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Lecture notes, cheat sheets
Age-related psychology. Theories of mental development (lecture notes)
Directory / Lecture notes, cheat sheets Table of contents (expand) Topic 2. THEORIES OF MENTAL DEVELOPMENT 2.1. Biogenetic and sociogenetic concepts Supporters of the biogenetic concept of development believe that the basic mental properties of a person are embedded in the very nature of a person (biological principle), which determines his life destiny. They consider intelligence, immoral personality traits, etc. to be genetically programmed. The first step towards the emergence of biogenetic concepts was Charles Darwin's theory that development - genesis - obeys a certain law. In the future, any major psychological concept has always been associated with the search for the laws of child development. The German naturalist E. Haeckel (1834-1919) and the German physiologist I. Müller (1801-1958) formulated a biogenetic law according to which an animal and a person during intrauterine development briefly repeat the stages that a given species goes through in phylogenesis. This process was transferred to the process of ontogenetic development of the child. The American psychologist S. Hall (1846-1924) believed that the child in his development briefly repeats the development of the human race. The basis for the emergence of this law was the observation of children, as a result of which the following stages of development were distinguished: cave, when the child digs in the sand, the stage of hunting, exchange, etc. Hall also assumed that the development of children's drawing reflects the stages that the fine arts went through in the history of mankind. Theories of mental development associated with the idea of repetition in this development of human history are called recapitulation theories. Outstanding Russian physiologist I.P. Pavlov (1849-1936) proved that there are acquired forms of behavior that are based on conditioned reflexes. This gave rise to the point of view that human development comes down to the manifestation of instinct and training. The German psychologist W. Köhler (1887-1967), conducting experiments on anthropoid apes, discovered the presence of intelligence in them. This fact formed the basis of the theory according to which the psyche goes through three stages in its development: 1) instinct; 2) training; 3) intelligence. The Austrian psychologist K. Buhler (1879-1963), based on the theory of W. Köhler and influenced by the works of the founder of psychoanalysis, the Austrian psychiatrist and psychologist Z. Freud (3-1856), put forward the principle of pleasure as the main principle of the development of all living things. He associated the stages of instinct, training and intelligence not only with the maturation of the brain and the complication of relations with the environment, but also with the development of affective states - the experience of pleasure and the action associated with it. Buhler argued that at the first stage of development - the stage of instinct - due to the satisfaction of an instinctive need, the so-called "functional pleasure" occurs, which is a consequence of the performance of an action. And at the stage of intellectual problem solving, a state arises that anticipates pleasure. W. Koehler, studying the development of the child with the help of a zoopsychological experiment, noticed a similarity in the primitive use of tools in humans and monkeys. Supporters of the sociogenetic (sociological) concept adhere to a diametrically opposite approach to the development of the child's psyche. They believe that there is nothing innate in human behavior, and each of his actions is only a product of external influence. Therefore, by manipulating external influences, you can achieve any results. Back in the 1632th century. English philosopher John Locke (1704-XNUMX) believed that a child is born into the world with a pure soul, like a white sheet of paper on which you can write anything you like, and the child will grow up the way his parents and relatives want to see him. According to this point of view, heredity plays no role in the development of the psyche and behavior of the child. The American psychologist J. B. Watson (1878-1958) put forward the slogan: "Stop studying what a person thinks, let's study what a person does!". He believed that there is nothing innate in human behavior and that each of his actions is a product of external stimulation. Consequently, by manipulating external stimuli, one can "create" a person of any type. In learning studies that took into account the experimental results obtained by I.P. Pavlov, the idea of a combination of stimulus and reaction, conditioned and unconditioned stimuli came to the fore, the time parameter of this connection was singled out. This formed the basis of the associationist concept of learning by J. Watson and E. Gasri, which became the first program of behaviorism. Behaviorism is a direction in American psychology of the XNUMXth century that denies consciousness as a subject of scientific research and reduces the psyche to various forms of behavior, understood as a set of reactions of the body to environmental stimuli. According to J. Watson, "all such terms as consciousness, sensation, perception, imagination or will can be excluded from the description of human activity." He identified human behavior with animal behavior. Man, according to Watson, is a biological being that can be studied like any other animal. Thus, in classical behaviorism, the emphasis is on the process of learning based on the presence or absence of reinforcement under the influence of the environment. Representatives of neobehaviorism, American psychologists E. Thorndike (1874-1949) and B. Skinner (1904-1990) created the concept of learning, which was called "operant learning". This type of learning is characterized by the fact that the functions of the unconditioned stimulus play an important role in the establishment of a new associative stimulus-reactive connection, i.e., the main emphasis is on the value of reinforcement. N. Miller and American psychologist K.L. Hull (1884-1952) - the authors of the theory, in which the answer was given to the question: does learning, i.e., the establishment of a connection between a stimulus and a reaction, depend on such states of the subject as hunger, thirst, pain. On the basis of existing theories, it can be concluded that in sociogenetic theories, the environment is considered as the main factor in the development of the psyche, and the activity of the child is not taken into account. 2.2. The theory of convergence of two factors of child development The theory of convergence, or, as it is also called, the theory of two factors, was developed by the German psychologist W. Stern (1975-1938), who was a specialist in the field of differential psychology, which considers the relationship between biological and social factors. The essence of this theory lies in the fact that the mental development of the child is seen as a process taking shape under the influence of heredity and the environment. The main question of the theory of convergence is to establish how acquired forms of behavior arise and what influence heredity and the environment have on them. At the same time, there were two theoretical concepts in psychology, empiricism ("man is a blank slate") and nativism (there are innate ideas). Stern believed that if there are grounds for the existence of these two opposing points of view, then the truth lies in their combination. He believed that mental development is a combination of internal data with external conditions, but the leading value still remains with the innate factor. An example of this is the following fact: the world around provides the child with material for play, but how and when he will play depends on the innate components of the instinct to play. V. Stern was a supporter of the concept of recapitulation and said that the child in the first months of the infantile period is at the stage of a mammal: this is confirmed by incomprehensible reflex and impulsive behavior; in the second half of life, he reaches the stage of a higher mammal (monkey) due to the development of grasping objects and imitation; later, having mastered upright posture and speech, he reaches the initial stages of the human condition; in the first five years of play and fairy tales, he stands at the level of primitive peoples; a new stage - admission to school - is associated with the mastery of social duties of a higher level. The first school years are associated with the simple content of the ancient and Old Testament worlds, the middle classes with Christian culture, and the years of maturity with the culture of modern times. The theory of convergence of development is confirmed by the statements that "the apple does not fall far from the tree" and "with whom you behave, you will get rich." The English psychologist G. Eysenck (1916-1997) believed that intelligence is 80% determined by the influence of heredity and 20% by the influence of the environment. Austrian psychologist 3. Freud created a structural theory of personality, the basis of which was the conflict between the instinctive sphere of a person's mental life and the requirements of society. He believed that every person is born with innate sexual desires, which are subsequently controlled by the "Super-I" and "It". "It" is an internal mental instance, which, under the influence of prohibitions, allocates a small piece of "I" from itself. "Super-I" is an instance that limits human desires. It turns out that "I" is pressed by "It" and "Super-I". This is a typical scheme of two factors of development. Psychologists were able to establish the influence of biological and social aspects on the developmental process by observing twins and comparing the results obtained. This method was called the twin method. As shown by D.B. Elkonin, from a methodological point of view, there is one serious flaw in the study of twins: the problem of the hereditary fund is considered from the standpoint of identity or non-identity, and the problem of environmental influences is always considered from the standpoint of identity. But there is no one (identical) social environment in which twins are brought up - it is imperative to take into account what elements of the environment the child actively interacts with. Therefore, to obtain reliable results, it is necessary to choose such situations in which the equation contains not one, but two unknowns. This leads to the conclusion that this method can be used to study individual differences, and not developmental problems. 2.3. Psychoanalytic theories of child development Psychoanalysis originally arose as a method of treatment, but was soon adopted as a means of obtaining psychological facts, which formed the basis of a new psychological system. 3. Freud, analyzing the free associations of patients, came to the conclusion that the diseases of an adult are reduced to childhood experiences. The basis of the theoretical concept of psychoanalysis is the discovery of the unconscious and sexual principles. To the unconscious, the scientist attributed the inability of patients to understand the true meaning of what they say and what they do. Childhood experiences, according to Freud, are of a sexual nature. This is a feeling of love and hatred for a father or mother, jealousy for a brother or sister, etc. In the model of personality, Freud identified three main components: "It", "I" and "Super-I". "It" is the bearer of instincts, the "seething cauldron of drives." Being irrational and unconscious, "It" obeys the principle of pleasure. "I" follows the principle of reality and takes into account the features of the external world, its properties and relationships. "Super-I" is a critic, a censor and a bearer of moral norms. The requirements for the "I" from the "It", "Super-I" and reality are incompatible, therefore, an internal conflict arises, which can be resolved with the help of "protective mechanisms", such as repression, projection, regression, sublimation. In Freud's understanding, personality is the interaction of motivating and restraining forces. All stages of human mental development, in his opinion, are associated with sexual development. Let's look at these stages. oral stage (from birth to 1 year). Freud believed that at this stage the main source of pleasure is concentrated in the zone of activity associated with feeding. The oral stage consists of two phases - early and late, occupying the first and second half of life. In the early phase there is a sucking action, in the late phase there is a biting action. The source of displeasure is connected with the inability of the mother to immediately satisfy the desire of the child. At this stage, the "I" is gradually disconnected from the "It". The erogenous zone is the mouth. anal stage (1-3 years). It consists of two phases. Libido is concentrated around the anus, which becomes the object of attention of the child, accustomed to cleanliness. The "I" of the child learns to resolve conflicts, finding compromises between the desire for pleasure and reality. At this stage, the "I" instance is fully formed, and it can control the "It" impulses. Social coercion, parental punishment, and the fear of losing their love force the child to mentally imagine prohibitions. The "Super-I" begins to form. phallic stage (3-5 years). This is the highest stage of children's sexuality, the genital organs are the main erogenous zone. Parents of the opposite sex with the child are the first to attract their attention as an object of love. 3. Freud called such attachment in boys the "oedipal complex", and in girls the "Electra complex". According to Freud, the Greek myth of Oedipus Rex, who was killed by his own son and subsequently married to his mother, contains the key to the sexual complex: the boy loves his mother, perceiving his father as a rival, causing both hatred and fear. But at the end of this stage there is a release from the "oedipal complex" due to the fear of castration, the child is forced to give up attraction to the mother and identify with the father. After this, the instance of the "Super-I" is completely differentiated. Latent stage (5-12 years old). There is a decrease in sexual interest, the instance of "I" completely controls the needs of "It". The energy of libido (attraction) is transferred to the establishment of friendly relations with peers and adults, to the development of universal human experience. genital stage (12-18 years old). 3. Freud believed that a teenager strives for one goal - normal sexual intercourse; during this period, all erogenous zones are combined. If the implementation of normal sexual intercourse is difficult, then phenomena of fixation or regression to one of the previous stages can be observed. At this stage, the instance of the "I" must fight against the aggressive impulses of the "It", which again makes itself felt. Normal development occurs through the mechanism of sublimation [3]. Other mechanisms give rise to pathological characters. 3. Freud's concept of development is a dynamic concept, which shows that in the development of a person the other person plays the main role, and not the objects that surround him. This is one of its main advantages. An outstanding domestic psychologist L.S. Vygotsky (1896-1934) in this concept considered it valuable to establish the fact of the subconscious determinability of a number of mental phenomena (for example, neuroses) and the fact of latent sexuality, but criticized the transformation of sexuality into a metaphysical principle that penetrated into different branches of psychology. Psychoanalysis was carried out by such scientists as K. Jung, A. Adler, K. Horney. S.D. Smirnov analyzed the driving forces and conditions for the development of personality in foreign concepts. The following data was received: ▪ according to 3. Freud, the basis of individual and personal development are innate drives and instincts, where biological attraction (libido) is recognized as the only source of psychic energy; ▪ according to K. Jung, development is “individualization” as differentiation from community. The ultimate goal of individualization is to achieve the highest point of “selfhood,” integrity and complete unity of all mental structures; ▪ according to A. Adler, a person is inherent from birth with a “sense of community”, or a “social feeling”, which encourages him to enter society, overcome the feeling of inferiority that usually arises in the first years of life, and achieve superiority through various types of compensation; ▪ according to K. Horney, the main source of energy for personality development is a feeling of anxiety, discomfort, “root anxiety” and the desire for security generated by it, etc. 3. Freud's daughter Anna Freud (1895-1982) continued and developed the classical theory and practice of psychoanalysis. In the instinctive part of the personality, she singled out the sexual and aggressive components. She also believed that each phase of a child's development is the result of resolving the conflict between internal instinctual drives and the limitations of the social environment. Child development, in her opinion, is a process of gradual socialization of the child, subject to the law of transition from the principle of pleasure to the principle of reality. Promotion from one principle to another is possible only when the various functions of the "I" have reached certain stages of development. An example of this is the following: with the development of memory, the child can act on the basis of experience and foresight, the acquisition of speech makes him a member of society, logic contributes to the understanding of cause and effect, and therefore adaptation to the world becomes conscious and adequate. The formation of the principle of reality and thought processes opens the way to the emergence of new mechanisms of socialization: imitation (imitation), identification (assuming a role), introjection (taking on the feelings of another person). These mechanisms contribute to the formation of "Super-I". The emergence of this instance means for the child a decisive progress in his socialization. It has also been shown that the development of the child is influenced by the individual likes and dislikes of the mother. According to A. Freud, inharmonious personal development is based on the following reasons: uneven progress along the line of development, unevenly lasting regressions, features of isolation of internal instances from each other and the formation of links between them, etc. "Under these circumstances, it is not surprising that individual differences between people are so great, the deviations from the straight line of development go so far, and the definitions of a strict norm are so unsatisfactory. The constant mutual influences of progress and regression bring with them innumerable variations within the framework of normal development." 2.4. Erik Erikson's epigenetic theory of personality The emergence of the personality theory of the American psychoanalyst E. Erickson (1904-1994) was facilitated by works on psychoanalysis. Erickson accepted the structure of personality 3. Freud and created a psychoanalytic concept about the relationship between the "I" and society. He paid special attention to the role of the "I" in the development of the individual, believing that the foundations of the human "I" lie in the social organization of society. He came to this conclusion by observing the personal changes that occurred with people in post-war America. People have become more anxious, tougher, prone to apathy, confusion. Having accepted the idea of unconscious motivation, Erickson in his research paid special attention to the processes of socialization. Erickson's work marks the beginning of a new method of studying the psyche - psychohistorical, which is the application of psychoanalysis to the study of the development of the individual, taking into account the historical period in which she lives. Using this method, Erickson analyzed the biographies of Martin Luther, Mahatma Gandhi, Bernard Shaw, Thomas Jefferson and other prominent people, as well as the life histories of contemporaries - adults and children. The psychohistorical method demands equal attention both to the psychology of the individual and to the character of the society in which the individual lives. Erickson's main task was to develop a new psychohistorical theory of personality development, taking into account a specific cultural environment. In conducting ethnographic field studies of child rearing in two Native American tribes and comparing it with child rearing in urban families in the United States, Erickson found that each culture has its own particular style of motherhood, which each mother perceives as the only correct one. However, as Erickson emphasized, the style of motherhood is always determined by what exactly the social group to which he belongs - his tribe, class or caste - expects from the child in the future. Each stage of development corresponds to its own expectations inherent in a given society, which an individual can justify or not justify, and then he is either included in society or rejected by it. These considerations of E. Erickson formed the basis of the two most important concepts of his concept - group identity and ego-identity. Group identity is based on the fact that from the first day of life, the upbringing of a child is focused on including him in a given social group and on developing a worldview inherent in this group. Ego-identity is formed in parallel with the group identity and creates in the subject a sense of stability and continuity of his "I", despite the changes that occur to a person in the process of his growth and development. Based on his works, E. Erickson singled out the stages of a person's life path. Each stage of the life cycle is characterized by a specific task that is put forward by society. Society also determines the content of development at different stages of the life cycle. However, the solution of the problem, according to Erickson, depends on the already achieved level of psychomotor development of the individual, and on the general spiritual atmosphere of the society in which this individual lives. In table. 2 shows the stages of a person's life path according to E. Erickson. Table 2 Stages of a person's life path according to E. Erickson
The crisis of development is accompanied by the formation of all forms of identity. According to E. Erickson, the main identity crisis falls on adolescence. If the development processes go well, then an "adult identity" is acquired, and if developmental difficulties arise, an identity delay is noted. Erickson called the interval between adolescence and adulthood a "psychosocial moratorium." This is the time when a young person, through trial and error, seeks to find his place in life. The turbulence of this crisis depends on how successfully the previous crises (trust, independence, activity, etc.) were resolved and on the spiritual atmosphere in society. If the crisis is not successfully dealt with in the early stages, there may be a delay in identity. E. Erickson introduced the concept of ritualization into psychology. Ritualization in behavior is an interaction built on an agreement between two or more people, which can be renewed at certain intervals in repeating circumstances (a ritual of mutual recognition, greetings, criticism, etc.). The ritual, having once arisen, is successively included in the system that arises at higher levels, becoming a part of subsequent stages. The concept of E. Erickson is called the epigenetic concept of the life path of a person, according to which everything that grows has a common plan. Proceeding from this general plan, separate parts develop, and each of them has the most favorable period for development. This happens until all the parts, having developed, form a functional whole. Erickson believed that the sequence of stages is the result of biological maturation, and the content of development is determined by what society expects from a person. He admitted that his periodization cannot be considered as a theory of personality, it is only the key to building such a theory. 2.5. Social learning theory The concept of social learning shows how a child adapts to the modern world, how he learns the habits and norms of modern society. Representatives of this trend believe that along with classical conditioning and operant learning, there is also learning by imitation and imitation. Such learning began to be regarded in American psychology as a new, third form of learning. It should be noted that in the theory of social learning the problem of development is posed from the position of the initial antagonism of the child and society, borrowed from Freudianism. Scientists have introduced such a thing as socialization. Socialization is the process and result of the assimilation and active reproduction of social experience by an individual, carried out in communication and activity. Socialization can occur both under conditions of spontaneous influence on the personality of various circumstances of life in society, which sometimes have the character of multidirectional factors, and in conditions of upbringing, i.e., the purposeful formation of the personality. Education is the leading and defining beginning of socialization. This concept was introduced into social psychology in the 1940s-1950s. in the works of A. Bandura, J. Kolman and others. In different scientific schools, the concept of socialization has received a different interpretation: in neobehaviorism it is interpreted as social learning; in the school of symbolic interactionism - as a result of social interaction; in "humanistic psychology" - as self-actualization of the "I-concept". The phenomenon of socialization is multidimensional, therefore each of these areas focuses on one of the sides of the phenomenon under study. The American psychologists A. Bandura, R. Sears, B. Skinner and other scientists dealt with the problem of social learning. Let's take a closer look at some of their theories. A. Bandura (1925) believed that in order to form a new behavior, reward and punishment are not enough. Therefore, he opposed the transfer of results obtained on animals to the analysis of human behavior. He believed that children acquire new behavior through observation and imitation, that is, by imitating people significant to them, and by identification, that is, by borrowing the feelings and actions of another authoritative person. Bandura conducted research on childhood and youth aggressiveness. A group of children were shown films in which different patterns of adult behavior were presented (aggressive and non-aggressive), which had different consequences (reward or punishment). So, the film showed how an adult aggressively handles toys. After watching the film, the children were left alone and played with toys similar to those they saw in the film. As a result, aggressive behavior in children who watched the film increased and manifested itself more often than in children who did not watch it. If aggressive behavior was rewarded in the film, the children's aggressive behavior also increased. In another group of children who watched a film where aggressive behavior from adults was punished, it decreased. Bandura singled out the "stimulus-response" dyad and introduced four intermediate processes into this scheme to explain how imitation of the model leads to the formation of new behavior in children: 1) attention to the action of the model; 2) memory about the influences of the model; 3) motor skills that allow you to reproduce what you see; 4) motivation, which determines the desire of the child to reproduce what he saw. Thus, A. Bandura recognized the role of cognitive processes in the formation and regulation of behavior based on imitation. The famous American psychologist R. Sears (1908-1998) proposed the principle of dyadic analysis of personality development. This principle lies in the fact that many personality traits are initially formed in the so-called "dyadic situations", because a person's actions depend on another person and are focused on him. Dyadic relationships include the relationship of mother and child, teacher and student, son and father, etc. The scientist believed that there are no strictly fixed and unchanging personality traits, since human behavior always depends on the personal properties of another member of the dyad. Sears identified three phases of child development: 1) the phase of rudimentary behavior - based on innate needs and learning in early childhood, in the first months of life); 2) the phase of primary motivational systems - learning within the family (the main phase of socialization); 3) the phase of secondary motivational systems - learning outside the family (goes beyond early age and is associated with school entry). Obviously, Sears considered the influence of parents on the upbringing of children to be the main thing in the process of socialization. Sears considered dependence, that is, the need of the child, which cannot be ignored, to be the central component of learning. It is known that the first dependence that occurs in a child is dependence on the mother, the peak of which falls on early childhood. Sears identified five forms of addictive behavior. 1. "Search for negative attention" - the child tries to attract the attention of adults with the help of quarrels, disobedience, breaking up relationships. The reason for this may be the low requirements and insufficiency of restrictions in relation to the child. 2. "Seeking permanent confirmation" is an apology, a request, an unnecessary promise or a search for protection, comfort, consolation. The reason is the excessive demands on the child, especially regarding his achievements on the part of both parents. 3. "Search for positive attention" - expressed in the search for praise, the desire to join the group or leave it. 4. "Staying nearby" - the constant presence near another child or group of children, adults. This form can be called an "immature", passive form of manifestation in the behavior of positive dependence. 5. "Touch and hold" is non-aggressive touching, hugging or holding others. Here we can talk about "immature" dependent form of behavior. R. Sears believed that parents need to find a middle path in education. We must adhere to the following rule: not too strong, not too weak dependence; not too strong, not too weak identification. The role of reward and punishment in the formation of new behavior was considered by the American neo-behaviorist psychologist B. Skinner (1904-1990). The main concept of his concept is reinforcement, i.e., reducing or increasing the likelihood that a given behavior will be repeated. He also considered the role of reward in this process, but shared the role of reinforcement and reward in the formation of new behavior, believing that reinforcement enhances behavior, and reward does not always contribute to this. In his opinion, reinforcement can be positive and negative, primary (food, water, cold) and conditional (money, signs of love, attention, etc.). B. Skinner opposed punishment and believed that it cannot give a stable and lasting effect, and ignoring bad behavior can replace punishment. The American psychologist J. Gewirtz paid great attention to studying the conditions for the emergence of social motivation and attachment of an infant to an adult, and an adult to a child. It was based on advances in social psychology and the ideas of Sears and Skinner. Gewirtz came to the conclusion that the source of motivation for the child's behavior is the stimulating effect of the environment and reinforcement-based learning, as well as the various reactions of the child, for example, laughter, tears, smile, etc. The American psychologist W. Bronfenbrenner believed that the results of laboratory tests should be checked in natural conditions, that is, in a family or peer group. He paid special attention to the structure of the family and other social institutions as the most important factors in the development of children's behavior. Therefore, he conducted his research by observing families. Bronfenbrenner studied the origin of the phenomenon of "age segregation" in American families. This phenomenon lies in the fact that young people cannot find their place in society. As a result, a person feels cut off from the people around him and even experiences hostility towards them. Having finally found something to his liking, he does not get satisfaction from the work, and interest in it soon fades away. This fact of isolation of young people from other people and the real thing in American psychology is called alienation. Bronfenbrenner sees the roots of alienation in the following features of modern families: ▪ mothers’ work; ▪ an increase in the number of divorces and, accordingly, the number of children growing up without fathers; ▪ lack of communication between children and fathers due to the latter being busy at work; ▪ insufficient communication with parents due to the advent of televisions and separate rooms; ▪ rare communication with relatives and neighbors. All these and many other, even more unfavorable conditions affect the mental development of the child, which leads to alienation, the causes of which are the disorganization of the family. However, according to Bronfenbrenner, the disorganizing forces do not initially originate in the family itself, but in the way of life of the whole society and in the objective circumstances that families face. 2.6. The problem of the development of thinking in the early works of Jean Piaget The task set by the outstanding Swiss psychologist J. Piaget (1896-1980) was to reveal the psychological mechanisms of integral logical structures. But first, he studied hidden mental tendencies and outlined the mechanisms of their emergence and change. Using the clinical method, J. Piaget explored the content and forms of children's thoughts: 1) the child’s ideas about the world that are unique in their content; 2) qualitative features of children's logic; 3) the egocentric nature of children's thoughts. Piaget's main achievement is the discovery of the child's egocentrism as a central feature of thinking, a hidden mental position. The peculiarity of children's logic, children's speech, children's ideas about the world is only a consequence of this egocentric mental position. The peculiarity of the child's conception of the world lies in the fact that at a certain stage of his development he considers objects as their perception gives them, and does not see things in their internal relations. For example, a child thinks that the moon follows him when he walks, stops when he stops, runs after him when he runs. J. Piaget called this phenomenon realism. It is this realism that prevents the child from considering things independently of the subject, in their internal interconnection. The child considers his instantaneous perception to be absolutely true. This happens because children cannot separate their "I" from the world around them, from things. Realism is of two types: intellectual and moral. For example, a child is sure that the branches of trees make the wind. This is intellectual realism. Moral realism is expressed in the fact that the child does not take into account the internal intention in evaluating the act and judges the act only by the external effect, the material result. Piaget believed that the development of ideas about the world proceeds in three directions: 1) from realism to objectivity; 2) from realism to reciprocity (reciprocity); 3) from realism to relativism. The development of children's ideas, proceeding from realism to objectivity, lies in the fact that this development goes through several stages: participation (participation), animism (universal animation) and artificalism (understanding of natural phenomena by analogy with human activity), on which egocentric relations between " I and the world are gradually reduced. Only after realizing his own position among things, the inner world of the child stands out and is opposed to the outside world. Parallel to the evolution of children's ideas about the world, directed from realism to objectivity, there is a development of children's ideas from realism to reciprocity (reciprocity). At this stage, the child discovers for himself the points of view of other people, ascribes to them the same meaning as his own, establishes a certain correspondence between them. From that moment on, he begins to see reality not only as directly given to himself, but as if established through the coordination of all points of view taken together. The child's thought also develops in a third direction - from realism to relativism. At first, the child thinks that there are absolute substances and absolute qualities. Later, he realizes that the phenomena are interconnected, and our assessments are relative. For example, at first the child thinks that in every moving object there is a motor, thanks to which this object moves, but then he understands that the movement of an individual body is the influence of external forces. Along with the qualitative originality of the content of children's thought, egocentrism determines the following features of children's logic: syncretism (the tendency to connect everything with everything), juxtaposition (the absence of a causal relationship between judgments), transduction (the transition in reasoning from the particular to the particular, bypassing the general position), insensitivity to contradiction etc. All these features of children's thinking have one common feature, which also internally depends on egocentrism. It consists in the fact that a child under 7-8 years old cannot perform the logical operations of addition and multiplication of a class. Boolean addition is finding a class that is least common between two other classes, but contains both of these classes in itself, for example: "animals = vertebrates + invertebrates". Logical multiplication is an operation that consists in finding the largest class contained simultaneously in two classes, i.e., finding a set of elements common to two classes, for example: "Genevians + Protestants = Genevan Protestants". This inability is reflected in how children define concepts. It was experimentally established that each child concept is determined by a large number of heterogeneous elements that are in no way connected by hierarchical relations. For example, a child, giving a definition of strength, says: "Strength is when you can carry many things." It is especially difficult for him to define relative concepts - such as brother, right and left hand, family, etc. The inability to perform logical addition and multiplication leads not only to the fact that children give incorrect definitions of concepts, but also to the inconsistency of these definitions. Piaget saw the reason for this in the absence of equilibrium: the concept gets rid of contradiction when equilibrium is reached. He considered the appearance of the reversibility of thought to be the criterion of stable equilibrium. In his opinion, each mental action corresponds to a symmetrical action that allows you to return to the starting point. In his early work, Piaget associated the lack of reversibility of thought with the child's egocentrism. But before turning to the characteristics of this central phenomenon, let us dwell on one more important feature of the child's psyche - the phenomenon of egocentric speech. Piaget believed that children's speech is egocentric because the child speaks only "from his own point of view" and does not try to understand the position of the interlocutor. For him, anyone he meets is an interlocutor. The child only cares about the appearance of interest. Verbal egocentrism is manifested in the fact that the child speaks without trying to influence the other and without realizing the difference between his point of view and the point of view of the interlocutor. Egocentric speech does not cover the entire speech of the child, its share depends, firstly, on the activity of the child himself, and secondly, on the type of social relations established both between the child and the adult and between children of the same age. Where adult authority and coercive relations dominate, egocentric speech occupies a significant place. In a peer environment where discussions and disputes can take place, the percentage of such speech decreases. But with age, the coefficient of egocentric speech decreases regardless of the environment. At the age of three, it reaches its maximum value - 75%, from three to six years, egocentric speech gradually decreases, and after seven years it completely disappears. The significance of the experimental facts obtained in Piaget's research lies in the fact that thanks to them, the most important psychological phenomenon, which remained little studied and unrecognized for a long time, is revealed - the child's mental position, which determines his attitude to reality. Piaget paid special attention to the egocentrism of knowledge. He considered egocentrism as the inability of an individual to change his cognitive position in relation to some object, opinion or idea. The roots of egocentrism, according to him, lie in the subject's misunderstanding of the existence of a point of view that is different from his point of view. This happens because the subject is confident in the identity of the psychological organization of other people and his own. Egocentrism can be cognitive, moral, communicative. Cognitive egocentrism characterizes the processes of perception and thinking. Moral egocentrism reflects the inability to perceive the moral actions and deeds of other people. Communicative egocentrism is observed when transmitting information to other people and denies the existence of another meaning in the transmitted information. The original egocentrism of cognition is not a hypertrophy of awareness of the "I", but, on the contrary, a direct relationship to objects, where the subject, ignoring the "I", cannot leave the "I" in order to find his place in the world of relations, freed from subjective ties. Piaget believed that the decrease in egocentrism is not associated with an increase in knowledge, but with the ability of the subject to correlate his point of view with others. The transition from egocentrism (or, as Piaget later called it, centration) to decentration characterizes cognition at all levels of development. The universality and inevitability of this process allowed Piaget to call it the law of development. To overcome egocentrism, you must: 1) realize your “I” as a subject and separate the subject from the object; 2) coordinate your own point of view with others. According to Piaget, the development of knowledge about oneself occurs in the subject only during social interaction, that is, under the influence of the developing social relationships of individuals. Piaget considers society as it appears to the child, that is, as the sum of social relations, among which two extreme types can be distinguished: relations of coercion and relations of cooperation. The relationship of coercion does not contribute to the change of mental positions. In order to realize one's "I", one must be free from coercion, in addition, an interaction of opinions is necessary. But an adult and a child cannot achieve such interaction at first - the inequality between them is too great. Only individuals who consider themselves equal can exercise "developmental" mutual control. Such relationships are possible among representatives of the same age, for example, in a children's team, where relationships begin to form on the basis of cooperation. Cooperation relations are built on the basis of mutual respect. Immediately there is a need to adapt to another person and the need to realize the existence of a different point of view. As a result, rational elements are formed in logic and ethics. Another important concept that exists in the system of psychological views is socialization. According to Piaget, socialization is a process of adaptation to the social environment, consisting in the fact that the child, having reached a certain level of development, becomes capable of cooperating with other people due to the division and coordination of his point of view and the points of view of other people. Socialization causes a decisive turn in the mental development of the child - the transition from an egocentric position to an objective one. This transition occurs by 7-8 years. 2.7. Theory of cognitive development (concept of J. Piaget) When studying the psychology of a developing child, great attention has always been paid to thinking and speech, because they form the basis of intelligence. This problem was dealt with by L.S. Vygotsky, N.B. Shumakova, J. Piaget, J. Bruner and others. Let us dwell in more detail on the theory of J. Piaget. Piaget studied in detail the development of thinking up to the moment when it is combined with speech, especially visual-active and visual-figurative thinking. He believed that thinking takes shape long before it becomes verbal. Piaget singled out the logical structures of thinking, called operations. An operation is a mental action that has the property of reversibility, i.e. if the child has completed the necessary task, then he can return to its beginning by performing the opposite action. (Paired mathematical operations can be classified as reversible.) According to Piaget, the essence of a child's intellectual development lies in mastering operations. Knowledge for J. Piaget is a process. To know means to act in accordance with existing knowledge. Actions can be done mentally or practically. Piaget believed that the main goal of rational behavior, or thinking, is adaptation to the environment. Ways of adaptation are called by him schemes. A schema is a repetitive structure or organization of actions in certain situations. It can be simple movements, a complex of motor skills, skills or mental actions. Piaget called assimilation, accommodation and balance the main mechanisms by which a child moves from one stage of development to another. Assimilation is an action with new objects based on already established skills and abilities. Accommodation - the desire to change their skills as a result of changing conditions and in accordance with them. Accommodation, restoring the disturbed balance in the psyche and behavior, eliminates the discrepancy between the existing skills, abilities and conditions for performing actions. Piaget believed that one should strive to ensure that assimilation and accommodation are always in balance, because when assimilation dominates accommodation, thinking becomes rigid, behavior becomes inflexible. And if accommodation prevails over assimilation, the behavior of children becomes inconsistent and unorganized, there is a delay in the formation of stable and economical adaptive mental actions and operations, i.e., problems arise in learning. The balance between assimilation and accommodation ensures reasonable behavior. Achieving balance is a difficult task. The success of its solution will depend on the intellectual level of the subject, on the new problems that he will face. It is necessary to strive for balance, and it is important that it be present at all levels of intellectual development. Thanks to assimilation, accommodation and balance, cognitive development occurs, continuing throughout a person's life. Based on the theory of development, in which the main law is the desire of the subject to balance with reality, Piaget put forward a hypothesis about the existence of stages of intellectual development. This is the next (after egocentrism) Piaget's major achievement in the field of child psychology. According to Piaget, there are four such stages: sensorimotor, pre-operational, concrete operations stage, formal operations stage. The sensorimotor stage lasts from birth to 18-24 months. During this period, the child becomes capable of elementary symbolic actions. There is a psychological separation of oneself from the outside world, knowledge of oneself as a subject of action, volitional control of one’s behavior begins, an understanding of the stability and constancy of external objects appears, the realization that objects continue to exist and be in their places even when they are not perceived through the senses . The preoperative stage covers the period from 18-24 months to 7 years. Children of this age begin to use symbols and speech, they can represent objects and images in words, describe them. Basically, the child uses these objects and images in the game, in the process of imitation. It is difficult for him to imagine how others perceive what he observes and sees himself. This expresses the egocentrism of thinking, that is, it is difficult for a child to take the position of another person, to see phenomena and things through his eyes. At this age, children can classify objects according to individual characteristics, cope with solving specific problems related to the real relationships of people - the difficulty lies only in the fact that it is difficult for them to express all this in verbal form. The stage of concrete operations takes place from 7 to 12 years. This age is called so because the child, using concepts, associates them with specific objects. This stage is characterized by the fact that children can perform flexible and reversible operations performed in accordance with logical rules, logically explain the actions performed, consider different points of view, they become more objective in their assessments, come to an intuitive understanding of the following logical principles: if A = B and B = C, then A = C; A + B \u6d B + A. At 7 years old, ideas about the conservation of number are assimilated, at 9 years old - mass, about XNUMX years old - the weight of objects. Children begin to classify objects according to certain essential features, to distinguish subclasses from them. Consider the development of the child's seriation on the following example. Children are asked to arrange the sticks by size, from the shortest to the longest. In children, this operation is formed gradually, passing through a series of stages. At the initial stage, children claim that all sticks are the same. Then they divide them into two categories - large and small, without further ordering. Then the children note that among the sticks there are large, small and medium. Then the child tries to arrange the sticks by trial and error, based on his experience, but again incorrectly. And only at the last stage does he resort to the method of seriation: first he chooses the largest stick and puts it on the table, then he looks for the largest of the remaining ones, etc., correctly lining up the series. At this age, children can arrange objects according to various criteria (height or weight), imagine in their mind and name a series of actions performed, performed or those that still need to be performed. A seven-year-old child can remember a difficult path, but is only able to reproduce it graphically at 8 years old. The stage of formal operations begins after 12 years and continues throughout a person's life. At this stage, thinking becomes more flexible, the reversibility of mental operations and reasoning is realized, the ability to reason using abstract concepts appears; the ability to systematically search for ways to solve problems with viewing many solutions and evaluating the effectiveness of each of them develops. Piaget believed that the development of the child's intellect is influenced by maturation, experience and the actual social environment (training, upbringing). He believed that the biological maturation of the body plays a certain role in intellectual development, and the effect of maturation itself is to open up new possibilities for the development of the body. Piaget also believed that the success of learning depends on the level of intellectual development already achieved by the child. 2.8. Cultural-historical concept This concept was developed by L.S. Vygotsky with a group of scientists - such as A.N. Leontiev, A.R. Luria, L.I. Bozhovich, A.V. Zaporozhets and others. Their experimental studies formed the basis of a cultural-historical theory, according to which the development of mental functions (attention, memory, thinking, and others) has a social, cultural, lifetime origin and is mediated by special means - signs that arise in the course of human history. According to L.S. Vygotsky, a sign is a social tool for a person, a “psychological tool”. He wrote: "... a sign that is outside the body, like a tool, is remote from the individual and serves, in essence, as a public organ or social tool." (Here and below in 2.8 cit. from: Solodilova O.P., 2004). At the initial stage of creating this theory, L.S. Vygotsky believed that the “elementary functions” of a child are of a natural hereditary nature, that is, they are not yet mediated by cultural means - signs, but later he came to the following conclusion: “... Functions that are usually considered the most elementary, obey completely different laws in a child than at earlier stages of phylogenetic development, and are characterized by the same mediated psychological structure ... A detailed analysis of the structure of individual mental processes makes it possible to verify this and shows that even the doctrine of the structure of individual elementary processes of children's behavior needs a radical revision. L.S. Vygotsky formulated the genetic law of the existence of any mental function of a person, any psychological mechanism of his behavior or activity: ". Any function in the cultural development of a child appears on the stage twice, on two planes: first - social, then psychological, first between people. then inside the child Functions are first formed in the collective in the form of relations between children, then they become mental functions of the individual. Vygotsky believed that there are two types of mental development: biological and historical (cultural). He believed that these types actually exist in a merged form and form a single process in ontogeny. In this, the scientist saw the greatest and fundamental originality of the mental development of the child. He wrote: "The growth of a normal child into civilization is usually a single fusion with the processes of its organic maturation." According to Vygotsky, the idea of maturation underlies special periods of heightened response - sensitive periods. The sensitive period of development is the period when it is most reasonable to start and conduct the education and upbringing of children, since it is at this time that psychological and behavioral properties will be best formed - the development of memory, thinking, attention, volitional qualities, etc. For example, intensive development of speech is at the age of one to eight years, and the intonational and grammatical structure of speech develops well at the age of 1,5 to 3 years, and phonetic hearing - at the age of 5 years. Vygotsky's position on the formation of higher mental functions due to verbal communication of people refuted the notion of classical psychology about the internal nature of mental activity. The provision on the "growing from outside to inside" of higher mental functions outlined a new path for their objective study and led to the creation of a new method - experimental genetic. It was used by L.S. Vygotsky in the study of the origin and development of voluntary attention, the development of concepts. 2.9. The concept of mental development of the child D.B. Elkonin There are many approaches to the periodization of the mental development of a child, but the most acceptable is the periodization of development proposed by an outstanding specialist in the field of child and educational psychology D.B. Elkonin. It is a cross between empirical periodization, based on real life experience, and theoretical periodization, potentially possible under ideal conditions for the education and upbringing of children. Consider the concept of D.B. Elkonin in more detail. Elkonin divided the period from birth to graduation into seven stages. 1. Infancy: from birth to 1 year of age. 2. Early childhood: from 1 year of life to 3 years. 3. Junior and middle preschool age: from 3 to 4-5 years. 4. Senior preschool age: from 4-5 to 6-7 years. 5. Junior school age: from 6-7 to 10-11 years old. 6. Adolescence: from 10-11 to 14-15 years old. 7. Early adolescence: from 14-15 to 16-17 years. The whole development process can be divided into three stages: preschool childhood - from birth to 6-7 years; junior school age - from 6-7 to 10-11 years; middle and senior school age - from 10-11 to 16-17 years. Each period of development has its own characteristics and boundaries, which can be seen by observing the child. At each psychological age, it is necessary to apply special techniques and methods of training and education, to build communication with the child, taking into account his age characteristics. Age periods are accompanied by the development of interpersonal communication, aimed mainly at personal and intellectual development, characterized by the formation of knowledge, skills, and the implementation of the operational and technical capabilities of the child. The transition from one stage of development to another occurs in situations resembling an age crisis, i.e., when there is a discrepancy between the level of personal development achieved and the operational and technical capabilities of the child. The personal development of children is carried out through the reproduction and modeling of interpersonal relations between adults and the personality traits manifested in them, as well as in the process of communication between the child and other children during role-playing games. Here he is faced with the need to master new objective actions, without which it is difficult to be understood by peers and look more mature. The developmental process begins in infancy with the fact that the child begins to recognize the parents and perk up at their appearance. This is how a child communicates with an adult. At the beginning of an early age, objects are manipulated and practical, sensorimotor intelligence begins to form. At the same time, there is an intensive development of verbal (speech) communication. The child uses speech to establish contact and cooperation with others, but not as an instrument of thinking. Objective actions serve as a way to establish interpersonal contacts. At preschool age, the role-playing game becomes the leading activity, in which the child models relationships between people, as if fulfilling their social roles, copying the behavior of adults. In the process of role-playing, the child's personal development takes place, he masters objective activity and initial communication skills. At primary school age, teaching becomes the main activity, as a result of which intellectual and cognitive abilities are formed. Through teaching, the whole system of relations between the child and adults is built. In adolescence, labor activity and an intimate-personal form of communication arise and develop. Labor activity consists in the emergence of a joint passion for any business. Teenagers begin to think about their future profession. Communication at this age comes to the fore and is built on the basis of the so-called "camaraderie code". The "Code of Partnership" includes business and personal relationships similar to those of adults. In senior school age, the processes of adolescence continue to develop, but intimate-personal communication becomes the leading one. High school students begin to think about the meaning of life, their position in society, professional and personal self-determination. These are the main provisions of the development concept of D.B. El-horse. It was further developed in the works of D.I. Feldstein. Authors: Marina Khilko, Maria Tkacheva << Back: Developmental psychology as a science (Subject and tasks of developmental psychology. Factors determining the development of developmental psychology. Research methods in developmental psychology. Historical analysis of the concept of “childhood”) >> Forward: Psychological problems of personality development (Features of the development process. Driving forces, conditions and sources of personality development. Patterns of mental development. Mechanisms of personality development. Personal self-awareness. Structural links of self-awareness. Their genesis)
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