Personality and social environment. Characteristics of the social environment

The formation of a person's personality takes place in society. These are two interconnected social phenomena. Personality and social environment do not exist separately. They are the subject of intense interest and study of the whole complex of socio-economic disciplines: history, economics, psychology, philosophy and sociology.

How does the personality and society interact?

Who is the subject and object of this mutual influence? What are the patterns of personality integration in society? We will try to answer questions and identify modern approaches to the nature of relations between man and the world around him.

Man as an individual

The birth of a person is reflected through a collection of metric indicators that combine to provide information about the individual. Growth, weight, health, nationality, place and date of birth are the basic characteristics with which a person comes into the world.

In the development process, a person as an individual interacts with the outside world. And the path of his development is as individual and unique as his anthropometric portrait. Each individual has a family or is left without it, was born in an economically prosperous megacity or in a remote village - all these are factors of the social environment that directly influence the formation of the character, views, culture and way of further socialization.

In the process of becoming in society, the individual acquires a psychological characteristic, habits, views, and behavioral peculiarities. He becomes an individual in society. And only the full right to freedom of choice, which is officially regulated by adulthood, turns personality into personality.

Stages of socialization

Socialization is the process of integration of an individual in a society, as a result of which, at each stage, he acquires the qualities of a full member. Personality and social environment are dynamic units. At all stages of their interaction or refusal to interact, the subject-object roles change.

There are three stages in the socialization of the individual:

• The period of entry into society: the development of norms and requirements, the formation of communicative ways of interaction with the surrounding world.
• The period of self-actualization in society: the definition of personal characteristics, their position, status, social preferences.
• The period of integration: the formation of the personality and the active interaction of the social environment and personality.

All three periods do not have a rigid binding to the age stages and can be carried out synchronously in each age period.

Entering the society

Conditionally the beginning of socialization can be attributed to the age stages of infancy and childhood. This period is characterized by the acquisition of the initial experience of interaction between individuality and society. Factors of the social environment directly influence the formation of the attitude of man to the world.

If this is a socially unfavorable environment, then it can form a negative scenario of the individual's behavior and lead in the future to an antisocial way of life. There are other examples: if in the period of becoming a person, a person makes a choice not in favor of the surrounding negative environment, he has every chance to change his environment.

In any case, the characterization of the social environment imposes an imprint on the initial experience. The indicator of the level of personality is the freedom of choice. Everyone has the right to follow the norms of society to the extent that it corresponds to his personal nature.

Self-actualization in society

During this period, the position of a person in society takes shape.

In adolescence, when there is a reassessment of the surrounding world and its place in it, there is an active process of social self-identification, a person declares himself and his place in society. This is a rather painful process for the individual. Sometimes for a close environment. The social environment and the socialization of the individual in it are a two-way process. Declaring his place, the person thereby requires to determine the attitude of other members of society to himself, "to win" from the world his personal space. This is often associated with the interests of others.

The ability to agree, find a common interest is required both for the person and the society, interested in successful adaptation and obtaining public benefit from the new member of the community.

Integration into society

The most important period for society and man is the stage of integration, when the person who has already taken place realizes himself. Personality and social environment Are interested in each other. If at the first and second stages of the process of entering society a person as an individual more often acted as an object of relations, the society taught him to be a member, then in the period of integration there is already a person with an active position of the subject of social interactions.

What does this mean?

• A person is included in the production, distribution and consumption of a social product.
• He realizes fully the rights and is responsible for the consequences of his activities to society.
• Defines its civil position in the state.

Thus, a person, without ceasing to be an object of society, acts as the subject of management of the community in which he socialized and influences him.

Conventions of the stages of socialization

All these stages of socialization are conditional in their horizontal historical orientation. At each stage, the role and status of the individual can change, under different conditions, the same person can perform different social roles and statuses.

The stage of entering the society can be repeated at any period of the social maturity of the individual, with a change in the social status or social community, the professional community, and in other such variants.

Socio-cultural environment plays an important role. If a person has changed his place of work or entered into marriage, he has to re-enter the process of socialization. Determine to what extent it is satisfied or not a new socio-cultural environment, and make a choice as a free person.

Relationships between the individual and society

The individual at birth becomes an individual in the process of interaction with other people and is formed as a socially significant person. Personality is the result of social evolution, limited by the experience of one person from an individual to a full member of society.

The quality of the social environment is an important characteristic for the emergence of the individual. On the other hand, the pure copying and reproduction of the values of society is not enough for the development prospects of society. And here the potential of the individual is laid.

Freedom of the person forces to change borders of opportunities of a society on maintenance of this right. This is the purpose of the individual - the improvement of the surrounding world through active participation in both the way of producing goods and in the architecture of knowledge.

Role and status of personality

Personality in society has a certain social status - a set of social characteristics that determine the place in the social hierarchy. In accordance with it, a certain social image of a person and an a priori form of the attitude of other people to him in the conditions of a limited social circle are formed.

In the society, each member performs social roles. This is a model of personality behavior, characteristic of the social circle of society. It happens that the individual dignity of a person becomes unacceptable features for society. For example, a genius person is a person, Extremely uncomfortable for his inner circle, his talent levels the interests of the family, and he often finds it difficult to write into the norms of a close environment.

The Social Paradigm and Freedom

Personality is the result of the individual's socialization into society. We ask the question of whether society always corresponds to the level of individual freedom. And where are the criteria, how much does society meet its interests, and should it follow the standards set by this society? Personality and social environment - where the edge of freedom in this intersection?

Society is a living organism. And, just like a person, has a different orientation - humane and anti-human in relation to its members. History provides a lot of examples for this.

Society in relation to a particular person acts as a social paradigm, a model with given history and time values. Characteristics of the social environment is significantly different within the social paradigm.

Model of behavior

The model of Soviet society as a social paradigm set the vector of strict correspondence of each member of society to state standards. Freedom was limited to the norms of communist morality - to be like everyone else. Actually, it was a given lack of freedom, which got into the person at birth. Personality, as in the Procrustean bed, risked losing either the head or other important organs.

The fate of lonely heroes who do not give up the right to freedom of choice, alas, is sad. But only they are rightfully and can be considered personalities, since the main characteristic of these people is freedom of choice.

About society and man

Man is a social being, he can not fulfill his destiny outside society.

An important motive for progress is the personality and social environment in which it could be realized. One of the well-known forms of recognition by the society of human merits is the conferment of the Nobel Prize laureate title. These are people whose personal contribution is recognized as socially significant for the progress of society. These are people who have not only achieved grandiose goals, but are spiritually rich, independent in their ability to be free, worthy members of human society.

Albert Einstein, a physicist, author of the theory of relativity, said words worthy: more important than achieving success in life, understanding its meaning. Very topical words for today, given that the Internet is littered with ways "how to become successful," and this success is measured by the size of the wallet.

Great Bernard Shaw, an Irish playwright, a man with a great sense of humor, said: do what you want, or you'll have to love what you get. These words have a profound meaning. He calls on people to develop the world around them, to set worthy goals and not to be limited to what society is ready to give.