Stereotypes, dullness, crowds - all this is deeply opposed to manifestations of personality traits and individualism. The concept of “human individuality” in psychology includes a huge range of components. Among them is unusualness, of course, within the framework of what is permitted, decent and accepted in society. In addition, there is a peculiarity here, difference from others not only in appearance, but also in actions. And a number of other important characteristics.
Individuality in a person attracts attention and makes it possible to distinguish him from the crowd. And if this is a highly educated, moral person, individuality gives it a zest.
The individuality of a person as an individual - what is it?
One is born as an individual, one becomes a person, and one defends individuality.
Alexander Grigorievich Asmolov
- 1.Human individuality – what is it?
- 2. Personality
- 3.Individuality in psychology
- 4.Personality Traits
- 5.Development of individuality
- 6.Conclusion
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Human individuality - what is it?
Individuality is the characteristics of a particular person that fundamentally distinguish him from other people.
The brighter these manifestations, the more a person stands out from the crowd. Individuality cannot be imagined without another important concept that has a place in psychology and has become fundamental in many of its teachings. This is a personality. This includes a person's inherent moral traits.
An accomplished person is always perceived in a positive sense. Personal qualities:
- Artistry, the ability to present oneself in society.
- Ability to dress with taste.
- Competent gestures.
- Clear, competent speech.
- Good manners.
- Resourcefulness, the ability to behave with dignity in any situation.
- The ability to care for one's neighbor, compassion for others.
- Freedom of thought, ability to think.
- Positive outlook.
- Wisdom.
- Constant desire for self-improvement.
And this is not even a complete list, but only the most important personality qualities.
Psychologists say self-improvement is hardly the most important thing of all. Also in this series are determination, willingness to cooperate, and responsibility. The concept of personality, keeping pace with individuality, is the most perfect type of “Homo sapiens”. The moral qualities of this person reached the greatest heights. In this regard, psychologists are accustomed to asserting that not everyone who stands out from the crowd is an individual and vice versa.
A person’s individuality is a set of properties characteristic only of that particular person. Qualities come from different components: a variety of character and temperament, features of physiology, psyche, experience, worldview. Very often, the presence of certain individual traits is influenced by profession and personal preferences (in food, clothing, etc.).
Who do you see first? Your answer will show your personality!
Functions, role and forms of manifestation
Individuality is a very controversial concept in psychology. This is due to the fact that all directions and theories are still being considered. Therefore, there is still no detailed, generally accepted definition of this concept.
In order to understand how essential individuality is to human life, the easiest way is to give examples. Let's say a person enters a competition where the skill of readers is assessed. The first participant is mute, the second composes beautiful poems and reads them for many years.
The third contestant knows only the school curriculum and those literary works that he studied many years ago. In this case, it is impossible to evaluate all three participants in the competition equally. In this case, the individuality of each contestant plays a big role.
For example, the first participant, who is mute, has his own biological and physiological individuality, and accordingly, it is difficult for him to take part in such a competition.
The same applies to the third participant, who only attended the school program. Obviously, the winner will be the contestant who has been writing poetry for a long time and knows how to read it perfectly. This is also individuality.
Thus, individuality is extremely important in the formation of personality. This determines who a person will become, who he will work, and what social environment he will be in.
Personality
Each of us is a Personality
Individuality of a person is uniqueness, socially significant characteristics presented in the context of the worldview of a particular person.
If we compare this complex concept with the term “person,” here psychologists tend to talk about a generic concept, which indicates origin and physiological characteristics. In this context, it is said that the creature is at the highest stage of evolution, that’s all.
When it comes to personality, psychology provides broad explanations concerning the entire spectrum of life and ideological structures. A person is understood as an individual with a certain set of genetic qualities, but they were special, we can already talk about individuality. However, in this sense, this concept has nothing to do with the individual’s individuality.
Personality in psychology presupposes a set of individual personality traits. Among them are special mercy and kindness, dignified behavior under any circumstances, even compromising ones. The relationship between the concepts of personality and individuality is interpreted by psychologists as two ways of being of the same person. In some cases, he uses all his individual qualities, in others, he tries not to be different from others, to blend in with the crowd.
The processes of developing personality and individuality often occur in parallel. They are not always typical for adolescence. Often, very young children show their individual characteristics in creativity and unusual approaches in communicating with peers and adults.
According to psychologists, personality is formed from a very early age. Many call the baby 2-3 years old. Other researchers say five years. Indeed, already in early childhood a child has his own worldview, an individual view of certain things, events, and actions of other people. Based on different assessments of what they saw, children form their own line of behavior.
It is in childhood that the most important personality traits are formed. The child’s environment, parental behavior, and upbringing contribute to this. Peers and teachers also become examples.
Definition
Although B.G. was the first to formulate a clear formulation of otherness. Ananyev, the first works in which the topic of considering individuality appeared belong to J. Burkhadt, a Swiss cultural historian.
His work entitled “Renaissance Culture in Italy” deserves special attention. In one of the chapters, the historian says that during the Middle Ages, people positioned themselves as unique individuals. It was quite easy to determine this.
J. Burkhadt drew the attention of readers to the fact that at the end of the 16th century. Italians did not dream of becoming trendsetters. At that time it was considered a shame if two people looked the same. Everyone tried to stand out. People tried to wear even ordinary suits in their own way.
Thanks to this, Burkhadt proved that for hundreds of years individuality was not just common, but more pronounced than it is today. That is, then individuality was considered primarily an external difference.
Based on this, the Swiss historian divided the concept of the external world and the internal world of man. Accordingly, individuality is an assessment of one’s inner world in relation to the outer world.
The first system for assessing individuality was developed by W. von Humboldt. Back in 1795, he conducted research, according to which he was able to find out that each person has his own individual differences.
And if earlier these differences were more external (costume, nationality, belonging to a particular family), now individuality was also manifested in behavior, habits, level of intelligence and other spectrums of life.
V.M. also studied individuality. Bekhterev. He defined this manifestation of personality as the harmony of parts. According to him, individuality always borders on a certain harmony, has its own special form and stable degree.
Individuality in psychology is one of the levels of personality organization. Bekhterev argued that only with complete harmony of all systems can individuality be formed. This idea was later continued by B.G. Ananyev, when he said that it is individuality that closes the circle of all human properties.
US researcher A.L. Baldwin noted that concepts of personality, including individuality, can change depending on certain conditions and situations.
It is also worth noting that individuality today is considered in several areas of science. Accordingly, definitions may differ. For example, if we talk about biology, then, as a rule, individuality is understood as the uniqueness or originality of each individual within one genus.
Also in this area, this concept is applicable specifically for the general species, which correlates with other living beings. There are biological signs of individuality that are characterized by genetic characteristics. This primarily includes appearance, lifespan, and changes over time. This type also includes intraspecific features of the manifestation of an individual.
If we talk about people, then in biology individuality has a slightly different concept. It is viewed in the sense that individuality is initially laid down by nature itself, that is, at the genetic level. For example, the biological individuality of a human being includes a unique retina and fingerprints.
However, more often than not, both the biological and psychological definitions of individuality go very close to each other. If we consider psychological characteristics, then in this case a person is divided into several psychological categories.
This means that individuality is determined by temperament, intelligence, character, habits, communication style, activities and other processes. However, unique qualities do not yet constitute individuality in itself.
Psychology also examines how the relationship between all these qualities occurs. Accordingly, in this field, personality is an analysis (qualitative or quantitative) of certain unique characteristics of a particular person.
Individuality in psychology
In this regard, the concept is related to the term “individual” - a representative of a community of people.
In this understanding of psychologists, the differences between people consist of physiological and mental characteristics. Among the first: height, hair color, eyes. Secondly, there is a set of abilities, a type of temperament, and a level of emotionality. The formation of individuality always takes place differently for everyone. A person becomes isolated on a personal level and goes through a process of self-determination. As a result, he feels unique and unrepeatable.
An individual personality is always original, takes an active social and creative position, and manifests itself in a large number of life forms. This often occurs during the process of socialization. First, a person learns the norms and rules of behavior accepted in society, and then forms an individual interpretation of diverse patterns of behavior and communication.
A characteristic reflection of the concept of individuality has become such epithets as creativity, originality, brightness, talent. As for personality, words such as fortitude, energy, determination, and independence are most often used here.
Psychologists often equate the concept of individuality with personality. This applies to interpretation options that are taken in a broad sense and mean all the distinctive features that are characteristic only of a particular person. But more often, scientists attribute individuality to personal properties.
Charismatic personality - what is it like?
Personality Traits
Single individual
The specificity of this concept lies in the set of characteristics inherent only to it. Personality traits integrate a large set of qualities that are formed in the process of human activity.
They have both social and purely psychological characteristics. To a number of physiological personality traits
psychologists include:
- Inherited appearance.
- Behavioral features.
- Adaptive properties.
Social personality traits
:
- Cultural characteristics that leave an imprint on the characteristics of a person and form his individuality.
- Characteristic values instilled in the family.
- Stability of behavior.
- Self-esteem.
- Behavior control system.
A very important point in assessing personality traits is a person’s age.
Throughout their lives, people go through a huge number of different stages of socialization and at each stage the characteristics of an individual can change. Whether it's drastic or not is another question. More often not radically. As for the process of socialization itself, it cannot be said that it ends after the formation of personality. Even an elderly person can socialize. For example, the desire to learn how to use technical means that were not there in his youth is already a process of socialization.
A person not only learns the basics of handling a phone or laptop from a technical point of view, but also absorbs the basics of the culture of communication in the Internet space when using certain gadgets. This culture and values may differ significantly from those previously adopted. Their interpretation is manifested in a different set of new personality traits.
You don’t always find individuality among people. Georgy Mikhailovich Vitsin
Reflection in psychology - what is it?
Diagnostics
Individuality in psychology is a personality trait that is determined through methodological research. As a rule, standard and approved research methods are used.
They include:
- Personal principles. The essence of this method is that the specialist must carefully study the features not of isolated perception, thinking, memory, but the features of thinking and perception of the human world around him. That is, the method consists in revealing the relationship between psychological processes and what kind of personality the subject is.
- The principle of unity not only of human activity, but also of his consciousness. The point is that consciousness and activity are connected in personality. The assessment of individuality in this case is carried out by determining the interrelated functions and processes of the mental type.
- Principles of determinism. For this method, external factors that affect the personality are refracted through the personality itself. Moreover, the so-called internal is the determinant of the external.
These methods are the main diagnostic measures that are used in the process of psychological research. According to such events, a specialist can determine the level of individual integrity.
However, it is worth noting that there is no single acceptable scheme for conducting psychological diagnostics of individuality. There are only recommended principles that are considered the most accurate. We are talking about the methods of G.D. Pir'ova and B.G. Ananyeva.
Individuality is considered as one of the aspects of a person’s personality, and accordingly it is very difficult to assess the dissimilarity of a particular person. Today there are no universal criteria that can determine individuality.
This is because there are a huge number of cultural and scientific systems. They all differ in different ways of assessing actions, as well as the actions of people.
That is, recommended methods can be used for diagnosis, but the result, which can be understood as a norm or deviation, depends on many factors, including even the specific country or region of the study.
Personality development
This process takes place at the stage of personality formation, the so-called socialization.
Not only teachers and educators, but also the child’s parents are responsible. However, some teaching principles and methods are purposefully designed to form qualities and personality traits in a young person. But we cannot do without the concept of personality development. These processes must go in parallel.
Today, schoolchildren and even kindergarten children receive enormous opportunities in the formation of individuality, in contrast to the recent Soviet past of our society, where everything was done literally as a carbon copy. It was impossible to differ from the masses. In a modern school there are a large number of tasks that allow you to be smart and find innovative solutions.
At the same time, children receive expanded knowledge in subjects. Teachers are increasingly forcing them to talk about the events or facts of history being studied. All this tirelessly shapes individual characteristics in the child’s personality, including the psyche. Individuality is not born. Almost all psychologists talk about this.
Main stages of individuality development:
- Formation of special views on things. In this case, the child first learns important details about an event or object and then begins to express his attitude. At the first stages, it may not differ from the manifestations of peers, but gradually individual traits develop.
- When there is already a certain worldview and a person or child can interpret certain events based on such ideas. And at this stage, individuality is formed, since traits and qualities change under the influence of various factors.
In fact, the process of socialization contributes to the development of individuality and special character traits of a young or psychologically mature person.
Psychological theories and schools
The study of individuality was carried out by ancient Greek and Roman doctors and philosophers. For example, the Hippocratic school viewed life as a process that is subject to change. Accordingly, this influenced the formation of personality.
Hippocrates and Theophrastus held similar theories. They studied how the psyche is interconnected with the anatomical and biological characteristics of a person. Modern experts adhere to the same theories.
Until the middle of the 19th century. It was generally accepted that a person’s dissimilarity depended on his reasoning and conclusions. Thinking was based on the so-called worldly wisdom. However, later experiments and methodological studies appeared in psychology.
Thanks to this, it was possible to prove that there are a lot of individual differences. Gradually, the so-called differentiated psychology began to develop, which was aimed at studying the individual characteristics of human development.
Francis Galton, an English researcher, created special measurement procedures and a static apparatus with which he could evaluate the differences between subjects. Through his work, he collected a wealth of material that allowed him to form levels of individuality. He was interested in how individual characteristics are formed.
William Stern also made a major contribution. A German specialist created a work entitled “On the Psychology of Individual Differences.” He was the first to use the term emancipated psychology.
That is, in fact, this was the first mention of differential psychology. In 1994, A. Anastasi noted that this work of Stern is of epochal significance, since it was he who distinguished psychology into different directions.
