The problem of ensuring of social and psychological safety of a personality

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The concept of necessity to ensure the personal safety forms the basis of existence of all social systems and individuals. It is associated with the system's needs (as well as a person's ones) and elements for survival and further (progressive) development. Its contents present the conscious activity of people, aimed to reduce the disorganizing influence of external and internal environment [2]. In the contemporary society, the problem of safety becomes the high priority issue. It is conditioned by a number of reasons, namely: the instability of economical, political and social circumstances; the presence of stress and psychogenic effects of various geneses; the growth of number of technogenic emergencies; the weak psychological protection of a personality.

The notion of safety is considered proceeding from different grounds. As it is stated in a number of studies (I.A. Baeva, G.V. Grachev, V.A. Dmitrievsky, N.A. Lyz', T.M. Krasnyanskaya and many others) first of all safety is considered in terms of different spheres of safety display: ecology (the environmental influence), society (the influence of social & political and social & economical phenomena), information sphere (the influence of mass consciousness processes, system of value orientation and moral standards declared by mass media in society), production and means of technical progress (the influence of production technologies, complicated (complex) implements). One of the actual directions in personality safety research is study of psychological safety. At that it is stressed that psychological safety means (Krasnyanskaya T.M.):

? Immunity of personality, preserving its integration, ability for development;

? Content with the present, confidence in the future;

? Vital activity conditions which do not help personality integrity violation and adaptability of its functioning;

? Absence of fear or anxiety in respect of one's present and future needs' satisfaction;

? State of interests' protectability;

? Consciousness protectability from the influence of psychological states, characteristics and behavior change against the will and wish of a person and etc.

At the whole variety of personality psychological safety and peculiarities of its expression (in education, upbringing, professional sphere and etc) this problem stays less studied as for interpersonal relations and communication. In spite of that the growth of social problems, polarization of society (separation of social classes with different economical status), growth of criminality (terrorism, fraud, crimes against personality), decreasing of interpersonal contacts frequency and effectiveness makes a person feel greater social vulnerability. Appropriately, the growth of socially unfavorable social conditions increases the quantity of people which are characterized with demolition of the need of social safety which leads to lowering of satisfaction with the present and absence of confidence in future; it causes demolition of personality integrity, growth of fear and anxiousness; lowering of tolerance towards unfavorable influence.

So modern conditions make it obvious that it becomes more and more topical to study psychological safety via studying the system of social and, first of all, interpersonal relationship.

In accordance with the country safety Conception safety protection shall be implemented through the following grades: interpersonal, regional, national (state, country) and international [2]. At that interpersonal grade may be stated as crucial and base for all next grades, because it is exactly safety of interpersonal relationship system (support of stability and integrity of interpersonal relations) which provides functioning and existing of further grades.

As stated by I.A. Baeva, the psychological safety being necessary condition for existing and development of a person and society is implemented through definite forms of social interactions - cooperative activity, adaptation of a person and vital environment and following of definite relations between them [5]. A. Edmondson stressed that psychological safety is based on faith that a person will accepted by reference group, that he will have emotionally favorable relations and will be protected from blame, rejection and suppression [5]. Accordingly the better people know and understand each other in one group the higher is psychological safety of interpersonal relations [5].

The above said makes it possible to speak not just of a personality's psychological safety, but of its social and psychological safety (meaning determinative character of social and psychological conditions providing person's safety).

Social and psychological safety may be defined as the state conditioned by presence of harmonious and bringing satisfaction relationship (interconnections) of a personality with other people which allow realizing spiritual and psychological potential of personality in the process of vital activity and which allow preserving its integrity. psychological safety personality

The basic characteristics of social and psychological safety are:

? The feeling of protectability against negative psychological influence by interaction partners and situational conditions;

? Absence of tension, difficulties and disturbances in relationship; ? harmonious character of interactions and relations.

Although the “carrier” of social and psychological safety is a person so we can assume that expression of social and psychological safety will concern basic structures of a person and will be revealed through cognitive, affective and behavioral components. At that the person's social and psychological safety will depend on what a person is thinking about its social surrounding and the way a person evaluates it (the feelings and emotions he experiences), which behavioral strategies he is using, that's the way he is developing the whole system of interpersonal relations.

It is obvious that considering the social and psychological safety in such way it is necessary to refer to the problem of interpersonal relations.

The problem of interpersonal relations finds its beginning in philosophy theories. Taking its origin (although mediated) in works of ancient Greek philosophers it is verbosely reviewed by works of existentialist philosophers where the problem of mankind existence (objective reality is presented as a matter of a person co-existence with other persons which later greatly influenced humanistic psychology. Ideas of people co-existence with each other and their interconnections stay one of the urgent problems of psychological science. Different psychological studies give different definitions to the problem of interpersonal relations. Following the tradition of native psychological school the matter of relations was firstly presented in studies of A.F. Lazursky.

Relationship, by A.F. Lazursky, is a backbone factor of a personality structure. Relations of a personality towards outer objects and sphere (exo-psychical manifestations) at interdependent psychical elements and functions (endo-psychical manifestations) characterize personality integrity. V. N. Myasischev made a great contribution into development of relations psychology conception. By V. N. Myasischev the initial point of personality psychology is a characteristic of a person's nature as a complex of social relations. In its turn social relations exist in two forms: as objective and subjective relations. Relation of a person towards society, community, team, and group and towards himself takes important place in the system of relations. The most important and substantial relations are formed by interpersonal interactions.

B.F. Lomov's concept has been a significant step forward regarding the relationship psychology development. The most important part of this approach is a detailed characteristic of subjective relations. Such relations reflect value orientations, fidelities, sympathies, antipathies, interests and all that which expresses personality subjective position, events evaluation and people which take part in these events, relation towards these or those events and phenomena of the world this person lives in. First of all subjective relations of a personality are formed and revealed as its relation towards people. Accordingly relation towards any and all other spheres of reality is mediated by such relation.

Summarizing main ideas of relations psychology we can underline that they single out social and interpersonal relations from the system of social relationship [1]. At that social relations are official, formally fixed, objectified, efficient relations which are leading in regulating all types of relations including interpersonal. Interpersonal relations are objectively experienced and differently realized interconnections between people. The grounds of these interconnections are various emotional states of people interconnecting with each other. Emotional grounds of interpersonal relations means that they appear and emerge on the base of definite feelings which appear between people towards each other. It is important to underline that interpersonal relations are characterized with three component structure and they include affective, cognitive (informational) and behavioral (practical, regulative) components (at that affective is a determining one). As it was mentioned in some studies emotional manifestations of interpersonal relations are determined by social and cultural standards of groups which people interconnecting with each other originate from and by individual differences which vary within these standards.

Analyzing connections of social and interpersonal relations there appears a necessity of speaking about the role of communication in the complex system of person's connection with outer world. Both types of person's relations with surrounding world - social as well as interpersonal are disclosed exactly by communication. Communication is the exactly realization of a person's system of relations. It is important to note that the real communication reveals not only interpersonal relations of people, not only their emotional fidelities, but also their social relations, impersonal by nature [1].

Effectiveness of arranging of the communication process plays a great role in determining the system of interpersonal relations and consequently, it determines the social and psychological safety of people. The higher is communication effectiveness, the more satisfied and integral people are; they feel content, absence of fear or anxiousness; their social adaptability grows and it means their social and psychological safety increases.

As complex and many sided phenomenon communication is potential and actually consists elements hampering its functioning [4]. That is why it is often that communication process goes not effectively. In this case we are speaking of deformation, communication violation (of different level) which possibly can lead to lowering to social and psychological safety.

In this way in order to provide social and psychological safety it is especially important to study phenomenon of awkward communication, its different forms, psychological determinants, character and level of influence upon whole system of interpersonal relations. These problems' analysis will allow elaborating specific practical advises on optimization of interpersonal relations which in the result will help development of social and psychological safety of personality.

There are different views on the phenomenon of the communication difficulties and barriers, on reasons and factors of appearance thereof, which reflect in variety of approaches for their study. The difficulties of communication are such phenomena which appear in conditions of immediate contacts and can be caused by different reasons - objective, situational as well as inner, personal and which are revealed in lowering of the interaction sufficiency in appearance of emotional and psychological discomfort of the subjects of communication. Such phenomena block reserves of spiritual and psychological potential of a personality which violates the system of its interpersonal relations.

As it is stressed in some of studies the main function of communication difficulties is protection of personality from negative social and psychological influence which may help its social and psychological safety. On the other hand supporting psychological safety of personality these difficulties may block (hamper) sensitivity and understanding of the communication process itself (all its elements: a partner, situation, a person himself) by personality as well as understanding of interpersonal relations in the whole.

Different studies separate motivation and substantial, operational, social and perceptive, psycholinguistic, communicative, inner (subjective) and outer (objective) difficulties. The works' analysis showed that classification of hampered communication phenomena based on marking out different reasons of these difficulties' appearance are reasonable in respect of theoretical understanding of thereof, but studying the object experiencing real situation of hampered communication it is impossible to isolate definite reasons and to conclude the idea of their interrelations and joint determination of behavior.

The greatest interest is called by the studies which single out objective difficulties at the same time with subjective ones. Objective difficulties appear in conditions of direct contacts which may be caused by various reasons: objective and situational as well as by inner, personal and which are specifically revealed in lowering of interconnection sufficiency, appearance of emotional and psychological discomfort of communication subjects.

It is especially important to underline that such understanding of difficulties allows taking account of wide range of reasons causing hampered communication: from individual and typological, personal qualities of the subject up to the features of situational interaction. Research we have conducted [3, 6] showed that people's reaction on hampers' beginning is quite different: people show more or less adequate reactions and it means we can suppose that they have different level of protectability from unfavorable influence. Conditionally we can talk about different level of social and psychological safety. Considering specifics of people's reactions in situation of hampered communication we can say that they all bear cognitive, emotional and behavioral character. At that cognitive component may be revised only upon subjective self-analysis of hampered communication participants. Two other components (emotional and behavioral) can be objectively watched by researcher.

Thus it was shown [3, 6] according to the character of behavioral and emotional reactions in situations of the hampered communication all people can be divided into the following groups of active and passive (upon intensity of communication behavior); “sthenic” and “asthenic” (depending on the nature of the experienced emotions).

At that, the obtained data allows us to claim that connection of emotional and behavioral reaction in situation of hampered communication is not unequivocal.

Each group is characterized by specific features of perception of understanding of interaction difficulties, different aims and motives of communication, tactics of communication behavior and different as for content and intensity of changing psychological and psycho-physiological characteristics in hampered communication. We may suppose that these changes are the means of compensation by individual of its unavailability to establish interpersonal relations. In its turn features of people's behavior in situations of hampered communication may become characteristics of their protectability from negative influence and consequently may prove their availability - absence of social and psychological safety.

Difficulties in describing “personality” of a subject experiencing communication hampers causes difficulties in development of correctional actions directed for stabilization of communication process and harmonicity of interpersonal relations. Nevertheless considering the problem of social and psychological safety it is important to stress necessity of considering this category in practical context of personality protectability from negative influence in situations of hampered communication and violation of interpersonal relations system.

In the process of guiding social and psychological safety it is important to consider the main “element” of any social system - a person. It is known that the world is apprehended by a person as objective and subjective reality. A person is changing nature and gets changed by him. Possessing intellect and free will a person is acting and interpreting facts due to its knowledge and idea about them. At the same time the person is also a subject of the world understanding and its object as well [2]. Proceeding from this they mark out components of person's social aims orientated to the person himself as well as to society: cognitive component (knowledge, opinions, personal knowledge, self-reflectiveness appearing in definite conditions and etc); affective component (perceptional and emotional, subjective reactions on influence of different factors arousing feelings and activating or lowering person's activity); behavioral component (actions, operations, behavioral patterns based on knowledge of the object world appropriateness and reasons of changes occurring thereof).

Although singled out components correlate with a structure of social and psychological safety (as well as with structure of interpersonal relations and reactions of people in situations of hampered communication), we may suppose that increasing and correcting the effective development of social and psychological safety of personality probability gets increased.

Within limits of this research it is assumed that these tasks may be solved by providing of psychological guiding of a personality. In its turn providing of psychological guiding of a personality is possible within limits of arranging special service for the social and psychological safety which may be arranged in conditions of different educational and social institutions, works and factories, production and commercial enterprises, organizations.

One of the main ideas of such service of providing a personality with the social and psychological safety may become holding of diagnostic, correctional and development, consultative and educational work with aim of increasing psychological health, forming of protectability and integrity, harmonicity of a person's interpersonal relations system.

Service forms and methods of work on providing of social and psychological safety shall be directed to development and correction of all personality social aims components (cognitive, affective and behavioral) as indexes of tolerance towards different kinds of outer influence and own negative feelings.

In connection with it one of the most important tasks concerning correction and development work may become: forming of skills of effective interaction and communication competence; learning to listen and understand an interlocutor; development of reflective abilities; forming of adequate behavioral patterns in situations of hampered communication. Set tasks may be realized within limits of psychological correctional groups (in particular, groups за social and psychological training) which work is directed on development of communications skills and gaining skills of interaction with others, development of confident behavior, effective coping with situations of hampered behavior and etc.

Finally it is important to say that nowadays the conditions bear typical features of the social system instability, the increase of dependence of the social system safety upon competence of a particular person being a subject of social control and effectiveness in ensuring his own safety. It is important that a person's actions should be based on analysis of data concerning system of interpersonal relations and probable reactions on communication hampers; and prognosis of probable consequences of such decision is accomplished at considering interconnections and mutual influence of all social system elements. In connection with this there grows the necessity of starting centers providing of personality social and psychological safety. At that it is necessary to coordinate work of such centers in regional as well as state and international level.

References

1. Andreeva G.M. Social psychology. - M. Aspect Press, 1998 - 376 pages.

2. Information safety of Russia //Authors' group edited by Y.S. Ufimtsev and E. A. Erofeev/ http:// dvabop.narod.ru/public/public_all.htm.

3. Kuznetsova E.V., Eksakusto T.V. Peculiarities of communicative behavior and emotional experience of hampered business interaction participants. - Psychological reporter - 3 issue. Rostov-on-Don, Rostov State University. 1998, - pages. 263 -274.

4. Labunskaya V. A. From the problem of hampered communication to statement of a question “subject of hampered communication” // Psychological reporter. - Rostov-on-Don, 1997. - edition 2, part 1. - pages 24 - 40.

5. Support of psychological safety in educational institution / edited by Baeva I.A. - SaintPetersburg.: Rech, 2006. - 288 pages

6. Eksakusto T.V. The specifics of changes of some subject individual and personal features in the state of communication “barrier”. - Materials of All-Russian theoretical and practical conference “Psychological resource in economics and entrepreneurship”, Stavropol, 2002, - pages 204-207.

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