Social norms as a psychocultural factor of personality’s life activity

Abstract

The article examines the theme of social norms as a factor and conditions of psychocultural development of the personality and society. It has been analyzed the postulates that normativeness is inherent in any social relations, and this, in turn, makes it possible to achieve coherence in interpersonal relations and to obtain social compromise, etc. It is substantiated the importance and role of social norms as important attributes of the human’s life organization from ancient times to the present, where they appear as everyday rules, standards and laws of civil behavior adopted in society. It is also highlighted the functioning of socionorms as models and prescriptions of citizens’ behavior in society at the level of: macroenvironment (large social groups: people, nations, ethnicities, etc.), microenvironment (work team, student group, family, etc.) as well as at the personality level. Multilevel classifications of social norms in socio-humanitarian sciences are singled out (hard, soft, medium and high-value, total, complete, partial, fragmentary, professional, family, official, institutional, group, etc.). In addition, the functional multifacetedness of socionorms has been proved, as they reflect reality, characterize its psychocultural content filling, influence it, organize it in a totalitarian or democratic, liberal or kleptocratic way. It is revealed as well a social norm as one that, on the one hand, determines in a specific society the boundaries, framework (range), measure, format and even the balance of acceptable behavior, activity of people, social groups and organizations, on the other hand – limits all possible behavior of people in society. Four levels of social norms’ influence on the behavior of the person in the environment and four main types of socio-normative behavior of the personality are singled out (“supporter” or “disciplined”, “adapter”, “original”, “opponent” or “undisciplined”). The module of norms in the A.V. Furman’s theory of modular developmental learning (TMDL) is substantiated (goals, plans, projects, programs, regulations, rules, instructions, standards, etc.), that operates in the defining phases – normimitation, normcreating, metanormcreating.