To begin with, let us define the range of development of this problem and briefly list the scientists.

Scientists who dealt with the problem of will: L.S. Vygotsky, V.I. Selivanov, E.P. Ilyin, V.A. Betz, S. Ya. Rubinstein, B. V. Zeigarnik, T. Ribot, etc.

Concept of will

Definition

Will is a certain ability of an individual, which consists of the conscious regulation of behavior and activity in order to complete assigned tasks.

Basic approaches to determining the nature of will

The development of ideas of will since ancient times is shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1. “Development of ideas about will”

1. Idealism. Will is free will, recognition of free will is a denial of the objective determinism of human behavior.
2. Materialism. Will is an illusion of a person who is not aware of the determinism of his own actions.

Idealist psychology

The volitional act is divorced from activity. Let us present several points of view within this direction.

1. Will comes down to intellect.
2. Will comes down to emotions.
3. Will as a specific experience that cannot be attributed to either intellect or emotions.

Behavioral psychology

Within this direction, behavior is reduced to the same patterns of execution, without taking into account the complexity of the nervous system of a particular organism. A diagram of this behavior is presented below.

Figure 2. “Behavior in line with behaviorism”

For a reflexologist, a volitional action is reduced to a simple sum of reflexes, for a representative of behavioral psychology - to a set of reactions: the conscious volitional process falls out of the volitional action.

In contrast to the prevailing interpretation of will in psychological literature as a phenomenon to be explained either physiologically or subjectively psychologically, Blondel put forward the position that will is a product of sociality. But his attempt to give a psychology of will, taking into account the role of social relations in its formation, proceeds from the general premises of Durkheim’s sociological school and reflects all its attitudes. The social in it is reduced to the ideological, supposedly independent of real, material social relations; at the same time, the social is contrasted with the natural, the social with the personal.

Theories of will in Russian psychology

Regulatory approach

1. The theory of will by L. S. Vygotsky. Within the framework of this theory, will refers to the HMF (higher mental functions). Their development is determined by the arbitrariness of human behavior with the help of one motive or another. A feature of voluntariness, according to L. S. Vygotsky, is the free choice of action.
2. Theory of will by V.I. Selivanov. Will represents a conscious level of regulation of one’s own activity, which manifests itself in overcoming various obstacles caused by both internal and external factors in order to complete assigned tasks. In addition, V.I. Selivanov believes that the will must necessarily be reflected in activity, in its execution. Otherwise, we cannot talk about volitional regulation in general.
3. The theory of will by E. P. Ilyin. Will, according to E.P. Ilyin, is a type of special voluntary control that can be realized only through volitional action, the main feature of which is volitional effort.

General conclusions on the regulatory approach to understanding will:

1. will is closely related to activity;
2. indirectness of volitional behavior;
3. will manifests itself in activity.

Motivational approach

Motivational-activity theory of V. A. Ivannikov. According to V. A. Ivannikov, will can be considered as “a person’s ability for conscious intentional activity or for self-determination through work on the internal plane, providing additional incentive (inhibition) to action based on an arbitrary form of motivation.” Volitional behavior itself is realized with a lack of general motivation for a specific action.

Aspect of Choice

1. The concept of will by L. S. Vygotsky. The scientist distinguishes two parts of volitional action:

• the closing part of the volitional process (a person making a certain decision);
• executive part (activity).

The theory of regulatory-volitional processes by L. M. Wecker. Will represents the highest specific regulation of one's own behavior.

Theory – it is a system of interrelated ideas, constructs and principles that aims to explain various observations of reality.

Personality theory - these are carefully verified conclusions or hypotheses about what a person is, how he behaves and why he acts this way and not otherwise.

A key component in any theory of personality is the concept of personality development and the question of how motivational aspects of personality functioning change from infancy to adulthood and old age, as well as the identification of factors (genetic or environmental) that influence personality. The provisions of a particular theory are deeply and fundamentally influenced by the author’s views on the nature of personality. Personality theory provides a semantic context in which it becomes possible to describe and interpret human behavior.

Various theories of personality can be reduced to the following classification (see R. S. Nemov).

Behaviorism (English) behavior- behavior). The founder of behaviorism J. Watson (1878 – 1958) at the beginning of the 20th century. considered human behavior as an adaptation of a living being to its environment. From the point of view of J. Watson, behavior is a system of reactions. Having read (in German and French translation) the works of V. M. Bekhterev and I. P. Pavlov, J. Watson finally became convinced that the conditioned reflex should become the main unit of behavior analysis and is the key to developing skills, building complex movements from simple ones , as well as to any forms of behavior, including those of an affective nature. He believed that there is not a single action that does not have a reason behind it in the form of an external stimulus. The main formula of behaviorism is “S – R” (stimulus – response). The main research tasks of behaviorists boiled down to the following: identifying and describing types of reactions, studying the processes of their formation, studying the laws of combinations; as a more general and final task: to predict the behavior (reaction) of a person based on the situation (stimulus) and determine the stimulus that caused it based on the nature of the reaction.

According to the theory of behaviorism, classical (according to I.P. Pavlov) and operant (fixed when any action is reinforced and subsequently reproduced with greater ease) conditioning is a universal learning mechanism, common to both animals and humans. At the same time, the learning process is presented as completely automatic, not requiring human activity. To “consolidate” a successful reaction in the nervous system, it is enough to use only reinforcement, regardless of the will and desires of the person himself. From here, behaviorists concluded that with the help of incentives and reinforcement, one can literally “sculpt” any human behavior, manipulate it, that human behavior is strictly “determined” and depends on external circumstances and past experience.

The “S – R” formula turned out to be quite limited. This theory ignores the existence of consciousness, i.e. the inner mental world of a person, which in itself is false. The spread of behaviorist views contributed to the study of mental phenomena from a natural scientific perspective.

Neobehaviorism . Attempts to include the categories of motive and psychosocial attitude into the original behaviorist program led to a new direction - neobehaviorism.

One of the representatives of late behaviorism, E. Tolman (1886 - 1959), an American psychologist, proposed introducing a significant amendment to the “S – R” scheme, placing so-called “intermediate variables” - V between S and R. As a result, the scheme takes the form “S – V – R.” By “intermediate variables” E. Tolman understood internal processes that mediate the action of a stimulus, such as goals, intentions, images of situations.

E. Tolman in the 30s of the XX century. described behavior as a system connected to its environment by a network of cognitive relationships (“what leads to what”). The human body not only encounters the environment, but, as it were, meets it halfway with its expectations, building hypotheses and showing ingenuity in search of the optimal way out of a problem situation.

K. Hull (1884 - 1953) proved that of all the factors influencing human behavior, the reduction (intensification) of needs has a decisive impact.

F. Skinner (1904 – 1990) believed that the personality of an individual consists of relatively complex, but nevertheless independently acquired reactions and is absolutely dependent on previous reinforcements. The concept of reinforcement plays a key role in Skinner's theory. Constitutional factors limit behavior. Throughout life, a person’s behavior can change under the influence of a changing environment: since the reinforcing features in the environment are different, different behavior is formed under their direct control. Human behavior is controlled by aversive (unpleasant or painful) stimuli: punishment or negative reinforcement. A logical extension of the principle of reinforcement is that a behavior reinforced in one situation is very likely to be repeated when the organism encounters other situations that resemble it. The tendency of reinforced behavior to spread across many similar positions is called stimulus generalization. With adaptive behavior, a person has the ability to make differences in different environmental situations - stimulus discrimination. Personal development occurs as a result of the interaction of generalizing and discriminative abilities, through which a person regulates behavior so as to maximize positive reinforcement and minimize punishment. Skinner established that the process of behavior formation determines the development of oral speech, since language is the result of reinforcement of certain actions. Skinner explained life crises as changes in the environment that place the individual in a situation where the set of behavioral responses is inadequate to obtain reinforcement in a new situation. He developed the so-called operant learning, in which only the behavior or operations that the subject is performing at the moment are reinforced. A complex reaction is divided into a number of simple, successive and sequentially reinforced operations leading to a common goal. The programmed teaching method developed by F. Skinner made it possible to optimize the educational process and develop corrective programs for underachieving or mentally retarded children.

Social behaviorism (social cognitive theory) . D. Mead (1863 - 1931), an American scientist, began to consider personality in the process of its interaction with other people. He argued that personality is, as it were, a union of various roles that it assumes. According to D. Mead's theory, called the expectancy theory, children play their roles depending on the expectations of an adult and past experience (observation of parents, acquaintances).

The works of A. Bandura (b. 1925), devoted to the correction of deviant behavior, are currently of great importance in the development of social behaviorism (social-cognitive theory).

A. Bandura views a person as having the abilities of thinking and self-regulation, which allows him to predict events and create means to exercise control over the environment. A. Bandura understands the reasons for human functioning as a continuous interaction of behavior, cognitive sphere and environment. Many aspects of personality functioning involve the individual's interactions with others. Internal determinants of behavior, such as belief and expectation, and external determinants, such as reward and punishment, are part of a system of interacting influences that act not only on a person's behavior, but also on various parts of the system. Although human behavior is influenced by the environment, it is also partly a product of human activity, that is, a person can influence his own behavior.

Because of a person's ability to represent actual outcomes symbolically (through anticipation), future consequences can be translated into immediate incentives that influence behavior in much the same way as potential consequences. Much learning occurs vicariously, that is, through observing the behavior of others, individuals learn to imitate that behavior. The implementation of new reactions, observed some time ago, but never practiced, turns out to be possible thanks to human cognitive abilities. These symbolic, cognitive skills allow an individual to transform what they have learned or combine what they have observed in a number of models into new patterns of behavior. Observing behavior that causes positive reinforcement or prevents some aversive conditions can be a powerful incentive to pay attention, maintain, and build the same behavior in the future (in a similar situation). Bandura, analyzing the role of reinforcement in observational learning, showed its cognitive orientation. Reinforcement tells a person what consequences can be expected as a result of a correct or incorrect response.

From the point of view of social cognitive theory, many human actions are regulated by self-imposed reinforcement. Self-reinforcement occurs when a person sets a bar for achievement and rewards or punishes himself for achieving, exceeding, or failing.

A wide range of human behavior is regulated by self-esteem reactions, expressed in the form of self-satisfaction, pride in one's successes, self-dissatisfaction and self-criticism.

In recent years, A. Bandura introduced into his theoretical constructs the postulate of the cognitive mechanism of self-efficacy to explain personal functioning and change. The concept of self-efficacy refers to people's ability to recognize their ability to engage in behavior appropriate to a specific task or situation. Bandura proposed that the acquisition of self-efficacy can occur in any of four ways (or any combination of them): the ability to construct behavior, vicarious experience, verbal persuasion, and a state of physical (emotional) arousal.

Cognitive theory . J. Kelly (1905 – 1967) is one of the first personologists who emphasized cognitive processes as the main feature of human functioning. In accordance with his theoretical system, called the psychology of personal constructs, a person is essentially a scientist, a researcher who seeks to understand, interpret, anticipate and control the world of his personal experiences in order to effectively interact with it. This view of man underlies modern cognitive orientation in personality psychology.

J. Kelly built his theory of personality on the basis of a holistic philosophical position - constructive alternativeism.

Constructive alternativeism proves that there is no such thing in the world about which “there cannot be two opinions”; a person’s awareness of reality is always a subject for interpretation; objective reality, of course, exists, but different people perceive it differently; nothing is permanent or final; facts and events (like all human experience) exist only in the human mind, and there are different ways to interpret them. The concept of constructive alternativeism assumes that human behavior is never fully determined, therefore there is no true or valid way of interpreting a person. A person is always free to some extent to revise or change his interpretation of reality, but his thoughts and behavior are determined by previous events.

Kelly believed that people perceive their world through clear systems or models called constructs. Each person has a unique construct system that they use to interpret life experiences and anticipate future events. Personality is equivalent to the personality constructs used by a person to predict the future. To understand another person, you need to know about the constructs that he uses, the events included in these constructs, and how they relate to each other. A person’s behavior is determined by how he predicts the future using his unique system of personal constructs.

Kelly characterized the organization of constructs in terms of a hierarchical system, in which some constructs are subordinate, and some are subordinate to other parts of the system; the organization of constructs is not rigidly fixed. People are similar to each other if the same events have approximately the same psychological meaning for them, and not because they experienced identical events in life; If two people share views on the world, then most likely their behavior will be similar. Cultural differences are rooted in differences in the constructs that people use. In order to interact fruitfully with another, a person needs to interpret some part of the constructive system of the other. The similarity of constructs determines the formation of friendship.

J. Kelly believed that his theory could be useful for understanding emotional states, mental health and mental disorders.

Gestalpsychology ( him . gestalt – shape, structure ). Simultaneously with the emergence of behaviorism in the United States, another direction was developing in Germany - gestaltism. A group of young researchers - M. Wertheimer (1880 - 1943), W. Köhler (1887 - 1967), K. Koffka (1886 - 1941), successors of European functionalism - discovered integral structures in the human consciousness - Gestalts, indivisible into sensory primary elements, which have their own characteristics and laws. The leading mental process that determines the level of development of the human psyche, from the point of view of Gestaltists, is perception. How a person perceives the world determines his behavior and understanding of the situation. In the development of perception, a large role is played by the combination of figure and background on which a given object is demonstrated (the phenomenon of “figure and background” (E. Rubin) took the main place among the basic laws of Gestalt). The basic properties of perception appear gradually, with the maturation of gestalts.

The process of mental development is divided into two independent and parallel processes - maturation and learning. During perception, there is first a “grasping” of the integral image of an object, and then its differentiation. Learning leads to the formation of a new structure and, consequently, to a different perception and awareness of the situation. The moment phenomena enter another situation, they acquire a new function. This awareness of new combinations and new functions of objects is the formation of a new gestalt, the awareness of which is the essence of thinking.

The process of “gestalt restructuring” occurs instantly – “insight” (eng. insight– discretion), i.e. insight does not depend on the subject’s past experience and is an explanation of adaptive forms of behavior. Insight meant for Gestaltists a transition to a new cognitive, figurative structure, according to which the nature of adaptive reactions changes. Gestaltism considered the only psychological facts to be the phenomena of consciousness directly experienced by the subject, trying to correlate the “phenomenal world” with the real, physical one, without at the same time depriving consciousness of its independent value. M. Wertheimer spoke out against the traditional practice of teaching at school, arguing that an early transition to logical thinking interferes with the development of creativity.

Psychoanalysis (Freudianism) . The term “psychoanalysis” has three meanings: 1) theory of personality and psychopathology; 2) method of treating personality disorders; 3) a method of studying the unconscious thoughts and feelings of an individual.

Psychoanalytic theory, authored by S. Freud (1865 - 1939), assigns a leading role to the complex interaction between instincts, motives and drives, which compete with each other for dominance in the regulation of behavior. Personality, from the point of view of psychoanalysis, is a dynamic configuration of processes in endless conflict. Human behavior is deterministic.

Initially, describing the topographic model of personal organization, S. Freud identified three levels in a person’s mental life: consciousness, preconscious And unconscious. Level consciousness consists of sensations and experiences that a person is aware of at the moment. Consciousness covers only a small percentage of all information received and stored in the brain. Region preconscious, sometimes called "accessible memory", includes all experiences that are not currently conscious, but can easily return to consciousness, spontaneously or as a result of minimal effort. Unconscious represents a repository of primitive instinctual urges plus emotions and memories that are so threatening to consciousness that they have been repressed into the unconscious. According to Freud, such unconscious material largely determines a person's daily functioning.

In the early 20s of the XX century. Freud revised his conceptual model of mental life and introduced three components into the structure of personality: id, ego And superego ( concepts adopted in English translations, equivalents of Freud's original terms - “it”, “I”, “super-ego”).

“It” (lat. id - it) is exclusively primitive, instinctive and innate aspects of personality. “It” is associated with bodily processes, the so-called “true mental reality” by Freud, reflecting the inner world of subjective experiences, unaware of objective reality. Being the oldest original structure of the psyche, “it” expresses the primary principle of all human life - the immediate discharge of psychic energy produced by biologically determined impulses (especially sexual and aggressive). If impulses are restrained and do not find release, then tension is created in personal functioning. The immediate release of tension is called pleasure principle. Freud described two mechanisms by which the “it” relieves the personality of tension: reflex actions and primary processes.

"I" (lat. ego- “I”) is a component of the mental apparatus responsible for decision making. The "I" strives to express and satisfy the desires of the "it" according to the restrictions imposed by the external world. The “I” must constantly differentiate between events on the mental plane and real events in the external world. The “I” is subject to the principle of reality, the purpose of which is to preserve the integrity of the organism by delaying the gratification of instincts until the moment when the opportunity to achieve discharge in a suitable way and (or) appropriate conditions in the external environment is found. The reality principle introduces a measure of rationality into human behavior.

"Super-ego" (lat. super- "above", ego- “I”) is the last component of the developing personality, representing an internalized version of social norms and standards of behavior. Freud divided the superego into two subsystems: conscience And ego ideal. Conscience includes the ability for critical self-evaluation, the presence of moral prohibitions and the emergence of feelings of guilt. Ego ideal- This is the rewarding aspect of the superego. The “super-ego” directs a person to absolute perfection in thoughts, words and actions, inhibiting any socially condemned impulses on the part of the “it”.

Psychoanalytic theory is based on the idea that people are complex energy systems. Human behavior is activated by a single energy according to the law of conservation of energy. The source of mental energy is the neurophysiological state of excitation. Each person has a certain amount of energy that fuels mental activity. The goal of any form of human behavior is to reduce the tension caused by the unpleasant accumulation of this energy.

According to Freud's theory, the motivation of human behavior is entirely based on the energy of excitation produced by bodily needs, the mental images of which, expressed in the form of desires, are called instincts. Instincts are the ultimate cause of any activity. Freud recognized the existence of two main groups of instincts: life instincts(under the general name Eros) and of death(called Thanatos). Freud considered sexual instincts to be the most essential for personality development. The energy of sexual instincts is called libido(Latin – to want, to desire), or libido energy is a term used to mean the energy of life instincts in general. Death instincts obey the principle entropy(any energy system strives to maintain dynamic equilibrium). Freud believed that all living organisms have an inherent tendency to return to the indeterminate state from which they emerged. "The purpose of life is death." Death instincts underlie all manifestations of cruelty, aggression, suicide and murder.

The psychoanalytic theory of development is based on the fact that, firstly, the experiences of early childhood play a critical role in the formation of the adult personality, and secondly, a person is born with a certain amount of libidinal energy, which passes in its development through several psychosexual stages (oral, anal, phallic, genital), rooted in the instinctive processes of the body. An important concept is the concept of regression - a return to an earlier stage of psychosexual development and the manifestation of corresponding behavior.

The consequence of inadequate discharge of libidinal energy is anxiety. Anxiety is a function of the self, and its purpose is to respond to threatening situations in an adaptive way. Anxiety helps a person avoid consciously identifying unacceptable instinctual impulses and encourage the satisfaction of these impulses in appropriate ways at appropriate times. Regulatory mechanisms aimed at eliminating or minimizing negative, traumatic experiences caused by anxiety, Freud called defense mechanisms or psychological protection of the individual. Freud defined the ego's defense mechanisms as a conscious strategy used by the personality to protect itself from the overt expression of the "id" and counter pressure from the superego.

All defense mechanisms have two common characteristics: 1) they operate on an unconscious level, being a means of self-deception; 2) distort, deny or falsify the perception of reality.

Some basic personality defense strategies:

Crowding out - the process of removing from awareness thoughts and feelings that cause suffering; “motivated forgetting”: a person is not aware of conflicts that cause anxiety, does not remember traumatic past events. The constant desire of the repressed material for open expression can receive short-term satisfaction in dreams, jokes, slips of the tongue, etc. Repression plays a role in all forms of neurotic behavior and psychosomatic diseases.

Projection– the process by which a person attributes his own unacceptable thoughts, feelings and behavior to other people. Projection allows you to place blame on someone or something for your shortcomings or failures. Projection also explains social prejudice and the scapegoat phenomenon.

Substitution- a process in which the manifestation of an instinctive impulse is redirected from a more threatening object or person to a less threatening one.

Rationalization- a way of protecting the “I” by resorting to false argumentation, thanks to which irrational behavior is presented in such a way that it looks completely reasonable and justified in the eyes of others.

Regression– a process characterized by a return to childhood behavior patterns.

Reactive education- a protective mechanism that manifests itself in the expression of opposing impulses in a person’s behavior and thoughts.

Sublimation- a defense mechanism that allows a person, for the purpose of adaptation, to change his impulses so that they can be expressed through socially acceptable thoughts or actions. Sublimation is seen as the only healthy, constructive strategy for curbing unwanted impulses, since it allows the self to change the goal and/or object of impulses without inhibiting their manifestation. Freud argued that the sublimation of sexual instincts was the main impetus for great achievements in science and culture.

Neo-Freudianism . The two most prominent theorists who diverged from Freud and chose the path of creating their own original theoretical systems are A. Adler and C. G. Jung.

1. A. Adler's individual theory of personality. A. Adler (1870 – 1937) gave his theory the name “individual psychology” (from the Latin individuum - indivisible). Adler proceeded from the fact that not a single manifestation of life activity can be considered in isolation, but only in relation to the personality as a whole. Only in the direction of personally significant goals can an individual be perceived as a single and self-consistent whole. Adler argued that by striving for perfection, a person is able to plan his actions and determine his own destiny. He believed that a person's behavior always depends on his opinion about himself and about the environment into which he must fit, i.e. behavior clearly reflects the individual's subjective perception of reality. Adler believed that feelings of inferiority are the source of all human aspirations for self-development, growth and competence. The desire for excellence is an innate, fundamental law of human life. Superiority as a goal can take both a negative (destructive) and a positive (constructive) direction. The desire for superiority manifests itself both at the level of the individual and at the level of society. Lifestyle is a complex of behavioral activities aimed at overcoming inferiority. All human behavior occurs in a social context; Every person has a natural sense of community or social interest (German). gemeinschafttsgefuhl- “social feeling”, “sense of solidarity”), which is innate and forces one to abandon selfish goals for the sake of the goals of society. From Adler's perspective, a person's life is valuable only to the extent that he contributes to increasing the value of the lives of other people. The severity of social interest is a criterion for assessing the mental health of an individual. Based on the important role of social context in personality development, Adler drew attention to birth order as the main determinant of attitudes accompanying lifestyle. Adler believed that personality is more influenced by subjective expectations of what might happen than by past experiences.

2. Analytical theory of personality by C. G. Jung. C. G. Jung (1875 – 1961), Swiss psychologist, devoted himself to the study of dynamic unconscious drives on human experience. According to the analytical theory of personality by C. Jung, personality is motivated by intrapsychic forces and images, the origin of which goes back to the depths of the history of evolution. Man (as well as humanity in general) has an inherent desire for creative self-expression and physical perfection. Jung argued that the soul (a term similar to personality) consists of three separate but interacting structures: ego, personal unconscious and collective unconscious. Ego is the center of the sphere of consciousness, the basis of self-awareness. Personal unconscious- this is a repository of suppressed material, repressed from consciousness, as well as accumulations of interconnected thoughts and feelings, called complexes. The material of the personal unconscious is unique and, as a rule, accessible to awareness. Collective unconscious, according to C. Jung, consists of powerful primary mental images common to all human beings and resulting from the emotional past of humanity, the so-called archetypes(Greek arche– beginning and typos - image). Archetypes– innate ideas or memories that predispose people to perceive, experience, and respond to events in a certain way. The number of archetypes is unlimited, the most significant are a person(Latin – mask), shadow(socially unacceptable sexual and aggressive impulses), anima(internal image of a woman in a man), animus(inner image of a man in a woman), self(the core of the personality around which all other elements are organized and united). According to Jung, the ultimate goal in life is the acquisition and development of selfhood (or the complete realization of the “I”), that is, the formation of a single, unique and integral individual. The development of each person in this direction is unique, it continues throughout life and includes a process called individuation. Individuation is a dynamic and evolving process of integration of many opposing intrapersonal forces and tendencies. Jung called the result of individuation self-realization. Self-realization is available only to capable and highly educated people who have sufficient leisure time for this.

The most famous contribution of C. Jung to psychology is considered to be the two life attitudes (ego orientations) he described: extraversion and introversion, as well as psychological functions: rational - thinking and feeling; irrational - sensation and intuition, of which only one personal orientation and one pair of functions are recognized by a person. The two ego orientations and four psychological functions interact to form eight different personality types.

Jung was one of the first to recognize the contribution of religious, spiritual and even mystical experience to personal development. This is his special role as a predecessor of the humanistic trend in psychology.

Humanistic psychology . The term humanistic psychology was coined by a group of personologists who came together in the early 1960s to create a viable theoretical alternative to the two most important intellectual movements in psychology, behaviorism and psychoanalysis. A. Maslow (1908 – 1970), American psychologist, received recognition as an outstanding representative of the humanistic theory of personality. Humanistic psychology is rooted in existential psychology (lat. existentia– existence) philosophy developed by European thinkers and writers: S. Kierkegaard, K. Jaspers, M. Heidegger, J. - P. Sartre. Many outstanding psychologists also influenced the development of the humanistic approach to personality, such as E. Fromm, G. Allport, K. Rogers, W. Frankl, R. May, L. Binswanger.

The existentialist view of man originates from a concrete and specific awareness of the uniqueness of human existence, existing at a specific moment in time and space. From the existentialist point of view, every person realizes that he is responsible for his own destiny, and therefore experiences pain, despair, loneliness and anxiety. As a free being, man is responsible for realizing as many possibilities as possible. The concept of human development presupposes his search for an authentic and meaningful life. The only “reality” known to anyone is subjective, or personal, but not objective reality. Existentialists emphasize the importance of subjective experience as a fundamental phenomenon in the study and understanding of humanity.

According to the point of view of A. Maslow, each person needs to be studied as a single, unique, organized whole. Maslow argued that every person is naturally endowed with the potential for creative potential for positive growth and improvement; that human nature is essentially good and the destructive forces within him are the result of frustration or unsatisfied basic needs. Maslow believed that people are motivated to find personal goals and this makes their lives significant and meaningful. Maslow proposed that all human needs are innate, or instinctual, and that they are organized into a hierarchical system of priority, or dominance. However, he admitted that there may be exceptions to this hierarchical arrangement of motives, for example, a creative person can develop and express his talent despite social difficulties and social problems. Maslow described man as a “desiring creature” who rarely achieves complete, complete satisfaction of needs. Maslow characterized self-actualization(highest need) as a person’s desire to become what he can become, i.e. develop your own innate potential. Self-actualization does not necessarily have to take the form of creative efforts expressed in the creation of works of art; Specific forms of self-actualization are very diverse. Many people do not see their potential, do not know about its existence and do not understand the benefits of self-improvement; they tend to doubt and even fear their abilities, thereby reducing the chances for self-actualization. Maslow called this phenomenon Jonah complex, which is characterized by a fear of success that prevents a person from striving for self-improvement. Maslow made the assumption that the social and cultural environment often suppresses the tendency to actualize certain norms in relation to some part of the population. An obstacle to self-actualization, according to Maslow, can be a strong negative influence exerted by security needs. Fulfilling the need for self-actualization requires openness to new ideas and experiences, and a person having an independent opinion on basic life issues.

In terms of its positions, especially in terms of understanding the meaning of life, humanistic psychology is the closest of all foreign concepts to the views of domestic psychologists.

The theory of activity of S. L. Rubinstein . The direction of research into the structure of personality in Russian psychology was largely determined by the provisions of S. L. Rubinstein (1889 – 1960), called the subject-activity theory.

S. L. Rubinstein suggested that the human psyche is active and exists as mental activity. A person’s reflection of the external world is interpreted as the activity of the subject, i.e. as the highest level of activity (initially practical). One of the main target functions of mental activity is the management of behavior and emotional state. Activity - in the unity of its components - means the inextricable connection of a person with the outside world. The content of the external world - to the extent of human activity - gradually and increasingly becomes the content of thoughts, feelings, cognition, science, etc. A person and his psyche are formed and manifested in the course of initially practical and then theoretical, but in principle unified activity. The subject in acts of his creative initiative is not only revealed and manifested; it is created and defined in them. Therefore, what he does can define and shape him.

The essence of the human personality finds its final expression in the fact that it not only develops like any organism, but also has its own history. What applies to humanity as a whole cannot but apply to each person. Personal development is mediated by the results of his activities. The mental abilities of a person are not only a prerequisite, but also the result of his actions and deeds; in them he is not only revealed, but also formed. A person who has done something significant becomes a different person. The history of human life should be reduced to a series of external affairs.

Rubinstein’s activities are characterized by the following features:

1) this is always the activity of a subject, or more precisely of subjects carrying out joint activities (there can be no subjectless activity);

2) it is the interaction of a subject with an object, i.e. must be substantive and meaningful;

3) she is – at least to a minimal extent – ​​always creative;

4) independent (which does not contradict compatibility).

Module 3. Social psychology

Science is a system of knowledge about the laws of development (nature, society, the inner world of the individual, thinking, etc.), as well as a branch of such knowledge.

The beginning of every science is associated with the needs that life puts forward. One of the most ancient sciences - astronomy - arose in connection with the need to take into account the annual weather cycle, keep track of time, record historical events, guide ships at sea and caravans in the desert. Another equally ancient science - mathematics - began to develop due to the need to measure land plots. The history of psychology is similar to the history of other sciences - its emergence was determined primarily by the real needs of people to understand the world around them and themselves.

The term “psychology” comes from the Greek words psyche - soul, and logos - teaching, science. Historians have differing opinions about who first proposed the use of this word. Some consider it to be the author of the German theologian and teacher F. Melanchthon (1497–1560), others – the German philosopher H. Wolf (1679–1754). In his books Rational Psychology and Empirical Psychology, published in 1732–1734, he first introduced the term “psychology” into philosophical language.

Psychology is a paradoxical science, and here's why. Firstly, both those who work closely on it and the rest of humanity understand it. The accessibility of many mental phenomena to direct perception, their “openness” to humans often creates the illusion among non-specialists that special scientific methods are unnecessary for the analysis of these phenomena. It seems that every person can understand his own thoughts on his own. But it is not always the case. We know ourselves differently than we know other people, but different does not mean better. Very often you can see that a person is not at all what he thinks about himself.

Secondly, psychology is both an ancient and a young science at the same time. The age of psychology has slightly exceeded one century, but its origins are lost in the depths of centuries. Prominent German psychologist of the late 19th – early 20th centuries. G. Ebbinghaus (1850–1909) was able to speak about the development of psychology as briefly as possible, almost in the form of an aphorism: psychology has a huge background and a very short history.

For a long time, psychology was considered a philosophical (and theological) discipline. Sometimes it appeared under other names: it was “mental philosophy”, and “soulology”, and “pneumatology”, and “metaphysical psychology”, and “empirical psychology”, etc. Psychology emerged as an independent science only a little over a hundred years ago back - in the last quarter of the 19th century, when there was a declarative departure from philosophy, a rapprochement with the natural sciences and the organization of their own laboratory experiment.

The history of psychology until the moment when it became an independent experimental science does not coincide with the evolution of philosophical teachings about the soul.

The first system of psychological concepts is set out in the treatise of the ancient Greek philosopher and scientist Aristotle (384–322 BC) “On the Soul,” which laid the foundations of psychology as an independent field of knowledge. Since ancient times, the soul has been understood as phenomena associated with the phenomenon of life - that which distinguishes living from nonliving and makes matter spiritual.

In the world there are material objects (nature, various objects, other people) and special, immaterial phenomena - memories, visions, feelings and other incomprehensible phenomena that occur in human life. Explaining their nature has always been the subject of intense struggle between representatives of different directions in science. Depending on the solution to the question “What is primary and what is secondary - material or spiritual?” scientists were divided into two camps - idealists and materialists. They put different meanings into the concept of “soul”.

Idealists believed that human consciousness is an immortal soul, it is primary and exists independently, regardless of matter. “Soul” is a particle of “God’s spirit,” an ethereal, incomprehensible spiritual principle that God breathed into the body of the first man, which he created from the dust. The soul is given to a person for temporary use: there is a soul in the body - the person is conscious, temporarily flew out of the body - he is fainting or sleeping; when the soul completely separated from the body, the person ceased to exist and died.

Materialists put a different content into the term “soul”: it is used as a synonym for the concepts “inner world”, “psyche” to designate mental phenomena that are a property of the brain. From their point of view, matter is primary, and psyche is secondary. The living body, as a complex and constantly improving mechanism, represents the line of development of matter, and the psyche and behavior are the line of development of the spirit.

In the seventeenth century. In connection with the rapid development of the natural sciences, there has been a surge of interest in psychic facts and phenomena. In the middle of the nineteenth century. an outstanding discovery was made, thanks to which the natural scientific, experimental study of the inner world of man became possible for the first time - the discovery of the basic psychophysical law by the German scientists physiologist and psychophysicist E. Weber (1795–1878) and physicist, psychologist and philosopher G. Fechner (1901–1887 ). They proved that there is a relationship between mental and material phenomena (sensations and the physical effects that these sensations cause), which is expressed by a strict mathematical law. Mental phenomena have partially lost their mystical character and entered into a scientifically based, experimentally verifiable connection with material phenomena.

Psychology for a long time studied only phenomena related to consciousness, and only from the end of the 19th century. scientists began to be interested in the unconscious through its manifestations in involuntary human actions and reactions.

At the beginning of the twentieth century. In world psychological science, a “methodological crisis” arose, the result of which was the emergence of psychology as a multi-paradigm science, within the framework of which several authoritative directions and movements operate that have different understandings of the subject of psychology, its methods and scientific tasks. Among them behaviorism- a branch of psychology that emerged at the end of the 19th century. in the USA, which denies the existence of consciousness or at least the possibility of studying it (E. Thorndike (1874–1949), D. Watson (1878–1958), etc.). The subject of psychology here is behavior, that is, what can be directly seen - the actions, reactions and statements of a person, while what causes these actions is not taken into account at all. Basic formula: S > R (S – stimulus, i.e. effect on the body; R – reaction of the body). But the same stimulus (for example, a flash of light, a red flag, etc.) will cause completely different reactions in the mirror, in a snail and a wolf, a child and an adult, as in different reflective systems. Therefore, this formula (reflected - reflected) must also contain a third intermediate link - the reflecting system.

Almost simultaneously with behaviorism, other trends emerged: in Germany - Gestalt psychology(from German Gestalt - form, structure), the founders of which were M. Wertheimer, W. Koehler, K. Koffka; in Austria - psychoanalysis Z. Freud; in Russia - cultural-historical theory– concept of human mental development developed by L.S. Vygotsky with the participation of his students A.N. Leontyev and A.R. Luria.

Thus, psychology has come a long way of development, while the understanding of its object, subject and goals by representatives of various directions and trends has changed.

The shortest possible definition of psychology could be the following: psychology – the science of the laws of mental development, i.e. science, subject which is the psyche of an animal or a person.

K.K. Platonov in his “Concise Dictionary of the System of Psychological Concepts” gives the following definition: “Psychology is a science that studies the psyche in its development in the animal world (in phylogenesis), in the origin and development of humanity (in anthropogenesis), in the development of each person (in ontogenesis) and manifestation in various types of activities.”

In its manifestations, the psyche is complex and diverse. In its structure, three groups of mental phenomena can be distinguished:

1) mental processes– a dynamic reflection of reality, which has a beginning, development and an end, manifested in the form of a reaction. In complex mental activity, various processes are interconnected and constitute a single stream of consciousness, ensuring an adequate reflection of reality and the implementation of activity. All mental processes are divided into: a) cognitive - sensations, perception, memory, imagination, thinking, speech; b) emotional – emotions and feelings, experiences; c) volitional – decision-making, execution, volitional effort, etc.;

2) mental states – a relatively stable level of mental activity, manifested in increased or decreased activity of the individual at a given moment in time: attention, mood, inspiration, coma, sleep, hypnosis, etc.;

3) mental properties– stable formations that provide a certain qualitative and quantitative level of activity and behavior typical for a given person. Each person differs from other people by stable personal characteristics, more or less constant qualities: one loves fishing, another is an avid collector, the third has the “God’s gift” of a musician, which is due to different interests and abilities; someone is always cheerful and optimistic, while others are calm, balanced or, on the contrary, quick-tempered and hot-tempered.

Mental properties are synthesized and form complex structural formations of the individual, which include temperament, character, inclinations and abilities, the orientation of the individual - the life position of the individual, a system of ideals, beliefs, needs and interests that ensure human activity.

Psyche and consciousness. If the psyche is a property of highly organized matter, which is a special form of reflection by the subject of the objective world, then consciousness is the highest, qualitatively new level of development of the psyche, a uniquely human way of relating to objective reality, mediated by the forms of socio-historical activity of people.

Outstanding Russian psychologist S.L. Rubinstein (1889–1960) considered the most important attributes of the psyche to be experiences (emotions, feelings, needs), cognition (sensations, perception, attention, memory, thinking), characteristic of both humans and vertebrate animals, and attitudes inherent only to humans. From this we can conclude that only humans have consciousness, vertebrates that have a cerebral cortex have a psyche, but insects, like the entire branch of invertebrate animals, like plants, do not have a psyche.

Consciousness has socio-historical character. It arose as a result of a person’s transition to work. Since man is a social being, his development is influenced not only by natural, but also by social laws, which play a decisive role.

An animal reflects only those phenomena or their aspects that meet their biological needs, and a person, subject to high social demands, often acts to the detriment of his own interests, and sometimes life. Human actions and actions are subordinated to specifically human needs and interests, that is, they are motivated by social, not biological needs.

Consciousness changes: a) historically - depending on socio-economic conditions (what 10 years ago was perceived as new, original, advanced is now hopelessly outdated); b) in ontogenetic terms - during the life of one person; c) in the Gnostic sense – from sensory to abstract knowledge.

Consciousness wears active character. An animal adapts to the environment, makes changes to it only by virtue of its presence, and a person consciously changes nature to satisfy his needs, learning the laws of the surrounding world, and on this basis sets goals for its transformation. “Human consciousness not only reflects the objective world, but also creates it” (V.I. Lenin).

The reflection wears predictive nature. Before creating anything, a person must imagine what exactly he wants to receive. “The spider performs operations reminiscent of those of a weaver, and the bee, with the construction of its wax cells, puts some human architects to shame. But even the worst architect differs from the best bee from the very beginning in that before he builds a cell of wax, he has already built it in his head. At the end of the labor process, a result is obtained that was already in the worker’s mind at the beginning of this process, that is, ideally” (K. Marx).

Only a person can predict those phenomena that have not yet occurred, plan methods of action, exercise control over them, and adjust them taking into account changed conditions.

Consciousness is realized in the form of theoretical thinking, i.e. generalized and abstract nature in the form of knowledge of significant connections and relationships of the surrounding world.

Consciousness is included in the system of relations to objective reality: a person not only cognizes the world around him, but also somehow relates to it: “my relationship to my environment is my consciousness” (K. Marx).

Consciousness is inextricably linked with language, which reflects the goals of people’s actions, ways and means of achieving them, and evaluates actions. Thanks to language, a person reflects not only the external, but also the internal world, himself, his experiences, desires, doubts, thoughts.

An animal may be sad when separated from its owner, or happy when meeting him, but it cannot say so. A person can express his feelings with the words: “I miss you,” “I’m happy,” “I hope you’ll come back soon.”

Consciousness is what distinguishes a person from an animal and has a decisive influence on his behavior, activity and life in general.

Consciousness does not exist on its own somewhere inside a person; it is formed and manifests itself in activity.

Studying the structure of individual consciousness, the outstanding Russian psychologist A.N. Leontyev (1903–1979) identified three of its components: the sensory fabric of consciousness, meaning and personal meaning.

In the work “Activity. Consciousness. Personality" (1975) A.N. Leontyev wrote that sensory tissue of consciousness“forms a sensory composition of specific images of reality that is actually perceived or emerges in memory. These images differ in their modality, sensory tone, degree of clarity, greater or lesser stability, etc... The special function of sensory images of consciousness is that they give reality to the conscious picture of the world that is revealed to the subject. That, in other words, it is precisely thanks to the sensory content of consciousness that the world appears for the subject as existing not in consciousness, but outside his consciousness - as an objective “field and object of his activity.” Sensory tissue – the experience of a “sense of reality”.

Values ​​– this is the general content of words, diagrams, maps, drawings, etc., which is understandable to all people speaking the same language, belonging to the same culture or similar cultures that have gone through a similar historical path. The meanings generalize, crystallize and thereby preserve for subsequent generations the experience of humanity. By comprehending the world of meanings, a person cognizes this experience, becomes familiar with it and can contribute to it. Values, wrote A.N. Leontyev, “refract the world in human consciousness... the meanings represent the ideal form of existence of the objective world, its properties, connections and relationships, transformed and folded into the matter of language, revealed by the total social practice.” The universal language of meaning is the language of art - music, dance, painting, theater, the language of architecture.

Refracted in the sphere of individual consciousness, the meaning acquires a special, unique meaning. For example, all children would like to get straight A's. The “five” mark has a common meaning for all of them, fixed by social norms. However, for one this five is an indicator of his knowledge and abilities, for another it is a symbol of the fact that he is better than others, for a third it is a way to achieve a promised gift from his parents, etc. The content of the meaning that it acquires personally for each person is called personal meaning.

Personal meaning, thus, reflects the subjective significance of certain events, phenomena of reality in relation to the interests, needs, and motives of a person. It “creates partiality in human consciousness.”

The discrepancy between personal meanings entails difficulties in understanding. Cases of people misunderstanding each other, arising due to the fact that the same event or phenomenon has a different personal meaning for them, are called “semantic barriers.” This term was introduced by psychologist L.S. Slavina.

All these components together create that complex and amazing reality that is human consciousness.

Consciousness must be distinguished from awareness objects, phenomena. Firstly, at any given moment one is primarily aware of what the main attention is directed to. Secondly, in addition to what is realized, consciousness contains something that is not realized, but can be realized when a special task is posed. For example, if a person is literate, then he writes automatically without thinking, but if he has difficulty, he can remember the rules and make his actions conscious. When developing any new skill, mastering any new activity, a certain part of the actions is automated, not consciously controlled, but can always again become controlled and conscious. Interestingly, such awareness often leads to deterioration in performance. For example, there is a well-known fairy tale about a centipede, which was asked how it walks: which legs it moves first, which ones later. The centipede tried to trace how it walked and fell. This phenomenon has even been called the “centipede effect.”

Sometimes we act one way or another without thinking. But if we think about it, we can explain the reasons for our behavior.

Phenomena of the psyche that are not currently conscious, but can be realized at any moment, are called preconscious.

At the same time, we cannot understand many experiences, relationships, feelings or understand them incorrectly. However, they all influence our behavior, our activities, and motivate them. These phenomena are called unconscious. If the preconscious is what attention is not directed to, then the unconscious is what cannot be realized.

This can happen for various reasons. The Austrian psychiatrist and psychologist who discovered the unconscious 3. Freud believed that experiences and impulses that contradict a person’s self-image, accepted social norms, and values ​​can be unconscious. Awareness of such impulses can be traumatic, so the psyche builds protection, creates a barrier, and turns on psychological defense mechanisms.

The sphere of the unconscious also includes the perception of signals, the level of which is, as it were, beyond the limits of the senses. For example, the technique of “dishonest advertising”, the so-called 36th frame, is known. In this case, an advertisement for a product is included in the film. This frame is not perceived by consciousness, we don’t seem to see it, but the advertisement “works.” Thus, a case is described when a similar technique was used to advertise one of the soft drinks. After the film, its sales increased sharply.

Between consciousness and the unconscious, as representatives of a number of areas of modern science believe, there is no insurmountable contradiction or conflict. They are components of the human psyche. A number of formations (for example, personal meanings) equally relate to both consciousness and the unconscious. Therefore, many scientists believe that the unconscious should be considered as part of consciousness.

Categories and principles of psychology.Psychological categories – these are the most general and essential concepts, through each of which particular concepts that are at lower levels of the hierarchical ladder are understood and defined.

General the category of psychology, which is also its subject, is psyche. It is subordinate to such general psychological categories as forms of mental reflection, mental phenomena, consciousness, personality, activity, mental development, etc. They, in turn, are subordinate to specific psychological categories.

1) forms of mental reflection;

2) mental phenomena;

3) consciousness;

4) personality;

5) activities;

6) mental development.

Particular psychological categories are:

1) sensations, perception, memory, thinking, emotions, feelings and will;

2) processes, states, personality properties (experience, knowledge, attitude);

3) personality substructures (biopsychic properties, features of forms of reflection, experience, orientation, character and abilities);

4) purpose, motives, actions;

5) development of the psyche in phylogenesis and ontogenesis, maturation, formation.

Principles psychology - these are the basic provisions tested by time and practice that determine its further development and application. These include:

Determinism is the application to the psyche of the law of dialectical materialism about the universal conditionality of the phenomena of the world, the causal conditioning of any mental phenomenon by the objective material world;

The unity of personality, consciousness and activity is the principle according to which consciousness as the highest integral form of mental reflection, personality representing a person as a bearer of consciousness, activity as a form of interaction between a person and the world exist, manifest and are formed not in their identity, but in trinity. In other words, consciousness is personal and active, personality is conscious and active, activity is conscious and personal;

The reflex principle states: all mental phenomena are the result of direct or indirect mental reflection, the content of which is determined by the objective world. The physiological mechanism of mental reflection is the reflexes of the brain;

Development of the psyche is a principle of psychology that affirms the gradual and abrupt complication of the psyche in both the procedural and substantive aspects. Characterization of a mental phenomenon is possible with simultaneous clarification of its characteristics at a given moment, the history of its occurrence and the prospects for its changes;

A hierarchical principle according to which all mental phenomena should be considered as steps of a hierarchical ladder, where the lower steps are subordinated (subordinated and controlled by the higher ones), and the higher ones, including the lower ones in a modified but not eliminated form and relying on them, are not reduced to them.

The place of psychology in the system of sciences and its branches. Psychology must be considered in a system of sciences where two trends are observed: on the one hand, there is differentiation - the division of sciences, their narrow specialization, and on the other - integration, the unification of sciences, their interpenetration into each other.

Among the sciences, modern psychology occupies an intermediate position between the philosophical, natural and social sciences. It integrates all the data of these sciences and, in turn, influences them, becoming a general model of human knowledge. The focus of psychology always remains the person, whom all the above-mentioned sciences study in other aspects.

Psychology has a very close connection primarily with philosophy. First of all, philosophy is the methodological basis of scientific psychology. An integral part of philosophy - epistemology (theory of knowledge) - solves the question of the relationship of the psyche to the surrounding world and interprets it as a reflection of the world, emphasizing that matter is primary and consciousness is secondary, and psychology clarifies the role played by the psyche in human activity and its development .

The connection between psychology and the natural sciences is undeniable: the natural scientific basis of psychology is physiology of higher nervous activity, which studies the material basis of the psyche - the activity of the nervous system and its higher department - the brain; anatomy studies the characteristics of the physical development of people of different ages; genetics– hereditary predispositions, human inclinations.

The exact sciences also have a direct connection with psychology: it uses mathematical And statistical methods for processing the received data; works closely with bionics And cybernetics, because he studies the most complex self-regulating system - man.

Psychology is most closely connected with the humanities (social) sciences and, above all, with pedagogy: By establishing the laws of cognitive processes, psychology contributes to the scientific construction of the learning process. By identifying the patterns of personality formation, psychology assists pedagogy in the effective construction of the educational process and the development of private methods (Russian language, mathematics, physics, natural history, etc.), since they are based on knowledge of the psychology of the corresponding age.

Branches of psychology. Psychology is a very extensive branch of knowledge, including a number of individual disciplines and scientific areas. There are fundamental, basic branches of psychology, which are of general importance for understanding and explaining the behavior of all people, regardless of what activity they are engaged in, and applied, special ones, which study the psychology of people engaged in any specific activity.

Not so long ago, the structure of psychological science could be described by listing its main sections in a few lines. But now the model of formation and development, structure and interaction of various branches of psychological science, the number of which is approaching 100, can no longer be given in a linear or two-dimensional plan. Therefore, it is better to depict it as a mighty tree - the tree of psychological sciences.

K.K. Platonov (1904–1985) proposes to consider the tree of psychological sciences as follows. Like any tree, it has roots, a butt and a trunk.

The roots of the tree of psychological sciences are the philosophical problems of psychology. They branch into reflection theory, reflex theory psyche and principles psychology.

The transition of the roots into the trunk (butt) of psychological science is history of psychology. Above lies the main trunk of general psychology. A branch comes from it comparative psychology. It, in turn, branches into two trunks: individual and social psychology, the terminal branches of which not only partially intertwine, but also grow together in the same way as the tops of these two trunks.

Below others, branches extend from the trunk of individual psychology psychophysicists And psychophysiology. A little higher than them, from the rear, the trunk begins medical psychology with defect psychology, branching into oligophreno-, deaf- and typhlopsychology; it branches from the back side because pathology is a deviation from the norm. Above is located age-related psychology, branching into child psychology, adolescent psychology and gerontopsychology. This trunk gets even higher differential psychology. A branch extends almost from its base psychodiagnostics With psychoprognostics. The trunk of individual psychology ends with two peaks: psychology individual creativity And personality psychology, moreover, the branches extending from both of these trunks merge with the branches extending from the top of the trunk of social psychology.

The second trunk of the tree of psychological sciences is the trunk social psychology. From it, after the branches of its methodology and history, branches paleopsychology, historical psychology, ethnopsychology. Here a branch comes off from the back side psychology of religion, and from the front – the psychology of art and library psychology.

Higher up, the trunk bifurcates again: one continues the system of social-psychological sciences as communicative-psychological, and the other represents the group of sciences of psychology labor.

The branch of psychology is located first on the trunk of communication-psychological sciences sports. Higher, in the frontal direction, a powerful branch extends pedagogical psychology. Its individual branches reach out to most of the other branches of the entire tree, intertwine with many, and even grow together with some. Among the latter are psychohygiene, occupational therapy, vocational guidance, corrective labor psychology, psychology management. The next branch on the trunk of social psychological sciences is legal psychology.

The branch of occupational psychology is a fairly powerful trunk branching off from the main trunk of the social and psychological sciences. On it, as on other branches, soon after the fork there are branches of methodology and history of labor psychology. Above lies a number of branches - sciences that study certain types of socially highly significant labor. These include military psychology. Aviation became an independent branch psychology and quickly and successfully developing on its basis space psychology. A massive and rapidly developing branch branches off from the trunk of work psychology engineering psychology.

The top of the trunk of work psychology merges with the common top of the trunk of social psychology: psychology groups and teams and psychology collective creativity, and the top branches of the entire trunk of social psychology, in turn, are connected with the tops of personality psychology and individual creativity of the trunk of individual psychology.

The ensemble of top branches of the tree of psychological sciences becomes the top of an independent psychological science - psychology ideological work as the implementation of the ideological function of psychology.

The trunks, roots, branches and twigs of the tree of psychological sciences model the following hierarchy of components of psychology as a science as a whole: particular psychological science, branch of psychology, psychological problem, psychological topic.

1.2. Methods of psychology

Concept of method. The term "method" has at least two meanings.

1. Method as a methodology is a system of principles and methods of organizing and constructing theoretical and practical activities, an initial, principled position as an approach to research.

The methodological basis of scientific psychology is epistemology (theory of knowledge), which considers the relationship between subject and object in the process of cognitive activity, the possibility of human knowledge of the world, the criteria of truth and reliability of knowledge.

The methodology of psychological research is based on the principles of determinism, development, the connection between consciousness and activity, and the unity of theory and practice.

2. Method as a special technique, a way of conducting research, a means of obtaining psychological facts, their comprehension and analysis.

The set of methods used in a specific study (in our case, psychological) and determined by the corresponding methodology is called technique.

The scientific requirements for methods of psychological research, or principles, are as follows.

1. Principle objectivity assumes that:

a) when studying mental phenomena, one should always strive to establish the material foundations and reasons for their occurrence;

b) the study of personality should take place in the process of activities characteristic of a person of a given age. The psyche both manifests itself and is formed in activity, and it itself is nothing more than a special mental activity, during which a person learns about the world around him;

c) each mental phenomenon must be considered in different conditions (typical and atypical for a given person), in close connection with other phenomena;

d) conclusions should be drawn only on the basis of the facts obtained.

2. Genetic The principle (the study of mental phenomena in their development) is as follows. The objective world is in constant motion and change, and its reflection is not frozen and motionless. Therefore, all mental phenomena and personality as a whole must be considered in their occurrence, change and development. It is necessary to show the dynamics of this phenomenon, for which one should:

a) identify the reason for the change in the phenomenon;

b) study not only already formed qualities, but also those that are just emerging (especially when studying children), since the teacher (and psychologist) must look ahead, anticipate the course of development, and correctly build the educational process;

c) take into account that the pace of change in phenomena is different, some phenomena develop slowly, some develop faster, and for different people this pace is very individual.

3. Analytical-synthetic approach in research suggests that since the structure of the psyche includes a variety of closely interrelated phenomena, it is impossible to study them all at once. Therefore, for study, individual mental phenomena are gradually isolated and comprehensively examined in various conditions of life and activity. This is a manifestation of an analytical approach. After studying individual phenomena, it is necessary to establish their relationships, which will make it possible to identify the interconnection of individual mental phenomena and find what is stable that characterizes a person. This is a manifestation of the synthetic approach.

In other words, it is impossible to understand and correctly evaluate the mental characteristics of a person as a whole without studying its individual manifestations, but it is also impossible to understand individual characteristics of the psyche without correlating them with each other, without revealing their interconnection and unity.

Methods of psychological research. The main methods of psychological research are observation and experiment.

Observation is the oldest method of knowledge. Its primitive form - everyday observations - is used by every person in their daily practice. But everyday observations are fragmentary, are not carried out systematically, do not have a specific goal, therefore they cannot perform the functions of a scientific, objective method.

Observation- a research method in which mental phenomena are studied as they appear in ordinary settings, without the intervention of the researcher. It is aimed at external manifestations of mental activity - movements, actions, facial expressions, gestures, statements, behavior and human activities. Based on objective, externally expressed indicators, the psychologist judges the individual characteristics of mental processes, personality traits, etc.

The essence of observation is not only the recording of facts, but also the scientific explanation of their causes, the discovery of patterns, understanding of their dependence on the environment, education, and the functioning of the nervous system.

The form of transition from describing the fact of behavior to its explanation is hypothesis- a scientific assumption to explain a phenomenon that has not yet been confirmed, but also not refuted.

In order for observation not to turn into passive contemplation, but to correspond to its purpose, it must meet the following requirements: 1) purposefulness; 2) systematicity; 3) naturalness; 4) mandatory recording of results. Objectivity of observation primarily depends on purposefulness and systematicity.

Requirement focus assumes that the observer must clearly understand what he is going to observe and why (defining the goal and task), otherwise the observation will turn into the recording of random, secondary facts. Observation must be carried out according to a plan, scheme, program. It is impossible to observe “everything” in general due to the limitless variety of existing objects. Each observation must be selective: it is necessary to identify a range of issues on which factual material must be collected.

Requirement systematic means that observation should be carried out not from case to case, but systematically, which requires a certain more or less long time. The longer the observation is carried out, the more facts the psychologist can accumulate, the easier it will be for him to separate the typical from the random, and the deeper and more reliable his conclusions will be.

Requirement naturalness dictates the need to study the external manifestations of the human psyche in natural conditions - ordinary, familiar to him; in this case, the subject should not know that he is being specially and carefully observed (the hidden nature of the observation). The observer should not interfere with the activities of the subject or in any way influence the course of the processes of interest to him.

The following requirement requires mandatory recording of results(facts, not their interpretation) observations in a diary or protocol.

In order for the observation to be complete, it is necessary: ​​a) to take into account the diversity of manifestations of the human psyche and observe them in various conditions (in class, during recess, at home, in public places, etc.); b) record facts with all possible accuracy (incorrectly pronounced word, phrase, train of thought); c) take into account the conditions that influence the course of mental phenomena (situation, environment, human condition, etc.).

Observation can be external and internal. External observation is a way of collecting data about another person, his behavior and psychology through observation from the outside. The following types of external surveillance are distinguished:

Continuous, when all manifestations of the psyche are recorded for a certain time (in class, during the day, during a game);

Selective, i.e. selective, aimed at those facts that are relevant to the issue being studied;

Longitudinal, i.e. long-term, systematic, over a number of years;

Slice (short-term observation);

Included, when the psychologist temporarily becomes an active participant in the process being monitored and records it from the inside (in closed criminal groups, religious sects, etc.);

Not included (not involved), when observation is carried out from the outside;

Direct - it is carried out by the researcher himself, observing the mental phenomenon during its occurrence;

Indirect - in this case, the results of observations conducted by other people (audio, film and video recordings) are used.

Internal observation (self-observation) is the acquisition of data when a subject observes his own mental processes and states at the time of their occurrence (introspection) or after them (retrospection). Such self-observations are of an auxiliary nature, but in some cases it is impossible to do without them (when studying the behavior of astronauts, deaf-blind people, etc.).

The significant advantages of the observation method are the following: 1) the phenomenon under study occurs in natural conditions; 2) the possibility of using precise methods of recording facts (film, photography and video, tape recording, timing, shorthand, Gesell’s mirror). But this method also has negative sides: 1) passive position of the observer (the main drawback); 2) the impossibility of excluding random factors influencing the course of the phenomenon under study (therefore it is almost impossible to accurately establish the cause of a particular mental phenomenon); 3) the impossibility of repeated observation of identical facts; 4) subjectivity in the interpretation of facts; 5) observation most often answers the question “what?”, and the question “why?” remains open.

Observation is an integral part of two other methods - experiment and conversation.

Experiment is the main tool for obtaining new psychological facts. This method involves the active intervention of the researcher in the activities of the subject in order to create conditions in which a psychological fact is revealed.

The interaction of experiment with observation was revealed by the outstanding Russian physiologist I.P. Pavlov. He wrote: “Observation collects what nature offers it, but experience takes from nature what it wants.”

An experiment is a research method, the main features of which are:

The active position of the researcher: he himself causes the phenomenon of interest to him, and does not wait for a random flow of phenomena to provide the opportunity to observe it;

The ability to create the necessary conditions and, carefully controlling them, ensure their consistency. Conducting research in the same conditions with different subjects, researchers establish age-related and individual characteristics of the course of mental processes;

Repeatability (one of the important advantages of the experiment);

The possibility of varying, changing the conditions under which the phenomenon is studied.

Depending on the conditions of the experiment, two types are distinguished: laboratory and natural. Laboratory the experiment takes place in a specially equipped room, using equipment and instruments that allow one to accurately take into account the experimental conditions, reaction time, etc. A laboratory experiment is very effective if the basic requirements for it are met and the following are provided:

Positive and responsible attitude of the subjects towards him;

Accessible, understandable instructions for subjects;

Equality of conditions for participation in the experiment for all subjects;

Sufficient number of subjects and number of experiments.

The undeniable advantages of a laboratory experiment are: 1) the possibility of creating conditions for the occurrence of the necessary mental phenomenon; 2) greater accuracy and purity; 3) the possibility of strictly taking into account its results; 4) repeated repetition, variability; 5) the possibility of mathematical processing of the obtained data.

However, the laboratory experiment also has disadvantages, which are as follows: 1) the artificiality of the situation affects the natural course of mental processes in some subjects (fear, stress, excitement in some, and excitement, high performance, good success in others); 2) the experimenter’s intervention in the subject’s activity inevitably turns out to be a means of influence (beneficial or harmful) on the person being studied.

Famous Russian doctor and psychologist A.F. Lazursky (1874–1917) proposed using a unique version of psychological research, which is an intermediate form between observation and experiment - natural experiment. Its essence lies in the combination of the experimental nature of the research with the naturalness of the conditions: the conditions in which the activity being studied takes place are subject to experimental influence, while the activity of the subject itself is observed in its natural course under normal conditions (in a game, in classes, in a lesson, at recess, in the cafeteria, in walk, etc.), and the subjects do not suspect that they are being studied.

Further development of the natural experiment led to the creation of such a variety as psychological-pedagogical experiment. Its essence lies in the fact that the study of the subject is carried out directly in the process of his training and education. In this case, the ascertaining and formative experiments are distinguished. Task stating The experiment consists of a simple recording and description of the facts at the time of the study, i.e., a statement of what is happening without active intervention in the process on the part of the experimenter. The results obtained cannot be compared with anything. Formative the experiment is to study a mental phenomenon in the process of its active formation. It can be educational and educational. If any knowledge, skills and abilities are taught, then this is educational experiment. If in an experiment the formation of certain personality traits occurs, the behavior of the subject changes, his attitude towards his comrades, then this is educating experiment.

Observation and experiment are the main objective methods for studying the psychological characteristics of a person in ontogenesis. Additional (auxiliary) methods are the study of activity products, survey methods, testing and sociometry.

At studying the products of activity, or rather, the psychological characteristics of activity based on these products, the researcher deals not with the person himself, but with the material products of his previous activity. By studying them, he can indirectly judge the characteristics of both the activity and the acting subject. Therefore, this method is sometimes called the “indirect observation method.” It allows you to study skills, attitudes to activities, the level of development of abilities, the amount of knowledge and ideas, outlook, interests, inclinations, characteristics of the will, characteristics of various aspects of the psyche.

Products of activity created in the process games, are various buildings made of cubes, sand, attributes for role-playing games made by children, etc. Products labor activities can be considered a part, a workpiece, productive – drawings, applications, various crafts, handicrafts, works of art, notes in a wall newspaper, etc. Products of educational activities include tests, essays, drawings, drafts, homework, etc.

The method of studying the products of activity, like any other, has certain requirements: the presence of a program; the study of products created not by chance, but in the course of typical activities; knowledge of the conditions of activity; analysis of not single, but many products of the subject’s activity.

The advantages of this method include the ability to collect a large amount of material in a short time. But, unfortunately, there is no way to take into account all the features of the conditions in which the products of activity were created.

A variation of this method is biographical method, associated with the analysis of documents belonging to a person. Documents mean any written text, audio or video recording made according to the subject’s intention, literary works, diaries, epistolary heritage, memories of other persons about this person. It is assumed that the content of such documents reflects his individual psychological characteristics. This method is widely used in historical psychology to study the inner world of people who lived in long-past times inaccessible to direct observation. For exam- the content and meaning of his works.

Psychologists have learned to use documents and products of people’s activities to reveal their individual psychology. For this purpose, special procedures for the content analysis of documents and products of activity have been developed and standardized, making it possible to obtain completely reliable information about their creators.

Survey methods – These are methods of obtaining information based on verbal communication. Within the framework of these methods, we can distinguish conversation, interview (oral survey) and questionnaire (written survey).

Conversation is a method of collecting facts about mental phenomena in the process of personal communication according to a specially designed program. The interview can be viewed as directed observation, centered around a limited number of issues that are of major importance to the study. Its features are the immediacy of communication with the person being studied and the question-and-answer form.

The conversation is usually used: to obtain data about the background of the subjects; a deeper study of their individual and age characteristics (inclinations, interests, beliefs, tastes); studying attitudes towards one’s own actions, the actions of other people, the team, etc.

A conversation either precedes an objective study of a phenomenon (at the initial acquaintance before conducting a study) or follows it, but can be used both before and after observation and experiment (to confirm or clarify what has been revealed). In any case, the conversation must be combined with other objective methods.

The success of the conversation depends on the degree of preparation on the part of the researcher and on the sincerity of the answers given to the subjects.

There are certain requirements for conversation as a research method:

It is necessary to determine the purpose and objectives of the study;

A plan should be drawn up (but, being planned, the conversation should not be of a template-standard nature, it is always individualized);

To successfully conduct a conversation, it is necessary to create a favorable environment, ensure psychological contact with a subject of any age, maintain pedagogical tact, ease, goodwill, maintain an atmosphere of trust, sincerity throughout the conversation;

You should carefully think through and outline the questions that will be asked to the test subject in advance;

Each subsequent question must be posed taking into account the changed situation that was created as a result of the subject’s answer to the previous question;

During the conversation, the subject can also ask questions to the psychologist conducting the conversation;

All the subject’s answers are carefully recorded (after the conversation).

During the conversation, the researcher observes the behavior, facial expression of the subject, the nature of speech statements - the degree of confidence in the answers, interest or indifference, the peculiarities of the grammatical construction of phrases, etc.

The questions used in the conversation must be understandable to the subject, unambiguous and appropriate to the age, experience, and knowledge of the people being studied. Neither in tone nor in content they should inspire the subject with certain answers; they should not contain an assessment of his personality, behavior or any quality.

Questions can complement each other, change, vary depending on the progress of the study and the individual characteristics of the subjects.

Data about the phenomenon of interest can be obtained in the form of answers to both direct and indirect questions. Direct questions sometimes confuse the interlocutor, and the answer may be insincere (“Do you like your teacher?”). In such cases, it is better to use indirect questions when the true goals for the interlocutor are disguised (“What do you think a “good teacher” means?”).

If it is necessary to clarify the subject’s answer, you should not ask leading questions, suggest, hint, shake your head, etc. It is better to formulate the question neutrally: “How should this be understood?”, “Please explain your thought,” or ask a projective question: “ What do you think a person should do if he was unfairly offended?”, or describe a situation with a fictitious person. Then, when answering, the interlocutor will put himself in the place of the person mentioned in the question, and thus express his own attitude to the situation.

The conversation can be standardized, with precisely formulated questions that are asked of all respondents, and non-standardized when questions are posed in free form.

The advantages of this method include its individualized nature, flexibility, maximum adaptation to the subject and direct contact with him, which makes it possible to take into account his responses and behavior. The main disadvantage of the method is that conclusions about the mental characteristics of the subject are made on the basis of his own answers. But it is customary to judge people not by words, but by deeds, specific actions, therefore the data obtained during the conversation must necessarily be correlated with the data of objective methods and the opinion of competent persons about the person being interviewed.

Interview is a method of obtaining socio-psychological information using a targeted oral survey. Interviews are more commonly used in social psychology. Types of interviews: free, not regulated by the topic and form of conversation, and standardized, close to a questionnaire with closed questions.

Questionnaire is a data collection method based on surveys using questionnaires. The questionnaire is a system of questions logically related to the central task of the study, which are given to subjects for a written response. According to their function, questions can be basic, or guiding, and controlling, or clarifying. The main component of the questionnaire is not a question, but a series of questions that correspond to the overall design of the study.

Any well-written questionnaire has a strictly defined structure (composition):

The introduction outlines the topic, objectives and goals of the survey, explains the technique of filling out the questionnaire;

at the beginning of the questionnaire there are simple, neutral questions (so-called contact questions), the purpose of which is to create an attitude towards cooperation and interest in the respondent;

in the middle are the most difficult questions that require analysis and reflection;

At the end of the questionnaire there are simple, “unloading” questions;

The conclusion (if necessary) contains questions about the interviewee’s passport data - gender, age, civil status, occupation, etc.

After compilation, the questionnaire must be subjected to logical control. Is the technique for filling out the questionnaire clearly stated? Are all questions written stylistically correctly? Are all terms understood by the interviewees? Shouldn't some questions have an "Other Answers" option? Will the question cause negative emotions among respondents?

Then you should check the composition of the entire questionnaire. Is the principle of arrangement of questions followed (from the simplest at the beginning of the questionnaire to the most significant, targeted in the middle and simple at the end? Is the influence of previous questions on subsequent ones visible? Is there a cluster of questions of the same type?

After logical control, the questionnaire is tested in practice during a preliminary study.

The types of questionnaires are quite diverse: if the questionnaire is filled out by one person, then this is individual questionnaire, if it expresses the opinion of some community of people, then it is group questionnaire. The anonymity of the questionnaire lies not only and not so much in the fact that the subject may not sign his questionnaire, but, by and large, in the fact that the researcher does not have the right to disseminate information about the contents of the questionnaires.

Exists open questionnaire - using direct questions aimed at identifying the perceived qualities of the subjects and allowing them to construct an answer in accordance with their desires, both in content and in form. The researcher does not give any instructions on this matter. An open questionnaire must contain so-called control questions, which are used to ensure the reliability of the indicators. The questions are duplicated by hidden similar ones - if there is a discrepancy, the answers to them are not taken into account, because they cannot be recognized as reliable.

Closed(selective) questionnaire involves a number of variable answers. The test subject's task is to choose the most suitable one. Closed-ended questionnaires are easy to process, but they limit the autonomy of the respondent.

IN scale questionnaire The test taker must not only choose the most correct answer from the ready-made ones, but also scale and score the correctness of each of the proposed answers.

The advantages of all types of questionnaires are the mass nature of the survey and the speed of obtaining a large amount of material, the use of mathematical methods for its processing. As a disadvantage, it is noted that when analyzing all types of questionnaires, only the top layer of material is revealed, as well as the difficulty of qualitative analysis and the subjectivity of assessments.

A positive quality of the survey method itself is that it is possible to obtain a large volume of material in a short time, the reliability of which is determined by the “law of large numbers.” Questionnaires are usually subjected to statistical processing and are used to obtain statistical average data, which have minimal value for research, since they do not express patterns in the development of any phenomenon. The disadvantages of the method are that qualitative data analysis is usually difficult and the possibility of correlating answers with the actual activities and behavior of the subjects is excluded.

A specific version of the survey method is sociometry, developed by American social psychologist and psychotherapist J. Moreno. This method is used to study teams and groups - their orientation, intragroup relations, and the position of individual members in the team.

The procedure is simple: each member of the team being studied answers in writing a series of questions called sociometric criteria. The selection criterion is the person’s desire to do something together with someone. Highlight strong criteria(if a partner is selected for joint activities - labor, educational, social) and weak(in case of choosing a partner for spending time together). Interviewees are placed so that they can work independently and given the opportunity to make several choices. If the number of choices is limited (usually three), then the technique is called parametric; if not, nonparametric.

The rules for conducting sociometry include:

Establishing trusting relationships with the group;

Explanation of the purpose of sociometry;

Emphasizing the importance and importance of independence and secrecy when answering;

Guaranteeing the confidentiality of answers;

Checking the correctness and unambiguity of understanding the issues included in the study;

Accurate and clear demonstration of answer recording techniques.

Based on the results of sociometry, a sociometric matrix(election table) – unordered and ordered, and sociogram– a graphic expression of the mathematical processing of the results obtained, or a map of group differentiation, which is depicted in the form of either a special graph or a drawing or diagram in several versions.

When analyzing the results obtained, group members are assigned to sociometric status: in the center - sociometric star(those who received 8-10 elections in a group of 35-40 people); in the inner intermediate zone are preferred(those who received more than half the maximum number of elections); in the external intermediate zone are located accepted(having 1–3 choices); in the outside - isolated(pariahs, “Robinsons”) who did not receive a single choice.

Using this method, you can also identify antipathies, but in this case the criteria will be different (“Who would you not want to..?”, “Who would you not invite..?”). Those who are not deliberately chosen by group members are outcasts(rejected).

Other sociogram options are:

"grouping"– a planar image that shows the groupings that exist within the group being studied and the connections between them. The distance between individuals corresponds to the proximity of their choices;

"individual", where the group members with whom he is associated are located around the subject. The nature of the connections is indicated by symbols: ? – mutual choice (mutual sympathy), ? – one-sided choice (liking without reciprocity).

After conducting sociometry, the following coefficients are calculated to characterize social relations in the group:

The number of elections received by each individual characterizes his position in the system of personal relationships (sociometric status).

Depending on the age composition of the groups and the specifics of the research tasks, various variants of the sociometric procedure are used, for example, in the form of experimental games “Congratulate a friend”, “Choice in action”, “Secret”.

Sociometry reflects only a picture of emotional preferences within a group, allows you to visualize the structure of these relationships and make assumptions about the leadership style and the degree of organization of the group as a whole.

A special method of psychological study, which is not research, but diagnostic, is testing. It is used not to obtain any new psychological data and patterns, but to assess the current level of development of any quality in a given person in comparison with the average level (established norm, or standard).

Test(from the English test - sample, test) is a system of tasks that allows you to measure the level of development of a certain quality or personality trait that has a certain scale of values. The test not only describes personality traits, but also gives them qualitative and quantitative characteristics. Like a medical thermometer, it does not diagnose, much less cure, but contributes to both. When completing tasks, subjects take into account speed (completion time), creativity, and the number of errors.

Testing is used where there is a need for standardized measurement of individual differences. The main areas of use of tests are:

Education – due to the increasing complexity of educational programs. Here, with the help of tests, the presence or absence of general and special abilities, the degree of their development, the level of mental development and knowledge acquisition of the subjects are examined;

Professional training and selection - due to increasing growth rates and increasing complexity of production. The degree of suitability of the subjects for any profession, the degree of psychological compatibility, individual characteristics of the course of mental processes, etc. are determined;

Psychological counseling - in connection with the acceleration of sociodynamic processes. At the same time, the personal characteristics of people, the compatibility of future spouses, ways to resolve conflicts in a group, etc. are revealed.

The testing process is carried out in three stages:

1) test selection (in terms of testing purpose, reliability and validity);

2) procedure (determined by the instructions);

3) interpretation of the results.

At all stages, the participation of a qualified psychologist is necessary.

The main requirements for the tests are:

Validity, i.e. suitability, validity (establishing correspondence between the mental phenomenon of interest to the researcher and the method of measuring it);

Reliability (stability, stability of results during repeated testing);

Standardization (multiple testing on a large number of subjects);

The same opportunities for all subjects (the same tasks to identify mental characteristics in the subjects);

Norm and interpretation of the test (determined by a system of theoretical assumptions regarding the subject of testing - age and group norms, their relativity, standard indicators, etc.).

There are many types of tests. Among them are tests of achievements, intelligence, special abilities, creativity, and personality tests. Tests achievements are used in general and professional training and reveal what the subjects learned during training, the degree of proficiency in specific knowledge, skills and abilities. The tasks of these tests are based on educational material. Varieties of achievement tests are: 1) action tests, which reveal the ability to perform actions with mechanisms, materials, tools; 2) written tests, which are performed on special forms with questions - the test taker must either choose the correct answer among several, or mark on the graph the display of the described situation, or find in the picture a situation or detail that helps to find the correct solution; 3) oral tests - the test taker is offered a pre-prepared system of questions that he will have to answer.

Tests intelligence serve to identify the mental potential of an individual. Most often, the test subject is asked to establish logical relations of classification, analogy, generalization between the terms and concepts from which the test tasks are composed, or to assemble a drawing from cubes with different colored sides, to put together an object from the presented parts, to find a pattern in the continuation of a series, etc.

Tests special abilities are intended to assess the level of development of technical, musical, artistic, sports, mathematical and other types of special abilities.

Tests creativity are used to study and evaluate an individual’s creative abilities, the ability to generate unusual ideas, deviate from traditional patterns of thinking, and quickly and originally solve problem situations.

Personal tests measure various aspects of personality: attitudes, values, attitudes, motives, emotional properties, typical forms of behavior. They, as a rule, have one of three forms: 1) scales and questionnaires (MMPI - Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, tests by G. Eysenck, R. Cattell, A.E. Lichko, etc.); 2) situational tests, which involve assessing oneself and the world around them; 3) projective tests.

Projective tests originate from time immemorial: from fortune telling using goose offal, candles, coffee grounds; from visions inspired by veins of marble, clouds, puffs of smoke, etc. They are based on the mechanism of projection explained by S. Freud. Projection is an unconsciously manifested tendency of a person to involuntarily attribute his own psychological qualities to people, especially in cases where these qualities are unpleasant or when it is not possible to definitely judge people, but it is necessary to do so. Projection can also manifest itself in the fact that we involuntarily pay attention to those signs and characteristics of a person that most correspond to our own needs at the moment. In other words, projection ensures a partial reflection of the world.

Thanks to the mechanism of projection, by the actions and reactions of a person to the situation and other people, according to the assessments that he gives to them, one can judge his own psychological properties. This is the basis of projective methods, intended for a holistic study of a personality, and not for identifying its individual traits, since every emotional manifestation of a person, his perception, feelings, statements, and motor acts bear the imprint of his personality. Projective tests are designed to “hook” and extract the hidden attitude of the subconscious, in the interpretation of which, naturally, the number of degrees of freedom is very large. In all projective tests, an uncertain (multi-valued) situation is presented, which the subject transforms in his perception in accordance with his own individuality (dominant needs, meanings, values). There are associative and expressive projective tests. Examples associative projective tests are:

Interpretation of the content of a complex picture with uncertain content (TAT - thematic apperception test);

Completing unfinished sentences and stories;

Completion of the statement of one of the characters in the plot picture (S. Rosenzweig test);

Interpretation of events;

Reconstruction (restoration) of the whole in detail;

Interpretation of vague outlines (G. Rorschach test, which consists in the subject’s interpretation of a set of inkblots of various configurations and colors, which have a certain meaning for diagnosing hidden attitudes, motives, character traits).

TO expressive Projective tests include:

Drawing on a free or given topic: “Kinetic drawing of a family”, “Self-portrait”, “House - tree - person”, “Non-existent animal”, etc.;

Psychodrama is a type of group psychotherapy in which patients alternately act as actors and spectators, and their roles are aimed at modeling life situations that have personal meaning for the participants;

Preference for some stimuli as the most desirable over others (test by M. Luscher, A.O. Prokhorov - G.N. Gening), etc.

The advantages of the tests are: 1) simplicity of the procedure (short duration, no need for special equipment); 2) the fact that the test results can be expressed quantitatively, which means their mathematical processing is possible. Among the shortcomings, several points should be noted: 1) quite often the subject of research is replaced (aptitude tests are actually aimed at studying existing knowledge and the level of culture, which makes it possible to justify racial and national inequality); 2) testing involves assessing only the result of the decision, and the process of achieving it is not taken into account, i.e. the method is based on a mechanistic, behavioral approach to the individual; 3) testing does not take into account the influence of numerous conditions that influence the results (mood, well-being, problems of the subject).

1.3. Basic psychological theories

Associative psychology (associationism)– one of the main directions of world psychological thought, which explains the dynamics of mental processes by the principle of association. The postulates of associationism were first formulated by Aristotle (384–322 BC), who put forward the idea that images that arise for no apparent external reason are the product of association. In the 17th century this idea was strengthened by the mechano-deterministic doctrine of the psyche, whose representatives were the French philosopher R. Descartes (1596–1650), the English philosophers T. Hobbes (1588–1679) and J. Locke (1632–1704), and the Dutch philosopher B. Spinoza ( 1632–1677), etc. Proponents of this doctrine compared the body with a machine that imprints traces of external influences, as a result of which the renewal of one of the traces automatically entails the appearance of another. In the 18th century the principle of association of ideas was extended to the entire area of ​​the psyche, but received a fundamentally different interpretation: the English and Irish philosopher J. Berkeley (1685–1753) and the English philosopher D. Hume (1711–1776) considered it as a connection of phenomena in the consciousness of the subject, and the English physician and philosopher D. Hartley (1705–1757) created a system of materialist associationism. He extended the principle of association to explain all mental processes without exception, considering the latter as a shadow of brain processes (vibrations), i.e., solving the psychophysical problem in the spirit of parallelism. In accordance with his natural scientific attitude, Hartley built a model of consciousness by analogy with the physical models of I. Newton based on the principle of elementarism.

At the beginning of the 19th century. In associationism, the view has been established that:

The psyche (identified with introspectively understood consciousness) is built from elements - sensations, the simplest feelings;

The elements are primary, complex mental formations (ideas, thoughts, feelings) are secondary and arise through associations;

The condition for the formation of associations is the contiguity of two mental processes;

The consolidation of associations is determined by the vividness of the associated elements and the frequency of repetition of associations in experience.

In the 80-90s. XIX century Numerous studies were undertaken on the conditions for the formation and updating of associations (German psychologist G. Ebbinghaus (1850–1909) and physiologist I. Müller (1801–1858), etc.). However, the limitations of the mechanistic interpretation of the association were shown. The deterministic elements of associationism were perceived in a transformed form by the teachings of I.P. Pavlov about conditioned reflexes, as well as - on other methodological grounds - American behaviorism. The study of associations in order to identify the characteristics of various mental processes is also used in modern psychology.

Behaviorism(from the English behavior - behavior) - a direction in American psychology of the twentieth century, denying consciousness as a subject of scientific research and reducing the psyche to various forms of behavior, understood as a set of reactions of the body to environmental stimuli. The founder of behaviorism, D. Watson, formulated the credo of this direction as follows: “The subject of psychology is behavior.” At the turn of the XIX-XX centuries. The inconsistency of the previously dominant introspective “psychology of consciousness” was revealed, especially in solving problems of thinking and motivation. It has been experimentally proven that there are mental processes that are not conscious to man and inaccessible to introspection. E. Thorndike, studying the reactions of animals in an experiment, established that the solution to the problem is achieved by trial and error, interpreted as a “blind” selection of movements made at random. This conclusion was extended to the process of learning in humans, and the qualitative difference between his behavior and the behavior of animals was denied. The activity of the organism and the role of its mental organization in transforming the environment, as well as the social nature of man, were ignored.

During the same period in Russia I.P. Pavlov and V.M. Bekhterev, developing the ideas of I.M. Sechenov, developed experimental methods for objective research of animal and human behavior. Their work had a significant influence on behaviorists, but was interpreted in a spirit of extreme mechanism. The unit of behavior is the connection between stimulus and response. The laws of behavior, according to the concept of behaviorism, fix the relationship between what happens at the “input” (stimulus) and “output” (motor response). According to behaviorists, the processes within this system (both mental and physiological) are not amenable to scientific analysis because they are not directly observable.

The main method of behaviorism is observation and experimental study of the body's reactions in response to environmental influences in order to identify correlations between these variables that can be described mathematically.

The ideas of behaviorism influenced linguistics, anthropology, sociology, semiotics and served as one of the sources of cybernetics. Behaviorists made a significant contribution to the development of empirical and mathematical methods for studying behavior, to the formulation of a number of psychological problems, especially those related to learning - the acquisition of new forms of behavior by the body.

Due to methodological flaws in the original concept of behaviorism, already in the 1920s. its disintegration began into a number of directions, combining the main doctrine with elements of other theories. The evolution of behaviorism has shown that its original principles cannot stimulate the progress of scientific knowledge about behavior. Even psychologists brought up on these principles (for example, E. Tolman) came to the conclusion about their insufficiency, about the need to include the concepts of image, internal (mental) plan of behavior and others in the main explanatory concepts of psychology, as well as to turn to the physiological mechanisms of behavior .

At present, only a few American psychologists continue to defend the tenets of orthodox behaviorism. The most consistent and uncompromising defender of behaviorism was B.F. Skinner. His operant behaviorism represents a separate line in the development of this direction. Skinner formulated a position on three types of behavior: unconditioned reflex, conditioned reflex and operant. The latter is the specificity of his teaching. Operant behavior assumes that the organism actively influences the environment and, depending on the results of these active actions, skills are either reinforced or rejected. Skinner believed that these reactions predominate in animal adaptation and are a form of voluntary behavior.

From the point of view of B.F. Skinner's main means of developing a new type of behavior is reinforcement. The entire procedure of learning in animals is called “sequential guidance to the desired response.” There are a) primary reinforcers - water, food, sex, etc.; b) secondary (conditional) – affection, money, praise, etc.; 3) positive and negative reinforcements and punishments. The scientist believed that conditioned reinforcing stimuli are very important in controlling human behavior, and aversive (painful or unpleasant) stimuli and punishment are the most common method of such control.

Skinner transferred the data obtained from studying the behavior of animals to the behavior of people, which led to a biologizing interpretation: he considered a person as a reactive being exposed to the influence of external circumstances, and described his thinking, memory, and motives of behavior in terms of reaction and reinforcement.

To solve the social problems of modern society, Skinner put forward the task of creating behavior technologies, which is designed to exercise control of some people over others. One of the means is control over the reinforcement regime, which allows people to be manipulated.

B.F. Skinner formulated the law of operant conditioning and the law of subjective assessment of the probability of consequences, the essence of which is that a person is able to foresee the possible consequences of his behavior and avoid those actions and situations that will lead to negative consequences. He subjectively assessed the likelihood of their occurrence and believed that the greater the possibility of negative consequences occurring, the more strongly it influences human behavior.

Gestalt psychology(from German Gestalt - image, form) - a direction in Western psychology that arose in Germany in the first third of the twentieth century. and put forward a program for studying the psyche from the point of view of holistic structures (gestalts), primary in relation to their components. Gestalt psychology opposed what was put forward by W. Wundt and E.B. Titchener's principle of dividing consciousness into elements and constructing them according to the laws of association or creative synthesis of complex mental phenomena. The idea that the internal, systemic organization of a whole determines the properties and functions of its constituent parts was initially applied to the experimental study of perception (mainly visual). This made it possible to study a number of its important features: constancy, structure, dependence of the image of an object (“figure”) on its environment (“background”), etc. When analyzing intellectual behavior, the role of the sensory image in the organization of motor reactions was traced. The construction of this image was explained by a special mental act of comprehension, an instant grasp of relationships in the perceived field. Gestalt psychology contrasted these provisions with behaviorism, which explained the behavior of an organism in a problem situation by going through “blind” motor tests, accidentally leading to a successful solution. In the study of processes and human thinking, the main emphasis was placed on the transformation (“reorganization”, new “centering”) of cognitive structures, thanks to which these processes acquire a productive character that distinguishes them from formal logical operations and algorithms.

Although the ideas of Gestalt psychology and the facts it obtained contributed to the development of knowledge about mental processes, its idealistic methodology prevented a deterministic analysis of these processes. Mental “gestalts” and their transformations were interpreted as properties of individual consciousness, the dependence of which on the objective world and the activity of the nervous system was represented by the type of isomorphism (structural similarity), which is a variant of psychophysical parallelism.

The main representatives of Gestalt psychology are German psychologists M. Wertheimer, W. Köhler, K. Koffka. General scientific positions close to it were occupied by K. Levin and his school, who extended the principle of systematicity and the idea of ​​the priority of the whole in the dynamics of mental formations to the motivation of human behavior.

Depth psychology- a number of areas of Western psychology that attach decisive importance in the organization of human behavior to irrational impulses, attitudes hidden behind the “surface” of consciousness, in the “depths” of the individual. The most famous areas of depth psychology are Freudianism and neo-Freudianism, individual psychology, and analytical psychology.

Freudianism– a direction named after the Austrian psychologist and psychiatrist S. Freud (1856–1939), which explains the development and structure of personality by irrational mental factors antagonistic to consciousness and uses the technique of psychotherapy based on these ideas.

Having emerged as a concept for the explanation and treatment of neuroses, Freudianism later elevated its provisions to the rank of a general doctrine about man, society and culture. The core of Freudianism is the idea of ​​an eternal secret war between unconscious psychic forces hidden in the depths of the individual (the main of which is sexual attraction - libido) and the need to survive in a social environment hostile to this individual. Prohibitions on the part of the latter (creating a “censorship” of consciousness), causing mental trauma, suppress the energy of unconscious drives, which breaks out along the bypass paths in the form of neurotic symptoms, dreams, erroneous actions (slips of the tongue, slips of the tongue), forgetting the unpleasant, etc.

Mental processes and phenomena were considered in Freudianism from three main points of view: topical, dynamic and economic. Topical consideration meant a schematic “spatial” representation of the structure of mental life in the form of various instances that have their own special location, functions and patterns of development. Initially, Freud's topical system of mental life was represented by three instances: the unconscious, the preconscious and consciousness, the relationships between which were regulated by internal censorship. Since the early 1920s. Freud identifies other authorities: I (Ego), It (Id) and Superego (Super-Ego). The last two systems were localized in the “unconscious” layer. The dynamic consideration of mental processes involved their study as forms of manifestations of certain (usually hidden from consciousness) purposeful inclinations, tendencies, etc., as well as from the position of transitions from one subsystem of the mental structure to another. Economic consideration meant the analysis of mental processes from the point of view of their energy supply (in particular, libidinal energy).

The energy source according to Freud is the Id (Id). The id is the focus of blind instincts, either sexual or aggressive, seeking immediate gratification regardless of the subject’s relationship to external reality. Adaptation to this reality is served by the Ego, which perceives information about the surrounding world and the state of the body, stores it in memory and regulates the individual’s response in the interests of his self-preservation.

The super-ego includes moral standards, prohibitions and rewards, learned by the individual mostly unconsciously in the process of upbringing, primarily from parents. Arising through the mechanism of identification of a child with an adult (father), the Super-Ego manifests itself in the form of conscience and can cause feelings of fear and guilt. Since the demands on the Ego from the Id, Super-Ego and external reality (to which the individual is forced to adapt) are incompatible, he inevitably finds himself in a situation of conflict. This creates unbearable tension, from which the individual saves himself with the help of “defense mechanisms” - repression, rationalization, sublimation, regression.

Freudianism assigns an important role in the formation of motivation to childhood, which allegedly uniquely determines the character and attitudes of the adult personality. The task of psychotherapy is seen as identifying traumatic experiences and freeing the individual from them through catharsis, awareness of repressed drives, and understanding the causes of neurotic symptoms. For this purpose, dream analysis, the method of “free associations”, etc. are used. In the process of psychotherapy, the doctor encounters resistance from the patient, which is replaced by an emotionally positive attitude towards the doctor, transference, due to which the “power of the self” of the patient increases, who is aware of the source of his conflicts and eliminates them in a “neutralized” form.

Freudianism introduced a number of important problems into psychology: unconscious motivation, the relationship between normal and pathological phenomena of the psyche, its defense mechanisms, the role of the sexual factor, the influence of childhood trauma on the behavior of an adult, the complex structure of personality, contradictions and conflicts in the mental organization of the subject. In his interpretation of these problems, he defended the provisions that met criticism from many psychological schools about the subordination of the inner world and human behavior to asocial drives, the omnipotence of the libido (pan-sexualism), and the antagonism of consciousness and the unconscious.

Neo-Freudianism - a direction in psychology, whose supporters are trying to overcome the biologism of classical Freudianism and introduce its main provisions into the social context. The most famous representatives of neo-Freudianism include American psychologists K. Horney (1885–1952), E. Fromm (1900–1980), G. Sullivan (1892–1949).

According to K. Horney, the cause of neuroses is the anxiety that arises in a child when confronted with a world that is initially hostile to him and intensifies with a lack of love and attention from parents and people around him. E. Fromm associates neuroses with the inability for an individual to achieve harmony with the social structure of modern society, which creates in a person a feeling of loneliness, isolation from others, causing neurotic ways of getting rid of this feeling. G.S. Sullivan sees the origins of neuroses in the anxiety that arises in people's interpersonal relationships. With apparent attention to the factors of social life, neo-Freudianism considers the individual with his unconscious drives to be initially independent of society and opposed to it; at the same time, society is viewed as a source of “general alienation” and is recognized as hostile to the fundamental tendencies of personal development.

Individual psychology - one of the areas of psychoanalysis, branched off from Freudianism and developed by the Austrian psychologist A. Adler (1870–1937). Individual psychology proceeds from the fact that the personality structure (individuality) of a child is laid down in early childhood (up to 5 years) in the form of a special “lifestyle” that predetermines all subsequent mental development. Due to the underdevelopment of his bodily organs, the child experiences a feeling of inferiority, in attempts to overcome which and to assert himself his goals are formed. When these goals are realistic, the personality develops normally, but when they are fictitious, it becomes neurotic and antisocial. At an early age, a conflict arises between the innate social sense and the feeling of inferiority, which sets into motion the mechanisms compensation and overcompensation. This gives rise to a desire for personal power, superiority over others, and deviation from socially valued norms of behavior. The task of psychotherapy is to help a neurotic subject realize that his motives and goals are inadequate to reality, so that his desire to compensate for his inferiority finds outlet in creative acts.

The ideas of individual psychology have become widespread in the West not only in personality psychology, but also in social psychology, where they have been used in group therapy methods.

Analytical psychology – the belief system of the Swiss psychologist K.G. Jung (1875–1961), who gave it this name in order to distinguish it from a related direction - the psychoanalysis of S. Freud. Attaching, like Freud, a decisive role in the regulation of behavior to the unconscious, Jung identified, along with its individual (personal) form, a collective form, which can never become the content of consciousness. Collective unconscious forms an autonomous mental fund in which the inherited experience of previous generations is imprinted (through the structure of the brain). The primary formations included in this fund - archetypes (universal human prototypes) - underlie the symbolism of creativity, various rituals, dreams and complexes. As a method for analyzing hidden motives, Jung proposed a word association test: an inadequate reaction (or delayed reaction) to a stimulus word indicates the presence of a complex.

Analytical psychology considers the goal of human mental development to be individuation– a special integration of the contents of the collective unconscious, thanks to which the individual realizes himself as a unique indivisible whole. Although analytical psychology rejected a number of postulates of Freudianism (in particular, libido was understood not as sexual, but as any unconscious mental energy), but the methodological orientations of this direction are characterized by the same features as other branches of psychoanalysis, since the socio-historical essence of the motivating forces of human behavior is denied and the predominant role of consciousness in its regulation.

Analytical psychology has inadequately presented the data of history, mythology, art, and religion, treating them as products of some eternal psychic principle. Proposed by Jung character typology, according to which there are two main categories of people - extroverts(directed to the outside world) and introverts(aimed at the inner world), received development independently of analytical psychology in specific psychological studies of personality.

According to hormic concept According to the Anglo-American psychologist W. McDougall (1871–1938), the driving force of individual and social behavior is a special innate (instinctive) energy (“gorme”), which determines the nature of the perception of objects, creates emotional arousal and directs the mental and physical actions of the body towards the goal.

In his works “Social Psychology” (1908) and “The Group Mind” (1920), McDougall tried to explain social and mental processes by the desire for a goal initially inherent in the depths of the psychophysical organization of the individual, thereby rejecting their scientific causal explanation.

Existential analysis(from Latin ex(s)istentia - existence) is a method proposed by the Swiss psychiatrist L. Binswanger (1881–1966) for analyzing a personality in the fullness and uniqueness of its existence (existence). According to this method, the true existence of a personality is revealed through deepening it into oneself in order to choose a “life plan” independent of anything external. In cases where an individual’s openness to the future disappears, he begins to feel abandoned, his inner world narrows, development opportunities remain beyond the horizon of vision, and neurosis arises.

The meaning of existential analysis is seen as helping a neurotic to realize himself as a free being capable of self-determination. Existential analysis proceeds from the false philosophical premise that the truly personal in a person is revealed only when he is freed from causal connections with the material world and the social environment.

Humanistic psychology- a direction in Western (mainly American) psychology that recognizes as its main subject the personality as a unique integral system, which is not something given in advance, but an “open possibility” of self-actualization, inherent only to man.

The main provisions of humanistic psychology are the following: 1) a person must be studied in his integrity; 2) each person is unique, therefore the analysis of individual cases is no less justified than statistical generalizations; 3) a person is open to the world, a person’s experiences of the world and himself in the world are the main psychological reality; 4) a person’s life should be considered as a single process of his formation and existence; 5) a person is endowed with the potential for continuous development and self-realization, which are part of his nature; 6) a person has a certain degree of freedom from external determination due to the meanings and values ​​that guide him in his choice; 7) man is an active, creative being.

Humanistic psychology opposed itself as a “third force” to behaviorism and Freudianism, which place the main emphasis on the dependence of the individual on his past, while the main thing in it is the aspiration to the future, to the free realization of one’s potential (American psychologist G. Allport (1897–1967) ), especially creative ones (American psychologist A. Maslow (1908–1970)), to strengthen self-confidence and the possibility of achieving the “ideal self” (American psychologist C. R. Rogers (1902–1987)). The central role is given to motives that ensure not adaptation to the environment, not conformal behavior, but growth of the constructive principle of the human self, the integrity and strength of the experience of which a special form of psychotherapy is designed to support. Rogers called this form “client-centered therapy,” which meant treating the individual seeking help from a psychotherapist not as a patient, but as a “client” who himself takes responsibility for solving the problems that trouble him in life. The psychotherapist performs only the function of a consultant who creates a warm emotional atmosphere in which it is easier for the client to organize his inner (“phenomenal”) world and achieve the integrity of his own personality and understand the meaning of its existence. Expressing protest against concepts that ignore the specifically human in personality, humanistic psychology inadequately and one-sidedly represents the latter, since it does not recognize its conditioning by socio-historical factors.

Cognitive psychology– one of the leading areas of modern foreign psychology. It arose in the late 1950s and early 1960s. as a reaction to the denial of the role of the internal organization of mental processes, characteristic of the dominant behaviorism in the United States. Initially, the main task of cognitive psychology was to study the transformations of sensory information from the moment a stimulus hits the receptor surfaces until the response is received (American psychologist S. Sternberg). In doing so, the researchers proceeded from the analogy between the processes of information processing in humans and in a computing device. Numerous structural components (blocks) of cognitive and executive processes have been identified, including short-term and long-term memory. This line of research, having encountered serious difficulties due to the increase in the number of structural models of private mental processes, led to the understanding of cognitive psychology as a direction whose task is to prove the decisive role of knowledge in the behavior of the subject.

As an attempt to overcome the crisis of behaviorism, Gestalt psychology and other directions, cognitive psychology did not live up to the hopes placed on it, since its representatives failed to unite disparate lines of research on a single conceptual basis. From the standpoint of Russian psychology, analysis of the formation and actual functioning of knowledge as a mental reflection of reality necessarily involves the study of the practical and theoretical activity of the subject, including its highest socialized forms.

Cultural-historical theory is a concept of mental development developed in the 1920s and 1930s. Soviet psychologist L.S. Vygotsky with the participation of his students A.N. Leontyev and A.R. Luria. When forming this theory, they critically comprehended the experience of Gestalt psychology, the French psychological school (primarily J. Piaget), as well as the structural-semiotic direction in linguistics and literary criticism (M. M. Bakhtin, E. Sapir, etc.). Orientation towards Marxist philosophy was of paramount importance.

According to the cultural-historical theory, the main regularity of the ontogenesis of the psyche consists in the internalization (see 2.4) by the child of the structure of his external, social-symbolic (i.e., joint with the adult and mediated by signs) activity. As a result, the previous structure of mental functions as “natural” changes - it is mediated by interiorized signs, and mental functions become “cultural”. Outwardly, this manifests itself in the fact that they acquire awareness and arbitrariness. Thus, internalization also acts as socialization. During internalization, the structure of external activity is transformed and “collapsed” in order to transform again and “unfold” in the process exteriorization, when “external” social activity is built on the basis of mental function. The linguistic sign acts as a universal tool that changes mental functions - word. Here we outline the possibility of explaining the verbal and symbolic nature of cognitive processes in humans.

To test the main provisions of the cultural-historical theory of L.S. Vygotsky developed a “method of double stimulation”, with the help of which the process of sign mediation was modeled and the mechanism of “rotation” of signs into the structure of mental functions – attention, memory, thinking – was traced.

A particular consequence of the cultural-historical theory is the thesis about zone of proximal development– the period of time in which a restructuring of the child’s mental function occurs under the influence of the internalization of the structure of sign-mediated activity jointly with an adult.

The cultural-historical theory was criticized, including by the students of L.S. Vygotsky, for the unjustified opposition of “natural” and “cultural” mental functions, understanding the mechanism of socialization as associated primarily with the level of sign-symbolic (linguistic) forms, and underestimating the role of objective-practical human activity. The last argument became one of the starting points when developed by L.S.’s students. Vygotsky's concept of the structure of activity in psychology.

Currently, turning to cultural-historical theory is associated with the analysis of communication processes and the study of the dialogic nature of a number of cognitive processes.

Transactional Analysis is a theory of personality and a system of psychotherapy proposed by the American psychologist and psychiatrist E. Burn.

Developing the ideas of psychoanalysis, Burn focused on the interpersonal relationships underlying the types of human “transactions” (three states of the ego state: “adult”, “parent”, “child”). At every moment of relationships with other people, the individual is in one of these states. For example, the ego-state “parent” reveals itself in such manifestations as control, prohibitions, demands, dogmas, sanctions, care, power. In addition, the “parent” state contains automated forms of behavior that have developed during life, eliminating the need to consciously calculate each step.

A certain place in Burn's theory is given to the concept of "game", used to designate all types of hypocrisy, insincerity, and other negative techniques that take place in relationships between people. The main goal of transactional analysis as a method of psychotherapy is to free a person from these games, the skills of which are acquired in early childhood, and teach him more honest, open and psychologically advantageous forms of transactions; so that the client develops an adaptive, mature and realistic attitude towards life, i.e., in Burn’s terms, so that “the adult ego gains hegemony over the impulsive child.”

1 Modern psychological theories of personality 3

2 Psychological structure of personality6

3 Interaction of biological and social factors in

psychological development of personality 10

Bibliography

1 MODERN THEORIES OF PERSONALITY.

Currently, there are many different theories of personality, but some of them attract the most attention and are the most developed. These are personality trait theory, psychoanalytic personality theory, social role theory and humanistic personality theory.

Almost all modern theories of personality were basically developed in the first half of the 20th century, and by the middle of it there were already about 20 different private psychological theories of personality. Due to the fact that these theories reflected all sorts of views on personality psychology, representing all 4 of the above directions in the study of personality, from about this time attempts to create new psychological theories virtually ceased. Instead, scientists began an in-depth study of individual characteristics of a person’s personality, their occurrence, and the laws of formation and change.

It turned out that in different theories of personality, in particular those named above as the most developed, its structure is presented and described in different ways. Let's get acquainted with how this is done within the framework of these personality theories.

The creation of the theory of personality traits is associated with the names of the American psychologist G. Allport and the English psychologist R. Cattell.

In personality trait theory, the main concept by which personality is described is the concept of personality trait. A personality trait is understood as a stable property that is acquired by a person in the course of life on the basis of his experience, heredity and physiological characteristics of his body. Personality traits include, for example, the character traits of a person.

It is assumed that personality traits begin to develop in a person quite early, in early childhood, and by 6 -7 years old, the main personality traits of a person (his character traits) are already formed. Further, the system of human personality traits can develop and change, and this process usually continues throughout a person’s life. However, the core personality traits developed in childhood remain largely unchanged throughout a person's life.

Personality trait theory has had a notable influence on modern personality research and on the methods of studying personality. Most psychological tests, with the help of which a person is currently studied and assessed as a person, identify personality traits.

Psychoanalytic theory of personality was created by 3. Freud , was further developed in the works of his numerous students and followers, the most famous of whom are A. Adler, K. Jung, E. Fromm, K. Horney, G. Sullivan.

The main ideas of this theory are as follows. Personality is an internal, psychological formation of a person, consisting of three parts. The main, main part of the personality is the unconscious (in psychoanalytic theory it is called the id). These include the biological instincts and organic needs of man, which he has in common with animals and unconsciously prompt him to act in a certain way.

A person cannot control the influence of these instincts and needs on his behavior. On the contrary, in addition to a person’s consciousness and will, they control his behavior, often forcing him to act contrary to his will and consciousness.

There were certain differences between S. Freud and his students in their understanding of the essence of the unconscious. Creating the foundations of his theory at a time when Darwin’s theory of evolution had a strong influence on all sciences, Freud laid the basis of the unconscious in human personality psychology only two biological instincts inherited by man from animals: sexual need and aggressiveness.

The above-mentioned followers of Freud (they began to be called neo-Freudians) tried to challenge this too narrow and almost exclusively biological understanding of the unconscious in the individual, supplementing it with some social needs. A. Adler, for example, considered the desire for power to be one of the most important unconscious needs of a person, K. Horney included various complexes in the structure of the unconscious, E. Fromm believed that the unconscious also includes a person’s desire for freedom or, on the contrary, its limitation., The second part of the personality structure is the so-called Ego. It includes everything that a person knows about himself as an individual, that is, his personal self-awareness. This part of the personality is recognized by a person, although not always correctly. The Ego can include both positive and negative qualities that a person recognizes as actually existing in him.

The third part of the personality in psychoanalytic theory is represented by the so-called superego. It includes a person’s values, his life goals, ideals - in a word, what a person would like to become, what kind of person he would like to see himself.

All three components of the personality: Id, Ego and Superego are usually not in a state of harmony and do not completely correspond to each other. Inevitable, difficult-to-resolve conflicts often arise between them, which a person seeks to resolve in the process of his personal growth and development. To some extent, he manages to do this through the development and use of so-called defense mechanisms, but not always and far from completely. Difficult-to-resolve conflicts between these parts of the personality often give rise to neuroses, deviations in the psyche and behavior of a person.

2 PSYCHOLOGICAL STRUCTURE OF PERSONALITY

There are several varieties of personality psychological theories of roles. One of the most famous versions of this theory was proposed by the American psychologist Z. Bern. According to his concept, a person more often than others takes on and plays the following social roles: the role of a child, the role of a parent and the role of an adult.

The role of the child is extended in that the adult continues to feel like a child and actually behaves like a child where he should act like an adult. This, in particular, is manifested in the fact that he, for example, behaves irresponsibly, is capricious, makes increased demands on the people around him regarding caring for him, etc. At the same time, he himself does not care about the people around him and considers this quite normal. In a word, such a person behaves towards other adults like a child, and assigns them the role of his “parents”.

If a person behaves as if those who surround him, his children, are irresponsible, helpless, not independent, not entirely reasonable and need constant care - he feels like a parent. The role of a parent is psychologically manifested in the fact that a person himself, regardless of the opinions of other people, takes responsibility for them, imposes his care, makes demands on them as children, treats them as children, for example, punishes, teaches, etc. .P.

The role of an adult is that a person actually behaves as adults usually behave and should behave in relation to each other. In this case, people respect the personal freedom and independence of everyone, recognize each other’s right to behave as they see fit, respect each other, trust each other, do not consider themselves to have the right to demand, insist, punish each other, as parents usually do towards your children.

All three roles, according to Berne, are combined in the behavior of each person, and their individual combination represents the individual personality structure of the corresponding person.

What is included in the composition of personality in humanistic theory. The most famous among humanistic theories of personality is the theory developed by the American psychologist A. Maslow .

The main concept with which a person is characterized in this theory is the concept of “need”. The personality structure, according to Maslow, is an ordered system, or hierarchy, of needs (see Fig. 1), in which the top level is occupied by the main, most important need for a person at this stage of his life.

Pyramid (hierarchy) of human needs according to A. Maslow

/ Sweat - \

/ reb - \

/ ness in \

/ self-actua -\

/ lization . \

/ Aesthetic \ needs . \

/ Cognitive \
/ needs. \

/ Needs respect \
/ ( veneration ). \

/ Needs V accessories \
/ love. \

/ Needs V security \

/ physiological ( organic ) needs.

If a person is a highly developed personality, then the main thing for him becomes the need for self-actualization . It refers to a person’s desire for the fullest development of all his abilities, especially those whose implementation can bring maximum benefit to people.

A person for whom this need has become the most important in life is called a self-actualizing person. . Such a personality, according to Maslow, has the following main features:

Independence and independence in behavior and thinking;

Having high morals;

Increased moral demands that a person places on himself;

Realistic view of the world;

Adequate self-esteem and normal level of aspirations;

A friendly, respectful attitude towards people, accepting them as they are;

Relative independence from people's opinions. Focus on your own value system;

The desire for spiritual growth and moral self-improvement.

There are laws that determine the hierarchy of human needs and the change in the place that one or another need begins to occupy in the structure of the individual. These laws are as follows.

Needs of a higher level arise, become relevant, and significant for a person only when his needs of a lower level are satisfied, at least to a minimal extent. If, for example, a person is constantly hungry or does not feel safe, then it is unlikely that communication or the need for creativity will become relevant for him.

If a new need arises and becomes relevant for a person, the entire hierarchy of his needs is rebuilt. A newly emerged and urgent need now occupies the top level in the hierarchy and determines a person’s personality and behavior. As a result, the remaining needs seem to fade into the background, and their satisfaction begins to be subordinated to the satisfaction of a new need that has become the most important for a given person. For example, if a person has become a creative person and the need for creativity has come to the fore for him, then for the sake of creativity he is ready to some extent sacrifice the satisfaction of all his other needs - those that occupy a lower place in the hierarchy.

3 INTERACTION OF BIOLOGICAL AND SOCIAL FACTORS IN THE PSYCHOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT OF PERSONALITY.

Despite the numerous conceptual and other differences that exist between them, almost all psychological theories of personality are united in one thing: they assert that a person is not born, but becomes a person in the process of his life. This actually means recognizing that a person’s personal qualities and properties are not acquired genetically, but as a result of learning, that is, they are formed and developed.

The formation of personality is, as a rule, the initial stage of the formation of a person’s personal properties, in particular, the appearance in him of those basic properties that were mentioned above when discussing various theories of personality. These may be personality traits, ways of resolving conflicts between the ego and superego, social roles or human needs.

It has been noticed that the first personal properties of a person begin to form quite early, in the first half of preschool age, that is, up to 3 years. This age in child psychology includes infancy (from birth to one year) and early childhood (from one year to 3 years).

Infancy and early age are the most important period of personality formation. The personal qualities of a person that arise at this time turn out to be the most stable and change little throughout a person’s life. The corresponding personality traits are usually called primary or basic personality traits. Those qualities that arise later are less stable, and they are accordingly called secondary or derivative.

The main influence on the formation of personality in the initial period of its formation is exerted by the people who surround the child from childhood. These are members of his parental family and, above all, the child’s mother and father, that is, people who most often and most communicate with the child in the first months and years of his life. When a child goes to kindergarten and especially when he begins to study at school, the formation of his personality is significantly influenced by the people with whom he directly and a lot communicates outside the home, primarily peers and teachers.

It is believed that the formation of a person as an individual is mainly completed by the end of adolescence, that is, by the age of 14-15. This means that by this age a person already has almost all the basic human properties, which are called personal. This also means that by this age a person becomes a more or less stable personality and those changes in him that occur in the future have little effect on the basis of personality formed in childhood.

Now about the development of personality, that is, about the process that begins after the foundations of a person’s personality have been laid. Personality development usually concerns what happens to a person’s personality after the end of childhood, after 15-16 years, during subsequent life.

The changes that can occur in a person's personality after leaving school are associated with the characteristics of his individual experience and lifestyle. It is quite possible to imagine a situation where, after graduating from school, nothing significantly changes in a person’s life, that is, for example, he continues his education in another educational institution, a secondary vocational school or a higher education institution. Then it will hardly be possible to expect that he, as a person, will quickly and significantly change. However, it often happens differently. Events may occur in a person's life that significantly change his lifestyle and greatly affect him as an individual. Most often, serious changes in a person’s personality can occur in the following life situations:

A change in social circle, as a result of which a person goes beyond the usual circle, finds himself for a long time among people whose culture differs significantly from the culture of those people with whom he previously had to communicate.

A change in a person's social status, such as marriage.

Taking a new, higher or, conversely, lower, position in society, for example, appointment to a leadership position or retirement.

Serious psychological trauma associated, for example, with the untimely loss of people very close to a given person.

A severe chronic disease that entails a significant change in a person’s lifestyle.

The transition from one age to another, older age, accompanied by a deep age-related psychological crisis.

Let us briefly discuss how these events can affect a person’s personality.

If a person finds himself among people who are new to him, whose culture differs significantly from the culture of those people with whom he previously had to communicate, then he is forced to adapt to a new culture of behavior and communication. This means that the old, habitual forms of behavior for him may turn out to be inadequate, and over time, new habits must be formed in their place. This will mean that the person has changed as a person. It should, however, be recognized that in this case a person will no longer be able to change completely as a person. He will still have his old habits, and the formation of new ones will depend on the strength of the old, habitual forms of behavior. Ultimately, such a person will turn into a personality in which the old and the new will be combined. A person whose psychology and behavior contradictorily combines several different, difficultly compatible psychological characteristics, forms of social behavior and cultures is called a marginal person. Most people who, by the will of fate, moved, for example, from one culture to another after the age of 15 or 16, ultimately become marginal individuals.

Let's find out how the development of a person as an individual can be affected by a change in his social status. Each position occupied by a person in society is associated with certain requirements placed on him. Under the influence of these demands, a person is forced to change as a person, otherwise he will not be able to fully comply with his new status or new position in society. It’s one thing when a person, for example, is free from his family, and a completely different thing when he has a family and certain obligations to it. It is one thing when a person occupies an ordinary position in a work collective, and a completely different thing when he becomes the leader of this team.

Getting used to a new social status, a person is almost always forced to some extent to abandon old habits and acquire new, socially useful habits, since otherwise he will not be able to cope with his new responsibilities. This, naturally, leads to a change in the person as a person, to the abandonment of old forms of behavior and, accordingly, to the emergence of new personal properties. The more significant a person’s new position in society differs from his previous social status, the greater personality changes should be expected as a result of changes in his social position.

The loss of a loved one can also significantly affect a person’s personality, however, the mechanism of personality change in this case will be somewhat different than in the previous case. A person, having lost someone close to him forever, may lose many positive things that used to be in his life. As a result, his life may become less joyful than it was before. Close people always support each other in some way, and their loss threatens to deprive a person of such support. Anyone who has forever lost someone close to them has to adapt to new, usually not very favorable living conditions. This can be done only if changes occur in a person’s personality that will allow him to more or less normally adapt to new living conditions.

Severe chronic illness also affects the psychology of a person as an individual. A sick person usually feels inferior and is forced to give up what is available to healthy people and is necessary for him. As a result, a person may develop various kinds of complexes, and he as a person will gradually change.

In addition, a sick person does not feel well physically, and this causes his mood to become chronically negative. Consciously or involuntarily, this mood begins to affect relationships with other people, relationships with them deteriorate, and this, in turn, begins to have an adverse effect on a person’s character. It has been noticed that with many chronic nervous and organic diseases, a person’s character changes over time, and not for the better.

Age-related developmental crises also have an impact on a person’s personality. Moving from one age to another, older one, a person turns out to be psychologically not fully prepared for a forced change in needs, values, and lifestyle. Many people find it painful to let go of old habits as they get older and have a hard time giving up the opportunities they had when they were young. They are not able to quickly psychologically adapt to their new position and lifestyle. When a person becomes elderly, as a rule, he loses his external attractiveness and the friends of his youth. He is no longer able to withstand long-term and significant physical and psychological stress, which was previously quite feasible for him. All this begins to influence a person’s character, and he as a person gradually changes.

The process of the emergence of personal psychological properties in a child can be represented as follows. A child, participating together with an adult in any activity, observing him and imitating him, repeats the actions of an adult. This is due to the fact that the ability to imitate is genetically inherent in human nature, which begins to manifest itself at an early age, already during the first year of life.

Initially, through imitation, the child masters certain actions of an adult, that is, the external forms of his behavior. An adult, having any valuable personal psychological properties, for his part strives to pass them on to the child. To do this, he carefully observes the child’s actions and tries to encourage those that are associated with the corresponding positive personal qualities. In other words, some actions performed by the child are specifically highlighted and actively encouraged by adults who are significant to the child.

Encouragement is designed to evoke positive emotional experiences in the child. These experiences bring pleasure to the child, and he strives to repeat or prolong them. To do this, the child must himself repeat those actions for which he receives encouragement from an adult. Thus, the child’s actions, when repeated frequently, turn into a habit, and it represents a typical form of a person’s response to a particular life situation. A habit in itself is already a property of a person, and behind it usually lies some personal trait corresponding to it. This is the general mechanism for the formation of new personal properties of a person.

Developing as a person, a person can acquire both positive and negative personal qualities, as well as lose some of the psychological qualities. In this regard, the following question can be posed: which direction of personality development is normal and which is abnormal?

Personal development is considered normal when a person retains and acquires new, positive personal properties. Abnormal , accordingly, there is such a direction of development of a person as an individual, during which he either loses his previous, positive personal qualities, or acquires new, negative personal qualities.

The characteristic changes in a person’s personality that occur in childhood are mostly positive if the person’s childhood proceeds quite well. Changes in a person’s personality that arise under the influence of his life in a new, higher culture also most often appear as positive. The personality changes that a person experiences after childhood are not always positive or normal. Changes in personality that occur as a result of illness or under the influence of unfavorable living conditions usually become negative or abnormal. For example, changes in a person’s personality that occur during age-related crises may turn out to be abnormal.

In general, such development of a person as an individual is considered normal, during which he acquires positive personal properties that allow him to best solve his life problems. Anomalous is a change in a person’s personality that is correctly called not development, but stagnation or degradation. In this case, a person either stops developing as a person and does not acquire the necessary positive psychological properties characteristic of his age, or acquires negative personal qualities that prevent his normal adaptation to living conditions.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

1. Asmolov A.G. Psychology of Personality. - M., 1990.

2. Bodalev A.A. Psychology about personality. - Moscow State University, 1988.

3. Kon I.S. In search of myself. - M., 1984.

4. Personality psychology. Texts. - Moscow State University, 1982.

5. Personal psychology and lifestyle. - M., 1987. Section. I.

6. Psychology of personality formation and development. - M., 1981.

7. Reinwald N.M. Psychology of Personality. - M., 1987.

One of the tasks that arises when analyzing a specific psychological theory is to identify the psychological principle that determines the content of this theory. We have already said that any psychological model is subject to general methodological principles and special principles that establish the uniqueness of the content of the theory. Psychological principles, in accordance with general methodological principles, characterize the subject, methods and boundaries of a particular theory. Moreover, each fragment of the content of the theory is supported by a special psychological principle. In particular, such principles are: the principle of activity for activity theory, the principle of structure for Gestalt psychology, the principle of reactivity for behaviorism, the principle of the unconscious for psychoanalysis. It is important to trace where these principles come from.

The sources of psychological principles are the corresponding facts of reality. However, not every fact can be a principle. In order for a fact to become a principle, it must be given the status of a principle. For example, the merit of L. S. Vygotsky lies not in the fact that he was the first to discover the fact of using special means to control human mental activity, but in the fact that he gave this fact the status of a principle and formulated, based on the principle of mediation, a cultural-historical theory of the development of higher mental functions.

Special psychological principles determine the corresponding system of concepts, and therefore the system of content of a particular psychological theory. Subsequently, the principle as a filter begins to participate in the selection of those psychological facts that the theory considers as its own or begins to ignore them.

The essential point of a special psychological principle is that it is based on a specific fact of reality and bears all the properties and features of this fact. Thus, if the principle of mediation is directly related to the emergence of higher mental functions, that is, it characterizes such qualities of the psyche as awareness and volition, then you need to understand that these properties follow precisely from the characteristics of the very fact of reality, taken as a principle.

Thus, the use of a means as an instrument of mental activity, of course, presupposes knowledge of the method of using this means and an understanding of what stage of use of the means the subject is at, i.e. it presupposes arbitrariness. Accordingly, a psychological theory that is based on this principle turns out to be sensitive precisely to those problems or those aspects of a person’s mental life that correlate with this principle.

We emphasize that in this case, cultural-historical theory faces difficulties in interpreting unconscious processes, which is reflected, in our opinion, in the texts of L. S. Vygotsky: he emphasized as an unconditional achievement of psychoanalysis the ability to give a positive characterization of the unconscious, meanwhile in within the framework of cultural-historical theory, the problem of the unconscious was not solved. This result, in our opinion, is a consequence of the limitation that the principle imposes on the content of the theory. In the same way, followers of L.S. Vygotsky’s theory, for example representatives of the activity theory, were unable to solve the problem of the unconscious, since the principle of activity presupposes the unity of consciousness and activity, but not the unity of the unconscious and activity.

Psychological principles determine the boundaries of psychological theory not only in breadth, i.e. from the point of view of the issues that are considered by this theory, but also in depth, i.e. from the point of view of the limit of explanation.

So, for example, to explain human behavior in behaviorism, the universal principle of “stimulus-response” suggests that behavior will be understood if we determine the connection between the stimulus that acts on the subject (the situation in which he finds himself) and the reaction that causes given incentive. The essential point here is that psychological explanation does not move beyond these categories. Therefore, it is considered that behavior is adequately interpreted if the situations themselves and reactions to them are described.

If we turn to activity theory or cultural-historical theory, then the ultimate explanation will be an explanation that is based on a system of operations and the means by which these operations are performed. In particular, it is on these principles that L.A. Wenger’s theory of abilities is built: to understand the psychological structure of an ability means to understand the system of operations and means that a person uses to solve the problems facing him. It is this approach that formed the basis of the system for diagnosing the development of preschool children. In psychoanalysis, explanations end when the content of consciousness, repressed into the unconscious, is found.

(in particular, images of experienced situations). Let's quote the following passage: ""Yes, now I know. This is my uncle's head... The face that I now see is his evil face." This information reminded me that her first hysterical symptom, vomiting, had passed. ...Accordingly, we were dealing with hysteria, which was largely reactive. And indeed, soon after this happened, Katarina told her aunt about her discovery.

Did you tell your aunt other stories - about how he flirted with you?

Yes, not immediately, but later, when there was already talk about divorce. My aunt said: We'll keep this in reserve. If he causes trouble in court, we will tell about that too.

I can perfectly understand that it was precisely this last period - when more and more exciting scenes took place in the house and when the girl’s condition ceased to interest her aunt, who was entirely occupied with an argument - it must have been precisely this period of accumulation and preservation of information that left Katarina as a legacy of a mnemonic symbol (or hallucination) - face.

I hope this girl, whose sexual sensitivity was damaged at such a young age, gained some benefit from our conversation. I haven't seen her since then." 1

From the above passage it is clear that S. Freud saw the main task as finding out the original experience, which was repressed by his patient and was subsequently discovered as a result of painstaking work. At the same time, the very fact of establishing a repressed experience is final in Freud’s methodology precisely because of the understanding of the principle of the unconscious. When reading this passage, one gets the impression that the action is incomplete: I would like to move on, but the principle of the unconscious does not allow this. S. Freud concludes that he subsequently did not see this patient. But, in our opinion, he did not need to see further, since the process was completed.

The peculiarity of special psychological principles lies in the fact that, although each of them is central to its corresponding psychological theory, the principles that form different theories are interconnected. Thus, the principle of structure in Gestalt psychology stands in opposition to the principle of discreteness in associative psychology; the principle of the unconscious in psychoanalysis is opposed to the principle of consciousness in associative psychology; the principle of reactivity is opposed to the principle of unobservability of mental

1 Frager R., Fadyman D. Personality. Theories, exercises, experiments. - St. Petersburg, 2006. - P. 57.

phenomena in associative psychology; the operational principle of J. Piaget's theory is the mediation of the principle of structure and the principle of reactivity in behaviorism. Such relationships between principles show that they are not internally independent and exist within the framework of a specific psychological theory, but are located in the general space of psychological knowledge. Thus, the principles not only limit the corresponding psychological theory, but also set the possibilities for its development through the formulation of other principles.

Speaking about the role of a principle in the structure of a psychological theory, one can note that a specific psychological principle acts as its center in the sense that it first of all brings together the facts that characterize this theory, basic concepts and research methods. At the same time, the principle itself limits the content of psychological theory, creates that “armor” that does not allow facts not related to this principle to enter the body of the theory. As I. Lakatos wrote, “all research programs have a “hard core”... we must strain our ingenuity to clarify, develop existing ones or put forward new “auxiliary hypotheses” that form a protective belt around this core... protective the belt must withstand the brunt of the checks; thus protecting the ossified core..." 1. We want to emphasize that it is precisely the special psychological principle that creates the very core around which diverse defense systems are built.

In Russian psychology, the most developed theory is activity theory. It formed the basis of many studies in general and applied psychology. The principles of activity theory constitute a special methodology of domestic child psychology. Their misunderstanding leads to a misunderstanding of the entire domestic child psychology and the dominance of a naturalistic view of the child’s psyche. Therefore, let us dwell on the analysis of these principles in more detail. One of the main principles of activity theory is principle of objectivity mental reflection. The principle of objectivity is a great theoretical achievement of Russian psychologists, and primarily the credit for its development belongs to A.N. Leontiev. He notes that the mental development of a person remains a mystery if human activity is not revealed and its main characteristic is its “subjectivity”: “Activity may seem pointless, but scientific research

1 Lakatos I. Falsification and methodology of research programs. -M., 1995. - P. 162.

activity necessarily requires the discovery of its subject. In this case, the object of activity appears in two ways: primarily - in its independent existence, as subordinating and transforming the activity of the subject, secondly - as an image of the object, as a product of the mental reflection of its properties, which is realized as a result of the activity of the subject and cannot be realized otherwise. Already at the very origin of activity and mental reflection, their objective nature is revealed” 1 .

At the same time, A.N. Leontyev emphasizes that the processes of activity are primarily controlled by “the object itself and only secondarily by its image as a subjective product of activity, which fixes, stabilizes and carries its objective content. In other words, a double transition is carried out: the transition object-process of activity and the transition doer-subjective product. But the transition of the process into the form of a product occurs not only at the pole of the subject. It occurs even more clearly at the pole of the object transformed by human activity; in this case, the activity of the subject, regulated by a mental image, passes into the “resting property” of its objective product” 2. In other words, any thing to which human activity is directed initially possesses only certain spatio-temporal, physical properties. It is as if a person encounters this thing twice: before the start of the activity and after the end of the activity. Neither the properties of a thing, determined by its physical features, nor the primary “image” of a thing characterize the principle of objectivity. Objectivity arises only as a result of resolving the contradiction between human needs and the properties of an object that satisfy this need.

Let us emphasize once again that objectivity is not an object in itself and not a human need, it is the relationship between the need and the object.

This feature of the principle of objectivity found its expression in the law of “heterogony of purpose” formulated by W. Wundt. The essence of this law comes down to the difference between the final product of activity and the initial plan. And this is understandable. The final product is precisely the resolved contradiction between the need and the object. The difference between the final product and the idea of ​​it before the start of activity is characterized by the fact that in the initial idea of ​​the final product the subjective side of the objective activity is more pronounced, and in the final – its objective side. It is important to understand what we are talking about

1 Leontyev A. I. Activity, consciousness, personality. - M., 1975. - P. 84. 1 Ibid. - P. 86.

not about the objective properties of a thing, but about the objective properties of objective activity.

According to A.N. Leontiev, the secondary image, i.e. the image of a thing obtained as a result of its activity transformation is objectified activity (or need). The thing itself, transformed as a result of activity, acquired not only physical properties, but also objective properties, i.e. its physical properties that can satisfy certain human needs.

Consequently, in human society, objects are used that have two groups of properties: material and objective. The specificity of the human psyche lies precisely in the fact that an object is reflected in it from the side of its objective properties. The objective properties themselves are an objectified need. Most studies by domestic psychologists illustrate the effect of this principle in the mental development of a child. Let's take as an example an experiment conducted by L.A. Wenger with young children (1 - 3 years old). Children were offered a special lattice through which they could reach figures of various geometric shapes. For each figure - a prism, a ball and a pyramid - its own hole was created through which it could be carried. What happened? Initially, the children tried to drag the figures through any holes, of course, but they did not succeed. This fact indicates that: 1) children saw geometric shapes; 2) they also saw holes; 3) moreover, they captured a certain relationship between the figure and the hole. However, does it follow from this that the children perceived the shape of the hole and the shape of the figure?

How would representatives of naturalistic views answer this question? The main feature of their approach is that they highlight only stimuli (or material properties of objects). Here, for example, is a description of one of these experiments: “When we decided to study the visual abilities of still completely helpless infants, we could find only one suitable indicator - eye movements. If a child always directs his gaze more often to some forms than to others, then he is obviously capable of perceiving form. From this we developed a visual interest test, our first subjects were baby chimpanzees, and we found a clear preference for certain objects, indicating an innate ability to discriminate between them.

Moving from chimpanzees to humans, we did not make significant changes to the experimental methodology. Children's interest in presented objects disappears faster than that of infant chimpanzees, and they tend to fall asleep during experiments.

The total viewing time for different pairs was quite different, with more complex pairs receiving more attention. It was obvious that the perception of form is to some extent innate. By showing that even at a very early age children are capable of perceiving form, we have already refuted the common idea that, for anatomical reasons, they cannot see anything except vague light and dark spots."

How to compare the results of two experiments? We would say that in these experiments perception was absent due to the fact that the contradiction between the child’s need (for example, to receive this figurine) and the material properties of the object has not yet been resolved, the form has not yet become the subject of a special activity - perception, then this activity has not yet become objectified in the image of an object reflecting its shape. The question arises: what was observed then? Most likely, psychophysiological features of the functioning of the visual sensory system were observed in the early stages of ontogenesis. It is clear that there is a corresponding organ that responds to differences in stimulation, but these differences are physiological in nature; they have not yet received objective, mental significance. A. V. Zaporozhets, following I. P. Pavlov, called these reactions indicative discrimination: “Indicative discrimination creates only prerequisites for perception, but does not yet ensure the emergence of an adequate perceptual image in itself” 2 .

Confirmation of the correctness of the objectivity of perception was shown by A. V. Zaporozhets using the example of depth perception. American psychologists R. Walk and E. Gibson believed that depth perception is at least partially innate. To prove this assumption, the following experiment was performed. The table was covered with glass. The child was placed on the table surface covered with glass. The glass protruded far beyond the edge of the table, so that the child could see the floor. The child's mother stood at the edge of the glass. The child began to crawl towards his mother, but as soon as he crawled to the edge of the table, he stopped. Based on the results of this experiment, it was concluded that the child perceives depth. A.V. Zaporozhets proposed changing the experimental conditions: painting half the table with a different color. In this case, the child crawled to the border of the colors and stopped, although there were no objective differences in the depth of the surfaces painted in different colors. What is there? There are differences in stimulation, but there is no depth perception.

¹ Perception: mechanisms and models / ed. A. V. Zaporozhets - M 1974 - P. 340-344.

2 Perception and action / ed. A.V. Zaporozhets. - M., 1967. - P. 177-181.

The interpretation of the results of these studies, made in the book by T. Bauer, is instructive: “Researchers found that infants who can already crawl did not crawl to the deep side of the cliff under any circumstances, which seems to be convincing evidence of the presence of distance perception. Unfortunately, infants old enough to crawl have a long history of perceptual and motor development. Therefore, the experiment described can tell us little about the origins of the perception of space” 1. As we see, T. Bauer does not doubt the reliability of the results obtained by E. Gibson and R. Walk. Such confidence is a consequence of ignoring the principle of objectivity within the framework of the naturalistic approach.

If we continue such logical reasoning, we can record the child’s reaction to two different words. There will probably be different reactions to different words, say short and long. Will this difference mean that the child understands them? Of course not. But if you follow the logic of such experiments, you need to talk about differences in understanding.

Thus, misunderstanding of the principle of objectivity leads to distortion in constructing a psychological interpretation of observed mental phenomena. The human psyche is built on the principle of an objective reflection of reality. This means that the content of mental reflection is not things, but objects of human activity that satisfy human needs.

An important conclusion that follows from the principle of objectivity is that the child himself cannot develop the human psyche precisely because objects appear to him in terms of their material properties. A system organized by adults for assigning objective properties of things and phenomena is needed, i.e. a system of training and education is needed. In fact, recognition of the principle of objectivity leads to recognition of the lifetime formation of the human psyche. Another important principle highlighted in activity theory is principle of activity. The essence of this principle is associated with the interpretation of a person either as a passive being, only reacting to external influences, or as an active one.

The most prominent representatives of the principle of passivity are behaviorists. They consider human behavior as a system of reactions to external influences.

In domestic psychology, the principle of activity of the human psyche is being developed. It has several sides. Most

1 Bauer T. Mental development of the baby. - M., 1979. - P. 102.

The traditional understanding of activity consists in the analysis of mental processes as dependent on the goals, attitudes, emotions, and experience of the subject, which is manifested in the selectivity and direction of the subject’s activity.

A. N. Leontiev noted: “Psychology has long described and studied the dependence of perception, representation and thinking on “what a person needs” - on his needs, motives, attitudes, emotions. It is very important to emphasize that such partiality is itself objectively determined and is expressed not in the inadequacy of the image (although it can be expressed in it), but in the fact that it allows one to actively penetrate into reality” 1 .

This understanding of the activity of the human psyche is similar to the positions of many scientists. For example, S.L. Rubinstein emphasized that external causes act through internal conditions. In other words, it turns out that a person is selective to external influences. J. Piaget also shared this position, if by internal conditions we consider the nature of the operational structures that develop in the child in the process of his adaptation to reality. This approach can be seen as a complement to the reactivity principle.

However, in Russian psychology there is a different understanding of the activity of mental reflection. This approach is expressed in a view of cognitive and mental processes in general as creative, productive, as processes of generating a mental image. The representative of this direction P.Ya. Galperin shows that in an environment in which behavior is possible as a reactive adaptation to the world, there is no need for the emergence of mental reflection. All behavior of the subject in this case can be explained at the physiological level, on innate and acquired physiological reactions.

Development the principle of mediation in psychology was started by L.S. Vygotsky. He said that the mental activity of a person, unlike the psyche of animals, is indirect in nature: a person uses various tools (means), thanks to which he masters his psyche. He wrote: “In human behavior there is a whole series of artificial devices aimed at mastering one’s own mental processes” 2 . At the same time, he pointed out the differences between mental means and tools of practical human activity: “... a tool, being also put forward as a middle member between human activity and an external object, is aimed at

1 Leontyev A. N. Activity, consciousness, personality. - P. 56.

2 Vygotsky L. S. Collected works: in 6 volumes. T. 1: Questions of the theory and history of psychology / ed. A.R.Luria, M.G.Yaroshevsky. - M., 1982. - S. 103, 106.

then, in order to cause certain changes in the object itself, a psychological tool does not change anything in the object, it is a means of influencing oneself (or another) - on the psyche, on behavior, and not a means of influencing the object” 1.

L. S. Vygotsky himself studied primarily the sign (word) as a means of human mental activity. However, he emphasized that the use of signs does not exhaust the mediation of the human psyche. In further studies of L. S. Vygotsky’s students, various types of means of mental activity were identified.

A. V. Zaporozhets highlighted sensory standards as a means of perception. He wrote: “As a result of centuries of experience in industrial, scientific and artistic activity, humanity identifies from the entire diversity of perceived reality some qualities that are most important for achieving practical and cognitive goals, quantifies them in a certain way, systematizes them and verbally designates them. Throughout childhood, an individual assimilates this kind of condensed social sensory experience and learns to use it as a system of sensory measures, or standards, to analyze the environment and organize his experience” 2. A. V. Zaporozhets’ employees established figurative means of mental activity of preschoolers. Thus, N.N. Poddyakov showed the role of “operator standards” in a child’s thinking, belonging to a large group of “transformative-reproducing” means, a group of pre-conceptual means, as well as schema models. L. A. Wenger explores the specifics of children’s model representations, considering them as a special form of mediation. It is characterized by the use of images that “convey the relationships between objects, phenomena and their elements in a more or less conventional and schematic visual spatial form” 3 . The principle of mediation allows us to determine the strategy of Research in child psychology. Managing the child’s mental development in this case comes down to the analysis and formation of appropriate mental means and methods of their use. At the same time, children master the means in the process of appropriate activities organized by adults. The principle of interiorization originated in behaviorism. In Russian psychology, its development was started by L. S. Vygotsky. He wrote:

1 Vygotsky L, S. Collected works: in 6 volumes. T. 1: Questions of theory and history of Psychology / ed. A.R.Luria, M.G.Yaroshevsky. - M., 1982. - P. 106.

2 Zaporozhets A.V. Selected psychological works. - M., 1986. - T. 1. - P. 109.

3 Development of cognitive abilities in the process of preschool education / ed. L.A. Wenger. - M, 1986. - P. 6.

“Every higher mental function necessarily passes through an external stage of development, because the function is initially social” 1 . For L.S. Vygotsky, the concept of internalization meant the transition from external (interpsychic) ​​to internal (intrapsychic).

The principle of interiorization of multifaceted aspects. First, it reveals the transition from the collective to the individual. L.S. Vygotsky formulated this transition as the basic law of cultural development: from social collective activity, in which the child is included, to individual mental activity. The essence of this transformation was shown in his book “Thinking and Speech” using the example of the analysis of egocentric speech. Secondly, the principle of interiorization reveals the peculiarities of the formation of the internal, mental plane itself, which is associated with a significant restructuring of the external form of activity. The principle of interiorization allows us to resolve the issue of the purposeful formation of the child’s psyche through the organization of external activities.

The principles of psychology are constantly evolving. The meaning of some shifts, others come to the fore, and new ones appear. Recently, the principles of activity analysis of the psyche are used less frequently, and alternatives to other approaches appear. However, it is necessary to note the unconditional productivity of the special principles of objectivity, indirectness, as well as interiorization. Refusal of them will help to strengthen the dominance of naturalistic tendencies, which will only lead to a statement of the psychologist’s helplessness in front of the “natural” psyche.

As we have already noted, a principle is a rule that the author of a theory follows. It allows one to distinguish one theory from another. In this case, the entire content of the theory is determined by this rule, and each fragment of the theory contains this rule. Therefore, if we try to make the most general summary of the content, then behind all specific statements we can see the action of the original principle. Since the principle determines the subject area of ​​the theory, it also determines the methods of research and analysis. We could say that the connection between principle and method is inseparable, since the method of research is also a rule that the researcher must constantly adhere to.

The essential question is the relationship between principles and methods. The answer is that principles and methods structure the content of theory in different ways. Strictly

1 Vygotsky L. S. Collected works: in 6 volumes. T. 2: Problems of general psychology / ed. V.V. Davydova. - M., 1982. - S. 103, 106.

speaking, the principle answers the question: how should a theory be constructed? And the method allows you to understand what can be obtained as a result of constructing this theory.

These “what” and “how” are orthogonal to each other, and the entire content of the theory is permeated with answers to these questions. Therefore, if we take the content of a psychological theory (for example, associative theory), then the principle of this theory is the principle of consciousness, i.e., the identity of the psyche and consciousness of a person, and the method is the method of introspection.

If we assert that the psyche is consciousness and consciousness is the internal property of each individual person, then it follows that no one except the person himself can characterize his own consciousness. This conclusion directly suggests that consciousness can only be studied using the method of introspection.

There is a large amount of literature describing the method of introspection, but the main thing in this method is the identification of the content of consciousness and the method by which this content is studied. Moreover, we can consider content and method as things opposite to each other, but if we look at what can be seen in the content of consciousness, abstracting from the content side, then we will see only a way to obtain this content through introspection. And vice versa, if we consider the method of introspection, then what can we see in this method, abstracting from the self-observation method? Only the content of consciousness. That is, any content of consciousness can be obtained only by the method of introspection, and this method always stands, as it were, behind the content of consciousness.

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