What is social activity and personal activity, what are its manifestations?

Concept

What is social activity?

In a general sense activity is any action aimed at changing the surrounding world, both material and spiritual.

The object of activity can be any object, process or idea, and its result is the transformation of this object or the creation of new objects.

For example, professional activity in any craft is the creation of a complete object from a group of materials using the tools, means and knowledge that the master possesses.

The concept of social activity is somewhat deeper. It takes into account the relationship of this process with society, indicates the significance of human activity in the system of foundations and values of a certain group of people.

The following are the goals of social activity :

satisfying a person’s vital needs, obtaining material or ideal (non-material) values;
building a subjective image of the surrounding reality, stimulating thinking;
transformation of reality within the entire society or its individual group;
psychological development and self-realization of a person.

Ultimately, for every mentality, character and way of thinking, one of the goals becomes the main one, and the others only complement it.

However, these goals are closely interrelated - by excluding one from the overall system, a person destroys the others.

His actions take on a destructive nature , resulting in the cessation of development or degradation of thinking, abilities and skills.

For example, artists, deprived of the opportunity to develop creatively, experience difficult internal experiences, apathy and loss of strength, which prevents them from achieving other social goals.

Interpretation

So, researchers do not have a single interpretation. The social activity of an individual in psychology, philosophy and other sciences is considered from the point of view of individual opinions. Bringing them all is quite problematic. Therefore, the author combined them into three groups, which will be designated within the framework of this article:

Social activity is a broader category than activity. In this case, it is implied that a person can exert a certain influence even by his mere presence.
Social activity is identified with activity. In this case, it is implied that everything a person does is important to society.
Social activity is a narrower category than activity. Proponents of this statement are people who believe that not all human actions can be viewed from a social point of view.

Manifestations

What are its manifestations? Having analyzed the above, we can come to the conclusion that activity is, first of all, change, transformation. Any social activity is based on four components :

a person’s attitude to the totality of surrounding objects of the material world;
a person’s attitude towards other people, the group and society as a whole;
attitude to events and phenomena;
attitude towards oneself.

Despite the fact that any change occurs simultaneously in the entire complex of these components, the degree of its influence is not the same.

Thus, activity directed at a material object is called an action, and activity directed at a person, group or society is called an act.

Internal changes are the subject of philosophy and psychology; they are expressed in the thoughts and feelings of a particular person.

And only events and phenomena that play the role of an external factor cannot be influenced by a person.

An example of growth in social activity

To model the conditions, let’s imagine that the actions will take place in the socio-political sphere. So we have a human individual. He does not take any active actions and is an ordinary ordinary man in the street. At one certain moment, the insight “descends” on him that something is going wrong in the social or political life of the state. He begins to collect information, attend various conferences, communicate with representatives of organizations that operate in this area. Thus, the individual person becomes a passive participant in public life: he participates in it, but his ability to influence it is close to zero. He is socially active, but is not yet a more or less significant participant; his social “weight” is very low. Over time, the individual begins to participate more actively in various events. Perhaps he even establishes his own public organization. This requires him to devote more time and effort to the matter. Thus, social activity will increase. Moreover, this will not be work in vain, but to achieve certain goals pursued by a person.

Structure and components

Independent sources provide a variety of theories about the structure of social activity, but they all agree on one thing - this structure is based on two fundamental criteria : practical and spiritual.

They complement and stimulate each other and determine the components of any human activity. As a rule, the role of these components is played by :

Motive . The primary motive for any activity of living beings is the preservation, maintenance and reproduction of life. With the development of human thinking and self-awareness, deeper motives appeared - self-expression, self-realization, social significance.
Target . It represents a specific image, a mental model of the desired result, towards which human activity is aimed. Based on the significance of specific actions and deeds for society, goals are conventionally divided into constructive and destructive; the role of their qualitative indicator is played by the so-called value meaning.
Productivity . Takes into account all the means used by a person to achieve a goal. The productivity stage ends with a result that may or may not meet the goal. In the second case, activity often takes on a cyclical nature.

It is noteworthy that these components of activity were formed at the dawn of civilization; in many ways, they became the catalyst for the processes of creation and development of society.

All social transformations that have taken place in human history are based on motives, goals and productivity.

Assessment of social activity

In order to assess how a person manifests himself, indicators such as diligence and initiative are usually used.
The first is understood as the individual’s ability to perform assigned tasks at the required level in accordance with the requirements, norms and rules. Normativity is often used to characterize performance. As an example, we can recall factories and the wage systems that exist there, where people are paid for the quantity of products created that is not lower than a certain level of quality. If diligence is brought up from an early age, then initiative begins in childhood and gradually develops. It reaches peak values in adulthood, when a person creates the largest number of different ideas. All of them are assessed by the quality of development, social value, direction of the initiative, responsibility of the performer, duration, sustainability and frequency of manifestations. Also, those in which a person acted as an organizer or performer can be considered separately. There are, of course, other assessment indicators, but these are the most universal. Let's look at a small example. In it we will combine the information presented earlier.

Types and forms

The concepts of types and forms of social activity are not synonymous.

The type indicates the nature of the relationship between a person and the object of activity, and the form specifies this nature, taking into account the method of achieving the goals.

As a rule, there are six main types of social activity:

material-transformational - aimed at creating objects of labor as necessary benefits of the material world;
scientific-cognitive - consists of conducting research and experiments, creating concepts, theories and models, developing and concretizing means or methods of work and knowledge;
artistic and aesthetic - satisfies the spiritual needs of both the subject of the activity and other people;
value - leads to changes in the existing system of moral, social, political and other values;
communicative - reflected in the interaction of a person with individuals and society, the exchange of culture and worldviews, the modernization of society;
healthcare - aimed at preserving and maintaining the life and health of people.

If the boundaries between types of social activity are strictly defined, then its forms have neither an exact number nor clearly expressed external restrictions.

This or that form becomes a derivative of the experience of generations and has specific features determined by the conditions of its formation in each specific social group. The most typical forms of social activity are:

Cognitive and labor. Reflects a person’s readiness and ability to accumulate professional knowledge in his field of activity, improve skills and abilities to carry out material-transformative or scientific-cognitive activities. This form of social activity satisfies not only material needs, but also the need for self-actualization.
Self-educational and self-educating. They serve as a projection of personal motivation in satisfying intellectual needs. Often, the incentive for such activity is a person’s involvement in social life, his interaction with society.
Contact .
It is explained by a person’s desire to belong to a certain social group, to communicate and interact with others. It is decisive in areas of activity based on a team approach to solving problems and achieving set goals. The contact form of activity develops a person’s communication skills, stimulates cognitive and labor activity, self-education and self-education.
Educational and educational. Satisfies the individual’s need for information or his desire to share acquired knowledge and experience with others. Includes a complex system of communicative interactions, including educational institutions, libraries and databases, and the media.
Socio-cultural. It has much in common with the contact form of activity, but takes into account another criterion for the formation of social groups - cultural and historical. Such activity is built on an array of moral values, norms of behavior, laws and rules. A striking example of socio-cultural activity is youth subcultures.
Social and organizational. It is based on a community of interests and needs, and in a more global sense - a community of origin, territorial and cultural proximity of people. The most significant component of social and organizational activity is civic activity, which is a way of self-realization of an individual as a full member of civil society, a participant in political and social life, having his own worldview and defending certain social institutions.

In an ideal society, each individual harmoniously combines all forms of social activity, contributing not only to personal development, but also to the development of society as a whole.

In practice, such a situation is rarely encountered ; most often a person concentrates on one or several forms, and the rest are developed only to the extent sufficient to realize the main goal of social activity.

How to become a socially active person?

It is impossible to transform into it in one or several days. This is an internal state, a life position. Only a caring person, with a keen sense of justice, who does not want to put up with wrongdoing, and who strives to help other people, is considered an activist.

He must have experience in public activities, have systems thinking and strategic vision. A reasonable approach to business, a good mood, a broad outlook and erudition, healthy self-esteem, a sense of humor and other positive qualities should be inherent in him.

But, unfortunately, in the real world there are “unhealthy” activists who love to be in the spotlight. They, as a rule, are demonstrative, hysterical, do not benefit society, but only provoke squabbles, riots and quarrels. They also include losers who assert themselves at the expense of others.

Sometimes the treatment of “healthy” activists is unfair. Because they violate the comfort zone, the peace of others, and are not always convenient. And they are often treated as weird people, with misunderstanding, irritation and even aggression. After all, they expose facts of injustice, and involuntarily a person begins to doubt the correctness of his life, to be ashamed of his own inertia and inaction.

Levels and criteria

There is not and cannot be a single system for assessing social activity and its significance in the sphere of interpersonal and social relationships.

Nevertheless, we can evaluate the role of the result of an individual’s activity and the degree of its significance for others at a particular stage of development of society.

So, any result could be:

creative , that is, reproductive, innovative, aimed at creating something new or improving the known;
conservative , that is, not of particular value to the contingent that it can influence, but also not having a destructive effect;
destructive , that is, negatively affecting the material world and/or the system of norms, values, foundations and rules that exist in a social group.

A conservative result is more a theoretical than a practical phenomenon, because, one way or another, any activity entails changes. And what they will be like determines the significance of motives and goals, as well as the choice of ways to achieve them.

Researchers' opinions

To better understand the topic of the article, I suggest you familiarize yourself with two approaches.
The first is proposed by S. A. Potapova, who considers the worldview and activity of the subject as part of one whole - social activity. However, not every action can be viewed in this way. Only that activity is an indicator of social activity that has certain quantitative and qualitative characteristics interconnected. Independence is also a prerequisite. In other words, activity should not be imposed from the outside. It must be a product of human needs. That is, in order to recognize a particular individual as a socially active subject, you need to make sure that he consciously realizes his needs. The methodological conclusion of V. G. Mordkovich is also interesting. He considers activity as an essential feature of the subject. If someone else’s will is imposed on a person, then he becomes a carrier of activity. In other words, the individual turns from a subject into an object that performs other people's tasks for which he has no need. To designate people of this type, the concept “socially passive” was introduced. At the same time, it is noted that not all needs have a driving influence on activity, but only those whose satisfaction has social significance or affects certain public interests. The structure of the behavioral model in this case depends on the goals pursued by the subject and the preferred levers of influence.