Individuality: On the Way to Personality

The article reveals the features of the person’s individuality. Their development features are analyzed. The main feature of person, which determines the defining characteristics of his / her nature, is the system-creating unity of special, creative activity – action and subjectivity. It contains the necessity, ability and possibility of change, expansion, design of such activity, attitude towards it as a condition of one’s existence and growth-development.It is shown that individuality represents the personality’s own world, which is determined by social conditions in its content, and has an individual character in its origin, structure, and form. Accordingly, the phenomenon of individuality is an opportunity, a «chance» in the development of the human race in its tendency to change. This chance, or the possibility of individualization, becomes the resource that the recently born individual has and which actualizes (or not) his / her personality.All aspects of personality are revealed only in activities and interactions with other people. Therefore, the most important characteristic of an individual is the person’s social condition, which is related to the life of other people.An individual is growing up; he / she has an inherent need for growth – the actualization of his / her potential. The desire for self-actualization is innate, and therefore, it is characteristic of all living things. Self-actualization is individualization – the «disclosure» and «unfolding» of oneself. And socialization in this concept is the context and condition of such deployment. In the humanistic and existential paradigms of personality development a new type of determination arises – self-determination, self-actualization, self-realization, self-fulfillment. In this type, special attention is paid to the problem of the person’s individuality.Some researchers understand individualization as an effort to be oneself, and socialization is only the background of individualization. The loss of individuality can take several forms: first, the «narrowing» of spiritual possibilities, the insufficiency of the infinite due to moral weakness and limitation; second, identification with others; thirdly, a break in communication with reality.