ТЕОРЕТИКО-МЕТОДОЛОГИЧЕСКИЕ АСПЕКТЫ ПСИХОЛОГИЧЕСКОГО ИССЛЕДОВАНИЯ БИОГРАФИЧЕСКОЙ РЕФЛЕКСИИ ЛИЧНОСТИ

Abstract

The article presents with psychological characteristic of biographical reflection as a reflective analysis of the life course. The author provides an overview of contemporary scienific discussion about biographical reflection, and adduces the data obtained through the study, the subject of which was the psychological content, functions and genesis of the bio-graphical reflection of a personality. In the contemporary scientific psychological discourses, the biographical reflection is considered as a method of studying the personality on the scale of the life path, or as the main property of the personality and of the autobiographical subject. The researchers in Russia and the West are focused on the heterogeneous mechanisms of autobiographical analysis of life events, conditions for understanding the meaning of life, autobiographical knowledge, life narrative, interpretation of an autobiography and a biography. They consider as well the dynamics of these mechanisms in lifespan development. The author offers the reader her own view of the contemporary debate about psychological content, and functions and genesis of the biographical reflection, highlighting important, from her point of view, a reflection of the autobiographical Self in the life changes when there are no social and cultural sources and resources to support development. In the original concept, the author proposed to consider biographical reflection as a resource for the personality self-development in adulthood. This work examined the specific of biographical reflection in an alternation two forms of the reflective analysis: a reflection of «life of Me» and a reflection of «life of Other» (a prototype of generation and culture). The formation process of biographical reflection at the age 17-25 is associated with integrating the heterogeneous mechanisms of life course reflective analysis (existential, cognitive, narrative, and hermeneutic) and interiorizating biographical signs and symbols, which is accompanied by the motivation of self-determination. The author considers the further development of biographical reflection (in age 25–65) as a stage of mastering by adults a reflection as a development resource for affirming the position of the author of life, and gaining arbitrary control over autobiographical Self, and exercise of free choosing a life course, and search for the meanings of life. The author argues that thanks to the mechanisms of biographical reflection, connections are established between the separate life events and new integrity arises as a life course that becomes a form of self-development of a modern adult. These results suggest that modern adults, who are choosing the individualization of life course, are more likely to have higher biographical reflection and use it as recourse to gain control over the quality of the individual life in time.