Personality psychology and anthropological discourse: In search of new approaches

Abstract

Modern anthropology is a cycle of disciplines that study a person in culture and are devoted to various aspects of human existence. At the same time, in international discourse, anthropology is most often understood today as sociocultural anthropologies. However, due to historical and political reasons, neither social, nor cultural, nor psychological anthropology appeared in Russia in the 20th century as institutionalized research directions, and the study of variations in personality development in a variety of cultures took place not so much in psychology as it was scattered in the interdisciplinary space of socio-humanitarian sciences. Today, this situation has not only repeatedly reflected disadvantages, but also less obvious advantages. Spontaneous transdisciplinarity is becoming an important resource in the social sciences, including psychology. Interacting research fields produce mixed methods and methodologies; cognitive focuses are shifting from traditional subjects of study to mobile research projects; from subject-oriented to problem-oriented research. Personality psychology, sociology of changes, anthropology of our time are included in the intellectual movement, comprehending the issues of how to study a person in a transitive society; how to investigate a personality in change; how to comprehend individuality in the transformations of everyday life, identity in the transformations of the global world. At the same time, responding to current challenges by searching for new approaches and methodologies, psychology, sociology and anthropology are collectively participating in the transformation of the model of cognition. It is suggested that in the current cognitive situation, anthropological discourse can serve as a source of renewal and critical rethinking of psychological concepts, a space of possibilities in the development of personality psychology. Materials are presented that confirms this assumption.