Individual and Social Character in the Self-Assessment of Young People

Abstract

The article exposes the issues of the social character of young people. Problems of the social character are underdeveloped in the socio-psychological and sociological literature. Meanwhile, dynamic social, political, and spiritual processes, and their increasing uncertainty, make research aimed at studying the formation of social character of both the entire society and different generations more and more popular. The role of social character as a factor of social stability is contradictory. It can both pose a barrier to social transformations, and serve as a basis for preserving the integrity of society in crises. Social character is the socio-psychological basis for the sustainable development of society. The authors of this research offer their view on the phenomenon of social character as a manifestation of a system of orientations (stable orientation, principles, ideals, beliefs) in the social behavior of an individual, group, and society as a whole. Due to the internal socio-psychological stability of the individual, their behavior is also stable in a variety of situations. Personality reflection and assessments in the form of judgments about their individual and social character represent the self-concept. The article analyzes manifestation levels of youth orientations: self-orientation, orientation-to-tradition, orientation-to-others. The authors conclude that the differentiation between youth orientations is weak. The social character of young people is a synthesis of weakly manifested orientations towards themselves and orientations towards tradition, with the peripheral position of orientation towards others.