LECTURE No. 8. The evolution of schools and directions

1. Neobehaviorism

An analysis of the paths of development of the main psychological schools reveals a common trend for them. They changed in the direction of enriching their categorical basis with the theoretical orientations of other schools.

The formula of behaviorism was clear and unambiguous: "stimulus - reaction." The question of the processes that occur in the body, and its mental structure between stimulus and reaction was removed from the agenda.

The link "stimulus - reaction" serves, according to radical behaviorism, as an unshakable support of psychology as an exact science.

Meanwhile, prominent psychologists appeared in the circle of behaviorists who questioned this postulate.

The first of them was the American Edward Tolman (1886-1959), according to which the formula of behavior should not consist of two, but of three members, and therefore look like this: stimulus (independent variable) - intermediate variables - dependent variable (reaction).

The middle link (intermediate variables) is nothing more than mental moments that are not accessible to direct observation: expectations, attitudes, knowledge.

Following the behavioral tradition, Tolman experimented on rats looking for a way out of a maze.

The main conclusion from these experiments came down to the fact that, relying on the behavior of animals, strictly controlled by the experimenter and objectively observed by him, it can be reliably established that this behavior is controlled not by the stimuli that act on them at the moment, but by special internal regulators. Behavior is preceded by a kind of expectations, hypotheses, cognitive (cognitive) "maps".

The animal itself builds these cards. They guide him through the maze. The position that mental images serve as a regulator of action was substantiated by Gestalt theory. Taking into account her lessons, Tolman developed his own theory, called cognitive behaviorism.

Another variant of neobehaviorism was that of Clark Hall (1884-1952) and his school.

He introduced another middle link into the "stimulus - reaction" formula, namely the need of the organism (food, sexual, need for sleep, etc.).

In defense of orthodox behaviorism, rejecting any internal factors, Burhus Skinner (1904-1990) spoke. He called the conditioned reflex an operant reaction.

According to Pavlov, a new reaction was developed in response to a conditioned signal when it was reinforced. According to Skinner, the body first produces movement, then receives (or does not receive) reinforcement.

Skinner drew up many different "reinforcement plans".

The technique of developing "operant reactions" was used by Skinner's followers in the education of children, their upbringing, and in the treatment of neurotics.

During World War II, Skinner worked on a project to use pigeons to control aircraft fire. He hoped, based on the theory of operant reactions, to create a program for "manufacturing" people for a new society.

Skinner's work has enriched knowledge about the general rules of skill development, the role of reinforcement, the dynamics of transition from one form of behavior to another, and so on. But behaviorists were not limited to issues related to learning from animals.

To discover the general laws of construction of any behavior, including that of a person, verified by exact objective science - such was the most important task of the entire behavioral movement. Hoping to give psychology an accuracy of generalizations that is not inferior to physics, the behaviorists believed that, relying on the "stimulus - reaction" formula, it would be possible to breed a new breed of people. The utopian nature of this plan is found in concepts such as Skinner's. Even in relation to animals, Skinner was dealing with an "empty organism" from which nothing remained but operant reactions. After all, neither for the activity of the nervous system, nor for mental functions in Skinner's model there was a place. Removed from the agenda and the problem of development. It was replaced by a description of how others arise from one skill. Huge layers of higher manifestations of life, discovered and studied by many schools, fell out of the subject area of ​​psychology.

2. The theory of the development of intelligence. The empirical foundation of the theory

The Swiss Jean Piaget (1896-1980) became the creator of the most profound and influential theory of the development of intelligence. He transformed the basic concepts of other schools: behaviorism (instead of the concept of reaction, he put forward the concept of operation), gestaltism (gestalt gave way to the concept of structure) and Jean (taking over from him the principle of internalization).

Piaget built his new theoretical ideas on a solid empirical foundation - on the material of the development of thinking and speech in a child. Works in the early 1920s "Speech and thinking of the child", "Judgement and inference in the child", etc. Piaget, using the method of conversation, concluded that if an adult thinks socially, even when he is alone with himself, then the child thinks selfishly, even when he is in the society of others. This speech of his was called egocentric.

The principle of egocentrism reigns over the thought of a preschooler. He is focused on his position and is not able to take the position of another ("de-center"), critically look at his judgments from the outside. These judgments are ruled by the "logic of a dream", which takes away from reality.

Piaget's conclusions were criticized by Vygotsky, who gave his own interpretation of the child's egocentric speech. At the same time, he highly appreciated the works of Piaget, since they did not talk about what the child lacks compared to adults, but about what the child has, what is his internal mental organization.

Piaget identified four stages in the evolution of children's thought. Initially, children's thoughts are contained in objective actions (up to 2 years), then they are internalized (pass from external to internal), become pre-operations (actions) of the mind (from 2 to 7 years), at the third stage (from 7 to 11 years) concrete operations, on the fourth (from 11 to 15 years old) - formal operations, when the child's thought is able to build logically sound hypotheses, from which deductive (for example, from general to particular) conclusions are made.

Operations are not performed in isolation. Being interconnected, they create stable and at the same time mobile structures. The stability of the structure is possible only due to the activity of the organism, its intense struggle with the forces that destroy it.

The development of a system of mental actions from one stage to another - this is how Piaget presented a picture of consciousness.

3. Neo-Freudianism

This direction, having mastered the main schemes and orientations of orthodox psychoanalysis, revised the basic category of motivation for it. The decisive role was given to the influences of the socio-cultural environment and its values.

Already Adler sought to explain the unconscious complexes of the personality by social factors. The approach outlined by him was developed by a group of researchers, who are usually united under the name of neo-Freudians. What Freud attributed to the biology of the organism, the instincts inherent in it, this group explained by the growth of the individual into a historically established culture. Such conclusions were made on the basis of a large anthropological material gleaned from the study of the mores and customs of tribes far from Western civilization.

K. Horney (1885-1953) is considered to be the leader of neo-Freudianism. Having experienced the influence of Marxism, she argued in the theory on which she relied in her psychoanalytic practice that all conflicts that arise in childhood are generated by the relationship of the child with his parents. It is because of the nature of this relationship that he develops a basic sense of anxiety that reflects the child's helplessness in a potentially hostile world. Neurosis is nothing more than a reaction to anxiety. Neurotic motivation takes on three directions: movement towards people as a need for love, movement away from people as a need for independence, and movement against people as a need for power (generating hatred, protest and aggression).

Explaining neuroses, their genesis and mechanisms of development by a specific social context, neo-Freudians criticized capitalist society as a source of alienation of the individual, the loss of her identity, forgetting her "I", etc.

Orientation to socio-cultural factors instead of biological determined the appearance of neo-Freudianism. At the same time, the appeal of its leaders to the Marxist philosophy of man played a significant role in the emergence of this trend. Under the sign of this philosophy, the theoretical foundations of Russian psychology were formed in the Soviet period.

4. Cognitive psychology. Computers. Cybernetics and psychology

In the middle of the XX century. special machines appeared - computers, media and information converters.

Scientific and technological progress has led to the invention of information machines. It was then that science developed, which began to consider all forms of signal regulation from a single point of view as a means of communication and control in any systems - technical, organic, psychological, social.

It has been called cybernetics. She developed special methods that made it possible to create for computers many programs for the perception, memorization and processing of information, as well as its exchange. This led to a real revolution in social production, both material and spiritual.

The emergence of information machines capable of performing operations with great speed and accuracy, which were considered the unique advantage of the human brain, had a significant impact on psychology as well. Discussions arose as to whether the work of a computer is not a semblance of the work of the human brain, and thus its mental organization. The image of the computer has changed the scientific vision of this activity. The result was a fundamental change in American psychology.

A crushing blow to it was dealt by a new direction that arose in the middle of the XNUMXth century, under the impression of the computer revolution, called cognitive psychology.

At the forefront of cognitive psychology is the study of the dependence of the subject's behavior on internal, cognitive issues and structures, through the prism of which he perceives his living space and acts in it. The idea that from the outside invisible cognitive processes are not accessible to objective, strictly scientific research has collapsed.

Various theories of the organization and transformation of knowledge are being developed - from instantly perceived and stored sensory images to a complex multi-level semantic (semantic) structure of human consciousness (Neisser).

5. Humanistic psychology

Another direction came out under the name of humanistic psychology. It arose in the middle of the XNUMXth century, when the general appearance of American psychology was determined by the omnipotence of two directions, behaviorism and psychoanalysis.

Being general psychological, they were also introduced into various areas of practice, especially psychotherapeutic. Among psychotherapists, there were loud voices of protest against the "two forces", which, not without reason, were accused of dehumanizing a person, treating him either as a robot or as a neurotic, whose poor "I" is torn apart by various complexes - sexual, aggressive, inferiority, etc. Neither neither one nor the other, as the initiators of the creation of a special humanistic psychology stated, does not allow revealing the positive, constructive beginning of an integral human personality, its indestructible desire for creativity and independent decision-making, the choice of one's own destiny. Humanistic psychology, speaking out against behaviorism and psychoanalysis, proclaimed itself a "third force".

The problems of a person's experience of his concrete experience, which is not reducible to general rational schemes and ideas, moved to the center of research interests. It was about restoring the authenticity of the personality, restoring the correspondence of its existence to the true nature of the personality. At the same time, it was assumed that the true nature is revealed in a borderline situation, when a person finds himself between existence and non-existence. Freedom of choice and openness to the future - these are the signs that the concept of personality should be guided by.

Only in this case, they will help a person get rid of the feeling of "abandonment in the world" and find the meaning of his being.

Humanistic psychology rejected conformism as "balancing with the environment," adaptation to the existing order of things, and determinism as confidence in the causation of behavior by external biological and social factors.

Conformism was opposed to the independence and responsibility of the subject, while determinism was opposed to self-determination. This is what distinguishes a person from other living beings and is a quality that is not acquired, but is inherent in his biology.

Human biology is distinguished by resistance to balance, the need to maintain a non-equilibrium state, a certain level of tension, rather than eliminate it through adaptive reactions, as follows from the version of the dictates of homeostasis.

The development of the "third force" had a social background. It protested against the deformation of a person in modern Western culture, depriving him of his "personality", imposing the idea of ​​​​behavior regulated either by unconscious drives or by the well-coordinated work of the "social machine".

With regard to the practice of psychotherapy, a new credo was formulated - the patient should be interpreted as capable of independently developing his own value orientations and implementing his own constructed life plan.

The main setting of psychotherapy, according to one of the leaders of humanistic psychology, the American psychologist C. Rogers (1902-1990), should not be focused on the individual symptoms of the patient, but on him as a unique person. "Client-Centered Therapy" (1951) - this was the title of Rogers' book, which stated that the psychotherapist should communicate with the person who turned to him not as a patient, but as a client who came for advice, and the psychologist is called upon to focus not on the problem, disturbing the client, but on him as a person.

The main task is not the solution of a separate problem with which he is concerned, but the transformation of his personality due to the fact that he rebuilds his phenomenal world into a system of needs, among which the most important is the need for self-actualization.

A number of other concepts, in particular the concepts of A. Maslow (1908-1970) and V. Frankl, are usually attributed to the movement called humanistic psychology. Maslow developed a holistic dynamic theory of motivation.

In his book Motivation and Personality (1954), he argued that every person has a special instinct for self-actualization, the highest expression of which is a special experience, like a mystical revelation, ecstasy.

Not from sexual traumas, but from the suppression of this vital need, neuroses and mental disorders arise. Accordingly, the transformation of a flawed personality into a full-fledged one should be considered from the point of view of the restoration and development of higher forms of motivation inherent in human nature.

In Europe, Frankl, who called his concept logotherapy, is close to the supporters of humanistic psychology, but in a special, different version from the American one.

Unlike Maslow, Frankl believes that a person has freedom in relation to his needs and is able to "go beyond himself" in search of meaning.

Not the principle of pleasure (Freud) and not the will to power (Adler), but the will to meaning - such is the truly human principle of behavior.

With the loss of meaning, various forms of neurosis arise.

The reality is that a person is forced not so much to achieve balance with the environment as to constantly respond to the challenge of life, to resist its hardships.

This creates tension, which he can deal with thanks to free will, allowing him to give meaning to the most hopeless and critical situations.

Freedom is the ability to change the meaning of a situation even when "there is nowhere else to go."

Unlike other adherents of humanistic psychology, Frankl interpreted self-actualization not as an end in itself, but as a means of realizing meaning.

This is not self-actualization, but self-transcendence, due to which, having found the meaning of life in feat, suffering, love, performing real deeds associated with the values ​​​​open to her, the personality develops.

Therefore, the installation recommended by Rogers, Maslow and other psychologists for self-expression by the personality of its authentic inner nature of motivations (whether it be independence from other people or in intensive communication with each other) Frankl considered insufficient for a person to understand why to live.

To be a man means to be directed to something other than himself, to be open to the world of meanings (Logos).

This is not self-actualization, but self-transcendence (from the Latin "transcendeys" - "going beyond"), due to which, having found the meaning of life in a feat, suffering, love, performing real deeds associated with the values ​​\uXNUMXb\uXNUMXbopened to it, a person develops.

Frankl developed a special technique of psychotherapy (sometimes referred to as the third - after Freud and Adler - Viennese school of psychoanalysis), focused on ridding the individual of negative states (anxiety, guilt, anger, etc.) that arise when confronted with a psychologically difficult for the individual and even felt by it as an insurmountable barrier.

If a person in such cases loses the will to meaning, a state of "existential vacuum" arises in him (the term "existence" means "existence") in the form of a feeling of a point, apathy, emptiness.

Frankl developed a special psychotherapy technique focused on ridding the individual of negative states (anxiety, guilt, anger, etc.) that arise when confronted with a psychologically difficult for the individual and even felt by her as an insurmountable obstacle.

Various branches of humanistic psychology have developed in order to overcome the limitations of theories that have left without attention the originality of the mental structure of a person as a holistic person capable of self-creation, the realization of his unique potential.

Author: Luchinin A.S.

<< Back: Main psychological schools (Crisis of psychology. Behaviorism. Psychoanalysis. Gestaltism)

>> Forward: Psychology in Russia (M. V. Lomonosov: materialistic direction in psychology. A. N. Radishchev. Man as a part of nature. Philosophical and psychological views of A. I. Herzen, V. G. Belinsky, N. A Dobrolyubov. N. G. Chernyshevsky. Subject, tasks and method of psychology. P. D. Yurkevich about the soul and internal experience. I. V. Sechenov: a mental act is like a reflex. Development of experimental psychology. Reflexology. P. P. Blonsky - psychology of child development. Unity of consciousness and activity)

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