Cite this article as:
Пряжников Н. С. Statuses of “Acme” in Career Self-Determination: an Invitation to Discuss. Izvestiya of Saratov University. Educational Acmeology. Developmental Psychology, 2017, vol. , iss. 3, pp. 214-?. DOI: https://doi.org/10.18500/2304-9790-2017-6-3-214-220
Statuses of “Acme” in Career Self-Determination: an Invitation to Discuss
The article specifies the concept of “acme”. It outlines similarities and differences between this concept and the concept of “elitist orientations” of the developing personality: with a common orientation toward high achievements, “acme” does not always imply public recognition, and every person can have it, whereas “elite orientations” presuppose, sooner or later, some public recognition and a change in the individual’s social status. Career self-determination is examined in connection with the search and clarification of the meaning of future professional activity. In this case, the process of finding such a meaning has a certain value compared with the result of the search, although, if firmly “stuck” in the process without any visible results, the self-determining personality may face a crisis of professional development. The purpose of the article is to discuss statuses of “acme” in career and personal self-determination. It clarifies the notion of a “subject of professional self-determination”, whose specific feature is readiness to reflect on his/her development, to comprehend unexpected (spontaneous) actions and deeds, to manage his/her own behavior and his/her whole life, and on this basis, that subject is ready to surprise people around with his/her actions (and acts), becoming in their understanding not only “unfathomable” and “successful”, but sometimes even an example to be emulated. This study also focuses on moral aspects of “acme”, it explores, in particular, such situations when a person, on the one hand, evaluates his/her achievements as “superior”, while, on the other hand, doubting their moral justification, thus constituting “anti-acme”. Based on the performed analysis, this study presents variants (“statuses”) of “acme” in career and personal self-determination. It further proposes a generalized model that reflects key “statuses” of “acme”, based on the following parameters: 1) the desire to acquire – the desire to refuse questionable acts; 2) the orientation of the individual to an internal assessment of one’s actions (subjective “acme”) – the orientation of the individual to external assessments of one’s own actions (objective, social “acme”).
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