Historical psychology - new area knowledge, which took shape in world science as an independent discipline in the 40s. XX century, which is borderline in nature and is formed at the junction of psychology with a wide range of humanities - history, sociology, cultural studies, etc.

Being a young scientific discipline, historical psychology at the same time has a long history. The origins of its origin go back to those early stages of historiogenesis, when a person becomes aware of his historical belonging, and historical and psychological reflection appears and begins to develop.

The development of historical and psychological knowledge in different countries differed significantly in terms of chronological framework, the direction of the issues under consideration, and the content of ideas. Thus, in Russia, historical and psychological problems arise earlier than in other countries. It was introduced in the first half of the 19th century. in the works of Slavophiles and Westerners, is clearly reflected in the activities of members of the Geographical Society and is developing in line with the study of the psychology of the Russian people.

In European science, the identification of historical and psychological problems, the study of the psychology of peoples according to the products of their spiritual activity, as well as the first attempts at the historical and evolutionary study of the psyche arise in the second half of the 19th century. Here we should highlight the works of G. Spencer, L. Levy-Bruhl, K. Levy-Strauss, X. Steinthal, M. Lazarus, W. Wundt, W. Dilthey. There were practically no empirical studies at this stage, and the developments were descriptive.

Problems of historical psychology in Russian psychology in the first half of the 20th century. considered in the works of L. S. Vygotsky, S. L. Rubinstein, A. R. Luria, B. D. Porshnev, L. I. Atsiferova, O. M. Tutundzhyan, V. G. Ioffe, I. D. Rozhanksky and others. L. S. Vygotsky put forward the principle of cultural-historical determination of the psyche, which became one of the foundations for building a new scientific discipline. A critical analysis of foreign schools of historical psychology (mainly French) was carried out. In the works of A. R. Luria, an attempt was made to empirically study the historical development cognitive processes. Interesting research concerning the formation of a person and his psyche during anthropogenesis and the first stages historical development society, conducted by B. D. Porshnev. However, these works were isolated and failed to ensure the creation of a special direction in psychology - historical psychology. The empirical basis of research was extremely limited. In fact, no serious steps were taken from the declaration of the historical nature of mental processes to their concrete empirical study.

A growing interest in the problems of historical psychology and the development of research in this area have been outlined in our country in recent decades. In the 1980s-1990s. a number of serious generalizing works were published, highlighting the methodological problems of this area (Belyavsky I. G., 1991; Shkuratov V. A., 1994, 1997, etc.), the first textbooks were published (Shkuratov V. A., 1997; Bobrova E. Yu., 1997), a series of interesting historical and psychological studies was carried out (Spitsina L.V., 1994; Barskaya A.D., 1998, 1999, etc.). Historical psychology thus begins to acquire its theoretical framework and empirical foundation. And although this science has not yet been recognized as an independent science, it has already been introduced as a special curriculum at a number of psychological faculties (Moscow University, St. Petersburg University, Moscow Institute of Youth). Problems of historical psychology have become the subject of discussion at all-Union and international scientific conferences in recent years. Examples of this are the conferences systematically held in Samara on the problems of Russian consciousness and the peculiarities of the provincial mentality, the conferences on the history of psychology "Moscow Meetings" (1992, 1993), etc.

What explains such a growing interest in this issue in recent years? Answering this question, it is necessary to single out a number of reasons, both of a socio-cultural and logical-scientific nature.

The relevance and significance of historical psychology is largely due to the deep and fundamental changes that are currently taking place in all spheres of modern psychology. Russian society. The system of socio-economic relations that existed for many decades is changing; serious transformations are taking place in the sphere of spiritual life, in the worldview and consciousness of a person. And under these conditions, interest in questions of history naturally grows, the desire to understand the roots and origins of all modern events, one's own status and position in a changing world, reflection on the laws and trends of historical development in general becomes more acute. As noted by the famous Russian philosopher N. I. Berdyaev in his work “The Meaning of History”, the very concept of “historical” reflects the spirit of social change and becomes objectively in demand and is fully realized precisely in turning points stories. “In order to understand the “historical,” in order for thought to be turned to the perception of the “historical” and to its comprehension, it is necessary to go through a certain bifurcation. In those epochs when the human spirit abides integrally and organically in some completely crystallized, completely settled ... settled epoch, questions about historical movement and the meaning of history do not arise, with due acuteness. Staying in an integral historical epoch is not conducive to historical knowledge.

It is necessary that splitting, bifurcation into historical life and in human consciousness in order to make possible the opposition of the historical object and subject; it is necessary for reflection to come in order for historical knowledge to begin ... ”(Berdyaev N.A., 1990. P. 5).

But what does it mean to understand history, to penetrate into its deepest mechanisms, to realize its essential characteristics? This means behind the succession and flashing of events to see, first of all, their creators, to voice history, to make it speak in a human voice. After all, a person is a system-forming, integral component of an integral historical process, its subject. Thanks to his vigorous activity, his attitude to reality, a person creates and transforms history, is its main creator and driving force. Any socio-historical transformations, the solution of certain social problems is possible only on the basis of their awareness and acceptance by a person, his interest in their implementation, that is, it involves an appeal to the human component of the historical process. The results and course of development of history depend on the activity of people, their will, the nature of their involvement in public life. Therefore, it is important to understand how a person fits into history at each turn of its development, how he reacts to socio-historical processes, what he brings into history and how ideas, aspirations, ideas, and experiences of people influence it. And this brings us directly to the study of the problems of historical psychology.

Man is not only the subject of history, but at the same time he acts as its object, product. By its nature, he is a social being - in society and in interaction with people, with the world of culture, he receives the conditions and sources of his development, masters the system of meanings, is formed as a personality. Labor, communication and culture determined the formation of man in the process of his historiogenesis and act as essential conditions development of the psyche and socialization of each individual person in the process of his ontogenetic development. The human psyche and its highest product - human consciousness - are subject primarily to historical laws. Having created a story, a person is organically included in it both as its integral element, and as its creator, and as its product. Thus, human being becomes historical, that is, a person exists in the context of a certain historically developing society - in the context of history.

Each person bears the imprint of his culture, his historical time. With the change of society, the psychology of a person changes - attitudes, values, needs, interests. By transforming history, a person also changes his inner world.

Obviously, underestimation of the psychological component in the real historical process is fraught with serious consequences in practical terms. There is a disharmony of socio-historical and psychological development plans, which is a breeding ground for the development of social contradictions and conflicts, causes a negative or indifferent attitude of a person to reality, his social passivity. In our country, this problem area has not been the subject of deep scientific and practical consideration until recent years. This is explained, firstly, by the homogeneous social structure, the absence of qualitative differences in social positions and interests of various social groups, which in turn excluded social contradictions and determined the relative stability of society. The second reason is in the forms of leadership of society, among which administrative-command methods and the use of political leverage while ignoring socio-psychological factors and means dominated. community development. Finally, an important circumstance that determined the inattention to the issues under consideration was the dominant ideology in our country with its characteristic principle of economic determinism. When addressing issues of social development, the main attention was paid to economic, production relations, considered as the main, fundamental, ontologically primary ones. All other substructures of society acted as emerging from them and reflecting them, secondary, superstructural. As N. A. Berdyaev wrote on this occasion, “all life... all spiritual culture, all human culture... is only a reflection, a reflex, and not true reality. There is ... a process of dehumanization of history ... ”(Berdyaev N.A., 1990. P. 10). The Russian philosopher S. N. Bulgakov saw the main drawback of Marxist views on society and man in the loss of a real living person by this doctrine and its replacement by some kind of scheme.

IN modern conditions When society is transformed in its foundations, becomes mobile, loses its homogeneity, and the well-being of a person depends on his activity, ignoring the psychological factor is no longer possible. All of the above convincingly testifies to the relevance of considering the problem of "man-history".

Along with practical significance, the study of problems of historical psychology has serious theoretical significance. It occupies a special niche in psychology and is associated with the development of a number of its key areas.

The subject of study in historical psychology is a special class of determinants - the historical determinants of the development of the subject's psyche (both individual and collective). A person or group is considered here as the bearers of historical norms and values. Historical psychology, therefore, explores the higher levels of the psyche - socio-historical consciousness as the reality that connects a person with society, civilization, history as a whole. The correlation of the history of the development of man and his mental world with the history of mankind is studied; it is considered how a person fits into history, creating it, and how he himself is determined in his mental development by history.

Considering a person in the context of history as a constantly developing and changing process, historical psychology deals with the dynamic aspects of the mental world and studies the historiogenesis of mankind and man. It thus constitutes a field of genetic psychology.

The theoretical significance of historical psychology is also determined by the specifics of its object. It can be a person, society, mass phenomena, but necessarily studied in connection with a certain historical context, in their historical conditionality, moreover, often remote from us, hidden behind the thickness of centuries (for example, when studying psychological features man of antiquity, the Middle Ages). Study psychological phenomena in the context of history, it expands the boundaries of psychological knowledge, introducing macro-level factors and conditions into it, and also allows for a dialogue between the past and the present. As noted by L. Febvre (1989), historical and psychological research is focused on talking with the dead on behalf of the living and in the name of the living. The peculiarity of historical psychology is that it a priori assumes as its object and explores a real holistic person, thereby, in fact, realizing the principle of a holistic approach in psychology. Finally, in the mainstream of historical psychology, ample opportunities arise for studying man as an active, acting being, embodying and objectifying his psychological properties in the products of activity and being studied by these products. It should be noted that the subject-activity approach developed in the works of S. L. Rubinstein, A. V. Brushlinsky, K. A. Abulkhanova is currently defined as the most promising direction in the development of psychological science.

The peculiarity of historical psychology lies in its interdisciplinary status: the study of a person in history necessarily predetermines the interaction of a psychologist with sociologists, culturologists, historians, the use of data and methods of source study. Thus, important steps to the organization of interdisciplinary research, the development of an integrated approach in psychology, the implementation of the program put forward by B. G. Ananyev for the formation of a complex human knowledge.

The development of historical psychology reflects another new trend in psychology - the desire for a more complete development and use of idiographic approaches and methods. X. Wolf in the 18th century, and later - W. Windelband, G. Rickert, W. Wundt divided all sciences, including psychology, into nomothetic (focused on identifying the patterns of the studied phenomena, their explanation, and appealing to the data obtained on big statistical samples) and idiographic (aimed at describing individual phenomena in their individual manifestations). The former traditionally belong to the sphere of natural science knowledge, the latter - to the humanities. Domestic psychology of the Soviet period during for long years developed in a purely naturalistic spirit. Until recently, humanitarian approaches were represented in it very little. Historical psychology can actually fill this gap. On the one hand, having as its object, as a rule, single phenomena, historical psychology thus belongs to the field of idiographic knowledge, on the other hand, striving to strictly scientifically investigate the problems under consideration, it is based on the principles of natural science analysis. That is, in line with historical psychology, a synthesis of natural sciences and humanistic approaches in the psychological knowledge of a person, which seems to be extremely promising and corresponding to the main trends of modern scientific research in general.

Thus, the development of the problems of historical psychology leads the researcher simultaneously to the solution of a number of important and promising problems and directions in the development of psychological knowledge.

Cultural-historical psychology- direction in psychological research, laid down by Vygotsky in the late 1920s. and developed by his students and followers both in Russia and around the world.

Overcoming the dualism between the psyche, understood in a purely individualistic way, and the outside world, representatives of the Vygotsky school postulate a fundamentally non-adaptive nature and mechanisms of development of mental processes. Considering the study of human consciousness as the main problem of psychological research, they study the role of mediation ( mediation) and cultural mediators, such as the word, the sign (Vygotsky), as well as the symbol and myth (V. Zinchenko) in the development of the higher mental functions of a person, the personality in its "top" (Vygotsky) manifestations.

Higher mental functions (HMF)- specifically human mental processes. They arise on the basis of natural mental functions due to their mediation by psychological tools. The sign acts as a psychological tool. HMF include: perception, memory, thinking, speech. They are social in origin, mediated in structure and arbitrary in the nature of regulation. Introduced by L. S. Vygotsky, developed by A. R. Luria, A. N. Leontiev, A. V. Zaporozhets, D. B. Elkonin, P. Ya. Galperin. Four main features of the HMF were singled out - mediation, arbitrariness, systemicity; are formed by internalization.

Such a definition does not apply to either idealistic or "positive" biological theories and allows you to better understand how memory, thinking, speech, perception are located in human brain and with high accuracy made it possible to determine the location of local lesions of the nervous tissue and even recreate them in some way.

Cultural-historical psychology

Item: psyche transformed by culture

Representatives: E. Durkheim,Lucien Levy-Bruhl, Pierre Janet, Vygotsky, Lev Semyonovich

For the first time, the question of sociality as a system-forming factor of the psyche was raised by the French sociological school. Its founder E. Durkheim (1858-1917), using the term "social fact" or "collective representation", illustrated such concepts as "marriage", "childhood", "suicide". Social facts are different from their individual embodiments (there is no "family" at all, but there is an infinite number of specific families) and have an ideal character that affects all members of society.

Lucien Levy-Bruhl, using ethnographic material, developed the thesis about a special type of "primitive" thinking, which is different from the thinking of a civilized person.

Pierre Janet further deepened the principle of social determination, suggesting that external relations between people gradually turn into features of the structure of the individual psyche. So, he showed that the phenomenon of memory consists in the assignment of external actions of the execution of instructions and retelling.

The principle of the cultural-historical determination of the psyche was most fully disclosed in the works of L.S. Vygotsky, who developed the doctrine of higher mental functions. L.S. Vygotsky suggested the existence of two lines of development of the psyche:

natural,

culturally mediated.

In accordance with these two lines of development, "lower" and "higher" mental functions are distinguished.

Examples of lower, or natural, mental functions are the child's involuntary memory or involuntary attention. The child cannot control them: he pays attention to what is brightly unexpected; remembers what is accidentally remembered. Lower mental functions are a kind of rudiments from which higher mental functions grow in the process of education (in this example, voluntary attention and voluntary memory).

The transformation of lower mental functions into higher ones occurs through the mastery of special tools of the psyche - signs and is of a cultural nature. The role of sign systems in the formation and functioning of the human psyche is, of course, fundamental - it defines a qualitatively new stage and a qualitatively different form of existence of the psyche. Imagine that a savage who does not own an account has to memorize a herd of cows in a meadow. How will he cope with this task? He needs to create an accurate visual image of what he saw, and then try to resurrect it before his eyes. Most likely, he will fail, miss something. You just need to count the cows and then say: "I saw seven cows."

Many facts indicate that the development of a child sign systems don't happen by itself. This is where the role of the adult comes into play. An adult, communicating with a child and teaching him, first "takes possession" of his psyche. For example, an adult shows him something, in his opinion, interesting, and the child, at the behest of an adult, pays attention to one or another object. Then the child begins to regulate his own mental functions with the help of the means that the adult used to apply to him. Also, as adults, we, tired, can say to ourselves: “Come on, look here!” and really “master” our elusive attention or activate the process of imagination. We create and analyze the rehearsals of a conversation that is important for us in advance, as if playing the acts of our thinking in the speech plan. Then there is the so-called rotation, or "interiorization" - the transformation of an external tool into an internal one. As a result, from immediate, natural, involuntary mental functions become mediated sign systems, social and arbitrary.

The cultural-historical approach in psychology continues to fruitfully develop even now, both in our country and abroad. This approach proved to be especially effective in solving the problems of pedagogy and defectology.

Cultural-historical approach and its specificity at the present stage

1. L.S. Vygotsky and his cultural-historical approach in psychology.

2. Cultural and historical concept of A.R. Luria and neuropsychology.

3. New development of the idea of ​​historicism.

4. Cultural psychology M. Cole.

5. Cultural-historical approach in family therapy.

6. Empirical ethnosociology.

7. A.N. Leontiev and non-classical psychology.

8. Conclusion

Speaking about the cultural-historical approach in the methodology of psychology, a few words should be said about its founder, the Russian psychologist Lev Semenovich Vygotsky (1896-1934). In the work "History of the development of higher mental functions" L.S. Vygotsky developed a cultural-historical theory of the development of the psyche in the process of mastering the values ​​of human civilization by an individual. Mental functions given by nature (“natural”) are transformed into functions top level development ("cultural"), for example, mechanical memory becomes logical, impulsive action - arbitrary, associative representations - purposeful thinking, creative imagination. This process is a consequence of the process of internalization, i.e. formation of the internal structure of the human psyche through the assimilation of the structures of the external social activities. This is the formation of a truly human form of the psyche due to the development of human values ​​by the individual.

The essence of the cultural-historical concept can be expressed as follows: the behavior of a modern civilized person is not only the result of development from childhood, but also a product of historical development. In the process of historical development, not only foreign relations people, the relationship between man and nature, man himself changed and developed, his own nature changed. At the same time, the fundamental, genetically initial basis for the change and development of a person was his labor activity, carried out with the help of tools. L.S. Vygotsky clearly differentiates the processes of using tools in humans and monkeys. He agrees with A.R. Leroy about the inadmissibility of comparing the technical activity of the first people (“primitives”) with the dexterity of a billiard player, which in many respects resembles the actions of a monkey and other animals. Agility to a large extent belongs to the realm of instinct and is transmitted biogenetically. The technical activity of the "primitives" was of a supra-instinctive, supra-biological nature, which ruled out the possibility of their biological research. Making a bow or an ax is not reduced to an instinctive operation: one has to choose the material, find out its properties, dry it, soften it, cut it, and so on. In all this, dexterity can give accuracy to movement, but it can neither comprehend nor combine.

Thus, Vygotsky could justifiably declare that the cultural-historical theory sees the main factors of the psychological development of the primitive in the development of technology. The position of A.N. Leontiev. Based on his historical-genetic approach to the study of the psyche, he considers it as a product and derivative of material life, external material activity, which is transformed in the course of social historical development into internal activity, into the activity of consciousness. To the extent that man created technology, to the same extent she created him: public man and technology have conditioned each other's existence. Technique, technical activity gave rise to culture.

According to L.S. Vygotsky, man in the process of his historical development has risen to the point of creating new driving forces of his behavior. It was only in the process of man's social life that new needs arose, took shape and developed, and the natural needs of man themselves underwent profound changes in the process of his historical development. Each form of cultural development, cultural behavior, he believed, in a certain sense, is already a product of the historical development of mankind. The transformation of natural material into historical form is always a process of complex change in the very type of development, and by no means of simple organic maturation.

Within the framework of child psychology, L.S. Vygotsky formulated the law of the development of higher mental functions, which initially arise as a form of collective behavior, a form of cooperation with other people, and only later do they become internal individual functions of the child himself. Higher mental functions are formed in vivo, formed as a result of mastering special tools, means developed in the course of the historical development of society. The development of higher mental functions is associated with learning in the broadest sense of the word, it cannot occur otherwise than in the form of assimilation of given patterns, therefore this development goes through a number of stages. Specificity child development lies in the fact that it is subject not to the action of biological laws, as in animals, but to the action of socio-historical laws. The biological type of development occurs in the process of adaptation to nature through the inheritance of the properties of the species and through individual experience. A person does not have innate forms of behavior in the environment. Its development occurs through the appropriation of historically developed forms and methods of activity.

One of the first to understand and accept the concept of L.S. Vygotsky, his student and follower A.R. Luria (1902-1977), in whose works the foundations of the cultural-historical approach are formed, in which culture is recognized and studied as the leading line of a person's spiritual development, as a formative personality. The problem of the relationship between personality and culture was one of the leading ones in his work, taking various modifications during his life rich in research and scientific discoveries. Already in his early work the genetic approach was combined with the historical one, moreover, with the cultural-historical approach to the study of language and thinking.

For example, A.R. Luria believed that art can help in the formation of a new self-awareness, since, while enjoying a cultural work, a person realizes himself as a cultural being. Thus, the evoked "social experiences" help the socialization of a person, regulating the process of his entry into that culture, into the society that surrounds him. Therefore, creativity is based on the process of appropriation (and at a certain stage in the development of the human personality and creation) of cultural values ​​and is associated with the ability of a person to give his thoughts a sign form. It is this understanding of the role of culture in the formation of the psyche that was accepted by A.R. Luria and developed by him in his subsequent works.

At the same time, he considered psychoanalysis as a theory that would help to find the cultural roots of a person, to reveal the role of culture in his life and work. No wonder he was always closer to the approach of K.G. Jung, and not the classical psychoanalysis of Z. Freud, since it made it possible to identify the ethnic and cultural possibilities of the content of individual images and ideas of people. However, from the point of view of A.R. Luria, these ideas are not inherited, but are transmitted from adults to children in the process of communication. The materials of psychoanalytic studies of neuroses were already brought by A.R. Luria to the idea that environment is not a condition, but a source of mental development of people. It is the environment and culture that form the content of both the conscious and unconscious layers of the psyche.

Formed in the first decades scientific activity ideas largely remained unchanged, having determined the foundations of the cultural-historical approach of A.R. Luria, in which culture appears as the leading line of human socialization, as a factor that determines the relationship between a person and society, forming consciousness and self-awareness, his personal activity.

Later A.R. Luria built his approach on the combination of psychology and medicine, forming new concept in neuropsychology. This approach focuses on the search for the causes of mental functioning disorders and ways to compensate for them precisely in the history of culture and culture. social relations. The concept of A.R. Luria is based on the theory of cultural and historical origin, structure and development of higher mental functions, developed by him together with L.S. Vygotsky. With the help of these theoretical ideas, A.R. Luria conducted a deep functional analysis of various brain systems and described in detail the frontal, parietal, temporal and other syndromes of higher mental functions disorders. In his first neuropsychological work, together with L.S. Vygotsky in the 1930s. A.R. Luria became interested in Parkinson's disease, caused by damage to the subcortical nuclei of the brain. A.R. Luria and L.S. Vygotsky demonstrated the advantages of using mediation (creating external visual supports - cultural and historical tools) to restore walking in these patients.

Developing questions about psychological tools and mechanisms of mediation, L.S. Vygotsky and A.R. Luria talked about stimuli-means, initially "turned outward" to the partner, and then "turned on themselves", i.e. becoming a means of controlling their own mental processes. Further, internalization occurs - the rotation of the stimulus-means inside, i.e. the mental function begins to be mediated from within and thus there is no need for an external (in relation to the given person) stimulus-means.

The idea of ​​internalization reflects the dialectical regularity of the formation of the human psyche, the essence of the development of not only individual mental functions, but also the entire personality of a person as a whole.

The application of Luriev's cultural-historical approach and the theory of three functional blocks of the brain turned out to be very productive for the development of neurogerontopsychology, which analyzes the restructuring (both negative and positive) of mental functioning in old age, as well as the specific features of normal and various forms of abnormal aging.

Cultural-historical approach in neuropsychology developed by A.R. Luria, turned out to be very fruitful for the study of the most difficult areas for psychological analysis: consciousness, personality, emotional sphere and communication of patients with rare types of pathology.

A.R. Luria believed that when analyzing communication, it is necessary to overcome linguocentrism, to go beyond the description into the analysis of a different, non-verbal semantic organization of the world, which is extremely important for a modern understanding of the problem of communication and personality development in general. Using the ideas of M.M. Bakhtin that to be means to communicate dialogically, one can show the consequences of various fallouts of the Other for the development of the Self and try to re-build life path personality.

According to A.G. Asmolov, “when we talk about the works of Alexander Romanovich, we must first of all remember that whatever he did, his key orientation was development. phenomena and in the same place - ways to compensate for the defect.

Ideas L.S. Vygotsky, M.M. Bakhtin and A.N. Leontiev coexist in the framework of modern neuropsychological research and, according to J.M. Glozman, “acquire the qualities of a gestalt precisely thanks to such a network of coordinates as the cultural-historical theory of neuropsychological analysis of development and decay higher forms human behavior A.R. Luria. It is the pledge and guarantee of the further intensive and extensive development of domestic neuropsychology.

Developmental psychology is built on the basis of the cultural-historical approach. V.T. Kudryavtsev offers new ways of researching the idea of ​​historicism in psychology. Thus, he offers a new way of systemic interpretation of social life, highlighting two equal and equal social "subsystems": the world of children and the world of adults. Interacting and interpenetrating each other, they generate a vector of integral movement of culture. Previous psychologists did not consider collective activity, limiting themselves to the analysis of individual activity. V.T. Kudryavtsev takes the next logically necessary step by implementing a dynamic research paradigm in relation to joint distributed activity. Here adults and children help each other in generating new contents of consciousness, they endow each other with consciousness. The contact of the two "worlds" actually leads to the fact that adults expand the boundaries of their own consciousness and self-awareness, for example, feeling themselves as carriers of a special mission in relation to children (to protect, prevent, direct, liberate, etc.).

As part of the controversy between two Russian theoretical schools - Rubinstein and Leontiev - the idea was expressed of the irreducibility of the development of the individual to the assimilation of given norms and values ​​from outside. Psychologists of the older generation interpreted the events of history in the same limited way in relation to the genesis of culture - as something that has become and accomplished. Today there is a new interpretation of the process of culture-genesis of personality. The idea of ​​historicism is presented here as the realization of the historical necessity for the development of psychological thought, developmental psychology.

At the moment, the main provisions of the psychological theory of activity and the cultural-historical concept of Vygotsky are increasingly assimilated into the Western tradition. For example, M. Cole did a great job trying to analyze the facts obtained both in socio- and ethno-cultural studies, and in the field of experimental psychology and developmental psychology. He tries to "describe and justify one of the ways to create a psychology that does not ignore culture in theory and practice", proposing to build a new cultural psychology based on the cultural-historical psychology of L.S. Vygotsky and his closest colleagues - A.R. Luria and A.N. Leontiev. According to M. Cole, cultural psychology should be based “on the ideas of the Russian school of cultural-historical psychology, American pragmatism of the early 20th century. and some hybrid of ideas borrowed from a number of other disciplines.

M. Cole speaks of “the need to base theoretical constructions and empirical conclusions on the real subject of psychological analysis, corresponding to the events experienced Everyday life» . In Soviet psychology, the task of studying the psyche in the context of activity was officially declared one of the basic principles of psychological research - the "principle of the unity of consciousness and activity." S.L. Rubinstein put forward this principle in 1934. However, in Soviet psychology, as M. Cole rightly noted, the emphasis was never placed on the analysis of everyday activities, it was usually about formally (institutionally) organized types of activity: play, educational and labor.

The cultural-historical approach is becoming more and more relevant in various branches of psychological knowledge. In particular, it is of great interest in the field of family therapy, where much attention is paid to cross-cultural comparisons, as well as to the study of the specifics of psychological work with families in a particular culture. Often, cultural-historical references in family therapy are very superficial from the point of view of the theory of psychology and do not take into account the full psychological depth of cultural influences on personality development in a family environment. But in Western family psychology there are also serious cultural-historical developments that use the so-called "narrative" methods of working with families and show a very great interest in Russian cultural-historical psychology.

According to A.Z. Shapiro, due to the undeveloped general biological foundations, the cultural-historical context in Vygotsky's theory is torn off from the concrete-historical, primarily from the family context. Cultural-historical theory does not really take into account the family dimension human life, the fact that the development of a person (including his psyche and personality), as a rule, occurs in the conditions of a biological family. “Perhaps it is here that it is necessary to see the zone of proximal development of cultural-historical psychology, since the family is one of the most essential and fundamental characteristics of the social environment, reflecting the biosocial nature of man.” In order for the cultural-historical theory to be applicable as a theoretical-psychological basis in psychological help family and family therapy, it is necessary to correlate it with a “subjective” approach, a holistic view of a person.

In the XX century. empirical ethnosociology was developed on the methodological basis of cultural-historical psychology. It breaks down the boundaries between psychology, sociology, ethnography, history and pedagogy, creating a common problem space for the sociogenesis of education, the core of which is L.S. Vygotsky and M.M. Bakhtin. Cultural-historical psychological ethnosociology not only studies, but also creates new realities, highlighting the historical-evolutionary and hermeneutic aspects of the world of childhood, the formation of social and ethnic identity, the generation of the image of the Self. Cultural-historical psychological ethnosociology allows us to say with confidence that cultural - the historical methodology of psychology is experiencing its rebirth as a specific tangible holistic science that helps the education of Russia to follow the path of socialization from a culture of utility to a culture of dignity.

Based on the cultural and historical concept, A.N. Leontiev puts forward several theses about the future of psychology as a science. The first thesis is that psychology will then and only then become the leading science of man when it invades the world and begins to understand what is happening in this world. The second thesis is that the development of psychology, the birth new system psychological knowledge will go in the future not in separate areas, but in problems. The third thesis states that it is precisely with the psychology of personality, married to ethics and historical psychology, that A.I. Leontiev connects the transformation of psychology into the leading science of man. The fourth thesis briefly reveals the understanding of personality psychology inherent in the activity approach as a systemic and axiological psychology. The fifth thesis of Leontief's testament is connected with school life, its organization: to make a school that grows a personality, and not a school as a head-dressing factory.

These five theses of A.N. Leontiev can now be perceived as a program for creating the psychology of the 21st century. They brought A.G. Asmolov to the development of non-classical psychology, “based on the historical-evolutionary approach, love for psychohistory and an attempt to change by turning to the organization school life, psychosocial scenarios for the development of society in the era of life action".

It is the historical-evolutionary approach that makes it possible to predict and structure the field of problems and directions with which the future development of non-classical relativistic psychology is associated: the growth of interdisciplinary research based on universal patterns of systems development; the transition in the formulation of problems of analysis of personality development from the anthropocentric phenomenographic orientation to the historical-evolutionary one; the emergence of disciplines that consider psychology as a constructive design science, acting as a factor in the evolution of society. For non-classical psychology, based on cultural genetic methodology (M. Cole), the question of psychology as a science is at the forefront.

In this regard, new landmarks of variable education arise, which open up the possibility of building education as a mechanism of sociogenesis aimed at developing the individuality of the individual. The implementation of these guidelines in the field of education as a social practice allows us to take a step towards changing the social status of psychology in society and reveal the evolutionary meaning of practical psychology as a constructive science, "which has its own unique voice in the polyphony of sciences that create human history" .

CONCLUSION

Thus, the use of the cultural-historical approach in psychology is currently opening up new horizons not only in various branches of psychology, but also in the fields of education, medicine, ethnosociology, family therapy, etc. According to A.G. Asmolova, “today there is no one cultural-historical psychology of L.S. Vygotsky, but there are many cultural-historical psychologies. There are three factors without which there is no modern cultural-historical psychology: an activity style of thinking, a unique activity methodology; a special type of experiment that proved its worth in the study of memory, perception, other higher mental functions and, finally, the action itself; idea of ​​development, history, new non-Darwinian evolutionism.

At the present stage of development of psychology, systemic and interdisciplinary approaches (neuropsychology, ethnosociology) are of great importance. According to R.M. Frumkina, the main thing in Vygotsky's concept was not just awareness of the role of culture and history in the development of the psyche, but giving an exceptional place and a special role to the development of operations with signs. “... the world of signs is the material with which thinking operates. In realizing the importance of the world of signs, Vygotsky stands next to ... Bakhtin.

In his notes A.I. Leontiev draws the embryo of the psychology of the XXI century. This psychology is a valuable ethical dramatic psychology. This psychology is a cultural-historical psychology through and through. And, finally, it is psychology as the social construction of worlds. Non-classical psychology, growing out of the cultural-historical activity program of L.S. Vygotsky, A.I. Leontiev and A.R. Luria, has a unique chance to become the leading science of man in the 21st century.

LITERATURE

1. Asmolov A.G. XXI century: psychology in the age of psychology. // Question. psychology. - M., 1999. - No. 1. - S. 3-12.

2. Asmolov A.G. Cultural-historical psychology and ethnosociology of education: rebirth. // Question. psychology. - M., 1999. - No. 4. - S. 106-107.

3. Asmolov A.G. Mir A.R. Luria and cultural-historical psychology. // I Intern. conf. In memory of A.R. Luria: Sat. reports. - M., 1998. - S. 5-7.

4. Blinnikova I.V. Cultural-historical psychology: a view from the outside. // Psych. magazine. - M., 1999. - T. 20, No. 3. - S. 127-130.

5. Vygotsky L.S. The history of the development of mental functions. // Vygotsky L.S. Psychology [Collection]. - M., 2002. - S. 512-755.

6. Glozman Zh.M. Cultural-historical approach as the basis of neuropsychology of the XXI century. // Question. psychology. - M., 2002. - No. 4. - S. 62-68.

7. Cole M. Cultural-historical psychology. Science of the future. - M., 1997.

8. Kudryavtsev V.T. Psychology of human development. Foundations of the cultural-historical approach. - Riga, 1999. - Part 1.

9. Martsinkovskaya T.D. Way A.R. Luria to cultural-historical psychology. // Question. psychology. - M., 2002. - No. 4. - S. 44-49.

10. Meshcheryakov B.G., Zinchenko V.P. L.S. Vygotsky and modern cultural-historical psychology: (Critical analysis of M. Cole's book). // Question. psychology. - M., 2000. - No. 2. - S. 102-117.

11. Petrovsky V.A. The idea of ​​historicism in developmental psychology. // Question. psychology. - M., 2001. - No. 6. - S. 126-129.

12. Rubinstein S.L. Problems general psychology. - M., 1973.

13. Frumkina R.M. Cultural-historical psychology of Vygotsky-Luriya. // Human. - M., 1999. - Issue. 3. - S. 35-46.

14. Shapiro A.Z. Psychology, culture, biology. // Psych. magazine. - M., 1999. - T. 20. - S. 123-126.

proposes to consider the social environment not as one of the factors, but as the main source of personality development. In the development of the child, he notes, there are, as it were, two intertwined lines: the first follows the path of natural maturation; the second consists in mastering culture, ways of behaving and thinking.

According to Vygotsky's theory, the development of thinking and other mental functions occurs primarily not through their self-development, but through the use of "psychological tools" by the child, by mastering a system of signs-symbols, such as language, writing, counting system.

Later, this idea of ​​Vygotsky was developed by the Soviet historian and social psychologist B.F. Porshnev in his communicative-influential concept. The key point of Porshnev's concept is the assertion that the worldview built by a human personality in the process of his communication with the world and the people around him is mainly formed on the basis of suggestions. B substantiates the conclusion that the choice of trust in the suggested patterns of language and the concepts of culture (including religious dogmas) has been and remains the only justified behavior for a person.

The development of thinking, perception, memory and other mental functions occurs through the stage of external activity, where cultural means have a completely objective form and mental functions act quite externally, intrapsychically. Only as the process is worked out, the activity of mental functions is curtailed, internalized, rotated, passes from the external plane to the internal, becomes interpsychic.

In the process of their development and turning inward, mental functions acquire automation, awareness and arbitrariness. If there is a difficulty in thinking and other mental processes, exteriorization is always possible - bringing the mental function outside and clarifying its work in external, objective activity. An idea on the inner plane can always be worked out by actions on the outer plane.

As a rule, at this first stage of external activity, everything that the child does, he does together with adults. Exactly cooperation with other people is the main source of development of the child's personality. Hence, according to Vygotsky, the most important feature of consciousness is dialogicity.

L.S. Vygotsky introduces the concept zone of proximal development"- this is the space of actions that the child cannot yet perform on his own, but can carry out together with adults and thanks to them. According to Vygotsky, only that training is good, which forestalls development.

For Vygotsky, personality is a social concept, that which is brought into it by culture. Personality not innate, but arises as a result of cultural development" And " in this sense, the correlate of personality will be the ratio of primitive and higher reactions«.

Another aspect of L.S. Vygotsky - the idea of ​​development not as a uniform and gradual, but as a stage, stepwise process, where periods of even accumulation of new opportunities are replaced by stages of crisis. Crisis, for Vygotsky, is a stormy, sometimes dramatic stage in the breaking (or rethinking) of old baggage and the formation of a new way of life. Crises can be painful, but, according to Vygotsky, they are inevitable. On the other hand, a child's apparent trouble during a crisis is not at all a pattern, but only a consequence of the illiterate behavior of parents and other adults raising a child.

And one more important point, where L.S. Vygotsky turned out to be, it seems, the discoverer, this is the thesis about the activity of the child. What is it about? Usually the child was considered as some object exposed to suggestions (suggestions), positive or negative reinforcements of his behavior. And even if in the writings of B. Skinner operant conditioning seems to be talking about the activity of someone whose behavior is reinforced in one way or another, Skinner never considered the child as someone who actively influences the adult himself, often controlling him to a greater extent than the adult controls the child.

The cultural-historical approach studies personality as a product of the individual's assimilation of cultural values. The author of the approach L.S. Vygotsky saw " the key to all psychology”, allowing for an objective analysis of the higher mental functions of the individual, in the meaning of the word. In his opinion, the word is the primary sign both in relation to practical action and in relation to thinking. He even repeated someone's aphorism: " Speech thinks for the person". Operating with these "cultural" signs-words, the individual builds his personality.

The process of internalization (humanization in a word) according to Vygotsky looked like this.

In the beginning man was an inseparable part surrounding nature, which "polished", in the words of the author, his "natural" (innate, not requiring conscious volitional efforts) properties that give him the opportunity to simply survive, adapt to the environment. Then he himself began to influence nature through the tools of labor, developing in himself the highest mental functions ("cultural"), allowing him to carry out conscious actions (for example, consciously remember some situation, sensation, object), useful from the point of view of creating favorable conditions of its existence. As instruments of influence, this approach considered not those that have a material basis (stone, stick, ax, etc.), but the so-called psychological signs. A stick stuck in the ground and indicating the direction of movement could serve as a sign. These could be notches on trees or stones folded in a certain way, reminiscent of something important, etc.

51 SOCIAL AND CULTURAL-HISTORICAL PSYCHOLOGY

Social Psychology(SP) is a branch of psychology that studies the patterns of behavior and activities of people, which is determined by their entry into social groups, including the psychological characteristics of the groups themselves. For a long time, socio-psychological views were studied within the framework of various philosophical teachings. Parts of social psychology developed within various sciences - in sociology, anthropology, psychology, ethnography, etc. In the second half of the 19th century. attempts were made to develop an independent socio-psychological branch. The emergence of SP as an independent discipline occurred in 1908. At that time, the works of the American sociologist E. Ross and the English psychologist W. MacDougal appeared simultaneously, in the content of which the term “SP” was used. The main problems of modern joint venture are: general questions of the theory, history and methodology of joint venture, patterns of interaction and communication of people, various characteristics of large social groups; psychological problems small social groups, as well as the study of personality. Currently, there is an active development of practical SP, which is focused on solving important problems of social actors in the field of education, economics, politics, etc. Cultural-historical psychology (CIP) is a virtual branch of research and knowledge, which is formally considered a section of cultural psychology, studying the role of culture in the psychological life of society. The CIP focuses on global problem the role of culture in psychological development at the stage of both phylogenesis and ontogenesis. The CIP made a fruitful attempt to return to the life and cultural context those psychological functions that had been wrested from it by the classical experimental psychology. It can be interpreted as a new and natural stage in the development of psychology.

M. Cole dealt with CIP issues and dedicated his book to it. He considered CIA to be the science of the future, but, as experience shows, it is also the science of the past. Moreover, it served as the source of practical psychology, which controlled the behavior and activities of people and arose much earlier. scientific psychology. CIP represents a return of psychology to cultural roots. CIP in the Hegelian interpretation is understood as a search for a path from an abstract concept to a concrete one, and then the reproduction of the concrete in the process of thinking. Within the CIP, an activity approach in psychology arose, thanks to which numerous ideas of the CIP were developed. In the future, contacts are outlined that unite the CIP and cognitive psychology, continuing the analytical work that began in classical psychology and leads to a holistic understanding of the human psyche.

This text is an introductory piece. From the book Beyond Consciousness [Methodological problems of non-classical psychology] author

The World of Alexander Luria and Cultural-Historical Psychology In my short speech, I will try to touch briefly on those moments that, in my opinion, characterize the personality of Alexander Romanovich Luria. When we talk about Alexander Romanovich Luria, then

From the book Social Psychology: Lecture Notes author

1. Social psychology in justice Forensic psychology studies ( psychological study litigation) indicate that the participants litigation are inevitably influenced by many factors other than objectivity and

From the book Altered States of Consciousness and Culture: Reader author Gordeeva Olga Vladimirovna

Gordeeva O. V VYGOTSKY'S CULTURAL AND HISTORICAL THEORY AS A METHODOLOGICAL BASIS FOR STUDYING ALTERED STATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS (ASS) Gordeeva Olga Vladimirovna (born January 2, 1967, Moscow) – Candidate psychological sciences(1997), Associate Professor of the Department of General Psychology of the Faculty

author Melnikova Nadezhda Anatolyevna

50. Social psychology in justice

From the book Social Psychology author Melnikova Nadezhda Anatolyevna

52. Social psychology of politics Political psychology is a branch of social psychology that studies the psychological phenomena and processes that function in the process of the struggle for power in society.

author Asmolov Alexander Grigorievich

Alexander Grigorievich Asmolov Psychology of personality. Cultural-historical understanding of human development Perhaps, whisper was born before lips, And the leaves whirled in woodlessness, And those to whom we dedicate experience, Before experience acquired features. Osip Mandelstam Nobody

From the book Psychology of Personality [Cultural and Historical Understanding of Human Development] author Asmolov Alexander Grigorievich

Annex 1 Social Biography of Cultural-Historical Psychology: Circles

From the book Social Animal [Introduction to Social Psychology] author Aronson Elliot

What is social psychology?* As far as we know, the first person to formulate the basic principles of social influence and persuasion was Aristotle. However, although he was the first to declare that man is a social animal, the ancient Greek thinker, quite

From the book Etudes on the History of Behavior author Vygotsky Lev Semenovich

Social Biography of Cultural-Historical Psychology My poems, like precious wines, Will have their turn. M. Tsvetaeva Crises are not a temporary state, but the path of inner life. L. Vygotsky The memory of the golden age lives in the heart of every science. This is special

From the book Motivation and Personality author Maslow Abraham Harold

Social psychology Social psychology must develop into something more than the study of imitation, prejudice, hatred, hostility. All this is rare in healthy people. Possible subjects of research: the theory of democracy, anarchy. Democratic

From the book Controlling Brain [Frontal Lobes, Leadership and Civilization] author Goldberg Elchonon

Biological Maturation and Social Maturity: A Historical Mystery The definition of social maturity changes over the course of a society's history, just as the "age of adulthood" changes. In various cultures, the time when a boy becomes a man

From the book Personality Manipulation the author Grachev Georgy

Chapter 2 Cultural and historical evolution of the secret coercion of the individual 2.1. Features of the analysis of the phenomenon of secret coercion of a person. It is quite obvious that the methods of covert coercion of people were not widely and publicly covered, as a rule. That's why

From the book Legal Psychology [With the Basics of General and Social Psychology] author Enikeev Marat Iskhakovich

Chapter 8 Psychology of social interaction of personality (social psychology) § 1. Main categories of social psychology Man is a social being. The division of general and social psychology is conditional. Social psychology studies human psychology in conditions

From the book Psychology author Robinson Dave

From the book Social Psychology and History author Porshnev Boris Fedorovich

From the book From the child to the world, from the world to the child (collection) author Dewey John