A huge number of factors, both external and internal, act on the formation of a person throughout his life. Their diversity is so great that it would simply be impossible to answer the question posed in the title of the article if it were not for some preliminary conditions to be accepted.
Firstly, the very fact of how diverse the factors of personality development makes it necessary to carry out at least a preliminary, not detailed, classification of them.
Secondly, this variety of factors, ultimately, leads to the same multiplicity of the result of their action - personality variations, so it is necessary to understand the classification of the main types of personality.
This is important because factors can have different nature and sources of formation. Subliminal factors of personality development, which are described in works, for example, by S. Freud, and which are latent (hidden) in nature for a person, can influence human development. The so-called borderline situations are also influential, and Karl Jaspers devoted his research to them. Widespread, especially in modern Western socio-psychological science? the theory of existential formation of personality (Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus), which proceeds from the assertion of "forced" human freedom.
But in the simplest form, it is necessary to study the factors of personality development on the basis of the axiomatic position that they affect an individual with a different degree of intensity, and therefore, depending on the dominance of one or another of them, various types of personality are formed.
It is customary to distinguish the following social types of personality.
A modal type is a person who is characterized by features and characteristics that are typical of a given type of society, its culture, mentality and other aspects. Therefore, we can say that here the dominant group of factors will be those that are formed by the surrounding social environment, by society itself.
The basic type embodies the traits minimally necessary in order for an individual to be clearly identified in the social structure of society. This is the type whose representatives they say: “Well, now he (a) is real ... (professional, husband, politician, etc.). Consequently, here the dominant role in the formation will be played by factors of personality development, initiated by the education and upbringing system, labor collectives, family, etc.
In some cases, the so-called cumulative effect in the action of factors of personal development is observed. This is such a phenomenon when, in a certain situation, historical situation, the action of some factors is enhanced, while the action of others is suspended or weakened. For example, when factors of external origin dominate, this leads to the formation of a reactive type of personality, about which they say: "it goes with the flow." In contrast, a proactive personality is formed by such basic factors of personality development, which are enclosed in the individual himself - his determination, perseverance, conviction, intellectual potential.
The marginal type is an example of the absence of a pronounced group of dominant factors; as a result of their action, the personality of a borderline mentality and a vague identity develops.
In a word, no matter what science explores the factors of personality development, pedagogy, sociology, psychology or another, all of their many can be reduced to the following categories:
- biological and genetic, inherent in human nature as a biological being;
- the physical environment, that is, the climatic and geographical environment in which the individual develops;
- culture is probably the most important social factor that gives an individual patterns of social behavior and social interaction;
- own social experience, which forms a person’s criteria for his behavior and his assessment.
In modern society, it is quite difficult to find out the dominance of any groups of signs. Their action is multiplicative in nature and unstable, variable over time. That is why in modern conditions there is an acute problem of finding a harmonious combination of the action of factors of internal nature and social, which provides him with a stable progressive development.