Each person is called an individual. This concept contains not only the word itself, which determines who is being discussed, but also some characteristic in the form of individual characteristics and qualities. Everyone develops in their own direction as they live. Everyone has their own set of social and personality traits. All this is reflected in the behavior that is inherent in a particular person.

All psychology is directed to the study of the individual. Although all people are different, the foundations are laid from birth the same. That is why people are similar in some ways. However, by their character, behavior and lifestyle, we can say that everyone is different.

All the problems discussed on the website of the psychological help site are dedicated to individuals. Despite all the differences between people, it is possible to single out theses on which each person develops.

What is an individual?

The concept of "individual" has a social meaning, which speaks of a separate individual, a representative of homo sapiens. What is an individual? This is a separate person who contains unique genetic characteristics, individual qualities that he develops in himself as he lives, a set of social and biological traits.

Each person is individual. This makes him an individual. Adaptation to social conditions distinguishes it even more from the animal world. On the one hand, he is biologically and socially similar to other people, which does not make him unique. His body structure is the same as that of other people. Only shapes, sizes, colors, etc. differ. He develops the same skills that other people have, which allows him to become a social person.

On the other hand, a person is genetically inclined to develop individual qualities and traits. His set is unique, not like the others. This makes him a separate individual that stands out from the crowd.

As a concept, an individual means a separate individual that has certain biological characteristics, is considered an integral and unified structure, and also belongs to a specific species of living beings. Animals are not called individuals. Only a person receives the title of an individual by the way he was born.

All people are born individuals. However, with upbringing and development, each individual becomes a person. It is she who has her own unique set of qualities, skills and abilities that are displayed in behavior and habits.

The concept of an individual implies that a person is a complete and separate individual from the rest. He has all the tools for independent development and life. He is separated from people.

An individual is a unit of the human race that:

• Possesses psychophysiological features.
• Active.
• Resistant to the environment.
• Integral in the structure of the body.
• Wears social characteristics.

In psychology, the concept under consideration is widely used. It denotes not only an individual, but also his character traits that define him as a person.

What is a social individual?

If a person is born as an individual, then he immediately acquires the status of a social personality. What is a social individual? This is a person who, from birth, needs contact with other individuals for his own survival and development.

Unlike animal babies, a human baby cannot take care of itself from birth. From the first days he needs care and self-care. Moreover, the development of skills and necessary social qualities is carried out for a long time. If the training of young animals takes from several months to a year, then the formation of an individual as an independent and independent person takes from 18 to 25 years.

The individual needs a society that will take care of him and in which he can become a person. Society itself also needs an individual, because without him it simply cannot exist.

Man is born as an individual. He becomes a person as he grows up and grows. At first, a person speaks about his desires and needs with facial expressions and gestures. However, in the process of teaching speech, which is the main criterion for socialization, verbal signs come to the fore. A person continues to use non-verbal gestures and facial expressions to complement his verbal speech and the fullness of the manifestation of his feelings.

The sooner the process of socialization begins, that is, adaptation to the laws, rules and life of the entire society, the faster the development of the individual and its adaptation will occur. The child learns in the following ways:

• Consolidation. Through punishment or encouragement, parents show the child which behavior is considered good and which is bad.
• Development of conditioned reflexes. Each person is subjected to "training", when for his behavior he receives a reward (a conditioned reflex is fixed) or punishment. This is how habits are formed.
• observation and repetition. In other words, the child observes the behavior of adults and copies, adopts, imitates them. Various role-playing games are often used here, where the child rehearses, reinforces or changes the behavior that he observed in adults. Thus, useful and effective, according to the child, skills are fixed.

Each individual from birth is in certain environments that also affect the formation of his personality:

1. The first institution is the family. Here the child receives protection, love, support. His life needs are also met. In addition, it is the family that gives the first socialization skills: how to communicate, behave? Here the child ascribes himself to a certain sex, studies sex roles. The family forms stereotypes, complexes, fears, values, etc.
2. The second institution is a kindergarten or school. It is here that the individual is treated as one of the. There are no best or worst here. The individual is evaluated according to his abilities and skills. He faces failures and successes. It is the school that forms the self-esteem of the child.
3. Peers become the third institution. During adolescence, they crowd out family and school. If in the family and school everything is built on a hierarchy, then among peers communication takes place on an equal footing. Here social skills are rehearsed and consolidated. The child begins to adapt to society. He begins to resolve conflict situations, learns about his strengths and weaknesses. Among peers, a child can change his values ​​and outlook on life. He becomes a member of a society where he stands out for his unique qualities.
4. The media is the last institution. He also influences each individual with his views and values, which he may adopt or not.

As the personality develops, institutions can contradict with their values, views, ways of solving the situation. The child is faced with the need to give up one thing in order to save another. When contradictions appear, he begins to rethink his views and values, forming his own set.

The reaction of a person to changes in the external environment or inside his body is the behavior of the individual. It can be conscious and unconscious. It always develops and manifests itself outside (into the external environment). It includes active actions by the physical body and speech regulation. It is necessarily purposeful, that is, in the head of a person, first there is an answer to the question “what do I want?”, And then the choice of action “how can I achieve this?”.

All actions are based on:

1. Goals. A person always strives to satisfy his needs, especially if they have not been realized for a long time.
2. Motives. There is no behavior that is not motivated. A person may simply not be aware of it sometimes.

Separately, theatrical behavior is considered, which is carried out in the process of communication between people in the virtual world. With the advent of the Internet, it began to take a leading position. Theatricality of behavior is understood as the illusion of natural actions.

The characteristics of an individual's behavior are:

• Self-control (arbitrariness).
• pace or dynamism.
• Emotional expression.
• Flexibility (changing behavior depending on environmental circumstances).
• Activity level.
• Awareness (a person's understanding of his actions).

What is individuality?

If an individual is understood as the belonging of an individual to the human race, and a personality means the presence of social skills, socialization and adaptation to society, then what is meant by individuality? This concept indicates a set of unique qualities and skills in an individual. Both mental traits and physiological features are listed here. Although often we are talking about the spiritual development of a person.

Non-identical concepts are the individual and the personality. However, it is individuality that can become part of the personality, its formation. A personality is determined by what qualities it stands out as it acts, functions, which is visible to people around who can appreciate it. Individuality rather speaks of the qualities of character, spiritual manifestations.

Personality is a social product, while the individual is biological, and individuality is the formation of qualities and skills. Personality develops under the influence of social pressure, rules and laws that each person must learn and apply.

A group is a single cell that contains several individuals. All of them are individuals, but they gather in a group for a common goal or under the influence of common interests. It has certain social characteristics that all members must obey.

1. A person can speak on behalf of the group, which to some extent relieves him of responsibility.
2. A person can interact with other people within the group, correct their behavior, and receive support.
3. A person occupies a certain status. Often a hierarchy is formed in the group, where each performs a specific, clear role.

On the one hand, a person by his actions helps the group, solves its problems, develops and preserves it. On the other hand, the group regulates a person's behavior, makes him develop certain traits and skills, and influences him. Accordingly, a person must consciously approach the choice of a group, since it can contribute to his development or serve as a pretext for degradation.

Development of the individual

The individual develops biologically, psychologically and personally:

1. Biological development involves the growth of the human body.
2. Psychological development involves the development of qualities and individual characteristics of the psyche.
3. Personal development occurs as education and socialization.

Every year a person changes and transforms. Here he physiologically strengthens and grows. His psyche begins to receive new knowledge, form connections for the formation of skills. A personality is also formed that develops social skills.

A person is constantly exposed to various influences in the process of his development, which can be:

• External - these are parents, educators, the media, society.
• Internal - these are unrest, desires, feelings, inclinations.

Outcome

The individual in the literal sense of the word means "reasonable person." From birth, an individual is assigned to the human race, which will be subjected to education, outside influence. A person must socialize so that society accepts him and allows him to live in the way that is acceptable. The result will be all those manipulations that will be directed at a person throughout his life.

For the socio-psychological analysis of personality, it is necessary to distinguish between the concepts of "man", "individual", "personality", "individuality".

The most general concept is Human”is a biosocial creature with articulate speech, consciousness, higher mental functions (abstract-logical thinking, logical memory, etc.), capable of creating tools and using them in the process of social labor. These specifically human abilities and properties are not hereditary, but are formed in a person during his lifetime, in the process of assimilation by him of the culture created by previous generations. There are reliable facts that indicate that if children develop outside of society from an early age, then they remain at the level of the animal, they do not form speech, consciousness, thinking, they do not have an upright gait. A person living in isolation from other people and society will not independently develop logical thinking, will not develop a system of concepts. People of each subsequent generation begin their lives in the world of objects and phenomena created by previous generations. By participating in labor and various forms of social activity, they develop in themselves those specific human abilities that have already been formed in mankind.

The concept of " individual' can refer to both humans and animals. "Individual" (from Latin "individuum" - indivisible) - a person as a representative of the species Homo sapiens, the unity of the innate and acquired, the bearer of individually peculiar features. The main characteristics of an individual are activity, integrity, stability and specificity of interaction with the outside world. Characterizing a person as an individual, we consider first of all his biological nature. Therefore, when organizing educational, labor activities, the leader (teacher) must take into account the observance of safety measures, sanitary and hygienic working conditions.

In psychology, the concept personality” is one of the fundamental ones.

“Personality,” wrote S. L. Rubinshtein, “forms the basis that determines the interpretation of the human psyche as a whole from the inside. All mental processes constitute the mental content of a person's life. Each kind of mental process makes its own specific contribution to the richness of her inner life.

In order to become a person, a person must learn spiritual values, moral norms, ways of activity.

A personality is a person defined in a system of socially conditioned characteristics that are manifested in social connections and relations by nature, are stable, and determine the moral actions of a person.

The formation of a person as a personality is characterized by the development of the higher spheres of his psyche: mental, emotional, volitional. L. Feuerbach wrote:

“The perfect man has the power of thinking, the power of will and the power of feeling. The power of thinking is the light of knowledge, the power of will is the energy of character, the power of feeling is love. Reason, love and willpower are perfection.”

For a leader (teacher) it is important to create such a set of conditions in the team, in which not only biological, but also social, spiritual needs are revealed.

The concept of " individuality” emphasizes the unique originality of a person, in what he is different from others. His individuality is expressed in the presence of special experiences, knowledge, opinions, beliefs, and character peculiar only to him. Motivation, temperament, abilities, character are the main parameters of individuality. The prerequisite for its formation is the anatomical and physiological inclinations that are transformed in the process of life. Individuality is manifested in the properties of temperament, character traits, in the specific interests and abilities of the individual. It is both the originality of feelings, and the peculiarity of character, and the uniqueness of thinking. “The higher the social being is organized, the more individuality is expressed in it,” wrote I. I. Mechnikov. Knowing the strengths and weaknesses of schoolchildren, it is possible to determine the conditions for their learning and development, rationally build a work schedule, and help find ways for self-improvement.

Thus, comparing these concepts, we can note: “individual” means something whole, indivisible, indicates what unites a given person with the human species; "individuality" gives an answer to the question of how this person differs from all other people; the concept of “personality” characterizes integrity, but one that is born in society.

Man, individual and personality are the key concepts of psychology, which are no less important in social science, since man is the main element of society. What is the difference in these three terms?

Man.

Man is a biological term. This is a link in the development of living beings on our planet. Homo sapiens in the form in which they exist now existed tens of thousands of years ago. Biological, physiological, anatomical structures have not changed significantly during this time. But the difference between a modern university student and an ancient Mesopotamian hunter is obvious to everyone. What is this difference?

Individual.

Individual translated from Latin (individuum) means "indivisible". This is a specific representative of humanity, a human being, which has psychological and biological features characteristic only of it. A more extended concept individuality, that is, the combination of these biological and psychological qualities that distinguishes this particular individual from the rest.

Thus, an individual is a specific person with his own characteristics given to him from birth, individuality is already more a psychological term than a biological one - a set of skills (character, skills, knowledge) acquired in the process of life.

Personality.

Personality- the most difficult concept. This is social image of a person. It is the society that forms the personality out of the individual. This is what distinguishes man from animal. An individual raised separately from the rest, for example, on a desert island, will become an individual. But it will not become a person, because the key factor here is communication and relationships with other people. To become a person, a person goes through the path socialization, and its formation occurs throughout life.

Basic elements of socialization:

• communication;
• upbringing;
• education;
• mass media;
• social control system.

In the process of socialization (personality formation), a person develops physical skills and abilities, psychological characteristics, moral factors, scientific knowledge, political worldviews, religious values, etc. Sociologist Leontiev characterized personality as a set of social relations that are realized in various activities. Simply put, the individual is a member of society, and in this definition - everything that can be meant by this.

The difference between the concepts of man, individual and personality.

The difference between the concepts of man, individual and personality in order. Those who are not very familiar with sociology and psychology can easily be explained with a simple example from life.

Let's say you started playing a computer RPG - a game like Fallout or Skyrim. First you choose a race - elf, dwarf or human. This is the concept of man, that is, the biological difference from other types of creatures. From the very beginning, your character has certain skills and abilities (strength, endurance, intelligence, etc.). In this form, at the very start of the game, we have an individual who differs from the rest (in many games you set these initial parameters yourself) with features given from birth. In the gameplay, your character develops, acquires new character traits, knowledge, abilities, and by the end of the game we have a hero with a certain charisma and karma, a set of skills that is completely different from the one we got at the beginning. This is what personality is.

There are many such comparisons (even with World of Tanks), but the point is to understand that a person is born, and a person becomes in the process of communication and interaction with other members of society.

"The terms are used"", "individual", "individuality". Substantially, these concepts are intertwined.

Man (with a small letter) is a generic concept that indicates the relation of a being to the highest degree of development of living nature - to the human race. The concept of "man" affirms the genetic predetermination of the development of actually human features and qualities.

​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​At the same time, when they talk about a person, they sometimes talk about a Man with a capital letter, and this is about something else. "When will you become a Human?" is the question "When will you become reasonable and decent?"

An individual is a single representative of the species "homo sapiens". As individuals, people differ from each other not only in morphological features (such as height, bodily constitution and eye color), but also in psychological properties (abilities, temperament, emotionality).

Individuality is the unity of the unique personal properties of a particular person. This is the originality of his psychophysiological structure (type of temperament, physical and mental characteristics, intellect, worldview, life experience).

The ratio of individuality and personality is determined by the fact that these are two ways of being a person, two of his different definitions. The discrepancy between these concepts is manifested, in particular, in the fact that there are two different processes of the formation of personality and individuality.

The formation of a personality is a process of socialization of a person, which consists in the development of a generic, social essence. This development is always carried out in the concrete historical circumstances of a person's life. The formation of personality is connected with the acceptance by the individual of social functions and roles developed in society, social norms and rules of behavior, with the formation of skills to build relationships with other people. A formed personality is a subject of free, independent and responsible behavior in society.

The formation of individuality is the process of individualization of an object. Individualization is the process of self-determination and isolation of the individual, its isolation from the community, the design of its separateness, uniqueness and uniqueness. A person who has become an individual is an original person who has actively and creatively manifested himself in life.

In the concepts of "personality" and "individuality" various aspects, different dimensions of the spiritual essence of a person are fixed. The essence of this difference is well expressed in the language. With the word "personality" such epithets as "strong", "energetic", "independent" are usually used, thereby emphasizing its active representation in the eyes of others. Individuality is said to be "bright", "unique", "creative", referring to the qualities of an independent entity.

"When will you become a person?" - this is a question about inner freedom: "When will you start to live with your head, make your decisions?" There may be a bright, free, strong personality and, to a small extent, a Person - for example, a bandit. There may be a reasonable and decent person, and at the same time, to a small extent, a person - for example, a good person is an inhabitant, living simply as

An individual is a person, taken separately from the community, who has certain biological characteristics, qualities and stability of mental processes. In other words, this means a single person who is distinguished from a social group or society due to some specific features, a set of properties.

Today, there are many concepts and terms that have a fairly similar meaning, but specific subtleties still distinguish them. By this is meant, for example, the context in which the word is used.

Suppose the words “being” and “world” have similar meanings, including the totality of all life categories, but the first concept is not popular in everyday life, which cannot be said about its philosophical meaning.

The bottom line is that the “world” is narrower in meaning, which cannot be said about being, although at first glance, the difference is minimal. The word "individual" also has a similarity in meaning with other words: person, subject, person. In reasoning, they can be used all together, meaning the same thing, but you should see the difference so as not to make a mistake with the context. What is meant by the term "individual"? Who is it?

Individual and individuality

Despite the similarity in roots, it is necessary to distinguish between these two words. Individuality is understood as a set of qualities and features inherent in the personality that have accumulated in the process of development.

The bottom line is that a person is an individual by the fact of his birth, without having an individuality that grows over time. The embryo in the mother's abdomen is able to respond to external stimuli: sound, light, touch.

This implies light directed at the mother's belly and touching the belly. And since the embryo has the ability to perceive, then we can safely say that it becomes an individual in the prenatal state. In the same place, the formation of certain features, i.e., the appearance of individuality, is possible.

Man

Man is a representative of the species Homo Sapiens, which is the result of a biological revolution. As mentioned earlier, the concepts of "man", "individual" and "personality" are interchangeable, but it is the first concept that covers the entire human essence, has a unity of social, biological and mental levels.

However, it was this generalization that gave rise to the need to highlight features, subtleties and specifics, which led to the emergence of the two remaining terms.

Man is multifaceted. This is evidenced by the heterogeneity of the evolution taking place in it: biological, socio-cultural, cosmogenic. The question of the nature of human origin is still open to researchers. Within its framework, a religious position manifests itself, which says about the creation of man by God. However, there are other conjectures and opinions on this issue, many philosophers and scientists have tried to know the human essence.

In particular, the 20th century gave the world such researchers as Edmond Husserl, Jacques Lacan, Claude Levi-Strauss and others. All of them wrote works devoted to man, his perception of the world, the definition of a place in the world and knowledge.

Personality

First of all, we need to say what this concept is. The term "" is deep in its meaning and presents a significant difficulty in understanding. To begin with, it is necessary to talk about it within the framework of a historical context.

Even in ancient Rome, a person was understood as a ritual mask removed from the face of the deceased owner of the house, which was subsequently kept in the house. The meaning of the word was associated with individual rights, name and privileges, transmitted only through the male line of the family. Traveling to Ancient Greece, one can discover a different meaning of personality - this is a mask put on by the actors of the performance on their faces.

The philosopher of Ancient Greece - Theophastus, identified as many as thirty types of personality in his treatise "Ethical Characters". As for Russia, the concept of “personality” for a long time meant something vile and offensive and meant a “mask” under which a real person is located.

What is the fundamental difference between the concept of "personality" and the individual? occurs under the influence of social relations, the external environment, cultural characteristics and education. As a socio-psychological phenomenon, personality implies the importance of a person in society and emphasizes his individuality.

The ratio of the individual, personality and person

Speaking about the individual, it is necessary to emphasize its inherent characteristics: activity, stability, integrity, interaction with nature and its change. Activity in the individual is revealed in the ability and change of oneself, as well as in overcoming the obstacles of the external world.

Resilience refers to the preservation of basic relations with the outside world, as well as the ability to be flexible and plastic, which are necessary in the changing conditions of reality.

Integrity indicates the systemic connections of various functions and mechanisms, thanks to which the individual exists in the life world.

In psychology, there are a number of concepts that directly affect the relationship between the individual and the personality. For example, V.A. Petrovsky, whose theory was based on the statement about the unity of the personality and the individual, however, did not identify them with each other.

Personality is rather a set of properties acquired by an individual due to the constant sociogenic need for personal self-identification, due to which the interdependence of the three hypostases of personal existence is set:

1. A stable set of intra-individual properties;
2. Inclusion of the individual in the area of ​​interindividual relations;
3. The representation of the individual in relation to other people.

The individual and his structure

The personality of an individual can be divided into three interacting structures, as Jung says: the ego, the personal unconscious, and the collective unconscious. The first contains the totality of thoughts, feelings, sensations and memories, thanks to which a person perceives himself holistically, fully and feels like one of the people.

Conflicts and memories, previously well imprinted in the memory, but forgotten over time, belong to the category of the personal unconscious. The reason why these memories are left behind and forgotten lies in their lack of vividness. This echoes Freud, but Jung went further and said that the personal unconscious contains complexes that covertly influence the behavior of the individual.

For example, if an individual has a hidden thirst for power, he will even unconsciously strive for it. A similar scheme works with a person who is under the significant influence of parents or friends.

Once formed, a complex is difficult to overcome because it takes root in any relationship. What about the collective unconscious? This is a deeper layer of the structure, in which universal human memories, thoughts of ancestors are latent. Feelings and memory of the universal past lies in each individual. The content of the collective unconscious is the same for absolutely all people and is a legacy of the past.

Archetypes of the collective unconscious according to Jung

By archetypes, Jung means universal mental structures that are in a person from birth, they are part of the collective unconscious.

Archetypes can be countless, but Jung singles out only a few of the most significant: the mask, the shadow, the anime and animus, the self:

1. A mask is a mask, a public face that a person puts on himself when entering society, interacting with other people. The function of the mask is to hide the true face, in some cases to achieve certain goals. The danger of wearing a mask often lies in estrangement from true emotional experience and characterizes a person as stupid and narrow-minded.
2. The shadow is the exact opposite of the previous archetype. It includes all the secret, dark hidden, animal component, which cannot be pulled out due to the subsequent negative reaction from the public. However, the shadow also has a positive component - it contains the creative beginning of a person, an element of spontaneity and passion.
3. By anime and animus is meant the androgynous predisposition in all people. In other words, it refers to the presence of the feminine (animus) in a man, and the masculine (animus) in a woman. Jung came to this conclusion on the basis of observations of the production of hormones of the opposite sex in men and women.
4. The self is the most important archetype around which the rest revolve. When the integration of all parts of the human soul occurs, the individual feels completeness and harmony with himself.

Individual and development

Self-improvement, development, accumulation of knowledge - all this happens gradually. The individual is not limited to development in the early stages, but continues to unfold dynamically throughout life. It happens that a person reaches the peak of his perfection only in old age.

According to Jung, the most important goal of the whole life of an individual is finding oneself, finding one's own essence.

Such a state is akin to the unity of all components, merging into one whole, only the integrity of the individual will give him happiness and bring complete harmony. The pursuit of this goal is called individualization. It implies a striving for the integrity of opposing intrapersonal forces. It turns out that the archetype of the self combines opposites and is the peak in which everything is organically connected with each other.

Conclusion

So, an individual is a single human being, which includes a set of personal qualities, characteristics, physiological characteristics, psychological and biological components.

An individual is similar in meaning to a person and a personality, but it was shown what is the difference between these concepts. Man is a generalized concept that requires clarification due to the subtleties in unraveling the human essence. And personality is a socio-psychological category in which the qualities and characteristics of the individual's character have found their place. This concept is much deeper than it seems at first glance, many psychoanalysts, including Freud and Jung, dealt with issues of personality, its structure and development.

The individual is always in the process of becoming, striving to come to a self in which harmony and unity dwell. The individual constantly interacts with the surrounding space and other individuals, putting masks on his face.

The secret desires of a person spur him to commit extravagant acts, being in the collective unconscious. The individual is part of the whole of humanity, where everyone strives for harmony and happiness, but not everyone reaches the ultimate goal.