Social position

1) place, position of an individual or group in the system of relations in society, determined by a number of specific signs and regulating the style of behavior. In this meaning P. s. synonymous with the concept;

2) views,, installations and personality dispositions regarding the conditions of her own life, implemented and defended by her in reference groups.

In this meaning, P.S. conveys the essential characteristics of the concept as a unity of the subjective and objective in the personality, which is formed in joint activities with others. Ps reflects the idea of \u200b\u200ba hierarchical organization of personality as a systemic strategy for the study of mental phenomena. A change in social position in human activity, as a result of which he is faced with a moral choice in a situation of accepting a new social role for himself, is the basis for studying the personality.


A short psychological dictionary. - Rostov-on-Don: "PHOENIX". L.A. Karpenko, A. V. Petrovsky, M. G. Yaroshevsky. 1998 .

Social position

1. Place, position of an individual or group in the system of relations in society, determined by a number of specific features and governing the style of behavior. A functional place that a person can take in relation to other people. First of all, it is characterized by a set of rights and obligations. Having taken such a position, a person must fulfill a certain social role. In this sense, it is synonymous with the concept of status.

2. The views, ideas, attitudes and dispositions of the individual regarding the conditions of their own life, realized and defended by it in the reference groups. In this meaning, it conveys the essential characteristic of the concept of a situation of social development - as a unity of the subjective and objective in the personality, formed in joint activity.

The social position reflects the idea of \u200b\u200ba hierarchical organization of the individual. The range of social positions is very wide and varied.


Dictionary of the Practical Psychologist. - M .: AST, Harvest... S. Yu. Golovin. 1998.

See what "social position" is in other dictionaries:

    SOCIAL POSITION - English. position, social; German Position, soziale. 1. Place, position, status of the individual or social. social groups structure. 2. Views, attitudes of the individual in relation to their own life and social. reality. Antinazi. Encyclopedia ... ... Encyclopedia of Sociology

    Social position - place, position of an individual or group in the systems of relations in society, determined by a number of specific features and regulating the style of behavior. In this sense, social position is synonymous with status. Views, views, attitudes ... Glossary of terms in general and social pedagogy

    Social position - [lat. positio position, location] 1) place, position of an individual or group in the system of relations in society, determined by a number of specific features and regulating the style of behavior. In this meaning P. s. synonymous with status; 2) ... ... Psychological lexicon

    SOCIAL POSITION - English. position, social; German Position, soziale. 1. Place, position, status of the individual or social. social groups structure. 2. Views, attitudes of the individual in relation to their own life and social. reality ... Explanatory Dictionary of Sociology

    SOCIAL POSITION - see STATUS SOCIAL ...

    SOCIAL POSITION - a complex of ideas operating in a given culture about what social position it is legitimate to count on for an individual who has taken on the performance of a given social function and does it in a certain way; implementation of such views ... ... Glossary for Political Psychology

    The position of an individual or a group of individuals governing their style of behavior ... Legal psychology: glossary of terms

    SOCIAL STATUS (SOCIAL POSITION) - structural elements of social services organizations about VA, providing social. connections between subjects of societies. relationships. These relationships, ordered within the social. organizations are grouped in accordance with the social. economical structure and form a complex ... ... Russian Sociological Encyclopedia

    SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY - conceptually autonomous area of \u200b\u200bphilosophy. cognition, addressed to society, history and man as a subject of socio-cultural interactions. In the history of philosophy. thoughts, two types of social philosophizing are distinguished, proceeding from different understandings ... ... Philosophical Encyclopedia

    Social group - A social group is an association of people who have a common significant social feature, based on their participation in some activity related to a system of relations that are regulated by formal or informal social institutions. ... Wikipedia

Books

  • Greek and Greco-Roman Comedy, V.N. Yarkho. With all the encyclopedic coverage of the phenomena of ancient culture by the author, Greek and Greco-Roman comedy is a sphere of special interest for V.N. Yarkho. Here he made real scientific discoveries ...

As a result of studying the chapter, the student must:

know

  • the main features of the social roles performed by the individual in the organization;
  • the specifics of the interaction of personality and organizational role;

be able to

  • distinguish between the causes of role overload and role underload of a person in an organization;
  • highlight the main reasons for the professional deformation of the personality;

own

The skills of analyzing the possible reasons for the lack of effectiveness of a particular member of the organization.

Social positions and roles of personality

Defining personality is not an easy task. If we turn to the origin of this word, then initially a person, person (from Latin persona) was the name of the theatrical mask, which was worn during the performance by the actors of the ancient era. Cicero used this term to show how a person appears in front of other people, not actually being such, and also as a conglomerate of personal qualities.

Usually the term " personality"is used in relation to a person as a bearer of any properties, traits, possessing certain characteristics. At the same time, the sociality of the personality, its inclusion in a certain system of social relations is necessarily noted. In general, the personality of each individual is a kind of integration of his physical, mental, moral and social properties.

Any person, being a member of any organization, occupies one or another position (location) in its structure. If we take, for example, an official organization, then this social position is primarily due to the professional and qualification characteristics of the employee, his functional duties. So, in the production organization, the positions of the director, chief engineer, accountant, legal adviser, controller of the technical control department, section chief, foreman, worker, etc. are clearly distinguished.

Many positions occupied by people characterize them in a broader social sense. For example, one can single out socio-political positions (deputy, member of a party or an initiative group of citizens), professional (engineer, doctor, artist) and a number of others (citizen, consumer, pensioner). A person who is in one or another official position has corresponding rights and responsibilities.

Separately, mention should be made of the position occupied by a person in the family and among relatives in general (grandfather, father, husband, brother, nephew, etc.). Certain rights and obligations act as regulators in family and kinship relations. The family can be seen as a kind of organization, which is characterized by both informal and official characteristics.

Each person has a number of different social positions, which makes him status dialing... So, one and the same person can appear before other people as a doctor, husband, father, brother, friend, chess player-rank, member of a trade union. Considering any position in a group, organization or society always implies the existence of other related positions. Hence the well-known interdependence between people in positions, one way or another, correlated with each other. For example, the position of a leader implies the existence of a subordinate position. The position of the doctor implies the position of the patient. There is a certain relationship between employees of any organization, between family members, relatives, in general between people who come into contact with each other, even in a single short-term contact (for example, between a seller and a buyer, a bus conductor and a passenger). Thus, we can talk about the presence of appropriate relationships between people in these positions. When analyzing various relationships between people (including in organizations), one can turn to the provisions of the role theory of personality, developed in social psychology.

There are many definitions of " social role", and in its interpretation by different researchers there are large discrepancies. We will understand this term as a normative system of actions expected from a person in accordance with his social position (position). It follows that the role is determined by the specific place of a person in the structure of social ties and far does not always depend on his individual psychological properties. Thus, the performance of the role of a teacher in a university must obey one official prescription, and the role of a student must obey others. These prescriptions are impersonal, they are in no way focused on the characteristics of the characters of certain teachers or students.

There are a number of classifications of social roles. So, all their diversity can be divided into roles assigned and roles achieved. The attributed include, for example, roles conditioned by the differentiation of people in society by gender. They are called gender. Usually, parents understand that boys and girls need to be raised differently, teaching them different skills. For example, boys are more often taught to handle various household tools, and girls are taught to cook and sew. At the same time, modern parents understand that both boys and girls need to master the basics of computer literacy, knowledge of at least one foreign language, and the ability to drive a car will not prevent them.

The roles achieved include those that are performed in a particular professional area, for example, the role of director of an enterprise, Ph.D., coach of a football team.

If the people around them know the social role of a person at the moment, then they will present appropriate role expectations, which include certain prescriptions (what a person must do), prohibitions (what he should not do) and a number of less well-defined expectations (what a person should do in a given role). When the behavior of the person performing a role matches the expected pattern, it is considered successful.

Each person has many social roles. Some of them are dominant, i.e. predominant, others secondary. Some of them are performed over an extended period, others - from time to time. Just as a person has a certain status set, one can also talk about the corresponding role set... So, having the status of a father, a person acts in different roles in relation to his wife, son, parents, father-in-law and mother-in-law, teachers of the school where the child is studying (there he may also be a member of the parent committee). Each of the role interactions arising from the status of the father is characterized by its own specifics (compare, for example, the following paired interactions: father, husband - his wife, father - his son, father - his mother, father - mother-in-law, father - school teacher, etc.) (Fig. 3.1).

Figure: 3.1.

Working at a particular enterprise, in an institution, a person also performs a number of social roles that correspond to his status set. Take, for example, such statuses as engineer, shop manager, union member, co-owner of company shares. At the same time, the roles performed by the individual are official. In addition, a person has a certain role-playing "set" in the system of informal relations that have developed in his organization. Often these roles are a consequence of some individual personality traits. Two workers performing the same operation, but with different personality traits, can play completely different informal roles in their team. For example, a calm and reasonable person sometimes acts as an "arbiter" to whom other workers turn in controversial situations. Another worker with organizational skills and a desire for leadership sometimes becomes the unofficial leader of a group of individuals in the brigade.

Sometimes this or that role is imposed on a person by other members of the group. Often this is due not so much to the individual characteristics of this person as to his position in the group. For example, a student in a production team may be viewed by "old-timers" as the subject of all kinds of jokes and pranks. However, the roles that a person performs in certain groups and situations are subject to change. For example, a former apprentice who has grown to the level of a highly skilled worker will forever cease his role as a "scapegoat", acquiring another unofficial role.

Let us emphasize that the personality is not limited to the whole variety of its social roles, no matter how important they are for it. An important element of the personality structure is its subjective "I", which can be defined primarily as the idea of \u200b\u200ba given person about his inner true essence on the basis of self-perception and self-understanding. In other words, the way a given person sees himself and how he interprets his actions for himself is Self-concept of personality... This is a kind of psychology and philosophy of one's own "I". In accordance with his I-concept, the person carries out activities. Therefore, a person's behavior is always logical from his point of view, although it may not seem so to other people.

In order to understand why one and the same person behaves differently when performing various social roles, one should separate the roles both from his subjective "I" and from his other individual psychological characteristics, intelligence, needs, interests, willpower , beliefs, temperament, etc. For example, a picky manager might also be a loving father, while an undisciplined employee might be a caring son.

It should be noted that in our definition of the social role and the examples given, we spoke only about the expectations of other people regarding the behavior of the individual. However, the term "role" can also be used to define how the person in a position considers it necessary to behave ( perceived social role). You can also focus on how exactly a given person actually behaves. (role played). It is known that one and the same person can change many of his social roles and act in different ways in different situations. We will primarily talk about the social roles performed by people in the formal organizational structure. At the same time, certain expectations of other members of the organization related to the behavior of employees are of primary importance.

The patterns of behavior expected from a person in a production organization are determined by both the organizational, technical and social aspects of her activities. So, as a member of a labor brigade, a person must perform certain duties, while acting in accordance with the prescribed patterns of behavior. A worker, for example, is obliged to comply with production technology, safety regulations, labor discipline, etc. If his performance is consistent with the expected pattern, it is considered successful.

At the same time, it should be emphasized that in the role prescriptions emanating from specific individuals or groups, their socio-psychological characteristics are also clearly manifested. Thus, the mutual role expectations of two employees using the same equipment are determined not only by their official position in the structure of this organization, but also by the personality traits of each of them. For example, one of them, who is distinguished by accuracy and keeping an eye on the impeccable cleanliness of the workplace, will demand the same attitude from his colleague. Another worker, not so careful, may ignore these requirements, believing that it is enough just to have all the equipment in good condition.

At the group level, role prescriptions are determined by the corresponding group values, norms, traditions and can be different even within the same organization. In accordance with this, role interaction is carried out in the system of informal relations that have developed here. Note that the position of an individual in a given system of relations is also associated with her work activity.

And, accordingly, the owner of many different statuses. The whole set of human statuses is called status dialing... The status that the person himself or those around him consider the main one is called the main status. This is usually professional or marital status or status in the group where the person has achieved the greatest success.

Statuses are subdivided into prescribed (obtained by virtue of birth) and achievable (which are acquired on purpose). The freer the society, the less important the prescribed statuses become and the more important the attainable ones.

A person can have different statuses. For example, his status set may be as follows: a man, unmarried, candidate of technical sciences, computer programming specialist, Russian, city dweller, Orthodox, etc. A number of statuses (Russian, male) he received from birth - these are the prescribed statuses. He acquired a number of other statuses (candidate of sciences, programmer), having made certain efforts to this, these are the statuses achieved. Suppose this person identifies himself primarily as a programmer; hence, the programmer is his main status.

Human social prestige

The concept of status is usually associated with the concept of prestige.

Social prestige - it is a public assessment of the importance of the position that a person occupies in.

The higher the prestige of a person's social position, the higher his social status is assessed. For example, the professions of economist or lawyer are considered prestigious; education received in a good educational institution; high post; a specific place of residence (capital, city center). If they talk about the high importance not of a social position, but of a specific person and his personal qualities, in this case they mean not prestige, but authority.

Social role

Social status is a characteristic of a person's involvement in the social structure. In real life, a person's status is manifested through the roles that he plays.

Social role is a set of requirements that society imposes on persons holding a specific social position.

In other words, if someone occupies a certain position in society, they will be expected to behave accordingly.

A priest is expected to behave according to high moral standards, and from a rock star scandalous deeds. If the priest becomes scandalous and the rock star preaches, it will cause confusion, discontent and even condemnation of the public.

In order to feel comfortable in society, we must expect people to fulfill their roles and act within the framework of the rules prescribed by society: the teacher at the university will teach us scientific theories, not; the doctor will think about our health, not his earnings. If we did not expect others to fulfill their roles, we would not be able to trust anyone and our lives would be filled with hostility and suspicion.

Thus, if social status is the position of a person in the social structure of society with certain rights and responsibilities, then the social role is the functions performed by a person in accordance with his status: the behavior that is expected from the owner of this status.

Even with the same social status, the nature of the roles played can vary significantly. This is due to the fact that the performance of roles is personal in nature, and the roles themselves can have different options for performance. For example m with r. the owner of such a social status as the father of the family can treat the child demandingly and strictly (play his role in an authoritarian manner), can build relationships in a spirit of cooperation and partnership (democratic style of behavior), or he can let events take their course, giving the child a wide degree of freedom (conniving style). In exactly the same way, different theater actors will play the same role in completely different ways.

During life, a person's position in the social structure can change. As a rule, these changes are associated with the transfer of a person from one social group to another: from unskilled workers to specialists, from rural residents to townspeople, etc.

Features of social status

Status - it is a social position that includes a profession of this type, economic situation, political preferences, demographic characteristics. For example, the status of citizen I.I. Ivanova is defined as follows: "salesman" is a profession, "a hired worker with an average income" is economic traits, "member of the Liberal Democratic Party" is a political characteristic, "a man aged 25" is a demographic quality.

Each status as an element of the social division of labor contains a set of rights and obligations. Rights denote what a person can freely afford or allow in relation to other people. Duties prescribe the status bearer some necessary actions: in relation to others, at his workplace, etc. Responsibilities are strictly defined, fixed in the rules, instructions, regulations, or enshrined in custom. Responsibilities restrict behavior to certain boundaries, make it predictable. For example, the status of a slave in the ancient world implied only duties and did not contain any rights. In a totalitarian society, rights and duties are asymmetric: the ruler and senior officials have maximum rights and minimum duties; ordinary citizens have many responsibilities and few rights. In our country in Soviet times, many rights were proclaimed in the constitution, but not all of them could be realized. In a democratic society, rights and responsibilities are more symmetrical. It can be said that the level of social development of a society depends on how the rights and obligations of citizens are correlated and respected.

It is important that the duties of an individual imply his responsibility for their quality performance. So, a tailor is obliged to sew a suit on time and with high quality; if this is not done, he should be punished somehow - pay a penalty or be fired. The organization is obliged by contract to supply the customer with products, otherwise it incurs losses in the form of fines and penalties. Even in Ancient Assyria, there was such an order (enshrined in the laws of Hammurabi): if the architect built a building, which later collapsed and crushed the owner, the architect was deprived of his life. This is one of the earliest and primitive forms of responsibility. Today, the forms of manifestation of responsibility are quite diverse and are determined by the culture of society, the level of social development. In modern society, rights, freedoms and obligations are determined by social norms, laws, and traditions of society.

In this way, status - the position of the individual in, which is connected with other positions through the system of rights, duties and responsibilities.

Since each person participates in many groups and organizations, he can have many statuses. For example, the aforementioned citizen Ivanov is a man, a middle-aged man, a resident of Penza, a salesman, a member of the Liberal Democratic Party, Orthodox, Russian, voter, football player, regular publisher, husband, father, uncle, etc. In this set of statuses that any person has, one is the main, key. The main status is the most characteristic for a given individual and is usually associated with his main place of work or occupation: "salesman", "entrepreneur", "researcher", "bank director", "worker at an industrial enterprise", "housewife", etc. P. The main thing is the status that determines the material situation, which means the lifestyle, circle of acquaintances, demeanor.

Given (natural born, prescribed) status determined by gender, nationality, race, i.e. characteristics set biologically, inherited by a person in addition to his will and consciousness. Advances in modern medicine make some statuses changeable. So, the concept of biological sex, socially acquired, appeared. With the help of surgical operations, a man who has been playing with dolls since childhood, dressed like a girl, thought and felt like a girl, can become a woman. He acquires his true gender, to which he was psychologically predisposed, but did not receive at birth. Which gender - male or female - should be considered inherent in this case? There is no definite answer. Sociologists also find it difficult to determine what nationality a person belongs to, whose parents are persons of different nationalities. Often, moving to another country in childhood, emigrants forget old customs, their native language and practically do not differ from the indigenous inhabitants of their new homeland. In this case, the biological nationality is supplanted by the socially acquired one.

Acquired status Is a status that a person receives under certain conditions. So, the eldest son of the English lord after his death inherits this status. The kinship system has a whole set of acquired statuses. If the inborn statuses express consanguinity ("son", "daughter", "sister", "brother", "nephew", "uncle", "grandmother", "grandfather", "aunt", "cousin"), then bloodless relatives have acquired status. So, having married, a person can receive all the relatives of his wife as relatives. "Mother-in-law", "father-in-law", "sister-in-law", "brother-in-law" are acquired statuses.

Achievable status - socially acquired by a person thanks to his own efforts, desire, luck. Thus, a person acquires the status of a manager through education and perseverance. The more democratic the society is, the more statuses are achieved in the society.

Different statuses have their own insignia (symbols). In particular, the uniform of the military sets them apart from the mass of the civilian population; in addition, each military rank has its own differences: the private, major, general have different badges, shoulder straps, headdresses.

Status image, or image, is a set of ideas about how a person should behave in accordance with his status. To correspond to the status image, a person must "not allow himself too much", in other words, look as others expect of him. For example, the president cannot sleep through a meeting with the leader of another country, university professors cannot sleep drunk in the stairwell, as this does not correspond to their status image. There are situations when a person unfairly tries to be “on an equal footing” with a person with a different rank, which leads to the manifestation of familiarity (amicosity), i.e. an unceremonious, cheeky attitude.

Differences between people, due to the assigned status, are noticeable to one degree or another. Usually each person, as well as a group of people, strives to occupy a more advantageous social position. Under certain circumstances, a flower seller can become the country's deputy prime minister, a millionaire. Others fail, because the assigned status (gender, age, nationality) interferes.

At the same time, some social strata are trying to raise their status by uniting in movements (women's movements, organizations like the "union of entrepreneurs", etc.) and lobbying their interests everywhere. However, there are factors that hinder the attempts of certain groups to change their status. Among them are ethnic contradictions, attempts by other groups to maintain the status quo, a lack of strong leaders, etc.

Thus, under social status in sociology is understood the position that a person (or social group) occupies in society. Since each person is a member of different ones, he is the owner of many statuses (i.e., the bearer of some status set). Associated with each of the available statuses is a set of rights that determine what the status bearer can afford and responsibilities that prescribe specific actions. In general, status can be defined as the position of the individual in the social structure of society, linked to other positions through the system of rights, duties and responsibilities.

Any person does not exist outside of society, it is necessarily a member of a certain social group, social community, that is, each person has its own, clearly defined place in society.

Social status concept

The social status of a person is a certain place of a person in the social hierarchy, which is determined by his origin, profession, age, gender, marital status.

Each person has more than one social status, since it is included in more than one social connection and carries out various social functions. So, a modern person can simultaneously have the status of a citizen of a certain state, student, family member, member of a political party, etc.

Sociology distinguishes between attributed statuses and acquired statuses. The attributed statuses are given to a person from birth. Examples of attributed statuses include gender, nationality, place of birth. The acquired statuses are those that are acquired by a person during his life (education, profession, qualifications).

The hierarchy of social statuses is fixed by the concept of prestige, which reflects the significance in society or social community of the position that a person occupies. Professions, positions, types of activity can be prestigious.

For example, the profession of a lawyer in modern conditions is very prestigious, that is, an individual who has such a profession also has a fairly high social status.

Social roles of personality

The social role reflects the dynamic aspect of social status. A social role is a model of behavior, objectively set by the social position of a person in the system of social or interpersonal relations.

Each social status has its own role-playing set, that is, a person's observance of certain patterns and norms of behavior arising from social status. For example, the status of a doctor is certain rights and obligations, basically enshrined in law. The social role of a doctor includes specific rules of behavior in communicating with colleagues, patients, administration, requirements for the level of education, culture, etc.

It is clear that each person has a variety of roles. This also gives rise to internal personality conflicts, which are called role conflicts, that is, there is not only a hierarchy of roles, but also a hierarchy of statuses. For example, a situation: a policeman detains a criminal who turns out to be his son. A role conflict occurs, in which the status of the father is likely to outweigh the status of the policeman.

Ralph Linton (1893-1953), an American anthropologist, paid much attention to questions of social status and social role, most of whose work was ethnological and devoted to Madagascar and Polynesia.

In his work "On Status and Role" he writes that the functioning of society depends on the presence of certain samples (models) of the corresponding behavior of individuals or groups of individuals. The different positions in these behaviors are called statuses. Status refers to a specific position in a separate structure. Thus, the individual has many statuses. The status of a particular individual consists of the sum of all the statuses that he occupies. So, for example, the status of Mr. Jones is a combination of all his statuses, which he is as a citizen, as a lawyer, as a person of Mrs. Jones.

The status that an individual occupies is a simple set of rights and responsibilities. It is quite difficult for us to keep the distance between the status and the person who has it and uses the rights and obligations, it is made up. The relationship between status and the individual is similar to the relationship between the driver of a car and the driver's seat in the car. The driver's seat is permanent with its possibilities of action and control, and the driver can be a member of a family and can use these possibilities very well or very badly. That is, the status is as it were constant, and individuals can change.

Role is a dynamic aspect of status. Each individual has his own social purpose, that is, he has a set of statuses assigned to him. When he exercises the rights and fulfills the duties that constitute his status, he plays a role. Role and status are inseparable. There are no roles without statuses, just like statuses without roles. Each individual has a series of roles arising from the various structures in which he participates. These roles determine what he should do for society and society can expect from him.

Statuses and roles are inseparable from the structures that define them. So, for example, if we are a football team, then it is inappropriate to separate the defender's position from other positions, since it is worth nothing by itself. But from the point of view of the protector himself, it is separate. This position determines where he is on the team and what he will do throughout the game. This position of him limits and determines his activities.

Similarly, in the case of the relationship between the employer and the employee: their statuses determine what they should know and do. The employer does not need to know the working methods of the employee, and the employee does not need to know the methods of management at all.

The better individuals are adapted to their statuses, the more stable society will function.

Individuals are prepared in advance for a certain status, but it may correspond to one status and not at all respond to another.

In every social system there are roles that cannot be simply inculcated; for their successful fulfillment, they require more. For example, perfect methods do not make a violinist big, just as complete knowledge of tactics does not make a general big. Using the special talent of individuals is very important to society, but in most roles the individual can be prepared.

Society is faced with a dilemma of the development of two statuses: attributed and acquired.

Ascribed statuses are those that are accorded to individuals without regard to their innate differences or abilities.

The acquired statuses are those that require at least special qualities. They are achieved through competition and individual effort.

Factors influencing status

The simplest and most versatile factor is gender. Age is used almost as often as all individuals go through a cycle of growth, maturity, and old age, and the statuses that will be determined by age can be assumed and prepared for. Family ties can also be the basis for assigning a whole series of statuses. Finally, such a basis may be birth in special social groups, such as a class or caste.

But statuses are attributed to the totality of these factors. Most of Ralph Linton's works were ethnological; he studied the customs of different peoples for a long time. This is how he describes the assignment of statuses in relation to gender.

All societies attribute different attitudes to the activities of men and women. Most of them try to justify this by physiological differences and different roles in reproduction. But a comparative study of the statuses attributed to men and women in different cultures shows that this attribution is almost entirely cultural.

If gender is the basis for attributing a particular activity, then differences can be found in different societies.

For example, women of the Arapaho tribe (Indian tribe, USA) constantly carry loads, while men do not, they believe that "the heads of women are stronger and more rigid." And for example, in the Marquesas Islands (Pacific Ocean, Polynesia), cooking, cleaning the house and raising children are activities typical of men, and women spend most of their time only brushing their hair. Even such a common statement for us that a woman cannot engage in many activities due to pregnancy has a number of exceptions. So, among the inhabitants of Tasmania, hunting was a woman's occupation. Women sneaked up on animals and killed them.

If in a certain activity women and men unite, the sphere of activity of each is strictly limited. So, in Madagascar, men are engaged in seedling rice, and women replanting it in the fields is hard work. Women also clear the fields of weeds, but the men harvest. The women then transport him to the current, where the men thresh him and the women blow. Finally, the women are already preparing it.

The use of a person's age as a basis for attributing status is universal. All societies recognize three age categories as a minimum: children, mature people and old people.

Thus, the main reasons for attribution of status, according to Ralph Linton, are gender and age, although this assignment is largely due to the culture of the society in which this occurs.

JOURNALISTIC ACTIVITIES

Social position, i.e. support of certain social forces, acting on their side, expressing and defending their interests, is recognized by the journalist and manifests itself in his creative activity in various forms. Social position can be unconscious, formed intuitively. It can be poorly realized when its connection with the interests of certain social forces is seen as an optional and unstable coincidence of aspirations and direction of actions. The connection between the social position of a journalist and the needs and aspirations of certain social groups can also become conscious, although the understanding of the place of these groups in the social structure of society and their role in the historical process may turn out to be unclear and even false. Thus, an incorrect understanding of the changes that took place at the end of the 20th century in the structure of society, changes in the role and significance of various strata of society in the history of the emergence of new social groups leads to the fact that previous priorities (for example, acting on the side of "capital" or "proletariat") turn out to be in one way or another, outdated stereotypes. The implementation of such social positions in the practice of journalism can lead to such a fulfillment of its functions by journalism, the result of which will be a wrong orientation in modern times.

That is why it is so important that the social position of a journalist is deeply conscious and would correctly reflect those interests that contribute to the progressive development of society.

Thus, through a clear awareness of one's social position and resolute consistent implementation of it, the principles (lat. Principium "basis, beginning") of journalistic activity are formed. The integrity of a journalist is one of the most important guidelines for his activities.

Principles refer to the area of \u200b\u200brules and regulations of an activity that defines its general nature. The creation of a work is regulated by the measure of genre ownership, and the methods of collecting initial information, and the requirements of the laws of composition, etc. However, it is incorrect to call these rules principles. The principles always underlie a certain sphere of human practice: the principle of jet propulsion is the basis of rocket science; the principle of conservation of energy - the basis of physics; the principle of non-interference in internal affairs - the basis of interstate relations, etc. And according to the principles and "in pursuance" of them, more and more specific rules and norms, methods of action, technical solutions, etc. are selected and implemented.


Thus, the principles are built on the basis of knowledge of a very high level, first of all, knowledge of the general laws of this sphere of social practice, which constitute its conceptual base, playing the role of an ordering principle, due to which the methods of approach and methods of activity are determined. In principle, “fixing” knowledge of a high level (such as a law) and “working” knowledge, based on the application of the law, setting the angle of view and the way of activity in practice are connected. Figuratively, the principle can be represented as the unity of the "core" - knowledge and "shell" - method (Greek. methodos "way of research").

Therefore, for example, humanism as a principle for a journalist consists not only in the recognition of man as the measure of all things, in the knowledge of his nature, in understanding the relationship of man with his own kind and with the natural world, etc. etc., but also in the focus of all his activities on the realization of humanistic values, on the all-round development of a person, upholding the rights and interests of the individual, humanizing all spheres of life, harmonizing relations with the environment, etc.

Of course, adherence to principles will be fruitful (and especially from a historical perspective) if it is based on correct knowledge. True, in a number of concepts the principle is simply postulated or "proved" in a false way (as, for example, the racist principle of the superiority of the Aryan race, which tried to implement fascism in ideological and political practice). But the age of such "principles" cannot be long, although their application can bring great harm. Hence, it can be argued that principles are true only insofar as they rest on correct knowledge... But it is equally important that the translation of "knowledge" into "method" is also carried out conscientiously and accurately, and its implementation was full-blooded and creative... And if the "socialist idea" as an age-old dream of mankind, with its apparent justice, turned out to be deeply perverted in content, and when trying to implement it led in certain historical conditions to the formation of methods of "building socialism in Stalinist style" and was embodied with the use of mass repressions, violation of rights as a separate individuals and entire nations, then the "socialist principle" was seriously and permanently undermined in the eyes of millions of people.

Since the principles are the theoretical and methodological foundations of journalistic activity, the theoretical and practical need naturally arises to clarify the grounds for identifying principles, the totality and determining the structure of the system of principles, as well as their historical dynamics (the genesis and development of the system in accordance with changes in laws).

The generating factor for the formation of a system of principles is the journalist's understanding of the laws in force in the surrounding world. In the formation of principles, the basis is a group of fundamental laws of genesis, functioning and development of the world as a whole and the most important structural elements of society. The criterion for the selection of laws necessary to form a system of principles is their universality - the principle based on each of them should be applicable to any phenomenon considered in journalism and be manifested in any area and side of journalism. For example, objectivity cannot but be the principle of journalism, since all aspects of life (from assessing political actions to considering technical solutions, from judging the economic and social feasibility of the tax system to analyzing the situation in education and culture) and all the creative steps of a journalist (from setting a task and the formulation of questions to interlocutors before conceptual and substantive decisions and the foreseeable consequences of publication) are controlled "for objectivity". Of course, the decisions and actions of a journalist may be biased, moreover, arbitrary-subjectivist, but this only means that he violates the principle and deserves condemnation (or even "excommunication" from the profession). Another question is the content of the principle of objectivity (like all others), since journalists of different orientations can invest in it different, up to significantly diverging, meanings (for example, for representatives of different forces - liberals, conservatives or socialists - the objective necessity of economic decisions of the "centrist "Governments are almost inevitably assessed differently).

What are the laws on the basis of which principles objectively arise? Their combination may look like this: laws of nature and life of mankind on earth, then laws functioning and development of the people as a large aggregate of various social groups (primarily class), countries with their forms of government, the masses of the population (the entire country, regions, professions, ages, etc.), nations and international communities, finally, human as the subject of all social relations. How a journalist approaches each of these objects, what position he takes in relation to them, how he judges specific events, processes, and tendencies in life, taking into account the specifics of fundamental "formations" of reality, the foundations of his outlook on life, the methodological foundations of creativity are formed.

Indeed: if a journalist does not recognize the laws of public life, he finds himself in the position of subjectivity; if he does not believe in the role of democracy, authoritarianism of one kind or another begins to dominate in his own convictions (aristocracy, plutocratism, meritocratism, that is, preference for the power of "blood", "wealth", "position", etc.); if he considers any race or nation capable of playing a leading role in society, his position is inevitably imbued with chauvinistic or nationalistic features. And, on the contrary, the desire to penetrate into the laws of life leads him to an objective view of reality, belief in the advantages of democracy - to democracy, conviction in the equality of all people while understanding the characteristics and role of each nation in the life of mankind - to patriotism and internationalism.

What determines a journalist's choice of a principled position? First of all, from the adopted social position and, further, from its understanding and "development" based on the use of certain philosophical and social concepts.

Thus, in accordance with the awareness of one's position, with the choice of priorities for oneself in representing the interests of certain groups (or of all mankind as an extremely large group), the idea of \u200b\u200bpartisanship is formed.

Around the idea of \u200b\u200bpartisanship immediately after its birth in the middle of the 19th century and the promotion of the Russian Bolsheviks in the press at the beginning of the 20th century at the request of V.I.Lenin (the socialist proletariat had to put forward the principle of partisanship in literature, develop it and put it into practice as soon as possible more complete and integral form), the political struggle unfolded and still does not abate. The main objection to the idea of \u200b\u200bpartisanship is that submission to outside demands (of any political party, group of people, ideological concept) restricts the independence of a journalist, narrows or completely eliminates the possibilities of creative freedom, and introduces him into the Procrustean bed of a given concept. However, these objections are most often based either on a misunderstanding or on a deliberate distortion of the idea of \u200b\u200bpartisanship.

The term "partisanship" arose on the basis of the Latin word pars, partis, meaning "part" (hence the "consignment of goods", and "geological party", and "game of chess"). At the same time, it is clear that it is not at all necessary to strictly associate partisanship in journalism with the position of a certain political party. The basis of the party position - representation of interests of any part of society, without which the activity of a journalist who always defends (consciously or not) someone's interests is unthinkable. These can be the interests of a private group (social entrepreneurs or workers; professional - miners or teachers; age - children or pensioners, etc.), and the interests of a general group - the people, all mankind (therefore, the idea of \u200b\u200b"conciliarity" or "all-humanity "- this is also a party idea). At the same time, in an open democratic society, the party position cannot but be humanistically oriented - it is either acting from the position of a “private group” while understanding the concerns and requirements of other groups, that is, “against the background” of a universal human, or speaking from a general human position, but with “distinguishing ”The needs and interests of“ private groups ”as organic components of humanity. Other approaches are flawed and unproductive.

In a society with a specific social system, in which the interests of various groups are expressed, the prevailing social position of a thinker who wants to understand the journalist's existence as deeply as possible manifests itself as a clear expression of the interests of certain groups. Partisanship in the "initial" sense consists in clearly and distinctly defining one's place as a position on the side of a certain group (of course, it can be both a set of groups and society as a whole). Thus, the journalist turns out to be a "representative" of this group, moreover, consciously acting on its side.

Awareness of one's position on the side of one or another (or a number, or all) group and a reasoned and effective defense of it automatically requires the formation (or adherence to an already developed) ideological concept and the creation (or participation in an already created) party as a political organization of like-minded people. This is how the other two sides of partisanship develop - ideological-epistemological and institutional-organizational.

Thus, in its final form, partisanship includes social-group, ideological-epistemological and organizational-institutional aspects... Therefore, the principle of partisanship can be represented as follows:

Of course, in the consciousness and real behavior of a particular journalist, the social position may turn out to be undetected and therefore incapable of developing into a party position. But even being conscious, partisanship can remain incomplete when only one of its three sides has time to form, which, of course, can be explained in each specific case (and at certain moments this is inevitable and even justified). This happens, paradoxically, in critical situations, when there is a lot of unclear social, ideological, and organizational plans, although it is in such situations that clarity of position is extremely necessary, since a comprehensively "formalized" journalistic line. At the same time, again, in difficult conditions of persecution, the “hidden” existence of the party position is inevitable (for example, under strict legislative frameworks, censorship restrictions, political persecution). "Latent" partisanship often also arises from the desire to appear independent, to attract the attention of various layers of the audience to their side. In other words, there are many options for both the structural content of partisanship and the nature of its manifestation in practice.

Particularly important are questions about the content of partisanship, about the conformity (or inconsistency) of the party line with the real needs of social development, about the extent to which it expresses the real needs of the people, certain social groups, and all of humanity. In conditions when society consists of many groups with their own interests, which in different ways identify (and sometimes deny) universal human values, when this objective plurality of interests gives rise to a large set of ideological and political positions competing with each other for influence on the audience, when, Finally, in conditions of political pluralism, several political groupings (parties, unions, blocs, fronts, etc.) operate, each journalist has a task: to determine their positions, "translate" their sympathies unconsciously, under the influence of specific life circumstances, and antipathies, inclinations and preferences to the level of consciously selected and consistently defended positions. At the same time, it is fundamentally important to avoid the dogmatic ossification of the once adopted line of behavior, as well as deviations in their positions caused by the conjuncture, following the political fashion.

The journalist needs to develop his activity in two directions: first, to expand the horizons of the comprehended phenomena of life, penetrating ever deeper into its laws; secondly, to closely monitor the ongoing significant changes that require correction of the previously adopted line of behavior. These areas of activity characterize the creative content, the content of the journalist's party position.

Socio-group aspect partisanship, as already noted, consists in the journalist's conscious representation of the interests of those social strata and groups (class, national, regional, professional, age, etc.), which, in his opinion, are the bearers of progressive trends in social development, or interests who need protection due to the infringement of their rights and freedoms, or who for any other reason, from his point of view, must be presented through the media. In order to have confidence and weighty arguments in protecting the interests of certain groups represented by a journalist, it is necessary to understand as deeply as possible the social essence, place, role and significance of these groups in the life of modern society, constantly develop and improve this knowledge. In the course of representing the interests of groups, it may turn out that some of them should really be defended, others should be “corrected”, and the third should be completely resisted. For example, out of a huge set of interests of qualified workers, the desire for professional growth, the development of technical and general culture deserves all kinds of support, but at the same time "amendments" are required by the desire to move away from other layers of workers and it turns out to be completely unacceptable to sharply oppose managers and entrepreneurs. Therefore, the journalist's party position does not at all require reckless adherence to spontaneously manifested forms and directions of activities of those groups whose positions, in principle, seem to him to be historically progressive. And the general humanistic "component" of the position, it is worth recalling, presupposes that the upholding of "private" interests requires taking into account the "general" ones, the desire to combine the particular with the universal. And this requires knowledge, will and talent.

In the process of self-determination in the life of a society divided into many groups that interact in a complex way, a journalist encounters various political organizations that represent the interests of certain groups, and above all, with political parties, whose names often contain direct indications of their social and class orientation (peasant party, workers', small farmers, etc.), although more often the party name is determined by ideological foundations (liberal, Christian, etc.) or some other properties (democratic, popular, republican, etc.) etc.).

In their search for a correct social position and an ideological concept corresponding to it, journalists, like all politically active people, are looking for allies and like-minded people, and this leads to unification.

This is how the organizational and institutional aspect of partisanship is manifested. A journalist as a public figure needs to identify himself among those groupings, parties, associations, unions, fronts and other organizations that appear in the arena of public life with their platforms, programs, ideological concepts. Often he has to deal with a diverse world of political forces, each of which in its own way reflects the interests of certain groups of society. He comes across a variety of publications, programs, in various ways associated with party groupings. Some openly act as bodies of various organizations (state, party, trade union, associations of entrepreneurs, cooperatives, etc.), as if being their official representatives in the field of mass information activities; others are semi-official publications close in their positions to certain organizations; still others are independent, which are characterized by the absence of obvious signs of connection with any public associations. Typically, such publications and programs are characterized by a breadth of views that do not fit into the framework of any one accepted party position. However, not belonging to any official or semi-official bodies, such publications and programs are "a party for themselves."

The definition of his position in the organizational and institutional sphere for a journalist can be different. If we turn to the most characteristic manifestations of partisanship in the organizational and institutional sphere, then the choice can be stopped on such basic options.

First. A journalist who shares the program and organizational principles of the party (whether he is a member of the party does not matter) is guided by them in his activities and thereby pursues the party's line in journalism. Thus, he speaks on behalf of a certain party, and he can do it openly, definitely, “calling things by their proper names”, or carry out the party line (especially in difficult working conditions for the party) without explicitly indicating which party positions he adheres to.

Second. The political line of the organization (party, front, union, association) is not clearly defined or different factions, groupings, associations operate within it; a journalist has more "space" in determining his position on a particular issue, since the line of organization is either "blurred" or has several options. And if in the first case the journalist takes on himself completely voluntarily responsibility for the creative and effective implementation of the party's position, in the second he is responsible for choosing the best and most accurate way of responding to the phenomena of life, albeit within a certain “space” of positions of the forces entering the organization ...

Third. A journalist, taking a position independent of any political organization, chooses a line of behavior in a particular situation of public life. Moreover, it may partially or completely coincide with the position of some party, but it may also contain completely original ideas. This is also a party position, since in it the interests of a social group (or society as a whole) are expressed in a certain way. And around this position (which is often the case) a group of supporters can form, thereby laying the foundation for a new political grouping that can later become a party.

Thus, following the path of comprehending social life as interaction (cooperation or collision) of a large aggregate of various social groups (class, national, regional, age, professional, etc.) to the formation of their position, expressing the interests of certain groups (with This inevitably results in agreement with some interests, neutral attitude towards others and rejection of others), the journalist must determine his place among the many active political organizations. In the course of this self-determination in the world of social groups and political forces, ideological and epistemological side party line of the journalist.

The ideological and epistemological aspect of partisanship is precisely manifested in the system of the journalist's worldview, in the aggregate of his ideological guidelines that determine approaches to understanding and assessing the phenomena of life, to advancing the prospects for social development and ways to achieve goals that correspond to the interests that he expresses.

The nature of the ideas inherent in a particular journalist can be very different in terms of worldview (different forms of idealism, agnosticism, materialism; moreover, they can be expressed in different systems - neo-Thomism, Kantianism, existentialism, pragmatism, Marxism, etc.) and to express the interests of the social groups they represent in different ways. It depends on the journalist's understanding of society as a social system, driving forces and direction of its change and development, place and role in social processes of various groups of society. Each journalist in his own way can see the place in the life of society of workers and entrepreneurs, peasants and intelligentsia and, representing the interests of one of these strata, interpret them in different ways. It can be intuitively identifiable, implicitly expressed, fragmentary, unsystematic representations. But in this case, the epistemological, socio-cognitive features of the journalist's creative method will turn out to be vague, dependent on many often random influences and factors. And hence - inaccuracies and errors in assessing the phenomena of reality, in the formulation of conclusions and social requirements.

Lack of certainty, blurred ideological foundations of a journalist's position often manifests itself in periods of social crises that require rethinking, and often deep changes in ideological concepts. However, such necessary stages should be distinguished from fundamental ideological ambiguity, eclectic "patchwork", hopeless skepticism. A healthy trend in the ideological sphere is the striving for a definite and integral system of views and positions, for a strictly outlined ideological line consistently expressing the real, correctly understood interests of the social and class forces represented by the journalist in the perspective of humanistic development.

It is no coincidence that in public life it is very often the organ of journalism that turns out to be the “banner” around which supporters of certain views gather, and the struggle of various forces is most clearly manifested in journalism. And the activities of such publications and programs that seek to take and defend a clear ideological position turn out to be successful, attractive to some and provoking a negative reaction from others.

Therefore, the journalist turns out to be an ideological leader, bearer and propagandist of certain social ideas. His ideological nature is manifested in the strictest adherence to the accepted system of views concerning the understanding of the nature of the driving forces of social development, social ideals, the corresponding goals and ways to achieve them. At the same time, ideologicalism presupposes the conceptual integrity of beliefs, the desire for clarity and consistency in the expression of views, which excludes eclecticism and the obvious internal contradiction of their components. Ideology as the basis of creativity also excludes dogmatic doctrinairism, as well as subjectivist arbitrariness.

The true ideological spirit of a creative journalist is manifested in his ability to take a critical look at his own positions and ways of their implementation, to innovatively comprehend his life and develop new solutions in a changed environment, to openly reject outdated ideas that do not correspond to the realities of life. Hence the indispensable condition - the unity of word and deed, inner convictions and the nature of creative activity. Ideology is incompatible with fanaticism, blind adherence to once accepted postulates and, of course, with demagoguery based on insincere use of lofty ideas and slogans that captivate the masses, covering up selfish goals alien to the true interests of the people.

That is why a journalist's natural desire for objectivity encourages him to take progressive positions (corresponding to the interests of the humanistic development of society) and find (accept, develop, change, if necessary) an ideological concept that correctly expresses the interests of all social forces, and the laws of humanistic functioning and development of society ...