The paper addresses self-development as a special form of personality development and personality as the subject of development. Formation of psychology of self-development as an independent and dynamic research area is discussed. We show heuristic potential of subjectivity approach to self-development of the personality. Self-development of the personality is defined as a qualitative, irreversible, and directional personality change accomplished by the personality itself as the subject of the development. It is noted that although bearing overall resemblance, self-development is different from development in that it includes conscious and active participation of the personality guiding its own activity and way of life.
Empirical study of subjective experience of development (self-development) (N=327) has demonstrated that the separation between general and developmental subjectivity is necessary and that the link between them is accomplished by emotional indicators of subjective experience. It has been shown that emotional reinforcement of subjectivity experience in the process of development is a significant factor of its reproduction and transformation into life strategy.
We testify interlinks between developmental subjectivity and general subjectivity that defines the level of self-management in social environment and life subjectivity manifesting itself in the choice of a life creativity strategy. Self-development is presented as a case of a life creativity strategy accomplished in the management of life events. Self-development as management of qualitative changes of the personality itself becomes possible thanks to management of events as life journey elements. We have identified four categories of change subjectivity-objectivity scales that describe the role of subjectivity strategy in the perceptions of a developing personality. Statistically significant differences are found between respondents using different types of scales.