Often today you can hear the words "mentality" and "mentality." They are used not only in scientific literature, but also in everyday everyday speech. They are becoming popular and fashionable. In various sources you can find a mention of the post-Soviet, Russian, European mentality. Clarifying the concept, the authors apply ambiguous descriptions. However, from frequent use, their meaning is becoming less and less concrete, thereby allowing it to be interpreted quite widely.
The word "mentality" comes from the Greek - thinking, mind, prudence. It denotes a combination of psychological factors, a vision of the world and people who belong to different social groups.
Mentality changes over time, but it has been going on for a long time. This way of thinking can include psychological reactions that have been formed over decades. Also, the mentality of the surrounding world can also be called a mentality. It depends on the point of view of whom to consider this definition: psychologist or social historian.
Mentality is such a way of perception of the world in which thought is not directly separated from emotions (feelings and joys). Thus, the reaction of human behavior to changes in the external and internal world in each cultural environment has its own characteristics.
There are many kinds of mentality. Basically, it depends on the society in which a person lives, on upbringing and other factors. As an example, the fact that in Russia children help each other to write off lessons and control tests, and in Europe and America the guys who saw that their classmates write off, immediately tell the teacher about it. Therefore, the mentality even at the children's level is completely different among the populations of different countries.
Mentality begins to form during education, when a person receives his first life experience. Therefore, people who have acquired behavioral examples in different cultures may have a completely opposite way of thinking. Also, the term "mentality" means not only the intellectual and emotional characteristics of a person, but also his attitude to the past and present.
An example is a series of studies of the behavior of the Japanese after the Second World War. A global contradiction was noted - at the same time they had a sense of beauty and, at the same time, there was a fanatical devotion to the authorities. Another example is the mentality of the Swedes. They are very competent people, in every sense of the word. The Swedes are shy, they understand both the pros and cons of their character, honest and independent.
