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 serve as the subject of intense interest and study of the whole complex of socio-economic disciplines: history, economics, psychology, philosophy and sociology.
How do individuals and society interact?
Who is the subject and object of this mutual influence? What are the patterns of integration of personality in society? We will try to answer questions and outline modern approaches to the nature of the relationship between a person and the world around him.
Man as an individual
The birth of a person is reflected through a combination of metric indicators, which together give information about the individual. Height, weight, state of health, nationality, place and date of birth are the basic characteristics with which a person comes into the world.
In the process of development, a person as an individual interacts with the outside world. And the path of its development is as individual and unique as its anthropometric portrait.
Each individual has a family or is left without it, was born in an economically prosperous metropolis or in a remote village - all these are factors of the social environment that have a direct impact on the formation of character, views, culture and the way of further socialization.
In the process of formation in society, an individual acquires a psychological characteristic, habits, attitudes, and particular behaviors. He becomes an individual in society. And only the full right to freedom of choice, which is officially regulated by adulthood, turns an individual into a person.
Stages of socialization
Socialization is the process of integration of an individual in society, as a result of which, at each stage, he gains the qualities of a full member. Personality and social environment are dynamic units. At all stages of their interaction or refusal of interaction, a change in subject-object roles occurs.
Three stages of personality socialization can be distinguished:
- The period of entry into society: the development of norms and requirements, the formation of communicative ways of interacting with the outside world.
- The period of self-actualization in society: determination of personal characteristics, one’s position, status, social preferences.
- The integration period: the formation of personality and the active interaction of the social environment and personality.
All three periods do not have a rigid reference to the age stages and can be carried out synchronously in each age period.
Entry into society
Conventionally, the beginning of socialization can be attributed to the age stages of infancy and childhood. During this period, the acquisition of initial experience in the interaction of individuality and society is characteristic. Factors of the social environment directly affect the formation of a person’s attitude to the world.
If this is a socially dysfunctional environment, then it can form a negative scenario of an individual’s behavior and lead in the future to an asocial lifestyle. There are other examples: if during the formation of an individual a person makes a choice not in favor of the negative environment surrounding him, he has every chance to change his environment.
In any case, the characterization of the social environment leaves an imprint on the initial experience. Personality level indicator - freedom of choice. Each person has the right to follow the norms of society to the extent that corresponds to his personal nature.
Self-actualization in society
During this period, a person’s position in society is formed.
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 a person. Sometimes for the inner circle. The social environment and the socialization of personality in it is a two-way process. By declaring his place, a person thereby demands to determine the attitude of other members of society towards himself, to “win back” his personal space from the world. Often this is fraught with the interests of other people.
The ability to come to an agreement and find common interest is required both for a person and a society interested in successfully adapting and receiving public benefit from a new member of the community.
Social Integration
The most important period for society and a person is the stage of integration, when an already completed person realizes himself. Personality and social environment 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, society taught him to be a member, then during the integration period a person comes forward with an active position of the subject of social interactions.
What does this mean?
- Man is included in the production, distribution, and consumption of a social product.
- He fully realizes the rights and is responsible for the consequences of his activities to society.
- Determines his citizenship in the state.
Thus, a person, not ceasing to be an object of society, acts as a subject of community management in which he socialized, and exerts influence on 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 an individual can change; under different conditions, the same person can fulfill different social roles and statuses.
The stage of entry into society can be repeated at any period of an individual's social maturity, with a change in social status or social community, professional community, and in other similar variants.
The social and cultural environment plays an important role . If a person has changed his job or got married, then he is forced to re-go through the process of socialization. To determine the extent to which he is satisfied or not the new socio-cultural environment, and make a choice as a free person.
Relations between the individual and society
An 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 formation of personality.
On the other hand, the pure copying and reproduction of the values of society is not enough for the prospects for the development of society. And here lies the potential of the individual.
Freedom of the individual forces us to change the boundaries of society's ability to ensure this right. This is the purpose of the personality - the improvement of the world through active participation both in the method of production of goods and in the architecture of knowledge.
The role and status of the individual
A person in society has a certain social status - a set of social characteristics that determine a place in the social hierarchy.
In accordance with it, a certain social image of a person and an a priori form of other people's attitude to him are formed in a limited social circle.
In 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 brilliant person is a person, extremely inconvenient for the immediate environment, his talent levels the interests of the family, and he is often difficult to write to the norms of his inner circle.
Social paradigm and freedom
The personality is the result of the socialization of the individual in 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 is the edge of freedom at this intersection?
Society is a living organism. And, just like a person, it has a different orientation - humane and anti-humane in relation to its members. History provides many examples for this.
Society in relation to a specific person acts as a social paradigm, a model with values given by history and time. The characteristics of the social environment differ significantly within the social paradigm.
Behavior model
The model of Soviet society as a social paradigm set the vector of strict compliance of each member of society with state standards. Freedom was limited by the norms of communist morality - to be like everyone else. Actually, it was a given lack of freedom into which a person fell at birth. The person, as in a Procrustean bed, risked losing either his 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 can rightfully be considered personalities, since the main characteristic of these people is freedom of choice.
About society and man
Man is a social being, he cannot fulfill his mission outside of society.
An important motive for progress is the personality and social environment in which it was able to take place. One of the well-known forms of recognition by society of the merits of a person is the awarding of the title of Nobel Prize laureate. These are people whose personal contribution is recognized as socially significant for the progress of society. These are people who not only achieved grandiose goals, but spiritually rich, independent in their ability to be free, worthy members of human society.
Albert Einstein, physicist, author of the theory of relativity, said decent words: more important than achieving success in life, understanding its meaning. Words that are very relevant today, when you consider that the Internet is littered with “how to become successful,” and this success is measured by the size of your wallet.
The great
Bernard Shaw, an Irish playwright, a man with a great sense of humor, said: get what you want, or you have to love what you get. These words have a deep meaning. He urges a person to develop the world around him, set worthy goals for him and not limit himself to what society is ready to give.