The role of psychology in human life
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- December 12, 2012
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Psychology is a science that is one of the main branches of scientific knowledge. In our “crazy” and rapidly developing world, psychology plays an important role in the life of the most ordinary person. It helps to adapt to the environment and helps people interact peacefully. The study of psychology will be invaluable in understanding the behavior of children and adolescents; psychology can cope with the most conflict situation in a team, as well as in family life, or in general can reduce the risk of any conflict situation.
As a rule, psychology is divided into applied and fundamental. The applied ones include the most common and useful in everyday life: children's and legal psychology, creative psychology, organizational or family psychology. But without the foundations of fundamental psychology, it is difficult to take seriously everything that is written in the “psychology of life.” Therefore, almost all students of various universities are puzzled by the study of psychology or its fundamental part.
The importance of psychology is difficult to overestimate; it not only somehow enters into the most ordinary life, but also accompanies us in the process of studying at universities and colleges in the form of lectures, colloquiums and exams. In non-core universities, the most common type of testing knowledge in psychology is a test. But students are not always ready to write a test in psychology on their own; the resource Gumanitary.by can be a good assistant in this. The staff of this resource provide professional services in which your test in psychology will allow you to continue your success on the path to obtaining the cherished and necessary higher education.
When compiling assignments and test topics, as a rule, all the skills that students acquired in the process of studying psychology in practical classes, in the form of laboratory and seminar work are taken into account; omission of at least one of them can become an obstacle to students writing a high-quality test. In this regard, resources for writing tests to order become a kind of lifesaver. When turning to these specialists, you usually only need to know the topic chosen by you or your supervisor. And then just wait for the deadlines determined by you and your specialist, and receive exactly your well-written test or term paper for submission.
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The role of the consulting psychologist in organizational development.
A psychologist working in an organization can occupy one of two positions:
1) “external” - a consulting psychologist and researcher (an example is work commissioned by various companies, most often associated with the assessment and certification of personnel, studying the psychological climate, resolving conflict situations, training staff, etc.);
2) “internal” of a practical psychologist working directly in an organization.
Functions of a psychologist in an organization.
Research or expert function
. A psychologist is involved as an expert to solve a specific problem. The specialist researches and accumulates information about the psychological mechanisms of behavior of team members in a complex system of intra-organizational relations. Specific situations are studied and assessed using modern methodological methods of psychology. Typically, based on these studies, he provides management with a report describing their findings and making recommendations for solving problems.
Consulting function
. The consulting psychologist gives recommendations on issues related to the most effective use of the personal and professional qualities of any team member. This applies to all stages of the path that a person goes through in an organization - selection, assessment, adaptation of personnel, enrollment in the personnel reserve, dismissal. The psychologist gives practical advice in the field of personnel management, work motivation, psychological climate in the organization, develops group cohesion and fights conflicts in the team.
Organizational function
. Which, in fact, combines and complements the first two. In it, the psychologist acts as a teacher who transfers his knowledge in the field of psychology to students - employees of the organization, so that they fully use all the developments of modern psychology in their daily work, increasing its efficiency.
The tasks of a consulting psychologist in an organization include: improving the psychological climate in the organization (increasing the “fighting spirit” of employees, creating a friendly atmosphere);
improving recruitment practices; modernization of the organizational structure; supporting employees in developing their abilities;
uniting employees into a single team; helping people overcome stress; achieving correspondence between a person’s internal makeup and his work; conflict resolution; reduction in staff turnover;
evaluation of production programs from the point of view of a psychologist;
pursuing a reasonable policy of rewards and punishments in the company;
consulting managers on the psychological aspects of the enterprise’s activities in the market (including negotiations, advertising, marketing, etc.).
Family as a system.
A family is a small social group that is based on a marital union and kinship ties (relationships between husband and wife, parents and children, brothers and sisters) who live together and maintain a common household. The most important characteristics of a family are its functions, structure and dynamics.
The function of the family as the sphere of life activity that is associated with the satisfaction of family members with their specific needs.
Family functions according to need:
1. Educational function - consists of family members satisfying their psychological needs for fatherhood, motherhood, interaction with children, raising children and self-realization in children.
2. Economic - household - consists of family members satisfying their biological and material needs and satisfying the need to preserve their health - physical, mental and social. As the family performs this function, the physical and mental strength that was expended in the work sphere is restored.
3. The function of emotional exchange - a family is formed by people who are related. These connections are based on emotionally positive contacts, which are called attachment. This normative attachment initially exists between family members and is manifested in the experiences and expressions of one family member’s attitude towards another.
4. Communicative function - it consists of satisfying the family’s needs for spending time together (leisure), mutual cultural and spiritual enrichment, and this function contributes to the spiritual development of members of society. The degree of development of communication in the family corresponds to the degree of development of communication in society. Thanks to communication, serious personal growth occurs. The implementation of this function leads to serious personal growth of family members.
5. The function of primary social control - the goal of society is not only to help a person survive, but it also assumes the function of control - the introduction of restrictions and prohibitions that help the person who created them to survive. A family is a small social group in which a new member of society is born. Ensuring family members adhere to social norms is an important trait.
6. Sexual - erotic function - exists to satisfy the sexual needs of the family, regulates the sexual behavior of family members. Ensuring the biological reproduction of society, thanks to which families turn into childbirth that goes on for generations.
Family dysfunction is those features of family life that make it difficult or prevent the family from performing its basic functions.
Rules in the family are of two types: vowels - that is, those that are expressed openly, discussed by family members, and can be changed on occasion; unspoken ones are those that no one says out loud, but everyone means it. And these rules manifest themselves when someone breaks them.
Rigid rules (rigidly set and difficult to change) disrupt family functioning. Where they can be changed, a new agreement can be concluded, family dysfunction occurs less frequently. Lack of family rules and norms also poses a serious risk to mental health. Many children and adolescents with delinquent behavior come from such families. The vagueness of rules and norms, their inconsistency, and unspokenness contribute to the growth of anxiety, confuse, and lead to instability of the individual and family.
Family myths represent a kind of generalized attitude regarding some feature of the family and are usually transmitted from generation to generation, becoming more and more rigid.
For a stable myth to form, it usually takes at least three generations to support it. Family myths, like any other myths, usually have the character of a more or less detailed tale passed down from generation to generation.
Typical examples of family myths in modern families are the myth of celibacy (“all of our women are single, we all raised children alone, it never worked out for anyone”), the myth of a strong woman (“in our families, women are always in command, and the grandmother was like that, back in Soviet times, both at work and at home, a commander, and a mother, and a daughter with character”).
Family stabilizers are all those factors that allow the family as a system to continue to function, not fall apart, and maintain integrity. There are stabilizers in every family, but in each specific case their set is different. The most common family stabilizers are a common household, an apartment, a budget; children; history, number of years and effort spent living together; similar habits, hobbies, pets and favorite TV series; public opinion, etc. Among family stabilizers, a separate category is identified as dysfunctional: for the most part, these are difficulties in the behavior and development of children and their various problems, as well as habitual scandals that allow one to throw out the accumulated tension, but not destroy the relationship.
Family life cycle.
The family as a system must live its life cycle, which is a successive change of main events or stages.
Gregory Bateson proposed his classification of stages of development:
1 - monad stage - premarital stage. It is represented by the individual life of each of the people who will then start a family. The young man grows up and implements the rules of his parental family. Similar for the women's part.
Stage 2 - dyad stage. The couple begins to live together and faces problems. It must agree on what rules it will use to build its system. The law of development will be implemented if responsibilities are distributed.
It is important to remember here that there are easy rules - external rules of life and difficult rules that relate to poorly understood rules or rules related to self-esteem. An example is a situation where the husband works and the wife does not - the question is how she will get the finances, or when the wife is faced with the rules of her husband’s family (celebrating birthdays vigorously according to the wife’s standards and the opposite according to the husband). The distance between two in a dyad is very close
Stage 3 - triads, when the child appears. This makes the family structure more stable. On the other hand, the triad separates the spouses - distancing, due to greater attention to the child. They say that the birth of a child is a symbolic divorce from her husband. The birth of a child changes the functions, rights and responsibilities of family members. We need to agree on the rules of the new life.
4th stage - square, the appearance of the 2nd child. A new family member pushes out the 1st child. Detronization syndrome - the younger one overthrows the older one from the throne, depriving him of the powers of sole possession of dad and mom. This creates intense jealousy, envy and tension in families. The older one finds himself in a situation where the younger one has everything and I have nothing. Here we need to agree again on who is raising whom and that the elder should not be forgotten, the distribution of forces and resources, and come to new agreements.
5th stage of children's entry into the outside world. It begins when a first grader appears in the family. This is a serious stage, because the family as a system is tested for the effectiveness of the rules of upbringing used. Regularity: if during the entire 1st grade a child gets to school and copes with the requirements, this means that the family at this stage is functional. Conversely, if problems appear in the first grade, this indicates family dysfunction. It is important to remember that the functionality or dysfunctionality of a family does not last throughout the entire life cycle. It can be functional during the dyad stage and become dysfunctional during the triad stage.
Going to school turns out to be a test for hypersocialized families as well, i.e. families who live according to social rules like everyone else. When a child’s behavior becomes non-standard, it can easily turn into the so-called shame of the family. This is usually due to those desires that were unfulfilled by the parents themselves. With a child they are trying to make up for what they themselves could not have. Relationships in the family are relationships of frustration. Good intentions don't work.
Stage 6 of maturing teenage children. The law of homeostasis is very different from the law of development. The family is trying to maintain its previous status, but centrifugal forces are strong. The child is looking for himself, becoming an adult, on the other hand, the family is trying to maintain his status as a family member. A moratorium on identity occurs when, with the help of the family, the child stops looking for his identity. To overcome this stage, it is important to change your attitude towards this element. The family-reanimobile is a functional model. A family with a teenager should let him go into the outside world, but at the same time remain a reliable support for him, where he can heal his wounds and tell him about everything. If in a family there is a coalition of mother and son against father, she will not let him leave the family, etc., then it will not be possible to create a family as a reliable rear.
Also, the crisis of teenagers is combined with the crisis of 30-year-olds or 40-year-olds. All elements of the system are experiencing a regulatory crisis. This is the stage of multiple crisis of the system. A family is considered functional if, after its completion, the child is separated from the family. Complete separation is functional and partial when there remains dependence on the family.
Stage 7 - elderly dyad - all children left the family (empty nest syndrome)
8th stage - elderly monad - after the death of one of the spouses.
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Role theory in psychology
For the first time, the concept of a social role as the primary structural unit of society was proposed by American sociologists J. Mead and R. Linton in the 30s of the 20th century. Later, this idea was repeatedly addressed by representatives of social psychology, and by the end of the last century it took shape in a fairly coherent theory that explains the processes of interaction between man and society.
Role as a function of a person in society
Lions live in prides, wolves live in packs, and people live in social groups. These are communities of individuals united by a common goal and joint activities aimed at achieving it. Any group activity requires the distribution of functions that presuppose a certain type of behavior, a set of responsibilities, a person’s position in society, etc.
These functions, from the point of view of psychology, are the social roles that people play, and society makes strict demands on role behavior, since the achievement of a common goal depends on it. In each group there are many such roles, their content is determined by the tasks of group-wide activities. So, in a school team there are the roles of students, teachers, director, head teacher, technician, librarian, etc. Since a person usually belongs to different groups in which he performs different functions, he also plays more than one role. It's not just about formal groups. The same roles exist in the family: husband, wife, son, daughter, mother, father, etc.
When accepting a new role, a person must first of all understand its functional component, that is, understand what contribution he should make to the overall activity, what the community expects from him. Without this, it is impossible to master the role. And if in official groups the functions of each member are described in the relevant documents as job responsibilities, then in a family this is not the case. Therefore, an incorrect understanding of the functional component of one's role or an unwillingness to understand it leads to inevitable conflicts.
Failure by a person to fulfill his role functions not only causes a negative reaction from the group; social sanctions can be applied to the person: from open condemnation to expulsion from society.
Role as a behavioral stereotype
The role has a complex structure and includes the following components:
- social norms;
- responsibilities associated with performing group functions;
- human rights as a member of a given group;
- role behavior stereotypes.
Stereotypes of behavior ensure the effectiveness of a person’s performance of his role functions, therefore they are given great importance in role theory. They include the most rational and generally accepted methods and forms of activity and norms of relations with other members of the group. In addition, behavioral stereotypes make the role recognizable and help a person quickly navigate the social environment. Since childhood, we know what actions should be expected from a doctor, salesman, hairdresser, teacher, etc. And taking a new role, it is easier for a person to master stereotypes of behavior, since he knows in advance how to behave in a given situation.
The two sides of the social role - functional and behavioral - can be represented as follows:
- role, as a function, prescribes what a person needs to do;
- a role as a set of behavioral stereotypes - how it should be done.
Social roles are not only standardized, but also impersonal. Of course, each person is a unique person, and his individuality leaves an imprint on his role behavior, but this should not go beyond stereotypes. Any social role includes a strictly defined system of responsibilities, and no matter who plays this role, the set of requirements does not change. So, the seller can offer us a product with jokes and jokes, but he must at the same time fulfill his functions. And if, instead of selling, he teaches us how to dress or raise children, then at least they will not understand him.
The situation is somewhat more complicated with stereotypes of role behavior in a group such as a family. Although there are standards of behavior for a husband, wife, children, grandmother, grandfather, father, mother, etc., they are more vague, as they are based on informal traditions and customs, ideological principles and values. Role behavior in the family is influenced by both religious beliefs and emotional relationships. The child learns patterns of such behavior from the example of his family, and in some details (and sometimes significantly) they may differ from what is customary in other families.
This may cause difficulties in the future when the grown children decide to start their own families. Thus, a young man raised in a family where all household responsibilities are assigned exclusively to the woman will expect the same behavior from his chosen one. And, for example, a girl’s request to wash the dishes or vacuum the floor can cause him bewilderment and even offense.
When communicating with people, we unconsciously expect a certain role behavior from them, just as they expect from us. These expectations, based on ideas formed during the process of socialization, are called expectations in social psychology. If expectations do not coincide due to differences in culture, beliefs or family upbringing, then conflict may arise. The discrepancy between mutual expectations is one of the most common reasons for the breakup of young families.
