Methodological Constructs in L. I. Antsyferova's Approach to Personality and Their Implementation in the Study of Identity

The article presents methodological constructs highlighted by L.I. Antsyferova that are essential for considering personality, its being, and identity from the standpoint of subjective, dynamic, subject-centered, and other subject-oriented approaches. Identity appears as a developing system of individual characteristics reflected in a personality, manifested in different ways in different age periods of its life path and in different spaces of being. Personality is represented as the subject of self-identification (“personal Self”) in reflexive certainty about the signs that distinguish it from others (“unique Self”), or, on the contrary, in uniting with others (“reflected Self”). The empirical research included the creation, testing and application of a methodology for diagnosing personal identity, fixing the parameters of self-awareness, reflection on personal characteristics and their conceptualization in various age periods of life. 700 respondents participated in the study (42.6% were male, 57.4% were female) between the ages of 12 and 90 (6 age groups). The “Personal Identity Diagnostic Technique” developed by the authors was applied. As a result of the study, significant differences were found in the severity of self-identified characteristics of respondents of different ages (p ≤ 0.05). It is concluded that personal identity is a complex phenomenon that includes various structural and substantial elements, whose dynamics is heterogeneous and depends on the transition from one life stage to the next, in connection with changing existential tasks solved by the individual at specific stages of their life cycle.