So far we have said that Fromm describes human existence in terms of separation from nature and isolation from others. In addition, in his opinion, human nature contains unique existential needs. They have nothing to do with social and aggressive instincts. Fromm argued that the conflict between the desire for freedom and the desire for security represents the most powerful motivational force in people's lives (Fromm, 1973). The freedom-security dichotomy, this universal and inevitable fact of human nature, is determined by existential needs. Fromm identified five basic human existential needs.

1. The need to establish connections. To overcome the feeling of isolation from nature and alienation, all people need to care about someone, take part in someone and be responsible for someone. The ideal way to connect with the world is through “productive love,” which helps people work together and at the same time maintain their individuality. If the need for connection is not satisfied, people become narcissistic: they defend only their own selfish interests and are unable to trust others.

2. The need to overcome. All people need to overcome their passive animal nature in order to become active and creative creators of their lives. The optimal solution to this need lies in creation. The work of creation (ideas, art, material values ​​or raising children) allows people to rise above the randomness and passivity of their existence and thereby achieve a sense of freedom and self-worth. The inability to satisfy this vital need is the cause of destructiveness.

3. Need for roots. People need to feel like an integral part of the world. According to Fromm, this need arises from birth, when biological ties with the mother are severed (Fromm, 1973). Towards the end of childhood, every person gives up the security that parental care provides. In late adulthood, each person faces the reality of being cut off from life itself as death approaches. Therefore, throughout their lives, people experience a need for roots, foundations, a sense of stability and strength, similar to the feeling of security that a connection with their mother gave in childhood. On the contrary, those who maintain symbiotic ties with their parents, home or community as a way to satisfy their need for roots are unable to experience their personal integrity and freedom.

4. Need for identity. Fromm believed that all people experience an internal need for identity with themselves; in an identity that makes them feel different from others and realize who and what they really are. In short, every person should be able to say: “I am me.” Individuals with a clear and distinct awareness of their individuality perceive themselves as masters of their lives, and not as constantly following someone else's instructions. Copying someone else's behavior, even to the point of blind conformity, does not allow a person to achieve a true sense of identity.

5. The need for a belief system and commitment. Finally, according to Fromm, people need a stable and constant support to explain the complexity of the world. This orientation system is a set of beliefs that allow people to perceive and comprehend reality, without which they would constantly find themselves stuck and unable to act purposefully. Fromm particularly emphasized the importance of developing an objective and rational view of nature and society (Fromm, 1981). He argued that a rational approach is absolutely necessary for maintaining health, including mental health.

People also need an object of devotion, a dedication to something or someone (a higher goal or God), which would be the meaning of life for them. Such dedication makes it possible to overcome an isolated existence and gives meaning to life.

<Фромм полагал, что религия часто обеспечивает людей опорной ориентацией, придающей смысл их жизни.>

Viewing human needs in an economic-political context, Fromm argued that the expression and satisfaction of these needs depends on the type of social conditions in which the individual lives. In essence, the opportunities for satisfying existential needs that a particular society provides to people shape their personality structure - what Fromm called “basic character orientations.” Moreover, in Fromm's theory, like Freud's, a person's character orientations are viewed as stable and not changing over time.

End of work -

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What's new in the third edition?
First, some chapters have been expanded to provide more complete coverage of certain personality theories. Namely, we supplemented the presentation with a review of the theories formulated by Karl Gu

Acknowledgments
This new edition has benefited greatly from constructive comments and suggestions from a number of people. We are especially grateful to the group of reviewers, each of whom carefully read and

Human Science
The origins of psychology can be traced back to the ancient Greeks and Romans. More than two thousand years ago, philosophers debated approximately the same questions that still raise concerns today.

Concept of personality
The term "personality" has several different meanings. Its study is carried out by a special subsection in the structure of academic psychology, which covers a wide range of different, often

What is personality? Alternative answers
The word “personality” in English comes from the Latin “persona”. Initially, this word denoted the masks that actors wore during theatrical performances.

Personality as a field for research
The training of a future academic psychologist includes many subjects, including social psychology, animal psychology, psychology of perception, developmental psychology and behavioral training.

Personality theories
Currently, there is no generally accepted opinion about what approach personologists should take to the study of personality to explain the main aspects of human behavior. Fact

Components of Personality Theory
As we have already noted, the main functions of the theory come down to explaining what is already known and predicting what is not yet known. In addition to the explanatory and predictive functions

Personality structure
The core feature of any personality theory is its structural concepts, which deal with the relatively unchanging characteristics that people exhibit across different periods of time.

Motivation
A holistic theory of personality must explain why people act the way they do. Concepts of motivation, or, in other words, procedural aspects of the functioning of an individual

Personal development
If we consider personality as a set of stable, long-existing characteristics, understanding how they develop takes on the character of something more than idle

Psychopathology
Another problem that any theory of personality faces is the need to explain why some people fail to adjust.

Mental health
In attempting to account for the variety of aspects of human behavior, a sound theory of personality must provide criteria for assessing healthy personality. The question is what exactly is included in the concept

Personality change through therapeutic intervention
Since personality theories provide some information for understanding the causes of psychopathology, it naturally follows that they also offer ways of correcting deviations.

Verifiability
According to this criterion, a theory is assessed positively to the extent that its provisions are open to verification by independent researchers. This means that the theory must

Heuristic value
For the empirically oriented psychologist, the question of the extent to which theory motivates scientists to conduct further research is of paramount importance. Personality theories

Economy
A theory can also be evaluated in terms of the number of concepts required to describe and explain events within the scope of the theory. According to the principle of parsimony, more

Breadth of coverage
This criterion refers to the breadth and variety of phenomena covered by the theory. The more versatile a theory is, the larger the range of behavioral manifestations it will extend to.

Functional significance
The final criterion for defining a good theory is its ability to help people understand their everyday behavior. Theory should also help people solve their problems. Full

Basic provisions concerning human nature
All thinking people have certain axiomatic ideas regarding human nature. Personality theorists are no exception to this rule. Ideas about p

Freedom-determinism
One of the most important questions concerning human nature concerns the degree of internal freedom that people have in choosing the direction of their thoughts and actions.

Constitutionalism-environmentalism
Students of personality often ask the question: “To what extent is what is called personality the result of genetic factors, and to what extent is it

A few words about the main provisions
An in-depth analysis of the main provisions discussed above shows that they overlap conceptually to some extent. For example, it is difficult to imagine a theorist who would admit

Glossary
Verifiability. A criterion used to determine the value of a theory. An adequate theory must contain clearly defined, logically interrelated

The importance of personality research: general provisions
In this chapter, we will analyze the scientific approach to the study of personality and then look in more detail at the research strategies most often used by personologists. We will see that

Observation: the starting point
Any research, be it a study of a medical history, establishing a correlation, or a laboratory experiment, includes observation. Observation is something without which no one can exist

Anamnesis method
A detailed study of an individual's behavior over an extended period of time is called a case history or medical history. This one under

Evaluation of the anamnesis method
The study of clinical cases has its advantages and disadvantages, which depends on the phenomena being studied and the characteristics of the study. The advantage of the method is that

Correlation method
To overcome the limitations of the case method, personality researchers often use an alternative strategy known as the correlational method. This meth

Evaluation of the correlation method
The correlation method has some unique advantages. Most importantly, it allows researchers to study a large set of variables that are not available

Experimental method
The only way for a researcher to establish cause-and-effect relationships (that is, to determine whether a change in one variable causes a change in another variable) is

Evaluation of the experimental method
There is no doubt that the experimental method is a powerful empirical strategy. Unlike other approaches discussed, the experimental method allows the researcher

Personality assessment
A common theme in the study of personality is individual differences in people's behavior and experiences. When studying individual differences, personologists deal with two

Test and Measurement Concepts
There are many important testing concepts, and we will introduce them as we discuss how personologists assess certain characteristics of people. Before one way or another

Interview as an assessment method
Interviews are one of the oldest and most widely used methods of obtaining information about people (Aiken, 1984). In an interview, the personologist obtains information by asking the interviewee

Self-report techniques
No work assessing individual differences would be complete without discussing the results obtained using self-report questionnaires. In fact, self-report questionnaires

Projective methods
Projective personality tests were originally intended to help clinical psychologists diagnose the nature and complexity of a patient's emotional disturbances. The basis for

Glossary
Artifact. Factors implied in a laboratory experiment that may influence changes in the independent variable (for example, the subject understands

Biographical sketch
Sigmund Freud was born on May 6, 1856 in the small Austrian town of Freiberg, Moravia (in what is now the Czech Republic). He was the oldest of seven children in

Levels of Consciousness: Topographical Model
During the long period of development of psychoanalysis, Freud used a topographical model of personality organization. According to this model, mental life can be divided into three

Personality structure
The concept of unconscious mental processes was central to early descriptions of personality organization. However, in the early 20s, Freud revised his conceptual model

Instincts are the driving force of behavior
Psychoanalytic theory is based on the idea that people are complex energy systems. In accordance with the achievements of physics and physiology of the 19th century,

The essence of life and death
Although the number of instincts may be unlimited, Freud recognized the existence of two main groups: the life and death instincts. The first group (collectively called

What are instincts really?
Any instinct has four characteristics: source, goal, object and stimulus. The source of instinct is the state of the body or the need that causes this state. Sources

Personality development: psychosexual stages
Psychoanalytic developmental theory is based on two premises. The first, or genetic premise, emphasizes that early childhood experiences play a more critical role

Oral stage
The oral stage lasts from birth until approximately 18 months of age. The survival of an infant depends entirely on those who care for it. Dependence is the only way for him

Anal stage
The anal stage begins around 18 months of age and continues until the third year of life. During this period, young children derive considerable pleasure from holding

Phallic stage
Between three and six years of age, the child's libido-driven interests shift to a new erogenous zone, the genital area. During the phallic stage of psychosexual

Latent period
In the interval from six to seven years to the beginning of adolescence there is a phase of sexual calm, called the latent period. Now the child's libido is directed

Genital stage
With the onset of puberty, sexual and aggressive impulses are restored, and with them interest in the opposite sex and a growing awareness of this interest. Start

The Nature of Anxiety
Freud's earliest results in the treatment of disorders that were psychic in origin rather than physiological sparked his interest in the origins of anxiety.

Types of Anxiety: How do people experience anxiety?
Depending on where the threat to the ego comes from (from the external environment, from the id or superego), psychoanalytic theory distinguishes three types of anxiety.

Realistic
Ego Defense Mechanisms

The main psychodynamic function of anxiety is to help a person avoid consciously identifying unacceptable instinctual impulses and encourage the satisfaction of these impulses on
Freud's basic principles regarding human nature

The unifying idea of ​​this book is that all personality theorists adhere to certain basic assumptions about human nature. Moreover, these provisions, which
When studying Freud, students inevitably ask the question, “What is the scientific evidence for psychodynamic concepts?” Once the propositions of a theory are considered to be empirically valid

Experimental study of repression
Repression is a key concept among most psychoanalysts (Cramer, 1988; Erdelyi, 1985; Grunbaum, 1984). More experimental studies have been conducted on this issue than in

Unconscious conflict: the method of subthreshold psychodynamic activation
According to Freud, the conflict caused by unconscious, unacceptable libidinal impulses and aggressive impulses constitutes the inner side of the individual's life. Freud argued that

Assessment methods: what happens during psychoanalysis
Since Freud's theory of human nature was based on his clinical observations of patients with neuroses, it makes sense to consider the therapeutic methods of psychoanalysis. Today there are a lot

Glossary
Anal stage: The second stage of psychosexual development during which bowel control is achieved and pleasure is focused on retention.

Biographical sketch
Alfred Adler was born in Vienna on February 7, 1870, the third of six children. Like Freud, he was the son of a middle-class Jewish merchant. However

Basic theses of individual psychology
Adler is often presented as a student of Freud who eventually rebelled against his teacher and began to create his own concepts. However, a careful acquaintance

The individual as a unified and self-consistent whole
The idea that man is a unified and self-consistent organism is the main premise of Adlerian psychology (Adler, 1927a). Adler gave his theory the name "and

Human life as an active pursuit of perfection
Considering a person as an organic whole requires a single psychodynamic principle. Adler brought him out of life itself, namely from the fact that life is impossible to

Social affiliation of the individual
Adler's holistic vision of human nature was comprehensive. He understood man not only as an integral system of interrelations, taken separately, but also as an integral

Individual subjectivity
Firmly in the phenomenological tradition, Adler believed that behavior always depends on people's opinions about themselves and about the environment in which they must fit. People live in it

Feelings of inferiority and compensation
At the very beginning of his career, while he was still collaborating with Freud, Adler published a monograph entitled “A Study of Organ Inferiority and Its Psychical Compensation” (Adl

Striving for Excellence
As already noted, Adler believed that feelings of inferiority are the source of all human aspirations for self-development, growth and competence. But what is the final goal?

Life style
Lifestyle, in the original version “life plan”, or “guiding image”, is the most characteristic feature of Adler’s dynamic theory of personality. At this end

Social interest
Another concept of critical importance in Adler's individual psychology is social interest. The concept of social interest reflects a strong belief

Birth order
Based on the important role of social context in personality development, Adler drew attention to birth order as the main determinant of attitudes accompanying lifestyle. Namely

Fictional finalism
As we have already mentioned, according to Adler, everything we do in life is marked by our desire for superiority. The goal of this endeavor is to achieve perfection, completeness and integrity.

Adler's main points regarding human nature
Adler was considered by many to be a "neo-Freudian" and he certainly did much to redefine the psychoanalytic movement as a coherent theoretical system. But, despite the

Empirical Validation of Individual Psychology Concepts
There have been virtually no systematic and systematic attempts to test the empirical validity of Adler's concepts. The lack of experimental studies can be explained

Empirical evidence for the influence of birth order
As mentioned above, Adler argued that the child's ordinal position in the family structure is an important factor involved in the formation of lifestyle. This statement has been rebutted

Social interest assessment
It was previously mentioned that the concept of social interest has received many different interpretations. Indeed, its formulation is so vague that it is very difficult to access it.

The nature of neurosis
From Adler's point of view, neurosis should be considered as a diagnostically ambiguous term, covering numerous behavioral disorders for which psychotherapy is used.

Treatment of neuroses
Adler's approach to the treatment of neuroses follows logically from his clinical concept of the nature of neuroses. If neurotic symptoms are a product of the patient's erroneous lifestyle and

Carl Gustav Jung: Analytical Theory of Personality
Freud's works, despite their controversial nature, aroused the desire of a group of leading scientists of the time to work with him in Vienna. Some of these scientists eventually moved away

Biographical sketch
Carl Gustav Jung was born in Kesswil, Switzerland in 1875. Grew up in Basel, Switzerland. The only son of a Swiss Reformed Church pastor, he was deeply

Personality structure
Jung argued that the soul (a term similar to personality in Jung's theory) consists of three separate but interacting structures: the ego, the personal unconscious and the collective unconscious.

Some of the most important archetypes
The number of archetypes in the collective unconscious can be unlimited. However, special attention in Jung's theoretical system is paid to the persona, anime and animus, shadow and self.

Ego orientation
Jung's most famous contribution to psychology is his description of two basic orientations, or attitudes: extraversion and introversion (Jung, 1921/1971).

Psychological functions
Shortly after Jung formulated the concept of extraversion and introversion, he came to the conclusion that it was impossible to fully comprehend this pair of opposing orientations.

Personal development
Unlike Freud, who attached particular importance to the early years of life as a decisive stage in the formation of personality behavior patterns, Jung viewed personality development as a dynamic

Final comments
Moving away from Freud's theory, Jung enriched our ideas about the content and structure of personality. Although his concepts of the collective unconscious and archetypes are difficult to understand and not

Glossary
Analytical psychology (Analitycal psychology). Jung's theory of personality, which places great importance on the opposing forces within the individual and the desire for

Biographical sketch
The son of a Danish father and a Jewish mother, Erik Erikson was born in 1902 in Germany, near Frankfurt. His parents divorced before he was born, and his mother then left

Ego psychology: the result of the development of psychoanalysis
Erikson's theoretical formulations deal exclusively with ego development. Although he invariably insisted that his ideas were nothing more than a further systematic development of the concept

Epigenetic principle
Central to the theory of ego development created by Erikson is the position that a person during his life goes through several stages that are universal for all humanity. P

Infancy: basal trust-basal distrust
The first psychosocial stage corresponds to Freud's oral stage and covers the first year of life. According to Erikson, during this period the cornerstone of the formation of a healthy personality was

Early childhood: autonomy-shame and doubt
Acquiring a sense of basic trust sets the stage for achieving a certain autonomy and self-control, avoiding feelings of shame, doubt and humiliation. This period from

Age of play: initiative-guilt
The conflict between initiative and guilt is the last psychosocial conflict in the preschool period, which Erikson called the “age of play.” It corresponds to the phallic stage in theory

School age: hard work-inferiority
The fourth psychosocial period lasts from six to 12 years ("school age") and corresponds to the latent period in Freud's theory. It is assumed that at the beginning of this period

Adolescence: ego-identity-role confusion
Adolescence, which is the fifth stage in Erikson's life cycle diagram, is considered a very important period in human psychosocial development. No longer a child, but not yet an adult

Early adulthood: intimacy-isolation
The sixth psychosocial stage marks the formal beginning of adulthood. In general, this is a period of courtship, early marriage and the beginning of family life. It continues from late adolescence to

Average maturity: productivity-inertia
The seventh stage occurs in the middle years of life (from 26 to 64 years); its main problem is the choice between productivity and inertia. Productivity comes in

Late adulthood: ego-integration-despair
The last psychosocial stage (from 65 years to death) ends a person's life. This is the time when people look back and reconsider their life decisions, remember their

Erikson's basic principles regarding human nature
Robert Coles, in his biography of Erikson, wrote: “When one person builds on another person’s theoretical construct, he does not always follow every principle.”

Empirical validation of psychosocial theory concepts
Erikson's theory has had a major influence on developmental psychology (Papalia & Olds, 1986; Santrock, 1985). His ideas have found application in the field of preschool education, vocational education

Ego Identity Research
As noted above, of all the psychosocial stages of the life cycle, Erikson (1968a) paid the most attention to adolescence. Our review shows that

Exploring the achievement of identity and the capacity for intimacy later
According to Erikson's epigenetic theory of psychosocial development, successful resolution of each conflict allows a person to cope with the next stage (and the next conflict

Biographical sketch
Erich Fromm was born in 1900 in Frankfurt, Germany. He was the only child of Jewish parents. Fromm grew up knowing two different worlds - Orthodox Jewish and

Humanistic theory: basic concepts and principles
Fromm sought to expand the horizons of psychoanalytic theory, emphasizing the role of sociological, political, economic, religious and anthropological factors in the formation

Escape mechanisms
How do people overcome the feelings of loneliness, unworthiness and alienation that accompany freedom? One way is to give up freedom and suppress your individuality. Fromm

Social character types
Fromm identified five social character types that prevail in modern societies (Fromm, 1947). These social types, or forms of establishing relationships with others, represent

Final comments
Fromm's theory attempts to show how broad sociocultural influences interact with unique human needs in the process of personality formation. His principled

Biographical sketch
Karen Horney, née Danielson, was born in Germany, near Hamburg in 1885. Her father was a sea captain, a deeply religious man, convinced of

Sociocultural theory: basic concepts and principles
The impetus for the formation of a sociocultural view of personality was Horney’s three main considerations. Firstly, she rejected Freud's statements regarding women and especially his

Personal development
Horney agreed with Freud on the importance of childhood experiences in shaping the structure and functioning of adult personality (Horney, 1959). Despite the commonality of the basic

Basal anxiety: etiology of neuroses
Unlike Freud, Horney did not believe that anxiety was a necessary component in the human psyche. On the contrary, she argued that anxiety results from a lack of feeling.

Orientation towards people, from people and against people
In her book Our Inner Conflicts (1945), Horney divided her list of ten needs into three main categories. Each category represents an optimization strategy

Psychology of women
As mentioned above, Horney disagreed with almost every statement Freud made regarding women (Horney, 1926). She completely rejected his view that women were jealous

Final comments
Horney's theory is based almost entirely on clinical observations. Her explanation of neuroses as manifestations of broken relationships, accompanied by descriptions of clinical cases, can be considered

Glossary
Autonomy. An internal feeling of dependence only on oneself, the ability to a certain extent to control events that affect one’s own life.

Biographical sketch
Gordon Willard Allport, the youngest of four brothers, was born in Montezuma, Indiana, in 1897. Soon after Gordon was born, his father, who was a rural

What is personality
In his first book, Personality: A Psychological Interpretation, Allport described and classified more than 50 different definitions of personality. He concludes that adequate synthesis exists

Personality trait concept
As stated at the beginning of this chapter, from the point of view of the dispositional approach, no two people are exactly alike. Any person behaves with a certain constancy and

Traits" damn
In Allport's system, personality traits can be said to be characterized by “traits,” or defining characteristics. Shortly before his death, Allport published an article entitled

Common traits versus individual traits
In his early work, Allport distinguished between general traits and individual traits (Allport, 1937). The first (also called measured or legalized)

Types of individual dispositions
In the later years of his career, Allport came to realize that using the term "personality trait" to describe both general and individual characteristics was problematic.

Proprium: development of the self
No personologist, and especially Allport, believes that personality is just a set of unrelated dispositions. The concept of personality includes unity, structure and

Functional autonomy: the past is the past
Central to Allport's theory is the idea that the individual is a dynamic (motivated) developing system. In fact, he believed that "any theory of personality

Two types of functional autonomy
Allport distinguished two levels or types of functional autonomy (Allport, 1961). The first, stable functional autonomy, is associated with feedback mechanisms in the nervous system.

Mature personality
Unlike many personologists, whose theories are based on the study of unhealthy or immature individuals, Allport never practiced psychotherapy and did not believe that clinical observations

Allport's main points regarding human nature
Throughout his life, Allport fought against those who argued that their own systems provided the only correct way to understand human behavior. In particular, he finds

Empirical validation of personality trait theory concepts
What is the empirical validity of Allport's theoretical concept of personality? An analysis of the relevant literature shows that Allport’s theory has not given impetus to almost any research

Jenny's Letters: An Ideographic Study of Personality Traits
The value of ideographic methods as a means of identifying an individual's personality dispositions is best illustrated by The Jenny Letters (Allport, 1965). This is a case study about

Do the person's behavior and traits match?
Over the past two decades, the trait approach to personality has become the subject of much interest and considerable controversy. The disagreement concerns the extent to which behavior

Application: learning about values
As noted earlier in this chapter, Allport emphasized the importance of a unifying philosophy of life in his description of the mature personality. He also argued that such a philosophy is based on

An approach to personality from the perspective of factor analysis
In contrast to Allport's ideographic study of traits, a significantly different direction in the psychology of personality traits is opening up thanks to a statistical method known as fact.

Factor analysis method
Factor analysis is a highly complex mathematical procedure that is beyond the scope of this book, but the logic behind it is comparable.

Raymond Cattell: structural theory of personality traits
Unlike many other theorists, Cattell did not begin with clinical observations or intuitions about human nature. On the contrary, his approach is firmly based on the use

Biographical sketch
Raymond Bernard Cattell was born in 1905 in Staffordshire, England. In his autobiography, he recalls that his childhood years were happy and fulfilling

Personality Trait Theory: Basic Concepts and Principles
Cattell's theory seeks to explain the complex interactions between the personality system and the larger sociocultural matrix of the functioning organism. He is convinced that he is adequate

Structural principles: categories of personality traits
Despite Cattell's contention that behavior is determined by the interaction of traits and situational variables, his main organizing concept of personality lies in descriptions

We have already noted that Cattell especially emphasizes the importance of factor analysis for determining the main personality traits. However, before proceeding to the factor analysis procedure, it is necessary

Final comments
In terms of the breadth and scale of research in the field of personality, there is no doubt that Cattell is worthy of recognition as the most outstanding personologist of our time. His scientific and research activities

Hans Eysenck: personality type theory
Eysenck agrees with Cattell that the purpose of psychology is to predict behavior. He also shares Cattell's commitment to factor analysis as a way to capture holistic

Biographical sketch
Hans Jurgen Eysenk was born in Berlin, Germany in 1916. His father was a recognized actor and singer, and his mother was a silent film star. They saw the future of their son

Basic concepts and principles of personality type theory
The essence of Eysenck's theory is that personality elements can be arranged hierarchically. In its diagram (Fig. 6-4) there are certain supertraits, or types, that

Basic personality types
Eysenck used a variety of methods to collect data about people: self-observation, expert assessments, analysis of biographical information, physical and physiological parameters, as well as

Differences between introverts and extroverts
Eysenck places great importance on conceptual clarity and precise measurements of his theoretical concepts. To this day, most of his efforts are aimed at determining whether

Glossary
Secondary disposition. According to Allport, a trait that has very little or no effect on behavior, such as a tendency to crave a specific food.

Biographical sketch
Burrhus Frederic Skinner was born in 1904 in Susquehanna, Pennsylvania. The atmosphere in his family was warm and relaxed, teaching was respected, discipline

Skinner's approach to psychology
Most person theorists work in two directions: 1) the obligatory study of stable differences between people and 2) reliance on a hypothetical explanation of diversity and diversity.

Beyond the Autonomous Man
As a radical behaviorist, Skinner rejected all notions that people are autonomous and their behavior is determined by the supposed existence of internal factors (e.g.

The collapse of physiological-genetic interpretation
Unlike most psychologists, Skinner did not emphasize the importance of neurophysiological or genetic factors in human behavior. This is neglect of the physiological gene

What should behavioral science be like?
Skinner assumed that behavior can be reliably determined, predicted and controlled by environmental conditions. Understanding behavior means controlling it, and vice versa. He's everything

Personality from the point of view of the behaviorist direction
We have now established the reasons why Skinner turned to the experimental approach to study behavior. What about the study of personality? Or did she completely disappear in Skinner's

Respondent and operant behavior
When considering Skinner's approach to personality, two types of behavior should be distinguished: respondent and operant. To better understand the principles of Skinner's operant

Reinforcement schedules
The essence of operant conditioning is that reinforced behavior tends to be repeated, and unreinforced or punished behavior tends not to be repeated or is suppressed.

Conditioned reinforcement
Learning theorists have recognized two types of reinforcement: primary and secondary. Primary reinforcement is any event or object that in itself has a

Control of behavior through aversive stimuli
From Skinner's point of view, human behavior is mainly controlled by aversive (unpleasant or painful) stimuli. The two most typical methods of aversive control are

Generalization and discrimination of stimuli
A logical extension of the principle of reinforcement is that behavior reinforced in one situation is very likely to be repeated when the organism encounters other situations, such as

Successive Approximation: How to Make a Mountain Come to Mohammed
Skinner's early experiments in operant conditioning focused on responses typically expressed at medium to high frequencies (e.g., a pigeon pecking on a key, pressing a

Skinner's main points regarding human nature
Since Skinner rejected the intrapsychic explanation of behavior, his concept of man is radically different from the concepts of most personologists. Moreover, its main provisions

Empirical Validation of Operant Conditioning Concepts
It would be a monumental task to simply highlight the thousands of animal and human studies that empirically demonstrate the validity of behaviorist operant science principles.

Communication Skills Training
Many people with abnormal behavior either lack the skills necessary to cope with the challenges of everyday life or have acquired faulty skills and behavior patterns.

Biofeedback
Biofeedback is another way of using the concept of operant conditioning for therapeutic behavior change. Here is the application of operant principles

Glossary
Unconditioned response. An unlearned response that automatically follows an unconditioned stimulus.

Biographical sketch
Biofeedback

Albert Bandura was born in a small town in Alberta, Canada in 1925. The son of a farmer of Polish origin, he attended a combined primary and secondary
Beyond the Inner Forces

Bandura notes that until recently, the most common position popularized by various psychodynamic doctrines was the belief that human behavior depends on
Behaviorism from the inside

Advances in learning theory have shifted the focus of causal analysis from hypothetical internal forces to environmental influences (e.g., Skinner's operant conditioning). From this point
Outside reinforcements

What factors enable people to learn? Modern learning theorists emphasize reinforcement as a necessary condition for the acquisition, maintenance, and modification of behavior.
Self-regulation and behavioral cognition

Another characteristic feature of social cognitive theory is the prominent role it places on the individual's unique capacity for self-regulation. Arranging your own directly
Learning through modeling

Learning would be quite tedious, if not ineffective and potentially dangerous, if it depended solely on the outcome of our own actions. Let's assume
Reinforcement in observational learning

Bandura believes that although reinforcement often facilitates learning, it is not necessary for it. There are many other factors, he notes, other than
Indirect reinforcement

It is clear from the previous discussion that people can benefit from observing the successes and failures of others as much as from their own direct experience. Indeed, we, as a whole
Self-reinforcement

So far we have looked at how people regulate their behavior based on external consequences that they either observe or experience directly. From the point of view of social
How Self-Regulation Happens

As we have seen, self-reinforcement is a process in which people reward themselves with rewards over which they have control whenever they achieve a goal.
In recent years, Bandura has introduced the cognitive mechanism of self-efficacy into his theoretical framework to explain personal functioning and change (Bandu

Bandura's main points regarding human nature
In terms of mainstream theoretical positions in psychology, Bandura is often portrayed as a "moderate behaviorist." Yet his social-cognitive theory offers a different perspective.

Empirical Validation of Social Cognitive Theory
Bandura's social cognitive theory has inspired a large body of research that tests its core concepts and principles. These studies have significantly expanded our

Violence on TV: Patterns of Aggression in Every Living Room
Obviously, not all observational learning leads to socially acceptable results. Indeed, people can learn unwanted and antisocial behaviors through

Self-efficacy: how to learn to overcome your fears
Bandura continually focuses his efforts on developing therapeutic behavior change techniques and developing a unified theory of behavioral change. In fact, he now claims

Self-control of behavior
Self-control is said to occur whenever “a given behavior of a person is less likely to occur in terms of his previous behavior than another is possible.”

Basic steps of self-control
Watson and Tharp (1989) proposed that the process of behavioral self-control consists of five main steps. They included in it a definition of the form of behavior to which

Julian Rotter: Social Learning Theory
At that time, the late 1940s - early 1950s, when Julian Rotter began to create his theory, the most significant directions were psychoanalytic and phenomenological theories

Biographical sketch
Julian Bernard Rotter was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1916. He was the third son of Jewish immigrant parents. Remembering the obligation to give credit where credit is due

Behavior potential
Rotter argues that the key to predicting what a person will do in a given situation lies in understanding the potential of the behavior. This term means faith

Expectation
According to Rotter, expectancy refers to the subjective likelihood that a particular reinforcement will occur as a result of a specific behavior. For example, before you

The value of reinforcement
Rotter defines reinforcement value as the degree to which, given equal probability of receipt, we prefer one reinforcer to another. Using this concept, he argued

Psychological situation
The fourth and final variable used by Rotter to predict behavior is the psychological situation from the individual's point of view. Rotter claims that they are social

Basic formula for predicting behavior
In order to predict the potential of a given behavior in a specific situation, Rotter (1967) proposes the following formula: Behavior potential = expectation + target

Needs
Recall that Rotter views people as goal-directed individuals. He believes that people strive to maximize rewards and minimize or avoid punishment. More

Components of need
Rotter suggests that each category of needs consists of three main components: need potential, need value and freedom of action (including minimum

General forecast formula
As stated above, Rotter believes that his basic formula is limited to the prediction of specific behavior in controlled situations where reinforcements and expectations about performance

Internal and external locus of control
Much of the research that has been conducted on Rotter's theory has focused on a personality variable called locus of control (Rotter, 1966, 1975

Final comments
Rotter's emphasis on the importance of social and cognitive factors in explaining human learning expands the boundaries of traditional behaviorism. His theory is based on the fact that most

Glossary
Verbal coding. An internal representational process during which a person silently repeats a sequence of simulated activities with

Biographical sketch
George Alexander Kelly was born in a farming community near Wichita, Kansas in 1905. At first he studied in a rural school, where there was only one classroom

Constructive alternativeism
Now that people of all ages are developing alternative lifestyles and ways of viewing the world, it turns out that George Kelly's theory, which appeared in 1955, is unusually ahead of the curve.

People as explorers
As already stated, Kelly placed great importance on how people understand and interpret their life experiences. Construct theory, therefore, focuses on the processes that

Personal constructs: models for reality
Scientists create theoretical constructs to describe and explain the events they study. In Kelly's system, the key theoretical construct is the term construct itself:

Formal properties of constructs
Kelly proposed that all constructs are characterized by certain formal properties. First, a construct resembles a theory in that it addresses a specific range of phenomena.

Personality: a construct of a personologist
Kelly never offered a precise definition of the term "personality." However, he discussed this concept in one article, arguing that personality is "our abstraction of human activity

Motivation: who needs it?
Psychologists traditionally use the concept of motivation to explain two aspects of behavior: a) why people behave actively and b) why their activity is aimed at one thing,

Basic postulate
It turns out that each personologist has his own language for describing human behavior. Kelly is no exception, and this can be seen from the example of his main postulate: “Pr.

Kelly's main points regarding human nature
As noted, the philosophy of constructive alternativeism suggests that the universe is real, but different people interpret it differently. This means that our interpretation

Empirical validation of cognitive theory concepts
To what extent does personality construct theory have empirical evidence for the validity of its core concepts? This issue was addressed in a literature review conducted over

Role construct repertoire test
Kelly developed the Role Construct Repertory Test (abbreviated as the Rep Test) to assess important constructs that a person uses when interpreting significant people in his life.

Thinking disorders in patients with schizophrenia: a “destructive” alternative
Most studies using the Rep Test developed by Kelly have focused on psychiatric patients diagnosed with schizophrenia. Clinical descriptions of schizophrenia are usually

Construct similarity and friendship formation.
A final example of research aimed at empirically validating Kelly's personality construct theory concerns the study of friendships: why they develop and how they develop.

Application: emotional states, mental disorders and fixed role therapy
Kelly's theory represents a cognitive approach to personality. Kelly suggested that human behavior can best be understood by thinking of him as a researcher. Like the researchers

Emotional states
Kelly retained some of the traditional psychological concepts of emotion, but presented them in a new way, consistent with his theory of personality constructs. Below we are from Ke's point of view

Mental health and disorder
Every day, clinical psychologists deal with mental health issues and disorders. How should these concepts be understood in the context of personality construct theory? At first

Fixed Role Therapy
Many of the therapeutic methods described by Kelly (1955) are similar to those used by other psychotherapists, but his approach has two features: first, his concept

Glossary
Guilt: A person's awareness that he has deviated from important roles through which he maintains relationships with others.

Biographical sketch
Hostility (Hostili

Abraham Harold Maslow was born in Brooklyn, New York in 1908. He was the son of uneducated Jewish parents who emigrated from Russia. Parents really want
Basic principles of humanistic psychology

The term humanistic psychology was coined by a group of personality psychologists who, under the leadership of Maslow, came together in the early 1960s to create a viable theory
Motivation: hierarchy of needs

The question of motivation is perhaps the most important in all of personology. Maslow (1968, 1987) believed that people are motivated to find personal goals, and this makes their lives
Physiological needs

The most basic, powerful and urgent of all human needs are those essential to physical survival. This group includes the needs for: food,
Security and Protection Needs

When physiological needs are sufficiently satisfied, other needs, often called safety and protection needs, become important to a person.
Needs for belonging and love

The third row in Maslow's pyramid consists of the needs of belonging and love. These needs come into play when physiological and safety needs
Self-esteem needs

When our need to love and be loved by others is sufficiently satisfied, its influence on behavior decreases, paving the way for self-esteem needs.
Self-actualization needs

Finally, if all the above-mentioned needs are sufficiently satisfied, self-actualization needs come to the fore. Maslow (1987) characterized the
Maslow made the assumption that most people, if not all, need and seek inner improvement. His own research led to the conclusion that

Deficit motivation and growth motivation
In addition to his hierarchical concept of motivation, Maslow identified two global categories of human motives: deficit motives and growth motives (Maslow, 1987). First

Metapathology
As stated earlier, metamotivation is not possible until a person has adequately satisfied low-level deficit needs. Rarely, if at all possible, metapotr

Deficit image and meta-lifestyle: the path to improvement
You may be interested in what it means to live in the realm of meta-needs, meta-life or life of being. Fortunately, Maslow (1968,1987) offered us a logically consistent picture

Maslow's main points regarding human nature
As noted earlier, humanistic psychology developed largely out of a protest against the image of man prevalent in the traditions of psychoanalysis and behaviorism. Key

Empirical validation of humanistic theory concepts
It is not surprising that attempts to provide empirical support for the humanistic strand in personality theory have focused almost exclusively on self-actualization. Ho

Self-actualization: an informal study of healthy people
Maslow and other humanistic psychologists had an optimistic view of human nature. They not only emphasized the innate potential for positive and constructive growth, but also

Self-actualization assessment
The lack of an adequate assessment instrument to measure self-actualization initially thwarted any attempt to validate Maslow's basic claims. However, the development of the “Questionnaire

Exploring Summit Experiences
Maslow argued that self-actualizing people often experience moments of awe, admiration, and ecstasy. In such moments of very strong self-actualization, which he

Application: characteristics of self-actualizing people
For those drawn to humanistic psychology, achieving self-actualization means an ideal lifestyle. This section discusses a number of characteristics given by Maslow.

Self-actualizing people are not angels
The above may lead to the conclusion that self-actualizing people are a select group of “superstars”, approaching perfection in the art of living and standing just out of reach.

Psychological Utopia: Eupsycheia
Maslow's contribution to personology would not be complete if he did not address the necessary changes that he felt brought about self-actualization on a large scale. He

Glossary
B-love. Being love, a type of love in which a person appreciates another for what he is, without any desire to change or use this other.

Biographical sketch
Carl Ransom Rogers was born in Oak Park (a suburb of Chicago), Illinois, in 1902. He was the fourth of six children, five of whom were boys. Its about

Rogers' view of human nature
Rogers's view of human nature was formed in the same way as Freud's, based on his personal experiences with people with emotional disorders. He admitted that

Guiding motive in life: trend of actualization
Along with a positive view of human nature, Rogers hypothesized that all behavior is inspired and governed by some unifying motive, which he called

Rogers' phenomenological position
As we have seen, Rogers' theory illustrates a phenomenological approach to personality. The phenomenological direction considers it real for the individual (that is, real for his thought).

The dominance of subjective experience
The connection between experience and behavior is an essential thesis in Rogers' phenomenological theory. He insisted that human behavior cannot be understood without reference to his subjective

Development of self-concept
Unlike theorists such as Freud, Adler, and Erikson, Rogers did not create a specific diagram of the critical stages that people go through in the process of developing a self-concept.

Threat experience and defense process
Rogers argued that most of a person's behavior is consistent with his self-concept. In other words, a person strives to maintain a state of consistency between self-perception and

Mental disorders and psychopathology
So far in our coverage of Rogers' theory of personality, we have described concepts that apply to a greater or lesser extent to everyone. Even the most mentally healthy person sometimes gets confronted

Fully functioning person
Like most therapy-oriented personologists, Rogers (1980) has expressed certain ideas about specific personality characteristics that define a “good” person.

Rogers's main points regarding human nature
Without a doubt, Skinner and Carl Rogers are among the most influential American psychologists of our time. They both had many followers. As the main figures, symbolizes

Empirical Validation of Phenomenological Theory Concepts
Rogers' theory is relevant not only to the problem of personality, but also to psychotherapy and changing human behavior. Almost all empirical studies conducted by Ro

Rogers' View of Scientific Research
Rogers was committed to phenomenology as a basis for the development of human science and as a method for investigating the empirical validity of theoretical concepts. Its task is phenomenological

Measuring Self-Concept: Q-Sort Technique
In the early 1950s, William Stephenson, then a colleague of Rogers at the University of Chicago, developed a method called the Q-sort technique for research

Self-perception and psychological adaptation
As explained earlier, Rogers believed that psychological maladjustment results from a discrepancy between self-structure and experience. In other words, a person with mental disorder

Self-acceptance and acceptance of others
Another body of research that builds on Rogers's theories concerns the proposition that the more self-accepting a person is, the more likely he is to

Application: Person-centered therapy
The number of different types of psychotherapy, old and new, applied to a person with personality problems has reached an alarming number. Psychologists and psychiatrists asked patients

The evolution of Rogers therapy: from technique to relationship
Rogers's approach to psychotherapy, which bears very little resemblance to psychoanalysis and behavior modification, was developed over several years. Although its main principles

Therapeutic Conditions for Personality Change
Rogers (1959) proposed that the presence of six therapeutic conditions is necessary and sufficient for constructive personal change to occur. Taken together

Glossary
Unconditional positive regard. Rogers' term for respect and acceptance of another, whether he leads or not.

Key points in retrospect
The central, unifying thesis of this book is that the basic principles about human nature define the framework within which various directions of personality psychology formulate

Assessing Personality Theories
In Chapter 1, we proposed six criteria for evaluating theories of personality. Now that we have completed our introduction to the theories presented in this book, it is appropriate to consider how

Verifiability
The verifiability criterion requires that a theory contain concepts that are clearly and precisely defined, logically related, and empirically testable. In this regard, in

Heuristic value
The criterion of heuristic value relates to the extent to which the theory directly stimulated research. We use this criterion not in a global sense, as from

Internal consistency
Internal consistency implies that a theory must logically coherently explain the phenomena it addresses. In addition, individual components of the theory must

Economy
The idea of ​​parsimony is that the preferred theoretical explanation of mental phenomena requires as few concepts as possible—the fewer concepts, the more parsimonious the theory

Breadth of coverage
Breadth refers to the range and variety of phenomena covered by a theory. In essence, the more comprehensive a personality theory is, the more aspects of behavior it covers.

Functional significance
For people outside the mainstream of academic psychology, perhaps the most important way to evaluate the personological direction is to evaluate it in terms of applicability.

The advent of the era of personology
The development of personology as a real scientific discipline is a product of the 20th century (of course, it originated much earlier). With the exception of the theories of Freud, Adler and a few others

The value of alternative destinations
Generally speaking, whatever the formal imperfections and shortcomings of the various theoretical schools presented in this book, we believe that the themes, findings and research

Rationale for empirical research
Throughout this book we have presented research relevant to the empirical testing of various dimensions of personality. Our goal was to convince psychology students

Research on cognitive processes and their relationship with other aspects of psychological functioning
With the exception of Kelly, Bandura, and Rotter, the theorists we have discussed have either exaggerated or minimized the importance of cognitive processes for understanding human functioning.

Study of the interaction of situational factors and personality variables and their relative contributions to behavior
Although most personologists gave different descriptions and explanations of behavior, they accepted that internal inclinations (or what are otherwise called human variables)

Study of the neurophysiological, biochemical and genetic basis of personality
In all likelihood, the current stage of scientific development will be celebrated as the century of biology and as the period when advances in behavioral genetics, biochemistry and neurophysiology influenced knowledge.

Study of personality development in middle and older age
Approximately one quarter of our lives are spent growing up, and three quarters are spent growing old. Therefore, it is strange that personologists pay so much attention to studying

Study of problems related to practical human activity
The practical aspect of the formal study of personality dates back to Freud's interest in the causes and treatment of pathological behavior. Consequently, the history of personological

Glossary
Life history: A study of one person's life based on autobiographical information and other personal documentary data.

Man is a social being. It is nature itself that people should have friends, mentors and family. To satisfy this need, it is necessary to constantly communicate and get to know new people, take care of loved ones, and look after the less experienced. Communication can take place at work or school, in entertainment venues, in fitness centers, at training seminars, and so on. Through communication, a person learns new things and knows himself better. If this need is not satisfied, there is a risk of focusing only on one’s own interests.

Existential needs were first identified by the philosopher and sociologist E. Fromm.

The need to overcome oneself

Animals are lazy by nature - they need to conserve energy to hunt or run away from pursuit. A person is deprived of such problems, but laziness remains his companion. Feeling the need to overcome themselves, people strive to overcome their animal nature and become a step higher. Satisfying this need is quite easy - you need to learn how to create. Otherwise, you can lose respect for your life and the fate of other people.

Need for roots

A person needs to feel part of a clan or social group. In ancient times, expulsion from the tribe was considered the most terrible punishment, because without one’s roots a person became nothing. People dream of a large family home, stability and security - it reminds them of childhood, when a person is most closely connected with his relatives. Failure to satisfy needs leads to loneliness, but at the same time, too strong an attachment to parents interferes with the acquisition of personal integrity.

Need for self-identification

Despite the desire to belong to a certain social group, a person feels the need to recognize his own personality. Self-identification implies that an individual has clear ideas about himself, an assessment of his activities and formed principles. Satisfying this need makes life easier, since a person clearly knows what he wants. Conversely, copying other people's behavior can lead to depression and low self-esteem.

The need for self-identification was absent in early societies - then people completely identified themselves with their clan.

Need for a value system

This existential need is considered by many to be the most important. The formation of a value system occurs from an early age and changes throughout life. A person’s views are influenced by upbringing, impressions of certain events, and communication with other people. Having a value system gives meaning to life and explains a person’s path throughout his existence. Without satisfying this need, a person acts aimlessly and often finds himself at a dead end in life.

Since antiquity, philosophers around the world have tried to define human needs. What can be defined as a personal whim or trend of the era? And what is the true need inherent in every person from the moment of birth, regardless of where and at what time he lives, how exactly his life goes? Let's look at the basic existential needs of a person, their examples and manifestation. There are many different theories and opinions about this, but the most convincing description of human existential needs belongs to the German psychologist E. Fromm.

Characteristics of human existential needs

E. Fromm, a famous psychologist, psychoanalyst and philosopher, identified five basic human needs, which he called existential. His 1955 book The Healthy Society published his views on the differences between mentally ill and healthy people. In his opinion, a healthy person, unlike a sick person, can independently find answers to existential questions. And these answers most accurately meet his needs.

Human behavior is somewhat similar to the behavior of animals; it is mainly also motivated by physiological needs. However, having satisfied them, he will not come to a solution to the problem of human essence. Only by satisfying unique existential needs can an individual experience the fullness of his life. Existential ones include the needs for overcoming oneself, for communication, for “rootedness,” for self-identity and the presence of a value system. They can never be fully satisfied; in essence, they are engines for self-improvement. It is not easy to realize their unattainability, but this is the only way to reveal, at least to a small extent, the meaning of one’s existence, while avoiding clouding of reason.

E. Fromm provided his definition of the existential needs of the individual; he calls them passions rooted in character. Their manifestations are defined as love, independence, desire for truth and justice, hatred, sadism, masochism, destructiveness or narcissism.

The need to overcome oneself

A mentally healthy person is driven by the need to overcome, in other words, a craving for independence and purposefulness instead of a random and passive flow of life.

According to I. Pavlov’s definition, a person’s existential needs to overcome are a “reflex of freedom.” It arises in the presence of any real obstacle and is determined by a person’s desire to overcome it. You can combat the passive nature of the human essence in both productive and negative ways. It is possible to satisfy existential needs for overcoming both with the help of creativity or through creation, and through destruction.

Creativity here implies not only the creation of works of art, but also the birth of new scientific concepts, religious beliefs, the preservation and transmission of material and moral values ​​to descendants.

The second way to overcome life's obstacles entails the destruction of material wealth and the transformation of another person into a victim.

In his book “The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness,” published in 1973, Fromm emphasizes that of all biological species, only humans are characterized by aggression. This means that there are many reasons why a person might harm or even kill another, while animals do it purely for the sake of survival. But this idea does not apply to some "primitive" cultures, where aggression emphasizes the powerful dominant force of society.

Need for communication

The need for communication, or the need to establish connections, is one of the main basic social existential needs of the individual. Fromm identifies three main directions: love, power and submission. According to the psychologist, the last two are unproductive, that is, those that do not allow the individual to develop normally.

A submissive person seeks a connection with a domineering person. And vice versa. The union of the dominant and the submissive can satisfy both and even bring joy. However, sooner or later an understanding comes that such a union interferes with normal personal growth and the preservation of internal comfort. A submissive partner will experience a distinct lack of strength and self-confidence. The attachment of such characters is explained not by love, but by a subconscious desire to establish a connection. There may even be accusations that the partner is not able to fully satisfy his needs and existential needs. As a result, they are looking for new power or a new leader. And as a result, they become only less free and more and more dependent on their partner.

Love as the most productive way to satisfy the need for communication

The only productive way to connect is through love. Fromm argues that only such a union preserves a person’s independence and integrity of his own “I.” People who love each other become one, they skillfully complement each other, without taking away their partner’s freedom and uniqueness, and do not diminish their self-esteem. Fromm is the author of The Art of Loving, which was published in 1956. He identified four main components of true love that are common to all forms of its manifestation: respect, care, responsibility and knowledge.

We are always interested in the affairs of our loved one and take care of him. We try to satisfy the physical and psychological needs of our partner. Love also implies the ability, and most importantly the desire, to bear responsibility for your chosen one. We accept an initially completely alien person as he is, with all his shortcomings, without trying to change him. We respect him. But respect stems from a certain knowledge about a person. This is the ability to take into account the opinion of another, to look at a thing from his point of view.

The need for "rootedness"

It is unbearable for a person to live in complete isolation. Sooner or later, everyone has a strong desire to “take root” in this world and society, to feel like an integral part of the Universe. Fromm argues that the need for “rootedness” arises at the moment when the biological connection with the mother is severed. Influenced by the concept of early matriarchal society put forward by J. Bachofen, Fromm agrees with him that the central figure in any social group is the mother. She provides her children with a sense of rootedness. It is she who can both awaken in them the desire to develop their own individuality, independence and independence, and also stop the child’s psychological growth.

In addition to the positive strategy of satisfying the need for “rootedness,” when a person, having adapted to the outside world, feels one with it, there is a less productive, so-called “fixation” strategy. In this case, the person stubbornly refuses any advancement; he feels great in the world that his mother once outlined for him. Such people are extremely insecure, fearful and extremely dependent on others. They need constant care and cannot cope with unexpected obstacles from the outside world.

The need for a value system

One’s own value system is extremely important for a person, since everyone needs some kind of support, a life map that will help them navigate the world. A purposeful individual has his own system of views and beliefs that help him accept and systematize all the external stimuli that he encounters throughout his life. Everyone individually attaches one or another meaning to the phenomena occurring around them. If any situation goes beyond the scope of a person’s internal philosophy, he perceives it as abnormal, incorrect, out of the ordinary. Otherwise, what happened is perceived as absolutely normal.

Everyone has their own value system, so the same action or event can cause both admiration and disapproval in two different people.

Need for self-identity

The need for self-identity is closely related to the need for “rootedness.” Let's find out why. Breaking away from the biological connection with the mother, the process of forming one’s own “I” begins. A person who clearly feels that he is different from others is able to become the master of his life, and not constantly follow the instructions of others. By satisfying the need for self-identity, the individual becomes an individual.

Fromm is of the opinion that representatives of most traditional cultures closely compared themselves to their society, without imagining themselves separately from it. Considering the era of capitalism, he agrees with the theories of other psychologists that a significant expansion of the boundaries of political and economic freedom did not give a person a real sense of his “I”. Everyone blindly trusted their leader. The feeling of attachment to another person, social group, religion or profession has nothing to do with self-identity. From the rejected feeling of imitation and attachment to a social group, the herd instinct is formed.

If a mentally unhealthy person is constantly drawn to strong personalities, tries in every way to find his place in politics, or then a strong and healthy person is less dependent on the opinions of the crowd. For a comfortable existence in society, he does not need to limit himself in anything and hide the manifestations of his individuality.

Having considered the existential needs according to Fromm, let’s get acquainted with the scientific results of Abraham Maslow.

Existential psychology. Abraham Maslow's opinion

Abraham Maslow was not an existentialist; he could not even call himself a diligent researcher in this branch of psychology. He studied existentialism, trying to find something new for himself in it. For him, the basic condition that determines the manifestation of basic social existential needs is the concept of originality, identity and overcoming oneself.

While studying this topic, Maslow made many useful conclusions. He believes that it is extremely important for psychologists that only existentialists can study psychology based on philosophical principles. Others fail to do this. Thus, logical positivism was fundamentally flawed, especially when treating clinical patients. “Perhaps in the near future psychologists will take into account basic philosophical problems and stop relying on untested concepts,” says the psychologist.

It is quite difficult to formulate Maslow’s existential needs. In his research, he did not try to invent something new, his goal was to find something in common with conventional psychology, to learn something from existing theories. He was most impressed by the question of the future, which is of central importance in literature. From Erwin Strauss’s article in the book “Existence” it follows that the future is dynamically active at any moment in time, it is always with a person. In Kurt Lewin's understanding, the future is an ahistorical concept. All habits, skills and other mechanisms are based on experiences from the past, and, therefore, they are doubtful and unreliable regarding the future.

The scientist believes that the study of basic social existential needs and existentialism in general will help to discard life’s fears and illusions, identifying true mental illnesses; all this can lead to the formation of a new branch in psychology.

One of Maslow's thoughts is that it is likely that what is commonly called psychology is just the study of the tricks of human nature that the subconscious uses to avoid fear of the unknown novelty of the future.

Modern interpretation of social existential needs

Sociologists' research on human values ​​is extremely important for understanding and ensuring social order. When considering an individual personality, it is obvious that existential needs are a basic element of its activity, just as the value-normative regulation of social relations is a powerful factor in the functioning of social groups. Dramatic changes in the structure of social life have led to increased attention to the issue of human values ​​and needs. It is the existential needs, examples of which are given above, that are the topic of research by many scientists of the classical period (M. Weber, W. Thomas, T. Parsons), modern Western sociologists (S. Schwartz, P. Blau, K. Kluckhohn, etc.), Soviet and post-Soviet sociologists (V. Yadov, I. Surina, A. Zdravomyslov) also addressed the problem of human values.

“Value” and “need” are both fundamental concepts and at the same time multifaceted and extremely broad. Traditionally, values ​​were understood as the importance and contribution to human life that the object of existential needs made, the significance of phenomena and processes of reality for a particular person and social group. They can be embodied in a wide variety of manifestations, from objects and material goods to some abstract ideas. At the same time, a need can be called a kind of standard, a tool with the help of which reality is assessed. Based on this, existential needs are a structural element of culture, which consists of behavior algorithms, evaluation systems, and the result of human activity to satisfy one’s own spiritual and other needs. But at the same time, if a person is asked why he needs to satisfy a specific need, he will not be able to give an answer, or the answer will be very difficult. These needs are higher than desires; they rather act as a means of achieving goals, not always conscious and defined.

Summing up

To summarize all of the above, first of all, it should be noted that human existential needs are a multi-valued concept. Firstly, because of the meaningful interpretation of the very concept of “needs”. Secondly, due to the ambiguity in the definition of the concept “existential”. So what does it mean in the modern world?

1. The term "existential" can mean everything that exists.
2. Everything related to critical, vital aspects of human existence (the need for security, the satisfaction of primary needs).
3. Everything that relates to questions of existence.

Nevertheless, human existential needs, examples of which were discussed earlier, have the following characteristics:

• the whole experience of man is present in them;
• in the evaluative characteristic, existential needs are present in the perception of an individual; such an assessment can be either completely conscious or intuitive;
• they set life guidelines for both the individual and society as a whole;
• When considering such needs, it is obvious that the human factor is always present in them; the existence of the individual is impossible without complete or at least partial subordination to the provisions of the sociocultural order.

Depending on how society understands existential needs (different examples of their implementation in life can be given), what answer it gives to the question about the meaning of its own existence, one can judge the importance of further research. Today, based on the category of faith, this concept is taken to be a religious essence, despite the fact that only 10% of the population consider themselves atheists.

Research on existential needs and their full study can play an important role in such areas as the sociology of life and morality, the sociology of human values, morality and the meaning of life. There are a lot of arguments about a happy and successful person. But it is impossible to build a universal benefit for all occasions, guided by which everyone can make their life better. There are still many obstacles to overcome on the way to this.

So far we have said that Fromm describes human existence in terms of separation from nature and isolation from others. In addition, in his opinion, human nature contains unique existential needs.

They have nothing to do with social and aggressive instincts. Fromm argued that the conflict between the desire for freedom and the desire for security represents the most powerful motivational force in people's lives (Fromm, 1973). The freedom-security dichotomy, this universal and inevitable fact of human nature, is determined by existential needs. Fromm identified five basic human existential needs.

1. The need to establish connections. To overcome the feeling of isolation from nature and alienation, all people need to care about someone, take part in someone and be responsible for someone. The ideal way to connect with the world is through “productive love,” which helps people to work together and at the same time maintain their individuality. If the need for connection is not satisfied, people become narcissistic: they defend only their own selfish interests and are unable to trust others.

2. The need to overcome. All people need to overcome their passive animal nature in order to become active and creative creators of their lives. The optimal solution to this need lies in creation. The work of creation (ideas, art, material values ​​or raising children) allows people to rise above the randomness and passivity of their existence and thereby achieve a sense of freedom and self-worth. The inability to satisfy this vital need is the cause of destructiveness.

3. Need for roots. People need to feel like an integral part of the world. According to Fromm, this need arises from birth, when biological ties with the mother are severed (Fromm, 1973). Towards the end of childhood, every person gives up the security that parental care provides. In late adulthood, each person faces the reality of being cut off from life itself as death approaches. Therefore, throughout their lives, people experience a need for roots, foundations, a sense of stability and strength, similar to the feeling of security that a connection with their mother gave in childhood. Conversely, those who maintain symbiotic ties to their parents, home, or community as a way to satisfy their need for roots are unable to experience personal integrity and freedom.

4. The need for self-identity. Fromm believed that all people experience an internal need for identity with themselves - a self-identity through which they feel different from others and realize who they are and what they really are. In short, every person should be able to say: “I am I.” Individuals with a clear and distinct awareness of their individuality perceive themselves as masters of their lives, and not as constantly following someone else's instructions. Copying someone else's behavior, even to the point of blind conformity, does not allow a person to achieve true self-identity, a sense of himself.

5. The need for a belief system and commitment. Finally, according to Fromm, people need a stable and constant support to explain the complexity of the world. This orientation system is a set of beliefs that allow people to perceive and comprehend reality, without which they would constantly find themselves stuck and unable to act purposefully. Fromm particularly emphasized the importance of developing an objective and rational view of nature and society (Fromm, 1981). He argued that a rational approach is absolutely necessary for maintaining health, including mental health.

People also need an object of devotion, a dedication to something or someone (a higher goal or God), which would be the meaning of life for them. Such dedication makes it possible to overcome an isolated existence and gives meaning to life.

Viewing human needs in an economic-political context, Fromm argued that the expression and satisfaction of these needs depends on the type of social conditions in which the individual lives. In essence, the opportunities that a particular society provides for people to satisfy their existential needs shape their personality structure—what Fromm called “basic character orientations.” Moreover, in Fromm's theory, like Freud's, a person's character orientations are viewed as stable and not changing over time.

Over the past 100 years, a large number of schools and directions have appeared in the field of psychology, studying and trying to explain the existential needs of the individual. An important tool for socio-psychological analysis in society is a comprehensive comparison in terms of the subject’s relationship to the surrounding world and people. Eric Fromm argued that the behavior of a healthy person in society is determined by the awareness that, due to his natural characteristics, he strives to establish connections in society, overcome himself, take root in life, identify himself, and build his own system of moral values.

1. Existential needs in establishing connections

Throughout his life, a person consciously or unconsciously strives to unite with other people. According to Eric Fromm, there are only 3 ways to satisfy this need. One can submit to the rules and demands of a group or another individual, one can dominate someone, one can be connected to people or an individual through love. At the same time, Frome, from the point of view of his humanistic theory, inclined social thought to the idea that it is unjustifiable to satisfy one’s existential needs through power or submission. Only love is the surest way to preserve the integrity of nature, inner strength and self-confidence.

The social connection of people according to the power-subordination model is flawed because it cannot fully satisfy this need. Due to the collateral emergence of gross dependence between themselves, the ruler and the subordinate partially lose their “I”.

2. Existential needs in overcoming oneself

The complex concept lies in the desire to create.

The productive path lies through the process of creativity and its manifestation in art, science, and religion. Man by nature tries to show how he, being a primate, differs from representatives of the animal world. Therefore, people create social institutions and material values, to one degree or another positioning love as the development of their biological species.

The irrational way to satisfy a need is to manifest malicious aggression. By killing and turning another into a victim, someone sees their importance in demonstrating dominant power, subconsciously raising internal conflicts.

3. Existential human needs in rootedness

To feel like a full-fledged representative of his species, it is important for a person to be aware of his roots. This is why the bond between mother and child is so strong. Agreeing with Freud, Fromm recognized the presence of incestuous desires in the child’s psyche, but argued that their cause was not sexual attraction at all, but a subconscious desire to return to the mother’s womb in order to take root and achieve a full sense of security.

A productive way of rooting consists in a natural withdrawal from the mother's breast, in active interaction with the world, in the development of adaptive abilities and achievement in the conditions of conscious reality.

The unproductive way is to fix one’s thinking within the limits limited by the mother, without the desire for independence. People who follow this path are unsure of themselves, filled with internal fears, and are extremely dependent.

4. Existential needs in self-identity

It is inherent in a person by nature to independently form the concept of his own “I”, the result of which is the awareness of the fact that “I am responsible for myself.” It is easier to identify oneself with different institutions: with the state, nation, religion, profession, social group, place of residence. The simplified model of identification contains the threat of global conformism, herd instinct, dependent membership in the crowd, where individuality remains only a word and loses the objective essence of its lexical meaning.

The other extreme is hidden in a situation where a person is deprived of the opportunity to identify himself with someone or something. You can lose your mind. People who do not have psychological problems are able to identify themselves outside the crowd, while their criteria correspond to reality.

5. Existential needs in the value system

A person devoid of moral guidelines moves through life like a blind kitten. he creates, as the basis of his behavior, rules, based on which he lives his life productively or destructively from Fromm’s point of view. History knows many individuals who paid with their lives for the preservation of their value system.