Definition of a person in psychology
In psychology, a person is defined in different ways, for example, subject, individual, individuality, personality.
They allow us to establish different aspects of the manifestation of its essence. As a subject, psychology considers a person as a historical and social process as a whole, a certain activity. It is considered a source of knowledge and transformation of actual functioning. Activity in this case is presented as a form of human activity, which makes it possible to improve oneself and improve the environment.
An individual in psychology is a person who is:
- a special representative of other living beings. The subject differs from animals in phylogenetic and ontogenetic development;
- a special representative of the human community who has a unique set of mental characteristics and behavior.
These two characteristics reflect the uniqueness of a person. General psychological characteristics of an individual include:
- integrity of the psychophysiological organization;
- uniqueness, originality;
- constancy of effort in the interaction process.
Psychologists understand originality as a person’s individuality. Often it is reflected in some leading feature of a particular person, which distinguishes him from other people. Everyone is individual, but in some people their individuality manifests itself clearly, while in others it is almost imperceptible.
In psychology, a person with a distinct social essence is considered as a personality. Individuals are made, not born. Therefore, outside of society, a social or professional group, a person cannot become one.
The concept of “activity”, along with such concepts as “consciousness”, “personality”, “communication”, is one of the fundamental ones in psychological science. Activity is a dynamic system of interaction between a subject and the world. In the process of this interaction, a mental image arises and is embodied in an object, as well as the subject’s realization of his relationship with the surrounding reality.
Activity is a form of human activity, i.e. the form of its interaction with the environment. But activity is not just any activity, activity is human activity aimed at achieving consciously set goals and associated with the creation of socially significant values or the development of social experience (Shadrikov’s definition).
To draw up a psycho-portrait of yourself or someone else, you need to seek help from a specialist in the field of psychology or try to do it yourself. Various questionnaires, effective methods and techniques for assessing a person’s personality and scrupulously analyzing their abilities will help you. These include a portrait based on a drawing, studying handwriting, posing logical riddles, testing, communicating without words, but the easiest and fastest option is studying the properties described above. You just need to take a notepad and write down each item.
A typical sample will tell you how to make a reliable psychological portrait of a person. You should follow simple instructions:
- Consider personal data - gender, age, external parameters.
- Social status – position, specialty, marital status.
- A short biography, which indicates the main, most important events and moments of life, shocks, emotions.
- Analysis of the 13 personality traits described above.
- Conclusions, in which each item is examined in detail, existing problems are identified, ways to solve them, and abilities and skills are revealed.
You must understand that the technique must correspond to the age, experience and level of education of the person being studied. It is necessary to create comfortable conditions for the experiment. The overall picture must be drawn up in such a way that it is understandable to a person without specialized education and does not burden it with unknown terms.
Psychological characteristics of activity
The activity has the following features unique to it:
- Subject matter: each activity has its own subject. The object of activity appears in two ways: primarily - in its independent existence, as subordinating and transforming the activity of the subject, secondly - as an image of the object, a product of the mental reflection of its properties, which is carried out as a result of the activity of the subject and cannot be realized otherwise.
- Awareness and purposefulness. Activity is regulated not by human needs, but by a perceived goal as an ideal image of a future result. The goal is a system-forming factor of activity, i.e., the main criterion for determining its content, structure and dynamics. This is the most important difference between activity and other forms of human activity.
- Social conditioning. For all its originality, human activity is a system included in the system of social relations. Outside of these relationships, human activity does not exist. A person finds in society not just external conditions to which he must adapt his activities - social conditions themselves carry within themselves the motives and goals of his activities, its means and methods. In essence, society produces the activities of the individuals who form it.
- Systematicity. Activity appears not as a simple sum of its components, but as their organized integrity. It is important to note that activity as an integrity has properties that neither its individual components nor their simple sum have.
