The Psychosocial Concept of Personality Development and the Formation of a State of Safety in Ontogenesis

Lecture

Let us consider the formation of the sense of safety from the standpoint of E. Erikson's psychosocial concept of personality development; he introduced the term "group identity" into scientific use. According to Erikson, it forms from the very first days of a person's life. As soon as a child becomes included in a particular group, he begins to perceive the world as that group and subsequently orients himself toward it. At the same time, the child gradually develops his own "ego identity," a sense of the stability and continuity of his "self." The formation of ego identity includes a number of stages in personality development, each characterized by tasks of a certain age put forward by society. The resolution of these tasks is determined exclusively by the individual's level of mental development, on the one hand, and by the spiritual atmosphere of the society in which he lives, on the other.

E. Erikson describes eight psychosocial crises specific to each age, the favorable or unfavorable outcome of which determines the possibility of the personality's further development (Table 3).

The period of infancy is characterized by the fact that the main role in the child's life is played by his mother — she feeds the child, cares for him, gives him affection and care. As a result, the child develops basic trust in the world, a perception of the surrounding environment as "safe." In the opposite case, the world is perceived as hostile and dangerous.

The period from one to three years is associated with the formation of the child's autonomy and independence. He begins to walk, learns hygienic self-control, and gradually encounters approval or disapproval from society, which opTable 3. Stages of Personality Development

Stage	Normal line of development	Abnormal line of development
1. Early infancy (up to 1 year)	Trust in people. Forms when the child's basic needs are met, in communication and in parental love	Suspicion. A result of poor treatment of the child, early weaning, and emotional isolation
2. Late infancy (from 1 to 3 years)	Autonomy. Forms as the child acquires independent skills, including the skill of controlling natural bodily functions	Dependency. Self-doubt and an exaggerated sense of shame arise in the child when he feels unadapted and doubts his own abilities and skills
3. Early childhood (approximately 3—5 years)	Initiative. Manifested in curiosity, activity in exploring the surrounding world, imitation of adults, and involvement in gender-role behavior	Submissiveness. Forms when the child experiences repeated failures, overprotection by adults, and suppression of initiative
4. Middle childhood (from 5 to 11 years)	Industry. The child learns to work, preparing to carry out future, increasingly complex tasks, while developing a taste for work	A sense of inferiority. Poorly developed work skills and avoidance of difficult tasks and competition with other children develop a sense of inferiority
5. Adolescence and youth (from 11 to 20 years)	Identity. Assimilation of behavior patterns of people significant to the adolescent takes place. Clear gender polarization in forms of interpersonal behavior. Formation of a worldview, life self-determination	Role confusion. An inability to achieve identity, or difficulties associated with it, can lead to confusion of the roles the adolescent plays in the affective, social, and professional spheres
6. Early adulthood (from 20 to 45 years)	Experience of close relationships. Acquired in the search for closeness with a loved one, together with whom one is destined to complete the cycle of work — the birth of children — rest	Isolation from people. Associated with avoidance of intimate close relationships, or with promiscuous, disorderly ties, which leads to a person becoming closed in on himself

End of Table 3

Stage	Normal line of development	Abnormal line of development
7. Middle adulthood (from 45 to 60 years)	Generativity. Characterized by the development of a sense of preserving the family line, an interest in the next generation and in raising it	Stagnation. A state of pseudo-intimacy condemns each spouse to an existence for himself alone, leading to an impoverishment of interpersonal relationships
8. Late adulthood (over 60 years)	Satisfaction with the life lived	Despair

en the child's eyes to himself. One of the most important feelings begins to form — the feeling of shame. An exaggerated sense of shame in a child leads to the formation of low self-esteem, non-acceptance of oneself, and may subsequently give rise to destructive behavior.

In the pre-school period the child begins to perceive himself as a person and explores the world even more actively. He develops enterprise and initiative, at first in the simplest forms, in his games. He gains a deeper grasp of relationships between people and develops his mental capacities, above all his cognitive ones. Under overprotection by adults and suppression of initiative, the child develops destructive behavior that threatens the safety not only of those around him but of himself as well.

In the period of middle childhood, in addition to the family, other social institutions influence the child's development, above all the school. Here society introduces the child to knowledge about his future activity. At this stage the child's mental development deepens, and the mental makeup of his personality is formed. It is also during this period that persistent neurotic reactions are acquired; the child experiences a feeling of anxiety from fear of some misfortune befalling his parents, of a lack of money in the family, of physical violence, of his own personal inadequacy, or of uncertainty about the future. An anxious child may achieve less success at school and finds it difficult to adapt in society and to develop within himself the spirit of healthy conformity between freedom and responsibility.

The main psychological problems of adolescents are related to the search for the meaning of life, determining one's future, love and disappointment, relationships with parents, and acceptance of one's own body and character. The main psychological reactions of adolescents are opposition, grouping, confrontation, and emancipation. The maturation of cognitive and emotional functions leads adolescents to use their new abilities in the form of criticism, doubt, and opposition to the values, attitudes, and modes of action of adults. This often causes conflict with parents, especially if an authoritarian and restrictive style of upbringing dominates in the family. The shift of the center of socialization from the family to the peer group leads to a weakening of emotional ties with parents and their replacement by relationships with many people who influence the personality as a whole less, but who shape certain forms of its behavior. Appearance and the impression it produces acquire particular significance for the adolescent, which also often leads to conflicts with family members. Although the family's influence decreases during the period of growing up, it nonetheless remains important for the adolescent. Emotional ties also remain relatively stable, and even in the event of a break with the family they are in most cases maintained, especially with the mother.

As the Russian psychologist T. M. Krasnyanskaya notes, an individual's ideas about psychological safety influence the specific manifestation of "subjective identification — identifying oneself with others, assimilating patterns of behavioral reactions, attitudes, and styles of safe living in a particular sphere of life, and overcoming crisis situations" .

For young people, the search for a life partner, close cooperation with people, and the strengthening of ties with one's social group are relevant. During this period the individual is stable in situations of depersonalization; he is able to blend his identity with other people without harm to his personality. The development of identity continues throughout life. A person is influenced by other people, especially by his own children. By investing himself in work he loves and in caring for his children, a person can be psychologically satisfied with himself and his life. A mature personality creates its own social environment, and the quality of that environment is a significant psychological characteristic of the personality.

In old age, ego identity, based on the entire course of a person's life, acquires a completed form. A person rethinks his whole life and becomes aware of his "self" in reflecting on the years he has lived. A psychologically adequate person accepts himself and his life, recognizes the need for its logical completion, and is capable of showing wisdom.

The direction of the formation of an individual's psyche at all its stages can be positive or negative. The dynamics of this direction depend on all the institutions of socialization, above all the family, especially at the early stages of socialization. It is enough to note that a strongly pronounced deficit of emotional communication between mother and infant leads to a sharp slowdown in the child's mental development.

The transitions from one period to another represent a change in the individual's consciousness and attitude toward surrounding reality and toward his leading activity, and a rethinking of his social relationships with other people. If the process of personality socialization follows a negative path of development, then the individual develops the preconditions for becoming "dangerous" to those around him, and sometimes even to himself.

Conclusions

• In Russian psychology, most psychologists hold the position that personality is not simply the result of biological maturation, but also a subject of active interaction with the environment, in the course of which the individual acquires (or fails to acquire) personal traits.
• In Western psychology, problems of personality and its inner world are addressed within various theoretical concepts:
— proponents of trait theory hold that people differ from one another in the set and degree of development of individual, independent characteristics (traits);

— the essence of social learning theory is that a person's behavior and social actions are significantly influenced by other people — their support or disapproval; a person's behavior is most often built on the expectation of positive reinforcement, but sometimes the desire to avoid negative reinforcement predominates;
— from Freud's concept it follows that a person injures himself not by chance, but under the influence of unconscious aggressive tendencies inherent in him from birth;
— a person's present behavior is shaped by social influences in childhood: love and warmth in parents' treatment of a child foster the formation of a healthy personality, while their absence develops hostility and basal anxiety in the child, which leads to the formation of neurosis in the adult.
• Socialization is the process of an individual's assimilation and active reproduction of social experience, carried out through communication, activity, and behavior. Social factors reflect the sociocultural aspect of socialization and touch on issues of its group, cultural, and ethnic specificity. Socialization proceeds all the more successfully the more deeply social norms are assimilated; once they become inherently characteristic of the individual, their realization becomes a habit for him.
• E. Erikson describes eight psychosocial crises specific to each age, the favorable or unfavorable outcome of which determines the possibility of the personality's further improvement.

Questions for discussion

1. Explain, from the standpoint of Freud's theory, the role of consciousness and the unconscious in the regulation of behavior.
2. Explain, from the standpoint of social learning theory, the main mechanisms by which a person acquires new forms of behavior.
3. Describe the main tenets of K. Horney's theory.
4. What is the role of the concept of humanistic psychology in studying the problem of developing a safe personality?

5. Explain the role of B. G. Ananiev's "unified doctrine of man" in studying the problem of safety.
6. How should the problem of safety be understood from the standpoint of the cultural-historical approach in the study of human psychology?
7. What is the role of activity in the development of the personality and its safety?
8. Why is it necessary to distinguish safe and unsafe personality traits?
9. Define the concept of "socialization."
10. What factors influence the socialization of the personality?
11. Define the concept of "social norms"?
12. In what does the vulnerability of children, compared with adults, consist from the standpoint of their socialization?
13. Describe the stages of personality socialization in E. Erikson's concept. Analyze the features of your own socialization within the framework of this concept.