In the XX century. several psychological theories and concepts took shape that analyzed the essence of the human psyche and the laws of its development and functioning from different angles: psychoanalysis or Freudianism, behaviorism, cognitive psychology, humanistic psychology, transpersonal psychology, etc.

Behaviorism: The American psychologist Watson proclaimed in 1913 that psychology would gain the right to be called a science when it applied objective experimental methods of study. Objectively, one can study only the behavior of a person that occurs in a given situation. Each situation corresponds to a specific behavior that should be objectively recorded. "Psychology is the science of behavior", and all concepts related to consciousness should be expelled from scientific psychology. “The expression “The child is afraid of dogs” in scientific terms does not mean anything, objective descriptions are needed: “tears and trembling in a child increase when a dog approaches him.” New forms of behavior appear as a result of the formation of conditioned reflexes (conditioning) (Watson).

"All behavior is determined by its consequences."
Skinner

Human actions are formed under the influence of the social environment, a person is completely dependent on it. A person is also inclined to imitate the behavior of other people, taking into account how favorable the results of such imitation can be for himself.
Bandura

Important merits of behaviorism are: the introduction of objective methods of registration and analysis of externally observed reactions, human actions, processes, events; discovery of the patterns of learning, the formation of skills, behavioral reactions.

The main drawback of behaviorism is the underestimation of the complexity of human mental activity, the convergence of the psyche of animals and humans, ignoring the processes of consciousness, creativity, and self-determination of the individual. Behaviorism (or behavioral psychology) considers a person as a kind of biorobot whose behavior can and should be controlled using psychological laws.

Freudianism considers a person as a contradictory biosocial sexual being, inside which there is a constant struggle between the unconscious sexual desires of a person, his consciousness and his conscience, as a result of which the person himself often does not know how he will act in the next moment and why he will do so. Behavior, mental states, human health significantly depend on the unconscious processes of the psyche, in particular on unconscious sexual aspirations and unconscious complexes. 3. Freud introduced a number of important topics into psychology: unconscious* motivation, defense mechanisms of the psyche, the role of sexuality in it, the impact of childhood mental trauma on behavior in adulthood, etc. However, his closest students came to the conclusion that it was not sexual drives, advantage, and the feeling of inferiority and the need to compensate for this defect (A. Adler), or the collective unconscious (archetypes), which has absorbed universal human experience (K. Jung), determine the mental development of the individual.

The psychoanalytic direction paid increased attention to the study of unconscious mental processes. Unconscious processes can be divided into 2 large classes:

1. unconscious mechanisms of conscious actions (unconscious automatic actions and automated skills, phenomena of an unconscious attitude);
2. unconscious stimuli of conscious actions (this is what Freud intensively studied - impulses from the unconscious area of ​​\u200b\u200bthe psyche (drives, repressed desires, experiences) have a strong influence on the actions and states of a person, although a person does not suspect this and often does not know why he does this or that action .

Unconscious representations hardly pass into consciousness, practically remaining unconscious due to the work of two mechanisms - the mechanisms of repression and resistance. Consciousness renders resistance to them, that is, a person does not let the whole truth about himself into consciousness. Therefore, unconscious ideas, having a "large energy charge, break through into the conscious] life of a person, taking a distorted or symbolic form (three forms of manifestation of the unconscious - dreams, erroneous actions - slips of the tongue, slips of the tongue, forgetting things, neurotic symptoms).

cognitive psychology considers a person primarily as a rational cognizing being, capable of independently cognizing the world around him and himself, able to find a solution to any complex problems, discover his mistakes and correct them, capable of self-learning and self-government .. Representatives of cognitive psychology W. Neisser, A. Paivio and others assign a decisive role to knowledge (from Latin cognito - knowledge) in the behavior of the subject. For them, the central issue is the organization of knowledge in the memory of the subject, the relationship between verbal (verbal) and figurative components of the processes of memorization and thinking.

Humanistic (existential) psychology considers a person as an initially good being, who potentially has the highest human qualities and the highest human needs (the need for self-development and self-improvement, the need for understanding the meaning of life and actualizing one’s purpose in the world, the need for beauty, knowledge, justice, etc.) , and only unfavorable living conditions can temporarily block the manifestation of higher human qualities in real human behavior. The most prominent representatives of humanistic psychology G. Allport, G. A. Murray, G. Murphy, K. Rogers, A. Maslow consider the healthy creative personality of a person to be the subject of psychological research.

The goal of such a person is not the need for homeostasis, as psychoanalysis believes, but self-fulfillment, self-actualization, the growth of the constructive beginning of the human "I". A person is open to the world, endowed with the potential for continuous development and self-realization. Love, creativity, growth, higher values, meaning - these and similar concepts characterize the basic needs of a person. As V. Frankl, the author of the concept of logotherapy, notes, in the absence or loss of interest in life, a person experiences boredom, indulges in vice, he is struck by severe failures.

Transpersonal psychology considers a person as a spiritual cosmic being, inextricably linked with the entire Universe, space, humanity, having the ability to access the global information cosmic field, as a result of which a person can receive information about any event that was, is and will be in the universe. Through the unconscious psyche, a person is connected with the unconscious psyche of other people, with the "collective unconscious of mankind", with cosmic information, with the "world mind". At the unconscious level, there is a constant information-energetic interaction of a person with the Universe, with the global information field, with the "collective unconscious of mankind", but a person most often does not consciously know anything about this. At the conscious Level, the informational interaction of a person with the global information field becomes possible either spontaneously or on the basis of special psychological methods: meditation, rebirthing, etc.

The psyche and personality of a person are so multifaceted and complex that at the present stage of development, psychology has not yet reached the final complete knowledge of the secrets of the human soul. Each of the existing psychological theories and concepts reveals only one of the facets of the human psyche, reveals certain real patterns, but not the whole truth about the essence of the human psyche. Therefore, it is unacceptable to absolutize any one psychological theory and reject all other psychological concepts. In order to know the human psyche as fully and comprehensively, comprehensively as possible, it is necessary to know and take into account all existing psychological theories and approaches, it is necessary to consider the human psyche from different angles, identifying and studying its various facets (it is possible that not all facets of the human psyche are known to modern science ). Most modern psychologists agree that when analyzing the psyche and structure of a person's personality, it is necessary to take into account the biological nature (body, innate instincts) and the social nature of a person (social relations, internalized social norms), the conscious and unconscious spheres of the psyche, the unity of the cognitive-intellectual, emotional-motivational , behavioral-volitional sphere, the essence of personality, its center, "self".

INTRODUCTION

Unfavorable socio-economic and environmental factors lead to poor health and greatly affect the child's body. With the development of society and civilization, the number of persons with limited psychophysical abilities does not decrease, but rather increases. Therefore, humanity faces new problems, the complexity of which determines an integrated approach to their solution, namely, the unification of knowledge in medical, psychological and pedagogical scientific fields.

According to the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine, there are 385 special general education schools and boarding schools with a contingent of 48,500 people and 37 special general education boarding schools for orphans and children deprived of parental care, with disabilities of physical and (or) mental development with a contingent 4.8 thousand pupils. In this regard, the issue of improving the system of training and retraining of pedagogical and scientific and pedagogical workers for working with disabled children in nosologies, taking into account the peculiarities of psychological and pedagogical support for young children with disabilities, organizing their integrated, inclusive education, becomes relevant.

Among the cycle of professionally-oriented disciplines, a significant place is given to the course "Special Psychology" in the professional training of students in the specialty 6.010105 "Correctional education". The manual highlights the general scientific-theoretical and historical-pedagogical provisions of special psychology, general issues special didactics, the presented structure and characteristic manifestations of the psychophysical development of children with various developmental disorders, methods and techniques for identifying and correcting, current trends and innovative pedagogical technologies, features of the organization of psychocorrectional assistance to children and adults and the prevention of mental disorders. The specificity of the course lies in the synthesis of medical-biological and psychological-pedagogical knowledge about various deviations of psychophysical development in children of preschool and school age, adolescents and adults, their systematization and generalization. Training course consists of five modules, provides lectures, practical, laboratory, individual and self-study during two semesters and ends with an exam. The manual covers the historical and scientific-theoretical material necessary for mastering the professional skills of the future defectologist, facilitates understanding and awareness of the categorical apparatus of the course, and ensures successful mastery of the course.

THEORY AND HISTORY OF SPECIAL PSYCHOLOGY

GENERAL QUESTIONS OF THE THEORY OF SPECIAL PSYCHOLOGY

Subject, purpose, tasks and methods of special psychology

The emergence of special psychology (from Greek specialis- special, original) as an independent branch of psychological science and practice can be attributed to the end of the 60s pp. XX century. She appeared in the list of specialties of higher educational institutions in the psychology section. But this was the formal result of the formation, which has been going on for a long time and has accumulated scientific achievements and practical experience, everything related to the study of phenomenology, mechanisms and conditions of human mental development under the influence of various groups of pathogenic factors, as well as the patterns of compensatory and corrective processes.

Until the 20th century special psychology was an integral part of defectology - a complex science, including both a versatile study of the causes and mechanisms of distorted development, and the development of scientifically based medical, psychological and pedagogical corrective effects on children, had various shortcomings in psychophysical and personal and social development.

Special psychology- a branch of psychological science that studies the patterns of mental development and features of the mental activity of children and adults with mental and physical disabilities. As separate areas it includes: the psychology of the mentally retarded (oligophrenopsychology), psychology of the deaf and hard of hearing (audiopsychology), psychology of the blind and the weak (tiflopsychology), as well as those industries began to develop later - the psychology of children with speech disorders (Logopsychology), the psychology of children with mental retardation, the psychology of the deaf-blind, and even younger - the psychology of persons with disorders of the musculoskeletal system ( orthopsychopology).

Special psychology is an important part of defectology (special pedagogy) - an integration scientific branch that covers the problems of versatile study, education, training, preparation of children and adults with physical and mental developmental disabilities for work and independent independent life in society. Defectology includes various areas of special pedagogy dealing with the problems of educating and teaching children and adults of all categories, the study of which is the main task of special psychology. Defectology also includes neurophysiological, pathopsychological and clinical aspects of the study of developmental deficiencies, the sociological problems of which are associated with the study of the causes and characteristics of the course of developmental disorders, as well as issues of social adaptation and life of persons with physical and mental disorders. The problems of defectology also include the development of special technical means used to correct and compensate for the shortcomings of persons with defects in vision, hearing and the musculoskeletal system during training, work and everyday life.

Special psychology is associated with such branches of psychology as children's, age and pedagogical psychology, psychophysiology and neuropsychology. It is associated with various sections of general psychology.

It is important to clearly distinguish between special psychology and related pathopsychology and clinical psychology.

Pathopsychology studies changes in mental activity in pathological conditions of the brain caused by mental or somatic illness. Special psychology deals with persistent abnormal conditions that are not caused by the course of disease processes, but by the consequences of organic lesions or disturbances in the formation of mental functions as a result of adverse social conditions. In some cases, individuals with developmental disabilities may be subjects of pathopsychology. For example, with mental retardation, adverse conditions can cause psychopathic manifestations. In these cases, it is necessary to use both pathopsychological studies and appropriate means of correction.

Clinical psychology, like pathopsychology, deals with the psychological problems associated with current diseases. She deals with the psychological aspects of disease prevention, the diagnosis of mental illness and pathological changes in the psyche caused by somatic diseases, psychological correction, which contributes to recovery, the psychological aspects of the work of medical personnel, issues of examination and social and labor rehabilitation of patients.

So subject study of special psychology patterns of atypical development, its causes and mechanisms, features of the assimilation of sociocultural experience by a person with impaired psychophysical development, patterns of knowledge of the world, the acquisition of practical experience, socialization and changes in the psyche in the process of corrective action. Leading Ukrainian scientists (V. Sinev, M. Matveeva, A. Khokhlina and others) note that the subject of special psychology: "... there are all mental phenomena, namely: cognitive and emotional-volitional mental processes, mental states and mental properties that are manifested in various forms of human activity - activity, communication, behavior. Subject studies are people with congenital or acquired disorders of physical and mental development.

Target special psychology - the study of individual typological characteristics in atypical development, the causes, mechanisms and structure of the disorder, as well as the rationale and development of a targeted assistance strategy to improve the quality of life of a person with psychophysical disabilities.

AT tasks of special psychology includes: the study of the patterns and characteristics of the mental development of children and adults with various mental and physical disabilities in various conditions, and above all in the conditions of remedial education; creation of methods and means of psychological diagnostics of developmental disorders; development of means of psychological correction of developmental deficiencies; psychological substantiation of the content and methods of training and education in the system of special educational institutions; psychological assessment of the effectiveness of the content and methods of teaching children with developmental disorders in various conditions; psychological study of social adaptation of persons with psychophysical disabilities; psychological correction of maladaptation.

At the present stage, the development of diagnostic methods is an urgent task, since this industry remains poorly covered.

In the post-war period, the system of teaching children with psychophysical developmental disorders has been constantly improved in the direction of differentiation and more complete coverage of special education for children with developmental disorders of various categories. If in the pre-war period there were three main types of special schools (for the mentally retarded, for the deaf and blind), then at present there are eight main types of such schools, in which 15 different curricula and programs are being implemented. In addition, there are special classes at general education schools, where the integration of children with some developmental disabilities into regular classes is carried out on a limited scale. Differentiated and system of special preschool institutions. (Schools for: 1) deaf, 2) hard of hearing, 3) blind, 4) visually impaired, 5) mentally retarded, b) children with musculoskeletal disorders, 7) children with severe speech impairments, 8) children with mental retardation ).

The referral of children to an appropriate educational institution should be based on an accurate differential diagnosis. Meanwhile, the diagnostics on the medical and pedagogical commissions that conduct selection for special schools remains basically at the same level at which it turned out after the decision of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks of 1936 "On pedological perversions in the system of the People's Commissariat of Education", that is, intuitively - empirical level. Further improvement of the system of educational institutions for children and adults with mental and physical disabilities can only be achieved by deepening the individualization of their education. This, in turn, will become possible only when the diagnosis of developmental disorders, carried out by psychological and medical-pedagogical consultations or commissions, becomes more perfect, accurate, and will not be limited only to determining the type of developmental disorder in the child being examined and sending her to the appropriate special school. or class, but also characterize in sufficient detail the strengths and weaknesses of the child's mental development, show its individual characteristics and potentialities. All this is necessary to draw up an individual plan for the child's education, which is especially important in the context of integrated education for children with developmental disabilities when studying in regular schools.

In special psychology there are no special, special methods of research. In it, as in the general, children's and educational psychology, individual and group laboratory psychological experiment, observation, study of the products of activity (for example, analysis of written work of children, study of their drawings, objects produced by them in the process of labor training, etc.), questionnaires, projective methods, tests, educational experiment are used as well as conditioned reflex techniques.

Each of the methods is used for a specific purpose and taking into account the characteristics of the object of study.

Thus, experimental psychological techniques used in an individual or group laboratory psychological experiment have different tasks, the implementation of which requires the use of certain operations or actions during the examination, which make it possible to identify the presence and characteristics of these actions in the child being examined, the properties of his personality.

Almost every task, regardless of its main focus when examining a child, to a greater or lesser extent allows you to see her intellectual capabilities, since in order to complete tasks, it is necessary to understand the instruction and, based on its understanding, carry out certain actions. The more complex the instruction, the greater should be the participation of thought processes in its understanding (regardless of the degree of complexity of the task itself). This should be taken into account when conducting experiments with children with developmental disabilities.

So, each experimental psychological technique has limitations associated with the characteristics of a particular developmental deficiency, as well as with certain age limits for its application. So, for example, questionnaires can be used in the study of older children with developmental disabilities, although in experiments with children who develop normally, this is possible earlier.

Observation is of particular importance in the study of children with developmental disabilities. Through a number of features of these children, the use of experimental techniques in early and preschool age often does not give meaningful results. At the same time, a targeted study of behavioral manifestations can be very informative. Careful observation of the child's behavior should also be carried out in experimental situations. Observation can provide a great deal of information for understanding the nature of a child's difficulty in performing various tasks.

The method of questioning parents, educators, and teachers to assess the level and characteristics of a child’s development at an early age requires special development, when the most significant data can be obtained NOT by a researcher in short periods of specially organized observations, but by those who see the child every day for many hours, who observes the dynamics of its development over a long period of time.

All experimental studies, of course, are built as comparative ones. In order for the results of a psychological experiment or observation to be complete and fruitful, the data obtained in the study of a certain group of children with developmental disabilities must necessarily be compared with the results of performing exactly the same tasks by a group of peers, they develop normally, that is, in studies in special psychology for comparison, control groups.

Especially productive studies in which the same mental phenomenon is studied with the involvement of children of different categories. Such studies make it possible to more clearly see the specific features of children of each category and are especially important both for diagnosing developmental disorders and for determining the uniqueness of the correctional and pedagogical activities necessary for the successful education of these children.

An important methodological problem in special psychology is the development and application of non-verbal psychological techniques. Since in certain categories of children with developmental disabilities there are significant deficiencies in verbal speech, making it difficult for them to understand verbal instructions and respond to tasks in verbal form, in such cases it is difficult, if not impossible, to determine the level of mental development of these children using verbal tasks.

Non-verbal tasks, the solution of which can be expressed in the form of practical actions that allow you to get around these difficulties and get an idea, for example, about the child's intellectual capabilities or about the characteristics of perception.

The situation is exactly the opposite when studying children with profound visual impairments. The use of tasks based on visual perception becomes impossible. Part of the tasks of a visual nature can be presented in relief form for perception by touch. However, not all techniques can be converted in this way. Therefore, much greater value than in the study of persons with normal vision, is provided by a verbal task and is especially selected taking into account the originality of the speech of the blind.

ABSTRACT. PSYCHOLOGY.

Note: TEACH.

From paragraph 1.1. Principles of psychology

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

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 the social problems of modern society, Skinner put forward the task of creating a technology of behavior, which is designed to control 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 likelihood 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 probability of their occurrence and believed that the greater the possibility of their occurrence 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- a direction named after the Austrian psychologist and psychiatrist Z. 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 puts into action the mechanisms of 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. The collective unconscious forms an autonomous psychic 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 individuation to be the goal of human mental development - a special integration of the contents of the collective unconscious, thanks to which a person 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. The typology of characters proposed by Jung, according to which there are two main categories of people - extroverts (aimed at the outside world) and introverts (aimed at the inner world), was developed independently of analytical psychology in specific psychological studies of personality.

According to hormic concept According to the Anglo-American psychologist W. McDougall (1871–1938), the driving force of individual and social behavior is a special innate (instinctive) energy (“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)). At the same time, 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 experience of which is intended to be supported by a special form of psychotherapy. 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 positions domestic psychology analysis of the formation and actual functioning of knowledge as a mental reflection of reality necessarily involves the study of the practical and theoretical activity of the subject, including its 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 “collapsed” in order to transform and “unfold” again in the process of exteriorization, when “external” social activity is built on the basis of mental function. The linguistic sign, the word, acts as a universal tool that changes mental functions. 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 the proposition, important for the theory of learning, about the zone of proximal development - the period of time in which the child's mental function is restructured under the influence of the internalization of the structure of joint sign-mediated activity 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 Bern's theory is given to the concept of "game", which is used to refer to all varieties of hypocrisy, insincerity, and other negative methods 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."

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 of the late XIX - early XX 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 invest in 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 is a branch of psychology that arose at the end of the 19th century. in the USA, which denies the existence of consciousness, or at least the possibility of studying it (E. Thorndike (1874-1949), D. Watson (1878-1958), etc.). The subject of psychology here is behavior, that is, what can be directly seen - 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 - the psychoanalysis of 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 shortest possible definition of psychology can be the following: psychology is the science of the laws of development of the psyche, that is, the science whose subject 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 types 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 - stable formations that provide a certain qualitative and quantitative level of activity and behavior, typical for this 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 a 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 is active. The animal adapts to environment, makes changes to it only by virtue of his presence, and a person consciously changes nature to meet his needs, knowing 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 is predictive. 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 a 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 the sensory fabric of consciousness “forms the sensory 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”.

Meanings are 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 should be distinguished from the awareness of objects, phenomena. 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 areas of 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 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 general 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) activities;

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.

The principles of psychology 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 relationship primarily 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 the physiology of higher nervous activity, which studies material basis psyche - the activity of the nervous system and its higher department - the brain; anatomy studies the features of the physical development of 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 in processing the data received; closely cooperates 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 laws 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 into the theory of reflection, the reflex theory of the psyche, and the principles of psychology.

The history of psychology serves as the transition of roots into the trunk (butt) of psychological science. Above lies the main trunk of general psychology. A branch of comparative psychology departs from him. 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 of psychophysics and psychophysiology depart from the trunk of individual psychology. Slightly above them, from the rear, begins the trunk of medical psychology with defective psychology, branching into oligophreno-, deaf- and tiflopsychology; it branches off from the back because pathology is a deviation from the norm. Above is developmental psychology, branching into child psychology, the psychology of adolescence and gerontopsychology. Even higher this stem becomes differential psychology. Almost from its foundation, a branch of psychodiagnostics with psychoprognostics departs. The trunk of individual psychology ends with two peaks: the psychology of individual creativity and the psychology of personality, and 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 of social psychology. From it, after the branches of its methodology and history, the branches of paleopsychology, historical psychology, and ethnopsychology depart. Here, from the back side, a branch of the psychology of religion departs, and from the front - the psychology of art and library psychology.

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

The first branch of the psychology of sports is located on the trunk of the communicative-psychological sciences. Higher, in the frontal direction, a powerful branch of pedagogical psychology departs. Its individual branches stretch to most of the other branches of the entire tree, intertwine with many, and even grow together with some. The latter include psychohygiene, occupational therapy, vocational guidance, corrective labor psychology, and management psychology. 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 psychology and space psychology, rapidly and successfully developing on its basis, became an independent branch. A massive and rapidly developing branch of engineering psychology departs from the trunk of labor psychology.

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

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

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 organization of work that is 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, in late XIX century.

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.

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

PSYCHOANALYSIS(English) psychoanalysis) - direction in psychology founded by an Austrian psychiatrist and psychologist W.Freud at the end of the 19th - 1st third of the 20th century.

P. originally arose as a method of studying and treating hysterical neuroses The results of psychotherapeutic practice, as well as the analysis of various phenomena of normal mental life - dreams, erroneous actions, wit - were interpreted by Freud as the result of the action of general psychological mechanisms.

These ideas constituted a psychological doctrine, in the center of which are unconscious mental processes and motivation (see. Pursuit).P. was directed against intellectualism associationist psychology (cf. Associations).

P. considers mental life from 3 levels: dynamic (as a result of the interaction and collision of various mental forces), “economic” (energy characteristic of mental life), and topical (structural organization of the psyche).

doctrine of personalities, in which 3 structures are distinguished: It (Id), I (Ego) and Super-I (Superego).

It structure contains innate unconscious instincts(life instinct and death instinct), as well as repressed drives and desires.

Structure I is formed under the influence of the external world, is also under the bilateral pressure of the id and the superego.

Superego Structure contains a system of ideals, norms and prohibitions, is formed in individual experience through identification with the Super-I of parents and close adults. The struggle between these structures gives rise to unconscious defense mechanisms of the personality (see. psychological protection), as well as the sublimation of unconscious drives - the replacement of forbidden drives with socially acceptable actions.

According to Freud, creation man - the result of the transformation of his energy libido.

ANALYTICAL PSYCHOLOGY - Analytical psychology- one of the psychodynamic directions, the founder of which is the Swiss psychologist and culturologist C. G. Jung. This direction is related to psychoanalysis, but has significant differences. Its essence lies in understanding and integrating the deep forces and motivations behind human behavior through the study of the phenomenology of dreams, folklore and mythology. Analytical psychology is based on the idea of ​​the existence of the unconscious sphere of the personality, which is the source of healing forces and the development of individuality. This doctrine is based on the concept of the collective unconscious,

PSYCHOINTHESIS - At the beginning of the 20th century, Roberto Assagioli, combining various methods and approaches of psychotherapy in his psychotherapeutic practice, developed new method treatment, which he gave the name "psychosynthesis". The creation of psychosynthesis was an attempt to combine all the best created by Z. Freud, K. Jung, P. Janet and others, as well as to create opportunities for self-knowledge by a person, self-liberation from illusions and restructuring around a new “center of the Self”.

To achieve harmonious internal integration, comprehend the true "I" and form the right relationships with other people, Assagioli proposed the following approach:

1. Deep knowledge of your personality.

2. Control over the constituent parts of your personality.

3. Comprehension of one's "Higher Self" (see model) - the identification or creation of a unifying center.

4. Psychosynthesis: the formation or restructuring of personality around a new center.

Gestalt psychology.- arose in Germany in the first third of the 20th century and put forward

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.

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 Gestalt laws are distinguished:

1) attraction of parts to form 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.

"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.

Transpersonal psychology- a trend in psychology that studies transpersonal experiences, altered states of consciousness and religious experience, combining modern psychological concepts, theories and methods with traditional spiritual practices of the East and West. The main ideas on which transpersonal psychology is based are non-duality, the expansion of consciousness beyond the usual boundaries of the Ego, self-development of the personality and mental health. 20th century Transpersonal Psychology - S. Grof, Albert Hoffman LSD

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 trend 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, so 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 formation 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.

Cognitive Psychology - one of the leading directions of modern foreign psychology.

The main task- study of the role of knowledge in human behavior

Cognitive theories of emotion, individual differences, and personality have also been intensively developed.

Jean Piaget, Henri Vallon, Bruner, Kohlberg. Jean Piaget

Henri Vallon represented the development of the human psyche through its interaction with the external environment, with the conditions of existence

Psychological theory of activity
Activity is a dynamic system of interaction of the subject with the world. In the process of this interaction, the emergence of a mental image and its embodiment in the object, as well as the realization by the subject of his relations with the surrounding reality, takes place.

The motives of human activity are motives - a set of external and internal conditions that cause the activity of the subject and determine the direction of activity. It is the motive, inducing to activity, that determines its direction, i.e., determines its goals and objectives.

The goal is a conscious image of the anticipated result, the achievement of which is aimed at the action of a person.

Any task always includes the following: requirements, or a goal to be achieved; conditions, i.e. a known component of the problem statement; what is sought is the unknown, which must be found in order to reach the goal.

Thanks to work, a person became what he is. Thanks to labor, a person built a modern society, created objects of material and spiritual culture, transformed the conditions of his life in such a way that he discovered the prospects for further, practically unlimited development.

L. S. Vygotsky, S. L. Rubinstein, A. N. Leontiev, A. R. Luria, A. V. Zaporozhets, P. Ya. Galperin, etc.

The psychological theory of activity began to develop in the late 1920s and early 1930s. XX The theory of activity is most fully expounded in the works of AN Leont'ev. The main concepts of this theory are activity, consciousness and personality.

Activity levels:

The top level is the level special types activities, then comes the level of actions, followed by the level of operations, and the lowest level is the level of psychophysiological functions.

Fundamental principles of the psychological theory of activity:

1. Consciousness cannot be considered as closed in itself: it must be manifested in activity (the principle of "blurring" the circle of consciousness).

2Behavior cannot be considered in isolation from human consciousness (the principle of the unity of consciousness and behavior).

3Activity is an active, purposeful process (the principle of activity).

4 Human actions are objective; their goals are social in nature (the principle of objective human activity and the principle of its social conditioning).

The theory of activity of S. L. Rubinshtein - (discovers the principle of the unity of consciousness and activity, the principle of determinism) asserts and proves that the philosophy of Marxism can form the basis for building a new concrete psychology.