Fixed Forms of Behavior as Excessively Rigid Behavior in Normal and Pathological Individual and Group Systems

BACKGROUND: This article is devoted to the problem of excessively rigid behavior, which the author has named “fixed forms of behavior” (FFB). This term was suggested to me by the concepts of P. Janet (idée fixe), S.Freud (Fixierung), and D.Uznadze (fiksirovanaya ustanovka — fixed set/attitude). By FFB, the author understands a broad spectrum of behaviors of a person or a group of people, which, according to the cultural norms of a given society for persons of a certain age, gender, and status, have become inappropriate, yet are repeated in situations objectively requiring that they change; the degree of realization and acceptance of the need for this change can vary. RESULTS: Through literature analysis and the collection of experimental data over many years of research, in which over 1,150 persons took part — 550 healthy subjects and 600 mental patients from a broad spectrum — and on the basis of a biopsychosocionoetic model of the nature of man and his health, and a system-network approach, it has become possible to distinguish the following models to explain the nature of fixed forms of behavior: neurodynamic, energy-economic, phylogenetic, person-environment relationship, dispositional, stressogenic, pathogenic, psychodynamic, learning (behavioral-cognitive), system (an excessively rigid system and structural relations between levels of action).