The path of life. Different views on the path traveled by man

Introduction

In the psychology of the picture of activity, fundamental, integral things concerning the personality are not considered. Usually, separate psychological factors are obtained, such as cognitive processes, motivational models, but we can say with confidence that the time has come when it is necessary to consider this problem in more detail, because. the analysis of such an integral concept as a picture of a person's life path will allow not only to study the degree of integration of an advertising event into the subjective picture of a person's life path, but will also make it possible to build some forecast for the presentation, implementation of certain advertising events. In Russia, the advertising market on a large scale began to function in the 90s. Over the past 15 years, advertising has acquired its own history and in our work we will try to identify how advertising, its development, history correlate with a person's life and his personal history.

Russian psychologists began to study the life path of the individual as early as the 1930s. Development by S.L. Rubinshtein's approach to the personality as a subject of life indicated the path of its study through the analysis of the temporal deployment of the life path as a real process of formation, development, change, and movement of a person. S.L. Rubinstein, and then B.G. Ananiev formulated the basic principles of the study of personality as a subject of life:

the principle of historicism, according to which a biography should be considered as a personal history;

the genetic principle, on the basis of which different lines of personality formation are distinguished, which form the basis for the allocation of stages, steps;

the principle of connection of the vital movement of the individual with his activity, communication, cognition.

If S.L. Rubinstein only put forward the idea of ​​a person as a subject of the life path, defined it through a method of temporary relationship with the world, then B.G. Ananiev based his conclusions on the vast empirical material obtained as a result of a comprehensive study combining the cross-sectional method with the "long" method, in which dozens of psychological indicators were studied.

Ananiev emphasized that age integrates not only the metric characteristics of the biological time itself, expressing the ontogenetic development and phylogenetic series, but also the topological properties of human time, appearing in the phase, temporal order and sequence of its development: "age is the certainty of a particular state , phase or period of formation, metrically defined to a common species standard of life expectancy". Age is the interpenetration of nature and history, biological and social, so age-related changes act both as ontogenetic and as biographical.

Another fruitful thought belonging to Ananiev concerns the definition of the subjective picture of the life path. This concept later formed the basis of the concept of psychological time by E.I. Golovakhi and A.A. Kronika. B.G. Ananiev emphasized the following most important characteristics of this "picture" - it is built in a person's self-consciousness; it reflects social and individual development; this subjective picture is always deployed in time, marks the main events of the life path in biographical and historical dates, thus linking biological historical and psychological time into a single whole. In addition, temporal assessments of the subjective representation of the life path are commensurate with the scale of human life, include the past, present and future of the individual.

An attempt to integrate biographical and ontogenetic aspects of the life path, except for B.G. Ananiev belongs to S. Buhler, who focused on the individual history of the personality, on the patterns of its self-expression in different periods of life. It is necessary to pay tribute to Buhler, the leader in the frequency of citation in the works of domestic methodologists, in the polemic with her provisions, the concept of the life path of S.L. Rubinstein, S. Buhler is referred to and opposed by B.G. Ananiev (1980), K.A. Abulkhanova-Slavskaya (1991), N.A. Loginova (1978), psychologists dealing with the problem of self-determination of personality.

At the beginning of the century, Charlotte Buhler with a group of employees (E. Frenkel, E. Brunswick, P. Hofstatter, L. Schenk-Dansinger) conducted a major study, the results of which she interpreted throughout her life, considering and comparing three aspects of the empirical material obtained: -biographical - study of objective conditions of life, events environment and related human behavior; the history of experiences, internal searches, the formation of values, the evolution of the inner world of a person; the third aspect concerned the analysis of the history of human creative activity, the events of the birth of the products of this activity.

Buhler considers the innate desire of a person for self-fulfillment and self-fulfillment to be the main driving force of mental development, "the self is the intentionality or purposefulness of the whole personality. This purposefulness is focused on the fulfillment of the best potentials, the fulfillment of the existence of a person."

Self-fulfillment is both a result and a process that in different age phases can act either as good health (up to 1.5 years), or as an experience of the end of childhood (12-18 years), or as self-realization (in maturity), as fulfillment (in old age). A person's path to self-fulfillment is determined by 4 main trends considered by Buhler in genetic terms: the desire to satisfy simple, vital needs, adaptation to objective environmental conditions, creative expansion and the tendency to establish internal order. The coexistence of these tendencies in time depends on age and individuality, leading to the dominance of one or the other of them. The development of individuality as the growth of creative intention and the expansion of life goals are constantly correlated by Buhler with biological ontogenetic development, which, however, is not disclosed in such detail as in Ananiev, does not receive a detailed development.

Despite the value of Buhler's research, she never managed to solve one of the originally formulated tasks: finding the interdependence of historical, individual biographical and biological time. But this raised, though not yet clear, the question of the connection between subjective and objective times in the life path of the individual. K.A. Abulkhanova-Slavskaya, evaluating the described approaches to the life path, notes their limitations, due to the fact that the individual was not considered as the organizer of life dynamics, the life path.

Secondly, the genetic theory of personality, the main idea of ​​which is the existence of a qualitative change in personality in the process of life (P. Janet, J. Piaget, S.L. Rubinshtein, L.S. Vygotsky) was not applied to the analysis of the life movement, " did not close with the idea of ​​a person fulfilling his life in time. The fundamental question of how social and individual time are related in the life of an individual has remained open.

Correct this situation, according to K.A. Abulkhanova-Slavskaya, one can only take it as an axiomatic idea that a person in the process of his life, acting as either a subject of communication or a subject of activity, always remains the subject of his own life, uniting his activity, his worldview, his relations with other people.

Thus, today there are many works that consider life events in the context of a person's life path. These are the works of Sergei Lvovich Rubinshtein, Boris Grigoryevich Ananiev, Kohn. The definition of an event given by Rubinstein as part of a psychological analysis of a person's life path has become a classic. According to him, life events are the key moments and turning points in the life path of an individual, when, with the adoption of one or another decision for a more or less long period, the further life path of a person is determined. But no attempt has been made to consider the advertising event within the framework of the individual's life path. The concept itself advertising event can be found in the works of Feofanov, Lebedev, but in a completely different perspective. This term is referred to as an event of a product, product, its preparation and promotion. In our work, we want to trace how an advertising event is integrated in the subjective picture of a person's life path.

The subjective picture of a person's life path, despite a number of attempts to reveal its psychological structure and nature, is still the least studied area of ​​psychological science. For us, the provisions concerning the study of this topic, put forward in the works of Rubinstein, Abulkhanova-Slavskaya, Ananiev, Charlotte Buhler and N.B. Kucherenko. Domestic psychologists began to study the life path of the individual as early as the 1930s. The first steps in this area were taken by Rubinstein. Awareness of the need to discuss in psychological circles the problem of the life path of the individual arose following a change in ideas about a person in general and about a person in particular. Personality began to be considered in two ways: both as an object and as a subject of life.

The main purpose of the thesis is to study the promotional event in the subjective picture of the life path of the individual. To achieve this goal, we set a number of tasks.

Give the concept of the life path of a person and characterize the main terms related to the psychology of the life path.

The object of the work, we define the subjective picture of the life path of the individual. For the first time in Soviet psychology, Ananiev used this concept. He gave a detailed definition, but singled out a few essential points. First, this painting is the most important characteristic of a person's self-consciousness, secondly, it reflects the milestones of social and individual development, and thirdly, it is always deployed in time, fixes all the main life events of the life path in biographical and historical dates. In the future, this concept formed the basis of the concept of psychological time Golovakha and Kronik.

The subject of the thesis is an advertising event. Under the concept advertising event we propose to understand the events that the individual himself includes in his individual history and endows them with a certain significance (advertising events that are included in the past, present, future of a person’s life, endowed with a certain meaning and significance).

Our work put forward two assumptions:

There are inter-event links between personal and promotional events.

With regard to the assumption under consideration, we proceeded from the fact that it is important to analyze not so much the events in themselves, but their interrelationships, influences on each other and on the course of life as a whole. It was based on the concept of Golakhakh and Kronik, according to which the unit of psychological time is not an interval of physical time and not the event itself, but an inter-event connection of the type cause - effect and cause - remedy . At the same time, the realized connection is the unit of the psychological past, the actual connection is the unit of the psychological present, and the potential connection is the unit of the psychological future.

In accordance with the goal set, the identified methodological foundations, the causometry method will be used in the work - this is a method for studying the subjective picture of the life path of the individual and the psychological time of the individual, proposed by Golovakha and Kronik (1982). Causometry is one of the biographical methods, aimed at describing not only the past, but also the proposed future stages of the life path.

This method allows you to identify the features of the reproduction of significant life situations; the most important events in a person's life. Naming significant events, a person refracts it through his Self (Korzhova).

Sample of thirty respondents. Age 25-40 years. This age was specially chosen by us. On the one hand, they already had a certain life experience behind them, they had already passed part of their life path, therefore, they have a certain advertising past. On the other hand, there is still enough time ahead to make plans for the future.

Personal life path

Life path concept

Life path - this is the history of the formation and development of a personality in a certain society, a contemporary of a certain era, a peer of a certain generation . The historical nature of the personality requires the psychologist to study or at least take into account the historical circumstances of her life. In psychology, a person's biography has always served as a rich source of knowledge about the personality, but, more importantly, it is itself the subject of psychological study.

The position that development is the main way of existence of a person at all stages of his individual path puts forward before psychology as one of the most relevant and least studied the task of psychological research of the integral life path of a person. . The ratio of biographical events and moments of the individual's natural life cycle; phases, periodization of life; personality development crises; types of biographies; age features of the inner world of a person; the role of spiritual factors in the regulation of social life; age dynamics of creative productivity; overall performance of the life path; satisfaction with life, etc. - this is the far from complete list of questions concerning the very nature of the life path.

The psychological perspective of a person, which includes certain aspects and extent of the past, present and future, is that phenomenal field in which, at a specific period of his life, a person, based on actual experience, makes predictions, makes plans, and carries out real behavior. Thus, the psychological perspective of a person is a subjective representation of the direction of life at its particular stage, and in this respect, as a rule, it is already a subjective picture of the life path. Researchers of the problem of the life path often touch upon the problem of life or psychological perspective, but, nevertheless, they do not separate these concepts. Turning to this problem, it is customary to refer to a number of researchers - K. Levin, L. Frank, J. Nutten, R. Kastenbaum.

A special place in this series is occupied by the concept developed by Kurt Lewin. According to him, the time perspective is determined by the characteristics of the psychological field at a given moment in time. At the same time, only events and representations that are updated in connection with the current situation are combined in the field; this fact leads to the loss of "fundamental temporal relations - relations of sequence of events", which in turn contributes to the difficulty of their exact correlation with chronological time, revealing properties and processes relevant to the subject. K. Levin singled out zones of the present and distant past and future in the length of the time perspective, and in space - the levels of the real and the unreal.

The short term of the time horizon, according to K. Levin, characterizes the "primitiveness" of behavior. The experiments of A. Leblanc, who compared time perspective in different age groups, confirmed these observations: the shortest perspective was found in children aged 9-12, young men aged 14-17 significantly lengthen it, but the largest scale of time perspective is observed at the age of 18-24 , Subsequently - until the age of 65-90 years, the formed perspective, as a rule, is preserved. The increase in time perspective in ontogenetic development is accompanied by its filling with worthy goals and meanings: “a positive time perspective created by worthy goals is one of the main elements of high morality.

At the same time, it is a reciprocal process: high morality itself creates a long time perspective and sets worthy goals. "The time perspective in which individuals and social groups place their life goals and means seriously affects everyday behavior. According to the observations of L. Frank , frugality, moderation, foresight, as qualities of a particular social class, may be the result of a short time perspective, when only immediate events are the subject of concern.

Often, in the concept of a time perspective, a person’s focus on the future is accentuated; in these cases, it is customary to talk about long-term goal setting, planning, building a model of the future, meaning-building, acceptance and implementation of activity intentions.

Different authors try in different ways to express the idea of ​​the heterogeneous structure of the subjective future, the presence in it of elements that carry different functional loads. Thus, the concepts of "life plan" and "life program" are divorced (L.V. Sokhan, M.V. Kirillova, 1982). Both are a system of goals, but if goals are fixed in the life program without a strict definition of the timing of their implementation, then life plans are timed to specific dates. The target structure of the future is not in doubt, but only in some cases it is customary (P. Gerstmann, 1981) to divide goals, for example, into final and auxiliary ones. Ultimate goals are sometimes referred to as ideals, their stability and long-term invariant existence are emphasized. Auxiliary goals, or goals of the means, on the one hand, are specific, on the other hand, they are characterized by variability and are easily transformed depending on the life situation.

To the extent that a person himself organizes and directs the events of his life path, builds his own development environment, selectively treats those events that do not depend on his will (for example, socio-historical macro-events of our time), he is the subject of life.

The concept of life activity reflects the active role of a person in his own destiny. The degree of this activity may be different depending on the maturity of the character, its originality. On this basis, one can distinguish between levels of vital activity and related types of personality. (At the same time, however, one cannot abstract from the socio-historical meaning of the values ​​for which the individual lives and fights.) At one extreme is life subject to circumstances, the stereotyped fulfillment of social roles, so to speak, life-automatism. At the other extreme is life-creation, when life activity, embodied in specific forms of social behavior and activity, is directed by the subject in accordance with fundamental relations, attitudes, when life activity is adequate to character and is self-expression. Truly creative self-expression should be based on the correct reflection of the circumstances and consequences of one's own behavior, on the reflection of the objective laws of reality.

Life-creation takes place in social behavior (actions), in communication, work and knowledge. The life path of a creative person is full of events - events of the environment, behavior, inner life. This eventfulness affects the character and completeness of memories. According to the memories, one can judge the type of personality.

The unity of consciousness and activity is biographically the unity of inner and outer life. In the broad sense of the word, the concept of inner life embraces all phenomena of mental activity.

The inner life should be considered as a psychological component of the life path. It not only reflects real events, but is itself a subjective reality - life. Indeed, a spiritual biography can be no less meaningful and significant than an objective picture of life. Sometimes it comes to the fore in the biography as well.

cell inner life is an experience. AT Fundamentals of General Psychology S.L. Rubinstein noted the universal nature of this phenomenon, considered it a personal, subjective aspect of consciousness as a whole. Experience, - notes S.L. Rubinstein, is primarily a psychic fact, a piece of the individual's own life in his flesh and blood, a specific manifestation of his individual life. It becomes an experience in a narrower, specific sense of the word as the individual becomes a person and his experience acquires a personal character... A person's experiences are the subjective side of his real life, the subjective aspect of the personality's life path. . In this second sense of the word, experiences can be called biographical experiences. In fact, their subject matter is the events of the biography reflected in the processes of memory, thinking, and imagination. Through them, the regulation of life activity is carried out, and, finally, they themselves can become life events.

Experiences exist in the form of emotionally saturated processes, for example, mnemonic ones, which in the personal-biographical plan act as processes of historical memory - memories. Like any biographical experience, remembrance is included in the life of the individual. In connection with vital activity, memory has been studied much less than in connection with more particular types of activity, say, with learning. The laws of imprinting, preservation, forgetting and reproduction in the system of historical memory have their own specifics, determined by the vital significance of the captured events. So, in contrast to simple forms of memory, there are images in memories that have super longevity, super strength due to the uniqueness of events. Moreover, it is not so much the emotional coloring of the image that is important, but its content, vital significance. The unpleasant persists especially long and firmly because it is constantly experienced, not as a certain suffering, but as a known pain. life lesson . The pleasant is preserved as a certain moment of life's progress.

This is an old assumption of B.G. Ananiev was confirmed in the experiments of P.V. Simonov. Memories of faces, meetings, life episodes, not at all associated in the anamnesis with any out of the ordinary experiences, sometimes caused exceptionally strong and persistent, objectively recorded shifts that could not be extinguished when repeated. A more thorough analysis of this ... category of cases showed that the emotional coloring of memories does not depend on the strength of the emotions experienced at the moment of the event itself, but on the relevance of these memories for the subject at the moment.

Not only the preservation, but also the forgetting of biographical facts is determined by their vital significance, which was also noted by 3. Freud. Forgetting as an involuntary displacement of an image from consciousness is real. But something else is also real, when a person keeps an event in memory, but deliberately avoids reproducing it, not wanting to hurt himself or disturb his conscience. Memories sometimes require courage.

Memories, embodied in emotionally colored representations, are part of the actual structure of the personality, form a mental the cloth her self-awareness. By summarizing memories, a person's life experience is formed. Thanks to memory, the unity of our consciousness reflects the unity of our personality, passing through the entire process of its development and restructuring. The unity of personal self-consciousness is connected with memory. Any personality disorder. reaching in its extreme forms to its disintegration, is therefore always associated with amnesia, memory disorder, and, moreover, precisely this, historical its aspect . Memories are of decisive importance for a person's awareness of his own life, mastery of his experience, for the regulation of life activity on this basis.

The inner life can also be carried out in the processes of the imagination. For different people, an imaginary life - in dreams, hopes, foresights - has a different meaning. Sometimes it almost completely replaces the real life. Escape from reality into the realm of memories or dreams makes sense protection . However, this style of inner life demobilizes a person, reduces the level of his social activity. It is optimal when the rich inner life is commensurate with the real life, otherwise it itself, in the end, is depleted. In order to survive, you must first of all live. From the fullness and strength of life, from the social being of a person depends the nature of human experiences, their depth and truthfulness - the correspondence to life.

Experiences, of course, have a mental component. Thinking processes are involved in solving vital, moral problems that involve making a choice, building a behavior strategy. The point of view on a person's life as a chain of tasks typical for a certain age or arising in a collision with various circumstances suggests the inclusion of intelligence in the personality structure. Determining the line of behavior or even the line of the whole life is a creative task, addressed to a large extent to the intellect.

It can be seen that the functioning of thinking in solving life problems is in many respects analogous to mental activity in a problem situation that has no biographical significance at all. In both cases, there is a preparatory phase, a moment of insight and subsequent comprehensive justification of the decision. And the role hints can even play a random impression. The brightness, unforgettable moments of insight, when the discovery of truth in its moral, vital meaning, testifies that these moments entered the spiritual biography of a person, became events.

Psychologists have to study and understand the special qualities of all mental processes as experiences. In the flow of inner life, memory becomes a memory, imagination - a dream, thinking - a means of comprehending the essence of life tasks, inner speech - the voice of conscience (B.G. Ananiev persistently drew attention to this ethical function of speech back in the 40s). In this biographical meaning, the human mind acquires a new quality: The ability, developed in the course of life in some people, to comprehend life on a grand scale and recognize what is truly significant in it, the ability not only to find means for solving problems that have accidentally popped up, but also to determine the very tasks and purpose of life in such a way that truly to know where in life to go and why is something infinitely superior to any scholarship, even if it has a large stock of special knowledge, this precious and rare property is wisdom.

Experiences are a dynamic effect of the entire personality structure, which is most integrally represented in character and talent (B.G. Ananiev). The dynamics of inner life in its biographical meaning is permeated with ideological motives, it bears the seal of the worldview, the philosophy of life of the individual. In experiences, the value aspect of self-consciousness is revealed, the attitudes of the individual, including to oneself, generalized in reflexive character traits - pride, self-esteem, honor are actualized. reflective properties, although ... they are the most recent and dependent on all the others, they complete the structure of the character and ensure its integrity. They are most intimately connected with the goals of life and activity, value orientations, attitudes, performing the function of self-regulation and development control, contributing to the formation and stabilization of the unity of the individual.

Reflective character traits are stable properties of self-consciousness, which in the personal-biographical plan acts as an awareness of oneself as a subject of the life path, responsible for one's destiny - unique, inimitable, the only one. Self-awareness correlates, on the one hand, life plans and potentials of the individual, on the other hand, real achievements in creativity, career, personal life. A mature person understands the natural nature of his path, builds a concept of life, linking the past with the present and future. Self-consciousness is impossible without knowledge of one's own being, accidental and necessary in it, actual and potential, actual and possible. The depth and adequacy of this knowledge is largely determined by the intellectuality and, if you like, the talent of a person.

Character - the integration of personality traits, genetically associated with its tendencies. The system of potencies is integrated in the structure of abilities, and moreover - in talent. The psychology of talent is more than the psychology of ability. It's not just the different levels of these potentials. Talent is the unity of abilities based on the worldview, life orientation of the individual. Talent is the effect of individualization of abilities, their fusion with character. Following B.G. Ananiev, we believe that in the concept talent what is important is not so much the level of abilities, its components, but their originality, compliance with inclinations, awareness and self-regulation. Character and talent in relation to the life path act as its subjective factors, regulators of the life process, social life. Primarily, however, they themselves are the product of biographical development. The fate of a talented personality, the possibility of its flourishing, individual characteristics the structures of talent, the area of ​​application of creative forces depend on historical time, on the class affiliation of the individual, on the circumstances of the social environment of development. The history of creative activity is inseparable from the civil and personal fate of a person. This is why psychological studies of talent and character studies invariably turn to biographical material.

Being dependent on biography, talent, in turn, leaves an imprint on the fate of the individual. Awareness of one's talent reinforces self-esteem, promotes responsibility for its implementation and development, encourages a person to live in accordance with his vocation. Thus, talent acts as a kind of life imperative. Moreover, a person is aware of the social function of his talent, his duty to solve urgent problems of social life and thereby respond to the demands of modernity. In other words, a person realizes not only his potentials and vocation, but also his social, historical mission - destiny. This happens not only with great people, but with every conscious subject with a sense of social responsibility and a sense of history. Everyone contributes to the historical process, and everyone is irreplaceable to some extent.

Talent, being an imperative of life activity, also serves as its instrument. In literary criticism, the correct idea has been expressed that talent in life-creation is no less valuable than in special types of activity.

So, the multilateral connections of the structure of the personality, represented by talent and character, and the life path determine the place of these integral formations in the circle of biographical problems: they are the result of the life path and its regulators, moreover, they are the basis of life creation.

The study of biographical phenomena has not only theoretical but also practical significance. Understanding the patterns of life and life path, a person can better imagine the best option for his own development, determine his life path. Understanding the role of the individual in planning and implementing the life path contributes to a more responsible attitude towards it, the desire to set serious life goals and achieve their implementation.

The structural embodiment of the life process and its positive part - the life perspective - becomes a life plan, which is a life strategy. A set of life tactics forms a life scenario. There are at least two approaches to explaining the process of structuring a life path with the help of its planning and scenario implementation.

According to the first approach, presented by the works of Russian authors (S.L. Rubinshtein, B.G. Ananiev, etc.), a person consciously chooses and regulates the life process. The role of parents in shaping the child's ideas about the goals and structure of the life path is emphasized. Ultimately, according to S.L. Rubinstein, a person himself determines his attitude to life, harmoniously or disharmoniously linking tragedy, drama and comedy. He believes that only certain correlations of these ideological feelings are ethically justified, acceptable, logical as an expression of a person's attitude to typical life situations.

The second approach (Alfred Adler (1870-1937), Carl Ransome Rogers (1902-1987), Eric Berne (1902-1970) and others) is based on confidence in the predominantly unconscious choice of life plan and life script, which is carried out in the early stages of development. child. According to these concepts, a life plan is seen as a prediction of one's own life and its implementation in ideas and feelings, and a life scenario is seen as a gradually unfolding life plan that limits and structures the life space of a person.

The choice of a life scenario is influenced by a number of factors that are discussed within the framework of this approach. Such factors are the order of birth of a child in the family, the influence of parents (their actions, assessments, emotional support or deprivation, etc.), the influence of grandparents, the adoption by the child of his own name and surname, random extreme events, etc.

The life plan is formed on the basis of early life events, impressions that correlate with any scenario familiar to the child, borrowed from a fairy tale, story, history, myth, legend, picture. The script starts in childhood. In adolescence, it goes through the stage of refinement, acquires a certain structure. Later, it is used by an adult for structuring the living space, optimal interaction with the outside world, and predicting the near and distant future.

The main components of the script are:

* the hero with whom the child identifies;

* an antihero who embodies traits rejected by the child;

* the ideal hero, whose character traits are not yet present in the child; it is he who determines the direction of personal growth;

* plot - model of events;

* other characters involved in the life process;

* set of moral rules.

A person is able to choose different scenarios or behaviors. Some of them can contribute to success, others - lead to failure, but they all allow the child and adult to structure life, set it in a certain direction, which provides the possibility of achieving a life goal.

In accordance with theoretical and empirical studies of life plans, psychotherapeutic techniques are being developed aimed at diagnosing, and, if necessary, at changing the “loser scenario”.

Event and event classification

An event is a one-time occurrence that is psychologically significant for an individual. Life events are classifiable and can be described in process or structural terms.

Depending on which area of ​​life they belong to, they talk about physical, biological, social and psychological events. Depending on whether they occur around the individual, with him or within him, there are external (environmental), behavioral (actions) and internal (spiritual) events. The events taking place in an individual's own life are called individual, and those in which he acts as an object of historical circumstances are called sociocultural. According to the degree of their mass character, repeatability and predictability, ordinary (normative) and random (exceptional) events are distinguished.

B.G. Ananiev distinguished between environmental events and events of human behavior in the environment. Environmental events are significant changes in the circumstances of development that did not occur at the initiative of the subject of life. These may be, first of all, the forces of the "macro-environment", the personification of which is history itself, which, according to Ananiev, is the main partner in the life drama of a person. A person can perceive historical events passively, passively, or actively involved in them. For example, military conflicts, economic cataclysms become events in the life of entire generations, radically change the way and course of life. There are a number of external events associated with the cultural traditions of a particular society (religious holidays, national anniversaries, baptisms, weddings, etc.). Another kind of this type of events are changes in the microenvironment. Such are the birth and death of relatives, accidents at work and other significant or even fatal cases that violate a person’s plans.

The second group - events of human behavior in the environment, that is, his actions. An act is understood as a unit of social behavior of an individual. Actions become events not only in a person's life, but also affect the temporal-spatial parameters of the lives of others, they can acquire the status of "events".

IN AND. Slobodchikov, in defining an act, emphasizes its consciousness, gives the act the character of an act of moral self-determination, in which a person is affirmed as a person in his relation to another, to himself, to society and the world. According to the classes of relations, classes of actions are distinguished. Attitude towards people is expressed by a class of communicative actions, attitude towards activity - in professional actions, attitude towards society - in civil ones. Actions-events serve not only to achieve specific goals, but also contribute to the formation of new time perspectives, affirm or deny certain values.

The search and acceptance of values ​​that leave the spiritual development of the individual in time made it possible to single out a special group - the events of inner life. In contrast to the first two groups, the events of inner life are often inaccessible to direct observation, so they remained for a long time "not covered and unexplored, ... although they occupy a central place in the development of the personality." First of all, these are events-impressions, under the influence of which there is an abrupt change in temporal perspectives. These events are often prepared little by little, long before they occur; at the same time, significant external events often “break through” into the inner world of a person, becoming at the same time events-impressions. ON THE. Loginova, defining events, offering their classification, emphasizes that events are always discrete, limited in time; these qualities distinguish the event from the slowly evolving circumstances of life. At the same time, she does not deny that an event can have a prologue and long-term consequences.

For pragmatic purposes, Golovakha and Kronik propose to divide events according to their belonging to a certain sphere of life: events in society; in nature; in thoughts, feelings, values; in a state of health; in family and life; related to work, education, social activities; events in the field of leisure, communication, hobbies.

Events can be distinguished in connection with their ability to cause crisis, highly emotional experiences and spread from outside to inside and vice versa; from one area of ​​life to another. Such a definition of an event echoes the idea of ​​synergetics that an event acquires the status of an event only by virtue of its organic identity with human nature. An event defined in this way can either reveal the potential of a person or carry a destructive charge for a person's identity, forcing him to look for new supports and ways of interacting with the world.

Another basis for classifying events may be their ability to provoke behavior. A person does not commit an act if he does not have a reason for this, insignificant events are likely to remain without a connotative answer. Only significant intense events lead not only to emotional intensity, but also to an act, purposeful behavior.

Secondly, accepting the expediency of considering an event, traditional for psychology, as a point, localized in time and space, it should be taken into account that the event has not only a content, but also a temporal-spatial structure. Even if something happens suddenly at first glance, this fact only indicates that the event was being prepared, developed "under the hood", for some reason was left without attention, or simply was not realized. Understanding this nature of events leads us to consider changes in life not as separate, discrete, even random, but as strictly ordered, being in the system, since the onset of one event already means the "birth" of the next or several, but these dynamic tendencies are signified through events of many later.

personality life path destiny

Personal level of time organization

The individual ability to regulate time begins to develop from the ability to plan, to determine the alternation of changes in activity and passivity, as the development of an expedient rhythm of activity. When analyzing the ability to regulate time, all levels should be taken into account - from a simple exertion of physical forces, neuropsychic efforts, including the work of memory, attention, thinking, to the organization of activities in its temporal sequence, speed. At the same time, each level of time regulation becomes a means of solving the problem of temporal organization at the next level.

Thus, mental regulation acts as a means of regulating activity, and the latter is a condition for the transformation of a person into a subject. The highest level of development of the ability for planning, effective implementation of various forms of activity, their alternation, the construction of a semantic hierarchy contributes to the formation of the individual as a subject of life organization, independently determining the content and duration of life periods. One of the real criteria for organizing life time is timeliness, which allows you to correlate the objective requirements of the course of social and other external times with various aspects of internal, subjective time.

The sequence of basic life steps - in the profession, in the family, in creative life - is located by each person in the subjective value-time dimension, where they receive a temporary personal assessment: "early", "late", "soon to be late". These temporal assessments are the most important component of life motivation and regulation of the relationship of the individual with objective time.

So, on the one hand, people are divided into those who are weakly involved in social processes, who are aware of free time as a value, but do not always appropriate it as such, and those who are included in social dynamics, are in direct, rigid ties with social conditions. . On the other hand, on those whose activity is of a spontaneous nature, reaches optimality in a random imitative way, and those who, being active, take into account the patterns of social time (V.I. Kovalev, 1979) These qualities - the nature of time regulation and the level of activity - allowed V.I. Kovalev to distinguish four types of personal regulation of time:

Spontaneously ordinary type of time regulation. The personality is dependent on events, circumstances of life, does not keep up with time, cannot organize the sequence of events. This way of organizing life is characterized by situational behavior, lack of personal initiative.

Functionally effective type of time regulation. The personality actively lowers the course of events, joins them in a timely manner.

contemplative type. Manifested in passivity; prolonged tendencies are found only in the spiritual, intellectual and creative life. Understanding the complexity and inconsistency of life does not allow you to show your own activity.

Creative-transformative type. Represents the optimal combination of activity and prolonged time regulation.

This typology, according to Abulkhanova-Slavskaya, makes it possible to verify the limitations of the event approach to the analysis of the life path, since for the last two types the life path acts as a continuous line in which the emphasis on specific events is smoothed out.

Ideas about fate as a way of life

In modern foreign psychological science, many authors dealt with the problem of the life path, such as S. Buhler, G. Allport, W. Dennis, H. Lehman, V. Dilthea, E. Spranger, L. Zondi, Adler, Eric Bern. They offered various ideas in accordance with their scientific concept.

The first systematic study of the regularities of the life path was undertaken by S. Buhler and her collaborators at the Vienna Psychological Institute in the 1920s and 1930s. She drew an analogy between the process of life and the process of history and declared the life of a person to be an individual history. Based on a large empirical material, it was found that, despite individual originality, there are patterns of regularity in the timing of the onset of life optimums, depending on the ratio of spiritual, mental "and biological vital tendencies. Various types of life development of the individual were also discovered. S. Buhler tried to understand life is not as a chain of accidents, but through its natural stages She called individual, or personal life in its dynamics, the life path of a personality.

A number of aspects that make up the objective logic of life stand out:

Sequence of external events;

Change of experiences, values, as the evolution of the inner world of a person, as the logic of his internal events;

The result of his work.

S. Buhler, like many other psychologists, absolutized the role of childhood in the life path of the individual. She believed that at this stage of development, the project of a lifetime is laid.

A. Adler used the concept of life style, which he introduced in 1926, to designate the concept of a life path.

In his opinion, the style of life is the meaning that a person attaches to the world and to himself, his goals, the direction of his aspirations.

A. Adler believed that the meaning of life is comprehended for the first time four or five years of life and a person approaches it through sensations that are not fully understood. By the end of the fifth year of life, the child achieves a single pattern of behavior, his own style in approaching problems and tasks.

A. Adler identified four types of lifestyles:

Useful;

Right;

Avoiding;

Receiving.

According to A. Adler, we are self-determined by the knowledge that we attach to what is happening to us. And all this is expressed in early memories. Because for memorization a person chooses what is felt, albeit very vaguely by him, as connected with his current life.

Transactional analysis shows how people are "arranged" psychologically, how they express their individuality in behavior. Its key ideas are the concept of the ego-state model and life scenarios.

Scenario theory was first developed by E. Berne and his colleagues, especially Claude Steiner, in the mid-60s. Since then, the concept of scenario has become one of the important parts of the theory of transactional analysis and is now central. E.Bern invested in the concept of fate the concept of a life path. He believed that the fate of each person is determined primarily by himself, his ability to think and reasonably relate to everything that happens in his life and the world around him. Every person, even in childhood, in principle, often unconsciously thinks about his future life, scrolls his life scenarios in his head. The script is "a gradually unfolding life plan, which is formed in early childhood, mainly under the influence of parents. E. Bern distinguishes between the concepts of a life path and a person's life scenario. He says that a life path is what happens in reality.

Different types of life path are the product of the action of various forces, which can mix and lead to one or another type of destiny. Types of fate: scripted and non-scripted, violent or independent.

Leopold Zondi, a Swiss psychologist, psychotherapist and psychiatrist, author of one of the areas of depth psychology - the psychology of fate and an original projective technique, made the concept of "fate" the center of his psychology, finding in it the most appropriate expression that covers everything that concerns human life.

As for the psychology of fate, there a person is considered as a being who, although he was subjected to a certain coercion from the very beginning of his life, but as his maturity grows, gets a chance to choose based on his capabilities, and thereby realize his freedom.

Therefore, fate can be imposed or free.

Leopold Zondi believed that the imposed fate of a person includes:

Heredity, i.e., first of all, everything that was received by him from his ancestors;

Environment;

The social environment in which the child is born.

Zondi developed the psychology of human freedom.

The essence of the psychic was for him the desire of man for freedom. Thanks to the personality-conditioned abilities to decide and choose, a person is neither a slave of his nature, nor a toy of the world around him.

Thus, we can say that many psychologists have addressed the problem of fate as the life path of an individual and have seen at least two possible development options. Fate can be objectively predetermined, where predestination is when an event occurs in a given place and at a certain moment in an inevitable and only possible way. At the same time, predestination depends on a number of reasons, most of which originate from early childhood, the significance of which was absolutized by almost everyone. Or it is a subjectively - transforming line of life, which depends on the person himself, on his awareness of what is happening to him, and the desire to change something.

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Goals, actions, attitude towards others, maintaining a personal life, forming relationships, participation in the professional sphere. These areas relate to the individual and in science are united under one term - the life path of a person. Since people during their existence affect many areas, philosophers, psychologists, ethnographers, and sociologists study the life scenario. But, psychology is closer to the life path. This science studies the formation of personality, setting goals, achieving what was planned. What is the life path of a person?

The concept of a person's life path

What is hidden under these three words? The life scenario of a person proceeds according to an individual scheme. There are no identical or similar stories. A person differs from other beings on the planet in a way of life. A person not only exists and goes through stages of development in relation to the time period, but also lays the foundations of personal formation.

The concept of a person's life path includes many aspects and depends on the person's habitat. So the law establishes the norm to complete secondary education, society - or get married, continue the family. To these concepts, the society sets the deadlines for graduating and starting a family. Norms put pressure on a person and force him to adhere to the settings. It is not customary to become a student at 40 or get married at 50. Whether a person wants it or not, but subconsciously he builds a life path taking into account established norms. Small deviations and differences are an individual life scenario.

It turns out that the development of a person's life path is influenced by psychological, age, social, social factors and personal desires.

The problem of the life path of the individual

In the scientific world, Rubinshtein S.L. first puzzled with this issue. It is to him and his work "Man and the World" that they refer when studying the subject in higher institutions and interpreting the problem of the life path of the individual. In his writings, the author refers to the personal life of a person, which influences the development of a life path. Each person has his own views on relationships, life and other areas. The totality of these concepts forms the human life world. From this follows the motivation of the individual and builds an individual scenario. The quality and depth of the relationship affects the development of the life path. When they change, the actions of a person are corrected, and the scenario changes.

Personality develops depending on actions, decisions, responsibility. Participation in the development of relationships form the subject of life. It turns out that the individual changes and develops in the course of life. The author called this phenomenon activity mediation.

A number of specialists dealt with the problem of the life path of the individual:

Leontiev A.N. His theory is based on the fact that the life of people consists of the actions that they practice. Based on this, an individual scenario is formed. Consequently, the life path consists only of those types of activities that a particular person performs.
Ananiev B.G. The main emphasis is on the incidents that a person encounters in life. They form the individual life of the individual. The author divides incidents into two groups, which are interconnected. The first concerns the environment and environment. These are natural factors, social changes. The second group is formed against the background of life circumstances, in other words, it comes from a behavioral factor.
Abulkhanova-Slavskaya K.A. The theory is based on the fact that a person is dependent on many factors: social norms, living conditions, structures. Personality relies on conditions, conducts a comparative analysis. The main task of the individual is to compare himself with established norms and find a place in life. At the same time, society is interested in the development of the individual. But, a person independently creates conditions for obtaining professional skills, forms family relationships, and makes social connections. This is where the main idea comes from. It is necessary to realize the path of life as a problem, not allowing spontaneous development, but connecting efforts and intelligence.

life position - a person's choice of how to lead his life, which is reflected in life manifestations;
life line - the possibilities and potential of people who are born in the present and move into the future;
the meaning of life - includes the awareness of a specific person of life as an integral machine.

The influence of the age of the individual on the life path of the individual

Age expectations affect the life scenario. A person adapts to established norms, sometimes deviates from them. Changes related to advancing the next age stage cause admiration among others. Thus, the individual gains authority. In turn, lagging behind age settings causes the public. A person reacts painfully to such condemnations. From this, a direct connection is visible, how the age of the individual affects the life path of the individual.

It remains to find out what age is considered when attracting a person to social norms. There are the following concepts:

biological age. Does not always match the number in the passport. To determine the state of human health is taken, it is taken into account how the metabolism proceeds. The data obtained are compared with the average statistical indicators of a similar individual.
Psychological age. Human development, emotional and psychological components are considered. Then a comparative analysis is carried out, focusing on mental indicators recognized as the norm for a particular age. From such studies, conclusions come: a hyperactive, infantile or too smart person.
social age. The skills that a person has at the moment are being studied. The activity of the individual is compared with the generally accepted norms that the average person should have.

The life path from sociology is considered taking into account programs, attitudes,. Psychologists, on the other hand, study the formation of a person's outlook on life, a real representation of oneself in the future. Sociology includes the level of optimism and the idea of ​​the future by a person, taking into account certain social groups and specific life circumstances.

Personal development and life path

Considering this issue, the study of Buhler Sh. is taken as a basis. To determine the concept, the life scenario of a person was considered taking into account the lines of development (97 species were found). The lines relate to different areas: social, psychological, professional, family, labor. Based on the research, 5 phases were derived that determine the development and life path of the individual:

The first phase is not included in a person's life scenario. It is believed that from birth to the age of 16–20 years, a person has not yet created a family and has not begun a professional activity.

The second period is devoted to the search for a soul mate, attempts to make contacts. From 16-20 years old and up to 30 people tries various activities. During this period, the first dreams, goals, outlines of a future life appear. The second phase is characterized by a thirst for action and distraction.
The third phase includes the mature age of a person. The maximum threshold is from 25 to 50 years. The beginning of the third period is determined by the creation of a family or a permanent profession. A person sets realistic goals and achieves them. Thanks to these actions, it is formed.


The fourth step is from 45 to 70 years. There is a gradual decline in vital activity. Professional activity ends with retirement, children grow up and leave the family nest. This is the time of results and introspection. For many, a difficult period, since aging processes are turned on, biological decay occurs. An elderly person is prone to nostalgia, reminisces,. Future plans are built taking into account the summed up results and today's circumstances.
Fifth phase. At the age of 65, people say goodbye to work. Goals set in youth become irrelevant. Human thoughts remain in the past, social activity is reduced. Personality focuses on hobbies, travel, recreation. I don’t want to think about the future, because the imminent end of life is obvious. The final line of the life path is being summed up. A person who has achieved goals feels satisfied. A person who does not achieve his goals is disappointed.

Choice of a person's life path

A person is so arranged that life's mistakes and failures are attributed to the insidiousness of fate. And he assigns luck to his own account, telling what titanic efforts were made to achieve the goal. Start to analyze the mistakes, understand why this happened. This is where a person's choice of his life path begins. Analysis and understanding of what will follow after the commission of actions or deeds.

A person's life path includes income, success, professional activity and worldview. The attitude to the surrounding world forms the life path of the individual. What will you choose destruction or creation? To avoid disappointment, set achievable goals and do not live your life in vain, getting annoyed, angry and offended by others. A person chooses and forms a life path.

March 18, 2014

The sequence of phases of the life path constitutes its temporal structure. Each phase is a qualitatively new level of personality development. It is complicated by the many dimensions of the life path, the interweaving of many lines of development in it, each of which has its own history.

In order to understand the significance of a certain period of life, one must compare it with the integral structure of the life cycle, take into account its immediate and distant, most profound consequences for the development of the individual. Overcoming the path of life, a person develops as a personality and a subject of activity, and at the same time - as an individuality. The totality of such "dimensions" constitutes the spatial structure of the life path.

Among the many concepts of the life path, we single out three that most fully reflect the process of human development:

1. Life path - self-fulfillment of a person (Sh. Buhler).

2. Motivational regulators of a person's life path (S. L. Rubinshtein).

3. Sensitive periods in human life and their Fibonacci number codes (VV Klimenko).

The life path of self-realization of the individual

Charlotte Buhler found patterns ("regularities") in changing the phases of life, in changing the dominant tendencies (motivations), due to the change in the volume of life activity, her research stands aside in the history of psychology, although it caused a resonance in science.

The driving force behind development, according to S. Buhler, is a person's innate desire for self-realization, or the fulfillment of a comprehensive realization of "oneself". Self-realization is the result of a life path, when the values ​​and aspirations of a person consciously or unconsciously received adequate implementation.

The concept of self-realization is close in meaning to the concept of self-realization or self-actualization - in existentialists. But self-realization is only a moment of self-realization.

Self-realization is interpreted as a result and as a process, for each age has its own characteristics:

1. Good health (0-1.5 years).

2. Experiences of the end of childhood (12-18 years).

3. Self-realization (25/30 - 45/50 years).

4. Self-completion (65/70 - 80/85 years).

Completeness, the degree of self-realization depends on the ability of the individual to set a goal that is adequate to his inner essence, to himself. This ability is called self-determination. The more zrozumilishs a person his vocation, that is, the more clearly expressed self-determination, the more complete self-realization. The formation of target structures is an output in individual development, and it can be understood by studying the basic laws of this formation and the change in the life goal of the individual.

Awareness of the life goal is a condition for maintaining the mental health of the individual. This is necessary because the cause of neurosis is not so much sexual problems (as it seems to 3. Freud) or a feeling of inferiority (according to A. Adler), but a lack of direction, self-determination. The emergence of a life goal leads to the integration of personality.

To substantiate his concept of self-realization through self-determination, S. Buhler uses L. Bertalanffy's theory of systems, especially his idea of ​​the tendency inherent in living systems to increase the tension necessary to actively overcome the environment. After all, biological processes aimed at increasing tension in the open system "personality" give energy to achieve self-realization.

The concept of spontaneous activity of the psychophysical organism contradicts Freud's understanding of the factors that guide human behavior as a desire to reduce stress.

Having studied hundreds of biographies of various people, representatives of various social classes and groups of businessmen, workers, farmers, intellectuals, the military, S. Buhler put forward the concept of the phases of a person's life path.

The concept of a phase indicates a change in the direction of development, but its interruption. Three aspects were studied in the biographies:

1. external, objective course of life events;

2. history of human creative activity;

3. age-related changes in the inner world of the individual, especially in relation to a person's own life.

The concept considers a person's life path as a process consisting of five phases. The meaning of the human life cycle is as follows: the phases of life are based on the development of the target structures of the personality - self-determination.

In total, the researcher discovered and described five phases of life.

The first phase (age 16-20) is the period preceding self-determination. It is characterized by the absence of an individual's own family and professional activity, therefore it is taken out of the life path.

The second phase (from 16-20 to 25-30 years old) is the period of attempts. A person tries himself in various activities, makes acquaintances with representatives of the opposite sex, and is looking for a life partner.

Many trial and error point to the functioning of the self-determination motivation, at first it must be anticipatory, diffuse in nature. Therefore, a feature of the inner world of a young person is the hope of predicting possible paths for later life.

The choice of life goals and paths in adolescence often leads to confusion, self-doubt and at the same time leads a person to undertake significant deeds and accomplishments.

The third phase (from 25-30 to 45-50 years) is the time of maturity. It comes at a time when a person finds his calling or just a permanent occupation, when she already has her family.

The period of maturity of a person is characterized by:

1. realistic expectations from life;

2. a sober assessment of one's own capabilities;

3. subjective vision of this age as the apogee of life.

In the period of maturity, the specification of self-determination occurs - a person determines a specific life goal and has some real results, confidently moving towards the desired self-determination. At the age of 40, the self-esteem of the individual is strengthened, which is the result of the life path as a whole, life as a process of solving problems. That is, the first results of life are summed up and an assessment of one's own achievements is given.

The fourth phase (from 45-50 to 65-70 years old) is the phase of human aging. In this phase, she completes her professional activities, adult children leave her family. For a person there comes a "heavy" age of a mental crisis, loss of reproductive ability, a reduction in the time of subsequent life.

In people who age, the tendency to dreams, loneliness, memories increases. At the end of this period, the path to self-creation-creation ends, there is a violation of the purpose of life, life perspective.

In the fifth phase (from 65-70 years to death) - old age. Most people leave their professional activities and replace them with hobbies.

All social ties are weakened and destroyed. The inner world of old people is turned into the past, it is dominated by anxiety, a premonition of a near end and a desire for peace. Therefore, the fifth phase does not count towards the life path.

The understanding of the fifth phase of life as a passive expectation of death contradicts the facts of active] creative old age.

S. Buhler explains the phases of life using the concept of the type of development.

The "welcome" factor is determined by the internal characteristics of the individual. The peak of creative achievements coincides with the biological optimum, that is, the type of development is determined by the dominance of the biological factor.

The "mental" factor determines another type of development - psychological - and is characterized by the fact that a person's creative activity reaches its apogee and stabilizes at a high level at the end of the biological optimum, or during the period of extinction of the organism.

The determinant of a person's life path is concentrated in the inner spiritual essence of a person. And the self-development of the spiritual essence leads to the deployment of the phases of life, to the self-realization of the immanent potentialities of a person.

So, the concept proceeds from the innate properties of a person to self-determination and the desire for self-realization, which are the main driving forces of personality development. And the way of life is largely the result of the self-development of the spirit.

The life path has a space-time structure. It consists of age and individual phases, determined by many parameters of life.

Psychology of the life path

Human life, on the one hand, is a biological phenomenon, and on the other, a socio-historical fact. The socio-historical, human-specific quality of individual existence is fixed in the concept life path. Every living being develops, but only man has his own history (S.L. Rubinshtein). The life path is the history of individual development, the life of a person as a person.

Human life path- this is the history of the formation and development of a personality in a certain society, a contemporary of a certain era and a peer of a certain generation (B.G. Ananiev). The life path is a kind of portrait of a person: it captures her worldview and life orientation, claims and achievements, attitudes towards life's difficulties and ways to overcome them.

In psychological science, the problem of a holistic life path of a person is still one of the least developed. Scientists have different approaches to the very phenomenon of the life path. The first scientific attempts to describe the life path are the construction of a theory of personality "in time" as opposed to purely structural definitions of personality. And the first researcher of the evolution of personality in real time was the French scientist P. Zhane . It was P. Zhane who made an attempt to link biological, psychological and historical time in a single coordinate system.

Another concept of personality on the scale of the life path is offered by S.Buhler , whose work on human life is considered the starting point for the study of the life cycle and the genetic relationships between its phases. S. Buhler, relying on her own concept, established patterns in the change of phases of life, in the change of dominant tendencies, in the change in the volume of vital activity depending on age.

The main driving force behind development, according to Buhler, is the innate desire of a person for self-fulfillment or self-fulfillment - the comprehensive realization of "oneself". self-realization- the result of a life path, when “the values ​​and goals that a person consciously or unconsciously aspired to received adequate implementation” (Sch. Buhler). Self-realization, according to Buhler, can be achieved through a purposeful life, thanks to creativity, creation.

The concept of self-fulfillment is close in meaning to the concept of self-realization or self-actualization. But Buhler believes that self-realization is only a moment of self-fulfillment. Self-fulfillment is understood as a result and as a process that can act differently in different age periods: as well-being (0-1.5 years); sometimes as an experience of the end of childhood (12-18 years old); then as self-realization (25 (30) - 45 (50) years); then as self-completion (65 (70) - 80 (85) years).

Buhler proves that the completeness, the degree of self-realization depends on a person's ability to set goals that are most adequate to his inner essence. Buhler calls this ability self-determination. The more understandable a person is his vocation, i.e. the more clearly self-determination is expressed, the more likely self-fulfillment is. Considering that the formation of target structures is decisive in individual development, Buhler tries to understand its basic patterns through the study of the goals of an individual's life. The possession of life goals, according to Buhler, also acts as a condition for maintaining mental health.

Based on the study of hundreds of biographies of various people, representatives of various social classes and groups - businessmen, workers, farmers, intellectuals, military men, etc., Buhler formulated the idea of ​​a multi-phase life path of a person. The concept of a phase indicates a change in the direction of development, a discontinuity in it. Three aspects were studied in the biographies: 1) the external, objective course of life events; 2) the history of a person's creative activity; and 3) age-related changes in the inner world of a person, especially in relation to a person's own life.

The concept of the human life cycle according to S. Buhler, is as follows. By superimposing lines of development along many "dimensions" of life (a total of 97 were found) - in the labor, professional and family spheres - were determined life cycle phases. According to Buhler, the phases of life are based on the development of target personality structures - self-determination. Thus, she discovered and described 5 phases of life:

First phase (age from birth to 16-20 years) is considered a period preceding self-determination, since a person does not yet have his own family and professional activity. Buhler takes him out of the path of life.

In the second phase (from 16-20 years old to 25-30 years old) a person tries himself in various activities, establishes contacts with representatives of the opposite sex in search of a spouse. These tests are preliminary, diffuse in nature, but this is the beginning of self-determination. A feature of the inner world of a young man are hopes - sketches of possible ways of later life. Sometimes, in anticipation of choosing life goals and ways to achieve them, a young man experiences confusion, uncertainty and, at the same time, a thirst for great things.

Third phase (from 25-30 to 45-50 years old) comes when a person finds his vocation or just a permanent professional occupation, when he has his own family. This is the time of maturity and the richest period of life. A mature person is characterized by realistic expectations from life, a sober assessment of his capabilities, a subjective experience of this age as the apogee of life. In maturity, a person sets certain life goals and has the results of moving towards them. Thanks to this, by about 40 years, a self-esteem of the individual is established, which reflects the results of the life path and life as a problem to be solved.

In the fourth phase (from 45-50 to 65-70 years old) a person completes his professional activity. Adult children leave his family. A person sums up his past activities and his accomplishments. For many, this period is a “difficult” age due to biological decay, loss of reproductive ability, and a reduction in future life span. In aging people, according to Buhler's observations, the tendency to dreams, loneliness, and memories increases. From now on, looking into the future, a person is forced to reconsider his goals, taking into account the existing professional status, physical condition and the state of affairs in the family.

In the fifth phase (from 65-70 years to death) most people leave professional activities. During this period, people stop pursuing the goals that they set for themselves in their youth. The remaining energy they spend on various forms of leisure, traveling or just having a good time. Weakening social ties. The inner world of old people is turned to the past. The future is perceived with anxiety, which is reinforced by the premonition of a near end. The desire for peace prevails. This is the period when a person tries to give meaning to his existence, viewing the past life as a whole. Some, recalling the events of their own lives, understand that they have completed the tasks set for themselves. For others, on the contrary, such an exam can bring disappointment, since the goals set have not been achieved.

Problems of the life path in domestic psychology

In Russian psychology, the merit in the formulation and development of the problem of the life path belongs to S.L. Rubinshtein and B.G. Ananiev . The above definition of a person, according to Ananiev, as a contemporary of the era and a peer of the generation, indicates the dependence of the life path on the historical time in which a person lives. According to Ananiev, history itself is the main partner in a person's life drama, and social events become milestones in his biography.

It is no coincidence that B.G. Ananiev proposes the concept of “events” to describe the life path. Events - the main "unit" of any historical process, including the biography of a person. Events are associated with changes in the direction of personality development, the dynamics of these changes, a real restructuring of the value system of the personality and its character.

life events - these are the key moments and turning points in the life path of an individual, when, with the adoption of one or another decision for a more or less long period, the further life path of a person is determined (S.L. Rubinshtein). B.G. Ananiev distinguished environmental events and events of human behavior in the environment. N.A. Loginova adds a third group - inner life events constituting the spiritual biography of a person.

Wednesday Events - these are the events that occur for reasons beyond the control of the subject. Thus, the Great Patriotic War or perestroika, which was followed by the collapse of the Soviet Union, was for many people a turning point in their personal lives, became events in their own biography. Environmental events can also include various changes in the life and immediate environment of a person: appointment to a new position, birth or death of close relatives, actions of others that directly affect the life of a particular person. Finally, the events of the environment include fatal cases, happy and unfortunate, occurring in a person’s life and at once violating all his plans and the situation as a whole.

Environmental events are not unambiguous in their consequences. Being a direct participant in this or that event of the environment, everyone perceives it in a special way, and manifests itself in relation to this event in a unique, unique way. The significance of this or that environmental event in a person's life, therefore, can be understood only taking into account the position of the person himself in relation to this event. The historical role of the blockade of Leningrad and its consequences are well known. Naturally, most people who had the opportunity to leave the besieged city used it.

However, there were other examples as well. So the woman, having the opportunity to leave the besieged city, remained there with her two daughters. “I knew,” she said years later, “that there would not be a grander event in my life. I could become a direct participant in something incredible. I couldn't miss this opportunity."

The second group of events events of human behavior in the environment, i.e. events-actions. Action events not only serve to achieve a specific goal, but often open up a new life perspective. They fully allow you to show the relationship of the individual to what is happening in the world. Moreover, for understanding a person, as a rule, it is not the fact of an act that is important, but what a person wanted to “say” to them.

Events-actions have a basis in the prevailing circumstances, but ripen in the sphere of experiences, in the inner world of a person. Their meaning is reduced to the affirmation or denial of any values.

The search, discovery, acceptance or rejection of values ​​constitute the spiritual biography of a person, which has its key points - inner life events. The events of the inner life are the reading of a book or watching a play or a film, which have become memorable for a reason; meeting with a person who had a special influence in the spiritual plan, which influenced the further course of life; contact with a professional psychologist or psychotherapist, which leads to "finding yourself", etc. The event of the inner life can be "hiking in the forest" or "thinking on a hummock" (I give real examples of such events), filled with special meaning and experiences that a person carries through his whole life. Obviously, who we are is not least determined by such events.

To describe the life path, the concept is very productive. life choice. Choice is an act.
A life choice is an act on the scale of life. life choice - this is a turning point on the path of life, which has its own structure and internal trends, indicating the direction of the individual, the ways of his interaction with the world and the level of development. Life choice enters a person into a certain social context, contributing to the development of specific relationships and activities, the emergence of new functions and forms of activity, increasing initiative and social responsibility. Life choice allows you to “see” what a person lives for, what he aspires to, how he achieves his life goals.

When choosing a place of residence, study or work, a life partner or boss, as well as deciding to have a child or divorce, etc., a person defends his life values ​​(not those for which we pay, but those for which we live) . Thus, life values ​​(for example, an interesting job, a happy family life, health, etc.) act as a meaningful and semantic characteristic of a life choice.

In addition, when making a choice, each of us makes a decision and then implements it. Both the originality of making a decision on a vital issue, and the implementation of the decision (there are many ways of such implementation) are all components of a life choice, its instrumental characteristics. Based on the concept of life choice and paraphrasing J.-P. Sartre, one more definition of personality can be proposed: "Personality is her choice".

Human life is the path of formation and development of the personality, which occurs in the process of assimilation of social experience through a certain activity - activity. The beginning of a conscious path is always difficult, scary, diverse. A person realizes himself throughout his life. What he is capable of can always be realized. At the same time, it must be remembered that the path of one's development and its results always depend only on the person himself.

Therefore, at the beginning of one's journey, problems always arise with the satisfaction of certain needs, the realization of one's capabilities. It must be remembered that the person himself is responsible for the choice made. Adolescence is a special period in choosing a further path of development. Adolescence is the stage of formation of self-awareness and one's own thinking, the stage of making responsible decisions, the stage of human closeness, when the values ​​of friendship, love and intimacy become paramount. This period is characterized by maximalism of judgments, a kind of egocentrism of thinking: developing his theories, the young man behaves as if the world had to obey his theories, and not theories of reality. He strives to assert his independence and originality, all this is accompanied by typical behavioral reactions: disregard for the advice of elders, distrust and criticism of older generations, sometimes even open opposition. But at the same time, he seeks the moral support of his peers, he is subject to the influence of peers, which determines the unity of tastes, behavioral styles, moral norms (youth fashion, jargon, subculture) - even crimes among young people are of a group nature, committed under the influence of a group. Youth acts as a period of making responsible decisions that determine the entire future life of a person: the choice of a profession and one's place in life, the choice of the meaning of life, the choice of a life partner, the creation of one's family. A person is free in his choice and is obliged to bear full responsibility for what he has chosen.

The formation of self-consciousness in adolescence occurs in the following areas:
1. Opening of their inner world - they perceive their emotions not as a feeling from external events, but as a state of their Self, a feeling of their dissimilarity, peculiarity appears;
2. There is an awareness of irreversibility, the finiteness of time, of one's existence;
3. A holistic view of oneself, an attitude towards oneself is formed;
4. Awareness occurs and attitudes are formed towards the emerging sexual sensitivity.
A person self-determines himself in various forms: life self-determination (definition of oneself in relation to the criteria for the meaning of life and self-realization); personal self-determination (definition of oneself in relation to the criteria for the formation of a person in society); social self-determination (definition of oneself in relation to the criteria of belonging to a certain sphere of social relations, belonging to a certain social circle); professional self-determination (definition of oneself in relation to the criteria of professionalism developed in society). The types of self-determination depend on the stage of human development and on the conditions of the society in which he is located.

It can be noted that the evolution of scientific ideas about the life path of a person to a certain extent reflected the social situation in our society. The concept of the life path and the idea of ​​the subject of life were proposed by Rubinstein in the mid-1930s, but then they disappeared from the horizon of psychological science for a long time. They did not develop further in Soviet psychology because of the social atmosphere that made up the characteristics of our society and influenced the development of the humanities: the denial of any role for the individual. Rubinstein turned to solving these problems in the 1950s, during the most difficult period of his life and the life of society, when these scientific problems became acute social problems. In the 60s, the Soviet psychologist B. G. Ananiev took up specific studies of the life path [See: Ananiev B. G. Man as an object of knowledge. L., 1969. The studies of B. G. Ananyev were continued by his students (see: Karsaevskaya T. V. The progress of society and the problems of the biosocial development of modern man. M., 1978; Loginova N. A. Development of personality and its life path / / The principle of development in psychology. M., 1978). For him, the main characteristic of life is the age of a person. Age, according to Ananiev, connects the social and biological into special "quanta" - periods of the life path ... .. In the life path, he singles out cognition, activity and communication through which the personality is manifested and studied. Ananiev introduced the concept of social achievements of the individual and singled out several periods of her life: childhood (upbringing, training and development), youth (training, education and communication), maturity (professional and social self-determination of the individual, creating a family and carrying out socially useful activities). The period of maturity is the "peak" of a career. The last period is old age, i.e. withdrawal from socially useful and professional activities while maintaining activity in the family sphere.

But since in the public consciousness of those years, due to the tendency towards standardization, towards the unification of people, the idea of ​​the typical life of all people dominated, it was also reflected in the concept of Ananiev, who, on the one hand, sought to emphasize the individuality of a person, but on the other, he still could not move away from the trend of unification, standardization of life. The concept of the life path, according to Ananiev, took into account the social and age periodization of life rather than the personal one itself. He failed to reveal the individual aspect of life because he did not turn to the study of the activity of the personality itself, which forms its own, unique life line. At the same time, Ananiev's concept was a necessary prerequisite for the subsequent discussion of the question of the typical and the individual in the life path of the individual.

Today we have the opportunity to reveal the individual characteristics of a person's life path. But for this it is necessary not only to establish the correspondence of certain stages, events and circumstances of life to certain features and traits of the personality, but to reveal the causal relationship of activity, personality development and changes in her life. We cannot dive into the description of the individual life story of each person, because each story is unique. In addition, the initial dependence of the individual on the objective characteristics of life as a social process remains. But a person is included in the totality of the causes and consequences of his life, not only as dependent on external circumstances, but also as actively transforming them, moreover, as forming, within certain limits, the position and line of his life.

Personality does not just change throughout the life path, not only goes through different age stages. As the subject of life, it acts as its organizer, in which, first of all, the individual character of life is manifested. Individuality is not only the uniqueness of life, which is usually emphasized by the concept of fate as supposedly independent of man. The individuality of life consists in the ability of a person to organize it according to his own plan, in accordance with his inclinations, aspirations (they are reflected in the concept of “life style” [See: Life style of a person. Kyiv, 1982.]). The less a person thinks through, comprehends his life, the less he seeks to organize its course, determine its main direction, the more, as a rule, his life becomes imitative, and therefore similar to the life of other people, standard.

Different people are the subjects of life to different extents, because they strive to varying degrees and can actually organize their lives as a whole, connect its separate plans, spheres, and single out the main direction. The organization of life is sometimes associated with planning, with understanding life prospects, the future. Of course, planning is one of the important components of the organization of life, but it is not limited to one planning, foresight. As already noted, modern social life presents a person with many unrelated requirements, he always finds himself in different situations that in one way or another require him, if not participation, then presence. The ability to organize life lies in not succumbing to this life flow, not to dissolve and drown in it, forgetting about your own goals and tasks. Therefore, the organization of life is also the ability to connect and implement cases, situations in such a way that they obey a single plan, concentrate on the main direction, give them a desirable definite course.

People differ precisely in the degree of influence on the course of their own lives, mastery of numerous life situations that can “split” a person into unrelated parts. At one time, the Soviet psychologist L. S. Vygotsky introduced the concept of “mastery” of lower mental functions to designate higher mental functions. For us, the concept of the subject of life presupposes an ever-increasing degree and expanding space of such “mastery”, appropriations. First, the child masters his actions to give them the right direction, then through actions - mastering situations, then on this basis - building relationships, and through their regulation, the possibility of organizing life as an integral process, taking into account its variability and resistance, increases more and more.

The ability of a person to regulate, organize his life path as a whole, subordinate to his goals, values, is the highest level and the true optimal quality of the subject of life. It simultaneously allows a person to become relatively independent, free in relation to external demands, pressure, external "temptations". But this is only an ideal, but in reality, different people show a different measure of the integrity of the life path, a different degree of correspondence of the personality's actions to its values, intentions [See: Tome G. Theoretical and empirical foundations of the psychology of the development of human life // The principle of development in psychology. M., 1978.].

Some people depend on the course of life events, barely keeping up with them, others - foresee, organize, direct them. Some fall under the power of external events, they manage to be involved in communication alien to their character, and even in business. They easily forget about their own goals, plans, doing unexpected things for themselves. Others, on the contrary, live only by plans, dreams, create their own logic of the inner world, go into it, so that external events have no meaning for them. They are also unable to organize their real lives. Such a different nature of the ability to organize life makes it possible to distinguish certain types of personalities from the point of view of their way of life. With this approach, we will no longer see an infinite number of different characters and an infinite number of individual manifestations of the moods of each person, but differences in an essential basis - the ability to organize life, the ability to concentrate one's forces and actions at a decisive moment, to coordinate situations and events in the main direction. Therefore, we consider different ways of organizing life as the ability of different types of individuals to spontaneously or consciously build their own life strategies.

Types of a person's activity are his characteristic ways of connecting the external and internal tendencies of life by the personality, turning them into the driving forces of his life. One can trace how in some these tendencies coincide (in whole or in part), support each other, while in others they turn out to be disunited. Some mainly rely on socio-psychological tendencies, i.e. surrounding people, using social situations; others - on internal opportunities, rely on their own strength in life, act independently; still others combine external circumstances and internal trends in an optimal way; the fourth constantly resolve contradictions between them. Under all conditions, this typology reveals not just the properties of each character, the mental characteristics of the individual. First of all, it allows you to compare the features, the way of the life movement of the individual, to reveal the ability to solve life's contradictions. The coincidence of external and internal tendencies in the life of a person or their clash, opposition characterize the way of organizing life and the type of personality.

The life goals and tasks of a person of one type turn out to be entirely focused on resolving life contradictions, which, strictly speaking, she herself creates by the inconsistency of her actions or, on the contrary, by excessive activity, suppressing the initiatives of others. She cannot solve them, because she is unable to change her way of life and understand that she herself is the cause of them. Another type of personality is involved in conflicts, which, although they unfold in a particular group (in the family, in the production team), are an expression of deeper social contradictions. In this case, a person either gains experience and social maturity, which then contribute to the organization of personal life, upholding its values, or is “ground up” by an insoluble conflict and then tries to separate his personal life from public life.

The highest personal qualities, such as consciousness, activity, psychological maturity, integrativity, are manifested and formed in the life path of the individual, in the specific process of its change, movement, development. The activity of the personality is manifested in how it transforms circumstances, directs the course of life, forms a life position. The dynamics of a person's life ceases to be a random alternation of events, it begins to depend on his activity, on his ability to organize and give events the desired direction.

The life path is subject to periodization not only by age (childhood, youth, maturity, old age), but also by personal, which, starting from youth, already ceases to coincide with age. One person goes through one social stage at an earlier age, another at a later age; the young man turns out to be wise as an old man, and the old man turns out to be youthfully immature. The personality acts as the driving force of vital dynamics, intensity, content of his life.

Its quality as a subject of life is manifested not in arbitrary actions, actions (I do what I want), but in actions that take into account the resistance of circumstances, their discrepancy with the direction desired for the individual, their opposition. Therefore, inner intentions, goals are tested for strength in life, and a person must be aware of their strength.

The Georgian school of psychologists has concretized these general considerations on the following example. A group of young people formed a certain idea of ​​the future profession, they made their choice, there was an attitude to enter the institute. The other group did not have such an attitude, since they had little idea of ​​the profession, their abilities, and opportunities. But how strong this attitude is, how strong it not only exists in the mind, but also determines the nature of life actions, how much it resists external adverse events, it turned out to be possible to reveal only when young people began to take exams at the institute. Really stubborn, persistent organizers of their lives can be called those young people who entered this institute for several years in a row, despite previous failures, and finally realized their goal.

Psychologists have identified many personal characteristics that seem to confirm the presence of a person's activity: these are motivations for action, claims, abilities, intentions, orientation, interests, etc. But the difficulties of psychologists in the study of personality have so far been associated with the fact that these characteristics and personality traits have been studied on their own, outside of life's application, often under artificial conditions or by artificial methods. This is not to say that these methods did not provide knowledge about personality. However, the real criterion for the activity of a person (motives, desires, intentions) is her ability (or inability) to realize these aspirations in actions, in deeds, in her life path.

It is necessary to constantly identify how the intentions, claims, personality traits are expressed in the life manifestations of the personality and what consequences certain ways of life have for the inner world and personal makeup, how its motives, character change, how abilities develop. For example, do failures build character or weaken or break it? In other words, it is necessary to know to what extent the life practice of a person (and not her individual actions) corresponds to her intentions, ideas, and values. The degree of coincidence or discrepancy between life practice and the values ​​of one's "I", abilities, aspirations of a person can serve as an indicator of the integrity or disunity, inconsistency of personal structures, the prospects or regressiveness of their development. That is why the study of personality and its life path is important both for psychological science and for people who realize, apply, test their abilities, character, inclinations in real life achievements [See: Activity and life position of a person. M., 1988; The life path of the individual. Kyiv, 1987.].

All the listed abilities to organize life, to solve its contradictions, to build value relations, we call life position, which is a special life and personal formation. The method of self-determination of a personality in life, generalized on the basis of its life values ​​and meeting the basic needs of the personality, can be called a life position. It is the result of the interaction of the individual with her own life, her personal achievement. Being such a result, the life position begins to determine all subsequent life directions of the individual. It becomes the potential for its development, the totality of its objective and subjective possibilities, which open up precisely on the basis of the position taken by a person, a kind of support, a fortress.

In the 1970s, the concept of an active life position appeared in socio-political literature. Sociologists have tried to define this concept through a set of roles that a person performs in life, but this designation does not reveal how a person realizes his life roles (it is important not only that a woman is a mother, but what kind of mother she is; it is not important that a person is teacher, but what kind of teacher he is, etc. [See: Sardzhveladze N. I. Personal position and representation of the life path among youth // Psychology of personality and way of life. M., 1987.]). In our opinion, the life position of a person is the totality of his attitudes towards life. (Psychologist V. N. Myasishchev developed a theory of personality, in which it is defined through a set of relationships.) But a person’s relationships are not only her subjective opinions and views, they are ways of her relationship with other people and reality. V. N. Myasishchev understood relationships as a set of subjectively significant for the individual, and life position implies not only the existence of subjective relationships, but also their effective, practical implementation by the individual in life.

Above we talked about one of the main attitudes to life - about responsibility. In addition to this relationship, which can be called a kind of life principle, there are many other relationships: relationships with other people (including relatives), which are distinguished by either indifference or care; attitude to work, to one's profession, to oneself (more specifically, to the place that one managed to take in society, in the professional sphere), etc. Feeling fear of life's difficulties, a person can take a contemplative life position, move away from the problems of loved ones, shy away from helping them, caring for them. His professional position may turn out to be similar: to work to the best of his ability, not to set any tasks, to do only what is required. Unfortunately, such life positions have been the most typical in recent times.

The position of another type of personality consists, for example, in a clear separation of one's own life world, tasks that are interesting for him, important affairs for him from the affairs and interests (official, family, etc.) of those around him. He consistently and actively implements the relations that are significant for him (connections, contacts), while he maintains the insignificant ones “for the sake of appearance”. This position of a young man is sometimes encountered by a woman; she seeks in vain to strengthen, to win his attitude towards herself, not realizing that he can have the same relationship with anyone else in her place. This person will easily change one job for another, one friend for another, if the new environment will help him achieve his goals. This is an egocentric (if not egoistic) life position.

For a long time and persistently, psychologists and even sociologists (for example, Moreno) tried to single out and study subjective relations as the main factor, i.e. likes and dislikes of people. However, with this approach, the real relations of people fell out of sight, and scientists were captured by subjectivism, since sympathies and antipathies are often unreasonable and even unconscious. Although they affect life relations, they cannot replace the real objective relations of people (business relations of people, as a rule, are not built on sympathy or antipathy). “Life,” wrote Rubinstein, “is a process in which man himself objectively participates. The main criterion of his attitude to life is the construction in himself and in others of new, more and more perfect, internal, and not just external forms of human life and human relations ”[Rubinshtein S. L. Problems of General Psychology. S. 379.].

The life position of a person can also be determined through its activity, but then it is important not only to reveal activity as a psychological feature of the personality itself and its consciousness, but also to show how it realized its capabilities, abilities, its consciousness in its life position. It is about how much she applied her abilities, to what extent she consciously lives.

Above were examples of fairly consistent positions. However, their bifurcated, contradictory variants are also possible. A person considers himself a principled person, likes to talk about his principles, but he really uses his professional position for his own benefit, he can deceive, let him down, do it out of spite. His "double game" in the end, in addition to material acquisitions, leads to one loss (the respect of relatives and colleagues is lost, the strength of professional status, professional skills, authority, etc.).

Another type of contradictory position is manifested in a kind of life “throwing”: a person either makes decisions to advance his affairs (dissertation defense, “career”), then closes himself in the family circle, postponing the first until “better times”, then abandons both, deciding start life "again", changes family, job. The position of such a person (and himself) is unreliable, unstable, chaotic, although in every undertaking he undertakes to “settle”, “arrange”, “organize” everything. He will never know until the end what he wanted and what he achieved in life.

Life position has an initial objective characteristic - the participation of the individual in areas where social life is most intense, promising, where many opportunities are concentrated. Some people start life with what others achieve only towards the end of their lives. This is the cultural environment, and educational opportunities, and a more or less favorable social situation in which they find themselves, regardless of their will and efforts. But there is also a “poor social environment”, or an environment devoid of significant opportunities and events. Getting into such conditions, a person finds himself in a hopeless life position, which objectively does not contribute to his development. But it also depends on a person as a subject whether he achieves higher successes, whether he achieves more optimal conditions. Personality as a subject of life is characterized by aspiration, focus on developing, more optimal areas of life, the need for one's own development.

When we talk about the role of social conditions in the life of an individual (with equal principles of labor, rights, freedoms, etc.), they can also turn out to be more or less favorable for his development (on time and in the best educational institution, education received, favorable opportunities for mastering a profession, etc.) [See: Parygin B. D. Scientific and technological progress and the problem of self-realization of the individual // Personality psychology and lifestyle.]. More favorable conditions, in turn, can increase the activity of a person who implements them more intensively (than another under the same conditions) in professional activities, supplementing them with their own personal efforts and abilities, which together form an active life position.

However, many examples can be cited from the life of the families of prominent scientists, artists, i.e. people who provided their children with the initial optimal conditions for development, from which it is clear how the protection of parents when entering an institute, for work, etc. paralyze their own motivation, the needs of a young person. These favorable conditions still have to be “consistent”, coincide with the internal needs, opportunities, and activity of children. Sometimes a young person gets so much that it closes the prospect of his own development and movement for him, deprives him of the motivation to achieve, the need to live at his own peril and risk. That is why it is necessary to talk about the proportionality of objective and subjective moments in life relations and the position of the individual.

And in the absence of favorable social conditions, a person can, thanks to his activity, achieve a promising life position (break out of the provinces, from the professional traditions of the family, enter the best educational institution in the country, master the profession perfectly, combine study and work, etc.).

A life position is not only life relationships, but also a way of their implementation that meets (or does not meet) the needs, values ​​of the individual. A person may have active life aspirations, high moral values, but the way of organizing life (sometimes inability, sometimes fear, sometimes passivity in implementation) may contradict these initial “good intentions”, his life position turns out to be inconsistent with these aspirations, needs. Then he either begins to justify himself in his own eyes, or tries to change this position.

S. L. Rubinstein gives an analysis of his life position in his diaries. Due to the sudden illness of his father, who lost his law practice and the opportunity to provide for his family financially, he very early (at first morally and psychologically, and then practically in life) became the eldest in the family, the support of his parents and brothers. The position of seniority and the responsibility associated with it became his leading position for the rest of his life, determined his relationship with both those close to him and those "far away", manifested itself both in his personal and scientific life.

A life position is a way of social life developed by a person under given conditions, a place in a profession, a way of self-expression. Unlike subjective relations (meaning, picture, and even the concept of life), a life position is a set of realized life relations, values, ideals and the found nature of their implementation, which determines the further course of life.

If the basic life relations of a person are integrated, meet his initial intentions, then his position is characterized by integrity, purposefulness and even harmony. If the main relationships are not interconnected, and the way they are implemented does not correspond to them, then such a life position can be called unstable, uncertain, and the person is insecure. Such a person is not ready for life changes, surprises, life difficulties.

There are such options for a life position when it is divorced from real life. This happens with creative individuals when they cannot realize themselves in science or art, or with people who purely outwardly, superficially participate in practical life and actually take a position of non-participation. Their life relationships are random, but this is masked by their own illusions.

A life position is a certain established formation that has its own relatively fixed structure, which does not exclude its variability, the possibility of development. Life position can be characterized at different levels of specificity, ranging from the empirical-descriptive to the essential-abstract. An important characteristic of it is the contradictions in life, which, as a result of this or that position, are either aggravated or smoothed out. For example, a person is maximally active, but cannot realize it in this way, and, conversely, a person lacks readiness, activity, maturity, it would seem, in the most optimal life situation. Easily obtained material goods corrupt the personality, develop a dangerous illusion of all-accessibility and permissiveness, form an attitude towards an easy life. Life position is characterized both by contradictions and by the method of their solution (constructive, passive, superficial, etc.), which shows whether a person is able to combine his individual psychological, status, age capabilities and claims with the conditions of life, whether he is able to consistently compose these conditions.

In the era of stagnation, the life positions of many people, paradoxically as it may seem, did not conflict with social demands due to internal compromises that people (consciously or unconsciously) made. However, the personal price they had to pay for this compromise consisted in deep personal losses and degradation of the personality. Taking the position “just to survive”, “get by”, people, while maintaining well-being in life, lost their own goals, ideals, courage and breadth of nature, became small townsfolk. Wanting to preserve the possibility of creativity and self-realization in art, a person fell into dependence on people alien to art, believed incompetent assessments, found himself bound by mutual responsibility with those who speculated on his talent and gradually lost his creative inspiration, turned into an artisan.

Abulkhanova-Slavskaya K. A. Strategy of life. - M .: Thought, 1991. - p. 10-75