The subject of psychology. Different ideas about the subject of psychology

A person in psychology acts simultaneously as an object, subject, and subject of cognition.

There are different points of view on what exactly psychology studies. In a literal sense: psychology is the science of the soul. But the positivist tradition of the development of science requires the objectivization of the studied phenomena. It is difficult to objectify the soul, to study it by some empirical or experimental method. And therefore the formation of psychology as a science is associated with the development of ideas about its object and subject. Psychology is looking for answers to questions about the facts and causes of behavior and consciousness of a person (or other carrier of the psyche). In the broadest sense, the object of psychology is the psyche and its manifestation (behavior, activity, activity) in interaction with the surrounding reality.

object (from lat. objectum- literally "thrown in front of something") that is perceived, thought, discussed and processed, in contrast to the subject (the one who perceives, thinks, discusses and processes).

Subject of study in psychology has historically undergone changes with the development of psychological knowledge and psychology as a science.

Subject - any object that appears as limited or complete; something to which properties can belong and which can have certain relationships with other objects.

Man as a subject of psychology is inscribed in different spheres of human existence: the psychosphere (the area of ​​mental phenomena), the ethnosphere (the area of ​​ethnic culture), the noosphere (the area of ​​human knowledge), the biosphere (the Earth's shell inhabited by living organisms). This determines the complexity and multidimensionality of the subject of psychology, its paradigms, approaches and methods (Fig. 1.2).

The development of the subject of research in line with psychological knowledge in the history of psychology is contradictory. Since Antiquity, within the framework of philosophical and psychological views, the subject of psychology can be considered soul in connection with the body , and in the Middle Ages within the framework of theological teachings - immortal soul (rather in opposition to the body).

O - ontogeny; C - socialization; Zh - life path; L - personality; I - individual, Ying - individuality

With the formation of scientific knowledge from the XVII-XVIII centuries. psychological teachings were still within the scope of the subject "soul", but the problem of consciousness stands out. Consciousness was seen as the knowledge of the soul about itself.

The formation of psychology as a science is associated not only with the selection of consciousness as a subject of research, but also with the emergence of an empirical method. The first such method in psychology is introspection. The essence of introspection - consciousness studies the manifestation of consciousness, arbitrarily referring to various manifestations of the mental.

Introspection (lat. introspecto- I look inside, peer) - a method of research by a person of acts of his own activity; thoughts, images, feelings, experiences, acts of thinking as the activity of the mind, structuring consciousness, etc. The method of self-observation as a scientific method was also used with the advent of the experimental psychology of Wilhelm Wundt.

Rene Descartes (1596-1650) generally reduced the properties of the soul to the concept of " thinking ". His statement "I think, therefore I am" is known (lat. - "Cogito, ergo sump; fr. "Je pense, done je suisp - "I think - therefore I am"), formulated in the book "Discourse on the Method". More precisely, the phrase sounds like " Dubito ergo cogito, cogito ergo sum" - "I doubt, therefore I think; I think, therefore I am." Doubt, within the framework of the teachings of R. Descartes, is one of the modes of thinking. And the main subject of psychology, in fact, is not even consciousness, but thinking. But in general, within the framework of associationism (one of the central scientific directions in the development of scientific psychology from the 17th century to the beginning of the 20th century), the subject of psychology is consciousness.

Associationism is a direction in psychology in which association is the main explanatory principle of mental life. Associationism is based on the idea that the sequence of ideas that arise in the mind reflects the order of external influences on the body. And that the manifestations of mental life, including reason and will, obey the law of association. Associations link various elements of the mental into the unity and integrity of consciousness.

At the beginning of the 20th century, during the period of active formation of experimental and empirical psychology, according to the definition of L. S. Vygotsky, there is a crisis of the methodological foundations of psychology: "psychology as a science in its practical advancement in the light of the requirements imposed by practice has outgrown the those methodological foundations on which psychology began to be built in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The result of the "open crisis in psychology" was the emergence of various scientific schools, some of which continued to consider consciousness (for example, Gestalt psychology), while others identified other phenomena as the subject of psychology: behavior (behaviourism), dynamics of consciousness and the unconscious (psychoanalysis); development of higher mental functions (cultural-historical psychology), etc. Each direction in psychology began to rely on its own methodological foundations, to determine its subject of research, to use its own method of research corresponding to the subject. In fact, since the beginning of the 20th century it is impossible to talk about the unity of the development of subject matter and method in psychology as a science.

In the structure of the psyche in domestic psychology, three groups of phenomena are usually distinguished:

  • 1) mental processes (cognitive - sensation, perception, ideas, memory, imagination, thinking, speech, attention; emotional - excitement, joy, indignation, anger, etc.; volitional - decision-making, overcoming difficulties, struggle of motives, control of one's behavior and etc.);
  • 2) mental states (rise, depression, fear, cheerfulness, despondency, etc.);
  • 3) mental properties (orientation, temperament, abilities, character).

Psychology, even among other humanities (i.e., studies of man) sciences, has an important feature. In it, the subject and subject of research are not just one and the same person, but one and the same tool. In fact, in all other sciences, the subject of research and the tool of research are external in relation to the subject of research. In psychology, the phenomena of the mental are studied through mental phenomena. The main problem in this regard is the subjectivism of psychology as a science.

Subject (from lat. subjectus- underlying, underlying, from sub- under and jacio- I throw, I lay the foundation) - a person as a carrier of activity, activity, consciousness and knowledge.

Mental phenomena (sensations, images, ideas, thinking, memory, speech, imagination, motives, needs, emotions, feelings, will, etc.) are characteristic of each of us. And we involuntarily reflect on the manifestations of our consciousness, behavior, mental processes. But our ordinary knowledge of the psychic is not yet a science, since knowledge from our personal experience is concrete, not generalized, and is of an intuitive nature, not rationally realized. They are based on everyday observation and not on experiment or statistically significant empirical experience. According to L. S. Rubinshtein, "the knowledge represented in the mind of an individual is the unity of the objective and the subjective." Achieving objectivity in psychological knowledge is the path of development of psychology as a science. "The consciousness of a particular real individual is unity of experience and knowledge . "Consciousness - unity of subjective and objective ". And in this context, the task of psychology as a science is to overcome the subjectivism of psychological knowledge (which is impossible at the limit points, but the very movement towards the objectification of knowledge about the mental is the development of psychological science).

Beginnings of psychological knowledge. Historically, the first psychological knowledge can be considered with the emergence of various cultural forms of reflection and generalization of knowledge about the mental, the emergence of the concept of the soul, ideas about the means and methods of communication, emotional regulation, etc. That is, it can be attributed to the birth of human culture. Ancient people, trying to explain such phenomena as dreams, fainting, death, came to the conclusion that along with the body there is also its immortal life force ("soul"), which can be separated from it and exist independently.

The soul is a significant cultural concept that allows a person to realize at the same time his uniqueness and connection with the clan, the world as a whole, which inscribes a person in the general ethnic picture of the world, consistent with cosmogonic myths. Speaking about the psychological meaning of the concept of the soul in the history of mankind, L. S. Vygotsky wrote: "Man put forward the idea of ​​the soul, trying to master his inner world, it was the first scientific hypothesis of ancient man, a huge conquest of thought ...".

In different traditional cultures, quite different ideas about the soul have historically developed and to some extent continue to exist, which correlate with the general ethnic picture of the world and set the meaning of human life in the world. In fact, we can, with certain reservations, consider the concept of the soul as an implicit theory of personality, embedded in the ethnic picture of the world. Awareness of the soul in oneself is one of the historically first psychological means of working with one's inner world. But at the same time, a person still does not autonomize himself from his kind and does not oppose himself to the world. The concept of the soul allows a person to realize himself inside the world, as part of the surrounding space, in connection with ethnically defined images of time. The culminating meanings of the soul and its essence are most often revealed at the moments of transition into this world and out of this world. But from where and where - it will be asked by the worldview systems that have developed in the ethnic group, held by cosmogonic ideas.

The concept of the soul in the traditional worldview of many ethnic groups is considered as a person's life activity in the unity of anatomical characteristics, physiological, emotional processes, mentality and is not conceivable outside the genus, ethnos, and the surrounding world. A number of general meanings of the primary concept of the soul, standing on the threshold of personality, allows a person to:

differentiate ideas about their own psychological properties, vitality;

to see the features of mental development in the system of fundamental cultural values, i.e. setting the system of claims.

THE NEED TO DISCUSS THE SUBJECT OF PSYCHOLOGY

Ideas about the subject of psychology are very vague. Often, psychologists simply point to mental processes (thinking, memory, feelings, etc.) as the subject of their study. In other cases, it is said about a person, about personality as a subject of psychology. But both the first and second approaches to the subject of psychology are clearly unsatisfactory, since all of the above is studied not only by psychology, but also by many other sciences. A clear criterion is needed in order to clearly distinguish what is subject to psychology and what lies outside its sphere. This will allow you to better understand the tasks that a psychologist can and should solve.

Without a clear understanding of the subject, experimental research becomes difficult. For the successful practical work of psychologists, an understanding of the subject of psychology is also necessary. Otherwise, it is impossible to understand that psychologists do something essentially different in comparison with other specialists: doctors, teachers, etc.

The question of the subject matter is also important for studying the mechanisms of mental phenomena. Some researchers are looking for these mechanisms in the physiology of the brain. Others study the laws that govern the relationships between objects.

If we admit the correctness of this orientation of psychological research, then this will mean that mental phenomena do not have proper psychological mechanisms and that psychology is limited to "phenomena" alone. But then the subject matter of psychology and its claims to an independent sphere of human knowledge disappear.

In view of the foregoing, it seems extremely important to define the subject of psychology itself.

TRADITIONAL CONCEPTS ABOUT THE SUBJECT OF PSYCHOLOGY

The first theories put forward to explain people's behavior involved factors external to the person (for example, the “shadow” that lives in the body and leaves it after death, or the gods). Greek philosophers, especially Aristotle, put forward the idea of ​​the existence of a soul that is in unity with the body and controls thoughts and feelings, which are based on the experience accumulated during life.

In the history of psychology, there have been various ideas about its subject.

Soul as a subject of study

The soul as a subject of psychology was recognized by all researchers until the beginning of the 18th century, before the main ideas were formed, and then the first system of psychology of the modern type. The soul was considered the cause of all processes in the body, including the actual “spiritual movements”. Ideas about the soul were both idealistic and materialistic. The most interesting work in this direction is the treatise by R. Descartes "The Passions of the Soul".

Phenomena of consciousness as a subject of psychology

In the 18th century, the place of the soul was taken by the phenomena of consciousness, that is, the phenomena that a person actually observes, finds in “himself”, turning to his “inner mental activity”. These are thoughts, desires, feelings, memories known to everyone from personal experience. The founder of such an understanding can be considered John Locke, who believed that, unlike the soul, the phenomena of consciousness are not something supposed, but actually given, and in this sense, the same indisputable facts of internal experience, which are the facts of external experience studied by other sciences.

At the beginning of the 18th century, all mental life, first in the cognitive sphere, and then in the spheres of feelings and will, was presented as a process of formation and change (according to the laws of associations) of increasingly complex images and their combinations with actions.

In the middle of the 18th century, the first scientific form of psychology developed - English empirical associationist psychology (D. Hartley).

Associative psychology reached its peak in the middle of the 19th century. By this time, the work of J. St. Mill, A. Bain, G. Spencer.

J. St. Mill considers consciousness through the prism of an associationist scheme, but points to its dependence in concrete psychological functioning on logic. According to J. St. Mill, there are laws of the mind, different from the laws of matter, but similar to them in terms of uniformity, repetition, the need to follow one phenomenon after another. These phenomena can be discovered with the help of experimental methods - observation and experiment. Thus, the "psychic sequence" (phenomena of consciousness) must be studied in itself. The main method is introspection.

Alexander Ben shifts the emphasis from the internal states of consciousness to the motor, objectively observed activity of the organism. The principle of selecting motor responses that are adequate to external conditions becomes in Ben the general explanatory principle of all mental phenomena. The construction of adequate responses is carried out using the mechanism of "constructive association" based on trial and error. Thus, the probabilistic principle of "trial and error", approved in biology, is used, and thus the activity of consciousness approaches the activity of the organism.

For G. Spencer, the subject of psychology is the interaction of the organism with the environment. But at the same time, objective psychology must borrow its data from subjective psychology, the tool of which is “consciousness that looks inside itself.” Introspection remains the priority research method.

The core of the associationist concept was the law of frequency, which stated that the strengthening of the connection is a function of its repetition. This largely determined the views of I. P. Pavlov, I. M. Sechenov, E. Thorndike, W. James.

Direct experience as a subject of psychology

Initially, the program developed by W. Wundt had the greatest success in building psychology as an independent experimental science. According to Wundt, the unique subject of psychology is the direct experience of the subject, comprehended through self-observation, introspection. Wundt sought to streamline the process of introspection. He believed that physiological experience, that is, objective experience, makes it possible to dismember direct experience, that is, subjective, and thereby reconstruct the architectonics of the individual's consciousness in scientific terms. This idea underlay his plan to create an experimental (physiological) psychology. Wundt's ideas laid the foundation for the structural school in psychology.

Intentional acts of consciousness as a subject of psychology

F. Brentano bases his teaching on such qualities of consciousness as activity and objectivity. Psychology must study not sensations and representations per se, but those acts of "action" that the subject performs (acts of representation, judgment and emotional evaluation) when he turns nothing into an object of awareness. Outside the act, the object does not exist.

The act, in turn, necessarily presupposes a “direction towards,” the so-called intention. Brentano stood at the origins of the direction later called functionalism.

The origin of mental activities as a subject of psychology

I. M. Sechenov accepted the postulate of the kinship of the mental and physiological “according to the mode of origin”, that is, according to the mechanism of accomplishment. Sechenov considered the understanding of a mental act as a process, a movement that has a definite beginning, course and end, as the main idea. The subject of psychological research as such should be a process that unfolds not in consciousness (or in the sphere of the unconscious), but in an objective system of relations, the process of behavior.

Behavior as a subject of psychology

The beginning of the 20th century was marked by the emergence and development of behaviorism as a reaction to unsuccessful experimental studies of "physiological psychology". The subject of behaviorism, or "behavioral psychology," is behavior. According to behaviorists, knowing the strength of the acting stimuli and taking into account the past experience of the “subject”, it is possible to study the processes of learning, the formation of new forms of behavior, without delving into its physiological mechanisms.

The American psychologist J. Watson, based on the research of I. P. Pavlov, concluded that consciousness does not play any role in learning. It has no place in psychology. New forms of behavior should be considered as conditioned reflexes. They are based on several innate, or unconditioned, reflexes. Watson and his collaborators proposed a theory of learning through trial and error. Subsequently, it became obvious that in the interval between the action of the stimulus and behavioral reactions, some kind of active processing of incoming information takes place, that these are processes without taking into account which it is not possible to explain the reaction of an animal or person to available stimuli. This is how neobehaviorism arises, with its all-important notion of "incoming or intermediate variables."

The Unconscious as a Subject of Psychology

According to the teachings of Z. Freud, human actions are controlled by deep motives that elude clear consciousness. These deep impulses should be the subject of psychological science. Freud created a method of psychoanalysis, with the help of which one can explore the deepest motives of a person and control them. The basis of the psychoanalytic method is the analysis of free associations, dreams, slips of the tongue, reservations, etc. The roots of a person's behavior are in his childhood. The fundamental role in the process of formation and development of a person is assigned to sexual instincts and drives.

Freud's student A. Adler believed that the basis of the behavior of each individual is not sexual desires, but a very strong sense of inferiority that occurs in childhood, when the child's dependence on parents and the environment is strong.

In the neo-Freudian concept of K. Horney, behavior is determined by the “basic anxiety” (or “basic anxiety”) inherent in each person, which underlies intrapersonal conflicts. Horney pays special attention to the contradiction between the needs of an individual and the possibilities of satisfying them in the existing culture.

C. G. Jung believed that the psyche is formed not only under the influence of early childhood conflicts, but also inherits the images of ancestors that came from the depths of centuries. Therefore, it is necessary to take into account the concept of "collective unconscious" when studying the psyche.

Information processing processes and the results of these processes as a subject of psychology

Theories of the cognitive direction focus on the fact that human knowledge is not reduced to a simple sum of information received by the brain from the external environment or present in it from the moment of birth.

Gestalt psychology emphasizes the initial programming of certain internal structures and their influence on perceptual and cognitive processes.

Constructivists believe that hereditarily determined intellectual functions create an opportunity for the gradual construction of intelligence as a result of active human influences on the environment.

Cognitive psychology itself is trying to figure out ways to improve thought processes and other information processing processes.

Personal experience of a person as a subject of psychology

Humanistic psychology departs from scientific psychology, assigning the main role to the personal experience of a person. A person, according to humanistic psychologists, is capable of self-esteem and can independently find a way to develop his personality (self-actualization). The subjectivity of this approach makes it difficult to establish the difference between a person's opinion of himself and what he really is. The ideas of this approach turned out to be useful for psychological practice, but did not contribute anything to the theory of psychology. Moreover, the subject of research within this direction has almost disappeared.

Development of views on the subject of psychology of domestic authors

In the initial period of the formation of Soviet psychology, the question of its subject matter did not attract much attention. After the 1st All-Union Congress for the Study of Human Behavior (1930), Soviet psychology established an explanation of the subject of psychology in the form of an indication of “our sensations, feelings, ideas, thoughts” that are well known to every person from his own experience.

According to P. Ya. Galperin, the subject of psychology is orienting activity. At the same time, this concept includes not only cognitive forms of mental activity, but also needs, feelings, and will. “The subject matter of psychology must be decisively limited. Psychology cannot and should not study all mental activity and all aspects of each of its forms. Other sciences no less than psychology have the right to study them. The claims of psychology are justified only in the sense that the process of orientation constitutes the main aspect of every form of mental activity and of all mental life as a whole: that it is precisely this function that justifies all its other aspects, which are therefore practically subordinate to this function.

K. K. Platonov considers mental phenomena to be the subject of psychology. This very general definition of the subject of psychology, when concretized, does not contradict the above approach.

findings

Analyzing the development of views on the subject of psychology, we can draw the following conclusions:

1. In each of the emerging directions, some one of the necessary aspects of the study was emphasized. Therefore, it can be argued that all schools, areas of psychology have contributed to the formation of its subject.

2. At present, it seems expedient to combine "rational grains" contained in different theoretical directions and generalize them.

3. As a result, we can assume that the subject of psychology is mental processes, properties, states of a person and the laws of his behavior. An essential point in this is the consideration of the generation of consciousness, its functioning, development and connection with behavior and activity.

Literature:

1. Galperin P. Ya. Introduction to psychology. - M.: MGU, 1976.

2. Godfroy J. What is psychology.: In 2 volumes - M .: Mir, 1992.

3. Leontiev A. N. Activity. Consciousness. Personality. - M.: MGU, 1975.

4. Platonov K. K. On the system of psychology. - M.: Thought, 1972.

5. Robert M. A., Tilman F. Psychology of an individual and a group. - M.: Progress, 1988.

7. Yaroshevsky M. G. History of psychology. - M.: Thought, 1976.

STRUCTURE AND FUNCTIONS OF PSYCHE

The main functions of the psyche are reflection and regulation.

These functions are interrelated and interdependent: reflection is regulated, and regulation is based on information obtained in the process of reflection. "The unity of the psyche as a system is expressed in its general function: being a subjective reflection of objective reality, it performs the function of regulating behavior" .

The close relationship of these functions ensures the integrity of the psyche in the norm, the unity of all mental manifestations, the integration of the entire internal mental life. The same functions provide continuous interaction, interconnection, integration of a person with the environment. Man is an active system, and there are also many active objects in the world around him. Therefore, one should distinguish between active and reactive reflection, active and reactive regulation.

Then the functional structure of the human psyche in general scientific categories looks like this:

The functional structure of the human psyche in general scientific categories

The functional structure of the human psyche in psychological terms

The functional structure of the psyche (in psychological categories), presented in a radially circular coordinate system

The form of representation of the functional structure of the psyche in a radially circular coordinate system has clear advantages. It has great integrity, is better coordinated with the capabilities of the human reflecting system, here the relationships between the components of the psyche are much more clearly manifested.

The above diagrams of the structure of the psyche relate primarily to its conscious level. However, it should be remembered that there is an unconscious level in the structure of the psyche. Both the processes of mental reflection and the processes of regulation can be unconscious. Different authors introduce different meanings into the concept of the unconscious (for example, Z. Freud, K. G. Jung, D. N. Uznadze, etc.). In accordance with this, the structure of the unconscious looks different. Freud's "Id" is a combination of biological (primarily sexual) instincts, desires, drives. Jung has a more complex structure of the unconscious. It includes the following elements:

Individual unconscious:

Shadow (analogue of Freud's "Id")

Anima and Animus

Self

collective unconscious

From the point of view of D. N. Uznadze, the concept of the unconscious should be reduced or even replaced by the concept of a mental attitude.

Literature:

1. Unconscious. Nature, functions, research methods: In 4 volumes - Tbilisi: Metsniereba, 1978.

2. Ganzen V. A. System descriptions in psychology. - L.: LGU, 1984.

3. Kuzmin V. P. Historical background and epistemological foundations of the system approach. //Psych. magazine - 1982, v. 3.

4. Lomov B. F. On a systematic approach in psychology. - M.: Thought, 1972.

5. Platonov K. K. The system of psychology and the theory of reflection. - M.: Nauka, 1982.

6. Feidiman J., Freiger R. Personality and personal growth. - Service translation.

METHODS OF PSYCHOLOGY

A detailed discussion of the methods of psychology is beyond the scope of this course. The manual provides one of the most successful modern classifications of methods of psychological research.

COGNITIVE PROCESSES, THEIR PLACE AND ROLE IN THE HUMAN PSYCHE

SENSATION AS THE INITIAL STAGE OF KNOWLEDGE

Sensation is understood as a reflection of the properties of objects of the objective world with their direct impact on the sense organs. According to L. M. Vecker, the result of the sensation process is a “partial image of the world”, since individual properties or features of objects are reflected in the sensation.

According to the concept of A. N. Leontiev, sensation is historically the first form of the mental. The emergence of sensation is associated with the development of irritability of the nervous tissue. At a certain stage of the evolutionary process in an organism, elementary irritability develops into sensitivity, that is, the ability to respond not only to vital stimuli, but also to stimuli that have a signal value. This point of view is not the only possible one. So, K. K. Platonov tried to prove that the elementary and historically the first form of the mental is emotion.

Of fundamental importance for the development of the theory of sensations are studies devoted to the study of the participation of effector processes in the occurrence of sensation. The general conclusion of these studies is that sensation as a mental phenomenon is impossible in the absence or inadequacy of the response; the motionless eye is as blind as the motionless hand is astereognostic (works by A. N. Leontiev, P. I. Zinchenko, V. P. Zinchenko, T. P. Zinchenko and others).

Investigating the mechanisms of sensation, A. N. Leontiev comes to the conclusion that the general principle mechanism is the mechanism of assimilation of processes in the sense organs to the properties of external influence.

There are various classifications of sensations.

The classification according to the modality of sensations (specificity of the sense organs) is widespread - this is the division of sensations into visual, auditory, vestibular, tactile, olfactory, gustatory, motor, visceral. There are intermodal sensations - synesthesia.

Ch. Sherrington's classification is well-known, distinguishing the following types of sensations:

Exteroceptive sensations (arising from the action of external stimuli on receptors located on the surface of the body, from the outside);

Proprioceptive (kinesthetic) sensations (reflecting the movement and relative position of body parts with the help of receptors located in muscles, tendons, articular bags);

Interoceptive (organic) sensations - arising from the reflection of metabolic processes in the body with the help of specialized receptors.

Despite the variety of sensations that arise during the operation of the sense organs, one can find a number of fundamentally common features in their structure and functioning. In general, it can be said that analyzers are a set of interacting formations of the peripheral and central nervous systems that receive and analyze information about phenomena occurring both inside and outside the body.

General properties of analyzers

Extremely high sensitivity to adequate stimuli. A quantitative measure of sensitivity is the threshold intensity, that is, the lowest intensity of the stimulus, the impact of which gives a sensation.

The presence of differential sensitivity (otherwise: distinctive, difference, contrast), that is, the ability to establish a difference in intensity between stimuli.

Adaptation, that is, the ability of analyzers to adapt their level of sensitivity to the intensity of the stimulus.

Trainability of analyzers, that is, an increase in sensitivity and acceleration of adaptive processes under the influence of sensory activity itself.

The ability of analyzers to retain sensation for some time after the stimulus has ceased. Such "inertia" of sensations is designated as a consequence, or successive images.

Constant interaction of analyzers in the conditions of normal functioning.

Sensitivity, according to B. M. Teplov and V. D. Nebylitsyn, is an indicator of the type of higher nervous activity of a person. See: Nebylitsyn VD Study of the relationship between sensitivity and strength of the nervous system. //Typological features in human nervous activity. - M.: Enlightenment, 1969.

The study of sensations (from the point of view of their occurrence and differentiation) is devoted to a huge section of psychology - psychophysics.

For sensitivity thresholds, see:

1. Lomov B. F. Man and technology. - M.: Sov. radio, 1966.

2. Stevens S. S. Experimental psychology. - M., Ed. IL, 1963.

Considering the sensation as a reflection, one must also remember about the other side - the regulatory one. Estimation of the distance, the strength of the action of the hand on the object, the volume of the spoken word are regulated by the sensations that have arisen.

A topical issue in the theory of sensations is sensitivity in the structure of personality. It is most fully developed by B. G. Ananiev in the doctrine of the sensory organization of the personality. See: Ananiev BG Theory of sensations. - L.: LGU, 1961. S. 89 112.

For sensitivity development, see:

1. Ananiev BG Psychology of sensory knowledge. - M.: Ed. APN RSFSR, 1960. S. 122 137.

2. Ananiev B. G. Theory of sensations. - L .: LSU, 1961.

3. Lyublinskaya A. A. Child psychology. - M., Education, 1971. S. 35 155.

PERCEPTION

Perception, like any other mental phenomenon, can be viewed as a process and as a result.

Perception makes possible a holistic reflection of the world, the creation of an integral picture of reality, in contrast to sensations that reflect individual qualities of reality.

The result of perception is an integral, holistic image of the surrounding world, arising from the direct impact of the stimulus on the subject's sense organs.

Perception properties:

Constancy - the relative independence of the image from the conditions of perception, manifested in its vitality. Our perception, within certain limits, preserves for objects their size, shape, color, regardless of the conditions of perception (distance to the perceived object, lighting conditions, angle of perception, etc.). See: Ananiev B. G., Dvoryashina M. D., Kudryavtseva N. A. Individual human development and constancy of perception. - M.: Enlightenment, 1986. S. 9 39.

Objectivity - an object is perceived by us as a separate physical body isolated in space and time. This property is most clearly manifested in the mutual isolation of the figure and the background. See: Koffka K. Perception: An Introduction to Gestalt Psychology. //Reader on sensation and perception. / Ed. Yu. B. Gippenreiter, M. B. Mikhalevskoy. M.: MGU, 1975. S. 96 113.

Integrity - the internal organic relationship of parts and the whole in the image. Two aspects of this property should be considered: a) the union of different elements as a whole; b) the independence of the formed whole from the quality of its constituent elements. See: Neisser U. Cognition and reality. - M., 1981. S. 281 295.

The principles of organizing perception (properties of objectivity and integrity) are most deeply and vividly described and analyzed by representatives of Gestalt psychology (M. Wertheimer, C. Osgood, etc.).

Generalization - the relation of each image to a certain class of objects that has a name.

The meaningfulness of perception is based on the connection of perception with thinking, with understanding the essence of the subject. See: Leeper R. Wife and mother-in-law. //Reader on sensation and perception. / Ed. Yu. B. Gippenreiter, M. B. Mikhalevskoy - M.: MGU, 1975. S. 300 301.

The most important phenomenon of perception is the relation of an objective image to the real world - the phenomenon of projection (for example, a person sees not an image of an object on the retina, but a real object in the real world). This phenomenon can be traced at all levels of personality organization.

Perception of space

The perception of space includes the perception of shape, size, and the distance to and between objects.

Form perception is determined by the participation of three main groups of factors:

The innate ability of the primary cells of the cerebral cortex to selectively respond to image elements that have a certain saturation, orientation, configuration and length;

The laws of highlighting a figure against a background, described by Gestalt psychologists;

Life experience of a person, obtained due to the movements of the hands along the contour and surface of objects, the movement of a person and parts of his body in space.

The perception of the size of objects depends on the parameters of their image on the retina. In the perception of the size of objects, the muscles of the eyes and hands, as well as a number of other parts of the body, take part. (However, if a person is able to correctly estimate the distance to an object, then the law of perceptual constancy comes into play).

Muscle movements are also involved in depth perception. In addition to them, accommodation and convergence of the eyes contribute to the visual assessment of depth.

Accommodation - a change in the curvature of the lens when adjusting the eye to a clear perception of near and distant objects or their details.

Convergence - convergence or divergence of the axes of the eyes, which occurs when perceiving, respectively, approaching or receding objects.

These processes "work" within limited limits: 5-6 meters for accommodation and up to 450 meters for convergence.

When assessing large distances, a person uses information about the relative position of objects on the retina of the right and left eyes.

Movement perception

The perception of movement is ascertained by neurons - detectors of movement or novelty, which are part of the neurophysiological apparatus of the orienting reaction.

Perception of time

The mechanism of time perception is often associated with the so-called "biological clock" - a certain sequence and rhythm of biological metabolic processes occurring in the human body.

The subjective length of time depends in part on what it is filled with.

The following conditions are necessary for the formation of an adequate perceptual image:

active movement;

Feedback;

Maintaining a certain optimum of information entering the brain from the external and internal environment;

Preservation of the usual structured information.

Illusions of perception

There are times when our perception of the world is distorted. This happens when conflicting signals come from the objects themselves, or when we misinterpret the signals we receive.

Development of perception

Perception changes under the influence of living conditions, that is, it develops.

A. V. Zaporozhets believed that the formation of perceptual actions under the influence of learning goes through a number of stages:

Stage I - an adequate perspective image is built by the child through practical actions with material objects.

Stage II - sensory processes themselves turn into a kind of perceptual actions that are performed with the help of their own movements of the receptive apparatus. Children get acquainted with the spatial properties of objects with the help of deployed tentatively exploratory movements of the hands and eyes.

Stage III - the process of folding, reducing perceptual actions begins.

Stage IV - the perceptual action turns into an ideal one. Children acquire the ability quickly and without any external movements to recognize certain properties of perceived objects, to distinguish them from each other on the basis of these properties.

The main approaches to the analysis of perception:

Stimulative. See: Gibson J. Ecological approach to visual perception. - M., 1988;

Neurophysiological. See: Gostev A. A. The figurative sphere of man. - M., 1992; Marr D. Vision. - M., 1987;

Activity. Cm.:

Zinchenko V. P., Vergiles N. Yu. Formation of visual images. - M., 1969;

Leontiev A. N. Psychology of the image. //Bulletin of Moscow State University. Ser. 14, 1979. - N 2. S. 3 14;

Mitkin A. A. System organization of visual functions. - M., 1988];

Subjective [Nadirashvili Sh. A. Psychological nature of perception. - Tbilisi, 1976; Uznadze D.N. Psychological research. - M.: Nauka, 1966.];

Constructivist. See: Rock I. Introduction to visual perception.: In 2 volumes - M., 1980 .;

Dynamic. Cm.:

Gibson J. Ecological approach to visual perception. - M., 1988;

Kolers P. Some psychological aspects of pattern recognition. //Pattern recognition. - M., 1970. S. 16 87;

Genetic. See: Lange N. N. Theory of volitional attention. //Reader for attention. / Ed. A. N. Leontiev and others - M .: MGU, 1976;

Prognostic. Cm.:

Arnheim R. Obraz i thought. //Visual images. Phenomenology and experiment. - Dushanbe, 1971;

Bruner J. Psychology of knowledge. - M., 1977.;

Informational. Cm.:

Vecker L. M. Mental processes: In 3 volumes - T. I, L .: Leningrad State University, 1974 1981;

Lindsay P., Norman D.A. Human information processing. - M., 1974;

Neisser U. Cognition and reality. - M., 1981;

Cognitive structural. Cm.:

Marr D. Vision. - M., 1987;

Neisser U. Cognition and reality. - M., 1981.

PERFORMANCE

Representation is the process of reproducing past images. The results of the presentation are secondary images, that is, the “first signals” extracted from memory. Representations reproduce past primary images. These are images of objects that do not currently act on the receptor surface of the analyzer. Representations embody one of the types of memory (figurative memory), which determines their most important significance in the structure of mental processes. Representations are a necessary link between the first-signal mental processes (images of sensations and perceptions) and the second-signal mental and verbal-thinking processes. Representations accumulate in themselves the signs of various single images. Based on these features, a “portrait of a class of objects” is built, and thus the possibility of conceptually logical mapping of the structure of this class is provided.

Views allow you to see not only the “face”, but also the “back” of objects during their absence. Moreover, objects, not only once directly perceived, but also belonging to a generalized class of objects synthesized in the representation.

The study of representations faces a number of difficulties.

First, these difficulties are connected with the absence of an available, directly acting object of the stimulus with which one could compare the content of the representation. Secondly, due to the lack of direct influence of the represented object, the representation itself is a “flying structure” that is difficult to fix.

View characteristics

Panoramic - going beyond the perceptual field. See: Shemyakin FN Orientation in space. //Psych. science in the USSR. - T. I, M., 1959.

Separation of the figure from the background. See: Lomov BF Man and technology. - M.: Sov. radio, 1966, Ch. 4.

Absence of absolute values ​​(non-preservation of the number of homogeneous elements; violation of the reproduction of absolute sizes). See: P. A. Sorokun. Formation and development of spatial representations in students: Abstract of the thesis. doc. diss. - L., 1968.

Transformation of a geometric shape into a topological scheme; schematization of the image. Cm.:

Bernshtein N. A. Topology and metrics of motions. // Essays on the physiology of movements and the physiology of activity. - M., 1966;

Lomov BF Man and technology. - M.: Sov. radio, 1966.

The transformation of a sequential image into a simultaneous structure. Cm.:

Hadamard J. A study of the psychology of the invention process in the field of mathematics. - M., 1970;

Teplov BM Psychology of musical abilities. - M., 1947.

Shifts in playback duration. This property was generalized by S. L. Rubinshtein in the form of an empirical law of a filled time interval. This law determines the pattern of deviation of the psychological time of remembering the past from the objective time. See: Rubinshtein S. L. Fundamentals of general psychology. - M., 1940. S. 218.

Greater strength of the preservation of the image of the temporal sequence in comparison with the temporal duration.

In visual representations, the image shifts towards the primary colors of the spectrum; individual specific shades fall out.

Secondary images are less bright, paler than primary images. G. Ebbinghaus pointed out this property of representations. See: Ebbinghaus G. Fundamentals of psychology. - St. Petersburg, 1890.

The instability of ideas, well known to everyone from their own experience. It is expressed in the fluctuation, fluidity of secondary images. You can call this property the deficiency of representation constancy.

Fragmentation of representations is the lack of representation of individual aspects, features, parts of an object, the image of which is given in the representation (an expression of a lack of integrity in comparison with images of perception).

Initially, the program developed by W. Wundt had the greatest success in building psychology as an independent experimental science. According to Wundt, the unique subject of psychology is the direct experience of the subject, comprehended through self-observation, introspection. Wundt sought to streamline the process of introspection. He believed that physiological experience, that is, objective experience, makes it possible to dismember direct experience, that is, subjective, and thereby reconstruct the architectonics of the individual's consciousness in scientific terms. This idea underlay his plan to create an experimental (physiological) psychology. Wundt's ideas laid the foundation for the structural school in psychology.

Intentional acts of consciousness as a subject of psychology.

F. Brentano bases his teaching on such qualities of consciousness as activity and objectivity. Psychology must study not sensations and representations per se, but those acts of "action" that the subject performs (acts of representation, judgment and emotional evaluation) when he turns nothing into an object of awareness. Outside the act, the object does not exist.

The act, in turn, necessarily presupposes a "direction towards" the so-called intention. Brentano stood at the origins of the direction later called functionalism.

The origin of mental activities as a subject of psychology.

I.M. Sechenov accepted the postulate of the kinship of the mental and physiological "according to the method of origin", that is, according to the mechanism of accomplishment. Sechenov considered the understanding of a mental act as a process, a movement that has a definite beginning, course and end, as the main idea. The subject of psychological research as such should be a process that unfolds not in consciousness (or in the sphere of the unconscious), but in an objective system of relations, the process of behavior.

Behavior as a subject of psychology.

The beginning of the 20th century was marked by the emergence and development of behaviorism as a reaction to unsuccessful experimental studies of "physiological psychology". The subject of behaviorism, or "behavioral psychology," is behavior. According to behaviorists, knowing the strength of the acting stimuli and taking into account the past experience of the "subject", it is possible to investigate the processes of learning, the formation of new forms of behavior, without delving into its physiological mechanisms.

The American psychologist J. Watson, based on the research of I. P. Pavlov, concluded that consciousness does not play any role in learning. It has no place in psychology. New forms of behavior should be considered as conditioned reflexes. They are based on several innate, or unconditioned, reflexes. Watson and his collaborators proposed a theory of learning through trial and error. Subsequently, it became obvious that in the interval between the action of a stimulus and behavioral reactions, some kind of active processing of incoming information takes place, that these are processes without taking into account which it is not possible to explain the reaction of an animal or person to available stimuli. This is how neobehaviorism arises with its all-important notion of "incoming or intermediate variables".

The unconscious as a subject of psychology.

According to the teachings of Z. Freud, human actions are controlled by deep motives that elude clear consciousness. These deep impulses should be the subject of psychological science. Freud created a method of psychoanalysis, with the help of which one can explore the deepest motives of a person and control them. The basis of the psychoanalytic method is the analysis of free associations, dreams, slips of the pen, reservations, etc. The roots of a person's behavior are in his childhood. The fundamental role in the process of formation and development of a person is assigned to sexual instincts and drives.

Freud's student A. Adler believed that the basis of the behavior of each individual is not sexual desires, but a very strong sense of inferiority that occurs in childhood, when the child's dependence on parents and the environment is strong.

In the neo-Freudian concept of K. Horney, behavior is determined by the "basic anxiety" (or "basic anxiety") inherent in each person, which underlies intrapersonal conflicts. Horney pays special attention to the contradiction between the needs of an individual and the possibilities of satisfying them in the existing culture.

C. G. Jung believed that the psyche is formed not only under the influence of early childhood conflicts, but also inherits the images of ancestors that came from the depths of centuries. Therefore, it is necessary to take into account the concept of "collective unconscious" in the study of the psyche.

Psychology as a science

test

2. Subject and object of psychology. Psychic Phenomena and Psychological Facts

As mentioned above, the first stage in the development of the subject of psychology was the study, explanation of the soul, that is, those phenomena that, as a result of self-observation, a person could discover in his own mind (in scientific research, these phenomena are usually called mental, and all mental phenomena taken together sometimes collectively called the word "psyche"). For many centuries, attempts to cognize mental processes and states have been reduced to describing various states of a person's "soul".

Psychological knowledge has historically developed - some ideas were replaced by others (Table 1).

  • Table 1 - The subject of psychology in traditional views Martsinkovskaya T.D. History of psychology. Proc. allowance / Etc. Martsinkovskaya - M.: Academy, 2008. - 544 p.

    • Subject of research (scientific schools)

    Representatives of the scientific world

    All researchers until the beginning of the 18th century

    Phenomena of consciousness (English empirical associationist psychology)

    D. Gartley, John Stuart Mill, A. Ben, Herbert Spencer

    Direct experience of the subject (structuralism)

    Wilhelm Wundt

    Intentional acts of consciousness (functionalism)

    Franz Brentano

    Origin of mental activities (psychophysiology)

    Ivan Mikhailovich Sechenov

    Behavior (behaviorism)

    John Watson

    Unconscious (psychoanalysis)

    Sigmund Freud

    Information processing processes and the results of these processes (Gestalt psychology)

    Max Wertheimer

    Personal experience of a person (humanistic psychology)

    Abraham Maslow, K. Rogers, Viktor Frankl, Rollo May

    So, as we can see, the subject of psychology changed in the course of its formation as a separate science. First, the subject of its study was the soul, then consciousness, then - human behavior and his unconscious, etc., depending on the general approaches that psychologists adhered to at certain stages of the development of science.

    • Thus, the subject of psychology is - the psyche - a set of mental phenomena, as a special form of life - mental processes, properties, states of a person and the laws of his behavior.

    Figure 1 - The subject of psychology

    • The first and most important object of psychology is man. Like any other object of reality, a person has an infinite set of properties - signs that are revealed through his relationship to an infinitely diverse reality, through the ways in which reality influences a person (Fig. 2)

    The object of study in psychology is a subject with a psyche and specific areas of psychology associated with various theoretical ideas about a person.

    Hosted at http://www.allbest.ru/

    Figure 2 - Psychic reality

    • In psychology, there are many scientific abstractions that bring to the fore in the study of a person either his consciousness or behavior, as well as the state of the nervous system, the ability to navigate in the external environment, process information, etc. So, “man-machine”, “reactive creature responding to external influences” - a model of a subject in the psychology of human behavior, formed by an affective past, which needs to relive it, as it were, in order to rid itself of imperfection, is studied in psychoanalysis. Such ideas about a person are needed for the scientific study of various aspects of his real activity, reflect the established research methods, types of implementation of psychological knowledge in life. At the same time, the most general, essential characteristic of a person - the bearer of the psyche and consciousness - lies precisely in the fact that he is the subject of activity, practice, being. General psychology. Introduction to psychology (lecture notes) / Yu.N. Kazakov, G.K. Zolotarev. - M.: AST, 2009. - 192 p.

    Everyday psychology also highlights in a person his essential features. At the same time, in everyday life we ​​often come to two opposite, but complementary conclusions. On the one hand, all the people we meet, and as far as one can assume, people in general, are somewhat similar to each other. On the other hand, each person is unique in some way, different from the other.

    The methodological approach is the study of the general and the particular, the two main categories in the cognition of any phenomena. In order to highlight the special in each person, you need to know by what signs and characteristics you can compare different people. But then these signs and characteristics are common in a person. Thus, the allocation of the general and the special is always interconnected.

    The general signs of a person in scientific psychology are distinguished not as separate, but united into integral systems. Calling any system integral, they usually indicate that in order to fully perform their functions, to maintain the system in working condition, all its parts must represent unity, be interconnected and interdependent.

    When the concept of an integral system is applied to a person, it is necessary to establish which of his diverse connections and relationships become the subject of study. Since these connections and relationships are qualitatively unique, the associations of a person's mental characteristics into integral systems differ in content.

    As a subject of activity, a person is an “open system”: his existence and development depend on connections with the surrounding world in which he acts, lives and is a part of it. Firstly, a person, like any living being, is a part of the natural world and can be considered as a biological organism. Secondly, any person is a member of this or that society, in connections and relations with which he is defined as a social individual. And thirdly, a person is somehow connected with the socio-historical, cultural and moral experience of mankind, and the development of this experience is necessary for the self-determination of a person, his development as a person.

    One of the important aspects of human interaction with the world stands out in particular, entering into the very definition of the species - “homo sapiens” - “reasonable person”. This is knowledge of the surrounding world, its objective laws. “A person who knows”, or “a person-researcher” - this scientific abstraction allows you to study a person from the point of view of his mental means, methods, processes of cognition, that is, as a subject of cognitive activity.

    • Considering that “psychology is in a special position because both the object and the subject of cognition seem to merge in it”, and also imagining the relationship between the object and the subject of scientific cognition, the object of psychology is also understood as the unity of three elements: Psychology. Textbook for humanitarian universities / Ed. V.N. Druzhinin. - St. Petersburg: Peter, 2009. - 656 p.

    Part of the material world that directly and indirectly affects the psyche;

    Those changes in the material world that are directly and indirectly the result of mental activity;

    • - actually mental phenomena, explained first as a consequence, and then as a cause of fixed material indicators, indicators, criteria for assessing the psyche (Fig. 3).

    Hosted at http://www.allbest.ru/

    Figure 3 - Psychic Phenomena

    • Psychic phenomena are understood as subjective experiences or elements of the subject's inner experience. Mental phenomena are the responses of the brain to external (environment) and internal (the state of the body as a physiological system) influences.

    Mental phenomena are constant regulators of activity that occurs in response to stimuli that act now (sensation and perception), were once in past experience (memory), generalizing these effects or foreseeing the results they will lead to (thinking, imagination) .

    • Psychological facts are understood as a much wider range of manifestations of the psyche, including their objective forms (in the form of acts of behavior, bodily processes, products of human activity, socio-cultural phenomena), which are used by psychology to study the psyche - its properties, functions, patterns.
    • Yu.B. Gippenreiter Martsinkovskaya T.D. History of psychology. Proc. allowance / Etc. Martsinkovskaya - M.: Academy, 2008. - 544 p. proposes to fix the difference between the concepts: mental phenomena and psychological facts.
    • Psychic phenomena are the internal or subjective experience of a person. What it is, you can understand if you turn your consciousness inward. Look around you, what do you see? You see various objects: a table, a pen, a book, people, trees, etc. In your mind, objects are reflected in the form of a mental image.
    • However, when we look at an object, it is difficult to separate the image from the object, the image seems to be superimposed on the object. To better understand what a mental image is, look at an object, then close your eyes and imagine that object in front of your eyes. This is the mental image.
    • Mental images can refer to the present, past and future. An image can evoke different emotions in us. Imagine, please, the surf. What emotions does this image evoke in you? Probably, someone will have joy, someone will have a slight sadness. Or so: for sure, the image of the sea caused some desire - I wanted to go spend my holidays at the sea. Thus, we have found one more component of our subjective experience: these are desires, needs, motives, that is, what stimulates our activity.
    • Finally, meanings enter into the content of our experience. We mean (name) what happens in our minds. For example, when you experience some emotion, you call it - "I'm sad," "happy," "I'm upset." Now start thinking about something, for example, planning tomorrow - obviously, you will do this with the help of words, that is, meanings.

    We can say that the content of subjective (mental) experience includes four groups of phenomena: mental images, motives, emotions, and words (meanings). These phenomena reveal a close connection and dependence, they cannot be separated from each other. For example, a mental image is always emotionally colored and can encourage us to be active, and is also indicated by a word. Thus, the mental life of a person has a holistic nature.

    • Psychic phenomena have such a fundamental characteristic as direct representation or givenness to the subject. Indeed, all these images, emotions, words, desires are open to my inner gaze, but they are closed from the other person (unless, of course, I tell him about them). Let us recall the proverbs: "an alien soul is darkness", "we see a person, but we do not see his soul." But then the question arises: how can they be known. You can answer me by self-knowledge, that is, a person's appeal to his own experience. Indeed, self-knowledge can be a source of knowledge about a person, but is this source the only one? And another question: is it always possible to trust the data of self-observation. Apparently, it is necessary to find forms of objectification of mental phenomena, that is, their expression outside, in order to make them accessible to another person. This is where the notion of a psychological fact comes into play.
    • Unlike mental phenomena, psychological facts exist objectively and are available for objective study. Among these facts: acts of behavior, unconscious mental processes, psychosomatic phenomena (that is, processes occurring in our body under the influence of psychological factors), products of material and spiritual culture. In all these acts, the psyche manifests itself, reveals its properties and therefore can be studied through them.
    • The task of psychological science is to describe these facts, to explain them and to make a prediction of human behavior on the basis of their scientific interpretation. Savina E.A. Introduction to psychology. Course of lectures / E.A. Savina. - M: MPGU, 1998. - 252 p. At the same time, a scientific understanding of the human psyche is possible only with a holistic consideration of the totality of mental phenomena. Three main groups are distinguished in the structure of the psyche: mental processes, mental properties, mental states (Fig. 4). Shcherbatykh Yu.V. General psychology. Textbook / Yu.V. Shcherbatykh. - St. Petersburg: Piter-Press, 2008. - 272 p.

    Figure 4 - The subject of study of psychology: mental phenomena

    Mental processes have a definite beginning, course, and end; are initial in spiritual life, provide a reflection of reality. On their basis, states arise, the formation of knowledge, beliefs, skills and abilities, the acquisition of life experience is carried out. There are cognitive (sensations, perceptions, ideas, attention, memory, imagination, thinking, speech), emotional (excitement, joy, indignation, anger, etc.) and volitional (setting and achieving goals, decision-making, overcoming difficulties, efforts in self-management, tension of moral and physical forces) mental processes.

    Mental properties, unlike processes, are stable and constant, but do not exclude the possibility of their development. Arising on the basis of mental processes and states, properties have a significant impact on mental processes and states. Personality properties are its essential features that provide a certain qualitative and quantitative level of activity and behavior typical for a given person (orientation, temperament, character, abilities and skills, etc.).

    • Mental states characterize the human psyche as a whole: they affect the course and results of processes and can contribute to or inhibit the vigorous activity of the individual (a state of volitional activity, overstrain, uplift and depression, fear, cheerfulness, despondency, etc.).
    • The main types of phenomena that modern psychology studies are shown in fig. 5.

    Figure 5 - System of phenomena studied in psychology

    • Examples of some groups of mental phenomena and their corresponding specific phenomena studied in psychology (Table 2). Nemov R.S. Psychology: Textbook / R.S. Nemov. - M.: Yurayt, 2010. - 688 p.

    Table 2 - Examples of mental phenomena

    Groups of mental phenomena

    Private examples

    mental processes

    Feel

    Brightness, volume, salinity

    Perception

    Visual, auditory, perception of space, movements, time

    Attention

    Stability, Distribution, Switching, Volume

    Memorization, preservation, reproduction, recognition, forgetting

    Imagination

    Hallucinations, dreams, daydreams, daydreams

    Thinking

    Creative, reproductive, visual-effective, visual-figurative, verbal-logical

    Internal, egocentric, verbal, non-verbal

    mental states

    Mood, pleasure, displeasure, joy, sadness, anxiety, surprise, anger

    Settings

    changeable, fixed, social,

    State of attention

    distraction, concentration, concentration

    The state of the sense organs

    adaptation, sensitivity

    personality traits

    Capabilities

    General, special, theoretical, practical

    Temperament

    Sanguine, choleric, phlegmatic, melancholic

    Character

    Purposefulness, kindness, mindfulness, moderation

    perseverance, firmness, tenacity

    Moral, aesthetic, sublime, base, ambivalent

    Needs

    Material, cognitive, spiritual

    Conscious, unconscious, motivating, meaning-forming

    Socio-psychological and mass mental phenomena

    Interpersonal relationships

    Likes, dislikes, recognition, respect

    Intergroup relations

    Cooperation, confrontation, competition

    Leadership

    Group (social norms)

    United, contradictory, stable, unstable

    Social (group) roles

    The role of the leader, the role of the follower, the role of the organizer, the role of the performer
    • trendsetters, followers of fashion, emergence

    fashion, fashion distribution

    Plausible, Ridiculous, Scarecrow Rumor, Gossip

    Conditions and causes of occurrence, impact on people

    Public opinion (consciousness, mood)

    Types, functions, role in society

    Faith (religion)

    The reasons for the emergence and existence, the role in people's lives, the motives for turning people to faith

    Thus, acquaintance with any science begins with the definition of its subject and a description of the range of phenomena that it studies.

    From the questions discussed above, we can conclude that the modern science of psychology is engaged in the study of the factors of mental life, as well as the disclosure of the laws that govern mental phenomena. The subject of psychology is the human psyche.

    Modern psychology studies the facts and patterns of mental life, the features of its development and functioning.

    Mental phenomena are ours: perceptions, thoughts (about something good or bad), feelings (for example, love, resentment), aspirations (to get an education, get married), intentions (to make a presentation, solve an issue), desires (to have something something, to buy a beautiful thing), experiences (personal for a person, an event in his inner life, about a bad mark, about an illness), reflections, indifference (that is, one thing interests us, the other is indifferent to us), pleasure (from reading book, a good movie), indignation, indignation (seeing the misbehavior of a person, we criticize him), joy (from the birth of a child, a pleasant gift), perseverance (we strive for the implementation of our plans), memorization, forgetting, attentiveness.

    • Let's fix the difference between mental phenomena and psychological facts: Gippenreiter Yu.B. Introduction to general psychology. Course of lectures / Yu.B. Gippenreiter. - M.: AST, 2012. - 352 p.

    Mental phenomena are understood as subjective experiences or elements of the subject's internal experience;

    Psychological facts mean a much wider range of manifestations of the psyche, including their objective forms (in the form of acts of behavior, bodily processes, products of human activity, socio-cultural phenomena), which are used by psychology to study the psyche - its properties, functions, patterns.

    General characteristics of psychology as a science: subject, object and methods

    psychology scientific regularity society All of the above allows us to assume with a sufficient degree of certainty that the subject of psychology is the study of the structure and patterns of occurrence ...

    General characteristics of psychology as a science: subject, object, tasks and methods

    The word "psychology" in translation from ancient Greek literally means "the science of the soul" (psyche - "soul", logos - "word", "teaching"). In the modern world, the concept of "soul" has been replaced by the term "psyche" ...

    The subject and tasks of engineering psychology

    Like any other scientific discipline, engineering psychology has an object and subject of its study. The object of science is that side of reality, to the study of which this science is directed ...

    Mind and activity

    The psyche is the ability of the brain to receive information about the surrounding reality, create an image of the objective world and, on this basis, regulate its own behavior and activities...

    Psychology and pedagogy

    Psychology has special qualities compared to other scientific disciplines. Few people own it as a system of knowledge. However, with the field of phenomena studied by this science ...

    Psychology as a science

    To begin with, it is worth introducing the definitions of "subject" and "object". An object is a part of the surrounding reality, to which human activity is directed. Subject - part of the object of interest to the researcher. The object of psychology is the psyche...

    Psychology as a science

    The science of the soul arose several millennia before the beginning of our era. The term "psychology", which eventually replaced the ancient name "the science of the soul", appeared in scientific circulation in the 16th century, but this name was finally fixed after about two centuries...

    Psychology of management

    Management psychology arose at the intersection of psychology and management theory. The general theory of control began to be developed in the depths of cybernetics and systems theory. Cybernetics is the science of control, communication and processing of information in biological ...

    Social Psychology

    7 2 2 3 2 5 Topic 1.3. The history of the formation of socio-psychological ideas 2 2 2 Topic 1.4. Directions and actively developing branches of modern social psychology 2 2 2 Topic 1.5...

    Social Psychology

    Features of the historical development of social psychology in Russia. The predominant development of social psychology within the framework of sociology in the first third of the 20th century. Formulation of the foundations of social psychology within the framework of the psychological tradition ...

    The specifics of domestic social psychology

    Modern ideas about the subject of social psychology are extremely differentiated, that is, they differ from each other. Social psychology studies: - psychological processes, states and properties of an individual ...

    Emotions (types, features, approaches to study)

RELATED ARTICLES