Ecopsychological Conceptualization of Psychological Resources in the “Person — Environment (Internal, External)” System

Abstract

The idea of a psychological resource is used mainly in relation to the behavior of an individual in difficult or problematic situations for him, when there are not enough actual abilities and subjective means for coping behavior (coping strategies) or solving the problems that arise. From the variety of definitions of psychological resources, it follows that the problem of conceptualizing psychological resources on the basis of uniform methodological premises, invariant to different types of difficult, critical situations, remains relevant. As such, to conceptualize the psychological resource in an individual’s interactions with the internal and external environment, the concepts of the “person —environment (external, internal)” system and the ecopsychological typology of agent-environment interactions, developed within the framework of the ecopsychological approach to mental development, were used. This made it possible to conceptualize ideas about a person’s psychological resource in a system of constructs located, relatively speaking: a) vertically “opportunity (personal potential) – reality (actual subjective qualities)”, and b) horizontally: “internal environment (the totality of internal, intra-subjective capabilities) — external environment (the set of external, extra-subjective conditions)”. As a result of this conceptualization, human psychological resources appear before us in the form of an eco-psychological resource of the “person-environment” system itself, which consists of an internal (intrapersonal) resource, external (external environmental) resource and communicative resource in the form of subject-environmental interactions. The implementation of an ecopsychological resource occurs as a transformation (manifestation and development) of the subjective qualities of an individual and his subjectivity in the “person — environment (internal, external)” system. Depending on the type of difficult situation (working, problematic, potentially problematic), the implementation of an eco-psychological resource can occur in a reproductive, developmental and preventive form. The presented ecopsychological conceptualization is invariant in relation to the specific content of difficult situations.