Where to get strength, where to expect help? Human resources and personal potential. life resources

I believe that there is a Power within each of us that can lovingly show us the way to perfect health, perfect relationships, brilliant careers, and prosperity in every area of ​​life. Louise Hay.

Everything is ingeniously simple, but I would like to be more specific, what is this power that is in each of us and how to find an approach to it? How can it be applied to a specific goal, dream? What power can help you achieve success or former, live happily?

One of the laws of Tao says that everything changes except the law of change. Calmly accepting changes that are inevitable will help self-reliance, inner strength. The more you become aware of your strengths, the easier it will be for you to face challenges and achieve your goals.

In psychology, what can help a person in various situations is called personal and social resources, personal potential. What is included?

The parable is a metaphor for "The life-giving spring". Just as you cannot step into the same river twice, you cannot repeat your life path.
The path begins from the very birth of a Human, from the first breath, from the first cry, which announces to everyone about the beginning of the life path.
What does this road hold for the traveler walking along it? How long is this path, what expanses does it pass through, what obstacles will be encountered along the way? All these questions are answered in the course of life.
A person begins his journey uncertainly, in small steps, but as he grows up and gains life experience, these steps become more and more firm and confident.
The path that the traveler walks is not an easy one. It either narrows and becomes impassable, then suddenly widens and intersects with other roads that run along small rivers and the sea coast. This road is never straight and smooth. It can pass through a thicket of uncertainty or run through mountain ranges.
This winding road can lead to the desert or lead to a swamp, but there will always be that same magical path that will save a person and will certainly lead to a new source of life. The source that heals can originate high in the mountains or deep underground. It can be in the form of a dewdrop or a breath of fresh air. And wherever a person is, he will always find his unique life-giving source, which will replenish the lost strength and give energy for the further path. And the path itself will certainly be illuminated by a source of heat and light.

1. Physical and mental health;

3. Volitional qualities - for example, patience, self-control;
4. Accumulated knowledge and mastered skills;
5. Self respect, self-sufficiency, life values;
6. Human interest in life, desires, goals;
7. Positive life experience, active life attitude - understanding that purposeful actions will sooner or later lead to results;
8. Readiness for personal growth, for self-improvement;
9. Accepting the challenge of life,- the ability to use the difficulties of life, problem situations for self-development;

11. Time and how you spend it;
12. Material opportunities (income, savings, etc.);
13. Material and technical means (house, transport, etc.);
14. Social support - people who can help achieve the goal;
15. Information and sources of information.


A story about resilience. Once a frustrated disciple said to the Master:
- Teacher, I'm tired, I have such a hard life, such difficulties and problems, I always swim against the current, I have no more strength, what should I do?
Instead of answering, the teacher put three identical containers of water on the fire. He threw carrots into one container, put an egg into another, and poured coffee into a third. After a while, he took out the carrots and the egg from the water and poured coffee from the 3rd container into a cup.
- What changed? he asked the student.
- The egg and carrots boiled, and the coffee dissolved in water, - the student answered.
- No, - said the Teacher - This is just a superficial view of things.
- Look - hard carrots, having been in boiling water, have become soft and pliable. The fragile and liquid egg became hard. Outwardly, they did not change, they only changed their structure under the influence of equally unfavorable circumstances - boiling water.
So people - strong outwardly can fall apart where fragile and tender only harden and grow stronger.
- What about coffee? the student asked.
O! This is the fun part! Coffee completely dissolved in the new hostile environment and changed it - turned boiling water into a magnificent aromatic drink.
There are special people who do not change due to circumstances - they change the circumstances themselves and turn them into something new and beautiful, deriving benefit and knowledge from the situation.

Erich Fromm believed that every person has the three most important resources that can help him solve any problem. It:

  • hope - that which ensures readiness to meet the future, self-development and a vision of its prospects, which contributes to life and growth;
  • faith - awareness of the existence of many opportunities and the need to discover and use these opportunities in time;
  • mental strength (courage) - the ability to defend hope and faith, the ability to say “no” when the whole world wants to hear “yes”.

So, a resource is something internal that can help us achieve a goal. The formula using resources to achieve success would look like this:

A.S. + R. = J.S.

A.S. - The current state is what is now.

J.S. The Desired State is what we strive to achieve.

R. - Resources - what we may need for this.

And now a small projective test Sea Treasures, which will clarify your goals and tell you what resources you need in the first place.

Instruction. In this picture you see a small piece of the seascape, more precisely, the seabed. You need, firstly, to complete this picture with details, complete it, and secondly, pay special attention to the chest. As you have already noticed, it is open, but empty. Fill it with the content that you consider the most appropriate and accurately reflects your thoughts.


You will find the key to the test in the article “Projective methods. Picture Tests: Your Goals and Resources ”

5 Rating 5.00 (1 Vote)

Light is an essential part of life. It is impossible to imagine a world without sunlight. In addition to the fact that the rays give us light and warm us in a cold season, they contribute to the implementation of vital processes in many organisms.

Light in plant and animal life

Light is an integral part of the life of all life on the planet - animals, plants and humans.

Sunlight for most plants is a necessary and inexhaustible source of vital energy that regulates the processes of their life. This process is called photoperiodism. It consists in regulating the biorhythms of animals and plants with the help of light.

Plant photoperiodism causes another process called phototropism. Phototropism is responsible for the movement of individual plant cells and organs towards sunlight. An example of this process is the movement of flower heads during the day, repeating the movement of the Sun, the opening of light-loving plants at night and the growth of indoor plants in the direction of the lighting fixture.

Seasonal photoperiodism is the reaction of plants to lengthening and shortening of daylight hours. In the spring, when there are more daylight hours, buds begin to swell on the trees. And in autumn, when the days get shorter, the plants begin to prepare for the winter period, laying buds, forming a tree cover.

Light plays an important role in the life of animals. He does not participate in the formation of their organisms, but still leaves an imprint on the life of animals.

As with plants, light is the source of energy for the animal world.

The sun's rays affect the diurnal photoperiodism of animals and their distribution in nature. Representatives of the fauna are diurnal and nocturnal. Because of this, there is no competition between them in search of food.

Light helps animals to navigate in space and in unfamiliar territories. It was the rays of sunlight that contributed to the development of vision in many organisms.

The photoperiodism of animals is also determined by the length of daylight hours. Animals begin to prepare for winter as soon as the sunny days become shorter. Their body accumulates the necessary substances for life in the winter. Birds also react to the lengthening of the night, they begin to prepare for flights to warmer climes.

The value of light in human life

(N. P. Krymov - educational landscape under "Change in the landscape in tone and color at different times of the day")

Sunlight plays a huge role in human life. Thanks to him, we can navigate in space using vision. Light gives us the opportunity to know the world around us, to control and coordinate movements.

Sunlight promotes the synthesis of vitamin D in our body, which is responsible for the absorption of calcium and phosphorus.

The mood of a person also depends on the sun's rays. The lack of light leads to a deterioration in the state of the body, apathy and loss of strength.

The human nervous system is formed and develops only in conditions of a sufficient amount of sunlight.

Light also helps to get rid of infectious diseases - this is its protective function. It is able to kill some fungi and bacteria located on our skin. It helps our body produce the necessary amount of hemoglobin. When sunlight hits the skin, the muscles come into tone, which productively affects the entire body.

Using the energy of sunlight

Solar energy is used both in normal daily life and in industry. In everyday life, many people use solar energy to heat water, heat the house.

In industry, sunlight is converted into electricity. Most power plants operate on the principle of directing solar energy through mirrors. Mirrors turn after the sun, directing the rays to a container with a heat sink, for example, water. After evaporation, the water turns into steam, which turns the generator. A generator generates electricity.

Vehicles can also be powered by solar energy - electric vehicles and spacecraft are charged using light.

Light is one of the most important abiotic factors, especially for photosynthetic green plants. The sun radiates a huge amount of energy into outer space. At the boundary of the earth's atmosphere with space, the radiation ranges from 1.98 to 2 cal/cm^in, or 136 MW/cm2 (the "solar constant").

Rice. 4.1. The balance of solar radiation on the earth's surface

in the daytime (from T. K. Goryshina, 1979)

As seen in fig. 4.1, 42% of all incident radiation (33 + 9%) is reflected by the atmosphere into world space, 15% is absorbed by the atmosphere and goes to heat it, and only 43% reaches the earth's surface. This share of radiation consists of direct radiation (27%) - almost parallel rays coming directly from the Sun and carrying the greatest energy load, and diffuse (diffuse) radiation (16%) - rays coming to the Earth from all points of the sky, scattered molecules of air gases, droplets of water vapor, ice crystals, dust particles, as well as those reflected downward from clouds. The total amount of direct and diffuse radiation is called total radiation.

Light for organisms, on the one hand, serves as the primary source of energy, without which life is impossible, and on the other hand, the direct effect of light on protoplasm is fatal to the organism. Thus, many morphological and behavioral characteristics are associated with the solution of this problem. The evolution of the biosphere as a whole was aimed mainly at "taming" the incoming solar radiation, using its useful components and attenuating or protecting against harmful ones. Therefore, light is not only a vital factor, but also a limiting factor both at the minimum and maximum level. From this point on, none of the factors is so interesting for ecology as light!

Among the solar energy penetrating the Earth's atmosphere, visible light accounts for about 50% of the energy, the remaining 50% are thermal infrared rays and about 1% are ultraviolet rays (Fig. 4.2).

Rice. 4.2. Factors of cosmic impact on the Earth

Visible rays ("sunlight") consist of rays of different colors and have different wavelengths (Table 4.1).

Table 4.1

spectrum of sunlight

Rays Wavelength in micrometers (µm)

Ultraviolet 0.06-0.39

Violet 0.39-0.45

Blue 0.45-0.48

Blue 0.48-0.50

Green 0.50-0.56

Yellow 0.56 -0.58

Orange 0.58-0.62

Red 0.62-0.78

Infrared 0.78 - up to 4 mm

In the life of organisms, not only visible rays are important, but also other types of radiant energy that reach the earth's surface: ultraviolet, infrared rays, electromagnetic (especially radio waves) and some other radiation. So, ultraviolet rays with a length of 0.25-0.30 microns contribute to the formation of vitamin D in animal organisms, at a wavelength of 0.326 microns a protective pigment is formed in human skin, and rays with a wavelength of 0.38-0.40 microns have a greater photosynthetic activity. These rays in moderate doses stimulate the growth and reproduction of cells, promote the synthesis of highly active biological compounds, increasing the content of vitamins and antibiotics in plants, and increase resistance to diseases.

Infrared radiation is perceived by all organisms, for example, acting on the thermal centers of the nervous system of animal organisms, thereby regulating their oxidative processes and motor reactions both towards preferred temperatures and away from them.

Visible light is of particular importance in the life of all organisms. With the participation of light in plants and animals, the most important processes occur: photosynthesis, transpiration, photoperiodism, movement, vision in animals, and other processes (Table 4.2).

Table 4.2

The most important processes occurring in plants

and animals with the participation of light

Photosynthesis. On average, 1-5% of the light falling on plants is used for photosynthesis. Photosynthesis is the source of energy for the rest of the food chain.

Transpiration. Approximately 75% of the solar radiation incident on plants is spent on the evaporation of water and thus enhances transpiration.

Photoperiodism. It is important for synchronizing the vital activity and behavior of plants and animals (especially reproduction) with the seasons.

Traffic. Photoperiodism and photonasts in plants are important in order to provide the plant with sufficient light. Phototaxis in animals and unicellular plants is necessary to find a suitable habitat.

vision in animals. One of the main sensory functions.

Other processes. Synthesis of vitamin D in humans. Prolonged exposure to ultraviolet rays can cause tissue damage, especially in animals. Protective devices have developed - pigmentation, behavioral avoidance reactions, etc.

Chlorophyll is formed in the light and the most important process of photosynthesis in the biosphere is carried out. The photosynthetic activity of green plants provides the planet with organic matter and the solar energy accumulated in it - a source of origin and a factor in the development of life on Earth. The basic reaction of photosynthesis can be written as follows:

where H2 X is the “donor” of electrons; H - hydrogen; X - oxygen, sulfur or other reducing agents (for example, sulfobacteria use H2S as a reducing agent, other types of bacteria use an organic substance, and most green plants that carry out chlorophyll assimilation use oxygen).

Among all the rays of sunlight, rays are usually distinguished that in one way or another affect plant organisms, especially the process of photosynthesis, accelerating or slowing down its course. These rays are called physiologically active radiation (PAR for short). The most active among the PARs are orange-red (0.65-0.68 microns), blue-violet (0.40-0.50 microns) and near ultraviolet (0.38-0.40 microns). Yellow-green (0.50-0.58 microns) rays are absorbed less and infrared rays are practically not absorbed. Only far infrared rays take part in the heat exchange of plants, having some positive effect, especially in places with low temperatures.

The intensity of photosynthesis varies somewhat with changes in the wavelength of light. In terrestrial life environments, the qualitative characteristics of sunlight are not so variable that it greatly affects the intensity of photosynthesis, while the passage of light through water, the red and blue regions of the spectrum are filtered out, and the resulting greenish light is weakly absorbed by chlorophyll. However, red algae (Rhodophyta) living in the sea have additional pigments (phycosritrins) that allow them to use this energy and live at a greater depth than green algae.

Rays of different colors are distinguished by animals. For example, butterflies when visiting plant flowers prefer red or yellow, dipterous insects choose white and blue. Bees show increased activity to yellow-green, blue-violet and violet rays, do not react to red, perceiving it as darkness. Rattlesnakes see in the infrared part of the spectrum. For a person, the area of ​​​​visible rays is from violet to dark red.

Each habitat is characterized by a certain light regime, the ratio of intensity (strength), quantity and quality of light.

The intensity, or strength, of light is measured by the number of calories or joules per 1 cm2 of horizontal surface per minute. For direct sunlight, this indicator practically does not change depending on the geographic latitude. Relief features have a significant influence on it. So, on the southern slopes, the light intensity is always greater than on the northern ones.

The amount of light, determined by the total radiation, increases from the poles to the equator.

To determine the light regime, it is necessary to take into account the amount of reflected light-albedo. It is expressed as a percentage of the total radiation and depends on the angle of incidence of the rays and the properties of the reflecting surface.

For example, snow reflects 85% of solar energy, the albedo of green maple leaves is 10%, and autumn yellowed leaves are 28%.

In relation to light, the following ecological groups of plants are distinguished: light (light-loving), shady (shade-loving) and shade-tolerant. Light species (heliophytes) live in open areas with good illumination; they are rare in the forest zone.

They usually form a sparse and low vegetation cover so as not to obscure each other. Light has an effect on plant growth. Thus, the growth of two-year-old oaks, depending on the relative illumination in summer, is shown in Fig. 4.3.

Rice. 4.3. Modifying effect of illumination on growth

and plant morphogenesis (according to V. Larcher, 1978):

A - the growth of two-year-old oaks Quercus robus depending on the relative illumination in summer;

B - leaf development in Ranunculus ficaria depending on the illumination

With light content up to 13.5%, the stimulating effect of light prevails (Fig. 4.3A, curve 1), with greater illumination (A, curve 2) - vice versa. The leaves of Ranunculus ficaria (Fig. 4.3B) develop a smaller surface under more light.

Shade plants (sciophytes) cannot stand strong lighting, live in constant shade under the forest canopy. These are mainly forest herbs. Under harsh lighting conditions, such as clear cuts, they show clear signs of oppression and often die.

Shade-tolerant plants (facultative heliophytes) live in good light, but easily tolerate slight shading. These are the majority of forest plants. The location of leaf blades in space varies significantly under conditions of excess and lack of light. Thus, the leaves of heliophytes often “dodge”, “turn away” from excess light, and in shade-tolerant plants growing in low light, on the contrary, the leaves are directed in such a way as to receive the maximum amount of incident radiation. This is especially noticeable in the forest. If there are gaps and “windows” in the dense canopy of the forest stand, the leaves of plants of the lower tiers are oriented towards this additional light source. The shading of some leaves by others is reduced due to their arrangement in the form of a “leaf mosaic” (Fig. 4.4).

Rice. 4.4. The leaf arrangement of small-leaved linden undergrowth in different lighting conditions (top view):

A - under the canopy of the forest, B - in the open (according to T. K. Goryshina, 1979)

Small leaves are located between large ones. Such a mosaic is characteristic of both woody and herbaceous vegetation in heavily shaded forests.

The optical apparatus of heliophytes is better developed than that of sciophytes, has a large photoactive surface and is adapted to a more complete absorption of light. The dry mass in the leaves of heliophytes contains less chlorophyll, but they contain more pigments of the I pigment system and chlorophyll P700. The ratio of chlorophyll d to chlorophyll b is about 5:1. Hence the high photosynthetic ability of heliophytes. The intensity of photosynthesis reaches its maximum in full sunlight.

In a special group of plants - heliophytes, in which CO2 is fixed by C-4-dicarboxylic acids, light saturation of photosynthesis is not achieved even under the strongest illumination. These are plants from arid regions (deserts, savannahs) belonging to 13 families of flowering plants (for example, bluegrass, sedge, amaranth, haze, clove, etc.). They are capable of secondary fixation and reutilization of CO2 released during light respiration, and can photosynthesize at high temperatures and with closed stomata, which is often observed during the hot hours of the day.

Generally, C-4 plants are highly productive, especially corn and sugar cane.

The intensity of light falling on the autotrophic layer governs the entire ecosystem, affecting primary production. In both terrestrial and aquatic plants, the intensity of photosynthesis is related to light intensity in a linear relationship up to an optimal level of light saturation, followed in many cases by a decrease in the intensity of photosynthesis, at high intensities of direct sunlight. This is where factor compensation comes into play: individual plants and entire communities adapt to different light intensities, becoming "shade-adapted" or "direct-sunlight-adapted".

The intensity of illumination affects the activity of animals, identifying among them species that lead a twilight, nocturnal and diurnal lifestyle. Orientation to the light is carried out as a result of "phototaxis": positive (moving towards the highest illumination) and negative (moving towards the lowest illumination). So, at dusk, hawk moth butterflies fly, a hedgehog hunts. May bugs begin to fly only at 21-22 hours and end after midnight, while mosquitoes are active from evening to morning. The marten leads a nocturnal lifestyle. Silently, examining one tree after another, she looks for nests of squirrels and attacks sleeping animals.

Lighting causes growth movements in plants, which are manifested in the fact that due to uneven growth of the stem or root, their curvature occurs. This phenomenon is called phototropism.

One-sided illumination shifts the flow of the growth hormone auxin towards the shaded side, which, as a rule, is directed strictly downwards. Depletion of auxin on the illuminated side of the shoot leads here to inhibition of growth, and enrichment of auxin on the shaded side leads to growth stimulation, which causes curvature.

The movement of the Earth around the Sun causes regular changes in the length of day and night according to the seasons of the year. Seasonal rhythm in the life of organisms is determined primarily by the reduction of the light part of the day in autumn and the increase in spring. In the actions of organisms, special mechanisms have developed that respond to the length of the day. So, certain birds and mammals settle in high latitudes with a long polar day. In autumn, when the day shortens, they migrate south. In summer, a large number of animals accumulate in the tundra, and, despite the general severity of the climate, they have time to complete reproduction with an abundance of light. However, nocturnal predators practically do not penetrate the tundra. During the short summer night they cannot feed themselves or their offspring.

A decrease in daylight hours at the end of summer leads to a cessation of growth, stimulates the deposition of reserve nutrients of organisms, causes molting in animals in autumn, determines the timing of grouping into flocks, migration, transition to a state of rest and hibernation. An increase in the length of daylight stimulates sexual function in birds, mammals, determines the timing of flowering plants (alder, coltsfoot, etc.).

Plants that develop normally with a long day are called long-day plants. These are plants of our northern zones and the middle zone (rye, wheat, meadow cereals, clover, violets, etc.). Other plants develop normally with reduced daylight hours. They are called short-lived. These include people from the southern regions (buckwheat, millet, sunflower, asters, etc.).

The ability of birds to navigate has been proven. During long-distance flights, they choose the direction of flight with amazing accuracy, sometimes overcoming many thousands of kilometers from nesting to wintering grounds (Fig. 4.5), guided by the sun and stars, that is, astronomical light sources. During the day, birds take into account not only the position of the Sun, but also its displacement due to the latitude of the area and the time of day.

Rice. 4.5. Major bird flyways

(according to N. O. Reimers, 1990)

Experiments have shown that the orientation of birds changes when the picture of the starry sky changes in accordance with the direction of the intended flight. The navigational ability of birds is innate, created by natural selection, as a system of instincts. The ability to orientate is also characteristic of other animals. So, bees that have found nectar pass on information to others about where to fly for a bribe. The orientation is the position of the sun. The scout bee, having opened the source of food, returning to the hive, begins a dance on the combs, describing a figure in the form of a figure eight, with the transverse axis tilted relative to the vertical, corresponding to the angle between the directions to the sun and to the source of food (Fig. 4.6). The angle of the figure eight gradually shifts in accordance with the movement of the sun across the sky, although the bees in the dark hive do not see it.

Rice. 4.6. "Wagging" dance of bees (according to V. E. Kipyatkov, 1991)

In cloudy weather, the bees are guided by the polarized light of a free area of ​​the sky. The plane of polarization of light depends on the position of the sun. A certain signal value in the life of animals is bioluminescence, or the ability of animal organisms to glow as a result of the oxidation of complex organic compounds of luciferins with the participation of luciferase catalysts, as a rule, in response to irritations coming from the external environment (Fig. 4.7).

Rice. 4.7. Luminous Animals:

1 - jellyfish; 2 - dragon fish attacking luminous anchovies; 3 - deep-sea squid; 4 - deep-sea shrimp, defending itself, throws out a luminous cloud: 5 - deep-sea anglerfish, luring the victim.

Light signals emitted by animals often serve to attract individuals of the opposite sex, lure prey, scare away predators, for orientation in a flock, etc. (fish, cephalopods, beetles of the firefly family, etc.). Consequently, plants need light primarily for the implementation of photosynthesis - the most important process in the biosphere for the accumulation of energy and the creation of organic matter. For animals, it is mainly informational.

E.V. Balatsky THE THEORY OF LIFE RESOURCES: MODELS AND EMPIRICAL ESTIMATES

Within the framework of economic science, there are many microeconomic models that describe the behavior of an individual. They mainly feature two human resources: money and time. Sometimes, in a purely abstract form, another resource appears - human capital. It would not be an exaggeration to say that the whole life of a person is the manipulation of the basic resources that he has at his disposal. What is the set of these resources that determine the place of the individual in society; what is the quantitative assessment of the degree of endowment with them, as well as their relative importance? Consider these interrelated problems facing economists and sociologists today.

The behavioral model of an individual, in accordance with our hypothesis, is determined by its objective function. We are talking about a certain integral indicator of the achievement of the goals set by him. It is the movement towards the goal that makes a person's life meaningful, and it is the degree of achievement of goals that determines the level of his satisfaction with life. This criterion appears in our model as a kind of utility function, widely used in microeconomic models.

The role of functional restrictions that form the space of possible actions is played by two "production functions" that describe the dependence of the subject's goals and his real achievements on the volume of his life resources and the state of the external environment. The set of life resources of the proposed model of individual behavior (IPI) is very limited, it includes money (income); energy (life force); time (daily fund of time, which includes sleep, working time and leisure); knowledge (information). These resources are qualitatively heterogeneous and not reducible to each other, but at the same time they can partially replace each other. All people possess them, the difference is only in the degree of endowment and in their subjective significance.

Resource constraints, which suggest that the availability of each of the four vital resources for a person is not unlimited, but has strictly defined quantitative limits, represent additional limitations of the model.

In a formalized form, the MPI can be described as follows:

BALATSKY Yevgeny Vsevolodovich - Doctor of Economics, Professor, Head of Department of the Russian Research Institute of Economics, Politics and Law in the Scientific and Technical Sphere (RIEPP).

Φ o,.,^,2,., 1 = 1, m

u[AST = y(x, y, z, gi, 0,), 1 = 1, m

where I - goal index (goods, needs); m - the number of goals (goods, needs); y, - parameter fixing the importance of the 1st goal (goods, needs); C™0 - the planned level of achievement of the 1st goal (benefits, needs); C™1 - the actual level of achievement of the 1st goal (goods, needs); x, y, 7, and q, - the amount of money (x,), energy (y,), time (7,) and knowledge (d,) that are necessary for the implementation of the i-th goal; x0, y0, 70 and q0 - the total amount of money, energy, time and knowledge that the subject has; φ - the quality of institutions necessary for the implementation of the i-th goal, and the influence of the external environment;<р и \р - производственные функции, связывающие жизненные ресурсы с получаемыми с их помощью жизненными благами.

Criterion (1) defines the objective function, relations (2) and (3) - functional restrictions, inequalities (4)-(7) - resource restrictions. In principle, the default objective function of the constructed model assumes that the coefficient of achievement of the set goals in the limit reaches unity. Criterion (1) can be rewritten in an equivalent, more general form:

In accordance with the MPI, four life resources are spent by a person in order to carry out the process of goal-setting with the subsequent achievement of the set goals. They, in our opinion, can be the fundamental values ​​of human life: personal and family security; material well-being; family well-being; creative self-realization; fruitful leisure activities; decent social status; availability of effective informal social contacts; good health, etc. . All these factors are subject to

quantification (see, for example). Of course, for each person, the set of values ​​and their relative importance are different.

The four vital resources included in the MPI deserve special comment. Time is a fixed and fundamentally non-renewable resource. Each person has 24 hours a day, and lost time cannot be restored. Life energy is a partially renewable resource. For different people, its amount is different, sometimes the wasted energy can be restored and even increased, sometimes not. Money is a renewable resource. Each person is endowed with financial resources to varying degrees, and spending money, as a rule, is compensated by subsequent earnings. Knowledge is a renewable resource. Like money, information can be accumulated and spent. Money is a classic capital that can grow and decrease. Knowledge is a part of human capital that can also grow and collapse.

The considered vital resources are closely connected with the fundamental attributes of the world. So, time and energy, which play a fundamental role in almost all sciences, are taken into account by us explicitly, information is taken into account through the knowledge variable, space - through the income variable.

Skillful manipulation of these resources allows you to set goals and achieve them with varying efficiency. Of course, the more each resource, the greater the chance that a person will individually correctly formulate his life tasks and successfully solve them. Of course, there is a feedback between the achievements of a person and his life resources.

The results of human activity determine the subsequent dynamics of his life resources, which can be formalized in the most general form as follows:

<&„ / А = Ф(х0 (О, П(0, Щ (0, г = 1, т)

<1у0 / = Щу0(!),СН!),иГ (0, i = 1 ,т)

<к0 / Л = 3(г0 (0,0(0, и.А (О, I = 1, т)

dg0 / A \u003d H "(8oC), SC!), and? LST (O, I \u003d 1m)

where 1 - time; Ф, 0, Е and ^ are production functions that connect the dynamics of vital resources with the vital goods received with their help in the previous period.

If we consider the total daily fund of a person's time as a time variable (u0), then equation (11) is eliminated, since this value is a constant.

Relations (9)-(12) serve as a mechanism for communication between static MPI (1)-(7) in different periods. Thus, a description of the entire trajectory of human life is achieved.

Let's discuss the next point. The fact is that vital resources determine the very mechanism of goal-setting (dependence (2)). If the set goals are achieved, and the person approaches complete life satisfaction (absolute happiness), then, in accordance with the MPI, the mechanism for setting new goals will most likely turn on, and the process of choosing a life strategy will continue. Thus, a "break" in the decision-making trajectory of the MPI is not expected.

The constructed model is presented in the most abstract form. However, even this is enough to draw some conclusions about human behavior. For example, criterion (1) contains a lot of life's blessings, the number of which is different for everyone. It is easy to see that a decrease in target settings (m), ceteris paribus, leads to an increase in overall life satisfaction (0), i.e.<ЗШт < 0. Это вполне естественно, так как все жизненные ресурсы человека оказываются направлеными на достижение меньшего числа целей, что и позволяет реализовать их в более полной мере. Именно данным эффектом объясняется, на наш вгзляд, весьма распространенный факт, когда примитивные люди с ограниченным кругом намерений достигают большей удовлетворенности жизнью, нежели высокоразвитые личности с разнообразными целевыми установками.

Life Resource Orientation: An Empirical Analysis

First of all, let's classify four resource aggregates (time, energy, money and knowledge) in two directions: degrees of objectivity ("cosmological" and "social") and degrees of coarseness ("material" and "non-material") (Table 1).

Now let's turn to the method of assessing the degree of endowment with vital resources of various subjects. To do this, we use the model of sociological surveys, which involves a qualitative identification of the volume of vital resources. The structure of the question addressed to the respondents and possible answers are shown in Table 2, the data of which are based on sociological surveys conducted by VCIOM on June 24-25, 2006 in 46 regions of Russia; sample size - 1.5 thousand people.

Along with assessing the level of endowment of individuals with vital resources, it is necessary to set a scale for their importance. To do this, we used the construction of the question and the options for possible answers given in Table 3. The content of Table 3 is similar to Table 2 and is based on the specified VTsIOM array.

We aggregate the information obtained using the resource endowment index (I) and the resource importance index (i), which have the following form:

Table 1.

Classification of vital resources according to the degree of objectivity and materiality

"Material" factors "Intangible" factors

"Cosmological" factors Energy Time

"Social" factors Money Knowledge

/ = scD + a2/)2 + a3 £>3 + a4A, + a5 £)5

J = а1С1 + а2С2 + а3С3 + а4С^ + а5С5 (14),

To calculate the index (13), share estimates are used regarding the endowment with resources (E^) (Table 2), to calculate the index (14), share estimates are used regarding the importance of resources (d]) (Table 3). The weighting factors are as follows: a1 = 1.0; a2 = 0.6; a3 = 0.4; a4 = 0; a5 = 0.5.

Once again, we note that all assessments are based on self-assessment and are subjective. For example, it can be assumed that, in the opinion of a person leading an extremely active lifestyle, he lacks energy, and a person who quietly "melts" along the flow of life believes that he has enough energy. However, something else is important here: each of them understands satisfaction with life in a different way. Therefore, subjective assessments, ultimately, quite objectively fix the lack of human energy to achieve the same global goal - complete satisfaction with life. And in this sense they are all comparable.

The results of calculations using formulas (13) and (14) are shown in tables 2-3, which allow us to draw a number of interesting conclusions.

First of all, it turned out that, contrary to the opinion of Western economists and sociologists, who consider time to be the most valuable resource, for Russians it is the least

Table 2.

Distribution of respondents' answers to the question: "To what extent do you lack the following resources in your life?" %

Possible answer

Resource type

Quite enough f-,)

Rather, f2 is enough)

Rather lacking f3) Completely lacking f4) Difficult to answer f5) Index of endowment of the resource (I)

36.8 29,3 10,5 0,7

Table 3

Distribution of respondents' answers to the question: "Indicate the degree of importance for you of the following resources?" %

Answer option Resource type

Time Energy Money Knowledge

Very important ^) 55.9 74.1 73.0 53.8

Rather important ^2) 34.8 22.8 22.2 34.4

Rather not important ^3) 7.6 2.1 3.1 8.9

It doesn't matter at all ^4) 1.3 0.4 1.1 2.2

Difficult to answer ^5) 0.4 0.7 0.6 0.8

Resource importance index ^) 80.0 88.9 87.9 78.3

a scarce life resource that Russian residents are endowed with to the maximum extent. It is followed by information and energy resources, and the financial resource closes the system (Table 2).

In our opinion, the revealed system of ranking the level of endowment of vital resources testifies to the well-known primitiveness of the Russian society. In developed communities, money and energy go to the last places, and time and knowledge - to the first. In other words, for more developed communities, the importance of "non-material" life resources is higher than "material".

In Russia, the opposite situation is observed, which allows us to speak about the relatively low social and intellectual development of its citizens. It is also noteworthy that the lack of money has a significant gap for them compared to the lack of other resources. For example, the index of endowment with a monetary resource for the inhabitants of Russia is 2.1 times lower than the index of endowment with time. Such significant discrepancies confirm their non-random nature.

Russian citizens compensate for the acute lack of money and knowledge with time and vitality. Such a model of social existence means that they lack the resources typical of developed civilizations (money and knowledge), which are compensated by resources of a purely natural origin (energy and time). Therefore, with some degree of conventionality, we can conclude that Russia is currently dominated by a rather primitive socio-economic model, characteristic of civilizations of a low level of development.

The foregoing leads to the following hypothesis: as society develops, a quite definite pattern is observed in increasing endowment with resources - first, financial and energy resources reach a certain level of saturation, then informational and temporal. Of course, some deviations from this evolutionary line are possible, but they cannot be fundamental. Russia does not yet fall under this pattern.

The conclusion about the natural "primitivist" model of the Russian society is also confirmed by data on the importance of vital resources. Thus, the most important resource for Russians is energy, then money, and only then time and knowledge (Table 3). Such a hierarchy of significance of vital resources testifies to the low civilizational stage at which Russian society is located.

It should be noted that we are not talking about any intellectual inferiority and inferiority of Russians. The dominance of this model is associated, rather, with the breaking of the socio-economic system that has taken place in the country in the past two decades. Many people faced the need for physical survival, which predetermined the drift of the system towards primitive, purely material life resources. It is possible that as the negative consequences of systemic reforms are overcome, the endowment and importance of the considered vital resources will be restructured in the direction of strengthening the role of time and knowledge.

Differentiation of vital resources by socio-demographic groups

Calculations of endowment indices with vital resources and indices of their importance, taking into account gender differences, are shown in Table 4. They allow us to draw a number of conclusions.

Indices Gender

Men Women

Endowment indices: Time 60.7 60.1

Energy 61.5 53.1

With money 29.0 27.9

Knowledge 58.4 57.3

Importance indices: Time 80.7 79.5

Energy 88.3 89.4

Money 88.0 87.8

Knowledge 79.0 77.8

First, the differences in the life resources of men and women are generally insignificant, some of them are at the level of statistical error.

Secondly, in general, the endowment with vital resources is still higher for men than for women. Although this advantage is small, it cannot be ignored, as it shows up consistently across all four resources. In addition, the importance of vital resources for men is also higher than for women (with the exception of energy). In other words, men attach somewhat more importance to vital resources, which partly explains their greater endowment with them.

Thirdly, the most significant difference between men and women is the endowment with vitality. The advantage of men is 8.4 percentage points, which looks really huge compared to the advantage in other resources of 0.6-1.1 percentage points. On the other hand, the importance of vital energy for women is higher than for men. That is, in comparison with men, women are the least endowed with precisely that vital resource that is of the greatest importance to them.

In this regard, let us pay attention to the following circumstance. Some anthropologists, relying on the traditions of ancient cultures, argue that men are energy-excessive subjects, and women are energy-deficient. For example, K. Castaneda, who studied the philosophy and worldview of the North American Indians, comes to this conclusion, they will share the active masculine principle and the passive feminine and the Chinese dualistic concept of Yin-Yang. Our quantitative results confirm these postulates.

By the way, the high endowment with energy in particular and resources in general, supported by their high significance, other things being equal, leads to a more active waste of these resources. As a result, the intensity of life of men increases, experiences become more acute, the body wears out faster, which can provoke a reduction in their life expectancy. It is possible that the relative resource abundance of men is, if not the main, then one of the important factors that they live less than women.

No less interesting conclusions follow from the calculations of the endowment indices with vital resources and indices of their importance depending on age (Table 5).

First, clear age patterns in the level of endowment with resources are visible only for energy and time. For example, as one would expect, endowment with vitality decreases markedly with age. So,

Age groups of respondents

18-24 25-34 35-44 45-59 60 and older

endowment indices:

Time 59.8 56.2 53.5 56.7 75.5

Energy 70.8 68.0 60.0 54.6 37.8

With money 29.7 30.6 26.7 27.8 27.9

Knowledge 57.3 55.9 56.7 59.3 58.9

Importance indices:

Time 82.4 83.6 83.2 79.6 72.9

Energy 88.3 89.2 89.7 89.0 88.2

Money 91.0 88.5 89.8 87.4 83.9

Knowledge 86.7 83.2 80.8 76.9 67.9

at retirement age (60 years and older), people retain only 53.4% ​​of their vital energy compared to youth (18-24 years). At the same time, the uniform tendency to reduce strength as the age of a person increases is highly stable. The Time Endowment Index has a more complex but equally predictable trajectory. So, before the period of maturity (35-44 years), when the activity and employment of the individual, as a rule, reach a maximum, there is a drop in the time endowment index, after which it begins to increase and by the time a person retires, it reaches 75.5%. This value is a record; no resource reaches such values ​​in any age interval. We can say that with age there is a gradual replacement of a person's vital energy with a temporary resource.

Secondly, the variability of the values ​​of resource endowment indices for "cosmological" factors (time and energy) is much higher than for "social" factors (money and knowledge). The difference between the maximum and minimum values ​​of the indices of endowment with energy and time for different age groups reaches 33.0 and 22.0 p.p. respectively, while the same indicator for money and knowledge is only 3.9 and 3.4 p.p. Thus, more significant shifts in the values ​​of endowment indices are observed for those resources that practically do not depend on a person, and for social resources that subjects master in the course of the life cycle, shifts are difficult to detect. This once again testifies to the immobility and, consequently, "underdevelopment" of the social factors of Russian life: financial and information capital is not subject to dissipation, but it does not accumulate either.

Thirdly, the variability of the values ​​of the indices of the importance of vital resources for time and knowledge is significantly higher than for money and energy. The difference between the maximum and minimum values ​​of the knowledge and time importance indices for different age groups is 18.8 and 10.7 p.p. respectively, the same indicator of money and energy is 7.1 and 1.5 p.p. Consequently, more significant shifts in importance index values ​​are observed for more "ephemeral" resources that do not have tactile properties. This fact reveals the inhibition of the system of values ​​in relation to "coarse" vital resources and, conversely, the chaotic nature of the system of preferences in relation to "fine" resources.

Fourth, as follows from the analysis of the depth of differences in the value of the corresponding indices for different age groups, the process of mastering life resources implies greater age variability compared to the process of forming a system of resource preferences. It means that

the system of human values ​​throughout the life cycle evolves noticeably, but not as much as the system of focusing on life resources. As for the material situation, as it deteriorates, the endowment with vitality, money and knowledge decreases (Table 6). This is offset by an increase in the endowment of low-income people with a temporary resource. Thus, the axiom is empirically confirmed: more energetic and more knowledgeable people achieve success in life. The "retribution" for such success is the growing shortage of time. However, in any case, the main conclusion is true: material success means greater endowment with vital resources.

Further. Wealthy people place more value on time, energy, and knowledge than poor people, and for time and knowledge, these preferences are most clearly visible. Thus, our hypothesis is confirmed, according to which civilizational development, accompanied by an increase in the material well-being of the population, leads to an increase in the role of "non-material" factors of life activity. Accordingly, the value and subjective value of money decreases slightly as wealth increases.

Fifth, it turns out that the endowment with knowledge for the middle class is higher than for the "rich" (the first column of Table 6) and the "poor" (the third column of Table 6). Along with this, the importance of the energy resource for the middle class is less than for the other two groups of the population. In other words, the maximum information load of society falls on the middle class, while in terms of energy costs, the niche of the middle class is quite comfortable. This correlates with the data of experimental ethology and brings new aspects to the understanding of the place and social role of the middle class.

Let us note an interesting result of the intergroup analysis of the obtained data. As it turned out, the difference between men and women is smaller than between rich and poor, and the difference between rich and poor is smaller than between young and old. This pattern extends both to the system of people's value, which is described by indices of the importance of vital resources, and to the system of resource endowment, which is described by indices of endowment with vital resources. The maximum variation in the endowment indices by gender is 8.4 percentage points, financial position - 29.3 percentage points, age - 33.0 percentage points. Accordingly, the maximum variation in the indices of importance by gender is 1.2 percentage points, financial situation - 9.1 percentage points, and by age - 18.8 percentage points. Therefore, such a physiological difference as sex is of less importance compared to such a social difference as income. At the same time, co-

Table 6

Differentiation of social indices by financial situation, %

Indices Financial situation of the family

Very good, good Average Very bad, bad

endowment indices:

Time 55.7 59.5 63.7

Energy 63.6 59.7 49.5

With money 46.0 31.3 16.7

Knowledge 58.3 59.1 55.2

Importance indices:

Time 84.3 80.5 77.9

Energy 89.6 88.8 89.1

Money 84.8 87.9 89.0

Knowledge 84.1 79.1 75.0

ciap differences in income matter less than age. Thus, a hierarchy of social differences is formed, which should be taken into account when pursuing social policy.

Life Resource Efficiency

Quantitative estimates of the level of endowment of people with various life resources require a certain averaging to obtain an integral index of resource endowment (I*). To do this, you can use a simple formula:

/* = (L /LK + (/2 / L)/2+(/3 //0)/3 + (L /L)/4 (15),

where all designations are the same, J0 = ^ + J2 + J3 + J4, and four indices denote the corresponding vital resources (time, energy, money, knowledge).

The performed calculations show that the integral resource endowment index (15) in Russia in June 2006 was 50.5%. This value is symptomatic in itself, since it indicates the low saturation of Russian society with basic life resources. Of particular interest is the comparison of this assessment with the integral life satisfaction index. If the latter is designated as 0*, then the efficiency of vital resources (k) can be estimated using the formula: k = 0*/I*.

The value of the index of satisfaction with life in July 2005 in Russia was 53.1%. Despite the time gap in the 0* and I* scores, they can be compared. In this case, the value of the efficiency of vital resources (k) is 1.05, i.e. value very close to unity. It follows that the level of satisfaction with life is almost completely determined by the level of endowment with life resources.

Here again it is appropriate to draw a curious analogy with some anthropological data. So, in the works of C. Castaneda, there is a classic formula of the North American Indians, according to which happiness is an excess of energy (strength). In our case, this formula is generalized, since, in addition to energy, other resources should also be taken into account, and it is somewhat modified: the category of happiness is replaced by a more operational concept of life satisfaction. Thus, sociological and anthropological studies are quite well matched and, at least, do not contradict each other.

Of course, the theory of vital resources does not claim to explain the whole variety of behavioral strategies of people, but in many cases its use can be quite fruitful and contribute to a more correct understanding of various social phenomena.

LITERATURE

1. Balatsky E.V. Life Satisfaction Factors: Measurement and Integral Indicators// Public Opinion Monitoring. 2005. No. 4.

2. Castaneda K. Fire from within. The power of silence. The art of dreaming. M. 2003.

3. Ross L., Nisbett R. Man and situation. Perspectives of social psychology. M. 1999.

A description of a special methodology of analysis of life resources of population.

Loading...Loading...