Psychological theories and their relationship.

associationism- one of the basic directions of world mental thought, explaining the dynamics of mental processes by the principle of association. For the first time, the postulates of associationism were formulated by Aristotle, who put forward the idea that images that arise without an apparent external cause are the product of association. The organism was conceived as a machine imprinting traces of external influences, so that the renewal of one of the traces automatically entails the appearance of another.

Thanks to the teachings of David Hume, James Mill, John Stuart, etc.
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a view was established in science according to which: 1) the psyche is built from the elements of sensations, the simplest feelings; 2) elements are primary, complex mental formations are secondary and arise through associations; 3) the condition for the formation of associations is the contiguity of two mental processes; 4) the consolidation of associations is due to the vivacity of the associated elements and the frequency of repetition of associations in the experience.

In the 80-90s of the 19th century, numerous attempts were made to study the conditions for the formation and actualization of associations (G. Ebbinghaus, G. Müller). At the same time, the mechanical interpretation of the association was shown to be organic. Elements of associationism were transformed into Pavlov's doctrine of conditioned reflexes. The study of associations in order to identify the characteristics of various mental processes is also used in modern psychology.

Behaviorism- a direction in American psychology of the 20th century, which denies consciousness and reduces the psyche to various forms of behavior. Behavior was interpreted as a set of body responses to environmental stimuli. From the point of view of behaviorism, the true subject of psychology is human behavior from birth to death. J. Watson sought to consider behavior as the sum of adaptive reactions on the model of a conditioned reflex. Behavior was understood as response motor acts of the body to stimuli coming from the external environment. External stimuli, simple or complex situations - ϶ᴛᴏ incentives S, response movements R. The connection between stimulus and reaction was taken as a unit of behavior: S - R. Behavior - any reaction in response to an external stimulus, through which the individual adapts to the world around him. All laws of behavior fix the relationship between what happens ʼʼat the inputʼʼ (stimulus) and ʼʼoutʼʼ (motor response) of the body system.

Τᴀᴋᴎᴍ ᴏϬᴩᴀᴈᴏᴍ, behaviorism studied the behavior of individuals as a sequence of acts in the form of ʼʼresponsesʼʼ (reactions) to ʼʼstimuliʼʼ coming from environment. The concept of ʼʼbehaviorʼʼ introduced by behaviorists excluded the use in psychology of such concepts as ʼʼconsciousnessʼʼ, ʼʼpersonalityʼʼ, ʼʼindividualityʼʼ, and incl. concepts of ʼʼpsycheʼʼ.

Behaviorists set the following tasks: 1) identify and describe the maximum number of possible types of behavioral responses; 2) to study the process of their formation; 3) establish the laws of their combination, ᴛ.ᴇ. formation of complex forms of behavior. In connection with these tasks, behaviorists assumed to predict behavior (reaction) from the situation (stimulus) and vice versa - to judge the nature of the stimulus causing it from the reaction.

A representative of late behaviorism, E. Tolman, introduced an amendment to the classical scheme of behavior by placing a link between the stimulus and the response - intermediate variables. The general scheme then acquired the following form: S-V-R. By intermediate variables Tolman meant internal processes that mediate the action of a stimulus on the organism and thus influence external behavior. These include goals, intentions, and so on.

Behaviorism has rejected introspection as a method of psychology. Behavior can be investigated by observation and experiment. In the view of behaviorists, man is a reactive being. All his actions and deeds are interpreted as reactions to external influences. The internal activity of a person is not taken into account. All psychological manifestations of a person are explained through behavior, reduced to the sum of reactions.

Behaviorism simplified the nature of man, put him on the same level with animals. Behaviorism excluded from explaining human behavior his consciousness, personal values, ideals, interests, etc.

Gestalt psychology. The direction of psychological science that arose in Germany in the first third of the 20th century and put forward a program for the study of integral structures of the psyche. Basic provision new school In psychology, the assertion has become that the initial, primary data of psychology are integral structures.

At the origins of this trend were Wertheimer, Koffka and Keller.
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According to the theory of Gestalt psychology, the world consists of integral complex forms, and human consciousness is also an integrated structural whole. Perception is not reduced to the sum of sensations; the properties of a perceived figure cannot be adequately described through the properties of its parts. The fundamental generalizing concept and explanatory principle of this direction is Gestalt. Gestalt - means ʼʼformʼʼ, ʼʼstructureʼʼ, ʼʼintegral configurationʼʼ, ᴛ.ᴇ. an organized whole whose properties are not derived from the properties of its parts.

The following laws of gestalt are distinguished: 1) the attraction of parts to the formation of a symmetrical whole; 2) selection in the field of perception of a figure and a background; 3) grouping of parts of the whole in the direction of maximum closeness, balance and simplicity; 4) the principle of "pregnancy" (the tendency of each mental phenomenon to take the most definite, distinct and complete form).

Later, the concept of ʼʼgestaltʼʼ began to be understood broadly, as an integral structure, form or organization of something, and not only in relation to perceptual processes. An example of such an extended interpretation was the theoretical work of W. Köhler ʼʼPhysical gestalts at rest and stationary stateʼʼ. The work stated that between the material object and its image, between the physical field and the phenomenal field of perception, an intermediary or connecting link is found - integral neural ensembles that ensure their structural correspondence to each other. Based on this postulate, Keler proposed the study of not individual components of the human nervous system, but integral and dynamic structures, a kind of ʼʼphysiology of gestaltsʼʼ.

ʼʼGestaltʼʼ is a specific organization of parts, the whole, ĸᴏᴛᴏᴩᴏᴇ cannot be changed without its destruction. Gestalt psychology came out with a new understanding of the subject and method of psychology. The integrity of mental structures has become the main problem and explanatory principle of Gestalt psychology. The method was a phenomenological description aimed at direct and natural observation of the content of one's perception, one's experience. At the same time, it was proposed to take the position of a "naive, unprepared" observer who does not have a pre-developed idea of ​​the structure of mental phenomena. In Gestalt psychology, the principle of integrity was first discovered in the study of man. Within the framework of the school, entire research practices have been developed, which formed the basis of a whole area of ​​practical psychology - Gestalt therapy.

Depth psychology. At the root of many psychological theories lies the theory of the unconscious (affective-emotional, instinctive and intuitive processes in the behavior of the individual and in the formation of his personality). The unconscious is a relatively autonomous area of ​​mental life, a substructure of the personality, a part of its mental apparatus, not subject to and not controlled by the conscious Self (Ego). Z. Freud attributed to the sphere of the unconscious the biological drives of the individual, desires and impulses that are unacceptable from the point of view of his social environment, as well as traumatic experiences and memories that are repressed due to their painful effect on the Ego. The unconscious includes irrational forces: drives, instincts. In particular, the main ones are sexual drives and the drive to death. Freudianism assigned an insignificant role to consciousness in human life. It acted as a servant of the unconscious. The unconscious controls the person. For this reason, often a person cannot give an explanation for his actions, or explains them without understanding the real reasons for his behavior.

K.G. Jung expanded his ideas about the unconscious, highlighting in it, along with the personal level, the collective level that determines the universal, universal forms of experience. According to Jung, the unconscious should be considered not only as an initially oppositional psychic instance, which is in constant confrontation with consciousness, but also as an autonomous creative activity of the soul, subject to its own laws and determining the development of the individual. Jung considered the goal of individual development to be the synthesis of the ego (conscious self) and the unconscious.

Depth psychology includes hormic psychology, psychoanalysis, neo-Freudianism, analytical psychology, and individual psychology.

Humanistic psychology- ϶ᴛᴏ direction in Western psychology, recognizing the personality as a unique integral structure as the main subject of its study. Humanistic psychology is focused on the study of healthy and creative people, on the study of their psyche. The attitude to the individual is perceived as an absolute, indisputable and enduring value. In the context of humanistic psychology, the uniqueness of the human personality, the search for values ​​and the meaning of existence are emphasized. In humanistic psychology, the highest values, self-actualization of the individual, creativity, love, freedom, responsibility, autonomy, mental health, and interpersonal communication are the priority topics of psychological analysis. This direction in psychology is associated with the names of A. Maslow, C. Rogers, S. Bueller and others.

The main provisions of the humanistic theory of personality:

1. Man is whole and must be studied in his wholeness.

2. Each person is unique, in this regard, the analysis of individual cases is no less justified than statistical generalizations.

3. A person is open to the world, a person's experience of the world and himself in the world is the main psychological reality.

4. Human life should be considered as a single process of becoming and being of a person.

5. A person has a certain degree of freedom from external determination due to the meanings and values ​​that guide him in his choice.

6. Man is an active, intentional, creative being.

One of the branches of humanistic psychology is existential psychology, focused on the problems of the meaning of life, responsibility, choice, loneliness, individual way of being.

Cognitive Psychology - one of the leading directions of modern foreign psychology. It arose in the late 50s and early 60s of the 20th century as a reaction to the dominant behaviorism in the United States, which denied the role of the internal organization of mental processes. The main task of cognitive psychology was to study the transformations of sensory information from the moment a stimulus hits the receptors until a response is received. Numerous structural components (blocks) of cognitive and executive processes were identified, incl. short and long term memory. At the same time, this approach identified a number of difficulties in connection with the increase in the number of structural models of private mental processes. After that, the main task of cognitive psychology was to study the role of knowledge in human behavior. The central issue is the organization of knowledge in the memory of the subject, incl. on the correlation of verbal and figurative components in the processes of memorization and thinking. Cognitive theories of emotion, individual differences, and personality have also been intensively developed.

The main representatives of cognitive psychology were Jean Piaget, Henri Wallon, Bruner, Colbert. Jean Piaget is a Swiss psychologist. Basic research on the formation of thinking and speech in children. Development is an adaptation to the surrounding reality in order to achieve balance with it. Balancing mechanisms are accommodation (adaptation of action to a changed situation) and assimilation (distribution of already existing forms of behavior to new conditions). The instrument of balancing is the intellect. The general scheme of human life according to Piaget is built from the development of the motivational-need sphere to the development of the intellect. Progress is determined by the combined influence of the maturation of the nervous system, the experience of handling various objects and education. Henri Vallon represented the development of the human psyche through its interaction with the external environment, with the conditions of existence. At the same time, the most essential conditions for development are the attitude and behavior of people, as well as the objective world.
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Jerome Bruner is an American psychologist who attributed a fundamental role to learning. He believed that a child can be taught anything if you deal with him and, on the contrary, the development of the child stops if his education is not started until the age of nine. Development is impossible outside of school

Cultural-historical theory of L. S. Vygotsky:

Fundamental positions domestic psychology regarding mental development, developed by L.S. Vygotsky and presented in his cultural-historical theory. The key concept of the theory is the concept of higher mental functions. They are characterized by five basic features: complexity, sociality, mediation, arbitrariness, plasticity.

The complexity is due to the diversity of higher mental functions in terms of the features of formation and development, in terms of structure and composition. The social nature of higher mental functions is determined by their origin. Οʜᴎ appear from social interaction, then internalized, they pass into the internal plan, they become the property of the subject. According to this scheme, traits and properties of a person's character, cognitive operations, properties of attention and other functions are formed. The mediation of higher mental functions is manifested in the ways of their functioning. The main ʼʼintermediaryʼʼ is a sign (word, number); the level of development of the psyche, which allows the child to operate with a sign, a symbol, represents the level of higher mental functions. Arbitrariness is a way of existence of higher mental functions. It represents the level of development at which the subject is able to act purposefully, planning actions, managing them. The plasticity of higher mental functions is their ability to change. Plasticity acts as an adaptive ability of the psyche to the changing conditions of existence and activity. Plasticity also means the possibility of compensation with new mental functions to replace those lost or partially impaired.

The dialectics of development, according to Vygotsky, is as follows: on the one hand, microscopic changes in the child’s psyche slowly accumulate, on the other hand, there is a leap, an explosion, a transition from quantity to quality, a sharp change in the relationship of the child and his social environment. L.S. Vygotsky identifies five such jumps: the neonatal crisis, the crises of one year, three years, seven and thirteen years. Age development is inseparable from the social relations of the child. In this regard, L.S. Vygotsky introduces the concept of ʼʼsocial situation of developmentʼʼ - ʼʼcompletely peculiar, specific to given age the relation between the child and the reality surrounding him, first of all, the social reality. It is the social situation of development, according to L.S. Vygotsky is the main source of development. The social situation of development always includes another person, a partner, with whom relationships are built, who makes information, teaches. Training, according to L.S. Vygotsky, there is an extremely important condition for the cultural and historical development of the child. Speaking about the impact of learning on its dynamics, L.S. Vygotsky introduces the concept of the zone of actuality and the zone of proximal development. Actual development qualifies the current capabilities of the child, the plan of his independent actions and skills. Zone of proximal development L.S. Vygotsky defined everything that a child does today in cooperation, and tomorrow he will be able to do independently. This zone should be created by training, ĸᴏᴛᴏᴩᴏᴇ will be developing only when it sets in motion ʼʼa whole series of internal development processesʼʼ.

General psychological theory of activity A.N. Leontief . Activity, according to Leontiev, is a unit of life. Activity cannot be withdrawn from social relations. Society not only determines the external conditions for the implementation of activities, but also contributes to the formation of motives, goals, methods, means to achieve the goal. Activity is part of the subject of psychology. Internal activity is formed from external. The process of internalization is not that the external activity is transferred to the previous plane of consciousness, it is the process in which the internal plan is formed. Action is the basis of thinking, an extremely important condition for the formation of meanings, their expansion and deepening. Action is the beginning of reflection. The action is transformed into an act and becomes the main formative factor and at the same time the unit of personality analysis.

The structure of a two-phase activity can be represented as follows: Actualization of a need - background (search) activity - the appearance of a motive - the active phase of activity - satisfaction of a need.

External (behavioral) and internal aspects of activity. The internal side of activity is represented by mental formations that direct external activity. External activity and the psychic that directs it arise and develop in inseparable unity with each other, as two sides of a common life activity. Primary is always external activity. In the process of evolution, the complication of environmental conditions caused a corresponding complication of external life activity, which was accompanied by the formation of processes of mental reflection that corresponded to it. In the ontogenesis of the human psyche, there is a transition from external, material, actions to actions in the internal plane, ᴛ.ᴇ. internal mental activities come from practical activity. This transition from external material actions to actions on the internal plane has been called internalization. Τᴀᴋᴎᴍ ᴏϬᴩᴀᴈᴏᴍ, external practical activity is always primary.

The result of mental reflection is an important element of the structure of activity, an indicator of the level of mental development. The result of mental reflection has internal and external aspects. So, for example, in worms, snails, with light irritation, the internal result of mental reflection is the reflection of light on the retina of the eye, while the external result is the actual sensation of the acting stimulus. At the levels of the human psyche, knowledge becomes the result of mental reflection. It also has an inside and outside.

Schematically, the structure of activity can be represented as follows:

P (need) - activity - M (motive) - action C (goal).

When considering the structure of activity, it is extremely important to keep in mind that the need - the source, the root cause of activity - must be satisfied through various objects (motives). For example, the need for food can be satisfied with the help of various foods, the need for physical activity - with the help of various sports. Τᴀᴋᴎᴍ ᴏϬᴩᴀᴈᴏᴍ, one and the same need can give rise to different activities aimed at the realization of different motives. Each motive, in turn, must be realized through various goals achieved through various actions.

Leading activity. Any activity that takes a lot of time cannot become a leader. The living conditions of a person are such that at each age stage he gets the opportunity to develop most intensively in a certain type of activity: in infancy - in direct emotional communication with his mother, at an early age - manipulating objects, in preschool childhood - playing with peers, at primary school age - in educational activities, in adolescence - in intimate and personal communication with peers, in youth - when choosing and preparing for a future profession, in youth - when mastering a chosen profession and creating a family, etc. Leading activity is one of the basic criteria in Elkonin's age periodization, which has received the most recognition from us.

Psychological theories and their relationship. - concept and types. Classification and features of the category "Psychological theories and their relationship." 2017, 2018.

The greatest influence on the development of psychology in the twentieth century was mainly exerted by two theories: “behaviorism” and “Freudianism”. The first originated in America, the second - in Western Europe. Seeing no further prospects for the development of psychology within the framework of the introspective study of the phenomena of consciousness, some American psychologists turned their attention to the study of the behavior of animals and humans. This was also facilitated by the fact that by this time a reflex theory of nervous activity had taken shape, within which scientists tried to explain the behavior of animals and humans.

D. Watson is considered the founder of a new direction in psychology, whose book entitled “Psychology from the point of view of a behaviorist” was published in 1913. The name of the new theory “behaviorism” comes from English word“behavior”, which in translation into Russian means “behavior”.

Watson believed that psychology should become a natural science discipline, that only that which is directly perceived, that is, behavior, should become its subject, that consciousness cannot be the subject of science, since it is inaccessible to objective study.

He wrote: “... psychology must... abandon the subjective subject of study, the introspective method of research and the old terminology. Consciousness with its structural elements, indecomposable sensations and sensory tones, with its processes, attention, perception, imagination - all these are just phrases that cannot be defined” Utson J. Psychology as a science of behavior. State Publishing House of Ukraine, 1926, p. 3..

The purpose of science is to identify the causes of the appearance and functioning of human and animal behavior. The main cause of behavior, Watson believed, is external stimuli, under the action of which the body responds with certain motor reactions. The relationship between stimulus and response can be either innate or acquired. Especially great importance Behaviorists attached importance to the study of the laws of formation of new connections between stimulus and response, since this would make it possible to explain the assimilation of new forms of behavior.

Basically, behaviorists conducted experiments on animals using the “problem box” technique. An animal placed in a “problem box” could only get out of it by pressing the locking device. The emergence of new forms of behavior occurred through trial and error. First, the animal accidentally pressed the lever that closed the door, then, with repeated repetition of the movement leading to success, it was fixed, as a result of which a strong connection was established between the stimulus and the reaction. This is how behaviorists simplistically explained the process of learning new forms of behavior of both animals and humans, not seeing any fundamental difference between them. They saw all the differences between an animal and a person only in the fact that the number of stimuli and reactions in a person is much greater than in animals, since, along with natural stimuli, a person is exposed to social, including speech stimuli.

Behaviorists believed that the main task of a scientist is to learn how to determine the reaction from the stimulus, and from the reaction - the current stimulus. In reality, this turned out to be impossible, since the same stimulus can cause different reactions, and the same reaction can cause different stimuli. This is because the connection between stimulus and response is established through the psyche. The stimulus causes this or that reaction, only being reflected in the psyche.

This circumstance had to be acknowledged later by the “neobehaviorists”. So E. Tolman wrote that the connections between stimuli and reactions are not direct, but are mediated by “intermediate variables”, by which he understood psychological factors such as goals, expectations, intentions, hypotheses, cognitive maps (images). Their presence in behavior is evidenced by such signs as: the occurrence of behavior without external stimuli, prolonged behavior without new stimuli, a change in behavior before the stimuli begin to act or continue to act, improvement in the results of behavior in the process of repetition.

The emergence of cybernetics, computer science, computers led to the emergence of the so-called cognitive psychology. It became clear that explaining behavior in terms of stimuli and responses alone was insufficient. The results obtained with the operation of a computing machine depend not only on the initial data entered into the machine, but also on what program was put into it. The same is true for a person. His behavior depends not only on what stimuli act on him, but also on how they are processed through cognitive (cognitive) processes, on the basis of which the human consciousness functions.

In Western Europe, the development of psychology in the twentieth century took a different path. In Germany, a new trend in psychology arose, called "Gestaltism". Proponents of this trend M. Wertheimer, W. Keller, K. Koffka and others critically approached both associative and behavioral psychology. They proved, based on their research, that it is impossible to explain the psyche and behavior by dividing them into the simplest elements: sensations and reactions.

The psyche and behavior, they argued, cannot be reduced to isolated elements, since they have a holistic character. Holistic structures in the psyche and behavior exist from the very beginning and they cannot be decomposed into separate elements. Mental phenomena (images, thoughts, feelings) and acts of behavior (actions and deeds) cannot be reduced to individual impressions and mechanical movements such as trial and error, but are characterized by integrity and coverage of the entire situation in which an animal or person is located.

Research Gestalt psychologists have made a lot of value in the development of problems of perception, memory, thinking, personality and interpersonal relationships. But the Gestaltists have been criticized for the fact that they wrongly reduced the psyche and behavior only to integral structures, discarding individual elements, despite the fact that they exist in reality.

Simultaneously with these trends, another theory arose in Western Europe, which was called "Freudianism" or "psychoanalysis". The creator of this theory, S. Freud, identified three areas in the structure of the human psyche: consciousness, preconsciousness and the unconscious psyche. He paid special attention to the last area , having created the theory and practice of using unconscious mental phenomena for the purposes of psychotherapy.Since Freud called his method of treating neuroses psychoanalytic, his teaching received a second name - “psychoanalysis”.

His theory is based on an analytical approach to the structure of the psyche and to the emergence and interaction of mental phenomena of different levels. The content of all spheres depends on the information that comes from the external world and the internal states of the organism. First, all information enters the ancient unconscious psyche, which reflects and regulates the body's innate reactions. Information that reflects and regulates more complex acts of behavior enters the later - preconscious psyche. And, finally, information that has a social character enters the latest formation of the psyche - consciousness.

Each area is characterized by its own characteristics. The main property of the unconscious psyche is its large energy charge, which determines the effective nature of its influence on human behavior. The second feature of this sphere is that the information accumulated in it hardly enters the sphere of consciousness, due to the work of two mechanisms: resistance and repression. This is explained by the fact that there are uncompromising contradictions between consciousness and the unconscious psyche. The content of the unconscious psyche, according to Freud, is desires and drives, the main of which are sexual drives, while the content of consciousness is moral principles and other social attitudes, from the point of view of which instinctive drives are shameful and should not be allowed into consciousness. But they, possessing great energy power, nevertheless break through into consciousness, which, although it tries to force them into the sphere of the unconscious, they remain there, taking a distorted form. They are, according to Freud, the cause of neurotic symptoms, which must be analyzed and eliminated through special therapeutic techniques: free association, analysis of dreams, creation of myths, by removal, etc.

The methods of psychoanalysis are widely used in psychotherapy, but the theoretical provisions of Freudism are criticized for the biologization of the human psyche, for underestimating the role of consciousness, which, as critics aptly remark, has become a battlefield where an old maid and a sexually deranged monkey met in a deadly fight.

The followers of Freud, the “neo-Freudians” Adler, Fromm, and others, while retaining faith in the special role of the unconscious in the human psyche and in the presence of negative complexes, nevertheless had to recognize the decisive influence of social factors on the psyche and human behavior. So Fromm believed that where the personality is suppressed, pathological phenomena arise in the psyche: masochism, necrophilia (the desire for destruction), sadism, conformism, etc.

A special place in psychotherapy is occupied by the system of R. Hubbard Hubbard L. RON. Dianetics. M., 1993., who created "Dianetics" - a modern science, as he writes, of mental health. Although Hubbard himself does not mention anywhere that his theoretical positions and methods of restoring mental health are connected with Freud, the whole theory and practice of influencing the psyche is built on the priority of the unconscious.

Hubbard's book "Dianetics" was published in 1950 and immediately gained wide popularity in the world, with the exception of our country. It appeared in our country only in 1993. Obviously, for ideological reasons, his book was not only not published before, but it was never mentioned or reviewed anywhere. A characteristic feature of "Dianetics" is the wide coverage of problems related to the human psyche, the desire to connect theoretical issues with the practice of restoring mental health without physical intervention, solely by means of psychotherapy.

The main goal of Hubbard's psychotherapy, he writes, is the clear. A Clear is a person in his optimum state of mind. A Clear possesses in full all those mental properties and qualities that provide him with the most favorable existence in society. A non-clear is an aberrated person with a distorted psyche. He can become clear through Dianetic therapy. At the heart of aberration, which distorts the psyche, are engrams - records in the cell of all those influences that adversely affect the mental development of a person. Engrams arise from the prenatal period throughout life. They introduce distorted information into the human mind, which causes a breakdown in normal mental activity. In order to restore mental health to a person, it is necessary to erase the engram through special therapeutic interventions. These include: reverie - the patient's readiness to reproduce traumatic events of the past with his eyes closed, release - disconnecting a person from difficulties and painful emotions, restimulation - restoring past events in memory that resemble the present, recall - re-resurrection of sensations from the past, dramatization - duplication of information content in the engram at the present time, the repeater method is to bring the patient back on the time track to re-contact the engram, etc.

In theoretical terms, Hubbard believed that the main goal of human life is survival. He described four survival dynamics. The first dynamic is the urge to survive for its own sake. The second dynamic has to do with sexual activity, childbearing and child rearing. The third dynamic is directed towards the survival of large groups of people, peoples, nations. The Fourth Dynamic is concerned with the survival of the entire human race. The absolute goal of survival is the desire for immortality or for the endless survival of a person as an organism, his spirit, the continuation of himself in his children and in all of humanity.

Although Hubbard believes that "Dianetics" is a science, there are many unclear and controversial provisions in it. Thus, for example, Hubbard argues that a person is subject to aberration from the moment of conception and the patient can recover traumatic events from that moment. How is this possible? After all, he was then a cell. To this Hubbard replies that "the human soul inhabits the sperm and egg at the moment of conception" and the cell is sentient. How can a “reasonable” cell perceive traumatic influences? After all, she has no sense organs and she does not have extrasensory sensations! Not finding an answer to these questions, Hubbard comes to the conclusion that the patient's answers are the result of the work of a "lie factory", which was prompted by others about the events that took place at that time. Thus, the scientific validity of patients' testimonies is questionable.

The problem of human immortality has recently begun to attract the attention of scientists both in America and in other countries. In the 70s, such scientists as R. A. Moody, E. Kubler-Ross, and K. Grof, L. Watson, K. Ring, R. V. Amanyan, R. Almeder, C. Fiore, A. Landsberg. In 1990, the book “Life after Death” was published in our country, where fragments from the works of these authors were published.

The possibility of the existence of the soul of a person after death, supporters of this theory prove on the basis of numerous facts. All peoples have believed about the immortality of the soul since ancient times. In some countries, such as India, there is a belief in the transmigration of souls after death. There are many testimonies about the facts of such a resettlement. Many facts have been described about the movement of people from one place where they are at the moment to another. There are many facts about the separation of the soul from the body during resuscitation in the clinic and its return back. It was possible to photograph with the help of a highly sensitive apparatus a transparent body of a spherical shape, separated from the human body. The voices of people after their death were recorded on a tape recorder.

Thus, the ideas of the ancient philosophers about the immortal soul reappeared in scientific research. In pre-revolutionary Russia, there were psychological theories of both idealistic and materialistic directions. Subjective idealistic psychology dominated in state educational institutions. At the same time, the materialistic traditions in psychology, laid down in the works of I.M. Sechenov, I.P. Pavlova, V.M. Bekhterev. These scientists discovered new mechanisms of nervous activity that underlie the behavior of animals and humans. In their works, they defended the objective principle of studying mental activity, rejecting the subjective approach as unscientific.

In the post-revolutionary period, new psychological theories arose, based on the ideas of the reflex theory. So, K. N. Kornilov developed “reactology”, M. Ya. Basov - the theory of behavior, V.M. Bekhterev - "reflexology". In the works of other scientists, elements of behaviorism, gestaltism and psychoanalysis were used.

In 1936, after the decision of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Belarus "On pedological perversions in the system of the People's Commissariat for Education", all existing psychological theories were declared unscientific, bourgeois.

Since that time, Soviet psychology began to develop solely on the basis of Marxism-Leninism and the philosophy of dialectical materialism. This circumstance had both a positive and a negative impact on the development of Soviet psychology. This influenced the development of those theoretical provisions that formed the basis of all psychological research in subsequent times.

The first fundamental theoretical position was that the psyche was considered as a property of highly organized matter - the brain, consisting in the reflection of the surrounding reality. Such an understanding of the essence of the psyche, on the one hand, made it possible to correctly explain the purpose of the psyche, and on the other hand, it even excluded the possibility of raising the question of the existence of the psyche independently of a person.

The second position was that the forms of manifestation of mental activity are causally determined. The principle of determinism, which was proclaimed by materialist philosophers, made it possible to scientifically explain the psyche and behavior of humans and animals depending on the conditions of existence: in animals - biological conditions, in humans - social conditions. However, with a specific explanation of the human psyche, in accordance with ideological guidelines, priority was given not to universal, but to class conditions of existence, in connection with which it was believed that the psychology of the ruling classes was not compatible with the psychology of the oppressed, and that there were irreconcilable contradictions between them.

The third provision stated that the development of the psyche does not occur spontaneously (spontaneously), but as a result of human activity. In accordance with this provision, it was believed that the human psyche cannot be innate, it entirely depends on training and education. Hence, the necessity of educating a person with new mental properties and qualities, which should be formed in the process of building a communist society, was proved. But life did not confirm these predictions.

Thanks to the work of many psychologists, psychology in our country has achieved considerable success and has taken its rightful place in the world of psychological science. L. S. Vygotsky created the theory of cultural and historical development of higher mental functions, which was recognized in world psychology. S.L. Rubinstein created the fundamental work "Fundamentals of General Psychology", summarizing the achievements of domestic and world psychology. VG Ananiev made a significant contribution to the study of sensory cognitive processes and to the development of questions in the psychology of human knowledge. A.N. Leontiev is the author of the theory of the development of the psyche in phylo- and ontogenesis. A.R. Luria is known as a neuropsychologist who studied many anatomical and physiological mechanisms of higher mental functions. A.V. Zaporozhets and D.B. Elkonin made a great contribution to the development of child psychology. A.A. Smirnov and P.I. Zinchenko are the authors of works on memory problems. B.F. Lomov for the first time in Russian psychology became known as the author

work in engineering psychology. One could name many more psychologists who have made a great contribution to the development of domestic psychology.

At present, a critical reassessment of methodological and theoretical attitudes is taking place in Russian psychology, a search is underway for new ways of organizing research in psychology, creating conditions for the convergence of theoretical and practical psychology, much attention is paid to the organization of psychological service in production, in educational institutions and in clinical settings.

2.1. The main stages in the development of psychology as a science.

2.2. Psychological theories and their relationship.

Main psychological schools

2.1. The main stages in the development of psychology as a science.

There are three main stages in the formation and development of psychological ideas:

The stage of pre-scientific psychology, which is associated with religious beliefs, with mythological thinking.

The stage of philosophical psychology, covering more than a thousand years of history. Philosophical psychology states knowledge about the soul through speculative reasoning, through philosophical reasoning.

The stage of scientific psychology, which arose around the second half of the 19th century, is based on systematic, mainly experimental research.

Pre-scientific stage: The emergence of ideas about the soul is associated with the animistic views of primitive people and belongs to the earliest stages of human history. Animism is a belief in spiritual beings that inhabit various objects, plants, animals and affect people's lives. In addition to animistic representation, there was mythological thinking. The soul was represented in the form of a bird, or a butterfly, leaving an immobilized body after death. Dreams were seen as a process in which the soul leaves the body for a while and wanders. The myth of Psyche, who was the personification of the soul and breath, served as an example of mythological representation. By the will of the gods, she is involved in a long adventure, symbolizing the complex and painful process of self-knowledge.

Over time, animistic and mythological ideas give way to attempts to interpret the soul in the context of a natural-philosophical picture of the world. Thus, according to the views of Heraclitus of Ephesus, all things and phenomena of the objective world are modifications of fire. Everything that exists in the world, both bodily and spiritual, is constantly changing, unceasingly “flowing”. Heraclitus was the first to make a number of important distinctions: he separated mental and prepsychic states in the body. Within the psychic, he singled out sensory cognition and thinking. He recognized the inseparability of the individual soul with the cosmos. In the teachings of Heraclitus, the beginnings of a genetic approach to understanding all living things can be traced. In his teaching, Heraclitus tried to explain the variability of the world.

Further ideas about the soul and expediency of the world were developed in the works of Democritus. The basis of the teachings of Democritus is the interaction of microelements - atoms in living organisms. According to Democritus, the gods themselves, the organizers of the universe, appear as spherical clusters of fiery atoms. Man is also created from atoms of different sorts, the most mobile of which are the atoms of fire, which form the soul.

The next direction in the development of psychological ideas is the school of Pythagoras and Plato. According to Pythagoras, the connection between the soul and the body was understood as the temporary imprisonment of the ideal essence in the dungeon of matter. The universe, according to Pythagoras, has not a real, but a numerical, arithmetic structure. Numbers are the beginning of the world, and their ratios act as immutable laws of being. According to Plato, the world perceived by the senses is changeable, imperfect and is only a vague likeness, a shadow of the true, intelligible "world of ideas". The central psychological idea of ​​Plato's teaching was that in the lower parts of the body, psychological and physiological processes are initially chaotic and uncontrollable and they become ordered due to the influence of the mind.

Aristotle was the first to make scientific classifications of many observed natural and psychological phenomena. He described the five senses, initiating the study of human cognitive processes. Touch, he considered, the main and most important sense, because. through this feeling human knowledge becomes active and presupposes action. He believed that all sensations received with the help of the sense organs are projected in the central organ, but not in the brain, but in the heart. A significant contribution of Aristotle to psychology can be considered a description of the contents of consciousness. Most significant in the development of psychology is Aristotle's first special treatise on the soul. It systematized the most influential ancient ideas about the soul, put forward and substantiated original fundamentally important own views. According to Aristotle, the mental and physical are inextricably linked and form a single whole. The soul according to Aristotle is endowed with expediency.

Stage of philosophical psychology: In the Renaissance, a humanistic psychology is born, which is based on an interest in the human person. Personality is presented as a concrete and perfect embodiment of the divine mind, as a subject striving simultaneously for self-preservation, self-knowledge and self-development.

The next decisive stage in the development of psychology falls on the 17th-19th centuries and is associated with the names of such thinkers as Descartes, Spinoza, John Locke, Spencer and others. Descartes discovers the reflex nature of behavior and at the same time lays the philosophical foundation for understanding the soul. The role of thinking in human life, Descartes' saying "I think, therefore I am." In his opinion, the body is arranged as an automaton, constantly in need of consciousness as an organizing principle. Animals are denied consciousness and, consequently, the soul, therefore they are bodily machines, mechanisms whose activity is determined by reflexes. Descartes does not allow the existence of the unconscious sphere of the mental. According to the scientist, in the soul there are only those perceptions that she is aware of. With name Descartes connected with the most important stage in the development of psychological knowledge. The psyche began to be understood as the inner world of a person, open to self-observation, having a special - spiritual - being, in opposition to the body and the entire external material world. Descartes introduces the concept reflex and this laid the foundation for the natural-science analysis of animal behavior and part of human actions.

Leibniz recognized the existence of unconscious representations (small perceptions). Leibniz distinguishes between the concepts of perception (direct perception by the senses) and apperception (the dependence of perception on past experience, on the human psyche and its individual characteristics).

During this period, the formation of philosophical ideas about the will and motivation of human actions is observed. Spinoza singled out three main affects that underlie emotional experiences: joy, sadness and desire, which, in contrast to blind attraction, is interpreted as a conscious desire of a person.

J. Locke formulates the "law of associations" - about the regular connection of all mental phenomena. According to Locke, any human knowledge of the world is based on experience. Simple ideas are combined and associated into complex ones in such a way that the whole variety of mental experience can be explained as the result of countless combinations (associations) of ideas. This is how associationism began to develop in psychology.

Stage of scientific psychology:

The main representatives of this stage in psychology are Wundt, Spencer, Ribot, James and many others. Around this time, a new understanding of the subject of psychology arises. The ability to think, feel, desire began to be called consciousness. Thus, the psyche was equated with consciousness. The psychology of the soul has been replaced by the psychology of consciousness. However, consciousness has long been understood as a phenomenon of a special kind, isolated from other natural processes. Scientists believed that mental life is a manifestation of a special subjective world, cognizable only in self-observation and inaccessible to objective scientific analysis. This approach became known as the introspective interpretation of consciousness. The development of psychology in the second half of the 19th century was carried out in the continuous struggle of successive theories. However, almost all of them were developed within the framework of introspective psychology.

The separation of psychology into an independent science, i.e. the formation of scientific psychology belongs Wilhelm Wundt(German psychologist). He proposed an integral program for the development of experimental psychology. He reduced the tasks of psychology to the study of the elements of consciousness and the establishment of laws by which connections are established between the elements of consciousness. Wundt was interested in the structure of consciousness, the theory he developed is known in science as the theory of the elements of consciousness. The main method used by Wundt is introspective. An important role in his research was occupied by the study of conscious mental processes, in particular, the sensation of mental processes. He argued that the phenomena occurring in consciousness are parallel to the processes of the nervous system, and the resulting combinations of sensations are important results of nervous responses. He created the first experimental psychology, which became the center of experimental psychology. It studied sensations, reaction time to various stimuli, studied associations, attention, and the simplest feelings of a person.

Another major psychologist of that time who made a great contribution to the development of scientific psychology was William James(American psychologist) and philosopher. James studied the nervous system, animal reflexes, studied human stress and the effect of hypnosis on animals. James rejected the division of consciousness into elements, and assumed the integrity of consciousness and its dynamics ("stream of consciousness"). His stream of consciousness theory is a model of consciousness in which it is endowed with the properties of continuity, integrity and variability. They attached particular importance to the activity and selectivity of consciousness. His teaching was an alternative to the teaching of Wundt, who interpreted consciousness as a set of certain elements. According to James, the purpose of the soul is that it allows the individual to more flexible and perfectly adapt to the world. Edward Titchener(American psychologist), just like Wundt, considered the subject of psychology to be consciousness, which is studied by dividing it into elements and that any mental process. He distinguished three categories of elements: sensation, image and feeling, put forward an assumption according to which knowledge about an object is built from a set of sensory elements.

At the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th century, a theoretical and methodological crisis occurred in psychology, which was caused by an understanding of the limitations of the introspective method. There are studies that attempt to go beyond the conscious and give the world access to the unconscious processes and formations of the psyche. In psychology, such areas as psychoanalysis and behaviorism (“behavioral psychology”) are being strengthened.

At the beginning of the 20th century, a new trend in psychology arose, the subject of which was not the psyche, not consciousness, but behavior. Namely, psychology was supposed to observe and study human motor reactions. This direction was called "behaviorism", which in English means behavior. The founder of behaviorism J. Watson saw the task of psychology in the study of the behavior of a living being, adapting to its environment. The unit of analysis in behaviorism is not the content of consciousness, but the connection between an external stimulus and the conditioned reflex reaction it causes. The exclusively behavioral aspect of a person was emphasized. At the same time, the human psyche and the psyche of animals are recognized as uniform and obey identical laws. Pavlov's works served as a prerequisite for the development of this trend in psychology. This trend of psychology has been actively developed over the course of one decade. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, psychoanalysis developed in parallel with behaviorism, thanks to the significant contribution of Freud.

At the beginning of the 20th century, during the development of psychodiagnostics, psychotherapy, the personality became the subject of psychology. Its structure, levels of functioning, development factors, anomalies, protective and adaptive functions are comprehensively studied. The beginning of a systematic study of the personality was laid by W. James, who distinguished between the cognizable (empirical) and the cognizing I. He singled out the physical, social and spiritual elements of the personality, described the mechanisms of self-esteem and self-respect. Later, a trend of personalism was formed. Scientific ideas about the personality were differentiated in the process of development of psychodiagnostic research methods, psychoanalysis, etc. Personality theories gradually formed the foundation on which the modern schools of psychotherapy and psychological counseling are based.

The formation of psychology as a science of the processes, functions and mechanisms of the psyche was long and controversial. The earliest natural model of the psyche, as a single system of the reflex type, belongs to Sechenov. According to his teaching, reflexivity, as the basic law of the mental, presupposes: 1) the primacy of the objective conditions of the life of the organism and the secondary nature of their reproduction in the psyche, 2) the natural transition from the activity of the perceiving structures of the mental system (analyzers) to the activation of the executive (effectors), c) expediency motor reactions and their "reverse" influence on the image of the surrounding world formed by the psyche. In the reflexes of the brain, Sechenov identified three links: the initial link is external irritation and its transformation by the sense organs into the process of nervous excitation transmitted to the brain; the middle link is the processes of excitation and inhibition in the brain and the emergence of sensations and other mental phenomena on their basis; the final link is external movements. Sechenov came to the conclusion that all actions and deeds of a person are causally determined by external influences. Sechenov was the first to formulate the idea of ​​the unity of sensory and motor processes, of the active nature of mental reflection, that the formation of images of reality is carried out in the course of continuous interaction with the environment. Sechenov's ideas were further developed in the studies of Pavlov, Bekhterev and other psychophysiologists. Pavlov discovered the conditioned reflex as a mechanism for learning and gaining experience. He singled out two types of reflexes, put forward the doctrine of two signal systems, developed the doctrine and types of higher nervous activity, determined the qualitative difference between the higher nervous activity of humans and animals, and much more.

However, further studies have shown that reflexivity is the most important, but not the only principle of the functioning of the psyche. Along with the physiological mechanisms that ensure the connection of the psyche with its material carrier - the brain, a huge role in the mental development of the individual is played by the mechanisms of socialization - the gradual inclusion of the individual in the system of social relations. The formation of the human psyche is always carried out in a specific socio-cultural space, under the formative influence of social norms, sign systems, symbols, traditions, rituals, etc. According to the cultural-historical theory of L.S. Vygotsky, higher mental functions are characteristic only of a person, higher forms of mental activity are not genetically programmed, but are formed as the individual assimilates social experience, in the processes of learning, communication and interaction with other people

Bekhterev founded the first experimental psychological laboratory in Kazan, and then the Psychoneurological Institute - the world's first center for the comprehensive study of man. Developed a natural science theory of behavior, made a significant contribution to the development of domestic experimental psychology.

In the first half of the 20th century, numerous branches of applied psychology arose in domestic and foreign psychology, which has since ceased to be a "pure" science and has found wide application in practice. The psychology of labor, pedagogical, developmental psychology, medical psychology, social, differential psychology, etc. began to develop widely. Scientific and applied psychology developed in different directions, the crisis was largely overcome. In the second half of the 20th century, in connection with the development of the scientific and technological revolution, mathematical methods, information technologies, etc., began to be actively used in psychology.

In the second half of the 20th century, the concretization and refinement of the subject of scientific psychology continues, as the main ones are distinguished: cognition and cognitive mental processes, a system of activity (activity approach in psychology, A.N. Leontiev), communication processes and interpersonal relationships, processes of group dynamics.

In modern domestic psychology, the problem of studying the psyche is reduced to 4 problems:

psychophysical problem: the nature of the relationship between the psyche and its bodily substrate.

the problem is psychodiagnostic: the relation of sensual and mental mental images to the reality they reflect.

psychopractical problem: regularities of the formation of the psyche in the process of practical activity.

psychosocial problem: the nature of the dependence of the psyche on social processes, norms, values.

Psychological theories and their relationship.

associationism- one of the main directions of world mental thought, explaining the dynamics of mental processes by the principle of association. For the first time, the postulates of associationism were formulated by Aristotle, who put forward the idea that images that arise without an apparent external reason are the product of association. The organism was conceived as a machine imprinting traces of external influences, so that the renewal of one of the traces automatically entails the appearance of another.

Thanks to the teachings of David Hume, James Mill, John Stuart and others, the view was established in science according to which: 1) the psyche is built from the elements of sensations, the simplest feelings; 2) elements are primary, complex mental formations are secondary and arise through associations; 3) the condition for the formation of associations is the contiguity of two mental processes; 4) the consolidation of associations is due to the vivacity of the associated elements and the frequency of repetition of associations in the experience.

In the 80-90s of the 19th century, numerous attempts were made to study the conditions for the formation and actualization of associations (G. Ebbinghaus, G. Müller). At the same time, the mechanical interpretation of the association was shown to be organic. Elements of associationism were transformed into Pavlov's doctrine of conditioned reflexes. The study of associations in order to identify the characteristics of various mental processes is also used in modern psychology.

Behaviorism- a direction in American psychology of the 20th century, which denies consciousness and reduces the psyche to various forms of behavior. Behavior was interpreted as a set of body responses to environmental stimuli. From the point of view of behaviorism, the true subject of psychology is human behavior from birth to death. J. Watson sought to consider behavior as the sum of adaptive reactions on the model of a conditioned reflex. Behavior was understood as response motor acts of the body to stimuli coming from the external environment. External stimuli, simple or complex situations are incentives S, response movements R. The connection between stimulus and reaction was taken as a unit of behavior: S - R. Behavior is any reaction in response to an external stimulus, through which an individual adapts to the world around him. All laws of behavior fix the relationship between what happens "at the input" (stimulus) and "output" (motor response) of the body's system.

Thus, behaviorism studied the behavior of individuals as a sequence of acts in the form of "responses" (reactions) to "stimuli" coming from the environment. The concept of “behavior” introduced by behaviorists excluded the use in psychology of such concepts as “consciousness”, “personality”, “individuality”, including the concept of “psyche”.

Behaviorists set the following tasks: 1) identify and describe the maximum number of possible types of behavioral responses; 2) to study the process of their formation; 3) establish the laws of their combination, i.e. formation of complex forms of behavior. In connection with these tasks, behaviorists assumed to predict behavior (reaction) from the situation (stimulus) and vice versa - to judge the nature of the stimulus causing it from the reaction.

A representative of late behaviorism, E. Tolman, introduced an amendment to the classical scheme of behavior by placing a link between the stimulus and the response - intermediate variables. The general scheme then acquired the following form: S – V – R. By intermediate variables Tolman meant internal processes that mediate the action of a stimulus on the organism and thus influence external behavior. These include goals, intentions, and so on.

Behaviorism has rejected introspection as a method of psychology. Behavior can be investigated by observation and experiment. In the view of behaviorists, man is a reactive being. All his actions and deeds are interpreted as reactions to external influences. The internal activity of a person is not taken into account. All psychological manifestations of a person are explained through behavior, reduced to the sum of reactions.

Behaviorism simplified the nature of man, put him on the same level with animals. Behaviorism excluded from explaining human behavior his consciousness, personal values, ideals, interests, etc.

Gestalt psychology. The direction of psychological science that arose in Germany in the first third of the 20th century and put forward a program for the study of integral structures of the psyche. The main position of the new school in psychology was the assertion that the initial, primary data of psychology are integral structures.

At the origins of this trend were Wertheimer, Koffka and Keller. According to the theory of Gestalt psychology, the world consists of integral complex forms, and human consciousness is also an integrated structural whole. Perception is not reduced to the sum of sensations, the properties of the perceived figure cannot be adequately described through the properties of its parts. The fundamental generalizing concept and explanatory principle of this direction is Gestalt. Gestalt - means "form", "structure", "holistic configuration", i.e. an organized whole whose properties cannot be derived from the properties of its parts.

The following laws of gestalt are distinguished: 1) the attraction of parts to the formation of a symmetrical whole; 2) selection in the field of perception of a figure and a background; 3) grouping of parts of the whole in the direction of maximum closeness, balance and simplicity; 4) the principle of "pregnancy" (the tendency of each mental phenomenon to take the most definite, distinct and complete form).

Later, the concept of "gestalt" began to be understood broadly, as an integral structure, form or organization of something, and not only in relation to perceptual processes. An example of such an extended interpretation was the theoretical work of W. Köhler "Physical Gestalts at rest and stationary state". The work stated that between the material object and its image, between the physical field and the phenomenal field of perception, an intermediary or connecting link is found - integral neural ensembles that ensure their structural correspondence to each other. Based on this postulate, Koehler proposed the study of not individual components of the human nervous system, but integral and dynamic structures, a kind of “gestalt physiology”.

"Gestalt" is a specific organization of parts, a whole that cannot be changed without its destruction. Gestalt psychology came out with a new understanding of the subject and method of psychology. The integrity of mental structures has become the main problem and explanatory principle of Gestalt psychology. The method was a phenomenological description aimed at direct and natural observation of the content of one's perception, one's experience. At the same time, it was proposed to take the position of a "naive, unprepared" observer who does not have a pre-developed idea of ​​the structure of mental phenomena. In Gestalt psychology, the principle of integrity was first discovered in the study of man. Within the framework of the school, entire research practices have been developed, which formed the basis of a whole area of ​​practical psychology - Gestalt therapy.

Depth psychology. Many psychological theories are based on the theory of the unconscious (affective-emotional, instinctive and intuitive processes in the behavior of the individual and in the formation of his personality). The unconscious is a relatively autonomous area of ​​mental life, a substructure of the personality, a part of its mental apparatus, not subject to and not controlled by the conscious Self (Ego). Z. Freud attributed to the sphere of the unconscious the biological drives of the individual, desires and impulses that are unacceptable from the point of view of his social environment, as well as traumatic experiences and memories that are repressed due to their painful effect on the Ego. The unconscious includes irrational forces: drives, instincts. In particular, the main ones are sexual drives and the drive to death. Freudianism assigned an insignificant role to consciousness in human life. It acted as a servant of the unconscious. The unconscious controls the person. Therefore, often a person cannot give an explanation for his actions, or explains them without understanding the real reasons for his behavior.

K.G. Jung expanded his ideas about the unconscious, highlighting in it, along with the personal level, the collective level that determines the universal, universal forms of experience. According to Jung, the unconscious should be considered not only as an initially oppositional psychic instance, which is in constant confrontation with consciousness, but also as an autonomous creative activity of the soul, subject to its own laws and determining the development of the individual. Jung considered the goal of individual development to be the synthesis of the ego (conscious self) and the unconscious.

Depth psychology includes hormic psychology, psychoanalysis, neo-Freudianism, analytical psychology, and individual psychology.

Humanistic psychology- This is a direction in Western psychology, recognizing the personality as a unique integral structure as the main subject of its study. Humanistic psychology is focused on the study of healthy and creative people, on the study of their psyche. The attitude to the individual is considered as an absolute, indisputable and enduring value. In the context of humanistic psychology, the uniqueness of the human personality, the search for values ​​and the meaning of existence are emphasized. In humanistic psychology, the highest values, self-actualization of the individual, creativity, love, freedom, responsibility, autonomy, mental health, and interpersonal communication are the priority topics of psychological analysis. This direction in psychology is associated with the names of A. Maslow, C. Rogers, S. Bueller and others.

The main provisions of the humanistic theory of personality:

Man is whole and must be studied in his wholeness.

Each person is unique, so the analysis of individual cases is no less justified than statistical generalizations.

A person is open to the world, a person's experience of the world and himself in the world is the main psychological reality.

Human life should be considered as a single process of becoming and being of a person.

A person has a certain degree of freedom from external determination due to the meanings and values ​​that guide him in his choice.

Man is an active, intentional, creative being.

One of the branches of humanistic psychology is existential psychology, focused on the problems of the meaning of life, responsibility, choice, loneliness, individual way of being.

Cognitive Psychology - one of the leading directions of modern foreign psychology. It arose in the late 50s and early 60s of the 20th century as a reaction to the dominant behaviorism in the United States, which denied the role of the internal organization of mental processes. The main task of cognitive psychology was to study the transformations of sensory information from the moment a stimulus hits the receptors until a response is received. Numerous structural components (blocks) of cognitive and executive processes were identified, including short-term and long-term memory. However, this approach has identified a number of difficulties due to the increase in the number of structural models of private mental processes. After that, the main task of cognitive psychology was to study the role of knowledge in human behavior. The central issue is the organization of knowledge in the memory of the subject, including the ratio of verbal and figurative components in the processes of memorization and thinking. Cognitive theories of emotion, individual differences, and personality have also been intensively developed.

The main representatives of cognitive psychology were Jean Piaget, Henri Wallon, Bruner, Kohlberg. Jean Piaget is a Swiss psychologist. Basic research on the formation of thinking and speech in children. Development is an adaptation to the surrounding reality in order to achieve balance with it. Balancing mechanisms are accommodation (adaptation of action to a changed situation) and assimilation (distribution of already existing forms of behavior to new conditions). The instrument of balancing is the intellect. The general scheme of human life according to Piaget is built from the development of the motivational-need sphere to the development of the intellect. Progress is determined by the combined influence of the maturation of the nervous system, the experience of handling various objects and education. Henri Vallon represented the development of the human psyche through its interaction with the external environment, with the conditions of existence. At the same time, the most essential conditions for development are the attitude and behavior of people, as well as the objective world. Jerome Bruner is an American psychologist who attributed a fundamental role to learning. He believed that a child can be taught anything if you deal with him and, on the contrary, the development of a child stops if his education is not started until the age of nine. Development is impossible outside of school

Cultural-historical theory of L. S. Vygotsky:

The fundamental positions of Russian psychology regarding mental development were developed by L.S. Vygotsky and presented in his cultural-historical theory. The key concept of the theory is the concept of higher mental functions. They are characterized by five main features: complexity, sociality, mediation, arbitrariness, plasticity.

The complexity is due to the diversity of higher mental functions in terms of the features of formation and development, in terms of structure and composition. The social nature of higher mental functions is determined by their origin. They emerge from social interaction, then internalized, they pass into the internal plane, they become the property of the subject. According to this scheme, traits and properties of a person's character, cognitive operations, properties of attention and other functions are formed. The mediation of higher mental functions is manifested in the ways of their functioning. The main "intermediary" is the sign (word, number); the level of development of the psyche, which allows the child to operate with a sign, a symbol, represents the level of higher mental functions. Arbitrariness is a way of existence of higher mental functions. It represents the level of development at which the subject is able to act purposefully, planning actions, managing them. The plasticity of higher mental functions is their ability to change. Plasticity acts as an adaptive ability of the psyche to the changing conditions of existence and activity. Plasticity also means the possibility of compensation with new mental functions to replace those lost or partially impaired.

The dialectics of development, according to Vygotsky, is as follows: on the one hand, microscopic changes in the child’s psyche slowly accumulate, on the other hand, there is a leap, an explosion, a transition from quantity to quality, a sharp change in the relationship of the child and his social environment. L.S. Vygotsky identifies five such jumps: the neonatal crisis, the crises of one year, three years, seven and thirteen years. Age development is inseparable from the social relations of the child. In this regard, L.S. Vygotsky introduces the concept of "social situation of development" - "a completely peculiar, age-specific relationship between the child and the surrounding reality, primarily social". It is the social situation of development, according to L.S. Vygotsky is the main source of development. The social situation of development always includes another person, a partner, with whom relationships are built, who makes information, teaches. Training, according to L.S. Vygotsky, there is a necessary condition for the cultural and historical development of the child. Speaking about the impact of learning on its dynamics, L.S. Vygotsky introduces the concept of the zone of actuality and the zone of proximal development. Actual development qualifies the current capabilities of the child, the plan of his independent actions and skills. Zone of proximal development L.S. Vygotsky defined everything that a child does today in cooperation, and tomorrow he will be able to do independently. This zone should be created by training, which will be developing only when it sets in motion "a whole series of internal development processes."

General psychological theory of activity A.N. Leontief. Activity, according to Leontiev, is a unit of life. Activity cannot be withdrawn from social relations. Society not only determines the external conditions for the implementation of activities, but also contributes to the formation of motives, goals, methods, means to achieve the goal. Activity is part of the subject of psychology. Internal activity is formed from external. The process of internalization is not that the external activity is transferred to the previous plane of consciousness, it is the process in which the internal plan is formed. Action is the basis of thinking, a necessary condition for the formation of meanings, their expansion and deepening. Action is the beginning of reflection. The action is transformed into an act and becomes the main formative factor and at the same time the unit of personality analysis.

The structure of a two-phase activity can be represented as follows: Actualization of a need - background (search) activity - the appearance of a motive - the active phase of activity - satisfaction of a need.

External (behavioral) and internal aspects of activity. The internal side of activity is represented by mental formations that direct external activity. External activity and the psychic that directs it arise and develop in inseparable unity with each other, as two sides of a common life activity. External activity is always primary. In the process of evolution, the complication of environmental conditions caused a corresponding complication of external life activity, which was accompanied by the formation of processes of mental reflection that corresponded to it. In the ontogenesis of the human psyche, a transition is made from external, material, actions to actions in the internal plane, i.e. internal mental activities come from practical activity. This transition from external material actions to actions on the internal plane has been called internalization. Thus, external practical activity is always primary.

The result of mental reflection is an important element of the structure of activity, an indicator of the level of mental development. The result of mental reflection has internal and external aspects. So, for example, in worms and snails with light stimulation, the internal result of mental reflection is the reflection of light on the retina of the eye, while the external result is the actual sensation of the acting stimulus. At the levels of the human psyche, knowledge becomes the result of mental reflection. It also has an inside and outside.

Schematically, the structure of activity can be represented as follows:

P (need) - activity - M (motive) - action C (goal).

When considering the structure of activity, it must be borne in mind that the need - the source, the root cause of activity - can be satisfied through various objects (motives). For example, the need for food can be met with the help of various foods, the need for physical activity - with the help of various sports. Thus, one and the same need can give rise to various activities aimed at the realization of various motives. Each motive, in turn, can be realized through various goals achieved through various actions.

Leading activity. Any activity that takes a lot of time cannot become a leader. The living conditions of a person are such that at each age stage he gets the opportunity to develop most intensively in a certain type of activity: in infancy - in direct emotional communication with his mother, at an early age - manipulating objects, in preschool childhood - playing with peers, in the younger school age - in educational activities, in adolescence - in intimate and personal communication with peers, in youth - when choosing and preparing for a future profession, in youth - when mastering a chosen profession and creating a family, etc. Leading activity is one of the main criteria in Elkonin's age periodization, which has received the most recognition from us.

The projective study of personality is based on three principles: consideration of personality as a system of interrelated abilities, traits, qualities; analysis of personality as a stable system of dynamic processes based on individual experience; consideration of each new action, perception, feeling of the individual as a manifestation of a stable system of basic dynamic processes.
As a result, the projective technique makes it possible to reveal the deepest qualities and traits of the psyche that are hidden from the personality itself. Of the projective tests, the most famous and used in practice are the Max Luscher color choice test, the Rorschach test, the thematic apperception test (TAT), as well as drawing tests. Among them, the Luscher test leads in Russian psychodiagnostic studies.
With the development of information technologies (since the 60s of the XX century), a new section appears in psychodiagnostics - computer psychodiagnostics. In domestic psychodiagnostics, it is formed somewhat later: from the 80s of the XX century. As a result, new types of tests appear: computerized, adapted to computer conditions (presentation, data processing, etc.), and computerized, specially created for the computer environment.1 The computer procedure for presenting tests has a number of advantages: the possibility of using a mathematical and statistical apparatus; easier storage of diagnostic data; expanding the practice of group testing; opportunities for automated test design.
At the same time, difficulties arise: “the phenomenon of computer anxiety”, the impossibility of transferring some tests to a computer mode. However, the need for the introduction of computer technology in psychodiagnostics today is beyond doubt.
Another special psychological theory related to business communication is organizational psychology.
In business communication, a person always represents a certain organization (enterprise, institution, firm, holding, corporation), therefore business communication in an organization is the subject of a special study.
Organizational psychology studies the social psychological features the behavior of people in organizations and the socio-psychological characteristics of the organizations themselves.2 The concept of scientific management by the American engineer Frederick Taylor became a prerequisite for organizational psychology. This concept was focused on the model of the economic man, who initially aimed only at the satisfaction of primary needs with the help of incentives such as money, administrative sanctions and economic rewards. At one time, V.I. Lenin characterized the Taylor system as "the art of squeezing sweat according to all the rules of science."3 At the same time, he noted its rational moments: the creation of the best system of accounting and control, as well as "also the most economical and most productive methods of work."4 Taylor's contribution to the creation of an organizational psychology lies in the fact that he formulated some general principles of labor organization, which are still relevant today. These include teaching people rational methods of labor, designing the most rational methods of labor and determining the work task, taking into account the economic incentives for the employee.
The realities of business relations in the second half of the 20th century, associated with the formation of technologies for the mass sale of goods and services, required new concepts of organizational psychology that would define new approaches to motivating employees of an organization. Such an approach was proposed by Douglas MacGregor in his work The Human Side of Organization, in which he formulated an alternative Taylor concept, which he designated as Theory "Y" (the concept of Taylorism was defined by MacGregor as Theory "X").
The new theory of human labor motivation, proposed by McGregor, proceeded from a positive attitude of a person to work, his ability to exercise self-control, take responsibility for his work and make a creative contribution to solving the problems of the organization. All this, according to McGregor, can satisfy a person's need for self-realization. Hence the main task of management in an organization: the creation of such conditions and methods of work under which the achievement of the goals of the organization contributed to the achievement by the employees of this organization of their own goals.1
In the 80s of the XX century, the American psychologist William Ouchi proposed a new theory of labor motivation (theory "2"), which formulated new principles of business relations in organizations: continuous training of employees taking into account the program of their career, group decision-making, the introduction of lifetime employment of workers . Based on these provisions, Ouchi concluded that corporate culture contributes to a more efficient operation of the organization.
Thus, the theory of work motivation, proposed in organizational psychology, has made a significant contribution to the development of the socio-psychological foundations of business communication.
Psychological foundations professional activity became the subject of study of professional psychology, which, as a special psychological theory, developed much earlier than organizational psychology. The significance of professional psychology for the development of the science of "business communication" lies in the fact that it studied the psychological characteristics of specific types of professional activity and the functional states of business partners as subjects of labor.
Professionalism and professional competence of business partners play an essential role in business communication. In this regard, the formation of the personality of a business partner as a professional is of particular importance. Studies conducted by professional psychology show that the professionalization of the personality is influenced by socialization, the transformation of the social experience of the individual into professional attitudes and values, the adaptation of the individual to the content and requirements of professional activity. When the professional qualities acquired by a person are manifested in other types of activity, a professional deformation of the personality occurs. "professional deformation of a personality can also manifest itself in interpersonal relationships of business partners and in interaction with people in various types of social communication. The study of the functional states of labor subjects in professional psychology made it possible to analyze the features of such personality states as psychological readiness, fatigue, psychological stress. It is especially important for of business communication, psychological readiness, which characterizes the mobilization of all the resources of a business partner to solve a business problem.
The mental state of business partners, such as fatigue, has a negative impact on business communication. It characterizes a temporary violation of some physiological and mental functions and can lead to discomfort in interpersonal relationships and a decrease in the dynamics of business communication. The study of psychological stress in professional psychology made it possible to establish the features of business (work) stress. It is associated with the impact of extreme factors of a social, psychological and professional nature. Manifesting itself as a state of excessive mental tension and disorganized behavior of the individual, it can lead to a significant change in the mental reactions and behavioral activity of the individual. An increase in excitability, the prevalence of stereotypes in thinking and behavior, a decrease in the effectiveness of protective actions - all this can ultimately lead to the emergence of psychological tension and conflict in the interpersonal relationships of business partners. A special psychological theory, economic psychology, played a significant role in the development of the science of "business communication". Its subject was the study of mental processes underlying the economic behavior of people. Economic behavior is understood as the behavior of people, which is dominated by economic needs and decisions, their determinants and consequences. Economic psychology also studies the influence of external economic factors on people's behavior. The problems of economic psychology began to be developed most actively in the middle of the 20th century, although the term "economic psychology" was used by the sociologist G. Tarde much earlier, at the end of the 19th century.

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

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

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

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

Secondly, psychology is both ancient and young science at the same time. The age of psychology has slightly exceeded one century, while its origins are lost in the mists of time. Prominent German psychologist late XIX- the beginning of the twentieth century. G. Ebbinghaus (1850–1909) was able to say as briefly as possible about the development of psychology, almost in the form of an aphorism: psychology has a huge prehistory and a very short history.

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

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

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

There are material objects in the world (nature, various items, other people) and special, immaterial phenomena - memories, visions, feelings and other incomprehensible phenomena that occur in a person's life. The explanation of their nature has always been the subject of a sharp struggle between representatives of various directions in science. Depending on the solution of the question "What is primary and what is secondary - material or spiritual?" scientists were divided into two camps - idealists and materialists. They invested in the concept of "soul" different meanings.

idealists believed that human consciousness is an immortal soul, it is primary and exists independently, regardless of matter. “Soul” is a particle of the “God's spirit”, an incorporeal, incomprehensible spiritual principle, which God breathed into the body of the first man created by him from dust. The soul is given to a person for temporary use: there is a soul in the body - the person is aware, it has temporarily flown out of the body - he is fainting or sleeping; when the soul completely parted with the body, the person ceased to exist, died.

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

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

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

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

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

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

The most concise possible definition of psychology might be the following: psychology - the science of the laws of development of the psyche, i.e. science, subject which is the psyche of an animal or a person.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

An outstanding domestic psychologist S.L. Rubinstein (1889–1960) considered the most important attributes of the psyche to be experiences (emotions, feelings, needs), cognition (sensations, perception, attention, memory, thinking), which are characteristic of both humans and vertebrates, and an attitude inherent only to humans. From this we can conclude that only humans have consciousness, the psyche - in vertebrates that have a cerebral cortex, and insects, like the entire branch of invertebrates, like plants, do not have a psyche.

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

The animal reflects only those phenomena or their aspects that meet their biological needs, while a person, obeying high social requirements, often acts to the detriment of his own interests, and sometimes life. The actions and deeds of a person are subject to specifically human needs and interests, that is, they are motivated by social rather than biological needs.

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

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

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

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

Consciousness is carried out in the form of theoretical thinking, that is, it has generalized and abstract character in the form of knowledge of the essential connections and relations of the surrounding world.

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

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

An animal can be sad when separated from its owner, rejoice when meeting with him, but it cannot say about it. A person, on the other hand, can indicate his feelings with the words: “I miss you”, “I am happy”, “I hope that you will return soon”.

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

Consciousness does not exist by itself somewhere inside a person, it is formed and manifested in activity.

Studying the structure of individual consciousness, the outstanding domestic psychologist A.N. Leontiev (1903-1979) identified three of its components: the sensual fabric of consciousness, meaning and personal meaning.

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

Values ​​- this is the general content of words, diagrams, maps, drawings, etc., which is understandable to all people who speak the same language, belong to the same culture or close cultures, who have passed a similar historical path. In meanings, the experience of mankind is generalized, crystallized and thus preserved for future generations. Comprehending the world of meanings, a person learns this experience, joins it and can contribute to it. Meanings, wrote A.N. Leontiev, “they refract the world in the mind of a person ... the ideal form of existence of the objective world, its properties, connections and relations, transformed and folded into the matter of language, is represented in the meanings, revealed by the cumulative social practice.” The universal language of meanings is the language of art - music, dance, painting, theater, the language of architecture.

Being refracted in the sphere of individual consciousness, the meaning acquires a special, only inherent sense. For example, all children would like to get fives. The mark "five" has a common meaning for all of them, fixed by a social standard. However, for one, this five is an indicator of his knowledge, abilities, for another - a symbol that he is better than others, for a third - a way to get the promised gift from his parents, etc. The content of the meaning that it acquires personally for each person is called personal meaning.

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

The mismatch of personal meanings entails difficulties in understanding. Cases of misunderstanding by people of each other, arising from the fact that the same event, phenomenon has a different personal meaning for them, is called the "semantic barrier". This term was introduced by psychologist L.S. Slavin.

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

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

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

The phenomena of the psyche, which are not actually realized, but can be realized at any moment, are called preconscious.

At the same time, we cannot realize many experiences, relationships, feelings, or we realize them incorrectly. However, they all affect our behavior, our activities, encourage them. These phenomena are called unconscious. If the preconscious is that to which attention is not directed, then the unconscious is that which cannot be realized.

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

The sphere of the unconscious also includes the perception of signals, the level of which is, as it were, outside the senses. Known, for example, is the technique of "dishonest advertising", the so-called 36th frame. In this case, an advertisement for a product is included in the film. This frame is not perceived by consciousness, we do not seem to see it, but advertising "works". So, a case is described when a similar technique was used to advertise one of the soft drinks. After the film, its sales skyrocketed.

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

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

The most common the category of psychology, which is at the same time its subject, is the psyche. It is subject to such general psychological categories as forms of mental reflection, mental phenomena, consciousness, personality, activity, development of the psyche, etc. They, in turn, are subject to particular psychological categories.

1) forms of mental reflection;

2) mental phenomena;

3) consciousness;

4) personality;

5) activity;

6) the development of the psyche.

Private psychological categories are:

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

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

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

4) purpose, motives, actions;

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

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

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

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

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

The development of the psyche is a principle of psychology that affirms the gradual and spasmodic complication of the psyche, both in the procedural and in the content aspect. The characterization of a mental phenomenon is possible with the simultaneous clarification of its features at a given moment, the history of its occurrence and the prospects for its changes;

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

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

In a number of sciences modern psychology occupies an intermediate position between the philosophical, natural and social sciences. It integrates all the data of these sciences and, in turn, influences them, becoming a general model of human knowledge. The focus of psychology always remains a person, who is studied in other aspects by all the above sciences.

Psychology has a very close connection with philosophy. First of all, philosophy is methodological basis scientific psychology. An integral part of philosophy - epistemology (theory of knowledge) - solves the issue of the attitude of the psyche to the world around and interprets it as a reflection of the world, emphasizing that matter is primary, and consciousness is secondary, and psychology finds out the role that the psyche plays in human activity and its development .

The connection between psychology and the natural sciences is undoubted: the natural scientific basis of psychology is physiology of higher nervous activity, which studies the material basis of the psyche - the activity of the nervous system and its higher department - the brain; anatomy studies features physical development people of different ages; genetics- hereditary predispositions, the makings of a person.

The exact sciences also have a direct connection with psychology: it uses mathematical and statistical methods for processing the received data; working closely with bionics and cybernetics, as it studies the most complex self-regulating system - a person.

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

Branches of psychology. Psychology is a highly developed branch of knowledge, including a number of individual disciplines and scientific areas. There are fundamental, basic branches of psychology that are of general importance for understanding and explaining the behavior of all people, regardless of what activity they are engaged in, and applied, special, exploring the psychology of people engaged in any particular activity.

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

K.K. Platonov (1904-1985) proposes to consider the tree of psychological sciences in the following way. Like any tree, it has roots, a butt and a trunk.

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

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

Below others, branches branch off from the trunk of individual psychology. psychophysics and psychophysiology. A little higher than them, from the rear, the trunk begins medical psychology with defect psychology, branching into oligophreno-, surdo- and tiflopsychology; it branches off from the back because pathology is a deviation from the norm. Above is located age-related psychology, branching into child psychology, adolescence psychology and gerontopsychology. Even higher this trunk becomes differential psychology. A branch extends almost from its base psychodiagnostics With psychoprognostics. The trunk of individual psychology ends with two peaks: psychology individual creativity and personality psychology, moreover, the branches extending from both of these trunks grow together with the branches extending from the top of the trunk of social psychology.

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

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

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

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

The top of the trunk of labor psychology grows together with the common top of the trunk of social psychology: psychology groups and collectives and psychology collective creativity, and the top branches of the entire trunk of social psychology, in turn, with the peaks of the psychology of personality and individual creativity of the trunk of individual psychology.

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

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

1.2. Methods of psychology

The concept of a method. The term "method" has at least two meanings.

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

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

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

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

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

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

1. Principle objectivity assumes that:

a) in the study of mental phenomena, one should always strive to establish material foundations, the reasons for their occurrence;

b) the study of personality should proceed in the process of activity characteristic of a person of a given age. The psyche is both manifested and formed in activity, and it itself is nothing but a special mental activity, during which a person cognizes the world around him;

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

d) conclusions should be based only on the facts obtained.

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

a) identify the cause of the change in the phenomenon;

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In order for observation not to turn into passive contemplation, but to correspond to its purpose, it must meet the following requirements: 1) purposefulness; 2) systematic; 3) naturalness; 4) obligatory fixing of results. The objectivity of observation primarily depends on the purposefulness and systematic nature.

Requirement purposefulness suggests that the observer must have a clear idea of ​​what he is going to observe and for what (definition of goals and objectives), otherwise the observation will turn into a fixation of random, secondary facts. Observation must be carried out according to a plan, scheme, program. It is impossible to observe “everything” in general due to the limitless variety of existing objects. Each observation should be selective: it is necessary to highlight the range of issues on which it is necessary to collect factual material.

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

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

The next requirement is obligatory recording of results(of facts, not their interpretation) observations in a diary or protocol.

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

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

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

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

Longitudinal, that is, long-term, systematic, over a number of years;

Slice (short-term observation);

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ability to create the necessary conditions and, carefully controlling them, ensure their constancy. Conducting a study in the same conditions with different subjects, the researchers establish the age and individual characteristics of the course of mental processes;

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

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

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

Positive and responsible attitude towards him of the subjects;

Accessible, understandable instructions for the subjects;

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

Sufficient number of subjects and number of experiments.

The indisputable advantages of a laboratory experiment are: 1) the possibility of creating conditions for the emergence of a necessary mental phenomenon; 2) greater accuracy and purity; 3) the possibility of strict accounting of its results; 4) multiple repetition, variability; 5) the possibility of mathematical processing of the obtained data.

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

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

Further development of the natural experiment led to the creation of such a variety of it as psychological and pedagogical experiment. Its essence lies in the fact that the study of the subject is carried out directly in the process of his training and education. At the same time, the ascertaining and forming experiment are distinguished. A task ascertaining The experiment consists in simply fixing and describing the facts at the time of the study, i.e., in stating what is happening without active intervention in the process by the experimenter. The results obtained are not comparable to anything. Formative The experiment consists in studying a mental phenomenon in the process of its active formation. It can be educational and educative. If there is a learning of any knowledge, skills and abilities, then this is - teaching experiment. If, in the experiment, the formation of certain personality traits occurs, the behavior of the subject changes, his attitude towards his comrades, then this is - nurturing experiment.

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

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

The products of activity created in the process games, are various buildings made of cubes, sand, attributes for role-playing games made by the hands of children, etc. Products labor activity can be considered a part, workpiece, productive - drawings, applications, various crafts, needlework, artwork, a note in the wall newspaper, etc. The products of educational activities include test papers, essays, drawings, drafts, homework, etc.

To the method of studying the products of activity, as well as to any other, certain requirements are imposed: the presence of a program; the study of products created not by chance, but in the course of typical activities; knowledge of the conditions for the course of activity; analysis of not single, but many products of the subject's activity.

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

A variation of this method is biographic method, associated with the analysis of documents belonging to a person. Documents are any written text, audio or video recording made according to the subject's intention, literary works, diaries, epistolary heritage, memories of other people about this person. It is assumed that the content of such documents reflects his individual psychological characteristics. This method is widely used in historical psychology to study the inner world of people who lived in bygone times, inaccessible to direct observation. For example, in most works of art and literature, to a certain extent, one can judge the psychology of their authors - this circumstance has long been successfully used by literary and art historians who are trying to better understand the psychology of the author “through” the work, and vice versa, having known the psychology of the author, penetrate deeper into content and meaning of his works.

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

Survey Methods - these are methods of obtaining information based on verbal communication. Within the framework of these methods, one can single out a conversation, an interview (oral survey) and a questionnaire (written survey).

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

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

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

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

There are certain requirements for a conversation as a research method:

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

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

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

It is necessary to think carefully in advance and outline the questions that will be asked to the subject;

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

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

All responses of the subject are carefully recorded (after the conversation).

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

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

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

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

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

The conversation could be standardized with precisely worded questions that are asked to all respondents, and non-standardized when questions are asked freely.

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

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

Questionnaire is a data collection method based on a survey using questionnaires. The questionnaire is a system of questions logically related to the central task of the study, which are given to the subjects for a written answer. According to their function, questions can be basic, or suggestive, and control, or clarifying. The main component of the questionnaire is not a question, but a series of questions that corresponds to the general plan of the study.

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

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

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

in the middle are the most complex issues that require analysis, reflection;

At the end of the questionnaire are simple, "unloading" questions;

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

After drawing up the questionnaire, it must be subjected to logical control. Is the technique for filling out the questionnaire clear enough? Are all questions written stylistically correctly? Are all terms understood by the interviewees? Shouldn't the item "Other Answers" be added to some of the questions? Will the question cause negative emotions among the respondents?

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

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

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

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

Closed(selective) questionnaire involves a number of variant answers. The task of the examinee is to choose the most suitable of them. Closed questionnaires are easy to process, but they limit the autonomy of the respondent.

AT questionnaire-scale the subject not only has to choose the most correct answer from the ready-made ones, but also scale, evaluate in points the correctness of each of the proposed answers.

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

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

A specific variant of the questioning method is sociometry, developed by the American social psychologist and psychotherapist J. Moreno. This method is used to study collectives and groups - their orientation, intra-group relations, the position in the team of its individual members.

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

The rules for conducting sociometry provide:

Establishing a trusting relationship with the group;

Explanation of the purpose of conducting sociometry;

Emphasizing the importance and importance of autonomy and secrecy in responses;

Guaranteeing the secrecy of answers;

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

Accurate and clear display of response recording technique.

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

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

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

Other sociogram options are:

"grouping"- a flat image, which shows the groupings that exist within the group under study, and the connections between them. The distance between individuals corresponds to the proximity of their choices;

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Education - in connection with the complication of curricula. Here, with the help of tests, the presence or absence of general and special abilities, the degree of their development, the level of mental development and the assimilation of knowledge by the subjects are examined;

Vocational training and selection - in connection with the increase in growth rates and the complexity of production. It turns out the degree of suitability of the subjects for any profession, the degree of psychological compatibility, the individual characteristics of the course of mental processes, etc.;

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

The testing process is carried out in three stages:

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

2) the procedure for conducting (determined by the instruction);

3) interpretation of the results.

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

The main test requirements are:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tests intellect serve to reveal the mental potential of the individual. Most often, the subject is asked to establish logical relations of classification, analogy, generalization between the terms and concepts that make up the test tasks, or to assemble a picture from cubes with multi-colored sides, add an object from the presented details, find a pattern in the continuation of the series, etc.

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

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

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

Projective tests originate from the depths of centuries: from divination on goose giblets, candles, coffee grounds; from visions inspired by veins of marble, clouds, clouds of smoke, etc. They are based on the projection mechanism explained by Z. Freud. Projection is an unconsciously manifested tendency of a person to involuntarily attribute to people their psychological qualities, especially in cases where these qualities are unpleasant or when it is not possible to definitely judge people, but it is necessary to do so. Projection can also manifest itself in the fact that we involuntarily pay attention to those signs and characteristics of a person that best correspond to our needs at the moment. In other words, the projection provides a biased reflection of the world.

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

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

Completion of unfinished sentences and stories;

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

Interpretation of events;

Reconstruction (restoration) of the whole in detail;

Interpretation of indefinite outlines (G. Rorschach's test, which consists in the interpretation by the subject of a set of ink spots of various configurations and colors that have a certain meaning for diagnosing hidden attitudes, motives, character traits).

To expressive projective tests include:

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

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

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

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

1.3. Basic psychological theories

Associative psychology (associationism)- one of the main directions of world psychological thought, explaining the dynamics of mental processes by the principle of association. For the first time, the postulates of associationism were formulated by Aristotle (384-322 BC), who put forward the idea that images that arise without an apparent external cause are the product of association. In the 17th century this idea was strengthened by the mechano-deterministic doctrine of the psyche, whose representatives were the French philosopher R. Descartes (1596–1650), the English philosophers T. Hobbes (1588–1679) and J. Locke (1632–1704), the Dutch philosopher B. Spinoza ( 1632–1677) and others. Proponents of this doctrine compared the body with a machine that imprints traces of external influences, as a result of which the renewal of one of the traces automatically entails the appearance of another. In the XVIII century. the principle of the association of ideas was extended to the entire field of the mental, but received a fundamentally different interpretation: the English and Irish philosopher J. Berkeley (1685–1753) and the English philosopher D. Hume (1711–1776) considered it as a connection of phenomena in the mind of the subject, and the English physician and philosopher D. Hartley (1705–1757) created a system of materialistic associationism. He extended the principle of association to the explanation of all mental processes without exception, considering the latter as a shadow of brain processes (vibrations), i.e., solving the psychophysical problem in the spirit of parallelism. In accordance with his natural-scientific attitude, Gartley built a model of consciousness by analogy with the physical models of I. Newton, based on the principle of elementarism.

At the beginning of the XIX century. In associationism, the view was established, according to which:

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

Elements are primary, complex mental formations (representations, thoughts, feelings) are secondary and arise through associations;

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

The consolidation of associations is due to the vivacity of the associated elements and the frequency of repetition of associations in the experiment.

In the 80-90s. 19th century Numerous studies of the conditions for the formation and actualization of associations were undertaken (German psychologist G. Ebbinghaus (1850–1909) and physiologist I. Müller (1801–1858), etc.). At the same time, the limitations of the mechanistic interpretation of association were shown. The deterministic elements of associationism were perceived in a transformed form by the teachings of I.P. Pavlov about conditioned reflexes, as well as on other methodological grounds- American Behaviorism. The study of associations in order to identify the characteristics of various mental processes is also used in modern psychology.

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

In the same period in Russia, I.P. Pavlov and V.M. Bekhterev, developing the ideas of I.M. Sechenov, developed experimental methods for an objective study of the behavior of animals and humans. Their work had a significant influence on behaviorists, but was interpreted in the spirit of extreme mechanism. The unit of behavior is the relationship between stimulus and response. The laws of behavior, according to the concept of behaviorism, fix the relationship between what happens at the "input" (stimulus) and "output" (motor response). According to behaviorists, the processes within this system (both mental and physiological) are not amenable to scientific analysis, since they are inaccessible to direct observation.

The main method of behaviorism is the observation and experimental study of the reactions of the body in response to environmental influences in order to identify correlations between these variables that are accessible to mathematical description.

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

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

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

From the point of view of B.F. Skinner, the main means of forming a new type of behavior is reinforcement. The whole procedure of learning in animals is called "successive guidance on the desired reaction." There are a) primary reinforcements - water, food, sex, etc.; b) secondary (conditional) - attachment, money, praise, etc.; 3) positive and negative reinforcement and punishment. The scientist believed that conditioned reinforcing stimuli are very important in controlling human behavior, and aversive (painful or unpleasant) stimuli, punishments are the most common method of such control.

Skinner transferred the data obtained from the study of animal behavior to human behavior, which led to a biologization interpretation: he considered a person as a reactive being exposed to external circumstances, and described his thinking, memory, behavioral motives in terms of reaction and reinforcement.

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

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

Gestalt psychology(from German Gestalt - image, form) - a direction in Western psychology that arose in Germany in the first third of the 20th century. and put forward a program for studying the psyche from the point of view of integral structures (gestalts), primary in relation to their components. Gestalt psychology opposed the proposal put forward by W. Wundt and E.B. Titchener of the principle of dividing consciousness into elements and constructing from them according to the laws of association or creative synthesis of complex mental phenomena. The idea that the internal, systemic organization of the whole determines the properties and functions of its constituent parts was originally applied to the experimental study of perception (mainly visual). This made it possible to study a number of its important features: constancy, structure, dependence of the image of an object (“figure”) on its environment (“background”), etc. In the analysis of intellectual behavior, the role of a sensory image in the organization of motor reactions was traced. The construction of this image was explained by a special mental act of comprehension, an instantaneous grasp of relations in the perceived field. Gestalt psychology opposed these provisions to behaviorism, which explained the behavior of an organism in a problem situation by enumeration of “blind” motor samples, randomly leading to a successful solution. In the study of processes and human thinking, the main emphasis was placed on the transformation (“reorganization”, new “centering”) of cognitive structures, due to which these processes acquire a productive character that distinguishes them from formal logical operations and algorithms.

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

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

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

Freudianism– direction, named after the Austrian psychologist and psychiatrist S. Freud (1856-1939), explaining the development and structure of the personality by irrational, antagonistic mental factors and using the technique of psychotherapy based on these ideas.

Having arisen as a concept of explaining and treating neuroses, Freudianism later elevated its provisions to the rank of a general doctrine of man, society and culture. The core of Freudianism forms the idea of ​​the eternal secret war between the unconscious mental forces hidden in the depths of the individual (the main of which is sexual desire - libido) and the need to survive in a social environment hostile to this individual. Prohibitions on the part of the latter (creating "censorship" of consciousness), causing mental trauma, suppress the energy of unconscious drives, which breaks through on detours in the form of neurotic symptoms, dreams, erroneous actions (slips of the tongue, slips of the pen), forgetting the unpleasant, etc.

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

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

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

Freudianism assigns an important role in the formation of motivation to childhood, which allegedly unambiguously determines the character and attitudes of an adult personality. The task of psychotherapy is seen as identifying traumatic experiences and freeing a person from them through catharsis, awareness of repressed drives, understanding the causes of neurotic symptoms. For this, the analysis of dreams, the method of "free associations", etc. are used. In the process of psychotherapy, the doctor encounters the patient's resistance, which is replaced by an emotionally positive attitude towards the doctor, a transfer, due to which the "I" strength of the patient increases, who is aware of the source of his conflicts and outlives them in a "neutralized" form.

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

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

According to K. Horney, the cause of neurosis is anxiety that occurs in a child when confronted with an initially hostile world and intensifies with a lack of love and attention from parents and people around them. E. Fromm connects neuroses with the impossibility for an individual to achieve harmony with the social structure of modern society, which creates a feeling of loneliness in a person, isolation from others, causing neurotic ways to get rid of this feeling. G.S. Sullivan sees the origins of neurosis in the anxiety that occurs in interpersonal relationships of people. With visible attention to the factors of social life, neo-Freudianism considers the individual with his unconscious drives initially independent of society and opposed to it; at the same time, society is regarded as a source of "universal alienation" and is recognized as hostile to the fundamental tendencies in the development of the individual.

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

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

Analytical psychology - the system of views of the Swiss psychologist K.G. Jung (1875-1961), who gave her this name in order to distinguish her from a related direction - the psychoanalysis of Z. Freud. Giving, like Freud, the unconscious the decisive role in the regulation of behavior, Jung singled out, along with its individual (personal) form, the collective form, which can never become the content of consciousness. collective unconscious forms an autonomous mental fund, in which the experience of previous generations is transmitted by inheritance (through the structure of the brain). The primary formations included in this fund - archetypes (universal prototypes) - underlie the symbolism of creativity, various rituals, dreams and complexes. As a method for analyzing ulterior motives, Jung proposed a word association test: an inadequate response (or delay in response) to a stimulus word indicates the presence of a complex.

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

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

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

In Social Psychology (1908) and Group Mind (1920), McDougall tried to explain social and mental processes by the striving for a goal that was originally embedded in the depths of the psychophysical organization of the individual, thereby rejecting their scientific causal explanation.

Existential Analysis(from Lat. ex(s)istentia - existence) is a method proposed by the Swiss psychiatrist L. Binswanger (1881-1966) for analyzing the personality in its entirety and uniqueness of its existence (existence). According to this method, the true being of a person is revealed by deepening it into oneself in order to choose a “life plan” independent of anything external. In those cases when the individual's openness to the future disappears, he begins to feel abandoned, his inner world narrows, the possibilities of development remain beyond the horizon of vision, and neurosis arises.

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

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

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

Humanistic psychology has opposed itself as a "third force" to behaviorism and Freudianism, which focuses on the dependence of the individual on her past, while the main thing in it is the aspiration to the future, to the free realization of one's potentials (American psychologist G. Allport (1897-1967) ), especially creative ones (American psychologist A. Maslow (1908–1970)), to strengthening faith in oneself and the possibility of achieving an “ideal Self” (American psychologist K. R. Rogers (1902–1987)). In this case, the central role is given to motives that ensure not adaptation to the environment, not conformal behavior, but the growth of the constructive beginning of the human self, the integrity and strength of the experience of which a special form of psychotherapy is designed to support. Rogers called this form "client-centered therapy", which meant treating the individual who seeks help from a psychotherapist not as a patient, but as a "client" who takes responsibility for solving life problems that disturb him. The psychotherapist, on the other hand, performs only the function of a consultant, creating a warm emotional atmosphere in which it is easier for the client to organize his inner (“phenomenal”) world and achieve the integrity of his own personality, to understand the meaning of its existence. Protesting against concepts that ignore the specifically human in personality, humanistic psychology presents the latter inadequately and one-sidedly, since it does not recognize its conditionality by socio-historical factors.

cognitive psychology- one of the leading directions of modern foreign psychology. It emerged in the late 1950s and early 1960s. as a reaction to the denial of the role of the internal organization of mental processes, characteristic of the behaviorism dominant in the USA. Initially, the main task of cognitive psychology was to study the transformations of sensory information from the moment a stimulus hits the receptor surfaces until a response is received (American psychologist S. Sternberg). At the same time, the researchers proceeded from the analogy between the processes of information processing in humans and in a computing device. Numerous structural components (blocks) of cognitive and executive processes were identified, including short-term and long-term memory. This line of research, faced with serious difficulties due to the increase in the number of structural models of particular mental processes, led to an understanding of cognitive psychology as a direction whose task is to prove the decisive role of knowledge in the behavior of the subject.

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

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

According to the cultural-historical theory, the main regularity of the ontogenesis of the psyche consists in the internalization (see 2.4) by the child of the structure of his external, socio-symbolic (that is, joint with an adult and mediated by signs) activity. As a result, the former structure of mental functions as "natural" changes - is mediated by internalized signs, and mental functions become "cultural". Outwardly, this is manifested in the fact that they acquire awareness and arbitrariness. Thus, internalization also acts as socialization. In the course of internalization, the structure of external activity is transformed and "collapses" in order to transform again and "unfold" in the process exteriorization, when “external” social activity is built on the basis of mental function. A linguistic sign acts as a universal tool that changes mental functions - word. Here, the possibility of explaining the verbal and symbolic nature of cognitive processes in humans is outlined.

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

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

The cultural-historical theory was criticized, including by the students of L.S. Vygotsky, for unjustified opposition of "natural" and "cultural" mental functions, understanding of the mechanism of socialization as connected mainly with the level of sign-symbolic (linguistic) forms, underestimation of the role of subject-practical human activity. The last argument became one of the initial ones in the development by the students of L.S. Vygotsky's concept of the structure of activity in psychology.

At present, the appeal to cultural-historical theory is associated with the analysis of communication processes, the study of the dialogic nature of a number of cognitive processes.

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

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

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