behavior of lower organisms. Development of the behavior and psyche of animals

opposite reactions, both positive - towards the source of irritation, and negative - away from it. Consequently, external stimuli do not directly cause a reaction, but only condition it through the mediation of those internal changes that they cause. Already here there is a certain isolation from the medium, some selectivity and activity. Because of this, even the most elementary behavior of a lower organism cannot be reduced to physical and chemical laws of inorganic nature. It is regulated biological regularities according to which the reactions of the body are carried out in the sense fixtures - the main type of biological relationship of any animal organism with the environment 1 .

At all stages of development, behavior is conditioned by both external and internal factors, but at different stages of development, the relationship between external, in particular physicochemical, stimuli and internal processes that mediate their influence on behavior is different.

The higher the level of development, the greater the role played by internal conditions. With a person, sometimes an external stimulus turns out to be only an accidental reason for an action, which is essentially an expression of a complex internal process: the role of external stimuli in this case affects only very indirectly. On the contrary, at the lowest stages of organic development the role of external stimuli is great, so that under certain reaction conditions practically more or less unambiguously determined by external physicochemical stimuli.

Determined by such physico-chemical irritations forced body reactions are the so-called tropisms. The general theory of tropisms was developed by J. Loeb, based on the research of J. von Sachs on plant tropism. Tropism - This due to symmetricalstructureorganismforcedreaction - installation ormotion - body under the influenceexternalfi-

1 The position of S. L. Rubinshtein on the conditionality of the mental development of animals by the general laws of the biological development of organisms that occurs when the latter interact with the environment, and, accordingly, on the conditionality of the psyche - its forms - by way of life differs significantly from the position on this issue A. N., Leontiev. In his speech in 1947, when discussing A. N. Leontiev’s book “Essay on the Development of the Psyche,” S. L. Rubinshtein clearly formulated this difference:

“In the analysis of the development of the psyche of animals, Prof. Leontiev invariably proceeds from the forms of the psyche - sensory, perceptual, intellectual, so that, starting from them as from something determining, go to an analysis of the behavior of certain animals, instead of proceeding from their way of life and come to the forms of the psyche as something derivative ”(private archive of S. L. Rubinshtein).- Note. comp.

zycochemical irritants. In other words, tropism is a forced orientation of the organism in relation to the lines of force. (...)

An essential prerequisite for the development of forms of behavior in which mental components play an ever more significant role is the development of the nervous system and then its progressive centralization, as well as the development of the sense organs and then the release of distant receptors, associated with the complication and changes in the conditions and lifestyle of animals.

ITELSON L.B. LECTURES ON GENERAL PSYCHOLOGY

SOCIAL BEHAVIOR OF LIVING ORGANISMS

Until now, we have considered living organisms as if each animal is the only representative of its kind in the world and, moreover, an avid bachelor. But every animal exists in thousands and millions of copies. The animal world consists of hundreds of thousands and millions of such similar individuals, organisms, individuals. Each animal, in essence, is only a tiny link in the endless chain of its ancestors and descendants and in the vast expanse of its brothers and sisters in appearance. We can truly understand its behavior only if we consider it exactly as a cell, as a unit out of a million like it. And this means moving on to the consideration of the social, social behavior of living organisms. We will devote today's lecture to this topic.

Social behavior is absolutely necessary for any sufficiently highly organized animal. It must somehow interact with its own kind, if only because without this the species will not continue, there will be no offspring. Already here there is a need for some kind of behavior directed at individuals similar to it, i.e. social behavior.

In this social behavior in animals, new features and mechanisms of behavior are found that are absent in one single organism, which arise only when several individuals interact, which can only be understood on the basis of this interaction.

The goal of social behavior is the same as any behavior - it is survival. To survive and adapt to the outside world, to ensure the preservation and continuation of the species by combining, combining the efforts of several or many representatives of this species, i.e. through joint action, that is the general goal.

Such a combination of actions, when not one animal, but many animals of the same species jointly oppose all the surrounding troubles and threats, is the first feature of social behavior. We will call this feature the Latin word cooperation, which means “joint activity” in translation (and by no means a trading point!).

What can cooperation be aimed at? First, it can be aimed at breeding and preserving offspring. Examples of such cooperation are mating pairs in animals; the union of a male and a female to raise cubs or chicks.

So, for example, male and female penguins cooperate to incubate a single egg they lay. When the female lays the egg, the husband takes it, and the wife leaves for fattening. For two months, the male sits on an egg hidden in a leather fold. All this time he does not eat anything. Finally, the overweight females return. They take the egg, complete the incubation and then feed the chick. And the emaciated male goes to feed.

The second thing that cooperation can be aimed at is defense and the fight against enemies. An example is herds of herbivores - wild horses, bison, musk bulls. Individually, each zebra or bison is a fairly easy prey for a predator. But when they are united in a herd, neither lions nor leopards can take them by storm. As soon as a predator appears, males form a circle and this solid hedge of deadly horns or hooves encloses the life of females and cubs with an insurmountable ring.

The third thing that cooperation can be directed to is getting food. If defensive cooperation is usually observed in herbivores, then such "offensive" cooperation is usually observed in carnivores. A typical example is wolf packs. A flock can drive a whole herd of herbivores, a flock can operate from different sides, driving its victims to one place for slaughter, etc. All this greatly expands the possibilities of obtaining food.

Fourthly, cooperation can be aimed at creating and maintaining the conditions necessary for the coexistence of animals, this is household cooperation. An example of such cooperation is bees. The construction of a hive and combs, maintaining the temperature in it, ventilation - all this is possible only through the joint actions of the entire bee family, which has up to 15-20 thousand bees. Maintaining the temperature of the hive is especially characteristic. The fact is that eggs, larvae and pupae of bees can develop only at a temperature of + 33-34 ° C.

By what means is this achieved? A swarm of bees, which is in the hive, continuously releases heat. Moreover, the resulting temperature is extremely precisely regulated. As soon as it goes down, hundreds more bees join the swarm and raise the temperature with their bodies. As soon as the temperature rises too high, dozens of bees rush to the exit, starting to ventilate with their wings, driving outside air, while others spray the honeycombs with water delivered to the nest. Finally, if the temperature continues to rise, the bees fly out of the hive in masses and hang outside. It is clear that a single bee is not capable of creating such an effect at all. Here we have a typical phenomenon, which can be ensured only under the condition of cooperation, only under the joint action of many individuals.

In order for the joint activity to be successful, some kind of distribution of functions between its participants is necessary, i.e. specialization. This is the second feature of the social behavior of animals. We see the simplest example in mating pairs of birds: the female sits on the eggs, incubates them, and the male flies and brings food. This is already the first elementary form of specialization: each of the "spouses" performs his own special type of activity, and only when they are combined is the result possible - breeding chicks.

Specialization acquires a particularly pronounced form in complex associations, sometimes numbering hundreds of thousands of individuals, for example, in bees, ants, and termites. Here specialization turns into, so to speak, "professionalization".

Thus, among bees we have builders, foragers, ventilators, honey and pollen collectors, and so on. If we look, for example, at pickers and fans, we will see such different forms of behavior, as if we are facing two completely different types of insects. Developed specialization thus leads to a new very interesting phenomenon - within the same animal species, completely different types of behavior arise.

In ants, this phenomenon finds its further development. Their specialization, again, goes along the “professional” channel (builder ants, foragers, warriors, slaves, overseers, etc.). But if in bees such a specification is functional (that is, each bee can do everything, although it does different things at different ages), then in ants, specialization already becomes anatomical. The worker ant and the warrior ant are so different in structure that they look like representatives of different insect species. Builder ant - small, nimble with small jaws, very strong and very fast; the warrior ant is huge, clumsy, but with monstrous, terrible jaws, which sometimes reach 1/3 the size of the insect itself.

Cooperation and specialization in animal communities are well known facts. But, if we analyze social behavior more deeply, it turns out that these mechanisms alone are not enough to ensure the successful functioning of such communities. There must be some other center that manages joint activities. What happens without this is often seen on ants that have found a blade of grass. Each of them pulls in its own direction, and the result is random. If, for example, there are three ants on one side and two ants on the other, then three of them are pulling, and these three are dragging both a blade of grass and those two that hang from the other end.

In order for the result of interaction to be non-random, management and organization are necessary.

The first way in which this is achieved is by dominance and subordination, i.e. dominance and submission. And there is a whole hierarchy.

Its simplest form is the presence of a leader. An animal that is the leader dominates all others in a given community. It eats food first. He primarily owns females. At the same time, the leader performs certain management functions. He gives a signal of danger, distress and attack signals, puts things in order in the herd, etc.

Herds of sea lions, baboons and some other animals can serve as an example of such an organization.

A more complex case is the hierarchical organization of the animal community. In this case, there are several levels of dominance. In this case, dominance is understood as such a position of an individual when it is more aggressive than others in the group and enjoys advantages in reproduction, nutrition and movement. The position that an animal occupies from this point of view in its community is called rank. Each animal of a higher rank dominates over all individuals of lower ranks.

The rank of an animal is usually denoted in descending order by the letters of the Greek alphabet: alpha, beta, gamma, delta, etc. Accordingly, alpha individuals dominate all betas, gammas, etc. "Betas" dominate "Gammas" and "Deltas", but obey "Alphas", etc.

So, for example, counting the beak blows that cockerels and hens inflict on each other, it was possible to find a very strict hierarchy in them. Alpha individuals peck at everyone else, and no one dares to touch them. Betas peck at Gammas and Deltas, but they themselves are pecked at by Alphas, and so on.

The lowest-ranking “omega” cockerel is pecked by everyone and sometimes pecked to death. And he doesn't even try to defend himself.

A strict hierarchy takes place in herds of baboon monkeys. It manifests itself, for example, in the order in which food is eaten. Until individuals of a higher rank are satisfied, monkeys of lower ranks not only do not approach food, but do not even dare to cast a glance in its direction.

In some animals, the difference in ranks is also manifested in the features of external behavior. So, for example, in fish of the species Danio malaricus, the rank of an individual in a flock is expressed in the angle to the horizontal, which it occupies when swimming. The higher her head is "raised up" and her tail lowered, the lower her rank. If an individual of a lower rank tries to swim in a position that does not correspond to its position, then individuals of higher ranks punish it with blows of fins,

So, it turned out that for a fish, the first in rank, this angle is 2 °, for the second in rank - 20 °, the third - 32 °, the fourth - 38 °, the fifth - 41 °, the sixth - 43 °, etc. Moreover, the lower the rank, the smaller the difference in angular position compared with the individual of the previous rank, so that at the end of the ladder of "ranks" the difference becomes almost imperceptible.

The hierarchy within the Danio Malabaricus family is expressed in the distribution of the territory “belonging” to it. The "leader" owns the best, largest and safest area - in the center. The “downstream” fish have smaller areas and are closer to the edge. A senior in rank at any time can swim with impunity to the site of a younger one, and a junior to a site of a senior one - never.

Ranking positions for growing fish are established after competitions for swimming speed. If the races end in a draw, then the rivals resolve the dispute by ramming or blowing their fins. After that, the winner shows the vanquished what position he should occupy in the future.

The following experience testifies to the fact that this ranking order is forcibly established among the Malabaricus. In an aquarium divided by a transparent partition, fish of the lowest rank were planted in one compartment, and those of the highest rank in another. At first, fish of the lowest rank swam in their characteristic "subordinate" position, i.e. at an angle. Then some of them tried to take a position of a higher rank, i.e. assumed a horizontal position. The alpha individuals in the other squad went berserk and threw themselves on the windows, while the "lower" individuals in their squad immediately assumed a subordinate position. However, when after several attempts it was found that the alphas were unable to reach them, the omegas increasingly lowered their bodies horizontally and swam in this position for longer and longer. Finally, after some time had passed, all the omegas in their squad swam proudly in alpha position, majestically ignoring the incredible but powerless fury of the "true" alphas separated from them by the glass.

As we see, in the case described, the basis of the rank hierarchy is naked violence. In a similar way, a hierarchy is established in many other animals, as well as during the period of struggle for a female or females.

When a new individual is placed in a closed group with an established hierarchy, the period of its fights with the rest begins again. In the process of these fights, the ranks were redistributed, and the “newcomer” took a place at the stage of dominance he had conquered.

In this regard, one involuntarily recalls a boyish tendency to fight. Boys often have a fight - a kind of way of getting to know each other. And in many spontaneous children's communities, deprived of proper pedagogical guidance, something like domination really arises, based precisely on this test of strength in relation to each other.

However, naked strength and the mechanism of fights is by no means the only way to establish the ranks of an individual in animal communities.

So, in mosquito fish, the rank of an individual is determined by the intensity of the yellow color of the dorsal and caudal fins. Among reptiles, the rank occupied by an animal is often determined by its size and weight. In monkeys - baboons, gorillas and others, it depends on age. Moreover, in gorillas, a visible sign of such a right to dominance is white hair on the back (a sign of no less than ten years of age). There is evidence that bettas deprived of combs immediately fall to the lowest rank. In cows, the rank position of an animal is determined simultaneously by its age and weight.

In all the cases considered, the hierarchical relations of individuals are established in the process of their interaction, during which “who is capable of what” is clarified. Each individual, so to speak, learns to "know its place" by punishing mistakes and unfounded claims.

But there is another way of forming an organization in the animal community, based not on learning, but on instincts.

This type of regulation of the social behavior of animals is associated with the stochastic (random) organization of their interaction through the mechanisms of tropisms and instincts.

This kind of subordination and organization occurs, for example, in bees. There is never more than one queen in a bee hive. If two queens appear there, then the swarm is divided into two families and scatters. If you need to remove the uterus, then a special large cell is built. A special food, the so-called royal jelly, is carried into it. From the larvae that feeds on this food, the uterus grows.

The question is, what governs these actions? Why do bees follow the queen, why do they hatch the queen in some cases and not in others?

It turns out that the whole point is as follows. The uterus always crawls over the combs, accompanied by a huge retinue - a crowd of bees, which licks her all the time. At first they thought it was something like courtship - the bees, they say, cleanse her, kiss her, so to speak, and so on. In fact, everything is both simpler and more complicated. The body of the uterus releases a special chemical. It is apparently sweet for the bees, and they lick it off. While the bee is licking this substance, the reflex of building a mother liquor is suppressed in it, i.e. cells for breeding queens. As soon as she does not receive this substance, the bee automatically begins to build a cell for breeding the queen. As you can see, everything here happens purely automatically based on the chemical regulation of behavior.

Finally, the last, most interesting trait that emerges in the animal community. In order to coordinate actions, for a group of animals to work smoothly, so that each individual performs its functions, they need to somehow “agree” with each other. In other words, we need communication, we need to send signals to each other, for example, that food has been found, that danger is approaching, and so on. This is the fourth new trait that appears in the animal's social behavior, communication or communicative behavior.

Communication is carried out using a variety of signals. In humans, for example, communication is carried out with the help of sound signals (speech), with the help of images (writing, letters), with the help of various technical means, etc. Ultimately, it is either sounds or images.

Animals also have these types of signals. So, sound communication or sound language is quite widespread among animals. In particular, up to 20 different signals were found in some birds, for example, in magpies, and in crows too. One cry denotes danger. The other is a call to the chicks that food has been found. The third signal is a call to the female. The fourth signal means a threat, an intention to fight, etc.

Evidence that these cries are indeed a language and have a signaling function was obtained in a dramatic experiment. The cry of rooks was recorded on a tape recorder, meaning a signal of danger. Then, when a large flock of rooks sat on the field, they played the record. As soon as this cry was heard from the speaker, immediately the whole flock took off and rushed away in a panic. Similar danger signals have been found in insects. The project is based on this - to drive away harmful birds and insects from fields and gardens, broadcasting sounds through the loudspeaker, which means they have a danger signal.

Monkeys have a rather developed sound language - about 40 different signals in total - tenderness, call, danger, etc. Moreover, in the monkey, these signals are already more differentiated. For example, danger, predator, snake - one signal. Unknown danger is another signal. A call is one signal, an insistent call is another signal, and so on.

The second type of signaling used by animals is motor signaling. An example is the so-called mating ceremony of birds. In very many birds, mating rites and courtship are extremely complex. Thus, in birds of the species Sala dactilatra, the male grabs a pebble and places it in front of the female. The female shifts this pebble a little further with her beak. He again pushes him, and so the ceremony of offering and refusal can last two hours.

Motor signaling is also developed in many mammals. You all know such motor signals in dogs as tail wagging, which expresses joy, delight. On the contrary, a tucked-in tail, bared teeth indicate rage.

Similar expressive movements are observed in almost all animals. These include, in particular, clearly distinguishable postures of threat, submission, alertness, courtship, etc.

So, for example, the posture of submission among wolves - exposing the throat to the jaws of the enemy - instantly stops the attack in the most violent fight.

Very complex and interesting signaling is found in elephants. There are three components in their facial expressions: the position of the trunk, the position of the head, and the position of the ears. So, the English scientist Tinbergen established about 19 different meanings of the “facial expressions” of an elephant. For example, ears pushed forward (1) mean that the elephant is excited. The head raised at the same time (2, 3) is a sign of hostility. And if the tail is also raised (4, 5) - the animal is furious. A trunk bent outward expresses aggressiveness (6), and a bent inward - on the contrary, fear, "restraint" (11), etc.

Extremely complex rituals are also associated in many animals with the ceremony of meeting and acquaintance of two individuals, i.e. with the establishment of social contacts. Here the postures of "self-praise" and threats alternate with postures of submission and alertness, until calm comes. Here is how the famous animal behavior researcher Konrad Lorenz describes this ceremony in dogs:

“Stretching their legs, raising their tails and ruffling their fur, they approach each other. Dogs pass each other and stop side by side at the moment when the head of one is near the tail of the other. Next comes the sniffing ceremony - each sniffing the base of the opponent's tail. If at this moment one of the dogs cannot overcome fear, she hides her tail between her hind legs and quickly, quickly twitches her tail - knots. By this, she seems to give up her original desire to be sniffed. If both dogs remain in self-praise poses, holding their tails straight up like banners, the sniffing ceremony is delayed. Everything can still be resolved peacefully if one of the dogs, and after it the other, starts wagging their tails, wagging them faster and faster. Then the painful situation for the nerves will end in just a fun dog fuss.

If this does not happen, the situation becomes more and more tense. Dog noses begin to wrinkle, lips curl up to reveal fangs on the side that faces the opponent, and the muzzle takes on a disgusting, hard expression. Then the animals furiously scrape the ground with their hind legs, a dull grunt is heard, and the next moment, with loud, piercing cries, the dogs rush at each other.

It has long been surprising to researchers how a bee tells its companions where honey flowers are located. It has been noticed that, having found a clearing with a large number of honey plants, a bee flies back to the hive and after a while a whole swarm of bees flies to this place from there. Moreover, she does not see them, but remains in the hive, resting. This means that the bee somehow informed its companions where these honey plants are located. How did it happen? To answer this question, let's see how such a bee behaves. Back in the hive, she starts circling. Either he just crawls in a circle, or begins to write out “eights”, wagging his belly at the same time. When we compared the movements that she performs with the location of the flowers, it turned out that if the flowers are somewhere very close to the hive, then the bee simply runs in a circle. Moreover, the longer she runs, the more flowers there are. If the flowers are far away, then the bee, as already mentioned, describes the "eights". So, it turned out that this "eight" has a very definite meaning. The diagonal in it indicates the relation of the position of the Sun to the direction where the flowers are. It is interesting that a bee can arrive at one in the afternoon, and the pickers will fly out, for example, at four in the afternoon. The sun will be somewhere else. However, they will fly correctly, i.e. they somehow automatically correct for the movement of the sun across the sky.

In turn, the speed with which the bee runs and the frequency of wobbles of the abdomen correspond to the distance (the closer, the faster), and the duration determines how much food is stored there. Finally, what kind of flowers are there, the bees will find out by the smell of the “messenger”. She carries the scent of the flower. If the flower is odorless, then the bee marks it, releasing a special odorous substance, so that the pickers, who have flown in at her direction, find this flower at her signal.

In the same way, the language of ants turned out to be motor. They found about 20 signals.

Prof. P. Marikovsky managed to decipher 14 of them. Among them were signals like: “attention!”, “attention, someone else’s smell!”, “alarm!”, “be vigilant!”, “leave me alone!”, “who are you?”, “what is this smell?”, “in food is not good”, “beware!”, “give me food!”, “please, let me eat!”, “in battle”, “there, to help”.

So, for example, the signal “let me eat” looks like this: the petitioner, opening his jaws, turns his head 90 °, brings it closer to the head of a well-fed ant, while stroking it with his antennae. In response, a well-fed one regurgitates food from his stomach.

If he does not do this, an intensified request follows. A hungry ant, slightly arched, turns its head 180° and places it under the donor's jaws. This is already a signal “I beg you, let me eat!”

If this signal does not work, and there is a large ant nearby - a witness to what is happening, then it sometimes intervenes. Opening its jaws wide, it hits the jaws of a well-fed ant with force. This signal is something like an order: "Immediately give me something to eat!"

So far, we have considered signaling methods that people also have - figurative, sound. But it turned out that animals also have signals that humans cannot use. First, it is a signaling with the help of smells. The animal secretes a substance with a certain smell, and it serves as a signal. Everyone knows this alarm in dogs. When the male raises his leg near the post and leaves his mark on it, then he leaves the signal. Moreover, depending on some signs that we do not yet know, this signal can mean either a call to follow him, or, conversely, mark the border of his possessions, where he does not allow other dogs to enter.

Approximately the same character is the signaling of a bear. The bear usually has an area that he considers his own and where he forbids other bears to go.

Bypassing this site, the bear rubs against the trees, and the smell that he leaves serves as a signal to others that the site already has an owner.

And, finally, one more type of signaling, which already has nothing at all similar in human practice. It's a chemical signal. It turned out that some species of insects secrete certain substances that carry a signal for other insects. These substances are called pheromones. So, for example, an ant that has found food releases a special substance with which it marks the path along which it walked. Any ant that gets on these paths immediately begins to follow the same path. Another substance calls only the male to the female. The third, on the contrary, serves as an alarm signal, and the ant, having bumped into it, hastily flees.

These chemical signals turned out to be automatic. They apparently somehow act on the organism, and as soon as the insect perceives the smell of the corresponding substance (or comes into contact with it), a certain specified reaction immediately occurs. It was possible to find out the chemical composition of some of these substances, to artificially produce them, with the help of them to control the behavior of ants, as well as some other insects.

When a person who first gets acquainted with zoopsychology learns all this for the first time, he often has the following reaction: “Lord, they are as smart as we are! They have bosses and subordinates, and they have a language. So, a person differs from an animal not so much!

In a well-known anecdote, a student is compared to a dog: his eyes are smart, he understands everything, but he cannot say. But the similarity, it turns out, goes further. And the ants talk, and the man talks. Ants have society and humans have society. There cooperation and specialization, here - cooperation and specialization. In general, there seems to be almost no difference.

This is not true! There is a difference and a fundamental difference.

The first and fundamental difference lies in the fact that all the considered types of social behavior in animals are in some cases instinctive in nature. The animal does not learn them, but they represent its innate reactions. In other cases, the organization again does not arise on a conscious basis, but randomly on the basis of biological mechanisms of learning.

So, if the specialization and division of functions in the communities of ants, bees, termites is innate, due to instinctive behavior, then, for example, in many herbivores and birds this is the result of random self-organization. How, for example, are large herds of herbivores formed in the African steppes? There are few water sources. Near them, herbivores spontaneously gather to drink. This is where the inherent instinct of imitation comes into play. And so the herds are completed, which then go to the prairies, graze and return again to these watering places. Migratory flocks of birds are organized similarly. The dominance and ranking system of these flocks are also formed, in essence, by a purely random mechanism - through fights, through the selection of the most powerful individuals that suppress all others, or on the basis of instinctive reactions. Similarly, signaling in animals is not a language in the human sense of the word. What is its fundamental difference from human language? Human language denotes objects, things, phenomena of the external world. Animal signals indicate only their own state. They are an expression of the internal state of the animal - anxiety, fear, rage, etc.

Even in monkeys with highly developed signaling, they did not find signals that would indicate objects, things, properties. Such an experience is very interesting. The monkeys were given a rope to which a banana was tied. The fetus was pressed down by a heavy load, and no matter how much the monkey pulled, she alone could not pull it out. But if the monkeys pulled the rope together, the task was solved without much difficulty. Monkeys quickly learned such cooperation and immediately came to each other's aid.

In the case when a possible helper sat with her back and did not see that she needed help, the monkey who needed help touched her on the shoulder and turned to him, as if asking for help. However, it was never observed that she indicated what kind of help she needed, for example, she pointed to the rope, they say, take it, pull it.

The monkey was not capable of doing more than a general attraction of attention to itself.

Very curious experiments on the study of mutual assistance and cooperation in animals were carried out by psychologists. Their scheme is as follows. The large cage has a lever on one side. If you press it, a small tablet of dried meat appears on the other side of the cage. There are 10-15 rats in a cage. Here one of the rats pressed the lever, but by the time she managed to run to the opposite end, the other rats had already gobbled up this food. After several failures, the rat began to do this: she quickly and repeatedly pressed the lever, so that the pills just rained down. Then she ran towards them. Since the rats didn't have time to eat all those pills, she had something left. The psychologist who conducted this experiment said that there was a pure model of a class society. One worked, all the rest ate at his expense, and the one who worked got very little.

Then the experiment was somewhat modified. When the lever was pressed, a tablet with food popped up under it, but at the same time the animal received an electric shock. There was a platform in the other corner of the cage. If you stand on it, then the electric current is turned off. After a very large number of attempts, a real collaboration was observed. One rat got up on the platform and turned off the current, while the other one pressed the lever and ate. Then they changed places. Despite the elements of mutual assistance, no language, no signaling describing what to do, and in this case, the animals could not develop.

From the point of view of social social behavior, animals can be divided into the following main groups. First, purely, so to speak, individualists. These are animals that lead a strictly isolated lifestyle, animals that do not even form married couples, do not even look after their offspring. The cuckoo is one famous example, as are many fish. Such an animal lives on its own and does not even have any elements of social behavior.

The next stage is temporary connections, families. This includes the o6ieflHHeHHfl of two animals for breeding and raising offspring, as well as temporary group associations, flocks.

Examples are associations of birds for flight, associations of wolves for hunting, etc. In such groups, specialization is still very weak, but it already has a leader.

The next type, higher, is a public association with the division of certain functions, for example, protection, food production, raising cubs, etc. Such associations are called colonies. An example is colonies of penguins, beavers, etc.

Finally, the highest level is public associations with strict specialization and complex coordination. Such associations are called communities. Examples of these are bees and ants. Community is the most complex form of animal social behavior. Social animals, i.e. animals living in a community cannot exist separately at all. From this point of view, an ant's nest or a swarm of bees is an intermediate link between the organism and the individual animal. In essence, this is a kind of organism in which each individual can live only together with all the others, otherwise it dies.

As we move along this ladder of increasingly complex types of social connections, we more and more clearly discover the most important new feature that they introduce into the behavior of animals and the methods of its formation.

The sphere of reality relations, which determine the reactions of the animal to it, increasingly includes the behavior of other individuals of its species.

The selection of relevant information and its processing do not require any other special mechanisms, except for instincts, skills and intellect. But the content of this information is already essentially new. This is the identification of biologically significant patterns of behavior of individuals of their own species, the anticipation of their reactions to relevant significant stimuli, the formation of an alphabet and dictionary of these reactions in various situations, the use of this dictionary to form their own appropriate reactions.

But after all, the laws of species behavior, thus reflected and used by an individual, are also the laws of behavior of this individual itself. Learning the behavioral structures of its own species, the animal learns the structures of its own behavior. It discovers and forms in itself the mental mechanisms of the corresponding specific behavior.

Thus, a young fallow deer, rushing to run when the herd takes flight at the appearance of a predator, thereby turns into a fallow deer by the nature of its behavior in the face of danger. She learns the appropriate reaction not through a direct collision with a predator, but through a reaction to it from older relatives. Her behavior is shaped by the experience of elders, and not by personal practice of communicating with a predator. And if a newborn fallow deer is isolated from relatives, then we will not find any such specific reaction to a predator in her. Proof of this can be seen in the nursery area in some zoos, where small herbivores play peacefully with lion cubs and wolf cubs.

This phenomenon is worth a close look. The assimilation of biological expedient reactions occurs here without painful trials and errors, fraught with the death of the animal. It is achieved by instinctive imitation or direct teaching by elders.

So social interaction introduces a fundamentally new way of shaping behavior, and hence the psyche of animals - through the assimilation of the experience of the older generation. In the psychological experiments that we have considered in past lectures, animals are usually placed in artificial situations that did not occur in the natural conditions of their lives. Therefore, the main role in such experiments is played by their own trials and individual learning. But under natural conditions, highly organized animals learn the vast majority of their behavior precisely from the experience of the older generation - from parents, in a herd, in a colony, etc.

Such a mechanism for the formation of species behavior significantly increases the chances of each individual for survival. He frees her from the need "on her own skin" to try all the dangers of the world around and, through personal trials, to find appropriate food, protect offspring, etc. Therefore, the proportion of social learning and regulation is continuously increasing in the animal world, reaching its highest expression in man.

The second essentially new thing that social behavior brings with it is the emergence of a new type of reaction. Namely, the reactions

The ability to respond to stimuli emanating from the environment - irritability- is the main property of any, even the most elementary unicellular organism. Already the bare protoplasmic mass of the amoeba reacts to mechanical, thermal, optical, chemical, and electrical stimuli (i.e., all stimuli to which higher animals respond). At the same time, the reactions can no longer be directly reduced to the physical action of the stimuli that cause them. External physico-chemical stimuli do not directly determine the reactions of the organism; the relationship between them is ambiguous: same external irritation, depending on various circumstances, can cause various and even opposite reactions - both positive, towards the source of irritation, and negative - away from it. Consequently, external stimuli do not cause a reaction directly, but only condition it through the mediation of those internal changes that they cause. Already here, then, there is a certain isolation from the environment, some selectivity and activity. Because of this, even the most elementary behavior of a lower organism cannot be reduced to physical and chemical laws of inorganic nature. It is regulated biological regularities according to which the reactions of the body are carried out in the sense fixtures- the main type of biological relationship of any animal organism with the environment.

The higher the level of development, the greater the role played by internal conditions. With a person, sometimes an external stimulus turns out to be only an accidental reason for an action, which is essentially an expression of a complex internal process: the role of external stimuli in this case affects only very indirectly. On the contrary, at the lowest stages of organic development the role of external stimuli is very great, so that under certain reaction conditions practically more or less unambiguously determined by external physicochemical stimuli.

Determined by such physico-chemical irritations forced body reactions are the so-called tropisms.

The general theory of tropisms was developed by J. Loeb, based on the research of J. von Sachs on plant tropism. tropism- This forced reaction due to the symmetrical structure of the body- setting or movement- organism under the influence of external physical and chemical stimuli. In other words, tropism is a forced orientation of the organism in relation to the lines of force. Depending on the nature of the stimulus, there are geotropism- i.e. tropism due to gravity, stereotropism- touch of a solid body, galvanotropism- electric current, phototropism- light, chemotropism- chemical agents, etc. At the same time, they talk about positive or negative tropism, depending on whether the movement occurs towards or away from the stimulus that causes it.

But even the tropisms of lower organisms are in fact determined not only by external, but also by internal factors. However, the role of these internal factors in most cases is so negligible that under certain conditions it can be practically neglected. However, this does not give theoretical grounds to reject the significance of these internal factors or not to take them into account in the theoretical concept, since they actually affect tropisms: as Loeb’s own data show, for example, when the Porthesia caterpillar studied by him is saturated, positive heliotropism disappears in it or goes negative.

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The nature of the mental
Characteristics of mental phenomena. The specific range of phenomena that psychology studies stands out distinctly and clearly - these are our perceptions, thoughts, feelings, our aspirations.

Mind and consciousness
The psychic has a twofold form of existence. The first, objective, form of existence of the mental is expressed in life and activity: this is the primary form of its existence. Second, subjective

Mind and activity
Every action of a person proceeds from certain motives and is directed to a specific goal; it solves a particular problem and expresses a certain attitude of a person

Psychophysical problem
The belonging of each mental process to a specific individual, in whose life it is included as his experience, and its relation to the external objective world that it reflects, evidence

The subject and tasks of psychology as a science
The elucidation of the nature of the psychic at the same time elucidates the theoretical tasks of psychology, the specific tasks of psychological knowledge. An analysis of any mental phenomenon shows that awareness is

Branches of psychology
Modern psychology is already a widely branched system of disciplines. The most important of them are the following: General psychology; she studies the human psyche in its general

Methodology and methodology
Science is first and foremost research. Therefore, the characterization of science is not limited to the definition of its subject matter; it includes the definition of its method. Methods, i.e., ways of knowing, are ways, after

Methods of psychology
Psychology, like every science, uses a whole system of various particular methods, or techniques. The main research methods in psychology, as in a number of other sciences, are observation.

Observation
Observation in psychology appears in two main forms - as self-observation, or introspection, and as external, or so-called objective, observation. Traditional, introspective ps

Introspection
Self-observation, or introspection, that is, observation of one's own internal mental processes, is inseparable from observation of their external manifestations. Self-observation of one's own psyche

Objective observation
In our psychology, external, so-called objective observation also acquires a new specific character. And it should come from the unity of internal and external, subjective and objective.

experimental method
The main features of the experiment, which determine its strength, are as follows. 1) In the experiment, the researcher himself causes the phenomenon he is studying, instead of waiting, as

Other methods of psychological research
a) In the system of methods of psychological research, an important place is occupied by the study of the products of activity, or, more precisely, the study of the mental characteristics of activity on the basis of

Psychology in the ancient world (ancient Greece)
According to a very common notion that dominates the traditional scheme of the history of psychology, the first psychological views arise as the fruit of “metaphysical” views divorced from practice.

Psychology in the Middle Ages (before the Renaissance)
In the Middle Ages, in the era of feudalism, the church, the ideological stronghold of feudal society, turned science into a servant of theology, seeking to subordinate knowledge to faith. In philosophy, for the mainstream schools

Psychology in the Renaissance
Started in the 13th century the development of crafts and trade leads in the XIV-XV centuries, mainly in some cities along the Mediterranean Sea, to the emergence of the first rudiments of capitalist production and expansion

Psychology in the XVII-XVIII centuries. and the first half of the 19th century
A new era in the development of both philosophical and psychological thought begins with the development in the 17th century. (in connection with the needs of industry and the development of technology) materialistic natural science, open

Formation of psychology as an experimental science
The transition from knowledge to science, which for a number of areas should be attributed to the 18th century, and for some (somehow mechanics) as early as the 17th century, in psychology takes place only in the middle of the 19th century. Only to this time

The crisis of the methodological foundations of psychology
The formation of psychology as an independent experimental discipline chronologically takes place at the turn of two historical periods: in the last years of the second period of modern history (from the French

History of Russian scientific psychology
The development of psychological theory in Russia, the struggle in it between materialism and idealism took on special forms. The originality of Russian psychological thought, not only creatively summarizing the achievements

Soviet psychology
The Great October Socialist Revolution created the prerequisites for building psychology on new principles. Soviet psychology began its journey by the time when world psychology

Development of the psyche and behavior
In order to correctly understand the process of mental development, it is now necessary to reveal its main content. You can first say in the most general form that the essence of mental development

The Problem of Instinct, Skill and Intelligence
Behavior is understood as a certain way organized activity, carrying out the connection of the organism with the environment. While in man the inner plane of consciousness is differentiated from

instincts
All animal behavior is "instinctive" in the broad sense in which the word is sometimes used, contrasting the instinctive with the conscious. Conscious behavior that is expressed

Individually-changeable forms of behavior. Skills
Already at the early stages of development, observing the behavior of animals, we encounter individually variable forms of behavior, which, in contrast to instinctive actions, can be characterized as habits.

Intelligence
The rudiments of "intelligence" are laid in animals within the framework of instinctive behavior. Forms of behavior associated with the rudiments of intellectual activity in animals come from instinctive motivation,

Development of the nervous system in animals
The nervous system, which serves to conduct stimuli and integrate the activities of the body, arises on the basis of the conduction of stimuli and the integration of the behavior of protozoa through gradients:

Lifestyle and psyche
In higher invertebrates and arthropods, especially in insects - in bees and ants, the development of the nervous system reaches a significant degree of centralization and cephalization; head knots play domi

The problem of anthropogenesis
The beginning of human history means a qualitatively new stage of development, radically different from the entire previous path of biological development of living beings. New forms of social life

Consciousness and the brain
The new functions that the human brain had to assume in connection with the development of labor were reflected in the change in its structure. A radical change in the nature of activity - with the transition from life

Physiology of higher nervous activity
Since the cortex is so essential for human mental processes, the question of what are the main patterns that determine its activity is of particular importance. P

Development of consciousness
The first prerequisite for human consciousness was the development of the human brain. But the human brain itself and its natural features in general are a product of historical development. In the process

Development and training
Historically developing humanity actually consists of concrete people, of individuals, interconnected by diverse social relations. Therefore, changes in the psyche of people

biogenetic problem
The mechanistic concept of development received a particularly sharp expression in a number of vicious "pedological" theories and in the biogenetic concept. Proponents of the biogenetic theory of mental

Development of the child's nervous system
Emphasizing the importance of the forms of existence, life and activity of the child in which he is formed, his way of life, one can least of all underestimate the organic prerequisites for his mental development.

The development of the child's consciousness
The path of man's individual development is a history, unfolding within the narrow limits of a few years, of the most remarkable transformations that human thought can imagine. from male

Feeling
Sensation, sensory are always more or less directly connected with motor activity, with action, the receptor - with the activity of effectors. The receptor arises as an organ with a reduced threshold of irritation, pr

Receptors
Receptor - an organ specially adapted for the reception of irritations, more easily than other organs or nerve fibers, amenable to irritation; it is distinguished by particularly low irritation thresholds, i.e.

organic sensations
Organic sensitivity provides us with diverse sensations that reflect the life of the organism. Organic sensations are associated with organic needs and are caused to a large extent by disturbed

Static sensations
Indications about the state of our body in space, its posture, its passive and active movements, as well as the movements of its individual parts relative to each other, give diverse sensations over time.

kinesthetic sensations
Sensations of movement of individual parts of the body - kinesthetic sensations are caused by excitations coming from proprioceptors located in the joints, ligaments and muscles. Thanks Kinest

Skin sensitivity
Skin sensitivity is subdivided by classical physiology of the sense organs into four different types. Receptions are usually distinguished: 1) pain, 2) heat, 3) cold, and 4) touch (and pressure). Pre

Pain
Pain is biologically a very important protective device. Arising under the influence of stimuli that are destructive in nature and strength, pain signals a danger to the body, being

Temperature sensations
Temperature (thermal) sensitivity gives us sensations of heat and cold. Temperature sensitivity is of great importance for the reflex regulation of body temperature. Support

touch, pressure
The sensations of touch and pressure are closely related. Even the classical theory of skin sensitivity (founded by M. Blix and M. Frey), which proceeds from the recognition of special sensitive

Touch
The sensation of touch and pressure in such an abstract isolation, in which they appear in the definition of thresholds of skin sensitivity typical for traditional psychophysiology, play only a role

Olfactory sensations
Closely related, smell and taste are varieties of chemical sensitivity. In lower animals, smell and taste are probably not divided. In the future, they differentiate. One

Taste sensations
Taste sensations, like olfactory sensations, are due to the chemical properties of things. As with smells, there is no complete, objective classification for taste sensations. From the complex of sensations

Sound localization
The ability to determine the direction from which a sound comes is due to the binaural nature of our hearing, that is, the fact that we perceive sound with two ears. Localization of sound in space

hearing theory
Of the large number of different theories of hearing, the strongest position is occupied by the resonance theory of hearing, put forward by G. Helmholtz. According to this theory, the main organ

Perception of speech and music
Human hearing in the proper sense of the word is irreducible to abstractly taken reactions of the auditory receptor; it is inseparable from the perception of speech and music. For the sound characteristics of speech, it is essential

visual sensations
The role of visual sensations in the knowledge of the world is especially great. They provide a person with exceptionally rich and finely differentiated data, and, moreover, a huge range. Vision gives us the most perfect

The structure and function of the eye
The organ of vision is the eye - the receptor for light stimuli. The human eye consists of the eyeball and the optic nerve extending from it. The wall of the eyeball is formed by three shells: outer (b

Sensation of color
All colors perceived by the eye can be divided into two groups: achromatic and chromatic. Achromatic colors are called white, black and all located me

Theory of color vision
To explain color vision, the true nature of which has not yet been experimentally studied, there are several theories. The main ones are the theory of Jung-Helmholtz and the theory of E. Goering

The psychophysical effect of flowers
Each color affects a person in a certain way. The action of colors is due, on the one hand, to their direct physiological effect on the body, and on the other hand, to associations that

Color perception
The perception of color cannot be separated from the perception of color. Usually we perceive not the color "in general", but the color of certain objects. These objects are located at a certain distance from us, in a certain

The nature of perception
The entire phylogenetic development of sensitivity indicates that the determining factor in the development of sensitivity in relation to a particular stimulus is its biological

Constancy of perception
Every perception is a perception of objective reality. No perception can be truly understood, or even correctly, adequately described, outside of relation to the objective object.

Meaningfulness of perception
The perception of a person is objective and meaningful. It is not limited to a mere sensory basis. We perceive not bundles of sensations and not “structures”, but objects that have a certain meaning.

Historicity of perception
As a conscious process, perception is included in the process of historical development of consciousness. Human perception is historical. Sensory perception of a person is not only a sensory act, about

Perception and orientation of personality
Becoming more and more conscious and generalized, our perception at the same time acquires more and more freedom in relation to the immediately given. We can more and more freely dissect directly

Perception of space
The perception of space includes perceptions of the distance or distance in which objects are located from us and from each other, the direction in which they are,

Perception of magnitude
The perceived magnitude of objects depends on their angular magnitude and the distance from which they are observed. Knowing the size of an object, we determine the distance at which it is located by its angular size.

Form perception
The perception of a planar form presupposes a distinct distinction between the outlines of an object and its boundaries. It depends on the clarity of the image obtained on the retina, i.e., on visual acuity. Kon

Movement perception
The perception of movement is a very complex process, the nature of which has not yet been fully elucidated. If an object is objectively moving in space, then we perceive its movement due to the fact that

Perception of time
If the problem of space was the bearer of the main psychological problems at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries, then the problem of time has become in recent years one of the central problems of modern philosophy.

Sensory development of the child
The receptor apparatus in a child is largely mature for functioning already by the time of his birth. Even in the last months of uterine life, the sensitive paths coming from the sense organs mature.

Development of perception of space in children
The process of mastering space takes place in the child in a close unity of action and cognition. The child learns space to a large extent as he masters it. Therefore, a number of studies

Children's perception of time
The significant role of mediated components in the perception of time causes significant difficulties associated with its awareness in children. The words "now", "today", "yesterday" and "tomorrow"

Development of perception and observation in children
In sensations and perceptions, the whole process of cognition of objective reality first proceeds in the child. Since the receptors themselves mature very early, the development of perception is mainly developed

memory and perception
Perceptions, in which a person cognizes the surrounding reality, usually do not disappear without a trace. They are fixed, stored and reproduced in the future in the form of recognition of the object we have seen.

Organic Foundations of Memory
Phenomena analogous to conservation and reproduction, which for this reason have been identified with them by some investigators, are observed throughout the organic world. All living beings, including

Representation
The reproduction of sensory images of perception leads to the emergence of new peculiar mental formations - representations. Representation is a reproduced image of an object, which establishes

View associations
As a general rule, representations are not rendered in isolation, but in connection with other representations. An important place among these links is occupied by associative links. They are created before

The role of associative, semantic and structural connections in memorization
The theory of memory, which formed the basis of the first classical experimental studies of G. Ebbinghaus and his successors (G. E. Muller, A. Pilzeker, F. Schumann, etc.), was entirely built on

The role of attitudes in memorization
In associative, semantic and structural connections, the role of the material mainly affects. But memorization and reproduction depend not only on the objective connections of the material, but also on the attitude to n

memorization
Memorization begins with imprinting, which is initially made involuntarily in one or another activity that does not set itself the immediate goal of remembering anything. Much for

Recognition
Imprinting and memorization are manifested in recognition and reproduction. Of these, recognition is genetically (at least in ontogeny) an earlier manifestation of memory. In recognizing

Playback
Just as preservation is not merely a passive storage, so reproduction is not a mechanical repetition of what has been imprinted or memorized. During playback, what is being played is not only reproduced

Reconstruction in playback
Already during the reproduction of figurative material, the transformation of these images during their reproduction is more or less distinct (as E. Bartlett noted in the above work and in our literature

Memory
A particular type of reproduction is the process of remembering; a particular kind of representation is remembrance in the proper sense of the word. Representation as a product of reproduction is a reproduction

Saving and forgetting
Preservation is a complex dynamic process; it takes place under conditions of assimilation organized in a certain way and includes diverse processes of material processing.

Reminiscence in conservation
In the course of the study of preservation and forgetting, another seemingly private, but fundamentally very significant fact was revealed. It turned out that the interval closest after the initial reproduction of the material (2

Types of memory
Types of memory are differentiated depending on what is remembered or reproduced. Reproduction can refer to movements and actions, expressed in the formation of habits.

Memory levels
With regard to different manifestations and types of memory, it is possible to establish a certain genetic sequence of their occurrence. Recognition - at least in ontogeny - genetically precedes freedom.

Memory types
Memory in people reveals a number of more or less pronounced typological features. For individualized consideration of the features of the processes of preservation and reproduction of a particular person

Memory pathology
Memory disorders are usually divided into hypermnesia, hypomnesia and paramnesia. Hypermnesia is understood as a pathological exacerbation of individual memories. Theoretically, its nature is not clear. Practice

Memory development in children
With regard to memory, a paradoxical question has been repeatedly posed: does it develop, isn't it better in children than in adults? In childhood, memorization seems to be stronger than in adulthood: what is learned

The Nature of the Imagination
The images that a person operates on are not limited to the reproduction of what is directly perceived. Before a person in images can appear both what he did not directly perceive, and what

Types of imagination
In the imagination, all types and levels of personality orientation are manifested; they give rise to different levels of imagination. The difference between these levels is determined primarily by how consciously and actively

Imagination and creativity
Imagination plays an essential role in every creative process. Its significance is especially great in artistic creation. Any work of art worthy of this name,

Imagination technique
The transformation of reality in the imagination is not a purely arbitrary change; it has its own natural ways, which find expression in typical ways or methods of transforming

Imagination and personality
Imagination is, in a typological and individually differentiating sense, an extremely essential manifestation of personality. First of all, to characterize the personality and its relationship to mi

Development of imagination in children
An essential role in the development of the imagination is played by the active assimilation of the historically developing creations of the creative imagination of mankind and the development of creativity in the course of educational work.

The nature of thinking
Our knowledge of objective reality begins with sensations and perceptions. But, beginning with sensations and perception, knowledge of reality does not end with them. From sensation and perception it is not

Psychology and logic
Thinking is the subject of study not only of psychology, but also - and even above all - of dialectical logic. Each of these scientific disciplines, while studying thinking, has, however, its own distinct application.

Psychological theories of thinking
The psychology of thinking began to be specially developed only in the 20th century. The associative psychology that dominated until that time proceeded from the premise that all mental processes proceed according to

The psychological nature of the thought process
Any thought process is, in its internal structure, an action or an act of activity aimed at solving a specific problem. This task includes

The main phases of the thought process
In an extended thought process, since it is always directed towards the solution of some problem, several main stages or phases can be distinguished. The initial phase of the mental

Concept and representation
The concept and is connected by manifold mutual transitions with representation and, at the same time, is essentially different from it. In the psychological literature, they are usually either identified, reducing the concept to a general presupposition.

Judgment
Judgment is the basic act or form in which the thought process takes place. To think is first of all to judge. Every thought process is expressed in a judgment which is formulated

Basic types of thinking
Human thinking includes mental operations of various types and levels. First of all, their cognitive significance can be quite different. So obviously unequal in cognitive

On the genetically early stages of thinking
In genetic terms, in relation to the early stages of development, one can speak of visual-effective thinking as a special stage in the development of thinking, bearing in mind the period when thinking was in

Pathology and psychology of thinking
The role of the main components, moments or aspects highlighted by our analysis in the thought process appears with particular clarity in those pathological cases when one of these components is out of order.

Development of the child's thinking
The study of the history of the child's mental development is undoubtedly of great theoretical and practical interest. It is one of the main ways to in-depth knowledge of the nature of thinking and

The first manifestations of the intellectual activity of the child
Intellectual activity is first formed in terms of action. It is based on perception and is expressed in more or less meaningful purposeful objective actions. It can be said that

Situational thinking of the child
The child's thinking is born and develops first in the process of observation, which is nothing more than a more or less purposeful thinking perception. Seeing the child first

Development of the child's thinking in the process of systematic learning
As the child in the process of systematic learning begins to master some "subject" - arithmetic, natural science, geography, history, a body of knowledge, even an element

Concept Mastery
Mastering scientific concepts is accomplished in children in the learning process. The process of mastering the generalized conceptual content of scientific knowledge that has developed in the course of historical development is, together

The development of theoretical thinking in the process of mastering the knowledge system
Empirical in its content, thinking above the described level can be defined in its form as rational - in a dialectical understanding that distinguishes the rational thinker.

Theories of the development of the child's thinking
The general concept of development prevailing in modern foreign psychology has left a very deep imprint on the understanding of the development of thinking that dominates in it. Typical for understanding the ways of times

Speech and communication. Speech functions
Studying human consciousness and emphasizing its connection with the activity in which it is not only manifested, but also formed, one cannot abstract from the fact that a person is a social being, his activities

Different types of speech
There are different types of speech: gesture speech and sound speech, written and oral speech, external speech and internal speech. Modern speech is primarily sound speech, but also in sound

Speech and thinking
Associated with consciousness as a whole, human speech is included in certain relationships with all mental processes; but the main and determining factor for speech is its relation to thinking.

Historical development of speech
The unity of speech and thinking is revealed specifically in the process of their development, in which a certain stadiality in the development of speech is revealed, which is diversely associated with stadiality in the development of thought.

The emergence and first stages of the development of a child's speech
In ontogenesis, the emergence and development of speech can be the subject of direct observation by a psychologist. The development of speech in a child is mediated by learning: the child learns to speak. However, e

Vocabulary growth
With a period of active questions from children about the names of things, the rapid growth of the children's vocabulary begins. Its sizes in children of the same age are very different. Comparing data

Speech structure
In the development of the structure of children's speech, the starting point is the word-sentence, which performs in the early stages the function that in the speech of adults is expressed by a whole sentence; "chair" means

Development of coherent speech
Dictionary, grammatical forms of speech - all these are only means, only abstractly highlighted sides or moments of speech. The main thing in the speech development of the child is everything that is being reconstructed and perfected.

The problem of egocentric speech
In the speech development of the child, a curious phenomenon is observed, noted by a number of researchers. In the younger and middle preschool years, children sometimes have to observe a tendency to monologue

The development of written language in a child
A very significant acquisition in the speech development of a child is his mastery of written speech. Written speech is of great importance for the mental development of the child, but mastering it is

Development of expressive speech
Expressiveness is a very essential side and an important quality of speech. Its development goes a long and peculiar way. The speech of a small preschool child often has a bright expressive

The nature of attention
All processes of cognition, whether it be perception or thinking, are directed to one or another object that is reflected in them: we perceive something, think about something, something

Theories of attention
The specific meaning of attention, as an expression of the relationship of a person to an object, has made this concept especially debatable. Representatives of English empirical psychology - associationists - are not at all in

Physiological basis of attention
Essential foundations for revealing the physiological mechanism of attention are laid down in Pavlov's teachings on the centers of optimal excitability, as well as in the teachings of A. A. Ukhtomsky on the dominant. acc.

Main types of attention
When studying attention, it is necessary to distinguish between two main levels or types of it and a number of its properties or aspects. The main types of attention are involuntary and so-called voluntary in

Basic properties of attention
Since the presence of attention means the connection of consciousness with a certain object, its concentration on it, first of all, the question arises about the degree of this concentration, i.e., about concentration outside

Development of attention
In the development of attention in a child, one can note, first of all, its diffuse, unstable character in early childhood. That already noted fact that a child, seeing a new toy, quite often releases

Emotions and needs
Man, as a subject of practical and theoretical activity, who cognizes and changes the world, is neither an impassive contemplator of what is happening around him, nor an equally impassive

Emotions and lifestyle
At the level of biological forms of existence in animals, when the individual acts only as an organism, emotional reactions are associated with organic needs and instinctive forms of life activity.

Emotions and activities
If everything that happens, since it has this or that relation to a person and therefore causes this or that attitude on his part, can evoke certain emotions in him, then it is especially close.

Physiology of emotions
Emotions, any pronounced, usually include widespread organic changes covering the entire body - the work of the heart and blood vessels, respiratory organs, digestion, glands

Expressive movements
Widespread peripheral changes, covering the whole organism during emotions, usually spread to its surface. Capturing the system of muscles of the face and the whole body, they manifest themselves in the so-called

Emotions and experiences of the individual
Having analyzed the real foundations and physiological mechanisms of emotions, we should especially note the following in the psychological analysis of emotions. Emotions, human feelings are more or less complex

Psychological diagnosis of emotions. "Associative" experiment
In the unity of the conscious life of the individual, emotionality forms an aspect, a side, closely interconnected with all the others. Expressing a positive or negative attitude to the subject,

Different types of emotional experiences
In the diverse manifestations of the emotional sphere of the personality, different levels can be distinguished. We distinguish three main levels. The first level is the level of organic affective-emotional feeling.

affects
An affect is a rapidly and violently flowing emotional process of an explosive nature, which can give a discharge in action that is not subject to conscious volitional control. It is the effects on pre

Passion
In psychological literature, passions are often brought together with affects. Meanwhile, what they actually have in common is only the quantitative aspect of the intensity of emotional excitation. In essence, they

Moods
Mood is understood as the general emotional state of a person, expressed in the "system" of all its manifestations. Two main features characterize the mood in contrast to other emotional formations

Emotional personality traits
In the emotional sphere, especially striking individual differences are found between people. All the features of the personality, her character and intelligence, her interests and attitudes towards other people are also manifested in

Development of emotions in children
The emotional sphere, the life of feelings, goes through a long path of development in a child before it reaches the complexity and diversity that are accessible to an adult. Based on observations,

The nature of will
Any volitional action is a purposeful action. Volitional action was formed in a person in the process of labor aimed at the production of a certain product. Heading for a certain

The course of the volitional process
Volitional action can be realized in simpler and more complex forms. In a simple volitional act, the impulse to action directed towards a more or less clearly conscious goal is almost inconceivable.

Pathology and psychology of will
The role of various components of a volitional act - impulses to action, mental operations mediating it, a plan, etc. - very clearly appears in those pathological cases when one of these

Volitional personality traits
In accordance with the complexity of volitional activity, various volitional qualities of a person are also complex and diverse. Among the most important of these qualities, one can, firstly, single out initiative

Theories of will
The struggle of various tendencies in the theory of will is refracted and complicated by the difference between philosophical premises and psychological theories. The concept of will has long been the main stronghold of idealism; it

Development of will in a child
The development of will in children begins with the acquisition by the child of the ability to control his movements. In order to perform any volitional actions, the child must first of all master his

Various kinds of action
Human activity is carried out through actions of various types and levels. Usually distinguish: reflex, instinctive, impulsive and volitional actions. Reflex actions outside of instinct

Action and movement
The movement of a person outside of action can only be the subject of study of the physiology of the motor apparatus. Movements, especially the so-called voluntary ones, usually serve to express actions, through

Action and skill
Every human action is built on the basis of certain primary automatisms that have developed as a result of previous phylogenetic development. At the same time, any somewhat complex human

Tasks and motives of activity
An action performed by a person is not a completely isolated act; it is included in the larger whole of the activity of a given personality, and only in connection with it can it be understood.

Psychological characteristics of labor
Labor as a whole is not a psychological, but a social category. In its basic social laws, it is not the subject of psychology, but of the social sciences. The subject of psychological study is

Worker's labor
The psychology of a worker's labor depends on the social conditions in which his labor activity takes place. The division of physical and mental labor in capitalist society leads to

Inventor's work
In invention and invention, many were inclined to see a completely exceptional phenomenon, accessible only to a few exceptional people. And of course, great inventions and great inventors

The work of a scientist
The most acute, most discussed problem of the psychology of creativity, in particular scientific, is the question of the extent to which it is labor. Numerous testimonies of a number of great scientists based on

Artist's work
Artistic creativity also has its own specific character - the work of a writer, poet, artist, musician. Despite all the notions of inspiration, sudden influx, etc., especially the

The nature of the game
The game is one of the most remarkable phenomena of life, an activity that seems to be useless and at the same time necessary. Involuntarily enchanting and attracting to itself as a vital phenomenon, the game turned out to be very serious.

game theory
The problem of the game has long attracted the attention of researchers. The theory of K. Gross is especially famous. Gross sees the essence of the game in that it serves as a preparation for further seriousness.

The development of the child's games
The game is closely connected with the development of the personality, and it is during the period of its especially intensive development - in childhood - that is why it is of particular importance. In the early, preschool years of life,

The nature of learning and work
In the process of historical development, the forms of labor, all improving, at the same time became more complicated. Because of this, it became less and less possible to master the knowledge necessary for labor activity.

Teaching and knowledge
On the question of the relationship between the process of learning and the historical process of cognition, two equally erroneous points of view often struggle with each other. The first of these can be characterized as

Education and development
In this regard, a second question is put forward - about the relationship between development and learning. The child does not develop first and then educate and learn, he develops by learning and learns by developing

Teaching motives
We have to specifically talk about the motives of learning, since learning is distinguished as a special type of activity for which learning, mastering knowledge and skills is not only a result, but also

Mastering the knowledge system
Mastering the system of knowledge, combined with the acquisition of relevant skills, is the main content and the most important task of training. American psychology according to Mr.

Attitudes and trends
Man is not an isolated, self-contained being that would live and develop from itself. He is connected with the world around him and needs it. Its very existence as an organism presupposed

Needs
The human person is, first of all, a living person of flesh and blood: he has needs. They express its practical connection with the world and dependence on it. A person's needs

Interests
In the ever-expanding contact with the world around him, into which a person enters, each time he encounters ever new objects and aspects of reality. They enter into a relationship

ideals
Whatever importance one attaches to needs and interests, it is obvious that they do not exhaust the motives of human behavior; the orientation of the individual is not limited to them. We do not only what

General giftedness and special abilities
In the course of historical development, mankind develops various specialized abilities. All of them are various manifestations of a person's ability to work independently.

Giftedness and ability level
The problem of giftedness is primarily a qualitative problem. The first, main question is the question of what are the abilities of a person, what is his ability for and what are their qualities.

Theories of giftedness
A lot of work has been devoted to the study of giftedness. However, the results obtained are in no way adequate to the amount of labor expended on these works. This is due to the erroneous initial settings very

Development of abilities in children
The development of abilities in children takes place in the process of education and training. A child's abilities are formed by mastering the content of material and spiritual culture, technology, science, and

The doctrine of temperament
Speaking of temperament, they usually mean, first of all, the dynamic side of the personality, expressed in impulsiveness and the pace of mental activity. It is in this sense that we usually say that

Teaching about character
Speaking of character (which in Greek means “chasing”, “seal”), they usually mean those personality traits that leave a certain imprint on all its manifestations and express special

Self-awareness of the individual
A psychology that is more than a field for the leisurely exercise of learned bookworms, a psychology that is worth a living person giving his life and strength to it, cannot

Personal life path
As we have seen, a person is not born as a personality; he becomes a person. This formation of personality is essentially different from the development of the organism, which takes place in the process of simple organic maturation.

The founders of Marxism-Leninism on psychology
Marx K. and Engels F., "The German Ideology", "Preparatory Works for the "Holy Family", "Communist Manifesto". Marx K., Capital, vol. I. Engels F., „Dialectics of nature

General courses
Bekhterev V. M., Objective psychology, vol. 1-2, St. Petersburg 1907-1910. Kornilov K. N., Teplov B. M., Schwartz L. M., Psychology, M. 1938. Kostyuk G. S. (ed.), Psychology, K. 1939 (in Ukrainian)

The subject of psychology and its methods
The subject of psychology Wundt V., Introduction to psychology, M. 1912, ch. About the subject. Dilthey, W., Descriptive Psychology, M. 1920. Dilthey, W., New Ideas in Philosophy. Sat.

History of psychology
General essays Troitsky M. M., German psychology in the current century, M. 1867. Ribot T., Modern English psychology, transl. from the 2nd ed., M. 1881. Rubinstein

Psychology in the USSR
History of psychology in Russia Ananiev B. G., Tasks of studying the history of Russian psychology, "Soviet Pedagogy" No. 4, 1938. Verzhbalovich, Review of the main directions of Russian psychology

Fundamentals of mental development
Development of the human nervous system and brain Beritov I. S. Individually acquired activity of the central nervous system, 1932. Duesser de Barenne and Fulton, Functional

Feeling and Perception
Sensation Studies on the problem of sensitivity, “Proceedings of the Institute for the Study of the Brain. V. M. Bekhtereva, vol. 13, L. 1939. Lazarev P. P., Basic psychophysical law and

Thinking
Dewey, G., Psychology and Pedagogy of Thought, 2nd ed., 1919. Krogius, A. A., The Würzburg School of Experimental Study of Thought and Its Significance. New Ideas in Philosophy, collection. 16, St. Petersburg

Attention
James W., Psychology, P. 1922, ch. About attention. Dobrynin N. F., Fluctuations in attention, ed. RANION, M. 1928. Dobrynin N. F., On the question of the types of attention, "Psychology", vol. I, no. 1, 19

Psychological characteristics of activity
Movement Bernshtein N.A., Physiology of movements. Ch. in the book: Konradi G. I., Slonim A. D. and Farfel V. S., “Physiology of labor”, M. 1934. Orbeli L. A., Lectures on the physiology of nerve

Psychological characteristics of personality
James W., Psychology, ch. Personality, M. 1922. Ribot T., Personality Diseases, St. Petersburg 1886. Allport, G. W., Personality; a Psychological Interpretation. New York, 1937. Janet, P.,

Temperament and character
Lazursky A.F., Classification of personalities, ed. 3rd, L. 1924. Lazursky A.F., Essay on the science of character, St. Petersburg 1917. Lazursky A.F., School characteristics, St. Petersburg 1913. Lesga

The ability to respond to stimuli emanating from the environment - irritability - is the main property of any, even the most elementary

unicellular organism. The already naked protoplasmic mass of the amoeba reacts to mechanical, thermal, optical, chemical, electrical

stimuli (i.e., all stimuli to which higher animals respond). In this case, the reactions cannot be directly reduced to a physical action.

stimuli that cause them.

External physico-chemical stimuli do not directly determine the reactions of the organism; the relationship between them is ambiguous: the same

external irritation, depending on various circumstances, can cause different and even opposite reactions: as positive - according to

direction to the source of irritation, and negative - away from it. Consequently, external stimuli do not directly cause a reaction, but only

condition it through the internal changes they cause.

Already here there is a certain isolation from the medium, some selectivity and activity. Because of this, even the most elementary behavior of the lower

organism cannot be reduced to the physical and chemical laws of inorganic nature. It is regulated by biological laws,

according to which the reactions of the organism are carried out in the sense of adaptation - the main type of biological correlation of any animal organism

with the environment.

At all stages of development, behavior is conditioned by both external and internal factors, but at various stages of development, the relationship between external,

in particular, physicochemical, stimuli and internal processes that mediate their influence on behavior are different.

The higher the level of development, the greater the role played by internal conditions. In a person, sometimes an external stimulus turns out to be only an accidental reason for

action, which is essentially an expression of a complex internal process: the role of external stimuli in this case affects only very

indirectly. On the contrary, at the lowest stages of organic development the role of external stimuli is great, so that under certain reaction conditions

practically more or less unambiguously determined by external physicochemical stimuli.

The forced reactions of the organism determined by such physicochemical stimuli are the so-called tropisms.

The general theory of tropisms was developed by J. Loeb, based on the research of J. von Sachs on plant tropism. Tropism is due to symmetrical

the structure of the organism forced reaction - installation or movement - of the body under the influence of external physical and chemical stimuli. Otherwise

speaking, tropism is the forced orientation of the organism in relation to the lines of force.

But even the tropisms of lower organisms are in fact determined not only by external, but also by internal factors. However, the role of these internal

factors in most cases is so negligible that under certain conditions it can be practically neglected. This does not, however, give a theoretical basis

to reject the significance of these internal factors or not to take them into account in a theoretical concept.

An essential prerequisite for the development of forms of behavior in which mental components play an increasingly important role is the

complication and change in the conditions and lifestyle of animals, the development of the nervous system and then its progressive centralization, as well as the development

sense organs and then the release of distant receptors.

REMEMBER

Question 1. How do organisms respond to changes in the environment?

Animals, like plants, prepare for winter from the end of summer or from the beginning of autumn: they migrate to places rich in food, fly, eat heavily and accumulate fat, store food. With the onset of winter, many animals become inactive and fall into a stupor, hibernation, winter sleep.

Question 2. What is the behavior?

The ability of organisms to perform certain actions and respond to internal and external factors is called behavior. It is aimed at the preservation of organisms under changing environmental conditions, promotes survival and leaving offspring. Elements of behavior manifested in motor activity are known in plants.

Question 1. What is behavior?

Behavior is a certain established image of the interaction of a living being with the environment. Behavior is determined by the ability of humans and animals to change their actions under the influence of internal and external factors.

Question 2. What is the significance of behavior in the life of organisms?

Behavior is of great adaptive importance, allowing animals to avoid negative environmental factors. Behavior arises at a high level of matter organization, when its living structural formations acquire the ability to perceive, store and transform information, using it for the purpose of self-preservation and adaptation to the conditions of existence.

Question 3. Give examples of different types of behavior in pets.

The cat marks its territory with odorous substances. She rubs her body against trees, furniture in the house and other objects, leaving a smell on their surface. The area marked with odorous substances belongs only to this cat. This is how cats show territorial behavior.

During a quarrel, for example over food, territory or a partner, cats exhibit aggressive behavior. They take threatening poses, make peculiar sounds, warning the enemy of their intentions and intimidating him. As a result, the weak animal is inferior to the stronger one.

By watching a cat hunt, you can get an idea of its feeding behavior. The cat usually lies in wait for prey. Looking out for the victim, she slightly rises and, hunched over, slowly creeps up to her. At the same time, the movements of the cat are completely silent. Having tracked down the prey, it stands with its head down for some time, then suddenly rises on its hind legs, rapidly jumps and unexpectedly attacks the victim. Therefore, the cat is called a crouching hunter.

THINK

Why are acquired forms of behavior associated with learning important in the life of animals?

Acquired behavior refers to all forms of behavior that are formed as a result of the individual experience of a living organism. At the heart of the acquired forms of behavior is learning.

Learning is the ability to acquire one's own life experience, leading to adaptive changes in the animal's behavior. The ability to learn is usually associated with the behavior of vertebrates, and primarily mammals, but it is found in all animals, with the exception of protozoa, coelenterates and echinoderms, in which the nervous system is absent or its organization is very primitive.

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