The development of anything almost always implies progress. Indeed, progress is a movement forward, evolution, the introduction of innovations. It is thanks to this process that the life of a modern person is what it represents.
Scientific achievements and new technologies, unusual fashion trends and unusual things, high-tech household items and futuristic works of art - all this becomes possible only thanks to progress. And the very fact that a person today can create all this is the result of evolutionary development, forward movement.
But often in our daily lives we are faced with a phenomenon that is directly opposite and runs counter to our ideas about productive development. This phenomenon is called regression / regression. And in this article we will try to understand what regression is and how it is characterized.
The word "regress" comes from the Latin word "regressus" - moving in the opposite direction, returning back. And it applies to completely different areas of human activity. The concept of recourse is present in economics, sociology, political science, jurisprudence, mathematics, psychology, philosophy, medicine, geology, biology and other sciences. We will not go into details of the interpretations in detail since each of them already requires writing a separate article. And we will discuss the most common and most interesting interpretations, the knowledge of which will broaden our horizons and, perhaps, help us to look at some things from a new angle.
What is regression / regression:
- A special type of development, characterized by a transition from higher to lower, from a higher form of development (in any field) to a lower, degradation.
- Simplification of the structure of some living organisms, as adaptation to the environment and living conditions (biology).
- Economic decline (economics).
- Dependence of the average random value on another / other quantities (mathematics, economics).
- The totality of some social changes that lead to a decrease in the social level (sociology).
- A method for predicting or explaining events (sociology, political science, etc.).
- The mechanism of psychoprotection, in which the individual returns to the previous present (earlier) level of development, thinking, behavior. This is a kind of psychological adaptation of a person to any difficult or stressful situation (psychology).
- A person’s refusal to make a decision, to commit acts, to live in a “pink color”, increased dependence on others (psychology).
- The disappearance of the symptoms of a disease and the onset of full recovery (medicine).
- Slow retreat of water from the coast, which occurs as a result of raising land or lowering the seabed, as well as due to a decrease in the volume of ocean water (geology).
After reviewing the above definitions, you can identify some characteristic signs of regression. As we see, this is, first of all, a movement in the opposite direction, from complex to simpler, lowering the level of organization.
Also, understanding what regression is, it is safe to say that this term is very ambiguous, and the process is ambiguous. Attributing it to one thing alone will be, at a minimum, a manifestation of ignorance.
In addition, studying the question "what is regression", you can find some regularity: everything develops cyclically, wave-like. And this suggests that progress and regression are two complementary processes and elements. There simply cannot be constant progress without periods of stagnation . Just as there can be no constant regression, because this would entail the convergence of this “something” to nothing.