The degree of manifestation of volitional qualities as a measure of an ability to overcome obstacles in goal-achieving

The aim of this research is to structure the main concepts related to the manifestation of will. The following concepts are defined: will, function of will, willpower, volitional qualities, strength of will, independent volitional qualities, family of psychological properties, and strength of a character. Will is interpreted as the ability of a person to overcome difficulties in achieving a goal. For coping with difficulties the person generates volitional efforts aimed at regulating their undesirable effects. Will implements three functions: a motivating function, which initiates mental or physical actions; a stabilizing function, which implies the maintenance of the activity of the individual; and an inhibiting function, which consists in restraining motives that are not consistent with the general purpose of the activities. Will manifests itself in individual acts of expressing it. The measure of significance of the act of overcoming individual obstacles is considered to be the force of expression of will. Will consists of elements called volitional qualities. The term volitional quality is used to refer to a specific way of displaying volitional regulation, which is determined by the nature of the difficulties to be overcome. The strength of one's will is the sum of forces constituting the volitional qualities. The power of the volitional quality is the measure of the mental ability of the individual to initiate voluntary actions in spite of circumstances. A number of independent volitional qualities with disjoint contents are used. The place and importance of independent volitional qualities in human activities are analyzed. The mechanism of action of will as a process of overcoming an obstacle impeding the achievement of the goal is considered. In this case, the degree of manifestation of volitional qualities is defined as a measure of the ability to overcome the negative impact of factors that impede the implementation of actions. This phenomenon is called a psychological property. The concept of the family of psychological properties of an independent volitional quality is introduced. There are seven of such families: the family of self-control, initiative, perseverance, discipline, determination, independence, and courage. Using "courage" (one of the independent volitional qualities) as an example, we specify the method of constructing and the structure of such a family. We obtain a number of elements of this family arranged according to the degree of overcoming fear: cowardice, timidity, caution, boldness, courage. We note that the optimal number of elements in the design of families of independent volitional qualities is five. We show the importance of the study, which consists in broadening the knowledge associated with the phenomenon of will, as well as in improving the existing tools and creating new tools for measuring the volitional qualities.

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