The adaptation of a person as a person to existence in society in accordance with the requirements of this society and with his own needs, motives and interests. The process of active adaptation of the individual to the conditions of the social environment is called social adaptation. The latter is carried out by assimilating ideas about the norms and values of a given society (both in the broad sense and in relation to the immediate social environment — a social group, work collective, family). The main manifestations of social adaptation are the interaction (including communication) of a person with other people and his vigorous activity. The most important means of achieving successful social adaptation are general education and upbringing, as well as labor and vocational training.
Persons with mental and physical disabilities (defects in hearing, vision, speech, etc.) experience special difficulties in social adaptation. In these cases, adaptation is facilitated by the use in the learning process and in everyday life of various special means of correcting impaired and compensating for missing functions.
Addition
From an evolutionary point of view, the emergence of mental activity was a qualitatively new step in the development of mechanisms and methods of biological adaptation. Without this mechanism, the evolution of life would present a completely different picture compared to that studied by biology. Deep thoughts about the mental factor of evolution and adaptation to changing, non-stationary environmental conditions were expressed by growing up. biologist A. N. Severtsov (1866-1936) in his short work «Evolution and the Psyche» (1922). This line has been taken up by the theorists of behavioral ecology (Krebs and Davis, 1981), who directly set out the task of accurately investigating the significance of behavior for survival in an evolutionary sense.
Behavioral adaptations play a significant role in the structure of the way of life of animals, starting with the simplest. The view of behavior and its mental regulation as active forms of adaptation has been developed by many functionalist psychologists. Functionalism has given a correct theoretical representation within which different evolutionary forms of behavior and mental processes can be compared. Based on this idea, Jean Piaget developed the concept of intellectual development. Piaget noted his adherence to the ideas of E. Claparede that the intellect performs the function of adaptation to a new (for an individual and biological species) environment, while skill and instinct serve as an adaptation to recurring circumstances. Moreover, instinct is somewhat similar to intelligence, since its first use is also an adaptation to a situation that is new for the individual (but not for the species). With the development of zoopsychology and ethology came the understanding and substantiation of the need to study the psyche and behavior in the structure (context) of the whole, which is called the way of life.