Problems of personal socialization in modern society
The problem of personality socialization, despite its wide coverage in the scientific literature, remains relevant to this day. Processes occurring in all spheres of social life affect the individual, his environment, and his internal state. According to S.L. Rubinstein, personality “... is not only this or that state, but also a process during which internal conditions change, and with their change, the possibilities of influencing the individual by changing external conditions also change.” At the same time, the mechanisms, content, and conditions of socialization of the individual, which undergo significant changes, cause equally intense changes in the educated individual.
Modern man is constantly under the influence of many factors: both man-made and social in origin, which cause a deterioration in his health. A person's physical health is inseparable from mental health. The latter, in turn, is associated with a person’s need for self-realization, that is, it provides that sphere of life that we call social. A person realizes himself in society only when he has a sufficient degree of mental energy, which determines his performance, and at the same time, sufficient plasticity, mental harmony, allowing him to adapt to society and meet its requirements. Mental health is a necessary condition for successful socialization of an individual.
Statistics show that currently, on average, only 35% of people are free from mental disorders. The layer of people with premorbid conditions in the population reaches significant sizes: according to various authors, from 22 to 89%. However, half of the carriers of psychiatric symptoms independently adapt to the environment.
The success of socialization is assessed by three main indicators:
(a) a person reacts to another person as an equal;
b) the individual recognizes the existence of norms in human relations;
c) a person recognizes the necessary degree of loneliness and relative dependence on other people, that is, there is a certain harmony between the parameters “lonely” and “dependent”.
The criterion for successful socialization is a person’s ability to live in the conditions of modern social norms, in the “I - others” system. However, people who meet these requirements are increasingly rare. Increasingly, we are faced with manifestations of disability socialization, especially among the younger generation. As the results of research in recent years show, despite the expansion of the network of psychological services, the number of children with behavioral disorders and deviations in personality development is not decreasing.
Thus, the problem of aggression in adolescents remains of practical relevance. It is unconditional, aggression is innate in every person. Its absence leads to passivity, connivance and conformism. However, its excessive development begins to determine all forms of personality: it can become contradictory, incapable of conscious cooperation, and, therefore, complicates a person’s comfortable existence among the people around him.
Another problem that worries the public is the violation of social norms and rules by young people and their reluctance to follow them. This in itself is a manifestation of a violation of the socialization process. There are more and more children who belong to the group of deviant youth. Another problem of modern society is the increase in the number of suicides among children. The scale of the problem is much larger than it seems at first glance. After all, as a rule, completed attempts to leave life are included in the statistics, but an even larger number of people with a tendency towards suicidal behavior are not taken into account.
Mechanisms
Mechanisms, or translators, are sources through which accumulated experience is passed on to new generations. The same process applies to socialization.
The mechanisms of personality socialization are conventionally divided into two large groups:
- Socio-psychological.
- Social and pedagogical.
The first group includes the following translators:
- Imprinting. Typical for infants and young children. In its process, information is imprinted in memory using the sensory organs.
- Existential perception. Assimilation of information unconsciously.
- Imitation. Unconscious or conscious following of some pattern, imitation of an ideal.
- Reflection. A process in which internal dialogue occurs, the result of which is the acceptance or rejection of generally accepted norms existing in society.
The following are considered social and pedagogical translators:
- Traditional. Characterizes the assimilation of existing stereotypes in society. The process occurs both consciously and unconsciously.
- Institutional. Works in the process of human interaction with different organizations.
- Stylized. This mechanism is actualized if a person joins a subculture (that is, a group of people whose values do not coincide with the majority) and actively manifests himself in it.
- Interpersonal. This translator works in cases where an individual enters into relationships with the people around him.
Among other things, psychologists identify a number of “laws” of the psyche that facilitate socialization. Based on their characteristics, one can determine the stage of socialization of an individual:
- Law of repetition. Children and adolescents copy the behavior of their elders - brothers and sisters, parents. At an older age, people copy the behavior of their idols, bosses and other people important to them.
- Law of opposition. A person opposes himself, his personality, his character to the whole world and the models accepted in society. As a result of comparison, he can come to a conclusion about which behavior model he likes better.
- Law of adaptation. In order to adapt and interact fruitfully with members of society, a person needs to adapt. To do this, you need to learn to seek compromises and come to agreement.
Each of the described mechanisms is extremely important for the successful completion of the socialization process. Vodos-Service.
Features of the social situation of adolescent development in modern society
The cultural-historical approach of L. S. Vygotsky, which was subsequently developed in the works of A.N. Leontyeva, D.B. Elkonina, A.V. Zaporozhets, P.Ya. Yakovleva and others. Galperina, L.I. Bozhovich, has been further developed, sets clear guidelines for understanding the content, conditions and driving forces of mental development, including adolescence and youth. Mental development is considered as a process of acquiring cultural and historical experience. The structure of psychological age as a cultural-historical form of describing ontogenetic development includes the social situation of development, directing activity and new formations specific to psychological age.
The social situation of development in the understanding of L.S. Vygotsky is “...a completely original, specific for a given age, exceptional, unique and inimitable relationship between the child and the surrounding, first of all, social reality.” The content of the social situation of development determines the child’s lifestyle, his social existence, and creates conditions for the development of the main psychological neoplasms of age. Communication is a necessary condition for the mental development of a child; the formation and development of psychological new formations of age occurs in activity.
The idea of a dynamic system of “individual-environment” relations, changing over time, also affirms in foreign developmental psychology the importance of the child’s interaction with the social environment as a key point in development. The variety of social contexts that make up the social environment gives rise to a variety of trajectories of a child’s individual development.
The relationship between the concepts of “social situation of development” and “dynamic system of relations between the individual and the environment” allows us to identify two important definitions: firstly, the importance of the social environment as a system of social contexts as a source of socialization and mental development of the child; secondly, the role of the activity of the child himself, who determines the vector of development, setting goals and achieving them on the basis of self-regulation. The inextricable unity, interconnection and interaction of the child with the social environment allows us to consider as the object of mental development not an individual - an isolated child, but a child in the system of his social and interpersonal relationships with adults and peers. Thus, the social situation of development as the relationship between the child and the social reality surrounding him becomes decisive for his mental development.
The social situation of development in adolescence and young adulthood is characterized by two features:
- The scope of meaningful relationships shifts toward the peer group;
the nature of development changes from development as the primary acquisition of sociocultural experience to development as self-development, in which the activity of the teenager, the subject of development, acquires special significance.
The social situation of development in adolescence shifts the focus of significant interpersonal relationships: Relationships with peers (peer group) are in the foreground, relationships with relatives (parents) and social adults (teachers) are in the background. Teenagers are connected with peers through close interpersonal relationships (friends, boyfriends) and social relationships (classmates, acquaintances from the yard or sections, clubs). Traditionally, the reference group of peers consists of teenagers of the same age, but it is not the chronological age that becomes important, but the community of interests, experienced emotions, shared events and the shared meaning of phenomena, objects and actions. As adolescents grow up, the peer group becomes heterogeneous in age and gender composition; it has older and younger participants, boys and girls, solving the same developmental problems. The shift in focus of meaningful interpersonal relationships often becomes emotionally challenging, leading to misunderstandings, anger, irritation, and conflict in the parent-child relationship, which undergoes significant changes during adolescence.
Types of socialization
Socialization is a difficult, even contradictory process. In the process of his development, an individual becomes acquainted with both humanity as a whole and individual groups of people who have their own rules, goals and guidelines.
Therefore, experts distinguish several types of this phenomenon:
Primary socialization begins at the birth of a child and ends with the formation of a mature personality. It lays the foundations for all subsequent development of a person, and to some extent determines the scenario of his future life. The family is of greatest importance, because it is the first thing a child sees in his life. It is necessary to keep in mind that children perceive what they see around them uncritically, therefore they regard the behavior of adults in the family as basic, standard. Alcoholism and sloppiness, unsanitary conditions in the house - all this is “imprinted” in the child’s mind and can remain with him for life if he does not go through the subsequent stages of socialization. And vice versa - intelligence and cleanliness learned in the family will also accompany him in the future. In the future, kindergarten, school, a group of friends and peers become new social environments, where the child has to get accustomed to a new environment and act in accordance with new rules. Secondary socialization, or resocialization, is the process of eliminating previous patterns of behavior and learning new ones. This process continues throughout the individual's life. During resocialization, a person experiences a complete break with his past and feels the need to assimilate new values that are strikingly different from those that he previously adhered to. Typically, the changes that occur during secondary socialization are less than during primary socialization. Group socialization is a process that takes place within a social group. So, if a child spends more time with his peers than in the family, then he more actively adopts the norms and rules inherent in the peer group. Gender socialization is a process that involves learning the role of a man or woman in society. At the same time, boys learn to be men, and girls learn to be women.
In the past, gender socialization was an important and necessary part of a person's entry into society, but nowadays gender has largely ceased to have any meaning. Equality of rights and opportunities eliminates the need to “command” and “obey”, and representatives of both sexes have the opportunity to master the same professions, occupy the same positions and take on the same social roles (for example, in a family, both parents can take turns working and raising children, either the wife works, and the husband looks after the household and raises the children, or “the old fashioned way” - the husband works, and the wife takes care of the household and children)
The principles of gender socialization are still strong in traditional, backward societies (in the countries of Asia and Africa), but even there they are gradually losing their position. Organizational socialization is a process in which an individual who is part of an organization learns its norms and rules and masters the skills of his work within its framework. Early socialization is the process of mastering norms, rules and skills that do not correspond to the current level of physical, psychological and social development. First of all, this type of socialization is understood as a game - a kind of “rehearsal” for future social activity.
Sociology of adolescence
The sociology of old age studies the characteristics of the age structure of society from the point of view of the individual’s involvement in various social relationships, the system of performed social roles and social groups.
The sociology of adolescence examines different types of ages. Please note that these ages partially coincide with the ideas of L.S. Vygotsky, who especially emphasized psychological age as a unit of development analysis. In the context of sociology, there are four types of age that need to be studied: chronological, physical, subjective and symbolic.
Chronological age is determined by the number of years that have passed since a person was born. It has a special meaning in culture and is used to determine legal and social status, especially in the public sphere. Chronological age is used as the main parameter for reaching adulthood and acquiring all civil rights and responsibilities (18 years for citizens of the Russian Federation). The convenience of using chronological age as a criterion of adulthood lies primarily in the objectivity of determining key points of development: 6-7 years - the beginning of school, 16-17 years - the end of school, 18 years - the age of majority, etc.
Physical age is determined by assessing the level of physical and somatic development. There are two forms of physical age: biological (medical) and contextual. The biological line takes into account the maturity and characteristics of the functioning of the human body, pubertal development. Contextual age refers to social assessments of a person's age based on their appearance and behavior. In adolescence, there is often a gap between these ages, when appearance and physical development come into dissonance with the passing age.
Subjective age is a person’s self-assessment of his age in comparison with others, which can vary in different situations and is largely determined by the social context of interaction. A separate form of subjective age is physically embodied age, which is associated with the experience of one’s age through feelings and emotions associated with physicality.
Embodied age refers to social expectations of certain behaviors, skills, and abilities that are “necessary” for a given age. Expressions of adulthood by teenagers can take the form of, for example, drinking alcohol, smoking, wearing adult clothes, etc. — All things that act as symbols of adult life. This understanding is close to the concept of symbolization of aging used by I. S. Kuhn. The concept of age symbolization involves a description of social ideas about how the growth, development and transition of an individual from one age stage to another occurs (should occur). Models of behavior prescribed by culture and society have a certain degree of psychological legitimacy for a person's age. Due to the asynchrony in reaching different ages in adolescence, the level of development and behavior of adolescents is not always compatible with the required system of social norms regulating the status of adulthood, which is manifested in the fact that the experience of a sense of adulthood does not receive social support. The system of ideas of age symbolism, as I. S. Kon writes, includes:
- normative age criteria;
- age characteristics or age stereotypes;
- Symbolization of aging processes;
- Age rituals;
- Age subculture.
