Collective Personality: Substantiation of The Construct

Abstract

The article provides a theoretical substantiation of the construct of collective personality and is intended as a contribution to the ongoing scholarly discussion. Within the system-­subject approach, a distinction is drawn between the individual subject and personality as two closely interrelated dimensions of human functioning. The subject is conceptualized through three major functions: cognitive, regulatory, and communicative. Its cognitive function is associated with understanding; its regulatory function with behavioral control, including cognitive, emotional, and volitional regulation; and its communicative function with subject–subject and/or subject–object relations. Individual psychological resources, their availability and degree of development, provide the structural basis for the exercise of selective activity. With regard to personality, the cognitive function encompasses meaning-­making, value orientations, and personal orientation; the regulatory function is associated with experiences that generate meanings and contribute to the reorganization of personality structures; and the communicative function is manifested in the selectivity of interactions. The Self-concept, understood as a multilevel construct, constitutes the structural basis of personality. A similar distinction is applied to the concepts of the collective subject and collective personality. The cognitive function of the collective subject encompasses collective metacognitive experience, collective representations, and collective memory; its regulatory function includes group self-regulation and collective coping; and its communicative function is expressed through the subject/object and subject/subject dimensions of group interaction. In the case of collective personality, the cognitive function encompasses collective orientation, values, meaning-­making, and reflection; the regulatory function is associated with collective experiences; and the communicative function involves the identification and differentiation of the objects and subjects of communicative interaction. The structural basis of the collective subject consists of shared and distributed psychological and sociocultural resources, whereas the structure of collective personality is represented by the I–WE–THEY continuum. The article provides a detailed examination of the identified functions of collective personality. Collective personality generates and structures the meanings, orientations, and direction of collective life on the basis of collective representations, collective memory, and shared reflection. The collective subject, in turn, engages in purposeful interaction with its environment by drawing on its internal and external resources within a particular sociocultural context. Through these interactions, it constructs its own mode of subjective existence, adapts to threats and challenges, and affirms itself as a value in its own right.