tags:
Mental, Psyche, Man, Development, Behaviorism, Basis, Problem, Behavior Studies the psyche.
Stage 1 of development
– part of philosophy, the problem of the soul (idealism, materialism).
Materialism – all the characteristics of material embodiment (the desire to obtain experimental knowledge).
Idealism – ideas (thinking, faith).
The problem of the relationship between soul and body. Congenital and acquired. Method of knowing the soul ( introspection
– self-observation).
Stage 2 of development
— 5-13 century AD changing ideas about the subject of psychology. Religion dominates. Medicine is developing (the connection between the mind and body).
Thomism
– Thomas Aquinas – reason is an adequate way of knowing the soul; philosophy of realism.
Stage 3 of development:
Psychology within the framework of philosophy. Moves away from the concept of the soul: religion is losing its position, medical knowledge is developing, geographical discoveries are rejecting the tenets of faith. The understanding of soul and body is collapsing. The term “psychology” appears
.
Stage 4 of development:
17th - 19th centuries Introspective psychology and associational psychology. The main method is introspection. The concept of "unconscious".
Clinical medicine is developing. Mid 19th century – Psychology completely moves away from philosophy.
Psychology as an independent science.
Thanks to medicine, we understand the nervous system and the functional state of the sensory organs. Physiologists introduce the concept of reflex. Development of sensory systems – develops the psychology of sensations
. The speed of mental processes. An attempt to measure mental processes. Experiments appear for the first time.
Late 19th century – 1879 psychological laboratory V. Wundt; any mental phenomenon will be compared with a physiological phenomenon and seeks to analyze this connection between the mental and the physical. The emergence of Charles Darwin’s theory of “evolution” allows us to consider the psyche as an adaptation mechanism
. The idea of the psyche as an adaptation is presented in “evolutionary psychology.”
F. Galton – issues of congenital and acquired; family tree analysis.
At the end of the 19th century, separate branches of psychology emerged:
— physiologically oriented psychology (all mental phenomena have a physiological basis);
27 pp., 13251 words
Psychology as a science. Main historical stages in the development of psychological science
... but the soul’s memory of what it saw in the ideal world before it entered the human body. At the second stage of the development of psychology as ... “On the Soul”, in connection with which Aristotle is considered the founder of psychological science. Psychology studies mental processes, mental states and mental properties of the individual. Stages of development of psychology, like...
– psychology of cultural history – foundations for ethnopsychology (social psychology)
;
- individual psychology - seeks to study an individual person in all his diversity of characteristics.
22.09.2012
Forms and tasks of applied psychology
The challenges facing applied psychology today are very different. The most important of them:
- psychological diagnostics using tests, examination of various abilities or disorders;
- research into the habits and structure of the population's needs;
- forecasting and planning based on social development processes;
- counseling and psychotherapy for individuals and groups;
- experimental studies of the fundamentals of applied applications, development and testing of projects and reforms.
Forms of applied application according to F. Dorsch (1963) can be generally defined by two areas of activity with smooth transitions between them: interpretation and intervention.
Interpretation
should be understood as the definition and explanation of psychological facts. In particular, these may be: descriptions of activities, performance analysis, identification of risks, characterization of situations, interpretation of beliefs, mapping the progress of processes over time, social data, determination of responsibility, etc.
Intervention
covers wide varieties of psychological behavior: support, counseling, information, motivation, suggestion, change, help, etc.
It is intervention in practice that allows psychologists to uncover the richness of scientific ideas.
Problems of psychology of the 20th century
The problem of the subject of psychology: behaviorism and psychoanalysis.
Behaviorism
– behavior (Behaviour), originates in America and Europe (Germany and England), and the subject is human behavior, the basis of modern American psychology.
Further, positivism is
based on an objective method of studying the psyche, the search for adaptive methods of studying the psyche, the desire to study the psyche objectively; quantitative assessment of psychological characteristics. (Any stimulus causes a reaction) (experiments on animals - rats, pigeons).
Experience
– accumulation of reactions to a stimulus.
Neobehaviorism - E. Tolman - stimulus-response formulas must be transformed into S – V – R (V is an intermediate variable).
Behavioral learning theory is the learning of correct responses to stimuli. (reinforcement + and punishment -).
(simplicity, does not take into account the characteristics of the child).
Opirant learning - Skinner B., occurs independently, the speed of development is individual, the results are consolidated for a long time (since they are obtained by the object independently) - for creative tasks, there are no requirements for development.
Behaviorism creates the basis for psychology, which is associated with managing people, many different techniques for analyzing behavior.
Psychoanalysis
– founder S. Freud. Main ideas: the psyche is divided into the conscious (me and beyond the self) and the unconscious (it).
It is desire in the current moment. I - it reconciles with the super-I, makes a decision. It is the pleasure principle. Above all, I must. I am the principle of reality. Instincts - from death and sex.
Complexes: Oedipus, Electro
– attraction to a parent of the opposite sex and jealousy of the same sex, is overcome through identification with parents of the same sex (1-3d.);
The role of the conscious and unconscious is an urgent problem.
Behaviorism is a social school, behavior (external).
7 pages, 3022 words
Contribution of Merlin V.S. into the study of problems of individual style of activity
... properties and qualities of human individuality in various organizational forms of gaming, educational, labor, professional creative activity and in ... the theory of personality relations and characterology developed by A. F. Lazursky and M. Ya. Basov. Merlin worked on studying the problem... In contrast to the “analytical” direction of research characteristic of the school of B. M. Teplov (“from properties to types”),...
Psychoanalysis – everything from instincts (biology), consciousness and unconsciousness (internal).
Humanistic psychology
(Rogers, Maslow) - man is the center of the world, everything depends on man, he is a conscious figure, controls his own destiny, strives for self-realization. Introduces the concept of self-actualization. Focuses on the person, his highest qualities and characteristics.
Branches of applied psychology
- Psychology of health. Although related to clinical psychology, they are two different disciplines. Health psychology analyzes the relationship between behavior and physical disorders. In addition, she tries to prevent and treat various diseases.
- Clinical psychology. The focus is on prevention and treatment of behavior. The goal is to improve quality of life and mental well-being.
- Sports psychology. Seeks to enhance athletes' performance, for example by reducing anxiety and improving teamwork.
- Organizational psychology. This and clinical psychology are two of the most famous branches of applied psychology. In this case, the goal is to improve the work environment, problem solving, training, maximizing skills and managing the human capital of organizations.
- Educational psychology. Here, applied psychology uses basic psychology to improve teaching and methodology. It aims to understand how students learn and provide them with resources for their daily lives.
- Ecological psychology. Seeks to understand how people relate to their environment and how the environment itself can influence our behavior.
- Criminal psychology. In this case, the professional’s work is not limited to crime investigation. They also analyze the credibility of witnesses, provide assistance to victims, etc.
- Marketing psychology. We all know that marketing is an integral part of the consumer economy. Understanding what motivates a consumer to choose certain products and what subconscious processes determine wants and needs is an important part of this interesting field of psychology.
Each field is similar to a branch of applied psychology. There are many more areas that we could mention such as emergency psychology, road safety psychology, psychology of aging, etc. These are just examples to show you how many situations psychology is valuable in.
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Psychological directions in domestic psychology
School of Installation (Uznadze N.)
– a person develops a dominant (mental) that forces him to act and act in a certain way. The dominant contains an unconscious and a conscious component.
Vygotsky's cultural-historical theory
– culture and historical period determine human development. (problems of developmental psychology, the influence of society on the individual, the influence of culture (ethnopsychology).
Activity theory
–
(Leontiev) – activity is the basis for the manifestation of the psyche. Behavior is a characteristic of both animals and humans, activity is a characteristic of a person. Activity is considered as a developing environment for a person; behavior may not develop. Activity presupposes subjectivity (I am the source of activity), behavior presupposes objectivity. The activity is multi-motivated (structure of motives) (play, learning, work).
Subject problem; the problem of the activity of the subject itself (to what extent I am the subject of my own activity); motives and their hierarchy (which determines my activities); the problem of the biological foundations of personality and individuality (Pavlov; theory of the properties of the nervous system - Teplov, Nebylitsyn) (to what extent our psychophysiological characteristics determine our psychological appearance); the problem of personality and individuality (includes individualities from biological to social, personality - psychological and social - the theory of individuality); the problem of psychodiagnostics (the main question, there is no solution - the objectivity of psychodiagnostic methods);
School of St. Petersburg
– Ananyev B.G. –
Humanistic ideas
– Leontyev D.
Psycholinguistics
– Leontyev A.A.
13 pages, 6171 words
1. The theory of activity in the works of A.N. Leontyev
... systems of psychology as “the science of the generation, functioning and structure of the mental reflection of reality in the process of activity.” The main concepts of this theory are activity, consciousness and personality. Human activity has...
Perm school
– Merlin – school of integral individuality
School of Teplov and Nebylitsyn
– school of differential psychophysiology (Russalov’s theory – theory of special individuality)
29.09.2012
Relationship between psychology and other sciences
Only in the middle of the 19th century was psychology able to become an independent science and “demarcate” from philosophy. However, there are a number of modern scientific problems that are still considered by them together. These are issues such as determining the purpose of life, basic moral values, and features of the worldview. One of the reasons psychologists turn to philosophy is the peculiarity of the hypotheses they propose. Which cannot always be verified experimentally.
The tasks of psychology and sociology have much in common. Social psychology provides sociology with effective methods for studying relationships between people and the personal qualities of individuals. Psychology also uses surveys and questionnaires, which are considered traditional sociological methods of research.
The connection between many branches of medicine and psychology cannot be overestimated. It has long been proven that the mental state has a noticeable effect on the physical. But, at the same time, many diseases seriously worsen the mental state. Neurology and psychiatry also cannot be considered separately from psychology.
Research by psychiatrists and neurologists into diseases of the nervous system allowed them to:
- identify the peculiarities of the functioning of the psyche and its structure;
- relate them to the structure and functions of the nervous system.
Psychology is a fairly “tolerant” science. There are no special boundaries between scientific or pseudoscientific knowledge, just as there is no clear division with parapsychology or everyday psychology.
Psychophysical problem
- the relationship between the brain and the psyche (body and psyche).
Psychosomatic diseases - ulcers, asthmatic manifestations, anarecia, bulimia.
Solutions options:
- psychophysical interaction - first stated by Descartes “in the brain there is a pineal gland through which the soul acts on instincts and vice versa”
Arguments: dysfunction of the brain affects the psyche (stroke affects mental functions);
- psychophysical parallelism - Wundt, brain and mental processes occur independently, he believed that d.b. individual psychology studies the course of these processes.
Arguments:
The solution to the psychophysical problem was proposed from the idea of “interaction theory”. During the research, it was discovered that the same areas of the brain can be responsible for various mental processes, but at the same time, 1 mental process can be associated with several areas of the brain. Thinking is associated with speech centers, a person thinks speech, the frontal lobes and motor centers are involved.
There is a single material process in a person, one side is physiological, the other is mental.
Various aspects of applied psychology
We said at the beginning that most of the tools and knowledge that applied psychology uses come directly from basic psychology. In practice, however, the application and development of a problem always generates new knowledge, data and concepts. The same applies to applied psychology.
Consequently, applied psychology also has an infinite number of areas of action. These areas deal with our everyday circumstances. Through applied psychology, we can find solutions, improve our abilities, improve processes, innovate, etc.
The theory is really good, but how can we put it into practice? If this is absolutely impossible, no theory will be of any value except as intellectual gymnastics.
Psyche and brain
Theory and brain blocks (Luria) – according to the theory there are 3 blocks:
Block 1 – activation and tone – all information comes, brain activation, motivational and emotional processes,
Block 2 – information – all information from the senses,
Block 3 – regulatory block – programming, control of mental activity; memory; higher mental functions.
Horizontal diagram: left hemisphere
– thought processes (abstract), understanding of words, does not understand humor;
right hemisphere
– imaginative thinking, emotional perception, spatial thinking.
Personality and its understanding in psychology.
Personality – profile of mental traits (1 third of the 20th century); a structure that combines conscious and unconscious characteristics; in Russian psychology the concept of “relationships”; a set of reactions (behaviorism).
2 third of the 20th century. – further personality development – a set of characteristics; in the domestic individual development of personality in activity theory; at the end of 60 – studies of personality structure (temperament, abilities), abroad – manifestations of humanistic psychology (higher characteristics).
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Psychology of parenting (child-parent relationships)
... attitude towards a child, attitude towards oneself as a parent, attitude towards a spouse as a parent of a common child. The behavioral component is ability, skills, activity... It is also determined by the individual and personal properties of the parent. Each specific person internalizes the family model... the problems of motherhood are sufficiently developed in modern psychology, paternity is practically not studied. Not …
3rd third of the 20th century. – in the domestic one – the development of new concepts of personality that move away from the concept of “relationship” and move towards personal meaning; abroad – a cognitive approach to personality.
Biological and social personality
- solution to the question of the biological and the social: a person has biological prerequisites that are unique to him, which can develop and manifest themselves only in society.
- social characteristics are based on the biological characteristics that a person has.
In Russian psychology, 3 terms were proposed: individual, personality and individuality. Correlation of concepts: individual
– a person as a representative of his species with a set of biological qualities;
individuality
is inherent in everyone, but is individually represented in everyone, includes properties from biological to social.
Subject of activity
– (Ananyev) – characterization of a person as a subject of knowledge, communication, work; as an active figure; as a regulator of activity; characterized by a peculiarity of mental processes.
Personality
– a system of stable properties, these properties are stable;
system of socially significant properties; these features characterize the individual as a member of social society; these properties can be assessed. In foreign psychology, the understanding is different: in trait theory
, personality is understood as a set of characteristics that determine a person’s readiness and predisposition to certain behavior (anxious, active, timid).
A distinctive feature in Russian psychology: personality traits are socially typical and individually unique. Personality properties express a generalized attitude towards aspects of reality.
Concept of relationships:
Introduced by V.N. Myasishchev Attitude integrates personality traits and ensures integrity and consistency of behavior. Expresses connection with various aspects of reality. A generalized way of interaction. Assessing the sides of reality. Merlin identified several types: attitude towards other people, towards oneself, towards activity, towards the environment.
4 pp., 1922 words
Psychology of advertising activity 3
FEDERAL EDUCATION AGENCY OF THE RF NOU HPE HUMANITIES UNIVERSITY FACULTY: SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY Assessment: TEST IN THE COURSE “PSYCHOLOGY OF ADVERTISING ACTIVITY” Student: Bolgert O.V. Course: III Department: correspondence Specialty: advertising Teacher: Muzheva M.V. Ekaterinburg 2009 CONTENTS 1. Reveal the content of the concept of dominant in the perception of reality and name its stages...
Structure of relationships: 1 – emotional component: experiences, emotions; 2 – cognitive – perception, evaluation, thinking. 3 – behavioral – choice of action strategy.
Theoretical and applied tasks of social psychology
Psychology and sociology, in the figurative expression of G. M. Andreeva, have become “mother” disciplines in relation to social psychology. At the same time, one cannot assume that social psychology is only a part of sociology and psychology. The independence of this branch of scientific knowledge is due to the specifics of the subject of research, which cannot be studied only within the framework of any one science. There are several points
view on the question of what is the subject of research in social psychology. Let's look at the most common ones.
Social psychology studies personality in a group, society, society. Unlike general psychology, social psychology studies not just the mental processes of an individual, but their specificity in connection with the system of social interactions. From this point of view, the subject of research is a person among people. If the individual characteristics of the subject are considered, then only as a result of social development associated with upbringing and socialization. A person is studied in all the diversity of his social connections: in the process of personal development throughout life, in the system of interaction at the interpersonal and formal levels, and so on. Particular attention is paid to the position of the individual in the group or team.
Social psychology studies social groups in society. And first of all, the psychological characteristics of groups, problems of intragroup dynamics, intragroup relations, intergroup relations, and so on. A social group is considered as a functional unit that has integral group characteristics, such as group mind, group will, group decision, etc. Various typologies of social groups are created, and an increasing number of criteria are identified for analysis. A group can be considered as a unique integrity, which cannot be understood only on the basis of studying the subjects that make it up. A group is more than a collection of members. It has its own characteristics that exist regardless of the individual characteristics of its constituent entities.
(Social psychology studies the social psyche or the mass influence of the psyche. Various phenomena that fit these concepts are identified: the psychology of classes, social strata, mass moods, stereotypes and attitudes; public opinion and psychological climate, mass actions and group emotional states. The socio-psychological aspect of traditions, customs, fashion, morality, mores, etc. The psychological foundations of unique sign and semantic systems created by humanity over the centuries are explored.
Most modern social psychologists believe that social psychology studies the individual, groups, and the social psyche, but in a certain context. In our opinion, this context was very accurately and thoroughly analyzed by the social psychologist G. M. Andreeva, who, characterizing the subject of social psychology, defined it as follows: social psychology studies the patterns of behavior, activity and communication of people, determined by their inclusion in social groups, as well as the psychological characteristics of these groups themselves (Social psychology. - M., 1997).
If we consider social psychology as a science, then, obviously, we should identify the basic laws of the psychology of social relations, that is, the most essential, necessary, every time under certain conditions. The study of these conditions makes it possible to analyze, understand, predict and make certain decisions on the correction of social relations, at least in the primary group.
Philosophy and social psychology coexisted for a long time; more precisely, social psychology acted as an integral part of philosophy. The very first socio-psychological ideas that emerged from philosophy focused on the question of the relationship between social and individual consciousness. Since ancient times, this problem, in one aspect or another, has interested the most prominent philosophers (Plato, Aristotle, Hobbes, Montaigne, Locke, Rousseau, Voltaire, Helvetius, Hegel, Berdyaev and many others). Depending on the methodological positions of the authors, the following three positions can be distinguished in relation to this problem.
The first problem determines the dominant influence of public consciousness in relation to individual consciousness. Man is subordinate to society from the very beginning by his nature: he cannot live normally outside of social relations. Social needs (for community, belonging, self-affirmation, etc.) are leading in his life. Society determines the style and lifestyle of each person, and individual variations in life activity can only be considered as part of the general movement of life, and a part that cannot have any significant impact on the movement itself. Man is thus viewed as a relatively passive element of the social system. The social system itself is a unique social phenomenon, a part of Nature that has laws of emergence and functioning.
The second position identifies individual consciousness as a unique phenomenon, a phenomenon that can determine public consciousness. An example of this would be outstanding individuals who lead the crowd and change the course of history; politicians, generals, philosophers, writers, thinkers, whose ideas continue to live for a long time. Greatness is largely determined by a person’s ability, even after his death, to have a significant influence on the minds of people of another generation, to shape public opinion, and to change the integral psychological characteristics of large social groups. Thus, outstanding people stood at the origins of the most widespread world religions, beliefs, teachings, and ideologies. They made a significant contribution to the formation of public consciousness. We can observe echoes of their ideas, ideas and understanding of the essence of phenomena in the diverse manifestations of modern social life. Thus, this position highlights individual consciousness as a priority, determining social consciousness, but not so much in an explicit, but in a hidden form.
The third position carries the idea of a conflict between public and individual consciousness, arising from the idea of the eternal contradiction between man and society. This problem is clearly expressed in the philosophy of existentialism. Existentialism (Berdyaev, Shestov, Heidegger, Jaspers, Sartre, Camus) is a philosophy of existence, the quintessence of which is the idea of the subject experiencing his existence as a unique given of human existence. Freedom is understood as the ability of an individual to be himself. A person can give up his freedom, stop being himself and become “like everyone else” at the cost of abandoning himself as an individual. So: either be in antagonism towards society, but in harmony with yourself, or be in harmony with society, but in antagonism towards yourself. In the context of this approach, society and man are hostile. Individual consciousness is eternally opposed to the social one and is eternally forced to submit to it. Society, due to its conservatism, does not give a person the opportunity for full self-realization, limiting him to the framework of laws, traditions, norms, sanctions, etc. A person is forced to be an individualist in order to preserve his personality. Everything collective is a priori perceived as something negative, everything individual – as positive.
However, the contradiction between individual and social consciousness is considered from the point of view of dialectics, which brings a certain optimism to the study of the issue. On the one hand, there is a conflict between public and individual consciousness; on the other hand, this conflict is a necessary condition for the development of man and society.
The philosophical orientations of psychologists largely determine their methodological positions, which serve as the basis for judgment on certain particular issues of social psychology or when choosing directions for individual developments. The leading directions of socio-psychological analysis determine, in turn, the study of the highest priority issues; interaction in the “I – other” system (the study of interpersonal relationships, communication problems, mechanisms of cognition and understanding by people of each other, ways of organizing joint activities, etc.); the influence of social conditions on a person’s behavior and personal characteristics (the problem of socialization as the process of assimilation of social norms and values of one’s society, the study of social attitudes, preferences and interests, etc.); the influence of personality on social conditions and relationships; interaction in the “individual – group – society” system; study of intergroup relations, etc.
Since the end of the 19th century, works devoted to socio-psychological problems have appeared, based on the modern definition of the subject of social psychology as a science. These studies turned out to be so outstanding that even a century later they not only did not lose their social and scientific relevance, but, on the contrary, became the subject of even closer attention in connection with an attempt at a socio-psychological analysis of many historical events of the 20th century. The following works should be especially noted: E. Durkheim “Method of Sociology” (1899); G. Le Bon “Psychology of Peoples and Masses” (1895); G. Tarde “Laws of Imitation” (1892), “Public Opinion and the Crowd” (1892); M. Weber “On the categories of understanding sociology” (1913); W. Wundt “Psychology of Nations” (1912). Initially, attempts to identify socio-psychological problems were associated with such terms as “social philosophy” and “historical sociology”. At the beginning of the 20th century, the term “social psychology” became commonly used and served to designate a new direction in science.
The main stages in the development of social psychology as a science are identified.
The first stage - the formation of social psychology as a science - covers the period from the mid-19th century to 1908. The subject of study and the main problems are determined. The first fundamental works on basic issues of social psychology are published. At this stage, the solution and theoretical analysis of socio-psychological problems attract specialists of various profiles: psychologists, sociologists, philosophers, literary scholars, ethnographers, etc. Most of the above works on social psychology were published in the first period of development of this science.
The second stage lasts until the mid-40s of the 20th century and is characterized by the emergence of scientific socio-psychological schools, focused both on the development of fundamental theory and on applied aspects of research. One of the most influential social psychologists of this period is K. Lewin, the creator of the theory of group dynamics. He explored the problems of social factors of will as goal-directedness in a group, etc. In addition, a large number of experimental works were carried out and at the same time fundamental theories were developed that have not lost their relevance in our time.
The third stage in the development of social psychology begins in the mid-40s and continues to the present day. It is mainly associated with solving practical problems and working for social orders. Experimental psychology continues its development, but as for fundamental theoretical developments, they recede into the background. Social psychology is gaining wide popularity, is being introduced into general education university programs and is one of the compulsory subjects of study for specialists in various fields. Such close attention to socio-psychological issues is caused by the needs of stabilization and improvement of social relations at all levels of social stratification. In addition, at this stage, so-called small theories are being developed that have specific applied significance: socio-psychological characteristics of managing a children's group, business psychology, advertising psychology, psychology of public opinion formation, etc.
W. Wundt considered the collective psyche as a combination of individual mental states of people under certain conditions. He believed that it was necessary to study those phenomena of social life that cannot be explained based only on the characteristics of the individual’s consciousness. Wundt identified three such fundamental phenomena: the language of the people, their myths and customs.
Language significantly influences the psychology of the people, since it contains, in the most general form, ideas that live in the spirit of the people. An analysis of various languages as socio-psychological sign systems of a given ethnic group shows that the difference between them is quite significant. The most important thing for the system of individual ideas is the language in which a person thinks, although knowledge of other languages makes a significant contribution to expanding a person’s ideas about the world around him. Any language contains words that have no analogues in other languages. In addition, each language has its own special forms of expressing ideas, for example, in the form of phraseological units - such stable phrases, the meaning of which cannot be deduced from the meanings of their constituent components. In any case, the “irregularities” of the language reflect the specifics of representations in the same way as its main components. A language can have a high degree of specificity, such as Russian, or be completely abstract, such as Japanese. Considering language as a unique sign system that sets the interpretation of the phenomena of the surrounding world, it can be noted that it is a necessary condition for understanding the psychology of a given people in comparison with another.
The socio-psychological significance of myths lies in the fact that they carry the original content of ideas in the form of a context of perception, as well as feelings and drives associated with ideas. Myths include not only man’s fantastic ideas about the world, but also values, ideals, and oughts. They arise at an early stage of human society and are transmitted through fairy tales, epics, epics, and any works of art, being widespread in society, both at the level of public consciousness and at the individual level. Myths are transmitted by the entire culture of society, determining the mythological ideas of people, shaping their attitudes, influencing tastes and knowledge of what is good and bad. Myths often define a person's psychological need to see things in a certain light. They can help a person comprehend the truth, but they can also distort it. In any case, mythological perception is formed involuntarily in the process of socialization and is a more subconscious process than a conscious one.
Customs are ways of behavior that are most typical in standard social situations among a given people. They regulate human behavior in various situations, but the strictest control of custom can be observed in events that are vitally important for a person: marriage, the birth of a child, funerals, etc.
Having highlighted language, myths and customs - three fundamental phenomena that determine the psychology of the people, V. Wundt took an important step in the development of fundamental socio-psychological problems. The significance of research into the psychology of peoples lies in the fact that they raised the question of the need to study special factors of the social psyche that influence the behavior of a particular person. One of the main conclusions that was made at the first stage of the development of social psychology was that the various forms of the social psyche are not the arithmetic average of the individual psyches, but a qualitatively new formation. The main force of history is the people, or, as Wundt put it, “the spirit of the whole.” The spirit of the whole expresses itself in religion, art, languages, myths, and customs. Individual consciousness is only a product of this whole.
Almost simultaneously with the development of the concept of the psychology of peoples, the concepts of mass society, or the concept of mass psychology, appear, exploring the problems of society associated with the influence of mass communications and mass culture on human psychology. G. Tarde considered the people as a gigantic audience that perceives certain information coming from one source. Most social processes within the framework of these concepts are considered from the point of view of the development of civilization. The concept of mass culture is being developed as a set of cultural values in an industrial society designed for mass consumption. Mass culture is both in place and in time, that is, almost all civilized people are consumers of mass culture, and its production itself is carried out day after day. The main feature of mass culture is the standardization of life, which cannot influence the psychology of a person in society.
All achievements of civilization are considered as the result of the activities of the elite, and most socio-psychological relations are studied in the system of interaction between the elite and the masses. The elite is an integral part of society, which includes the highest, privileged layer that carries out the management function - people who received the highest index in the field of their activity; those enjoying the greatest prestige, status, and wealth in society; possessing intellectual and moral superiority; the creative minority as opposed to the uncreative majority. The psychological state of society was studied depending on the dominant influence of the elite or the masses on it. At the same time, it was believed that if the leading role belongs to the elite, then we can talk about the progressiveness of society; if the leading role belongs to the masses, then about its regressiveness. The socio-psychological phenomena of the transition of dominance from the elite to the masses were examined using examples of revolutions, civil wars, and spontaneous riots. The changes of an individual person in a crowd were studied.
G. Le Bon, one of the founders of social psychology, believed that following the industrial revolution, the growth of cities and the increase in mass communication, life is increasingly determined by the behavior of the crowd, which represents a blind destructive force. Especially in a situation of social change. G. Le Bon gave a socio-psychological analysis of many phenomena of the French bourgeois revolution. He made an attempt to analyze the change in some mental processes and the behavior of an individual under the influence of a crowd, which was what happened in France during the revolution. These changes were as follows.
Firstly, a person’s suggestibility increased. Criticality drops sharply, information is perceived without evidence, which contributes to the perception of many, including criminal, ideas. Secondly, responsibility for one’s behavior is removed. Each person's participation is virtually anonymous. Hypertrophied conformism develops - “to be like everyone else.” Third, the need for simple solutions is increasing. The crowd is not capable of creation. She is unable to make difficult decisions. Fourthly, depersonalization of the individual occurs. A person loses many of his positive qualities. Thus, the likelihood of helping a person in trouble is inversely proportional to the number of witnesses to his difficulties. That is, the more people see a person’s misfortune, the less possibility of help, and vice versa. Fifthly, the emotionality of the individual increases. Comprehension of the situation occurs extremely slowly. Mechanisms of influence in spontaneous social groups are strengthening: infection, suggestion, imitation.
The concept of mass psychology, developed by G. Tarde and G. Le Bon, contained important socio-psychological patterns of interaction between people in a crowd, relations between the masses and the elite, the influence of mass culture on public consciousness and the consciousness of a particular individual. In general, these concepts have implications for large, loosely organized social groups. Any large social group, even a well-organized one, under the influence of certain conditions can quickly turn into a spontaneous one. The patterns of functioning of spontaneous social groups were studied during the development of the above-mentioned concepts.
One of the most conservative early concepts in the field of social psychology is McDougall's concept of instincts and social behavior. It was developed under the influence of Darwin's evolutionary theory. In particular, ideas about the struggle for existence among their own kind; about the adaptive significance of the psyche as the most important means of adaptation to the environment; about the driving forces of development of social organisms, which are based on species variability, natural selection, and heredity. McDougall believed that the mechanisms of social adaptation are identical in humans and animals. Social phenomena and processes were explained by him from a biological point of view, in connection with which his theory was called biologization theory.
The basic idea was that the reasons for human social behavior are related to innate instincts. In this regard, social instincts that determine feelings were studied: the fight instinct associated with anger and fear; flight instinct associated with a sense of self-preservation; instinct of reproduction, associated with the feeling of love; acquisition instinct, associated with a sense of ownership; herd instinct associated with belonging to a social group, etc. McDougall attached the greatest importance to the herd instinct, which keeps people together.
The concept of instincts of social behavior, in contrast to the concept of peoples and the concept of mass psychology, has lost its social activity, but its significance consisted in identifying some biological factors that determine the social behavior of an individual. In addition, it was within the framework of this concept that the term “social psychology” itself first appeared. Later, this concept influenced the development of the psychoanalytic direction in psychology.
The contribution of leading psychological schools to the development of problems in social psychology is very significant. It should be noted that any psychological school could not help but make its contribution to the development of problems of social psychology, based on its subject. In this regard, we can highlight some ideas developed within the framework of functionalism, behaviorism, psychoanalysis, humanistic psychology, cognitivism and interactionism.
A very special contribution to the development of social psychology was made by functionalism, or functional psychology, which arose under the influence of the evolutionary theory in biology of Charles Darwin and the evolutionary theory of social Darwinism of G. Spencer. The English philosopher G. Spencer, who played a key role in the emergence of functionalism, is considered the founder of the organic school in sociology and one of the founders of positivism. He believed that the basic law of social development is the law of survival of the fittest societies and social groups. According to Spencer, all subjects of social life (people, groups, societies) must function and develop, relying only on their own strengths and not counting on outside help or support. This is the concept of survival of the fittest in social competition. It is quite understandable that these ideas became widespread in the context of the development of free enterprise, and primarily in countries such as England and the USA at the end of the 19th century.
Representatives of functionalism (D. Dewey, D. Angell, G. Carr, etc.) studied people and social groups from the point of view of their social adaptation - adaptation to difficult living conditions. The phenomena of independence, self-maintenance, development, stabilization and collapse of social systems were studied. The main socio-psychological problem of functionalism was the problem of the most optimal conditions for social adaptation of subjects of public life.
It was within the framework of functionalism that a large number of studies focused on practical results first appeared. Representatives of functional psychology fixed the result not on the internal psychological processes of a person, but on their functions, in particular social ones, which were important both in interpersonal and intergroup interaction in the conditions of a specific social system. They introduced new methods for studying individuals and groups - tests, questionnaires, interviews, which will be very widely used in the future. In addition, it was functionalism that gave impetus to the development of such current areas of psychological research as the development of children and adults, the psychology of individual differences, business psychology, advertising psychology, etc.
Specifics of scientific research in social psychology. Each of the features of scientific research mentioned here has specificity in social psychology. The model of scientific research proposed in the logic and methodology of science is usually based on examples of the exact sciences and, above all, physics. As a result, many essential features for other scientific disciplines are lost. In particular, for social psychology it is necessary to specify a number of specific problems relating to each of these traits.
The first problem that arises here is the problem of empirical evidence. Data in social psychology can be either data about the open behavior of individuals in groups, or data characterizing some characteristics of the consciousness of these individuals, or psychological characteristics of the group itself. There is a heated debate in social psychology regarding the question of whether to “allow” data of these two types into research: in different theoretical orientations this issue is resolved in different ways.
Thus, in behavioral social psychology, only facts of overt behavior are taken as data; cognitivism, on the contrary, focuses on data that characterizes only the cognitive world of the individual: images, values, attitudes, etc. In other traditions, data from socio-psychological research can be represented by both types. But this immediately puts forward certain requirements for the methods of their collection. The source of any data in social psychology is a person, but one set of methods is suitable for recording acts of his behavior, the other for recording his cognitive formations. Recognition of both types of data as full data requires recognition and diversity of methods.
The data problem also has another side: how big should it be? According to the amount of data present in a socio-psychological study, they are all divided into two types: a) correlational, based on a large array of data, among which various kinds of correlations are established, and b) experimental, where the researcher works with a limited amount of data and where the meaning of the work is the random introduction of new variables by the researcher and control over them. Again, in this issue, the theoretical position of the researcher is very significant: what objects, from his point of view, are generally “acceptable” in social psychology (let us assume whether large groups are included in the number of objects or not).
The second feature of scientific research is the integration of data into principles, the construction of hypotheses and theories. And this trait is revealed in a very specific way in social psychology. It does not possess theories at all in the sense in which they are spoken of in the logic and methodology of science. As in other humanities, theories in social psychology are not deductive in nature, i.e. do not represent such a well-organized connection between provisions that any other can be deduced from one. Social-psychological theories lack the same level of rigor as, for example, theories of mathematics or logic. In such conditions, a hypothesis begins to occupy a particularly important place in the study. A hypothesis “represents” a theoretical form of knowledge in social psychological research. Hence the most important link in socio-psychological research is the formulation of hypotheses. One of the reasons for the weakness of many studies is the lack of hypotheses in them or their illiterate construction.
On the other hand, no matter how difficult it is to build theories in social psychology, more or less complete knowledge here cannot develop in the absence of theoretical generalizations. Therefore, even a good hypothesis in a study is not a sufficient level of inclusion of theory in research practice: the level of generalizations obtained on the basis of testing a hypothesis and on the basis of its confirmation is still only the most primary form of “organization” of data. The next step is the transition to higher-level generalizations, to theoretical generalizations. Of course, it would be optimal to build some kind of general theory that explains all the problems of social behavior and the activities of an individual in a group, the mechanisms of the dynamics of the groups themselves, etc. But for now, it seems more accessible to develop so-called special theories (in a certain sense they can be called theories of middle rank), which cover a narrower sphere - some individual aspects of socio-psychological reality. Such theories include, for example, the theory of group cohesion, the theory of group decision making, the theory of leadership, etc. Just as the most important task of social psychology is the task of developing a special methodology, the creation of special theories is also extremely important here. Without this, the accumulated empirical material cannot be of value for making forecasts of social behavior, i.e. to solve the main problem of social psychology.
The third feature of scientific research, according to the requirements of the logic and methodology of science, is the mandatory testability of hypotheses and the construction of reasonable predictions on this basis. Testing hypotheses is, naturally, a necessary element of scientific research: without this element, strictly speaking, the research is generally meaningless. And at the same time, in testing hypotheses, social psychology experiences a number of difficulties associated with its dual status.
As an experimental discipline, social psychology is subject to the same standards for testing hypotheses that exist for any experimental sciences, where various models for testing hypotheses have long been developed. However, although it also has features of a humanitarian discipline, social psychology finds itself in difficulties associated with this characteristic. There is an old debate within the philosophy of neopositivism on the question of what testing of hypotheses and their verification actually means. Positivism declared only one form of verification legitimate, namely the comparison of the judgments of science with the data of direct sensory experience. If such a comparison is impossible, then it is impossible to say at all about the proposition being tested whether it is true or false; in this case it simply cannot be considered a judgment; it is a “pseudo-judgment.”
If you strictly follow this principle (i.e., accept the idea of “hard” verification), not a single more or less general judgment of science has the right to exist. From this follow two important consequences accepted by positivist-oriented researchers: 1) science can only use the experimental method (because only under these conditions is it possible to organize a comparison of judgments with data from direct sensory experience) and 2) science essentially cannot deal with theoretical knowledge (because not every theoretical position can be verified). The advancement of this requirement in the philosophy of neopositivism closed the possibilities for the development of any non-experimental science and placed restrictions on any theoretical knowledge in general; it has long been criticized. However, among experimental researchers there is still a certain nihilism regarding any form of non-experimental research: the combination within social psychology of two principles gives a certain scope for neglecting that part of the problem that cannot be studied by experimental methods, and where, therefore, it is impossible to verify hypotheses in the only form in which it is developed in the neopositivist version of the logic and methodology of science.
But in social psychology there are such subject areas as the field of research into the psychological characteristics of large groups, mass processes, where it is necessary to use completely different methods, and on the grounds that verification is impossible here, these areas cannot be excluded from the problems of science; Here we need to develop other ways to test the hypotheses put forward. In this part, social psychology is similar to most of the humanities and, like them, must assert the right to the existence of its deep specificity. In other words, here it is necessary to introduce other criteria of scientific character, in addition to those developed only on the material of the exact sciences. We cannot agree with the statement that any inclusion of elements of humanitarian knowledge lowers the “scientific standard” of the discipline: crisis phenomena in modern social psychology, on the contrary, show that it often loses precisely because of the lack of its “humanitarian orientation.”
Thus, all three requirements for scientific research formulated above turn out to be applicable in social psychology with certain reservations, which increases methodological difficulties.
