality, personality - in psychology, these concepts characterize socially active people and form the second category.
INDIVIDUALITY
from lat. indivisible, individual) - originality, uniqueness of human properties. The concept of I. is used in psychology to describe two phenomena. 1. When analyzing individual psychological differences, intelligence is understood as the uniqueness of a person’s psychological properties, manifested in different spheres (intelligence, temperament, personality). In this context, personality is contrasted with the “average” person, or, in other words, the manifestations of the properties of an individual person are contrasted with their typical manifestations (average group tendencies). Obviously, only by comparison with data on a typical (general) m. individual differences are manifested, but it would be a mistake to limit ourselves only to typical data, replacing with them the knowledge of a specific person. 2. When analyzing the hierarchical organization of a person’s psychological properties, I. acts as the highest level of this hierarchy in relation to the individual and personal levels: individual - personality - I. In this case, I. is a relatively closed system and is a unique combination of all the properties of a person as an individual and personality. According to the figurative expression of B. G. Ananyev, personality is the “top” of the structure of psychological properties, and I. is the “depth” of personality. The integrity of personality in this case is determined by the unity of properties belonging to different hierarchical levels, cause-and-effect relationships between properties of different levels, and the leading role of personality properties that transform individual properties. A specific method of studying I. is the idiographic approach proposed by V. Stern and developed in detail by Amer. psychologist Gordon Allport (Allport, 1897-1967). Methods of idiographic study of information are focused on the study of individual people (rather than indicators averaged over a group) and are aimed at depicting information as a unique whole. In Russian psychology, the problems of personality were developed in the studies of Ananyev and V.S. Merlin, who supplemented the principle of structure inherent in the hierarchical structure of individuality with the genetic principle (principle of development). See Personality Properties. (M. S. Egorova.) Editor's addition: Let's add a few specific examples of the idiographic type of research by domestic psychologists, which, as it seems to us, have already become classics: Luria A. R. A Little Book about Great Memory (The Mind of a Mnemonist). - M., 1968; Luria A. R. The Lost and Returned World (The Story of One Wound). - M., 1971; Luria A. R., Yudovich F. Ya. Speech and the development of mental processes in a child. - M., 1956; Menchinskaya N. A. Diary of child development. M.-L., 1948; Menchinskaya N. A. Development of the child’s psyche: Mother’s Diary. - M., 1957; Mukhina V.S. Twins. - M., 1969. See also Longitudinal study.
