The word "personality", like many other psychological concepts, is widely used in everyday communication along with other terms. Therefore, to answer the question: "What is a person?", it is necessary, first of all, to distinguish between the concepts of "person", "personality", "individuality", "individual".
A human being is, on the one hand, a biological being, an animal endowed with consciousness, having speech and the ability to work; on the other hand, a human being is a public being, he needs to communicate and interact with other people.
The person is the same person but considered only as a social being. Speaking of personality, we are distracted from its biological natural side. Not everyone is a person. It is not without reason that we can hear about one "real person", and about the other - "no, it is not a person".
Individuality is a person's personality as a unique combination of peculiar mental features. An individual is a single representative of the human race, a specific bearer of all social and psychological features of humanity: the mind, will, needs, etc. The concept of "individual" in this case is used in the meaning of "concrete person".
The experience of social isolation of a human individual proves that a person develops not only by automatic deployment of natural inclinations. The study of these individuals' perception of themselves as a separate being in the world around them has shown that they do not have their own self, because they have no idea of themselves as a separate, separate being among other similar beings. Moreover, such individuals cannot perceive their differences and similarities with other individuals. In this case, a human being cannot be considered a person.
Every born child has a brain, a voice system, but he can only learn to think and talk in society. Of course, the continuous unity of biological and social qualities shows that a human being is a biological and social being.
Factors of personality formation
- The main factors of personal development are heredity, environment, and upbringing. Heredity. A person from birth is endowed with natural prerequisites, i.e. preconditions to this or that kind of activity. In the understanding, this question psychologists and teachers rely on the data of the chromosomal theory of heredity.
- The hereditary basis (genotype) of an organism is a complex system of relatively independent elements - genes. The material substance of the genotype is the chromosomes comprising DNA and proteins. A gene is based on its ability to determine the synthesis of proteins.
- This property of genes has a significant impact on the typological properties of the nervous system, which are the basis of individual psychological differences. Genetic prerequisites for a certain type of activity are transformed in the process of development into a person's abilities - his individual psychological features that determine the success of the activity.
- The result of this process depends largely on the person himself, his will. With perseverance, hard work, he can achieve a lot. The great speaker Demosthenes from nature was speaking in vernacular. To overcome this shortcoming and develop the appropriate diction, he took stones in his mouth, went to the seashore and spoke for hours. Thanks to his perseverance, you can develop weak deposits.
- Conversely, talented people can ruin their talents. Wednesday. In Kipling's fairy tale "Mowgli" the main character is a boy who grew up among animals. Despite the fact that Maugli was completely devoid of human education, he still became a man and made a number of exploits. Scientific observations suggest otherwise. Children, who after a long stay among the animals could be returned to people and placed in specially created conditions (medical and pedagogical), were sharply different from their peers.
- They hardly mastered the vertical gait, their thinking, speech, emotional and volitional manifestations, in spite of the long purposeful education and upbringing, were primitive and remained at the level of childhood.
Man lives in specific social-historical conditions that have a significant impact on his formation. The environment is understood as a system of living conditions and circumstances in which a person lives.
The following types of environments differ
- For each person, there is a purely individual situation of development, and the sources are not in themselves environmental factors and his attitude to them. Upbringing. Upbringing systematically raises a person to new, higher levels of development, "projects" the development of personality and therefore acts as the main, determining factor of its development.
- Education is carried out purposefully, according to special scientifically grounded programs. The educational process is based on a certain system. The function of upbringing is to develop ("launch") the mechanisms of self-regulation, self-motivation, and self-development in a child. In many ways, a person is a creator of himself. While a certain program of individual development is already laid down at the genetic level (including physical and mental predisposition), a person has the right to develop himself/herself.
- Without denying the primary role of education in personal development, it should be noted that not all people succumb to the developmental and formative effects tested in society. Simultaneous complex influence on personal development of positive and negative factors (primarily social origin) expands the range of mutations of mental neoplasms that threaten the health of an individual, nation, state, planet.