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Abstract development of the psyche and consciousness. Development of the psyche and consciousness Questions for self-preparation

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in the discipline: "General Psychology"

on the topic: "Development of the psyche and consciousness"

Introduction

1.1 Phylogeny

1.2 Mental development

2.2 Elementary sensory psyche

2.3 Perceptual psyche

2.4 Intelligence

2.5 Instincts

3. Consciousness as the highest stage of mental development

4. Prerequisites for the emergence of consciousness

5. The role of labor and tools of activity in the emergence of consciousness

6. Characteristics of consciousness

Conclusion

Introduction

psyche animal human consciousness

Each specific science differs from other sciences in the features of its subject, but in each science the subject and the object are differentiated, while in psychology such a distinction causes certain difficulties, since here both the object and the subject are a person.

The very definition of psychology appeared in the 16th century in Western European texts, translated from Latin - psychology, literally, understanding, knowledge of the soul. It is both scientific and everyday in nature. Scientific differs from everyday life in that it relies on the power of abstraction and universal human experience and discovers the laws that rule the world. But only by the middle of the 19th century did psychology, from disparate knowledge, become an independent science, but before that, ideas about the psyche (soul, consciousness, behavior) were not devoid of signs of scientific character. They were part of philosophy, pedagogy, medicine.

Scientific psychological knowledge is based on the doctrine of the human psyche, its properties (character, temperament, abilities), processes (sensation, perception, thinking, etc.) and states (apathy, anger, frustration).

I believe that the most important stage in the understanding of psychology is the study of the evolution of the psyche and the development of higher mental functions of a person, since this is the basis of his activity and behavior.

The purpose of this work is to consider the process of development of the psyche as a result of the evolution of matter, to comprehend the main stages of the development of the psyche in animals and to study the prerequisites for the emergence and characteristics of consciousness.

Tasks:

Carry out an analysis of information and reference literature

Consider the main stages of mental development in animals and the development of higher mental functions in humans

The problem of the development of the psyche and consciousness has been sufficiently developed in domestic and foreign literature, since it is the basis of psychology. This issue is discussed in particular detail in the works of S.L. Rubinstein. ,Vygotsky L.S., Gippenreiter Yu.B.

1. Development of the psyche in phylogenesis. Irritability and sensitivity

1.1 Phylogeny

Development of the psyche is consistent, progressive (albeit including individual moments of regression) and generally irreversible quantitative and qualitative changes in the psyche of living beings. These changes determine the transition of living beings from lower (most simple) to higher (most complex) forms of interaction with the environment. Determined by the biological, socio-historical and ontogenetic development of life, mental changes in this process of interaction are one of its important factors. Scientific research the emergence and development of the psyche - the path to understanding its nature and essence. The problem of the development of the psyche has three aspects of study: the emergence and development of the psyche in the animal world (phylogeny); the emergence and development of human consciousness; development of the psyche in human ontogenesis, i.e. from birth to the end of life.

Phylogenesis (Greek phyle - genus, tribe, species; genos - origin) is the historical formation of a group of organisms. In psychology, phylogenesis is understood as the process of emergence and historical development(evolution) of the psyche and behavior of animals; the emergence and evolution of forms of consciousness in the course of human history.

Ontogenesis is the development of an individual as opposed to the development of a species (phylogeny). Ontogenesis of the psyche means its development from birth to the end of the life of a person or animal.

Each person in the process of ontogenesis, as it were, repeats in a “compressed” form the entire process of evolutionary development of species.

The driving force of all development is the struggle of internal contradictions, the struggle between the old and the new, between the obsolete and the emerging. This is precisely the source of mental development. Mental development is always the emergence of something new, the transition to which has a spasmodic character.

The development of the psyche in the animal world is closely related to the emergence and development nervous system, especially the brain.

There are different approaches to understanding which object has a psyche:

1) anthropopsychism (R. Descartes) - the psyche is inherent only in man;

2) panpsychism (French materialists) - the universal spirituality of nature, all nature, the whole world has a psyche (including stone);

3) biopsychism - psyche is a property of living nature (also inherent in plants);

4) brain-psychism (K.K. Platonov) - the psyche is only in organisms with a tubular nervous system that have a brain (with this approach, insects do not have a psyche, since they have a nodular nervous system, without a pronounced brain);

5) neuropsychism (C. Darwin) - the psyche is characteristic only of organisms that have a nervous system;

6) the criterion for the appearance of the rudiments of the psyche in living organisms is the presence of sensitivity (A.N. Leontiev) - the ability to respond to vitally insignificant environmental stimuli (sound, smell, etc.), which are signals for vital stimuli (food, danger) thanks to their objectively stable connection. The criterion of sensitivity is the ability to form conditioned reflexes - a natural connection of an external or internal stimulus with a particular activity through the nervous system.

Evolutionary theory states that the most adapted individuals to a given environment will leave more offspring than the less adapted ones, whose descendants will gradually decrease and disappear. This theory allows us to understand how the evolution of behavior and psyche occurred from the time of the appearance of life on Earth to the present day. The psyche arises and develops in animals precisely because otherwise they could not navigate the environment and exist.

1.2 Mental development

How did the development of psyche and behavior in animals begin and proceed? It is impossible to accurately answer this question materialistically now, when practically no traces of these processes have remained on Earth for a long time. The simplest creatures living today—owners of elementary forms of psychic reflection—are not those with which the evolution of the psyche probably began. After all, together with man and the other living world, they have gone through millions of years of evolution, and one can hardly count on the fact that they have not changed over such a colossal time. Now, at best, we can make more or less probable assumptions about how it all happened, began and went.

One of the hypotheses concerning the stages and levels of development of mental reflection, starting from the simplest animals and ending with humans, was proposed by A.N. Leontiev in the book “Problems of psyche development”, highlighting three stages of development of the animal psyche:

1) at the stage of elementary sensitivity, the animal reacts only to individual properties of objects in the external world;

2) at the stage of objective perception, the animal’s activity is determined by the influence not of individual properties of objects, but of things as a whole. Reflection of reality is carried out in the form of holistic images;

3) the stage of intelligence is characterized by even more complex activities and complex forms of reflecting reality. Essential for this stage is the ability to solve two-phase problems that require preliminary preparatory actions for their solution. Peculiarities of the psyche of animals are revealed in their behavior. There are congenital and acquired forms of animal behavior during life.

Complex acts of behavior aimed at satisfying biological needs and based on unconditioned reflexes are called instincts. There are instincts of nutrition, self-preservation, reproduction, etc. Instincts are characterized by their relative constancy, uniformity of manifestation in animals of the same species.

Individually acquired ways of animal behavior fixed in exercises are called skills. That is, a skill is an automated way of performing an action, formed during the exercise. The formation of skills depends on the level of development of the nervous system and psyche of animals. The higher the animal’s level of development, the easier and faster its skills are formed, the more complex in nature they can be.

Intellectual behavior is a type of behavior that is the pinnacle of the mental development of animals and is expressed primarily in the animal’s ability to solve certain visual and effective problems. The intellectual behavior of animals is characterized by their “invention” of new ways to solve a problem, the use of external objects as tools, avoiding obstacles, solving two-phase problems, the phenomenon of insight (suddenly finding a solution), etc.

The actions of great apes are primarily of an intellectual nature. However, we note that the intellectual actions of animals, unlike human ones, do not follow from the knowledge of objective laws and are not realized by them, are not generalized and are not transmitted in “human” ways (through speech, tools and products of labor). Intellectual actions of even great apes are extremely elementary in nature and do not go beyond the range of tasks that arise in the natural conditions of their life. A feature of the behavior of great apes is their imitation (for example, a monkey can “sweep” the floor, “put out” a fire, etc.). But monkeys imitate not the result of an action, but the action itself. Imitation of the result of actions has not been proven in monkeys. Intellectual behavior is the pinnacle of animal mental development. It is characterized by the transfer of what has been learned to new situations, but there is no generalization of the solution method in the abstract. All development of the animal psyche is subject to biological laws (heredity, natural selection).

The intelligence of monkeys is qualitatively different from human thinking. The monkey solves very specific problems associated with stimuli that directly affect it. She cannot realize the meaninglessness of her actions. For example, having once used a ladder to reach a bait suspended from the ceiling near a wall, the monkey then tries to use the same ladder to reach a bait suspended from the ceiling in the middle of the room.

The intelligence of monkeys, for all its apparent complexity, is limited. It is entirely determined by the way of life and purely biological laws. The monkey is not capable of understanding cause-and-effect relationships. She is capable of solving only those problems that occur in the natural conditions of her life.

The development of the animal psyche is determined purely biological laws. It is biological conditioning that makes the animal psyche, even in its highest manifestations, qualitatively different from human consciousness, which from the very beginning has a social character.

Later it was finalized and clarified by K.E. Fabry based on the latest zoopsychological data, so now it is more correct to call it the Leontiev-Fabry concept. The entire history of the development of the psyche and behavior of animals, according to this concept, is divided into a number of stages and levels. There are two stages of the elementary sensory psyche and the perceptual psyche. The first includes two levels: the lowest and the highest, and the second - three levels: the lowest, the highest and the highest.

1.3 Stages and levels of development of the psyche and behavior of animals

Each stage and its corresponding levels are characterized by a certain combination of motor activity and forms of mental reflection, and in the process of evolutionary development both interact with each other. Improving movements leads to improved adaptive activity of the body. This activity, in turn, helps to improve the nervous system, expand its capabilities, and creates conditions for the development of new types of activities and forms of reflection. Both are mediated by the improvement of the psyche.

The stage of the elementary sensory psyche is characterized by primitive elements of sensitivity that do not go beyond the simplest sensations. This stage is associated with the allocation in animals of a specialized organ that carries out complex manipulative movements of the body with objects of the external world. Such an organ in lower animals is the jaws. They replace hands, which only humans and some higher animals have. The jaws retain their role as an organ of manipulation and exploration of the surrounding world for a long period of time, right up to the release of the animal's forelimbs for this purpose.

The lowest level of the stage of the elementary sensory psyche, at which the simplest and lower multicellular organisms living in an aquatic environment are located, is characterized by the fact that here irritability is presented in a fairly developed form - the ability of living organisms to respond to biologically significant environmental influences by increasing the level of their activity, changing direction and speed of movement.

Sensitivity is the ability of a living organism to respond to biologically neutral properties of the environment, but the readiness to learn by the method of conditioned reflexes is still absent. The motor activity of animals does not yet have a searching, purposeful character.

The highest level of the stage of elementary sensory psyche, which living beings such as annelids and gastropods reach, is characterized by the appearance of the first elementary sensations and jaws as an organ of manipulation. The variability of behavior here is complemented by the emergence of the ability to acquire and consolidate life experience through conditioned reflex connections. At this level there is already sensitivity. Motor activity improves and acquires the character of a targeted search for biologically beneficial effects and avoidance of biologically harmful effects.

Types of adaptive behavior acquired as a result of mutations and transmitted from generation to generation thanks to natural selection are formalized as instincts - genetically fixed, structurally and functionally quite rigid systems of expediently arranged organic and behavioral reactions.

A qualitative leap in the development of the psyche and behavior of animals occurs at the perceptual stage. Here sensations are combined into images, and the external environment begins to be perceived in the form of materially formed objects, dissected into details in perception, but figuratively integral objects, and not individual sensations. In the behavior of animals, there is an obvious tendency to focus on objects in the surrounding world and the relationships between them. Along with instincts, more flexible forms of adaptive behavior arise in the form of complex, variable motor skills.

Motor activity is very developed, including movements associated with changes in direction and speed. Animal activity becomes more flexible and purposeful. All this occurs already at the lowest level of the perceptual psyche, at which, by assumption, there are fish, other lower vertebrates, some species of invertebrates and insects.

The highest level of the perceptual psyche includes higher vertebrates: birds and some mammals. In them one can already detect elementary forms of thinking, manifested in the ability to solve problems in a practical, visually effective way. Here we discover a readiness to learn, master methods for solving such problems, memorize them and transfer them to new conditions (within limited limits, however).

Monkeys reach the highest level of development of the perceptual psyche. Their perception of the external world is, apparently, already figurative in nature, and learning occurs through the mechanisms of imitation and transfer. In such a psyche, the ability to practically solve a wide class of problems that require research and manipulation of objects is particularly highlighted. In the activity of animals, a special indicative-exploratory, or preparatory, phase is distinguished. It consists of studying the situation before taking practical action in it.

The development of the psyche in the animal world is closely related to the emergence and development of the nervous system, especially the brain. The nervous system in lower animals exists in various forms: reticular, circular, radial, etc.

Thanks to the nervous system, the body begins to function as a single whole. As the nervous system develops, it sinks under the muscle tissue, and the longitudinal cords become more pronounced. At the same time, the anterior end of the body begins to acquire increasing importance, the accumulation and compaction of nervous elements occurs in it - the brain gradually appears.

Sensitivity arises on the basis of irritability as a universal property of living matter. Sensitivity is the first manifestation of the psyche and an indicator of its occurrence. “Sensitivity orients the organism in the environment, performing a signaling function” (A.N. Leontyev), i.e. the body begins to react to biologically neutral stimuli, which only signal biologically significant stimuli.

2. Stages of mental development in the process of evolution of the animal world

2.1 Sensitivity and irritability

A characteristic sign of a mental reaction is the body’s sensitivity to indifferent stimuli, which, under certain conditions (their coincidence with biologically important stimuli) signal the possibility or need to satisfy the biological needs of the body.

Sensitivity arises from irritability. Sensitivity, A. Leontyev believes, is genetically nothing more than irritability to influences that orient the body in the environment, performing a signaling function.

Irritability is inherent in organic nature in general. Thanks to her flora innate reactions occur, which are called tropisms.

The theory of tropisms about animals was developed by J. Loeb.

Tropism is the automatic movements in a certain direction of plants and simple organisms, which are determined by the dissimilarity of physico-chemical processes in symmetrical parts of the body, which are caused by the unilateral influence of stimuli on the body.

However, these animal reactions are not mechanical, as J. Loeb believed - under the influence of experience they gain plasticity and variability.

According to the types of energy that act on organisms under the conditions of their existence, they distinguish between phototropism, chemotropism, heliotropism, galvanotropism, etc. For example, sunflower moves under the influence of photo and thermotropism; in the direction of germination of roots and stems, in the behavior of worms and some insects that burrow into the ground or crawl to the tops of plants, the effect of geo-, photo- or thermo-tropism appears.

There are the following stages of development of the animal psyche:

Elementary sensory psyche;

Perceptual psyche;

Intelligence.

2.2 Stage of elementary sensory psyche

A characteristic feature of this stage of mental development is that the behavior of animals is determined by the effect on the body of individual properties of the objects in which the animals live - chemical, light, temperature, etc.

This stage is characteristic primarily of invertebrates and those vertebrates that live in water, amphibians and reptiles that do not have objective perception. At this stage, differentiation of sensitivity to light, touch, smell, and motor sensitivity occurs, as a result of which analyzers arise and develop - tangential, visual, olfactory and auditory.

The level of development of analyzers and their receptor part depends on the characteristics of the living conditions of living beings. Yes, spiders and insects have well-developed tangential sensitivity (on tentacles, wings). Chemical sensitivity is developed in spiders and other invertebrates. It differentiates them into olfactory and gustatory sensitivity.

The Khrushchev has 50 thousand olfactory organs, and the drone has over 30 thousand. Insects are sensitive to very slight odors. The bee distinguishes the smell of orange peel from 43 ethereal odors. Bees react to smell and do not accept other bees.

Insects are topochemical creatures, that is, those that have zones in the body that are sensitive to chemical irritations.

The sensitivity of insects to temperature changes and visual sensitivity are well known. Bees distinguish colors and shapes of flowers, but not geometric figures. Most insects are deaf. Only those of them have hearing that, with their own movements (wings), cause sufficiently intense vibrations of sound waves.

2.3 Perceptual psyche stage

On its basis, the perceptual stage of animal activity develops.

This stage is characterized by displaying objects as a whole, and not their individual properties, as is observed at the sensory stage of mental development. For example, if a male is protected from food, then he will react not only to the object where his activity is directed (to food), but also to the conditions under which this activity occurs, that is, he will try to overcome the obstacle. At the sensory stage, such a reaction to the conditions under which animal life occurs does not occur.

The stage of the perceptual psyche is characteristic of mammals. It is predetermined by significant anatomical and physiological changes in the body: development cerebral hemispheres brain, and especially their cortex and distant analyzers (visual, auditory), increasing the integration activity of the cortex.

The conditioned reflex activity of the cerebral cortex at the level of perceptual mental activity is the basis for the formation of imagination. The duration of storage of memory images increases with the evolution of vertebrates. Thus, with a single excitation, figurative memory lasts for 10-20 seconds in a rat, up to 10 minutes in a dog, and up to 16-48 hours in a monkey.

The duration of storage of memory images is a valuable feature of the perceptual level of mental development. This feature is an important prerequisite for the emergence of intelligent behavior in animals.

At the stage of the perceptual psyche, complex changes occur in the processes of distinguishing and generalizing ideas. Differentiation and generalization of images of objects arise. These generalizations are not the sum of individual sensations caused by the simultaneous action of influences, properties of various objects, but their unity, a kind of integration, which is the basis for transferring the operation from one specific situation into another, objectively similar to it, which significantly complicates the behavior of animals on at this stage mental development.

The success of differentiation and generalization depends not so much on the degree of similarity as on biological role what affects the animal. The development of generalization at the stage of the perceptual psyche is associated with the development of integrative zones of the cerebral cortex, which combine movements into a holistic operation (motor fields), sensations into a holistic image (sensory fields).

2.4 Stage of intelligence

I. Pavlov noted that the analytical-synthetic activity of the dog’s cerebral cortex is concrete, elementary thinking. However, the mental activity and intelligence of animals is not at all the same as the human mind. There are very big differences between them.

The intelligence stage is characterized by problem solving. Under experimental conditions, a monkey (chimpanzee) could not directly reach food (banana, orange, etc.). In the cage where she was, there was a stick with which she could get food.

The task was set: whether the monkey would “guess” to use a stick to get food. The chimpanzee first tries to reach the food with his hand, but fails. Failure distracts the monkey from eating for a while. She, seeing the stick, manipulates it. If the stick and food fall into the same field of vision, the monkey points the staff at the food and takes possession of it, pushing it towards itself.

Such studies have been carried out in different variations. The monkeys successfully solved the tasks assigned to them in the experiment. The most difficult of them were two-phase tasks, which consisted in the fact that food could be obtained with a long stick, but first this long stick had to be reached with a short one, which was within immediate reach. The monkeys solved this task in the same way. Monkeys are able to combine into one act two actions of a sequential operation, of which the first is preparatory for the implementation of the second, decisive operation (two-phase tasks).

The psyche of most mammals remains at the perceptual stage. But among anthropoids - humanoid apes - reflective activity rises to one more stage of its development. This highest level is called the stage of intelligence, or “manual thinking” (A. Leontiev).

As studies have shown, monkeys, especially chimpanzees, are characterized by elementary mental activity, the rudiments of visual-action thinking. Monkeys learn and relearn faster than other animals, and exhibit greater flexibility in the processes of excitation and inhibition.

The intellectual behavior of anthropoids is associated with the development of the cerebral cortex, especially frontal lobes and in their frontal zones. If part of these zones is destroyed in a monkey, then solving two-phase problems with them becomes impossible.

The stage of intelligence, characteristic of higher mammals and reaching the highest level of development in anthropoid apes, is the prehistory of the emergence and development of human consciousness.

All stages of animal mental development are characterized by fixedness and individual variability of behavior.

2.5 Instincts

Fixed forms of behavior that are transmitted hereditarily are instinctive forms of behavior

In the life activity of animals it is easy to notice their mutual relationships. These relationships are manifested in peculiar movements, postures, and acoustic signals. At different stages of development of living beings, these methods of relationships and mutual influence gain varying degrees of complexity. With their help, animals signal danger, food, anger, fear, and transmit this or that information. But these types of relationships, this “language” of animals is instinctive in nature, is a revelation emotional states. Unlike human language, animal “language” is not a means of transmitting individual experience to other animals.

Instinctive forms of behavior are a powerful motive for the body. Depending on living conditions and the state of the body, certain acts of behavior, reproduction, protection, acts related to nutrition, etc. arise, alternating.

Instincts are acts of interaction between the body and the environment, the mechanism of which is a system of unconditioned reflexes.

Instinctive activity often includes the mechanisms of tropisms. A scientific explanation of the origin of instincts was given by Charles Darwin (1809 -1882), proving that the structure of animal behavior is an organic unity and becomes the result of natural selection, those changes in physical organization and behavior that were caused by external conditions and were fixed in the body as a result of expediency them for the life of organisms. There are instincts of nutrition, reproduction, self-preservation and other forms of generic or species adaptation to the environment.

In the individual adaptation of animals to living conditions, instincts seem to be meaningful actions, but if such a chain of instinctive actions is disrupted, animals still continue to carry out the following acts, acting instinctively in the chain, although this action does not ensure success.

Thus, a chicken continues to sit on the deposits, even if the eggs are removed from under it, and a bee, having begun to pollinate honeycombs filled with honey, will continue to do so even if the honey is released from the honeycombs. So, instinctive actions are unconscious, mechanical actions.

Instinctive actions in the individual life of animals can change. For example, you can achieve “peaceful” coexistence between a fox and a chicken, a cat and a mouse. However, such an individual change in instinct is not hereditary.

Variability in fixed forms of behavior is manifested in the acquisition of new skills and methods of action that arise as a result of repeated natural expedient execution of movements and actions or in the process of training.

From the above we can conclude that consciousness is the highest stage of mental development.

3. Consciousness as the highest stage of mental development

Consciousness is the highest, human-specific form of generalized reflection of the objective stable properties and patterns of the surrounding world, the formation of a person’s internal model of the external world, as a result of which knowledge and transformation are achieved surrounding reality.

The function of consciousness is to formulate the goals of activity, to preliminary mentally construct actions and anticipate their results, which ensures reasonable regulation of human behavior and activity. A person’s consciousness includes a certain attitude towards the environment and other people.

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

Consciousness is possible only in the conditions of the existence of language, speech, which arises simultaneously with consciousness in the process of labor.

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

Consciousness develops in humans only through social contacts. In phylogenesis, human consciousness developed and becomes possible only under conditions of active influence on nature, in conditions of labor activity.

There are two layers of consciousness:

1. Existential consciousness (consciousness for being), including: 1) biodynamic properties of movements, experience of actions; 2) sensory images.

2. Reflective consciousness (consciousness for consciousness), including: 1) meaning; 2) meaning.

Meaning is the content of social consciousness, assimilated by a person. These can be operational meanings, objective, verbal meanings, everyday and scientific meanings - concepts.

Meaning is a subjective understanding and attitude towards a situation and information. Misunderstandings are associated with difficulties in comprehending meanings. The processes of mutual transformation of meanings and senses (understanding of meanings and meaning of meanings) act as a means of dialogue and mutual understanding.

The world of industrial, objective-practical activity correlates with the biodynamic fabric of movement and action (the existential layer of consciousness). The world of ideas, imaginations, cultural symbols and signs correlates with the sensory fabric (of existential consciousness). Consciousness is born and is present in all these worlds. The epicenter of consciousness is the consciousness of one’s own “I”.

At the existential layer of consciousness, very complex problems are solved, since for effective behavior in a given situation it is necessary to update the image and the necessary motor program needed at the moment, i.e. the image of action must fit into the image of the world. The world of ideas, concepts, everyday and scientific knowledge correlates with the meaning (of reflective consciousness).

Consciousness: 1) is born in being, 2) reflects being, 3) creates being.

Functions of consciousness:

1. Reflective;

2 regulatory and evaluation.;

3. generative (creative);

4. reflexive function - the main function that characterizes the essence of consciousness.

The objects of reflection can be:

Reflection of the world;

Thinking about it;

Reflection processes;

Ways a person regulates his behavior;

Your personal consciousness.

The existential layer contains the origins and beginnings of the reflective layer, since meanings and meanings are born in the existential layer.

The meaning expressed in a word contains:

Operational and substantive meaning;

Meaningful and objective action;

Words and language do not exist only as language; they objectify the forms of thinking that we master through the use of language.

4. Prerequisites for the emergence of consciousness

With the development of sciences, especially history and biology, views on the origin of man and his consciousness gradually formed.

During the biological stage of development of the psyche, the prerequisites for the emergence of a higher, specifically human form of the psyche—consciousness—were formed. Knowledge of the biological stage of development of the psyche as the prehistory of human consciousness makes it possible to scientifically explain its occurrence. Experiments conducted with monkeys testified to the beginnings of elementary thinking in higher animals, which is a prerequisite for the emergence of human consciousness. However, the “thinking” of apes has a number of specific animal characteristics that clearly indicate the evolutionary barrier between “smart” animals and conscious humans. Higher animals, possessing elementary intellectual capabilities, do not reflect the internal, essential connections of phenomena; they are not capable of abstraction. Therefore, we can say that the psyche of animals, even the most “intelligent,” appears to be a dynamic mediator between the physiological needs that ensure the survival of the species and the ecological niche of its habitat.

Another prerequisite for the emergence of human consciousness was the complication of living conditions for humanoid creatures - anthropoids. Under the influence of living conditions, their central nervous system acquired a more complex structure and function. In the cerebral hemispheres, the parietal, temporal and especially frontal lobes gradually developed, carrying out higher adaptive functions.

They developed very noticeably in humans under the influence of labor. In a monkey, these shares are equal to 0.4 percent of the cerebral hemispheres, in orangutans and chimpanzees - 3.4 percent, and in humans - 10 percent.

Human behavior is characterized by the ability to be distracted from a specific, visual situation and act consciously. Consciousness is unique to humans and is a social form of reflection. This means that in the strictly biological aspect, the physiological basis of consciousness is a high degree of organization of the central nervous system, primarily the brain. However, the formation and functioning of the human psyche, unlike the psyche of animals, are not determined by laws biological evolution, but by the laws of historical development. The social prerequisites for the emergence of consciousness include social work and speech.

Animals do not have these mental characteristics. They don't differentiate themselves from environment, but passively adapt to it.

5. The role of labor and tools of activity in the emergence of consciousness

Drastic changes in living conditions have caused great difficulties in meeting the needs of the animal world - the possibilities of easily obtaining food have decreased, and the climate has worsened. Human ancestors had to either die out or qualitatively change their behavior, which they did, turning to joint pre-labor actions that helped them survive.

The human psyche was prepared by the entire course of the evolution of matter, but when talking about the biological prerequisites for the emergence of consciousness, we must not forget that man is a product of social relations.

The biological prerequisite for social relations was a herd, which allowed all individuals to best protect themselves from enemies and provide mutual assistance to each other. The factor influencing the transformation of a monkey into a person, a herd into a society, was labor activity, i.e. such activity that is performed by people during the joint production and use of tools.

The instinctive communication of human ancestors within the herd was gradually replaced by communication based on “production” activity. The change in relations between members of the community - joint activities, mutual exchange of products of activity - contributed to the transformation of the herd into a society. Thus, the reason for the humanization of human animal-like ancestors was the emergence of labor and the formation of human society.

Emerging labor activity influenced the development of social relations, developing social relations influenced the improvement of labor activity.

Human consciousness also developed in work - the highest form of reflection in the evolutionary series, which is characterized by the identification of objective stable properties of objective activity and the transformation of the surrounding reality carried out on this basis.

Making, using and preserving tools for future use - all these actions lead to greater independence from the direct influence of the environment. From generation to generation, the tools of ancient people become more and more complex - from well-chosen fragments of stones with sharp edges to specialized, collectively made tools. Such tools are assigned constant operations: stabbing, cutting, chopping. It is in this connection that a qualitative difference arises between the human environment and the animal environment. As has already been said, an animal lives in a world of random things, while a person creates for himself a world of permanent objects. The tools created by people are the material carriers of the operations, actions and activities of previous generations. Through tools, one generation passes on its experience to another in the form of operations, actions, and activities.

In work activity, a person’s attention is directed to the tool being created, and, consequently, to his own activity. Since the activity of an individual is included in the activity of the whole society, it is aimed at satisfying not only personal, but also social needs. Therefore, there is a need for a person to have a critical attitude towards his activities. Human activity becomes conscious activity.

In the early stages social development people's thinking is limited in accordance with the still low level of people's social practice. The higher the level of production of tools, the correspondingly higher the level of reflection. At a high level of tool production, the integral activity of tool making is divided into a number of units, each of which can be performed by different members of society. The separation of operations pushes back even further final goal- getting food. Only a person with abstract thinking can realize this pattern. This means that the production of tools is high in level, developing with public organization labor is the most important condition in the formation of conscious activity. By influencing nature, changing it, man at the same time changes his own nature. Under the influence of labor, new functions of the hand were consolidated: the hand acquired the greatest dexterity of movements, due to the gradually improving anatomical structure, the ratio of the shoulder and forearm changed, and mobility increased in all joints, especially the hand. However, the hand developed not only as a grasping instrument, but also as an organ of cognition of objective reality; it gradually turned into a specialized organ of active touch. Touch is a specifically human property of cognition of the world. The hand is “a subtle organ of touch,” wrote I.M. Sechenov, “and this organ sits on the hand, as if on a rod, capable of not only shortening, lengthening and moving in all possible directions, but also feeling in a certain way each such movement.” The hand is an organ of touch not only because the sensitivity to touch and pressure on the palm and fingertips is much greater than on other parts of the body (for example, on the back, shoulder, lower leg), but also because, being an organ formed in work and adapted for influencing objects, the hand is capable of active touch. That is why the hand gives us valuable knowledge about the essential properties of objects in the material world.

The development of the hand went in conjunction with the development of the whole organism. The specialization of the hand as an organ of labor contributed to the development of upright walking.

The human hand has acquired the ability to perform a wide variety of functions that are completely uncharacteristic of the limbs of the human ancestor. That is why F. Engels spoke of the hand not only as an organ of labor, but also as a product of labor.

The functioning of the hand had a particularly great influence on the development of the brain. The hand, as a developing specialized organ, should also have formed a representation in the brain. This caused not only an increase in the mass of the brain, but also a complication of its structure.

The actions of the working hands were constantly monitored by vision. In the process of learning the world, in the process of work, many connections are formed between the organs of vision and touch, as a result of which the effect of the stimulus changes - it is more deeply, more adequately recognized by the person.

The emergence and development of labor led to an incomparably more successful satisfaction of the needs of mankind for food, shelter, etc. However, the social relations of people qualitatively changed biological needs and gave rise to new, strictly human, needs. Thus, with the development of objects of labor, the need for them arose.

Thus, labor served as the reason for the development of human society, the formation of human needs, the development of human consciousness, which not only reflects, but also transforms the world.

6.Characteristics of consciousness

In the structure of consciousness, Russian psychologists, following A.V. Petrovsky, consider four main characteristics.

1. Consciousness is considered a body of knowledge about the world around us. Also, it allows you to make this knowledge common to all people. The very word “consciousness” presupposes this: consciousness is a joint, cumulative knowledge, i.e. individual consciousness does not have the opportunity to develop separately from social consciousness and language, which is the basis of abstract thinking - the highest form of consciousness. Thus, the structure of consciousness includes all cognitive processes - sensation, perception, memory, thinking, imagination, with the help of which a person continuously replenishes his own knowledge about the world and about himself. Failure to comply with any of the cognitive processes automatically becomes a violation of consciousness as a whole.

2. A clear distinction between subject and object, between “I” and “not I” is recorded in consciousness. Man is the only creature that is capable of distinguishing itself from the rest of the world and opposing itself to it. At the initial stage of its development, human consciousness is directed outward. A person, endowed with sense organs from birth on the basis of data delivered by analyzers, recognizes the world as something separate from him, and no longer identifies himself with his tribe, with natural phenomena, etc.

In addition, only a person is capable of turning his own mental activity towards himself. From this we can conclude that the structure of consciousness includes self-awareness and self-knowledge - the ability to make a conscious assessment of one’s own behavior, one’s personal qualities, one’s role and place in social relations. The identification of oneself as a subject and the formation of self-awareness occurred in phylogenesis and occurs in the process of ontogenesis of each person.

3. Consciousness ensures the implementation of human goal-setting activity. Upon completion of the labor process, a real result is achieved, which in an ideal form was already formed in the mind before the labor process began. A person imagined in advance the final goal and product of his activity, thereby forming motivation. He planned actions in accordance with this idea, subordinated his volitional efforts to it, and adjusted the activity already at the stage of its implementation so that the final result corresponded as much as possible to the initial idea about it. Violation in the implementation of goal-setting activity, its coordination and direction is considered one of the types of disorders of consciousness.

4. The structure of consciousness also includes the emotional sphere of a person. It is responsible for the formation of emotional assessments in interpersonal relationships and self-esteem, emotional reactions to phenomena in the surrounding world, to internal phenomena. If a person’s emotional assessments and reactions are adequate, this helps regulate his mental processes and behavior, and correct relationships with other people. In some mental illnesses, a disturbance of consciousness is expressed by a disorder specifically in the area of ​​feelings and relationships.

Conclusion

Psychology studies the patterns of human mental development. Without knowledge of the main stages of evolution and formation of the psyche, it is impossible to understand the scientific foundations of psychology. It is impossible to understand how and under the influence of what human consciousness is formed, what is at its basis and on what its formation depends. The study of the essence and patterns of development of the human psyche is the subject of scientific psychology.

This issue is also relevant at the present stage of development of psychological science and has been sufficiently developed in the works of leading scientists, which allows us to understand the general patterns of mental development and learn about methods scientific knowledge psyche, understand inner world person.

List of used literature

1. Galperin P.Ya. “Introduction to Psychology.” M., 1999.

2. Leontyev A.N. "Problems of mental development." M.: Publishing house Mosk. Univ., 1981.

3. Rubinshtein S.L. "Basics general psychology." St. Petersburg, 2007.

4. http://psyfaq.ru/

5. http://yurpsy.com

6. http://psihologia.biz/

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Questions for self-study

1. Definition of psychology. Basic views on the subject of psychology.

2. The practical significance of psychology in human life.

3. Psychology at the present stage, its connection with other sciences.

4. Traditional and non-traditional methods of psychological research.

Vygotsky L. S. Collected works.: In 6 volumes - M., 1983.

Godefroy J. What is psychology. -M., 1992. -T.1.

James W. Psychology. - M., 1991.

Lange N. N. Psychic world. - M., 1996.

Nemov R. S. Psychology. - M., 1995. - T. 1. Psychology: Dictionary. - M., 1990.

Rubinshtein S. L. Fundamentals of general psychology: In 2 volumes - M 1989.

Stolyarenko L. D. Fundamentals of Psychology. - Rostov-on-Don, 1997.

Yaroshevsky M. G. History of psychology. - M, 1985.

1. Brain and consciousness

2. Development of the psyche in the animal world.

3. The origin of consciousness in human society.

4. Consciousness and self-awareness as the highest form of mental reflection.

According to reflection theory, mental activity is a function of the brain. Psyche is a systemic quality that manifests itself in an ideal (objective) reflection of the surrounding world. Based on this understanding of the psyche, two functions of the psyche are distinguished - reflective and regulating. We can talk about mental reflection when surrounding a person the world appears before him as the world perceived by him. Mental regulation is the establishment of relationships between the bearer of the psyche and the surrounding reality, which appears in the form of a response to a reflected stimulus.

The domestic physiologist I.M. Sechenov explained the functioning of the psyche by the reflex activity of the brain, drawing a conclusion about the reflexive nature of the psyche as a whole. He believed that the basis of the work of the brain (i.e., the psyche) is a reflex (Latin “reflection”), which is a naturally occurring response of the body to irritations coming from the external environment and internal organs. “All facts of conscious and unconscious life, according to the method of origin, are reflexes” (I.M. Sechenov). Thus, mental activity is the result of the transformation of signals from external and internal environment occurring in the brain.

Russian psychologist A. R. Luria, based on his research, proposed a theory of vertical regulation of the brain, which explains the peculiarities of the functioning of the psyche. He identified three brain blocks. The first of them is called an energy block, or tone block. It is located deep in the brain, within the upper parts of the brain stem, and also covers parts such as the midbrain, hindbrain, hypothalamus, thalamus and reticular formation. The processes occurring in the nerve cells of this block provide flows of excitation, which leads to a state of wakefulness in the body. If the influx of excitation impulses disappears, the person falls into a drowsy state, and then into sleep. So, the first block provides energy nutrition to the brain and the body as a whole.



The second block of the human brain is located in the posterior parts of the cerebral hemispheres (occipital region, parietal and temporal regions). This is a block for receiving, processing and storing information that reaches a person from the outside world. Different parts of the brain perform specific functions here. The occipital region is responsible for visual work, the parietal region is responsible for tactile-motor activity, and the temporal region is responsible for auditory-vestibular activity.

The third block of the brain is located in its anterior sections and includes the frontal lobes. This is a programming, regulation and control unit human activity. The work of this block allows a person to form and maintain his intentions, create action programs, monitor and regulate their progress, and also control their implementation.

For the first time, the role of the frontal lobes was noted by scientists after an incident with the senior foreman of the road construction team, Gage. He suffered a head injury from a crowbar that went through his left cheek and exited near the crown of his head. The frontal lobes were damaged. Gage remained in a stunned state for an hour, after which he was taken to a surgeon, where he was treated. After recovering from his injury, Gage lived another 12 years. All this time he remained a capable person. At the same time, he experienced personality changes. Before the accident, he was a tactful, balanced person, but after it he became impatient, rude, stubborn and indecisive. Because of this, most researchers believe that the most noticeable effect of frontal lobe damage is personality change.

The functional organization of the human brain differs in some ways. The point is that the right and left hemispheres of a person perform different functions. This was discovered in 1960 in the laboratory of Roger Sperry, in which an operation called “split brain” was performed, which involved separating the fibers of the corpus callosum, which connects the two hemispheres. As a result, the so-called functional asymmetry of the brain was discovered, which makes it possible to find out what functions the left and right hemispheres perform separately.

In laboratory clinical conditions, experiments were carried out in which electrodes were applied to patients on one half of the head, which led to inhibition of brain activity in one of the hemispheres. As a result, man existed with only one waking hemisphere. Thus, researchers have the opportunity to understand what mental functions each hemisphere is responsible for. The main functions of the left hemisphere of the brain are speech, reading, and counting. The functions of the right hemisphere are operating with images, spatial orientation, distinguishing musical tones, melodies and recognizing complex objects (human faces), producing dreams.

Thus, the left hemisphere of the brain is the base of logical thinking, and right hemisphere- the basis of imaginative, intuitive thinking. Most people exhibit hemispheric dominance, when the activity of one of the hemispheres is dominant and determines a person’s thinking and behavior. The level of manifestation of hemispheric dominance can be different - from hidden to obvious. There are significant differences in the functional organization of the human and animal brains. While in humans one of the hemispheres is dominant, in animals both hemispheres are equal.

In order to understand the specifics of the human psyche, it is necessary to answer the questions: when and why did the psyche arise in the course of biological evolution? How did the psyche develop and become more complex?

In the history of natural science, there have been various attempts to explain the emergence of the psyche in nature. Among them one can name the theory of “panpsychism”, according to which all nature, including inanimate ones (for example, stones), is endowed with a soul. The theory of “biopsychism” attributed a psyche to all living things, including plants. On the contrary, the theory of “anthropopsychism” greatly narrowed the circle of those with a psyche. According to it, the psyche exists. only in humans, and animals, like plants, are “only living automata.” The theory of “neuropsychism” attributed the psyche only to creatures with a nervous system. All of these points of view relate to debatable hypotheses rather than to well-developed theories.

However, among the many hypotheses, there is one that has received the greatest development and recognition. This is A. N. Leontiev’s hypothesis about the origin of the psyche. According to it, the criterion for the appearance of the psyche in living organisms is the presence of sensitivity - the ability to respond to vitally insignificant environmental stimuli (sound, smell, etc.), which signal vital stimuli (food, danger, etc.). The criterion of sensitivity is the ability to form conditioned reflexes. Based on the fact that such an ability is observed in almost all animals and is absent in plants, A. N. Leontiev speaks of the presence of the psyche specifically in the animal world.

During an experimental test of his hypothesis, A. N. Leontiev came to the conclusion that the development of the psyche in animals goes through a number of stages.

First The stage of development of the psyche in the animal world is called sensory or the stage of elementary sensitivity. At this stage, animals react only to individual properties of objects in the external world, and their behavior is determined by innate instincts (feeding, reproduction, self-preservation, etc.). Such animals include many protozoa (for example, slipper ciliates, green euglena, annelids, etc.).

Second The stage of development of the psyche in animals is called the stage of perceptual psyche or object perception. Representatives of this stage reflect external reality no longer in the form of individual sensations, but in the form of holistic images of objects, have the ability to learn, and demonstrate individually acquired behavioral skills. Animals such as vertebrates and arthropods are at this stage.

Third the stage was designated by A. N. Leontyev as the stage of intelligence. This stage is characterized by the presence in animals of the ability to reflect interdisciplinary connections and the situation as a whole. As a result, such animals are able, for example, to avoid obstacles and find ways to solve problems that require preliminary preparatory actions. The actions of many predators are intellectual in nature, but especially those of great apes and dolphins. And yet, the intellectual behavior of animals does not go beyond the scope of biological needs and operates only within the confines of a visual situation.

Thus, according to A. N. Leontiev, the psyche arises and develops in animals precisely because otherwise they could not navigate the environment and exist.

The human psyche is a higher level than the psyche of animals (Homo sapiens - Homo sapiens). The peculiarities of the human psyche arose in the process of anthropogenesis and the cultural history of mankind and were directly related to the transition of man from the biological to the social (social) path of development. The main event in this process was the emergence of consciousness. The leading factors in the emergence of consciousness were labor and language. This position received the greatest concrete psychological development in the works of such domestic psychologists as L. S. Vygotsky, S. Ya. Rubinstein, A. N. Leontiev, etc.

A. N. Leontiev has a hypothesis about the origin of consciousness. According to the definition, consciousness is a reflection of objective reality in which its “objective stable properties are highlighted, regardless of the subject’s relationship to it.” This definition emphasizes the idea that in humans, unlike animals, with the advent of consciousness, the world begins to be reflected independently of biological motives. How did this become possible? According to A. N. Leontiev, the impetus for the emergence of consciousness was the emergence of a new form of activity - collective labor. In the course of joint labor actions, the first elements of human speech appeared. Perhaps the first words indicated certain actions, tools, objects; these were also “orders” addressed to the partner in joint actions. The results of knowledge began to be recorded in words. A unique feature of human language is its ability to accumulate knowledge acquired by generations of people. Thanks to her, language became the carrier of social consciousness. Each person, in the course of individual development through language acquisition, becomes involved in “shared knowledge” and thanks to this, his own consciousness is formed.

Thus, according to A. N. Leontyev, a person’s mastery of the semantic meanings of language, along with collective work, played a major role in the formation of human consciousness.

L. S. Vygotsky, exploring the mechanisms of formation of higher mental functions (thinking, consciousness, self-awareness), noted that the development of consciousness in human society was carried out in the course of social interaction between people. L. S. Vygotsky outlined the scientific solution to the problem of the development of the human psyche in a concept that he called the cultural-historical theory of the human psyche. In this theory, he analyzes the reasons for the fundamental difference between the human psyche and animals. In his opinion, it consists in the fact that man has learned to master nature with the help of tools. This left a significant imprint on the development of the human psyche: he learned to master his own mental functions and control himself. For this he also used tools, but special, psychological ones. Such tools are signs or symbolic means that have cultural origin. The most typical system of signs is human speech. Thus, considering the problem of the formation of consciousness in human society, L. S. Vygotsky notes that the decisive role belongs to the word.

So, consciousness is a feature of the human psyche associated with cognitive activity hands as an organ of labor, and speech developing on the basis of labor. It is activity and communication that determine the structure of consciousness. In psychological terms, consciousness acts primarily as a process of a person’s awareness of the surrounding world and himself. Consciousness and self-awareness are inherent only in humans, but not in every state: it is absent in a newborn, in some categories of mentally ill people and, as a rule, in sleeping people. Consciousness and self-awareness are an active, active, transformative force that gives a person the ability to voluntarily control his behavior. With the help of consciousness, a person not only passively reflects the surrounding reality, but also changes the world.

Introduction

Man has a wonderful gift - the mind. Thanks to the mind, man gained the ability to think, analyze, and generalize. Since ancient times, thinkers have been intensely searching for a solution to the mystery of the phenomenon of human consciousness and psyche.

The path of development of ideas about the psyche can be divided into two periods - pre-scientific and scientific. Even in ancient times, it was discovered that along with the material, objective, external, objective world, there are immaterial, internal, subjective phenomena - human feelings, desires, memories. Every person is endowed with mental life. The first scientific ideas about the psyche arose in ancient world(Egypt, China, India, Greece, Rome). They were reflected in the works of philosophers, doctors, and teachers. We can roughly identify a number of stages in the development of a scientific understanding of the nature of the psyche and the subject of psychology as a science. The 17th century was a turning point in the development of views on the psyche.

In Soviet psychology they established methodological principles determinism, unity of consciousness and activity, development of the psyche in activity.

Psychologists such as L.S. played a major role in the formulation of these principles. Vygotsky, A.N. Leontyev, S.L. Rubinstein, D.B. Elkonin, B.G. Ananyev. In the works of the above-mentioned domestic psychologists, the problems of studying personality as an integral systemic mental formation in its multifaceted social and natural connections and in the process of development and educational psychology are formulated. Thus, domestic psychology has formed a rather thorough scientific picture psyche.

The problem of the psyche and consciousness of psychology

Analysis of the concept of “psyche”

consciousness psychological psyche

The psyche is a reflection of objects and phenomena of objective reality, which is a function of the brain.

The psyche is inherent in humans and animals. However, the human psyche, as the highest form of psyche, is also designated by the concept of “consciousness”. But the concept of the psyche is broader than the concept of consciousness, since the psyche includes the sphere of the subconscious and superconscious (“Super Ego”). The structure of the human psyche includes: mental properties, mental processes, mental qualities and mental states.

Mental properties- these are stable manifestations that have a genetic basis, are inherited and practically do not change during life.

Mental properties characterize every human personality: her interests and inclinations, her abilities, her temperament and character. It is impossible to find two people who are completely identical in their mental properties. Each person differs from other people in a number of features, the totality of which forms his individuality. A person’s individuality - his character, his interests and abilities - always, to one degree or another, reflects his biography, the life path that he has passed. Of central importance for the formation of a person’s individuality, his interests and inclinations, his character is his worldview, i.e. a system of views on all natural and social phenomena surrounding humans.

Mental processes- develop and are formed under the influence of external living conditions. These include: sensation, perception, memory, thinking, imagination, representation, attention, will, emotions.

Mental qualities- arise and are formed under the influence of the educational process and life activity. The qualities of the psyche are most clearly represented in character.

Mental conditions- represent a relatively stable dynamic background of activity and mental activity. Mental states are divided into gnostic, emotional and volitional.

Gnostic mental states: these are curiosity, curiosity, surprise, amazement, bewilderment, etc.

Emotional mental states: joy, grief, sadness, indignation, anger, resentment, satisfaction and dissatisfaction, etc.

Volitional mental states: activity, passivity, decisiveness and indecisiveness, confidence and uncertainty, restraint and lack of restraint, etc. All these states are similar to the corresponding mental processes and personality properties, which reveals one of the most important laws of psychology.

As an objective criterion of the psyche A.N. Leontyev proposes to consider the ability of living organisms to respond to biologically neutral influences. If a living organism acquires the ability to both reflect biologically neutral properties and establish their connection with biologically essential properties, then the possibilities for its survival turn out to be incomparably wider. Example: No animal feeds on sound, nor do animals die from sound of normal intensity. But sounds in nature are the most important signals of living food or approaching danger. Hearing them means having the opportunity to approach food or avoid a fatal attack.

Now we need to introduce two fundamental concepts that are associated with the proposed criterion: these are the concepts of “irritability” and “sensitivity”.

Irritability is the ability of living organisms to respond to biologically significant influences.

Sensitivity is the ability of organisms to reflect influences that are biologically neutral, but objectively related to biotic properties. When it comes to sensitivity, “reflection,” according to the hypothesis of A.N. Leontiev, has two aspects: objective and subjective.

In an objective sense, “reflect” means to react, primarily motorically, to a given agent. The subjective aspect is expressed in the internal experience, sensation, of a given agent. Irritability has no subjective aspect. .

A.N. Leontyev highlights in evolutionary development three stages of psyche:

1. The stage of the elementary, sensory psyche (reflection of individual properties of objects is carried out, i.e. there is a sensation);); those. ability to reflect properties of the item. The main form of behavior is taxis, reflexes and instincts. Instincts are an innate behavior program or species experience of an animal.

2. The stage of the perceptual psyche (reflection of holistic objects arises, i.e. perception arises); the main form of reflection is objective perception, i.e. animals are capable of reflecting objects in the form of integral mental formations. The main form of behavior is skills. Skills are an acquired program of behavior or personal experience animal.

3. Stage of intelligence (reflection of relationships between objects occurs):

a) sensorimotor intelligence;

b) consciousness.

1. Stage of elementary sensory psyche. The emergence of sensitive living organisms is associated with the complication of their life activities. This complication lies in the fact that processes of external activity are distinguished that mediate the relationship of organisms to those properties of the environment on which the preservation and development of their life depends. The identification of these processes is due to the appearance of irritability to influences that perform a signaling function. This is how the ability of organisms to reflect the influences of the surrounding reality in their objective connections and relationships arises - mental reflection. The development of these forms of mental reflection occurs along with the complication of the structure of organisms and depending on the development of the activity with which they arise. Its main feature is that it is stimulated by one or another property affecting the animal, to which it is at the same time directed, but which does not coincide with those properties on which the life of a given animal directly depends. It is determined, therefore, not by the given influencing properties of the environment themselves, but by these properties in their relation to other properties.

2. Stage of perceptual psyche

Following the stage of the elementary sensory psyche, the second stage of development can be called the stage of the perceptual psyche. It is characterized by the ability to reflect external objective reality no longer in the form of individual elementary sensations caused by individual properties or their combination, but in the form of a reflection of things. The transition to this stage of mental development is associated with a change in the structure of animal activity, which is prepared at the previous stage. This change in the structure of activity consists in the fact that its previously outlined content, which objectively relates not to the object itself to which the animal’s activity is directed, but to the conditions in which this object is objectively given in the environment, is now highlighted. This content is no longer associated with what motivates activity as a whole, but responds to the special influences that cause it, which we will call an operation.

3. Stage of intelligence. The psyche of most mammalian animals remains at the stage of the perceptual psyche, but the most highly organized of them rise to one more stage of development.

This new, higher stage is usually called the stage of intellect (or “manual thinking”). Of course, animal intelligence is not at all the same as human intelligence; There is, as we will see, a huge qualitative difference between them. The stage of intelligence is characterized by very complex activities and equally complex forms of reflecting reality.

The criterion for the appearance of the rudiments of the psyche in living organisms is the presence of sensitivity, that is, the ability to respond to vital environmental stimuli (sound, smell, etc.), which are signals of vital stimuli (food, danger) due to their objectively stable connection (from fish to person).

Ontogenesis (from the Greek “ontos” - existing; “genesis” - origin) is the development of the individual’s psyche, starting from the prenatal stage until death from old age. Individual development, just like the development of humanity, has its own patterns, its own periods, stages and crises. Each period of ontogenetic development is characterized by certain age-related characteristics. Age-related characteristics form a certain complex of diverse properties, including cognitive, motivational, emotional and other characteristics of the individual. It should immediately be noted that there is a very a large number of approaches to the problem of mental development. Moreover, in different approaches distinguish various stages of development.

The human psyche is a qualitatively higher level than the psyche of animals. Human consciousness and reason developed in the process of labor activity, which arises due to the need to carry out joint actions to obtain food during a sharp change in living conditions primitive man.

Ontogenesis of the psyche is the development of the psyche of an individual organism during its life. Ontogenesis of the human psyche - developmental psychology (childhood, adolescence, youth, youth, maturity, old age, old age). Acceleration of mental development is facilitated by training, education, work, and communication. Higher mental functions are formed thanks to psychological tools (words, speech, meaning). As a result of the ontogenetic development of the human psyche, the following are formed: voluntary mental functions, social needs, higher nervous feelings, abstract-logical thinking, self-awareness and personality. Social factors play a decisive role in the development of the human psyche.

A huge role and contribution was made by the domestic psychologist Lev Semenovich Vygotsky (1896-1934). He developed a fundamental theory of the origin and development of higher mental functions. Based on the ideas of comparative psychology, L.S. Vygotsky began his research where comparative psychology stopped at questions that were insoluble for it: it could not explain the phenomenon of human consciousness. The first version of his theoretical generalizations concerning the patterns of mental development in ontogenesis, L.S. Vygotsky outlined it in his work “Development of the VPF.” This work presented a scheme for the formation of the human psyche in the process of using signs as a means of regulating mental activity.

Studying problems of personality development, L.S. Vygotsky identified human mental functions, which are formed under conditions of socialization and have some special characteristics. In general, he identified two levels of mental processes: natural and higher. If natural functions are given to the individual as a natural being and are realized in a spontaneous response, then higher mental functions (HMF) can be developed only in the process of ontogenesis during social interaction. Modern research significantly expanded and deepened the general understanding of the patterns, essence, and structure of HMF. L.S. Vygotsky and his followers identified four main features of HMF: complexity, sociality, indirectness and arbitrariness.

Complexity is manifested in the fact that HMFs are diverse in terms of their formation and development. Complexity is also determined by the specific relationship of some results of phylogenetic development with the results of ontogenetic development at the level of mental processes. Over the course of historical development, man has created unique sign systems that make it possible to comprehend, interpret and comprehend the essence of the phenomena of the surrounding world. These systems continue to develop and improve. Their change in a certain way affects the dynamics of the human mental processes themselves.

Sociality HPFs are determined by their origin. They can only develop through the process of people interacting with each other. The main source of its occurrence is internalization (the transfer of social forms of behavior to the internal plane). Interiorization is carried out during the formation and development of external and internal relationships of the individual. Here, HMFs go through two stages of development. First, as a form of interaction between people. Then as an internal phenomenon. Teaching a child to speak and think is a vivid example of the process of internalization.

Mediocrity HMF is visible in the way they function. The development of the ability for symbolic activity and mastery of a sign is the main component of mediation. The word, image, number and other identifying signs of a phenomenon determine the semantic perspective of comprehending the essence at the level of unity of abstraction and concretization. In this sense, thinking as the operation of symbols, behind which there are ideas and concepts, or creative imagination as the operation of images, are corresponding examples of the functioning of the HMF. In the process of functioning of the HMF, cognitive and emotional-volitional components of awareness are born: meanings and meanings.

Arbitrary VPFs are based on the method of implementation. Thanks to mediation, a person is able to realize his functions and carry out activities in a certain direction, analyzing his experience, adjusting behavior and activities. The arbitrariness of the HMF is also determined by the fact that the individual is able to act purposefully, overcoming obstacles and making appropriate efforts.

Among the higher mental functions there are, first of all, memory, speech, thinking and perception. Higher mental functions are complex mental processes. They are formed under the influence of biological and genetic factors, but the greatest influence on the development of higher mental functions is exerted by “social” or, as they are also called, “cultural” factors. The greatest influence on the formation of higher mental functions is exerted by interaction between people.

10 Types and structure of reflection

20 Development of the psyche in the animal world and the formation of human consciousness

30 Basic functions of the psyche

40 Form of manifestation of the human psyche

Types and structure of reflection

Psyche- this is a property of living, highly organized matter, which consists in the ability to reflect with its states the surrounding objective world, its connections and relationships.

Psychic reflection- this is an active reflection of the world in connection with some necessity, need. It is also a subjective selective reflection of the objective world.

Mechanisms of manifestation of the psyche

10 Psyche is a property only of living, highly organized matter.

20 The main feature of the psyche is the ability to reflect the objective world.

30 Living matter with a psyche is capable of responding to external changes or to the influence of environmental objects.

Irritability- the simplest form of biological reflection, it is possessed by all animal organisms at all stages of the evolution of plant and animal forms. External irritability is expressed in the manifestation of forced activity of a living organism. The higher the level of development of an organism, the more complex the manifestation of its activity in the event of changes in environmental conditions. Taxis(in plants) - the very first level of irritability.

A more complex form of response - sensitivity- as an embryonic form of mental reflection, it arises during the development of simple irritability inherent in any viable body. This is the ability to respond to neutral, biologically insignificant stimuli, provided that they signal the occurrence of vital events (impacts).

Behavior- is a complex set of reactions of a living organism to the influence of the external environment.

Development of the psyche in the animal world and the formation of human consciousness

Stage Neoplasm Examples
Elementary sensitivity (sensory psyche) Simple unconditioned reflexes Protozoa are multicellular; annelids, snails, some invertebrates
Stage of object perception (perceptual psyche) Complex unconditioned reflexes (instincts) Fish and other vertebrates (defensive behavior develops); birds and some mammals (learning ability, instinct- a set of innate elements of behavior, imprinting- a specific form of learning in higher vertebrates, in which the distinctive features of objects of some innate behavioral acts of parental individuals as carriers of a species trait are recorded, deep attachment to a moving object after birth)
Stage of intelligence (intellectual psyche) Skill- a complex individual dynamic program of behavior that is formed in the body during its relationship with the outside world Monkeys, other higher vertebrates (dogs, dolphins, etc.)
Stage of consciousness The highest stage of mental development Man (speech appears, the ability to voluntarily regulate mental processes, knowledge of the general and essential in reality, abstract thinking)

Basic functions of the psyche

The psyche performs a number of important functions:

10 Reflection of the influences of the surrounding reality. The psyche is a property of the brain, its specific function. The function is in the nature of reflection. Reflection is a process that is constantly developing, improving, creating and overcoming its contradictions. With the mental reflection of objective reality, any external influence is always refracted through previously established characteristics of the psyche and specific states of a person. The same impact can be reflected differently different people and even by the same person. Psychic reflection- a correct, true reflection of reality.

20 Regulation of behavior and activity. The human psyche and consciousness, on the one hand, reflect the influence of the external environment and adapt to it, and on the other hand regulate this process; constitute the internal content of activity and behavior.

30 A person’s awareness of his place in the world around him. This function of the psyche ensures the correct adaptation and orientation of a person in the objective world, guaranteeing him a correct understanding of all the realities of this world and an adequate attitude towards them. In addition, it creates a person as a person, endowed with individual and socio-psychological characteristics as a representative of a particular society, different from other people.

Forms of manifestation of the human psyche

Personality property- the most stable and constantly manifested personality traits, ensuring a certain qualitative and quantitative level of behavior; activities typical for a given person Mental processes- mental phenomena that provide primary reflections and human awareness of the impact of the environment. They have a clear beginning, a definite course and a pronounced end, manifested in the form of a reaction
Showing feelings Focus Cognitive (sensations, perception, thinking, speech, memory, attention, imagination)
Shows of attention Temperament Emotional-volitional (feelings, will)
Manifestations of composure Character
Manifestations of imagination Capabilities
Sustained interest, etc.

Next lecture: personality, its structure and manifestation



Personality and its manifestation.

General views about personality

Modern theories personalities

Approaches to the study of personality in domestic psychology

Personality structure

Needs as a source of personality activity

Personality orientation

Man as a species- is a representative of a certain biological species, which differs from other creatures by specific specific characteristics and the level of mental, physiological development, endowed with consciousness, capable of thinking, speaking and making decisions; control your actions, emotions and feelings.

Individual- a holistic, unique representative of the genus with its psychophysiological properties.

Individuality- the uniqueness of the psyche and personality of the individual, its uniqueness, temperament, character, EMU (emotional-volitional sphere), etc.

Personality- a certain person of a certain social group with a certain type activities and endowed with individual psychological characteristics.

Man as a personality characterized by developing self-awareness, independence in judgments and actions, focused primarily on self-knowledge; the desire to go beyond one’s capabilities, role requirements, and expand the scope of activity.

Personality orientation is a stable system of motives (needs, ideals, beliefs).

Abilities, properties and qualities.

Character - This is a set of stable individual properties of a person that determine his typical modes of behavior and emotional response.

Types of Personality Theory
Way to explain behavior Psychodynamic (describe a personality and explain its behavior based on its psychological or subjective characteristics), sociodynamic (external situations where the internal properties of the individual are not given significant importance), interactionist (internal and external factors)
Personality angle Structural (the main problem is to clarify the structure of the personality and the system of concepts with which the personality should be described), dynamic (personality development)
Method of obtaining personal data Experimental (based on observations, experience, experimental)

Basic approaches to the study of personality in foreign psychology

Sociokinetic approach - personality characteristics are explained based on the structure of society, methods of socialization, relationships with other people: socialization theory (according to this theory, a person becomes an individual thanks to his development in society), learning theory (according to it, personality is the result of learning, assimilation of knowledge and skills) , role theory (according to it, society offers each person a set of stable ways of human behavior: a status that leaves an imprint on the nature of the individual’s behavior, his relationships with other people).

Biokinetic approach - the main role is assigned to the biological maturation of the organism.

Psychogenetic approach - does not deny either biology or the environment, but in the foreground the development of one’s own mental processes: orientation (psychodynamic - explains the behavior of the individual through emotions, hobbies and other irrational components of the psyche, cognitivist - gives preference to the development of the intellectual-cognitive sphere of the individual, personological - emphasizes attention to the development of the individual as a whole).

I want to eat, drink, go to the toilet, sleep, I want a scarf.

Learn, do interesting things, travel.

Content
Introduction………………………………………………………………..1
Development of the psyche in phylogenesis…………………………………….2
Stages of mental development in the process of evolution of the animal world....7
Consciousness as the highest stage of mental development……………………….9
Prerequisites for the emergence of consciousness……………………………..13
The role of labor and tools of activity in the emergence of consciousness……15
Characteristics of consciousness……………………………………………..24
List of references………………………………………………………25

Introduction
Psyche is a general concept that unites many subjective phenomena studied by psychology as a science. There are two different philosophical understandings of the nature and manifestation of the psyche: materialistic and idealistic. According to the first understanding, mental phenomena represent the property of highly organized living matter, self-control of development and self-knowledge (reflection).
In accordance with the idealistic understanding of the psyche, there is not one, but two principles in the world: material and ideal. They are independent, eternal, not reducible and not deducible from each other. While interacting in development, they nevertheless develop according to their own laws. At all stages of its development, the ideal is identified with the mental.

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Development of the psyche in phylogenesis
The emergence of the psyche is associated with the formation at a certain stage of development of the ability to actively move in space, in which needs are satisfied through active movements in the environment, which must be preceded by the search for necessary objects. As part of the evolutionary development of living beings, a qualitative change in the psyche occurs, due to the complication of their interaction with the environment. These changes can occur on a biological or socio-historical basis. The psyche itself - as the ability to sense - arose from the irritability of living beings and developed in connection with the formation and development of their nervous system.
Irritability - the main property of living organisms, which is the ability of living things to respond to external influences with internal (originally biological) changes. It may include a wide repertoire of reactions, ranging from diffuse reactions of protoplasm in protozoa to complex, highly specialized reactions in humans.
One of the forms of living activity is
tropisms (Greek Tropos - turn, direction) - a change in direction in the movement of parts of a plant under the influence of biologically significant stimuli (light, gravity of the earth, chemical stimuli). G. Lebon considered tropisms as the basis of animal life.
The next stage in the development of living activity is
taxis (Greek Taxis - order, arrangement) - an instinctive form of spatial orientation of animals. In accordance with them, movement begins either towards favorable, vital elements of the environment (positive taxis), or away from unfavorable ones (negative taxis).
Kinds:
- phototaxis, as reactions to light,
- chemotaxis to chemical stimuli,
- thermotaxis to temperature changes,
- geotaxis based on gravity,
- hydrotaxis for the flow of liquids.
Unicellular and many lower multicellular animals are characterized by:

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- orthotaxis, as a reaction to acceleration or deceleration of movement
- clinotaxis, as a reaction to a change in the direction of movement by a certain angle.
Instincts (Latin Instinctus - urge) - a genetically programmed system of behavior that manifests itself in the form of behavioral acts characteristic of a given biological species. They have sufficient constancy and independence from local environmental changes. The structure of instinctive behavior includes well-coordinated movements, expressive postures, and psychophysiological reactions reproduced in strict sequence. In instinctive behavior, there is a preparatory or search phase, which is relatively variable, and a final, more constant phase. Instincts belong, first of all, to the nutritional, protective, reproductive spheres characteristic of a given species.
Tool actions of animals- a form of animal behavior using objects to influence other objects. The “tool” used is only an intermediary between the organism and other environmental objects, serving to provide the organism’s needs (obtaining food, providing a comfortable living environment, communication, aggression, etc.).
Doctrine of
higher nervous activityI.P. Pavlova.
As the brain develops, it becomes possible to change individual behavior during life, due to which the generic basis of behavior, based on instincts, is significantly optimized. This process was reviewed by I.P. Pavlov (1849–1936) in his doctrine of higher nervous activity. Based on the ideas of I.M. Sechenov on the signaling function of external stimuli, I.P. Pavlov proposed to consider as units of behavior unconditioned, innate reflexes that arise in response to certain (unconditioned) stimuli from the external environment, and conditioned reflexes that arise after connecting an initially indifferent stimulus with an unconditioned one.
Reflex (Latin Reflexus - reflected) - a form of mental reflection, which is a response of a living organism caused by the influence of any specific factor of the external or internal environment on the analyzer. Manifests itself in muscle contraction, secretion, etc. Basic principles about mechanisms of action
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reflexes were formulated by R. Descartes.
In accordance with the classification proposed by I.P. Pavlov, distinguish:
- conditioned reflexes,
- unconditioned reflexes.
Unconditioned reflex- a form of reflex that is always realized when certain stimuli act on the body. Genetically determined by the nervous connection between the organs of perception and the executive organs.
Features of the connection between the organs of perception and the executive organs were postulated in
functional circle theoryJ. Uexkylä. In this theory, within the framework of a subjective-idealistic doctrine of the world, the interaction of the organism and the environment was explained. The starting point was the premise that the surrounding world (Umwelt) exists for a living organism only in that aspect that corresponds to its need states. The realization of these need states presupposes the coordination of two sides of the world presented to the subject. On the one hand, this is the “perceptual world” (Merkwelt), the world of perception, “everything that the subject notices turns into his world, into the world marked by him.” As an example, he cites a female tick that can wait for many months for the right moment to finally unhook from a branch and fall on the back of a passing animal - while she does not react to any other irritants except the smell of butyric acid and heat. On the other hand, the surrounding world appears to the subject as an “operational world” (Wirkwelt), as a world of actions, “everything that the subject influences turns into his world of actions.” Thus, for a tick, an object (an animal) appears not only as a carrier of its own characteristics, but also as a “field of activity” (the presence of an open, unprotected place for a bite). The world of perception and the world of action exist in mutual correspondence with each other, forming a “functional circle”. Based on these ideas, the author concluded that each animal organism is optimally adapted to the environment in which it traditionally lives, and that, by the degree of complexity of its organization, one can judge the complexity of its habitat.
Among the types of unconditioned reflexes there are:
- simple unconditioned reflexes that provide basic work

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individual organs and systems (constriction of the pupils under the influence of light, cough when a foreign body enters the larynx),
- more complex, underlying instincts and formed by ecologically valid sequences of unconditioned reflexes.
Conditioned reflex- a form of reflex, which represents a dynamic connection between a conditioned stimulus and the individual’s reaction, initially triggered by an unconditioned stimulus.
To explain the conditioned reflex at the brain level, the concept was introduced
temporary nerve connection, as a mechanism that provides a functional connection between individual structures of the nervous system when exposed to two or more events in the current external environment.
In the course of numerous experimental studies conducted at the school of I.P. Pavlov, the rules for the development of conditioned reflexes were determined:
- joint presentation of an initially indifferent and unconditioned stimulus with some delay of the second leads to the formation of a temporary connection;
- in the absence of reinforcement (as a result of numerous non-reinforcements) of the conditioned stimulus by the unconditioned, the temporary connection is gradually inhibited.
In its evolution, the psyche went through a number of stages: from sensory to perceptual and further to the intellectual stage and to the formation of consciousness. At the same time, consciousness as a feature of the human psyche is a product of the socio-historical development of human society, the possibility of the existence of which is determined by the use and production of tools, elements of language, knowledge, and norms of behavior.
To explain the possibility of development of the human psyche on the basis of social experience, I.P. Pavlov introduced the concepts of the first and second signaling systems.
First signaling system(Latin Signum - sign and Greek Systema - connection) - a type of signaling system, as the orientation of animals to direct stimuli, which can be visual, auditory, tactile signals associated with adaptive conditioned reflex reactions.
Second signaling system- a type of signaling system that is focused on symbolic, primarily verbal, signals, on the basis of which the formation of temporary nerve connections is possible.
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Since a person is characterized by the joint action of the first and second signaling systems, I.P. Pavlov proposed to distinguish specifically human types of higher nervous activity according to the predominance of one or another system. In accordance with this, the artistic type was defined as having a predominance of the first signal system, the thinking type - a predominance of the second signal system, and the average type as balanced on this basis.

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Stages of mental development in the process of evolution of the animal world

How did the development of psyche and behavior in animals begin and proceed?
It is impossible to answer this question materialistically accurately now, when practically no traces of these processes have remained on Earth for a long time. The simplest creatures living today are the owners of elementary forms of psychic reflections - these are not those with which the evolution of the psyche probably began. After all, together with man and the other living world, they have gone through millions of years of evolution, and one can hardly count on the fact that they have not changed over such a colossal time. Now, at best, we can make more or less probable assumptions about how it all happened, began and went.
One of the hypotheses concerning the stages and levels of development of mental reflection, starting from the simplest animals and ending with humans, was proposed by A.N. Leontiev in the book “Problems of Psychic Development”. Later it was finalized and clarified by K.E. Fabry based on the latest zoopsychological yes, so now it’s more correct to call it Leontiev-Fabry concept.
The entire history of the development of the psyche and behavior of animals, according to this concept, is divided into a number of stages and levels. There are two stages of elementary sensory psyche and perceptual psyche. The first includes two levels: the lowest and the highest, and the second - three levels: the lowest, the highest and the highest.

Each stage and its corresponding levels are characterized by a certain combination of motor activity and forms of mental reflection, and in the process of evolutionary development both interact with each other. Improving movements leads to improved adaptive activity of the body. This activity, in turn, helps to improve the nervous system, expand its capabilities, and creates conditions for the development of new types of activities and forms of reflection. Both are mediated by the improvement of the psyche.
Elementary stage sensory The psyche is characterized by primitive elements of sensitivity that do not go beyond the simplest sensations. This stage is associated with the allocation in animals of a specialized organ that carries out complex manipulative movements of the body with objects of the external world. Such an organ in lower animals is the jaws. They replace hands, which only humans and some higher animals have. The jaws retain their role as an organ of manipulation and exploration of the surrounding world for a long period of time, right up to the release of the animal's forelimbs for this purpose.
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The lowest level of the stage of the elementary sensory psyche, at which the simplest and lowest multicellular organisms living in the aquatic environment are located, is characterized by the fact that here it is represented in a fairly developed form irritability- the ability of living organisms to respond to biologically significant environmental influences by increasing their level of activity, changing the direction and speed of movements. Sensitivity as the ability to respond to biologically neutral properties of the environment and the readiness to learn by the method of conditioned reflexes is still absent. The motor activity of animals does not yet have a searching, purposeful character.
The next, highest level of the stage of the elementary sensory psyche, which living beings such as annelids and gastropods reach, is characterized by the appearance of the first elementary sensations and jaws as an organ of manipulation. The variability of behavior here is complemented by the emergence of the ability to acquire and consolidate life experience through conditioned reflex connections. At this level there is already sensitivity. Motor activity improves and acquires the character of a targeted search for biologically beneficial effects and avoidance of biologically harmful effects.

Consciousness as the highest stage of mental development

Consciousness is highest level a person’s reflection of reality, if the psyche is considered from a materialistic position, and the actual human form of the mental principle of being, if the psyche is interpreted from an idealistic position. In the history of psychological science, consciousness has been the most difficult problem, which has not yet been solved from a materialistic or idealistic position, but on the path of its materialistic understanding many of the most difficult questions have arisen. It is for this reason that the chapter on consciousness, despite the critical importance of this phenomenon in understanding psychology and human behavior, still remains one of the least developed.
Regardless of what philosophical positions the researchers of consciousness adhered to, the so-called reflexive ability was inevitably associated with it, i.e. the readiness of consciousness to understand other mental phenomena and itself. The presence of such an ability in a person is the basis for the existence and development of psychological sciences, because without it this class of phenomena would be closed to knowledge. Without reflection, a person could not even have the idea that he has a psyche.
The first psychological characteristic of human consciousness includes the feeling of being a cognizing subject, the ability to mentally imagine existing and imaginary reality, to control and manage one’s own mental and behavioral states, and the ability to see and perceive the surrounding reality in the form of images.
Feeling oneself as a cognizing subject means that a person recognizes himself as a being separated from the rest of the world, ready and capable of studying and knowing this world, i.e. to obtain more or less reliable knowledge about it. A person is aware of this knowledge as phenomena that are different from the objects to which they relate, can formulate this knowledge, expressing it in words, concepts, various other symbols, transfer it to another person and future generations of people, store, reproduce, work with knowledge as a special object. With loss of consciousness (sleep, hypnosis, illness, etc.) this ability is lost.
Mental representation and imagination of reality is the second important psychological characteristic of consciousness. It, like consciousness in general, is closely connected with will. On the conscious control of ideas and imagination

They usually say when they are generated and changed by the effort of a person’s will.
There is, however, one difficulty here. Imagination and ideas are not always under conscious volitional control, and in this regard the question arises: are we dealing with consciousness if they represent a “stream of consciousness” - a spontaneous flow of thoughts, images and associations. It seems that in this case it would be more correct to talk not about consciousness, but about preconsciousness - an intermediate mental state between the unconscious and consciousness. In other words, consciousness is almost always associated with volitional control on the part of a person of his own psyche and behavior.
The idea of ​​reality that is absent at a given moment in time or does not exist at all (imagination, daydreams, dreams, fantasy) acts as one of the most important psychological characteristics of consciousness. In this case, the person arbitrarily, i.e. consciously, distracts himself from the perception of his surroundings, from extraneous thoughts, and focuses all his attention on some idea, image, memory, etc., drawing and developing in his imagination what at the moment he does not directly see or does not see at all able to see.
Volitional control of mental processes and states has always been associated with consciousness. It is no coincidence that in old psychology textbooks the topics “Consciousness” and “Will” almost always coexisted with each other and were discussed simultaneously.
Consciousness is closely related to speech and does not exist in its highest forms without it. In contrast to sensations and perception, ideas and memory, conscious reflection is characterized by a number of specific properties. One of them is the meaningfulness of what is represented, or realized, i.e. its verbal and conceptual meaning, endowed with a certain meaning associated with human culture.
Another property of consciousness is that not all and not random ones are reflected in consciousness, but only the basic, main, essential characteristics of objects, events and phenomena, i.e. that which is characteristic of them and distinguishes them from other objects and phenomena that are externally similar to them.
Consciousness is almost always associated with the use of words-concepts to denote the conscious, which, by definition, contain indications of the general and distinctive properties of the class of objects reflected in consciousness.



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The third characteristic of human consciousness is its ability to communicate, i.e. transferring to others what a given person is aware of using language and other sign systems. Many higher animals have communicative capabilities, but they differ from humans in one important circumstance: with the help of language, man conveys to people not only messages about his internal states (this is the main thing in the language and communication of animals), but also about what he knows , sees, understands, imagines, i.e. objective information about the world around us.
Another feature of human consciousness is the presence of intellectual circuits in it. A schema is a specific mental structure in accordance with which a person perceives, processes and stores information about the world around him and about himself. Schemas include rules, concepts, logical operations used by people to bring the information they have into certain order, including selection, classification of information, assigning it to one or another category. We will also encounter examples of schemes that work in the areas of perception, memory and thinking on the pages of the textbook when considering cognitive processes.
By exchanging various information with each other, people highlight the main thing in what is being communicated. This is how abstraction occurs, i.e. distraction from everything unimportant, and concentration of consciousness on the most essential. Deposited in vocabulary, semantics in conceptual form, this main thing then becomes the property of a person’s individual consciousness as he masters language and learns to use it as a means of communication and thinking. The generalized reflection of reality constitutes the content of individual consciousness. That is why we say that human consciousness is unthinkable without language and speech.
Language and speech seem to form two different, but interconnected in their origin and functioning layers of consciousness: a system of meanings and a system of meanings of words. The meanings of words refer to the content that is put into them by native speakers. Meanings include all sorts of shades in the use of words and are best expressed in various kinds of explanatory, commonly used and specialized dictionaries. The system of verbal meanings constitutes a layer of social consciousness, which in sign systems of language exists independently of the consciousness of each individual person.

The meaning of a word in psychology is that part of its meaning or that specific meaning that the word acquires in the speech of the person using it. The meaning of a word, in addition to the part of its meaning associated with it, is associated with many feelings, thoughts, associations and images that this word evokes in the mind of a particular person.
Consciousness, however, exists not only in verbal, but also in figurative form. In this case, it is associated with the use of a second signaling system that evokes and transforms the corresponding images. The most striking example of figurative human consciousness is art, literature, and music. They also act as forms of reflection of reality, but not in an abstract way, as is typical for science, but in a figurative form.
Prerequisites for the emergence of consciousness
“The premises with which we begin,” we read in the German
ideologies" are not arbitrary, they are not dogmas; they are real
preconditions from which one can escape only in the imagination. This -
actual individuals, their activities and material conditions of their
life..." These prerequisites at the same time constitute three necessary basic moments, three links, the dialectical connections of which form a single self-developing system.
Already in the very bodily organization of individuals lies the necessity that they enter into an active relationship with the external world; in order to exist, they must act, produce the means of life they need. By influencing the outside world, they change it; by this they also change themselves. Therefore, what they represent is determined by their activity, conditioned by the already achieved level of development of its means and forms of its organization.
Only in the course of the development of these relationships does the mental
people's reflection of reality. “...People who develop their material production and their material communication, along with this reality of theirs, also change their thinking and the products of their thinking.”
In other words, thinking and consciousness are determined by the real existence, life of people and exist only as their consciousness, as a product of the development of the specified system of objective relations. In its self-development, this system forms various infrastructures, relationships and processes that can become
subject of study of individual sciences. However, the Marxist requirement is that they be considered within this general system, and not in isolation from it. This requirement, of course, also applies to the psychological study of people, to psychological science.
The old metaphysical psychology knew only abstract individuals who were exposed to the external environment opposing them and, for their part, manifested their inherent mental abilities: perception, thinking, will, feelings. It makes no difference whether the individual is thought of as a kind of reactive machine (even if very complexly programmed), or whether he is endowed with autochthonously manifested spiritual powers. Like Saint Sancho, ridiculed by Marx, who naively believed that with a blow of steel we strike out the fire stored in stone, the metaphysical psychologist thinks that the psyche is extracted from the subject himself, from his head. Like Sancho, he does not suspect that the fiery particles are separated not from the stone, but from the steel and,
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The main thing is that the whole point is in the interaction of stone and steel that heats these particles. The metaphysical psychologist also misses the main link - the processes that mediate the subject’s connections with the real world, the processes in which alone the mental reflection of reality takes place, the transition of the material into the ideal. And these are the essence of the processes of activity of the subject, initially always external and practical, and then also acquiring the form of internal activity, the activity of consciousness.
Activity analysis constitutes the decisive point and the main method
scientific knowledge of mental reflection, consciousness. In the study of forms of social consciousness, this is an analysis of the existence of society, its inherent methods of production and the system of social relations; in the study of the individual psyche is an analysis of the activities of individuals in given social conditions and specific circumstances that befall each of them.

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The role of labor and tools of activity in the emergence of consciousness
As is known, the reason that underlies the humanization of human animal-like ancestors is the emergence of labor and the formation of human society on its basis. “...Labor,” says Engels, “created man himself.” Labor also created human consciousness.
The emergence and development of labor, this first and fundamental condition of human existence, led to a change and humanization of his brain, the organs of his external activity and sense organs. “First, work,” Engels says about this, “and then, along with it, articulate speech were the two most important stimuli, under the influence of which the monkey’s brain gradually turned into the human brain, which, for all its similarities with the monkey’s, is far superior in size and perfection"26. The main organ of human labor activity - his hand - could achieve its perfection only through the development of labor itself. “Only thanks to labor, thanks to adaptation to ever new operations... the human hand reached that high level of perfection at which it was able, as if by the power of magic, to bring to life the paintings of Raphael, the statues of Thorvaldsen, the music of Paganini.”
If we compare the maximum volumes of the skull of apes and the skull of primitive man, it turns out that the brain of the latter is more than twice as large as the brain of the most highly developed modern species of monkeys (600 cm 3 and 1400 cm 3).
The difference in the size of the brain of monkeys and humans becomes even more pronounced if we compare its weight; the difference here is almost 4 times: the weight of the orangutan brain is 350 g, the human brain weighs 1400 g.
The human brain, compared to the brain of higher apes, has a much more complex, much more developed structure.
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Already in Neanderthal man, as shown by casts made from the inner surface of the skull, new fields, not completely differentiated in apes, are clearly visible in the cortex, which then reach their full development in modern man. It is very clearly visible how new, specifically human features are reflected in the structure of the cerebral cortex when studying the so-called projection motor field. If you carefully irritate various points of this field with electric current, then from the contraction of various muscle groups caused by irritation you can accurately imagine what place the projection of a particular organ occupies in it. Penfield expressed the result of these experiments in the form of a schematic and, of course, conventional drawing. From this drawing, made on a certain scale, it is clear what a relatively large surface is occupied in the human brain by the projection of such organs of movement as the arm (hand) and especially the organs of sound speech (muscles of the mouth, tongue, organs of the larynx), the functions of which developed especially intensively in conditions of human society (work, speech communication).
The human sense organs also improved under the influence of labor and in connection with the development of the brain. Like the organs of external activity, they acquired qualitatively new features. The sense of touch has become more precise; the humanized eye began to notice more in things than the eyes of the most far-sighted bird; a hearing has developed capable of perceiving the subtlest differences and similarities in the sounds of human articulate speech. In turn, the development of the brain and sensory organs had the opposite effect on labor and language, “giving both more and more new impetuses to further development.” The individual anatomical and physiological changes created by labor necessarily entailed, due to the natural interdependence of the development of organs, changes in the body generally.
16
Thus, the emergence and development of labor led to a change in the entire physical appearance of a person, to a change in his entire anatomical and physiological organization.
Of course, the emergence of labor was prepared by the entire previous course of development. A gradual transition to a vertical gait, the rudiments of which are clearly observed even in living apes, and in connection with this the formation of especially mobile forelimbs adapted for grasping objects, increasingly freed from the function of walking, which is explained by the way of life that animal ancestors led human - all this created the physical prerequisites for the ability to perform complex labor operations.
The labor process was also prepared from the other side. The appearance of labor was possible only in animals that lived in entire groups and in which sufficiently developed forms of joint life existed, although these forms were, of course, still very far from even the most primitive forms of human, social life. The interesting studies of N. Yu. Voitonis and N. A. Tikh, conducted at the Sukhumi nursery, demonstrate how high levels of development can be achieved by forms of living together in animals. As these studies show, in a herd of monkeys there is an already established system of relationships and a kind of hierarchy with a correspondingly very complex system of communication. At the same time, these studies make it possible once again to be convinced that, despite all the complexity of internal relationships in a herd of monkeys, they are still limited to directly biological relationships and are never determined by the objective content of the animals’ activities.
17
Finally, an essential prerequisite for work was also the presence among the highest representatives of the animal world, as we have seen, of highly developed forms of mental reflection of reality.
All these moments together constituted the main conditions thanks to which, in the course of further evolution, labor and a human society based on labor could arise.
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