An individual is one person, or one individual of the species Homo Sapiens. The word comes from the Latin individuum, which means indivisible. The term "individual" can mean both a biological individual and a human person. Sometimes a word implies both meanings together.
Individual property
The management of one's own behavior and control over the psychological processes that determine his activity and state are inherent properties of the individual. The characteristic of an individual not only as a biological organism, but also as a personality inherent in this very organism, allows the individual himself to overcome the qualities originally inherent in him.
The combination of two meanings of the word "individual", biological and psychological, allow us to describe a person as a separate and detached creature from the environment and other individuals of his species.
The properties of an individual include the integrity of his psychophysiological structure. This means that everything related to the life-supporting functions of the individual is systemically connected and cannot be destroyed. This integrity is a way of organizing an individual's life relations with the surrounding reality, a set of functions and mechanisms with which he operates.
The next property of the individual is stability in interaction with everything that surrounds him. This suggests that the individual does not lose his properties when he enters into any relationship with reality. But stability does not contradict the fact that the methods of the individual can be different, depending on what kind of interaction he is involved in.
Another property of the individual - activity - means the fact that the individual is able to change under the influence of the situation by overcoming it or subordinating it to it.
Socio-psychological meaning of the word "individual"
If the word individual occurs in sociological or psychological literature, then, as a rule, the person's personality is meant. The fact is that in these sciences the individual manifests himself as a person, therefore it is the personal characteristics that are considered.
However, some psychological concepts separate the concepts of "individual" and "personality". For example, in the concept of personalization, its basic basis is the assumption that an individual has a need to personalize, that is, to become a person, and this need is due to his presence in society.
The growth of an individual to a personality is not an easy, but obligatory process, according to psychologists.
Many psychologists have developed the topic of the relationship between the concepts of "personality" and "individual" in order to identify how one passes into another and how they are interrelated. There is a point of view that being an individual is an integral property of a person, but in order to become a person, you need to try.