LECTURE No. 21. Conditions and driving forces of mental development

Let's find out what factors influence personality development?

From the first minute of life, a person faces difficulties - he has to adapt to new environmental conditions, he learns to contact others and at the same time receive the most necessary things - food, care, warmth. Even then the baby begins to act to achieve something very important to him.

The driving forces of personal development are the contradictions that a person has to resolve on the way to achieving harmony between internal needs and what the external environment, society, and real opportunities offer. These contradictions create motivation, force you to master skills, communicate, learn to react correctly to failures and achieve your plans.

Concept of personality

In psychology, the definition of “personality” means a complex that includes the social qualities of a person, a set of his life and social values. The concept of “personality” also includes the ability to use emerging contradictions between needs and reality for further development.

Personality and individual are not the same thing. If an individual is a set of qualities possessed by a representative of the biological species “Homo sapiens,” then personality is a narrow concept. It is associated with a higher level of development, the presence of a clear system of relationships with other people, and events occurring in the outside world. A person builds his own understanding of what is important to him, what is acceptable and unacceptable, and defines for himself the concepts of “meaning” and “value”.

The extent to which an individual can realize his own principles depends on the presence and development of:

• intelligence;
• talent;
• knowledge skills;
• ability to make efforts (volitional qualities);
• ability to cope with emotions;
• physical data.

The process of personality formation lasts throughout life. The basis for the development of abilities is heredity and the social environment.

Depending on how developed the ability to effectively communicate with others and solve pressing problems, two personality types are distinguished:

• socialized - able to survive in society;
• unsocialized - incapable of social communication, performing assigned social functions, often with mental disabilities.

Distinctive qualities of a socialized personality:

guidance on one’s own goals, values, life strategy even in difficult situations;

• autonomy;
• the ability to use protective techniques to establish a barrier to toxic exposure;
• the ability to establish friendly relationships and make friends;
• the ability to show compassion;
• persistence in achieving goals.

The extent to which a person is socialized and developed is the main indicator of mental well-being and the ability to take responsibility.

Viktor Frankl: the will to meaning

One of the most prominent representatives of the humanistic trend in psychology was Viktor Emil Frankl. Despite fate, he lived a long life - from 1905 to 1995. 1941 was a fateful year for Austrian Jews - Austria became part of Nazi Germany. Viktor Frankl was already a recognized professional in the field of psychiatry and neurology. He gave scientific reports and studied patterns of personality development. In the same year, Frankl received an offer to emigrate to America. His parents did not have the opportunity to leave with him. But by staying at home, Frankl risked his own life. The visa was expiring, but the scientist could not make a decision. After all, all his relatives, while he remained in his position, were protected from deportation to a concentration camp. When moving, she took off. But one day after work, Frankl went to the temple to find peace there and put his thoughts in order. On the floor he saw a piece of paper with the inscription: “Honor your father and your mother, and you will live long on earth.” At that moment they made a decision. After nine months, the hospital where he worked was closed. Frankl himself, like members of his family, became prisoners of a concentration camp.

Together with other prisoners, Frankl created a system of psychological support for prisoners, trying to prevent suicide. He tried to provide special help to the most infirm - old people suffering from epilepsy or other nervous disorders, and asocial individuals. Frankl and his assistants understood that the driving forces of personality development and its survival lie in the will to live . Without it, a person very quickly lost any chance of staying alive. Frankl was liberated from a concentration camp in 1945 by American troops. Frankl conveyed his experience in the book “Psychologist in a Concentration Camp.” It was created in his mind from 1941 to 1945, and was dictated into a microphone in 9 days.

Development of Personal Characteristics

Innate qualities determine how capable a person is of diversified development. Throughout life, the natural characteristics of a person remain practically unchanged, only some of them change due to the influence of environmental factors and society.

The time that determines in which direction a personality will develop is the first 5 years of life. In all subsequent years, only some characteristics are added to the existing character structure or existing ones are slightly adjusted.

Personality characteristics influence all areas of a person's life. They affect the style of behavior among relatives, friends, and colleagues, and determine the choice of profession and style of behavior in different situations.

Thus, for a person striving for career success, the driving force is his ability to take a sober look at the existing situation, evaluate his strengths, and ability to achieve his goal. The one who understands his needs, is aware of his own interests and value, will choose an activity that will help to fully reveal his potential.

Communication plays a big role in the development of personal characteristics. It begins from the first minutes of the baby’s birth. In addition to the child, parents, relatives, educators, and other children are involved in the communication process. Through active communication with others, a little person learns to interact with others.

By communicating with others, the child finds motivation, determines the style of behavior in different situations, and determines the most effective tools for interacting with others.

Frankl's logotherapy

Logotherapy, created by Frankl, is based on the main position - the driving forces of personality development lie in the desire to find meaning in life . The word “logos” translated from Greek means “meaning”. The main task of logotherapy is to help a person find “something” that can make his life filled with this content. This is a special meaning that can only be realized by this person and no one else.

A person exists in three planes - body ( somatics ), soul and spirit. The first two dimensions are closely related. As Frankl emphasized, together they form what scientists call “psychosomatics.” The third dimension is spiritual. It is on this that the psychotherapy created by Frankl focuses. Here are the concepts of love, conscience, aesthetics. Spirituality is one of the main distinguishing features that separates man from the animal kingdom.

Frankl considered freedom of choice to be the next exclusively human trait. Frankl emphasized that freedom of choice is manifested by a person every second - after all, he is a creature that makes decisions. Freedom manifests itself regardless of the environment, external circumstances, one’s own heredity and instincts. While in the concentration camp, the scientist soon discovered that many people, when placed in these conditions, lose the ability to think independently. For example, when the Nazis ordered “Down!” and pointed weapons at the prisoners, the majority immediately obeyed this order. But there were also those who seemed to “freeze” for a few moments, only then following the order. Viktor Frankl asked these people: what are they doing during these few seconds? He learned that these free people ask themselves whether they want to fall or continue to stand. And their choice was to fall, since they valued freedom and their own lives.

The next factor that is characteristic of a person is a sense of responsibility. A person not only has freedom of choice, he must know why he needs it. Responsibility to oneself, God or conscience are duties that a person must fulfill. Like other driving forces of personal development, responsibility belongs to the spiritual dimension. Logotherapy helps a person understand that only he is responsible for his life choices.

Mechanisms of personality development

The question of how personality development is realized and what mechanisms are involved is the subject of study by many scientists. Most theories of personality development consider the following:

• appropriation - it is realized through awareness and appropriation of one’s human essence;
• isolation (individuation) - an individual shows a desire to stand out from a multitude of similar individuals. Segregation is divided into external and internal types. External is associated with such characteristics as nationality, physical characteristics, gender. Internal - individual characteristics of a psychological nature, intelligence, temperament;
• identification - identification (primarily on an emotional level) of oneself with other people, a group of people, an important object. In childhood, a child identifies himself with his parents or other significant people, adopts their style of behavior, way of reacting and communicating with society, and also absorbs life experiences and views.

In adolescence, the role model for self-identification is peers, authoritative adults, except parents. Identification lasts a lifetime.

Socialization

Socialization is a multi-stage process that leads to the formation of mental properties in an individual. The main influence on socialization is exerted by the environment in which the individual develops.

Human interaction with society can occur in two ways:

• passive - when he uses his social experience;
• active - when a person is active, acts and thus influences the social environment.

Socialization occurs in several stages:

1. pre-labor - begins at birth and lasts until the start of work;
2. labor - coincides with the period of active working life, maturity;
3. post-work – begins from the moment of cessation of active working life in old age.

At each stage of socialization, a person’s range of responsibilities changes, which he performs as a family member or employee. The social position that manifests itself in relation to certain events also changes. Social roles influence personal development throughout life.

The role of heredity in personality development

Hereditary factors play a significant role in the development of personality. They help humans, as representatives of a biological species, adapt to changing conditions.

For psychological science, the greatest interest is in the transfer of creative abilities and inclinations from parents to children and subsequent generations. So that the child can develop harmoniously and maximize his potential. Congenital inclinations directly influence success in education and choice of profession.

The extent to which innate abilities are realized largely depends on the conditions in which the child is raised and intra-family relationships. It is the methods of education that reinforce the talent that is passed on to different generations of the same family (for example, the family of outstanding musicians - Bach, Mozart).

In modern pedagogy, much attention is paid to versatile, most pronounced abilities already in childhood. Special conditions are created for the manifestation and development of talents.

Temperament is an innate characteristic. It is determined by the properties of the nervous system. Temperament does not change throughout life. It determines the characteristics of response and behavior, influences the nature and methods of interaction with society.

A complex of all hereditary factors influence a child’s ability to develop independently. Parents are faced with the task of strengthening their innate abilities in the process of upbringing.

The role of communication in personality development

Communication is necessary for the socialization and development of a child’s inclinations. Already in the first years of life, he forms his own social circle - it includes parents, brothers and sisters, other relatives, friends from kindergarten, and teachers. With age, this circle expands.

Communication with peers in kindergarten and on the playground gives a wide range of emotions and important experience. It becomes the basis for the development of personal qualities and relationships in the future.

If a child does not communicate with peers, then it is not possible to identify whether he has problems with socialization. If they exist, then they can only be revealed through dialogue with peers.

Already a one-year-old baby needs the company of the same children. In a park or early development center, a child can learn to defend himself, play and show other types of interaction.

As we grow older, communication does not lose its important role. Moreover, this factor in personality formation becomes even more significant. This is due to the fact that the child expands his experience, the spiritual world, and therefore feels the need to share it with others and adopt other people's experiences. A desire to communicate with adults appears, and a circle of friends is formed.

Through communication, difficult situations can be overcome more easily. Communication often leads to correction of parenting errors. It is important that parents create conditions for harmonious development and the formation of positive thinking.

In childhood, communication occurs through games. While playing, children learn to help each other, compete, and build relationships. This type of activity allows you to reduce the level of psycho-emotional stress, helps build self-confidence, helps you become more active, and get rid of isolation.

The influence of the environment on personality development

Society for an individual is the main component of interaction. Human activity is reflected in the social environment, and in the same way the changes that occur in society are reflected in it. The environment dictates its conditions, makes certain demands on the individual, or treats the individual with goodwill.

What attitude society demonstrates towards a person depends on its readiness to accept its demands. A person's social status determines his behavior.

Upbringing

Education is considered the most significant factor in personality development. Through it, it is possible to correct unfavorable congenital factors and neutralize the influence of society.

In psychology, education is considered as a means that allows you to control the process of socialization. The task of education is to form an individual so that he maximally meets the requirements of the society where he lives, successfully copes with difficulties and achieves success.

Education develops a person as a consumer of material goods. But this is not the only task of the educational process. It also develops the highest human needs - the desire to create material and spiritual values. These needs manifest themselves in the desire to communicate with other people, cooperate with them, and engage in creativity. The development of these needs and associated emotions helps shape the worldview, the ability to self-regulate behavior and activity, and gain new experience.

The educational process makes it possible to structure the influence on the emerging personality and create the basis for its successful socialization.

Training and education

The term “teaching” includes the transfer of certain knowledge, as well as active interaction between the learner and the one teaching. Regardless of the age of the student, in the process of education he gains new experience, develops the skills to use it, thereby expanding the range of his own opportunities for implementation.

The ability to learn is directly related to age and maturity of brain structures. Thus, a 2-year-old child is not able to master the material that is presented to a first-grader.

Those mental qualities of a person that are formed during upbringing and training are very complex new formations. They are gradually developed in the process of individual development. Each of these mental qualities has a systemic structure and includes:

• needs;
• motives;
• goals;
• knowledge;
• means for action;
• emotions.

For example, curiosity presupposes the presence of knowledge regarding which a new object causes surprise, the desire to study it and the means by which a person realizes this desire. Each of the mental qualities is closely related to all the others.

Driving forces, conditions and sources of personality development

The driving forces of personality development are understood as the needs of the child himself, his motivation, external stimuli for activity and communication, goals and objectives set by adults in teaching and raising children. If the goals of education and training correspond to the child’s motivation, then favorable conditions will be created for development in terms of driving forces.

Human needs are divided according to the degree of expression and necessity, ranging from simple, lower, and ending with the highest.

1. Biogenic: the need for safety and self-preservation, emotional contact, orientation needs, the need for physical activity, play.

2. Psychophysical: needs for emotional saturation, freedom, restoration of energy.

3. Social: the need for self-esteem, communication, knowledge, self-expression.

4. Higher: the need to be an individual, moral and aesthetic needs, the need to find the meaning of life, preparedness and overcoming difficulties, the need for creation and creative work.

Each age has its own needs, the satisfaction of which is important for normal personal development. Delay in satisfying certain needs or incomplete satisfaction of them can negatively affect personality development.

One of the important aspects of the driving force is motivation. It performs several functions:

encourages behavior;

directs and organizes it;

gives it personal meaning and significance (meaning-forming motivation).

In order for motivation to be sustainable and positive, all three functions must be present. The last function is the most important; it is central to the nature of the motivational sphere. The manifestations of stimulating and directing functions depend on what meaning the activity has for the child. Consequently, the success of the activity depends on how well the meaning-forming function is formed. Therefore, it is this function that we must first pay attention to when educating.

These motivational functions are realized by many motives, among them such as ideals and value orientations, needs, motives, goals, interests, etc. At different age stages, their significance manifests itself in different ways. This fact must also be taken into account when raising children.

The process of child development occurs in certain conditions, surrounded by objects of material and spiritual culture, people and relationships between them. In other words, the development of a child depends on the social situation. The social situation is the starting point for all changes that occur in the development of the child during the period of growing up. It determines the forms and paths of development of the child, types of activities, and new mental properties and qualities acquired by him. All these are the conditions for the psychological development of a child. Indeed, the same children, whose driving forces of development are the same, can develop differently in different conditions. The more favorable the conditions for a child's development, the more he can achieve in a short period of time. Therefore, special attention should be paid to the social conditions of development.

The sources of development are leading activity, leading type of communication and development crisis.

The leading type of communication is communication, as a result of which the main positive personality traits are formed and consolidated.

Leading activity is the activity that results in the greatest success in the development of cognitive processes and the formation of new formations at a certain stage of development.

Each age period is characterized by a special type of activity. When moving from one period to another, the leading activity also changes. Modern psychologists have identified the following types of leading activities.

1. At the age from birth to 1 year, direct emotional communication between the child and adults is noted. Neoplasm – the need for communication and grasping.

2. At the age of 1 to 3 years, object-manipulative activity is present. The new formation is self-awareness (“I myself”).

3. Preschool children (from 3 to 6 years old) are characterized by play activities, role-playing games. New formations - the internal position of the schoolchild appears, voluntary behavior, personal consciousness, subordination of motives, primary ethical authorities, and the first schematic outline of an integral child’s worldview arise.

4. Educational activity is observed in children of primary school age (from 6 to 10 years). New formations - intensive intellectual development is underway, “memory becomes thinking, and perception is thinking,” the prerequisites are created for the development of a sense of adulthood.

5. Adolescence (from 10–11 to 14–15 years) is characterized by communication, which extends to various types of activities: work, education, sports, art, etc. New developments are: the emergence of a sense of adulthood, a tendency to reflection, self-knowledge, interest in opposite sex, puberty, increased excitability, frequent mood swings; strong-willed qualities are developing, the need for self-affirmation and self-determination appears. A change in leading activity leads to a crisis in development. This is due to the fact that the child’s needs are changing, but he is not yet able to satisfy them.

The crisis of development in the interpretation of L.S. Vygotsky is a concentration of sharp and major shifts and displacements, changes and fractures in the child’s personality. A crisis is a turning point in the normal course of mental development. It arises when “when the internal course of child development has completed a certain cycle and the transition to the next cycle will necessarily be a turning point...” (Vygotsky L.S., 1991).

L.S. Vygotsky believed that the essence of each crisis is the restructuring of internal experiences, relationships between the child and others, changes in needs and motivations. A crisis occurs at the junction of two age periods and characterizes the end of one period and the beginning of another.

3.3. Patterns of mental development

The patterns of mental development include unevenness and heterochrony, instability, sensitivity, cumulativeness, divergence - convergence.

Unevenness and heterochrony. Unevenness is the uneven development of various mental functions, properties and formations. This process is characterized by rise, stable flow and decline, and is oscillatory in nature. When they talk about uneven mental development, they mean the pace, direction, and duration of the changes taking place. It has been noted that the highest frequency of fluctuations in the development of any function occurs during the period of the highest achievements of this function. E.F. Rybalko said that the higher the level of productivity (achievements) in development, the greater the oscillatory nature of its age dynamics.

Heterochrony means a discrepancy in the time of development of individual organs and functions. If the cause of unevenness is the nonlinear nature of the development system, then heterochrony is associated with the peculiarities of its structure and the heterogeneity of its elements.

Domestic physiologist P.K. Anokhin (1898–1974) believed that heterochrony lies in the uneven deployment of hereditary information. As an example, he cited the following fact: first, more ancient analyzers are formed, and then younger ones.

The German teacher and psychologist E. Meimann (1862–1915) showed the following: the more necessary a particular function is, the faster it develops. For example, a child learns to navigate faster in space than in time.

Development instability. This pattern, closely related to unevenness and heterochrony, is clearly manifested in development crises. This is due to the fact that development always goes through unstable periods, including crises. Stability is possible if two conditions are met: 1) with frequent small-amplitude oscillations; 2) when there is a discrepancy in the time of development of different mental processes, functions and properties. It follows that stability is possible through instability.

Sensitivity of development. As mentioned above, the sensitive period of development is the period when it is most reasonable to begin and conduct the education and upbringing of children (see 2.8). Domestic psychologist B.G. Ananyev understood sensitivity as temporary complex characteristics of correlated functions, sensitized at a certain moment of learning.

These periods are limited in time, and if during the sensitive period the development of a certain quality was not given due attention, then later the process of its development will be longer.

Cumulativeness. This pattern of development is that the developmental results of the previous age period are included in the subsequent one, but with certain changes. For example, in the process of development of thinking, visual-effective thinking first develops, then visual-figurative and finally verbal-logical thinking. This process indicates a qualitative transformation of mental development.

Divergence – convergence. These are two contradictory but interrelated trends. Divergence is about increasing diversity in the process of mental development, convergence is about increasing selectivity.

Personal development - other factors and driving forces.

Already in childhood, under the influence of the educational process, consciousness and self-awareness are formed, one’s own “I” is the most important factor in the development of personality. Having reached adolescence, the child begins to actively use self-knowledge for the purpose of self-education and creation of his own personality.

Self-education, following education, is included in the process of personality development. It is expressed in a person’s actions aimed at himself, at developing qualities that correspond specifically to his ideals and life goals.

The individual begins to work on himself, forms character, will, and other qualities. By changing himself, a person changes the conditions and circumstances of his life.

Irina Sherbul

The concept of personality. Driving forces, conditions of development. Modern theories of personality.

There are three facets in a person: biological basis (individual); social basis (personality); “the human in man” (individuality). Personality reflects the social principle in a person. The concept of “personality” is a social characteristic of a person, indicating those qualities that are formed under the influence of social relations and communication with other people. If a person reaches a level of development that allows him to be considered a bearer of consciousness and self-awareness, capable of independent transformative activity, then such a person is called a personality.

Personality is a system of relationships (friendships, family, production, political, etc.), and they, in turn, are determined by social relations.

Personality structure:

orientation - manifested in needs, interests, ideals, beliefs, attitudes, dominant motives of activity and behavior, worldview, emotions;

knowledge, skills and abilities;

individual typological characteristics - manifest themselves in abilities, temperament, character, and volitional qualities.

A person is not born a personality, but becomes one in the process of development. In pedagogy, two approaches to understanding the essence of personality development constantly collided:

biological - this approach determines the process of personality development by purely natural factors and, above all, those that are inherent in a person from birth;

sociological - this approach assumes that social factors have a predominant influence on a person.

However, personality is an integral system that reflects both the biological and the social.

Personal development is the process of personality formation under the influence of external and internal, controlled and uncontrollable social and natural factors.

Main directions of personality development:

physical development - includes morphological (height, weight, volume), biochemical (composition of blood, bones, muscles) and physiological (digestion, blood circulation, sexual development and maturation) changes;

social development - associated with mental (improvement of memory, thinking, will, development of emotions, needs, abilities, character), spiritual (moral formation), intellectual (deepening and expanding knowledge, intellectual growth) changes.

The driving forces of personality development are contradictions:

general (universal) contradictions - between human needs (material and spiritual) and the possibilities of satisfying them; as well as contradictions that manifest themselves in an imbalance between the organism and the environment, which leads to a change in behavior, a new adaptation of the organism;

individual contradictions - contradictions characteristic of an individual person;

internal contradictions arise on the basis of “disagreement with oneself” and are expressed in a person’s individual motives; one of the main internal contradictions is the discrepancy between emerging new needs and the possibilities of satisfying them (for example, between the desire of high school students to participate in social and production processes and the real level of development of their intelligence , social maturity, that is, contradictions are typical: “I want, I can,” “I want, I need,” “I know, I don’t know,” etc.);

external contradictions are stimulated by external forces, a person’s relationships with other people, society, nature (for example, between human capabilities and the requirements of society).

MODERN THEORIES OF PERSONALITY

At the end of the 30s of our century, active differentiation of research areas began in personality psychology. As a result, by the second half of our century, many different approaches and theories of personality had developed. To briefly consider them, we will use the generalizing diagram presented in Fig. 57. If we approach the definition of modern personality theories formally, then, in accordance with this scheme, there are at least 48 of their variants, and each of them can in turn be assessed according to five parameters specified in the diagram in the form of grounds for classification. The psychodynamic type includes theories that describe a personality and explain its behavior based on its psychological, or internal, subjective characteristics. If we use the formula proposed by K. Levin to symbolically represent the types of theories,

22. The concept of the sensitive period and its role in personality development

Sensitivity (from Latin sensitivus - sensitive) is the optimal combination of conditions for the development of mental processes inherent in a certain age period. During sensitive periods there is a great opportunity to develop children’s abilities to the maximum.

Another definition of the sensitive period can be formulated as follows. The sensitive period is a certain period of a child’s life in which optimal conditions are created for the development of certain psychological qualities and types of activities.

These periods are limited in time, therefore, if you miss stages of mental development, in the future you will have to spend a lot of effort and time to fill the gap in the development of certain functions. Some mental functions may never develop. This is exemplified by numerous cases of children growing up in a pack of animals. When they were returned to society, no rehabilitation methods could teach them full speech and adaptation to new conditions. All their behavior copied the life and habits of animals.

Thus, the sensitive period is the time of maximum opportunities for the most effective formation of any mental property, the period of the highest plasticity. It shows its ability to change according to the specifics of external circumstances.

Signs of a healthy person according to Maslow

Maslow identified the driving forces of personality development that are characteristic of healthy people. These are the following signs:

1. Adequacy of perception. A healthy person has a more effective interaction with reality. He can distinguish facts from his fears, desires or public stereotypes. Quickly exposes lies;
2. Spontaneity. A self-actualizing person is distinguished by spontaneity - but it manifests itself more in his way of thinking and imagination than in behavior. He follows social norms - but more out of respect than fear;
3. Adoption. A psychologically healthy person knows how to accept himself and others as they are. He is also able to satisfy his basic needs - food, sleep and sex. From the latter it logically follows that he is practically not susceptible to disgust;
4. Service, concentration on the problem. A healthy person does not engage in unnecessary soul-searching - he has too much to do for that. He has already solved his problems and devotes himself entirely to his work;
5. Detachment. A self-actualizing person not only is not afraid of loneliness - he enjoys it. In a difficult situation, he is able to distance himself from it, which is often regarded by others as emotional coldness or snobbery. But in fact, this is how a healthy person protects his own psyche;
6. Autonomy. The driving forces of personality development are inherent within the healthiest person - therefore he does not need society to continue normal life activities. This independence gives the self-actualizing personality greater stability when faced with difficulties;
7. Freshness of perception. A healthy person is able to find novelty even in everyday things. Sex and delicious food give him no less pleasure than music or nature;
8. Higher experiences. Maslow also called them “peak” - this is inspiration, awe, grace. Healthy people do not need alcohol or drugs to experience them;
9. A sense of community with humanity. A healthy person is able to experience compassion and empathy. His attitude towards humanity is comparable to that of a brother.

In addition, healthy people are distinguished by a sense of humor, the presence of stable moral principles, creativity, democracy, and selectivity in relationships with people.