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Social Psychology and Society
2025. Vol. 16, no. 4, 31–48
doi:10.17759/sps.2025160403
ISSN: 2221-1527 / 2311-7052 (online)

Man in interaction with the surrounding world: from situation to context

 
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Abstract

Context and relevance. Modern reality defines a new perspective on the problem of human relations with the environment, due to the inclusion of modern man in the broader context of existence. The principle of contextuality is one of the methodological principles of describing psychological phenomenology in modern psychology, which requires the search for principles and languages for describing human interaction with the context of his existence. 
Objective. To analyze the concepts used in psychology to denote human relations with the outside world, describe the results of the development of the psychology of situations, argue for the transition of psychological science to the concept of context and clarify the units of context description.
Methodology used: theoretical, methodological and conceptual analysis of the concepts of modern psychology describing the world around a person. 
Conclusions. For twentieth-century psychology, the concept of a situation was the main one in describing a person's relationship with the outside world. The reality of human existence in the modern world is described by the concept of context, which corresponds to the principle of integrity in the description of personality and fills in the missing link in the description of "personality going beyond its limits." The concepts of life space, life world, and chronotope serve as units of context description.

General Information

Keywords: relations with the environment, environment, situation, context, life space, life world, chronotope

Journal rubric: Theoretical Research

Article type: scientific article

DOI: https://doi.org/10.17759/sps.2025160403

Funding. The research was carried out with the financial support of the Russian Science Foundation within the framework of the scientific project No. 24-18-00308.

Received 13.09.2025

Revised 24.10.2025

Accepted

Published

For citation: Grishina, N.V. (2025). Man in interaction with the surrounding world: from situation to context. Social Psychology and Society, 16(4), 31–48. (In Russ.). https://doi.org/10.17759/sps.2025160403

© Grishina N.V., 2025

License: CC BY-NC 4.0

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Information About the Authors

Nataliya V. Grishina, Doctor of Psychology, Professor, Department of Personality Psychology, Saint-Petersburg State University, St.Petersburg, Russian Federation, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6763-7389, e-mail: n.v.grishina@spbu.ru

Conflict of interest

The author declares no conflict of interest.

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