What is psychology. What does she study and what does she do?
Psychology is the science of the laws of development and the mechanisms of functioning of the psyche.
The psyche is the result of the interaction of the brain with the environment.
Psychology, Science and History.
Plato observed that philosophy begins with wonder. Science also begins with wonder - wonder at the inner workings of nature, and all natural sciences, including psychology, were originally part of philosophy.
Pseudo-psychologists will say that they are living with a terrible step or an attempt at colonization by science, and psychologists say that their field is filled to the brim with garbage. And both are correct, because while it is true that psychology is making giant strides in order to increase its scientific status, pseudopsychology continues to move unhindered without any resistance. In fact, he lives in boom and a violent drift towards the most absolute irrationality.
Well, on the one hand, very few people struggle with harmful pseudo-psychology - in fact, the current state of disclosure in psychology is indeed regrettable; on the other, because it is a fascinating field of study with very pure pseudosciences and very innocent and daring practitioners; and, finally, because I was nudged by their victims, who are by far my most worried and those responsible for the destruction of my email tray. Unfortunately, psychologists are not well educated in epistemology and scientific methodology.
Over the centuries, individual sciences have gradually gained independence from philosophy. Psychology was one of the last "separated from the parent", remaining a part of philosophy until the 19th century. The founders of psychology were both philosophers and psychologists, and even today psychology has retained close ties with philosophy.
For many centuries, the history of psychology has been, for the most part, the history of philosophy, especially in such areas as philosophy of mind, epistemology and ethics. The literal translation of the word "psychology" is the study of the soul, although the term itself was not used until the 17th century, and became widespread only in the 19th century.
In addition, schools fully pass the deontological code of the profession. And that's okay, psychology will be a young science, but not enough to maintain this level of ignorance among its practitioners and justify the primitivism of the widespread concept of "schools" in this area.
When can we say that something is "scientific"? The definition of what is and what is not science corresponds to a devilish and fighting field called "philosophy of science." Among the population, as well as among the scientists themselves, there are two widely held opinions about what science is.
Philosophers and religious leaders around the world have fiercely argued about the nature of the soul, that is, on a topic known to philosophers as the philosophy of reason. Does the soul exist? What is its nature? What is its purpose? How is it related to the body? Although psychologists do not accept the name "soul", preferring the term "mind", which carries less religious burden, they still ask the same troubling questions. Even those psychologists who define psychology as the study of behavior rather than the study of the mind respond to them in different ways.
Both, despite their popularity, are erroneous, and the correct answer remains a great unknown - a jerk on the ears also for philosophical disclosure. No one in their right mind can refute this statement, for example, "I have a laptop in front of me" or "My bitches are heavy and want to go for a walk." We name all these facts. But science is not carried out properly, but the explanation and prediction of facts. Science is what we make of facts, not facts in and of themselves. In summary: the science of evolution is neither an evolutionary fact nor a history of fossils, but a theory that explains them and which is based on them.
Since the time of the ancient Greeks, philosophers have been interested in the problem of how people know the world. This direction is called epistemology (epistemology), from the Greek words episteme (knowledge) and logos (reasoning). Questions about how people learn about the world include questions about sensation, perception, memory, and thinking, a whole world that psychologists call cognitive psychology.
To begin with, there is no scientific method, but scientific "methods." It is not as simple a scientific method as it is commonly believed, and observation, hypothesis, testing, theory and law are an extremely simple diagram of what scientists really do. Science uses a method, but it is not a method. Suppose there is a new method, how to determine if it is scientific or not? That would say it is scientific because it is being used by scientists, because it is a request of principle - because scientists will be scientists because they are using that method.
How do psychologists solve these problems?
Therefore, to find what unites all methods and unravels the true nature of science, we must dig a little deeper, to the epistemological level, and understand science as a form of justifying beliefs. Science is about justifying beliefs that we accept in a particular way.
Ethics is another area that philosophers (and religious thinkers) share with psychology. While ethics is primarily concerned with the question of how people should behave, practical ethics depends on an understanding of human nature. Are people kind by nature? What motives do people have? Which ones should be welcomed and which ones should be suppressed? Are people social beings? Is there a general style of good living that everyone should follow?
As we can see, this definition includes reliable observation and method, but the concept of "evidence" is included as central to science. In any case, there are also consensual and contextual problems in science, such as when to accept evidence as appropriate or when to assume that a hypothesis has been disproved.
The structure of psychology as a science
If not science is transmitted as science, we will be in front of pseudoscience. Short story psychology and pseudopsychology. My intention is to show that psychology and pseudopsychology have always been two different things that have never been mixed in their development. This will also serve as a characterization of the point at which both fields are currently located.
Such questions are inherently psychological, and you can answer them by studying human nature. Ethical views are evident in many branches of psychology. In scientific psychology, we find them in the study of motivation and emotions, social and sexual behavior. Applied psychology, whether it concerns business, industry or management, or is individual clinical or counseling psychology, is closely related to human ethics.
The picture that there is nothing more to start in this section tries to be a rough idea, even an obscenity, of the history of psychology and pseudopsychology. We can find comments and even some other explicit reflections on psychology in ancient times, although they are very difficult to trace. The key moment of this whole story is the trial of Mesmer.
This man was a charlatan who lives in Paris who defended what he called "animal magnetism" and said to treat very similar sessions that we now understand as "hypnosis circus" ply and stick included. Mesmer was tried at the request of the King of France - then head on shoulders - with a jury consisting of Benjamin Franklin, Gillotin and Lavoisier. As one would expect from such intelligent people, Mesmer was declared a charlatan who took advantage of some people. Among these misconceptions was the dogmatic Charcot and Breuer, who had a deep influence on Freud - in fact Freud also used hypnosis, although he ended up preferring to masturbate his tantrum, we already know that Sigmund always had in his head.
Although the conceptual foundations of psychology are to be found in philosophy, the idea of \u200b\u200bcreating psychology as an independent science stems from biology. The idea that the functions that philosophers attribute to the mind are in fact dependent on deep processes in the brain has existed since the time of ancient Greece, but it became generally accepted in the middle of the 19th century.
This is the first and most successful case of psychological pseudoscience. None of them were and are not science. It is more of a philosophical theory based on Freud's thinking and interpreted by the enlightened, and his few studies were just biased and delusional analyzes of cases. As for pseudo-psychology, its repressed memories, its transference, its catharsis, its repression and its emotional origin of mental disorder, it is the source of all evil.
There are two other major milestones in pseudopsychology: The New Age and the fraudulent exploitation of the prestige of neuroscience. While it is true that we can find some examples of pseudo-psychology between Freud and the explosion of stupidity that was the New Age, it is true that by this 60s and 70s period we should have a lot of pseudo-psychotherapy, always working on post-psychoanalysis and usually created in things like movement of human potential. The nature of this vast body of pseudoscience is based on a noticeable tendency towards mysticism, a clear and absolute drift towards irrationality.
The founders of psychology hoped that speculative philosophy and religion could become natural sciences. The younger branch of biology, the theory of evolution, also laid the foundations for scientific psychology. Philosophers and psychologists, especially British and American, began to wonder how good the mind is in the struggle for existence, which is evolution through natural selection.
One looks at the panorama, and it is like a race to see who could claim the greatest nonsense; even the wonderful machines of them, which are mostly cable boxes, have become fashionable. There we have transpersonal psychology, bioenergetic delirium.
Another milestone in regards to the latter, which today seem huge. These pseudo-psychotherapies have the characteristic of desperately trying to hang onto neuroscience, including the prefix "neuro-" in their name or misrepresentation of valid findings. Neurotonics make use of the low scientific background of psychologists and the impressive general population in terms of scientific vocabulary.
Why should we be conscious? Do animals have consciousness? These new questions have worried and inspired psychologists from the very beginning. Therefore, we must consider not only the abstract questions of philosophy, but also the growing understanding of the functioning of the brain and nervous system from antiquity to the present day.
Now, during the last decade - the present age of the brain - the hopes of early psychologists in physiology deserve respect. They hoped that psychological processes could be associated with physiological ones, but then, throughout almost the entire 20th century, psychology moved away from a physiological orientation. However, today, armed with the latest techniques in brain research, psychologists have returned to their original search. At the same time, the new field of evolutionary psychology returned to the old fundamental questions about human nature (R. Wright, 1994).
In this case, pseudopsychology is classified according to this scheme. Both the working conditions of Wundt and his first results with the use of psychophysiological methods of studying the human mind are one of the most exciting chapters in the history of science, unfortunately, little understood. Leaving aside the genius of Wundt and his assistants, something important about this exhibition is this: neither Wundt nor his people had anything to do with Freud or hypnotic charlatans.
If we owe the foundation of psychology to the Germans, it is the Spaniards, with Santiago Ramón and Cajal and his collaborators, to whom we owe the foundation of neuroscience as we know it. In fact, Ramon and Cajal founded neuroscience at my alma mater, the University of Valencia - we are always with Juan Luis Vives' stupidity and we forget about Santiago.
Understanding science.
Although the definition of the subject of psychology has always been controversial, since the 19th century. to this day, there has been an agreement that psychology is (or at least should be) a science. The Image of Modern Science People expect science to explain why the world, mind and body function this way and not otherwise.
There have also been other cases of synthesis such as psychology and evolutionary biology leading to evolutionary psychology. Psychology, explanation and prediction of behavior now has support that provides knowledge of the neural mechanisms that lead to observed behavior.
As we can see, there has never been a feedback between the one and the other; psychoanalysis is not a science, it is not psychology, and it has contributed nothing to this area; all pseudopsychology had a dark history parallel to psychology; and we are currently in an evidence-based and methodological setting for the study and application of psychotherapy scientifically.
GENERAL PRESENTATION OF PSYCHOLOGY AS A SCIENCE.
An outstanding ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle has his treatise "On the Soul". He believes that among other knowledge, the study of the soul should be given one of the first places, since "it is knowledge about the most sublime and amazing." Secondly, psychology is in a special position because in it, as it were, the object and the subject of cognition merge.
In some studies, there are about 500 methods marketed as psychotherapy. To this end, starting in the 90s, a great project of studying the effectiveness of the proposed psychotherapists began, and the result was frightening: one, cognitive-behavioral, takes light years to the rest, and if that was not enough, of the others, only about 4 or 5 may get some evidence, often conflicting for some disorders. Something important to note is that in psychology it is relevant that the therapist is well trained and empathetic, but that is not all; The technique used determines the attitude towards the final result.
To clarify this, I will use one comparison. Here a man is born. At first, being in infancy, he is not aware and does not remember himself. However, its development is proceeding at a rapid pace. His physical and mental abilities are being formed; he learns to walk, see, understand, speak. With the help of these abilities he learns the world; begins to act in it; the circle of his communication is expanding.
What is psychology. What does she study and what does she do?
We can summarize all these scales as follows. We see that the first level is the expert opinion. Nobody cares about your opinion in science, no matter how many doctors you have. The theory of evolution is unacceptable because it was proposed by Darwin, but in the mountains of evidence that support it. No matter what you think about a person or a falanito, or about you or me, no one is that important, and the opinions of all people are biased and always questionable. It is placed here on the scale of evidence that "it works for me", which in those megalomaniacs of psychotherapists with the divine air that is so abundant translates as "many of my clients have worked."
And gradually, from the depths of childhood, a completely special feeling comes to him and gradually grows - the feeling of his own "I". Somewhere in adolescence, it begins to take on conscious forms. The questions appear: "Who am I? What am I?", And later, "Why am I?"
Those psychic abilities and functions that until now have served the child as a means for mastering the external world - physical and social, are turned to cognition of himself; they themselves become the subject of comprehension and awareness. The exact same process can be traced on the scale of all mankind.
Nobody cares, save him. The second step is serious case analysis. Here, if done well, like Freud, we may already, with some reason, consider the need to continue exploring the possible suitability of this method for this disorder. But beware, this cannot be considered evidence either because it is an uncontrolled study and with a sufficient statistical base not to be considered biased. The third step is a non-randomized clinical trial, in which there is still danger of bias, but psychology can already consider a certain level of evidence.
In a primitive society, the main forces of people were spent on the struggle for existence, on the development of the external world. People made fire, hunted wild animals, fought with neighboring tribes, received the first knowledge about nature.
Humanity of that period, like a baby, does not remember itself. The strength and potential of mankind gradually grew. Thanks to their psychic abilities, people have created a material and spiritual culture; there were writing, arts, sciences. And then the moment came when a person asked himself questions: what are these forces that enable him to create, explore and subjugate the world, what is the nature of his mind, what laws does his inner, spiritual life obey?
This moment was the birth of the self-consciousness of mankind, that is, the birth of psychological knowledge. An event that once happened can be briefly expressed as follows: if earlier a person's thought was directed to the outside world, now it turned to itself. Man dared to begin to investigate thinking itself with the help of thinking.
So, the tasks of psychology are incommensurably more complicated than the tasks of any other science, because only in it does thought turn on itself. Only in it does the scientific consciousness of man become his scientific self-consciousness. the peculiarity of psychology lies in its unique practical consequences.
The practical results from the development of psychology should become not only incommensurably more significant than the results of any other science, but also qualitatively different. After all, to know something means to master this "something", to learn how to manage it.
Learning to control your mental processes, functions, abilities is, of course, a more daunting task than, for example, space exploration. It should be especially emphasized that, knowing himself, a person will change himself.
Psychology has already accumulated a lot of facts showing how a person's new knowledge of himself makes him different: it changes his attitudes, goals, his states and experiences. If we go back to the scale of all mankind, then we can say that psychology is a science that not only cognizes, but also constructs, creates a person.
And although this opinion is not now generally accepted, recently voices have been louder and louder calling to comprehend this feature of psychology, which makes it a science of a special type.
I must say that psychology is a very young science. This is more or less understandable: we can say that, like the aforementioned teenager, the period of formation of the spiritual forces of mankind had to go through in order for them to become the subject of scientific reflection.
excerpts from the book Gippenreiter Yu.B. "Introduction to General Psychology"
1. Definition of psychology as a science.
2. The main branches of psychology.
3. Research methods in psychology.
1. Psychology Is a science that occupies an ambiguous position among other scientific disciplines. As a system of scientific knowledge, it is familiar only to a narrow circle of specialists, but at the same time almost every person who has sensations, speech, emotions, images of memory, thinking and imagination, etc., knows about it.
Origins psychological theories can be found in proverbs, sayings, fairy tales of the world and even ditties. For example, they say about personality “There are still devils in a still pool” (a warning to those who are inclined to judge character by appearance). In all nations, one can find similar everyday psychological descriptions and observations. The same proverb among the French sounds like this: "Do not immerse your hand or even your finger in a quiet stream."
Psychology - a kind of science. Man's mastery of knowledge has been going on since ancient times. However, for a long time psychology developed within the framework of philosophy, reaching a high level in the writings of Aristotle (treatise "On the Soul"), so many consider him the founder of psychology. Despite such an ancient history, psychology as an independent experimental science was formed relatively recently, only from the middle of the 19th century.
The term "psychology" first appeared in the scientific world in the 16th century. The word "psychology" comes from the Greek words: "syhe" - "soul" and "logos" - "science." Thus, literally psychology Is the science of the soul.
Already later, in the XVII-XIX centuries, psychology significantly expanded the scope of its research and began to study human activity, unconscious processes, while retaining the former name. Let us consider in more detail what is the subject of study of modern psychology.
R. S . Nemov suggests the following scheme.
Scheme 1The main phenomena studied by modern psychologyAs can be seen from the diagram, the psyche includes many phenomena. With the help of some, knowledge of the surrounding reality occurs - this cognitive processeswhich consist of sensation and perception, attention and memory, thinking, imagination and speech. Other mental phenomena are necessary in order to control the actions and actions of a person, to regulate the process of communication, these are mental states(a special characteristic of mental activity for a certain period of time) and mental properties(the most stable and significant mental qualities of a person, his features).
The above division is rather arbitrary, since it is possible to move from one category to another. For example, if a process takes a long time, then it already goes into the state of the organism. These processes-states can be attention, perception, imagination, activity, passivity, etc.
For a better understanding of the subject of psychology, we present a table of examples of mental phenomena and concepts presented in the works of R.S. Nemov (1995).
Table 1Examples of mental phenomena and concepts
Continuation of table. 1
So, psychology Is a science that studies mental phenomena.
2. Modern psychology - This is a fairly extensive complex of sciences, which continues to develop at a very rapid pace (every 4–5 years a new direction appears).
Nevertheless, one can single out the fundamental branches of psychological science and special ones.
FundamentalThe (basic) branches of psychological science are equally important for the analysis of the psychology and behavior of all people.
This versatility allows them to sometimes be combined under the name "general psychology".
Special(applied) branches of psychological knowledge study any narrow groups of phenomena, that is, the psychology and behavior of people employed in any narrow branch of activity.
Let us refer to the classification presented by R.S. Nemov (1995).
General psychology1. Psychology of cognitive processes and states.
2. Psychology of personality.
3. Psychology of individual differences.
4. Developmental psychology.
5. Social psychology.
6. Zoopsychology.
7. Psychophysiology.
Some special branches of psychological research1. Educational psychology.
2. Medical psychology.
3. Military psychology.
4. Legal psychology.
5. Space psychology.
6. Engineering psychology.
7. Economic psychology.
8. Psychology of management.
Thus, psychology is a ramified network of sciences that continues to actively develop.
3. Research methods - these are techniques and means for scientists to obtain reliable information, which are then used to build scientific theories and develop recommendations for practical activities.
In order for the information received to be reliable, it is necessary to comply with the requirements of validity and reliability.
Validity - this is a quality of the method that testifies to its compliance with what it was originally created to study.
Reliability - evidence that repeated use of the method will yield comparable results.
There are various classifications of methods of psychology. Let's consider one of them, according to which methods are divided into main and auxiliary ones.
Basic methods: observation and experiment; auxiliary - surveys, analysis of the process and products of activity, tests, twin method.
Observation - This is a method by which the individual characteristics of the psyche are cognized through the study of human behavior. It can be external and internal (self-observation).
External observation traits1. Planned and systematic conduct.
2. Purposefulness.
3. Duration of observation.
4. Fixation of data using technical means, coding, etc.
External surveillance1. Structured (there is a detailed step-by-step observation program) - unstructured (there is only a simple listing of the data to be observed).
2. Continuous (all reactions of the observed are recorded) - selective (only individual reactions are recorded).
3. Included (the researcher acts as a member of the group in which the observation is carried out) - not included (the researcher acts as an outside observer).
Experiment - a method of scientific research, during which an artificial situation is created, where the studied property is manifested and evaluated best.
Experiment types1. Laboratory - is carried out in specially equipped rooms, often using special equipment.
It is distinguished by the rigor and accuracy of data recording, which allows obtaining interesting scientific material.
Difficulties of a laboratory experiment:
1) the unusual situation, due to which the reactions of the subjects can be distorted;
2) the figure of the experimenter is capable of evoking either a desire to please, or, conversely, to do something in spite of: both distort the results;
3) so far not all mental phenomena can be modeled under experimental conditions.
2. Natural experiment - an artificial situation is created in natural conditions. Was first proposed A.F. Lazursky ... For example, you can study the peculiarities of the memory of preschoolers by playing with the children in the store, where they have to "make purchases" and thereby reproduce a given series of words.
Polls - auxiliary research methods containing questions. Questions must meet the following requirements.
Before the survey, it is necessary to conduct a short briefing with the subjects, create a friendly atmosphere; if you can get information from other sources, then you should not ask about it.
There are the following survey methods: conversation, questionnaire, interview, sociometry.
Conversation - a survey method in which both the researcher and the subject are in equal positions.
It can be used at various stages of research.
Questionnaire - a method thanks to which you can quickly obtain a large amount of data recorded in writing.
Types of profiles:
1) individual - collective;
2) full-time (there is a personal contact between the researcher and the respondent) - correspondence;
3) open (the respondents formulate their answers themselves) - closed (a list of ready-made answers is presented, from which it is necessary to choose the most suitable for the respondent).
Interview - a method carried out in the process of direct communication, answers are given orally.
Types of interviews:
1) standardized - all questions are formulated in advance;
2) non-standardized - questions are formulated during the interview;
3) semi-standardized - some of the questions are formulated in advance, and some arise during the interview.
When drafting questions, it should be remembered that the first questions should be supplemented by subsequent ones.
Along with direct questions, it is necessary to use indirect ones.
Sociometry - a method by which social relations in groups are studied. Allows you to determine the position of a person in a group, assumes the choice of a partner for joint activities.
Process and product analysis - products are being studied human activity, on the basis of which conclusions are drawn about the mental characteristics of a person.
Drawings, crafts, essays, poems, etc. can be studied.
Twin methodused in developmental genetic psychology.
The essence of the method is to compare the mental development of identical twins, by the force of circumstances brought up in different living conditions.
Tests - a standardized psychological technique, the purpose of which is to give a quantitative assessment of the studied psychological quality.
Test classification1. Test questionnaire - test task.
2. Analytical (they study one mental phenomenon, for example, the arbitrariness of attention) - synthetic (they study the totality of mental phenomena, for example, the Cattell test allows one to draw a conclusion about 16 personality traits).
3.depending on the content, tests are divided into:
1) intellectual (they study the features of intelligence, the so-called IQ);
2) tests of professional suitability (examines the level of professional compliance);
3) personality tests (verbal; projective, when a person's qualities are judged by how he perceives and evaluates the situation offered to him).
So, the methods of psychology are diverse and their choice is determined by the tasks of the study, the characteristics of the subject and the situation.
2. Formation of psychology as a science
1. Development of psychology from ancient times to the middle of the XIX century.
2. Formation of psychology as an independent science.
3. Modern psychological concepts.
1. Interest in problems that belong to the category of psychological, arose in humans in ancient times.
Philosophers ancient greece in their treatises they tried to penetrate into the secrets of being and the inner world of man.
Ancient philosophers explained the psyche based on the four elements on which, in their opinion, the world was based: earth, water, fire and air.
The soul, like everything else in this world, consisted of these principles.
The ancients believed that the soul is located where there is warmth and movement, that is, all nature is endowed with a soul.
Subsequently, the doctrine that inspired the whole world was called "animism" (from the Latin "anima" - "spirit", "soul").
Animism was replaced by a new philosophical doctrine - atomistic.
A prominent representative of this trend was Aristotle ... He believed that peace -it is a collection of the smallest indivisible particles - atoms, which differ from each other in different mobility and size, and the material carriers of the soul are the smallest and most mobile.
Proceeding from such mobility of atoms, Aristotle explained the mechanisms, the laws of the functioning of many mental phenomena: thinking, memory, perception, dreams, etc.
Aristotle's treatise "On the Soul" is regarded by many scientists as the first major scientific research in psychology.
According to Aristotle, man has three souls: vegetable, animal and rational.
The mind depends on the size of the brain, emotions - on the heart.
The representative of materialistic views was Democritus ... He believed that everything in the world is made of atoms.
Atoms exist in time and space, in which everything moves along a given trajectory. In infinite space, according to certain laws, indivisible and impenetrable particles move; the soul is formed by light, spherical particles of fire.
The soul is a fiery principle in the body, while death occurs as a result of the disintegration of the atoms of the soul and body. Both body and soul are mortal.
The merit of Democritus is that he laid the foundation for the development of the theory of knowledge, especially visual sensations. He developed recommendations for memorization, dividing the methods of preserving material into material and mental.
It is impossible not to mention the views Plato .
According to his views, a person is a prisoner in a cave, and reality is his shadow.
Man has two souls: mortal and immortal.
The mortal solves specific problems, and the immortal, whose life continues after death, is the very core of the psychic, the highest form endowed with reason.
Only an immortal soul gives true knowledge obtained as a result of enlightenment.
There are eternal ideas, and the world is a weak reflection of ideas. In the process of life, the soul recalls those immortal ideas that it encountered before entering the body.
Interesting views of Plato concerning the functioning of human memory.
Memory Is a wax tablet. People have different memories and it depends on the quality of the wax.
We keep memories as long as they are stored on a wax plate.
The doctrine of the soul in the early Middle Ages became part of the theological worldview and completely departed to religion, which lasted until the 17th century. in the era.
Renaissance, all sciences and arts began to actively develop again.
Natural science, medical, biological sciences, various types of art, one way or another, affected the doctrine of the soul.
French, English and other European philosophers of that time, based on the mechanistic picture of the world, began to interpret many manifestations of the psyche from the standpoint of biomechanics, reflex, while the appeal to the internal manifestations of the psyche, to the soul, remained outside of their consideration.
However, internal phenomena really existed and required an explanation of their role in human life. As a result, a new philosophical trend began to form - dualism, which asserted that there are two independent principles in man: matter and spirit.
The science of that time was never able to explain the relationship and interdependence of these two principles, so it abandoned the study of behavior and focused on the subjective experience of a person (XVII – XVIII centuries).
Such positions were held by R. Descartes and J. Locke .
The psyche was considered only as a manifestation of consciousness, the world of matter was excluded from the subject of psychology.
The method of self-observation (introspection) was recognized as the main research method, and natural scientific methods were considered unacceptable for studying the phenomena of the soul.
Simultaneously with such views, the atomistic understanding of the structure of the world developed. Simple manifestations of the psyche began to be viewed as atoms.
This atomistic psychology developed over two centuries, up to the end of the 19th century.
Thus, from ancient times to the middle of the XIX century. psychology developed within the framework of other sciences, more often philosophy, medicine, biology.
2. In the middle of the 19th century, profound changes took place in the scientific worldview.
This also applied to the relationship between soul and body, material and mental manifestations.
The successes of medicine, in particular psychiatry, undoubtedly proved that there is a close connection between disorders of the brain and mental disorders, which refutes the postulate of dualism about their separate existence.
The need arose to take a fresh look at the role of mental phenomena in human life and behavior.
The mechanistic understanding was good at explaining monotonous movements, but it became inconsistent in the understanding of intelligent behavior.
The provisions of atomistic psychology also did not fit into the new scientific facts and required revision.
Thus, in the second half of the XIX century. psychological science was on the verge of a crisis, for the following reasons:
1) understanding psychic phenomena has become impossible from the standpoint of exact natural knowledge;
2) the relationship between the mental and the bodily did not lend itself to rational explanation;
3) Scientists-psychologists were unable to explain complex forms of human behavior that go beyond reflexes.
The resulting crisis led to the collapse of dualism and introspection as the only reliable source of psychological knowledge. In search of overcoming the crisis, three directions of psychological teaching arose: behaviorism, gestalt psychology and psychoanalysis (Freudianism).
Let's consider them in more detail.
Behaviorism.Its founder is an American scientist D. Watson , who proposed to consider behavior (from the English behavior) as a subject of psychology, and to consider mental phenomena as unknowable using natural scientific methods.
For cognition of behavior, it is enough to describe the behavior itself, to find out and describe the external and internal forces acting on the organism, to study the laws according to which the interaction of stimuli and behavior occurs.
Behaviorists believed that the difference between animal behavior and human behavior lies only in the complexity and variety of reactions.
Nevertheless, Watson could not but admit the existence of purely human mental phenomena.
He interpreted mental states as functions that play an active role in the adaptation of the organism to the world, while admitting that he was not able to understand the meaning of this role.
Scientists in this direction denied the possibility of studying consciousness.
As Watson wrote, the behaviorist "does not observe anything that he might call consciousness, feeling, sensation, imagination, will, insofar as he no longer believes that these terms indicate the true phenomena of psychology."
However, already in the 30s. XX century, such extreme views of D. Watson were softened by non-behaviourists, primarily E. Tolman and K. Hull ... So, E. Tolman led the concept of rationality and expediency of behavior.
goal - this is the final result achieved as a result of the performance of behavioral acts.
The most important psychological phenomena, according to Tolman, are purpose, expectation, hypothesis, cognitive picture of the world, sign and its meaning.
K. Hull developed a model of behavior based on responses to a variety of stimuli.
The body responds to stimuli through innate and acquired ways that are associated with a system of "intermediate variables" that mediate this interaction.
Thus, behaviorism does not study human consciousness, believing that psychology must explain behavior by examining the stimuli entering the body and outgoing behavioral responses.
The theory of learning proceeds from this thesis, which is based on the use of all kinds of punishments and reinforcements when it is necessary to form appropriate reactions, thanks to which the theory is still popular, primarily among American psychologists. (B.F.Skinner).
Gestalt psychology originated in Germany and spread practically throughout Europe, including Russia, especially in the pre-war years.
This direction was influenced by sciences such as physics and mathematics.
Outstanding representatives are K. Levin , M. Wertheimer , V. Kohler and etc.
The essence of this direction was formulated by M. Wertheimer, who wrote: “... there are connections in which what happens as a whole is not derived from the elements that supposedly exist in the form of separate pieces that are then tied together, but on the contrary, what appears in a separate parts of this whole, is determined by the internal structural law of this whole. "
That is, Gestalt psychology studies not phenomena, but the structure of connections, therefore it is sometimes called structural psychology (translated into Russian, the word “gestalt” means “structure”).
K. Levin is known for his work in the field of personality and interpersonal relations.
He believed that the behavior of a person can be understood only on the basis of the integral situation in which this person finds himself.
The environment is determined by the subjective perception of the people acting in it.
The merit of Gestalt psychology lies in the fact that it found modern approaches to the study of the problems of psychology, but the problems that caused the crisis were never fully resolved.
Psychoanalysiswas developed by an Austrian psychologist and psychiatrist S. Freud, therefore it is sometimes called "Freudianism".
Founding a scientific theoretical direction in psychology, Freud proceeded from the analysis of his rich psychotherapeutic practice, thereby, as it were, returning psychology to its original subject: penetration into the essence of the human soul.
The fundamental concepts of psychoanalysis are consciousnessand unconscious.
It is the unconscious (the main of which is sexual desire - libido) that is assigned a significant role in the regulation of human activity and behavior.
Censorship from the side of consciousness suppresses unconscious drives, but they "break through" in the form of reservations, mistakes, forgetting unpleasant things, dreams, and neurotic manifestations.
Psychoanalysis became widespread not only in Europe, but also in the United States, where it is popular to this day.
In the first years of Soviet power, this direction was also in demand in our country, but in the 30s. Against the general background of restrictions on psychological research (the decree "On pedological perversions in the system of the People's Commissariat for Education"), Freud's doctrine was also subjected to repression.
Up to the 60s. psychoanalysis has been studied only from a critical standpoint.
Only in the second half of the twentieth century, interest in psychoanalysis increased again, not only in Russia, but throughout the world.
So, none of the newly emerging psychological trends completely resolved the contradictions that led to the crisis of psychology as a science.
Consider some modern psychological concepts that began to actively develop since the second half of the twentieth century.
Cognitive psychology arose from the development of computer science and cybernetics.
Representatives of the cognitive school - J. Piaget , W. Niser, J. Bruner, R. Atkinson and etc.
For the cognitive scientist, human cognitive processes are analogous to a computer.
The main thing is to understand how a person learns the world around him, and for this it is necessary to study the ways of forming knowledge, how cognitive processes arise and develop, what is the role of knowledge in human behavior, how this knowledge is organized in memory, how the intellect functions, how the word and image relate in memory and thinking of a person.
As the basic concept of cognitive psychology, the concept of "scheme" is used, which is a plan for collecting and processing information, perceived by the senses and stored in the human head.
The main conclusion reached by representatives of this direction is that in many life situations a person makes decisions mediated by the peculiarities of thinking.
Neo-Freudianism emerged from Freud's psychoanalysis.
Its representatives - A. Adler, K. Jung, K. Horney, E. Fromm and etc.
What all these views have in common is the recognition of the significance of the unconscious in people's lives and the desire to explain by this many human complexes.
So, A. Adler believed that a person is controlled by an inferiority complex, which he receives from the moment of birth, being a helpless creature.
In an effort to overcome this complex, a person acts rationally, actively and expediently.
The goals are determined by the person himself, and already on the basis of this, cognitive processes, personality traits, and worldview are formed.
K. Jung's concept is also called analytical psychology.
He viewed the human psyche through the prism of macro-processes of culture, through the spiritual history of mankind.
There are two types of the unconscious: personal and collective.
Personal the unconscious is acquired in the course of the accumulation of life experience, collective - is inherited and contains the experience accumulated by humanity.
Jung described the collective unconscious as archetypes that most often appear in myths and fairy tales, primitive forms of thinking, images passed down from generation to generation.
The personal unconscious is close to a person, it is a part of himself; the collective is often perceived as something hostile, and therefore causing negative experiences, and sometimes neuroses.
Jung is credited with identifying personality types such as introverts and extroverts.
Introverts tend to find in themselves all the sources of vital energy and the reasons for what is happening, and extroverts - in the external environment. In further studies, the isolation of these two types was confirmed experimentally and became widely used for diagnostic purposes.
According to the personality typology developed by Jung, the following types are distinguished:
1) mental (intellectual) - creates formulas, schemes, is prone to power, authoritarianism; mostly inherent in men;
2) sensitive (sentimental, emotional) - responsiveness, the ability to empathize, a more feminine type prevails;
3) sensory - content with sensations, there are no deep experiences, adapts well to the outside world;
4) intuitive - is in a creative search, new ideas come as a result of insight, but they are not always productive and require improvement.
Each of the listed types can be both intro- and extroverted. K. Jung also introduced the concept of individualization, which means the development of a person as an individual, distinct from a community. This is the ultimate goal of the educational process, however, at the initial stages, a person must learn the minimum of collective norms that are necessary for his existence.
Another prominent representative of neo-Freudianism is E. Fromm , who was the founder of humanistic psychoanalysis. E. Fromm believed that the psyche and human behavior are socially conditioned.
Pathology appears where personal freedom is suppressed. These pathologies include: masochism, sadism, hermitism, conformism, tendency to destruction.
Fromm divides all social structures into those that promote human freedom, and those where human freedom is lost.
Genetic psychology. Its founder is a Swiss psychologist J. Piaget, who studied the mental development of the child, mainly his intellect, therefore, in part, he can be considered as a representative of cognitive psychology.
In the process of cognitive development, there are three periods:
1) sensorimotor (from birth to approximately 1.5 years);
2) the stage of specific operations (from 1.5-2 to 11-13 years);
3) the stage of formal operations (after 11-13 years).
The onset of these stages can be accelerated or slowed down, depending on the nature of training, on the influence of the environment.
Training will only be effective when it is started on time and takes into account the existing level.
J. Piaget wrote: “Whenever we prematurely teach a child something that he could discover over time for himself, we thereby deprive him of this, and therefore deprive him of a full understanding of the subject.
This, of course, does not mean that teachers should not design experimental situations that stimulate student creativity. "
The main factors that determine cognitive development are maturation, experience and social learning.
The modern structure of psychological knowledge is characterized by the following trends:
1) blurring the boundaries between previously existing independent directions in psychological science, for example, many modern scientists use in their theories the knowledge accumulated in various directions;
2) modern psychology is increasingly becoming a demanded practice, and this leads to differentiation not according to theoretical schools, but according to the areas of application of knowledge in practical areas of activity;
3) psychological knowledge is enriched by those sciences with which psychology actively cooperates, solving common problems.
So, the field of theoretical and practical application of modern psychology is very wide, and psychology is an actively and dynamically developing science.
