Khoroshilov D.A. Dynamic stability of personality in a social context: the problem of conceptualization

The problem of reflection of the determinants that determine the boundaries of stability and variability of personality requires consideration of evolution of conceptual ideas about the interaction of personality and social context in various psychological theories: from cultural psychoanalysis to social constructionism. The principle of dynamic interaction between personality and environment, dating back to the classical works of K. Lewin, in Russian psychology correlates with the idea of contextuality of social cognition and action. Within the framework of the scientific school of G.M. Andreeva believes that it is wrong to reduce the social context only to situations of direct interpersonal communication; the social context is formed by the configuration of socialization institutions, during which elements of ordinary, mass and public consciousness (social repesentations) are internalized into the internal structures of individual self-awareness. In the context of the transformation of social institutions as agents of personal socialization, which naturally leads to changes in the image of man and the world transmitted by institutions, the question of specific mechanisms for the internalization of everyday and social knowledge becomes particularly relevant. If we turn to the history of psychology, it is possible to trace the development and improvement of conceptual tools used to analyze the interaction of the individual and the changing context: from theories of social character and role to more modern ideas about an indefinite identity constructed in linguistic practices. From the perspective of the affective turn of psychology, it is advisable to turn to the category of collective experience, which acts as the main “mediator” in establishing dialectical relations between the individual and society. The system of scientific categories used in the article (social institutions, socialization, identity, collective experience) is heuristic both for studying the phenomenology of personality in a social context and for modeling the process of transforming knowledge embedded in society and social interactions into individual structures of internal experience.

Key words: social context, social institutions, social character, role, identity, social constructionism, collective experience 

For citation: Khoroshilov, D.A. (2023). Dynamic stability of personality in a social context: the problem of conceptualization. New Psychological Research, No. 4, 44–66. DOI: 10.51217/npsyresearch_2023_03_04_03

Acknowledgment 

The study was supported by Russian Scientific Foundation, project No. 22-18-00140 “Dynamic stability of personality in the space of sociocultural uncertainty”.