The history of the development of psychological knowledge. Psychology studies


The first ideas about the psyche were associated with animism(from the Latin "anima" - spirit, soul) - the most ancient views, according to which everything that exists in the world has a soul. The soul was understood as an entity independent of the body, controlling all living and inanimate objects.

Since ancient times, the needs of social life have forced a person to distinguish and take into account the peculiarities of the mental make-up of people. In the philosophical teachings of antiquity, some psychological aspects were already touched upon, which were solved either in terms of idealism or in terms of materialism. For example, the ancient Greek materialist philosophers Democritus, Epicurus, ancient Roman philosopher Lucretius understood the human soul as a kind of matter, a bodily formation, consisting of spherical, small and most mobile atoms. Ancient Greek idealist philosopher Plato understood the human soul as something divine, different from the body. Plato believed that the soul of a person exists before it enters into union with the body, living separately in the higher world, where it cognizes ideas - eternal and unchanging essences. Once in the body, the soul begins to remember what it saw before birth. Plato's idealistic theory, which treats the body and mind as two independent and antagonistic principles, laid the foundation for all subsequent idealistic theories.

The first actually psychological scientific work (but still within the framework of pre-scientific psychology), was the treatise "About the Soul" ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle. Aristotle systematized previous and contemporary ideas about the soul and put forward several important provisions that found justification in his treatise. So, according to Aristotle, the soul and the body are inseparable. The soul is incorporeal, it is a form of existence of a living body, the cause and purpose of all its vital functions. The driving force of human behavior is the desire (internal activity of the body), associated with a feeling of pleasure or displeasure. Sense perceptions constitute the beginning of knowledge. The preservation and reproduction of sensations gives memory. Thinking is characterized by the compilation of general concepts, judgments and conclusions. A special form of intellectual activity is intelligence brought in from outside in the form of divine intelligence.

In the era of antiquity, the first speculative attempts were made to find answers to the questions:

    What is a soul?

    What are its functions and properties?

    How is the soul related to the body?

This is how it was formed historically first subject of psychologysoul as something that distinguishes the living from the inanimate, giving the possibility of movement, sensation, passion, thought.

In the Middle Ages, Christian views on the soul were established in Europe: the soul is a divine supernatural principle, and therefore the study of mental life should be subordinated to the tasks of theology. Only the outer side of the soul, which faces the material world, can yield to human judgment. The greatest mysteries of the soul are accessible only in religious (mystical) experience. During this period, many aspects of the spiritual life of a person who was looking for a higher meaning and moral absolutes were comprehended.

Since the 17th century, a new era in the development of psychological knowledge begins. It is characterized by attempts to comprehend the spiritual world of a person mainly from general philosophical speculative positions without the necessary experimental base.

French philosopher and mathematician R. Descartes comes to the conclusion about the complete difference that exists between the soul of a person and his body. According to Descartes, "the body is by nature always divisible, while the spirit is indivisible." The soul is capable of producing movement in the body. This contradictory dualistic teaching gave rise to a problem called psychophysical: how are bodily (physiological) and mental (spiritual) processes in a person related? Descartes laid the foundation for the deterministic (causal) concept of behavior with its central idea of ​​a reflex as a natural motor response of the body to external physical stimulation. He was the founder introspective(from the Latin “introspection” - self-observation) of psychology, interpreting consciousness as the direct knowledge of the subject about what is happening in him when he thinks.

An attempt to re- "connect" the body and soul of a person, "separated" by the teachings of Descartes, was made by the Dutch philosopher B. Spinoza: there is no special spiritual principle, it is always one of the manifestations of an extended substance (matter). Soul and body are determined by the same material causes. Spinoza believed that such an approach makes it possible to consider the phenomena of the psyche with the same accuracy and objectivity as lines and surfaces are considered in geometry.

German philosopher G. Leibniz, rejecting the equality of the psyche and consciousness established by Descartes, introduced the concept of unconscious psyche. In the soul of a person, the hidden work of psychic forces is continuously going on - countless "small perceptions" (perceptions). Conscious desires and passions arise from them. Leibniz tried to explain the connection between the mental and physical (physiological) in a person not as an interaction, but as a correspondence in the form of a “pre-established harmony” created thanks to divine wisdom.

The term "empirical psychology" was introduced by the German philosopher of the 18th century H. Wolf to designate a direction in psychological science, the basic principle of which is to observe specific mental phenomena, classify them and establish a regular connection between them that can be verified by experience. This principle became the cornerstone of the teachings of the founder of empirical psychology, the English philosopher J. Locke. Locke considers the soul of a person as a passive, but capable of perceiving environment, comparing it with a blank slate on which nothing is written. Under the influence of sensory impressions, the human soul, awakening, is filled with simple ideas, begins to think, that is, to form complex ideas. In the language of psychology, Locke introduced the concept associations- the connection between mental phenomena, in which the actualization of one of them entails the appearance of another.

Founder associative psychology in the XVIII century became an English doctor and priest D. Gartley. According to his views, the human mental world develops gradually as a result of the complication of "primary elements" (feelings) through their association. The subsequent development of this direction is associated with the names J. Mill and G. Spencer.

In the 19th century, psychology became an independent science. The separation of psychology into an independent science occurs in the 60-70s of the XIX century. This was due to the creation of special research institutions - psychological laboratories and institutes, departments in higher educational institutions, as well as the introduction of an experiment to study mental phenomena. The first version of experimental psychology as an independent scientific discipline was the physiological psychology of the German scientist W. Wundt, creator of the world's first psychological laboratory. He believed that a special mental causality operates in the field of consciousness, subject to scientific objective research.

Follower of Wundt E. Titchener, American psychologist, was the founder structural psychology. It is based on the idea of ​​the elements of consciousness (sensations, images, feelings) and structural relationships. The structure, according to Titchener, is revealed by introspection - the subject's observation of the acts of his own consciousness.

The founder of Russian scientific psychology is considered THEM. Sechenov. In his book "Reflexes of the Brain" the basic psychological processes receive a physiological interpretation. Their scheme is the same as that of reflexes: they originate in an external influence, continue with central nervous activity and end with a response activity - movement, deed, speech. With this interpretation, Sechenov made an attempt to “pull out” psychology from the circle of the inner world of man. However, the specificity of psychic reality was underestimated in comparison with its physiological basis, the role of cultural and historical factors in the formation and development of the human psyche was not taken into account.

An important place in the history of Russian psychology belongs to G.I. Chelpanov. His main merit is the creation of a psychological institute in Russia. experimental direction in psychology using objective research methods developed V.M. Bekhterev.

Efforts I.P. Pavlova were aimed at studying conditioned reflex connections in the activity of the organism. His works fruitfully influenced the understanding of the physiological foundations of mental activity. However, I.P. Pavlov did not create.

At the beginning of the 20th century, a crisis situation arose in psychology: the method of introspection did not give noticeable results; failed to clarify the specifics of mental reality, to solve the problem of the connection between mental phenomena and physiological ones, a significant gap was discovered between psychological theory and experimental data. Attempts to overcome this crisis led to the formation of several influential schools (directions) in psychological science: behaviorism, Gestalt psychology, psychoanalysis.

founder behaviorism(from the English "behavior" - behavior) was an American scientist D. Watson. In his opinion, psychology as a science should not deal with consciousness, mental phenomena that are inaccessible to scientific observation, but behavior. Watson saw the main task of behaviorism in the accumulation of observations on behavior in such a way that it would be possible to predict in advance what a person's reaction to the corresponding situation (stimulus) will be. Behavior, in his opinion, is either the result of learning (individually acquired through "blind" trial and error), or a memorized "repertoire" of skills. Watson's followers came to the conclusion that, after all, the links between stimuli and behavioral responses are not direct. They are mediated by "intermediate variables" - knowledge, a controlling mechanism. However, these mechanisms are interpreted by analogy with the computing device of a computer, that is, non-psychologically. Nevertheless, the ideas of behaviorism had a beneficial effect on linguistics, anthropology, sociology, became one of the origins of cybernetics, and contributed to the development of the problem of learning.

Gestalt psychology originated in Germany thanks to the efforts of scientists T. Wertheimer, W. Köhler and K. Levina who put forward a program for studying the psyche from the point of view of integral structures ( gestalts). Gestalt psychology opposed the associative psychology of W. Wundt and E. Titchener, who interpreted complex physical phenomena as built from simple associations according to the laws. The concept of gestalt(translated from German, the word "gestalt" means "form", "image") originated in the study of sensory formations, when the "primacy" of their structure in relation to the components (sensations) included in these formations was discovered. For example, although a melody, when performed in different keys, evokes different sensations, it is recognized as one and the same. Thinking is interpreted similarly: it consists in discretion, awareness of the structural requirements of the elements of a problem situation and in actions that meet these requirements. The construction of a complex mental image occurs in insight- a special mental act of instantaneous "grasping" of relationships (structures) in the perceived field. Gestalt psychology also opposed its positions to behaviorism, which explained the behavior of an organism in a problem situation by enumeration of "blind" sample engines that only accidentally lead to success. The merits of Gestalt psychology lie in the development of the concept of a psychological image, in the approval of a systematic approach to mental phenomena.

At the origins psychoanalytic direction stood Austrian psychiatrist and psychologist Z. Freud. Having begun his research as a physiologist and neuropathologist, Freud came to the conclusion that the physiological approach to the psyche is insufficient and proposed his own system for analyzing the mental life of a person, which he called psychoanalysis. According to Freud, the psyche contains three formations: "I", "Super-I", "It". The last two systems are localized in the layer of the primary mental process - in the unconscious. “It” is a place of concentration of two groups of drives: a) drive to life (Eros), which includes sexual drives and drives to self-preservation of the “I”, b) drive to death, to destruction (Thanatos). In ancient Greek mythology, the god Eros symbolized love, the god Thanatos - death. "It" is the driving force of behavior, a source of mental energy, a powerful motivational principle. "I" is a secondary, superficial layer of the mental apparatus, usually called consciousness. "I" perceives information about the surrounding world and the state of the organism. Its main function is to measure the above drives with the requirements of a social sphere hostile to the individual in the interests of his self-preservation. The system of requirements of "I" to "It" is "Super - I" - an internal "supervisor", "critic", a source of moral self-restraint of the individual. This layer of the psyche is formed mostly unconsciously in the process of upbringing (primarily in the family) and manifests itself in the form of conscience.

In dynamic terms, these levels of personality are characterized by a conflict between the conscious and the unconscious. Unconscious drives, according to Freud, "by their nature are worthy of condemnation", are suppressed by the energy of the "Super-I", which creates unbearable tension for a person. The latter can be partially removed with the help of unconscious defense mechanisms - displacement, rationalization, sublimation and regression. The task of the psychoanalyst as a psychotherapist is seen by Freud to be to identify through the analysis of freely emerging associations and dreams of the patient traumatic experiences, and then to help him realize them and, therefore, free himself from them.

Z. Freud introduced a number of important topics into psychology: unconscious motivation, protective mechanisms of the psyche, the role of sexuality in it, the impact of childhood mental trauma on behavior in adulthood, and a number of others.

However, already his closest students A. Adler and K. Jung, came to the conclusion that it was not sexual desires, par excellence, but a feeling of inferiority and the need to compensate for this defect, or collective unconscious (archetypes), which has absorbed the universal experience, determine the mental development of the individual.

They tried to connect the nature of the unconscious core of the human psyche with the social conditions of his life. C. Horney, G. Sullivan and E. Fromm- reformers of Freud's psychoanalysis (neo-Freudians). A person is driven not only by biologically predetermined unconscious urges, but also by acquired aspirations for security and self-realization (Horney), images of oneself and others, formed in early childhood (Sullivan), and the influence of the socio-economic structure of society (Fromm).

QUESTIONS TO PREPARE FOR THE EXAM

Object, subject and tasks of psychology.

The subject of psychology - this is psyche as the highest form of the relationship of living beings with the objective world, expressed in their ability to realize their impulses and act on the basis of information about it.

The subject of psychology is a person as a subject of activity, systemic qualities of his self-regulation; regularities of the formation and functioning of the human psyche: its ability to reflect the world, cognize it and regulate its interaction with it.

The subject of psychology is understood differently in the course of history and from the standpoint of different areas of psychology.

Soul (all researchers until the beginning of the 18th century)

Phenomena of consciousness

The direct experience of the subject

Adaptability

The origin of mental activities

Behavior

· Unconscious

Information processing processes and the results of these processes

・Personal experience

The object of psychology - this is laws of the psyche as a special form of human life and animal behavior. This form of life activity, due to its versatility, can be studied in a wide variety of aspects, which are being studied by various branches of psychological science.

They have as their object: norms and pathology in the human psyche; types of specific activities, the development of the human and animal psyche; relation of man to nature and society, etc.

The main task of psychology as a science is to reveal the laws of the emergence, development and course of human mental activity, the formation of its mental properties, the identification of the vital significance of the psyche and thereby assist in its mastery, its purposeful formation in accordance with the needs of society.

Specific tasks of psychology:

Elucidation of the nature and essence of mental activity and its connection with the brain, the function of which is this activity, its relation to the objective world.

The study of the emergence and development of mental activity in the process of biological evolution of animals and the socio-historical development of human life. Elucidation of common and different in the psyche of people and animals, features of human consciousness in various social conditions of life.



The study of the emergence and development of the child's psyche, as well as the identification of the progressive transformation of the child into a conscious personality; revealing how his psychological characteristics are formed in the process of education and upbringing.

Study of the structure of human mental activity, the main forms of its manifestation and their relationship.

The study of the emergence of sensations, perception, attention and other reflections of objective reality and how they regulate this reality.

Disclosure of the psychological foundations of training and education, the study of the qualities and properties of the teacher's personality.

Identification and study of the psychological characteristics of various types of industrial, technical, creative and other types of human activities.

The study of the characteristics of the mental activity of adults and children with defects in the brain and sensory organs.

The concept of the psyche.

The psyche is a property of highly organized living matter, which consists in the active reflection of the objective world by the subject, in the construction by the subject of a picture of this world inalienable from him and in the regulation of behavior and activity on this basis.

From this definition follows a number of fundamental judgments about the nature and mechanisms of manifestation of the psyche. First, the psyche is a property of only living matter. And not just living matter, but highly organized living matter. Consequently, not every living matter has this property, but only that which has specific organs that determine the possibility of the existence of the psyche.

Secondly, the main feature of the psyche is the ability to reflect the objective world. What does this mean? Literally, this means the following: highly organized living matter with a psyche has the ability to obtain information about the world around it. At the same time, the receipt of information is associated with the creation of a certain mental image by this highly organized matter, i.e. subjective in nature and idealistic (non-material) in essence, an image that, with a certain measure of accuracy, is a copy of the material objects of the real world.

Thirdly, information about the surrounding world received by a living being serves as the basis for regulating the internal environment of a living organism and shaping its behavior, which generally determines the possibility of a relatively long existence of this organism in constantly changing environmental conditions. Consequently, living matter, which has a psyche, is able to respond to changes in the external environment or to the effects of environmental objects.

The emergence of psychology as a science. The history of the development of psychological knowledge.

Since ancient times, the needs of social life have forced a person to distinguish and take into account the peculiarities of the mental make-up of people. In the philosophical teachings of antiquity, some psychological aspects were already touched upon, which were solved either in terms of idealism or in terms of materialism. Thus, the materialistic philosophers of antiquity Democritus, Lucretius, Epicurus understood the human soul as a kind of matter, as a bodily formation formed from spherical, small and most mobile atoms. But the idealist philosopher Plato understood the human soul as something divine, different from the body. The soul, before entering the human body, exists separately in the higher world, where it cognizes ideas - eternal and unchanging essences. Once in the body, the soul begins to remember what it saw before birth. Plato's idealistic theory, which treats the body and mind as two independent and antagonistic principles, laid the foundation for all subsequent idealistic theories. The great philosopher Aristotle in his treatise "On the Soul" singled out psychology as a kind of field of knowledge and for the first time put forward the idea of ​​the inseparability of the soul and the living body. The soul, the psyche is manifested in various abilities for activity: nourishing, feeling, moving, rational; higher abilities arise from lower ones and on their basis. The primary cognitive faculty of man is sensation; it takes the form of sensually perceived objects without their matter, just as "wax takes the impression of a seal without iron and gold." Sensations leave a trace in the form of representations - images of those objects that previously acted on the senses. Aristotle showed that these images are connected in three directions: by similarity, by contiguity and contrast, thereby indicating the main types of connections - associations of mental phenomena. Thus, stage I is psychology as the science of the soul. This definition of psychology was given more than two thousand years ago. The presence of the soul tried to explain all the incomprehensible phenomena in human life. Stage II - psychology as a science of consciousness. It arises in the 17th century in connection with the development of the natural sciences. The ability to think, feel, desire is called consciousness. The main method of study was the observation of a person for himself and the description of facts. Stage III - psychology as a science of behavior. Arises in the 20th century: The task of psychology is to experiment and observe what can be directly seen, namely: behavior, actions, reactions of a person (motives that cause actions were not taken into account). Stage IV - psychology as a science that studies the objective patterns, manifestations and mechanisms of the psyche. The history of psychology as an experimental science begins in 1879 in the world's first experimental psychological laboratory founded by the German psychologist Wilhelm Wundt in Leipzig. Soon, in 1885, V. M. Bekhterev organized a similar laboratory in Russia.

The history of psychology is one of the few complex disciplines that synthesize knowledge in certain areas and problems of psychology. The history of psychology allows us to understand the logic of the formation of psychology, the reasons for the change in its subject, the leading problems. The history of psychology teaches not only factors, but also thinking, the ability to understand and adequately evaluate individual psychological phenomena and concepts. The logic of scientific knowledge, analysis of the formation of new methods and approaches to the study of the psyche prove that the emergence of experimental psychology and the methodological apparatus of psychology were identified and reflected upon by scientists.

The history of psychology studies the patterns of formation and development of views on the psyche based on the analysis of various approaches to understanding its nature, functions, and genesis. Psychology is associated with various fields of science and culture. From its very inception, it was focused on philosophy and for several centuries, in fact, was one of the sections of this science. The connection with philosophy has not been interrupted throughout the entire period of the existence of psychology as a science, then it weakened (as in the beginning of the 19th century), then it strengthened again (as in the middle of the 20th century).

The development of natural science and medicine has had and is exerting no less influence on psychology. Also, in the works of many scientists, there is a connection with ethnography, sociology, cultural theory, art history, mathematics, logic, and linguistics.

In the history of psychology, the historical-genetic method is used, according to which the study of the past is impossible without taking into account the general logic of the development of science in a certain historical period, and the historical-functional method, thanks to which the continuity of the expressed ideas is analyzed. Of great importance are the biographical method, which makes it possible to identify the possible causes and conditions for the formation of a scientist's scientific views, as well as the method of systematizing psychological statements.

The sources for the history of psychology are primarily the works of scientists, active materials, memories of their lives and activities, as well as the analysis of historical and sociological materials and even fiction, which helps to recreate the spirit of a certain time.

Until the last quarter of the 19th century, philosophers studied human nature based on their own very limited experience, through reflection, intuition and generalization. Change became possible when philosophers began to use tools that had already been successfully used in biology and other natural sciences.

    the emergence and development of the psyche;

    human consciousness as the highest form of the psyche

    conditionality of the human psyche by biological and socio-historical factors;

    neurophysiological foundations of mental activity;

    structure of the human psyche

    patterns of formation of mental images;

    reflective-regulatory essence of cognitive, volitional and emotional processes

    individual psychological characteristics of the personality;

    psychological features of human behavior in a social environment;

    psychology of specific types of human activity.

Psychological knowledge is necessary for a person to properly organize his relationships with other people, to effectively organize his activities. He also needs them for introspection and personal self-improvement. (one)

Stages of development of psychology

Psychology as a science that studies the facts, patterns and mechanisms of the psyche

Formed on the basis of a materialistic view of the world. The basis of modern Russian psychology is a natural understanding of the theory of reflection.

Psychology,

as a behavioral science

Begins in the 20th century. The tasks of psychology are observation of what can be directly seen, namely: behavior, actions, reactions of a person. Motives that cause actions were not taken into account.

Psychology,

as a science of consciousness

Begins in the 17th century. in connection with the development of the natural sciences. The ability to think, feel, desire is called consciousness. The main method of study was the observation of a person for himself and the description of the facts.

Psychology as the science of the soul

This definition of psychology was given more than two thousand years ago. The presence of the soul tried to explain all the incomprehensible phenomena in human life

The history of the formation of psychology as a science

The formation of psychology like science was closely connected with the development of philosophy and the natural sciences. The first ideas about the psyche developed in primitive society. Even in ancient times, people paid attention to the fact that there are material phenomena, material (objects, nature, people) and non-material (images of people and objects, memories, experiences) - mysterious, but existing independently, regardless of the surrounding world.

Thus arose the idea of ​​the body and soul, of matter and the psyche as independent principles.

These ideas later became the basis of fundamentally opposite philosophical trends, between which there was a constant struggle of views and approaches.

The thinkers of antiquity made the first attempts to find answers to the questions: what is soul? What are its functions and properties? How does it relate to the body?

The greatest philosopher of antiquity Democritus(V-IV centuries BC) claims that the soul also consists of atoms, with the death of the body, the soul also dies. The soul is the driving principle, it is material. A different idea of ​​the essence of the soul develops Plato(428-348 BC). Plato argues that the basis of everything is ideas that exist in themselves. Ideas form their own world, it is opposed by the world of matter. Between them as an intermediary - the world soul. According to Plato, a person does not so much learn as remember what the soul already knew. The soul is immortal, Plato believed. The first work on the soul was written Aristotle(384-322 BC). His treatise "On the Soul" is considered the first psychological work.

This is how the historically first stage in the development of psychology as a science of the soul took shape.

Back to topXVIIcentury When mechanics, some areas of mathematics and the natural sciences had already received significant development, the methodological prerequisites for understanding psychology as an independent branch of knowledge were laid. The psychology of the soul is being replaced by the psychology of consciousness. The soul begins to be understood as consciousness, activity which is directly related to the functioning of the brain. Unlike the psychology of the soul, which is based on simple reasoning, the psychology of consciousness considers self-observation of one's inner world to be the main sources of knowledge. This specific knowledge is called introspection method("looking inside").

The formation of psychological views during this period is associated with the activities of a number of scientists: Rene Descartes (1595-1650), B. Spinoza (1632-1677), D. Locke(1632-1704) and others.

The further development of the sciences, especially the natural sciences, within which objective research methods were developed, increasingly raised the question of the possibility of objective psychological research. A special role was played in this respect by the studies of physiologists and naturalists in the first half of the 19th century.

Evolution has played a big role in this regard. Ch. Darwin(1809-1882). There are a number of fundamental studies devoted to general patterns of development of sensitivity and specifically the work of various sense organs ( I. Müller, E. Weber, G. Helmholtz and etc.). Of particular importance for development experimental psychology acquired the work of Weber, devoted to the question of the relationship between the increase in irritation and sensation. These studies were then continued, generalized and subjected to mathematical processing G. Fechner. So were laid fundamentals of experimental psychophysical research. The experiment begins very quickly to be introduced into the study of central psychological problems. In 1879, the first psychological experimental laboratory was opened in Germany (W. Wund), in Russia (V. Bekhterev), experimental work began to expand rapidly, and psychology became an independent experimental science.

The introduction of experiment into psychology made it possible to raise the question of the methods of psychological research in a new way, to put forward new requirements and criteria for scientific character. During this period, such psychological concepts as "soul", "conscious and unconscious", some scientific concepts arise and yet this period is often referred to as the period open crisis.

Causes that led psychology to a crisis, there were many: the separation of psychology from practice, the use of introspection as the main method of scientific research, the inability to change a number of psychological problems. Many theoretical positions have not been sufficiently well substantiated and confirmed experimentally.

The crisis led to the collapse of the prevailing psychological views. And it was during this period that new directions began to take shape, which played an important role in the development of psychological science. Three of them are the most famous: behaviorism, psychoanalysis, Gestalt psychology. (3)

The subject of general psychology is the features and mechanisms of the functioning of the psyche. In the process of the formation of psychology as a science, there was a dynamics (change) in the subject of psychology.

First stage. The times of antiquity - the subject of psychology is the soul. During this period, there are two main directions in understanding the nature of the soul: idealistic and materialistic. The founders of the idealistic direction were Socrates and Plato (the soul is an immortal beginning; it is a particle of the universal cosmos or the world of absolute ideas, the body is perishable. The materialistic direction in the understanding of the soul was developed by Democritus, Anaxagoras, Anaximenes, the Stoic school. The main idea is that the soul is material, consists of atoms The founder of psychology is Aristotle, who in his work “On the Soul” summarized the knowledge of the soul available at that time, understanding by this the way the living body is organized, he distinguished three types of soul: the plant soul, the animal soul and the rational soul.

The second stage of the XVII - XIX centuries. - the subject of psychology becomes consciousness. Consciousness was understood as the ability of a person to feel, remember, and think. In the 17th century, the works of R. Descartes played an important role in changing the subject of psychology. He first identified the psychophysical problem, i.e. relationship between soul and body. He introduced the concept of consciousness and reflex. The main method for studying consciousness was intraspection; this method was developed by J. Locke.

XIX century - Wilhelm Wundt. His approach was called structuralism, because. Wundt considered the study of the structure of consciousness to be the main task of psychology. Wundt is considered the founder of experimental psychology. Wundt and colleagues identified 3 main components of consciousness: sensations, images and feelings.

American psychologist William James founded another direction in the study of consciousness - functionalism (destiny). He considered the task of psychology to be the study of the functions of consciousness. He considered adaptation to be the main function of consciousness.

The third stage 1910-1920 - USA - behaviorism arises. J. Watson is considered the founder of behaviorism. Behavior becomes the subject of psychology. Watson expressed the essence of behaviorism in the formula S > R, where S are external stimuli, R is a response or behavior. Classical behaviorism denied the role of consciousness in behavior. It was believed that consciousness does not play any role in the formation of behavioral skills, and skills are formed by mechanical repetition of the same action. Classical behaviorism does not deny the existence of consciousness. In the 1960s, socio-behaviorism emerged from classical behaviorism (A. Bandura) - the very important role of cognitive structures, in particular the processes of perception of memory and thinking, was noted.

The fourth stage 1910 - 1920 - Europe. The subject of psychology is the psyche. There are various psychological trends and schools.

Psychoanalysis is the founder of Z. Freud. The subject was the relationship between consciousness and the unconscious. Freud described the structure of the psyche in his theory of the unconscious and was the first to describe the structure of the personality: the preconscious; consciousness; unconsciousness. The contents of the unconscious almost never pass into consciousness, this is hindered by the protective mechanisms of the personality. But sometimes, in a distorted form. this content may appear (for example, in dreams or slips of the tongue).

From classical psychoanalysis in the 30-60s of the 20th century, two main directions emerged: depth psychology (C. Jung) and analytical psychology (A. Adler). Jung created the theory of the collective unconscious, in which he described the structure of the psyche. He singled out three components: The collective unconscious or archaic psyche. The personal unconscious, which includes repressed traumatic experiences, thoughts, etc., is formed in personal experience. Consciousness - those structures that allow you to perceive, realize, remember and analyze incoming information. Jung described the archetypes that a person possesses - this archetypes: Person and Shadow, Anima and Animus, Self.

Adler's position. In Adler's concept, one of the key concepts is an inferiority complex, which significantly affects the personal development and self-actualization of the individual. (Someone else's abstract)

Ideas about the soul as a subject of psychology.

Ancient psychology is a system of views on the psyche, which developed within the framework of philosophical teachings about the soul.

The primitive understanding of the soul: this is a particularly subtle material object (beginning), which is connected to the body, but is able to separate from the body. A voice, a visible appearance, an insignificant weight, the ability to quickly move in space were attributed to the soul. Loss of consciousness, fainting - a temporary separation of the soul from the body. Death is the departure of the soul from the body.

In antiquity there was no unified doctrine of the soul. Two main directions in understanding the essence of the soul: materialism(Leukipus, Democritus, Epicurus, Lucretius, Stoics) and idealism(Plato, Aristotle).

1. Democritus The soul is the cause of the movement of the body. The soul is material and consists of small round, highly mobile atoms scattered throughout the body. The soul is a product of the distribution of atoms. The soul is mortal. Its renewal occurs with each breath (some of the atoms enter, some leave the body).

Panpsychism The soul belongs to everyone, even to dead bodies. Most of the atoms of the soul in man, but they are also in the stone.

Disease is a change in the proportion of atoms.

In the sense organs, small atoms are closest to the external world, therefore they are adapted to external perception. A particularly favorable ratio of light and heavy atoms in the brain, it is the place of higher mental functions, the ability to know. The organ of noble passions is the heart, sensual desires and lusts are the liver. The soul does not exist outside the body. She herself is a special body. If the soul moves the body, then it is corporeal itself, because. the mechanism of action of the soul on the body was conceived as a material process of the type of push.

Development of the ideas of Democritus by Epicurus and the Stoics.

Epicurus Only those beings that can sense can have a soul.

The Stoics identified eight parts of the soul: the controlling principle (in humans - the mind, in animals - instinct); vision (pneuma extending from the control part to the eyes); smell; hearing; touch; taste; reproducing pneuma, extending from the control part to the organs of procreation; voice.

The control part is placed in the head.

Lucretius Kar- Distinguish between spirit and soul. Soul - everything that is connected with the body; spirit is the soul of the soul, a particularly subtle material principle responsible for the highest manifestations of the soul.

Cognition: Democritus - a dark kind of knowledge (sensation, limited in its capabilities); light (thinking).

Perception is a natural physical process. Thin films are separated from things, they are the forms or types of things, they hit our sense organs, from which the atoms of the soul flow. The atoms of the soul capture images. We see, we hear as a result of the entry of eidols (images) into us.

Epicurus: indicates the holistic nature of perception: all sensory qualities are captured not separately, but accompanied with the whole.

Stoics: sensation is the source of knowledge. There is nothing born in the soul. The soul is a blank sheet of papyrus on which a person writes down his first thought. Thinking is an extension of sensation. This is true, bright, lawful knowledge.

Democritus: thinking is a more subtle cognitive organ and grasps an atom that is inaccessible to sensation.

Epicurus: unlike sensation, thinking gives knowledge of the general in the form of concepts or general ideas, allows you to cover a greater number of private phenomena (sensation gives only single ideas).

Thinking is similar in its mechanisms, they are based on the outflow of images from objects.

Stoics: thinking - external (speech, the transformation of internal thoughts into external reasoning); internal (correlation of things in a situation and the ability to correctly plan the appropriate behavior).

Feeling problem:

Democritus: suffering (a state that is contrary to nature); pleasure (conformity to nature).

Pleasure and pain are the criteria for what to strive for or what to avoid. The purpose of life is good health and good mood. Feelings are a hindrance, it is better to do without them.

Epicurus: a person should live in accordance with pleasure (freedom from bodily diseases and mental anxieties).

Stoics: the doctrine of affects.

Affect is excessive, unreasonable, unnatural movements of the soul associated with a misconception about things. Desire is unreasonable excitement. The Stoics numbered 26 affects. The four classes are pleasure; displeasure; a wish; fear. Affects are caused by external causes.

Stages of increasing affective state:

A) under the influence of external influences, a bodily process (excitation) involuntarily arises. There is no affect without bodily manifestations.

B) involuntarily comes an opinion about what is happening and the desire to act in accordance with this opinion.

C) the mind turns on. Its function is to evaluate the impact with t. sp. Good (good) and evil for a person.

If the mind correctly judges what is happening, then actions in accordance with this understanding and the right affect. If not a correct assessment of what is happening, then affect. Thus, affect is the result of an incorrect assessment of events.

Affect does not arise without the participation of the mind. Because there is no affect in animals, children, feeble-minded.

Fight against affect:

1. Do not allow the affect to take on an external expression. Struggling with outward expressions of passions.

2. Don't exaggerate affect by imagination.

3. Delay the last stage of the growth of the affective state (ie, create a distance between the affect and the activity in the direction of the affect).

4. Get distracted by a different kind of memory.

5. Expose the actions to which the affect pushes.

The problem of will and character:

Democritus: hard determinism. Everything that exists in the world is subject to necessity. Human behavior is determined by external causes.

Epicurus: spontaneous deflection of atoms. Hence man has free will. He is not only under the influence of external forces. But it is also an acting subject, laughing at fate.

Stoics: everything in the world is subject to laws, and a person is subject to fate. Freedom does not consist in independence from external circumstances, but in the voluntary adherence to necessity. Hence the problem of character. Character is something permanent in a person. This is the peculiarity that distinguishes the actions of one person from another. Character is formed in the active doing of life. The main role in the formation of character belongs to the tempering of the spirit with long exercises, by performing actions by observing the actions of the heroes, thinking about them.

idealistic psychology.

Plato: He was influenced by Socrates.

Ideas of Socrates, transferred to Plato:

a) immateriality and immateriality of the soul. The soul is divine, it is immortal;

b) views on moral behavior. The basis of moral behavior is the knowledge of what is good. Virtue consists in the knowledge of the good; c) knowledge has an active power, induces to action. Knowledge is hidden in the recesses of the soul, help is needed in bringing knowledge into the light of God (Maeutics).

The central philosophical problem is the doctrine of ideas.

Ideas are truly existing being, immutable, eternal, not realized in any substance. They are formless, invisible, exist independently, independently of sensible things.

Matter is non-existence, the formless invisible. It is nothing that can become any thing, i.e. all while connecting with a certain idea.

The sensual world is material things, objects, natural and man-made.

Ideas are patterns, things are their likenesses.

The soul is the beginning mediating between the world of ideas and sensible things. It is something primary, arising before all bodies, rules over all.

Man is a microcosm, which is similar to the cosmos as a whole. The cosmos is a kind of animated body. The cosmos has its own soul (world soul). The individual human soul is a part of the cosmic (world) soul.

Cosmos is a rational being - the receptacle of the cosmic mind and body.

Man consists of two principles - body and soul. The body is made up of fire, air, water and earth.

The soul does not have a material carrier, it is identical in nature with the world of ideas. The soul is not an idea, it is involved in ideas.

It is not the body that controls the behavior of a person, but everything is connected by good and duty.

Body to Soul Relationship: The soul does not exist separately from the body, the soul must correspond to the body. They (soul and body) must be proportionate. Everything depends on the soul, and in the soul itself on the mind.

Three principles of the soul(three layers in proximity to the ideal beginning): lustful (connected with the body, turned to sensual things and the body); reasonable (turned to the world of ideas); affective-volitional (this is the middle part, facing the world of human behavior and actions).

The lustful soul is turned to sensations and perceptions; reasonable - on theoretical knowledge; affective-volitional - on opinions (opinion does not give knowledge of the reasons - hence the inconstancy).

Properties of each part of the soul (virtue):

Lustful - moderation (following the measure);

Reasonable - wisdom;

Affective-volitional - courage.

Dynamism of the soul world:

The rational principle governs the body and the rest of the soul. Reason sees the best, and man follows the worst. The soul is immortal. After the death of a person, she flies away and ends up on a court, where, depending on human actions, she ends up in hell or moves into the body of a person.

Manifestations of the soul - knowledge as a recollection, as a memory. Reminiscences - the revival of knowledge that the soul had before moving into the body.

Feelings do not give knowledge. They are stimuli for the work of the mind.

Plato distinguishes opinion (something intermediate between knowledge and ignorance, this is sensory knowledge, the lowest kind of knowledge); reason (belongs to the field of ideas, but at the same time the soul uses images); reason (comprehension of ideas estranged from all sensibility. The soul is directed to the being without images).

The soul had its existence before earthly life. When the soul remembers ideas, it goes into a divine frenzy (Eros).

Eros is a special state experienced by the soul, attracted to knowledge, to truth.

Four stages (forms) of Eros: body (cognition directed at the body); soul; beautiful; the idea itself (pure beauty, the question of the meaning of life).

The soul can be influenced - proper upbringing and training awakens good inclinations in a person

Aristotle: this is the pinnacle of ancient thought.

Criticizes the idea of ​​the soul as a material substratum. The soul is something belonging to the body, the most important function of the body, it is a form that exists in matter. Form lies not above matter, but within itself. The movement is determined by the form, but it is not carried out without a plan, a goal.

The ratio of soul and body: the soul and body are interconnected, but not like a point and a line. The soul cannot be studied separately from the body. The soul is the form of the body. It is not matter, because matter is that of which a thing is made. Form is the essence of a thing, it expresses the desire of a thing for a certain existence. The form sets a certain line of development. The soul is the goal.

Types of Soul Forms: vegetable (vegetative, nutrition, reproduction, lower); animal (sensations, feelings); human (reasonable human thinking).

The body corresponds to many functions - several souls. Do not divide the soul into parts, it is a whole. The forces of the soul are parts of the soul only in a logical sense. Each subsequent stage includes the functions of the previous one.

The human soul is vegetative - it has neither virtue nor vices, it ensures bodily existence; animal - ethical or volitional virtues; human - intellectual virtues (pride, nobility, wisdom). Various upbringings correspond to these parts of the soul: vegetable - physical development; ethical virtues develop in the process of moral education; intellectual - develops in the course of training.

The organ of the soul is the heart.

Entilechia- the highest realization of all the functions of the environment (what is invested in the body as its goal).

The doctrine of knowledge: cognitive abilities: sensations and perceptions; memory, imagination, thinking.

Knowledge without sense perception is impossible. Sensation gives knowledge of the individual (this is its essence). In sensation, the soul perceives form without matter. Sensation is carried out with the help of the sense organs. the process of sensation is the assimilation of the sense organ to an object. This image accurately conveys knowledge about the subject.

Five modalities of sensation: sight, hearing, touch, smell, taste.

Aristotle also identifies general feelings that reflect the general qualities of things (movement, rest). The organ of common sense is the soul. We not only have, but we know what we feel. Function - a common feeling: comparing the characteristics of the same object.

The process of sensation is the process of oscillation (movement) of the intermediate medium, which is located between the object and the sense organ. Sensation is a passive process, a process which is caused by an object. The activity of the subject is expressed in the fact that a person is able to see an object from a certain angle, from a certain side (direct the soul to the object).

Memory is the preservation and reproduction of sensory knowledge, sensations.

Three types of memory: preservation of traces of sensations (sensory memory, this is the lowest memory, everyone has it); preservation of the image of perception, which has a sign of the past (animals also have this type of memory); recollection of complex processes of reproducing past experience, which involves active search, active work (this is the highest memory, only a person has).

Memory is carried out with the participation of the body. Memory relies on the work of certain bodily mechanisms. Memory gives us experience (storehouse of sensory knowledge about reality).

Imagination is the ability to create ideas.

Thinking is the process of making judgments.

Types of thinking- the lowest (a statement adapted to the solution of one's tasks); higher (logical (scientific), intuitive, wisdom (knowledge of the most important and intimate).

Depending on the direction, thinking is practical (the ability to act correctly in a situation) and theoretical (knowledge of the essence of things themselves).

Two functions of the practical mind: the ability to set goals; finding adequate means to achieve the goal. It is an important behavior tool.

The doctrine of feelings and affects:

Pleasure is an indicator of a favorable course of activity.

Suffering - difficulties in the course of activity.

Pleasure stimulates action, it makes it more precise and longer. Different types of activities - different types of pleasure. Bodily pleasures are necessary, but they must be moderate.

An affect is a state in which a person goes beyond his usual state. Affect he calls passions or experiences.

Affect is a suffering state:

A) affect affects unintentionally, involuntarily.

B) it is always associated with pleasure or pain.

C) in a state of passion, people always change their previous decisions.

It is not the affect itself that should be subjected to moral evaluation, but the behavior of a person (we act in the affect, but the behavior is subject not only to the affect, but also to higher ideas).

Doctrine of the Will: develops among the doctrine of ethics. The problem of an act and punishment for it.

Actions - involuntary (performed for a reason outside the subject (by nature, by chance, by necessity, by coercion), these actions are not subject to legal assessment); arbitrary (the cause of the action lies within the subject (by habit, by sensual striving, assessment of the future, by reasonable striving (conscious choice) - volitional action).

Intention is based on the weighing of all circumstances and calculation. Acceptance of intention is a characteristic of voluntary action.

Late Antiquity:

Transformation of the problem of the soul: 1. Interest in self-knowledge. The task of studying the inner world, which has much higher values ​​(Augustine). 2. Strong interest in describing special states of the soul (sleep, ecstasy, possession). 3. The decisive part of the soul is not the mind (as with the ancients), but the will and feelings. The problem of free will.

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

The formation of psychology as a science was closely connected with the development of philosophy and the natural sciences. The first ideas about the psyche developed in primitive society. Even in ancient times, people paid attention to the fact that there are material phenomena, material (objects, nature, people) and non-material (images of people and objects, memories, experiences) - mysterious, but existing independently, regardless of the surrounding world.

The greatest philosopher of antiquity Democritus (V-IV centuries BC) states that the soul also consists of atoms, with the death of the body, the soul also dies. The soul is the driving principle, it is material. A different idea of ​​the essence of the soul develops Plato (428-348 BC). Plato argues that the basis of everything is ideas that exist in themselves. Ideas form their own world, it is opposed by the world of matter. Between them as an intermediary - the world soul. According to Plato, a person does not so much learn as remember what the soul already knew. The soul is immortal, Plato believed. The first work on the soul was written Aristotle (384-322 BC). His treatise "On the Soul" is considered the first psychological work.

By the beginning of the XVII century, the formation of psychological views in this period is associated with the activities of a number of scientists: Rene Descartes (1595-1650), B. Spinoza (1632-1677), D. Locke (1632-1704) and others.

The evolutionary teachings of Ch. Darwin (1809-1882) played an important role in this regard. There is a number of fundamental studies devoted to the general patterns of development of sensitivity and specifically to the work of various sense organs (I. Müller, E. Weber, G. Helmholtz, and others). Of particular importance for the development of experimental psychology were the works of Weber, devoted to the relationship between the increase in irritation and sensation. These studies were then continued, generalized and subjected to mathematical processing by G. Fechner. Thus the foundations of experimental psychophysical research were laid. The experiment begins very quickly to be introduced into the study of central psychological problems. In 1879, the first psychological experimental laboratory was opened in Germany (W. Wund), in Russia (V. Bekhterev).

1879 is the conditional date of the origin of psychology as a science (system).

W. Wolf - the founder of psychology.

First stage. The times of antiquity - the subject of psychology is the soul. During this period, there are two main directions in understanding the nature of the soul: idealistic and materialistic. The founders of the idealistic direction were Socrates and Plato (the soul is the beginning of the immortal). The materialistic direction in the understanding of the soul was developed by Democritus, Anaxagoras, Anaximenes. The founder of psychology is Aristotle, who in his work “On the Soul” summarized the knowledge of the soul available at that time, understanding by this the method of organizing the living body, he distinguished three types of soul: the plant soul, the animal soul and the rational soul.

The second stage of the XVII - XIX centuries. - the subject of psychology becomes consciousness. Consciousness was understood as the ability of a person to feel, remember, and think. In the 17th century, the works of R. Descartes played an important role in changing the subject of psychology. He first identified the psychophysical problem, i.e. relationship between soul and body. He introduced the concept of consciousness and reflex.

19th century - Wilhelm Wundt. Wundt is considered the founder of experimental psychology. Wundt and colleagues identified 3 main components of consciousness: sensations, images and feelings.

The third stage 1910-1920 - USA - behaviorism arises. J. Watson is considered the founder of behaviorism. Behavior becomes the subject of psychology. Classical behaviorism denied the role of consciousness in behavior. It was believed that consciousness does not play any role in the formation of behavioral skills, and skills are formed by mechanical repetition of the same action. Classical behaviorism does not deny the existence of consciousness.

The fourth stage 1910 - 1920 - Europe. The subject of psychology is the psyche. There are various psychological trends and schools.

Basic concepts in foreign psychology: behaviorism, depth psychology, Gestalt psychology, humanistic psychology, cognitive psychology, genetic psychology.

Behaviorism(eng. behavior - behavior) - one of the directions in foreign psychology, the program of which was proclaimed in 1913 by the American researcher John Watson, who believed that the subject of study should not be consciousness, but behavior. By studying the direct connections between stimuli and reactions (reflexes), behaviorism drew the attention of psychologists to the study of skills, learning, and experience; opposed associationism, psychoanalysis. Behaviorists used two main directions for the study of behavior - conducting experiments in laboratory, artificially created and controlled conditions, and observing subjects in their natural habitat.

Depth Psychology (Freudian)- this is a group of directions in modern foreign psychology, focused mainly on unconscious mechanisms psyche.

Gestalt psychology- direction in foreign psychology, proceeding from the integrity of the human psyche, not reducible to the simplest forms. Gestalt psychology explores the mental activity of the subject, based on the perception of the surrounding world in the form of gestalts. Gestalt (German Gestalt - form, image, structure) is a spatially visual form of perceived objects. One of the clearest examples of this, according to Keller, is a melody that is recognizable even if it is transposed to other elements. When we hear a melody for the second time, we recognize it through memory. But if the composition of its elements changes, we still recognize the melody as the same one.

cognitive psychology- a branch of psychology that studies cognitive, i.e., cognitive, processes of human consciousness. Research in this area is usually related to issues of memory, attention, feelings, presentation of information, logical thinking, imagination, decision-making ability.

Humanistic psychology- a number of directions in modern psychology, which are focused primarily on the study of the semantic structures of a person. In humanistic psychology, the main subjects of analysis are: the highest values, self-actualization of the individual, creativity, love, freedom, responsibility, autonomy, mental health, interpersonal communication. Humanistic psychology emerged as an independent trend in the early 60s of the XX century as a protest against the dominance of behaviorism and psychoanalysis in the United States, called the third force.

genetic psychology–. The subject of her research is the development and origin of the intellect, the formation of concepts: time, space, object, etc. Genetic psychology studies children's logic, the characteristics of a child's thinking, the mechanisms of cognitive activity, the transition of forms of thinking from simple to complex. The founder of genetic psychology, the Swiss psychologist J. Piaget (1896-1980), is one of the most famous scientists whose work constituted an important stage in the development of psychology.

Domestic psychology. Cultural-historical concept of the development of the psyche of L.S. Vygotsky. Subject-activity approach of S.L. Rubinshtein. Development by A.N. Leontiev of the theory of activity. An Integrative Approach to Human Cognition BG Ananyeva.

Vygotsky and his concept . He showed that man has a special kind of mental functions that are completely absent in animals. Vygotsky argued that the higher mental functions of man, or consciousness, are of a social nature. At the same time, higher mental functions mean: arbitrary memory, arbitrary attention, logical thinking, etc.

First part of the concept - "Human and nature". Its main content can be formulated in the form of two theses. The first is the thesis that during the transition from animals to humans, a fundamental change in the relationship of the subject with the environment took place. Throughout the existence of the animal world, the environment acted on the animal, modifying it and forcing it to adapt to itself. With the advent of man, the opposite process is observed: man acts on nature and modifies it. The second thesis explains the existence of mechanisms for changing nature on the part of man. This mechanism consists in the creation of tools of labor, in the development of material production.

The second part of the concept- Man and his own psyche. It also contains two provisions. The mastery of nature did not pass without a trace for a person, he learned to master his own psyche, he acquired higher mental functions, expressed in the forms of voluntary activity. Under the higher mental functions of L.S. Vygotsky understood the ability of a person to force himself to remember some material, to pay attention to some object, to organize his mental activity. A person mastered his behavior, like nature, with the help of tools, but special tools - psychological ones. These psychological tools he called signs.

The third part of the concept- "Genetic aspects". This part of the concept answers the question "Where do the sign funds come from?" Vygotsky proceeded from the fact that labor created man. In the process of joint labor, communication took place between its participants with the help of special signs that determined what each of the participants in the labor process should do. Man has learned to control his behavior. Consequently, the ability to command oneself was born in the process of human cultural development.

The subject of psychology Rubinstein is "the psyche in activity." Psychology studies the mind through activity. Rubinstein introduces the principle of the unity of consciousness and activity, which essentially means the unity of the subjective and the objective. Consciousness is formed in activity and manifests itself in it.

The psyche, personality, consciousness are formed and manifested in activity.

The psyche is known in activity, but it is experienced directly.

The psyche already exists in the prenatal period and forms the basis for further activity, and activity is a condition for the development of the psyche.

. Development by A.N. Leontiev of the theory of activity . According to A.N. Leontiev, “the personality of a person is “produced” - created by social relations into which the individual enters in his objective activity”. Personality first appears in society. A person enters history as an individual, endowed with natural properties and abilities, and he becomes a person only as a subject of social relations. Thus, the category of the subject's activity comes to the fore, since “it is the activity of the subject that is the initial unit of the psychological analysis of the personality, and not actions, operations or blocks of these functions; the latter characterize activity, not personality.

An Integrative Approach to Human Cognition BG Ananyeva. Ananiev considers a person in the unity of four aspects: 1) as a biological species; 2) in ontogenesis, the process of the life path of a person as an individual; 3) as a person; 4) as part of humanity.

Personality is a “conscious individual” (B.G. Ananiev), i.e. a person capable of conscious organization and self-regulation of his activities on the basis of the assimilation of social norms of morality and legal behavior. B.G. Ananiev suggested anthropological approach to the study of man , which was implemented through systematic and long-term genetic research. In these studies, he shows that individual development is an internally contradictory process. Development, according to Ananiev, is an increasing integration, a synthesis of psychophysiological functions. B.G. Ananiev in practice began to study a person as a holistic phenomenon. He singled out important interrelated features in it, which we call macro-characteristics, such as the individual, the subject of activity, personality and individuality. The scientist studied these macrocharacteristics in a real environment - in the aggregate of interrelated natural, social and spiritual factors.

4.Modern psychology, its tasks and place in the system of sciences .

In recent years, there has been a rapid development of psychological science, due to the variety of theoretical and practical problems that confront it. In our country, interest in psychology is especially indicative - it is finally beginning to receive the attention it deserves, and in almost all areas of modern education and business.

The main task of psychology is to study the laws of mental activity in its development. Tasks: 1) learn to understand the essence of phenomena and their patterns; 2) learn to manage them; 3) use the acquired knowledge in the education system, in management, in production in order to improve the efficiency of various branches of practice; 4) to be the theoretical basis for the activities of the psychological service.

Over the past decades, the range and directions of psychological research have significantly expanded, and new scientific disciplines have emerged. The conceptual apparatus of psychological science has changed, new hypotheses and concepts are put forward, psychology is continuously enriched with new empirical data. Thus, B.F. Lomov, in his book Methodological and Theoretical Problems of Psychology, characterizing the current state of science, noted that at present "there is a sharp increase in the need for further (and deeper) development of the methodological problems of psychological science and its general theory."

The field of phenomena studied by psychology is enormous. It covers the processes, states and properties of a person, which have varying degrees of complexity - from the elementary distinction of individual features of an object that affects the senses, to the struggle of personality motives. Some of these phenomena have already been studied quite well, while the description of others is reduced to a simple recording of observations.

For many decades, psychology was predominantly a theoretical (ideological) discipline. At present, her role in public life has changed significantly. It is increasingly becoming an area of ​​special professional practice in the education system, industry, public administration, medicine, culture, sports, etc. The inclusion of psychological science in solving practical problems significantly changes the conditions for the development of its theory. Tasks, the solution of which requires psychological competence, arise in one form or another in all spheres of society, determined by the growing role of the so-called human factor. The "human factor" refers to a wide range of socio-psychological, psychological and psycho-physiological properties that people possess and which are manifested in one way or another in their specific activities.

Understanding the possibilities of using psychological data in other sciences largely depends on the place given to psychology in the system of sciences. At present, the non-linear classification proposed by academician B. M. Kedrov is considered the most generally accepted. It reflects the diversity of connections between the sciences, due to their subject closeness. The proposed scheme has the shape of a triangle, the vertices of which represent the natural, social and philosophical sciences. This situation is due to the real proximity of the subject and method of each of these main groups of sciences with the subject and method of psychology, oriented depending on the task in hand. side of one of the vertices of the triangle.

Psychology as a science


Society science philos. The science

Ways of obtaining psychological knowledge. Worldly psychological knowledge about oneself and other people. Sources of scientific psychological knowledge. The main differences between everyday and scientific psychological knowledge.

Ways to obtain psychological knowledge . As the Russian philosopher and psychologist Chelpanov Georgy Ivanovich (1862-1936) once said: “Not from observing only oneself, but from observations of all living beings in general, the psychologist seeks to build the laws of mental life". Psychology draws these observations from a number of other sciences. We can depict the material that a psychologist needs to build a system of psychology in the following form. A psychologist needs three groups of data: 1) Data comparative psychology:. this includes the so-called "psychology of peoples" (ethnography, anthropology), as well as history, works of art, etc.; animal psychology; child psychology. 2) abnormal phenomena ( mental illness; hypnotic phenomena, sleep, dreams; mental life of the blind, deaf and dumb, etc.). 3) Experimental data.

So, we see that for a modern psychologist, first of all, it is necessary to have data from comparative psychology. This includes the "psychology of peoples", which includes the history and development of religious ideas, the history of myths, mores, customs, language, the history of arts, crafts, etc. among uncultured peoples. History, describing the past life of peoples, also describes such moments in their lives as popular movements, etc., this provides rich material for the so-called psychology of the masses. The study of the development of language also provides very important material for psychology. Language is the embodiment of human thought. If we follow the development of language, then we can also trace the development of human ideas. Works of art also provide very important material for psychology: for example, to study such a passion as "stinginess", we should turn to its depiction in Pushkin, Gogol and Molière.

Animal psychology is important because in the psychic life of animals the same "faculties" which in man appear in an obscure form arise in a simple, elementary form, as a result of which they are accessible to easier study; for example, instinct in animals appears in a much clearer form than in man.

The psychology of the child is important because, thanks to it, we can see how higher abilities develop from elementary ones. For example, the development of the ability to speak could be traced in a child from its most rudimentary form.

The study of abnormal phenomena, which include mental illness, the so-called hypnotic phenomena, and likewise sleep and dreams, is also necessary for the psychologist. What is vaguely expressed in a normal person is expressed extremely clearly in a mentally ill person. For example, the phenomenon of memory loss is also noticed in a normal person, but it appears especially clearly in mentally ill people.

If, further, we take people with various physical defects who lack, for example, the organ of sight, hearing, etc., then observations on them can provide extremely important material for psychology. A blind person does not have an organ of vision, but has a conception of space, which, of course, differs from the conception of space in a sighted person. The study of the peculiarities of the idea of ​​the space of a blind person gives us the opportunity to determine the nature of the idea of ​​space in general.

Experimental data obtained empirically in the course of observing individual psychic facts give us the opportunity to classify the phenomena of psychic reality, to establish a regular connection between them that can be verified by experience. The most effective method for obtaining these data is a laboratory experiment.

Here is the numerous material on the basis of which the system of psychology is built.

Worldly psychological knowledge about oneself and other people. Everyday psychology is psychological knowledge that is accumulated and used by a person in everyday life. They are usually specific and are formed in a person in the course of his individual life as a result of observations, self-observations and reflections. People differ in terms of psychological vigilance and worldly wisdom. Some are very perceptive, capable of easily capturing the mood, intentions or character traits of a person by the expression of their eyes, face, gestures, posture, movements, habits. Others do not have such abilities, are less sensitive to understanding the behavior, the internal state of another person. The source of everyday psychology is not only a person's own experience, but also the people with whom he directly comes into contact.

The content of everyday psychology is embodied in folk rituals, traditions, beliefs, in proverbs and sayings, in aphorisms of folk wisdom, in fairy tales and songs. This knowledge is passed from mouth to mouth, recorded, reflecting centuries of everyday experience. Many proverbs and sayings have a direct or indirect psychological content: “There are devils in the still waters”, “Softly spreads, but hard to sleep”, “A frightened crow and a bush is afraid”, “Praise, honor and glory and a fool loves”, “Seven times measure - cut once", "Repetition is the mother of learning". Rich psychological experience is accumulated in fairy tales.

The main criterion for the truth of the knowledge of everyday psychology is their plausibility and obvious usefulness in everyday life situations. The peculiarities of this knowledge are concreteness and practicality. They always characterize the behavior, thoughts and feelings of people in specific, albeit typical, situations. In knowledge of this type, the inaccuracy of the concepts used is manifested. Everyday terms are usually vague and ambiguous. Our language contains a large number of words denoting psychic facts and phenomena. By the way, many of these words are similar to similar terms of scientific psychology, but are less accurate in use.

Data processing methods.

· methods of quantitative analysis, here we mean a very extensive group of methods of mathematical data processing and methods of statistics in application to the problems of psychological research.

· methods of qualitative analysis: differentiation of factual material into groups, description of typical and exceptional cases.

Interpretation methods.

It must be clearly understood that the actual data itself still means little. The researcher receives results in the process of interpreting the actual data, so a lot depends on this or that interpretation.

· The genetic (phylo - and ontogenetic) method allows interpreting all the factual material in terms of development, highlighting phases, stages of development, as well as critical moments in the formation of mental functions. As a result, “vertical” links are established between the levels of development.

· The structural method establishes "horizontal" links between various elements of the psyche, while using the usual methods of studying all kinds of structures, in particular, classification and typology.

Advantages:

The richness of the collected information (provides both the analysis of verbal information and actions, movements, deeds)

The naturalness of the working conditions is preserved

Allows the use of a variety of tools

it is not necessary to obtain the prior consent of the subject

Efficiency of obtaining information

Relative cheapness of the method

Ensures high accuracy of results

Repeated studies under similar conditions are possible

almost complete control over all variables

limitations:

Subjectivity (results largely depend on experience, scientific views, qualifications, preferences)

2. it is impossible to control the situation, to interfere in the course of events without distorting them

3. due to the passivity of the observer, they require a significant investment of time

the conditions of the activity of the subjects do not correspond to reality

2. The subjects are aware that they are the subjects of the study.

The structure of the psyche



Emotional-volitional processes
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Emotional-volitional processes.

feelings - the highest manifestation of the human psyche, reflecting the inner world and the ability to perceive other people; the highest feelings are love, - - friendship, patriotism, etc.;

Emotions - the ability to experience and convey significant situations;

Motivation is the process of managing human activities, stimulating action;

Will is an element of consciousness, which consists in the ability to act in accordance with the decision made, often in spite of circumstances.

Phylogeny is a historical development that covers millions of years of evolution (the history of the development of various types of organisms).

I stage. A.N. Leontiev in his book "Problems of the Development of the Psyche" showed that the first stage in the development of the psyche is the stage of the elementary sensory psyche. Thus, for animals with an elementary sensory psyche, instinctive behavior is characteristic. Instinct is such actions of a living being that do not require training. The animal “seems to know” from birth what to do. As applied to a person, instinct is an action that a person performs as if automatically, without even thinking about it (removing his hand from the flame of a fire, waving his hands when he gets into the water).

II stage evolution of the psyche - the stage of the perceptive psyche (perceiving). Animals that are at this stage reflect the world around them no longer in the form of individual elementary sensations, but in the form of images of integral objects and their relationships with each other. This level of development of the psyche requires a new stage in the development of the nervous system - the central nervous system. Together with the instincts in the behavior of such animals, the skills acquired in the course of life by each individual creature begin to play the main role. Skill - the development in the process of life experience of their individual for each animal forms of behavior based on conditioned reflexes.

Stage III development of the psyche - the stage of intelligence (the highest level of behavior). Features of the "reasonable" behavior of the animal:

- the absence of lengthy trial and error, the correct action occurs immediately;

- the whole operation takes place as a holistic continuous act;

- the found correct solution will always be used by the animal in similar situations;

- the use by animals of other objects to achieve the goal.

Thus, in the psyche of animals, we find many existing prerequisites, on the basis of which human consciousness arose under special conditions.

10. The concept of consciousness. The structure of consciousness. Conscious and unconscious as the main form of reflection of the external world .

Consciousness is the highest form of a generalized reflection of the objective stable properties and patterns of the surrounding world, the formation of an internal model of the external world in a person, as a result of which knowledge and transformation of the surrounding reality is achieved.

The function of consciousness consists in the formation of the goals of activity, in the preliminary mental construction of actions and the prediction of their results, which ensures a reasonable regulation of human behavior and activity. Human consciousness includes a certain attitude towards the environment, towards other people.

The following properties of consciousness are distinguished: building relationships, cognition and experience. This directly implies the inclusion of thinking and emotions in the processes of consciousness. Indeed, the main function of thinking is to identify objective relationships between the phenomena of the external world, and the main function of emotion is the formation of a subjective attitude of a person to objects, phenomena, people. These forms and types of relations are synthesized in the structures of consciousness, and they determine both the organization of behavior and the deep processes of self-esteem and self-consciousness. Really existing in a single stream of consciousness, an image and a thought can, being colored by emotions, become an experience.

Consciousness develops in a person only in social contacts. In phylogeny, human consciousness has developed and becomes possible only under conditions of active influence on nature, in conditions of labor activity. Consciousness is possible only under the conditions of the existence of language, speech, which arises simultaneously with consciousness in the process of labor.

And the primary act of consciousness is the act of identification with the symbols of culture, organizing human consciousness, making a person a person. The isolation of the meaning, symbol and identification with it is followed by the implementation, the active activity of the child in reproducing patterns of human behavior, speech, thinking, consciousness, the active activity of the child in reflecting the world around him and regulating his behavior.

The division of the psyche into conscious and unconscious is the basic premise of psychoanalysis, gives it the opportunity to understand and subject to scientific research important pathological processes in mental life.

Consciousness- it is primarily a body of knowledge about the world. It is no coincidence that it is closely related to knowledge. If cognition is consciousness in its active direction outward, toward an object, then consciousness itself is, in turn, the result of cognition. Dialectics is revealed here: the more we know, the higher our cognitive potentials and vice versa - the more we know the world, the richer our consciousness. The next important element of consciousness is attention, the ability of consciousness to concentrate on certain types of cognitive and any other activity, to keep them in focus. Next, apparently, we should name memory, the ability of consciousness to accumulate information, store, and, if necessary, reproduce it, as well as use previously acquired knowledge in activities. But we not only know something and remember something. Consciousness is inseparable from the expression of a certain attitude to the objects of cognition, activity and communication in the form of emotions. The emotional sphere of consciousness includes feelings proper - joy, pleasure, grief, as well as moods and affects, or, as they were called in the old days, passions - anger, rage, horror, despair, etc. To those mentioned earlier, one should add such an essential component of consciousness as the will, which is a meaningful aspiration of a person to a specific goal and directs his behavior or action.

1. A person with consciousness distinguishes himself from the surrounding world, separates himself, his “I” from external things, and the properties of things from themselves.

2. Is able to see himself in a certain system of relations with other people.

3. Able to see himself as being in a certain place in space and at a certain point in the time axis connecting the present, past and future.

4. Able to establish adequate causal relationships between the phenomena of the external world and between them and their own actions.

5. Gives an account of his feelings, thoughts, experiences, intentions and desires.

6. Knows the features of his individuality and personality.

7. Able to plan his actions, anticipate their results and evaluate their consequences, i.e. capable of performing intentional voluntary actions.

All these signs are opposed to the opposite features of unconscious and unconscious mental processes and impulsive, automatic or reflex actions.

The totality of mental phenomena, states and actions that are not represented in the mind of a person, lying outside the sphere of his mind, unaccountable and not amenable, at least at the moment, to control, is covered by the concept unconscious . The unconscious appears sometimes as an attitude, instinct, attraction, sometimes as sensation, perception, representation and thinking, sometimes as intuition, sometimes as a hypnotic state or dream, a state of passion or insanity. The unconscious phenomena include both imitation and creative inspiration, accompanied by a sudden “enlightenment” with a new idea, born, as it were, from some kind of push from within, cases of instantaneous solution of problems that have not succumbed to conscious efforts for a long time, involuntary memories of what seemed to be firmly forgotten, and other

The game is a special kind of activity, the result of which is not the production of any material or ideal product. The game does not create a socially significant product. The formation of a person as a subject of activity begins in the game, and this is its great, enduring significance.

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Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation

Federal State Budgetary Educational Institution of Higher Professional Education

"Volga State Social and Humanitarian Academy"

Essay on psychology

The history of the formation of psychological science

1st year student

full-time education

directions 050100.62

"Teacher Education"

profile "Preschool education"

and Primary Education)

Nikiforova A.S.

Samara 2013

1. Introduction

2. Prehistory of scientific psychology. The era of animism

3. First stage. Psychology as the science of the soul

4. Second stage. Psychology as a science of consciousness

5. The third stage. The formation of scientific psychology. Crisis in psychology, its nature

6. Fourth, modern stage. Psychology is a science consisting of many directions

7. Behaviorism

8. Psychoanalysis

9. Gestalt psychology

10. Cognitive psychology

11. Humanistic psychology

Conclusion

1. Introduction

Knowledge of the history of psychology is necessary to understand the various theories and directions of modern psychology, the ways and trends of its development. Only inclusion in the historical context allows us to understand their essence, identify their starting positions, appreciate the true novelty and realize their historical meaning. The study of the history of psychology is of great educational and moral importance.

Unlike the subject and methods of psychology, the history of psychology studies not psychic reality itself, but ideas about it, as they were at different stages of the progressive development of science. Historical thought itself also has a history. The history of historical science is historiography. Its subject is the characteristics of historians, historiographic concepts. The task of the history of psychology is to analyze the emergence and further development of scientific knowledge about the psyche. Knowledge gained in the course of everyday practical activity, religious ideas about the psyche, the results of non-scientific methods of mental activity are not considered. In general, the development of psychology from the science of the soul to the science of the active origin of the psyche and consciousness testifies to the progress of psychological knowledge, if the criterion of progress is the degree of proximity to the knowledge of the studied object - the mental. Within the science of the soul, psychology was bound by the concept of the soul as an explanatory principle. The rejection of it and the transition to the study of consciousness are associated with the allocation of the psyche as an object of study. Psychology as a science of behavior was aimed at overcoming the subjectivism of the psychology of consciousness and entered the path of objective research. At the last stage of the development of psychological thought, the unity of the historically broken consciousness and behavior (activity) is restored due to the real implementation of an objective approach to psychological knowledge.

2. prehistory of naumental psychology. The era of animism

Animism (from Latin anima - soul, animus - spirit), belief in the existence of souls and spirits.

Initially, the idea arose that there is something in the human body that allows him to understand what he sees and hears, gives him the opportunity to think and feel, to achieve the intended goal, to control himself. Thus arose the idea of ​​the soul, which was often depicted as a winged creature. The soul is independent of the body, it can live its own life, for example, while a person is sleeping. The soul was associated with the breath, which disappeared from a dead person. It was believed that the soul leaves a person with the last breath. This idea was reflected in the myths of different peoples and in the views of ancient philosophers.

3. First etan. Psychology as the science of the soul

The first scientific psychological knowledge was formed by the ancient Greek philosophers in the 6th century BC. They represented the soul as something like a flame or a movement of air. The soul of an individual person is only a weak imprint of the world soul - Cosmos. The soul is the basis of the ideas of the ancient Greek philosophers Heraclitus (c. 544-483 BC), Democritus (c. 460 - c. 371 BC), Plato (428-348 BC), Aristotle ( 384-322 BC), etc.

The first work devoted exclusively to psychology is Aristotle's Three Books on the Soul. psyche consciousness psychology development

So, psychology arose in ancient times as a science of the soul, and later, for many centuries (from the 6th century BC to the 17th century AD), psychological knowledge accumulated within the framework of philosophical thought.

One of the main questions that worried philosophers, reflecting on the essence of the human psyche, was the problem of the connection between the soul and the body. For a very long time, the point of view prevailed that the nature of the soul and body is completely different, and their relationship is similar to the relationship between the puppeteer (soul) and the puppet (body), i.e. it was believed that the soul can influence the body, but not vice versa.

French philosopher Rene Descartes(Latinized - Cartesius; Cartesius, 1596-1650) also believed that the soul and body have a different nature and act according to different laws. The body, according to Descartes, is material and acts according to the laws of mechanics. The soul is non-material, and its main property is the ability to think, remember and feel. However, not only the soul can influence the body, but the body can also influence the soul.

Descartes was the first to formulate the concept of reflexes - natural reactions of the body to irritation.

4. Second phase. Psychology as a science of consciousness

During this stage (XVII century - 1879) the natural sciences developed rapidly.

In psychology, the concept of "soul" was supplanted by the concept of "consciousness". Psychology has become the science of consciousness. Consciousness included a person's thoughts, his feelings, needs, desires - everything that a person finds when thinking about himself, turning his gaze into himself.

Hence, a very important question arose - how, under the influence of what, human consciousness is formed. It was assumed that everything that exists in the external world affects the senses, due to which sensations arise, which can then be combined with each other using a chain of associations.

Association - in psychology - a connection that occurs under certain conditions between two or more mental formations (sensations, motor acts, perceptions, ideas, etc.). Associations are distinguished by contiguity (in space or time), similarity and contrast. The term was introduced by John Locke (1698).

Hence the psychology of the 17th - early 19th centuries. called associationism (associative psychology). Associations are stored in memory. That is why the focus at this time was on memory.

So, associative psychology was the dominant psychological doctrine in the 17th and 18th centuries, as well as at the beginning of the 19th century.

Accordingly, human development was also understood. The famous English philosopher John Locke (1632-1704), who believed that “there is nothing in the mind that would not be in the sensations,” considered the child’s consciousness at birth as a tabula rasa - a blank slate on which life leaves its writing. This idea of ​​J. Locke has been significantly reflected in various psychological and pedagogical theories based on the idea of ​​the leading role of external influences, environmental influences for the development and upbringing of a person. Therefore, J. Locke attached great importance to education, including the formation of a positive attitude towards good deeds and a negative attitude towards bad ones.

5. Third stage. The formation of scientific psychology. Crisis in psychology, its nature

The third stage lasted from 1879 until the 1920s.

For millennia, philosophical thought has posed and solved psychological problems, given its own answers to questions about the essence of man, about his thinking and feelings. However, these answers were purely theoretical. By the 19th century the development of scientific thought in many areas has led to an understanding of the value of knowledge obtained experimentally, empirically. So developed, for example, physics, chemistry. The development of physiology was of the greatest importance for the emergence of psychology as an experimental science.

The history of scientific psychology is considered to be from 1879 - the year of discovery by a German physiologist Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920) in Leipzig, the world's first experimental psychological laboratory. Psychology has become an experimental science.

Wilhelm Wundt, Edward Bradford Titchener (1867-1927) and others believed that in order to study consciousness, it is necessary to divide this complex phenomenon into separate elements - sensations, images, feelings, and to identify the structural relationships between them. Therefore, the theory developed by them was called structuralism (otherwise it is called the psychology of consciousness).

These scientists obtained some very valuable results, but structuralism, as a scientific direction of psychology, turned out to be untenable, because it was not possible to implement the scientific approach. The subject of study was clear - consciousness, and the method - introspection (from Latin introspecto - look inside) turned out to be unsuitable.

A researcher who uses the method of introspection tries to directly observe the phenomena of his own psyche, as if to "spy" on them, and therefore involuntarily interferes in the natural course of mental processes, as a result of which distortions inevitably arise. That is why wrong, contradictory results were obtained.

It is interesting that in quantum mechanics the situation is similar: it is impossible to observe a quantum mechanical object without disturbing its state. In quantum mechanics, this problem was solved: Heisenberg's uncertainty principle was formulated. In psychology, this problem has no solution yet. Be that as it may, there is no doubt that the method of introspection as a scientific method was not consistent.

It took researchers several decades to be convinced of the inconsistency of the method of introspection and, thus, of structuralism as a scientific direction.

In modern psychology, it can be used, but not introspection, but the method of self-observation, which is fundamentally different from introspection in that direct observation of one's own mental processes occurs after the mental processes are completed, so you can look deep into yourself and not worry, at the same time, about the distortions that arise in the course of observation.

Another scientific direction of the late XIX century. - beginning of XX century. called functionalism. Representatives of this trend were primarily interested in the question of how the psyche works, how it functions. The most prominent representatives of this trend were Francis Galton (1822-1911), William James (1842-1911), John Dewey (1859-1952). Functionalists were based on the evolutionary theory of Charles Darwin and believed that the role of consciousness is to adapt a person to the world around him. Therefore, the main thing for psychologists is to understand the function of consciousness, how it helps a person to adapt to the world around him, to solve life problems. Functionalists paid much attention to the practical application of psychology, including in the practice of teaching. They began to write books specifically for educators.

In particular, William James was very interested in habits, he believed that they are of great importance for the development of the child.

W. James made a lot of valuable contributions to the psychology of emotions, he also owns the first studies of self-consciousness and self-esteem, in particular, the famous formula of self-esteem as the ratio of the success that a person achieves to his claims.

Both structuralism and functionalism were concerned with the study of phenomena accessible to awareness.

At the same time in the late XIX - early XX century. many attempts were made to create a physiological psychology, to study psychological phenomena by physiological methods. However, these attempts were largely unsuccessful, since it was difficult to correlate exact, unambiguous, objective physiological indicators with subjective, psychological ones - vague, changeable, and contradictory. Therefore, many scientists began to doubt the possibility of a scientific study of psychological phenomena.

This circumstance, as well as the failure of structuralism, a whole scientific direction, led to the crisis of psychology as a science. At the beginning of the XX century. Two directions arose that revolutionized psychological science and resolved the crisis. One of these directions - behaviorism - turned to the study of external behavior, the other - psychoanalysis - to the study of unconscious processes.

6. Fourth, modern stage. Psychology is a science consisting of many directions

It is a fact of modern psychological science that it does not have an unambiguous set of research methods. Existing methods of psychology receive their interpretation within the framework of one or another scientific school. That is why psychology is divided into many scientific areas, it is not a holistic science and resembles a patchwork quilt.

However, a similar state of affairs, though much better, in modern physics, where there are three fundamental theories: - the theory of gravitation, the theory of electroweak and the theory of strong interactions. A unifying theory has not yet been created.

So, the beginning of modern psychology is associated with overcoming the crisis in psychology and the emergence of new scientific directions - behaviorism, psychoanalysis and others, which we are starting to study.

7. Behaviorism

The name of this direction comes from the English word behavior - behavior. It was developed by American psychologists Edward Lee Thorndike (1874-1949), John Brodes Watson (1878-1958) etc. The development of behaviorism was greatly influenced by the teachings of Russian scientists Ivan Petrovich Pavlov and Vladimir Mikhailovich Bekhterev about the nature of reflexes.

Behavioral scientists believed that a person's consciousness, his thoughts, feelings, experiences are too subjective and cannot be registered by objective means, therefore they are not subject to research. You can study only what can be accurately observed in behavior and fixed. Psychology began to be understood by behaviorists as the science of behavior.

The basic pattern of behavior has been described by behaviorists in terms of "S>R: stimulus > response". A stimulus is any effect on the body, a reaction is any response. Most often, behavior is determined by a complex set of stimuli, which are interpreted as an environment or situation. The reaction can be simple (such as pulling the hand away from the fire) or complex. Complex reactions include all forms of human activity that contain some kind of action (for example, eating, writing text, playing). A person's speech, both external (out loud) and internal (to himself), was also related by them to reactions.

This approach erases the fundamental difference between the psychology of animals and humans. It is not for nothing that in the works of psychologists in this direction, up to the present time, data obtained on animals are directly transferred to humans.

Later, researchers who developed the ideas of behaviorism recognized that the formula “S>R: stimulus > response” cannot fully describe behavior and activity, not only in humans, but also in animals. There are many factors that influence them. Between stimulus and reaction, according to modern behavioral psychologists, a person has an intermediate mechanism - cognitive processes: thinking, memory, imagination. These ideas formed the basis of neobehaviorism, the main representatives of which are Edward Chace Tolman (1886-1959), Clark Leonard Hull (1884-1953), Burres Frederick Skinner (1904-1990) and etc.

Central to the psychology of behaviorism and neobehaviorism throughout its history have been issues of learning, i.e. what is the process of acquiring individual experience and what are the conditions for achieving the best results. No wonder one of the modern trends in behaviorism is called the theory of social learning. Its founder Albert Bandura (b. 1925) believes that human learning can occur in two main ways:

1) direct; direct reinforcement;

2) indirect reinforcement, when he observes the behavior of other people and what such behavior can lead to.

Psychology owes to behaviorism and the school of social learning the presence of many clear, verifiable facts, subtle experimental techniques. Largely due to these areas, psychology has become an objective science, using precise methods for identifying and measuring the phenomena under study.

Criticism of behaviorism is associated with the mechanistic view of its representatives on the human psyche, ignoring the actual mental phenomena - will, emotions, human needs, and its activity.

8. Psychoanalysis

The founder of this trend was the Austrian psychiatrist and psychologist Sigmund Freud (1856-1939).

Sigmund Freud was a physician, and psychoanalysis originally arose as a method of treating neuroses. Z. Freud drew attention to the fact that neurotic illnesses in adults are often caused by mental trauma received in childhood. For the treatment of such diseases, 3igmund Freud developed a special method called psychoanalysis.

Psychoanalysis consists of:

* free association method, which is as follows. The patient lies on the couch and says whatever comes to mind, without thinking about how stupid, petty, or indecent it may seem to the doctor. The doctor tries to understand and interpret all this.

* dreams, the content of which, according to 3. Freud, allows you to open the unconscious problems of a person,

* all that 3. Freud called "the psychopathology of everyday life" - all sorts of mistakes, reservations, forgetting what you had to do or take with you, as well as jokes.

Subsequently, psychoanalysis turned from a psychotherapeutic technique into a psychological theory, and then into one of the areas of philosophy (the so-called Freudianism). The idea that human behavior is determined not only by conscious, but also by unconscious motives, desires, experiences that arose as a result of either suppression, repression, or exclusion from consciousness of certain experiences, drives, motives, has made a real revolution in the ideas about the human psyche and is currently generally accepted.

Before the works of 3. Freud, people knew that the unconscious existed, and nothing more. The merit of 3. Freud is that he first put the study of the unconscious on a scientific basis.

Describing the significance of this coup, one of the biographers 3gmund Freud explains: "Copernicus moved humanity from the center of the world to its outskirts, Darwin made him recognize his relationship with animals, and Freud proved that the mind is not the master in its own house."

Criticism of ideas 3. Freud is connected, first of all, with his reassessment of the role of sexuality in the development of the psyche and attaching decisive importance to early childhood experiences. This was already pointed out by his closest followers.

The most famous students of Z. Freud are themselves the creators of new trends in psychoanalysis:

* Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961) founder of analytical psychology,

* Alfred Adler (1870-1937), creator of individual psychology.

The most important branch of psychoanalysis is neo-Freudianism. Neo-Freudians denied the exclusive role of sexual factors in development, attaching significant importance to social factors: the characteristics of a child's communication with adults, especially in the first years of life [Karen Horney, (1885-1953), Harry Stack Sullivan (1892-1949)], characteristics of the social environment , its values ​​[Erich Fromm (1900-1980)].

Among developmental psychoanalysts, the American psychologist Eric Homberger Erickson (1902-1994) has obtained the most valuable results. He developed an original concept of human personality development from birth to death.

Psychoanalysis has developed rapidly and is developing. He not only influenced many areas of modern psychology, his impact on the philosophy, culture, art, and public consciousness of our time is extremely great.

9. Gestalt psychology

Gestalt psychology arose at the beginning of our century in Germany. The name of this direction comes from the word "gestalt" (German: Gestalt - form, image, structure). Gestalt psychology emerged from research perception. Its focus is on the characteristic tendency of the psyche to organize experience into an intelligible whole. For example, when perceiving letters with "holes" (missing parts), consciousness seeks to fill in the gap, and we recognize the whole letter.

Its founders were Max Wertheimer (1880-1943), Kurt Koffka (1886-1967), Wolfgang Köhler (1887-1967) who put forward a program of study psyche from the point of view of integral structures - gestalts. Opposing the principle put forward by psychology of dividing consciousness into elements and constructing complex mental phenomena from them, they proposed the idea of ​​the integrity of the image and the irreducibility of its properties to the sum of the properties of the elements. According to these theorists, the objects that make up our environment are perceived by the senses not as separate objects, but as organized forms. Perception is not reduced to the sum of sensations, and the properties of a figure are not described through the properties of parts. Gestalt itself is a functional structure that organizes the diversity of individual phenomena.

10. cognitive psychology

The name of this direction goes back to the Latin word cognitio - knowledge, knowledge. Its emergence and development are associated with the rapid development of computer technology and the development of cybernetics as a science of the general laws of the process of controlling and transmitting information. Cognitive psychology considers the dependence of human behavior on the cognitive schemes (cognitive maps) that he has, which allow him to perceive the world around him and choose the ways of correct behavior in it. This direction is currently developing rapidly, and it does not have any recognized leader.

Criticism of cognitive psychology is connected, first of all, with the fact that the studies carried out in it identify the human brain with a machine, thereby significantly simplifying the complex, diverse inner world of a person, considering it as relatively simplified schemes and models.

11. Humanistic psychology

Humanistic psychology arose in the 60s of our century in American psychology. This direction proclaimed as the main idea a new view of human development. It is based on an optimistic approach to understanding human nature: faith in the creative possibilities, creative powers of each person, in the fact that he is able to consciously choose his own destiny and build his life. It is with this that the name of this direction is connected, which comes from the Latin word humanus - humane.

At the same time, humanistic psychologists believe that the study of scientific concepts and the application of objective methods leads to the dehumanization of the personality and its disintegration, hinders its desire for self-development, thus, this direction comes to outright irrationalism.

The most famous representatives of this trend are Carl Ransome Rogers (1902-1987) and Abraham Harold Maslow (1908-1970).

Conclusion

Can the development of psychological knowledge be considered a process determined only by its own logic of cognition in accordance with the nature of the object being studied - the psyche? Like any other science, psychology has only relative independence, and psychologists as scientists are under the dominant influence of economic development. The complex relationship between science and society was characterized by L.S. Vygotsky: “Regularity in change and development; ideas, the emergence and death of concepts, even a change in classifications, etc. - can be explained on the basis of the connection of a given science with the general socio-cultural subsoil of a given era, with the general conditions and laws of scientific knowledge, with those objective requirements that the scientific knowledge of the nature of the phenomena under study at a given stage of their study.

Analysis of the development of psychological knowledge requires the study of the historical background. However, simply synchronizing them with indicators of the level of socioeconomic development is not enough: social conditions largely influence the choice of a problem, as well as the nature of its solution. The history of psychology must also take into account the special situation in science in the period under study. The fact of the relationship of psychology with other sciences characterizes its development at all stages of history. The influence of mathematics, physics, astronomy, linguistics, physiology, biology, ethnography, logic, and other sciences on psychology is varied. First, within the framework of these sciences, knowledge about mental phenomena was accumulated. Secondly, the methods of these sciences were used in psychology, in particular, the experiment was borrowed by W. Wundt from the physiology of the sense organs, psychophysics and psychometry. Third, there was the use of scientific methodology. So, the development of mechanics in the XVII and XVIII centuries. led to the emergence of a mechanistic model of animal behavior by R. Descartes, a mechanistic concept of associations by D. Gartley, “mental physics” by J. Mill. The interaction of psychology with other sciences continues to this day. J. Piaget considered interdisciplinary connections to be a feature of both the current stage in the development of psychology and its future. At the same time, he said that the future of psychology is primarily its own development. There is no contradiction here: the connection with other sciences should not turn into reductionism, that is, the reduction of psychological laws to the laws of other sciences.

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