The concept of life strategy and psychological lifestyle. Main types of life strategies in modern society

Candidate of Pedagogical Sciences, psychologist, mediator-trainer,

systemic family therapist, trauma therapist

“Either you are part of the solution or you are part of the problem.”

Eldridge Cleaver

The intensity of life of a modern person leads to the fact that he often has no time to think about what he wants, how satisfied he is with his life, whether he is living as he planned.

Work, affairs, worries about the house, about children acquire power over our lives. We devote a good half of our lives to satisfying basic basic needs (food, shelter, clothing, a car), spending twenty or even thirty years.

And in the middle of life, as a rule, we ask ourselves one of the “eternal” questions: can my life be called successful? And what is success, what is the secret of success, are there laws and rules of success, traps and pitfalls on the path to success, and finally, what is a life strategy for success and how much does it depend on our activity? This is what we are concerned about seriously and for a long time.

Is it possible to learn success? Among the fundamental knowledge that a modern person receives at school or university, there is practically no knowledge of how to properly build his individual life.

For many centuries, people have been studying in detail stamens and pistils, the human skeleton and the location of muscles, mathematical formulas and rules of grammar, but they do not receive any knowledge about the role and significance of consciousness and the unconscious in human life, about will and responsibility. They do not know the laws by which groups and teams are formed and managed, the laws of forming a true partnership both in the family and in business life.

It is not possible to understand such a complex topic as success without knowledge of psychology. Knowledge of psychology helps a person understand himself, see his individuality, study his character, and understand his own life strategy for achieving success.

What is success and what does it depend on?

Let's first think about what prevents us from being satisfied with the fullness of life? The first difficulty that almost each of us faces is the question how to separate your personal life from a life that is under the “close control” of others: parents, bosses at work, colleagues and friends, husbands and wives, society itself, in the end?

For many years, an attitude dominated in our consciousness, according to which we were prescribed: whom to love and hate, to whom to treat in what way, with whom to be friends, whom to study for, whom to bow before, etc. This attitude has deprived us of our “right” to privacy.

The presence of “two responsible” (a person and “someone else”) has formed a double standard in our attitude towards our own lives. On the one hand, we understand that success in life depends on ourselves; on the other hand, there is a personal mechanism of “assigning responsibility”, when a person, removing it from himself, seeks to blame others for his failures, miscalculations, mistakes: parents, others, society, circumstances, superiors, subordinates (“they didn’t give”, “they didn’t create conditions”, “they didn’t provide”, “they didn’t help”, “they didn’t love”).

The presence of an externally blaming position is the first sign of a person’s non-acceptance of responsibility for all the events of his own life. The belief that the world around us should and is obliged to give us something, if not according to the first, then according to the second requirement, greatly spoils our character, and subsequently our destiny.

Other mechanism: a person imitates those around him in everything, in clothes, in lifestyle, in habits, and at the same time he is deeply convinced of his individuality, uniqueness, independence, even originality. This mechanism of self-deception helps a person lead a very active life, achieve external success and satisfaction, but gradually leads to the loss of his true “I”.

However, most people find it difficult to admit to themselves that only they themselves influence their own lives, and to do this you just need to “look closely at yourself”, and quite self-critically.

The great psychologist, philosopher, K.G. Jung said: "... that the most unpleasant meeting in a person’s life is meeting with himself" Refusal to be an individual and to accept responsibility for every action and decision, for every word is a rejection of oneself.

The first law of the philosophy of success is that the one who believes in his best qualities, strengths, who is always convinced that he has them, and who accepts himself as he is, wins. I am not a doll, not a puppet, not the embodiment of someone’s expectations, but the one nature created me to be, I correspond to myself every day.

Presenting the individual “history” of a person, is it possible to talk about general patterns of success along the path of life? Speaking about personal life, we are looking for it not in the sphere of free time, not in the sphere of leisure, not in the sphere of family, not in the sphere of achieving the highest professionalism in our field (although, in my opinion, this is a necessary but not sufficient condition).

We also cannot study our personal lives based on the number of books we have read and the information we have mastered. The success of personal life begins with asking questions such as: does a person live in accordance with his needs, does he put up with his dissatisfaction with life, does he have life prospects, how does he connect in his life what he wants, what he can and what he should?

In other words, from the point of view of success, the life path of each person has the same “measurement” criteria for all people: it worked out or didn’t work out, satisfied or dissatisfied, happy or unhappy, living an interesting life or not, etc.

But the methods of their implementation are purely individual. And from this point of view, the philosophy of success is how satisfied a person is with his life.

This is, first of all, a feeling - a complex feeling, not always unambiguous, but always generalized by a successful or unsuccessful, successful or unsuccessful life. When we experience disappointment in one thing, we always console ourselves in another, trying to bring us to some kind of balance. At the same time, we don’t notice that we are only calming ourselves down, driving the feeling of dissatisfaction deeper, instead of revealing the reasons and really changing ourselves.

Contentment is a feeling of being true to yourself, of the authenticity of your life.

Law two: the only criterion that can be interpreted that your life is successful is satisfaction or dissatisfaction with life. It has many shades depending on the types of people, but this is perhaps the only infallible criterion that can be logically explained.

Accordingly, you and I have a great opportunity to move from a spontaneous way of living life to one that we determine ourselves.

The essence of this definition lies in the choice of conditions and direction in life, in the choice of education and profession that best suits our characteristics, desires, abilities, and therefore best suits our life strategy for success.

There are several signs of building a life strategy:

1. Choosing the main direction in life, determining the main goals, stages of achievement and their subordination.

Often a person's intentions and the counter demands of life create contradictions between what a person wants and what life offers him.

2. Resolving life's contradictions, achieving goals and plans.

Methods for resolving contradictions, the desire to resolve them or get away from them, depend on the special qualities of the individual (spiritual qualities, such as responsibility and will), which are developed in the process of life and differ from abilities or character.

Thus, success depends not only on the area in which a person applies his strength, but also on how he manifests himself.

3. Human creativity, or rather, the creative creation of one’s own values, the combination of one’s needs and values.

The value of life, consisting of passion, incessant search, and satisfaction, is a product of an individual life strategy, which is determined by the person himself.

Observing modern reality, one can notice that now many are aimed at realizing the standards of ideas about a successful life, which involve material enrichment. While one of the manifestations of personality maturity is a person’s ability to determine the “threshold” of satiation, at which satisfied material needs are considered as an intermediate task that helps to realize more important goals.

Thus, the third law says - the ability to “switch” life’s aspirations from material to spiritual values helps a person live his life and he has a much greater chance of achieving success and satisfaction.

The famous scientist of the twentieth century A. Maslow, studying famous people as “samples” (these were his contemporaries, historical figures, scientists, writers, musicians, etc.) noted that only those who have a strong commitment to one’s own values, chosen activities and one’s goal.

Despite the fact that these people were not perfect and made many mistakes, they all had the following traits:

acceptance of self, others and nature;

spontaneity, simplicity, naturalness;

focus on the task, not on oneself;

more effective perception of reality and consistent relationships with it;

some detachment and need for solitude;

autonomy, independence of judgment from culture and environment;

non-standard thinking and non-stereotypical assessments;

experience of spiritual and mystical, not necessarily religious, experiences;

a sense of empathy and belonging;

deeper interpersonal relationships;

democratic values;

the habit of not confusing goals and means, good and evil;

philosophical sense of humor;

great creative resources;

the ability to go beyond, for example, private cultural traditions and familiar environments.

When talking about success in life, it is always interesting how a person relates to the time in which his life perspective unfolds. This is a person’s attitude to events in time: past, present, future.

Many psychological scientists divide time into three types of perspectives. Psychological Perspective– the ability to imagine your future and predict it. Personal perspective– the ability not only to see the future, but also readiness for the present, the ability to organize it.

Life perspective- this is a set of circumstances and living conditions that, other things being equal, create for an individual the maximum opportunity for optimal advancement in life. Life prospects are not always revealed to those who have a psychological and personal perspective, that is, are able to see the future and have potential, capabilities, and maturity.

A person, having a personal perspective in the absence of a developed life position, can quickly exhaust his capabilities and abilities, finding himself in critical periods of life, saturated with difficulties, contradictions, and stress. Often it opens up to someone who has created a system of optimal supports in the present (i.e. has many different possibilities), in the form of unique relationships, life position, and values.

Therefore, the fourth law of success says that every person should know that life always provides the prospect of becoming better, the opportunity to resolve one’s contradictions, to find the strength within oneself to change one’s life, to make it different.

Here I want to draw the readers’ attention to this particular formulation, since “the prospect of becoming better” (in other words, the prospect of changing) is an individual way of life. This is an individual trajectory of manifestation of vital activity and initiative, the choice of means and methods of self-expression.

Strategy is a kind of universal law, a way for a person to realize himself in various spheres of life. And since everyone builds their own life, strategy is an individual discovery for everyone.

Authoritative modern philosopher, psychologist, academician K.A. Abulkhanova-Slavskaya said: “ As a result, every person has a life that he built himself. The fundamental difference is that one actually builds his life, while the other uses only what he has available».

To sum it up, we can say that personal success is impossible at the behest of someone else. We are participants in a certain sense of a unique project - ourselves, as a source of life changes, events and actions, as a “treasury” of new and never-before-tried opportunities, strengths, abilities, aspirations.

STUDYING THE BASIC CHARACTERISTICS OF A HUMAN LIFE STRATEGY

O.S. VASILYEVA, E.A. DEMCHENKO

The work is devoted to determining the main qualitative and quantitative characteristics of a person’s life strategy and studying their impact on life satisfaction and mental health. Life strategy is the art of leading your own life, the main goal of which is to find and realize your unique meaning. Important characteristics of a life strategy are the level of responsibility, the degree of meaningfulness of life, a person’s system of values and relationships.

The results of this study indicate that people with higher levels of meaningfulness in life and the general level of subjective control, as a rule, choose and implement a way of life that underlies the life strategy of creativity, i.e. consciously or unconsciously take the position of an active creator of their life and rely on such values as love, beauty, creativity, goodness, development. They are satisfied with their lives and have higher rates of mental health.

Key words: life strategy, life satisfaction, level of responsibility, degree of meaningfulness of life, life strategy of creativity.

Live happily and live according

with nature - one and the same.

Each of us at some point in our lives thinks about what life is and what its meaning is. For most people, this question is connected, first of all, with the way of existence: how to live life happily, with dignity, beautifully, joyfully, well? We strive for a good life, finding more and more new ways to achieve this goal. However, the consumer way of existence that people most often choose today begins to work against a person: the irrational use of natural resources makes his living environment unbearable, the possession of things, becoming an end in itself, significantly impoverishes his spiritual life and is the main cause of interpersonal conflicts. This puts a person in front of the need to rethink his views on life, his attitude towards each other, and the world around him.

The aspirations of a modern person are sometimes built not on true faith in one’s capabilities, but on the desire to win over someone, including one’s idealized self.

Most people, complaining about the current government, which, in their opinion, does not provide them with a “good” life, do not even think about the fact that the lack of “good” government is the result of people’s lack of faith in their own capabilities. To feel his vitality, a person must take responsibility for his every action, feeling like the master of his own life.

Thus, by life strategy we understand a way of being, a system of values and goals, the implementation of which, according to a person’s ideas, makes his life more effective. In other words, it is the art of leading one's own life,

the main goal of which is the search and implementation of its unique meaning.

The most important, in our opinion, characteristics of a life strategy are the level of responsibility, the degree of meaningfulness of life, a person’s system of values and relationships.

The main indicators of the effectiveness of a person’s life strategy are his life satisfaction and mental health.

Since mental health is the goal of psychological practice, we believe that studying the characteristics of life strategy and their consistency will allow us to get closer to the causes of intrapersonal conflicts, including those related to dissatisfaction with life.

Our work is devoted to determining the main qualitative and quantitative characteristics of life strategies and studying their impact on a person’s life satisfaction and mental health.

THEORETICAL ANALYSIS

In psychology, the concept of life strategy is considered within the framework of the general theory of personality. Let us dwell on some socio-psychological approaches to studying life strategies. All these approaches in one way or another reflect a person’s need to organize his life in such a way that it is most effective from the point of view of a person’s individual idea of the effectiveness of life.

In Russian psychology, the problem of life strategy was most widely considered by K.A. Abulkhanova-Slavskaya. She identified three main features of a life strategy: choosing a way of life, resolving the “I want” contradiction and creating conditions for self-realization, creative search. In her opinion, a person can be called mature if she is able to set her own “threshold” of satisfaction with material needs and begins to consider them as one of the conditions of life, directing her vital forces to other goals. “This ability of an individual to switch his life aspirations from material values to others is an indicator that he has begun to live a personal life.”

Various typologies of life strategies can be found in socio-psychological theories, which, based on the social life of an individual, identify different ways of living. Thus, E. Fromm argues that a market economy based on competitive relations has an adverse effect on mental health and personal development: a person faces a choice - “to have” or “to be”, i.e. or have as much as possible (including material wealth), or develop in oneself all the abilities and strengths inherent in nature, “to be many.” And often, under the pressure of social norms, people prefer to “have” to the detriment of the prospect of personal development. At the same time, one’s own interests and inclinations are ignored, which leads a person to false life choices. The practice of competitive relations encourages many to choose the ideal of success at any cost. K. Horney notes that in order to satisfy aspirations, sometimes imposed by social patterns, a growing person, from childhood, develops three main strategies, or personal orientations in relation to other people: 1) movement towards people: the only goal of people with such an orientation is love, and all other goals are subordinated to the desire to earn this love, 2) movement against people: the value system of people with such an orientation is built on the philosophy of the “jungle” - life is a struggle for existence, 3) movement away from people: the need for independence and inviolability turns such people away from anything

manifestations of struggle. However, this is often expressed in the absence of a way to adapt to modern living conditions.

A. Adler notes that the formation of life goals begins in childhood as compensation for feelings of inferiority, uncertainty and helplessness in the adult world. A life goal is formed in early childhood under the influence of personal experience, values, and characteristics of the individual himself. It is in childhood, in his opinion, that a life style is formed - an integrated style of adaptation to life and interaction with it. A. Adler calls love, friendship and work the main life tasks that a person faces, which are determined by the conditions of human existence and allow him to maintain and develop life in the environment in which he finds himself. Rooted in the evolutionary process of constant adaptation to the environment is an innate desire for superiority or improvement, i.e. an incentive to improve oneself, to develop one’s abilities. But the goal of superiority can be either positive or negative. If this desire includes social concerns and an interest in the well-being of others, then it will develop in a constructive and healthy direction.

Domestic psychologists identify three main types of life strategies: a strategy of well-being, a strategy of life success and a strategy of self-realization. These types are based on more generalized ideas about what people generally strive for in life. The content of these strategies is determined by the nature of the individual’s social activity. Thus, receptive (“consumer”) activity is the basis of a strategy for life well-being. A prerequisite for a strategy for success in life is, first of all, motivational (“achievement”) activity, which is designed for public recognition. A striking example of this, as defined by the authors, is entrepreneurship. The strategy of self-realization is characterized by creative activity. In life, there are, rather, mixed types: we all, but to varying degrees, strive for well-being, success and self-realization, and for different scales of implementation of these strategies.

American psychologists distinguish two groups of life strategies based on the predominance of internal and external aspirations. Extrinsic aspirations, the value of which depends on other people, are based on values such as material well-being, social recognition, and physical attractiveness. Internal aspirations are based on the values of personal growth, health, love, affection, and service to society. It is noted that the choice of strategy depends on the role of parents in raising a child. Parental support for autonomy, emotional involvement and structured demands on the child lead to the predominance of his internal aspirations and, as a rule, to mental health. A dependence of the level of mental health on the choice of one or another group of values was discovered: subjects focused on external values to the detriment of internal ones have low mental health indicators. The level of mental health was determined using the CAT technique, methods for measuring the level of depression, vitality and life satisfaction.

Thus, life goals, being features of an ideal image of a person’s future life, and the value system on the basis of which these goals are built, can be attributed to the qualitative characteristics of a life strategy, since they reflect its content - what a person strives for. We include responsibility and meaningfulness of life as quantitative characteristics of a life strategy, since they can be of different

level and, as we believe, influence life satisfaction, i.e. - how effectively the realization of a person’s life goals will proceed. All these characteristics begin to form in childhood under the influence of upbringing. In the process of development of society and changes in public morality, a person can rethink his system of values, as a result of which his life goals are filled with different content.

The problem of life strategy is closely related to the eternal problem of the meaning of life, and if the first answers the question of how to live, then the second answers the question of what to live for. For centuries, philosophers and writers have sought to solve the problem of the meaning of life. The Epicureans saw the meaning of life in enjoying its benefits, in achieving happiness; supporters of asceticism advocated the suppression of carnal desires and feelings; The Stoics transferred the purpose of life to the realm of logical constructions, divorced from life's passions. The peculiarity of these interpretations was that a person either merged with nature, enjoying its benefits, or rejected these benefits. Only in the XIX - early XX centuries. came the realization that life must be correlated with the characteristics of the individual himself. With the emergence of the concept of private life, a person begins to realize that he is an active creator and master of his own life. Taking responsibility for every life choice allows a person to feel their vitality.

Many psychotherapists are convinced that every person has forces that direct him to realize all his potential, to harmony with the world, and to comprehend the meaning of life. In most philosophical, psychological and sociological concepts, these aspirations are considered in the context of the creative activity of the individual, the disclosure of his creative potential. This approach was followed by N.A. Berdyaev, S.L. Rubinstein, E. Fromm, A. Adler, A. Maslow, K. Rogers and others.

So, S.L. Rubinstein called man the subject of his own life. A person actively builds the conditions of his life and his attitude towards it. The answer to the question of how worthy life was is the realization of how responsible life choices were.

A. Adler noted that a person actively seeks out some experiences and avoids others, selectively transforms and interprets experience, creating an individual scheme of apperception and forming various patterns in relation to the world. The processes of forming a life goal, lifestyle, ideas about oneself and the world are essentially creative acts.

The formation of a creator occurs spontaneously in childhood. Over the course of life, this tendency may fade. But later, as a rule, a mature person seems to remember this and consciously chooses the value of creative existence. This ability of a person to go beyond social stereotypes, patterns and misconceptions allows him to transform his past experiences and find a place in life.

C. Jung, defining the archetype of the child, wrote: “He embodies the vital forces that are outside the limited limits of our conscious mind... He expresses the strongest and most indefinite desire of every being, the desire for self-realization.”

As A. Maslow wrote, a creative person combines the qualities of a mature and independent personality with childish innocence, frankness and a fresh interest in everything new. The values of such a person are truth, goodness, beauty, justice, perfection. Self-realization for him is work, the goal of which is to achieve perfection in what he is called to do. Such a person strives to be not just a specialist, but a good one.

a specialist, and therefore is always concerned about his development.

K. Rogers saw creativity not only and not so much in creating something new outside, but primarily in creating new facets of one’s own personality. The main motivation for creativity is the desire for development, expansion, improvement, maturity, and therefore health. K. Rogers believed that to the extent that an individual refuses to recognize (or suppresses) a significant part of his experience, his creations can be pathological or socially harmful. And then, when a person is open to all aspects of his experience and all the sensations of his body are accessible to his consciousness, new products of his creativity are more likely to be creative both for himself and for others.

The strategy of creativity presupposes a way of living “here and now”. For a person who feels like the creator of his life and realizes that no one but himself can make him happy, the meaning of life is most often determined by the concept of freedom. N.A. pointed out the inseparability of creative life and freedom. Berdyaev, E. Fromm, V. Frankl, K. Horney. They believed that a person always has creative energy, free will, which is given to him for spiritual development. E. Fromm, W. Frankl and K. Horney developed the idea that a person is an active figure, capable of resisting the powerful pressure of unfavorable social forces.

Thus, the strategy of creativity is a way of being in which a person consciously or unconsciously takes the position of an active creator of his life, relying on values such as love, beauty, goodness, development, i.e. making choices in favor of mental and spiritual health.

The main principles of mental health development are complexity, creativity, the principle of the “internal observer,” and strengthening positive attitudes. This means that health improvement should be carried out holistically, taking into account all the factors influencing the improvement of health levels. A person, listening to himself, chooses or creates his own methods of healing, trusting himself and his sense of self. For this purpose, the most valuable are techniques aimed at expanding the sphere of awareness of one’s Self, clarifying life goals and values; exercises such as “life goals” and “search for existential foundations” are used here.

So, mental health is influenced by a huge number of factors. The main ones are taking responsibility for one’s life, self-knowledge as self-analysis, self-understanding and self-acceptance as a process of internal integration, the ability to live in the present moment, meaningfulness of being, the ability for empathic understanding, trust in the process of life. The experimental part of our work is devoted to studying the influence of these factors on life satisfaction.

EXPERIMENTAL STUDY

The purpose of our study was to try to determine the main qualitative and quantitative characteristics of a life strategy. This goal was specified in the following tasks:

1. Determine the degree of expression of these characteristics in various experimental groups.

2. Identify the extent to which these characteristics influence life satisfaction.

Note that the concept of life strategy should be considered at the individual level. We did not set ourselves the goal of identifying and describing a life strategy that would be the most effective for a person’s life, since the concept of effectiveness

always linked to historical and cultural context.

The subject of our research was life-meaning orientations, the level of subjective control, a person’s system of values and relationships. The subjects of the study were young people aged 18 to 32 years with secondary specialized and higher education. Some of the respondents were native Muscovites (40 people), some came to Moscow from various Russian cities with the prospect of staying in the capital (23 people). All respondents represented different social groups and institutions. A total of 73 people took part in the study, including 44 women and 29 men.

The methodological tools were represented by the following methods: the test of life-meaning orientations (LSO), the “Level of Subjective Control” test (USC), Rokeach’s method of studying value orientations (CO), the method of unfinished sentences (NS), a questionnaire on the presentation of life strategy developed by the authors. These techniques not only have scientific significance for research, but also contribute to the clarification and awareness of a person’s goals, values and meaning in his life.

During the experimental study, two groups of respondents were identified according to the criterion of meaningfulness of life (A and B) and two groups of respondents according to sociodemographic characteristics (C and D): group A - with a high level of the general indicator of meaningfulness of life; group B - with a low level of the general indicator of meaningfulness in life; group B - young people who changed their place of residence1; Group D - the rest of the sample (Muscovites). As well as traditional groups - men and women. Thus, the results of the data obtained were analyzed in pairs of groups (A and B, C and D, men and women).

Based on the results of the study, the Pearson correlation coefficient was calculated.

DISCUSSION OF RESULTS

As experimental data show, the average values for all indicators of the LSS test in men are slightly higher than the average values for these indicators in women (Table 1).

However, according to the USC test, some differences are noticeable (Table 2). Thus, indicators on the scales of general internality (Io) and internality in the field of industrial relations (Ip) for men exceed these values for women. This suggests that men have a higher level of subjective

control over any significant situations in life, as well as in industrial relations, than women. According to other scales - internality in the field of family relations (Is) and interpersonal relations (Im), women, in comparison with men, control their informal relationships. The level of subjective control regarding health among women is also higher; they believe that maintaining health and recovery largely depend on their actions.

Continuing the unfinished sentence “For me, the main thing...”, women answered: “the well-being and health of my family,” “the happiness of loved ones,” men, predominantly, “have a good job,” “stability.”

It is interesting that in both groups, on the scales of internality in the area of achievement (Id) and internality in the area of failures (In), a higher level of subjective control over emotionally positive events and situations is observed. Both groups of respondents tend to believe that they have achieved everything good in life thanks to themselves, and in case of failure they refer to bad luck. Although in general the values on both scales are quite high (more than 6), if we compare them with the average data of the primary statistical characteristics of the questionnaire - 5.5. In general, the differences in values on all scales of the USC test between men and women are insignificant.

All respondents, as a rule, continued the unfinished sentence “For me, the meaning of life...E” is “in love,” “in the well-being of my family,” “in life itself.” The sentence “I always wanted...” usually continued “to be happy.” This confirms the assumption that the meaning of life is not reduced to happiness, but can be defined as the ultimate goal of a person, consisting of many goals, the achievement of which is accompanied by a feeling of some resolution, satisfaction, i.e. happiness.

Some respondents defined the meaning of life in helping others. However, the happiness of others as a value occupied low ranks, perhaps because for a person, first of all, his loved ones and relatives are important, and then all of humanity.

Respondents who found it difficult to continue the sentence about the meaning of life or wrote “not yet determined,” “in the fog,” had low OJ scores, but a fairly high level of general internality. Higher ranks had such values as knowledge, active life, development. Perhaps, despite the low level of life expectancy, they have a high motivation to search for meaningful goals in life.

The results of the survey showed that respondents associate the concept of life strategy, as a rule, with goals, planning, achievement, success, as well as with a number of personal characteristics, such as activity, determination, foresight, perseverance, etc. Most respondents noted the presence of their own life strategy, which, in their opinion, involves achieving any significant goals, and the effectiveness of its implementation depends on the above-mentioned personal qualities. Others found it difficult to answer these questions and, as it turned out, these respondents had lower scores on the LSS test, in particular, on the “Goals” scale, the average value of this sample was 27.8 points.

It is interesting that responsibility as a personal characteristic that influences the effectiveness of a life strategy was rarely noted by respondents. However, as the results of the USC test show (see Table 2), the average value of the level of subjective control for the entire sample was 6.4 points. (For comparison, the average value of the primary statistical characteristics of the questionnaire is 5.5 points.) Perhaps the concept of responsibility has a broader meaning, including such concepts as duty, activity, determination, and is often an unconscious characteristic of a life strategy.

In table Table 3 shows the values of the most polar groups according to the criterion of meaningfulness of life. Thus, group A consisted of respondents with the highest level of the overall indicator of meaningfulness in life (OP). These are those respondents who, according to the results obtained, have clear goals in life that give their lives direction and time perspective. Their indicators on other life-saving scales, in contrast to group B, also have higher values. Consequently, respondents from group A are more inclined to perceive the process of life as interesting, emotionally rich and filled with meaning. They are more satisfied with the passed part of their lives (30.5) than respondents of group B (20.0), and also have a subjective idea of themselves as a strong personality with sufficient freedom of choice to build their lives in accordance with their goals and ideas about its meaning. Group B respondents, on the contrary, tend to believe that a person’s life is not subject to their own control, and that there is no point in making plans for the future.

As can be seen from table. 4, all indicators of values on the scales of the USC test among respondents of group A are also significantly higher than those of group B. This indicates that people who believe that most of the important events in their lives were the result of their own

actions, have a high level of responsibility.

Indicators for the NP and CO methods complement these results. Both groups have higher ranks of individual life values (according to D.A. Leontiev), such as love, health, happy family life. However, there are some differences in other values. Thus, respondents from group A gave greater preference (compared to group B) to such values as creativity, development, the beauty of nature and art, and the happiness of others. At the same time, they gave lower ranks to values such as material well-being, entertainment and social recognition. Group B respondents continued the unfinished sentences “Sometimes I miss...” with names of some objects, while Group A respondents continued with personal characteristics (activity, courage, etc.). There is also a dependence of the obtained data on the scale of internality in relation to health using the USC and NP methods. Group B respondents, as a rule, complained about the unsatisfactory state of their health or noted its direct dependence on the environment and other external factors; in group A such dependence was not observed.

Thus, we can conclude that people who have a lower level of subjective control are not accustomed to taking responsibility for their lives, they do not feel the strength to influence the course of their lives, they live by the principle of “having” (according to E. Fromm) , in contrast to those who strive to “be” many.

In table Table 5 shows the average values of sample scales for the USC and SJO tests of groups B and D. Indicators on these scales (as well as on others not given in this table) for respondents of group B are slightly higher than for group D. Thus, higher level indicators responsibility and meaningfulness of life in group B indicate that they are more inclined to consider themselves masters of their own lives and are confident in the independence of making life choices. Representatives of this group see the meaning of life, as a rule, in life itself. However, the results obtained using the NP and CO methods indicate that respondents from group B more often than others define their health as unsatisfactory and assign it a lower rank as a value than in group D. If group B prioritizes the values of professional self-realization (interesting work, productive life, creativity, active active life), then for group G - values of personal life (health, love, having friends, entertainment, happy family life).

Thus, the native residents of Moscow mainly strive for well-being

personal life, visitors - to professional growth. Perhaps the higher indicators of the level of responsibility and meaningfulness of the latter are also explained by the fact that, finding themselves in a big city, they do not have sufficient support from other people (relatives, acquaintances), and therefore rely only on their own strengths.

For a more accurate analysis, we present the results of the correlation between the data of the USC scales and the SJO questionnaire (Table 6).

As can be seen from table. 6, all indicators of the SLS scales correlate quite strongly with general internality and internality in relation to health, and also moderately correlate with internality in the field of interpersonal and work relations of the USC questionnaire.

This means that the higher a person’s level of responsibility for his life, the higher the degree of meaningfulness of his life (0.82), the more meaningful and focused his life goals become (0.76) and the more confidence he has in his ability to control his life (0.73). This dependence is also found in relation to the degree of satisfaction with self-realization, the passed segment of life (0.70), i.e. a person is more satisfied with the past if he felt responsible for every event in his life.

As a result of mathematical data processing, significant correlations were found between indicators of internality in relation to health and interpersonal relationships with the manageability of life (0.65 and 0.66). Thus, if a person, in order to improve his health, carries out certain actions and receives the expected result, then his faith in his own capabilities is significantly strengthened and can be transferred to other life situations, including interpersonal relationships.

For other indicators of the USC methodology, moderate correlations with the LSS scales were noted.

Thus, in the course of the study, we discovered a mutual relationship between the characteristics of life strategy and their influence on each other.

1. The main characteristics of a person’s life strategy are taking responsibility for one’s life, meaningfulness of life, the presence of a built-in system of values and life goals. The results of the study showed that the presence of goals in life, built on the basis of a person’s system of values and attitudes, taking responsibility for the implementation of these goals and the process of life significantly influence a person’s life satisfaction and mental health. The results of the study showed: respondents with a high level of meaningfulness in life, who accept responsibility for the course of events and consider themselves masters of their lives, are more satisfied with self-realization and find their lives interesting and emotionally rich than those who do not believe in the ability to influence their lives. Such people are often dissatisfied with their lives and take the position that their lives are controlled by circumstances and other people. Consequently, they are more susceptible to neuroses, interpersonal and intrapersonal conflicts.

2. Life goals and the value system on the basis of which these goals are built can be attributed to the qualitative characteristics of a life strategy, since they reflect its content - what a person strives for. We include the level of responsibility and meaningfulness of life as quantitative characteristics of a life strategy, since they can influence a person’s satisfaction with life.

3. People with higher levels of meaningfulness in life and the general level of subjective control, as a rule, choose and implement a way of life that underlies the life strategy of creativity, i.e. consciously or unconsciously take the position of an active creator of their life and rely on such values as love, beauty, creativity, goodness, development.

4. Respondents who have low indicators of overall meaningfulness in life, but quite high levels of subjective control, are characterized by high motivation to search for meaningful life goals. Such people may not think about the meaning of their life, but at the same time they perceive the process of life itself as interesting and emotionally rich. This indicates that people have different degrees of awareness of their life strategy, in particular, such characteristics as meaningfulness of life.

5. Respondents who changed their place of residence in order to achieve the most effective (in their opinion) life in a “big” city are more focused on the values of professional self-realization. Native residents of megacities are predominantly focused on the values of personal life.

In our opinion, further work on studying the characteristics of a person’s life strategy should be aimed at a deeper study of responsibility. As one of the main characteristics of a life strategy, responsibility has a great influence on the effectiveness of a person’s implementation of his life goals and, consequently, on life satisfaction and mental health.

Studying the characteristics of a life strategy can help a practical psychologist come closer to understanding the causes of intrapersonal conflicts

person and, on this basis, outline practical steps in working to improve the level of mental health of a person. The formation of ideas about responsibility and universal human values at an early age can contribute to the harmonious development of a young person and his effective adaptation in a crisis society.

1. Abulkhanova-Slavskaya K.A. Life strategy. M.: Mysl, 1991.

2. Adler A. Practice and theory of individual psychology. M.: Foundation "For Economic Literacy", 1995.

3. Varlamova E.P., Stepanov S.Yu. Psychology of human creative uniqueness: Reflective-humanistic approach. M.: Publishing House IP RAS, 1998.

4. Vasilyeva O.S. Psychological health of the individual // Social psychology of the individual / Ed. V.A. Labunskaya. M.: Gardariki, 1999. P. 359372.

5. Dzhidaryan I., Antonova E. The problem of overall life satisfaction. Theoretical and empirical research // Personal consciousness in a crisis society. M.: Publishing House IP RAS, 1995. P. 7693.

6. Leontyev D.A. Psychology of meaning: Nature, structure and dynamics of semantic reality. M.: Smysl, 1999.

7. Maslow A. Psychology of existence. M.: Reflbuk, 1997.

8. Reznik T.E., Reznik Yu.M. Personal life strategies: search for alternatives. Issue 2. M.: Business Assistance, 1995.

9. Rogers K. A look at psychotherapy. The Becoming of Man. M.: Progressuniverse, 1994.

10. Rubinshtein S.L. Fundamentals of general psychology. St. Petersburg: Peter, 1998.

11. Frankl V. Man in search of meaning. M.: Progress, 1990.

12. Fromm E. To have or to be. Kyiv: NikaTsentr: VistS, 1998.

13. Horney K. Neurosis and personality development. M.: Smysl, 1996.

14. Chudnovsky V.E. The meaning of life and destiny. M.: Os89, 1997.

15. Jung K. Psychological types. M.; SPb.: AST: Univ. book, 1996.

16. Kasser T., Ryan R.M. Further examining the American dream: The differential correlates of intrinsic and extrinsic goals // Pers. Soc. Psychol. Bull. 1996. V. 22. P. 7887.

Received by the editor on October 26, 2000.

1 Note that the respondents included in group B have a fairly high level of education (university students, employees of various structures engaged in intellectual activities), as well as a definite goal of living and working in the capital. Therefore, these studies cannot be extended to all people coming to Moscow, including for the purpose of obtaining temporary income.

source unknown

DENIS KOROBEINIKOV
Perm branch of the Institute of Economics of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences

With the development of society, a person has the opportunity to choose
from a larger number of life strategies, which allows you to achieve a higher degree of self-realization
Using the tools of personal strategic management, any individual can try to form
and implement the optimal personal life strategy

A person increasingly has to address the issue of relationships with the external environment. The development of socio-economic processes is accelerating, so he has the opportunity to choose from a larger number of life strategies, which allows him to integrate deeper into social relationships and achieve a higher degree of self-realization. However, along with these global trends, the fundamental changes that have occurred in our country in recent years have led to the fact that the old models of such strategies have ceased to work, and new ones have not yet had time to form. That is why today the problem of setting a goal and achieving it requires close attention and careful study.

Managing your life means organizing everything in such a way that your occupation, the products you produce, the ways you solve problems, the partners and colleagues around you most fully reflect and develop your image of your own self. 1 .

In our country, many publications have been published that touch on certain aspects of a person’s management of various aspects of his life. Among them are the books: “Personal Work Technique” by G. Popov, “This Strange Life” by D. Granin, “Your Time is in Your Hands” by L. Seivert, “Personal Tectology” by K. Varlamov and V. Karpichev, “Effective Manager” P. Drucker, “How to learn to manage if you don’t have subordinates yet” by V. Tokarev and others. These works examine in detail the technologies of self-government, but, in my opinion, little attention is paid to the aspects of strategic life goal setting and goal achievement. The mechanisms of exogenous personal management as an important tool for life management are also incompletely presented.

Let's try to fill these gaps.

Personal strategic management

He represents a set of means, forms and methods for a person to achieve his life goals. Using this toolkit, a person can try to optimally form and effectively implement a personal life strategy.

The ideology of personal strategic management (PSM) is based on the idea that every person wants to achieve something in life. Realizing his needs, he sets and solves certain problems, thus achieving his goals.

The nature of actions to set and achieve goals varies from person to person, and it also changes from person to person over time. But despite this, these processes have common features and patterns, which makes it possible, based on the analysis of empirical information regarding individual ways of developing and implementing life strategies, to formulate a uniform toolkit.

Thus, many Western researchers talk about a three-phase model of the human life cycle, while Japanese experts distinguish four phases (from birth to graduation from school; entering the workforce and starting a family; working life; old age) 2 . By purposefully managing the qualitative and quantitative parameters of phase changes, a person can maximize the usefulness of the return from each stage.

The content of self-government at different stages of the life cycle has different content. In childhood, a person is completely dependent on his parents; he, as a rule, is not able to make the most important decisions on his own. In adulthood, independence is gained, and the degree of responsibility for decision-making increases significantly. In general, PSM must be divided into exogenous(exo-PSM), when third parties help a person develop and implement a life strategy (at an early stage - usually parents, later friends, teachers, managers and respected people join them), and endogenous(endo-PSM), when a person engages in this work relatively independently.

The key factors in achieving personal life goals are the following:

Having a life strategy;

Knowledge of technologies for its implementation;

Ability to work with tools for managing the formation of personal human capital.

Life strategy

Having a strategy it is important because in order to achieve some life goals it is necessary to take a number of successive steps, and sometimes to sacrifice the current consumption of individual goods in order to obtain a greater quantity and variety of goods in the future.

Investments in human capital are usually highly profitable. Moreover, the more developed it is, the greater the amount of resources that can be involved in the process of personal investment. According to the American economist W. Bowen: “Investing in human capital is similar to investing in physical capital in several important respects. Both accumulate as a result of the application of economic resources that could be used to produce other goods and services for current consumption; over a long period of time both produce profits; finally, both of them are limited by their lifespan: machines wear out, people die” 3.

Sociologists define the concept “ life strategy ” as symbolically mediated and in its impact going beyond the consciousness of an ideal formation, realizing in human behavior his guidelines and priorities. In everyday life, the three most common types of such strategies are:

well-being. It is based on the receptive (acquisition) activity of the individual, aimed at providing complete necessary benefits, a calm, comfortable, measured and stable life;

success. This strategy is designed for public recognition of the activities of its carrier and assumes an active, eventful, prosperous life;

self-realization. It is characterized by creative activity aimed at creating new forms of life, regardless of their external recognition (non-recognition), and presupposes a beautiful, harmonious, free life, close in its content to art 4.

A generalized model of the mechanism for developing and implementing a strategy for human life is presented in Fig. 1. It reflects the relationship between the main stages of the personal strategic management cycle.

Stages of constructing and implementing a life strategy

Environment analysis is usually considered the initial process of strategic management, as it provides the basis for defining the mission and goals, and also allows you to develop a strategy of behavior that makes it possible to carry out your mission and achieve your goals 5.

This analysis involves studying two components:

Macroenvironment;

Internal capabilities of the individual.

By studying aspects of his external environment, a person needs to make sure what opportunities life opens up for him, what areas of social and economic functioning attract him, what obstacles he may encounter on his life path and what consequences certain steps he will take in life may have. life.

By analyzing his internal capabilities, a person needs to find out what strategic competitive advantages he can count on in the future, developing the potential that he currently possesses.

Mission a person can be called the main goal of his life, which, according to A. Thompson and A. Strickland, should be formulated “primarily from the point of view of increasing the social role” 6 of a given individual.

Vision is an ideal image of a future state of life that a person can achieve under the most favorable conditions. According to B. Karlof, it “can serve as a basis for determining the level of aspirations in the process of strategic planning” 7 .

In the concept of PSM, the key factor that can radically influence the formation of the entire life strategy, along with the analysis of the environment, is the presence of a person’s formed personal ideology. This term is usually understood as “a system of ideas and views: political, legal, philosophical, moral, religious, aesthetic, in which people’s attitudes to reality are recognized and assessed” 8 . In PSM, the validity of making and implementing both strategic and operational decisions depends on the quality of personal ideology.

At the stage defining strategic goals the primary decomposition (sectorization) of the mission is carried out into two logically separate groups depending on the sphere of life - professional and social. Further decomposition and operationalization of life mission takes place within the framework of these areas. Strategic goals in the PSM concept are long-term in nature and are formed based on the state of a person’s life within the maximum possible time horizon.

In general, the process of determining a person’s strategic life goals according to the concept of PSM is described by a scheme developed on the basis of an algorithm for the stage-by-stage reconstruction of an individual’s life strategy, in the form of a “gradual update of the life strategy through the consistent “development” and “assembly” of its initial components - images, meanings of life, life values, norms and goals” 9 (Fig. 2).

Personal self-realization strategies and their reflection in early memories

1.2 Typology of life strategies

Many domestic and foreign scientists have devoted their work to the study and classification of life strategies. Let's take a closer look at their typology.

Domestic psychologists distinguish three main types of life strategies: a strategy of well-being, a strategy of life success and a strategy of self-realization. These types are based on more generalized ideas about what people generally strive for in life. The content of these strategies is determined by the nature of the individual’s social activity. Thus, receptive (“consumer”) activity is the basis of a strategy for life well-being. A prerequisite for a strategy for success in life is, first of all, motivational (“achievement”) activity, which is designed for public recognition. A striking example of this, as defined by the authors, is entrepreneurship. The strategy of self-realization is characterized by creative activity. In life, there are, rather, mixed types: we all, but to varying degrees, strive for well-being, success and self-realization, and for different scales of implementation of these strategies.

K. A. Abulkhanova-Slavskaya (1991) considers the concept of life strategy as an integral characteristic, including the search, justification and realization of one’s personality in life by correlating life’s requirements (needs) with personal activity, its values, and the method of self-affirmation. Based on personal activity (internal factor) and the type of time organization (external factor), each person can build his own life strategy as a strategy for taking into account his capabilities and/or a strategy for developing abilities for something. The concept of life strategy, in our opinion, reflects the philosophical aspect of personal self-determination. As we see, K.A. Abulkhanova-Slavskaya also recognizes the existence of two lines of self-determination.

E.P. Varlamov and S.Yu. Stepanov distinguishes types of life strategies according to the relationship between individual originality and creative activity of a person in the events of his life:

1. Creative uniqueness - reflects a person’s creative attitude towards his own life, when his transformative initiative leads to high uniqueness and extraordinaryness of the events of his life;

2. Passive individuality - represents the spontaneous, random nature of a person’s formation, when his individual identity mainly depends not on his efforts, but is determined by external circumstances;

3. Active typicality - reflects a person’s desire to “be like everyone else” when his efforts are aimed at achieving generally accepted goals and values;

4. Passive typicality - characterizes a person’s spontaneous adherence to social stereotypes, his blind submission to social norms.

In his study A.E. Sozontov, based on E. Fromm’s typology of life strategies, identifies the following main types of life strategies that are characteristic of Russian students in modern conditions:

The “have” type of life strategies - a representative of this type in designing one’s own life is primarily aimed at achieving social success, status, and the possibility of unlimited acquisition and consumption. Among his most preferred values: success, social recognition, wealth, reputation, competence, pleasure, etc.;

The type of life strategies “not to have and not to be” - a representative of this type, when constructing his own life, is primarily aimed at adapting to existing socio-economic conditions. The priorities for such a person are mainly the values transmitted from generation to generation: family safety, health, social order;

The “to be” type of life strategies - a representative of this type in designing one’s own life is primarily aimed at creative self-realization, strives to maintain the well-being of loved ones, significant people. Among his priority values are: creativity, meaningfulness of life, cheerfulness, unity with nature, curiosity, etc.;

The type of life strategies “to have versus to be” - a representative of this type in designing one’s own life is aimed at achieving social success, security, and developing one’s own individuality. For him, these two aspirations are in conflict, and therefore his leading life goal remains largely uncertain. Such a person exhibits a value crisis, expressed in a tendency to accept “all values” (except for socially disapproved ones), often without choosing between them;

The type of life strategies “to have in order to be” is a representative of this type in designing one’s own life in the direction of achieving success, security, and creative self-realization. For him, these two aspirations do not contradict each other; he is actively looking for opportunities for their joint implementation in modern conditions. Among the priorities: creativity, cheerfulness, responsibility, open-mindedness, success, competence, wealth, etc.

E. Fromm argues that a market economy based on competitive relations has an adverse effect on mental health and personal development: a person faces a choice - “to have” or “to be”, i.e. or have as much as possible (including material wealth), or develop in oneself all the abilities and strengths inherent in nature, “to be many.” And often, under the pressure of social norms, people prefer to “have” to the detriment of the prospect of personal development. At the same time, one’s own interests and inclinations are ignored, which leads a person to false life choices.

K. Horney notes that in order to satisfy aspirations, sometimes imposed by social patterns, a growing person, from childhood, develops three main strategies, or personal orientations in relation to other people: 1) movement towards people: the only goal of people with such an orientation is love, and all other goals are subordinated to the desire to earn this love, 2) movement against people: the value system of people with such an orientation is built on the philosophy of the “jungle” - life is a struggle for existence, 3) movement away from people: the need for independence and inviolability turns such people away from anything manifestations of struggle. However, this is often expressed in the absence of a way to adapt to modern living conditions.

R. Pehunen considers the method of conflict resolution as one of the possible grounds for classifying life strategies. When a person detects the presence of a conflict, he usually acts in one of three ways.

1. Cessation of all attempts to fight. Refusal is experienced as a feeling of helplessness. Withdrawal from social contacts and activities;

2. Adaptation strategy, which is characterized by acceptance of the changed situation. The adaptation can take place in various ways. Passive adaptation means that a person has resigned himself to his fate and transfers the functions of controlling his life to external authorities. With active adaptation, a person is able to change his attitude towards his activities and even accept new ways of acting;

3. Overcoming conflict. Development strategies are characterized by the desire to expand the boundaries of existing life situations. With creative development, there is a search and development of new areas of life, which enriches the personality. With limited development, progress affects only one area, while others remain on the periphery of life.

In the works of Yu.M. Reznik, E.A. Smirnov identifies three directions for the development of life strategies. If objective ideality is localized in culture, then subjective ideality permeates the individual consciousness and behavior of people, their past experiences and goals as an anticipation of the future. Yu.M. Reznik also identifies a third, actually social, dimension of life strategies, which arises at the intersection of objective and subjective ideality - in the sphere of so-called intersubjectivity, formed on the basis of the coordination of mutual ideas and expectations.

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Collection output:

TYPOLOGY OF PERSONAL LIFE STRATEGIES

Dolgov Yuri Nikolaevich

k. social Sc., Associate Professor, BISGU, Balashov

Smotrova Tatyana Nikolaevna

k. pskh. Sc., Associate Professor, BISGU, Balashov

E- mail: tat- smotrova@ yandex. ru

The study was carried out with the financial support of the Russian Humanitarian Foundation within the framework of the Russian Humanitarian Science Foundation research project “Cross-cultural study of the life strategies of residents of small and medium-sized cities in Russia and Germany in conditions of socio-economic instability”, No. 11-06-01175a

In modern Russian socio-psychological literature, two main approaches to the study of life strategies can be distinguished, differing in what is chosen as the basis for their typologization. The first approach (N.F. Naumova and others) is characterized by the fact that the type of human social adaptation is taken as the basis for the typology of life strategies. So, N.F. Naumova identifies three types of strategies depending on the social and personal functions performed by a person in a transitional society:

1) strategy for successful external adaptation;

2) strategy for effective internal adaptation;

3) survival strategy.

The strategy for successful external adaptation is focused on the present and near future, identification is aimed at primary (family, etc.) and professional groups. The strategy of effective internal adaptation is focused on the past and distant future, identification is aimed at large groups - the country, the people. And finally, the third strategy - the survival strategy - is characterized by the low status and deteriorating financial situation of an individual who identifies himself with groups of people of similar fate.

The second approach (Yu.M. Reznik and others), going back to the works of E. Fromm, as the basis for typologizing life strategies, highlights the position that a person takes in relation to his own life and the activity associated with it. It is believed that a person can occupy three different, although interrelated, positions:

1) “have” (receptive activity);

2) “achieve” (motivational or “achievement” activity);

3) “to be” (creative or “existential” activity).

The first type of human activity (receptive or “acquisitive”) is the basis of the strategy of life well-being, the second type of activity is a prerequisite for the strategy of life success, and the third (creative, “existential”) activity is characteristic of the strategy of personal self-realization.

Given certain differences in approaches, it is possible to draw some analogies between life strategies in both cases and summarize them in a table

Table 1.

Typologies of life strategies.

If the first two analogies do not raise any particular doubts, then in the third case some discrepancy between the terms is striking - “survival strategy” and “life well-being strategy”. It is truly difficult to reconcile well-being and survival. With all due respect to N.F. Naumova and Yu.M. Reznik, both terms seem to us not entirely successful. These types of life strategies are the most common and perhaps a better name for them would be everyday or ordinary strategies.

We also cannot agree with the statement of Yu.M. Reznik and E.A. Smirnov that “in contrast to the dispositions of a person, the types of his life strategies are built not in a hierarchical order, but as adjacent and equal in nature leading orientations of people. From this point of view, there is, for example, no difference between a well-being strategy and a self-realization strategy." The authors themselves began to consider the analogies between the types of life strategies they proposed and the hierarchy of human needs according to A. Maslow, but for some reason they did not see the hierarchy of life strategies in these analogies. Thus, the strategy of life well-being corresponds to the first two steps of the famous “A. Maslow’s pyramid”, that is, physiological needs and the need for safety; the strategy of life success is based on a person’s social needs, the need for respect from the social environment and self-esteem and, finally, the strategy of self-realization corresponds to the individual’s need for self-actualization, self-improvement and self-realization.

In addition, we believe that the “fan of strategies” of life, in the figurative expression of J. Coleman, is not limited to only the three types of strategies given above. Depending on the choice of basis for determining the type of life strategy, we can assume the presence of different types of life strategies. Let’s try to systematize the various grounds on which one can classify life strategies:

· according to the degree of awareness of the individual - conscious and unconscious;

· according to the direction of changes occurring in the individual - progressive, regressive (constructive, destructive);

· according to the nature of the individual’s activity - active, reactive-adaptive, passive;

· by locus of control - external, internal (exogenous, endogenous);

· according to the way of perceiving living conditions - hedonistic and based on a sense of duty and responsibility;

· according to the degree of coincidence with the goals and objectives of society - prosocial, asocial and antisocial;

· according to the degree of implementation - effective (goal-achieving), ineffective and ineffective;

· by the nature and method of self-realization - strategies of self-actualization and manipulation;

· by the nature of the relationship between emotionality and rationality - affective, cognitive;

· according to priority in social exchange - appropriating, giving or balanced (harmonious);

· according to the presence of an element of creativity - creative (creative) and ordinary (everyday) or survival strategies (the latter - according to N.F. Naumova);

· by type of activity - success, well-being and self-realization (according to T. E. Reznik and Yu. M. Reznik);

· according to “basic tendencies” (S. Buller) - strategies for meeting needs, adaptive self-restraint, creative expansion and establishing internal harmony;

· by ends and means (R. Merton) - subordination, innovation, ritualism, retreatism, rebellion;

· according to the type of personal organization of time and attitude towards it (Kovalev V.I.) - ordinary, functional-effective, contemplative-reflective and creative-transforming strategies of the individual’s life;

· according to the type of adaptation to the changing external social environment (according to N.N. Fedotova): two passive - reflexive-delayed and moderately adaptive; three active - career, instrumental, criminal;

· according to the degree of affiliation - individual and collectivist.

The choice of life strategies depends on the socio-economic state of society, the level of development of its culture, is determined by the method of production and property relations, the level and quality of life, belonging to a certain social stratum and cohort, the influence of traditions, ideals and values dominant in society at a given historical moment time. It can be assumed that the choice of an individual’s life strategies also depends on gender, age, nationality, social status and other socially significant characteristics.

Thus, life strategies can be classified on various grounds, but in general they can be differentiated into several main types: self-realization strategies, strategies for achieving success and everyday (ordinary) strategies. Life strategies can be represented as a dynamic system of a person’s ideas about future life, implemented in everyday behavior through appropriate methods and resources.

Today we live in a society that is rapidly changing before our eyes. A relevant response to social challenges determined by the instability of social institutions for an individual can only be appropriate life strategies that do not lose their effectiveness even in turbulent times of crisis. And for this, a person must have in his arsenal at least several options for life strategies, since, as is known from systems theory, the higher their diversity, the more stable natural systems are. It seems that, with some degree of assumption, this principle can be applied to social systems. This principle or, if you like, type of strategy can be called a diversification strategy, which will be characterized by an increase in the degree of diversity of life strategies used in various conditions in order to more effectively achieve the goals set by a person.

Life strategies, objectified into real behavior and activities of people, determine a person’s life path. The more complete realization of a person’s personal potential, his self-realization and self-actualization and, ultimately, life satisfaction depend on how effective life strategies are during periods of socio-economic instability.

Listliterature:

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