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Table of contents

1. Subject, tasks and methodology of social psychology
2. Socio-psychological characteristics of personality
3. The concept and stereotypes of the social development of the individual
4. Social interactions and patterns of individual behavior in a group and society
5. The concept of socialization: stages and mechanisms of its impact on personality
6. Deviations in social behavior
7. The concept of social role and characteristics of its influence on personality development
8. Communication as a socio-psychological phenomenon
9. The concept of social conflict and possible ways to resolve it
10. Definition and characteristics of social groups
11. Problems of a small group in social psychology
12. Leadership - concept and classification
13. Theory and functions of the reference group
14. Dynamic processes occurring in the group
15. Socio-psychological essence and content of phenomena in groups
16. Social setting. Definition and classification
17. Research patterns of intergroup interaction
18. Large social groups
19. Medical psychology. Methods of diagnosis and treatment in psychology
20. Psychological problems of personality in professional activity
21. Interaction of psychology with other social sciences
22. Psychology of religion. Features of religious consciousness
23. Methods and means of research in social psychology

LECTURE No. 1. Subject, tasks and methodology of social psychology

Social Psychology as an independent branch of scientific knowledge began to take shape at the end of the 1908th century, although the concept itself began to be widely used only after XNUMX.

Some questions of social psychology were raised long ago within the framework of philosophy and were in the nature of understanding the features of the relationship between man and society.

However, the study of socio-psychological scientific problems proper began in the XNUMXth century, when sociologists, psychologists, philosophers, literary critics, ethnographers, physicians began to analyze the psychological phenomena of large social groups and the characteristics of human mental processes and behavior depending on the influence of people around them.

The problems posed were difficult to study only within the framework of the then existing sciences. The integration of sociology and psychology was necessary, since psychology studies the human psyche, and sociology studies society.

The main stages in the development of social psychology as a science.

The first stage - the formation of social psychology as a science (from the middle of the 1908th century to XNUMX). The subject of study and the main problems are determined.

The first fundamental works on the main issues of social psychology are being published.

At this stage, the solution and theoretical analysis of socio-psychological problems attract the attention of specialists in various fields: psychologists, sociologists, philosophers, literary critics, ethnographers, etc.

Most of the works on social psychology were published in the first period of the development of this science.

The second stage (until the mid-40s of the XNUMXth century) is characterized by the emergence of scientific socio-psychological schools focused both on the development of fundamental theory and applied aspects of research.

One of the most influential social psychologists of this period - K. Levin, creator of the theory of group dynamics.

He explored the problems of social factors of will as purposeful behavior; social psychology of small groups, leadership, personality in a group, etc.

A large number of experimental works were carried out and at the same time fundamental theories were developed that have not lost their relevance in our time.

The third stage (from the mid-1940s to the present day). It is connected with the solution of practical problems, work on a social order. Experimental psychology continues its development, fundamental theoretical developments recede into the background.

Social psychology is gaining wide popularity, being introduced into general educational programs of higher education and is one of the compulsory subjects of study for specialists in various fields.

Such close attention to socio-psychological issues is caused by the need to improve and stabilize social relations at all levels of social stratification.

So-called small theories are being developed that have a specific applied value: socio-psychological characteristics of the leadership of a children's group, business psychology, advertising psychology, the psychology of public opinion formation, etc.

The combination of the words "social psychology" indicates the specific place that this discipline occupies in the system of scientific knowledge.

Having arisen at the intersection of the sciences of psychology and sociology, social psychology still retains a special status. This leads to the fact that each of the "parent" disciplines includes it as an integral part.

This ambiguity of the position of the discipline has many reasons.

One of them is the objective existence of such a class of facts of social life, which in themselves can be investigated only with the help of the combined efforts of two sciences: psychology and sociology.

Another reason for the dual position of social psychology is the very history of the formation of this discipline, which matured in the depths of both psychological and sociological knowledge at the same time, was born "at the crossroads" of the two sciences.

All this creates difficulties both in defining the subject of social psychology and in identifying the range of its problems.

The needs of the practice of social development dictate the need to study boundary problems.

Requests for socio-psychological research in the conditions of the current stage of development of society come from all spheres of public life, especially due to the fact that radical changes are taking place in each of them today.

Such requests come from the field of industrial production, various areas of education, the mass media system, the field of demographic policy, sports, the service sector, etc.

All this stimulates the intensive development of social psychology at the present stage. The need for this is exacerbated by two circumstances.

First, the fact that there was a rather long break in the history of the existence of Soviet social psychology as an independent science, and a new stage in the revival of socio-psychological research began only in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

Secondly, social psychology is essentially a science that is very close to social and political problems, and therefore it is possible to use its results by various social forces.

For social psychology, the simultaneous solution of two problems is relevant: the development of practical recommendations obtained in the course of applied research that are necessary for practice; "completing" its own building as an integral system of scientific knowledge with the refinement of its subject, the development of special theories and a special research methodology.

Starting to solve these problems, it is necessary to outline the range of problems of social psychology in order to more strictly define the tasks that can be solved by means of this discipline.

It is necessary to single out from the psychological problems of issues that are within the competence of social psychology.

Since psychological science in our country, in defining its subject, proceeds from the principle of activity, it is possible to conditionally designate the specifics of social psychology as the study of the patterns of behavior and activities of people, due to their inclusion in social groups, as well as the psychological characteristics of these groups themselves.

The subject of social psychology is determined by the question: "What does this science study as an independent, independent branch of knowledge?"

Psychology and sociology are "mother" disciplines in relation to social psychology. At the same time, it cannot be considered that social psychology is only a part of sociology and psychology.

The independence of this branch of scientific knowledge is due to the specifics subject of study, which cannot be studied only within the framework of any one science.

There are several points of view on what is the subject of research in social psychology.

Social psychology studies personality in a group, society, society.

Unlike general psychology, social psychology studies not just the mental processes of the individual, but their specificity in connection with the system of social interactions.

From this point of view, the subject of research is man among men. If the individual characteristics of the subject are considered, then only as a result of social development associated with education and socialization.

A person is studied in all the variety of his social connections: in the process of personal development throughout life, in the system of interaction at the interpersonal and formal levels, etc.

Particular attention is paid to the position of the individual in the group, the team.

Social psychology studies social groups in society. These are, first of all, the psychological characteristics of groups, the problems of intragroup dynamics, intragroup relations, intergroup relations, etc.

A social group is considered as a functional unit that has integral psychological characteristics, such as group mind, group will, group decision, etc.

Various typologies of social groups are being created, and an increasing number of criteria for analysis are being singled out. The group is seen as a unique entity that cannot be understood only on the basis of studying the subjects that make it up.

A group is more than a collection of members. It has its own characteristics that exist regardless of the individual characteristics of its constituent entities.

Social psychology studies social psyche, or mass phenomena of the psyche.

Various phenomena corresponding to this concept are singled out: the psychology of classes, social strata, mass moods, stereotypes and attitudes; public opinion and psychological climate, mass actions and group emotional states.

The socio-psychological aspect of traditions, morals, mores, etc. is studied. The psychological foundations of unique semiotic systems created by mankind over the centuries are studied.

Most modern social psychologists believe that social psychology studies both the individual, and groups, and the social psyche, but in a certain context.

social psychologist G. M. Andreeva defined subject of social psychology as follows: social psychology studies the patterns of behavior, activities and communication of people, due to their inclusion in social groups, as well as the psychological characteristics of these groups themselves.

Within the framework of social psychology, several psychological schools can be distinguished, these are: functionalism, behaviorism, humanistic psychology, cognitivism and interactionism.

Functionalism (or functional psychology) arose under the influence of evolutionary theory in biology Ch. Darwin and the evolutionary theory of social Darwinism G. Spencer.

G. Spencer believed that the basic law of social development is the law of survival of the fittest societies and social groups.

Representatives of functionalism (D. Dewey, D. Angell, G. Carr and others) studied people and social groups from the point of view of their social adaptation - adaptation to difficult living conditions.

The main socio-psychological problem of functionalism is the problem of the most optimal conditions for the social adaptation of subjects of public life.

Behaviorism (later neobehaviorism) - behavioral psychology that studies the problems of patterns of human and animal behavior (I. V. Pavlov, V. M. Bekhterev, D. Watson, B. Skinner and etc.).

Behavior was seen as an objective, observable reality that could be explored under experimental conditions.

The central problem of behaviorism is the problem of learning, that is, the acquisition of individual experience through trial and error.

Four laws of learning are distinguished: the law of effect, the law of exercise, the law of readiness and the law of associative shift.

The psychoanalytic direction is associated with the name Z. Freud. He studied the problems of unconscious, irrational processes in the personality and in its behavior.

He believed that the central driving force of a person is a set of drives.

Some of the aspects of this direction were developed in the works of K. Jung and A. Adler.

Socio-psychological problems of the direction: the conflict of man and society, manifested in the clash of human inclinations with social prohibitions; the problem of sources of social activity of the individual.

Humanistic psychology (G. Allport, A. Maslow, C. Rogers and others) explored a person as a fully developing personality who seeks to realize his potential and achieve self-actualization, personal growth.

Every normal person has a tendency to self-expression and self-realization.

cognitivism interprets human social behavior as a set of predominantly cognitive processes and focuses on the process of human cognition of the world, his comprehension of the essence of phenomena through the main cognitive mental processes (memory, attention, etc.).

The problem of cognitivism is human decision making. Representatives of the cognitive school (J. Piaget, J. Bruner, R. Atkinson etc.) paid special attention to the knowledge of a person and the ways of its formation.

Interactionism (later symbolic interactionism) explored the problems of the social aspect of interaction between people in the process of activity and communication.

The main idea of ​​interactionism is that a person is always social and cannot be formed outside of society.

Particular importance was attached to communication as an exchange of symbols and the development of common meanings and meanings.

Most psychological schools can be distinguished only with a certain degree of conventionality, since they all study a person in a group, society, and the world.

The whole set of methods of socio-psychological research can be divided into two large groups: research methods и methods of influence.

The latter belong to a specific area of ​​social psychology, to the "psychology of influence."

Among the research methods, there are methods collection of information and methods processing.

Data processing methods are often not singled out in a special block, since most of them are not specific to social psychological research.

Methods collection of information: observation, reading documents (content analysis), polls (questionnaires, interviews), tests (the most common sociometric test), experiment (laboratory, natural).

Observation - "old" method of social psychology. The main problem is to ensure the fixation of certain classes of characteristics, so that the "reading" of the observation protocol would be understandable to another researcher.

Examination of documents is of great importance, since with the help of this method it is possible to analyze the products of human activity. A special problem arises in connection with the fact that the document is interpreted by the researcher, a person with his own, inherent in him individual psychological characteristics. The most important role in the study of the document is the ability to understand the text.

To overcome "subjectivity" (interpretation of the document by the researcher), a special technique is introduced, called "content analysis".

This is a special method of document analysis, when special "units" are highlighted in the text, and then the frequency of their use is calculated.

Content analysis method it makes sense to apply only in cases where the researcher is dealing with a large amount of information.

Polls - a common technique in socio-psychological research.

Usually, criticisms of this method are expressed in perplexity about how one can trust the information obtained from the direct answers of the subjects, essentially from their self-reports.

Among the types of surveys, the most widespread are in social psychology. interview и form. The main methodological problems lie in the design of the questionnaire. The first requirement here is the build logic.

Most commonly used in social psychology personality tests, less often group tests.

A test is a special kind of test in which the subject performs either a specially designed task, or answers questions that differ from questions in questionnaires or interviews. Questions in tests are indirect.

The meaning of the post-processing is to use the "key" to correlate the received answers with certain parameters.

Experiment - one of the main methods of research in social psychology. There are two main types of experiment: laboratory and natural.

For both types, there are some general rules that express the essence of the method, for example: an arbitrary introduction by the experimenter of independent variables and control over them, the requirement to separate the control and experimental groups so that the measurement results can be compared with some standard.

LECTURE No. 2. Social and psychological characteristics of personality

Personality is a conscious and active person who has the opportunity to choose one or another way of life.

It all depends on the personal and psychological qualities that are inherent in the individual, they must be properly understood and taken into account.

Socio-psychological characteristics of personality. The personality of a person as a member of society is in the sphere of influence of various relations that develop in the process of production and consumption of material goods.

The process of personality formation occurs both under the influence of the sphere of political relations and ideology.

Ideology as a system of ideas about society has a huge impact on the personality, largely forms the content of its psychology, worldview, individual and social attitudes.

The psychology of the individual is also influenced by the relations of people in the social group to which it belongs.

In the process of interaction and communication, personalities mutually influence each other, as a result of which a commonality is formed in views, social attitudes and other types of attitudes towards society, work, people, and one's own qualities.

In a group, a person gains a certain authority, occupies a certain position, plays certain roles.

Personality is not only an object of social relations, but also their subject, that is, an active link.

A personality is a specific person who is a representative of a certain state, society and group (social, ethnic, religious, political, gender and age, etc.), who is aware of his attitude towards the people around him and social reality, included in all relations of the latter, engaged in a kind of type of activity and endowed with specific individual and socio-psychological characteristics.

The development of personality is determined by various factors: the peculiarity of the physiology of higher nervous activity, anatomical and physiological features, the environment and society, and the field of activity.

The peculiarity of the physiology of the higher nervous activity of the individual - this is the specificity of the functioning of its nervous system, expressed in various characteristics: the ratio of the processes of excitation and inhibition in the cerebral cortex, the manifestation of temperament, emotions and feelings in behavior, etc.

Anatomical and physiological features of personality - characteristics that depend on the anatomical and physiological structure of the human body, which has a serious impact on both his psyche and behavior, and on the susceptibility of the latter to the actions of circumstances and other people.

The most important factors in the formation of personality are natural and geographical environment и society.

macro environment - society in the aggregate of all its manifestations. Microenvironment - group, microgroup, family and so on - is also an important determinant of personality formation.

The most important moral and moral-psychological characteristics of a person are laid in the microenvironment, which must be taken into account, as well as improved or transformed in the process of training and education.

Socially useful activity - this is labor in the conditions of which a person develops and his most important qualities are formed.

The socio-psychological characteristics of a personality as a description of the whole complex of its inherent characteristic features has an internal structure that includes certain aspects.

Psychological side personality reflects the specifics of the functioning of its mental processes, properties, states. mental processes- mental phenomena that provide the primary reflection and awareness of the personality of the influences of the surrounding reality.

Mental properties are the most stable and constantly manifesting personality traits that provide a certain level of behavior and activity that is typical for her. Personality properties: orientation, temperament, character and abilities.

Worldview side reflects its socially significant qualities and features that allow it to occupy a worthy place in society.

Socio-psychological side reflects the main qualities and characteristics that allow her to play certain roles in society, to occupy a certain position among other people.

The notion associated with psychoanalysis of the layered structure of personality has become widespread (I. Hoffman, D. Brown etc.): the outer layer is ideals, the inner layer is "deep" instinctive drives. L. Klages a scheme was proposed that included components of personality and character:

1) matter;

2) structure;

3) driving forces.

American psychologist R. Cattell indicates three aspects of personality:

1) interests;

2) abilities;

3) temperament.

L. Rubinstein considers personality in three planes, such as:

1) orientation (attitudes, interests, needs);

2) abilities;

3) temperament and character.

After J. Mead Interactionists distinguish three main components in the structure of personality: I, me, self. Their interpretation:

1) I (literally - "I") - this is an impulsive, active, creative, driving principle of the personality;

2) me (literally - "me", that is, how others should see me) - this is a reflexive normative "I", internal social control, based on taking into account the expectations of the requirements of other people and, above all, the "generalized other".

The reflexive "I" controls and directs the impulsive "I" in accordance with the learned norms of behavior in order to successfully, from the point of view of the individual, the implementation of social interaction;

3) self ("selfhood" of a person, personality, personal "I") - a combination of impulsive and reflexive "I", their active interaction.

Personality is interpreted by interactionists as an active creative being, capable of evaluating and constructing its own actions.

Following J. Mead, modern interactionists see in the active creative beginning of the personality the basis for the development of not only the personality itself, but also the explanation of the changes that occur in society.

The reason for changes in society should be sought in the specifics of the personality structure, in the fact that the presence of an impulsive "I" in it is a prerequisite for the emergence of various variations in the patterns of role behavior and even deviations from these patterns.

Changes in society are random and do not follow any patterns, and the cause of occurrence depends on the individual.

When compiling the socio-psychological characteristics of a person, it is necessary to take into account somatophysiological features. The anatomical and physiological specificity of the structure of the human body determines the development of some of its socio-psychological qualities.

There are three socio-psychological types: picnics, athletics and asthenics.

Picnics are distinguished by a high degree of interpersonal contact and adaptability to the social environment; the desire to build relationships with all other people in a certain way, which allows them to defend their interests and passions without entering into conflicts with others.

Athletics they are sociable and socially active, tend to be in the center of attention and win dominant positions among other people, they are characterized by ebullient expressiveness.

Asthenics unsociable, reserved in cooperation with other people, cautious in active relationships in a group, very sensitive to changes in their status or social position, suffer from claustrophobia.

Compiling the socio-psychological characteristics of a person, one should take into account his belonging to a certain type of higher nervous activity: sanguine, phlegmatic, choleric, melancholic.

Sanguine are in high spirits, are distinguished by fast and efficient thinking, great working capacity.

Phlegmatic completely alien anxiety. Their state is calm, quiet contentment.

Sanguine and phlegmatic people are quite balanced in relations with other people, rarely go into interpersonal confrontation, soberly assess their place.

Actions choleric people differ in sharpness, impulsiveness, the instinct of self-preservation is weakened. melancholic are distinguished by constraint in movements, hesitation and caution in decisions.

Cholerics are the most conflicted individuals. Depending on the type of higher nervous activity, people are initially predisposed to the dominance of certain emotions.

The socio-psychological characteristics of the personality are complemented by its extraversion or introversion.

extraversion indicates such psychological characteristics of the individual, when he focuses his attention on the outside world, sometimes at the expense of his own interests, belittling personal significance.

Introversion characterized by fixing the attention of the individual on his inner world. Introverts consider their interests to be the most important.

For any person from early childhood, the innate dynamic characteristics of the nervous system are associated with dominant instincts.

Instincts - a program fixed in the genetic code for adaptation, self-preservation and procreation, attitude towards oneself and others.

From the dominance of instinct follows the primary difference of people.

Types of people according to the dominance of instinct:

1) egophilic type - self-preservation dominates;

2) genophilic type - the instinct of procreation;

3) altruistic type - instinct of altruism;

4) research type - research instinct;

5) dominant type - dominance instinct;

6) libertophile type - the instinct of freedom;

7) digitophilic type - the instinct to preserve dignity.

Man as a person is constantly evolving and improving.

It is necessary to remember the driving forces, factors, prerequisites and levels of personality development, which, on the one hand, makes it possible to constantly monitor and fix them, and on the other hand, actively influence the process of learning and educating a person.

Driving forces of mental development - these are contradictions: between the needs of the individual and external circumstances; between her increased physical abilities, spiritual demands and old forms of activity; between new requirements of activity and unformed skills and abilities.

Factors of mental development- that objectively existing, which necessarily determines the vital activity of the individual in the broadest sense of the word.

Factors of mental development of a person can be external and internal.

External factors are the environment and society in which a person develops, internal - biogenetic and physiological characteristics of a person and his psyche.

Prerequisites for mental development - something that has a certain influence on the individual, i.e. external and internal circumstances on which the characteristics and level of his mental development depend.

External the prerequisites are the quality and characteristics of a person’s upbringing, internal - activity and desire to improve, as well as the motives and goals that guide a person in the interests of his development as a person.

Levels of mental development - the degree and indicators of a person's mental development in the process and at various stages of the formation of his personality.

The level of actual development of the personality - an indicator that characterizes the ability of a person.

It indicates what the training, skills and abilities of the individual are, what qualities are developed.

Level of proximal development of personality - an indicator of what a person cannot do well, but what he can do with a little help.

The completeness of the content of the personality and its main socio-psychological features are determined by:

1) the content and psychological essence of the worldview. A person's worldview is his system of beliefs, scientific views on nature, society, human relations, which have become his internal property and have been deposited in the form of certain life goals and interests, relationships, positions;

2) the degree of integrity of the worldview and beliefs, the absence or presence of contradictions in them, reflecting the opposing interests of different strata of society;

3) the degree of a person's awareness of his place in society;

4) the content and nature of needs and interests, the stability or ease of their switchability, their narrowness or versatility;

5) the specifics of the correlation and manifestation of various personal qualities.

The personality is so multifaceted in its individual psychological manifestations that the ratio of its various qualities can affect both the manifestations of the worldview and behavior.

Development - the universal principle of explaining nature and society, which includes the understanding of an irreversible, directed, regular change that is characteristic of the composition and structure of the state of the subject.

LECTURE No. 3. The concept and stereotypes of the social development of the individual

Irreversibility, direction and regularity are the main characteristics of any development as a process.

In psychology, the concept human social development means the development of his personality and psyche in the process of establishing diverse social relations.

Personal development is understood as the formation of the social quality of an individual as a result of his socialization and upbringing.

The development of the psyche is defined as a regular change in mental processes over time, expressed in their quantitative, qualitative and structural transformations.

Development is considered in the process of phylogenesis and ontogenesis. The phylogenetic formation of the structure of the psyche is carried out in the course of the biological evolution of the species.

Ontogenetic formation of the structure of the psyche occurs during the life of an individual from birth to death.

There are three main factors of personality development: inclinations, activity and the external environment.

The doctrine of L. S. Vygotsky about the higher mental functions of a person necessitated the study of the development of the psyche and the social development of a person in dialectical unity.

He was one of the first to study the issue of the influence of social conditions on the dynamics of human mental processes, singled out the mental functions of a person, which are formed in specific conditions of socialization and have some special features.

Two levels of mental processes are defined: natural and higher.

Natural functions are given to the individual as a natural being and are realized in spontaneous response (as, for example, in animals).

Higher mental functions (HMF) can be developed only in the process of ontogenesis during social interaction.

Five main features of the HMF are identified: complexity, sociality, mediation, arbitrariness and plasticity.

Complexity It manifests itself in the fact that HMFs are diverse in terms of the features of formation and development, in terms of the structure and composition of conditionally distinguished parts and the connections between them.

The complexity is determined by the specific relationship between some results of human phylogenetic development and the results of ontogenetic development at the level of mental processes.

Sociality HMF is determined by their origin.

They can develop only in the process of interaction of people with each other.

Mediation HMF is observed in the way they function.

Arbitrary VPF are by way of implementation. A person is able to realize his functions and carry out activities in a certain direction, anticipating a possible result, analyzing his experience, correcting behavior and activities.

The arbitrariness of the HMF is determined by the fact that the individual is able to act purposefully, overcoming obstacles and making appropriate efforts.

Plastic HMF represents their ability to relatively stable existence, regardless of some damage.

Nowadays, it is quite widespread stereotypes of understanding human social development, often declared at the journalistic level by the mass media, these include:

1) the stereotype of limiting the age of social development;

2) the stereotype of the absolutization of childhood;

3) stereotype of absolutization of factors of predetermination;

4) the stereotype of the absolutization of inclinations and abilities;

5) the stereotype of unlimited human capabilities.

Consider the essence of the first two stereotypes.

Stereotype of limiting the age of human social development arose as a side effect of the dissemination of the results of research in the field of child and developmental psychology.

For many years, the attention of psychologists has been primarily riveted to the problems of child psychology, the dynamics of child development, age-related changes, contradictions and crises.

Such attention is fully justified, since it is in childhood that the psychological foundations of the personality are formed.

There are significantly more age-related periodizations of child development than adult developmental periodizations, and they are more widely known.

The opinion has become widespread that a person develops up to a certain age, and then there is only a process of aging and extinction.

This is not entirely true.

Forms of human development change throughout life: physical development, intellectual, social, spiritual.

Certain forms of development prevail at different age stages of life.

The dominance of physical development is replaced by the predominance of intellectual, then social and spiritual.

Many of the greatest discoveries have been made by scientists over 50 years of age.

The same can be said about the creation of many works of art.

Moreover, the creative activity of the individual is considered by modern psychology as the most favorable condition for a long and productive life.

An adult is no less interesting to modern psychology than a child.

The sciences that study specifically the adult are intensively developing and spreading, for example, andragogy is the science of the laws of development, education and upbringing of adults.

The second stereotype of understanding the social development of a person is associated with the first and is largely due to it.

It is a stereotype of childhood absolutization.

The essence of this stereotype lies in the erroneous opinion that all the prerequisites for personality development are laid in childhood.

Childhood so significantly determines many areas of the individual's social development and the life path of the individual that its absolutization at first glance seems correct.

The concept of the meaning of childhood was especially influenced by world-famous works by Z. Freud and E. Bern.

However, these studies studied the problems of social pathology, the development of neuroses caused by violations of socialization and education in childhood.

The coordinated actions of people are distinguished by high plasticity and flexibility.

Although there is a network of conventions for all recurring situations, every situation is unique. People are able to cope with difficulties.

Such flexible coordination is possible because each participant acts independently, adapting to the other participants as they move together towards a common goal.

In each case, a person makes a decision and acts in accordance with his own assessment of the situation.

George Mead argued that mutual accommodation is greatly facilitated by the ability of people to form ideas about themselves as perceptual objects. This process is ensured by accepting the roles of others.

Each person is able to form an "I-image" - he can imagine how he looks in the eyes of other people included in this situation.

Personal responsibility is fixed by a person at the moment when he imagines what other participants expect from him.

There are moments when self-awareness is very acute: those who are not used to public speaking and are forced to address the group may forget what they wanted to say.

Sometimes self-awareness is almost completely absent. If a person is engrossed in a gripping picture, he is conscious of nothing but the development of the plot.

In most cases, people fall between these two extremes.

A person is especially clearly aware of himself in those situations where people are dependent on each other.

Any person who depends on cooperation with others becomes especially receptive to their views.

He cannot afford to do something that would cause others to hesitate, would deprive him of their support.

The formation of "I-images" is the spread of an adaptive tendency.

Images arise when there is some kind of obstacle in the activity; the same principle is true for "I-images". A person becomes aware of himself as a special object in situations where he depends on others.

According to J. Mead, self-control is possible because the actions of people in relation to themselves are largely of the same order as their actions in relation to other people or the actions of others in relation to them.

According to Z. Freud, guilt can be seen as a form of self-punishment.

Self-control is impossible without "I-images".

Until a person is able to treat himself as a perceptual object and clearly imagine how he should act, he cannot respond to his actions.

When a person has formed a "I-image", an imaginary rehearsal occurs, during which the possible reactions of others to his act are evaluated.

Self-awareness serves as a defense against impulsive behavior. It allows people to isolate themselves from others and make their behavior more conventional.

Through thoughtful planning, actions become less spontaneous.

Self-control is associated with such behavior, which changes depending on how it looks from the point of view attributed to other participants in the joint activity.

The essence of sex-role identification of individuals is the assimilation by the subject of psychological traits, behavioral characteristics that are characteristic of people of a certain gender.

In the process of primary socialization, an individual learns normative ideas about the somatic, psychological, and behavioral properties that are characteristic of men and women.

The child first becomes aware of his belonging to a certain gender, then he develops a social ideal of gender-role behavior that corresponds to his system of ideas about the most positive features of specific representatives of this sex.

The mechanism of gender-role identification is undergoing significant changes in the modern world.

In traditional societies, devoid of social dynamics, gender-role identification is characterized by relatively rigid certainty, which is associated with a clear social fixation of masculinity (the social standard of masculinity) and femininity (the standard of femininity).

To refer to people who successfully combine male and female psychological qualities, an American psychologist S. Beem introduced the concept androgyny.

Androgynous individuals act in the process of socialization as the most adaptive, because, without violating the reference models of behavior of their own sex, they possess some psychological qualities that make up the social virtues of members of the other sex.

The more patriarchal the country, the more one can observe a rigid division of activity into traditionally male and traditionally female.

D. Myers considers such a division depending on the factors of culture and era.

Sexual socialization has significant differences in industrial society, agricultural society and nomadic cultures (cultures of nomads and gatherers).

Sex differences between men and women, which determine the set of expected behavior patterns, are denoted as gender differences, or gender social roles.

The dynamics of the processes of gender-role identification in the contradictory conditions of modern socialization contributes to the emergence of negative socio-psychological phenomena.

Violations of gender identity most often occur with improper upbringing, for example, when parents really wanted a boy, and a girl was born, whom they raised as a boy, and vice versa.

Sometimes this happens if only one parent takes part in the upbringing of the child, representing the standard of only male or only female behavior.

There is a confusion of roles, leading to a violation of normal relations with members of the opposite sex.

Sometimes the process of gender identification can be negatively affected by fashion if it is aimed at eliminating differences in the style of dress, behavior and characteristic social manifestations of men and women.

Gender-role identification is one of the leading mechanisms of socialization in any society.

It accompanies the implementation of many other mechanisms: social assessment of the desired behavior, imitation, conformism, etc.

LECTURE No. 4. Social interactions and patterns of individual behavior in a group and society

A distinction is made between primary и secondary relations.

Primary - intimate contact face to face.

In the study of social distance, the degree of psychological closeness is important, which contributes to the ease, spontaneity of interaction.

social interaction It is more of an interaction of personifications than real personalities.

The creation of personifications is based on what is known about the individual.

The interaction is based on the assumptions that one participant makes about the other.

But no one ever fully understands another. He can only observe various sensory signals (gestures and actions) and draw conclusions based on them.

If the social distance is significant, a person sees in the other a special case of a certain social category.

In secondary relationships, the personality traits of the partner are either irrelevant or of secondary importance.

Social distancing is at its maximum in situations where each person is on their own.

Courtesy - a way to hide your own identity.

Communication in such circumstances is mostly symbolic and formal.

Some sociologists denounce secondary contacts as undesirable. But most secondary relationships are not hostile.

Such is the nature of most social contacts in contemporary mass societies.

In relationships where social distance is minimal, the concept of the other person is highly individualized, and when dealing with him, his idiosyncratic traits are taken into account.

In such cases, unique personifications are created. Whereas in the secondary relationship only that which is essential to the performance of a particular action becomes known about a person, in the primary relationship each is familiar with the views and reactions of the other in many different situations.

Under similar circumstances, differences in behavior are usually due to differences in the definition of situations.

As people get to know each other better, they are able to speak more sincerely and thus better understand the "picture of the world" of each.

Each person reacts slightly differently than the other, but their characteristics become clearer when their definition of the situation is clarified.

The more fully one person understands the uniqueness of another individual, the easier it is for him to identify himself with him.

In secondary contacts, people's relationships are often based on mutual utility.

If people constantly communicate and conscientiously fulfill conventional roles, this does not necessarily lead to a reduction in social distance.

Many sociologists, following C. Cooley, emphasized the importance of face-to-face contacts.

Such contacts contribute to the reduction of social distance, as they facilitate the "reading" of expressive movements. Symbolic communications are intentionally created and controlled by consciousness; they are meant to make a certain impression.

But expressive movements are out of control.

prosocial behavior - actions that benefit other people, but have no obvious benefit to the people who perform them.

This phenomenon attracted particular attention of social psychologists in the 1960s.

The event that set off the research took place in 1964 in New York, when a girl was attacked while returning from work.

Later it turned out that people were watching this, but no one came to the rescue and did not call the police.

There was a discussion about why no one provided help. Latane и P. Darley outlined the five steps observers must go through (often unconsciously) to decide to help.

At each stage, the simplest choice is the path of least resistance - do nothing and do nothing.

Step 1. The observer must recognize the urgency of the situation.

To take the first step towards helping, we must turn our attention from our own affairs to the incident.

Step 2. Correct interpretation of the situation as an emergency.

Step 3. Responsibility for actions. The observer may or may not take responsibility for the intended actions.

No one but him can take responsibility. Distribution (diffusion) of responsibility is one explanation for why onlookers sometimes don't react at all.

Step 4. Know what to do. The observer must see if he knows how to help.

Step 5. Making the final decision to provide assistance.

Even after going through all four previous stages of choice, answering "yes" in each of them, the observer may not decide to help: he may be prevented by fear of negative consequences.

If a person is not particularly motivated, help may not occur because the potential cost seems too high.

Reasons for prosocial behavior: usually distinguish between selfish and disinterested (altruistic) motives of behavior.

Selfless motivation (empathy) leads to help.

G. Bateson and his colleagues suggested empathy hypothesis - altruism, according to which some part of prosocial behavior is motivated by a completely disinterested desire to help a person in need of help.

Selfish motivation:

1) helping you feel better.

People sometimes act prosocially just to feel better (the negative state relief model).

Prosocial behavior is motivated by a desire to improve one's own emotional state;

2) to help, because the resultant action is pleasant.

According to research M. Smith (empathic pleasure hypothesis) empathy leads to helping, because the helping person anticipates pleasant feelings after achieving a specific result;

3) helping people like us to preserve common genes.

The model of genetic determinism is based on the theory of human behavior.

J. Philip Rushton and other evolutionary psychologists have emphasized that we unconsciously respond to genetic influences.

Aggression - Intentionally causing any harm to other people.

Theories of aggression.

The first explanation for aggression is that people commit violence because it is in their nature.

Z. Freud argued that aggression is generated mainly by a strong desire for death or the death instinct (Thanatos), characteristic of all people.

K. Lorenz suggested that aggression originates in the inherited instinct to fight, which both human beings and animals possess.

Social psychologists have rejected the view that aggression is based on innate instincts.

Research has shown that some forms of aggression vary across countries.

Even if aggression is partly based on innate desires, they are suppressed by social and cultural factors.

The importance of biological factors in many forms of social behavior is more commonly recognized.

Studies show that aggressive people and people who have attempted suicide have higher levels of serotonin.

Presumably, this makes it difficult for highly aggressive people to control their aggressive impulses.

The opposite view of aggression is contained in social learning theory: aggression - acquired social behavior.

It is based on the idea that aggression is mainly acquired through learning.

The set of various aggressive reactions in a person is not primordial. It is acquired in the same way that other complex forms of social behavior are acquired: through direct experience or observation of the actions of others.

Through direct or indirect experience, already at the age of six, a person acquires knowledge about what people are suitable targets for aggression, what actions of others justify, require aggressive retribution, and in what situations aggression is acceptable or unacceptable.

Social learning theory states that an individual's aggression in a given situation depends on a wide range of factors, including that individual's past experience, the reward system associated with aggression, and other variables that shape an individual's thoughts and perceptions regarding the acceptability and potential outcomes of such behavior.

Cognitive theories of aggression, the role of scenarios, evaluation and emotions. Cognitive Factors play a key role in shaping the response.

These include: scenarios - cognitive "programs" of events that should occur under certain circumstances; interpretation of the situation; grade.

Unpleasant incidents are accompanied negative emotions.

According to cognitive theories of aggression, aggressive behavior is based on a complex interplay of mood, experience, thoughts, and memories.

Social causes of aggression.

Usually aggression is associated with various social factors that either initiate its appearance or increase its intensity:

1) frustration - Aggression can occur if the desired (or expected) is not achieved;

2) direct provocation - aggression breeds aggression;

3) media brutality - the impact of observation of aggression;

4) increased arousal - emotions, cognition and aggression.

Psychological impact involves understanding people's predispositions; knowledge of their characteristics and involuntary expressions, abilities and acquired skills; behavioral features.

Since the individual is a member of a particular social group, the approach to him is based on the study of group specifics.

The generally accepted classification of means of psychological influence:

1) stimulating the trend towards imitate, causing rallying like-minded people and the development of enthusiasm, sweeping aside fluctuations.

The leader (inspirer) should not show signs of doubt, indecision or readiness to follow the will of the audience, as he may lose his power of influence.

The enthusiasm of the masses rises to the point of self-sacrifice. Even in extreme cases, the individual will cannot carry a person so close to the limits of danger as a blind impulse to imitate.

Motives distracting or soothing are suppressed;

2) suggestibility predetermined by the fact that the fate of the individual seems to be connected with the fate of the group.

An increase in suggestibility is facilitated by living conditions, for example, cohabitation of the crew on a ship.

Group members are driven by a sense of community to the detriment of self-determination of the individual;

3) extreme suggestibility - a mental state that is generally useful on the ship, although it can become harmful.

Increased suggestibility is a consequence of living conditions, and not the attitude of group members to a common goal, the latter may even be indifferent;

4) энтузиазм, readiness for self-sacrifice can sometimes lead to senseless panic, recklessness and rebellion. Increased suggestibility limits cognitive in personality.

In practical life, there is also a naive psychological impact, when a blind, senseless dependence arises between the inspirer and the crowd.

Psychologists see in suggestion an installation for a motor reaction, a call for a certain action.

The problem is to combine the functions of subordination with the education of the initiative necessary to complete tasks.

Cultivating initiative requires independence and resistance to someone else's will.

They try to overcome it by education trust in the leader, personal devotion, elimination of the circumstances causing irritation.

A. Bandura considers imitation kind of social learning. The human body reproduces the actions of the model, not always understanding their meaning.

American psychologist F. Skinner, offering his own version of the management of society, proceeds from the fact that the freedom and autonomy of the individual are illusory.

We are all dependent on the environment, and the development of this or that type of behavior is impossible without the use of external "reinforcers" that give the impression of a free society.

Our ideas about personal independence, about free will and about deciding our fate stem from ignorance of the true causes of this or that behavior. Need experts in behavior planning a person who would help to harmonize the development of the individual, to achieve its prosperity.

LECTURE No. 5. The concept of socialization: stages and mechanisms of its impact on a person

Socialization - the process and result of human social development.

Socialization can be considered from the point of view of the assimilation and reproduction of social experience by an individual in the process of life (G. M. Andreeva).

The essence of the process of socialization lies in the fact that a person gradually acquires social experience and uses it to adapt to society.

Socialization refers to those phenomena through which a person learns to live and interact effectively with other people.

It is directly related to social control, since it includes the assimilation of knowledge, norms, and values ​​of a society that has all types of formal and informal sanctions.

Purposeful, socially controlled processes of influencing the personality are realized primarily in education and training.

Spontaneous influence is carried out through the media, real life situations, etc.

The two-sidedness of the process of socialization is manifested in the unity of its internal and external content.

External process - the totality of all social influences on a person that regulate the manifestation of impulses and drives inherent in the subject.

internal process - the process of forming a holistic personality.

Each historical period defines features of socialization depending on its factors at this stage of implementation.

Modern socialization has its own specifics, due to the rapid pace of development of science and new technologies that affect all spheres of human life.

One of the most obvious features of modern socialization is its duration in comparison with previous periods.

Childhood as the primary period of socialization has increased significantly compared to previous eras.

Modern socialization is characterized humanization of childhoodwhen the child acts as the main value of the family and society.

In order to become a full member of society, a person needs more and more time.

If earlier socialization covered only the period of childhood, then a modern person needs to socialize all his life.

A special role in modern socialization belongs to education and the acquisition of a profession.

Education is a necessary condition for socialization in almost all countries of the world.

The success of modern education is determined not only by what a person has learned, but also by the ability to acquire new knowledge and use it in new conditions.

Creation also becomes a necessary condition for human socialization.

The features of modern socialization of a person are also determined by those new requirements for his character traits that must be formed for optimal functioning as a full member of society.

These traits by themselves are not very different from the personality traits needed earlier, but their combination suggests greater expression. ambivalence.

Ambivalence is a combination of multidirectional traits that provides mutual compensation for their social manifestations in human behavior.

In the process of socialization, a person acts as a subject and an object of social relations.

A. V. Petrovsky identifies three stages of personality development in the process of socialization: adaptation, customization и integration.

On the stage adaptations, which usually coincides with the period of childhood, a person acts as an object of social relations, to which a huge amount of effort is directed by parents, educators, teachers and other people who surround the child and are in varying degrees close to him.

There is an entry into the world of people: mastery of some sign systems created by mankind, elementary norms and rules of behavior, social roles; assimilation of simple forms of activity.

A person learns to be a person.

It is not so easy.

Feral people are an example of this.

Feral people - these are those who, for some reason, did not go through the process of socialization, that is, they did not assimilate, did not reproduce social experience in their development.

These are those individuals who grew up in isolation from people and were brought up in the community of animals (C. Linnaeus).

On the stage individualization there is some isolation of the individual, caused by the need for personalization. Here the individual is the subject of social relations.

A person who has already mastered certain cultural norms of society is able to manifest himself as a unique individuality, creating something new, unique, something in which, in fact, his personality is manifested.

If at the first stage the most important was assimilation, then at the second - reproduction in individual and unique forms.

Individualization is largely determined by the contradiction that exists between the achieved result of adaptation and the need for maximum realization of one's individual characteristics.

The stage of individualization contributes to the manifestation of differences between people.

Integration involves the achievement of a certain balance between man and society, the integration of the subject of object relations of the individual with society.

A person finds the best option for life, which contributes to the process of his self-realization in society, as well as his acceptance of his changing norms.

This process is very complicated, since modern society is characterized by many conflicting trends in its development.

However, there are optimal ways of life that most contribute to the adaptation of a particular person.

At this stage, socially typical personality traits are formed, i.e., such properties that indicate that a given person belongs to a certain social group.

Thus, in the process of socialization, the dynamics of the passive and active position of the individual.

Passive position - when he learns the norms and serves as an object of social relations; active position - when he reproduces social experience and acts as a subject of social relations; active-passive position - when he is able to integrate subject-object relations.

Human socialization occurs through the mechanisms of socialization - ways of conscious or unconscious assimilation and reproduction of social experience.

One of the first was the mechanism of unity of imitation, imitation, identification.

The essence lies in the desire of a person to reproduce the perceived behavior of other people.

Highlight mechanism gender identity (gender identification) or sex-role typing.

Its essence lies in the assimilation by the subject of psychological traits, behavioral characteristics that are characteristic of people of a certain gender.

In the process of primary socialization, the individual learns normative ideas about the psychological and behavioral properties that are characteristic of men and women.

Movement social evaluation of desired behavior carried out in the process of social control (S. Parsons).

It works based on what has been learned Z. Freud the principle of the pleasure of suffering - the feelings that a person experiences in connection with rewards (positive sanctions) and punishments (negative sanctions) coming from other people.

People perceive each other differently and seek to influence others in different ways.

These are the effects of the mechanism of social evaluation: social facilitation (or facilitation) and social inhibition.

Social facilitation involves the stimulating influence of some people on the behavior of others.

Social inhibition (the psychological effect of the reverse action) is manifested in the negative, inhibitory influence of one person on another.

The most common mechanism of socialization is conformity.

The concept of conformity is associated with the term "social conformism", i.e., uncritical acceptance and adherence to the standards prevailing in society, the authorities of ideology.

Through group pressure and the spread of stereotypes of mass consciousness, a type of impersonal layman is formed, devoid of originality and originality.

The measure of development of conformity can be different.

There is external conformity, which manifests itself only in external agreement, but at the same time the individual remains with his own opinion. At internal the individual really changes his point of view and transforms his internal attitudes depending on the opinions of others.

Negativism - this is conformism on the contrary, the desire to act contrary to the position of the majority at all costs and to assert one's point of view at any cost.

Other phenomena considered as mechanisms of socialization are also defined: suggestion, group expectations, role learning, etc.

The social formation of a person occurs throughout life and in different social groups.

Family, kindergarten, school class, student group, labor collective, company of peers - all these are social groups that make up the immediate environment of the individual and act as carriers of various norms and values.

Such groups that define the system of external regulation of the individual's behavior are called institutions of socialization.

The most influential institutions of socialization are the family, the school, and the production group.

LECTURE No. 6. Deviations of social behavior

Three terms are used that are close in meaning: destructive behavior, deviant or deviant.

Such behavior is usually explained by a combination of the results of an incorrect development of the personality and the unfavorable situation in which the person finds himself.

At the same time, it is largely determined by the shortcomings of education, leading to the formation of relatively stable psychological properties that contribute to the development of deviations.

Deviant behavior can be normative, that is, have a situational character and do not go beyond serious violations of legal or moral norms.

Dangerous is such behavior that not only goes beyond the limits of permissible individual variations, but also delays the development of the personality or makes it extremely one-sided, making it difficult for interpersonal relationships, although outwardly it does not conflict with legal, moral, ethical and cultural norms.

Ts. P. Korolenko и T. A. Donskikh identified seven variants of deviant behavior: addictive, antisocial, suicidal, conformist, narcissistic, fanatical, autistic.

Many variants of deviations are based on character accentuation.

Demonstrativeness with excessive development leads to narcissistic behavior; stuck - to fanatical; hyperthymia combined with excitability - to antisocial, etc.

Any deviation in its development goes through a series of stages.

Addictive behavior is one of the most common deviations.

Its development is facilitated by both objective (social) and subjective (phenomenological) factors of victimization. However, the onset of the deviation often occurs during childhood.

The ability of a person to overcome obstacles and cope with periods of psychological decline serves as a guarantee of preventing the development of deviant behavior.

The essence of addictive behavior is the desire of a person to escape reality by changing his mental state by taking certain substances (alcohol, drugs) or by constantly fixing attention on certain objects or activities, which is accompanied by the development of intense positive emotions.

Most often, the process of developing an addiction begins when a person experiences sensations of extraordinary uplift associated with certain actions.

Consciousness fixes this connection.

A person realizes that there is a certain way of behavior or a means that relatively easily improves the mental state.

The second stage of addictive behavior is characterized by the appearance of an addictive rhythm, when a certain sequence of resorting to addiction is developed.

In the third stage, addiction becomes a common way of responding to an unfavorable situation.

At the fourth stage, the complete dominance of addictive behavior occurs, regardless of the well-being or disadvantage of the situation.

The fifth stage is a disaster. The psychological state of a person is extremely unfavorable, since the addictive behavior itself no longer brings the former satisfaction.

A person is the subject of socialization, its object, but he can also be a victim of socialization.

Initially, the concept of victimization was used within the framework of legal psychology to refer to various processes that cause a person to become a victim of circumstances or violence of other people.

The concept of social pedagogical victimology was introduced in connection with the problems of studying the unfavorable circumstances of human socialization.

A. V. Mudrik determines socio-pedagogical victimology as a branch of knowledge, which is an integral part of social pedagogy that studies various categories of people - real and potential victims of adverse conditions of socialization.

Victimogenicity - the presence of conditions that contribute to the process of turning a person into a victim of socialization, the process itself and the result of such a transformation - victimization.

Among the conditions that contribute to the victimization of a person, one can single out social и phenomenological conditions (factors).

Social factors of victimization are associated with external influences, phenomenological conditions - with those internal changes in a person that occur under the influence of unfavorable factors of upbringing and socialization.

An important social factor is influence of features of social control in the society in which the person lives.

Low living standards, unemployment, environmental pollution, weak social support from the state - all these are factors of victimization of the population.

Scientists demographers identify three prevailing factors of victimization in modern life: increased widespread environmental pollution, reduced adaptation of people due to rapidly changing living conditions, and significant psychological stress.

Catastrophes are a special factor in the victimization of the population, since they lead to disruption of the normal socialization of very large groups of the population.

Specific victimogenic factors are due to the instability of the social, economic and political life of society and the state.

Japanese scientist S. Murayama notes a sharp coarsening of children, their insensitivity towards other people.

Not all children can adapt to society without making excessive efforts, which can lead to emotional disorders, aggression and antisocial behavior.

Antisocial behavior is manifested in the infringement or disregard for the rights of other people, the predominance of hedonistic motivation, whims, demonstrative behavior, lack of a sense of responsibility and duty.

The factors of victimization of a person include all the factors of socialization: microfactors - family, peer groups and subculture, micro-society, religious organizations; mesofactors - ethno-cultural conditions, regional conditions, mass media; macro factors - space, planet, world, country, society, state (classification by A. V. Mudrik).

The vast majority of deviations in social behavior are caused by a complex interaction of many factors.

LECTURE No. 7. The concept of social role and characteristics of its influence on the development of the individual

Social role - fixation of a certain position that this or that individual occupies in the system of social relations.

A social role is a socially necessary type of social activity and a way of behaving a person who bears the stamp of social assessment.

For the first time the concept of social role was proposed by American sociologists. R. Lintonomi, J. Mead.

Each individual performs not one, but several social roles.

The social role itself does not determine the activity and behavior of each specific bearer in detail: everything depends on how much the individual learns and internalizes the role.

The act of internalization is determined individually by the psychological characteristics of each specific bearer of a given role.

The social role leaves a "range of possibilities" for its performer, which can be called "role performance style".

The main characteristics of the social role highlighted by an American sociologist T. Parsons.

This is the scale, the method of obtaining, emotionality, formalization, motivation.

Role scale depends on the range of interpersonal relationships.

Method of obtaining role depends on how inevitable this role is for a person.

Social roles are different emotional level. Each role carries certain possibilities for the emotional manifestation of its subject.

Formalization social role is determined by the specifics of interpersonal relations of the bearer of this role.

Some roles involve the establishment of only formal relations between people with strict regulation of the rules of conduct; others are only informal; still others may combine formal and informal relationships.

Motivation depends on the needs and motives of the person.

The types of social roles are determined by the variability of social groups, types of activities and relationships in which the individual is included.

Depending on social relations, there are social и interpersonal social roles.

Social roles are associated with social status, profession or activity.

These are standardized impersonal roles based on rights and obligations, regardless of who fills these roles.

Socio-demographic roles: husband, wife, daughter, son, etc.

Interpersonal roles are associated with interpersonal relationships that are regulated at the emotional level (leader, offended, etc.), many of them are determined by the individual characteristics of a person.

Among the individual-typical manifestations of personality, one can single out socio-typical roles.

In interpersonal relationships, each person acts in some kind of dominant social role, a kind of social role as the most typical individual image.

According to the degree of manifestation, they are distinguished active и latent roles. Active roles are determined by a specific social situation and are performed at a given moment in time; latent ones do not appear in the actual situation, although the subject is potentially the bearer of this role.

According to the way of assimilation, the roles are divided into prescribed (determined by age, gender, nationality) and acquiredwhich the subject learns in the process of socialization.

The main characteristics of the social role highlighted by an American sociologist T. Parsons: scale, method of obtaining, emotionality, formalization, motivation.

Role scale depends on the range of interpersonal relationships.

The larger the range, the larger the scale.

For example, the social roles of spouses are very large, since a wide range of relationships is established between husband and wife.

On the one hand, these are interpersonal relationships based on a variety of feelings and emotions; on the other hand, relations are also regulated by normative acts and in a certain sense are formal.

In other cases, when relationships are strictly defined by social roles, interaction can be carried out only on a specific occasion.

Here the scope of the role is reduced to a narrow range of specific issues and is small.

Method of obtaining role depends on how inevitable this role is for a person.

So, the roles of a young man, an old man, a man, a woman are automatically determined by the age and sex of a person and do not require much effort to acquire them.

There can only be a problem of matching one's role, which already exists as a given.

Other roles are achieved or even won in the course of a person's life and as a result of special efforts.

These are almost all roles associated with the profession and any achievements of a person.

Social roles differ significantly in emotional level.

Each role carries certain possibilities for the emotional manifestation of its subject.

Expectations of others, social norms, customs, fashion can determine certain features of a person's emotional manifestation in a certain situation.

Even the difference in historical epochs can predetermine the variety of emotional manifestations of people, due to their social roles.

Formalization as a descriptive characteristic of a social role is determined by the specifics of interpersonal relations of the bearer of this role.

Some roles involve the establishment of only formal relations between people with strict regulation of the rules of conduct; others are only informal; still others may combine both formal and informal relationships.

Formal relationships are often accompanied by non-formal ones, because a person, perceiving and evaluating another, shows sympathy or antipathy towards him.

This happens when people interact for a while and the relationship becomes relatively stable.

Thus, colleagues who work together and are bound by formal relationships are likely to have some feelings towards each other, although the work involves the coordination of actions primarily at the conventional level.

Here, the feelings of the participants in the interaction in relation to each other act as a side effect, but relatively persistent.

Motivation depends on the needs and motives of the person. Different roles are due to different motives.

Parents, caring for the welfare of their child, are guided primarily by a feeling of love and care; the leader works in the name of the cause, etc.

With various approaches to interpretation, social roles are defined as:

1) fixing a certain position, which this or that individual occupies in the system of social relations;

2) function, normatively approved pattern of behavior, expected from everyone occupying this position;

3) a socially necessary type of social activity and way of behaving personality, which bears the stamp of public assessment (approval, condemnation, etc.);

4) personality behavior according to her social status; generalized execution method a certain social function, when certain actions are expected from a person depending on their status in society, and the system of interpersonal relations;

5) existing in society system of expectations regarding the behavior of an individual occupying a certain position in his interaction with other individuals;

6) system of specific expectations in relation to himself, an individual occupying a certain position, i.e., how he represents the model of his own behavior in interaction with other individuals;

7) open, observable behavior an individual occupying a certain position;

8) representation about the prescribed pattern of behavior that is expected and required of a person in a given situation;

9) prescribed actions, characteristic of those who occupy a certain social position;

10) set of normsthat determine how a person of a given social position should behave.

The social role is interpreted as an expectation, type of activity, behavior, representation, stereotype, social function.

The variety of ideas about the social role indicates that in psychology the idea J. Meade turned out to be very convenient for describing the behavior of an individual in its various social functions.

T. Shibutani believed that social roles have the function of consolidating the optimal ways of behavior in certain circumstances, developed by mankind over a long period of time.

The orderliness of everyday life is determined by the sequence in which a person performs certain social roles that are associated with rights and obligations.

Duty - this is what a person is forced to do based on a social role, regardless of whether he likes it or not.

In fulfilling his duties in accordance with his social role, each person has the right to present his own demands to another.

Duties are always accompanied by rights.

The harmony of rights and obligations implies the optimal fulfillment of a social role, any imbalance in this ratio may indicate that the social role is not fully assimilated.

The social role has two aspects of study: role expectation и role performance.

The influence of social role on personality development is great.

The development of personality is facilitated by its interaction with persons playing a number of roles, as well as its participation in the largest possible role repertoire.

The more social roles an individual is able to play, the more adapted to life he is.

The process of personality development often acts as the dynamics of mastering social roles.

Learning a new role can dramatically affect a person.

In psychotherapy, there is an appropriate method of behavior correction - imagotherapy.

The patient is offered to enter into a new image, to play a role. Imagotherapy is based on the method of psychodrama D. Moreno.

He treated people for neurosis, giving them the opportunity to play those roles that they would like to, but could not play in life.

The developing personality introduces individual originality into the "performance" of the social role.

This happens not only due to the specific character, temperament, personal characteristics.

Role self-manifestation is always determined by the internal structure of the psyche exteriorization, formed under the influence of the internalization of external social activity of a person.

In human life development of a social role is a complex and controversial phenomenon.

D. A. Leontiev identified two aspects of the development of a social role: technical и semantic.

The technical aspect includes the perception of the essence of the role by the subject and the mastery of its content.

The semantic aspect is connected with the attitude of a person to his own role.

First of all, the individual must master the content of the role, that is, master it technically.

Most often, such development goes through the mechanism of imitation.

Many social roles are easy to learn, some require special efforts and abilities.

The semantic side of the social role is the acceptance by a person of a role for himself.

Sometimes a situation arises when the content of the role is fully assimilated, but there are internal obstacles to its acceptance.

A person strives to prove to himself and others that he is something more than a role.

On the other hand, the role can be so exciting that the individual completely subordinates himself to it.

There are three problems of assimilation of a social role: the problem of difficulty in assimilation of the role, the problem of rejection of the role, the problem of violating the measure in its assimilation.

All his life a person is engaged in the development of new roles, as his age, position in the family, professional status, interpersonal relationships, etc. change.

Mastering can be simple and easy, or it can be accompanied by significant difficulties.

The level of acceptance by a person of a social role for himself can also be different.

The role can be used as a means to achieve a certain goal, as well as it can become the goal itself, the end result to which the subject strives for a long time.

In this case, the role can "conquer" the personality: behind the role, the personality will no longer be visible.

Mastering a wide range of social roles is the most adaptive for a person, since it contributes to his development.

Role conflict - a situation in which an individual having a certain status is faced with incompatible expectations.

The situation of role conflict is caused by the fact that the individual is unable to fulfill the requirements of the role.

In role theories, it is customary to distinguish two types of conflicts: inter-role и intra-role.

К inter-role include conflicts caused by the fact that an individual has to play too many different roles at the same time and therefore he is not able to meet all the requirements of these roles, either because he does not have enough time and physical capabilities for this, or different roles present him with incompatible requirements.

In research on role conflict, the work of the American social psychologist W. G. Gooda "Theory of role tension".

He calls the role tension the state of an individual in a situation of inter-role conflict and proposes a theory, the essence of which is to identify ways to relieve this tension.

To do this, you need to get rid of a number of roles, and make the time and energy spent on the performance of the rest dependent on the significance of this role for the individual, positive and negative sanctions that may be caused by the failure to perform certain roles; reactions of others to the rejection of certain roles.

When it comes to inter-role conflicts, a marginal person is most often cited as an example.

Analysis intra-role conflict reveals conflicting demands placed on the bearers of the same role by different social groups.

The study is considered to be a classic in this area. M. Komarovskaya, which was held among female students of one of the American colleges.

The results of the study showed the inconsistency of the expectations of the requirements for college students on the part of parents and college students.

Role conflicts are common.

This is due to the complexity of social relations, the growing differentiation of the social structure and the further division of social labor.

Role conflicts, according to researchers, negatively affect the implementation of interaction, so social psychologists are trying to develop some general concepts that justify ways to eliminate role conflicts.

One of these concepts is W. Good's theory of role tension.

A similar approach can be found in the works N. Grossa, W. Mason.

They distinguish three groups of factors related to the problem of eliminating role conflicts.

The first is connected with the subjective attitude to the role of its performer.

The second group includes sanctions (positive and negative) that can be applied for the performance or non-performance of the role.

The authors refer to the third group of factors as the type of orientation of the performer of the role, among which they single out two: orientation towards moral values ​​and pragmatic orientation.

Based on the analysis of these factors, it is possible to predict which way of resolving the role conflict will be preferred by one or another role performer.

LECTURE No. 8. Communication as a socio-psychological phenomenon

1. The concept of communication

In all group activities, participants act simultaneously in two qualities: as performers of conventional roles and as unique human personalities.

When conventional roles are played, people act as units of the social structure.

There is agreement on the contribution that each role player must make.

The behavior of each participant is limited by expectations, due to cultural norms.

Involving in such enterprises, people remain unique living beings.

The reactions of each of them turn out to be dependent on certain qualities of those with whom they come into contact.

The nature of mutual attraction or repulsion is different in each case.

The pattern of interpersonal relationships that develop between people engaged in collaborative action creates another matrix that imposes further restrictions on what each person can or cannot do.

Even in the most fleeting interactions, interpersonal reactions take place.

In most contacts that occur, such reactions are of little importance and are soon forgotten.

When people continue to communicate with each other, more stable orientations emerge.

The nature of these relationships in each case will depend on the personality traits involved in the interaction of individuals.

Since a person expects special attention from his closest friends and is not inclined to expect good treatment from those he does not like, each party in the system of interpersonal relations is bound by a number of special rights and obligations.

Conventional roles are standardized and impersonal.

But the rights and obligations that are established in interpersonal roles depend entirely on the individual characteristics of the participants, their preferences.

Unlike conventional roles, most interpersonal roles are not specifically trained.

Everyone develops their own type of conversion.

Although there are no exactly identical systems of interpersonal relationships, there are recurring situations, and similar personalities respond in the same way to the same kind of treatment.

Typical patterns of interpersonal relationships are observed and typical interpersonal roles can be named.

Among the interpersonal roles that arise when people compete over similar interests are rival, enemy, conspirator, and ally.

In every organized group, there is a common understanding of how members are supposed to feel about each other.

In the family, for example, the relationship between mother and sons is conventionally defined.

People participating in a coordinated action simultaneously interact in the language of two systems of gestures.

As performers of conventional roles, they use conventional symbols that are the object of social control.

At the same time, the special personal orientation of each character is manifested in the style of his performance, in what he does when the situation is not sufficiently defined and he has some freedom of choice.

The manifestation of personality traits, in turn, causes responses, often unconscious.

These two forms of interaction imperceptibly pass one into the other.

Communication - the process of interconnection and interaction of social subjects (individuals, groups), characterized by the exchange of activities, information, experience, abilities, skills, as well as the results of activities, which is one of the necessary and universal conditions for the formation and development of society and the individual.

At the social level, communication is a necessary condition for the transfer of social experience and cultural heritage from one generation to another.

In the psychological sense, communication is understood as the process and result of establishing contacts between people or the interaction of subjects through various sign systems.

There are three aspects of communication, such as the transfer of information (communicative aspect of communication); interaction (interactive aspect of communication); understanding and knowledge of each otherperceptual aspect of communication).

The key words in understanding the essence of communication are: contact, connection, interaction, exchange, method of association.

There are different types of communication, which are most often determined by the specifics of feedback.

Communication can be direct and indirect, interpersonal and mass.

direct communication - this is direct natural face-to-face communication, when the subjects of interaction are nearby and not only verbal communication occurs, but also communication using non-verbal means.

Direct communication is the most complete type of interaction, because individuals receive the maximum information.

Direct communication can be formal и interpersonal.

It can also be carried out between subjects and simultaneously between several subjects in a group.

However, direct communication is real only for a small group, i.e. one in which all subjects of interaction personally know each other.

Direct face-to-face communication is two-way and is characterized by full and prompt feedback.

mediated or indirect communication occurs in situations where individuals are separated from each other by time or distance, for example, if subjects are talking on the phone or writing letters to each other.

A special type of communication is mass communicationdefining social communication processes.

Mass communication is multiple contacts of strangers, as well as communication mediated by various types of mass media.

Mass communication can be direct and indirect.

Direct mass communication takes place at various rallies, in all large social groups: the crowd, the public, the audience.

Mediated mass communication is most often one-sided and is associated with mass culture and mass media.

Since many mass media transmit information to a large number of people at the same time, feedback is very difficult, but still exists.

People, under the influence of the content of information transmitted by such sources, form motives, attitudes, which further determine their social actions.

The levels of communication are determined by the general culture of the interacting subjects, their individual and personal characteristics, the peculiarities of the situation, social control, and many other factors.

The value orientations of the communicants and their attitude towards each other turn out to be dominant.

The most primitive level of communication - phatic (from Latin fatuus - "stupid"), which involves a simple exchange of remarks to maintain a conversation in conditions where the speakers are not particularly interested in interaction, but are forced to communicate.

Its primitiveness lies not in the fact that the remarks are simple, but in the fact that there is no deep meaning or content behind them.

Sometimes this level is referred to as conventional (convention - "agreement").

The next level of communication informational.

There is an exchange of interesting information for the interlocutors, which is the source of any kind of human activity (mental, emotional, behavioral).

The information level of communication is usually stimulating in nature and prevails in conditions of joint activities or when meeting old friends.

personal the level of communication characterizes such an interaction in which the subjects are capable of the deepest self-disclosure and comprehension of the essence of another person.

The personal, or spiritual, level characterizes only such communication, which is aimed at activating the positive attitude of the subjects of interaction towards themselves, other people and the world around them as a whole.

The functions of communication are determined according to various criteria: emotional, informational, socializing, connecting, self-knowledge (A. V. Mudrik); establishment of generality, instrumental, awareness, self-determination (A. B. Dobrovich); cohesion, instrumental, translational, self-expression (A. A. Brudny); contact, informational, motivating, coordinating, understanding, emotive, establishing relationships, influencing (L. A. Karpenko) and etc.

If we consider communication in a certain system of relations, then we can distinguish a set of groups of functions.

1. Psychological functions determine the development of a person as an individual and personality.

In conditions of communication, many mental processes proceed differently than in conditions of isolated individual activity.

Communication stimulates the development of thought processes (cognitive activity), volitional processes (activity), emotional processes (efficiency).

2. Social functions determine the development of society as a social system and the development of groups as constituent units of this system.

The integration of society is possible only if there is communication in all its forms, types and forms.

3. Instrument functions define numerous connections between man and the world in the broadest sense of the word; between different social groups.

The conceptual idea of ​​such a division of functions lies in the idea of ​​the relationship of a person with society and the world in accordance with a simple model of relations: a person - activity - society.

2. Varieties of perception and interaction of objects of communication

The concept of "communication" is associated with information exchanges that occur between people in the process of joint activities and communication.

Communications - this is an act and a process of establishing contacts between the subjects of interaction through the development common sense transmitted and received information.

Actions, the purpose of which is semantic perception, are called communicative.

The main task of communication is the achievement of social community.

The individuality and uniqueness of each subject of interaction are preserved.

In a broader philosophical sense, communication is seen as social processassociated either with communication, the exchange of information, ideas, and so on, or with the transfer of content from one consciousness to another through sign systems.

The sociological aspect of understanding communication reveals the specifics of the means of communication of any objects of the material and spiritual world.

This concept is often used in relation to various media of information transmission (mass media).

Their wide distribution and influence on almost every person gave rise to the concept of a common information field in which modern people live.

As a mass process, communication is the constant dissemination of information through technical means of communication among huge dispersed audiences, influencing the assessments, opinions and behavior of people.

Communication acts as a special function of communication, manifested in the transmission and acceptance of information.

This function plays an important role in interpersonal relationships, since information processes in the modern world determine a significant part of human life.

The person who conveys the information communicator, the person who perceives it, - recipient.

In the process of interaction, the communicator and the recipient change places, since the functions of transmitting and perceiving information are transferred from one to the other.

However, there are situations of interaction when these functions are rigidly assigned to the subjects for a certain time.

information exchange - a global phenomenon that goes beyond simple human communication.

However, the specificity interpersonal information exchange is significant.

It is determined by the presence of a process of psychological feedback, the emergence of communication barriers, the emergence of phenomena of interpersonal influence, the existence of different levels of information transfer, the influence of space and time on the transfer of information content.

Process essence psychological feedback consists in the need for subjects to develop a single sign system and a common understanding of the issues discussed during communication.

When a person receives information, he first of all perceives it, that is, he interprets it.

Interpretation depends not only on the information itself, but also on the individual experience of the perceiver, his knowledge, general level of development, etc.

Оcommunication - this is, first of all, communication, i.e., the exchange of information that is significant for the participants in communication.

All means of communication are divided into two groups: verbal (verbal) и non-verbal. A. Pease cites data according to which information is transmitted through verbal means (only words) by 7%, sound means (including tone of voice, intonation of sound) - by 38%, and through non-verbal means - by 55%.

There is a separation of functions between verbal and non-verbal means of communication: pure information is transmitted through the verbal channel, and the attitude towards the communication partner is transmitted through the non-verbal channel.

Non-verbal behavior of a person is inextricably linked with his mental states and serves as a means of expressing them.

People quickly learn to adapt their verbal behavior to changing circumstances, but body language is less plastic.

Various classification of non-verbal means of communication, which include all body movements, intonation characteristics of the voice, tactile impact, spatial organization of communication.

Most significant kinesthetic means - visually perceived movements of another person, performing an expressive regulatory function in communication.

Kinesics includes expressive movements, manifested in facial expressions, posture, gaze, and gait.

The following types of non-verbal means of communication are associated with the voice, the characteristics of which create the image of a person, contribute to the recognition of his states, and the identification of mental individuality.

Voice characteristics are prosodic и extralinguistic phenomena.

Prosody - this is the general name of such rhythmic-intonational aspects of speech as pitch, loudness of the voice tone, timbre of the voice, stress force.

Extralinguistic system - this is the inclusion in speech of pauses, various kinds of psychophysiological manifestations of a person: crying, coughing, laughing, sighing, etc.

К takeesmic means of communication include dynamic touch in the form of a handshake, patting, kissing.

Dynamic touch is a biologically necessary form of stimulation, not just a sentimental detail of human communication.

Communication always spatially organized.

One of the first to study the spatial structure of communication was an American anthropologist E. Hall, who introduced the term "proxemics" itself, the translation of which means "proximity".

К proxemic characteristics include the orientation of partners at the time of communication and the distance between them.

E. Hall described the norms of approaching a person to a person - distancescharacteristic of North American culture.

These norms are defined by four distances:

1) intimate distance (from 0 to 45 cm) - communication of the closest people;

2) personal (from 45 to 120 cm) - communication with familiar people;

3) social (from 120 to 400 cm) - preferably when communicating with strangers and in official communication;

4) public (from 400 to 750 cm) - when speaking to various audiences.

Violation of the optimal communication distance is perceived negatively.

The essence of interaction is that in the process of joint activity and communication between people there is a contact due to the individual characteristics of the subjects, the social situation, the dominant strategies of behavior, the goals of the participants in the interaction and possible contradictions.

The concept of interaction gave its name to the direction of social psychology - interactionism, which is characterized by the study of the life of the individual in the context social interaction.

According to the theory of interactionism, personality development is carried out in the process of communication of an individual with members of a certain social group in the course of joint activities.

The actions of each individual are always focused on another person and depend on him.

Psychological compatibility - an important factor in the successful communication of the subjects of interaction.

Psychological compatibility in a social group is understood as the effect of interaction, which consists in such a combination of people that allows them to carry out their maximum possible interchangeability and complementarity.

A. B. Dobrovich singled out the social qualities of a person, which are most clearly manifested when interacting with other people and affect the psychological characteristics of communication: introversion - extraversion, mobility - rigidity, dominance - non-dominance.

K. Jung first described extraversion и introversion as the main directions or attitudes of a person.

An extroverted personality type is characterized by a focus on others, flexibility of behavior, and sociability.

The introverted personality type is characterized by a desire for solitude, an interest in one's own inner world.

Mobility и rigidity - qualities determined by the typological properties of higher nervous activity and temperament. Mobile people are dynamic and expressive.

Rigid people prefer stability and stability in everything.

When interacting dominant и non-dominant interlocutors there is a problem of psychological suppression of one person by another.

The human interaction process is functional units of interaction - acts, or Action.

The act as a unit of human behavior was first studied J. Meade. Each action can be considered as a unit of communication.

The action has four phases: phases of motivation, phases of clarification of the situation, phases of direct action и completion phase.

Any interaction includes a large number of actions that form a system of behavior.

Two indicators of the specifics of behavior are distinguished, taking into account the nature of interaction in the process of communication: a person's attention to the interests of other people; attention to your own interests.

By the ratio of the focus on oneself and the focus on the partner, one can judge the development of a human interaction strategy - the totality of the dominant features of human behavior in relations with other people, manifested in a particular social situation.

The main interaction strategies are distinguished: rivalry, compromise, cooperation, adaptation and avoidance (R. Blake, D. Mouton, C. Thomas).

The concept of social perception is largely determined by the concept of image, since essence of social perception It consists in the figurative perception by a person of himself, other people and social phenomena of the surrounding world.

Perception - the process and result of a person's perception of the phenomena of the surrounding world and himself.

social perception - perception, understanding and evaluation by people of social objects: other people, themselves, groups, social communities, etc.

Social perception includes interpersonal perception, self-perception and intergroup perception.

In a narrower sense, social perception is considered as interpersonal perception: the process of perceiving the external signs of a person, correlating them with his personal characteristics, interpreting and predicting his actions on this basis.

The social perceptual process has two sides: subjective and objective.

The processes of social perception differ significantly from the perception of non-social objects in that social objects are not passive and indifferent in relation to the subject of perception.

In a sense, perception is interpretation. But the interpretation of another person or group always depends on the previous social experience of the perceiver, on the behavior of the object of perception at the moment, on the system of value orientations of the perceiver, and on many factors, both subjective and objective.

Mechanisms of social perception - the ways in which people interpret and evaluate another person. The most common mechanisms are:

1) empathy - comprehension of the emotional state of another person, understanding of his emotions, feelings and experiences. Often empathy is identified with sympathy, empathy, sympathy.

This is not entirely true, since one can understand the emotional state of another person, but not treat him with sympathy and sympathy;

2) attraction - a special form of perception and knowledge of another person, based on the formation of a stable positive feeling towards him.

Thanks to positive feelings of sympathy, affection, friendship, love, and so on, certain relationships arise between people, allowing them to know each other more deeply.

Attraction as a mechanism of social perception is usually considered in three aspects: the process of forming the attractiveness of another person; the result of this process; relationship quality;

3) causal attribution mechanism associated with attributing causes of behavior to a person.

Each person has his own assumptions about why the perceived individual behaves in a certain way.

The attribution of the causes of behavior can take place taking into account the externality and internality of both the one who attributes and the one to whom they attribute.

If the observer is predominantly external, then the causes of the behavior of the individual whom he perceives will be seen by him in external circumstances.

If it is internal, then the interpretation of the behavior of others will be associated with internal, individual and personal reasons.

LECTURE No. 9. The concept of social conflict and possible ways to resolve it

Conflict - an open clash of opposing positions, interests, views, opinions of the subjects of interaction.

The basis of conflict situations in a group between individuals is a clash between opposing interests, opinions, goals, different ideas about how to achieve them.

At the verbal level, the conflict manifests itself most often in a dispute, where everyone seeks to defend his opinion and prove to the other that he is wrong.

Stages of the conflict:

1) the potential formation of conflicting interests, values, norms;

2) the transition of a potential conflict into a real one or the stage of awareness by the participants in the conflict of their correctly or falsely understood interests;

3) conflict actions;

4) removal or resolution of the conflict.

Each conflict has a more or less clearly defined structure.

In every conflict there is object conflict situation, associated either with technological and organizational difficulties, peculiarities of wages, or with the specifics of business and personal relations of the conflicting parties.

The second element of the conflict is goals, the subjective motives of its participants, due to their views and beliefs, worldview.

Conflict implies opponents, specific persons who are its participants.

In any conflict, it is important to distinguish the immediate occasion clashes from genuine it causeoften hidden by both conflicting parties.

As long as all elements of the conflict structure exist, it cannot be eliminated.

An attempt to end the conflict situation by forceful pressure or persuasion leads to its growth, expansion by attracting new individuals, groups or organizations.

It is necessary to eliminate at least one of the existing elements of the conflict structure.

Despite the fact that most people view conflict as something negative, it has constructive functions:

1) the conflict acts as a source of development, improvement of the interaction process (developing function);

2) detects the contradiction that has arisen (cognitive function);

3) designed to resolve the contradiction (instrumental function);

4) has objective consequences associated with a change in circumstances (perestroika function).

The same conflicts can be constructive in one respect and destructive in another.

Destructive functions conflicts are obvious:

1) in a conflict situation, almost all people experience psychological discomfort, depression, tension;

2) the system of interconnections is broken;

3) the effectiveness of joint activities decreases.

In this regard, almost all people have a negative attitude towards conflicts and seek to avoid them, although there are also conflict initiators.

There are several typologies of conflict situations.

The criteria for typology of conflicts are functions, subjects of interaction, types of behavior of participants, etc.

From the point of view of the subjects of interaction, conflicts are interpersonal, intergroup and intrapersonal.

Interpersonal conflicts - clashes of interacting people whose goals are either mutually exclusive and incompatible in a given situation, or oppose or interfere with each other.

Intergroup conflicts arise due to the confrontation of groups in a team or society.

Intrapersonal conflicts - a clash of relatively equal in strength and significance, but oppositely directed motives, needs, interests, inclinations in one person.

Possible classifications of conflicts:

1) horizontal (between ordinary employees);

2) vertical (between people who are subordinate to each other);

3) mixed (a combination of the previous varieties).

By the nature of the reasons that caused the conflict, conflicts caused by the labor process, the psychological characteristics of human relationships, and the personal originality of the group members are distinguished.

By the significance of conflicts for the organization, as well as by the way they are resolved, constructive and destructive conflicts are distinguished.

For constructive conflicts are characterized by disagreements that affect fundamental issues and the resolution of which brings the organization to a higher and more effective level of development.

Destructive conflicts lead to negative phenomena, which, in turn, lead to a sharp decrease in the effectiveness of the group.

In a conflict situation, it is important how the subjects of interaction imagine it.

There may be conflicts that do not have a substantial basis, but the subjects themselves believe that they exist.

This conflict is seen as false, Unlike genuine, in which real contradictions exist and are recognized by both sides of the true contradiction.

Among the various types of conflicts, the most difficult can be considered the so-called llatent, i.e. hidden conflict.

This conflict should have occurred, but does not occur, because for one reason or another it is either not recognized by the subjects of interaction, or is hidden by them behind socially acceptable forms of behavior.

Complex conflicts are personal и production. Family and work, personal life and professional activity are the main areas of human life that are associated with the self-affirmation of the individual and thus determine its particular vulnerability.

Production contradictions can be caused not only by the individual characteristics of the subjects of interaction, but also by the specifics of professional work.

The conflict may be displaced or doublewhen the existing significant contradictions between the subjects are hidden behind external, insignificant contradictions.

A displaced conflict is an explicit conflict, behind which you can find a hidden one that underlies the obvious one.

This happens if, for some reason, individuals cannot even admit to themselves the causes and sources of the conflict.

Many recommendations have been developed concerning various aspects of people's behavior in conflict situations, the choice of appropriate behavioral strategies and means of conflict resolution.

The model of human behavior in a conflict situation, in terms of its compliance with psychological standards, is based on the ideas E. Melibrudy, W. Siegert и L. Lange.

Constructive conflict resolution depends on the following factors:

1) the adequacy of the perception of the conflict;

2) openness and effectiveness of communication, readiness for a comprehensive discussion of problems;

3) creating an atmosphere of mutual trust and cooperation.

C. W. Thomas и R. H. Kilmenn developed the most appropriate strategies of behavior in a conflict situation.

There are five styles of behavior in conflict: adaptation, compromise, cooperation, ignoring, rivalry (competition).

The style of behavior in a particular conflict is determined by the extent to which you want to satisfy your own interests, while acting passively or actively, and the interests of the other side, acting jointly or individually.

Rival style, competition can be used by a person with a strong will, sufficient authority, power, not very interested in cooperation with the other side and striving first of all to satisfy his own interests.

Collaboration Style can be used if, in defending your own interests, you are forced to take into account the needs and desires of the other party.

The purpose of its application is to develop a long-term mutually beneficial solution.

This style requires the ability to explain your desires, listen to each other, and restrain your emotions.

The absence of one of these factors makes this style ineffective.

compromise style. Its essence lies in the fact that the parties seek to resolve differences with mutual concessions.

This style is the most effective, both parties want the same thing, but they know that it is impossible to do it at the same time.

Evasion Style is usually implemented when the problem at hand is not so important, the participant in the conflict does not defend his rights, does not cooperate with anyone to develop a solution, and does not want to spend time and effort on its solution.

This style is recommended when one party has more power or feels they are in the wrong, or feels there is no good reason to continue contact.

This style is not escapism or evasion of responsibility.

Withdrawal or delay may be an appropriate response to a conflict situation.

Fixture Style means that the participant in the conflict is acting jointly with the other side, but at the same time does not try to defend his own interests in order to smooth the atmosphere and restore a normal working atmosphere.

None of the styles of conflict resolution can be singled out as the best.

It is necessary to learn how to use each of them effectively and consciously make one or another choice, taking into account specific circumstances.

LECTURE No. 10. Definition and characteristics of social groups

Social group - any set of people, considered from the point of view of their community.

All the life of an individual in society is carried out through a variety of social groups that differ significantly from each other.

The broadest understanding of the social group is associated with the concepts community и aggregate.

The presence of a common goal makes people capable of concerted action, although such coordination exists only in a certain aspect of their behavior.

Individuals belong to the group not in their entire personality, but only in those aspects that are associated with the social roles performed in this group.

No person can function fully in only one social group.

No group can fully provide the conditions for self-realization of the individual in various aspects.

A social group is an important form of bringing people together in the process of activity and communication.

Goals, general norms, sanctions, group rituals, relationships, joint activities, material environment, and so on - these phenomena act as special components of a social group that determine the measure of its stability.

Less stable social groups are not the main ones in a person's life, although he can stay in them for a long time.

Family, school class, friends и professional team - the most significant social groups for the individual.

By virtue of their stability, they influence the nature of social development and social adaptation of the subject.

The main features of a social group:

1) availability integral psychological characteristics, such as public opinion, psychological climate, group norms, group interests, and so on, which are formed with the emergence and development of the group;

2) existence the main parameters of the group as a wholeKeywords: composition and structure, group processes, group norms and sanctions.

Composition is a set of characteristics of group members that are important from the point of view of its analysis as a whole. Group structure considered from the point of view of the functions that individual members of the group perform, as well as from the point of view of interpersonal relations in it.

К group processes include dynamic, i.e., changing indicators of the group as a social process of relations;

3) ability of individuals to coordinate actions.

This feature is key, since it is consent that provides the necessary commonality, unity of actions aimed at achieving the goal;

4) group pressure, encourages a person to behave in a certain way and in accordance with the expectations of others.

The individual result of such pressure is conformity as a quality of a person in a normative or non-normative version.

Psychologists record the presence of changes in the views and behavior of individual participants due to their belonging to a group.

The existence of a large number of different social groups led to the development of various typologies of groups.

The main criteria for identifying typologies can be: the number of people in a group, social status, level of development, etc.

According to their social status, groups are divided into formal и informal, by the immediacy of relationships - on real и rated, in importance - on reference и membership groups.

Typologies are distinguished by the number of people and by the level of development.

By the number of members allocate large groups, small groups и microgroups.

The composition of microgroups includes three or two people (respectively, triads and dyads).

In social psychology, they are usually viewed through interpersonal relationships of an informal structure.

The main connecting factors of these groups are feelings of friendship, love, sympathy, a common cause.

Large groups are studied from the point of view of mass phenomena of the psyche and integral psychological phenomena that arise in the crowd, audience, and public.

small group - a group whose members personally know each other.

All significant groups in human life are small groups.

The leading factors that unite the group are joint activities and a common goal.

A small group is often referred to as the primary one, since it is the closest environment for the formation of a personality that affects the needs, social activity and psychological state of a person.

The significance of a small group is determined by the aspirations of the individual.

If he is guided by the norms, values ​​and opinions of the members of the group, then it regards itself as with a standard that determines the norms.

The group in this case is the source of social attitudes and value orientations of the subject.

Focusing on the reference group, a person evaluates himself, his actions, lifestyle and ideals.

The reference group has two main social functions: normative и comparative.

According to the level of development, groups are distinguished as unorganized or poorly organized, with a low cohesion index (associations, diffuse groups) and high-level development groups (collectives).

There is no unifying joint activity in an association that requires an appropriate organization, but there is a certain level of cohesion determined by the joint communication of individuals.

In a diffuse group, there is no cohesion, no organization, no joint activity.

An important indicator of the level of development of the group is the value-oriented unity, determined by the degree of coincidence of the positions and assessments of its members in relation to the general activities and important values ​​of the group.

Groups are considered from the point of view of their attitude to society: positive - prosocial, negative - asocial.

Any collective is a well-organized pro-social group, since it is focused on the benefit of society.

A well-organized asocial group is called a corporation.

Corporation is usually characterized by isolation, rigid centralization and authoritarian management, opposing their narrow interests to public ones.

The problem of individualism and collectivism is connected with the problem of personal autonomy of a person in a group.

In the process of socialization and education, the subject develops the characterological quality of conformity or nonconformism.

Conformity - this is the dependence of a person on the group, its influence on the decisions he makes.

This dependence has different degrees of severity - from the complete subordination of the individual to the group to personal autonomy.

Conformity can manifest itself not only within a particular group, but also within society, when its pressure reaches such a high degree that people are afraid to show their individuality and change their way of thinking in accordance with social standards.

The weak influence of group pressure is defined as nonconformism.

Nonconformism has nothing to do with negativism (conformism is the opposite), since negativism is manifested in a person's desire to necessarily act contrary to the rules, and in this sense it depends on group norms.

A nonconformist has his own independent view of the phenomena of the surrounding world and trusts his opinion.

At the same time, he respects the opinions of other people, but he will act in accordance with his ideas about reality.

The coexistence and interaction of independent and free individuals, nonconformists, is a complex social phenomenon that is not so rare, because the higher the level of culture of a person, the more capable he is of being a nonconformist.

It is nonconformists who are able to implement in their social relations the most productive interaction strategies - cooperation and compromise, avoiding unproductive strategies of adaptation and rivalry.

A relatively adequate understanding of the phenomena of the surrounding world generates correct judgments and conclusions, which are confirmed by the social experience of the subject.

A. Maslow associated the development of non-conformism with such qualities as honesty and courage, since being ready for an independent position from others is a very difficult behavior that requires courage.

Most people are more or less dependent on group pressure and influence.

The degree of this dependence varies in different situations. It is possible to identify objective factors that determine the level of conformity of a person in a group.

First, it is characteristics of the individualwho is subjected to group pressure: gender, age, nationality, intelligence, anxiety, suggestibility, etc.

Second, this is group characteristics, which is a source of pressure: the size of the group, the degree of unanimity, the presence of group members who deviate from the general opinion.

The third factor determining the level of conformity is features of the relationship between the individual and the group (status, degree of adherence to the group, the level of its reference).

Finally, task content, facing the individual and the group, cannot but affect the level of his conformity.

The more a person is interested in performing a common task, the more he will be subject to group pressure.

Phenomenon moral and psychological climate of the group does not occur immediately.

At the first stage of team development, a formal structure prevails: employees communicate in accordance with official and behavioral stereotypes, look closely at each other, true feelings are most often hidden, goals and methods of work are not discussed together, teamwork is weak.

At the second stage, there is a reassessment of the personal and business qualities of the leader, an opinion is formed about colleagues, the process of forming groupings within the team begins, and a struggle for leadership is possible.

Disagreements are discussed more openly, attempts are made to improve relationships in the team.

Finally, the "grinding" ends, the informal structure is clearly visible, the team reaches a certain degree of coordination of the actions of its members.

The resulting group cohesion can be positive, negative, or conformist.

In the first case, the group reproduces the best business and moral qualities of its members, people are proud of their belonging to this team, the problems that arise are solved in a businesslike, initiative and creative way.

In the second case, most of the energy of the team is spent on participating in conflicts between various groups, informal and formal leaders, and clarifying relations with other units.

Production problems seem to fade into the background.

The conformist orientation is characterized by a purely external, ostentatious interest of employees in the results of their labor activity, indifference to collective efforts.

The sphere of interests of employees is outside the team: family, social and political activities, personal problems, etc.

Socio-psychological climate working group essentially depends on its structure.

The structure of the team, i.e., the really existing set of relationships between the members of the group that arises in the process of joint activity, is studied at two levels - formal and informal.

If formal structure associated with the official status of group members, orderly service relations, then informal structure develops on the basis of relations due to the psychological characteristics of the members of the team.

The formation of an informal structure is determined by the presence of both objective and subjective factors.

The former include the possibility of contacts between members of the group due to the nature and schedule of work, as well as the optimal composition of the group in terms of quantity and sex and age structure, which allows satisfying the need for interpersonal communication.

Subjective factors depend on the personality of the manager, the individual characteristics of employees. The ability to rally a team, psychological compatibility, satisfaction with working conditions, one's status and role affect spontaneously formed friendly ties, mutual likes and dislikes.

LECTURE No. 11. Problems of a small group in social psychology

small group - a small group whose members are united by a common social activity and are in direct personal communication, which is the basis for the emergence of emotional relationships, group norms and group processes.

A small group is a group that actually operates not in a vacuum, but in a certain system of social relations; it acts as a subject of a specific type of social activity.

Ideas about the number of members of a small group fluctuate between two and seven.

In some studies I. Moreno, the author of a sociometric methodology designed for use in small groups, groups of thirty to forty people are mentioned when talking about school classes.

It is also believed that if a group is specified in the system of social relations in a specific size and if it is sufficient to perform a specific activity, then this limit can be taken as the upper one in the study.

The most diverse grounds for classifying small groups are acceptable: groups differ in the time of their existence (long-term and short-term), in the degree of closeness of contact between members, in the way the individual enters, etc.

Classifications for dividing small groups into:

1) "primary" and "secondary";

2) "formal" and "informal";

3) "membership groups" and "reference groups".

The division of small groups into primary и secondary was proposed by C. Cooley, who at first gave a simply descriptive division of the primary group, naming such components as a family, a group of friends, a group of closest neighbors.

Later C. Cooley proposed a certain sign that would allow us to determine the characteristics of the primary groups - the immediacy of contacts.

The division of groups into formal и informal it was suggested E. Mayo.

According to E. Mayo, a formal group is distinguished by the fact that all the positions of its members are clearly defined in it, they are prescribed by group norms.

In a formal group, the roles of all members of the group are also strictly distributed in the system of subordination to the so-called power structure.

Within formal groups, E. Mayo also discovered informal groups that form and arise spontaneously, where neither statuses nor roles are prescribed, where there is no given system of vertical relationships.

An informal group can be created within a formal one.

But an informal group can arise on its own, not within a formal group, but outside of it.

There are also concepts of the formal and informal structure of the group, then it is not the groups that differ, but the type, the nature of the relations within them.

Classification of groups on membership groups и reference groups was introduced G. Hyman, which owns the discovery of the phenomenon of the reference group.

In G. Hyman's experiments, it was shown that some members of small groups share the norms of behavior adopted not in this group, but in some other one, to which they are guided.

Those groups in which individuals are not really included, but whose norms they accept, G. Hymen called reference groups.

There are three main areas in the study of small groups:

1) sociometric;

2) sociological;

3) the school of "group dynamics".

American psychologist D. Moreno, considering the totality of emotional preferences of group members, developed the theory of sociometry.

Sociometry - This is both a psychological theory of communication and intragroup relations, and at the same time a method used to assess interpersonal relations.

D. Moreno believed that the psychological comfort and mental health of a person depend on his position in the informal structure of relations in a small group.

The sociometric structure of a group is a set of subordinate positions of group members in the system of interpersonal relations.

It is determined by the analysis of the most important sociometric characteristics of the group: the sociometric status of its members, the reciprocity of emotional preferences, the presence of stable groups of interpersonal preferences, the nature of rejections in the group.

Each individual in the group has a sociometric status, which can be determined by analyzing the sum of preferences and rejections received from other members.

The totality of all statuses defines the status hierarchy in the group.

The highest status are sociometric stars - members of the group having the maximum number of positive choices with a small number of negative choices.

Next go high-status, average status и low-status members of the group, determined by the number of positive choices and not having a large number of negative ones.

At a lower level of intergroup relations are isolated - subjects that do not have any choices, both positive and negative.

Next go outcasts - those members of the group who have a large number of negative choices and a small number of preferences.

At the last rung of social preference neglected, or outcasts - members of the group who do not have a single positive choice in the presence of negative ones.

A sociometric star, as a rule, is not a leader, since leadership is associated with interference in the process of action, and sociometric status is determined by feelings.

The high-status, middle-status, and low-status members of a group usually make up the majority.

K. Levin proved that a negative attitude towards a person in a group is a more favorable social factor than the absence of any attitude.

Knowledge of the sociometric status does not provide complete information about the position of a person in the system of interpersonal relations.

It is necessary to know whether the subject's choice is mutual. Reciprocity of emotional preferences members of the group is an important qualitative characteristic of the group itself.

The more mutual choices a member of the group has, the more stable and favorable is his position in the system of interpersonal relations.

If there are few mutual choices in the group, then we can conclude that its integral psychological characteristics are not well.

The sociological direction in the study of small groups is associated with the tradition that was laid down in the experiments of E. Mayo.

Their essence is as follows.

Western Electric has experienced declining productivity for relay assemblers.

Research has not led to a satisfactory explanation of the reasons.

In 1928, E. Mayo was invited, who set up his own experiment, initially with the aim of elucidating the influence on labor productivity of such a factor as the illumination of the working room.

The experiments at Hawthorne lasted from 1924 to 1936.

In the experimental and control groups identified by E. Mayo, various working conditions were introduced: in the experimental group, the illumination increased and an increase in labor productivity was indicated, in the control group, with constant illumination, labor productivity did not increase.

At the next stage, a new increase in illumination in the experimental group gave a new increase in labor productivity; but in the control group - with constant illumination - labor productivity also increased.

At the third stage, lighting improvements were canceled in the experimental group, and labor productivity continued to grow; the same happened at this stage in the control group.

The results forced E. Mayo to modify the experiment and conduct several additional studies: now not only the illumination was changed, but a wider range of working conditions (placing six workers in a separate room, improving wages, introducing additional breaks, etc.).

With the introduction of these innovations, labor productivity increased, but when the innovations were canceled, it, although it decreased somewhat, remained at a level higher than the original one.

E. Mayo suggested that some other variable manifests itself in the experiment, and considered the very fact of participation of female workers in the experiment to be such a variable: awareness of the importance of what is happening, their participation in some event led to greater involvement in the production process and an increase in labor productivity even in cases where there was no objective improvement.

E. Mayo interpreted this as a manifestation of a special feeling sociability The need to feel like you belong to a group.

The second line of interpretation was the idea of ​​the existence of special informal relations within the work brigades, which just emerged.

Mayo concluded not only that, along with the formal, there is also an informal structure in the teams, but also about the significance of the latter, in particular, about the possibility of using it as a factor influencing the team in the interests of the company.

Subsequently, on the basis of these recommendations, a special doctrine of human relations arose, which turned into an official management program.

The theoretical significance of the discoveries of E. Mayo is to obtain a new fact - the existence of two types of structures in a small group, which marked the beginning of a new direction in the study of small groups, associated with the analysis of each of the two types of group structures.

The school of "group dynamics" is associated with the name K. Levina.

The American period of K. Levin's activity after emigration from Germany began with the creation of a special center for the study of group dynamics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The direction of research in this center was based on the creation of field theory by K. Levin.

Its main position is the idea of ​​interaction between the individual and the environment (environment), where the structure in which the behavior takes place becomes important, K. Levin called it the field.

It embraces inseparably the motivational aspirations (intentions) of the individual and the subjects of his aspirations existing outside the individual.

The central idea of ​​field theory is that the causes of social behavior should be sought through knowledge of the psychological and social forces that determine it.

The most important method of analyzing the psychological field was the creation in the laboratory of groups with certain characteristics and the subsequent study of the functioning of these groups.

The totality of these studies was called group dynamics.

The main issue was the following:

1) what is the nature of the groups;

2) what are the conditions for their formation;

3) what is their relationship with individuals and with other groups;

4) what are the conditions for their successful functioning.

Much attention was also paid to the formation of group characteristics: norms, cohesion, the ratio of individual motives and group goals, leadership in groups.

Another idea of ​​K. Levin is the idea of ​​valency. With this concept, K. Levin explained the direction of the individual in the living space: positive valence ensures the individual's aspiration to a certain area of ​​the force field, negative valence - movement in the opposite direction from it.

Answering the main question, what needs drive people's social behavior, "group dynamics" closely studied the problem of intra-group conflicts, compared the effectiveness of group activity in conditions of cooperation and competition, and ways of making group decisions.

Almost the entire set of problems of a small group was presented in the works of this direction.

"Group dynamics" had a great influence on the subsequent development of socio-psychological thought.

Within the framework of this direction, important ideas regarding group processes were expressed, some of them were carefully studied, and methods were developed that retain their significance to this day.

On the other hand, the theoretical context of the field theory construct is largely outdated.

To a greater extent than in the case of any other field of social psychology, the rejection of the theoretical concept of K. Lewin is combined with the complete or almost complete acceptance of the methods he created.

They work in other theoretical frameworks as well.

The problem of identifying the degree of their admissible acceptance in line with the new theoretical scheme has not yet been fully resolved.

LECTURE No. 12. Leadership - concept and classification

Leadership and leadership are considered in social psychology as group processes associated with social power in the group.

In general theories of leadership, a leader and a manager are understood as a person who has a leading influence on a group: the leader in the system of informal relations, the leader in the system of formal relations.

In a socio-psychological sense leadership и guide - these are group integration mechanisms that unite the actions of a group around an individual who performs the function of a leader or leader.

The phenomena of leadership and management are similar in their psychological essence, but they do not completely coincide, since the leader most often focuses on the task of joint activity, and the leader - on group interests.

There are two aspects of power - formal и psychological - depending on the orientation and leaders and leaders. The formal, or instrumental, aspect of power is associated with the legal powers of the leader, and the psychological aspect is determined by the personal capabilities of the leader to influence the members of the group.

Differences between a leader and a manager:

1) the leader regulates interpersonal relationships, and the leader regulates formal ones.

The leader is associated only with intra-group relations, while the leader is obliged to ensure a certain level of relations of his group in the microstructure of the organization;

2) the leader is a representative of his group, its member. He acts as an element of the microenvironment, while the leader enters the macroenvironment, representing the group at a higher level of social relations;

3) leadership is a spontaneous process, unlike management.

Leadership appears as a more stable phenomenon than leadership;

4) the leader in the process of influencing subordinates has significantly more sanctions than the leader.

It can use formal and non-formal sanctions. The leader has the ability to use only informal sanctions;

5) the difference between a leader and a leader is related to the decision-making process.

To implement them, the manager uses a large amount of information, both external and internal.

The leader owns only the information that exists within the group.

Decision-making by the leader is carried out directly, and the leader - indirectly.

The scope of the leader's activities is wider, since the leader's scope is limited to the scope of this group.

The leader is always authoritative, otherwise he will not be a leader.

The leader may have authority, or may not have it at all.

Some socio-psychological patterns of influence hold true for both leadership and management.

In some sources, the phenomena of leadership and leadership are considered identical.

So, D. Myers believes that leadership is the process by which certain members of a group motivate and lead the group.

In this case, the leader can be officially appointed or elected, but can also be nominated in the process of group interactions.

Sociological theories of leadership include: trait theory, situational theory, the theory of the determining role of followers, relational theory.

trait theory includes the idea that leadership is a phenomenon born from the specific traits of a leader.

In sociological concepts M. Weber и E. Troelcha a special term was introduced to refer to such a specific trait of a leader as charisma - exceptional talent of a person, which makes a special impression on the people around him.

The theory has received quite a lot of rebuttals due to the fact that different types of life of a social group require different qualities of a leader.

situational theory proclaims the significance of the situation in the process of nominating a leader.

The leader is a function of the situation.

If the social situation of the group's existence changes drastically, the leader is likely to change.

T. Shibutani identified two psychological factors that depend on changes in the situation: the degree of formalization of the group and the degree of autonomy of group members.

Types of social situations depending on the change in the degree of formalization of relations and the autonomy of subjects:

1) sudden critical situations. They are unpredictable, arise as a spontaneous process and contribute to the nomination of a new leader;

2) critical repetitive, predictable situations. Leaders and executives are specially trained for certain actions in such situations;

3) typical recurring situationsbased on conventional norms.

Such situations usually do not require the presence of a leader.

People prone to dominance in communication often act as a leader here;

4) typical recurring conventional situationsthat arise in institutions of various types (everything related to the work of most people);

5) group rituals. These are informal relationships that determine the patterns of social behavior of most members of the group.

Situational theories of leadership have led to the development theories of the determining role of followers.

Leadership is a function of the expectations (expectations) of the followers. A leader cannot exist without a social group.

If the group does not support the leader, then he loses the opportunity to influence its activities, in this regard, it is necessary to study the requirements and interests of the group.

Within the framework of trait theory, situational theory, and the theory of the determining role of followers, various problems of influence and leadership have been studied.

Since both the traits of a leader, the situation in which he acts, and the opinion of followers are significant in almost all conditions of the leader’s activity, a complex (relational) theory leadership, which includes the main ideas of all three theories.

In the concepts of the psychoanalytic direction, leadership was considered as the effect of some human inclinations unrealized in social life (S. Freud).

A. Adler believed that the desire for power is generated by fear. Who is afraid of people, sees the need to rule over them.

In modern social psychology, psychological theories of management have gained popularity, aimed at developing the problems of managers of the so-called middle level.

Leadership style - this is a typical leader system of methods of influencing group members (subordinates or followers).

K. Levin identified three styles of leadership: authoritarian (directive), democratic (collegiate) and conniving (anarchist).

Authoritarian style manifests itself in strict methods of management, the lack of discussion of decisions made, the management of a group by only one person - the leader, who himself makes decisions, controls and coordinates the work of subordinates.

Democratic style is distinguished by collegial discussion of problems in the group, encouragement by the head of the initiative of subordinates, active exchange of information between the leader and members of the group, decision-making at the general meeting.

conniving style It is expressed in the voluntary refusal of the manager from managerial functions, removal from management, transfer of management functions to group members.

Each style has its own merits and demerits.

RџSЂRё authoritarian style The quality of a manager's decisions depends on the information he has and on his ability to interpret it correctly.

However, an authoritarian leader does not always have sufficient information to make decisions, since there is a large social distance between him and his group.

An authoritarian leader never gives his subordinates full information about the progress of affairs, which can cause frustration among group members and accelerate the formation of informal microgroups.

The authoritarian style implies a clear planning of work, the implementation of all cases in accordance with the deadlines.

RџSЂRё democratic style the leader has more information about group processes, which makes it easier to make decisions and make them more appropriate to the situation.

However, the adoption itself is slower due to democratic procedures.

The leader must have special qualities: flexibility of behavior, tolerance towards subordinates, patience and restraint with a high level of sociability.

This style contributes to a more favorable psychological climate in the group than the authoritarian one. Here, the manager may have problems in connection with the control of activities.

conniving style occurs less frequently.

With this style, the group exists independently and determines the main directions of its life.

Gradually, there is a complete rejection of formal relationships, the social distance between members of the group is sharply reduced.

In such a situation, interest in the case may decrease, and the joint goal may not be achieved.

Only a high level of personal or professional development of group members can contribute to the normal operation of the group under such management.

The most successful leaders and managers are guided by all three styles, depending on the conditions of activity.

The main factors in changing the style of leadership: the degree of urgency in making a decision, the confidentiality of the task, the size of the group, the personality of the leader, the mental abilities of subordinates or their level of professionalism.

LECTURE No. 13. Theory and functions of the reference group

Reference group - a group to which the individual relates himself psychologically, while focusing on its values ​​and norms. This group serves as a kind of standard, a reference system for evaluating oneself and others, as well as a source for the formation of social attitudes and value orientations of an individual.

The development of reference group theories is associated with such names as G. Hyman, T. Newcomb, M. Sheriff, G. Kelly, R. Merton and more

T. Shibutani notes that the concept of a reference group is widely used to explain a wide variety of phenomena: inconsistency in the behavior of an individual in a new social context, manifestations of juvenile delinquency, the dilemma of a marginal personality, conflicts.

Reference group theories are based on the ideas J. Meade about the "generalized other".

The meaning of the "generalized other" is determined by the fact that it is through him that the impact of society, the social process on the individual and his thinking is carried out.

The development of the main provisions of the modern theory of the reference group begins in the 40s. XNUMXth century

The term "reference group" was coined by the American social psychologist G. Hyman in 1942 in the study of the individual's ideas about his own property status compared with the status of other people. G. Hyman used the concept of "reference group" to refer to a group of people with which the subject compared himself when determining his status.

The result of the comparison was self-assessment by the subjects of their status.

Later, the concept of "reference group" was used by T. Newcomb to designate a group "to which an individual considers himself psychologically" and therefore shares its goals and norms and focuses on them in his behavior.

The formation of attitudes is "a function of the individual's negative or positive attitude towards a particular group or groups."

T. Newcomb singled out positive and negative reference groups.

The former refers to such groups, norms and orientations that are accepted by the individual and that cause him to strive to be accepted by these groups.

A negative reference group is a group that makes the individual want to oppose it and of which he does not want to consider himself a member.

M. Sheriff emphasized the importance of the reference group due to the fact that its norms turn into a frame of reference not only for self-assessment, but also for assessing the phenomena of social life, for forming their own picture of the world.

Renowned American sociologist R. Merton made a significant contribution to the development of the problem of the reference group in his work in 1950, which was devoted to the results of the study of social attitudes and behavior of American soldiers.

In the theories of the reference group there is no clear classification of them, however, it is generally recognized that a wide variety of groups can act as a reference group: external groups and membership groups, real and ideal groups, large and small groups, etc.

Each individual has several reference groups to which he is guided.

In 1952 G. Kelly summarized previous studies in the field of the theory of the reference group of G. Hyman, T. Newcomb, M. Sheriff and R. Merton.

He notes that the concept of "reference group" refers to two kinds of different relationships between an individual and a group.

These relationships are connected, on the one hand, with motivational, and, on the other hand, with perceptual processes.

On this basis, G. Kelly identifies the functions of the reference group: normative и comparative evaluation.

The first function is to set certain standards of behavior and force individuals to follow them.

These standards of behavior are called group norms, so he designated this function of the reference group as normative.

The second function of the reference group is that it is that standard or starting point for comparison, with the help of which an individual can evaluate himself and others, and therefore it acts as a comparative evaluation function.

Kelly notes that both functions are often integrated in the sense that they can be performed by the same group: both the membership group and the external group of which the individual aspires to become a member or to which he psychologically identifies himself.

To confirm this position, G. Kelly refers to the example given by R. Merton of a study of the social attitudes of soldiers - front-line soldiers and soldiers - newcomers who arrived in a unit of front-line soldiers.

The study showed that the social attitudes of many newcomers after being in this unit changed significantly towards greater similarity with the attitudes of front-line soldiers.

One of the manifestations of the difference between the normative and comparative-evaluative functions of the reference group is that with a normative function it is important for an individual to know the attitude of the normative reference group towards himself.

As for the comparative-evaluative function of the reference group, here the opinion of the group with which the individual compares himself or others does not matter to him, if only because the comparative reference group may not have any idea about him at all.

In this situation, in contrast to the normative reference group, the individual is, as it were, "self-sanctioning", that is, he evaluates himself and others on the basis of a certain standard that serves as his starting point for comparison. R. Merton singled out the conditions under which an individual is more likely to choose not a membership group, but an external group as a normative reference group:

1) if the group does not provide sufficient prestige to its members, then under these conditions they will tend to choose as a reference group an external group that has more prestige than their own;

2) the more isolated an individual is in his group, the lower his status in it, the more likely it is that he will choose an external group as a reference group;

3) the more social mobility in society and, consequently, the more opportunities an individual has to change his social status and group affiliation, the more likely that he will choose a group with a higher social status as a reference group.

LECTURE No. 14. Dynamic processes occurring in a group

The phenomenon of group dynamics is defined ambiguously. M. Robert и F. Telman defined group dynamics as the process by which interaction between particular individuals reduces the tension between them or leads them to mutual satisfaction.

This process explains the individual's belonging to a group, the attractiveness of the group, and membership in the group; formation of spontaneous or informal groups.

The development of group dynamics as a direction in the theory of small groups and social technology is associated with the name K. Levina.

Each member of the group recognizes its dependence on its other members.

By K. Lewin's definition, "group dynamics" is a discipline that studies the positive and negative forces that operate in a given group.

When describing and explaining the principles of group dynamics, K. Levin relied on the laws of Gestalt psychology.

If we consider the group as a whole, then the patterns of group dynamics can be explained by the action of two laws:

1) the whole dominates its parts. A group is not just a sum of individuals: it modifies the behavior of its members; from the outside it is easier to influence the behavior of the whole group than the behavior of its individual member; each member recognizes that it is dependent on all other members;

2) individual elements are combined into a whole. Not the similarity, but the interconnection of members is the basis for the formation of the group; a person tends to become a member of the group with which he identifies himself, and not at all the one on which he is most dependent.

В modern understanding of group dynamics - this is the development or movement of a group in time, due to the interaction and relationships of group members among themselves, as well as external influences on the group.

The concept of group dynamics includes five basic elements and several additional ones.

Essential elements - group goals, group norms, group structure and leadership problem, group cohesion, group development phases.

Additional Items - creation of a subgroup (as the development of the structure of the group); relationship of the individual with the group.

Modern researchers of group dynamics problems single out three of its mechanisms: resolution of intragroup contradictions, "idiosyncratic credit" and psychological exchange.

Conflict is an expression of intra-group contradictions.

In the theory of group dynamics, he acts as an integrator of new structures.

The term "idiosyncratic loan" was introduced E. Hollander. This concept denotes behavior that deviates from group norms.

"Idiosyncratic credit" is a mechanism of group dynamics when a group gives permission for deviant behavior to its leader or its individual members in order to achieve their goals.

Deviance of behavior has the character of innovation and launches a new mechanism of group dynamics.

A small group can be viewed in three ways: as an environment for changing group members; as an object of change; as an agent of change (when the organizational efforts of the group are used).

Dynamic processes characterize the situation in the group.

The nature of the changes that occur in a small group can be traced when considering the problems of group development.

The idea of ​​the development of the group was outlined in psychoanalytic concept.

The impetus was given by the work of Z. Freud "Group Psychology and Ego Analysis".

G. Sheppard's theory of the development of the group arose.

It is built on understanding the processes that take place in training groups.

The idea of ​​group development: there are two phases, in each of which the group solves a certain set of problems.

Each group can implement the general development model in different ways: demonstrate deviations or simply break up if the goal is not achieved.

Contact with real groups forced the authors to pay attention to that side of the functioning of the group, which had not been studied before.

R. Moreland и J. Levine introduced the concept of "socialization of the group", with the help of which, by analogy with the process of socialization of the individual, the process of group development is considered.

Criteria on the basis of which different stages in the development of a group can be compared: evaluation (goals of the group, its position among other groups, the meaning of goals for its members); obligations groups in relation to members); member role conversion group (more or less involvement of group members, their identification with it).

Based on the criteria, the periods in the life of the group and the positions of the members corresponding to them are fixed.

Combinations of periods and positions are reflected in the proposed M. Chemers system-procedural model of group development.

The concept of stages (periods) of group development is introduced, which differ in a set of criteria.

Each stage is associated with a change in the composition of the group.

Factors in the role reversal of group members are the extent to which the group accepts each member and the group member's acceptance of its reality.

As the second block of research, where the idea of ​​group development is indicated, we can name studies comparing personality orientations: collectivism - individualism.

They are considered as polar concepts.

Individualism gives rise to specific norms of behavior of an individual in a group: orientation not towards group, but towards one's own goals, the desire to emphasize one's contribution to group activity.

Collectivism as a norm of traditional societies determines the relationship of an individual with a small group: a positive attitude towards the goals of the group, an egalitarian distribution of "benefits" in it, greater openness in communication, readiness to put the goals of the group above their own.

Orientations are related to the process of group development: the transition from one phase to another depends to a large extent on which particular style of orientation, and therefore behavior, will “win” in the group and thereby facilitate or hinder the transition to a new phase.

Just as in the first block of analyzed studies, the idea of ​​the dependence of the development of groups on the type of society in which they exist is important here.

LECTURE No. 15. Socio-psychological essence and content of phenomena in groups

Substance group pressure phenomenon on the individual consists in the acceptance of the already existing norms of group life by each new individual entering it.

This phenomenon has received the name in social psychology the phenomenon of conformism.

More often they talk not about conformity, but about conformity or conforming behavior, bearing in mind a purely psychological characteristic of the position of the individual relative to the position of the group.

A measure of conformity is a measure of subordination to a group in the case when the opposition of opinions was subjectively perceived by the individual as a conflict.

Distinguish external conformity, when the opinion of the group is accepted by the individual only externally, he continues to resist it, and the inner (genuine conformism), when the individual really assimilates the opinion of the majority.

Negativism occurs when a group exerts pressure on an individual who resists this pressure and demonstrates independence.

Negativism is not true independence, it is a specific case of conformity.

If an individual makes it his goal to oppose the opinion of the group at any cost, then in fact he again depends on the group, he has to actively produce anti-group behavior, that is, to be attached to the group opinion.

Conformity is opposed to independence, independence.

For the first time, the conformity model has been demonstrated in experiments Sashaimplemented in 1951

The degree of conformity is influenced by: a less developed intellect, a lower level of development of self-awareness, etc.

The degree of conformity also depends on such factors as the nature of the experimental situation and the composition and structure of the group.

The model of behavioral variants adopted by S. Asch is very simplified, since only two types of behavior appear in it: conformal and nonconformal.

In real situations of such activity, a third type of behavior may arise.

He will demonstrate conscious personal recognition group norms and standards.

There are three types of behavior:

1) intragroup suggestibility, i.e., conflict-free acceptance of the opinion of the group;

2) conformity - conscious external agreement with internal divergence;

3) collectivism, or collectivistic self-determination, is the relative uniformity of behavior as a result of the conscious solidarity of the individual with the assessments and tasks of the team.

The phenomenon of group pressure as one of the mechanisms for the formation of a small group (the entry of an individual into a group) will inevitably remain a formal characteristic of group life until its identification takes into account the meaningful characteristics of group activity that define a special type of relationship between group members.

Pressure on an individual can be exerted not only by large groups, but also by a minority. M. Deutsch и G. Gerard Two types of group influence were distinguished: normative (pressure is exerted by the majority, and his opinion is perceived by a member of the group as the norm) and informational (pressure is exerted by a minority, and a member of the group considers his opinion only as information on the basis of which he must make his own choice).

group cohesion - the process of forming a special type of connections in a group, which allow turning an externally given structure into a psychological community of people, into a complex psychological organism that lives according to its own laws.

The study of the problem of group cohesion is based on the understanding of the group as a certain system of interpersonal relations that have an emotional basis.

In the sociometric direction, cohesion was directly associated with such a level of development of interpersonal relations, when they have a high percentage of choices based on mutual sympathy.

Sociometry proposed an index of group cohesion - the ratio of the number of mutually positive choices to the total number of possible choices.

Another approach has been proposed L. Festingerwhen cohesion was analyzed on the basis of the frequency and strength of communication links found in the group.

Cohesion was defined as "the sum of all the forces acting on the members of the group to keep them in it."

"Strength" was interpreted either as the attractiveness of the group to the individual, or as satisfaction with membership in the group.

There are a number of experimental works on the identification of group cohesion.

In research A. Beivelasand particular importance is attached to the nature of group goals.

Operational goals of the group - this is the construction of an optimal communication system; symbolic goals - goals corresponding to the individual intentions of the group members.

Cohesion depends on the realization of both goals.

A new approach to the study of cohesion: the process of formation of a group and its further development is presented as a process of increasing rallying of this group, but not on the basis of an increase in its emotional attractiveness only, but on the basis of an increasing inclusion of individuals in the process of joint activity.

Compatibility of group members means that this composition of the group is possible to ensure that the group performs its functions, is integrated in such a way that a special degree of development of relations has been achieved in it, in which all members of the group share the goals of group activity.

In domestic social psychology, new principles for the study of cohesion have been developed A. V. Petrovsky.

The main idea: the entire structure of a small group can be represented as consisting of three (four in the latest edition) main layers, strata: the external level of the group structure (direct emotional interpersonal relationships); the second layer is a deeper formation, "value-oriented unity" (relations here are mediated by joint activities, the coincidence of group members' orientation to the basic values ​​relating to the process of joint activity).

The third layer implies an even greater inclusion of the individual in joint group activity (group members share the goals of group activity, and here the most serious, significant motives for choosing each other by group members can be identified).

The third layer of relationships has been called the "core" of the group structure.

Choice motives at this level are associated with the acceptance of shared values.

The process of making a group decision is associated with the problem of leadership and leadership, since decision making is one of the important functions of a leader.

Group decisions in many cases are more effective than individual ones.

Among the various methods of making group decisions, the role of group discussion is great.

Its rules:

1) allows you to push opposite positions and thereby help participants see different sides of the problem;

2) if the decision is initiated by the group, then it is a logical conclusion from the discussion, supported by all those present, its value increases, as it turns into group norm.

One form of group discussion introduced A. Osborne, - "brainstorming" ("brain attack").

To develop a collective solution, the group is divided into two parts: "generators of ideas" and "critics".

The task of "generators of ideas" is to sketch out more proposals for solving the problem under discussion.

At the second stage, the "critics" begin to criticize the received proposals: they weed out the unsuitable ones, postpone the controversial ones, and accept the successful ones. The group receives a set of options for solving the problem.

Another group discussion method developed by W. Gordon, - synectics method, dissimilar compounds.

The main idea is to develop as many diverse and directly opposite, mutually exclusive proposals as possible.

"Synectors" stand out.

Their task is to articulate opposing opinions as clearly as possible.

During the discussion, extremes are discarded, a decision is made that satisfies everyone.

In the study of the question of the comparative value of group and individual decisions, a phenomenon was discovered, called "risk shift".

Previously, when studying small groups, they used the fact that the group discards the most extreme decisions and takes a kind of average from individual (group normalization).

The provision on the normalization of decisions of individual members of the group was not confirmed in cases where the decision to be made included a moment of risk.

Experiment J. Stoner showed that a group decision includes a moment of risk to a greater extent than individual decisions.

The advantage of a group decision over an individual decision depends on the level of decision making: in the decision-making phase, an individual decision is more productive; in the development phase, group decisions win.

Improving the process of making a group decision depends on the ability to conduct an effective group discussion, which is developed with the help of socio-psychological training.

Of the three forms of training - open communication, role play, group discussion - the latter is one of the most advanced.

The quality of the decision is influenced by another factor called "group spirit" - such a high degree of involvement in the system of group ideas and values ​​that prevents the correct decision.

Group discussion leads to group polarization.

The essence of this phenomenon is that in the course of a group discussion, the opposite opinions held by various groups are not only exposed, but also cause their acceptance or rejection by the majority of the group.

People can resist group pressure and often do so. A few minorities can be stubborn and refuse to agree with others.

There are situations where individuals or groups can switch roles with the majority and exercise social influence over others rather than being subject to it themselves.

History gives us many examples of this: great scientists - G. Galileo, L. Pasteur, Z. Freud - Faced a unanimous majority that strongly rejected their views.

As time passed, they gained more and more supporters, until finally their views began to dominate.

This is the case when the minority manages to exert social influence on the majority.

Research evidence suggests that you are most likely to succeed under certain conditions.

First, the members of such groups must be consistent in their opposition to the opinion of the majority. If they doubt or show a tendency to conform to the views of the majority, their influence will decrease.

Secondly, members of the minority should not take a rigid and categorical position. Minorities who stand their ground are less persuasive than those who show some degree of compliance.

Thirdly, the general social context in which the minority operates is important.

If a minority takes a position that is consistent with current social trends, its chances of influencing the majority are greater than if members of that minority are taking a position that is at odds with such trends.

Even in cases where the minority is consistent, compliant and its position is consistent with current social trends, it is still forced to fight hard.

The power of the majority is also great in part because, in unambiguous or complex social situations, people view the majority as a source of more reliable information about reality.

One possible explanation for the fact that a minority is sometimes able to assert itself is that when people encounter a minority whose views they do not initially share, they become interested, they are intrigued, they have to make cognitive efforts in order to understand why minorities take this position and why they are so obviously unwilling to conform to widely held views.

Some people, faced with minority opinion, begin to spend more and more time carefully studying the ideas promoted by it.

The research data of Zdaniuk and K. Levin suggests that simply anticipating what you need to influence, being a member of a minority, is enough to enhance your thinking abilities.

In real group debates, it is possible that a minority will cause people to consider ideas and alternatives that they previously ignored.

Franklin Roosevelt said, "No democracy will last long unless it pays enough attention to the problems of minorities."

All dynamic processes occurring in a small group ensure the effectiveness of group activity, which can be investigated at various levels.

When a small group is understood as a laboratory group, the effectiveness of its activities means the effectiveness of activities to complete a specific task.

In such groups, general characteristics of the effectiveness of activities were identified: the dependence of efficiency on the cohesion of the group, on the style of leadership, the impact on the effectiveness of the method of making group decisions, etc.

These studies do not study the impact on the effectiveness of group activities of the nature of this activity.

The problem turns into a reduction of the effectiveness of the group to its productivity, to the productivity of labor in it.

Of the two performance indicators - productivity labor and satisfaction members of the labor group, the latter is practically unexplored.

The results of experimental studies are contradictory: in some cases, this kind of satisfaction increased the effectiveness of the group, in other cases it did not.

Here, efficiency was associated with the joint activity of the group, and satisfaction - with the system of interpersonal relations.

The problem of satisfaction has another side - the problem of satisfaction with work, that is, it appears in direct relation to joint group activity.

The adoption of the principle of joint activity as the most important integrator of the group dictates the requirements for the study of effectiveness.

It must be explored at every stage of group development. Groups at different stages of development have different effectiveness in solving various problems.

In the early stages of development, the group is not able to successfully solve problems that require complex cooperative skills, but easy tasks are available to it, which can be decomposed into components.

The next stage of development gives a greater group effect, but subject to the personal significance of the group task for each participant in the joint activity.

If all members of the group share the socially significant goals of the activity, efficiency is also manifested in the case when the tasks solved by the group do not bring direct personal benefit to the members of the group.

There is a new criterion for the success of solving a problem by a group - the criterion public importance tasks.

Among the criteria for group effectiveness, there is "excessive activity" - the desire of group members to achieve high rates of a super-necessary task.

Both phases that are present in any labor activity should be taken into account: preparatory and instrumental.

The concentration of attention on the instrumental phase does not take into account the fact that at a certain level of development of the group, the first phase acquires special significance - here the new qualities of the group can most clearly manifest themselves in their influence on each individual member of the group.

Just like other problems related to the dynamic processes of a small group, the problem of efficiency must be related to the idea of ​​group development.

LECTURE No. 16. Social attitude. Definition and classification

1. Research into the concept and dynamics of social attitudes

The concept, which to a certain extent explains the choice of a motive that prompts a person to activity, is the concept social attitude.

The installation problem was the subject of research at the school of D. N. Uznadze.

D. Uznadze defined the installation as an integral dynamic state of an object, a state of readiness for a certain activity.

This state is determined by the factors of the subject's needs and the corresponding objective situation.

Attunement to behavior to meet a given need and in a given situation can be consolidated in the event of a repetition of the situation, then there is fixed installation as opposed to situational.

The setting in the context of D. Uznadze's concept concerns the realization of the simplest physiological needs of a person.

The idea of ​​identifying special states of a personality that precedes its actual behavior is present in many researchers.

This range of issues has been considered I. N. Myasishchev in his human relationship concept.

The relationship, understood "as a system of temporary connections of a person as a subject's personality with the whole of reality or with its individual aspects," explains the direction of the future behavior of the individual.

The tradition of studying social attitudes has developed in Western social psychology and sociology.

The term "attitude" is used to denote social attitudes.

In 1918 W. Thomas и F. Znanetsky established two dependencies, without which it was impossible to describe the process of adaptation: the interdependence of the individual and social organization.

They proposed to characterize both sides of the above relationship using the concepts of "social value" (to characterize social organization) and "social attitude", "attitude" (to characterize the individual).

For the first time, the concept of attitude was introduced - "the state of consciousness of an individual with respect to some social value."

After the discovery of the phenomenon of attitude, a boom began in his research.

Several different interpretations of attitude have arisen: a certain state of consciousness and nervous system, expressing a readiness for a reaction, organized on the basis of previous experience, which has a guiding and dynamic influence on behavior.

As the main method, various scales proposed by L. Turnstone.

Attitude functions:

1) adaptive (adaptive) - attitude directs the subject to those objects that serve to achieve his goals;

2) knowledge function - attitude gives simplified indications of the way of behavior in relation to a particular object;

3) expression function (self-regulation function) - attitude acts as a means of freeing the subject from internal tension, expressing oneself as a person;

4) protection function - Attitude contributes to the resolution of internal conflicts of the individual.

In 1942 M. Smith the structure of the attitude is defined:

1) cognitive component (comprehension of the object of social attitude);

2) affective component (emotional assessment of the object);

3) behavioral component (consistent behavior in relation to the object).

Stereotype - this is an excessive generalization of a phenomenon, turning into a stable belief and affecting the system of human relations, behaviors, thought processes, judgments, etc.

The process of stereotyping is called stereotyping.

As a result of stereotyping, a social attitude is formed - a person's predisposition to perceive something in a certain way and act in one way or another.

Features of the formation of social attitudes are connected with the fact that they have some stability and carry the functions of facilitation, algorithmization, cognition, as well as an instrumental function (introducing the individual to the system of norms and values ​​of a given social environment).

The installation can help to perceive the image of another person more correctly, acting on the principle of a magnifying glass during attraction, or it can block normal perception, obeying the principle of a distorting mirror.

D. N. Uznadze believed that the installation was the basis electoral activity person, and therefore, is an indicator of possible areas of activity.

Knowing the social attitudes of a person, it is possible to predict his actions.

Changes in attitudes depend on the novelty of information, the individual characteristics of the subject, the order of receipt of information and the system of attitudes that the subject already has.

Since the attitude determines the selective directions of the individual's behavior, it regulates activity at three hierarchical levels: semantic, target and operational.

On the semantic the level of attitudes are of the most generalized nature and determine the relationship of the individual to objects that have personal significance for the individual.

Targeted attitudes are associated with specific actions and the desire of a person to bring the work begun to the end.

They determine the relatively stable nature of the course of activity.

If the action is interrupted, then the motivational tension is still preserved, providing the person with an appropriate readiness to continue it.

The effect of an action in progress has been discovered K. Levin and more thoroughly studied in the studies of V. Zeigarnik (the Zeigarnik effect).

At the operational level, the attitude determines the decision-making in a particular situation, contributes to the perception and interpretation of circumstances based on the past experience of the subject's behavior in a similar situation and the corresponding prediction of the possibilities of adequate and effective behavior.

J. Godefroy identified three main stages in the formation of social attitudes in humans in the process of socialization.

The first stage covers the period of childhood up to 12 years.

The attitudes that develop during this period correspond to parental models.

From 12 to 20 years of age, attitudes acquire a more concrete form, their formation is associated with the assimilation of social roles.

The third stage covers a period of 20 to 30 years and is characterized by the crystallization of social attitudes, the formation of a system of beliefs based on them, which is a very stable mental neoplasm.

By the age of 30, the installations are characterized by significant stability, it is extremely difficult to change them.

Any of the dispositions that a particular subject has can change.

The degree of their variability and mobility depends on the level of a particular disposition: the more complex the social object, in relation to which a certain disposition exists in a person, the more stable it is.

Many different models have been put forward to explain the processes of changing social attitudes.

Most studies of social attitudes are carried out in line with two main theoretical orientations - behavioral и cognitivist.

In behavioristically oriented social psychology (K. Hovland's studies of social attitudes as an explanatory principle for understanding the fact of changing attitudes (the designation of "social attitude" in Western social psychology)) the principle of learning is used: a person's attitudes change depending on how the reinforcement of that or other social setting.

By changing the system of rewards and punishments, it is possible to influence the nature of the social attitude.

If the attitude is formed on the basis of previous life experience, then the change is possible only if social factors are "switched on".

The subordination of the social attitude itself to higher levels of dispositions justifies the need to address the entire system of social factors, and not just "reinforcement", when studying the problem of changing attitudes.

In the cognitivist tradition, the change in social attitudes is explained in terms of the so-called correspondence theories of F. Haider, G. Newcomb, L. Festinger, C. Osgood.

A change in attitude occurs when a discrepancy arises in the cognitive structure of an individual, for example, a negative attitude towards an object and a positive attitude towards a person who gives this object a positive characteristic collide.

The incentive to change the attitude is the individual's need to restore cognitive conformity, an ordered perception of the outside world.

The phenomenon of social attitudes is due both to the fact of its functioning in the social system and to the property of regulating human behavior as a being capable of active, conscious, transformative production activity, included in a complex interweaving of relationships with other people.

Therefore, in contrast to the sociological description of the change in social attitudes, it is not enough to identify only the totality of social changes that precede the change in attitudes and explain them.

The change in the social attitude must be analyzed both from the point of view of the content of objective social changes affecting a given level of dispositions, and from the point of view of changes in the active position of the individual, caused not simply in response to the situation, but due to circumstances generated by the development of the individual himself.

These requirements of the analysis can be fulfilled under one condition: when considering the installation in the context of the activity. If a social attitude arises in a certain sphere of human activity, then its change can be understood by analyzing changes in the activity itself.

2. Varieties of social attitudes existing in society

Prejudice - a special type of attitude (mainly negative) in relation to members of a particular social group.

Discrimination - negative actions directed against these people, attitudes translated into actions.

Prejudice - this is an attitude (usually negative) towards representatives of a social group, based only on their belonging to this group.

A person who has a prejudice against some social group evaluates its members in a special (usually negative) way by belonging to this group.

Their individual traits or behavior do not play a role.

People who are prejudiced against certain groups often process information about those groups differently from information about other groups.

They pay more attention to information that is consistent with their preconceived notions, it is more often repeated and, as a result, remembered more accurately than information that is not consistent with these views.

If prejudice is a specific type of attitude, then it may not only include a negative evaluation of the group it is directed against, but also contain negative feelings or emotions of people expressing it when they are in the presence of or think about representatives of the group that they are so I do not like.

Prejudice may include opinions and expectations about members of various social groups - stereotypes, suggesting that all members of these groups exhibit the same traits and behave in the same way.

When people think about prejudice, they usually focus on its emotional or evaluative aspects.

Prejudice is associated with certain aspects social cognition - the ways in which we extract, store, retrieve from memory and later use information about other people.

In our attempts to find explanations for various phenomena of the social world, we often use the shortest cognitive paths.

This is usually done when our ability to handle social information reaches its limit; then we are most likely to rely on stereotypes as mental shortcuts for understanding other people or forming judgments about them.

Social attitudes are not always reflected in external actions.

In many cases, people who have negative views of members of various groups may not express those views openly.

Laws, social pressure, fear of retribution - this keeps people from openly expressing their prejudices.

Many people with prejudices feel that open discrimination is bad and perceive such actions as a violation of personal behavioral standards.

When they notice that they have shown discrimination, they experience a feeling of great discomfort.

In recent years, blatant forms of discrimination - negative actions against objects of racial, ethnic or religious prejudice - have rarely been observed.

The new racism is more subtle, but just as brutal.

Social control is the influence of society on attitudes, ideas, values, ideals and human behavior.

Social control includes expectations, norms и sanctions. Expectations - the requirements of others in relation to this person, acting in the form of expectations.

Social norms - patterns that prescribe what people should say, think, feel, do in specific situations.

social sanction - a measure of influence, the most important means of social control.

Forms of social control - diverse ways of regulating human life in society, which are due to various social (group) processes.

They predetermine the transition of external social regulation into intra-personal.

This is due to the internalization of social norms.

In the process of interiorization, there is a transfer of social ideas into the consciousness of an individual.

The most common forms of social control:

1) law - a set of normative acts that have legal force and regulate the formal relations of people throughout the state;

2) taboo include a system of prohibitions on the commission of any actions or thoughts of a person.

Social control is carried out through repetitive, habitual for the majority ways of human behavior, common in a given society - customs.

Customs are assimilated from childhood and have the character of a social habit.

The main sign of custom is prevalence.

The custom is determined by the conditions of society at a given moment in time and differs from tradition, which is timeless in nature and exists for a long time, being passed down from generation to generation.

Traditions - such customs that have developed historically in connection with the culture of a given ethnic group; passed down from generation to generation; determined by the mentality of the people.

Customs and traditions cover mass forms of behavior and play a huge role in the integration of society.

There are special customs that have moral significance and are associated with the understanding of good and evil in a given social group or society - morality.

Category manners serves to designate customs that have moral significance and characterize all those forms of behavior of people in a particular social stratum that can be subjected to moral assessment.

At the individual level, morals are manifested in the manners of a person, the features of his behavior.

Manners include a set of behavioral habits of a particular person or a particular social group.

Habit - an unconscious action that has been repeated so many times in a person's life that it has become automated.

Etiquette - the established order of behavior, forms of treatment or a set of rules of conduct relating to the external manifestation of attitude towards people.

Any member of society is under the strongest psychological influence of social control, which is not always realized by the individual due to the processes and results of internalization.

Social norms are some patterns that prescribe what people should say, think, feel, do in specific situations.

Most often, norms are established models, standards of behavior from the point of view of not only society as a whole, but also specific social groups.

Norms perform a regulatory function both in relation to a particular person and in relation to a group.

The social norm acts as a social phenomenon that does not depend on individual variations.

Most social norms are unwritten rules. Signs of social norms:

1) general validity. Norms cannot apply only to one or a few members of a group or society without affecting the behavior of the majority.

If the norms are public, then they are of general significance within the framework of the whole society, if they are group norms, then their general significance is limited to the framework of this group;

2) the possibility of applying sanctions by a group or society, rewards or punishments, approval or censure;

3) the presence of the subjective side.

It manifests itself in two aspects: a person has the right to decide for himself whether to accept or not accept the norms of a group or society, to fulfill them or not to fulfill them;

4) interdependence. In society, norms are interconnected and interdependent, they form complex systems that regulate people's actions.

Normative systems can be different, and this difference sometimes contains the possibility of conflict, both social and intrapersonal.

Some social norms contradict each other, putting a person in a situation of having to make a choice;

5) scale. Norms differ in scale into actually social and group ones.

Social norms operate within the framework of the whole society and represent such forms of social control as customs, traditions, laws, etiquette, etc.

The action of group norms is limited to the framework of a particular group and is determined by how it is customary to behave here (mores, manners, group and individual habits).

All procedures by which the behavior of an individual is brought to the norm of a social group are called sanctions. Social sanction is a measure of influence, the most important means of social control.

Types of sanctions: negative и positivee, formal и informal.

Negative sanctions directed against a person who has deviated from social norms.

Positive sanctions aimed at the support and approval of a person who follows these standards.

Formal sanctions imposed by an official, public or state body or their representative.

Informal usually suggest the reaction of group members, friends, colleagues, relatives, etc.

Positive sanctions are usually more powerful than negative ones. The strength of the impact of sanctions depends on many factors, the most important of which is agreement on their application.

LECTURE No. 17

An example of studies of intergroup interaction can serve as a study of intergroup aggression in the concept G. Lebon, negative attitudes towards another group at work T. Adorno, hostility and fear in psychoanalytic theories, etc.

Experimental studies in this area were carried out M. Sheriff at an American teen camp.

The teenagers were offered a general camp cleaning activity, during which spontaneously formed friendly groups were identified; in the second stage, the teenagers were divided into two groups in such a way as to destroy naturally formed friendships.

The attitude of one group to another was measured, which does not contain hostility towards each other.

In the third stage, the groups were given various competitive activities, and in its course an increase in intergroup hostility was recorded; at the fourth stage, the groups were again united and engaged in common activities.

Measuring the relationship of "former" groups to each other at this stage showed that intergroup hostility has decreased.

M. Sherif proposed a group approach to the study of intergroup relations: the sources of intergroup hostility or cooperation are found here not in the motives of an individual, but in situations group interaction, however, purely psychological characteristics were lost - cognitive and emotional processes that regulate various aspects of this interaction.

Within the framework of this orientation, the experiments of A. Teschfel were carried out.

Studying intergroup discrimination (intragroup favoritism in relation to one's own group and in non-group hostility towards another group), A. Taschfel considered the cause of these phenomena.

He showed that the establishment of a positive attitude towards one's group is observed even in the absence of an objective basis for the conflict between groups.

In the experiment, students were shown two paintings by artists and asked to count the number of dots on each painting.

Then the participants of the experiment were randomly divided into two groups: one included those who fixed more dots from one artist, the other - those who fixed more dots from another. The effect of "us" and "them" immediately arose, and adherence to one's group (intragroup favoritism) and hostility towards the outgroup was revealed.

This allowed A. Taschfel to conclude that the cause of intergroup discrimination is not in the nature of interaction, but in the simple fact of awareness of belonging to one's own group and, as a result, the manifestation of hostility towards another group.

It was concluded that the area of ​​intergroup relations is a sphere that includes four main processes: social categorization, social identification, social comparison, social (intergroup) discrimination. The analysis of these processes should, according to A. Taschfel, represent the actual socio-psychological aspect in the study of intergroup relations.

The group carries the structure of internal interpersonal formal and informal relations that are associated with the external relations of the group.

External relations affect the internal relations of the group. This dependence was determined in the studies of M. Sherif, who studies the patterns of intergroup relations: the division of a large social group into smaller ones (subgroups) contributes to the formation of a social sense of belonging - a sense of "we", which generates the perception of social phenomena through the prism of "us" and "them" .

In the conditions of competitive activity, a conflict of interests provokes the development of aggression, hostility towards representatives of another group.

There is an increase in intra-group solidarity, the impenetrability of the boundaries of group membership increases.

Social control in the group increases, the degree of deviation of individuals from the fulfillment of group norms decreases. A threat from another group causes positive changes in the structure of the group that feels threatened.

The leading relation between social groups is the relation of rivalry.

The most important factor influencing intergroup relations is nature of the joint activity, which was researched V. Hanowes, member of the international expedition.

Its participants differed from each other in nationality, age, culture, religion, political views, etc.

During the expedition, the group was divided into subgroups three times.

At the first stage of joint activity, when the tension was weak, the group was divided into two subgroups on the basis of sociability.

Intergroup relations changed as soon as the expedition began to face difficulties that required maximum effort.

The appearance of three subgroups was observed, the formation of which was associated with attitude to work.

When the expedition was coming to an end, intergroup relations changed again: division into subgroups by level of culture.

Conflict relations arise between groups that have significant grounds for comparison.

Conclusions of V. Khanoves: joint activity is the best way to get to know each other, especially if the activity takes place in an extreme situation. Neither racial, nor age, nor social differences play a significant role in relations between people.

The exception is the cultural level.

In an extreme situation, the group is divided into microgroups several times depending on the circumstances and personal characteristics of the subjects of interaction.

The main functions of intergroup relations are the preservation, stabilization and development of groups as functional units of social life.

In interaction with other groups, each strives for a stable state by maintaining a relative balance of integration and differentiation tendencies.

If the tendencies of differentiation intensify in the external relations of the group, then the internal relations will be characterized by the strengthening of the tendency of integration.

Rivalry, cooperation, relations of non-participation are the main strategies for interaction between groups. The dominant strategy is the strategy of rivalry.

LECTURE No. 18. Large social groups

1. Psychology of the nation

Large social groups - communities of people that differ from small groups in the presence of weak permanent contacts between all their representatives, but united no less and therefore have a significant impact on public life.

One of the classifications of people in the history of the development of world civilization divides people into races.

On the other hand, people are divided according to belonging to different ethnic groups.

Ethnos - a social community that has historically developed in a certain territory, is aware of its ethnic unity and has relatively stable cultural features, including a common language.

The existence of ethnic groups is based on their awareness of their integrity.

Two historical forms of the ethnic community of people - a tribe and a nation.

At the heart of the tribal disunity of people according to the territory of settlement, culture and language are tribal relations.

With the transition from a primitive formation to an economic one based on commodity-money relations, an ethnos in the form of a tribe turns into an ethnos in the form of a nation.

The difference between a nation and a tribe: unites people, is characterized by social inequality; the emergence of the state, clear boundaries of settlement, the presence of public authority and other attributes of the state, the spread of culture, traditions and customs, the introduction of the state language; the formation and development of national pride, the manifestation of nationalism and chauvinism.

Nation - the highest stage in the development of an ethnic community, which corresponds to a certain economic formation.

The psychology of an ethnic community (nation) - national psychology - has its own material base, carriers and reflects the common thing that representatives of an entire nation have in their worldview, stable forms of summing up, psychological features, reactions, speech and language, attitudes towards other people.

national psyche - an integral part of social consciousness, its most important component - social psychology.

National psychology is the result of a long and specific development, in which factors are involved:

Socio-political and economic development. The national psyche depends on production and social relations.

Historical development ethnic community - the rigid framework of numerous, but regular, temporary, but qualitative transformations of life and the characteristics of the psyche of its representatives, the external and internal attributes of which predetermine the originality of the origin, functioning and manifestation of the national psyche.

Age ethnic community testifies to the duration of the formation of the national psyche of people, the possibilities of its future development or degradation.

Interethnic relations, their character and historical traditions influence the nature of the formation and manifestation of the national consciousness and self-awareness of its representatives, the specificity and dynamics of the manifestation of feelings in relation to other nations.

Cultural development ethnic community has an impact on the main qualitative characteristics of the national psyche of people.

Language and script determine the originality of the thinking of its representatives, reflect the diversity of their worldview, views on the features of their lives and activities.

The structure of national psychology is a set of national psychological phenomena that make up its content, including backbone and dynamic components.

К backbone include national identity, national character, national interests, orientations, national feelings and moods, traditions and habits.

National self-awareness - people's awareness of their belonging to a particular ethnic community and its position in the system of social relations.

national character - a historically established set of stable psychological traits of representatives of a particular ethnic community that determine a typical course of action.

national consciousness ethnic communities - a complex set of social, political, economic, moral, religious and other views and beliefs that characterize the level of spiritual development of the nation.

National interests and orientations - socio-psychological phenomena that reflect the motivational priorities of representatives of a particular ethnic community.

National feelings and sentiments - emotionally colored attitude of people to their ethnic community, to its interests, other peoples and values.

National traditions and habits - the rules and norms of behavior that have developed on the basis of the experience of the life of the nation and are firmly rooted in everyday life, the observance of which has become a social need.

Dynamic Components The psychology of the nation makes it possible to comprehend and most accurately identify the specifics of the manifestation and functioning of national psychological phenomena.

The structure of dynamic components: motivational-background, intellectual-cognitive, emotional-volitional and communicative-behavioral national-psychological characteristics, manifested as a result of the direct reaction of the psyche of representatives of specific ethnic communities.

Motivational-background national-psychological features characterize the motivating forces of the activities of representatives of a particular ethnic community, show the originality of their motives and goals; intellectual-cognitive - determine the originality of perception and thinking of the carriers of the national psyche.

Emotional-volitional national-psychological characteristics determine the functioning of the representatives of the ethnic community of clearly expressed peculiar emotional and volitional qualities, on which their activities largely depend.

Communicative-behavioral - determine informational and interpersonal interaction and relationships between representatives of specific peoples.

Properties of national psychological characteristics:

1) the ability to determine at the level of the individual or group the nature of the functioning of all other psychological phenomena, giving them a special focus;

2) the impossibility of bringing their originality to some common denominator;

3) even more conservatism and stability in comparison with other psychological phenomena;

4) their diversity.

2. Class psychology

Classes in social psychology - large organized groups of people, differing in their place in a historically defined system of social production, in their attitude to the means of production (fixed in the right of ownership), in their role in the social organization of labor and in the methods of obtaining and the size of that share of social wealth which they have.

The existence of classes is linked to historically determined modes of production.

Class differences in society arise on the basis of the social division of labor and the emergence of private ownership of the means of production.

Psychology of social class - a form of spiritual development by a class of the conditions of its existence, including the consciousness of the class, the needs and interests of the class, its views, beliefs, feelings, moods, traditions and some other elements.

As the determinants The psychology of the social class is based on the socio-economic position of the class, its place in the social system, its relationship to the means of production, its historical role, the level of development, and the socio-economic relations of a given formation.

Basis Education The psychology of a social class consists of the conditions of its life, the nature of social and practical activities, relations with other classes and interclass groups, social experience, lifestyle, and other subjective and objective characteristics of the life of its representatives.

The character of class psychology is influenced by the historical situation, the correlation of class forces in society, the social base on the basis of which a given class is replenished, and the psychology of other classes.

The psychology of a class is formed under the influence of its ideology and is influenced by the ideology of other social classes and interclass groups, primarily the dominant ones.

In a class society, social consciousness exists and functions in the form of class consciousness.

class consciousness - a product of a long socio-historical development, which is based on the dynamics of the needs of people belonging to this class, and the possibilities for their implementation, as well as the ideas and practical social actions of people associated with this.

The different conditions for the existence of different social classes give rise to different needs, interests and motives for people's activities.

In their totality, they add up to specific psychological characteristics common to most members of the class.

The conscious elements of class psychology, being transformed in a certain way, constitute the content of class consciousness.

The development of class consciousness includes three levels:

1) typological, in which class representatives identify themselves and each other by external signs;

2) identificationalwhen group self-consciousness appears at the level of the primary community;

3) level of solidarity, in which there is an awareness of the unity of interests and values ​​​​of a large community and one's belonging to it.

The psychology of a social class acts as an expression of the psychological community of its interests, views, ideas, and feelings.

In the idea of ​​the boundaries and structure of social classes, firstly, the presence of a worker is always stated. class (proletariat), including hired industrial and agricultural workers, as well as lower and middle employees (trade and office workers).

Secondly, the existence bourgeois class, which includes large and medium-sized owners of the means of production, including large farmers, as well as the highest stratum of managers.

Thirdly, allocate middle social strata, including the petty bourgeoisie in industry and agriculture and small owners of trade and service enterprises.

A large social community in many countries of the world is made up of representatives of marginal strata.

Many researchers consider the level of income to be the leading class-forming feature. The most common model in the US:

1) upper upper class, which is made up of very rich and noble people, representatives of influential and wealthy dynasties with very significant resources of power, wealth and prestige throughout the state;

2) lower upper class, including bankers, prominent politicians, owners of large firms who have reached the highest statuses in the course of competition or due to various personal qualities;

3) upper middle class, which includes successful businessmen, hired company managers, prominent lawyers, doctors, outstanding athletes, the scientific elite;

4) lower middle class, which is made up of employees - engineers, middle and small officials, teachers, scientists, heads of departments at enterprises, highly skilled workers, etc.;

5) upper lower class, consisting of hired workers who create surplus value in a given society;

6) lower lower class are the poor, the unemployed, the homeless, foreign workers and other representatives of marginalized groups.

This model of society has many critics who believe that the level of income cannot be read as the main criterion for class membership.

Classes are not only economic, but also socio-psychological formations.

According to the conditions of life of people of one class or another, they develop a more or less definite class consciousness, and the corresponding features of class psychology are formed.

The psychology of a class acts as a form of spiritual assimilation by a class of the conditions of its existence and is a combination of psychological traits, processes and states.

The psychology of one class differs from the psychology of another according to which of the socio-psychological phenomena dominate in it and what their content is at a given historical moment.

The national psychological characteristics of people are also reflected in class psychology.

The social conditions of the life of a class do not create the totality of the mental traits of an individual, but they suppress some traits, stimulate the development of others, and thereby form personality traits typical of a given class.

Therefore, in the generality of psychological traits typical of representatives of this class, the reality of class psychology is expressed.

The psychology of a class includes its needs, interests, value orientations, role representations, norms of behavior, traditions, and other socio-psychological phenomena.

At each stage of the economic, social and cultural development of society, the class position determines the volume and composition of the material and spiritual goods available to them, the main content of their activities, their real opportunities to possess certain things.

Content needs depends on what a person, a representative of a class, has and what he lacks.

The specificity of his activity develops some needs in him and suppresses others.

Class interests due to the position of the class in the system of production relations of a given society.

They may differ in the degree of maturity, which depends on the level of development of the objective needs of the class.

There are other factors, such as subjective ones, that can influence them (eg the degree of maturity of other classes).

Class interests cannot be reduced only to economic ones; it affects the entire set of institutions, norms and values ​​that operate in a given society.

The clash of interests of different classes is especially acute in the political sphere, since political interests are a generalized expression of all other interests, including economic ones.

The subjective side of interest is that it is a product of the activity of the psyche and therefore is influenced by other elements of social psychology, in particular values, norms of behavior, etc.

At the heart of the formation and development storage class are its needs that determine the basic significance of their entire system - the nature of ownership of the means of production.

Values ​​are objectively determined by the economic conditions of the activity of the class.

Along with material values, there are also phenomena of social consciousness that express these interests in an ideal form - spiritual values.

An important place in the content of class psychology is occupied by code of Conduct, functioning in the form of certain requirements, prescriptions and expectations of appropriate behavior. A class or an interclass group, with the help of the norms developed by them, regulate, control and evaluate the behavior of its representatives.

The norms of behavior are developed taking into account the systems of social relations, the interests of classes and its ideas about the proper, permissible, approved, acceptable or undesirable, unacceptable.

According to a number of researchers, class psychology includes a "psychic warehouse" - a certain mental image of a social class, manifested in the social character, traditions, mores, habits, etc.

They play the role of important regulators of the behavior of members of a class or an interclass group, and therefore are of great importance in understanding the characteristics of class psychology.

All components of class psychology are closely interconnected and mutually influenced.

Its study should be carried out taking into account these interrelations and mutual influences, which will allow a deeper understanding and explanation of its originality.

3. Crowd as a spontaneously organized group

The crowd is one of the large but poorly organized communities.

The elements of the crowd are socio-political crises that shake people's lives, as well as periods of transition from one state of society to another.

There are different definitions of a crowd.

What is common is the opposition of the crowd to all stable social communities, the deprivation of the crowd of clear signs and characteristics, which generally makes it difficult to understand it as a social phenomenon.

From a psychological point of view, a crowd is a collection of people who have certain features that differ from those that characterize the individual individuals that make up this collection (G. Lebon).

Crowd - an unstructured accumulation of people, deprived of a clearly perceived commonality of goals, but interconnected by the similarity of their emotional state and a common object of attention.

The term "crowd" is ambiguous and is used to describe phenomena and processes that are very far from each other by nature.

The presence of a crowd always points to the presence of a certain community; some kind of connection between people, which can be secondary, temporary, and random.

Crowd - this is a relatively short-term, weakly organized and unstructured accumulation (gathering) of a multitude, interconnected by a common emotional state, a conscious or unconscious goal and having a huge (incommensurable with the individual) power of influencing society and its life, capable of disorganizing their behavior in an instant and activity.

The crowd, according to G. Tarde, is a pile of heterogeneous, unfamiliar elements.

The characteristic feature of the crowd is its sudden organization.

It has no prior desire for a common goal, it does not have a collective desire.

Meanwhile, among the diversity of her movements, there is some expediency in actions and aspirations.

The very word "crowd" as a collective name indicates that the mass of individuals is identified with one person.

Among the reasons for the unity of thought observed in the crowd, P. Bordieu highlights ability to imitate.

Each person is disposed to imitate, and this ability reaches its maximum in people gathered together.

Many writers have tried to explain this phenomenon by resorting to Joly's moral epidemic hypothesis: "Imitation is a real epidemic, depending on the example, just as the possibility of contracting smallpox depends on the poison with which the latter is spread."

On this basis, a moral epidemic explained the epidemic of crimes that followed some crime, which was widely written about in the press.

According to Sergius and G. Tarde, any idea, any spiritual movement of an individual is nothing but a reflex to an impulse received from outside.

Everyone acts, thinks only thanks to some suggestion.

This suggestion may extend either to only one individual, or to several, or even to a large number of persons; it can spread like a true epidemic.

According to the type of dominant emotion and behavioral characteristics, researchers distinguish the following types of crowds.

Random (occasional) crowd occurs due to some unexpected event.

It is formed by "onlookers", persons in need of new experiences.

The main emotion is people's curiosity.

A random crowd can quickly gather and disperse just as quickly. Usually few.

Conventional crowd - a crowd whose behavior is based on explicit or implied norms and rules of behavior - conventions.

Gathered about a pre-announced event, people are usually driven by a well-directed interest, and they must follow the rules of conduct appropriate to the nature of the event.

expressive crowd is distinguished by a special power of mass manifestation of emotions and feelings.

It is the result of the transformation of a random or conventional crowd, when people, in connection with certain events that they witnessed, and under the influence of their development, are seized by a general emotional mood, expressed collectively.

An expressive crowd can transform into an extreme form - ecstatic crowd, i.e., the type of crowd when the people who form it drive themselves into a frenzy in joint prayer, ritual or other actions.

All three types of crowds are passive. D. D. Bessonov proposed to consider the crowd as expectant (passive) and acting (active).

Active (active) crowd - the most important type of crowd, given the social danger of some of its subspecies.

The most dangerous is aggressive crowd - a congestion of people striving for destruction and even murder.

The people who make up the aggressive crowd do not have a rational basis for their actions.

More often it is the result of the transformation of a random, conventional or expressive crowd.

In the crowd, people descend to a primitive state, which is characterized by irrational behavior, the dominance of unconscious motives, the subordination of the individual to the collective mind or "racial unconscious".

The qualities found by the individual in the crowd are a manifestation of the unconscious, which contains all human evil "(3. Freud).

Another subspecies of the acting crowd is panic crowd - a congestion of people covered by a sense of fear, the desire to avoid some imaginary or real danger.

Panic - this is a socio-psychological phenomenon of the manifestation of the group affect of fear.

The resulting fear blocks the ability of people to rationally assess the situation that has arisen.

A subspecies of the acting crowd is acquisitive crowd - an accumulation of people who are in direct and disorderly conflict among themselves because of the possession of certain values ​​that are not enough to satisfy the needs or desires of all participants in this conflict.

Some researchers of the phenomenon of the crowd distinguish rebel crowd as an indispensable attribute of all revolutionary events.

The actions of the insurgent crowd are distinguished by their specificity and focus on an immediate change in the situation, which somehow does not suit its participants.

The issue of criminal liability is relatively simple if the perpetrator of the crime is one person.

The question becomes extremely difficult when the perpetrators of the crime are not a few persons, but a very large number of them.

Some, following the military law of punishment through the tenth, that is, having punished several people, successfully, but often without any sense, stop the excitement in the crowd and inspire fear in it.

People's judges often leave everyone free, thus acting, according to Tacitus: "Where there are many guilty, no one should be punished."

The classical school of criminal law never questioned whether a crime committed by a crowd should be punished in the same way as the crime of one person.

It was quite enough for her to study crime as a legal substance.

No matter how the criminal acts (alone or under the influence of the crowd), the reason that pushed him to the crime was always his free will.

The same punishment was always imposed for the same offense.

The positive school has proven that free will is an illusion of consciousness; she opened the hitherto unknown world of the anthropological, physical and social factors of crime and raised the idea that a crime committed by a crowd should be judged differently from one committed by one person, and this is because in the first and second cases, participation accepted by anthropological and social factors is different.

Pugliese first outlined the doctrine of criminal responsibility for a collective crime.

He admits semi-responsibility for all those who have committed a crime while being carried away by the crowd.

He named collective crime a strange and complex phenomenon when a crowd commits a crime, carried away by the words of a demagogue or irritated by some fact that is an injustice or an insult to it or seems to it to be so.

Two kinds collective crimes: crimes committed as a result of a general natural attraction to them; crimes caused by passions, expressed most clearly in the crimes of the crowd.

The first case is analogous to a crime committed by a born criminal, and the second is similar to that committed by an accidental criminal.

The first can always be warned, the second never. In the first, the anthropological factor prevails, in the second, the social factor dominates. The first excites a constant and very strong horror against the persons who committed it; the second is only an easy and short-term salvation.

L. Laverne to explain the crimes of the crowd, he used the assumption of a person's natural propensity to kill.

By itself, the crowd is more disposed to evil than to good. Heroism, kindness can be the qualities of one individual; but they are almost never the hallmarks of a crowd.

LECTURE No. 19. Medical psychology. Methods of diagnosis and treatment in psychology

medical psychology - an independent section of medical knowledge, including psychological problems that arise in sick people at all stages of the formation of the disease and in different conditions of seeking medical help.

Medical psychology does not lose touch with general psychology, the successes of which improve both its methods and content.

Medical psychology studies the psychology of a patient who lives in specific social conditions (family, production, social environment, etc.), which determines its connection with the social sciences.

The psychological state of a person is of decisive importance in the occurrence of the disease, determines the features of its course, determines the development and success of treatment.

The influence of a doctor can radically change the whole picture of the disease and significantly change its course.

True recognition and correct understanding of the disease is available only if the individual characteristics of the patient are known.

The content, place among other disciplines and the scope of medical psychology are still unequally understood by different specialists.

There are several views.

Some authors see the main task of medical psychology in the most complete training of medical students and doctors in the basics of traditional psychology.

Other researchers, primarily E. Kretschmer, the psychological analysis of the nature of diseases, in particular neuropsychiatric ones, is considered the basis of the content of the latter.

Other authors in the course of medical psychology expound general psychopathology, that is, they discuss the symptoms and syndromes of mental illness, thereby replacing medical psychology with general psychopathology.

In this case, the subject of study of medical psychology is mental illness.

The subject of medical psychology is the diverse features of the patient's psyche and their impact on health and disease, as well as the provision of an optimal system of psychological healing influences, including all the circumstances associated with patient care, which can be legitimately combined into the "doctor-patient" system.

Medical psychology contributes not only to the improvement of the necessary contacts with patients, the fastest and complete recovery, but also the prevention of diseases, health protection, and the education of a harmonious personality.

Medical psychology studies the full range of beneficial or detrimental influences on a person's changing personality and interpersonal relationships on his health and illness.

Medical psychology is divided into overall и private.

General medical psychology studies the basic laws of the psychology of a sick person (criteria for a normal, temporarily altered and sickly psyche), the psychology of a doctor (medical worker), the psychology of everyday communication between a patient and a doctor, and the psychological atmosphere of medical institutions.

Private medical psychology reveals the leading aspects of medical ethics when dealing with a specific patient and in certain forms of illness.

Any disease is always a disease not of a separate organ, not of a separate system, but of the whole organism.

In medicine, the rule has been fixed: it is not the disease that should be treated, but the patient.

At the same time, medicine is built mainly on the principles of organ or systemic pathology.

In practical medicine, a division of diseases has developed, the consideration of which seems essential for understanding certain aspects of medical psychology.

Conventionally, all diseases are divided into:

1) somatic (internal) diseases, in which pathological changes occur in the organs and systems of the human body.

At the same time, the causes of painful changes are not considered. This division is conditional, since a variety of criteria become the basis for it;

2) nervous diseases. In the XNUMXth century they were separated from internal diseases into an independent group.

The main justification for this was the features of the pathology.

Unlike somatic, predominantly organ forms of pathology, nervous diseases are mainly systemic in nature. This refers to damage (violation) of certain systems that make up a single nervous system.

The peculiarity of nervous diseases is that they are based on violations of afferent (adductor, sensory) or efferent (abductor, motor) conduction in the nerve pathways. Nervous diseases are diseases of the central and peripheral nervous system;

3) mental illness in the history of healing rather late they were singled out as an independent group.

Like any other organ of the body, the brain has biological (physiological) functions.

The study of them in adolescents, fed from an early age in the den of animals (outside the society of people), revealed all the typical biological qualities that are determined by modern methods.

At the same time, no signs of the human psyche were found in such children and adolescents.

The difference between mental illnesses lies in the predominant disorder of specifically human, ideal, subjective, rational forms of human activity, which find expression in changes in the productivity of his purposeful activity, changes in the completeness, consistency and adequacy of psychomotor, the content of facial expressions, pantomimic expressiveness, in inadequate assessments of the environment and changes occurring in oneself, and, finally, in the subjective experience of the loss of the former state of health and its replacement by new states.

All these disorders are based on complex biological (physiological) changes that have not yet been studied enough.

Mental illnesses are represented by the forms:

1) major psychiatry - psychoses;

2) minor psychiatry, or borderline neuropsychiatric disorders - abnormal reactions, neuroses.

Each considered group of diseases reflects the reality only if it is mainly about somatic, nervous and mental diseases.

Consciousness of the disease (E. K. Krasnushkin) or the internal picture of the disease (R. A. Luria) are common concepts of medical psychology.

E. Krasnushkin used the terms "consciousness of the disease", "representation of the disease", and E. A. Shevalev - "experiencing the disease."

The external uniformity of the disease in different patients is accompanied by an unequal assessment, its consciousness from complete peace of mind and indifferent attitude to panic gripping fear.

Types of response to the disease are almost never unambiguous and are due to different consciousness of the disease and one's own body.

German scientist P. Schilder showed that knowledge and perceptions are not the product of a passive position of the body.

They are formed in a situation for which mobility is the necessary basis.

The idea of ​​one's own body is based not only on associations, memory, experience, but also on the intentions and goals of a person.

The picture of the body, according to P. Schilder, is never isolated, it is always included in the pictures of the body of others.

The idea of ​​a person about his own body is in constant construction.

It is created by the interactions of the body with the outside world.

In the "consciousness of the disease" a number of interrelated aspects are distinguished. First, all new changes in the body for the individual are reflected in consciousness.

Over time, as a result of the repetition of similar or close painful conditions, the disease is realized more fully and in detail.

Secondly, in continuous unity with such a process of reflection of the disease in the mind of the patient, an individual attitude is formed to the ongoing changes in the body, to the disease itself, its possible individual and social consequences.

This attitude first finds expression in the features of the general subjective experience of the disease, in changes in the patient's well-being.

The reflection in the mind of the resulting painful changes in the internal organs occurs in unity with the formation of the patient's attitude towards them.

And yet, there is never a complete correspondence between the idea of ​​the disease reflected in the mind of the patient and its objective nature.

The range of variants of consciousness of the disease is so wide that it includes an infinite variety of people's individualities.

At one pole, the phenomena of anosognosia (subjective underestimation, denial of an objectively existing disease) are presented, and at the other, the phenomena of hypernosognosia (various forms of subjective overestimation of objective somatic disorders).

The phenomena of anosognosia are compared with flight from the disease, and hypernosognosia - with flight into the disease, leaving the disease.

Between them there are many intermediate states of consciousness of the disease.

All features of the consciousness of the disease can be divided into two groups.

The usual forms of consciousness of the disease are only features of the psychology of a sick person, and he himself needs an everyday reasonable, sparing approach of a doctor.

The states of consciousness of the disease, accompanied by abnormal reactions to it, which go beyond the typical for a given person, are already painful states of the psyche, which complement and complicate the clinical picture of the underlying disease.

After the end of World War II, psychologists became interested in stress and its effect on human behavior. At first, the subject of research was the physical causes of stress, but soon the range of interests expanded to include psychological factors.

Now the word "stress" is used to refer to negative reactions to physical and psychological events that a person perceives as bringing physical harm and emotional suffering.

When a person is faced with danger, they feel threatened and try to deal with the situation.

Psychological coping is considered successful if it reduces or eliminates the threat.

Of particular interest link between stress and physical illness.

Illness as a result of stress. Studies show that when stress increases, the likelihood of illness increases.

We face many sources of stress.

Work-related stress is common, and prolonged stress causes depression and health complaints.

Stress can cause physical illness: two factors must be considered.

First, depression, anxiety, and anxiety that occur during times of stress can prevent a person from leading a healthy lifestyle.

Secondly, when a person is stressed, their immune system functions less well.

Psychoneuroimmunology studies the relationship between stress, emotional and behavioral responses, and the immune system.

Individual differences in vulnerability to stress.

When placed in objectively similar stressful conditions, some experience high levels of stress and become ill, while others experience significantly less stress and continue to feel good.

Although genetic factors explain some of the differences in the effects of stress, L. M. Fridman and his colleagues in the course of research have received evidence indicating the existence of differences between people who are predisposed to diseases and people who heal themselves.

People who are predisposed to disease react to stressful situations with negative emotions and unhealthy behavior.

People who are able to heal themselves on their own, successfully cope with stress and resist the disease.

Research on subjective health indicates clear benefits in interpreting daily life in terms of positive emotions, work-life balance, purpose, and hope for a positive outcome.

People who are predisposed to disease are often characterized as neurotic, poorly adaptable, pessimistic, and have low levels of self-esteem.

Self-healing people are described as hardy, optimistic, extroverted.

Conscious control is very important.

One of the characteristics of high self-efficacy is the increase in physical endurance that results from the body's production of a natural pain reliever.

Active actions in the fight against stress.

Three strategies have been identified:

1) become physically healthy;

2) increase positive emotions by changing cognition, behavior and environment;

3) find social support.

LECTURE No. 20. Psychological problems of the individual in professional activities

Work-related attitudes - employees' attitudes towards their work and their organizations; The role of experience management in the recruitment interview process.

Attitudes toward a profession or job are denoted as job satisfaction.

Refers to a measure of response ranging from very positive (high job satisfaction) to very negative (low job satisfaction or high dissatisfaction).

Attitude towards the company in which the person works - dedication to the organization, an indicator of how much a person identifies with his company and how great his desire to continue to work in it.

Factors affecting job satisfaction.

High job satisfaction may be associated with action cognitive dissonance.

Because most people are aware of the need to keep working, and that changing jobs often involves considerable effort (and even risk), the statement of dissatisfaction with the current job usually generates dissonance.

To avoid or lessen the impact of these reactions, many people report relatively high levels of job satisfaction and may begin to believe their own assessments.

Factors affecting attitude to work.

There are two groups of factors: organizational factorsrelated to the tradition of the company or the working conditions that it provides, and personal factorsassociated with the personal characteristics of working people.

Organizational factors:

1) company reward system - remuneration, promotion and other rewards.

Justice for most people it is an extremely important value, it is fully involved in the process of functioning of the system of rewards related to work;

2) perceived quality of leadership - the degree of confidence of workers and employees that their bosses are competent, take care of the interests of their subordinates and treat them with respect;

3) degree of participation of people in making important decisions.

The nature of the profession itself plays an important role in job satisfaction.

People forced to do boring, repetitive work report much lower levels of satisfaction than those whose jobs involve some degree of variety.

Repetitive and part-time work, occupations that do not provide full employment or fall short of people's ability, can cause a feeling of monotony, which in turn can lead to low job satisfaction, psychological distress, and even physical illness.

Personal factors influencing job satisfaction. Job satisfaction is also related to status and length of service.

The higher the status of a person in the company, the higher the job satisfaction.

The longer a person is in this job, the greater his satisfaction with it.

The greater the degree of correspondence of work to the interests of a person, the greater his satisfaction.

Job satisfaction is related to people's satisfaction with life in general.

A job interview suggests what needs to be done in order to look good in front of the interviewer.

The effort to make a good impression on others is known as impression management (self-presentation).

Experience management comes in two categories: strengthening one's own position - an attempt to maintain our own image and strengthening the position of the interlocutor - attempts to make the person we are interested in feel comfortable in our presence.

One of the most important situations in which first impression techniques are often used to make people look better in the eyes of those they meet for the first time is job interview, interviews conducted by organizations for candidates for various positions in order to select the best ones.

Building on research on first impressions and impression management, psychologists have studied the processes that occur during job interviews.

As a result, it was found that the evaluation of candidates by the interviewer is influenced by various factors that should not play a role in the selection of employees, such as:

1) physical appearance, appearance of candidates;

2) the mood of the person conducting the interview;

3) many methods of managing impressions that can be used by candidates with varying degrees of success.

Since interviews remain one of the most widely used procedures in the selection of candidates for a position, these results are of great importance.

Candidate appearance. Appearance really matters in the formation of the first impression.

Such beliefs are justified: when evaluating candidates, interviewers are sometimes influenced by the appearance of the applicant and the factors associated with it.

In addition, interviewers often give higher ratings to candidates who send positive non-verbal cues - smiling, nodding their heads, often leaning forward during the interview.

Thus, the results of the interview are often influenced by the appearance of the candidate, which is quite controllable.

More worrisome is the fact that these effects come from factors over which people have relatively little control, such as gender and weight.

The strong influence of the latter factor was clearly demonstrated in an experiment conducted by P.F. Pingitor and her colleagues.

The studies systematically varied three factors:

1) the nature of the work;

2) gender of the candidate;

3) the weight of the candidate.

The results suggest that there is indeed a bias against overweight candidates, and this bias is particularly strong for women.

This data only underlines the conclusion that humans are definitely not perfect information processing machines that operate solely on the basis of logical thinking.

On the contrary, our social judgments are often influenced by factors that, as everyone will easily agree, should not play a role in decision making.

People working in the same organization interdependent. Collaboration - joint work in order to achieve various benefits, the dominant type of interaction in the workplace.

It is not always so.

Individuals and groups often come into conflict - they work against each other, they try to interfere with each other's interests.

In surveys conducted in various organizations, managers of these companies reported that they devote more than 20% of their time to resolving conflicts and their consequences.

Resentments, vengeance, and other ill effects of violent conflict can linger for months or years, damaging both individuals and organizations.

As you understand, conflicts are directly related to aggression.

These concepts are not identical.

Aggression means deliberate attempts to harm one or more people, conflict is defined as behavior that is the result of sensations:

1) own interests and the interests of another person are incompatible;

2) another person is going to interfere (or has already interfered) with the interests of the perceiving person.

These sensations give rise to aggressive actions, but can lead to actions that are not inherently aggressive.

Causes of conflict in the workplace: organizational and interpersonal.

Organizational causes of conflict - reasons related to the structure and functioning of their companies.

Interpersonal Factors - factors related to people, their social relationships and what they think about other people.

Strategies of behavior in conflict: opposite models, main dimensions.

Most people follow one of the following patterns: rivalry - the desire to get as much as possible for yourself or your group; compromise - the willingness to share everything equally; reconciliation - the desire to give up and let others get all the benefits; evasion - the desire to avoid conflict by any means, including leaving the situation, cooperation - an attempt to maximize the overall gain.

Methods to reduce the harmful effects of conflict.

Conflict is often costly for both individuals and organizations.

Its consequences are not always negative, sometimes the conflict prompts both parties to consider problems more carefully and, as a result, find better solutions.

In many cases, conflict is destructive and produces negative consequences.

Various procedures have been developed to achieve this goal, and some of them draw on the methods and discoveries of social psychology.

The most widely used procedure for resolving conflicts and preventing their adverse consequences is conversation.

During the negotiation process, opposing parties exchange offers, counteroffers and concessions, either directly or through their representatives.

If the process is successful, a solution acceptable to both parties is worked out, and the conflict is settled.

The second important method of conflict resolution relies mainly on socio-psychological principles.

It implies an appeal to common goals - goals shared by both parties.

LECTURE No. 21. Interaction of psychology with other social sciences

1. Social psychology in justice

Studies of forensic psychology (the psychological study of judicial issues) indicate that participants in a trial are inevitably influenced by many factors other than objectivity and an impartial search for truth and justice.

Our perceptions, memories and interpersonal behavior are influenced by cognition and emotion.

Among the consequences of this influence are biased judgments, reliance on stereotypes.

The same influences show up both in the courtroom and in the laboratory, and their effects greatly affect the outcome of trials.

Some aspects of the study of forensic psychology.

Mass media and the perception of crime.

Criminal information is common and easy to digest. The media is reminded daily that crime is a serious problem that threatens anyone; The availability heuristic easily works when we make assumptions about the prevalence of crime and its danger.

Among the reasons for the influence of the media on the perception of crime is the strong tendency of people to believe what they read in the newspaper, heard on the radio, or saw on TV.

Negative information shapes our moral judgments to a greater extent than positive information.

The problem of the accuracy of testimony of witnesses.

Witnesses are often wrong.

Strong emotions caused by the situation can interfere with the processing of information.

Another factor is the "cognitive deficit" hypothesis.

The accuracy of readings is affected by the time period between the event and the trial.

Numerous sources post-event information introduce additions to memory that are assimilated as subjective "truth", reducing the accuracy of the readings.

Accuracy is reduced if the suspect and the witness are of different racial or ethnic backgrounds.

The influence of lawyers and judges on the verdict of the jury. The outcome of a trial is influenced by what opposing lawyers and judges say or do.

This influence is not limited to clarifying the essence of the evidence and legal subtleties.

They try to choose as jurors not the most competent citizens, but those who will support their side, and exclude those who will favor the opposite side.

Even seasoned lawyers select jurors who conform to positive stereotypes (based on factors such as occupation, age, appearance, gender, race).

The influence of the characteristics of the defendant on the verdict of the jury.

In the courtroom, the attractiveness of the defendant is an important factor.

Stereotypes and sympathy affect the outcome of lawsuits.

Attractive defendants, in contrast to unattractive ones, are more likely to be acquitted, receive a light sentence, or win the sympathy of the jury.

The influence of attractiveness is strongest in the case of serious but not serious crimes.

2. Economic psychology

Political economy studies the relations of production in close connection with the forces of production, and these relations are regarded as independent of the will and desire of man.

This means that questions about how these relations are represented in the psychology of people, whether human psychology has any influence on economic relations, political economy, are of little interest.

As far as psychological science is concerned, human relations have always been the focus of the latter, but they are usually considered outside the economic context.

The natural and close interaction of economics and psychology has led to the emergence of a new direction in modern science - economic psychology.

Economics and psychology have a common field for research - the behavior of individuals and social groups.

Emotions influence the motives, decisions and actions of economic agents.

The task of economic psychology is to apply the psychological method to the assessment of economic reality and the development of models or systems of psychological impact on the economic world.

Economic psychology, whose "parents" are economics (theoretical and applied) and psychology, includes the following interrelated aspects of study:

1) motives, or motives of activity, of an economic person;

2) the economic consciousness of the individual, which is formed on the basis of life experiences, accumulated experience, overcoming difficulties;

3) the unconscious beginning in the psyche of the individual and the masses (illusions, excitement, fears and psychoses), arising from events, relationships, emotions fixed in the memory;

4) economic behavior, active volitional actions purposefully changing the environment.

Economic psychology reveals the process of cognition of economic reality, consisting of perception, representation and thinking, offers appropriate methods of action.

Economic psychology has much in common with medicine.

Biomedical research and discoveries create effective means of combating diseases and are a guide for medical practice.

The accumulation of knowledge in the field of economic psychology makes it possible to overcome the difficulties of communication, solve the problems of raising living standards, employment, labor discipline, and improve economic policy.

Economic psychology is turning into an intensively developing research area.

It is used both in fundamental theoretical research, for example, in the development of the concept of marginalism, and in the study of the fields of management and marketing.

Special areas of macroeconomics have also become the subject of attention.

The new scientific direction makes it possible to find explanations for facts and motives that economics and psychology, taken separately, cannot comprehend, for example, the rejection by the population of certain seemingly favorable political decisions.

3. Features of the social psychology of politics

Political psychology - a branch of social psychology that studies psychological phenomena and processes that function in the process of the struggle for power in society and are reflected in its political consciousness.

Domestic psychology proceeds from the fact that politics is an organizational and regulatory-control sphere of the life of society, one of the most important in the system of other spheres.

Politics is implemented in the struggle for power in society.

In the course of the latter, the political consciousness of the whole society and its individual representatives is formed.

Political consciousness - a system of theoretical and everyday knowledge, assessments, moods and feelings, through which there is an awareness of the sphere of politics by social subjects (individuals, groups).

The essence of political consciousness is the result and process of reflecting political reality, taking into account the social interests of people.

Functions of political consciousness:

1) cognitive function - designed to represent a system of knowledge about the surrounding political activities of people;

2) estimated - promotes the orientation of people in political life;

3) regulatory - provides them with guidance regarding their participation in political activities;

4) integrating - contributes to the unification of social groups of society on the basis of common values, ideas, attitudes;

5) predictive - creates a basis for foreseeing the content and nature of the development of political phenomena and processes;

6) normative function - serves as the basis for the formation of a generally accepted image of the political future.

The totality of all political and psychological phenomena that make up the subject of political psychology can be considered in a broad and narrow sense.

In a broad sense, these include:

1) the psyche of a person participating in various types of political activity;

2) changes in the psychology of groups of people and socio-psychological processes that arise in the course of their struggle for power and political activity.

In a narrow sense, the subject of political psychology is those psychological phenomena that arise in the process of functioning of specific political phenomena and processes.

These are psychological characteristics, patterns and mechanisms of political activity, the actual struggle for power, the activity of socio-political movements.

The area of ​​the subject of political psychology is outlined by four areas: motivational, intellectual-cognitive, emotional-volitional and communicative-behavioral.

Western psychological science has accumulated more experience than in our country in analyzing and comprehending political and psychological phenomena.

According to the point of view of G. Lebon, many people who have embarked on the path of political activity are under its strong influence.

A popular government, in order to more effectively guide these people, must clearly and clearly understand the psychology of large masses of people, on whom a very specific political influence should be directed.

Attached to the study of political phenomena and processes of his theory of psychoanalysis and 3. Freud.

Power - the ability and opportunity (of an individual, group, class, nation, party, state, etc.) to exercise their will with the help of authority, law, violence and other means, exerting a directing influence on the behavior of people in society.

Social properties of power: universality; functioning in all spheres of public relations; the ability to penetrate into all types of activity, to connect people, social groups and oppose them.

Functions of power:

1) disposition function expressed in a variety of prescriptions, instructions, recommendations, imperatives, prohibitions that determine the political activity of people;

2) psychological function power lies in the implementation of leadership relationships;

3) epistemological function embodied in the combination of knowledge and will.

They define the essence of power.

Knowledge gives power prudence, perseverance, predictability.

The will gives it an organized activity;

4) organizational function power is realized in building up the order, the level of organization;

5) political function realized in the exercise of influence, coercion, motivation of people and their political activity in accordance with the actual balance of power.

The task of power - through direct or indirect influence on people, their association or separation, to counteract destruction, crisis, neutralize tension, conflicts; to strive for the maximum stability of society and its individual parts, to contribute to their improvement, strengthening, and progress.

Principles of the manifestation of power:

1) conservation principle. They do not part with power with their own hands, voluntarily, they fight for power;

2) the principle of efficiency. A person with power does not bow to difficulties and circumstances, he copes with them;

3) principle of legitimacy. The best way to retain power is to rely on the law, lawmaking;

4) the principle of inner freedom. A person with power does not belong to himself. His free will is limited;

5) precautionary principle;

6) the antifortissimo principle. The power of power is not the same as the power of power. The best type of power is legal;

7) principle of secrecy presupposes the prevention of exposure of those in power. Compliance with this principle allows you to distance yourself from the masses.

Political power - this is a form of social relations characterized by the ability of a social subject (individual, group, nation, party, etc.) to induce other social subjects to take actions that ensure its interests or the interests of society as a whole.

Functions of political power - formation of the political system of society; organization of his political life; managing the affairs of society at different levels.

Political power has a psychological nature, since it exists in the form of perceptions and experiences of an individual (groups of people), from the complex, culturally shaped, individual and socio-psychological characteristics of individuals over whom power is exercised.

Four spheres of political psychology: motivational, intellectual-cognitive, emotional-volitional and communicative-behavioral.

In the struggle for power in the course of political activity, people can show different activity.

Political motives that incline people to seek power, to participate in its implementation, can be egocentric (orient the individual to follow narrow-personal goals in political activity) and sociocentric (aimed at achieving good for some wider group of people: a nation, a class, residents of a certain region).

Political psychology distinguishes:

1) positive or negative reactions of people to impulses emanating from the political system of society, from its institutions or their representatives, not related to the need for high human activity;

2) activity associated with the delegation of political powers, i.e. the electoral behavior of people;

3) participation in the activities of various political and public organizations;

4) performance of political functions within the framework of institutions that are part of the political system of society or act against it;

5) direct activity as part of political movements, directed against the existing political system, with its main goal of its radical restructuring.

Of all the forms of political activity in the political systems of Western countries, electoral behavior stands out.

In our country, in the conditions of rapidly changing political relations, such forms of political activity as rallies, strikes, hostage-taking, pogroms, and riots also appear.

Socio-psychological types of people who are distinguished by their attitude towards political activity and other forms of struggle for power:

1) people active in all areas of life, including politics;

2) people who are active in some areas of activity, but passive in politics;

3) individuals who show little interest in non-political areas of life, but are very politically active;

4) people are passive both in politics and outside it.

Classifying people as politically active and passive is based on taking into account the individual psychological characteristics of the individual.

Political activity is determined by the political attitudes of people, their political behavior, the stability of political life, and the political trust that exists in society.

Classifying people according to their relationship to power:

1) apolitical peoplethose who have a sharply negative attitude towards personal participation in the struggle for power, as a rule, are not interested in the latter and know little about it;

2) passive citizens perceive it negatively or neutrally, are not interested in the political problems of society.

They differ from apolitical ones in that they are well socially informed;

3) competent observers are interested in politics, understand its significance, they clearly represent all the positive and negative aspects of the struggle for power, and are well informed about them.

They do not seek to take part in political life, struggle;

4) opponents of the struggle for power sharply negative attitude to politics in general and to the struggle for power in particular;

5) politically active people take a position of constant search for power.

LECTURE No. 22. Psychology of religion. Features of religious consciousness

Religion is one of the forms of social consciousness (social life) of social groups and individuals, with the help of which people communicate (try to communicate) with reality, but not with the one that we encounter in everyday reality, but with another that lies outside of everyday experience. .

Religion - a special sphere of manifestation of the human psyche, associated with the search for a spiritual and psychological niche, ideological and other guidelines and functioning in the form of beliefs and practical actions that people turn to when they are not able to solve their everyday problems on their own in the struggle for their existence in the difficult conditions of the real world around them.

The deep sources of religion originate in the peculiarities of the functioning of the human psyche.

Believers tend to associate their initial conversion to religion with a miracle, with unexpected insight and enlightenment, communion with God.

Man's contact with the reality of religion is his religious experience.

Religion can be manipulated and used for various purposes.

The peculiarity of religion.

There are a number of psychological indicators that help to understand what religion is.

First, religion is a specific form of social consciousness (social life) of people, which has its own characteristics and causes peculiar states of the psyche of believers.

Secondly, religion presupposes the existence of special groups - groups of believers and confessional (group) exclusivity.

Thirdly, religion is associated with belief in images and concepts that are considered sacred and are treated as supernatural.

Fourthly, religion implies a certain set of beliefs expressed in religious canons.

Fifthly, religion presupposes a special set of certain cult actions and rituals.

The classification of religions. The main approaches to the classification of religions are diverse.

There are normative, geographical, ethnographic, philosophical, morphological, linguistic and other principles for their classification.

For psychology, it is important to classify religions on two grounds - by orientation and by geographical feature, which makes it possible to clearly identify both their specificity and their identical origin, similarity visible to the naked eye. They usually differ:

1) the religions of Abrahamic monotheism (belief in one God), growing out of ancient Judaism and including Judaism, Christianity and Islam;

2) religions of Indian origin, represented by Hinduism, southern Buddhism (Theravada), Jainism and Sikhism;

3) Far Eastern religions - Confucianism, Taoism, Shintoism, Northern Buddhism (Mahayana).

This list is supplemented by ethnic religions belonging to diverse cultures of small societies, which are sometimes considered as primitive - these are the religions of the natives of Africa, Polynesia, Australia, North American Indians.

Other ancient religions have already lost their existence: these are the religions of the Babylonians, the ancient Greeks and Romans, the Mayans, the Aztecs, etc.

Religious Consciousness - an illusory reflection of reality.

It is typical for him to comprehend not the real reality, but the fictional one.

The religious consciousness of both an individual and a group cannot exist outside of certain myths, images and ideas that are assimilated by people in the process of their socialization.

Religious consciousness is distinguished by high sensual clarity, the creation of various religious images by the imagination, the combination of content adequate to reality with illusions, the presence of religious faith, symbolism, strong emotional richness, functioning with the help of religious vocabulary and other special signs.

The specificity of the content of religious consciousness is given by the unity of its two sides - meaningful and functional.

Content side religious consciousness forms the specific values ​​and needs of believers, their views on the surrounding world and otherworldly reality, contributing to the purposeful introduction of certain ideas, images, ideas, feelings and moods into their psyche.

Functional side religious consciousness satisfies the needs of believers, giving the necessary direction to the manifestations of their ideology and psychology, forming their certain moral and psychological state, contributing to an effective impact on their psyche.

Features of religious consciousness:

1) close control of religious institutions over the psyche and consciousness of believers, their behavior;

2) a clear thoughtfulness of the ideology and psychological mechanisms of its introduction into the minds of believers.

Religious faith unites the content and functional aspects of religious consciousness.

Faith is a special psychological state of people's confidence in achieving a goal, in the occurrence of an event, in their intended behavior, in the truth of ideas, provided there is a shortage of accurate information about the achievability of the goal.

Religious belief - this is faith in the truth of religious dogmas, texts, ideas, in the objective existence of beings, properties, transformations that constitute the subject content of religious images; the possibility of communicating with seemingly objective beings, influencing them and receiving help from them; into religious authorities - fathers, teachers, saints, prophets, charismatics, church hierarchs, clergymen, etc.

The structure of religious consciousness includes religious ideology and religious psychology.

Religious ideology - this is a more or less harmonious system of concepts, ideas, concepts, the development and promotion of which are carried out by religious organizations.

Religious ideology is the result of purposeful, systematized activity, which finds its expression in the form of teachings that fix the foundations of religious worldview.

Religious psychology - a set of religious ideas, needs, stereotypes, attitudes, feelings, habits and traditions associated with a certain system of religious ideas and inherent in the entire mass of believers.

It is formed under the influence of the immediate conditions of life and religious ideology.

A person becomes a supporter of a particular religion not from birth, but due to certain reasons: factors that, from the point of view of this person, make his faith necessary.

Typology of worldview groups of people (based on their attitude to religion and atheism):

1) deeply religious. Having a deep religious faith. Faith is mainly realized in behavior.

2) believers. The presence of religious faith. Faith is poorly implemented in behavior.

3) hesitant. The presence of fluctuations between belief and unbelief. Separate elements of religious behavior are possible.

People who are indifferent to religion. There is no religious faith, but there are no atheistic beliefs either.

Religious behavior is absent, although some of its manifestations are not excluded.

passive atheists. There are atheistic beliefs, but they are not always deep and conscious.

Religious behavior is completely absent, but atheistic beliefs are poorly realized in behavior.

active atheists. The presence of deep atheistic beliefs. Atheistic beliefs are realized in behavior.

Religious, believing people in their thoughts and actions rely on certain role models.

Typology of religious personalities, which has developed in the course of the development of religious practice, which ordinary believers are guided by:

1) mystic - the type of a believer who seeks to escape from the world around him and its influence, most often an individualist loner;

2) prophet - a person who has an irregular but intense religious experience.

A prophet, unlike a mystic, is with people all the time;

3) cleric mediator between man and deity.

Its main function is to correctly build the order of worship according to religious canons.

A clergyman acquires his authority in a religious organization through special education and training;

4) reformatop - a person who is within the framework of a particular religious tradition, seeking to transform this tradition in accordance with their own religious experience;

5) monk - a member of a religious order who has retired from secular life to a special secluded or already consecrated place by religion in order to lead a traditional religious lifestyle and adhere to high moral and ritual requirements;

6) monk - hermit - a person who needs solitary living in wild, deserted places with harsh nature in order to achieve purification of the soul and intense religious experience;

7) holy - a person embodying in the eyes of the religious society the ideal of perfection in one form or another;

8) theologian - a type of intellectual theorist, whose task is to express the beliefs of a given religious community in a conceptually rational form;

9) founder of religion - a figure, in its scale far superior to all other types of religious personalities.

His religious experience is so unique and intense that it becomes the basis of a new religion.

The diverse forms of human social behavior are based on observation of other individuals in his community, who serve as a model for imitation.

LECTURE No. 23. Methods and means of research in social psychology

The development of socio-psychological research in our country was largely stimulated by the needs of practice.

This left its mark on the formation of the scientific discipline itself.

Practical requests require fairly quick solutions.

This situation gives rise to both positive and negative moments for the development of social psychology.

Positive moments: various areas of the national economy and culture finance socio-psychological research and thereby create favorable opportunities for the development of science; negative moments are generated by the fact that social psychology is often not yet ready to answer some questions posed by practice, but in conditions of acute social need it gives these answers, which sometimes means a relatively low quality of applied research.

The development of applied social psychology has as its most important condition the development of fundamental research concerning the main problems of this science.

Any socio-psychological research carried out "in the field" is the researcher's intervention in the life of a real group, where certain relationships are formed.

The advent of a social psychologist should not destroy this natural process.

There are a number of difficulties associated with the peculiarities of the research methods.

The whole strategy of applied research is based on the constant interaction of the researcher with people involved in the real process of life.

An emotional assessment of the situation at the time of the study can give a shift in the data, which will distort the whole picture of the relationship.

All socio-psychological methods are cumbersome, their application requires considerable time.

If the study is carried out during working hours, it can disrupt the production rhythm, if after the work shift, you have to detain people for a long time, leave "volunteers" - allow for a bias in the sample.

In each specific case, one has to make a decision about the path on which there will be the least losses.

Ethical standards are also required.

A social psychologist conducting applied research fulfills the order of management.

The identification of a number of characteristics of groups entails certain critical remarks about those people on whose activities the shortcomings depend and who are the customers of the study.

The researcher must be careful not to complicate relations in the team by his intervention.

There is a difficulty with regard to language.

The problem lies in the adaptation of this language in relation to the subject.

Another problem of language is associated with the use of certain special socio-psychological terms, which, due to a number of circumstances, seem to be compromised by their use outside of science ("conformist", "authoritarian leader", etc.).

The social psychologist cannot but reckon with the norms of everyday use of terms.

Conducting applied research requires high moral qualities and a sense of social responsibility from a social psychologist.

Industrial production - one of the main customers for applied socio-psychological research.

The main problem is the formation of production teams, which made it possible to set the task of building a common model psychological service of an industrial enterprise.

The most common topics for all branches of industrial production, for any enterprises are the psychological climate of the team, job satisfaction, labor turnover, personnel certification, adaptation of newcomers.

The topic of applied research is the problem of management, which is related to various parts of the social organism, whether it is a large organization or a healthcare system, etc.

One of the most important is the question of the psychological qualities necessary for a leader.

The development of an organization is an independent block of problems.

In the broadest sense of the word, organizational development means the creation of a specific culture of using various technologies to improve the behavior of individuals and groups in an organization.

Media and propaganda system cannot develop without relying on the research of social psychologists, therefore the problems of socio-psychological research in this area are being developed quite actively.

Objects of applied research: communicator, message, audience, channel, efficiency.

Social psychology also participates in studies of the problems of the school, carried out within the framework of pedagogy and pedagogical psychology.

The whole complex of problems of education: communication, the functioning of the team, intergroup relations, issues of socialization.

Special psychological services are being created.

The main activities of a school psychologist are psychological education, psychological prevention, psychological counseling, psychodiagnostics, psychocorrection.

One of the relatively new areas of application of social psychology is the field of scientific activity.

The importance of collective forms of activity is growing, and this to a large extent breaks the stable stereotype of scientific creativity as the creativity of individual outstanding personalities.

The type of the initial social cell for the production of scientific knowledge is changing: if earlier such a cell was a scientific school, now it is a research team.

The subject of research work becomes a small group.

Social psychology has traditionally paid great attention to the family, considering it as an example of a natural small social group.

All the features of such a group acquire certain specifics in the family, but nevertheless, knowledge of the patterns of functioning and development of small groups can determine a certain contribution to the development of optimal forms of relationships in this micro-cell of society, its applications.

The list of political problems, in the analysis of which there is a place for social psychology, is obvious: these are the psychological factors in making political decisions, the psychological conditions for their perception; the role of personal characteristics and image of a politician; political socialization and much more.

Author: Melnikova N.A.

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