Will is... The concept of what it is expressed in, volitional characteristics and manifestation of willpower

• April 4, 2019
• Psychology of Personality
• Natalia Balagurova

Psychologists and philosophers have long been trying to formulate what will is. This concept is considered one of the most difficult to understand among all psychological ones. It is customary to consider a phenomenon as a psychological process; at the same time, the term can denote one of the aspects of the processes occurring in the human psyche. This is also a phenomenon that is formed as a unique personal opportunity to control the actions performed by a person.

How it all began

For the first time, as is known for certain from reliable sources, ancient Greek thinkers and philosophers began to think about what will is. Thus, Aristotle’s arguments on this topic have survived to this day. He considered will to be the basis of human morality, and also saw close connections between expressions of will and the ethics inherent in man. Aristotle was the first to express confidence that it is the person who is responsible for his well-being, that is, the individual completely determines his own destiny. He called man an active force, defining will as the beginning of any action. Both bad and good begin with it equally. Any person voluntarily changes actions. Intentions also change voluntarily. Based on such reasoning, Aristotle believed that it depends only on the person how bad or good he will be. In his reasoning, voluntariness represents the freedom to choose what one wants, focusing on goals, the achievement of which is justified by reasonable arguments.

As psychology developed, thinkers began to think more and more often about what will is. This thinking was the basis for the work of many famous psychologists, thanks to which even a special direction called voluntarism was born. Within its framework, will is considered an autonomous energy that determines mental action. This scientific position does not allow the reduction of a volitional act to a specific mental process. It is believed that it is the will that determines their course and development.

Connection with other words

Words containing -will-:

• allowing
• allowing
• allowing
• permissive
• permissive
• permissive

Words starting with will-:

• volapuk

Words ending with -will:

• captivity

Hypo-hyperonymic relationships

will arbitrariness

What is will (adjectives)?

Selection of adjectives for words based on the Russian language.

such of God's iron strong last good evil alien's own free steel folk unbending adamant firm mighty human holy necessary deprived political complete royal divine supreme united weak strong royal free indomitable indestructible common collective dying personal unshakable creative known persistent paternal any other cruel some no outsider huge blind necessary powerful intelligent powerful hot given stubborn inexorable cold male conscious monarch directed more remarkable

What can the will do? What can you do with will (verbs)?

Selection of verbs for words based on the Russian language.

force to suppress take smile be forced to hold back drive away address leave drive away laugh hold help lead try to stretch hold on try to hold on let make rise come out appear switch stop hold back try to lift change fight get interested break out return manage feel prevail laugh be able to return overcome overcome allow to get stronger be able to break away stay quit answer allow save open weaken suppress feel help withdraw leave concentrate restrain nod try

Associations to the word will

fist life resistance victory power fight action will death attitude achievement person side peace voice eye freedom help creativity survival search earth cooperation distance view head memory captivity word end truth salvation name process cell good lump knowledge hand overcoming mind animal labor implementation soul destruction feat happiness self-destruction theme murder choice execution battle creation goal city work horror chest continuation decision extraction face

Synonyms of will

greed power lust liberty challenge readiness harassment thirst desire call itching cry impatience hunting lust claim invitation call claim space freedom demand demand want

Hyponyms for will

1. arbitrariness

Scope of use of the word will

General vocabulary Legal term Religion Proverb Psychology

Psychologists and the object of their research

Will is a function of the psyche that affects all aspects of human life. It defines orderliness and the pursuit of a specific goal. The consciousness of the activities of a particular person depends on the will. A volitional action, as Rubinstein defined, is a purposeful act through which an individual achieves some goal defined for himself. Thanks to the will, as you can learn from Rubinstein, impulses are subject to the control of consciousness, and a person has the opportunity to correct the world in which he lives, focusing on his own plan and idea.

Will is also a person’s ability to regulate his behavior. It is believed to be a tool of self-determination. Thanks to this mental feature, the individual is freed from circumstances pressing on him from the outside. Thanks to the will, life receives a subjective aspect.

Declension of the noun will (which case)

Declension of words by case in singular and plural.

Scope of use

General vocabulary Figurative meaning Colloquial expression Sublime expression Economics

I want, I can, I create

Will is a mental feature, a phenomenon thanks to which a person overcomes the difficulties encountered on his life path, implementing planned actions. When a person faces problems, he may abandon his line. The alternative is to put in more effort to make the barrier a thing of the past. Psychologists consider overcoming a barrier the commission of some exceptional action that does not fit into the original framework: the goals that a person initially defined for himself did not include such methods. A special action is accompanied by a change in the motivation for its commission. The person consciously uses additional motivation, the construction of which largely involves the creative essence, the ability to imagine, and predict the development of a situation. The creation of a new motive in many cases is due to the ability to imagine what consequences the action will have.

Will in human life is an involuntary format of activity. It must be initiated, efforts must be made to stabilize it, and certain aspirations must be inhibited. Will is possible only if a person is ready to work with motives and aspirations, motivation. It requires the individual to organize a system of activity so that it allows him to achieve what he wants. With a detailed study of the situation, one can see selective volitional functionality. We are talking about everyday conflicts of motives between which a person must choose.

What is will

This human quality has attracted the attention of philosophers and psychologists for hundreds of years; they have been arguing about it, trying to prove the independence of the human will from higher powers and find ways to help control volitional processes. But so far the volitional sphere has been studied much less than the cognitive and emotional ones.

Any human activity - both external and internal - has two types: involuntary and voluntary.

An involuntary, spontaneous, impulsive type of activity is controlled primarily by reflexes - the mental reactions of our body to external influences or internal changes

This type of activity includes, for example, involuntary attention when a person turns around at the sound of a slamming door or a flash of light. Involuntary or impulsive behavior also includes abruptly withdrawing a hand from a hot frying pan or the crying of an offended child. The second type, or the highest level of activity, which in this case is called activity, is voluntary.

This means that performing actions requires volitional efforts, that is, conscious tension to overcome external obstacles or internal resistance: weakness, doubt, indecision, cowardice, laziness, etc. Sometimes these efforts can be insignificant and even invisible to the person himself. For example, in order to lie down on the sofa to rest, serious volitional efforts are not required. What if for this you need to break away from an interesting activity, interrupt communication on the Internet, because it’s late and time to sleep? Then, apparently, some effort will be required. And in other cases, you have to overcome serious internal resistance, making a difficult decision in a situation of difficult choice.

Voluntary or volitional behavior, like the will itself, is not an innate ability of a person

Until the age of 5-6 years, involuntary activity predominates in a child, but gradually his ability to consciously regulate his behavior develops, and will becomes an important part of life.

Development of the situation

Willpower in a person’s life is not only a mental function that has selective implications. Suppose a person finds himself in a situation where he has several options for the development of events, each of which entails certain consequences. Having determined which option is most preferable in the current circumstances, the person activates the initiating volitional functionality. It consists of applying a series of efforts to implement a certain scenario. Since all the alternative motives that had to be encountered at the stage of implementing the selective volitional function have not yet weakened, efforts have to be made to eliminate all those motives in favor of which a decision was not made.

A person with a strong will implements what is planned, strictly adhering to the plan drawn up initially. He determines for himself specific actions, routes and sequences, strictly observing them in life, not allowing deviation in favor of momentary desires. In psychology, this is called a stabilizing volitional function, thanks to which you can adhere to a certain level of activity, despite the problems and difficulties that arise. Often, a person, engaged in a certain action, imagines various situations that may follow, forms plans, the implementation of which will be beneficial. This is called voluntary regulation of mental processes and actions occurring within a person’s personality and in the outside world. If it is possible to determine an additional motive, to formulate why the action that was chosen at the selective stage is needed, if it is possible to formulate for oneself a truly important result that a person is ready to strive for, while changing the motivation and supplementing it with new points formed based on the imagination, talk about changing the role of the implemented action in human life due to volitional effort.

Volitional actions

Volitional actions are consciously controlled actions that are aimed at overcoming difficulties and obstacles in achieving set goals. They arise at a moment when a person is deprived of motivation, vitality and energy, but at the same time clearly understands what and why he needs to do.

The most important components of volitional actions:

• setting goals;
• thinking through ways and techniques to achieve the goal;
• action planning;
• overcoming negative motives;
• decision-making;
• implementation of the decision made;
• evaluation of what has been done;
• formation of an attitude to perform volitional actions in the future.

Volitional action is a rather complex process, including a whole chain of different stages and a sequence of different stages and phases. In the modern world there are so many irritants (advertising, the Internet, sounds) that it becomes increasingly difficult for a person to cultivate this valuable quality that largely determines success.

Functions and processes

A person with a strong will has a highly developed method of regulating his psyche. Will is important in relation to emotional status, the ability to concentrate attention and motivate oneself to action. The three key functions of will processes are oppressive, stabilizing, and initiating. Initiation is also called inducement. This function has a close connection with motivation factors and is aimed at initiating action. It determines behavioral characteristics and allows a person to be active. Due to the initiating volitional function, barriers (objective, internal) are overcome.

As a stabilizer, will is associated with efforts due to which activity is maintained at a sufficient level, despite interference from outside and within the person.

Inhibitory is the final most important function, which determines the role of will in human life. It is aimed at slowing down other desires, behavioral scenarios and patterns that contradict a specific goal. The oppressive volitional function determines a person’s ability to refuse some action, because of which the most significant value may be in a disadvantageous position. Inhibition is one of the key and most important aspects of regulating human behavioral patterns.

Signs of will

Psychologists, figuring out and defining what human will is, have formulated three characteristics inherent in this mental trait. The first is the awareness of one's own freedom. A person understands that he is free to do any action. He realizes that there is no predetermination in principle, only he himself determines what behavioral reactions will be.

The sign of will is determinacy of action. This must be objective. Its presence is mandatory. The sign must be present in any action, even if from the outside it seems completely free.

At the same time, volitional behavior is a holistic phenomenon that affects all personal aspects. A person expresses himself through such mental characteristics clearly, completely. Regulation of behavior through will is considered the highest level of mental control.

Psychic phenomenon

Experts in the field of philosophy and psychology, trying to determine what human will is, proposed calling it a unique phenomenon of a person regulating his own activities. In many respects, it is precisely due to this aspect that a vector orientation of consciousness and its states towards an indefinite goal is possible. Will allows you to concentrate your efforts in order to achieve what you want. A characteristic feature of will is the impossibility of reducing a phenomenon to a specific objective aspect. It cannot be called pure extra-practical consciousness. Will represents the connection between an action, an object, an object, an impulse, a need.

The study of the will and human activity allows us to say with confidence that this mental function presupposes objectification by the subject and legitimation of desire, its selection into a goal. To some extent, will is the result of reflective reasoning about a person’s needs, and at the same time it is a predictive analysis of what may result from an action. Will is a combination of desire and a sense of obligation, combined with the concentration of efforts that must be made to implement what is formulated. Will at the same time is the ability of a person to realize the dominant goal, distinguish it from all others and abandon alternatives that impede the achievement of the goal. The core of the act of will is awareness of the value of the goal and the significance of its implementation for the person. Psychologists point out that will is always associated with a person’s ability to assess the correspondence between the formulated goal and the internal scale of values.

What is will: definitions

1. Will represents the conscious regulation by each individual of his actions and actions, the implementation of which requires moral and physical costs.
2. Will is a form of mental reflection in which the reflected object is the set goal, the motivation for its achievement and the existing objective obstacles to implementation; reflected is considered to be a subjective goal, a struggle of contradictions, one’s own volitional effort; the result of the manifestation of will is the achievement of goals and the satisfaction of one’s own desires. It is worth noting that the obstacles that a person has to face are both internal and external.
3. Will is the side of consciousness, which is a kind of lever of activity and regulation of the beginning, designed to create efforts and maintain them for as long as necessary.

In short, we can combine all of the above and conclude that will is the skill of every person, which manifests itself in self-determination and self-regulation of his own activities and various mental processes.

Versatile and important: will is necessary for man

This phenomenon has long been a source of surprise to researchers of the human psyche. Will is a person’s ability to balance between inhibition and motivation. At the same time, activating a specific action and blocking others, focusing on a goal announced in advance. An act of will is the formulation of a decision, the determination of a method of struggle, the mobilization of forces to achieve what is desired.

The volitional phenomenon is determined by a subjective thesaurus, the articulation of information taking into account the meaning of the action for a particular individual. Will is associated with the attitudes of the individual and his predisposition to certain specific actions. In many ways, the speed of reaction to circumstances and the person’s state of readiness depend on them. As is known from social psychology, will sets a subjective human orientation towards some social value.

Translation of the word will

We offer you a translation of the word will into English, German and French. Implemented using the Yandex.Dictionary service

• To English
• To German
• To French

• volition
  - desire own will - own volition
• political will

• Wille
  - desire, willpower, free will - freier Wille
• enough willpower - genug Willenskraft
• my last wish - mein letzter Wunsch

• volonté
  - willpower, whim, freedom, desire, good will - bonne volonté
• one's own will

Create and develop

In psychology, human will is the quality thanks to which a creative person organizes life, despite the problems of the surrounding world. A person who has this mental characteristic in a pronounced form is able to deal with difficulties and overcome them. Some call will the ability to exist despite the need to fight, while others say that tension itself can already be called will. If he is not in life, it is wrong to call a person strong-willed. To develop this quality, it is necessary to show wisdom and strive for civility. A strong-willed person is one who can and is ready to cooperate and through this make his life more effective. By organizing a life situation, taking into account prospects and one’s own accumulated wealth, a strong-willed person achieves success. To some extent, it is the mental function in question that provides the possibility of development and is the way in which it occurs. It is formed and improved, and manifests itself most clearly in conditions of negative motivation, that is, a situation when a person clearly understands what kind of person she does not want to be, and is ready to make every effort to avoid becoming such a person.

The character and will of a person are the mental characteristics of an individual, improving and developing over the years. Psychologists specializing in these issues call for developing the will, making efforts to do so within reason. By overloading oneself, a person will not receive any positive outcome. Volitional loads must be combined with positive motives, taking into account that will to some extent is a force, but it reflects not muscle mass and its fitness, but character traits. To properly manage your resources, you need to be wise, be able to correctly analyze what is happening, and make rational efforts. Will allows a person to move towards an elusive goal, but it can also be a tool through which the creative search for an alternative path becomes more effective and simpler.

Willpower - what is it?

“There is strength, there is will, but there is no willpower” (from an anecdote).

When we make a decision and begin to act according to it, despite obstacles and difficulties, we can say that at that moment our will is strong. But if you can’t take yourself by the moral collar, show effort and force yourself to do something, then there is no willpower or self-control here.

It is important to understand that people can exercise their will in different ways depending on the situation. For example, a person who has dealt with his anger may not be able to quit smoking, although he wants to.

And those who cannot manage their emotions get up every single day at 6 am for an hour-long run.

This is due to the concept of motivation, which means interest in something. The higher the motivation, the stronger the will and the more active the person’s activity.

Developing: is it necessary?

In a sense, for a person, will is a quality that can be trained, just like muscle strength, except that different exercises are needed for this. If you conduct classes correctly, you can master the control of your antisocial reactions and actions in order to be able to more effectively achieve your goals. The better you can hone your will, the easier it will be to cope with the weaknesses inherent in any individual, as well as habits that negatively affect life. The will becomes stronger if a person gives himself appropriate stress, but only in a limited format. The reasons why people are interested in willpower training vary from case to case. Some people just want to learn to take control of their lives, others want to improve their self-image as a valuable person. Willpower training helps you become more resistant to stress factors and leave harmful habits in the past. Research has been conducted to explore the importance of the human will and its training. They allow us to speak with confidence about the existence of effective strategies for strengthening this mental personality trait.

The easiest way to start training is to work out your daily routine and clearly regulate periods of sleep and food intake. You need to choose a diet with four or five meals a day and determine the time frame. This will keep your body in good shape. It is important to exclude any harmful foods from your diet. At the same time, they set frames for sleep. The classic option is to sleep from 11 pm to seven in the morning. Compliance with such a framework allows you to introduce a clear temporary organization into your life. The earlier a person gets up, the easier it is for her to start working on important things, avoiding the temptation to put them off until later. Another aspect of such training is that a person must do what needs to be done, without giving up on a task simply because he does not want to work on it. By doing such things, you can develop strong-willed qualities and make your personality stronger.

Will and habits

In many ways, the formation of will is helped by exercise associated with giving up bad habits and developing useful ones. Any person has harmful ones, even if the person does not talk about them; in the depths of consciousness there is a desire to leave them in the past. Some people want to give up tobacco products or alcohol, others want to adjust their diet. By the way, some people believe that you can quit smoking by always keeping a pack of cigarettes with you. This opinion is wrong. Restriction provokes an even stronger desire, but in the absence of restriction, activity is completely determined by volitional efforts.

Forming new habits also involves effort: a habit is an action performed unconsciously. Once you have formed it for yourself, you need to introduce it into everyday life and resort to action so often that it becomes an integral part of your personality. Some time must pass - only then will what is done become an organic part of everyday life, not requiring additional effort. If you can achieve this, you can confidently talk about successful willpower training.