08.06.2013
IN AND. Slobodchikov
1. The history of the development of ideas about "development"
From an ordinary point of view, the reality of human development - his abilities, functions, organic structures and properties - is obvious and diverse, and its phenomena are well known to each of us. In the Russian language, there are words that are close in meaning, fixing the features of the changes that occur to a person in time, interpreted as development. Among the most used of them are "emergence", "formation", "growth", "transformation", "formation", "improvement", "complication", "self-development". In everyday language, concepts are used that denote the qualitative aspect of development: “birth”, “ripening”, “flourishing”, “fruiting”, “withering”, “death”, as well as the stages of a person’s life path: “childhood”, “adolescence”, "youth", "youth", "adulthood", "maturity", "old age", etc.
The presence in the language of various terms that fix the reality of development clearly shows the ambiguity and diversity of its phenomena. The closest basis for the diversity of the phenomena of human development is the complexity and versatility of man himself as a developing being. In psychology, the distinction between the bodily, mental and spiritual hypostases of a person is widely used. Regarding each of the aspects of his being, we can talk about its development (change, transformation). There is an organism growth, maturation of anatomical and physiological structures, i.e. physical development of a person. The spiritual forces of a person are formed: his consciousness, needs and interests, emotions and feelings, the ability to control his behavior are qualitatively transformed. The spiritual life of a person also undergoes qualitative transformations in time. At the same time, the development of a person is closely connected with the development of the world around him as a whole.
At present, the concept of "development" has become an integral part of our view of the world and life; everyone knows that the earth as we see it now is the result of a long development. We are talking about the development of life, natural kingdoms; cultures, countries, languages, forms of consciousness and thinking are developing. We are talking about child development and human development in general. In management (the science of management) today they talk about the development of organizations and social structures. In short, the concept of development is one of the key concepts in modern culture. However, it is surprising that this concept is only a little over 200 years old. In other words, “development” is a rather new category, which has not yet found its place in the system of other categories and, as we will see later, does not have its own strictly defined content, it is characterized by a blurry plurality of interpretations.
The very word "development" (lat. evo1utiO) has existed since ancient rome; there it meant the unfolding of a scroll (book) while reading. Everything that is already written in the book, then unfolds in the mind of the reader. M.T. Cicero used this word in a similar sense. , speaking of the "development of thought": what was "folded" in the mind of the speaker is now unfolding before the listening audience. In such an interpretation (development asdeploying what is already there) This concept persisted until the 18th century. and entered into a variety of systems of knowledge.
Evolution or development was then understood literally - as growth, as a simple increase in the size of what already exists. I. Kant in his "General Natural History", speaking about the origin of the universe, uses the word "development" in the same sense. He assumed that celestial bodies appeared (literally - "developed from") from the primary gaseous fog and that the basis of the structure of the Universe was their design according to the already pre-existing laws of mechanics. In exactly the same way, in biology, which at that time was becoming a special science, "evolutionists" were originally called representatives of the so-called preformist doctrine, according to which a living organism already exists in embryo in a microscopicform.
In other words, any system of rational knowledge of the XVI-XVIII centuries. were based on the postulate that once arose (created) world continues to remain unchanged and the task of science is to discover and cognize those laws according to which it is already arranged in its original Intention. Even in theology (for example, in the works of St. Augustine) a doctrine has developed and still exists, according to which a person is already predestined from birth either to salvation or to death, in the direction of which he “develops”.
In the 18th century the idea of development undergoes a significant enrichment; one of the first to make the transition to a new understanding of development is G.W. Leibniz. Remaining largely on preformist positions (about the gradual development of everything from eternally existing germs), he introduces a conceptual difference between the two moments that define the procedural nature of development. The first one is self-identicalness, which, in accordance with the nature of a thing, is preserved in its inner being, the second - change, which reveals itself in external manifestations; the contradiction between the first and second appears, saying modern language, the most important mechanism for the development of the initially given to the gradual, smooth emergence of the new.
A number of key ideas about the phenomenon of human development are associated with the name of J.W. Goethe. Undoubtedly, many of them formed the basis of the actual philosophical understanding of the very idea of development. Remarkable, for example, is the idea that development in nature can only be discovered when it is discovered in man himself. A person who does not develop himself cannot comprehend the idea of development. I.V. Goethe introduces the concept of metamorphosis(cardinal transformation) in the development of the organic world, but also about ascent in development. ascent(in development) means a transition, a jump of the system to more high level organizations. The latter is one of the key representations in scientific papers I.V. Goethe.
The considered interpretations of development are not yet its exact conceptual definition. The fundamental development of this category, but already as a special principle, a universal way of being the universe, was carried out in classical German philosophy and especially in the philosophical system of G.W.F. baseyou of dialectical (genetic) logic as the logic of formation, development and transformation of any organic wholeness (totality). Actually, essential characteristic of any organic system is precisely its ability to develop while maintaining its self-identity at all stages of transformation. In this way, an organic system differs from an aggregate system capable only of relatively stable functioning, gradual change (degradation) and subsequent disintegration.
Thanks to the rooting of the concept of "development" in the spiritual life of Europe, the image of the world, which had been static for centuries, began to move. In the minds of philosophers and scientists, a keen interest arose in how something developed, what stages and forms it passed through during a certain time, in what direction the development process unfolded and in which it could (should) unfold in the future. In this comprehension, under the sign of development, more and more new subject contents were involved. The earth, plants, animals, man, peoples, cultures, science itself - everything has a long development behind it.
The belief in the reality of development, and, accordingly, in the universality of the very concept of "development", gave it the status of a peculiar principle of explaining and understanding the world in systems of rational (scientific) knowledge. Now, in order to speak quite meaningfully and convincingly about the essence of any thing, it was necessary to speak (know), build hypotheses and develop theories about its origin, formation and development in a certain historical interval.
The grandiose achievements of natural science in the 19th-20th centuries. in the study of nature now made it possible, not only at the level of philosophical reflections, but also on the basis of an infinite number of empirical facts, to assert that indeed there is development; its "traces" are found everywhere. But, paraphrasing the well-known thought of F. Engels about the nature of movement, we can say this: the problem is not whether there is development or not ; the problem is how to understand it , how and in what system of concepts to express the development of a certain reality, in order thereby to reveal its essential characteristics.
The emergence of a new quality is considered today as the main essential sign of development. Development- a universal property of matter and consciousness, manifested in an irreversible, directed and regular change in their composition or structure. IN modern science development acts as a universal principle of explaining the history of nature, society and knowledge.
A separate internal problem of the principle of development, in modern terms, was the question of the sources, foundations and mechanisms of the ongoing changes - the development of something. Today it is especially obvious that in the very empirical factology accumulated in natural science, in individual hypotheses and empirical generalizations different levels there is still no comprehensive, consistent answer to this question, although there is a huge number of private, often mutually exclusive answers about specific manifestations of development in a variety of things.
A similar situation continues to exist in modern human psychology as one of the facets of the scientific picture of the world. Here, just as in the sciences of nature, there are too many empirical generalizations, particular hypotheses and heterogeneous theories about mental phenomena, which are collected in a weakly structured and internally contradictory block called "general psychology". Today, the need to build a proper "theoretical psychology” (and not just general). Its main task should be to identify and establish the initially unified foundations for the formation and development of the human mental world. The construction of such a theory is a rather complex task, primarily due to the complexity and inconsistency of the very study of development in psychology.
2. Antinomies and paradoxes of the idea of development in psychology
The familiarity and obviousness of the reality of development for the "ordinary" consciousness give rise to logical failures when trying to start building a specific theory of the development of psychological reality itself. Let's try to summarize and more clearly group the existing many interpretations of the category "development" that have developed in the European scientific consciousness.
1. In developmental psychology there is still a lot of confusion and contradictions between various ideas and particular categories designed to understand the phenomenon of development. Here is a far from complete list of such contradictions:
a) the source of many misunderstandings is the conceptual inconsistency between philosophical(first of all - Hegelian-Marxist), scientific(biological) and socio-practical(educational) interpretations of the phenomenon of human development, its properties, processes, structures.
WITH philosophical from the point of view, only such totalities (macrosystems) as nature, society, civilization, culture have the dignity of development. A separate person (individual), of course, is not such a system and, at best, is only drawn into it (utilized) as one of the elements.
WITH general biologicalcoy position, development is, first of all, maturation and growth according to an already existing biogenetic program, partially modified by the external conditions of life, but unchanged in its species specificity.
IN pedagogical In practice, development is the purposeful formation (of course, taking into account the social and natural circumstances of life) of useful knowledge, skills and abilities, the upbringing of useful personality traits - useful for an intrinsically valuable society. Despite all the seemingly cardinal differences between the listed installations they are one in the main : development is always here extra-subjectively, regardless of the participants in this process; they are just "material" on which an objective process is played out, giving this material the form of a predetermined pattern. So the value judgment: “man is a developing being” (that is, capable of developing himself) - turns out to be, in principle, categorically unsecured;
b) c classical psychology traditionally a sharp opposition between two series of forms and structures in human nature - “natural” and “cultural”, “biological” and “social”, between which either a fundamental parallelism (psychophysical, psychophysiological) or meaningless correlation is assumed. One important point is not taken into account here: and natural And biological - it is too cultural...performance, made by human mind, but atwritten, and sometimes imposed on nature as inherent in it;
c) the same source of misunderstanding is the non-distinction, and more often the gluing of two specific subject contents:
- "mental development"(as the development of the psyche, its systems and structures) and "developmental psychology"(as the development of human subjectivity, the inner world of man);
- act of origin something that has not yet happened in reality act of development what is already there;
- units development (either as a measure or as a mechanism) and object development (that which develops).
2. Usually they say that a person, naturally(natural) -artificial(sociocultural) creature, but without the idea that a person is first of all supernatural being, we cannot figure out what is its artificiality and what is its naturalness. Therefore the category "development" at the same time it must hold and combine three fairly independent processes:
. becoming - like maturation and growth; the transition from one particular state to another - a higher level; as a unity of what has already been realized and what is potentially possible; as the unity of the producing causes and natural consequences in the act of development;
formation - as design (acquisition of a form, and not molding according to a given stamp) and improvement (acquisition of a perfect, pre-existing model in culture); as a unity of sociocultural goals and socially significant result development;
transformation - as self-development and change of the main life vector; How transformation- cardinal overcoming of the existing mode of life in accordance with a certain hierarchy values and meanings human being.
Each of these subcategories of development, in its separateness and isolation, gravitates towards a uniquely defined reality: becoming - predominantly to natural structures; formation - to socio-cultural structures; transformation - predominantly to the spiritual and practical being of the individual. The problem, in fact, is to develop general principle, embracing all three facets of this category, capable of reproducing the course of development (showing it, and not just talking about it) in the very living reality of human existence.
3. A special source of conflicting judgments about development is the indistinguishability time of history And time of natural science. The time of history is subjective time, "human time", content, meaning, dimension, the topic of which is set by the ways of its being, and not by cosmic events. The time of natural science is an objective, physical time, which has a conditionally formal dimension - calendar, fundamental unidirectionality, but does not have its own qualitative content. And yet, in everyday consciousness, a persistent prejudice about the direction of time continues to persist. Since everything arises in time and everything stops with time, it means that we have a unidirectional flow from the past - through the present - into the future. Hence, development is understood as a continuous pursuit of the future; like throwing forward a kind of anchor (goal, ideal, perspective) and pulling yourself up, then a new throw. Why development is necessarily expansion and occupation will begeneral, and not deepening, for example, in the present and not declassifyingof the past?
Difficult relationships between people and human spacesky reality. It is obvious that it is not a physicalistic empty volume, not a container filled with human deeds, but, first of all, a socio-cultural and spiritual-practical Universe. That is why the cultural-historical approach in psychology is an attempt to build a spatio-temporal (as a unity of culture and history) continuum of human reality in its integrity, completeness and certainty.
An analysis of the methodological prerequisites for constructing the psychology of human development cannot be complete without constructing the conceptual foundations for understanding the very category of “development”. This category encompasses at least three meanings that are not reducible to each other.
1. Development is an objective fact a real process among other life processes. Development in this sense appears as a naturally occurring process of qualitative changes in objective reality.
2. Development is explanatory principle many phenomena of objective reality, including human. The category of development is used to explain the cardinal changes taking place in the human world.
3. Development is purpose and value European culture, which, with varying degrees of distinctness, entered the categorical structure of the human sciences. In modern human knowledge, the position has been established that it is good to develop.
It is this tripartite interpretation of the category of development that must be kept in the construction and psychology of human development. Each of the distinguished meanings of the concept of development emphasizes its specific function in human life. Let's fix the main provisions principles of development in psychology.
First of all it is important to distinguish the concept of “development” from concepts and terms close to it in meaning, such as “origin”, “change”, “maturation”, etc. For example, it is necessary to strictly distinguish between the concept of “development” (genes) and the concept of “origin” (gonos). Develops what is; what is not, is happening (can happen). Every development is problem, the essence of which is simple: if something exists and develops, then it is necessary to show how this development is possible. Origin is secret, which can be opened and to which one can join. It is possible, of course, to build probabilistic hypotheses about the origin of something - the world, life, man - which science predominately deals with; however, it must be remembered that arbitrarily high reliability of assumptions about the origin of something is not an explanation of this very origin .
It is also necessary to distinguish between processes functioning and development. Functioning is the stay of the system in the active state of the same level (or type), associated only with the current change of elements, functions and relationships. Simple functioning is carried out as a redistribution of elements, their connections, which does not lead to the transformation of the system and the emergence of its new quality. Development It also means the emergence of fundamentally new formations and the transition of the system to a new level of functioning.
Any development is always associated with changes in time. However, time is not the main criterion of development. In time, there are processes of functioning, and processes of improvement, and processes of degradation of some reality. Development is a kind irreversible changes in the object, while the functioning is characterized by the reversibility of the processes of change and is a cyclic reproduction of a constant system of functions.
Development describes the process of the emergence of a new qualitative state of an object, which acts as total change in its structure and functioning mechanisms. A good metaphor for development so understood is the transformation of a caterpillar into a chrysalis, and a chrysalis into a butterfly. There are processes of maturation, growth, change; however, the step (act) of development takes place at the point of shift, transformation, metamorphosis.
The turning point, the transformation of one into another, is the situation of development. Developmental psychology can be understood as the psychology of describing situations of human development throughout his life, identifying the conditions that lead to such situations. It is also a study of the line of functioning, the process of accumulation of quantitative changes, their critical mass, followed by a step of development.
From the above distinctions of concepts follows a fundamental conclusion about the specifics of the principle of development in psychology. The most important feature The logic of development is the following provision. The variety of properties, structure, mode of functioning of some become (existing) psychological phenomenon, which we study, is not yet a characteristic of changes in this particular phenomenon, but is result of development something else . The final characteristics of the result of development do not coincide either with the initial characteristics of what is developing, or with the content of the very course of its development. In genetic study, the beginning and end of the development of a certain phenomenon do not coincide. They do not match either in material, or in device, or in mode of operation.
What arose is not congruent to what it arose from; in genetic logic, this is the norm for understanding the concept of “development”. Only tracing the entire line of development of an object - its emergence, formation, functioning, transformation into something else - gives its true understanding. In fact, in the unfolding process of development, any of its results is always a means (instrument) for the implementation of the next step in development. In this sense, developmental psychology is the science of the means by which a person acquires his own essence - actually human in a person. This conclusion is in consonance with the remarkable statement of the Russian philosopher M.K. Mamardashvili that man is primarily an artificial being, self-built.
Modern human knowledge has convincingly shown that the development of a person, his subjectivity, the entire psychological structure is both natural and artificial processes, i.e. they can be represented in two ways: process diagram(as a natural temporal sequence of steps, periods, stages) ipo activity structure(as a set of ways and means of "development", where their following one after another has not a temporary, but a target determination). We can say that the first type of development unfolds by the essence of nature; second - by the essence of society.
Ideas about development, firstly, as a process and, secondly, as an activity almost enough to describe the entire continuum of historical changes in human reality within the framework of socially defined value bases, targets and time intervals. The totality of these ideas allows us not only to speak in general about the cultural and historical conditionality of the development of subjectivity, the inner world of a person, but directly theoretically and practically take into account the socio-historical context of development processes, reveal their content and methods of organization in terms of this context.
However, special - the third is the idea of "development in general": about self-development, i.e. about the development of a person's own self. In psychology, it should be about development by the nature of man- about self-development. Self-development- the fundamental ability of a person to become and be a true subject of his own life, to turn his own life activity into an object of practical transformation. This means that another determinant is included in human development - value-semantic. Development for a person is a goal, a value, and sometimes the meaning of his life.
Methodological principles of psychology
Introduction
Methodological principles of psychology
Conclusion
Introduction
Principle - (from lat. Principium - beginning, basis) - the main starting point of any theory, doctrine, science, worldview.
In a logical sense, a principle is a central concept, the foundation of a system, representing a generalization and extension of any position to all phenomena of the area from which this principle is abstracted. The principle of action, otherwise called a maxim, means, for example, an ethical norm that characterizes the relationship of people in society.
In modern literature, along with a general interpretation of the principle, the term "explanatory principles of psychology" is used. The principles of explanation are the fundamental provisions, premises or concepts, the application of which makes it possible to meaningfully describe the alleged properties and characteristics of the object of study and, based on the general scientific method, to build procedures for obtaining empirical material, its generalization and interpretation.
To the basic principles of psychology A.V. Petrovsky and M.G. Yaroshevsky attribute only three explanatory principles: determinism, consistency and development. In different sources, the number of principles varies from three to nine. So, for example, one can find a description of such principles as the unity of consciousness and activity, system-activity, interaction of external influences and internal conditions, integrity, personal and even the principle of personality-activity approach.
Main part
1. Methodological principles of psychology
Consider in more detail the principle of systemicity, the principle of activity, the principle of determinism and the principle of development.
The principle of consistency in psychology - (Greek systema - composed of parts) a methodological approach to the analysis of mental phenomena, considering the corresponding phenomenon as a system that is not reducible to the sum of its elements and has a structure, the properties of the elements of which are determined by their place in it.
The most general provisions of the system approach are:
systemic activity, which has different levels of its organization, in which the components of the internal psychological structure correspond to certain dynamic components of external, subject-practical activity. At the same time, the development, dynamics of activity lies in the mobility of its individual components, the change in their hierarchical interdependence, in the transformation of some elements into others;
recognition of the unity of consciousness and activity, which means:
Interdependence of the development of consciousness in activity;
Regulatory impact of consciousness on the course, methods of implementation and results of activities;
recognition for mental activity social nature, and as the initial form of any activity - joint and practical. At the same time, the main mechanism for the development of the psyche, the assimilation of socio-historical experience is internalization, during which there is a transition from external activity to internal.
The principle of activity is the principle of psychology, which assumes that a person is an active subject of the transformation of the world.
A person, as a subject of activity, can treat it differently - he can be its simple performer, or he can be its initiator, initiator, active participant. Usually, there is a distinction between situational, arbitrary, supra-situational (exceeding the requirements of the situation), search activity. It can be persistent, episodic, short-term, etc.
In relation to psychology, the concept of activity is used in two ways with the allocation of specific and non-specific meanings. Non-specific (in relation to one's own psychological level of analysis), a broader interpretation of this concept is associated with the designation of any manifestation of the psyche as an activity and is based on the search and understanding of those characteristics of the mental that go beyond the adaptive, adaptive activity of the individual.
The specific meaning of the concept of activity in psychology is associated with the characteristic of a special quality of mental phenomena. In this meaning, activity is not an absolute and initial characteristic of the mental, but acquires its real meaning only in comparison with its opposite - passivity.
In accordance with these two meanings, the concept of activity in the system of modern psychological knowledge has not only a general psychological status, but also acts as a research principle. The methodological significance of the concept of activity in relation to psychological research is revealed, first of all, in the principle of activity of the subject of activity. This principle takes into account not only the presence of a certain attitude (motivation) in the individual to the tasks that confront him, but also such an attitude that initially requires him to comprehend, transform reality, search for his own solutions in accordance with the specific conditions and circumstances of life, personal initiatives, "going out" beyond the given, setting and solving new creative tasks.
The principle of determinism is a principle that assumes the causality of mental phenomena. Determinism (from Latin determinare - to determine) is a natural and necessary dependence of mental phenomena on generating factors.
According to the principle of determinism, everything that exists arises, changes and ceases to exist naturally. Determinism is opposed by theological doctrine (from the Greek theos - God), indeterminism. Determination, or causality - the genetic connection of phenomena, the generation of the previous (cause) of the subsequent (consequence), therefore, the principle of determinism is directly related to the principle of interaction, unlike other types of patterns that connect phenomena, for example, correlations (this type of relationship manifests itself in a joint, coordinated variation variables and reflects neither the source nor the direction of the influences that determine the relationship between them).
The principle of development (psyche) is a principle that proposes to consider development as a relationship between changes in mental phenomena and the causes that give rise to them. That is, mental activity cannot be correctly understood and adequately explained if it is considered statically, outside of movement, change and development.
This development can be considered in two ways: in terms of the historical development of man in general and in terms of the development of an individual in the process of his life.
Interrelation and development are two inseparable aspects of the mutual influence of objects, inevitable due to the spatio-temporal structure of the world. The properties of integrity, structural diversity, the effects of development, the formation of the new are explained on the basis of this fundamental principle. The inseparability of the relationship and development is manifested in the fact that the relationship is realized in development, and development is “a way of existence ... of systems associated with the formation of qualitatively new structures due to the developing effect” (Ya.A. Ponomarev). Structures, from this point of view, are fixed stages in the development of systems.
Category - (Greek kategoria - statement, evidence) is an extremely broad concept, which reflects the most general and essential properties, signs, connections and relationships of objects, phenomena of reality and knowledge. They are real for any manifestations of mental activity, no matter what objects absorb it.
The categories represent the working principles of thought, its meaningful forms that organize the research process. The categorical apparatus of psychology forms the "skeleton" of the mechanism for the "production" of psychological theories and facts. The categorical apparatus is not static. He is constantly improving. The categories of psychology include: reflection, psyche, consciousness, activity, communication, image, motive, experience, attitude, action, personality.
reflection category. Reflection in the broad sense of the word is a universal property of material objects, consisting in their ability to react, change and keep a trace, an imprint of the impact of other material objects on them. Reflection has the character of interaction. Reflection (mental) - the property of highly organized matter to reproduce in the form of subjective images (sensations, perceptions, ideas, thoughts and feelings) with varying degrees of adequacy, signs, structural characteristics and relationships of other objects in the process of vigorous activity. The nature of reflection depends on the level of organization of matter, as a result of which it is qualitatively different in inorganic and organic nature, in the animal world and the social world, in more elementary and highly organized systems.
category of the psyche. Psyche - (from the Greek psyche - soul) a systemic property of highly organized matter, which consists in the active reflection of the objective world by the subject, in the construction of an inalienable picture of this world from him and self-regulation on this basis of his behavior and activities. In the psyche, events of the past, present and possible future are presented and ordered. The defining features of the psyche are: a reflection that gives an image subject environment, in which living beings operate, their orientation in this environment and the satisfaction of the need for contacts with it. These contacts, in turn, control the correctness of the reflection according to the feedback principle.
category of consciousness. Consciousness is the highest level of mental reflection of reality, inherent only to man as a socio-historical being. Empirically, consciousness acts as a continuously changing set of sensory and mental images that directly appear before the subject in his "internal experience" and anticipate his practical activity; as the highest form of reflection of reality, using systems of concepts, categories. Psychology studies the origin, structure, functioning and development of the consciousness of the individual.
Consciousness is characterized by: activity; intentionality (focus on the subject); the ability for reflection, self-observation (realization of consciousness itself), motivational-value character; varying degrees (levels) of clarity. The consciousness of any individual is unique, but not arbitrary - it is determined by factors external to consciousness and independent of it (primarily the structures of the social system in which the individual exists).
The structures of the individual's consciousness are formed in early ontogeny due to the child's appropriation (internalization) of the structures of such activity as communication with an adult. The fundamental possibility of such appropriation is formed on the basis of phylogenetic (historical) development.
Activity category. Activity is the process of a person's active attitude to reality, during which the subject achieves the goals set earlier, the satisfaction of various needs and the development of social experience. Objective activity has the following main properties reflected in its structure: social origin and structure (this is expressed in its social regulation, as well as in its mediation by tools and signs); separation between two subjects; direction to the object. The structure of activity generates the structure of consciousness, determining, respectively, the following main properties of it: social character(including mediation by sign, including verbal, and symbolic structures); the ability to reflect and internal dialogism, objectivity. They are manifested in activities, and also, according to S.L. Rubinstein, a person and his psyche are formed and developed. When defining activity as an object of psychological research, new aspects of the study of the psyche were revealed: the procedural aspect (the mental is analyzed from the point of view of dynamics), the historical aspect (allows you to explore the mental from the point of view of the laws and patterns of its development), the structural-functional aspect (determines the possibilities of analyzing the mental as a complex multi-level system that performs certain functions).
Communication includes communicative, interactive and perceptual aspects.
The communicative aspect of communication is associated with identifying the specifics of the information process between people as active subjects, i.e. taking into account the relationship between partners, their attitudes, goals, intentions, which leads not only to the "movement" of information, but to the refinement and enrichment of the knowledge, information, opinions that people exchange.
The interactive aspect of communication is the construction of a common interaction strategy. In communication, people set themselves the goal of influencing another person. This does not exclude the so-called phatic communication (from Latin fatuus - stupid), i.e. meaningless use of communicative means for the sole purpose of supporting the process of communication itself.
The perceptual aspect of communication involves the perception of communicating each other. Communication is possible only when the interacting people can assess the level of mutual understanding and form an idea about the communication partner. Participants of communication strive to reconstruct each other's inner world in their minds, to understand feelings, motives of behavior, attitude to significant objects. “When communicating, you, first of all, look for a person’s soul, his inner world,” recommended K.S. Stanislavsky.
However, this reconstruction of the inner world of another person is a very difficult task.
An image is a subjective phenomenon (product) of a holistic integral mental reflection of the cognition of reality, arising as a result of subject-practical, sensory-perceptual and mental activity. The actualization of the image occurs at the junction of individual and social consciousness.
category of experience. Experience - an emotionally colored state experienced by the subject and a phenomenon of reality, directly represented in his mind and acting for him as an event in his own life; the presence of aspirations, desires and desires, representing in the individual consciousness the process of choosing by the subject the motives and goals of his activity and thereby contributing to the awareness of the attitude of the individual to the events taking place in her life; a form of activity that arises in connection with the impossibility of the subject to achieve the leading motives of his life, manifested in the transformation of his psychological world and aimed at rethinking his existence.
relationship category. Attitude is the moment of interconnection of all phenomena; a category in various social sciences - philosophy, sociology, ethics, economics, psychology. There are social relations, production, moral relations, etc.
Action category. The category of action has undergone a complex cycle of transformations. In theoretical terms, this was reflected in such concepts as intentional (lat. intentia - attention, the internal orientation of consciousness to its object, regardless of whether it is real or only imaginary) act of consciousness (Brentano and functional psychology), the relationship "stimulus - reaction” (behaviorism), a conditioned reflex (I.P. Pavlov), a component of sensorimotor structures (J. Piaget), an instrumental, semiotic (sema - sign, attribute) mediated act (L.S. Vygotsky).
Action - one of the units of human activity, prompted by its motive and correlated with a specific goal; arbitrary deliberate mediated activity aimed at achieving a perceived goal.
Personality category. Personality - a human individual as a subject of social relations and conscious activity; the systemic quality of the individual determined by involvement in social ties, which is formed in joint activities and communication.
The emergence of a personality as a systemic quality is determined by the fact that an individual, in joint activity with other individuals, changes the world and, through this change, transforms himself, becoming a personality (A.N. Leontiev). Personality is characterized by activity, i.e. the desire of the subject to go beyond his own limits, expand the scope of his activities, act beyond the boundaries of the requirements of the situation and role prescriptions (achievement motivation, risk, etc.).
Conclusion
The word “psychology” itself first appeared in the 16th century. in Western European texts. It is derived from the Greek words "psyche" (soul) and "logos" (knowledge, science): translated literally, psychology is the science of the soul. This definition does not correspond to modern views on psychological science. The title reflects the ideas about psychology, characteristic of the period of its origin and initial development within the framework of philosophy.
The formation of psychology as an independent, truly scientific discipline also took place against the background of discoveries that were made in the framework of natural science research. Psychology arose at the intersection of two large areas of knowledge - philosophy and natural sciences, and it has not yet been determined whether to consider it a natural science or a humanitarian one. The words “psychologist”, “psychology” have gone beyond the scope of scientific treatises and have been developed in everyday life: experts in human souls, passions and characters are called psychologists; the word "psychology" is used in several meanings - it is understood as both scientific and non-scientific knowledge. In ordinary consciousness, these concepts are often confused.
Scientific knowledge requires not only a description of facts and phenomena, but also their explanation, which in turn involves the disclosure of laws and patterns to which facts and phenomena are subject. In this regard, the subject of study in psychology is not only psychological facts and psychological phenomena, but also the patterns of mental life. Studying the subject modern psychology It relies on a number of principles that are the starting points that allow you to meaningfully describe the object under study, plan procedures for obtaining empirical material, generalize and interpret it, put forward and test hypotheses. As the main methodological principles, we considered the following: the principle of consistency, the principle of activity, the principle of determinism and the principle of development.
List of sources used
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The principle of development is associated with the adoption genetic point perspective on the subject of study. Psychological theories use ideas about phylogenesis, ontogenesis and actual genesis. Another aspect of the problem: the existence of the mental only in its processual development. "The need to reflect, predict, anticipate the variability of the conditions of various forms of socially conditioned human activity gave rise to a special - fundamental, main - way of existence of the psyche: as a continuous (continuous), constantly evolving process" [Antsyferova L.I., 2004, p. 170|.
Under development in a broad sense, a change or functioning of a system is usually understood, accompanied by the emergence of a new quality (the emergence of qualitative new formations).
The driving forces of development, however, cannot be limited to systemic connections. A significant contribution of the activity approach in psychology was the disclosure of the role leading activity which made it possible to overcome the theories of two factors, which assumed external conditions (social) or internal (biological) as sources of development. Within the framework of this concept, it is in it that the formation of the main neoplasms of mental development takes place in ontogenesis.
The assumption about the actual genesis of higher mental functions - within the framework of the hypothesis of mediation by psychological tools - developed on the basis of the development of an experimental genetic method in psychology. L. S. Vygotsky called his method experimental genetic "in the sense that it artificially causes and genetically creates the process of mental development" [Vygotsky L.S., 1983, vol. 3, p. 95]. Here it was a question of presenting any higher form of behavior "not as a thing, but as a process." The corresponding methodological technique implemented in the construction principle dual stimulation techniques, made it possible to analyze the formation of higher mental functions as a process of their mediation (and thus transformation).
The genetic way of consideration is associated not only with the substantive grounds presented in the theory, but also with the method of constructing the study. Thus, the longitudinal method claims to test hypotheses about development and thus suggests other schemes for constructing research than the traditional experiment [Burmenskaya G. V., 2004]. Studying phasing development and neoplasms at each new stage characterizes the implementation of the principle of development in research in general and developmental psychology, labor psychology and educational psychology.
A broader understanding suggests the principle of development, used as a methodological support within any theory where its driving forces and factors influencing it are discussed. In some foreign theories, the "final" reason continues to appear, which prepares the striving of mental development for some final state. In the epigenetic concept of E. Erickson, such an end state is the stage of individuality, in the concept of cognitive development by J. Piaget - the stage of operational intelligence (formal completion of the structure of groupings).
Modern studies of early ontogenesis provide many facts that allow us to interpret the development of cognition and personality of the subject as the formation of anticipatory cognitive schemes that guide its activity [Sergienko E.A., 2006]. But when interpreting their results, the correlation of concepts, in particular, "perception-action" in the explanatory schemes used, changes places depending on the theoretical understanding of the driving forces of development and the general idea of the social situation and the research procedure within which these facts were established, and therefore reconstructed. .
The principle of development is also implemented in studies of the psyche of an adult, in particular, at the level microgenetic analysis. The allocation of microstages in the deployment of mental processes implements an approach that reveals the functional development, i.e. their actualgenesis. Disclosure of the insufficiency of the appeal to the feedback principle, the determining role of various kinds (and levels) of anticipations, the dynamics of neoplasms (semantic, target, operational levels) are significant achievements domestic psychology in concretizing the principle of development in the study of thinking.
An analysis of the dynamics of the regulation of the process can provide evidence of its development. However, not every temporal deployment of a process presupposes its development. The restructuring of psychological systems is an important criterion for development. Thus, L. S. Vygotsky demonstrated this principle in the book "Thinking and Speech", speaking about the restructuring of processes in the transition from primary school age to senior and the relationship between the processes of learning and development. In the course of mastering scientific concepts, not only the internal structure of the child's thinking changes, but also the systemic organization of consciousness as a whole; in particular, this is expressed in a change in the relationship between thinking and memory.
L. I. Antsyferova identified the following features of the development process, which are important for psychology and pedagogy.
- 1. Irreversibility. Any degradation, reverse development, is not a mirror image of progressive development; the return of the system to its original level of functioning is possible only according to one or several indicators - a complete restoration of what was previously impossible.
- 2. Any development includes two diachronic structures: progress And regression. Progressive development (from the lowest to the highest, from the simple to the complex) necessarily includes elements of regression, if only because the choice of one of the directions of development leaves many others unfulfilled (one has to pay for everything, worldly wisdom says).
- 3. unevenness development. Periods of sharp qualitative leaps are replaced by a gradual accumulation of quantitative changes.
- 4. Zigzag development. Inevitably in any development is not only a slowdown, but also a rollback, a deterioration in the functioning of the system as a condition for a new upsurge. This phenomenon is associated with the formation of fundamentally new structures, which are early stages functions work in some respects worse than the old ones. When a child moves from crawling to walking, he moves through space more slowly and sometimes at a cost to his health.
In such transitions, three phases are usually distinguished: the phase disorganization and crisis, culminating in restructuring, the emergence of a new structure; sensitive period speed of development and implementation of new opportunities; critical period - slowing down the pace of development, increasing the vulnerability of the system.
- 1. Transition of stages of development into levels. When a new level of functioning appears, the old one is not destroyed, but is retained with some functions specific only to it as one of the hierarchical levels. new system. Thus, the first two stages in the development of thinking - visual-effective thinking and figurative thinking do not disappear with the advent of conceptual thinking, but remain as special forms for solving problems of a certain type.
- 2. Along with the tendency to qualitative change and transition to more perfect levels of functioning, any development is carried out in unity with trend towards sustainability preservation of what has been achieved and reproduction of existing types of functioning. In other words, successful development is impossible without a strong conservative trend.
The role of heredity and the environment in mental development, the provision on "leading activity", during which the formation of neoplasms significant for subsequent periods, developmental periodization, personality development models and a number of other topics cumulate problems associated with understanding the principle of development.
One of the insufficiently elucidated problems is the replacement of some laws and some factors of development determination by others. A. N. Leontiev substantiated the following basic pattern: the laws of biological evolution are replaced in phylogenesis by the laws of socio-historical development. The development of the psyche in ontogeny is based on the appropriation of socio-historical experience by a person.
L. I. Bozhovich formulated the connection between the principles of activity, development and consistency as follows: "In the process of development, a qualitative transformation of the very personality of the child takes place, and it occurs on the basis of his own vigorous activity and his own active attitude to the environment" [Bozhovich L. I. , 1976, p. 49]. Interfunctional systemic neoplasms reinforce the formation of functional systems specific only to humans (speech thinking, logical memory, categorical perception, the ability to set goals and form intentions, etc.). Process self-promotion - this is a more capacious concept for the unifying sound of the principles of activity and development.
The complexity of generalizing the principle of development in psychology is connected with the fact that development acts both as a subject of study, and as a basic category, and as an explanatory principle. Developmental psychology (and acmeology) is singled out as a separate subject discipline that interacts with general psychology, psychogenetics, and personality psychology. The analysis of development as the actual genesis of mental phenomena comes from completely different theoretical platforms within the framework of different psychological schools. In the principle of development itself, it is apparently necessary to single out changes in its interpretations not only in different psychological theories, but also in different paradigms, which has not yet become the subject of special works. Today, new discoveries are being made, and in relation to the principle of development, changes in its understanding and reformulation are possible. More and more people are talking about self-development and about self-determination as about new trends in understanding the determination of development by the future.
Generalizations of the provisions of psychological theories, demonstrating the implementation of certain principles in them, is a natural and customary way of highlighting the internal supports of particular scientific methodology in psychological research. Less common is the analysis of the extent to which this or that declared principle is realized in a particular scientific theory. Discussions in psychology have become an important means of clarifying principles. They can touch on problems that are essential and fateful for all psychology or its directions - the objectivity of the method, the relationship of psychology to Marxism, the relationship of the psyche to the brain, etc. new approach to its solution.
- Collection "The principle of development in psychology", summing up his understanding in domestic psychology by the end of the 70s. of the last century, can no longer be considered as representative in terms of the latest achievements in developmental psychology.
PART THREE
EXPLANATORY PRINCIPLES IN PSYCHOLOGY
Chapter 9
Development principle
Development as a philosophical and general scientific way of explaining phenomena, the principle of development directs the work of psychological thought throughout its history.
Development as an explanatory principle
This explanatory principle is internally related to other regulators. scientific knowledge- determinism and consistency. It involves considering how phenomena change in the process of development under the influence of the causes that produce them, and at the same time includes the postulate about the conditionality of the transformation of these phenomena by their involvement in an integral system formed by their mutual orientation.
The principle of development assumes that changes occur naturally, that transitions from one form to another are not chaotic even when they include elements of chance and variability. This also comes into play when comparing the two main types of development: evolutionary and revolutionary. Their ratio is such that, on the one hand, continuity in the change of levels is ensured during the most radical transformations of the development process, on the other hand, qualitatively new forms are emerging that cannot be reduced to the previous ones. Thus, the one-sidedness of concepts becomes apparent, which either, emphasizing continuity, reduce new formations in the course of development to forms characteristic of the lower stages of this process, or, emphasizing the significance of revolutionary changes, see the appearance of qualitatively different structures than before, the effect of a kind of catastrophe. breaking the "connection of times". Under the influence of these methodological attitudes, different approaches have developed to explain the changes that the psyche undergoes in its various forms and scales - in phylogenesis and ontogenesis.
If we are talking about phylogenesis, the psyche appears in the context of the general course. development of life on Earth as one of its factors, from its simplest, rudimentary manifestations - the psyche is formed as a kind of tool for orienting the organism in the environment, distinguishing the properties of the environment in order to adapt to it as efficiently as possible through motor activity. Such a distinction can be interpreted as a signal, or information, function, thanks to which, in the form of elementary sensations at first - feelings, and then more and more complex cognitive structures (sensory images), the body takes possession of the "picture of the world" in which it must survive. At various steps of the great evolutionary ladder, the image of the world changes decisively, providing adaptation to the expanding spatio-temporal parameters of the environment. This adaptation itself is realized by the increasingly complex mechanisms of behavior - a system of real actions that allows you to satisfy the need (requirement) experienced by the body in maintaining the stability of its internal environment.
Before us is a holistic act, where the following are inseparably represented: a cognitive component (image) that plays a signal-information role, which allows organizing a behavioral response (action) to a challenge coming from outside, and motivation (motive) as an energy “charge” of both cognitive and motor activity. This "three-link" of any mental phenomenon at all levels of life allows us to speak of a holistic, developing psychosphere (N.N. Lange's term). Before us is a great genetic series, all the variety of steps and manifestations of which is permeated with a single principle. It is this unity that ensures continuity in development.
A similar situation unfolds when we pass from phylogenesis to ontogenesis, to the mental development of the individual. And here, for all transformations, stable, invariant properties common to various stages are distinguished. And here the inseparability of the image - action - motive serves as the core of development. At the level of human life, this triad includes, as its integral parameters, the communicativeness of mental acts and their personal character.
The factor of continuity in development gave rise in some theoretical schemes to an attitude towards reduction. In this case, what is inherent in the high steps is reduced to the more elementary.
The most striking example of such a reduction is the enormous work of several generations of American psychologists under the auspices of behaviorism. A reproach against behaviorism is fair: a person for this direction is something like a big white rat. The patterns of learning, the experimentally revealed features of animal behavior in labyrinths and problem boxes, are considered by adherents of this direction to be identical to the patterns of mental regulation of human activity.
The protest against this methodological attitude stimulated the search for solutions to put an end to the "zoologization" of psychology, to focus on the uniquely human in the mental structure of the individual. The legitimacy of these searches is obvious. However, one inadequate methodological approach to the development of the psyche, namely, the reductionist one, was opposed by another, also one-sided. This time, a truly qualitatively new level inherent in man was cut off from the great tree of mental development. For him, no prerequisites were seen in the "root system" of the neuropsychic forms that prepared this level. But no matter how human nature differs in its biology, it is vitally connected with the general evolution of the biosphere on our planet. Therefore, in methodological terms, as evidenced by the experience of building scientific knowledge about the psyche, such an approach is productive, which combines the idea of continuity with the idea of originality of qualitatively different steps in studying the laws of its development.
From the history of the application of the principle of development in psychology
The problem of the development of the psyche was the cornerstone of all psychology in the first third of the twentieth century. To develop this problem, the leitmotif was an appeal to the evolutionary ideas of Charles Darwin.
In his studies devoted to the problems of the development of the psyche and built on the richest factual material, Wagner never remained a "slave of fact", but often rose to "higher scientific monism", as he called Herzen's philosophical materialism.
In his two-volume work "The Biological Foundations of Comparative Psychology (Biopsychology)", Wagner contrasts the theological and metaphysical in matters of comparative psychology with the scientific worldview.
Despite the erroneousness of the final conclusions that many scientists came to, drawing an analogy between the actions of animals and people, this subjective method had fundamental defenders and theorists in the person of W. Wundt, E. Wasman and J. Romens. For Wagner, this method is unacceptable even with those corrections to it, with those recommendations to “use it carefully” and other reservations that are characteristic of the latter.
"Neither Romens' theory, nor Wasman's corrections,- says Wagner, - did not prove the scientific nature of the subjective method. At the same time, I believe that the failure of their attempt is not the result of a lack of their argumentation or incompleteness, of their considerations, but solely of the unsatisfactory nature of the method itself, in defense of which they, albeit for different reasons, advocate " .
It is difficult to name, both in Russia and in the West, a biologist or psychologist who during this period would destroy faith in the power of the subjective method with such persuasiveness and consistency, criticize anthropomorphism in natural science, as Wagner did. To some scientists, he even seemed in this respect too harsh and prone to extremes.
The biologist Y. Filippchenko, who seemed sympathetically expounding on Wagner's negative assessment of "monism from above," was, however, inclined, like Vasman, to confine himself to superficial criticism of "walking animal psychology." It is impossible to completely deny the method of analogy, Filippchenko believed, and "without some element of analogy with the human psyche" no animal psychology is possible. He unconditionally subscribed to Vasman's words:
“A person does not have the ability to directly penetrate into the mental processes of animals, but can conclude about them only on the basis of external actions ... A person must then compare these manifestations of the mental life of animals with his own manifestations, the internal causes of which he knows from his self-consciousness” .
Further, Filippchenko argued that the need for such comparisons was not denied by Wagner himself, and cited the latter’s words that objective biopsychology also uses the comparison of mental abilities to solve its problems, but in a completely different way both in terms of the comparison material and in the way it is processed. Here, as we see, the question of the possibility of an analogy between the human psyche and the psyche of animals (which relates to the problem of methods of comparative psychology) was replaced by the question of comparing the psyche of animals and humans (which is the subject of comparative psychology). Recognizing the need to compare the psyche of man and animals (without this there would be no comparative psychology), Wagner denied the necessity and possibility of the method of direct analogies with the human psyche in biopsychology.
Another direction, opposite to "monism from above", Wagner called "monism from below". While anthropomorphists, studying the psyche of animals, measured it by the scale of the human psyche, the “monists from below” (he included J. Loeb, Rabl and others among them), solving questions of the human psyche, determined it, along with the psyche of the animal world, by the measure unicellular organisms.
If the “monists from above” saw reason and consciousness everywhere, which they eventually recognized as spilled throughout the universe, then the “monists from below” everywhere (from ciliates to humans) saw only automatisms. If for the former the mental world is active, although this activity is characterized theologically, then for the latter animal world passive, and the activity and fate of living beings are completely predetermined by the "physico-chemical properties of their organization." If the “monists from above” based their constructions on judgments by analogy with a person, then their opponents saw such a basis in the data of physical and chemical laboratory studies.
Such are the comparisons of the two main directions in understanding the problem of development in psychology. Here the fundamental shortcomings are captured, which for one direction are reduced to anthropomorphism, subjectivism, and for the other - to zoomorphism, the actual recognition of animals, including higher and even humans, as passive automata, to a misunderstanding of the qualitative changes that are characteristic of the higher stages of evolution, i.e. ., ultimately, to metaphysical and mechanistic errors in the concept of development.
In connection with the criticism that Wagner subjected to the views of the "monists from below", it is necessary to briefly touch upon the complex issue of his attitude to the physiological teachings of I.P. Pavlova. Wagner, while giving Pavlov his due (calling him "outstanding in talent") and agreeing with him in criticizing subjectivism and anthropomorphism, nevertheless believed that the method conditioned reflexes suitable for elucidating reasonable processes of a lower order, but insufficient for studying higher processes. He argued that the reflex theory, while being insufficient for explaining higher processes, is equally insufficient for explaining the basic material of comparative psychology—instincts. The physiological mechanism of instinct is still unknown and to unconditioned reflex cannot be reduced - such is his conclusion.
The development of the psyche and the development of personality.
Leading activity problem
An appeal to modern psychological literature indicates that the concept of personality, as L.I. Bozovic, often turns out to be a synonym for either consciousness, or self-consciousness, or attitudes, or the psyche in general. Obviously, this is one of the reasons that the concept of “personality development” and the concept of “mental development” (or, what is the same, “development of the personality psyche”, “mental development of the personality”) turned out to be put in one synonymous series. The question of the discrepancy and, in general, the relationship between the concepts of “personal development” and “mental development” in ontogeny has not actually been raised in the literature on psychology until recently. Many psychologists have used these concepts as synonyms in the same context, not considering that behind the formulation of one concept in place of another, a change in its meaning and meaning is hidden. In the literature of the early eighties, a number of concepts of age development are given without differentiation of the objects of analysis - mental and personal types of development.
The absence of a generally accepted psychological concept of personality and, in fact, could not but affect the development of the theory of personality development - wealth empirical research in developmental psychology, by itself, could not ensure the integration of ideas about the personality as a certain unified whole, as a systemic and social quality of the individual. However, when trying to describe the process of personality development, as a rule, it is replaced by the process of "mental development" or, in any case, they do not distinguish between them. As a result, the formation of personality dissolves in the general flow of the mental development of the child as an individual. The obvious discrepancy, non-identity of the concepts "individual" and "personality", as well as the concepts of "mental development" and "personality development", with all their unity, suggests the need to single out a special process of personality formation as a social, systemic quality of an individual, a subject of a system of human relations.
A number of Russian psychologists in understanding age development proceed from the specifics of the functioning of the leading activity, the ratio of its components at a particular age stage. Thus, childhood was divided into epochs with successively alternating periods, the first of which is characterized by the assimilation of tasks and the development of the motivational-need side of activity, and the second by the assimilation of methods of activity. At the same time, each period corresponds to a clearly fixed “leading activity” for it: direct emotional communication (from birth to 1 year), object-manipulative activity (from 1 to 3 years), role-playing game (from 3 to 7 years), teaching (from 7 to 12 years old), intimate and personal communication (from 12 to 15 years old), educational and professional activities (from 15 to 17 years old).
However, a number of questions related to the possibility of understanding the problems of the development of the human personality in the light of this concept require serious explanations. As an example, let's take one era - childhood - and two of its periods - preschool and school childhood. There is no doubt that the role-playing game has great importance for preschoolers and in it relations between people are modeled, skills are worked out, attention, memory and imagination develop and sharpen. In a word, the importance of the preschooler's play for the development of his psyche does not require new evidence. At the same time, it is difficult to assume that at preschool age a unique and unlikely situation arises (never again repeated in a person's biography), when his personality is not constructed by real actions, but by playing the actions of others.
For the formation of a personality, it is necessary to assimilate patterns of behavior (actions, values, norms, etc.), the carrier and transmitter of which, already at the earliest stages of ontogenesis, can only be an adult. And with it, the child most often enters not into play, but into very real life connections and relationships. Based on the assumption that the game has a personality-forming potential in preschool age, it is difficult to understand the educational role of the family, social groups, relationships that develop between adults and children, which in most cases are also quite real, mediated by the content of the activity around which they are formed. Parents, kindergarten teachers, the personality of the child is revealed precisely through his actions, and not through the performance of roles in the game.
L.S. Vygotsky formulated the fundamental idea, pointing out that learning "runs ahead of development", outstrips and leads it. In this regard, learning, taken in the broadest sense of the word, always remains the leading one, whether the development of a person (preschooler, schoolchild, adult) is carried out in play, learning or work. And it is impossible to imagine that at some age stage this regularity is valid, and at some it loses its force. Of course educational activity is dominant for a younger student - it is she who determines the development of his thinking, memory, attention. However, being conditioned by the requirements of society, it remains the leading one for its development, at least until the end of school. Meanwhile, if we believe the given scheme of periodization, for the age of 12, teaching obviously loses its leading role and gives way to intimate-personal communication. However, this can be understood as follows: keeping your objective value, it is at the age of 12 that teaching loses its personal meaning for the student.
It is necessary to distinguish between psychological approach to the development of the personality and the periodization of age stages built on its basis and the pedagogical (deontic) approach to the consistent isolation of the socially conditioned tasks of personality formation.
The first approach is focused on what psychological research really reveals at the stages of age development in the corresponding specific historical conditions: what is (“here and now”) and what can be in a developing personality under the conditions of purposeful educational influences. The second approach is focused on what and how should be formed in the personality so that it meets all the requirements that society imposes on it at this age stage. It was the second approach, specifically the pedagogical approach, that made it possible to describe the hierarchy of activities that, as expected, should act as the leading ones for the successful solution of the problems of education and upbringing at successively changing stages of ontogenesis.
At the same time, there is a danger of mixing both approaches, which in some cases can lead to the replacement of the real by the desired. One gets the impression that purely terminological misunderstandings play a certain role here. The term "personality formation" has a double meaning: firstly, it means the development of personality, the process and result of this development; secondly, it means purposeful Education (if I may say so, “shaping”, “shaping”, “designing”, “molding”). If it is argued, for example, that for the formation of the personality of a teenager, the leading one is "social useful activity”, then this corresponds to the second meaning of the term “formation”. In the so-called formative psychological-pedagogical experiment, the positions of the teacher and the psychologist are combined. However, one should not erase the difference between what should be formed (personality design) by a psychologist as a teacher (the goals of education are set, as you know, not by psychology, but by society) and what a teacher as a psychologist should investigate, finding out what was in the structure of a developing personality. and what has become in it in the process of pedagogical influence.
Methodologically unacceptable non-distinguishing between the concepts of "personality" and "psyche" turned out to be one of the main reasons for the deformation of some initial principles in understanding the driving forces of personality development. Considering that the problem of development has remained a priority for psychology since the 1930s, it becomes obvious that these causes should be the subject of a special theoretical and historical-psychological analysis.
L.S. Vygotsky in 1930 formulated the idea of a social situation of development "systems of relations between a child of a given age and social reality"- as the starting point for all dynamic changes that occur in development during a given period and determine “wholly and completely those forms and the path, following which the child acquires new and new personality traits”. This thesis of Vygotsky is accepted as the most important theoretical postulate for the concept of personality development. In pedagogical and developmental psychology, it has not only never been refuted, but has always been used as a fundamental one. However, along with him, and since 1944. in fact, instead of it, the principle of the "leading type of activity" appears as a starting point for explaining dynamic changes in development.
In the Soviet period, developmental and child psychology had a fairly clearly defined cognitive orientation, and the specific problems of the development of the psyche were sharpened on the whetstone of an experimental study of cognitive processes. The results obtained at the same time are related to the identification of patterns of development of perceptual, mnemonic and intellectual processes (logical function, memory, conceptual thinking - L.S. Vygotsky, P.P. Blonsky, A.N. Leontiev, S.L. Rubinshtein, P I. Zinchenko, A. A. Smirnov, intelligence and speech - A. R. Luria, mental actions - P. Ya. Galperin, N. F. Talyzina, perception - A. V. Zaporozhets, V. P. Zinchenko; educational activity - D. B. Elkonin, meaningful generalization - V. V. Davydov, etc.), provided psychology with recognition. Of course, no one denied the importance of will and affect, but their study could not be compared with the scale of the study of cognitive activity. Moreover, for many years (30-60s) the socio-psychological aspects of the study of personality as a subject of a system of social ties, as a systemic quality of an individual, remained in the shadow.
So, there was an involuntary substitution of concepts, but in essence - a consistent reduction of the development of the personality to the development of the psyche, and the development of the psyche - to the development of perceptual, mnemonic and intellectual processes. In this context, it becomes clear that the “leading type of activity” has come to the fore as the main factor in the development. Indeed, for the formation of cognitive processes, the main factor (“leading type of activity”) that determines their development is, for preschool age, mainly game activity, in which imagination and symbolic function, attention is sharpened, and at school age (from the first grade to the last, and not only in primary school) - educational activity associated with the assimilation of concepts, skills and abilities to operate with them. Learning really leads to development. Of course, if we reduce the development of the personality to the development of the psyche, and the latter to the development of cognitive processes, then as a result of such a double reduction it will be possible to designate (as it is recorded in the psychological and pedagogical literature) the game and learning as "leading types of activity" for the development of a holistic human personality.
The methodological inconsistency of such an approach, which has acquired the character of a truth that does not require proof, is too obvious.
It is important to take into account the following. child psychology does not have any experimental evidence that one type of activity can be singled out as leading to personality development at each age stage - for example, for preschool age or for three school ages. All this has always been the result of speculative constructions. And this is understandable. In order to obtain conclusive evidence, it is necessary to build a series of special experimental procedures and conduct a significant amount of research within each age period in order to compare horizontally and vertically in age development the real significance of each of the many types of activities in which children are involved in the development of their personality. The scale, methodological and methodological difficulties of solving such a problem exceed the possibilities of the researcher's imagination.
Discussing the relationship between the development of the psyche and personality, we proceed not only from the fact that, given the unity of these processes, they are not identical. Although the process of development of the psyche is the most important component (side, aspect) of the development of the personality of a person included in the system of social relations, the development of the personality is not limited to this. Changing the status of a person, gaining prestige and authority, performing various social roles, self-determination, integration in groups, etc. cannot be described only from the side of the development of the psyche and cannot be reduced to this development. Therefore, the periodization of development in ontogenesis is, first of all, the periodization of personality development as a more general psychological category.
The general conclusion, which, at least, could be made on the basis of the foregoing: it is necessary to distinguish between the processes of development of the psyche and personality of an individual in ontogenesis that form a unity, but do not coincide. The real, and not the desired, development of the personality is determined, as one might think, not by one leading activity, but at least by a complex of actual forms of activity and communication, integrated by the type of active relationship between the developing personality and its social environment. In numerous experimental work ah psychologists, they act and reveal themselves in this context.
Critical consideration of theoretical ideas about the development of personality gives rise to the need to look for new ways to understand it. The interpretation of personality as a systemic social quality of an individual prompted an appeal to social psychology and a search in this area for determinants of personality development.
Periodization of personality development
The source of the development and assertion of the personality is the contradiction that arises in the system of interindividual relations (in groups of one or another level of development) between the need of the individual to be represented in the group by features and virtues that are significant for him and the objective interest of this community, which is referential for the individual, to accept those manifestations of his individuality, which correspond to the tasks, norms and conditions for the functioning and development of this community.
In the most general form, the development of a person's personality can be represented as a process of its entry into a new social environment and integration in it. Is it about the transition of the child from kindergarten to a school, a teenager to a new company, an applicant to a labor collective, a conscript to an army unit, or we are talking about personal development on a global scale - in its longevity and integrity from infancy to civil maturity, we cannot imagine this process differently , as an entry into socio-historical being, represented in a person's life by his participation in the activities and communication of various groups.
The measure of stability of this environment is different. Only conditionally can we accept it as constant, unchanging. In fact, it undergoes regular changes, socially conditioned and at the same time dependent on the activity of the people mastering it. Therefore, there is reason to build initially not one, but two models of personality development and only then proceed to their generalization in a single model.
The first is designed for a relatively stable social environment, and then the development of the individual in it is subject to internal psychological patterns, which are necessarily reproduced relatively independently of the specific characteristics of the community in which development takes place: both in the first grades of the school, and in a new company, and in production. brigade, and in a military unit they will be more or less identical. The stages of personality development in a relatively stable community will be called phases.
The second model involves the formation of personality in a changing environment. For example, relatively smoothly flowing personality development in high school high school undergoes a change when moving to a production team or military unit. Features of the integration of an individual in communities of different levels of development are subject to specific socio-psychological patterns for these groups, and their extrapolation to groups of a different degree of development can lead to serious theoretical errors and incorrect practical decisions. The stages of personality development in a changing social environment will be called periods of its development.
In the event that an individual enters a relatively stable social community or his position changes in this community, he naturally goes through three phases of his formation in it as a person (or, which does not change the essence of the matter, affirmation of himself as a person). As a result, he has corresponding personality neoplasms. Figure 1 shows a model of personality development in a group (P - the need to be a person, C - ability, I - source, R - result; an arrow with a solid line - prosocial development of a personality, an arrow with a dotted line - asocial).
The first phase of the formation of the personality presupposes the assimilation of the norms operating in the community and the mastery of the corresponding forms and means of activity. Bringing with you to new group everything that makes up his individuality, the subject cannot fulfill the need to prove himself as a personality before he has mastered the norms operating in the group (moral, educational, production) and does not master those methods and means of activity that other members of the group own. He has an objective need to "be like everyone else", to adapt as much as possible in the community. This is achieved (by some more, by others less successfully) due to the subjectively experienced loss of some of their individual differences with the possible illusion of dissolution in the "general mass". Subjectively - because in fact the individual often continues himself in other people with his actions, changes in the motivational and semantic sphere of other people, which are important specifically for them, and not for himself. Objectively, already at this stage, under certain circumstances, he can act as a person for others, although he is not properly aware of this fact that is essential for him. At the same time, favorable conditions may arise in group activity for the emergence of personality neoplasms that this individual did not have before, but which other members of the group have or already have and which correspond to the level of group development and maintain this level. Let's designate this first phase as an adaptation phase.
Fig.1
The second phase is generated by an aggravated contradiction between the achieved result of adaptation - the fact that he became like everyone else in the group - and the need of the individual to discover his individuality, which was not satisfied at the first stage. This phase is characterized by the search for means and ways to designate one's individuality. So, a teenager who got into a new company of older guys for him and initially tried not to stand out in any way, diligently assimilating the norms of communication accepted in it, vocabulary, clothing style, generally accepted interests and tastes, having finally coped with the difficulties of the adaptation period, begins vaguely, and sometimes acutely aware that, adhering to this tactic, he loses himself as a person. In this case, the adolescent mobilizes all his internal resources for the active transmission of his individuality (well-read, athletic success, "experience" in relations between the sexes, etc.). Let us designate this second phase as the phase of individualization.
The third phase is determined by the contradictions between the desire of the subject to be represented by his own characteristics and significant differences in generality, which have developed in the previous phase, and the need of the generality to approve and cultivate only those individual characteristics that appeal to it. As a result, the revealed differences are accepted and supported by the group and thus are fixed as individual psychological traits - the integration of the individual into the community takes place.
Note that integration is also observed when not so much the individual himself brings his need to manifest himself as a personality into line with the needs of the community, but rather the community transforms its needs in accordance with the needs of the individual, who in this case takes the position of leader. However, the mutual transformation of the individual and the group always takes place in one way or another. If the contradiction between the individual and the group turns out to be unresolved, disintegration occurs, resulting in either the displacement of the individual from this community, or its isolation in it, which leads to the consolidation of the characteristics of egocentric individualization, or its return to an earlier phase of development. The third phase will be called the phase of integration of the individual in the community. Within the framework of this phase, in group activity, the individual develops new personality formations that he did not have and, perhaps, other members of the group do not have, but which meet the needs and requirements of group development and the individual's own need to make a significant contribution to the life of the group.
Each of these phases acts as a moment of formation of the individual's personality in its most important manifestations and qualities - microcycles of its development take place here. If a person fails to completely overcome the difficulties of the adaptation period in a social environment that is stable for him and enter the second phase of development (a case of deindividualization), he is likely to develop the qualities of conformity, dependence, self-doubt, and in his abilities. If a person successfully passes the integration phase in a highly developed pro-social community, he develops self-confidence, exactingness towards himself and others, etc.
Since a person in his life does not enter into one relatively stable and referential community for him, and situations of successful adaptation, individualization and integration (or, respectively, maladaptation, deindividualization and disintegration) in the social environment are repeatedly reproduced, and the corresponding neoformations are fixed, he develops a fairly stable structure. personality.
The complex process of personality development in a relatively stable environment becomes even more complicated due to the fact that the social environment is in fact not stable and the individual on his life path is consistently and simultaneously included in communities that are far from identical in their socio-psychological characteristics. Accepted in one reference group, it turns out to be non-integrated, rejected in another, in which it is included after or simultaneously with the first. He again and again has to assert himself in his personal position. Thus, knots of new contradictions are tied, complicating and burdening the process of personality formation, leading to neurotic breakdowns in their extreme manifestations.
In addition, these reference groups themselves are in the process of development, forming a dynamic system, to the changes of which the individual can adapt only if he actively participates in the reproduction of these changes. Therefore, along with the internal dynamics of the development of the individual within a relatively stable social community, it is necessary to take into account the objective dynamics of the development of those groups in which the individual is included, and their specific features.
In this regard, the following hypothesis was put forward: personality is formed in groups hierarchically located at the stages of ontogenesis; the nature of personality development is determined by the level of development of the group in which it is included and in which it is integrated. The most favorable conditions for the formation of valuable personality traits are created by a group of a high level of development. On the basis of this assumption, a second model of personality development can be constructed in the specific historical conditions of upbringing. At the same time, the actual age stages of personality development are distinguished: early childhood (pre-preschool) age (0 - 3), kindergarten childhood (3 - 7), primary school age (7 - 11), middle school (11 - 15), senior school (15 - 18).
In early childhood, personality development is carried out mainly in the family, which, depending on the tactics of upbringing adopted in it, either acts as a pro-social association (with the prevalence of “family cooperation” tactics) or turns into negative aspects for the child that are often completely unaware of parents, which, rather, , inherent in lower developed groups (if adults in the family adhere, for example, to the tactics of "dictatorship" or "blind guardianship"). Depending on the nature of family relations, the personality of the child is initially formed either as a gentle, caring, not afraid to admit his mistakes and oversights, an open person who does not evade responsibility, or as a cowardly, lazy, greedy, capricious self-lover. The importance of the period of early childhood for the formation of personality has been noted by many psychologists, but its role has often been mystified. In fact, from the first year of his life, the child is in a fairly developed group and, with his characteristic activity, associated with the peculiarities of his neuropsychic organization, assimilates the type of relations that has developed in this group, translating these relations into the features of his emerging personality.
The phases of personality development in the pre-preschool age have the following results: the first is adaptation at the level of mastering the simplest skills, mastering the language as a means of familiarization with society with the initial inability to single out one's self; the second is individualization, opposing oneself to others (“my mother”, “I am mother”, “my toys”), demonstrating in behavior one’s differences from others; the third is integration, which allows you to control your behavior, reckon with others, obey their requirements.
The upbringing of a child, starting and continuing in the family, from the age of 3-4, as a rule, proceeds simultaneously in kindergarten, in a group of peers under the guidance of a teacher, where a new situation of personality development arises. It is important to emphasize that the transition to this new stage is not determined by internal psychological patterns (they only ensure readiness for the transition), but is determined from the outside by social causes. If the transition to a new period is not prepared within the previous one by the successful course of the integration phase, then here (as well as at the turn between any other age periods) the conditions for a personality development crisis arise - Adaptation in a new group turns out to be difficult.
Preschool age is characterized by the inclusion of a child in a peer group in kindergarten, managed by a teacher, who, as a rule, becomes the most reference person for him, along with his parents. Three phases of personality development within this period suggest: adaptation - the assimilation of norms and methods of behavior approved by parents and educators in terms of interaction with them and children with each other; individualization - the desire of the child to find in himself something that distinguishes him from other children (or positively in various types amateur performances, or in pranks and whims - in both cases, oriented towards the assessment not so much of other children as of parents and educators); integration - harmonization of the preschooler's unconscious desire to designate his own uniqueness by his actions and the readiness of adults to accept in him only that which corresponds to the task of ensuring his transition to a new stage of social education - to school, that is, in the third period of personality development.
At primary school age, the situation of personality formation in many respects resembles the previous one. The three phases that form it give the student the opportunity to enter a completely new group of classmates for him, which, due to the lack of a jointly distributed educational activity, has an initially diffuse character. This group is led by a teacher. The latter turns out to be even more referential for children in comparison with the kindergarten teacher due to the fact that she, using the marking apparatus, regulates the relationship of the child with other adults, primarily with parents, forms their attitude towards him and his attitude towards himself “as to to another."
It is noteworthy that the factor in the development of the personality of a younger student is not so much the educational activity itself, but the attitude of adults to his academic performance, discipline and diligence. Educational activity, as a personality-forming factor, apparently acquires maximum significance at the senior school age. The third phase of primary school age means, in all likelihood, not so much the integration of the student in the "pupils-student" system, but in the "pupils-teacher", "pupils-parents" system.
The entry into adolescence, compared with the previous ones, has the peculiarity that it does not imply entry into a new group (unless a reference group has arisen outside of school, which often happens), but represents the further development of the personality in a developing group, but under changed conditions (the appearance subject teachers instead of one teacher, the emergence of friendly companies among older teenagers, etc.). The group itself becomes different. The uneven pace of development for boys and girls creates two gender and age groups within the class. The variety of tasks in various types of activity leads to a noticeable differentiation of schoolchildren.
In adolescence, microcycles of personality development run parallel for the same student in different reference groups that compete in their significance for him. Individual qualities that are valued in one group are rejected in another, where other activities and other value orientations dominate, blocking the possibilities of successful integration in it.
The contradictions caused by the adolescent's intergroup position are no less important than the contradictions that arise within the microcycle of his development. the desire to prove oneself as a person at this age acquires a distinct form of self-affirmation, which is explained by the relatively protracted nature of individualization, since the personally significant qualities of a teenager, which allow him to fit, for example, into a friendly company of peers, often do not at all correspond to the requirements of adults, pushing him to the stage of primary adaptation.
The process of personality development in groups united by joint activities is a specific feature of youth, which in its time parameters goes beyond the boundaries of senior school age, which can be designated as a period of early youth. Adaptation, an arrow with a dotted line - asocial, AD - Adaptation, IND - individualization, INT - integration. This era does not end with a period of early youth and the receipt of a matriculation certificate, but continues in labor collectives, where the organic entry of yesterday's schoolchild into the rights of an economically, legally, politically and morally mature person is carried out. However, some young people who graduate from school leave it without crossing the line between adolescence and youth.
The expediency, and perhaps the necessity of highlighting the "era of ascent to social maturity" requires explanation. If we imagine the social environment in its global characteristics as relatively stable, then the entire path to the achievement of this goal can be interpreted as a single and integral stage. In this case, in accordance with the provisions put forward and justified above, it assumes three phases of development, formation, formation of the personality, its entry into the social whole - adaptation, individualization and integration.
). It is in this way that the child eventually turns into a mature independent person, capable (what demographers designate as a unit of the "amateur" part of the population), ready for work, reproduction and education of a new person, for continuing himself in children. The third macrophase (epoch), starting at school, chronologically goes beyond it. We emphasize that adolescence, as is typical for the stage of individualization, acts as an era of a turning point, an aggravation of contradictions.
Epochs are divided into periods of personality development in a particular environment. Some well-known psychological teachings absolutize certain age periods of personality development, building on their basis special psychological concepts of personality: psychoanalytic - based on the absolutization of personality development in early childhood; neo-behavioral theories of social learning and role theories - based on personality development before school and in elementary school; humanistic psychology with its emphasis on self-actualization - based on the extrapolation of adolescent self-assertion. Thus, as a model of a socially mature person, the personality of an individual who has not yet been integrated into public life is taken.
The era of childhood - the longest macrophase of personality development - covers three age periods (pre-preschool, preschool, junior school). The era of adolescence and the period of adolescence coincide. The era of youth and the period of early youth only partially coincide (the early youth of ants for mutual assistance Yu. Frolov ironically remarks that “V. Wagner devotes a lot of work to prove that ants do not help each other when they work together, but only interfere!” ( Frolov Yu. Physiological nature of instincts, 1925, p.74.) Meanwhile, Wagner's research really showed that ants drag an object without cooperating with each other at all, but each on its own, and if their work gives the impression of coordinated actions, then only because each individual ant is moving towards the same goal - to the nest.Apparent consistency occurs when the ants move along a smooth road.If there are obstacles, the ants only interfere with each other.Ants can both help and interfere with each other, depending from circumstances.
Vagner V.A. Biological foundations of comparative psychology (Biopsychology). SPb.- M., 1910 - 1913. Parts I and II, p.38 There. P.89
Vygotsky L.S. Development of higher mental functions. M., 1960. S.369
Only in 1983 V.A. Petrovsky proposed to separate the problems of the mental development of the individual and the development of the personality (see: Petrovsky V.A. The principle of leading activity and the problem of personality-forming activities in the transition from childhood to adulthood // Psychological conditions and mechanisms for educating adolescents. M. 1983. P. 20- 33)
Vygotsky L.S. Sobr. op. T.4. M., 1984. S.258-259
Martsinkovskaya T.D. Chapter from the textbook "Basic Methodological Provisions of Developmental Psychology"
25.10.2003 12:42
| P.A. Malykhin
2.1. The principle of development in psychology
IN psychological science there are several methodological principles that have a great influence on the tasks it solves and on the ways of studying the spiritual life of people. The most important of them are the principles of determinism, consistency and development - the leading one for that area of psychological science that describes the genesis of the psyche. However, before turning to an analysis of the role and means of influence of the principle of development, it is necessary to dwell briefly on the description of two other methodological principles and their place in psychology.
The principle of determinism implies that all mental phenomena are connected according to the law of cause and effect, that is, that everything that happens in our soul has some kind of cause that can be identified and studied and which explains why exactly that, and not other consequence. These connections can be explained by different reasons, and in psychology there were several approaches to explaining them.
Even in antiquity, scientists first started talking about determinism, that there is a universal law, the Logos, which determines what should happen to man, to nature as a whole. Democritus, who developed the extended concept of determinism, wrote that "people invented the idea of chance to cover up ignorance of the matter and inability to manage."
Later, in the 17th century, Descartes introduced the concept of mechanical determinism, proving that all processes in the psyche can be explained on the basis of the laws of mechanics. This is how the idea arose of a mechanical explanation of human behavior, which obeys the law of reflex. Mechanical determinism lasted almost 200 years. Its influence can also be seen in the theoretical positions of the founder of associationist psychology D. Gartley, who believed that associations both in small (psyche) and large (behavior) circles are formed and developed according to the laws of mechanics of I. Newton. Echoes of mechanical determinism can be found even in the psychology of the early twentieth century, for example, in the theory of energyism, which was shared by many famous psychologists, as well as in some postulates of behaviorism, for example, in the idea that positive reinforcement strengthens the reaction, and negative reinforcement weakens it.
But an even greater influence on the development of psychology was biological determinism, which arose with the advent of the theory of evolution. Based on this theory, the development of the psyche is determined by the desire to adapt to the environment, that is, everything that happens in the psyche is aimed at ensuring that a living being adapts as best as possible to the conditions in which it lives. The same law extended to the human psyche, and almost all psychological schools took this kind of determinism as an axiom.
The last kind of determinism, which can be called psychological, proceeds from the fact that the development of the psyche is explained and directed by a specific goal. However, unlike the understanding of the goal in antiquity, when it was somehow external to the psyche (an idea or a form), in this case the goal is inherent in the very content of the soul, the psyche of a particular living being and determines its desire for self-expression and self-realization in reality - in communication, knowledge, creative activity. Psychological determinism also proceeds from the fact that the environment is not just a condition, a zone of human habitation, but a culture that carries the most important knowledge, experiences, which largely change the process of becoming a person. Thus, culture becomes one of the most significant factors influencing the development of the psyche, helping to realize oneself both as a bearer of unique spiritual values and qualities, and as a member of society. Psychological determinism also suggests that the processes taking place in the soul can be aimed not only at adapting to the environment, but also at resisting it, if the environment interferes with the disclosure of potential abilities. this person.
The principle of consistency describes and explains the main types of communication between different aspects of the psyche, the spheres of the mental. He assumes that individual mental phenomena are internally interconnected, forming integrity and acquiring new properties due to this. However, as in the study of determinism, the study of these relationships and their properties has a long history in psychology.
The first studies of the connections that exist between mental phenomena represented the psyche as a sensory mosaic, which consists of several elements - sensations, ideas and feelings. According to certain laws, primarily the laws of associations, these elements are interconnected. This type of connection is called elementarism.
The functional approach, which got its name from the fact that the psyche was represented as a set of separate functions aimed at the implementation of various mental acts and processes (vision, learning, etc.), appeared, like biological determinism, in connection with the theory of evolution . Biological studies have shown that there is a relationship between morphology and function, including mental function. Thus, it was proved that mental processes (memory, perception, etc.) and acts of behavior can be represented as functional blocks. Depending on the type of determination, these blocks could act both according to the laws of mechanics (as separate parts of a complex machine) and according to the laws of biological adaptation, linking the organism and the environment into a single whole. However, this principle did not explain how, with a defect in some function, its compensation occurs, that is, how shortcomings in the work of some departments can be compensated for by the normal work of others - for example, poor hearing - by the development of tactile or vibrational sensations.
This is what explains the principle of consistency, which represents the psyche as a complex system, the individual blocks (functions) of which are interconnected. Thus, the systemic nature of the psyche presupposes its activity, since only in this case both self-regulation and compensation are possible, which are inherent in the psyche even at the lower levels of the development of the psyche. Consistency in the understanding of the psyche does not contradict the awareness of its integrity, the idea of "holism" (integrity), since each mental system (first of all, of course, the human psyche) is unique and integral.
And, finally, the principle of development, which says that the psyche is constantly changing, developing, therefore, the most adequate way to study it is to study the patterns of this genesis, its types and stages. Unsurprisingly, one of the most common psychological methods is precisely genetic.
It has already been said above that the idea of development came to psychology with the theory of evolution, which proves that the psyche changes with a change in the environment and serves to adapt the organism to it. The English psychologist G. Spencer for the first time identified the stages of development of the psyche. Spencer studied the genesis of the psyche, proceeding from the fact that the human psyche is the highest level development, which did not appear immediately, but gradually, in the process of complicating the living conditions and activities of living beings. The initial form of mental life - sensation, developed from irritability, and then from the simplest sensations, diverse forms of the psyche appeared, which appear to be interconnected levels of the formation of consciousness and behavior. All of them are original tools for the survival of the organism, particular forms of adaptation to the environment.
These particular forms of adaptation are:
consciousness behavior
sensation reflex
feelings instinct
memory skill
mind volitional behavior
Speaking about the role of each stage, Spencer emphasized that the main significance of the mind is that it is devoid of the limitations that are inherent in the lower forms of the psyche and therefore ensures the most adequate adaptation of the individual to the environment. This idea about the connection of the psyche and, mainly, the intellect with adaptations will become the leading one for developmental psychology in the first half of the 20th century.
Determining what types of development are inherent in the mental, the principle of development also says that there are two ways of development of the psyche - phylogenetic and ontogenetic, that is, the development of the psyche in the process of the formation of the human race and in the process of a child's life. Studies have shown that these two types of development have a certain correspondence with each other.
American psychologist S. Hall suggested that this similarity is due to the fact that the stages of development of the psyche are fixed in nerve cells and are inherited by the child, and therefore no changes are possible either in the rate of development or in the sequence of stages. The theory that established this rigid connection between phylogenesis and ontogenesis was called the theory of recapitulation, that is, a brief repetition in ontogenesis of the main stages of phylogenetic development.
Subsequent work proved that such a rigid connection does not exist and development can both accelerate and slow down depending on the social situation, and some stages may disappear altogether. Thus, the process of mental development is not linear and depends on the social environment, on the environment and upbringing of the child. At the same time, it is impossible to ignore the well-known analogy that actually exists in the comparative analysis of processes cognitive development, the formation of self-esteem, self-awareness, etc. in small children and primitive peoples.
Therefore, many psychologists (E. Claparede, P.P. Blonsky and others), who studied the genesis of the psyche of children, came to the conclusion that this is a logical correspondence, which can be explained by the fact that the logic of the formation of the psyche, its self-deployment, is the same, that during development the human race, that with the development of the individual.
In addition to principles, the formation of developmental psychology is also influenced by the formation of its categorical system, that is, those permanent problems (invariants) that make up its subject and its content.
Currently, there are several main categories that have been the basis of psychological science throughout almost its entire history. These are the categories of motive, image, activity, personality, communication, experience. It must be emphasized that these categories are common to all branches of psychological science - and for general psychology, and for social or medical psychology, and for developmental psychology. Naturally, in different areas and in different schools these categories had unequal significance, but always, one way or another, were present in psychological concepts.
From the point of view of developmental psychology, it is studied, first of all, the genesis, the dynamics of the formation of an image, motive, activity in children and among different peoples. Thus, various aspects of mental development are distinguished - the development of personality, intellect, social development, which have their own stages and patterns that have become the subject of research by many famous psychologists - V. Stern, J. Piaget, L.S. Vygotsky, P.P. Blonsky and others.
One of the first in psychology was the category of the image, which became the leading one in the study of cognition. Already in antiquity, scientists studied how the image of the world is formed in a person, later the image of oneself, the self-consciousness of a person, its content and structure turned out to be in the center of attention of psychologists. If in the first psychological theories the image of oneself was considered mainly as one of the areas of consciousness, then in modern science "Image-I" has become one of the leading concepts of personality psychology.
The image of an object was considered by many scientists as a signal on the basis of which a reflex, human behavior, is born and begins to function. Studying the process of forming an idea of the surrounding reality, Sechenov came to the conclusion that the image is closely connected with movement and regulates human activity. He argued that mental development occurs through internalization, that is, the transition of external images and actions into internal ones, which, gradually curtailing and automating, form the mental qualities of a person. So thought is an internalization of relations between objects, and self-esteem is an internalization of norms of behavior.
The image as a sensory basis of thought was considered an unshakable postulate by scientists who considered the psyche as a sensory mosaic consisting of sensations and ideas. The ugly nature of thinking became one of the most important discoveries of the Würzburg school at the beginning of the 20th century. The image as the basis of perception, its holistic and systemic nature has become the leading category in the psychological school of Gestalt psychology.
Considering the genesis of gestalts, scientists came to the conclusion that the elements of the field are combined into a structure depending on such relationships as proximity, similarity, isolation, symmetry. There are a number of other factors on which the perfection and stability of a figure or structural unification depends - rhythm in the construction of rows, the commonality of light and color, etc. The action of all these factors obeys the basic law, called by Wertheimer the “law of pregnancy” (or the law of “good” form), which is interpreted as the desire (even at the level of the electrochemical processes of the cerebral cortex) to simple and clear forms and simple and stable states.
Studying the process of development of images, scientists argued that the main properties of perception appear gradually, with the maturation of gestalts. This is how constancy and correctness of perception appear, as well as its meaningfulness. These data led Gestalt psychologists to the conclusion that the leading mental process, which actually determines the level of development of the child's psyche, is perception. It is on how the child perceives the world, scientists have argued, that his behavior and understanding of the situation depend.
Studies of the development of perception in children, which were conducted in Koffka's laboratory, showed that a child is born with a set of vague and not very adequate images of the outside world. Gradually, in the course of life, these images are differentiated and become more and more accurate. So at birth, children have a vague image of a person, the gestalt of which includes his voice, face, hair, and characteristic movements. That's why Small child(1-2 months) may not recognize even a close adult if he abruptly changes his hairstyle or changes his usual clothes to a completely unfamiliar one. However, by the end of the first half of the year, this vague image breaks up, turning into a series of clear images: the image of a face in which the eyes, mouth, hair stand out as separate gestalts, images of the voice, body, etc. also appear.
Koffka's research has shown that color perception also develops. At the beginning, children perceive the environment only as colored or uncolored, without distinguishing colors. In this case, the uncolored is perceived as a background, and the colored is perceived as a figure. Gradually, the colored is divided into warm and cold, and in the environment, children already distinguish several sets of figure-ground. These are uncolored-colored warm, uncolored-colored cold, which are perceived as several different images, for example: colored cold (background) - colored warm (figure) or colored warm (background) - colored cold (figure). Thus, the previously single gestalt turns into four, which more accurately reflect the color. Over time, these images are also crushed, since yellow and red colors stand out in the warm, and green and blue in the cold. This process goes on for a long time until, finally, the child begins to perceive all colors correctly. Based on these experimental data, Koffka came to the conclusion that the combination of the figure and the background against which the given object is shown plays an important role in the development of perception.
He argued that the development of color vision is based on contrast in the perception of figure-ground combinations, formulating one of the laws of perception, which was called transduction. This law proved that children do not perceive the colors themselves, but their relationships. So in Koffka's experiment, children were asked to find a candy that was in one of two cups covered with colored cardboard. The candy was always in a cup, which was closed with a dark gray cardboard, while there was never a black candy under it. In the control experiment, the children had to choose not between a black and dark gray lid, as they are accustomed to, but between dark gray and light gray. In the event that they perceived a pure color, they would choose the usual dark gray cover, but the children chose a light gray one, since they were guided not by the pure color, but by the ratio of colors, choosing a lighter shade. A similar experiment was carried out with animals (chickens), which also perceived only combinations of colors, and not the color itself.
G. Folkelt, another representative of this school, studied the development of images in children. . He paid special attention to the study of children's drawings. Of great interest are his experiments on the study of the drawing of geometric figures by children of different ages. So when drawing a cone, 4-5 year old children drew a circle and a triangle side by side. Volkelt explained this by the fact that they still do not have an adequate image for this figure, and therefore in the drawing they use two similar gestalts. Over time, their integration and refinement take place, thanks to which children begin to draw not only planar, but also three-dimensional figures. Volkelt spent and comparative analysis drawings of those objects that the children saw and those that they did not see, but only felt. At the same time, it turned out that in the case when the children felt, for example, a cactus covered with a scarf, they drew only thorns, conveying their general feeling from the object, not its form. That is, what happened, as the Gestalt psychologists proved, was the grasping of an integral image of an object, its good form, and then its enlightenment and differentiation. These studies by Gestalt psychologists were of great importance for domestic research work. visual perception in the school of Zaporozhets and led the psychologists of this school (Zaporozhets, Wenger) to the idea that in the process of perception there are certain images - sensory standards that underlie the perception and recognition of objects.
The same transition from grasping general situation to its differentiation occurs in intellectual development, argued V. Koehler. Explaining the phenomenon of "insight" he showed that at the moment when phenomena enter into a different situation, they acquire a new function. The connection of objects in new combinations associated with their new functions leads to the formation of a new gestalt, the awareness of which is the essence of thinking. Köhler called this process "Gestalt restructuring" and believed that such a restructuring occurs instantly and does not depend on the subject's past experience, but only on the way objects are arranged in the field. It is this “restructuring” that occurs at the moment of “insight”.
Proving the universality of the problem-solving process he discovered, Koehler conducted a series of experiments to study the process of thinking in children. He offered children problem situations in which, for example, they were asked to get a typewriter, which was located high on a cabinet. To do this, it was necessary to use different objects - a ladder, a box or a chair. It turned out that if there was a ladder in the room, the children quickly solved the proposed problem. It was more difficult if it was necessary to guess to use the box, but the most difficult was the option in which there were no other objects in the room, except for a chair, which had to be moved away from the table and used as a stand. Köhler explained these results by the fact that from the very beginning the ladder is functionally recognized as an object that helps to get something high up. Therefore, its inclusion in the gestalt with the wardrobe does not present any difficulties for the child. The inclusion of the box already needs some rearrangement, since it can be recognized in several functions, as for the chair, the child is aware of it not by itself, but already included in another gestalt - with a table, with which it appears to the child as a whole. Therefore, in order to solve this problem, children must first break the previously holistic image - a table-chair into two, and then connect the chair with a wardrobe in new image realizing its new functional role. That is why this option is the most difficult to solve.
These experiments, proving the universality of "insight", revealed, from the point of view of Koehler, both the general direction of mental development and the role of learning in this process. Proving the main position of this school that mental development is associated with the growth and differentiation of gestalts, that is, with the transition from grasping the general situation to its differentiation and the formation of a new, more adequate gestalt situation, he revealed the conditions conducive to this transition. Such development, Köhler believed, occurs both suddenly and in the process of learning, which also leads to the formation of a new structure and, consequently, to a different perception and awareness of the situation. That is, under certain conditions, training can contribute to the development of thinking, and this is not associated with the organization of the search activity of the child according to the type of trial and error, but with the creation of conditions conducive to "insight". Thus, Köhler's experiments proved the instantaneous, and not extended in time, nature of thinking, which is based on "insight", that is, insight. Somewhat later, Buhler, who came to a similar conclusion, called this phenomenon "aha-experience", also emphasizing its suddenness and simultaneousness. Wertheimer, who studied the process of creative thinking in children and adults, came to similar conclusions about the role of "insight" in the restructuring of previous images in solving problems.
The study of the genesis of perception and thinking in Gestalt psychology has demonstrated the relationship between sensory and mental images. The study of this connection, as well as the combination of mental image and word, has been and remains one of the most important problems for psychology. Suffice it to say that such great scientists as A.A. Potebnya, L.S. Vygotsky, G.G. Shpet, J. Piaget, D. Bruner and others devoted their most significant works to the study of precisely this problem.
Both sensual and mental images are the content of consciousness, so the totality of images can be considered as a certain analogue of this philosophical category. However, for psychology, the question of the degree of awareness of images is also significant, since both the unconscious and the supraconscious play no less important role than consciousness.
Piaget, speaking about the genesis of the images of the surrounding world, also came to the conclusion that mental development is associated with internalization, since the first mental operations are external, sensorimotor subsequently pass into the internal plan, turning into logical, proper mental operations. He also described the main property of these operations - their reversibility. Describing the concept of reversibility, Piaget cites as an example arithmetic operations - addition and subtraction, multiplication and division, which can be read both from left to right and from right to left.
The study of the process of development of images led D. Bruner to the conclusion that perception is selective and can be distorted under the influence of internal motives, goals, attitudes or defense mechanisms. So, for example, the more value ascribed to children certain subjects, the larger their physical magnitude seems. He also showed that in a situation of frustration, even neutral words are often perceived by children as disturbing and threatening, hence their inappropriately aggressive behavior in such situations. On the basis of these studies, Bruner introduced the term "social perception", denoting its dependence on the social experience of children.
Analyzing the structure of perception, Bruner singled out three components in it: ideas about the surrounding world in the form of actions, in the form of images and in the form of words (linguistic form). From the point of view of the theory of perceptual hypotheses he created, all cognitive processes are categorization processes, that is, the objects of the surrounding world are combined with each other on the basis of the association rules (categories) learned by children. In the process of combining, hypotheses consistently arise about what qualities are the basis for combining these objects and whether all these objects have these qualities. Thus mastering conceptual thinking occurs as learning which properties of the environment are most significant for grouping objects into certain classes.
Another very significant problem for developmental psychology was the study of the genesis of activity. Speaking about the category of activity, it is necessary to remember that in psychology both external activity (behavior) and internal, primarily mental, activity are considered. At the first stages of the development of psychology, scientists did not question the idea that behavior is the same psychological concept as thinking. However, over time, psychologists, as mentioned above, began to identify the psyche only with consciousness, and all external manifestations of activity thus went beyond the scope of the mental proper. Therefore, the share of psychological research was left to study only the internal, mental activity. This hindered the development of objective methods for studying the psyche and stopped the development of experimental psychology. In the middle of the last century, the English psychologist G. Spencer first said that the subject of psychology is the association between the internal and external, that is, between consciousness and behavior. Thus, the unique position of psychology was not only fixed, but also the place of external activity as a psychological category was legitimized. In modern psychology, there are several schools for which the category of activity is leading - this is both behaviorism and domestic psychology, in which the theory of activity occupies one of the central places. The study of internal and external activities, their interrelationships and mutual transitions is one of the central problems for developmental psychology.
An experimental study of the conditions that promote or hinder the formation of new types of activity, that is, the formation of connections between stimuli and reactions, was the focus of attention of Thorndike, who was at the origins of the behaviorist direction. He invented special "problem boxes", which were experimental devices of varying degrees of complexity. An animal placed in such a box had to, overcoming various obstacles, independently find a way out - solve the problem. Experiments were carried out mainly on cats, but there were also boxes for dogs and lower monkeys. Later, special devices for children were also designed. An animal placed in a box could get out of it and receive additional food only by activating a special device - pressing a spring, pulling a loop, etc.
The behavior of the animals was the same. They made many erratic movements - rushed in different directions, scratched the box, bit it, etc., until one of the movements accidentally turned out to be successful. On subsequent trials, the number of useless movements decreased, the animal needed less and less time to find a way out, until it began to act without error. The progress of the experiments and the results were depicted graphically in the form of curves, where repeated samples were marked on the abscissa, and the elapsed time (in minutes) was marked on the y-axis. The resulting curve (Thorndike called it the "learning curve") gave grounds to assert that the animal operates by the method of "trial and error." This was regarded as a general pattern of behavior, which, he believed, was also confirmed in experiments conducted by Thorndike on children.
In his later work, Thorndike focused on studying the dependence of the learning process on factors such as rewards and punishments. Based on the materials received, he derived four basic laws of learning:
1. the law of repetition (exercise). Its essence is that the more often the connection between the stimulus and the reaction is repeated, the faster it is fixed and the stronger it is. According to this law, the reaction to a situation is associated with this situation in proportion to the frequency, strength and duration of the repetition of connections.
2. the law of effect, which says that of several reactions to the same situation, other things being equal, those that cause a feeling of satisfaction are more firmly associated with the situation. Later, this law was modified, since it turned out that the result of any of his activities is important for the child, that is, at the end of the learned reaction, there must be a reinforcement, no matter positive or negative.
3. the law of readiness, the essence of which is that the formation of new connections depends on the state of the subject.
4. the law of associative shift - if, with the simultaneous appearance of two stimuli, one of them causes a positive reaction, then the other acquires the ability to cause the same reaction. That is, a neutral stimulus, associated by association with a significant one, also begins to cause the desired behavior.
They also singled out additional conditions for the success of learning - the ease of distinguishing between a stimulus and a reaction and the child's awareness of the connection between them.
Thorndike's data led him to the conclusion that learning by trial and error occurs not only in the formation of motor acts, but also intellectual ones, that is, he, like Sechenov, argued that mental processes are internalized external reactions.
The study of the development of complex behaviors was at the center scientific interests and another representative of the school of behaviorism - B. Skinner. He sought to understand the causes of behavior and learn how to manage it. Based on the idea that not only skills, but also knowledge are variations of behavior, Skinner develops its special type - operant behavior. He believed that the human psyche is based on reflexes of various kinds and varying degrees of complexity. Comparing his approach to the formation of reflexes with that of Pavlov, he emphasizes the essential differences between them. He calls the conditioned reflex formed in Pavlov's experiments stimulus behavior, since its formation is associated with an association between different stimuli and does not depend on the subject's own activity. So the dog is always given meat on call, regardless of what she is doing at that moment. Thus, an association occurs between the meat and the bell, in response to which salivation is observed. However, Skinner emphasized that such a reaction is quickly formed, but also quickly disappears without reinforcement, it cannot be the basis of the subject's permanent behavior.
In contrast to this approach, in operant learning, only behavior is reinforced, operations that the subject performs in this moment. Of great importance is the fact that in this case a complex reaction is divided into a number of simple ones, following one after another and leading to the desired goal. So when teaching a pigeon a complex reaction - leaving the cage by pressing the lever with its beak, Skinner reinforced each movement of the pigeon in the right direction, ensuring that, in the end, the pigeon accurately performed this complex operation. This approach to the formation of the desired response had great advantages over the traditional one. First of all, this behavior was much more stable, dying off very slowly even in the absence of reinforcement. Skinner drew attention to the fact that even a one-time reinforcement can have a significant effect, since at least a random connection is established between the reaction and the appearance of the stimulus. If the stimulus was meaningful to the individual, he will try to repeat the response that brought him success. Such behavior Skinner called "superstitious", pointing to its significant prevalence.
Equally important is the fact that learning under operant conditioning is faster and easier. This is due to the fact that the experimenter has the opportunity to observe not only the final result (product), but also the process of performing the action (after all, it is decomposed into components that are implemented in a given sequence). In fact, there is an exteriorization not only of performance, but also of orientation and control over the action, and, what is especially important, such an approach is possible not only when teaching certain skills, but also knowledge. Skinner's method of programmatic learning made it possible to optimize educational process, develop corrective programs for underachieving and mentally retarded children. These programs had huge advantages over traditional teaching programs, as they gave the teacher the opportunity to control and, if necessary, correct the process of solving the problem, instantly noticing the student's mistake. In addition, the efficiency and accuracy of performance increased the motivation for learning, the activity of students, and also made it possible to individualize the learning process depending on the pace of learning. However, these programs also had a significant drawback, since exteriorization, which plays a positive role at the beginning of learning, inhibits the development of convoluted, mental actions, does not make it possible to internalize and collapse the scheme of solving the problem developed by the teacher.
Study of development dynamics cognitive processes and the behavior of children showed the enormous role of communication in their mental development. The words that a person is a social being, that is, cannot exist outside of communication with others, were expressed by Aristotle ... Over time, psychology received more and more data about the crucial role of other people in the development of the psyche, in shaping ideas about oneself and the world . With the development of social psychology, a serious study of the communication of adults with each other begins, with special attention being paid to the communication of people belonging to different nations, cultures, as well as the features of mass communications. The studies made it possible to single out different aspects of communication (communicative, perceptual, interactive), its structure and dynamics. An analysis of the direction of development of psychological science shows that the importance of this category, as well as the proportion of studies devoted to various problems of communication, will continue to grow.
In developmental psychology, the huge role of the adult and the adult-child relationship has become one of the axioms, indicating that the full-fledged mental development of the child cannot be carried out in isolation. We also study the role of communication in the process of inculturation of children, their mastery of the norms and rules of behavior adopted in a given social group, the attitudes and value orientations that are significant for it. One of the first, as shown above, was Baldwin, who spoke about the role of communication in the process of socialization of children, emphasizing that interpersonal communication is the most important factor in the formation of the human psyche.
Many psychoanalysts, especially E. Erickson, also wrote about the importance of communication and the role of an adult as a translator of cultural norms. He called the process of personal formation the process of identity formation, emphasizing the importance of preserving and maintaining the integrity of the personality, the integrity of the Ego, which is the main factor in resistance to neurosis. He singled out three parts in the structure of identity. These are 1) somatic identity, since the body seeks to maintain its integrity when interacting with the outside world, 2) personal identity, which integrates the external and internal experience of a person, and 3) social identity, which consists in the joint creation and maintenance by people of a certain order, stability.
Communication has a significant impact on the development of all types of identity, but especially on its social part. Considering the role of the environment, culture and social environment of the child, Erickson places special emphasis on the relationship between the child and the family, and, more specifically, on the relationship between the child and the mother. At the same time, he emphasized that the formation of social identity is influenced not only by parents and people close to the child, but also by friends, work, and society as a whole. Erickson attached great importance to the external stability of the system in which a person lives, since the violation of this stability, the change of landmarks, social norms and values also violates identity and devalues human life. He believed that the "innate drives" of a person are fragments of aspirations that must be collected, acquired significance and organized in a period of protracted childhood. The lengthening of the period of childhood is precisely connected with this need for the socialization of children. Therefore, Erickson argued that the "instinctive weapons" (sexual and aggressive) in humans are much more mobile and plastic than in animals. The organization and direction of development of these innate inclinations is connected with the methods of upbringing and education, which change from culture to culture and are predetermined by traditions. That is, each society develops its own institutions of socialization in order to help children with different individual qualities become full-fledged members of this social group.
The problem of the development of communication between adults and children was the focus of M.I. Lisina and her staff. Several stages were identified in this process during the first seven years of children's lives, as well as the criteria for their formation and those new formations in the structure of personality and intellect that are directly related to one or another stage of communication. In this concept, communication is considered as a condition and one of the main factors in the mental and personal development of the child, it ensures his familiarization with the socio-historical experience of mankind. The development of communication with an adult occurs as a change of four qualitative steps: 1) situational-personal communication - genetically the first form of communication between a child and an adult. It is typical for children in the first six months of life; 2) situational business communication - the second most common form of communication for children, which is typical for young children; 3) extra-situational-cognitive, which occurs at preschool age; and 4) extra-situational-personal communication with an adult occurs in the second half of preschool childhood.
In the process of development of communication, its motivation also changes. In accordance with the steps mentioned above, the following motives for children's communication were identified: 1) the need for benevolent attention (0;02 - 0;06); 2) the need for cooperation (0; 06 - 3; 0); 3) the need for a respectful attitude of an adult (3; 0 - 5; 0); 4) the need for mutual understanding and empathy (5; 0 - 7; 0). As studies by Lisina and Ruzskaya showed, a slightly different motivation is present when communicating with peers: 1) the need to participate in peer games, their attention and goodwill (2; 0 - 4; 0); 2) the need for cooperation and recognition by peers (4; 0 - 6; 0); 3) the need for empathy and mutual understanding (senior before school age).
In the works of A.S. Zaluzhny and S.S. Molozhavyi, who studied the dynamics and stages of development of children's groups, intragroup differentiation, types of leadership in children's groups, it was shown that endo- and exogenous factors influence the growth of organization and the increase in the existence of the team. At the same time, exogenous factors were understood as any influence of the environment, and endogenous - the behavior of individual members of the team. One of the most significant internal factors, as shown by the studies of A.S. Zaluzhny and A.B. Salkind, is a phenomenon of leadership. A significant amount of experimental work has been devoted to the phenomenon of leadership in children's groups and the process of group differentiation. Moreover, it was shown that leaders not only organize the team, but also help direct the excess energy of the group in the right direction.
As the team develops, there is a selection of leaders or leaders of the group, a center grouping around this leader and children dropping out of the group. According to scientists, unpopular children are either disorganizers who interfere with the work of other children, or passive children engaged in some kind of extraneous activity. Zalkind and Zaluzny developed methods for correcting children's communication, believing that active disruptive children should be placed in groups of older and stronger children, and isolated, anxious children should be placed in groups of younger children, where they can show their abilities and even become leaders. Salkind stressed that all children should go through the school of leadership, especially during adolescence, as it helps to neutralize the negative effects of puberty during this period.
Thus, in the works of scientists from different areas, the importance of communication for the development of the personality of children, their assimilation of the norms and rules of the society in which they live, their culture was shown. However, communication is also necessary for the full intellectual development of children, the formation of their thinking and speech, which has also been proven in the works of many psychologists.
Speaking about the existence of natural and higher, that is, culturally conditioned, mental functions, Vygotsky came to the conclusion that the main difference between them lies in the level of arbitrariness. That is, unlike natural mental processes that cannot be regulated by a person, people can consciously control higher mental functions. This regulation is associated with the mediated nature of the HMF, and they are mediated by a sign or stimulus-means, which creates an additional connection between the influencing stimulus and the person's reaction (both behavioral and mental). The scheme of mental processes in Vygotsky's view looks like this:
S R - natural, direct mental functions
S R - higher, mediated mental functions.
Unlike a stimulus - a tool that can be invented by the child himself (for example, a knot on a scarf or a stick instead of a thermometer), signs are not invented by children, but are acquired by them in communication with adults. Thus, the sign first appears on the outer plane, on the plane of communication, and then passes into the inner plane, the plane of consciousness. Or, as Vygotsky wrote: “Each higher mental function appears twice on the stage. Once as external, interpsychic, and the second time as internal, intrapsychic.
At the same time, signs, being a product of social development, bear the imprint of the culture of the society in which the child grows up. Children learn signs in the process of communication and begin to use them to control their inner mental life. Thanks to the internalization of signs, the sign function of consciousness is formed in children, the formation of such actually human mental processes as logical thinking, will, and speech is carried out.
D. Bruner also wrote about the importance of communication and culture for the intellectual development of children. On the basis of his cross-cultural studies, Bruner defined intelligence as the result of the child's assimilation of "amplifiers" developed in a given culture, that is, methods, signs, operations that help the child cope with the solution of problems that arise before him. Success is increased by artificially strengthening the motor, sensory and mental capabilities of a person. These "amplifiers" can be both real, technical, and symbolic, with different cultures developing different "amplifiers".
No less important in psychology is the category of motive. Already in the first psychological theories, scientists considered the source of activity, sought to find the reason that prompts a person to move, that is, they sought to understand the motives that underlie our behavior. There were attempts to find a material explanation for these motives, while the motives were associated with moving atoms and "animal spirits", there were also theories that spoke of their non-materiality. So Plato spoke about passionate or lustful souls, which are the bearers of motives, and Leibniz believed that activity, an impulse to action is a property of the soul-monad. However, regardless of the interpretation of the nature of the motive, it has, as a rule, been associated with emotions and has been one of the main problems for all psychologists. Therefore, it is natural that in modern psychology the concept of motive (need, attraction, desire) has become the leading category for almost all psychological schools.
In domestic psychology, scientists emphasized the connection between the development of motives and the process of personality formation, its socialization. Revealing the dynamics of the formation of motives, the transformation of "known" motives into "actual" ones, as well as the relationship between motives and goals, Leontiev proved the leading importance of culture, interpersonal communication on the complex process of ascent from individual to personality. S.L. wrote about the development of motives that form the orientation of the personality. Rubinshtein, the connection between motivation and relationships that people enter into in the process of their personal development was studied by V.N. Myasishchev.
The study of the relationship between the genesis of motives and the process of personality formation was one of the central problems for humanistic psychology. Speaking about the structure of personality, A. Maslow associated it with the "pyramid of needs" of a person, which looks like this.
physiological needs - food, water, sleep, etc.
need for security - stability, order
the need for love and belonging - family, friendship.
need for respect - self-respect, recognition
the need for self-actualization - the development of abilities
Subsequently, studying the development of needs, Maslow abandoned such a rigid hierarchy, combining all existing needs into two classes - the needs of need (deficit) and the need for development (self-actualization). Thus, he distinguishes two levels of human existence - the existential one, focused on personal growth and self-actualization, and the differential one, focused on satisfying frustrated needs. In the future, he singles out groups of existential and deficient needs, designating them with the terms B. and D. (for example, B-love and D-love), and also introduces the term "metamotivation" to denote the actual existential motivation leading to personal growth.
The scientist believed that every person is born with a certain set of qualities, abilities, which constitute the essence of his "I", his "self" and which a person needs to realize and manifest in his life and activity. Therefore, it is precisely conscious aspirations and motives, and not unconscious instincts, that make up the very essence of the human personality, distinguish man from animals. However, this desire for self-actualization encounters various difficulties and obstacles, misunderstanding of others and their own weaknesses and insecurities. Therefore, the main thing in personal growth is precisely the awareness of one's needs and, most importantly, the awareness and development of the need for self-actualization, its specific content.
One of the most significant concepts of motivation in developmental psychology in recent years has become the "attachment theory", developed by the English psychologist and psychiatrist D. Bowlby . Working with juvenile delinquents led him to the idea that the main problems experienced by them in the process of socialization are associated with a violation of communication with parents, a lack of warmth and care at an early age. His idea was that in the first months of life, a close emotional bond is established between mother and child, which is not reducible to either sexuality or instinctive behavior. A sharp break in this connection leads to serious disturbances in the mental development of the child, primarily in the structure of his personality. These disorders may not appear immediately (and this is the difference between the phenomena described by Bowlby and hospitalism and similar forms of deviations), but much later, often only in adolescence.
Bowlby argued that a mother is a reliable protection for a small child, a kind of base that he leaves from time to time, trying to explore the world around him. However, this exploratory activity is stable and adequate in cases where the child is sure that he can return to the protection of his mother at any moment. Thus, the main goal of forming an emotional bond between a child and mother is to give the child a sense of security and safety. It is the warmth and affection that comes from the mother in the first years of life that are important for the child, he emphasized, and not the proper care and education provided by her. His research has shown that children who have close emotional contact with their mothers have higher performance levels. cognitive activity than children who grew up in cold families or children who lost their mother at preschool age. He also argued that adolescents who did not have a stable emotional connection with their mother are more likely to experience depression, and changes in the personality structure are formed.
Bowlby's work, as well as research by other psychologists, proved a close relationship between motivation and human experiences. That is, the category of motive is closely connected with another category - experiences, the emotional response of a person to the phenomena of the outside world and his actions and thoughts. Even Epicurus argued that it is experiences that direct and regulate behavior, and modern psychologists consider them as such. Despite the fact that the problem of the nature and dynamics of emotional processes has not yet received an unambiguous solution in psychology, the very fact of the importance of emotions and experiences not only in the regulation of activity, but also in the appropriation of knowledge, identification with the outside world, including significant people, is beyond doubt.
Evidence for the lifetime formation of basic experiences was given by Watson in his experiments on the formation of emotions. He experimentally proved that it is possible to form a fear response to a neutral stimulus. In his experiments, the children were shown a rabbit, which they took in their hands and wanted to stroke, but at that moment they received an electric shock. Naturally, the child frightenedly threw the rabbit and began to cry. However, the next time he again approached the animal and received an electric shock, therefore, on the third or fourth time, the appearance of a rabbit even at a distance from them caused an emotion of fear in most children. After this negative emotion consolidated, Watson tried once again to change the emotional attitude of the children, forming an interest and love for the rabbit. In this case, the child began to show it during a delicious meal. The presence of this important primary stimulus was an indispensable condition for the formation of a new reaction. At first, the children stopped eating and began to cry, but since the rabbit did not approach them, remaining far away, at the end of the room, and delicious food was nearby, the child quickly calmed down and continued to eat. After the children stopped crying when the rabbit appeared at the end of the room, the experimenter gradually moved the rabbit closer and closer to the child, while adding tasty things to his plate. Gradually, the children stopped paying attention to the rabbit and in the end they reacted calmly, even when it was located near their plate, took it in their arms and tried to feed it with something tasty. Thus, Watson argued, our emotions are the result of our habits and can change dramatically depending on the circumstances.
Watson's observations showed that in the event that the formed fear reaction to a rabbit was not converted to a positive one, a similar feeling of fear later arose in children at the sight of other fur-covered objects. Proceeding from this, he sought to prove that in people, on the basis of conditioned reflexes, persistent affective complexes can be formed according to a given program. Moreover, he believed that the facts discovered by him prove that it is possible to form a certain, strictly defined model of behavior in all people. He wrote: “Give me one hundred children of the same age, and after a certain time I will form absolutely identical people out of them, with the same tastes and behavior.”
Emotions also play a decisive role in the process of socialization of children. The dynamics of entering a certain social reality involves understanding the features of this reality, accepting its norms and values as one's own ideals and attitudes. However, unlike social adaptation, socialization involves not only the passive acceptance of certain norms and rules of behavior, but also their active use, that is, the development of certain knowledge and skills that are adequately applied by a person in a given social reality. One of the important constituents is the national culture, referring to which a person forms a national identity. The formation of this particular aspect of socialization, associated with the development of an active position, with the desire to fulfill oneself within the framework of a certain social situation, causes the greatest difficulties.
Since socialization actually comes down to an adequate internalization of external requirements, their transformation into the “subjective reality of the individual”, it becomes the most important question O psychological ways, which contribute to the translation of these requirements into the internal structure of the personality. One of the most important of them is emotional mediation, the formation of emotions (both positive and negative) in relation to the norms, values and rules accepted in society. These emotions, in contrast to the emotions that arise in relation to objects vital for a person (food, danger, etc.), can be called social.
The well-known Russian scientist Shpet attached great importance to the problem of social emotions, in whose works this problem acquires a modern sound. He believed that not objective connections and knowledge, but subjective experiences determine the process of referring oneself to a given ethnic group or social group. And therefore, when a rejection occurs, the subject can “change” his people, “enter into the composition and spirit of another people”, however, this process requires long and hard work and time, since in the event that only external assimilation of a new language, culture occurs or norms of behavior, a person remains a marginal who, having moved away from one social group, did not become a member of another, since in order to fully identify himself with the new society, emotional acceptance of those objective elements that make up the content of social consciousness is necessary. Shpet's research led him to the conclusion that one of the main components of mentality is the commonality of emotional experiences, the relationship of a given people to certain historical and social objects.
Social experiences reveal for people the meaning that is given to the environment by the social or national group to which they belong. Such a commonality of social experiences arises in the process of the child's communication with others, who transmit emotional standards to him. Emotional standards contain certain cultural knowledge, moral and evaluative categories, stereotypes, an adequate emotional attitude to which optimizes the process of socialization. At the same time, at first, this knowledge is neutral for the child (as well as for an adult entering a new society), gradually acquiring emotional richness.
Studies of the process of motivational and emotional development of children, as already mentioned, are directly related to the study of the formation of their personality. However, the category of personality itself, unlike others, appeared in psychology relatively recently, although questions about the essence of a person, the development of his idea of himself and self-assessment were raised in antiquity. However, at that time the concept of personality and man was considered as identical, and there were no modern concepts of personality, individual and individuality. For a long time, as already noted, the leading questions of psychology were questions of cognition, and the categories of the image and internal, mental activity remained leading. It was not for nothing that the well-known scientist W. Wundt spoke of the dictates of "intellectualism" in psychology, opposing his voluntaristic psychology to the former one, which mainly studies "a man who knows," and not who feels. Only with the advent depth psychology it is personality that has become one of the leading categories and remains so in modern psychological science, in which the problem of personality, its structure and genesis is studied by various schools (humanistic, behaviorism, domestic psychology).
At the beginning of the 20th century, one of the few psychologists who interpreted personality as an integrative whole, considering it one of the most important problems in psychology, was V.M. Bekhterev. He introduced the concepts of the individual, individuality and personality into psychology, believing that the individual is the biological basis on which the social sphere personality. Studying individual characteristics, which, according to Bekhterev, are innate, he argued that individual typology largely determines the characteristics of personal development. He attributed the speed of differentiation and generalization of combination (conditioned) reflexes, abilities, interests and inclinations of children, resistance to group pressure to individual qualities.
Of great importance were Bekhterev's studies of the personality structure, in which he singled out passive and active, conscious and unconscious parts, their role in various activities and their relationship. Interestingly, like Freud, he noted the dominant role of unconscious motives in sleep or hypnosis and considered it necessary to investigate the influence of experience acquired at this time on conscious behavior. Investigating the methods of correcting deviant behavior, he proceeded from the limitations of those methods of correction that put positive reinforcement of desirable behavior and negative reinforcement of undesirable behavior at the forefront. He believed that any reinforcement could fix the reaction. You can get rid of unwanted behavior only by creating a stronger motive that absorbs all the energy spent on unwanted behavior. Thus, for the first time in psychology, ideas about the role of sublimation and canalization of energy in a socially acceptable way appear, which were subsequently actively developed by psychoanalysis.
In modern psychology, several concepts are distinguished that characterize the spiritual world of a person, his self-consciousness and values, features of aspirations and attitudes towards the outside world. Each of them has a specific meaning, emphasizing a certain aspect in the complex picture of the inner world of people.
The concept of an individual considers a person as a representative of his biological class "Homo sapiens". Individual properties characterize what is common to all people, they are innate, and some of them are inherited. Although the qualities of an individual themselves do not contain psychological properties, they are necessary for the normal development of the psyche, the formation of individual characteristics and personality traits, as, for example, the cerebral cortex is necessary for the development of cognitive processes.
Individuality is determined by those special features that are inherent in each individual person and distinguish people from each other. Individual characteristics are not inherited, that is, they are not transmitted to children from parents, but are associated with the specifics of the nervous system and therefore appear from birth. The close connection of individuality with the activity of the brain also determines the fact that the degree of influence of the social situation on the formation of individual characteristics is limited. Individual qualities, of course, develop in the process of life, becoming more and more pronounced, bright. Therefore, small children are more similar to each other than teenagers or adults. At the same time, some features that are not in demand by the situation, on the contrary, fade, some partially change. However, it is impossible to completely change the individuality of a person.
Modern psychology distinguishes two levels in the formation of individuality. The first one is associated with the features of the structure and dynamics of the nervous system, represented by individual features or qualities, for example, the speed of switching or orientation. Since these traits are related, as has been said, to dynamics, they are called psychodynamic qualities. The lateral organization of the brain (that is, the dominance of the right or left hemisphere) also affects the development of personality.
However, it is not so much these traits in themselves that are important, but their connection with each other, the disposition of individual characteristics that develops into a certain type of personality. It is this combination of individual features that provides the originality of behavior, communication and knowledge of a person, which is manifested in the individual style of life inherent in him.
The concept of the subject, which was already mentioned in the third chapter, is connected, first of all, with the understanding of the fact that activity comes from it, and not from outside. That is, the subject, as a carrier of activity, chooses the direction and objects of his activity himself, since the source of energy is in himself, and not in the outside world. The surrounding situation, the psychological "field of objects", can only actualize this or that need, expand the ways of satisfying it.
The concept of personality implies, first of all, those qualities that have been formed in a person in the process of life, under the influence of communication with others, the impact of a social situation. Since all people who have not been subjected to artificial isolation in the first months of life (children - Mowgli) experience these environmental influences, each person is a person in this regard, since his individual prerequisites for the development of the psyche change under the influence of culture, society. At the same time, there is another level in personality development, which implies the ability of people to act under the influence of their own motivation even in emergency circumstances, to make a reasonable and conscious choice and overcome the pressure of the “field”, the situation. As a rule, this happens in those cases when the requirements of the environment come into conflict with the leading motivation of a person, with his need to remain true to himself, to his vocation, to fulfill himself.
Interest in the individual characteristics that distinguish people from each other arose in antiquity. The first theories explaining the nature of temperament belong to the same period - this is how this characteristic of a person was called. Famous scientists Hippocrates and Galen developed a humoral concept that connects temperament with various body juices - mucus, yellow and black bile and blood. Violation of the harmonious ratio of these juices (akrasia) leads to the dominance of one of the types of temperament - phlegmatic, choleric, melancholic or sanguine. Subsequently, the number of personality types was increased, but the idea that it should be based on an objective and organic criterion remained unchanged. In the 19th and 20th centuries, new concepts appeared that linked temperamental qualities with the constitution - the structure of the skull, facial features (Kretschmer) or body proportions (Sheldon), in which the size of the forehead or lips, height and fullness of a person were associated with certain qualities - kindness or malice, mobility or apathy. Although these theories currently have a purely historical significance, some stereotypes in the perception of people associated with them have remained in everyday psychology to this day.
The experiments of I. P. Pavlov made it possible to identify physiological basis temperament associated with the functioning of the nervous system. Subsequently, the works of other physiologists and psychophysiologists made it possible to clarify those dynamic characteristics of the nervous system that determine the features of the appearance of psychological traits. At the same time, the studies of V.N. Myasishchev, B.M. Teplova, V.L. Nebylitsyna, G. Eysenck, G. Allport, R. Kettel and other psychologists reliably showed the impossibility of identifying the physiological foundations of temperament with psychological individuality, with the degree of activity, emotionality or speed of reaction of people. The materials of these numerous works made it possible to identify the so-called psychodynamic qualities, which make it possible to combine certain psychophysiological characteristics with psychological traits.
Ability has been considered one of the most important characteristics of individuality since antiquity. Initially, they were associated with the intellect and oratory, as well as with the speed of assimilation of the material. In the 11th-11th centuries, the study of abilities led scientists to the idea that another approach to their definition was possible. From the point of view of the French Enlighteners (Didero and Helvetius), it is the environment, the education and upbringing that the child receives, that is the most important part of his destiny, determines his mental and personal development, his social status and success. However, the impact of the environment is not direct, but mediated by cognitive processes, that is, the impact of the external world is manifested mainly in the fact that people receive different information, different education, they form different abilities and, as a result, different lifestyles. At the same time, under the abilities they understood the ability to perform a certain activity well or excellently. Thus, abilities were studied only during the performance of a certain task and had a qualitative characteristic - the level of performance. At the same time, the speed and ease of learning, the speed of information processing and other parameters that are an important property of abilities in modern psychology were not taken into account at all. Naturally, with this understanding, Helvetius came to the conclusion that abilities are not innate, but are acquired in the learning process.
This approach reinforced his concept of the universal equality of people, whose individual differences are only the result of different social status and upbringing. But it also led, oddly enough, to fatalism, since a person was perceived as a toy of fate, which, on a whim, by chance, can place him in one environment or another, determining his social status and life scenario. So the absence of any innate features in the concept of Helvetius led, to a large extent, to the denial of human responsibility for one's abilities, knowledge, and finally, for one's destiny.
Diderot's works have already shown the one-sidedness of such an understanding of the purely social nature of abilities, the role of innate inclinations in their development was also demonstrated by the work of psychologists and psychophysiologists of the 19th-20th centuries. At the same time, in modern psychology, when determining abilities, two parameters are taken into account - the level of performance of an activity, which is closely related to the social situation, learning, and the pace of learning, the speed of information processing, which is a psychodynamic quality due to innate inclinations. Since even in the activities of children, and even more so in an adult, both the speed of assimilation and the level of knowledge are manifested, the quality of training, abilities, as a rule, are diagnosed in the process of mastering the activity, in how quickly and thoroughly a person masters the methods of organizing and implementing it. .
Psychodynamic, naturally conditioned abilities are called fluid. This term, originally used by D. Guilford and R. Kettel, is now widely used in psychology. Fluid abilities are associated, first of all, with the general level of intelligence, with the ability to find connections, identify relationships and dependencies. Their development is influenced by the genetic factor, since the rate of their formation is higher in the early years, and age-related decline can begin relatively early (in the third decade of life). A higher rate of development of fluid abilities than that of peers can also ensure greater productivity of children, diagnosed as giftedness. Nevertheless, such heterochronism of mental development is not giftedness in the full sense of the word, since the quantitative advance of age norms for individual mental processes is not accompanied by qualitative changes in the structure of the intellect. The leveling of the rate of intellectual development with age leads to a decrease and gradual disappearance of signs of giftedness, which often explains the phenomenon of "child prodigies" who did not justify the hopes that they gave in childhood in adulthood.
On the basis of fluid abilities, crystallized ones are formed, the development of which is determined by the culture to which a person belongs, his activity and interests, as well as the level of his education. Genetic factors do not have a direct effect on crystallized abilities, and age-related decline may not appear until old age.
The allocation of different types of abilities is also associated with the activities that they organize. Proceeding from this, there are general abilities that meet the requirements of not one, but many types of activity and are identified by many scientists with intellect, and special abilities that meet a narrower range of requirements for a particular activity. Among the special abilities, the best studied are musical and mathematical ones, which manifest themselves very early, often as early as preschool age. talents in fiction, painting, natural sciences, physics, etc. appear later, sometimes as early as adolescence. The level and degree of development of both general and special abilities are reflected in the concepts of talent and genius.
Along with the concept of ability, giftedness is also distinguished, defined as a qualitatively peculiar combination of abilities that allows achieving outstanding results in various fields. human activity. Thus, the basis of the same achievements in the performance of any activity may be based on different abilities, at the same time, the same ability can be a condition for the success of various activities. This provides opportunities to compensate for the low level of development of one of the abilities at the expense of others included in giftedness, and to individualize the style of the action performed. For example, in a good picture, drawing, coloring, psychological accuracy of the image, subtlety of written details, etc. are important. Depending on the combination of abilities that provide a high level of drawing, and their hierarchy, the shortcomings of the color scheme can be compensated for by the boldness and accuracy of the drawing or the expressiveness of the faces of the people depicted in the picture, or the depth and novelty of the idea, etc. Since the hierarchy of individual abilities is completely unique and never coincides with different people, then the results of their activities (paintings, poems, sewn clothes or built houses) are never similar.
An important problem is the correlation of giftedness with the general level of intelligence and creativity. Giftedness is often directly identified with creativity, with the speed and ease of finding non-obvious solutions in various problems and the ability to obtain fundamentally new result. The novelty of the product and the solutions do not always coincide with each other, which emphasizes the difficulty of correlating purely intellectual abilities with creativity, and proves the need to single out the concepts of general (intellectual) and special in giftedness, which may not directly correlate with high scores in intelligence tests. For example, exceeding a level of 135 on the Binet-Simon or Stanford-Binet scale, which is assessed as a high level of intellectual abilities (and general giftedness), is not necessarily accompanied by high productivity in the creative sphere. Therefore, in Lately considerable attention is paid to the study of "non-intellectual" factors of special giftedness, necessary for creative activity in certain areas.
The psychodynamic aspect of ability and giftedness often manifests itself in characteristics that are not directly related to a specific activity, such as good mechanical memory, curiosity, sense of humor, high plasticity, good distribution and high concentration of attention, sometimes combined with activity and even impulsivity.
This combination shows that giftedness can already be seen as the next level of personality associated with the combination various qualities between themselves. This combination is also typical for people who have a pronounced laterality in the organization of the brain, that is, pronounced left-handed right-handers. If the former are characterized by a higher level of emotivity, imagery and a tendency to creativity in artistic activity, then the right-handed people have a more pronounced logical, rational beginning, which weakens emotionality and directs activity to a greater extent on finding the right solution, rather than various ways to achieve it.
The system of individual traits develops into a personality type, that is, into a structure that has a clear hierarchy of traits that determines a predisposition to a specific, “typical” nature of interaction with the environment. The most common parameter for typology is the division by sex, which is already observed in animals. Modern studies have shown that the muscular type is characterized by a greater variation in the severity of signs than the feminine, as well as a more pronounced propensity for risk, enterprise and behavioral variability.
One of the most common typologies is the concept of K. Jung, which is based on two grounds - the dominance of extra-introversion and the development of four basic mental processes - thinking, feeling, intuition and sensation. At the same time, the concept of extraversion and introversion in Jung differs significantly from the content of that psychodynamic characteristic, which was mentioned above. Based on his understanding of the structure of the soul, Jung argued that introverts in the process of individualization pay more attention to the inner part of their soul, build their behavior based on their own ideas, their own norms and beliefs. Extroverts, on the contrary, are more focused on the person, on the outer part of their soul. They are perfectly oriented in the outside world, and in their activities they proceed mainly from its norms and rules of conduct. If for an introvert the danger is a complete rupture of contacts with the outside world, then for extroverts it is no less a danger to lose oneself. In their extreme manifestations, extroverts are dogmatists, while introverts are fanatics.
However, the desire to preserve the integrity of the personality does not allow one of its parties to completely subjugate the other. Therefore, these two parts of the soul, two types, as it were, divide the spheres of their influence. As a rule, extroverts build relationships well with a large circle of people, take into account their opinions and interests, at the same time, in a narrow circle of people close to them, they open up the other side of their personality, the introverted one. Here they can be despotic, impatient, do not take into account the opinions and positions of other people, trying to insist on their own. Communication with a wide range of unfamiliar and poorly known people is extremely difficult for an introvert who proceeds only from his positions and cannot build an adequate line of behavior, understand the point of view of the interlocutor. He either insists on his own, or simply leaves the contact. At the same time, in communication with loved ones, on the contrary, he opens up, his extroverted, usually repressed side of his personality takes over, and he is a gentle, caring and warm family man. Like Freud, Jung often illustrated his conclusions with references to one or another historical personality. So in the description of extraverts and introverts, he, in particular, mentioned the famous Russian writers Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, referring Tolstoy to typical extroverts, and Dostoevsky to introverts.
Jung also believed that each person is dominated by one or another process, which, in combination with intro- or extraversion, individualizes the path of human development. Thinking and feeling are alternative ways of making a decision. Since thinking is oriented towards logical premises, people of the thinking type value above all abstract principles, ideals, order and consistency in behavior. Feeling people, on the contrary, make decisions spontaneously, focusing on emotions, preferring any feelings, even negative ones, to boredom and order.
If thinking and feelings characterize active people who are capable of making decisions for one reason or another, then sensation and intuition characterize rather ways of obtaining information, and people of this type are more contemplative. At the same time, sensation is oriented towards direct, immediate experience, and sensing types, as a rule, respond better to the immediate situation, while intuitive ones respond to the past or future. For them, what is possible is more important than what is happening in the present. Although all these functions are present in every person, one of them is dominant, which is partially supplemented by the second function. Moreover, the more conscious and dominant one of these functions is, the more unconscious the rest. Therefore, the data of their experience can be perceived by a person not only as alien to him, but also as directly hostile.
Although echoes of Jung's typology can be traced in modern concepts individuality and personality, more perfect and widespread today is the structure of individuality proposed by G. Allport. Allport's most important merit is that he was one of the first to speak about the specificity of each person, about the inseparable connection between individual typology and the uniqueness of the individual. He argued that each person is unique and individual, as he is the bearer of a peculiar combination of qualities that Allport called trite - a trait. He divided these personality traits into basic and instrumental. The main features stimulate behavior and are congenital, genotypic, and instrumental - shape behavior and are formed in the course of a person's life, that is, they are phenotypic formations. The set of these traits makes up the core of the personality, gives it uniqueness and originality.
Although the main features are innate, they can change, develop in the process of life, in the process of a person's communication with other people. Society stimulates the development of some personality traits and qualities and inhibits the development of others. Thus, that unique set of features that underlies the “I” of a person is gradually formed. Important for Allport is the provision on the autonomy of these traits, which also develops over time. The child does not yet have this autonomy, since his features are not yet stable and fully formed. Only in an adult who is aware of himself, his qualities and his individuality, traits become truly autonomous and do not depend either on biological needs or on the pressure of society. This autonomy of human needs, being the most important characteristic of the formation of his personality, gives him the opportunity, while remaining open to society, to preserve his individuality.
Allport not only developed his theoretical concept personality, but also their methods of systematic research of the human psyche. He proceeded from the fact that certain traits exist in the personality of each person, the difference is only in the level of their development, degree of autonomy and place in the structure. Focusing on this position, he created his multifactor questionnaires, with the help of which the features of the development of personality traits of a particular person are studied. The questionnaire of the University of Minnesota (MMPI), which is currently used (with a number of modifications) not only to study the structure of personality, but also to analyze compatibility, professional suitability, etc., has become most famous. Allport himself constantly refined his questionnaires, created new ones, believing that these questionnaires should be supplemented by observational data, most often joint ones.
The hierarchy of traits that determines the type of personality may not be very pronounced, the level of various parameters may be close to the average, optimal. But there are also cases of intensive development of one or another trait (or group of traits), which determine the specificity of this type- accentuation of character. This concept, introduced by K. Leonhard, implies an excessive expression of individual character traits. Extreme cases of accentuation border on psychopathy, although they do not go beyond the norm. Accentuation clearly demonstrates the strengths and weak sides of each type, their advantages in certain areas of activity and communication, and vulnerability to certain stimuli. In the case of constant and active exposure to these stimuli, it is possible to go beyond the norm and the appearance of reactive states and psychopathy.
Although the development of accentuation and the degree of its severity are determined by psychodynamics, the social situation, the style of communication in the family, profession, and culture also have a huge impact on this process. As a rule, accentuation develops by adolescence, however, at present, there are more and more cases of early onset of accentuation, which can sometimes be diagnosed already by the older preschool age.
The combination of individual qualities, which is completely unique for each person, largely determines his behavior, communication with other people and attitude towards himself. It represents the second level in the structure of individuality, that "integral individuality" (V. Merlin's term), which underlies the individual lifestyle, mediating the connection between psychodynamic individual traits and personality structure. The tasks of psychotherapy are largely related precisely to helping a person create an individual style of activity and communication based on his integral disposition of psychodynamic features, which uses the positive aspects of his personality to compensate for the negative ones, if possible.
One of the first to study the dynamics of the formation of an individual lifestyle in the process of the genesis of the personality of children was Adler, who proceeded from the idea that a child is not born with ready-made personality structures, but only with their prototypes. He considered the style of life to be the most important structure.
Developing the idea of a lifestyle, Adler argued that this is the determinant that defines and systematizes a person's experience. Lifestyle is closely related to the sense of community, one of the three innate unconscious feelings that make up the structure of the "I". A sense of community or public interest is a kind of core that holds the entire structure of lifestyle, determines its content and direction. The sense of community, although innate, may remain undeveloped. This underdevelopment of a sense of community is the basis of an asocial lifestyle, the cause of neuroses and human conflicts. The development of a sense of community is associated with close adults who surround the child from childhood, primarily with the mother. Rejected children who grow up with cold, withdrawn mothers do not develop a sense of community. It does not develop even in spoiled children, since the feeling of community with the mother is not transferred to other people who remain strangers to the child. The level of development of a sense of community determines the system of ideas about oneself and about the world, which is created by each person. The inadequacy of this system creates obstacles for personal growth, provokes the development of neuroses.
Forming his life style, a person is actually the creator of his personality, which he creates from the raw material of heredity and experience. The creative "I", about which Adler writes, is a kind of enzyme that affects the facts of the surrounding reality and transforms these facts into a person's personality, "a subjective, dynamic, unified, individual and having a unique style personality." The creative "I" from the point of view of Adler gives meaning to human life, it creates both the very goal of life and the means to achieve it. Thus, for Adler, the processes of forming a life goal, a lifestyle are, in fact, acts of creativity that give the human personality uniqueness, consciousness and the ability to control one's destiny. In contrast to Freud, he emphasized that people are not pawns in the hands of external forces but conscious wholeness, independently and creatively creating their life.
If a sense of community determines the direction of life, its style, then two other innate and unconscious feelings - inferiority and striving for superiority - are sources of personality energy necessary for its development. Both of these feelings are positive, they are incentives for personal growth, for self-improvement. If the feeling of inferiority affects a person, causing him to desire to overcome his shortcoming, then the desire for superiority causes a desire to be the best, not only to overcome the shortcoming, but also to become the most skillful and knowledgeable. These feelings, from Adler's point of view, stimulate not only individual development, but also the development of society as a whole through self-improvement and discoveries made by individuals.
Studying the genesis of personality structure, Rogers comes to the conclusion that the inner essence of a person, his selfhood is expressed in self-esteem. which is a reflection of the true essence of this person, his "I". In young children, this self-esteem is unconscious, it is more a sense of self than self-esteem. Nevertheless, already at an early age, it guides human behavior, helping to understand and select from the environment what is inherent in this particular individual - interests, profession, communication with certain people, etc. At an older age, children begin to realize themselves, their aspirations and abilities, and build their lives in accordance with a conscious self-assessment. In the event that behavior is built precisely on the basis of self-esteem, this behavior expresses the true essence of the individual, his abilities and skills, and therefore brings the greatest success to a person. The results of his activity bring him satisfaction, increase his status in the eyes of others, and such a person does not need to displace his experience into the unconscious, since his opinion of himself, the opinion of others about him and his real self correspond to each other, leading to complete congruence.
However, already in early childhood, a child can be alienated from his true self-esteem, from his self. Most often this happens under the pressure of adults, who have their own idea of the child, his abilities and purpose. They impose their assessment on the child, striving for him to accept it and make it his self-assessment. Some children begin to protest against the actions, interests and ideas imposed on them, coming into conflict with others, negativism and aggression. The desire to defend oneself at all costs, to overcome the pressure of adults can also violate true self-esteem, since in his negativism the child begins to protest against everything that comes from an adult, even if this corresponds to his true interests.
However, most often, Rogers notes, children do not even try to confront their parents, agreeing with their opinion of themselves. This is because the child needs affection and acceptance from an adult. He called this desire to earn the love and affection of others the “value condition”, which in its extreme manifestation sounds like a desire to be loved and respected by everyone with whom a person comes into contact. The "condition of value" becomes a serious obstacle to personal growth, as it interferes with the realization of the true "I" of a person, his true calling, replacing it in a way that is pleasing to others. However, the problem is not only that, trying to earn the love of others, a person renounces himself, from his self-actualization, but also that when carrying out activities that are imposed by others and do not correspond to true, although not realized at the moment, desires and abilities , a person cannot be completely successful, no matter how hard he tries and no matter how he convinces himself that this activity is his true calling. The need to constantly ignore the signals of one's own insolvency or lack of success that come to the subject from the outside world is associated with the fear of changing one's self-esteem, to which a person is used to and which he already considers really his own. This leads to the fact that he displaces his aspirations, and his fears, and the opinions of others into the unconscious, alienating his experience from consciousness. At the same time, a very limited and rigid scheme of the surrounding world and oneself is built, which corresponds very little to reality. This inadequacy, although not realized, causes tension in a person, leading to neurosis.
Research conducted by Rogers proved that the development of the child's personality, his successful socialization, satisfaction with his activities and himself have a direct correlation with the level of his self-awareness. And this connection is more significant for the normal development of the personality than the attitude of parents to the child, their attachment or alienation from him, the social status of the family and its environment. At the same time, Rogers insisted that self-esteem should not only be adequate, but also flexible, that is, it should change depending on the environment.
2.3. Factors that determine the development of the psyche
In connection with the study of the patterns that determine the dynamics of the development of the psyche, the question of the role of heredity and the environment in this process, the relationship between biological growth and maturation and the formation of knowledge and personality traits has acquired particular relevance. If growth is associated mainly with quantitative changes, with an increase, for example, in body weight or brain cells, then development also implies qualitative transformations, changes in attitude, understanding of oneself and others. It should also be noted that in psychology the separation of growth and development is especially difficult, since the formation of the mental sphere is closely connected with the growth of the material substratum of the psyche.
Important for psychology is the question of the boundaries and features of the dynamics of the process of mental development, of whether it is preformed or unpreformed. Preformed development has an upper limit, which was originally built into the developing system. For example, any flower, no matter how it changes, becoming more magnificent or withering, remains a rose, or a violet, without turning into a lily of the valley or an apple tree. Its development is preformed and limited by the structure of the seed from which a particular flower grows. But is the development of the psyche limited? To a certain extent, psychologists were inclined to give a positive answer to this question, since there are, for example, limitations associated with a person's life span, his innate abilities, the limits of his sensations, and so on. At the same time, many data show that the development of knowledge, the improvement of the will, the personality of a person have no limit. Thus, scientists in the first half of the 20th century were not unanimous on this issue, and the answer largely depended on the point of view of what are the driving forces of mental development and what mechanisms provide it.
If initially (in the works of Preyer and Hall) it was about the predominant dominance of the biological factor, and development itself was understood as the maturation of innate qualities, then already in the works of Claparede, a different approach to understanding the process of the genesis of the psyche appears. Speaking about the self-development of the psyche, he emphasized that this is the self-deployment of qualities given from the birth, which depends on environment guiding this process. Claparede also spoke for the first time about the specific mechanisms of the development process - play and imitation. Partially about the game as a mechanism for getting rid of innate stages, Hall already wrote, but imitation of others, identification with them, which, as the work of modern scientists have shown, is one of the leading mechanisms of mental development, was first introduced into psychology in the works of Claparede.
His idea of self-development, that the genesis of the psyche does not need external factors that ensure this development, but is inherent in the very nature of the psyche, became the leading one for Stern. Stern proceeded from the fact that the self-unfolding of the inclinations that a person has is directed and determined by the environment in which the child lives. This theory was called the theory of convergence, since it took into account the role of two factors - heredity and environment. Their influence is analyzed by Stern on the example of some of the main activities of children, mainly games. He was the first to single out the content and form of play activity, proving that the form is unchanging and is associated with innate qualities, for the exercise of which the game was created. At the same time, the content is set by the environment, helping the child to understand in what specific activity he can realize the qualities inherent in him. Thus, the game serves not only for the exercise of innate instincts, but also for the socialization of children.
Mental development, according to Stern, tends not only to self-development, but also to self-preservation, that is, to the preservation of the individual, innate characteristics of each child, primarily the preservation of the individual pace of development. It is also associated with the differentiation and transformation of mental structures aimed at a more complete and accurate understanding of the surrounding reality.
2.4. The ratio of evolutionary and revolutionary ways of development of the psyche
Another important aspect in the study of the development of the psyche was the correlation of the qualitative and quantitative parameters of this process, the analysis of the possibilities of the revolutionary and evolutionary ways of the formation of the psyche. This was partly related to the question of the pace of development and the possibilities of changing it.
Initially, based on Darwin's theory, psychologists, as mentioned above, believed that the deployment of the psyche occurs gradually, evolutionarily. At the same time, there is continuity in the transition from stage to stage, and the pace of development is strictly fixed, although it can partially accelerate or slow down depending on conditions. Stern's works, in particular his idea that the rate of development of the psyche is individual and characterizes the characteristics of a given person, somewhat shook this view, fixed by S. Hall and E. Claparede. However, the postulates of natural science, which proved the connection between the mental and the nervous system, did not make it possible to question the progressive nature of the development of the psyche, associated with the gradual maturation of the nervous system and its improvement. So, for example, Blonsky, who connected the development of the psyche with growth and maturation, proved the impossibility of accelerating its pace, since the pace mental development, in his opinion, is proportional to the rate of somatic development, which cannot be accelerated.
However, the work of geneticists, reflexologists, psychiatrists, psychoanalysts, showed that the human nervous system is a product of his social development. This was also proved by the experiments of behaviorists, who demonstrated the flexibility and plasticity of the psyche in the formation and reformation of behavioral acts, as well as the work of Pavlov, Bekhterev and other scientists, who established rather complex conditioned reflexes in young children and animals. Thus, it was proved that with a purposeful and clear organization of the environment, it is possible to achieve rapid change in the psyche of the child and significantly accelerate the pace of his mental development, for example, when teaching certain knowledge and skills. This led some scientists, in particular Russian leaders of the sociogenetic direction, to the idea that not only evolutionary, but also revolutionary, spasmodic periods in the development of the psyche are possible, during which there is a sharp transition of accumulated quantitative changes into qualitative ones. For example, studies of adolescence led Zalkind to think about its crisis nature, which provides a sharp transition to a new stage. At the same time, he emphasized that such a qualitative leap is determined by three processes - stabilization, which consolidate the previous acquisitions of children, and crisis proper, which are associated with drastic changes in the child's psyche and new elements that appear during this period, already characteristic of adults.
However, the very path of development of the psyche was still characterized by most psychologists as predominantly evolutionary, and the possibility of completely changing its direction and individual characteristics was gradually rejected. The idea of a combination of lytic and critical periods in the formation of the psyche was later embodied in Vygotsky's periodization.
2.5. The problem of genetic periodization
One of the first psychological periodizations was created by Hall's student K. Getchinson based on the theory of recapitulation. The criterion for dividing childhood into periods in it was the method of obtaining food. At the same time, the actual facts that were observed in children of a certain age were explained by a change in the method of obtaining food, which is (according to Getchinson) leading not only for biological, but also for mental development. He identified 5 main phases in the mental development of children, the boundaries of which were not rigid, so that the end of one stage did not coincide with the beginning of the next.
1. from birth to 5 years - the stage of digging and digging. At this stage, children love to play in the sand, make cakes and manipulate the bucket and scoop.
2. from 5 to 11 years - the stage of hunting and capturing. At this stage, children begin to be afraid of strangers, they develop aggressiveness, cruelty, a desire to isolate themselves from adults, especially strangers, and the desire to do many things in secret.
3. from 8 to 12 years old - shepherd stage. During this period, children strive to have their own corner, and they usually build their shelters in yards or in a field, in a forest, but not in a house. They also love pets and try to get them so that they have someone to take care of and patronize. Children, especially girls, at this time have a desire for affection and tenderness.
4. from 11 to 15 years old - the agricultural stage, which is associated with an interest in the weather, in natural phenomena, as well as a love of gardening, and for girls, floriculture. At this time, children develop observation and discretion.
5. from 14 to 20 years - the stage of industry and trade or the stage modern man. At this time, children begin to realize the role of money, as well as the importance of arithmetic and other exact sciences. In addition, the guys have a desire to change various objects.
Hutchinson believed that from the age of 8, that is, from the pastoral stage, the era of a civilized person begins, and it is from this age that children can be systematically taught, which is impossible at previous stages. At the same time, he proceeded from Hall's idea that learning should be built on top of a certain stage of mental development, since the maturation of the body prepares the basis for learning. Both Hall and Getchinson were convinced that the passage of each stage is necessary for normal development, and fixation on one of them leads to the appearance of deviations and anomalies in the psyche.
The need to determine the psychological content characteristic of each age period was obvious to most scientists and practitioners involved in the education and upbringing of children. At the same time, the criterion introduced by Hutchinson was sufficiently speculative and external to mental development. Therefore, in the first third of the 20th century, several periodizations appeared, based on objective, and, therefore, more biological, and not psychological criterion.
So Stratze believed that the criterion should be the development of sexual desire. Therefore, they singled out periods of minimal influence of sexual desire, its moderate growth and, from 16, maximum growth and influence on the mental life of a person.
A similar periodization was developed by A. Gesell, who proposed the pace of mental development as a criterion. They were allocated three periods - from birth to a year, from a year to three and from three to eighteen years, and the first period is characterized by the highest rate of mental development, the second - by an average, and the third - by a low rate of development of the psyche.
An objective and easily diagnosed criterion was also in the periodization developed by P. Blonsky. He believed that human life consists of three stages - childhood, reproduction, extinction. At the same time, childhood is an epoch of progressive growth, preceding the epoch of reproduction. This first era - childhood - he divided into 3 periods, and the criterion for dividing age into periods was dentition, that is, a change of teeth. So there were periods of toothless, milk-toothed childhood and childhood of permanent teeth. As an additional parameter characterizing mental development, he mentioned temperament, linking personality development with the constitution and temperament of the child. He argued that at each age stage there is a typical temperament for all children, and therefore certain personal qualities - stubbornness and negativism of 2-3 year old children, self-doubt, closedness of adolescents - were associated with the temperament of this period.
Another trend in the theories of periodization was the use of an external and objective, but already social criterion, arising from the conditions of life and activity of people. This group of theories includes the periodization of R. Zazzo, in which periods are distinguished based on the levels of education, S. Buhler and L. Seva. The last two have a more complex basis than Zazzo's theory and can partially be attributed to the motivational-personal group of periodizations (Bühler) or to periodizations, the criterion in which is a change of activity (Sev).
Nevertheless, the purely external, social side of a person's role position remains the leading one for both. So S. Buhler identifies the following 5 stages, or, as she writes, five phases of a person's life path:
up to 16-18 years old - no family and profession
18-30 years old - preliminary definition of a profession, life partner
30-50 years old - matured, self-realization in the chosen profession and family.
50-65 years old - an aging person who, by the end of the period, disappears life goals and self-determination
65-70 - before death - an old person, without social ties and goals of existence.
Without going into the analysis of the very content of life phases, the fallacy of which will be shown later on the material of modern studies of the process of maturity and aging, I would like to emphasize that the psychological essence of age in this case is determined by the social status of a person, and not vice versa, as suggested by the psychological, and not sociological approach to periodization.
Sev's complex periodization is built on the basis of changes in the activity of the subject, or, in his words, on the basis of acts, that is, such actions that are reflected in the biography in the form of a specific activity that requires certain abilities. Thus, cycles of activities characteristic of a child, a student, a worker, and a pensioner are singled out.
However, the most significant for understanding the nature and mechanisms of mental development have become periodizations built on the basis of purely internal, psychological parameters, primarily changes in the intellectual and motivational areas.
D. Selley, arguing that mental development is based on the laws of associations, believed that a child is born only with the prerequisites for basic mental processes that are formed already during the life of children. These prerequisites are the three elements that form the basis of the main constituents of the psyche - the mind, feelings and will. Selley's research showed that the first associations are associations by similarity, then gradually images of objects based on associations by contiguity are formed in children, and at the end of the second year of life, associations by contrast appear. The data obtained by Selly also made it possible to identify the main stages in the cognitive, emotional and volitional development of children, which must be taken into account in their education.
In his theory, the German scientist Maiman sought to combine Selley's associationist approach with Hall's theory of recapitulation. Proceeding from this, he proposed his own periodization of mental development, the criterion for which is no longer abstract ways of obtaining food, but stages of intellectual development.
1. from birth to 7 years - the stage of fantastic synthesis. At this stage, children generalize individual sensations without any system and logic, which is why the concepts they receive are so often far from reality. Since intellectual integration at this age is still poorly developed, its data are supplemented by personification and feeling, that is, data of integration of the sensory tone of sensations.
2. from 7 to 12 years old - stage of analysis. At this stage, systematic education of children can begin, since the key here is not integration, but differentiation, the decomposition of general concepts, knowledge that the child is trying to comprehend by dividing the concept into parts and forming an adequate idea of these parts.
3. from 12 to 16 years old - the stage of rational synthesis. At this stage, the children develop operational thinking, and they can integrate those individual concepts that they learned at the previous stage, having received scientific ideas about the environment.
In his concept, Meiman was one of the first to prove that the intellect is the leading one for the development of the psyche, and therefore periodization should be based on the stages of the formation of the intellect. This trend in periodization theories was developed by Claparède and his student Piaget. Identifying mental development with the formation of thinking, they argued that the criterion for dividing childhood into periods is the transition from one type of thinking to another.
Claparede identified four stages in mental development:
1. from birth to 2 years - at this stage, children are interested in the external side of things, and therefore intellectual development is mainly associated with the development of perception.
2. from 2 to 3 years - at this stage, children develop speech and therefore their cognitive interests are concentrated in this area, on words and their meanings.
3. from 3 to 7 years - at this stage, the actual intellectual development begins, that is, the development of thinking, and in children common mental interests prevail
4. from 7 to 12 years old - at this stage, the individual characteristics and inclinations of children begin to appear, since their intellectual development is associated with the formation of special objective interests.
Claparede's periodization was aimed at explaining a wide range of problems - from the mechanisms of mental development to learning technologies at certain stages of ontogenesis. Thus, it was shown that this concept has not only theoretical, but also applied significance, which makes it possible to use its data in the process of upbringing and socialization of children.
Of great importance for understanding the dynamics of the process of the formation of the intellect were the works of the student of Claparede Piaget, who revealed not only the periods, but also the mechanisms of ascent from one stage to another.
As you know, he distinguished three periods:
0 - 2 years - the stage of sensorimotor intelligence,
2-11 years - stage of specific operations (2-7 - pre-operational stage),
from the age of 12 - the stage of formal operations.
At the same time, in each stage, Piaget distinguishes two stages - the appearance of an irreversible operation of a given level, and then the development of its reversibility, and the periodization itself reflects the process of the complex formation of an adequate intellectual scheme, which consists in the transition of operations to an internal plan and their acquisition of a reversible character. Thus, the importance of intellectual maturation for the active adaptation of a person in a complex and changing world is also proved.
Based on the ideas of Piaget. Kohlberg also singled out the stages of moral development, based on the intellectual maturity of children. He set the children the task of assessing the moral side of the problem of choice (moreover, the choice is obviously ambiguous), by analyzing the system of their reasoning. This made it possible for him to distinguish three levels of development of moral judgments, each of which consists of two stages:
1) a preconditional level at which children evaluate an action based on its consequences;
2) the level of traditional morality, at which socially recognized values prevail over the personal interests of the child;
3) the post-traditional level, at which people justify moral judgments on principles that they themselves have created and accepted. Reflecting the formal, operational thinking learned by children, this last level is characterized by large shifts towards abstract moral principles.
Kohlberg, like Piaget, assumed that the change in the stages of moral development is associated with general cognitive age-related changes, primarily with decentration and the formation of logical operations. At the same time, he proceeded from the fact that moral development is influenced both by the general level of education and the communication of the child with adults and peers, the desire to receive a reward for good behavior. It is this last factor that causes the greatest number of criticisms, although most researchers generally accept the sequence of stages in the formation of morality developed by the scientist.
Another direction in the theories of periodization proceeded from the priority of the motivational side of the formation of the psyche, and therefore the stages were distinguished on the basis of a change in motivation and ways to satisfy it. This approach was one of the first to be implemented in Buhler's periodization, in which, despite the priority of emotions, changes in the intellectual sphere were still taken into account. Proving the need for training for full-fledged mental development, Buhler also analyzed the role of culture, its influence on the formation of the child's psyche, on his emotional sphere. He identified three main stages of mental development:
Instinct,
Dressura (formation of conditioned reflexes),
Intelligence (appearance of “aha-experience”, awareness of a problem situation).
Emotional development during the transition from stage to stage is expressed in the fact that the pleasure from the activity is shifted from the end to the beginning. So, with instinct, an action first occurs, and then pleasure comes from it (for example, a frog first jumps after a fly, swallows it, and then enjoys eating). In training, activity and pleasure go hand in hand, as a dog jumping through a hoop is rewarded with a piece of sugar. And, finally, with intelligence, a person can imagine what pleasure he will get, for example, from a delicious candy or from communicating with a friend even before starting this activity. It is the intellectual stage that is the stage of culture and enables the most flexible and adequate adaptation to the environment, Buhler believed.
The most complete motivational criterion of periodization was embodied in the works of Freud, although the intellectual side was practically not taken into account. Freud creates his own periodization based on the patterns of development of libidinal energy, which is directly related to the drive to life, procreation, and is the basis of personality development. He believed that in the process of life a person goes through several stages, which differ from each other in the way of fixing libido, satisfying this desire. At the same time, Freud pays great attention to exactly how fixation occurs and whether a person needs foreign objects in this case. Proceeding from this, he singles out three large stages, which are divided into several stages.
The first stage - the libido-object, is characterized by the fact that the child needs an outside object for the realization of libido. This stage lasts up to 1 year and is called the oral stage, since satisfaction occurs with irritation of the oral cavity. Fixation at this stage occurs when the child during this period was not able to realize his libidinal desires, for example, he was not given pacifiers. This type of personality is characterized, from Freud's point of view, by a certain infantilism, dependence on adults, parents, even in adulthood. Moreover, such dependence can be expressed both in conformal and negative behavior.
The second stage, which lasts until the onset of puberty, is called the libido-subject and is characterized by the fact that the child does not require any external object to satisfy his instincts. Sometimes Freud also called this stage narcissism, believing that all people who have fixed at this stage are characterized by self-orientation, the desire to use others to satisfy their own needs and desires, and emotional isolation from them. The stage of narcissism consists of several stages. The first, which lasts up to about 3 years, is anal, in which the child not only learns certain toilet skills, but a sense of ownership begins to form in him. Fixation at this stage forms the anal character, which is characterized by stubbornness, often harshness, neatness and frugality.
From the age of three, the child moves on to the next, phallic stage, at which children begin to realize their sexual differences, to be interested in their genitals. Freud considered this stage critical for girls, who for the first time begin to realize their inferiority due to their lack of a penis. This discovery, he believed, could lead to later neuroticism or aggressiveness, which is generally characteristic of people who are fixed at this stage. This is largely due to the fact that during this period there is growing tension in relations with parents, primarily with the parent of the same sex, whom the child is afraid of and jealous of the parent of the opposite sex. Tension weakens by the age of 6, when the latent stage in the development of sexual desire begins. During this period, which lasts until the onset of puberty, children pay great attention to study, sports, and games.
In adolescence, children move on to the last stage, which is also called the libido-object, since a person again needs a partner to satisfy the sexual instinct. This stage is also called the genital stage, because in order to discharge libidinal energy, a person is looking for ways of sexual life that are characteristic of his gender and his personality type.
Emphasizing the importance of parents in the development of a child's personality, Freud wrote that it is on them that the way these periods of mental development largely depend, and the traumas received when communicating with an adult in the first years of life are the cause of mental and social deviations in behavior that may appear much later.
Despite the significant differences between the periodizations discussed above, they have in common not only the age boundaries of ontogenesis segments, which is associated both with psychological symptoms and with external, social conditions (for example, with the beginning of systematic learning), but also a predominantly evolutionary approach, since in them, the transition from one stage of thinking to another (or from one type of motivation to another) occurs gradually, and the transition itself is not associated with the appearance of negative components in various types of activity.
This view is partly modified in Erickson's theory. Developing Freud's Ideas of Dominance motivational component as a criterion for determining the stages of the life path, Erickson argued that for a person the leading need is the desire to preserve the identity, the integrity of the Ego, and its transformation marks the transition from stage to stage. Since the Ego, the self-consciousness of a person develops throughout his life, the need to preserve identity remains always relevant, and, therefore, periodization should not end at adolescence, but cover the entire life path.
He singled out 8 main stages in the development of identity, during which the child moves from one stage of self-awareness to another. These stages are a series of critical periods that must be overcome throughout life. At the same time, a specific stage not only forms a new quality necessary for social life, but also prepares the child for the next life stage. Each stage provides an opportunity for the formation of opposite qualities and character traits that a person realizes in himself and with which he begins to identify himself.
The first stage is up to 1 year, at which time development is determined mainly by close people, parents, who form in the child a sense of basic trust or distrust, that is, openness to the world, or alertness, closeness to the environment.
The second stage is from 1 year to 3 years. At this time, children develop a sense of autonomy or a sense of dependence on others, depending on how adults react to the child's first attempts to become independent. To some extent, Erickson's description of this stage correlates with the description of the formation of the "I-Myself" neoformation in Russian psychology.
The third stage - from 3 to 6 years. At this time, children develop either a sense of initiative or a sense of guilt, the development of these feelings is related to how well the process of socialization of the child proceeds, how strict rules of behavior are offered to him, and how tightly adults control their observance. During this period, the child learns to correlate his desires with the norms accepted in society, to realize his own activity in the channel and norms set by society.
The fourth stage - from 6 to 14 years, during which the child develops either industriousness or a sense of inferiority. During this period, the school, teachers and classmates play a dominant role in the process of self-identification. The development of these personality traits depends on how successfully the child begins to learn, how he develops relationships with teachers and how they evaluate his academic success.
The fifth stage - from 14 to 20 years old is associated with the formation of a sense of role identity or uncertainty in a teenager. At this stage, the main factor is communication with peers, the choice of one's profession, the way to achieve a career, that is, in fact, the choice of ways to build one's future life. Therefore, at this time, it is of great importance for a person to have an adequate awareness of himself, his abilities and his destiny, in line with which he builds his role-playing relationships with others.
The sixth stage - from 20 to 35 years old is associated with the development of close, intimate relationships with others, especially with people of the opposite sex. In the absence of such a connection, a person develops a sense of isolation, which alienates him from people.
The seventh stage - from 35 to 60-65 years old is one of the most important according to Erickson, since it is associated either with a person's desire for constant development, creativity, or with the desire for constancy, peace and stability. During this period, work is of great importance, the interest that it causes in a person, his satisfaction with his status place, as well as his communication with his children, raising whom a person can also develop himself. The desire for stability, rejection and fear of the new stop the process of self-development and are disastrous for the individual, says Erickson.
Eighth, the last stage occurs after 60-65 years. During this period, a person reconsiders his life, summing up certain results of the years he has lived. At this time, a feeling of satisfaction, awareness of identity, integrity of one's life, acceptance of it as one's own is formed. Otherwise, a feeling of despair takes over a person, life seems to be woven from separate, unrelated episodes and lived in vain. Naturally, such a feeling is disastrous for the individual and leads to her neuroticism.
This feeling of despair may appear even earlier, but it is always associated with the loss of identity, with the "hardening", partial or complete, of some episodes of one's life or personality traits.
Erickson focused on the crisis of adolescence, which is accompanied by important biological and psychological changes, since with a change in the image of one's body, the image of one's own "I" of a teenager also changes. The identity crisis that occurs during this period is the basis of personal and social identity, which begins to be realized from this time. Arguing, in contrast to orthodox psychoanalysis, the need to study well-socialized and self-confident adolescents, Erickson emphasized that the basis of normal personal development is precisely a conscious sense of wholeness, identity.
An original approach to the problem of periodization was developed in Russian psychology. Its differences are associated primarily with the concepts of the social situation of development introduced by L. Vygotsky and the critical and lytic periods alternating in ontogeny. He also formulated the principles that scientific psychological periodization must meet. Its criterion, Vygotsky emphasized, must be internal, and not external in relation to development, must be objective and not lose its significance throughout the entire period of childhood.
The periodization he proposed was based on two criteria - dynamic and meaningful. From the point of view of the dynamics of development, he divided childhood into critical and lytic periods, giving a qualitative description of crises. From the point of view of content, he divides childhood on the basis of the new formations of each period, that is, of those mental and social changes that determine the consciousness and activity of children of a certain age. On these grounds, he builds a periodization:
neonatal crisis
infancy (2 months - 1 year)
one year crisis
early childhood (1-3 years)
crisis of three years
preschool age (3-7 years)
seven year crisis
school age (8-12 years old)
crisis of thirteen years
pubertal age (14-17 years)
crisis of seventeen years.
The gradual formation of the personality of the child, the awareness of his leading motives became a criterion in the periodization developed by L. Bozhovich. Using Vygotsky's concept of the social situation of development, she came to the conclusion that personality neoplasms are associated with changes in the experiences of children during the transformation of the social situation. She singled out the stages of the appearance of motivating ideas (1 year), awareness of oneself as a subject of action and the desire to become one (3 years), the appearance of the desire to become a subject in the system of social relations (6-7 years) and the appearance of the motive to become a person, emerging as an important neoplasm of the end adolescence.
Developing the ideas of Vygotsky, D. Elkonin proposed one of the most complete periodizations to date, in which he singled out two aspects of activity - cognitive and motivational. These aspects exist in every leading activity, but develop unevenly, alternating in the rate of development in each age period. So in infancy, the motivational side (child-adult) develops intensively, the same side is in the lead in the preschool and adolescent periods. At the same time, in early childhood, as well as in junior schoolchildren and young men, the operational side (the child-subject) develops most intensively. From Elkonin's point of view, the crisis just coincides with the period of the maximum gap between the level of development of the two sides of activity. Its occurrence is explained precisely by the need to change activities in order to enable the other side to reach the required level of development, since otherwise there is a danger of a complete gap between the operational and motivational sides, which can lead to violations in the child's behavior.
The study of critical periods made it possible for Elkonin to identify crises of three years and 11-13 years (adolescent crisis) that are similar in their meaning and causes of occurrence, during which the lagging motivational side begins to acquire dominant significance. He considered these crises to be the most affective and significant in mental development. On the other hand, the crises of the year, seven years and 15-16 years are also similar, since in these crises the lagging operational side begins to catch up with the motivational one. These crises do not have such a pronounced affective coloring and separate one period of mental development from another, while motivational ones separate one era from another.
Although the relevance of periodization theories in modern psychology has somewhat decreased, most scientists do not deny its fundamental significance and usefulness. At the same time, modern theories of periodization proceed from a complex characteristic of the age period and consider the entire life path of a person, and not just the period of his childhood. Speaking about the criteria for dividing ontogenesis into periods, D. Flavell emphasized that the stages should be distinguished on the basis of significant qualitative changes that are of a systemic nature. That is, a person begins to perform some activity not just better, but fundamentally different, and these changes spread to different aspects of his life. In adopting this approach, it must also be emphasized that the rapid transitions from stage to stage, which Flavell mentions, cannot occur absolutely smoothly with qualitative leaps. Only quantitative accumulation occurs without conflict, for example, the growth of a person's specific knowledge, while a radical restructuring of his views and relationships with the world always involves ambivalent experiences and complex dynamics of the development process.
2.6. Development and protection mechanisms
Research into the process of mental development, the factors influencing it, inevitably led scientists to the idea of searching for specific, psychological mechanisms, with the help of which environment and heredity affect the psyche.
Although the idea of self-development, that is, of the immanent nature of development inherent in the psyche itself, was present in the first theories, as mentioned above, further experimental studies showed that without certain conditions and without the action of specific mechanisms, development is reduced to biological growth without qualitative psychological transformations.
As a result of research conducted in various psychological directions, several basic development mechanisms were identified - internalization, identification, alienation, conformism, which guide and fill the process of the formation of the psyche, including that side of it that is associated with the self-deployment of individual inclinations. In the work of these developmental mechanisms there is always an emotional component (emotional contagion, mediation, etc.), which regulates the activity and gives it a personal meaning.
In addition to the mechanisms of development, scientists have identified the mechanisms psychological protection that help the development process and optimize its course, preventing (if possible) deviations along the way. These leading mechanisms - conformity, withdrawal, aggression, repression, sublimation, projection, regression, rationalization, are partially interconnected and complement each other.
S. Hall was one of the first to speak about the existence of a special development mechanism. Based on the need for children to live through all stages of the mental development of mankind, he was looking for a mechanism that helps the transition from one stage to another. Since in reality the child cannot be transferred to the same situations that humanity has experienced, the transition from one stage to another is carried out in the game, which is such a specific mechanism. And so there are children's games in the war, in the Cossack robbers, etc. Hall emphasized that it is important not to constrain the child in the manifestation of his instincts, which are thus outlived, including children's fears.
Claparede also spoke about the game as a mechanism of development, emphasizing its universal character, since it helps to form various aspects of the psyche. Clapared distinguished games that develop the individual characteristics of children, intellectual games (developing their cognitive abilities) and affective games (developing feelings).
However, as further studies have shown, the game itself is not a mechanism, but a condition that facilitates the process of internalization of the acquired knowledge, identification with characters, and compensation for one's own defects. It was in this context that D. Mead considered the game, writing about the significance of the plot game, in which children first learn to take on various roles and follow certain rules when performing them. D. Mead distinguished between story games and games with rules. Story games teach children to accept and play different roles, to change them during the game, just as they will later have to do in life. Before the start of these games, children know only one role - a child in their family, now they are learning to be a mother, and a pilot, and a cook, and a student. Games with rules help children develop the arbitrariness of behavior, master the norms that are accepted in society, since in these games there is, as Mead writes, a “generalized other”, that is, a rule that children must follow. The concept of "generalized other" was introduced by Mead in order to explain why children obey the rules in the game, but cannot yet fulfill them in real life. From his point of view, in the game, the rule is, as it were, another generalized partner who monitors the activities of children from the outside, not allowing them to deviate from the norm. Thus, the game situation facilitates the appropriation, internalization of the norms and rules inherent in a certain role assumed by the child.
Many scientists have written about the mechanism of internalization, analyzing the ways in which a person appropriates and uses concepts that are significant in his culture. This mechanism of development, as shown above, occupied a leading place in the theories of Sechenov, Vygotsky, Thorndike, and Watson. V. Stern, in his theory of personalism, used a similar concept, speaking of introception, that is, the child's connection of his internal goals with those set by others. Stern's merit lies in the fact that he was one of the first to emphasize the role of emotions (primarily negative experiences) stimulating the process of introception.
The idea that internalization is associated primarily with direct reinforcement of the action (positive or negative) was revised in the works of A. Bandura. Studying the process of learning as a consequence of direct experience, he came to the conclusion that for human behavior this model is not fully applicable, and proposed his own model, which better explains the observed behavior. Based on numerous studies, he came to the conclusion that people do not always need direct reinforcement for learning, they can learn from someone else's experience. Learning by observation is necessary in situations where mistakes can lead to too significant, or even fatal consequences.
This is how the concept of indirect reinforcement, important for Bandura's theory, based on observation of the behavior of other people and the consequences of this behavior, appeared. That is, a significant role in social learning play cognitive processes, what a person thinks about the reinforcement scheme given to him, anticipating the consequences of specific actions. Based on this, Bandura paid special attention to the study of what role models or role models people choose. He found that people choose as role models others of their gender and about the same age, who successfully solve problems similar to those that confront the subject himself. Behavior patterns of people in high positions are also widespread. At the same time, more accessible samples, that is, simpler ones, as well as those with which the subject directly contacts, are imitated more often.
Imitation studies in children have shown that they tend to imitate first adults and then peers whose behavior has led to success, that is, to the achievement of what the child aspires to. Bandura also showed that children often imitate even the behavior that did not lead to success before their eyes, that is, they learn new behaviors as if “in reserve”.
The discovery of identification and its role in the development of the psyche belongs to Z. Freud. He believed that the most important part of the personality structure - the Super-ego is not innate, but is formed in the process of a child's life. The mechanism of its development is identification with a close adult of the same sex, whose traits and qualities become the content of the Super-ego. In the process of identification, children also form the Oedipus complex (in boys) or the Electra complex (in girls), that is, a complex of ambivalent feelings that the child experiences towards the object of identification. Thus, the emotional saturation of the identification process not only helps to more effectively assign the features of the object of identification, but also guides the development of children.
Further identification studies have shown that, as a rule, the circle of people with whom the child identifies himself is wider than that mentioned by Freud and is not built solely on the basis of gender. It was also important to study how this circle expands with age, including objects of a wider social environment, as well as stereotypes supplied by culture and the media.
In the works of psychologists focused on existential philosophy, in particular in the works of A. Maslow, along with the mechanism of identification, the mechanism of alienation is also described, which is also associated with the process of development of the psyche.
Describing a self-actualizing personality, Maslow said that such people are characterized not only by acceptance of others, openness and contact, but also by the desire for solitude, autonomy and independence from their environment and culture. Society is necessary for a person, since he can express himself only among other people. However, in its very essence, it cannot but impede a person’s desire for self-actualization, since any society, according to Maslow, seeks to make a person a template representative of his environment, it alienates the personality from its essence, from its individuality, makes it conformal.
At the same time, alienation, preserving the “self”, the individuality of the individual, puts it in opposition to the environment and also deprives it of the opportunity to self-actualize. Therefore, in its development, a person needs to maintain a balance between these two mechanisms, which, like Scylla and Charybdis, guard him in the process of his personal development. Therefore, identification in the external plan, in the communication of a person with the outside world, and alienation in the internal plan, in terms of his personal development, the development of his self-consciousness, is optimal. It is this approach that will enable a person to communicate effectively with others and at the same time remain himself.
Of particular importance in the process of development is the compensation mechanism, about which A. Adler wrote. He singled out four main types of compensation - incomplete compensation, full compensation, overcompensation and imaginary compensation or withdrawal into illness.
The importance of this mechanism is that it describes the influence on the development process not only of external, social factors (such as internalization and identification), but also internal ones, such as a person’s abilities, his individual characteristics. It is not surprising that on the basis of different types of compensation, Adler built his own typology of the personality of children.
No less significant is the fact that compensation makes it possible to develop an individual lifestyle that is adequate both for this person and for those around him. Since practically no personality structure is absolutely positive or absolutely negative, compensation shows the possibility for any child to find his own style of socialization and his own social group. Under the action of this mechanism, normativity is established on the basis of an individual set of qualities inherent in a particular person. That is, compensation opens up a wide range of opportunities for adults without breaking the child, without imposing on him unacceptable forms of activity and communication, to help overcome his own shortcomings at the expense of his merits.
Speaking about the mechanisms of development, it is necessary to emphasize that their role in the mental formation of different people is not the same, it changes even during a person's life, however, to one degree or another, each of them is present, performing its functions.
In the early years of life, such mechanisms as internalization (primarily of culture, knowledge, rules and norms of the society in which the child lives) come to the fore, as well as identification with others. In adulthood and, especially, in old age, these mechanisms no longer have their former significance. The decrease in the role of internalization leads to the fact that new knowledge is formed with great difficulty, it is difficult to fill them with emotional experiences in order to form new motives. Therefore, it is difficult for older people to form new role relationships, they find it difficult to get used to new values and new ideas about themselves and others.
The decrease in the value of identification is due to the fact that the communication group (friends, family) has already been created, and at this age it is almost not revised. Social identification, that is, the choice of a new social or national group to which a person refers himself, is also significantly hampered. Therefore, it is so difficult to adapt to a new environment (social, cultural, even ecological) at this age.
The role of the mechanism of alienation also changes, the significance of which, on the contrary, increases with age. As a rule, this mechanism reaches its maximum development in adulthood, which is associated with awareness of oneself, one's personal integrity and uniqueness, the desire to isolate one's inner world from other people's interference. In old age, the activity of alienation decreases, but in some cases, usually associated with a violation of social identity and the emergence of aggression or withdrawal from a new social environment, its role may not only not decrease, but even increase, and cover both internal and external plans. activities.
The importance of the compensation mechanism also increases in the process of ontogenesis. In children low level reflection, an adequate assessment of one's individuality prevents conscious compensation for one's shortcomings and weaknesses. Unconscious compensation is often hindered by the style of activity imposed by adults. Therefore, the full functioning of this mechanism in the first years of a child's life is associated primarily with right attitude on the part of an adult and his understanding of the individuality of the child.
As you become aware of your personal qualities and abilities, the possibilities of compensation increase. The inclusion of this mechanism in maturity largely ensures the self-realization of a person and his personal and creative growth. In old age, the role of compensation not only does not decrease, but increases, while the activity of the mechanism is no longer aimed only at compensating for their individual weaknesses, but also for their losses - strength, health, status, support groups. Therefore, for normal aging, it is very important to develop this particular mechanism of mental life in older people.
At the same time, it is necessary to pay attention to the fact that at any age the adequate and complete type of compensation dominates. That is, this mechanism should function in such a way that a person does not go into imaginary compensation - usually into his illness, exaggerating his ailments and infirmities in order to arouse attention, interest and pity, or even achieve more tangible material privileges. From this point of view, the importance of learning new activities, the development of creativity, the emergence of a new hobby and any form of creativity becomes clear, since with their help full compensation develops.
In addition to the main mechanisms that enrich the child's psyche with new content, there are, as mentioned above, protective mechanisms that make it possible to overcome those barriers and personal conflicts that arise in a person in the process of his development.
If the mechanisms of development were discussed even before Z. Freud, then the idea of defense mechanisms belongs exclusively to him. He believed that the ability to maintain one's mental health depends on psychological defense mechanisms that help a person, if not prevent (since this is actually impossible), then at least mitigate the conflict between the Id and the Super-Ego. Freud identified several defense mechanisms, the main of which are repression, regression, rationalization, projection and sublimation.
Repression is the most ineffective mechanism, since in this case the energy of the repressed and unfulfilled motive (desire) is not realized in activity, but remains in the person, causing an increase in tension. Since desire is forced into the unconscious, the person completely forgets about it. However, the remaining tension, penetrating through the unconscious, makes itself felt in the form of symbols that fill our dreams, in the form of errors, slips of the tongue, reservations. Therefore, Freud attached such importance to the "psychopathology of everyday life", that is, the interpretation of such phenomena as mistakes and dreams of a person, his associations.
Regression and rationalization are more successful types of protection, since they allow at least a partial discharge of the energy contained in human desires. At the same time, regression is a more primitive way of realizing aspirations and getting out of a conflict situation. A person may start biting nails, ruining things, chewing gum or tobacco, believing in good or evil spirits, seeking risky situations, etc., and many of these regressions are so generally accepted that they are not even perceived as such. Rationalization is associated with the desire of the Super-Ego to somehow control the situation, giving it a respectable appearance. Therefore, a person, not realizing the real motives of his behavior, covers them up and explains them with invented, but morally acceptable motives.
During projection, a person attributes to others those desires and feelings that he himself experiences. In the event that the subject to whom a feeling was attributed confirms the projection made by his behavior, this defense mechanism operates quite successfully, since a person can recognize these feelings as real, valid, but external to him, and not be afraid. their. It must be emphasized that the introduction of this protective mechanism made it possible to develop the so-called "projective methods" of personality research in the future. These methods, consisting of asking them to complete unfinished phrases or stories, or to build a story from vague plot pictures, were a significant contribution to the experimental study of personality.
The most effective defense mechanism is sublimation, as it helps to direct the energy associated with sexual or aggressive desires in a different direction, to realize it, in particular, in creative activity. In principle, Freud considered culture to be a product of sublimation, and from this point of view he considered works of art, scientific discoveries. This activity is the most successful because in it there is a complete realization of the accumulated energy, catharsis or purification of a person from it.
In the future, some of Freud's views on the functioning of defense mechanisms were revised, in particular, it was shown that their work helps to overcome external frustrations, conflicts that arise between society and the subject. In this case, the task of psychological defense is to bring the person's opinion of himself and the opinion of others about him into line. To the mechanisms of K. Horney studied by Freud, there are three more types of protection, which are based on the satisfaction of certain neurotic needs. If normally all these needs and, accordingly, all these types of protection are harmoniously combined with each other, then in case of deviations one of them begins to dominate, leading to the development of one or another neurotic complex in a person.
A person finds protection either in striving for people (compliant type), or in striving against people (aggressive type), or in striving away from people (eliminated type).
With the development of a desire for people, a person hopes to overcome his anxiety by agreeing with others in the hope that in response to his conforming position they will not notice (or pretend not to notice) the inadequacy of his "I image". The problem is that in this case, the subject develops such neurotic needs as the need for affection and approval, the need for a partner who would take care of him, the need to be admired by other people, the need for prestige. Like any neurotic needs, they are unrealistic and insatiable, that is, a person, having achieved recognition or admiration from others, tries to get more and more praise and recognition, fearing the slightest, often imaginary signs of coldness or disapproval. Such people absolutely cannot stand loneliness, experiencing horror at the thought that they can be left, left without communication ... This constant tension serves as the basis for the development of neurosis in this case.
The development of protection in the form of leaving, striving "from people" makes it possible for a person to ignore the opinions of others, left alone with his "image of I". However, even in this case, neurotic needs develop, in particular the need to limit one's life to narrow limits, the need for independence and independence, the need to be perfect and invulnerable. Disillusioned with the opportunity to tie warm relationship with others, such a person tries to be invisible, and not dependent on others. Out of fear of criticism, he tries to appear impregnable, although deep down he remains insecure and tense. This approach leads a person to complete loneliness, isolation, which is hard to experience and can also serve as the basis for the development of neurosis.
An attempt to overcome anxiety by imposing one’s “I-image” by force on other people also does not end in success, since in this case a person develops such neurotic needs as the need to exploit others, the desire for personal achievements, for power. Those signs of attention, respect and humility that they receive from others seem to them more and more insufficient, and in their anxiety these people need more and more power and domination, which would serve as proof of their adequacy.
E. Fromm came to similar principles of the activity of psychological defense, who described four defense mechanisms - sadism, masochism, conformism and destructivism. With sadism and masochism, the victim and the executioner are rooted, who depend on each other and need each other, although the difference in their positions gives them a sense of their own individuality. Under conformism, the feeling of rootedness prevails, while under destructiveism, on the contrary, the desire for individualization, the desire to destroy the society that does not allow a person to take root in it, prevails.
Thus, in modern developmental psychology, defense mechanisms are distinguished that are aimed at overcoming intrapersonal conflicts and mechanisms that optimize a person’s communication with others. At the same time, the cause of these social conflicts, as a rule, is personal problems, inadequacy of self-image, demonstrativeness, anxiety, etc.
While most psychologists considered primarily the positive aspects of the operation of psychological defense, humanistic psychology also emphasized their negative side. Psychological protection arises in connection with the need to constantly ignore the signals of one's own insolvency or lack of success that come to the subject from the outside world. The fear of changing one's self-esteem, to which a person is accustomed and which he already considers really his own, leads to the alienation of his experience from consciousness. Therefore, by helping to avoid neurosis, psychological defense stops personal growth, and this is the negative aspect of its impact, emphasized by Maslow, Rogers and other scientists. To some extent, the reason for this contradiction becomes clear if we remember that for psychoanalysis, development is adaptation to the environment, finding a certain ecological niche in which the individual finds a way to get away from the pressure of the environment. Thus, psychological protection helps such adaptation to the environment and, therefore, from the point of view of humanistic psychology, hinders personal growth. Thus, opposing views on the very process of personality development lead to opposing views on the role of psychological protection in this development.
1. What is the difference between growth and development
2. What is preformed and unpreformed development
3. What are the main principles and categories of developmental psychology
4. What types of determinism are distinguished in psychology
5. What are the two main forms of development of the psyche
6. What aspects of the development of the psyche can be distinguished
8. How activity develops in ontogeny
9. What is the role of communication in the development of the psyche
10. What approaches to the study of personality exist in developmental psychology
11. What is the role of experiences in the process of the formation of the psyche
12. How do motives and needs change in ontogeny
13. What factors influence the development of the psyche
14. What is the difference between evolutionary and revolutionary paths of development
15. What factors are the basis of psychological periodization
16. How age and functional periodizations differ
17. What is the role of psychological defense mechanisms
18. What development mechanisms exist in psychology
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