Although it may be treated as an objective risk factor, threat is first of all a subjective category connected with the perception of the world around us as well as with people's social and cultural awareness. Thus individuals' ways of thinking and behaviour in particular situations depend not only on characteristics and features of objectively existing reality but mostly on the ways of its interpretation. An individual image of threat including the assessment of its probability and the depiction of consequence drama may incline a person to constructive or destructive preventive activities. They frequently multiply an objectively existing threat. Another factor affecting human reactions in a situation of threat is also the perception of own abilities how to cope with the danger that one is aware of. Selected conditions of threat perception presented in the article undermine deeply rooted, not only in everyday thinking, conviction that human cognitive processes are rational. This rationality frequently seems to be a desired state, whereas our actions in a situation of threat are based on various kinds of illusions and cognitive deformation.
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Many philosophical concepts assume that the main source of threats to safe existence of mankind is the human nature and social environment. Social psychologists’ research provided strong arguments confirming these assumptions. It showed that most global problems of this world, such as social conflicts, wars or excessive exploitation of environment are connected with the psychology of an individual and a small social group. It is true that a huge potential of evil is hidden in a man and thereby he/she endangers not only others but himself/herself as well. It is also true that people want to live safe and do good. However, they are caught in social life’s traps and as a result of them their good wishes so often bring about disastrous consequences. The knowledge of people and their social behaviour will help in organizing an environment that could neutralize the dark side of human nature and at the same time activate huge amounts of embedded good. Without taking into consideration this area of knowledge of human beings, all reflections on security seem to be shallow and not able to launch shaping a valuable security culture. Security is a process taking place in an environment created by people and for people. It is also a form of human activity that could be included into the class of phenomena consisting in shaping people. Therefore the basic condition of undertaken activities’ values in the security creation area is to comply with rules and laws formed in science explaining a given area of human relations.
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An authority is mentioned by psychologists as one of three, apart from copying and conformism, expressions of a social influence. A man is largely helpless against it. He succumbs to it, without realising it. The identification of the authority takes place not basing on carefully planned transformation of information, but rather basing on superficial interpretation of certain signals showing the competence in a given area or the power of an individual. In the army where the educational process is traditionally based on authority, it is extremely difficult to sort out controversies resulting from the tendencies to shape both the attitude of respect and obedience towards superiors as well as subjectivity and independence in thinking. Obedience and rigorism, which serve well to shape external signs of discipline, often fail in complicated situations on the battlefield.
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The Polish Armed Forces, of the third Republic, put particularly strong influences on changing social conditions quickly. So far hermetic armed forces have become more open to the world in which they are functioning. Values, thinking and behaviour, penetrate the soldiers' society without great difficulty. This leads to transformation in their systems of values and changes the ethos of the whole group of professional soldiers. This situation causes a state of tension between vigorously ensued processes of social change, concerning the army, and the formal goals and tasks given to them by the country. The contemporary discussions on transformations in the armed forces frequently concentrate on structural, economical and political aspects of its functioning. These important fields cannot be devoid of reflection on social aspects. The Army as an institution has many possibilities of moulding values in a professional soldiers - both by promoting individual values and creating behaviour as a result of the organisation of the educational environment for the functional sake, world of Soldiers' values, which are expected and desired, cannot be constructed by imposing them from central structures. They should rather be a product of the consciousness of soldiers.
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The concept of the society's security in a country results from new trends in understanding the idea of security. When referring this category to democratic structures, one can easily notice that the needs of human existence and development are essential. In democratic systems the state is an organisation that creates the best possible conditions for development of individuals and societies. In this situation the interests of some groups may by glorified at the expense of other groups; societies might become egalitarian. In the first case it can lead to a conflict of interests, in the latter it may result in the weakening of human creativity.
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Institutions of clear hierarchic organisational structure, particularly those of total character, face an important problem: how to command subordinates so as to ensure their subjectivity and not to lose the effectiveness of achieving organisational tasks in a democratic social environment. The compulsion that has recently dominated superiors’ activities towards their subordinates is not working in modern organisations. The era of authoritarianism is finishing, also in the armed forces. Superiors of authoritarian personality are not apt to fulfil social roles connected with commanding. In modern organisations people of high social competency and high moral values play these roles. They are viewed by subordinates not as individuals who tend to achieve their personal advantages, who limit and punish, but as people who exert influence in order to support others and ensure success, at least partially.
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In the article the author touches on issues connected with combat training. He points out to the necessity to use the quality category in this problem analysis. He suggests defining this notion according to the assumption formed by Tedeusz Szczurkiewicz. According to this definition the quality of combat training may be expressed by social coexistence, in particular by relations assigned and regulated by groups that assure the social organisation existence of co-operating people. The factor that supports a wider inclusion of this category into the theory of didactic activities in the army is the fact that it concerns the essence of phenomena taking place in combat training. It also provides a possibility to define it using the entity of didactic and educational results achieved in this process.
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The article shows the results of polls conducted on a sample of 385 professional soldiers, 416 conscripts and sociometric research carried out in 18 subunits. Team work, that is an immanent feature of combat actions, proves that in order to achieve combat training tasks the essential role is played by endeavours that aim at forging the sections, companies, divisions and battalions to be teams able to take and conduct common tasks. Empirical data show, however, that social phenomena occurring in the army make achieving this state of subunits difficult. They include, among others, divergences between individual tasks of the subunit members and the team tasks, domination of outer constraint in didactic - educational actions, social stratification of the subunit structure into groups of opposite interests, subculture life.
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