During the existence of civilization, both on an ordinary level and in science, there have been many ideas about how the formation and development of personality occurs. This diversity is due to completely different approaches to understanding and interpreting, both the objective driving forces of this development, and the justification of psychic impulses that guide the behavior of each individual individual, and which have a purely subjective character. In the study of the nature of personal development, it is important to understand the stages, patterns, and many other circumstances that, one way or another, determine the formation and development of the personality.
There are so many of these formed points of view that modern science uses the method of classifying theories of human and personality development according to a number of common features for better distinguishing them.
Let us consider some of them in terms of fixing the most significant differences and scientific priorities.
Psychoanalytic theory considers the formation of personality as a natural process during which a person naturally adapts to life within the framework of the environment that is inherent in him as a biological species. According to one of the founders of this concept, Z. Freud, within the framework of this process, the genesis of certain protective functions and coordination with them, which are contained in a person’s potential for satisfying needs, occurs.
In accordance with the concept of traits, self-knowledge and personality development is associated with the process of the in vivo formation of personality characteristics, which in no way correlates with any of the known biological processes. The priority of factors within the framework of this teaching is shifted towards the social environment, society.
The concept of social learning in many ways resembles what modern psychology and sociology call the process of socialization. According to this view, personal development is, first of all, an uninterrupted process of mastering by a person certain methods and methods of interactions and stereotypes of social behavior. At the same time, the forms of interpersonal interaction of people come to the fore.
Considering the formation and development of personality, phenomenological psychology and its humanistic direction interpret this as a person’s movement towards his own “I-model”, and the content of this sample remains extremely blurred and is determined not only by socio-cultural factors, but also psychophysical.
In the second half of the last century, integrative concepts of personality development began to spread and gain more and more popularity. They do not yet have well-established names, therefore they can be met under the guise of an ecumenical view of the nature of man and the processes of his development, many of its aspects are present in cosmological constructions, an integrative approach is also used in the framework of some theological teachings.
The integrative concept seeks to unite different, already formulated points of view on how the formation and development of personality is carried out. Within its framework, an attempt is made to consider this process from the point of view of systemic understanding. One of the most famous theories of integrative development is the teachings of the famous American psychologist and sociologist E. Erickson. This scientist substantiated the so-called epigenetic principle, which is based on the hypothetical idea that the personality in the development process goes through a sequence of certain phases that are characteristic of the whole of humanity. The next phase, as a rule, ends with a crisis that fixes a person’s achievement of all the requirements that can be presented to him at this stage of development within the framework of this sociocultural environment.
Such a formation and development of personality Erickson interpreted as a significant transformation of the inner world, the system of relations with the surrounding society and nature, which become easily observable features of the human character, his behavior and thinking. In total, Erickson identified eight such transitional points-crises based on an analysis of the most important age-related changes that are characteristic of the overwhelming number of people. Evaluating Erickson's concept as a whole, it should be recognized that, claiming to be an integrative view of the process of personality formation, she is not spared the influence of psychoanalytic theory.