Depends on the characteristics of the country and its mentality. Differences in mentalities

The concepts of mentality and mentality have become quite widespread in domestic scientific and journalistic literature and the media since the late 80s of the 20th century, and have become an integral part of the vocabulary of the modern Russian language. It should be noted that almost none of the scientists distinguished between the concepts of mentality and mentality, using for this purpose such words from Western European languages ​​as mentality (English), mentalete (French), mentalitat (German). A similar situation is observed in modern domestic and foreign humanities.

The concept of mentality, which has rapidly entered everyday and scientific speech, gravitates towards various branches of humanities. At the same time, in the literature one can find the use of synonyms for the categories mentality and mentality (which is quite acceptable given the insufficient philosophical and methodological development of the problem).

“Mentality is a system of views, tasks and their solutions, implicit attitudes, value orientations, conclusions, behavior patterns, which is entrenched in the popular consciousness, in cultural stereotypes; mentality is what distinguishes some communities from others.”

In the Russian language dictionary S.I. Ozhegov and N.Yu. The Swedish mentality is assessed as a “bookish” concept and is defined as “comprehension of the world, primarily with the help of images colored by emotional and value orientations, closely related to traditions, mood, feelings.” Thus, we are talking not so much about the systemic nature of mentality, but rather about a certain set of various phenomena of spiritual life included in this concept.

The term mentality is defined quite uniquely in English dictionaries. For example, the well-known Webster's dictionary defines mentality as mental capacity, that is, as mental ability, or as mental power, as mental strength, power, as mental outlook, that is, a mental view, mental perspective, which can also be understood as a worldview. The meaning of this term is also given as a state of mind - a state of mind.

We find a similar definition in S.G. Ter-Minasova: “the concept of mentality includes a mindset, attitude, worldview, psychology. In other words, mentality is the mental and spiritual disposition of both an individual and society as a whole. Mentality - (degree of) intellectual power; mind, disposition, character (mentality - level of intellectual capabilities, mindset, mood, character)".

Let us list the properties of mentality that we have identified from various sources:

1. Mentality includes thinking.

2. Mentality means something common that underlies the conscious and unconscious, logical and emotional, i.e. a deep and therefore difficult to fix source of thinking, ideology and faith, feelings and emotions.

3. One of the aspects of mentality is norms of behavior.

Mentality is not a fashionable concept, but a scientific category that reflects a certain phenomenon rooted in the depths of people's life. In an effort to clarify the concept, many authors use very ambiguous or even metaphorical descriptions, attributing them either to mentality or to mentality.

It should be noted that with all the diversity and variety of definitions of what mentality is and what it is not, the following remark has not lost its relevance: when they want to explain something inexplicable, as if floating in the air, but objectively existing, they say: “This is our mentality"; when they don’t want to explain something, they also find an excuse in mentality.

As for the unambiguous interpretation of the concept, for each area of ​​knowledge it opens up with a new, invisible facet. Indeed, even the question of the priority of introducing the term mentality into scientific circulation turns out to be problematic. The literature does not reveal a clear distinction between the concepts of mentality and mentality. It’s just that some authors use the first concept, others use the second. So, postulating the difference in concepts, let us define what mentality and mentality are.

From the history of science it is known that the concept of mentality was proposed by Lévy-Bruhl, who used it to describe the special thinking of savages. Lucien Febvre and Marc Bloch, borrowing this concept from Lévy-Bruhl, used it to denote the general state of mind, mindset, collective psychology, mental tools, psychological equipment of people belonging to the same culture, members of the same society. The general mentality gives them the opportunity to perceive and understand their natural and social environment and themselves in their own way.

This approach allows us to give a very broad interpretation of the category of mentality and use it to designate any more or less stable set of ideas about the world. However, it is precisely the picture of the world that includes ideas about the individual and his relationship to society, about freedom, equality, honor, good and evil, about law and labor, about family and sexual relationships, about the course of history and the value of time, about the relationship between new and old, about death and the soul (the picture of the world is, in principle, inexhaustible), it is this picture of the world, inherited from previous generations and certainly changing in the process of social practice, that underlies human behavior.

In a certain sense, the category of mentality can be identified with the category of subconscious spirituality. Acting as the core of the individual’s semantic sphere, mentality is at the same time “a system of interconnected universals embedded in the foundation of culture, which are forms of storage and transmission of fundamental ideas about the world and the social experience of life in this world.”

By mentality we also understand “the historically established long-term intelligible unity of the most stable ideas, stereotypes and archetypes, manifested at conscious and unconscious levels in the form of a special way of thinking, attitude and worldview, and having an axiological, emotional and behavioral embodiment.”

The elements that make up the mentality do not simply exist in their heterogeneity, but merge into a kind of spiritual alloy. “Mentality embodies that common ground that underlies the conscious and unconscious, rational and emotional, social and individual, thinking and behavior, faith and way of life. Mentality is manifested in positions, value orientations, ideological and behavioral stereotypes, historical traditions, the image and way of life of people, in language.”

On the one hand, mentality determines our preferences (behavioral, value, normative), on the other hand, it acts as the basis for a person’s repulsion from everything that is alien to him and as the basis for rejection of certain standards of behavior and ideas. We can say that mentality is a kind of vertical cross-section of our spiritual and mental world, the study of which is a search for an answer to the question “why am I like this?”

In Russian reference publications of recent years on socio-political sciences, there is no scientific definition of the concept of mentality. Meanwhile, this word is becoming increasingly widespread, actively gaining its place in sociology, political science, social anthropology, journalism and computer science, that is, it is used in various fields of human knowledge. In this case, in some cases the concept of mentality is used, in others mentality.

The difference between these terms, according to some authors, is that mentality has a universal universal meaning, and mentality can relate to various social spheres and historical times.

The philosophical method of interpretation predetermines mentality not only as “a type of structure of consciousness, world perception, understanding, as a way of viewing the world,” but also as “rationally practical capacity, as a result of which cultural phenomena arise.”

The philosophically significant essence of mentality is manifested in its deep content as a way of thinking, cognition, and understanding, on the basis of which certain sociocultural creative activities are built.

The definition of mentality from the perspective of historical psychology is as follows: “mentality is the totality of all characteristics that distinguish the mind, the way of thinking of one person from another.” According to followers of this trend, the image or style of thinking is different among different peoples. Each nation has its own ideas about the individual and his relationship to society, about freedom, about equality, honor, good and evil, about the course of history, etc.

The sociocultural approach interprets mentality as “a set of ideas, views, and feelings of community among people of a certain era, geographic area and social environment that influence historical and sociocultural processes.” In other words, mentality is a certain collective characteristic of people living in a separate culture, which allows us to describe the uniqueness of these people’s vision of the world around them and explain the specifics of their response to it.

In modern Russian theoretical studies of problems of mentality, there are quite interesting paradoxes. So, for example, having devoted an entire section of a textbook on cultural studies to “mentality as a type of culture,” P.S. Gurevich does not even attempt to consider in detail the meaning of this concept, making only some references to other researchers. As a result of this approach, the very problem of mentality as a type of culture remains virtually unsolved.

One of the most important aspects of the term mentality is “the designation of a certain quality of the mind, the characteristics of actively manifested thinking.” It is the intense differences in the ability to think, understand and express one’s understanding that are inherent in mentality as a characteristic of human thinking and activity.

Among special studies centered on mentality, we note the work of V.V. Kolesov “Language and Mentality” (2004), which offers the following interpretation of the concept of mentality: “mentality in its characteristics is a naively holistic picture of the world in its value guidelines, existing for a long time, regardless of specific economic and political conditions, based on ethnic predispositions and historical traditions; mentality manifests itself in the feeling, mind and will of each individual member of society on the basis of a common language and upbringing and is part of the people’s spiritual culture, which creates the ethno-mental space of the people in the given territory of their existence.”

Specialist in the field of linguistic and cultural studies A.K. Michalskaya, considers the terms mentality, mentality and soul of the people as synonyms and believes that their meaning is “the way of thinking of an individual or social group, their inherent spirituality, mindset, worldview.”

For the ethnologist A.P. Sadokhin’s mentality also seems to be identical to the national character (the soul of the people), and also to the mental makeup of the ethnos. At the same time, mentality for him is also “a relatively integral set of thoughts and beliefs that created a picture of the world and cemented the unity of a cultural tradition or any community.”

Let us turn to the concept of national mentality. National mentality is usually understood as “a way of thinking, a psychological mindset, characteristics of thinking,” as well as “a historically established, stable specific form of manifestation and functioning of social consciousness in the life of a certain national community of people.” Since an essential element of the national mentality is a reflection of real living conditions, the practice of communication with other peoples, the level of use of their social, moral and intellectual experience, it is clear that the concept of mentality intersects and is mixed with such concepts as national psychology and national character.

Developed historically and genetically, the mentality forms that spiritual and behavioral specificity that makes representatives of one nation different from representatives of other nations, and because of this it becomes an important factor in the self-identification of a particular community.

The mentality of the people always bears the stamp of the national, being associated with such concepts as national consciousness, national character, national spirit, etc. It is an expression of the specifics of national identity. A full acquaintance with any culture presupposes not only the study of the material components of this culture, not only knowledge of its historical, geographical and economic determinants, but also an attempt to penetrate into the way of thinking of a nation, an attempt to look at the world through the eyes of native speakers of this culture. The national mentality manifests itself in habits, customs passed on from generation to generation, and in norms of behavior.

The mentality is determined by the national, cultural, civilizational, geographical and socio-political characteristics of people’s lives and activities. Therefore, its study requires taking into account the influence of environmental conditions, everyday life, climate, traditions and other circumstances on people’s behavior.

According to E. Husserl, “no matter how hostile European nations are towards each other, they still have an internal kinship of spirit that permeates them and overcomes national differences.”

What is common brings people together, allows you to see and understand the uniqueness of culture and traditions, and predetermines a respectful attitude towards the state and its people.

Human culture, social behavior and thinking, as is known, are not able to exist without language and outside of language. Thinking and mental reactions contain both evaluative relationships embedded in them and corresponding semantic orientations of activity.

“Mentality is hidden in behavior, assessments, manner of thinking and speaking. It cannot be learned or faked; it can only be “absorbed” along with the language that contains the worldview and codes of a given culture.”

Being a means of human communication and therefore social and national in nature, language cannot but bear the imprints of the peculiarities of the worldview, ethical and cultural values, as well as norms of behavior characteristic of a given linguistic community. Each national culture is the result of the manifest activity of the national mentality, since national culture does not exist outside the national mentality. All this is reflected in the vocabulary of the language, which is said a lot and often. The mentality we understand is part of folk culture.

Since the peculiarities of mentality include features of national character, a certain ethnic model of the surrounding reality, worldview and worldview, the specific behavior of representatives of the studied linguistic and cultural community, this is why we use such a category as national character to reveal the spiritual structure of society. S. M. Harutyunyan defines it as “a peculiar national flavor of feelings and emotions, way of thinking and actions, stable and national features of habits and traditions, formed under the influence of the conditions of material life, the characteristics of the historical development of a given nation and manifested in the specifics of its national culture.” A fairly widespread opinion about national character is that it is not a set of specific, idiosyncratic traits inherent only to a given nation, but a peculiar set of universal human traits. At the level of everyday consciousness, the existence of a national character in every people is beyond doubt and is, as it were, an axiom. This thought arises especially often during a stay, even the shortest, in a foreign ethnic environment. It strengthens the conviction that the people of this community are in many respects very different from ours: this is evidenced by the features of their life and way of life, sometimes even the appearance of people, their behavior, etc. National character turns out to be the key to explaining the life of the people, and even his stories.

“When it comes to the Russian national character, the first and immediate association is the soul, which is usually accompanied by a constant epithet: mysterious. The Russian soul seems mysterious to foreigners, who talk and write a lot about it - sometimes with admiration, sometimes with ridicule. The Russian word soul is much more widespread than the English soul and plays a huge role in the spiritual life of the Russian people. For the Russian people, for whom in the national value system, spirituality, the soul, is the main, core concept that prevails over reason, intelligence, and common sense. The English-speaking world, on the contrary, has placed His Majesty Common Sense at the basis of its existence."

Thus, speaking about the mentality of a particular nation or people, we touch upon a complex, multi-layered set of mechanisms and methods of action that are closely related to the centuries-old culture of the people, its acquired and consolidated ways of responding to changes in the external world that determine the behavior of the nation.

In general, the concept of mentality includes the following content components:

way of life as a relatively independent system of basic forms of human life, social group, society, associated with the national structure, style, ritual, way of life, etc.;

the spiritual foundations of folk life, taken within a broad historical framework (origins in the form of historical memory, historical heritage as spiritual and moral potential, manifested in historical identification);

national psychology (national character).

We come to the following conclusions: firstly, mentality is a holistic picture of the world in its value guidelines, existing for a long time, regardless of specific economic and political conditions, based on ethnic predispositions and historical traditions; mentality manifests itself in the feeling, mind and will of each individual member of society on the basis of a common language and upbringing and is part of the people's spiritual culture, which creates the ethno-mental space of the people in the given territory of their existence; secondly, the national mentality is a way of thinking, a psychological mindset, characteristics of thinking; thirdly, national mentality is inextricably linked with national character, which is understood not only as a set of specific, unique traits inherent only to a given nation, but also as a peculiar set of universal human traits.

The word mentality comes from the French mentalité, which means direction of thoughts. The formation of certain mental characteristics depends on the living conditions of society, which determine both its general priorities in thinking and general values.

Word mentality comes from French mentality, what does it mean in translation direction of thoughts. You can also say - this is a collective way of thinking of some communities of people (not necessarily nations) and their group characteristics derived from this thinking: cultural, social, ideological, everyday and others.

There are different theories of the emergence of mentalities, but the generally accepted idea is that climate and other natural conditions have a decisive influence on their formation. What actually makes differences in the mentalities of different peoples?

System-vector psychology of Yuri Burlan, having the ability to accurately differentiate different properties and manifestations of the human psyche, makes its own amendments to these theories.

Indeed, the formation of certain mental characteristics depends on the living conditions of society, which determine both its general priorities in thinking and general values. It is around these values ​​that the natural unification of large groups of people occurs, which then takes the form of a people, a state.

Interesting in this regard are the attempts of some governments to artificially form a state from people of different mental values. As we systematically understand, such attempts are always doomed to failure. And it’s clear why. It is impossible to unite large masses of people for a long time under the banner of life guidelines that are not typical for them. Such a formation will not be viable because the glue that holds it does not penetrate deep into the psyche of each individual unit in this association. Such gluing is superficial and breaks at the first blow.

System-vector psychology shows that the unification of people at the level of ethnic groups, peoples, and states occurs on the basis of properties that form the basis of the human psyche and come from our additional desires. Additional desires form eight groups, which in system-vector psychology are called vectors. Basic desires (eat, drink, breathe, sleep), fulfilling the task of surviving at all costs and continuing oneself in time, and plus additional desires (each vector has its own) - this is the human psyche, his life. Apart from this, for us, by and large, there is nothing and, based on this, we interact with each other at all levels: in a couple, in a group, in society. Based on these same mental properties, ethnic groups, states, and the mentality of different nationalities are formed.

  • Vectors are divided into upper And lower.
  • Upper: vision, sound, orality, smell.
  • Lower: urethra, anus, muscle, skin.

In the context of mentalities, we are primarily interested in the lower vectors. The four lower vectors correspond to the four “excreting” erogenous zones - these are, and vectors. This is libido, life, survival, the components of which are divided into two quartels: the quartel of space is preservation masses And forms living matter, survival at the moment (hunters and miners in the primitive savannah, skin and muscle people), and the quartile of time - the continuation of living matter in future(pack leader) and conservation of the past experience (teacher) - urethral and anal people.

People are not born without lower vectors, because such a person would not be viable. Any property or desire in the upper vectors draws strength for its development and implementation below. A large social organism is not capable of long-term preservation of its integrity if it does not unite around one of these “lower” groups of desires, properties (and therefore values, priorities), and does not form common neural connections on its basis. Thus, we are dealing with four types of mentalities: urethral, ​​anal, skin and muscle.

  • The muscular mentality ensures the increase in “mass” and large population growth (China).
  • Anal mentality, focused on preserving the traditional way of life (Arab countries).
  • Skin mentality, focused on accelerated innovative development, building a consumer society (Western countries).
  • Urethral mentality, focused on securing the future, a leap into the unknown (Russia and partly the post-Soviet space).

In a particular mentality, other value systems can develop, which are only an addition to the main ones. For example, value systems of a complementary anal vector (decency, respect for traditions, history) often manifest themselves. Skin value systems are alien to us, we despise them, because the urethral vector is opposite to the skin one (the best example is our attitude towards greed, which in the West is called “reasonable economy”). In the Western skin mentality, until recently, anal value systems were weakly, but still present, but with the lightning development of consumer society they became a thing of the past.

On the basis of different mentalities, social institutions created by one or another acquire different development and direction. top vectors. For example, on the basis of the urethral mentality, an elite visual culture and sound spirituality are developing. On the basis of the skin mentality, olfactory finance and standardized mass culture flourish.

In addition, in system-vector psychology there is a concept "mental superstructure". Being born in a given country with a given mentality, a person, no matter what vector set he is, absorbs the values ​​of the society in which he lives. This is called the mental superstructure.

For example, any person born in Russia has a urethral mental superstructure. The famous breadth of the Russian soul, generosity and trust in a fair trial and the Tsar’s father - all this is in the blood of the Russian people.

From the great Chinggis XAna to the mysterious Russian soul:

There are many more different details that complement this picture, but in any case, the understanding of certain mental characteristics of different social formations is based on the primary idea of ​​eight vectors and an understanding of the patterns of their interaction among themselves at different levels (individual, couple, group, society). Based on this understanding, a completely new understanding of the geopolitical picture of the world and the main trends in human development is being built.

You can learn more about vectors, their essence and influence on humans in free online lectures on system-vector psychology by Yuri Burlan.

The article was written based on training materials “ System-vector psychology»

National mentality

(from French mentalite - spirituality) is: a) a lifestyle and culture characteristic of a given ethnic community; b) the system of values, views, worldview, character traits, and norms of behavior inherent in a given nation.

M.E. characterized by stable immutability, constancy, conservatism. It is weakly susceptible to outside influence and attempts at ideological, administrative, legal or managerial pressure. At the individual level, ethnic mentality is formed in the process of training and education, personal self-realization, choosing one’s role, assimilating one’s national culture, identifying oneself with the immediate social and ethnic environment.

As an element of the spiritual life of M.e. is closely related to the formation of national self-awareness and, at the everyday level, often has a mystical emotional or religious character. Taking into account individual psychological characteristics, temperament and character traits, personal perception and assimilation of the spiritual culture of one’s ethnic group and, accordingly, M.E. may have a dual meaning: complete acceptance of elements of culture and spiritual values ​​on faith or, conversely, an overly rational, critical attitude towards them and assimilation. Depending on the personal position, characteristics of perception and assimilation of cultural values ​​and mindset, a different level of identification of a representative of a particular nationality or group with their national and social environment can be formed.

Research by M.E. within the framework of the subject of ethnopsychology, it is important to determine the degree of cohesion, integration, ethnic community, group, as well as awareness of the place and role of the personal “I” in the system of categories “we” - “them”, “us” - “strangers”.


Ethnopsychological Dictionary. - M.: MPSI. V.G. Krysko. 1999.

See what “national mentality” is in other dictionaries:

    NATIONAL MENTALITY- (from the French mentalite spirituality) is: a) a lifestyle and culture characteristic of a given ethnic community; b) the system of values, views, worldview, character traits, and norms of behavior inherent in a given nation. M.E. characterized by stable... ...

    National character- National character is a complex social phenomenon and concept in philosophy, cultural studies, social psychology, ethnology and ethnopolitical science, describing stable features characteristic of members of a particular national (ethnic) ... Wikipedia

    Mentality- The style of this article is non-encyclopedic or violates the norms of the Russian language. The article should be corrected according to Wikipedia's stylistic rules. Mentality (French mentalité direction of thoughts) way of thinking, worldview ... Wikipedia

    Mentality- (French mentalite) 1. mindset; 2. attitude, worldview; 3. psychology, the quality of consciousness that characterizes a particular individual; 4. mental activity; 4 personal qualities of any nation. * * * [from lat. mens, mentis mind and alis others] ... Encyclopedic Dictionary of Psychology and Pedagogy

    mentality- a, only units, m. 1) An image, a way of thinking, features of the worldview, the worldview of an individual, a social group or an entire people. National mentality. Mentality of the intelligentsia. The mentality of believers. 2) Internal, intellectual world... ... Popular dictionary of the Russian language

    MENTALITY- MENTALITY, MENTALITY [Dictionary of foreign words of the Russian language

    Mentality- (ethnic, national, cultural) A mindset characteristic of a given people, characterized by constancy and immutability. This way of thinking, inherent in a culture or group of cultures, is usually accepted in this culture as... ... Dictionary of sociolinguistic terms

    mentality (ethnic, national, cultural)- A way of thinking characteristic of a given people, characterized by constancy, immutability, and not susceptible to change under the influence of ideological pressure. National... ... is of utmost importance in the value system of ethnic mentality. Dictionary of linguistic terms T.V. Foal

    Mentality- (ethnic, national, cultural). A way of thinking characteristic of a given people, characterized by constancy, immutability, and not susceptible to change under the influence of ideological pressure. The most important value in the value system... ... General linguistics. Sociolinguistics: Dictionary-reference book

    Mentality- [lat. mens, mentis mind and alis others) specificity of the mental life of people characteristic of a particular culture (subculture), determined, first of all, by economic and political circumstances and having a supraconscious nature. M.... ... Psychological Lexicon

Books

  • Anglo-Saxon mentality through the prism of the English language. Textbook, Dzhioeva Alesya Aleksandrovna, The book gives a description of the Anglo-Saxon mentality through its refraction in the English language. Representing a serious scientific study of key concepts of the English language,… Category: Linguistic and regional studies. Phrasebooks Series: Publisher: Moscow State University named after M.V. Lomonosov (MSU), Buy for 1133 rub.
  • The origins of state hypocrisy, Nikita Aleksandrovich Krichevsky, History has shown that the interests of the people have never stood behind the word “reform”. Today in Russia this is becoming obvious to many. It so happened that our state is disingenuous in its relations with... Category:

Mentality helps to understand why different peoples behave differently in the same situations. His nature is conservative, it cannot be quickly changed, just like the nature of thoughts, feelings, and behavior of many people. Worldview influences education, but education helps to recreate, transform and adjust mentality.

Mentality - what is it?

Mentality is a way of thinking. It manifests itself in the form of emotional, cultural, intellectual characteristics of the human worldview, characteristic of a certain ethnic group. This concept has spread in Russian colloquial speech since the mid-twentieth century. With the help of worldview, a person can understand the state of mind, assessment, view, norms of behavior, values, morality of various groups of people.

Mentality in sociology

Worldview helps to study public consciousness and has the following heuristic capabilities:

  • helps to understand the unique subject;
  • helps to understand a specific perception of the world;
  • explains the behavior and activities of the subject.

If we proceed from what defines mentality in sociology, then in this case it is a system of socio-psychological characteristics of a person or a community. This worldview is based on a genotype, the creation of which was determined by the natural and social environment, and the subject’s own spiritual creativity. Worldview predetermines what character a person will be endowed with, what kind of speech, behavior, and activity he will have. It recreates the unity and continuity of the social community.

There are three components of mentality:

  1. Uniqueness. These are feelings, emotions, ideas, stereotypes that are present in one subject and absent in others.
  2. A peculiar combination of certain characteristics that are characteristic only of a certain collective subject. So, for example, in the professional sphere this is intellectual honesty, courage, broad outlook, high.
  3. Quantitative ratio of such features. For example, according to IQ, people can be divided into categories: lawyers, bankers - 120%, aircraft mechanics, electricians, chemists - 109%, painters, drivers - 98%.

Mentality in cultural studies

Worldview is an integral part of a certain culture, a certain cultural space; its formation is influenced by certain social and cultural conditions in the process of long historical development. Over the course of many centuries, the state of mind has been formed, maintained and modified under the influence of:

  • natural geographical living conditions;
  • neighborhood of peoples (in the course of evolution, one people borrows elements of life, language and beliefs from another people);
  • cultural conditions, where the system core is culture, and individual elements are life phenomena within the culture (everyday habits, political norms, religious beliefs).

Each nation has its own cultural space, its own forms of culture, which are filled with it in the process of activity. The people themselves are the creator of their own cultural space, this is the deep meaning of culture. Mentality and culture are concepts that not only characterize the general thing that unites individual carriers of one culture, but also highlight what distinguishes this culture from others.

Mentality - psychology

Worldview in psychology is a characteristic specificity of the mental life of a certain society. To reveal it, a system of views, assessments, and mindset is used, although such a worldview cannot completely coincide with a person’s thought, action, or word. Studying what human mentality is, psychologists were able to identify four types:

  1. Barbaric- high survival rate, endurance, active sexual behavior, fearlessness in the face of the risk of death, this is a kind of winner’s mentality.
  2. Aristocratic- independence, pride, aristocracy, desire for external gloss, high morality.
  3. Intel- disdain for convenience, comfort, high performance, strong fear of death, pain.
  4. Bourgeois- frugality, economy, workaholism, mental stinginess, insincerity.

At the same time, as social relations developed, the typology of individual worldview took shape and changed: it was possible to change the mentality, supplement it with new features, and deprive it of unviable aspects. Today such types are extremely rarely found in their pure form. Rather, they contribute to the creation of interesting combinations of people and help color the mental consciousness of nations.


Mentality - philosophy

Mentality is a set of socio-psychological characteristics of a person; it is different for different groups of people or social groups. Part of this worldview is a sense of belonging. Great thinkers and philosophers believed that the national spirit is based on patriotism and a sense of homeland. A person’s conscious belonging to a certain ethnic group or nation awakens his spirituality.

Mentality in philosophy reflects a certain way of thinking, which can be of a group nature. The worldview consists of traditions, customs, rights, institutions, laws. All this is manifested with the help of the main tool, which is language. Worldview in philosophy is a certain mental equipment, a mental tool with the help of which representatives of a particular society can perceive their environment and themselves in their own way.

Types of mentality

The human worldview is a unique alloy of mental qualities, their characteristics, and how they manifest themselves. In order to find out what kind of mentality there is, you need to take a close look at the following types:

  1. Based on the sphere of life of society, worldview is divided into economic, social, political, cultural, spiritual and moral.
  2. Depending on the types of activity, the worldview can be industrial, scientific, technical, administrative, literary.
  3. Based on the image, thinking, the worldview can be religious and national, urban, rural, civil, military.

Mentality and mentality - differences

Mentality is considered the basis, the core of the culture of the people. Mentality is a way of seeing the world in which thought is associated with emotions. Unlike mentality, worldview has universal human significance, and mentality affects any social strata and historical times. Mentality is a prerequisite for the emergence and existence of a worldview.

What is the difference between mentality and mentality? Worldview is a culture that belongs to a certain social group, it is expressed through a way of thinking, reflected in the unconscious emotional and sensory experience in the form of customs, traditions, religion, philosophy and language. Mentality is a broader concept that describes a way of thinking as such. And mentality is a more specific definition, which in general terms describes the specifics of phenomena.

Mentality and worldview

The mentality is based on a worldview. It is expressed through concepts and ideas. Worldview in general terms describes the model of the human world; it helps a person learn to understand himself in this world. Without this quality, a person will not be able to comprehend his existence, find his goal, in this case a low mentality is manifested. The person will be easy to control and manipulate.

Depending on the way of perceiving the world, the following types of worldview are distinguished:

  • philosophical;
  • mythological;
  • religious;
  • scientific.

How is mentality formed?

The formation of the mentality takes place over twelve years. It begins at the age of three and ends at the age of sixteen, when a person develops his own system of values, goals, and means to achieve them. The development of aspects of a person’s worldview directly depends on:

  • parents' mentality;
  • books and films;
  • physical endurance and mental stability;
  • politicians;
  • schools.

Many men and women find their soul mate in a distant foreign country. There are many different reasons for this. Many such families live happily, many such marriages break up. Everything seems to be happening as usual between men and women, but I would like to examine one of the main reasons for misunderstandings that arise in an international family.

People from different countries sometimes do not understand each other not because of incorrect translation from one language to another. The translation is correct, they just often don’t understand the idea itself - “how can this even be?” The culture in which they grew up and the peculiarities of their mentality make up the lion's share of this misunderstanding. The rest is individuality, personality traits.

So, as far as I see, the mentality of peoples differs from east to west in terms of the degree of subtlety of their worldview, attitude and understanding of the world.

This difference concerns primarily the predominance of spiritual and material values ​​in different nations.

The most subtle worldview is characteristic of the peoples of the East and Southeast Asia - the Japanese, Chinese, Indians. For example, I would not dare to impromptu give a bouquet of flowers to a Japanese girl, because... I know that every flower they have, and every color carries some kind of meaning. I don’t know what meaning they have there! And as if with the best intentions, not to create a problem out of the blue.

Next come the peoples of Central Asia and the Middle East. Despite their sometimes semi-wild life and medieval traditions, their understanding of the world is very subtle. Just as Comrade Sukhov said in “White Sun of the Desert”: “The East is a delicate matter!” And only people who often visit Central Asia and the Middle East, lived there for some time, studied their culture, are familiar with the traditions and customs, actually understand how delicate this matter is, and know how to fully communicate with them.

Next to the west come the Russians, with their mysterious Russian soul. The mystery of the Russian soul lies in the inherent contradictions among Russians regarding the question “What is good and what is bad?” Because Russians, in their mentality, stand on the border between the West and the East, and we have both Western and Eastern features, approximately 50/50. Therefore, it is easier for us to understand both the peoples of the East and the peoples of the West, and to productively build relations with them.

Further to the west go the peoples of Europe. For them, material and bodily values ​​are somewhat more important than spiritual ones. I find it difficult to determine this ratio, it is not large, but there is a preponderance in favor of material and bodily values ​​relative to spiritual ones.

This is one of the reasons that the peoples of Western Europe have been very successful in their own well-being and comfort of life. However, this same condition does not allow them to understand even their closest neighbors from the east - the Russians. Not to mention the peoples living even further east. And misunderstanding gives rise to either unjustified illusions, or mistrust and even fear.

Farthest to the west, almost in the center of the Western Hemisphere, live the people of the United States. There, material and bodily values ​​greatly prevail over spiritual ones. And even though the majority of Americans are believers, for them faith lies more in observing rituals than focusing on eternal, spiritual values. For example, the Lord commanded sharing, and Americans are demonstratively engaged in charity, and do many other godly deeds, but do not understand their inner spiritual essence. There are several reasons for this.

Everyone knows the history of the emergence of this state. And already at the dawn of the United States, the main value for any American arose - to get rich in any way! Finding a treasure, a mine, plundering an ancient burial, robbing a bank or a rich uncle is considered a feat among them. The classics of American literature and cinema reinforced these values. While in other nations such acts are considered a crime, or at least unseemly acts.

The predominance of bodily values ​​over spiritual ones is reflected in the English language. As our famous humorist Mikhail Zadornov observed, the phrase “There is no one in the house” when translated into English sounds like “there is not a body in the house.” “Nobody” is a complex word, consisting of two parts: the negation “no” and the noun “body” - body, torso. In other European languages ​​this is not expressed so openly in negative pronouns, and the phrase sounds neutral “there is no one”, in the sense of “there is not a person”. In Russian there is even an expression “there is not a soul in the house.”

Likewise in eastern and western psychology of relationships between men and women we observe a different approach - spiritual, and material-physical. In the East, a long time ago they came up with the Tao of love and the Kama Sutra, covering both the spiritual and physical components relationship between man and woman.

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