Cattle or not cattle - that is the question.
The article, of course, is not at all about cattle - in the sense of e, which usually has a negative connotation in circulation and is even used as a curse. About the mental phenomenon, denoted by the word "cattle" happened on this site. I use this word to mean as a symbol of a state that does not require creative motivation in people who are not particularly annoyed dissatisfaction with existing(I do not dare to say how hereditarily predetermined it is). Yes, this word has a sad, anti-evolutionary connotation ... However, the word "redneck" implies one of the most common poles of personal strategies in life.
Speaking about the scope of applicability of the concept, it is worth noting that evolution, the seething desire to change something, is not always justified under certain conditions that are close to the optimum for a given species. Cats are cute and wonderful even without creativity :) although playful, creative adventurers are much more interesting to many.
I will also clarify that the word "creativity" is not taken in the usual sense e. We can conditionally distinguish three levels of involvement of the mechanisms of creativity. The first one is sorting through memories with predictive dream-like visions of possible rainbow (or harsh) pictures, the second one is based on the first one, but with the addition of skills to develop new options - it’s like an intermediate level of creativity, and the third one is based on the second one, but with the motivation to embody these creative fantasies for transmission to society.
In more detail: The first level - the mode of predictive promotions of significant plots or the dream mode - is a pure fantasy that remains to itself, with all the inadequate ones. In this variant, the emerging new-significant plots are conditioned by the current contexts of the chains of experiences, the overlap of which can create new combinations. This is passive creativity - in the sense of not requiring the active involvement of a generator of new ideas. These options can be realistically tested in suitable situations.
The second level is not just passive motivational subjective fantasies, but the accumulated skills of finding new desired options are connected to them. This, too, can remain a subjective fantasy and pile up in thoughts that are more and more distant from reality, or maybe, under suitable conditions, it can be tried out realistically, but remaining personal subjective skills. A person remains a thing in itself and, having given away the skates, takes everything that belongs to him to nowhere.
The third level involves efforts to formalize one's ideas in order to communicate personal predictions to other people. This is life's creativity, which, with sufficient demand, remains for some time its relevance in the collective consciousness of society.
It must be said that all three levels affect the surrounding people in one way or another, since they observe what bears the manifestations of these ideas: the behavior of a person - the bearer of the idea. It affects the people around you, who, in turn, spread it further.
But only in the third variant do the ideas have as wide an influence as the commonly shared symbols in a formalized form allow the idea to do so. Of course, communication using verbal symbols is much more extensive.
Even from the point of view of storing for the future the skills of more universal adaptability acquired by creativity, the benefits are rather debatable: it is impossible to foresee everything, and there is a certain harm in self-improvement without an urgent need. So the cattle should not be indiscriminately condemned - it occupies its own, perhaps very important, stabilizing niche in society. Moreover, even the most indifferently ebullient are far from always creators, and in many situations and moments they fit the criteria of cattle, and some creators would be better off being cattle in view of the destructiveness for society of the results of their efforts. But no one can tell in advance what kind of evil when can turn into good and vice versa ...
Everyone cannot and should not be the same and, accordingly, they play those social roles for which they have managed to adapt. Only in a limited area of mutual understanding people are united by a common culture. To a much greater extent, they belong relatively stably to different subcultures and more local enclaves, from the circle of the closest to the circle of interests determined by personal life strategy. This was determined in the early stages of personality formation.
An example of the specific influence of the common culture that is set in the early stages of development is visible in the article Life Strategies of Modern Youth:
As the data of recent sociological studies show, parental attitudes are dominated by an orientation towards conformist values ( ability to behave in public, honesty, accuracy, obedience to parents, good grades and behavior at school) and, to a much lesser extent, an orientation towards the development of internal regulators of children's behavior (responsibility, sensitivity and attentiveness to people, curiosity, self-control). This orientation of parents to convey conformist values to children at the expense of developing their internal regulators of behavior makes adolescents highly dependent on the environment in which they find themselves., which in the conditions of an unstable Russian society especially increases the likelihood of deviant behavior.
In parallel with the active advertising of clearly inflated living standards, the idea is being promoted that poverty is the result of a person’s personal shortcomings: laziness, lack of professionalism, inflexibility, lack of initiative ... Therefore, it is a shame to be poor! As a result, public opinion formed the idea that society is divided into successful people, that is, those who have money (first of all, these are entrepreneurs and criminals) and everyone else (that is, the poor and, therefore, unsuccessful) .... The specifics of the Russian situation lies in the fact that formerly quite prosperous people in social terms, among whom there were many specialists with higher education, found themselves on the brink of poverty and beyond it.
See criticism of Ayn Rand Atlas Shrugged.
The most common life strategy of the younger generation - getting an education that gives a money profession and a comfortable personal life - is built in order to achieve maximum independence, complete freedom, opposed to any restrictions, any "dependencies". In essence, this life strategy is formulated as follows: "I want to have a good education and a well-paid job so that I don't have to depend on anyone." In other words, I enter the social world (study, earn, work) because I want to free myself from society and even from my family (“not to depend on anyone!”), not to be connected with anything or anyone, “to do, whatever I want .... It is obvious that the current model of success, fueled by the dream of unlimited freedom, is nothing more than a utopia. At the same time, it is a natural reaction to the fear of the criminalization of society and the ever-widening gap between the rich ("businessmen") and the poor ("everyone else").
Like any act of adapting a person to something new using the mechanisms of consciousness, the process of choice and the correct choice of a life strategy presupposes a personal assessment of the result: how much the desired is in line with the expected. In other words, in the most general terms, since we are talking about a strategy, the main role is played by the assessment of satisfaction with the existing, in the most general terms - satisfaction with life.
And here there is an important point: such an assessment depends on the specifics of the value system of a particular person, as well as, in general, the tendency to overestimate or underestimate the significance of the results of one's behavior. It is easy to see, in principle, that those who are inclined to overestimate the positiveness of the results of their activities are more easily satisfied with what they have achieved, and that is where they stop their efforts, stopping the process of adapting to the new. They easily assess the result as quite acceptable, the assessment may have such a low threshold of satisfaction with the result that their system of ideas tends to justify even failures with some of their own explanations (which always happens when there is a very important Idea or fixed idea, but the ease of a positive assessment does not always has this idea as its cause).
Here are some illustrative statements.
Worry is dissatisfaction, and dissatisfaction is the first condition for progress.. (Thomas Edison)
Dissatisfaction is a source not only of suffering, but also of progress in the lives of individuals and entire nations.. (Erich Auerbach)
The main properties of his character are eternal dissatisfaction and constant obstinacy - not onlystimulated Lomonosovmove forward, towards discoveries, but quite often created problems and troubles on the way to enlightenment.
In Scott Miller's book, Chapter 13 Life Satisfaction:
One of the popular topics in the psychology of aging is called differently: “morale”, “subjective well-being”, “life satisfaction* or simply “happiness”. This is a question of great importance: how satisfied is a person with his life?
To solve this problem, many studies have been directed using LSI And SWLS and similar methods.
Marital status also has a relationship with life satisfaction; Married people generally have higher life satisfaction scores than those who are widowed or divorced.... Perhaps the most interesting result concerns the relationship between activity levels and life satisfaction. A number of studies have found that this relationship is positive - that is, older people who lead an active lifestyle are more satisfied with their lives than those who have a reduced level of activity.
It can be assumed that such a pronounced relationship between dissatisfaction and progress has evolved into an inherited predisposition of some people to dissatisfaction with the existing, since this is a powerful adaptive factor in human evolution. However, hypertrophy of this quality can turn into a disaster for the society, and therefore the manifestations of excessive dissatisfaction, expressed in specific actions, should also be somehow evolutionarily limited. Perhaps such a limiter is a conservative predisposition to a redneck existence, which can be defended very actively.
In any case, it can be stated that in society there is a balance of those who are prone to active dissatisfaction and those who are prone to conservatism. The former provide progress, they have more developed systems of adaptability, they are enthusiastic researchers. The latter prevent all innovations that are uncomfortable for them, alarming. The former are more often great heroes and great villains, they are full of life because only this gives their life meaning, to some extent satisfies. They need socially demanded activity that fills their lives with meaning. The latter can easily be satisfied even without special social activity, communication in the circle of relatives or an enclave of interests. But in general, no one can be without social activity - this leads to severe depression.
From the article The study of the main characteristics of a person's life strategy:
Under the life strategy we mean such a way of being, a system of values and goals, the implementation of which, according to a person's ideas, makes it possible to make his life more efficient. In other words, it is the art of leading one's own life.
The problem of life strategy is closely connected with the eternal problem of the meaning of life, and if the first answers the question of how to live, then the second answers the question of what to live for.
The main indicators of the effectiveness of a person's life strategy are his life satisfaction and mental health.
...The results of this study indicate that people with higher levels of meaningfulness of life and the overall level of subjective control, as a rule, choose and implement a way of life that underlies the life strategy of creativity, i.e. consciously or unconsciously they take the position of an active creator of their life and rely on such values as love, beauty, creativity, kindness, development. They are satisfied with their lives and have higher mental health scores.
A. Adler notes that the formation of life goals begins in childhood as a compensation for feelings of inferiority, insecurity and helplessness in the adult world. The life goal is formed in early childhood under the influence of personal experience, values, and characteristics of the personality itself. It is in childhood, in his opinion, that a life style is formed - an integrated style of adaptation to life and interaction with it. Love, friendship and work A. Adler calls the main life tasks that a person faces, which are determined by the conditions of human existence and allow maintaining and developing life in the environment in which he is.
Domestic psychologists distinguish three main types of life strategies: the strategy of well-being, the strategy of life success and the strategy of self-realization. These types are based on more generalized ideas about what people tend to strive for in life. The content of these strategies is determined by the nature of the social activity of the individual. Thus, receptive ("consumer") activity is the basis of the life well-being strategy. A prerequisite for a life success strategy is, first of all, motivational ("achievement") activity, which is designed for public recognition. A striking example of this, according to the authors, is entrepreneurship. The strategy of self-realization is characterized by creative activity. Rather, mixed types are encountered in life: we all, but to varying degrees, strive for well-being, success and self-realization, for a different scale of implementation of these strategies.
American psychologists distinguish two groups of life strategies based on the predominance of internal and external aspirations. External aspirations, the evaluation of which depends on other people, are based on such values as material well-being, social recognition and physical attractiveness. Inner aspirations are based on the values of personal growth, health, love, affection, service to society.
The strategy of creativity is a way of being, in which a person consciously or unconsciously takes the position of an active creator of his life, relying on such values as love, beauty, kindness, development, i.e. making choices in favor of mental and spiritual health.
People who have a lower level of subjective control are not used to being responsible for their lives, they do not feel the strength to influence the course of their lives, they live according to the "have" principle (according to E. Fromm), unlike those who strive "to be" many.
The most common, intuitively professed setting in the motivations of those who are quite satisfied with life is the desire for pleasure. In conditions of low exactingness in assessing one's own behavior, this becomes the main justification for even obviously inadequate actions that require some kind of justification to eliminate the negative mismatch between what is expected and what is received. For those who don't demonstrate it, the "workaholics", the explorers, the passionate creators of all kinds, the question often asked is "How do you relax?".
The desire for pleasure - as a goal, at its very core can be the context of a life strategy and, accordingly, the possibilities for achieving such goals - are very diverse and, most often, quite accessible. Of course, the need for a stage of preparation is recognized and accepted, a stage of necessary efforts for the accumulation of potential a, which can be turned into pleasure. But in the most unpretentious cases, this is realized by the traditional "branch" from Friday evenings and weekends, relaxation on vacation and holidays, which have become quite traditional and familiar ways, complemented by affordable exotics.
In general, a confident impression is created: everything that efforts are directed to, all emerging tasks and goals have one basis of motivation: obtaining final pleasure, joy, in the most general form - a feeling of happiness.
Such ideas are so deeply rooted that if a person does not receive a dose regulated for him in certain cases, then this seriously worries him up to the word "loser" spinning in his head.
If this were true, then the problem of humanity's immersion in the nirvana of happiness becomes easily solved, because there are very effective technical ways to achieve a happy state of any conceivable strength and duration, and this will end the meaning of the existence of any person. If we imagine that everyone was given happiness buttons and you just need to poke them, which is technically feasible today, then by the beginning of the next day the planet Earth will be completely free from the environmental problems of perished humanity.
In fact, the feeling of happiness and unhappiness are functionally equal and equally necessary assessments of what is happening to a person, which allow one to learn to avoid the bad and strive for the good. The concepts of good and bad are fundamentally individual, depend on the current state of the system of significance of the individual, and no one, except the individual himself, can give a correct assessment of them in these conditions.
A happy state marks successful actions, an unhappy state marks a desired one that has not yet been achieved. In the first case, you can no longer think, but simply use the found successful recipe for action, which becomes familiar, in the second, everything depends on the personal threshold of pretension, on the motivating force of dissatisfaction.
Everyone has such a threshold: starting from some predictable complexity with a given strength of need, the search for ways to solve the problem is postponed, and that, in the outcome of which one is not sure, is not done. This threshold is developed by personal life experience and, like any skill, depends on the specifics of the conditions.
This is a very important kind of personal knowledge: in which situations to intervene, and in which it is better not to participate. And, like any knowledge, it is impossible to transfer directly to another, in the form of information. When a person is not sure of the outcome, feeling what failure may threaten, and the other one persistently shouts: “Jump, you coward! It’s only six meters! automatisms of other people's reactions, which he worked out for himself. He has never grouped at all in his life, and by jumping, he may gain his experience at too high a price, but without really learning the right action. What is the best way to act in such critical situations? .. In the article About dangers:
What is done confidently, without thinking, automatically - is the most well-practiced experience. It gives the most expected, positive results and the least risk. And what requires reflection, not confident enough, gives a high risk of an unsuccessful outcome. Here is the criterion: If you are thinking, not sure enough, be especially careful and, if possible, take your time.
If you approached a log across a stormy river, this is not new for you and does not cause thought, then go without hesitation and, most likely, everything will be fine. Otherwise, it is worth considering very well a safer option for passing, for example, not on your feet, but sitting, pererzyvaya further along the log.
General strategy: if there is time and the situation is not sure, think as best you can. But when there is no time left, you need to act, then do it without hesitation, like a ram jumping over rocks, confidently and automatically - this will give the highest chance of success. Then it remains only to hope for the lottery of fate ...
By this moment, it should already become clear to what extent the correctness of the choice of life strategy is determined by the understanding of how the individual adapts to the environment. So, it turns out that the common ideas about the need to strive for a happy state - as an end in itself - is a mechanism turned inside out: how the accumulation of personal experience is organized due to a positive or negative assessment of the results of an action attempt. It turns out that in order to stay on good terms with those around you, you need to strive not for happiness at all costs and preferably in a pure, unclouded form, but for the success of your actions, which is accompanied by a feeling of joy in getting what you want. And dissatisfaction or annoyance from failure should not be considered as in any case unacceptable, because then you will never learn how to hammer nails, ride a bike, defeat an opponent, or anything at all, because all learning is inevitably based on trial errors and finding ways to adjust them in the direction of the desired result.
The way to be as close as possible to the main streams of social life and at the same time remain an original personality, and not an appendage of someone else's will, inevitably turns out to be the need to develop a fairly effective basic system of understanding - worldview. On this basis, it becomes possible for the socially active part of people to form an original influence in society - in the area of their specialization.
A person, living in society, is constantly faced with many demands placed on him by parents, teachers, friends, strangers, etc. Each person, in turn, has his own needs, desires, interests that he seeks to realize. In real life circumstances, there is often a clash between the objective requirements of reality and the needs of the individual, which gives rise to various kinds of life contradictions. The degree of integration of life requirements with the needs, interests, values of the individual leads to the formation of various life strategies.
In foreign and domestic psychology, the number of works devoted to the consideration of life strategy and its varieties is limited. This aspect was studied in detail by K.A. Abulkhanova-Slavskaya and R. Pekhunen in the framework of the study of the issue of the life path of the individual.
In a broad sense, K.A. Abulkhanova-Slavskaya gives the following definition of a life strategy - it is “a fundamental ability of a person to combine his individuality with the conditions of life, to reproduce and develop it, realized in various life conditions, circumstances”. In a narrow sense, it is the development of a certain life solution to overcome life's contradictions.
In his works, R. Pehunen notes that a life strategy is developed by a person. Personality in this regard is divided into three subsystems based on the life function performed - control systems, actions and feedback. Each of the subsystems is responsible for different aspects of life strategy.
Control system regulates the goal-setting characteristics of the life strategy:
Ø having an idea about your future;
Ø avoidance or desire for it;
Ø the degree of hierarchy of life goals;
Ø externality/internality of the locus of control of one's own life;
Ø the presence of a time perspective (connection of the past, present and future);
Ø range of vital interests;
Ø external / internal orientation of goals.
Action system responsible for achieving life goals.
Ø the level of action planning to achieve the set goals;
Ø rigidity/plasticity in the use of means of achievement;
Ø the specifics of establishing social contacts and activities in general.
Feedback system characterizes the degree of openness in expressing emotions of success or failure.
As a basis for the classification of life strategies, R. Pehunen proposes to consider the way in which a person resolves emerging life conflicts between the requirements and possibilities of the social environment and the habitual way of life of the individual. Based on the foregoing, Pehunen distinguishes two general types of life strategies: at the stage of detecting a conflict and at the stage of overcoming it.
In the stage of conflict detection, the personality, according to the author, is capable of displaying defensive strategies of two subtypes: conservatism and avoidance. The essence of the conservative strategy lies in the desire of the individual to maintain the usual way of life, ignoring the changed external conditions. A conservative life strategy has an unwillingness and inability to change in the new conditions of life, a clear and rigid hierarchy of life goals, punctuality in performing daily activities, and limited vital interests.
The avoidance strategy is manifested either in increased activity of the individual in less conflict areas (active avoidance), or in isolation (passive avoidance). For a person with such a strategy, the perception of the future as a threat and uncertainty is characteristic, which leads to the inconstancy of life goals that do not take into account the real possibilities of the individual. In the time perspective, there is a predominance of the present with a focus on meeting one's own needs. The emotional sphere is characterized by a predominance of depression and anxiety.
After a person has discovered a life conflict, Pehunen believes, she is able to demonstrate one of three subtypes of life strategies that characterize the behavior of a person in a difficult life situation:
Ø Failure strategy;
Ø Adaptation strategy;
Ø Development strategy.
Failure strategy manifests itself in the case when life's difficulties are perceived by a person as insoluble, which leads to the cessation of the struggle with them. At the subjective level, this strategy manifests itself in the presence of a feeling of helplessness, which is reflected in the picture of the life path as a whole in the form of a narrowing of a person's social contacts and spheres of activity. A person who demonstrates a life strategy of refusal is characterized by the perception of life in the form of numerous life failures, a negative perception of the future, which leads to a lack of planning. In the life perspective, there is a predominance of the present, the egocentric nature of life goals, limited by the need for survival. Such a person constantly needs external help, showing conservatism in terms of the chosen methods of action. There may be a gradual loss of interest in the past, the cessation of an active search for social contacts.
If there is adaptive strategy the person accepts the changed life situations, as a result of which he seeks to change his way of life and himself. Pehunen identifies three types of possible adaptation: passive, active and in the form of adaptive self-restraint. If a person adheres to the strategy of passive adaptation, then the life difficulties that have arisen are perceived by him as due and irreversible. As a result, such a person places responsibility for his own life on external authorities. In the case of a strategy of passive adaptation of life, a person is under the control of external forces (submission to power, religion, society, the will of others, relying on circumstances). Life perspective is limited to the present with no clear hierarchy of goals. Social contacts are limited to the search for support, submission. There may be some dissatisfaction with the current state of affairs.
A person with active adaptation is able to change his own attitude to his occupations and develop new ways of behavior and activity under the restrictions imposed by the current situation. Active adaptation is characterized by the presence of a life perspective with a wide potential for opportunities in the future. The present manifests itself in the search for new opportunities, the construction of plans for their implementation. Life is subordinated to its own, hierarchically built goals, with a diverse arsenal of means that allows easy adaptation to changing life situations. Social contacts and activities are characterized by breadth with the presence of a particularly significant area.
In the case of adaptive self-restraint, a person performs only those activities that are familiar, without mastering new ones, taking into account the changed conditions. The life perspective includes several life goals in which the dominant one does not stand out. Life goals are based on the goals of society. Such a person is satisfied with the present, showing a desire to maintain a habitual way of life, using generally accepted methods in activities. Social contacts are limited.
Development strategy represents the overcoming of a life conflict, manifested in the search for and mastery of new life spheres of activity.
K.A. Abulkhanova-Slavskaya in one of her works examines in detail the issue of typology of life events. The author notes that the fundamental aspect of life strategy is the question of correlating the type of personality with the way of life, in connection with which two criteria for life strategies are distinguished - internal and external. The internal criterion refers to the degree of activity of the individual in building his own life. The external criterion for the selection of life strategies is the objective requirements of social reality. Activity is the leading parameter penetrating all spheres of human life. It manifests itself as "the ability to achieve an optimal balance between the desired and the necessary." Based on this, all life strategies are divided into two general types - active and passive. In addition, Abulkhanova identifies two forms of activity: initiative and responsibility. Their ratio may or may not be optimal. Active strategies can be with a predominance of initiative or with a predominance of responsibility.
predominance initiatives in a life strategy leads to the fact that a person is in a state of constant search, dissatisfaction with what has been achieved. The state of satisfaction may arise not at the final stage of activity, but in the process of it, when there is novelty and awareness of a huge number of possibilities. Being active, such a person focuses mainly only on the desirable, and not on the possible. When confronted with reality, which often differs from the imagined one, in this case there is an inability to independently identify goals, means and stages of getting out of the current situation, to identify what depends and what does not depend on the individual. External indicators of the life path may be limited to a small set of life events, but on a subjective level, life is perceived as very rich, since "such a person constantly creates contradictions." Thus, an initiative life strategy is characterized by a constant expansion of the range of life activities, the presence of a personal perspective, manifested in the construction of a large number of multi-stage life plans, and a constant search for new living conditions.
According to the way of life self-expression, it is possible to distinguish subtypes of life strategies of enterprising people. For some, the way of life self-expression lies in self-giving and self-squandering. Such people actively "involve many people in their creative searches, take responsibility not only for their scientific, but also for their personal destiny" . For others, the initiative is limited to "good and good intentions", which almost never come true. The degree of activity is determined by the nature of the claims of the individual and the characteristics of the connection with responsibility. Outwardly, the life path of such a person consists of a large number of events that manifest themselves only in the external change in the former way of life, i.e. in this case, there is a tendency towards external dynamism of life.
In the case when the predominance of responsibility, a person “always seeks to create the necessary conditions for himself, to foresee what is needed to achieve the goal, to prepare to overcome difficulties” .
According to the author, responsibility can be of various types, which leads to the development of a variety of life strategies. The executive type is characterized by a low ability of self-expression, self-doubt, focus on the support of others, subordination to external control, fear of change, a desire to maintain the usual course and stability of life, and the absence of one's own living space.
Self-sacrificing (dependent) type finds self-expression in the performance of "duty", which leads to satisfaction. As a result of dependence on others, there is a constant loss of one's own "I". The cessation of reciprocal feelings from others is regarded as a collapse in life.
The conservative type has detailed stages of life, the absence of long-term prospects. Such a person is satisfied with the usual course of life, one thought of possible changes is frightening. In the process of life, there is more often a rejection of one's own interests, a desire to fulfill other people's requirements.
The lonely type is characterized by a variety of life paths as a result of the implementation of responsibility in various roles. The prevailing attitude is the possibility of survival only in solitude.
As an optimal life strategy, Abulkhanova names one in which a person correlates his capabilities with life tasks, while constantly developing his potential. A person establishes the correspondence of his vital interests and living conditions on the basis of criteria chosen by him or received from outside.
In addition to active ones, Abulkhanova recognizes the existence of various varieties of passive life strategies. The main one is the strategy of mental care, within which the strategy of hope and the strategy of life's impasse stand out. With the dominance of the strategy of hope, a departure from a certain life contradiction to another area is manifested. At the same time, a person recognizes his inability to find a way out of the current situation, having new perspectives in other areas. In a situation of internal impasse, a person does not see any alternative to continue real life.
In our opinion, in order to highlight the main parameters of life strategies, it is necessary to use three activity planning systems - claims, self-regulation and satisfaction, proposed by Abulkhanova-Slavskaya. Claims determine the contours of life, its limits, internal and external supports. They differentiate the living space, determining what the subject himself will do, and what he refers to external conditions, expecting results from those around him or from the prevailing circumstances. After the differentiation of the living space, the system of self-regulation is activated, i.e. a system of means and ways to achieve the set goals, as well as the possibility of overcoming life's difficulties. In characterizing this system, it is important to pay attention to the measure of the effort expended, perseverance, confidence, the accuracy of achievement criteria, the division of living space into dependent and independent of the individual. The main criterion is the support of the individual in achieving the result - either on himself or on others. In addition, it is important to indicate how diverse and flexible the arsenal of means of the individual, her behavior in a situation of disapproval. By satisfaction, Abulkhanova understands "a form of feedback of the individual with the methods of its objectification in life (achievements of the individual, assessments of others, etc.)" .
Summing up the description of the issue of life strategy, we single out the most significant, in our opinion, its structural components and parameters:
· Presence of ideas about the past, present and future;
Integrity / disunity of the life path;
Presence/absence of the meaning of life;
· Presence/absence of means and ways to achieve the set life goals;
· The need for external support in setting goals and overcoming difficulties;
The degree of awareness of one's own life;
· Ability to self-knowledge and life reflection;
Degree of realization of life plans;
Life satisfaction / dissatisfaction.
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1. Abulkhanova-Slavskaya K.A. Psychology and consciousness of personality. M., 2000.
2. Abulkhanova-Slavskaya K.A. Life prospects of personality // Psychology of personality and way of life / General. ed. E.V. Shorokhov. M., 1987.
3.Abulkhanova-Slavskaya K.A. Life strategy. M., 1991.
4.Pehunen R. Development tasks and life strategies // Psychology of personality and way of life / Ed. E V. Shorokhova. M., 1987.
Domestic scientists have devoted many works to the analysis of the life problems of the individual. The focus was on the problems of meaning, life path, lifestyle and lifestyle, culture of life of the individual, its self-realization and life-creation.
The concept of "strategy" means a way of rational attitude to life. In reference publications, the term "strategy" is most often defined as "the art of planning leadership based on correct and far-reaching forecasts." It also denotes a certain direction of the organization's activities associated with the justification, development and implementation of concepts and decisions of an industrial and social nature. However, unlike other ways of life (life goals, plans, etc.), it is a way of conscious planning and designing by a person of his own life through the gradual formation of his future. It concretizes the content of the concepts of "life world" and "life path". It should be noted that not all scientists consider strategy only as a rational formation that is formed in a certain structure of an individual's activity. Some of them believe that strategies are the essence of the phenomenon of brain activity. “The source material,” write V.A. Goryanin and I.K. Masalkov, - strategies are used to decode subjective experience. A strategy is a sequence of representations and operations worked out by the brain, leading to a specific goal, but at the same time independent of the content orientation of behavior. Each fragment of the strategy is a stage of the mental process (program), which is characterized by the use of one of the five senses (internal or external).
Thus, in the definition of the concept of "life strategy" there is still no logical clarity and clarity. It is interpreted either as a system of perspective ideas and orientations of the individual, or even more narrowly - as a system of goals, plans and value orientations. So, E.I. Golovakha prefers to use the concept of “life perspective” instead of the concept of “life strategy”, justifying this by the fact that the latter does not so rigidly and formally fix the framework of the future life path. “... A life perspective,” he emphasizes, “should be considered as a holistic picture of the future of a complex contradictory relationship of programmable and expected events with which a person associates social value and the individual meaning of his life.” In our opinion, the most theoretically substantiated is the point of view of Yu.M. Reznik, E.A. Smirnov, who in their works refer to the structural components of the life strategy not only the goals of life, but also other components of activity that orient and guide the behavior of the individual in a certain perspective.
Studies of life strategies in domestic science were carried out by K.A. Abulkhanova-Slavskaya, N.F. Naumova, T.E. Reznik, Yu.M. Reznik, E.A. Smirnov, known for their work on the problems of sociology and personality psychology.
According to K.A. Abulkhanova-Slavskaya, a person acts as an active subject of his life, capable of self-organization and self-regulation. She singled out three main features of a life strategy: choosing a way of life, resolving the "I want-have" contradiction and creating conditions for self-realization, and creative search. The qualities of a person as a subject of activity do not directly depend on the age stages or stages of the life path. Life strategy as a way of organizing life must also be distinguished from other ways - life position and life line. In contrast, strategy is an integrative characteristic of the life path. “A life strategy in its most general form is a constant adjustment of the personality (its features) and the nature and way of one’s life, building life first on the basis of one’s individual capabilities and data, and then with those that are developed in life. The strategy of life consists in ways of changing, transforming the conditions, situations of life in accordance with the values of the individual ... ".
Strategy is an integral characteristic of the life path. At the heart of its construction is the search for a correspondence between the type of personality and the way of life. In other words, the construction of a life strategy should be carried out taking into account the typological differences in the individual trajectory of a person's life. Moreover, this process occurs only in the active state of the individual. Activity is a prerequisite for building a life strategy. It defines the measure of conformity and balance between the desired and the necessary, the personal and the social. N.F. Naumova made an attempt to comprehend the strategy of human life in a transitional society, which she considers Russia to be. “A society in transition,” she explains, “is a special, unstable system that does not connect its old and new states, but intensively and almost uncontrollably forms the latter.” That is why, in her opinion, it is impossible to apply structural-functional and similar approaches to the study of the consciousness of people living in a given society, which are effective only in the analysis of stable social systems.
According to N.F. Naumova, theories of postmodernity cannot fully answer the question of what a person is today, who is in a situation of uncertainty and seeks to navigate the future. Such essential characteristics of postmodern society as fear of the unknown, existential uncertainty, the role of solidarity and imaginary communities, pluralism of power and the exclusive role of choice cannot express the main trends in the development of the transition period. Normativism and a tendency to generalize lead to a dead end in postmodern theory. Therefore, it cannot serve as an explanatory scheme for studying a transitional society.
“It seems,” emphasizes N.F. Naumov, that today the most promising approaches to the study of a transitional society and life strategies emerging in it are associated, firstly, with the application of the theory of complex, developing systems and, secondly, with the analysis and generalization of the vast primary empirical material that is collected in within the framework of the sociology of disasters, the study of social stress and extreme situations, social problems and crises.
In the works of Yu.M. Reznik, T.E. Reznik, E.A. Smirnova, life strategies are considered as symbolically mediated ideal formations that go beyond the limits of consciousness in terms of their impact, as guidelines and priorities that are realized in human behavior. The ideality of the strategy manifests itself, on the one hand, subjectively as something containing unique and unrepeatable, situationally arising and supra-situational personal meanings and goals, on the other hand, objectively as something that includes culturally conditioned patterns, standards, norms and values acquired by a person in the process of socialization. If the objective ideality is localized in culture, then the subjective ideality permeates the individual consciousness and behavior of people, their past experience and goals as an anticipation of the future. Yu.M. Reznik also identifies the third, actually social, dimension of life strategies, which arises at the intersection of objective and subjective ideality - in the sphere of so-called intersubjectivity, which is formed on the basis of the coordination of mutual ideas and expectations. The ideality of a strategy is closely related to its reality; strategic behavior, which is understood as an external, object-sensory form of expression of a life strategy.
In foreign science, many outstanding scientists dealt with the problem of studying life strategies: A. Adler, A. Maslow, E. Fromm, K. Horney.
As A. Maslow wrote, a creative person combines the qualities of a mature and independent personality with childish innocence, frankness and a fresh interest in everything new. The values of such a person are truth, goodness, beauty, justice, perfection. Self-realization for him is work, the purpose of which is to achieve perfection in what he is called to do. Such a person strives to be not just a specialist, but a good specialist, and therefore is always concerned about his development.
K. Rogers saw creativity not only and not so much in the creation of something new outside, but above all in the creation of new facets of his own personality. The main motive for creativity is the desire for development, expansion, improvement, maturity, and hence health. K. Rogers believed that to the extent that an individual refuses to realize (or suppresses) a significant part of his experience, his creations can be pathological or socially harmful. And when a person is open to all aspects of his experience and all the sensations of his body are available to his consciousness, the new products of his creativity will most likely be creative both for himself and for others.
The strategy of creativity involves a way of living "here and now". For a person who feels himself the creator of his life and realizes that no one but himself can make him happy, the meaning of life is most often determined by the concept of freedom. The inseparability of the creativity of life and freedom was pointed out by N.A. Berdyaev, E. Fromm, V. Frankl, K. Horney. They believed that a person always has creative energy, free will, which is given to him for spiritual development. E. Fromm, V. Frankl and K. Horney developed the idea that a person is an active figure capable of withstanding the powerful pressure of unfavorable social forces.
According to A. Adler, each person develops his own life goal, which serves as the focus of his aspirations and achievements. The formation of life goals begins in childhood. Life goals are always somewhat unrealistic and can become neurotically exaggerated if feelings of inferiority are too strong. Life goals provide direction and objectives for human activities. For example, a person who strives for superiority, personal power, will develop certain character traits necessary to achieve this goal - ambition, envy, distrust, etc. Adler points out that these character traits are not innate, primary, they are "secondary factors imposed man's secret purpose. Lifestyle is the unique way each person chooses to pursue their life purpose, it is an integrated style of adapting to life and interacting with life in general. Seemingly isolated habits and behaviors take on their meaning in the full context of a person's life and goals, so that psychological and emotional problems cannot be considered in isolation - they are included in the overall lifestyle. As part of their lifestyle, each person creates his own idea of himself and the world. Adler calls this the schema of apperception. A person's view of the world determines his behavior (if someone believes that the ring of rope in the corner is a snake, his fear may be as strong as if the snake were actually there). A person selectively transforms and interprets his experience, actively seeks out some experiences and avoids others, creating an individual scheme of apperception and forming various patterns in relation to the world. A person creates his personality.
1The article considers the essence of life strategy and its typology. Theoretical analysis of the definitions of the concept of "life strategy" and the selection of their features made it possible to formulate the author's definition of the concept. A life strategy is a consciously planned and projected immediate and long-term life plans of a person for the future, which are based on terminal and instrumental values-goals and conditions that contribute to its self-promotion and improve the quality of its life; built in accordance with her individual intellectual and creative capabilities, life experience and allow her to take an active subjective life position. The study of the typologies of life strategy contributed to the identification of its types, which are followed by high school students, as well as the choice for the formation of a life strategy in high school students of such a type as creative uniqueness, which allows the student to model his future.
life strategy
signs of a life strategy
high school students
formation of a life strategy
typologies of life strategies.
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The sensitive age for the formation of a life strategy is the period of early adolescence. Most often, high school students' ideas about their future are limited only by the end result. When high school students begin to understand that in order to achieve a life goal, it is necessary to think not only about the final result, but also about the methods and resources that allow them to achieve what they want, then they need to design a life strategy.
Currently, there are several definitions of the concept of "life strategy". This term was first revealed (1933) by Charlotte Buhler. She defined the life path of a person as an individual and personal life in its dynamics. S.L. Rubinstein, unlike S. Buhler (1935), considered the concept of "life path" not as a person's movement forward, but as a person's movement upward, to higher, more perfect forms, to the best manifestations of human essence.
A more precise definition of the concept of "life strategy" was formulated by K.A. Abulkhanova-Slavskaya (1991), in which the main feature is not self-improvement, as in S.L. Rubinshtein, but the individual characteristics of a person. She defined it as the ability to design life taking into account one's individual characteristics, personality type, and as a way to resolve contradictions between external and internal conditions of life, transform conditions, situations of life in accordance with human values. Based on the definition given by K.A. Abulkhanova-Slavskaya, the following three fundamental features of a life strategy can be distinguished: the choice of a way of life, the resolution of the contradiction "I want - I have" and the creation of conditions for self-realization and creative search.
Yu.M. Reznik and E.A. Smirnov (1995) consider the concept of "life strategy" as a way of conscious planning and designing by a person of his life through the phased formation of its future. This definition shows the idea that the life of an individual is built in accordance with its orientation to the future. However, in the definitions of the concept under consideration by domestic scientists, there is no such feature, previously identified by K.A. Abulkhanova-Slavskaya, as taking into account the individual characteristics of a person, which is necessary in the process of forming a life strategy.
From the point of view of O.S. Vasilyeva and E.A. Demchenko (2001), "life strategy" is a way of being, a system of values and goals, the implementation of which allows a person to make his life more effective. The main emphasis in this definition is on the realization of a person's life goals, which makes it possible to make his life better.
According to P.G. Postnikova (2005), "life strategy" is a target of the entire educational system, necessary to create conditions that contribute to: the harmonious development of the student's personality at different stages of education, influencing the formation of his life position; students' awareness of their life calling, their determination of ways to achieve their goals in life - in a word, self-education. Proposed by P.G. Postnikov’s definition reflects the universality of the concept of “life strategy” and contains educational and educational opportunities, thanks to which the teacher can help students develop independence in the process of designing a life strategy in the process of teaching and educational activities.
O.A. Voronina (2008) is of the opinion that a life strategy should be understood as an individual way of designing and implementing a person's life goals in a time perspective, taking into account their value orientations, needs, personal qualities, and the meaning of their own life. In her definition, she highlights the idea of a person's conscious attitude to the choice of life goals, which should be based on the individual characteristics of a person.
The definitions of the concept of “life strategy” proposed by different scientists can be grouped according to such features as focus on self-promotion of the individual (Sh. Buller; S.L. Rubinshtein; P.G. Postnikov), terminal and instrumental values-goals (K.A. Abulkhanova -Slavskaya; O.A. Voronina; A.E. Sozontov; O.S. Vasilyeva, E.A. Demchenko), creating conditions for improving the quality of life (L.G. Buzunova, M.R. Plotnitskaya, N.L. Shaposhnikov, O.V. Rudakova), future planning (Yu.M. Reznik, E.A. Smirnova; M.O. Mdivani, P.B. Kodess; V.A. Berkovsky, M.A. Belugina; D .Yu. Chebotareva).
As a result of the analysis of the definitions of the concept of "life strategy" and its identified features, an attempt was made to formulate the author's definition. A life strategy is a consciously planned and designed immediate and long-term life plans of a person for the future, which are based on terminal and instrumental values-goals and conditions that contribute to its self-promotion and improve the quality of its life; built in accordance with her individual intellectual and creative capabilities, life experience and allow her to take an active subjective life position.
It is advisable to start the educational activity of a teacher in the formation of a life strategy for high school students with the choice of its most promising type for graduates of a secondary school.
E.I. Golovakha and N.V. Panina (1988) identified the following two types of people's life strategies, depending on their attitude to life - "contemplators" and "practitioners". "Contemplators" are distinguished by their inner activity, depth of feelings and thoughts. The disadvantages of "contemplatives" include the limitation of dreams and fantasies, which manifests itself in the unwillingness to realize them in life. A feature of people of a practical type of activity is their endowment with a quick reaction and action on external influences. The weakness of human practitioners is their inability to analyze the consequences of actions.
In order to supplement the typology of the life strategy developed by E.I. Golovakhoy and N.V. Panina, K.A. Abulkhanova-Slavskaya (1991) was the first to propose personal activity (internal factor) and the type of time organization (external factor). In her opinion, each person can design his life strategy as a strategy for taking into account his individual capabilities and / or a strategy for developing abilities for something.
Yu.M. Reznik and E.A. Smirnov (1995) consider three main directions in the development of life strategies: objective ideality, subjective ideality, and the social dimension of life strategies. Objective ideality is reflected in culture, while subjective ideality is determined by the individual consciousness and behavior of a person, his past experience and goals as ways to predict the future.
E.A. Smirnov (2002) presented a typology of life strategy based on the self-realization of the individual in life. In his opinion, self-realization in life is a type of life strategy, which is determined by a person's attitude to the creative transformation of life, his self-actualization and self-development as a subject of life creation.
E.P. Varlamov and S.Yu. Stepanov (2002) developed a typology of life strategies, which differs from the typologies previously considered by us in that it complements them due to the division of life strategies into individual originality and creative activity of the individual in her life events. They distinguish the following types of life strategies:
1) creative uniqueness, reflecting the creative attitude of a person to his own life, when his transforming initiative leads to the extraordinary events of his life;
2) passive individuality, which is the random nature of the formation of a person, when the individual traits of his character do not depend on his efforts, but are determined by the influence of external circumstances;
3) active typicality, expressing the conformist desire of the individual to “be like everyone else”, when all her actions are aimed at the implementation of generally accepted goals and values;
4) passive typicality characterizing a person's unconscious observance of social stereotypes, his subordination to the norms of society.
Typology of life strategies S.I. Kudinova (2007) compares favorably with the typology of E.P. Varlamova and S.Yu. Stepanov by the fact that it lacks the idea of an object-subject position of a person regarding his life strategy. He draws attention to the active, social and personal types of self-realization, i.e. on the demand for the subjective position of the individual. Its active self-realization is determined by S.I. Kudinov as self-expression in various spheres of life. Social self-realization of the individual is focused on the implementation of socially significant activities, personal - contributes to spiritual development and personal growth.
A.E. Sozontov (2007) developed the following types of life strategies, which, in our opinion, are typical for Russian high school students:
- type "to have" - the orientation of the individual to achieve social success, high status, the possibility of unlimited acquisition and consumption. The most preferred values are: success, social recognition, wealth, reputation, competence, enjoyment, etc.;
- type "not to have and not to be" - focus on adaptation to socio-economic conditions. Priority values transmitted from generation to generation include: family security, health, social order;
- type "to be" - focus on creative self-realization, maintaining conditions that ensure the well-being of loved ones, significant people. The most important values include: creativity, meaningfulness of life, cheerfulness, unity with nature, curiosity, etc.;
- the “to have against being” type is an orientation towards achieving social success, security, and the development of one's own individuality. These two aspirations are in conflict, and therefore, the life goal is uncertain. As a result, a value crisis manifests itself, which is expressed in the acceptance of “all values” (except socially disapproved ones);
- the type of "to have in order to be" - the focus on achieving success, security and creative self-realization. Life values include: creativity, cheerfulness, responsibility, breadth of views, success, competence, wealth, etc.
M.R. Plotnitskaya (2008) identified progressive and receptive types of self-realization. The characteristic features of the progressive type of self-realization strategy is the internal strategy of achieving and self-actualization of a person in society, which manifests itself in a harmonious perception of the world and oneself in it, as well as in a high degree of self-reflection. The receptive strategy of self-realization is an external strategy of "consumption" of social successes and benefits by a person. The receptive strategy of self-realization differs from progressive fragmentation, the lack of a holistic concept of oneself in the world, the dominance of social factors in the process of self-realization, as well as the limitation of life spheres of self-realization.
Taking into account the nature and degree of rationality of strategies, E.N. Bondarenko (2009) developed the following typology of youth life strategies: “pragmatist”, “professional”, “go with the flow”, “dependent”, “player”. The goal-oriented principle, in her opinion, is more present in such types of life strategies as: "pragmatist", "professional" and "dependent". The value-rational principle is manifested in the life strategies of the "player" and "going with the flow". The priority strategy of the "professionals" is education. The implementation of this strategy is possible due to their academic mobility. Unlike the "professionals" who are interested in success in life, "go with the flow" do not design a life strategy. For "dependents" a characteristic feature is the absence of a system of life values. This can be explained by the low self-esteem of the owners of this type, which encourages them to imitate others, which prevents them from showing individuality in constructing their life strategy. The dominant resource of the “players” is luck. "Pragmatists", on the contrary, build a life strategy in accordance with the main goal of life. Their difference from the "professionals" is expressed by the orientation towards self-realization in a career.
Based on the goals of life and the means of its implementation, R. Merton identified the following types of life strategies:
Conformist dominants, which are expressed in the continuity of values and generally accepted means of achieving them;
Innovative - focused on changing the means, taking into account the continuity of goals;
The dominants of ritualism are the absence of goals, the reproduction of means that generate imitative forms of life strategies;
Dominants of retreatism with a person's attitude towards alienation and withdrawal from real life;
Rebellious dominants, determined by the unwillingness of the individual to follow social norms of behavior, when the choice of activities is completely contrary to the values of the environment in which the person grew up.
L.I. Dementy and V.E. Kupchenko (2013) identified three types of life strategies as parameters for highlighting life goal-setting and the ability to influence one’s life: “fatalistic”, “self-fulfilling” and “conformist” types. Representatives of the "fatalistic" type of life strategy are characterized by the absence of life goals and time perspective. A good knowledge of their individual characteristics and needs, as well as a readiness for spontaneous actions are inherent in people with a self-fulfilling type of life strategy. Owners of the conformist type of life strategy believe that their life is in the hands of the people around them.
The study and analysis of the typologies of life strategies developed by scientists are necessary to determine the types that high school students adhere to. The work performed contributed to the choice of such a type of life strategy as “creative uniqueness”, proposed by E.P. Varlamova and S.Yu. The choice made can be explained by the fact that the key idea of this type of life strategy is that a high school student takes a subjective position in the process of designing and implementing his life strategy. The role of the teacher in this process lies in the fact that by shaping the creative uniqueness of the high school student, he assists the senior student not only in the formation of a life strategy, but also creates conditions for the graduate of a general education school to be able to take an active position in life and get involved in the creative transformation of his life. future.
Bibliographic link
Ilaeva R.A., Savina N.N. ESSENCE OF LIFE STRATEGY AND ITS TYPOLOGY // Modern problems of science and education. - 2016. - No. 6.;URL: http://science-education.ru/ru/article/view?id=25635 (date of access: 03/02/2019). We bring to your attention the journals published by the publishing house "Academy of Natural History"