Psychology and sociology

Assistant, postgraduate student Tretyakova I.S.

Melitopol State Pedagogical University
Institute of Psychology n.a. Kostiuk NAPS Ukraine

The theoretical basis for research of responsibility

Problem. Nowadays, taking into consideration various global trends, immeasurably increases the value of harmonically developed, socially active person. All educational institutions of Ukraine set the target to prepare the highly educated, fully developed professionals. Highly qualified specialists training includes not only the required amount of theoretical knowledge, practical abilities and skills but profound personal qualities that enable person to adapt successfully to future professional activities, acquire social and personal maturity, seek professional and personal self-improvement.

Under the circumstances of education renewal, teachers’ seeking for the ways and means to enhance the professional teachers training, a special role belongs to the formation of the responsibility of the teacher as an integral part of professional self-identity.

Problem analysis. The scientific researches of K.O Abulkhanova-Slavska, I.D Bekh, M.I Boryshevskij, L. Kolbergh, G.S Kostiuk, J. Piaget, M.V Savchyn, J. Rotter, W. Frankle responsibility is viewed as one of the generalizing qualities, the result of integration of all mental functions of personality and its subjective perception of reality, emotional attitude to duty.

Modern interpretation of the personality formation is developed by I.D Bekh. He views the responsibility as a quality that concentrates conscious individuals’ duty, the necessity to act, provides man’s recognition of his involvement into social and natural life, a kind of a total identity.

A well-known modern scholar Boryshevskij M.I. emphasises that morally perfect man not only understands the crucial importance of moral values, but also actively introduces them into his daily life displaying such moral qualities as kindness, fairness, tolerance, honesty, integrity, respect to another person, dignity, responsibility, integrity.

The purpose of our research is to determine the theoretical foundations of responsibility of a person.

Summary of the main research ideas. Responsibility is a complex and multi-level phenomenon. That is why the problem of responsibility has been investigating by scientists in all times and became the subject of scientific interest in different fields - philosophy, sociology, psychology, pedagogy, political science.

Pan-European philosophical tradition in the understanding and interpretation of the concept "responsibility" goes back to antiquity. In general, views of the most prominent thinkers of the ancient world have humanistic orientation though not without some authoritarian figure. Following the rational system of responsibility formation Democritus, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle concluded that the formation of responsibility is a continuous process aiming to improve individual and his consciousness, beliefs. From Aristotle responsibility is traditionally associated with freedom of choice, which is the core of morality and a means of social regulation.

Philosophy of existentialism makes an absolute from totality of responsibility. According to the existentialists, human activity is associated with a choice. J.-P. Sartre said that choosing ourselves we choose a person in general. So, I am responsible for myself and for everybody, I create the image of a man whom I choose. It is works of J.-P. Sartre that played a main role in the idea of responsibility development which declared the basal loneliness of a man, his life as a response to the world, not only freedom from but also freedom for creation of himself. A well-known phrase is Sartre: ".. we are doomed to be free" [7, p.61].

Psychology views the responsibility as different forms of activity control of a person from the point ov view of his beliefs, norms and rules. In psychological dictionary we find the following definition: "Responsibility is a control of various forms implemented to the person’s activities in non-standard or not civilized norms and rules" [5, s.53].

William James was the first psychologist who put on the question of self free will, ethical values and responsibilities of the individual. Sources of liability scientist views in moral and religious feelings, in which volitional effort plays a leading role: "... Will’s effort is secret essence of our spiritual nature, the measure by which we assess human dignity, which is why the manifestation of this effort is the only characteristic feature of our spirit, regardless of the surrounding world" [4, s.356] V. Frankl based his theory on concept of freedom, responsibility, asserting the opportunity to find meaning. People live in three dimensions - somatic, psychic and spiritual, but the most important "existential human existence" scientist viewed in spirituality, freedom and responsibility. He emphysised that human freedom is in its ability to rise above its own conditionality. According to E. Fromm, responsibility is not the duty imposed from the outside but the answer of a man, turned to him as a request that he views as his own problem.

K. Muzdybayev defines responsibility as a result of integration of all mental functions of a person: subjective perception of the world, his own vital resources evaluation, emotional attitude to duty, will. Scientist emphasises that the responsibility is manifested in feelings, it also serves as a character trait of a man. K. Muzdybayev has an interesting view of responsibility. He believes that responsibility should not be only for the past but the future as well. The responsibility for the future is the result of ability to understand the subject of personal responsibility for the discharge of duties and anticipate the consequences of activities.

Modern Russian scholars V. Slobodchykov, E.I. Isayev defines responsibility as a quality of human subjective, personal, individual and universal fields.

The modern interpretation of personality formation is developed by I.D.Bekh. “Human’s connection with the surrounding reality is formed with the help of responsibility

and makes integrity with it" [2, p.126]. Scientist declares responsibility not only as individual responsibility for definite actions, as well as responsibility for views, beliefs and consequences.

Psychologist K. Abulhanova-Slavskaya defines responsibility as guaranteed achievement to their own results of the individuals for a given subject and with different level of difficulty. She also views the responsibility as a form of internal acceptance of the need and its voluntary implementation. In other words, responsibility is considered in the context in which the individual considers himself as a responsible person and identifies the level of responsibility by himself. Thereby, it turns out that the activity of an individual comes from himself rather than from external authorities. As the criteria of responsibility, this activity can be seen in the actions in the form of initiative, intelligence, self-discipline, principle, the ability to relate personal and public interests [1, p.28].

In Ukraine, Savchyn M.V. was the first who made the implementation of the epistemological, ontological and axiological approaches to the study of responsibility, analyzed the relationship of this quality with such personal formation as motivational sphere and identity. He also highlighted the role of unconscious in responsible behavior of the individual.

Scientist emphasized that the development of responsibility is realized towards harmonization of rational, emotional and motivational and behavioral initiatives. In his opinion, there are some important moral constructs of consciousness which are of great role for the responsibility as specific means of moral interpretation of reality through the prism of which the individual perceives reality and himself in it [6, p. 28].

Many scientists propose to use the category of subjectivity to study the phenomenon of responsibility. The researchers of this problem (K.O Abulkhanova-Slavskay, M. I. Boryshevskyy, O. V. Brushlinskyy, M. T. Dryhus, S. Rubinstein, V. A. Tatenko, T. N. Titarenko, V. M. Titov and others) point to the expressions of subjectivity in consciousness as an integrator of inner world that provides the integrity of mental life, structural and functional unity of the psyche and its development in ontogeny, efficient use of mental capacity in various activities and activity manifestations.

Modern scientists Hurlyeva T. notes that modern science has a positive trend to consider not only the responsibility of the individual to society, but society to the individual as a special property of the subject of social actions. The idea of subject-subject relationships between the individual and society is approved. It is recognized that individual responsibility is the necessary condition for freedom realization, which is also an exercise of other people freedom, society and the state. [3, p.78].

So taking into consideration all above-mentioned we can say that responsibility is integral quality of personality, characterized by: knowledge and experience of duties, general rules of morality, understanding and acceptance of personal, group and social necessity, correct orientation under the circumstances of free choice means to achieve moral purpose, results prediction, willingness to act in accordance to the individual and the general requirements and be responsible for actions before himself, others and society.

Thus, the analysis of the scientific literature on the outlined problem makes us to draw the following conclusions:

1. Category of responsibility in the general scientific understanding is based on the philosophical doctrine of predestination social behavior of the individual, his relation with freedom and necessity as a prerequisite for the implementation of subject functions of the individual. The starting point for determining the degree of responsibility in general philosophical terms in all epochs was the question of the relationship between freedom and necessity. Prerequisite to the responsibility is an individual choice of the only possible behavior.

2. Most scientists believe that manifestations of responsibility should be associated with the phenomena when person takes the blame for the potential and real negative consequences. Thus, responsibility can be understood as a complex integral quality of an individual, which is characterized by the awareness of the individual general requirements and standards, personal responsibilities, understanding and acceptance of personal and social needs, their subordination to the choice and moral purposes of other people; prediction of the outcomes of the actions, internal willingness to act according to certain rules and ability to take the responsibility for personal actions, not only to society, but primarily to himself and own conscience.

In future we plan to determine the impact of the responsibility of a person on the effectiveness of his self-perfection, to conduct an experimental study of the levels of future teachers’ responsibility.

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