A. F. Lazursky. About natural experiment

A. P. Nechaev. Psychological foundations of different types of reading process in children

K. N. Kornilov. The biogenetic principle and its significance in pedagogy

M. Ya. Basov. Illustrative scheme of specific manifestations of qualitative features mental functions in the behavior of a preschool child

L. S. Vygotsky. On the psychology and pedagogy of children's handicap

N. N. Dobrynin. Attention education

A. A. Krogius. Pilot study intellectual functions of students

A. P. Nechaev. Experimental psychological study of preschool children

L. S. Vygotsky. Pedagogical psychology

A. A. Smirnov. Children's drawings

V. M. Bekhterev, N. M. Shchelovanov. To the substantiation of genetic reflexology

L. Wilson. Education of the deaf-blind in Soviet Russia

L. S. Vygotsky. On the issue of multilingualism in childhood

L. S. Vygotsky. Prehistory of written language

A. N. Leontiev. The problem of the dialectical method in the psychology of memory

A. R. Luria. Materials for the genesis of writing in a child

B. E. Smirnov. The manifestation of abilities in adolescence

P. O. E fru her and. The world of perceptions and thinking of the child

L. S. Vygotsky. On the relationship between work activity and the intellectual development of the child

D. N. Uznadze. Development of concepts in school age

ChapterII. Works of the period 1931-1935.

M. Ya. Basov. The problem of human development

L. S. Vygotsky. Dynamics and structure of the personality of a teenager

P. P. Blonsky. Psychology of evidence and its features in children

N. A. Menchinskaya. Dialectics of the emergence of numerical representations

B. G. Ananiev. Psychological situation survey in class

A. N. Leontiev. Mastering scientific concepts by students as a problem educational psychology

ChapterIII. Works of the period 1936-1945.

S. L. Rubinshtein. Education and development

P. Ya. Galperin. Functional differences between tool and tool

A. A. SMIRNOV The value of purposefulness in memorization

R. G. Natadze. Methods of experimental formation of real concepts

V. I. Asnin. On the conditions for the reliability of a psychological experiment

A. V. Zaporozhets. The Role of Elements of Practice and Speech in the Development of Thinking in Children (on the Material of Deaf-Mute Children)

P. I. Zinchenko. On forgetting and reproducing school knowledge

E. V. Guryanov. Psychophysiological basis of human skills

A. R. Luria. The scientific significance of the experience of I. A. Sokolyansky

F. A. Pay. On the upbringing and education of the deaf-blind

A. N. Leontiev. On the experience of teaching the deaf-blind

D. B. Elkonin. The development of oral and written speech of students

A. V. Zaporozhets. Features and development of the process of perception

K. V. Khomenko. Artistic understanding by young children

A. S. Prangishvili. Recollection and attitude (basics of certainty in recollection)

L. I. BOZOVICH Psychological analysis formalism in the assimilation of school knowledge

Foreword

The real reader is study guide on courses in the theory and history of developmental and educational psychology for university students and pedagogical institutes specializing in this area of ​​psychology. It presents works reflecting the initial period of formation and development of these psychological disciplines in our country immediately after October revolution until the mid 40s.

The next two books will include works by Soviet authors in the period from 1946 to 1979, as well as works reflecting the history and current state of foreign developmental and educational psychology.

The works placed in the first book belong to the most important period in the history of domestic psychology, marked by the beginning of research on the problems of psychological science based on Marxist-Leninist theory. In the first three decades after the October socialist revolution difficult and fundamental restructuring psychological knowledge covered all areas of psychology. In the field of the psychology of learning and development, the struggle for a Marxist psychology was particularly acute. It was here that the main line of the struggle took place, which predetermined the choice of cardinal directions in the organization of the education and training of new generations of socialist society.

This reader has three sections in accordance with the three stages in the development of psychology in this period in our country. At each of the stages, the interpretation of the nature of the development and functioning of the psyche underwent a change. The first section presents the works of the stage of transition to the construction of psychology on the basis of Marxist-Leninist philosophy (from 1918 to the end of the 20s). Central to the characterization of this stage in the development of psychology are the works of K. N. Kornilov, M. Ya. Basov, L. S. Vygotsky, P. P. Blonsky, I. A. Sokolyansky. The works of the latter are not cited, but important evidence is given, which appeared in the foreign press, about the restructuring of the education of deaf-blind-mute children in Soviet Russia (L. Wilson).

The second section presents the works of the next stage, related to the beginning of specific research based on a new methodology (from the end of the 20s to the decision of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks on pedological perversions in the Narkompros system in 1936). The main achievements of this stage were associated with the research of L. S. Vygotsky and his collaborators - A. R. Luria, A. N. Leontiev, N. A. Menchinskaya and others; with the work of S. L. Rubinshtein on the ontogeny of consciousness; with the study of D. N. Uznadze of the formation of concepts in preschoolers.

Finally, the third section contains works that characterize the subsequent development of Soviet developmental and educational psychology in the prewar and war years, during which the well-known limitations in the development of theory and research methods in the works of the first two stages were overcome and a new one was built up. theoretical knowledge which formed the basis for the further intensive development of psychology in our country. In the works of this period, the idea of ​​the unity of consciousness and activity was determined and became the leading methodological position. It received experimental confirmation in studies of the development of cognitive activity in a child, conducted by A. V. Zaporozhets and his collaborators, in the idea of ​​a formative experiment, implemented in the works of R. G. Natadze, A. V. Asnin.

All material in the anthology is basically systematized according to the chronological principle. All other principles proved to be of little use. So, it was difficult to separate the works by developmental psychology from work in educational psychology. During the period under review, research in these areas were inextricably linked. In almost every author, the genetic and functional aspects of the study acted in organic unity, which was their undoubted advantage. The grouping of works according to other criteria also turned out to be inappropriate: on the problems of ontogenetic development (factors and driving forces of development, periodization of development, features of development by age, etc.) and on such aspects of the psychology of learning as the assimilation of a certain subject content (the psychology of teaching reading, writing, mathematics, etc.), as well as on certain aspects of the psychology of education (psychology of relationships, motivation, character, etc.). Therefore, in each section, the works of various authors are presented in chronological order without special systematization according to other criteria, except for the article by A. N. Leontiev, published in 1947, which, in order to more fully analyze the problem of teaching deaf-blind-mute children, supplements the works related to 1940 (A. R. Luria, F. A. Rau).

The compilers tried to reflect as fully as possible in this reader the front of research in child, developmental and educational psychology, carried out in the period under review. In this regard, along with works that determined the main directions of the restructuring of the theory and methods of research, works are presented that are in the nature of private studies that did not deviate from the traditions of classical experimental psychology.

A number of works of fundamental importance for developmental and educational psychology, carried out during the period under review, remained unpublished and are published for the first time selectively in this issue of the reader. These include the report of A. N. Leontiev, speeches by A. R. Luria and F. A. Rau, Ph.D. dissertations by P. Ya. Galperin and D. B. Elkonin. Articles by A. V. Zaporozhets and V. I. Asnin are published in Russian for the first time. Their translation from Ukrainian language was performed by V. F. Morgun. The compilers thank him for his kind help. We are deeply grateful to N.F. Dobrynin, P.Ya. Galperin, A.V. Zaporozhets, A.A. Smirnov, D.B. archival materials and for valuable advice on the selection of works for inclusion in this edition of the anthology.

I. I. Ilyasov and V. Ya. Lyaudis

1. Leontiev A. N. On the theory of development of the child's psyche / Leontiev A. N. - 5-8
2. Basov M. Ya. The problem of human development / Basov M. Ya. - 8-19
3. Bekhterev V. M. To the substantiation of genetic reflexology / Bekhterev V. M., Shchelovanov N. M. - 19-20
4. Kostyuk G. S. The principle of development in psychology / Kostyuk G. S. - 21-25
5. Feldstein D. I. Childhood as a socio-psychological phenomenon of society and a special state of development / Feldstein D. I. - 25-53
6. Zaporozhets A. V. Conditions and driving causes of mental development of the child / Zaporozhets A. V. - 53-57
7. Vygotsky L. S. Imagination and its development in childhood / Vygotsky L. S. - 57-64
8. Leites N. S. Age prerequisites for mental abilities / Leites N. S. - 64-75
9. Teplov B. M. Abilities and talents / Teplov B. M. - 75-80
10. Leontiev A. N. On the formation of abilities / Leontiev A. N. - 80-91
11. Rubinshtein S. L. The problem of abilities and questions psychological theory/ Rubinstein S. L. - 91-107
12. Leontiev A. N. Individual and personality / Leontiev A. N. - 108-114
13. Ananiev B. G. Genetic and structural relationships in the development of personality / Ananiev B. G. - 115-122
14. Feldstein D. I. Socialization and individualization - the content of the process of social maturation / Feldstein D. I. - 123-135
15. Zaporozhets A. V. Significance of the early periods of childhood for the formation of a child's personality / Zaporozhets A. V. - 135-138
16. Bozhovich L. I. Stages of personality formation in ontogenesis / Bozhovich L. I. - 138-151
17. Rubinshtein S. L. Orientation of personality / Rubinshtein S. L. - 151-155
18. Kon I. S. Constancy of personality: myth or reality / Kon I. S. - 155-166
19. Leontiev A.N. General concept about activities / Leontiev A. N. - 167-178
20. Feldstein D. I. Patterns of development of activity as the basis for the development of personality / Feldstein D. I. - 178-194
21. Lisina M. I. Communication with adults in children of the first seven years of life / Lisina M. I. - 194-203
22. Elkonin D. B. The main unit of the expanded form of game activity. social nature role play/ Elkonin D. B. - 203-209
23. Luria A. R. Changes in the structure of the game in connection with the development of speech / Luria A. R., Yudovich F. Ya. - 209-213
24. Itelson L. B. Educational activity, its sources, structure and conditions / Itelson L. B. - 213-219
25. Elkonin D. B. Psychological issues of formation learning activities at primary school age / Elkonin D. B. - 219-222
26. Davydov V. V. Psychological problems of the process of teaching younger students / Davydov V. V. - 222-226
27. Feldstein D. I. Features of the leading activity of adolescent children / Feldstein D. I. - 226-231
28. Elkonin D. B. On the problem of periodization of mental development in childhood / Elkonin D. B. - 232-240
29. Feldstein D. I. Stage characteristics of socialization - individualization and levels of personality formation / Feldstein D. I. - 240-277
30. Bozhovich L. I. Transition period from infancy to early age / Bozhovich L. I., Slavina L. S. - 278-283
31. Lisina M. I. Stages of the genesis of speech as a means of communication / Lisina M. I. - 283-307
32. Lyublinskaya A. A. Activity and orientation of a preschooler / Lyublinskaya A. A. - 307-322
33. Krutetsky V. A. Psychological features junior schoolchild / Krutetsky V. A. - 322-325
34. Vygotsky L. S. Dynamics and structure of the personality of a teenager / Vygotsky L. S. - 325-330
35. Dragunova T.V. "The crisis was explained in different ways / Dragunova T.V. - 330-332
36. Kon I. S. Adolescence as a stage of life and some psychological and pedagogical characteristics of transitional age / Kon I. S., Feldshtein D. I. - 333-342
37. Feldstein D. I. Features of the stages of personality development on the example of adolescence / Feldstein D. I. - 343-355
38. Kon I. S. Psychology of a high school student / Kon I. S. - 355-363
39. Mudrik A. V. Modern high school student / Mudrik A. V. - 364-372
40. Ananiev B. G. The structure of the development of psychophysiological functions of an adult / Ananiev B. G. - 373-382
41. Rybalko E. F. Dynamics of the main characteristics of a person in different periods of his maturity / Rybalko E. F. - 382-396

To paraphrase Montaigne, we can say that in this book I only made a bouquet of other people's flowers, and mine here is just a ribbon that ties them.

Developmental psychology and developmental psychology helped me choose the “color” for this ribbon.

Naturally, the work does not equally reflect all the problems, since I used the author's right to choose from boundless sea psychological information that she herself considered the most significant and interesting for my potential readers.

How is a practical reader built?

The workshop is intended for specialists working with the concept of the norm of mental development, and for students studying this concept.

A specialist who uses this concept - a teacher, a doctor, a lawyer, a psychologist, a social worker - solves the problems of a particular person. These can be the tasks of setting or clarifying a diagnosis, the task of determining the level of readiness of a person for some type of activity (educational, professional, family life etc.).

The “norm of mental development” is a way of thinking of a researcher or a practitioner about the individual life of a particular person, about the patterns of this life.

This concept itself is based on the concept of life, which is implicit in the way of thinking of any researcher or practitioner. In order for the concept of "norm of mental development" to acquire the content of the concept, and not remain an empty phrase (simulacrum), the researcher must master the phenomenology of mental development. This can be achieved by mastering the existing in psychology methods of analyzing the integrative characteristics of mental reality, which have the most important property, namely, the ability to generate new qualities in it.

The workshop is designed in such a way that in the course of work on assignments and when performing experiments, the reader has the opportunity to "see" the integrative qualities of mental reality. This skill allows you to make more informed decisions about how to obtain psychological information and its content when making a decision. specific tasks specific person.

It was for this purpose that the selection scientific texts, which are presented as an introduction to each chapter. Texts are given in the form of summaries-retellings or as quotations from author's works. One of the tasks is to acquaint the reader with textbook texts in the field of developmental psychology in order to understand contemporary problems both scientific, academic and practical psychology.

The most important goal of the workshop-reader is to show the reader the possibilities of methodically solving the issue of the level and norm of mental development of a particular person.

From the very first pages, I would like to draw the reader's attention to the fact that the personal significance of solving the issue of compliance or non-compliance with a certain norm increases dramatically for a person in those situations where decisions are made responsible for his life. For example, about readiness for some type of activity, about an expert assessment of his activities, about a person’s ability to be responsible for himself.

AT modern conditions When the work of people evaluating the "normative" indicators of the human psyche becomes increasingly important, their theoretical and methodological level becomes not only a personal matter of professional maturity, but also a socially significant phenomenon - the concretization of the value of various properties of mental reality.

For example, one of the first indicators of a child's readiness for school is the nature of the "internal position of the student." A favorable variant of the "internal position" is associated with the orientation of the child to the content side. school life: wants to study (or is studying), because it is necessary to read, write well, etc. In the statements of these children there is an orientation towards self-education (“I will be able, know, I can”, etc.). The unfavorable version of the “internal position of a student” is associated with an orientation towards the formal aspects of school life: he wants to study because they will buy (have) a briefcase, a pencil case; you don't have to sleep at school kindergarten, and etc.

The "internal position of a schoolchild" is one of the integrative characteristics of a child at primary school age, it reflects the qualitative changes in his relationship with other people and with himself. This is due to the appearance new form generalizations of one's place among other people. Such integrative formations in the mental reality of a person have been identified and studied to date enough to talk about the existence of prognostic psychodiagnostics and reasonable corrective (if necessary) work of an adult with a child or a mature person with himself (or together with a specialist) to change the parameters of mental reality .

Main questions - what, how and why study to characterize the mental reality of a person - and are discussed in this workshop.

The reader can complete tasks, reproduce classical experiments, compare his data with already known patterns. Perhaps he will have conditions in order to trace the features of changes in the identified characteristics of his subjects over a long time and thereby assess the accuracy of psychological forecasts.

The material presented in the text will allow students studying psychology as a specialty,

know: the main methodological principles of modern developmental psychology, the content of the scientific concept of the norm of mental development;

be able to analyze the content of the concept of the norm of mental development and fix the facts of its manifestation in the mental reality of a person by various methods;

own: psychodiagnostic methods and methods for creating batteries of methods for studying indicators of normal mental development of a person from the standpoint of cultural and historical theories of L. S. Vygotsky.

Chapter 1. About what developmental psychology is and why you need to know it

1.1. The concept of the subject of developmental psychology

Today, as I write this chapter, developmental psychology often appears in the list of psychology specialties instead of developmental psychology. This does not at all mean that the reality studied by developmental psychology has disappeared. Just by changing the name, it has become more definite: the subject of research is the indicators and patterns of human mental development in it.

It is they who determine the range of problems that distinguish this sphere of knowledge about a person from the entire volume of various information that has been accumulated in culture about a person and his life.

The specificity of this knowledge is that it is used in one form or another (scientific or everyday) by every person and in this sense is universal, universal knowledge.

Scientific knowledge about the patterns of human mental development becomes when the person receiving it takes a research position - the position of a scientist. The essence of this position is that a person is aware of his own thinking as a means and a way of obtaining psychological information, as a means and a way of generalizing it to obtain patterns and formulate laws.

The research position allows a person to solve the problem of the dependence of the content of the information received on his own thinking. This creates the necessary prerequisites for discussing the criteria for the truth of psychological knowledge, for example, through its universal recognition in science, etc.

The existence in science of different research schools, their historical continuity is possible because they are studying the same subject. Today this subject could be described as a psychic reality. Its existence is associated with the presence of such properties and qualities that other realities do not have - physical, chemical, historical, etc. Suffice it to say that even time in this reality is not identical to physical. It is so individual that the same physical minute for one person may seem like an eternity, and for another it can go completely unnoticed.

Bibliography of L. S. Vygotsky's works 1915 1. The tragedy of Hamlet, the Prince of Denmark, W. Shakespeare // L. S. Vygotsky's Family Archive. Gomel, August 5 - September 12, 1915 Manuscript. 1916 2. Literary notes.… … Wikipedia

This page is an information list. See also the main article: Vygotsky, Lev Semenovich Lev Semenovich Vygotsky (1896 1934) Soviet psychologist, founder of the cult ... Wikipedia

- (from digital index to bibliography) In this index, we cite only those bibliographic sources that are used for extracts. After the name of the source, the year of writing the corresponding work is given in brackets (according to the "List of Works", ... ... Dictionary L.S. Vygotsky

- (1904, Kremenchug November 20, 1956, Kharkov) Soviet and Ukrainian psychologist, follower of Vygotsky and representative of the Kharkov school of psychology. Contents 1 Biography 2 Scientific contribution ... Wikipedia

Asnin, Vladimir Ilyich Asnin, Vladimir Ilyich (1904, Kremenchug November 20, 1956, Kharkov) Soviet and Ukrainian psychologist, follower of Vygotsky and representative of the Kharkov School of Psychology. Contents 1 Biography 2 Scientific contribution ... Wikipedia

Asnin, Vladimir Ilyich (1904, Kremenchug November 20, 1956, Kharkov) Soviet and Ukrainian psychologist, follower of Vygotsky and representative of the Kharkov School of Psychology. Contents 1 Biography 2 Scientific contribution 3 Bibliography ... Wikipedia

Vladimir Asnin- Vladimir Ilyich Asnin (Vladimir Ilyich Asnin) (1904 1956), Soviet developmental psychologist, a representative of Kharkov School of Psychology, head of the Department of psychology at the Kharkov State Pedagogical Institute in 1944 1950. In the ... ... Wikipedia

LAUDIS- Valentina Yakovlevna (b. 1932) Russian psychologist, specialist in educational psychology, developmental psychology, general and social psychology. Author of the concept of functional relationship of genetic forms of memory. D r psychological sciences… … encyclopedic Dictionary in psychology and pedagogy

AGE-RELATED PSYCHOLOGY- a branch of psychology that studies the development of the human psyche and its features in decomp. age stages. Includes child psychology, psychology of individual development of an adult and gerontopsychology (psychology of old age). In children. psychology ... ... Russian Pedagogical Encyclopedia

The field of psychology that develops psychological foundations training and education. Like work psychology, engineering, military or clinical psychology, this area is sometimes referred to as applied branches of psychology, the purpose of which ... ... Collier Encyclopedia

B6To88.1 X 91

Candidate psychol. Sciences L.M. Semenyuk

Edited by Dr. psychol. sciences, prof. D.AND.Feldstein

X 91 Anthology on developmental psychology. Textbook for students: Comp. L. M. Semenyuk. Ed. D. I. Feldstein. - Edition 2, supplemented. Moscow: Institute of Practical Psychology, 1996.-304 p.

The reading book was compiled in relation to the program of the course of developmental psychology. The texts are excerpts and extracts from the works of leading domestic psychologists. The book is equipped with a scientific reference apparatus

0303050000-14

BBC 88.1

Institute of Practical Psychology, 1996.

FOREWORD

This reader is a textbook on the course of developmental psychology for students studying this branch of psychological science in Russian universities.

The main goal of the manual is to assist students in mastering the main positions of domestic psychology in its specific area, in revealing the content, meaning, structure of the process and patterns of mental development.

Particular attention in the anthology is given to the presentation of the leading principles of the approach to explaining and understanding mental development, the formation of a growing person as a person.

We are talking, firstly, about the socio-historical approach to understanding the nature of the human psyche; secondly, about the patterns of development of activity as the basis and mechanism of personal development; thirdly, about the scientific periodization of mental development; fourthly, about the characteristics of individual age periods, which are distinguished not by a simple combination of various psychological characteristics, but by a special structure of the personality, specific development trends.

This led to the choice of texts.

The reader includes the works of Russian psychologists, reflecting not only the main problems of developmental psychology, but also its most important concepts, theoretical positions and experimental settings.

The selected texts give a fairly complete and concretized idea of ​​the scientific position of the authors who develop one or another aspect of developmental psychology and at the same time characterize its important role and special place in the system of world psychological science.

The subject of special consideration in the anthology was works that have an effective character, revealing the conditions and mechanisms for activating the process of mental development of children both at individual age periods and throughout the entire distance of modern childhood.

All texts included in the anthology are published with abbreviations. At the same time, giving fragments of works, we tried not to break their general logic, leaving in the texts all the most important things necessary for mastering the corresponding section of the curriculum.

L.M. Semenyuk

Section I mental development

BUT. N. Leontiev TO THE THEORY OF DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD'S PSYCHE

Let us first of all try to imagine a picture of those changes as a whole that characterize the mental development of the child within the boundaries of the stage.

The first and most general position that can be put forward here is that the changes observed within the boundaries of each stage of the processes of the child's mental life do not occur independently of one another, but are internally connected with each other. In other words, they do not represent independent lines of development of individual processes (perception, memory, thinking, etc.). Although these lines of development can be singled out, in their analysis one cannot directly find those relations that drive their development. For example, the development of memory forms, of course, a coherent series of changes, but their necessity is determined not by relations that arise within the development of memory itself, but by relations that depend on the place that memory occupies in the activity of the child at a given Stage of his development.

So, at the stage before school childhood one of the changes in memory is that the child develops voluntary memorization and recall. The previous development of memory is a necessary prerequisite for this change to take place, but it is determined not by this, but by the fact that special goals are distinguished in the child's mind - to remember, to recall. In this regard, memory processes change their place in the mental life of the child. Previously, memory acted only as a service function.

"Leontiev A.N. Problems of the development of the psyche. M., 1972.

which one or another process; now memorization becomes a special purposeful process - an internal action, taking a new place in the structure of the child's activity.

On the whole, it is possible to characterize the general picture of the development of individual processes in the child's mental life within the stage as follows. The development of the leading activity that characterizes this stage, and the development of other types of activity of the child associated with it, determine the selection in his mind of new goals and the formation of new actions corresponding to them. Since the further development of these actions is limited by the operations that the child already owns and the already existing level of development of his psychophysiological functions, a certain discrepancy arises between one and the other, which is resolved by “pulling up” the operations and functions to the level required by the development of new activities. Thus, a game of preschool type, a role-playing game, is initially limited almost exclusively to external actions carried out with the help of motor operations, which are prepared by game-manipulation in pre-preschool childhood. But the new preschool type of play and the content of the new actions that develop in it require completely different methods of their implementation. They are, indeed, formed extremely quickly (as they usually say, "push"); in particular, the child's internal mental operations are quickly formed at this time.

Thus, the process of changes within the stages as a whole proceeds, figuratively speaking, in two opposite directions. The main, decisive direction of these changes is from primary changes in the circle of life relations of the child, the circle of his activities to the development of actions, operations, functions. Another direction is the direction from the secondary restructuring of functions, operations to the development of a given circle of the child's activity. Within a stage, the process of change going in that direction is limited by the demands of the range of activity that characterizes that stage. The transition beyond this boundary signifies a transition to another, higher stage of mental development.

Interstadial transitions are characterized by opposite features. The relations that the child enters into with the world around him are, by their nature, social relations. After all, it is society that constitutes the real and primary condition of a child's life, which determines its content and its motivation. Therefore, each activity of the child expresses not only his attitude to objective reality, in each of his activities the existing social relations are also objectively expressed.

Developing, the child finally turns into a member of society, bearing all the duties that it imposes on him. Successive stages in its development are nothing but separate steps of this transformation.

But the child not only actually changes his place in the system of social relations. He is also aware of these relationships, comprehends them. The development of his consciousness finds its expression in a change in the motivation of his activity: the former motives lose their motivating force, new motives are born, leading to a rethinking of his previous actions. That activity, which previously played a leading role, begins to outlive itself and recede into the background. A new leading activity arises, and with it a new stage of development begins. Such transitions, in contrast to intra-stage changes, go further - from changing actions, operations, functions to changing activities in general.

So, no matter what particular process of the child’s mental life we ​​take, an analysis of the driving forces of its development inevitably leads us to the main types of child activity, to the motives that prompt them, and, consequently, to what meaning is revealed to the child in objects, phenomena of the world around him. From this side, the content of the child's mental development lies precisely in the fact that the place of particular mental processes in the child's activity changes, and on this depend his features that these particular processes acquire at different stages of development. In conclusion of this essay, the following should be emphasized: we were able to consider mental development in it only from the procedural, so to speak, side of the psyche, almost completely omitting the most important question of the internal relationships between changes in activity and the development of a picture, an image of the world in the mind of a child,

with a change in the structure of his consciousness. The elucidation of this issue requires a preliminary presentation of the psychological problem of the unity of the development of sensory contents, consciousness, and those categories of consciousness that do not coincide with each other, which we convey by the terms “meaning” and “meaning”. This question could therefore not be included in the scope of this article.

M. I - bass THE PROBLEM OF HUMAN DEVELOPMENT"

Problem development, together with the problem of the subject and with the methodological one, constitutes the basis of psychology. These three problems form one whole, from which the developed system scientific knowledge arises just as any complex organism develops from one initial cell. We first elucidated the very essence of this foundation, i.e., the subject, and then, starting from the latter, we moved on to the methodological problem. Now we must proceed in a similar way: proceeding from the subject of psychology, try to determine, at least in the most general form, the nature of the laws governing the development of this subject. Putting the question in this way, we proceed from the position that the development of an object is determined by the nature and properties of the object itself. Whatever development we are talking about, two basic questions must always arise: 1) what is the object of this development, i.e., what is developing; 2) what is the development of the given subject, i.e. how this development occurs. A certain understanding of the subject can exclude the idea of ​​any development, this is well known from the history of all science, since this idea is a relatively recent property of the scientific worldview. But the field of psychology in this case can also present the best, so to speak, classical models of thinking in terms of the purity of the denial of the moment of development. Such is undoubtedly the concept of the soul. The latter is an example of such an understanding of the

B a s o v M Ya Selected psychological works of M,

metapsychology, which precisely excludes the possibility of development in its very essence. The soul is an eternal, constant and unchanging essence. This essence is of irrational origin, and as such it is absolutely alien to development*.

Empirical psychology, with its new formula defining the subject matter of psychology as psychic or psychic phenomena, did not introduce any significant change in the position of the problem of development. True, it somewhat liberated this problem from the bonds of the soul with its attributes of eternity and immutability and made it possible to unfold empirical research in the field of child psychology. But the era of this psychology could not and did not create a real theory of mental development, just like the previous one. attributes that excluded development, nevertheless, even now, to such an extent still remained connected with the views of the past, that for the development of the fundamental questions of mental development of the necessary conditions, this view did not create the problem of psychogenesis in the form in which it could be put by empirical psychology , in fact, has no real ground under it, and therefore it is doomed to deviations or to an idealistic aphysics or the path of positive science, undoubtedly connected with the problem of human development and very important for its development, but still different from the proper paths of psychology as such. Thus, Wundt, speaking “of the organic development of mental functions”, treats in detail the issues related to the development of the “substrate” of mental functions, i.e. nervous system; as for the development

As a private illustration, it can be noted that for Kant's philosophy with its unknowable "thing in itself" the idea of ​​development was Plekhanov's real Achilles' heel in connection with this question (note 7 to Engels' "Ludwig Feuerbach") cites, among other things, the following reasoning of F Vek “I don’t know how philosophers who adhere to the Kantian theory of knowledge cope with the doctrine of development. For Kant, the human soul was given in its elements an unchanging quantity. For him, it was only a question of determining its a priori abilities and deriving everything from it. the rest, and not about how to show the origin of these abilities. But if we proceed from her axiom that man gradually developed from a lump of protoplasm, then it will be necessary to deduce from the elementary vital manifestations of the cell exactly what for Kant was the basis of the entire world of phenomena ".

mental functions themselves, then this whole problem comes down to establishing that the connection between the states of consciousness with the course of development becomes ever greater, capturing ever longer periods of time, and this is established on the introspective experience of individual consciousness and from here carried over throughout the phylogeny.

The danger of deviating in the problem of development into alien, although perhaps positive, paths also threatens “psychology as a science of behavior,” if we consider this formula as complete and the problem of development is put exactly on the basis of this form. - ly. It in itself does not open the prerequisites for identifying the specific patterns of human development itself and therefore condemns to one-sided biologism, which ultimately leads to idealism through a modernized physiological anthropocentrism. The prerequisites for this are clearly expressed in the constructions of some modern American behaviorists, such as Watson, Lashley, Weiss, and others. Some of these authors seek to derive all human activity from physiological mechanisms, others, like Weiss, go even further and strive to gram-centimeter-second measurement of human behavior on the basis of electron-proton theory and biophysics. Human behavior, being a very complex subject, can be the object of a number of sciences, each of which can study it from its own special point of view. As a result, why is it impossible to study the biophysical or electron-proton foundations of behavior? But this has nothing to do with human psychology; it has its own special tasks.

The main drawback, which is usually observed in the formulation of the problem of mental development and which must be overcome, is that development is sought to be understood and deduced from within the person himself, without due consideration of the fact that in reality it is the result of the interaction of man - ka with the naturally organized reality surrounding it. However, the last proposition in itself is so elementary that usually it is always as if they proceed from it, but this is only an appearance of understanding the essence of the issue, since objective, lawfully organized reality in such cases is most often presented in the form of an amorphous environment, which

it plays the role of some factor stimulating, nourishing, facilitating or hindering the course of development, but no more than that, i.e., does not determine the very laws of this development. The patterns of development are conceived in such cases entirely in the person himself - in his psyche or in his physiological organization, sometimes in both at the same time.

But the correct formulation of the problem should be different. The view of development as the result of a person's interaction with the reality surrounding him should remain the original one. However, we believe that it obliges us to draw other conclusions than is usually thought. Let us first turn to the formula itself, which determines the subject of development. It should be at the level of the specified initial moment, which means that it should not reduce the subject of development to any moment in the person himself, whether it be the psyche or physiological mechanisms, etc., but should put it on a broader basis. It is this purpose that the formula “man as an active figure in the environment” serves (better:

“a person as an active figure in an objective lawfully organized activity”). The purpose of this formula is entirely to take all the phenomena whose development interests us in the integral context in which they actually always exist and in which their development actually takes place. A person as an active figure in the objective reality surrounding him and interacting with him designates this context with a sufficient degree of correctness and clarity.

The indicated formulation of the question leads to the need for certain conclusions. The first and main conclusion: mental development should not be confused or identified with the development of the human organism as such. In fact, there are two different problems here, although they are, of course, related to each other. The difference between the one and the other development lies in the fact that the development of an organism is based on a mechanism that is biologically fixed in the organism itself. Because of this, the process of development here goes forward along the same path and leads to the transformation of the original, germinal cell into a mature organism of a certain type, in this case into a human organism. As for the environment, although without connection with it and without its definite assistance, this process 11

development cannot be carried out, nevertheless, the source of the pattern of development lies not in it, but in the organism itself. The development of a person as an agent in the environment occurs under completely different conditions, and therefore its results are completely different; Depending on the conditions of development, in relation to each individual person, an enormous variety and all the contrasts are possible here, which are only conceivable in a given development. True, this position is not absolute;

certain influences and restrictions on the process of development are exerted by the human organism itself as such, but this does not in the least change the essence of our formulation of the question, since it remains unconditionally correct within the limits of the possibilities that a person as an organism has at a certain stage of his development. - tiya or at this or that certain state by it.

Here, an analogy is possible with the regular course of social development and with the role of the geographic environment in it, under the conditions of which the development of a given society is carried out. The geographical environment also creates certain prerequisites and exerts its influence on the course of development of society, but the logic of this development, its objective regularity is determined not by it, but by other factors - the state of the productive forces and production relations that exist within a given society. .

What is the essence or inner meaning of human development as an active figure in the environment? In effective penetration into this environment and in mastering it through effective knowledge of it. This inner meaning remains the same, no matter how insignificant the segment of cognizable reality may be in itself and, consequently, the segment of the path of development. Does man know the properties of any particular body that enable him to act with his nature; whether he learns to breed plants, the fruits of which he eats; whether he notices the correctness in the alternation of individual phenomena of nature, according to which he organizes his own life; on the other hand, does a small child learn the concept of number and elementary operations with it, giving him the opportunity to establish his relationship with the environment on the basis of an accurate measurement, does he know the physical structure of the world around him or the history of the society of which he is a member? is, - in all these and them

Such cases are based on the penetration of a person into reality, the mastery of the latter through the knowledge of it, and at the same time in all these cases we have real segments of the path of development of a person as an actor in the environment, i.e. mental development. Thus, in its essence, the path of a person's mental development is unlimited, just like the world. This distinguishes it from the biological development of an organism, the latter having the ultimate task of creating organisms of a certain kind, and since this result is achieved, development ends. Mental development itself can go to the infinity of the universe. But it does not exist outside a limited organism, and therefore, in practice, it also becomes limited. This limitation occurs not only in terms of time, i.e. not only in terms of the limited life of the human organism, but also in terms of content, since each organism has limited, and, moreover, certain properties that make it suitable for penetrating into certain areas of reality. and unsuitable for penetrating into others. Born deaf will never be an agent in the world of sounds, and a blind man is forever deprived of the opportunity to rely in his activity and, consequently, in his development on the properties of the world that are open to our vision.

The fundamental question is: how does this development take place, how is it directed, and what brings into it the regularity that it actually possesses? Turning to the development of the organism as such, we seem to immediately receive a clear indication: if in one case development is based on a mechanism that is biologically fixed in the organism itself, and in the other it is not, then it follows that in the second case the source of regularity must be seek outside the organism, i.e., in the objective reality surrounding it. Despite this, ideas about the course of a person's mental development are usually exclusively influenced by the regularity that exists in the biological development of an organism. The regularity of mental development is usually conceived as a regularity of the same type as a biological regularity, or as the same. This means that I consider the body itself, everything in itself, inside it, to be the source of regularity. At the same time, depending on the trends of the general worldview, some will try to find the sources of regularities in 13

physiological mechanisms or in the biophysical foundations of the body, and others - in the original principles of the psyche.

An expression of this kind of ideas is, among other things, that the mental and biological signs and qualities of a person are combined as equivalent in characterizing a certain stage of development. So, for example, when characterizing a child of seven years of age, they give him, firstly, a number of biological signs, which are various anthropometric indicators, the functional state of individual organs, etc., including the state of the teeth, and, in secondly, psychological signs that should characterize the child as an actor in the environment. Moreover, these and other signs are thought to arise on the basis of regularities of a general type and are considered mandatory for a given age.

This view is based on an error of fundamental importance. The meaning of the latter lies in the illusion of our perception of our own organism as the source of all and every regularity, as a result of which we do not notice the main, main source of those, which is all lawfully organized reality. But the development of man as an actor in the environment brings him into direct contact and interaction with this reality and therefore subordinates him to the latter. Turning to the specific facts of psychological development, we find in them a general confirmation of this proposition, which consists in the fact that each person, as an actor in the environment, is limited in his capabilities by what he received from the environment in which his development took place. This means that there is no internal predetermination, similar to that which exists in the biological development of an organism. However, these proofs are not enough for us, since they do not reveal the inner side of the development of a person as an actor in the environment under the influence of the objective regularity of the environment itself. Therefore, it is necessary to take the question deeper, and for this to put it concretely; further, it is necessary to direct it to such specific phenomena in which the side of interest to us has come forward with the greatest clarity. We proceed from the formula “man as an active figure in the environment”. But after all, this is the most general definition of our subject, an abstraction from which all elements of the concrete have been removed. To

To conduct an analysis of the subject in depth, it is necessary to find a firm foothold for it in concrete reality. Obviously, in the vast field of human labor, in the diversity of its professional differences - this is where you need to look for a foothold for analyzing the development of a person as an actor in the environment. And we are addressing precisely here, to the professional labor activity of people.

To begin with, let's take what is closer to us - the field of scientific activity of any particular specialty. This means that we must clearly imagine the process of human development as a certain scientific specialist, for example, as a mathematician.

The first thing we must state when dealing with such a process is that it occurs in a strictly regular manner. In the course of it, a strict sequence of the flow of phenomena is observed, a sequence of stages of development, which are arranged in a certain order. Indeed, every science is comprehended by the person who studies it in precisely this way; no arbitrariness and no disorder is allowed here. If we take some complex of mathematical truths connected with each other, then we cannot master this complex, i.e., we cannot pass our development through it except in a strictly defined order, starting from one, moving on to the next, and so on. Violation of this order turns out to be impossible. Why is this happening? We usually say in such cases that without knowing one theorem, we cannot understand another. We indicate, as it were, a subjective basis for a given course of development, but if you carefully think about the essence of the issue, it becomes clear that the subjective state here is only a reflection of a broken objective connection between two or more objective mathematical factors. This proposition has the quality of obvious truth to us. But it is quite clear that what we have now seen in the small mirror of one mathematical complex reflects the truth of all mathematics and all scientific knowledge in general. Every science has its own logic, its own pattern, which determines the process of a person's penetration into this science, i.e. the process of his psychological development as an actor in a given environment. But where does the very logic and regularity of science come from? What are its sources? Is it not clear that these

are objective reality and its regularities. The laws of reality, directing the course of our knowledge of nature, are thus projected into the system of this knowledge, i.e., into science, and subsequently determine the course of human development through science, as well as directly by themselves. Thus, the objective logic of nature is projected into the logic of natural science, and the objective logic of the historical process of the development of human society is reflected in the logic of scientific social science. There will be no mistake if we say that such a course of development takes place in all those cases where a person, adapting to the environment, influences the latter and, transforming it in his labor based on tools, adapts it to himself, i.e. where he is exactly a person. An animal, as a rule, is only capable of adapting itself to the environment, therefore it is not an active agent in the environment and is not capable of creating any “science” in the broadest sense of the word.

When the objective regularity of the world acts in the process of human development through science, into which it is projected with the natural course of human cognition, then this process of development proceeds, as it were, at an easier pace compared to how if the same regularities determined it directly. from reality itself. This alone explains why, under the conditions of cultural development, one person in the course of his short life can penetrate his development into the structure of the world as deeply as all mankind could achieve this in the entire past history. But it is important for us to be clear about the fact that, fundamentally, the natural character of the process of human development remains the same regardless of whether it (the process) is determined directly by the objective laws of the world, when a person comprehends them himself in their practically effective experience, or the same regularities influence this process through the mediation of "science" in the broadest sense of the word. Of course, there are many unique features in both methods of influence, and the totality of the results of influence by one and another method on a person turns out to be very different in both cases; for us, however, only the deepest foundation of the course of development is important now,

my source of the regularity of the latter, in which both methods of influence, for all their differences, turn out to be identical ...

What is the role of the biological factor in the course of human psychological development and what is its relationship with the objective laws of this development? In general terms, we have already answered this question.

The biological factor, that is, the organization of the organism itself, is precisely the factor of psychological development that serves the process of development with an apparatus of the appropriate quality and power. This apparatus itself is also in development: the latter, in view of the fact that the apparatus of our organism relies fundamentally on the laws that determine the development of the whole organism, i.e., on those that are biologically fixed in itself. But at the same time, the very activity of this apparatus, unfolding in mutual relations with the environment, of course, does not remain without influence on the course of its own development.

There is no doubt that the real line of a person's psychological development is a certain resultant of both moments that determine it, i.e., what brings into development a source of objective regularity that is outside the body, and what brings into development him the organism itself. We did not reveal the mechanism of the relationship between these two moments, posing the question as if one-sidedly, but our task was, firstly, to draw attention to the special complexity of this mechanism, which is greater than is usually imagined, and, secondly, secondly, as a prerequisite for a correct understanding of the mechanism of interaction, we consider it necessary to establish the significance of the interacting moments in themselves, each in their own function in the course of development.

AT.M.Bekhterev,N. M. Shchelovanov

TO THE SUBSTANTIATION GENETICALLYYREFLEXOLOGY"

We draw the following conclusions from the empirical part of the report:

"New in reflexology and physiology of the nervous system. M.-L., 1928.

1. A newborn child, along with innate simple and complex specific reflexes and general non-specific reactions, has inborn reactions of a dominant type - this is a food dominant and a position dominant.

2. The first essential stage in a child's development is the emergence of dominants from other perceiving surfaces, of which visual and auditory dominants are the most significant.

3. For the development and further improvement of these dominants, it is important to exercise them through the influence of external influences.

4. Subsequent dominants from the organ of vision and hearing develop on the basis of a gradual functional complication of initially local reflexes, which are already obtained in a newborn from the same perceiving surfaces.

5. Dominant correlations of the functioning of complex nervous mechanisms are the main conditions for the formation of differentiated motor reactions, formed on the basis of primary existing general motor reactions and simple reflexes, as well as through the further formation of new functional connections, which leads to the emergence in the area of ​​movements of higher reactions such as combination reflexes.

6. The time and order of the formation of the genetically earliest combination reflexes correspond to those in the emergence of dominants. The establishment of new functional connections, i.e. the formation of associative reflexes, is possible only in the presence of dominant processes of a general nature (concentration) occurring not only in the cerebral cortex, but also simultaneously in the underlying parts of the nervous system, and due to which the mechanism of associative reflexes is not limited only to cortical processes. Therefore, the formation of combination reflexes and their work are also influenced by the subcortical regions, as well as other parts of the body innervated by them: the vascular system, glands, etc. It is also necessary to admit the possibility of the very formation of new connections in the subcortical departments, such as the occurrence already during the first month of a food reaction in the feeding position.

7. As one of the significant problems, genetic

the method puts forward the problem of the development of wakefulness as such a functional state, which is the basic prerequisite for all higher reactions in general.

8. In genesis, the state of sleep, or rather, the absence of wakefulness, is primary, therefore, in genetic study, it seems possible to trace both the quantitative increase in wakefulness and to find out the external and internal conditions for its occurrence and development. From this it is clear that the problem of sleep can be fully resolved only in connection with the elucidation of the nature of wakefulness, since sleep arises when the conditions necessary for the emergence and maintenance of wakefulness are eliminated.

G.S. Kostyuk THE PRINCIPLE OF DEVELOPMENT IN PSYCHOLOGY"

Personality develops in connection with emerging in it! life with internal contradictions. They are determined by its relationship to the environment, its successes and failures, imbalances between the individual and society. But external contradictions, even acquiring a conflict character (for example, conflicts between a child and parents), do not yet become the engine of development themselves. Only by internalizing, causing opposite tendencies in the individual himself, which come into conflict with each other, do they become a source of his activity aimed at resolving the internal contradiction by developing new ways of behavior. Contradictions are resolved through activities that lead to the formation of new properties and qualities of the individual. Some contradictions, being overcome, are replaced by others. If they do not find their resolution, developmental delays, “crisis” phenomena occur, and in cases where they relate to the motivational sphere of the personality, its painful disorders, psychoneuroses (Myasishchev, 1960).

" Methodological and theoretical problems of psychology. M

The dialectical nature of development finds its expression in the formation of both individual aspects of the personality and its mental life as a whole. The development of cognitive activity is characterized by dialectical transitions from sensory to conceptual forms. The development of her emotional-volitional, need sphere is driven by specific internal contradictions. One of the main internal contradictions, which manifest themselves in their own way at different stages of personality development, is the discrepancy between the new needs, aspirations that arise in it and the achieved level of mastering the means necessary to satisfy them. In the social conditions of a person's life, its first side is ahead of the second. The resulting discrepancies encourage the personality to be active, aimed at mastering new forms of behavior, mastering new ways of action. They are revealed and resolved in the child's plot play and other types of his activity.

In connection with the emergence of distant, promising goals in a developing personality, new internal motivations for activity aimed at achieving them come into play. A long-term goal is a source of a person's expectations of future joy, for the sake of which she is ready to sacrifice the joys of the present. The ideal is a person’s anticipation of his future, to which he aspires - aimed at overcoming external and internal joys on the way to distant goals.

In this process, the dialectic of freedom and necessity is manifested. The freedom of action of the individual is gradually formed as a result of his awareness of the need. In its essence, it is not isolation from objective conditions, but a deeper and selective penetration into them, the development of the ability to subordinate immediate, personal impulses to action to more distant, social motives, perceived as something necessary, due, and to delay, slow down inappropriate behaviors. This

"Psychology of personality and activity of a preschooler M, 1965.

ability develops gradually, not without difficulty, by overcoming internal conflicts. The moral will of the individual is strengthened by his own victories over internal difficulties.

In the development of an individual, contradictions arise between the level of mental development she has achieved and her way of life, her place in the system of social relations, and the social functions she performs. The personality outgrows its way of life, the latter lags behind its capabilities, does not satisfy it. A growing personality strives for a new position, new types of socially significant activities (at school, outside of school, in a work team, etc.) and finds new sources of its development in the implementation of jtiix aspirations

The development of personality is characterized by the struggle of many oppositely directed tendencies. So, in it, the analytical division of cognizable objects, their fragmentation, the allocation of various features and properties conflicts with the capabilities of the brain to retain a huge amount of information obtained in this way. I. M. Sechenov once noted that the mind of a developing human individual overcomes this contradiction by developing various methods for synthesizing millions of similar individual features of objects, combining them with the help of words, terms into groups, classes, by revealing identities - venous in various, general in particular and singular (Sechenov, 1947).

There are contradictions between the tendency to inertia, stereotypy, stability and the tendency to mobility, variability. In the first of them, the desire of a living system to preserve the tested and justified connections, methods of action is manifested, in the second, the need to modify them under the influence of new life situations. I. P. Pavlov, noting the importance of the inertia of the nervous system, wrote that without it “we would live in seconds, moments, we would not have any memory, there would be no learning, there would be no habits” (Pavlov, 1952). At the same time, he also emphasized the great importance of the plasticity of the nervous system, which manifests itself in the formation of personality traits. The contradictions between these two tendencies are resolved by developing more consistent

perfect ways of regulating the interaction of a developing individual with the environment, characterized by dynamic stereotypy and high stability. Such methods are generalized knowledge, the ability to solve various problems that arise in the life of an individual, systems of generalized and reversible operations used in various situations. Their development characterizes the progressive movement of a person from the lower to the higher levels of his intellectual development. Generalizations are also formed in the development of the motivational sphere of the personality, providing a stable logic of its behavior in changing life situations.

The driving forces of development themselves develop in the course of this process, acquiring at each stage a new content and new forms of their manifestation. At the initial stages of development, the contradictions between the various tendencies that arise in the life of a person are not recognized by her, they do not yet exist for her. At later stages, they become the subject of consciousness and self-awareness of the individual, are experienced by her in the form of dissatisfaction, dissatisfaction with oneself, the desire to overcome contradictions. The new arises in the old through the activity of the subject.

Education and upbringing contribute not only to the successful overcoming of internal contradictions that arise in the life of the individual, but also to their emergence. Education sets new goals and tasks for the personality, which are realized and accepted by it, become the goals and objectives of its own activity. There are discrepancies between them and the individual's level of mastery of the means to achieve them, prompting him to self-promotion. By creating optimal measures of these discrepancies, training and education successfully form new actions and the motives necessary for them, help the individual find forms of manifestation of his desire for independence, for self-affirmation that meet the requirements of society and his own ideals. Genuine management of personal development requires knowledge of this complex dialectic, which is necessary in order to help resolve internal contradictions in the direction necessary for society.

L. V. Zaporozhets

CONDITIONS AND DRIVING CAUSES OF THE MENTAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE CHILD 4

One of the most important problems of child psychology is the problem of the conditions and driving causes of the development of the child's psyche. For a long time this problem was considered (and is now considered by many psychologists) in terms of the metaphysical theory of two factors (heredity and the as external and unchanging forces supposedly fatally predetermine the course of development of the child's psyche. At the same time, some authors believed that the factor of heredity was of decisive importance, others attributed the leading role to the environment, and finally, others assumed that both factors interact, "converge" with each other (V. Stern) All these arguments were usually made purely speculatively and with full ignoring the requirements of materialistic dialectics, without any analysis of the nature and specifics of the process of development being studied and without clarifying how certain external conditions enter into this process, turn into its internal components.

Psychologists (Vygotsky, Rubinshtein, Leontiev, and others), relying on a number of theoretical and experimental studies, laid the foundations for the theory of the mental development of the child and found out the specific difference between this process and the ontogeny of the animal psyche. In the individual development of the psyche of animals, the main significance is the manifestation and accumulation of two forms of experience: species experience (which is transmitted to subsequent generations in the form of hereditarily fixed morphological properties of the nervous system) and individual experience acquired by an individual by adapting to the existing conditions of being. - nia. In contrast, in the development of the child, along with the two previous ones, another, completely special form of experience arises and acquires a dominant role. This is a social experience, embodied in the products of material and spiritual production, which is acquired by the child throughout his childhood.

1 Actual problems of developmental psychology. M., 1978.

In the process of assimilation of this experience, not only the acquisition of individual knowledge and skills by children occurs, but also the development of their abilities, the formation of their personality.

The child joins the spiritual and material culture created by society, not passively, but actively, in the process of activity, on the nature of which and on the characteristics of the relationship that he develops with other people, the process of forming his personality largely depends.

According to this understanding of the ontogeny of the human psyche, it becomes necessary to distinguish between the previously mixed concepts of driving causes and conditions of development. Thus, the study of the role of the innate properties of an organism and its maturation are a necessary condition, but not the driving cause of the process under consideration. It creates anatomical and physiological prerequisites for the formation of new types of mental activity, but does not determine either their content or their structure.

Having recognized the importance for the mental development of the child, his general human and individual organic characteristics, as well as the course of their maturation in ontogenesis, it is necessary at the same time to emphasize that these features are only conditions, only necessary prerequisites, and not the driving reasons for the formation human psyche. As L. S. Vygotsky rightly pointed out, none of the specifically human mental qualities, such as logical thinking, creative imagination, volitional regulation of actions, etc., can arise only through the maturation of organic makings. For the formation of such qualities, certain social conditions of life and upbringing are required.

The problem of the role of the environment in mental development child is solved in different ways, depending on the understanding of the general nature of the genetic process under study... those... authors who recognize the important role of the social environment in the development of the human individual... considering it metaphysically ... believe that it affects the child in the same way as the biological environment affects the young animals. In fact, “in both cases, not only the environment is different, but also the ways of its influence on the development process. Social environment(and nature transformed by human labor) is not 24

simply an external condition, but a true source of a child’s development, since it contains all those material and spiritual values ​​that embody ... the abilities of the human race and that an individual must master in the process of his development.

Social experience, embodied in tools of labor, in language, in works of science and art, etc., is acquired by children not on their own, but with the help of adults, in the process of communicating with people around them. In this regard, an important and little studied problem in child psychology arises - the problem of the child's communication with other people and the role of this communication in the mental development of children at different genetic levels. Studies (M.I. Lisina and others) show that the nature of a child’s communication with adults and peers changes and becomes more complicated during childhood, taking the form of either direct, emotional contact, or verbal communication, or joint activity. The development of communication, the complication and enrichment of its forms open up new opportunities for the child to assimilate various kinds of knowledge and skills from those around him, which is of paramount importance for the entire course of mental development.

The assimilation of social experience by children occurs not through passive perception, but in an active form. The problem of the role of various types of activity in the mental development of a child is being intensively developed in child psychology. The study of the psychological characteristics of play, learning and labor in children of different ages and the influence of these types of activities on the development of individual mental processes and the formation of the child's personality as a whole was carried out. Studies of the orienting part of activity made it possible to penetrate more deeply into its structure and clarify in more detail its role in the assimilation of new experience. It was found that the orienting components of one or another Holistic activity perform the function of “similarity”, “modeling” those material or ideal objects with which the child acts, and lead to the creation of adequate ideas or concepts about these objects. The special organization of children's orienting activities plays a significant role in the process of pedagogical guidance of various types of children's activities.

The dialectical-materialist approach to the child's mental development raises the problem of the "spontaneity" of this development, the presence in it of motives for self-movement. Recognition that mental development is determined by the conditions of life and upbringing does not deny the special logic of this development, the presence of a certain self-movement in it. "Each new stage of a child's mental development naturally follows the previous one; and the transition from one to another is due not only to external, but also internal reasons.As in any dialectical process, in the process of child development contradictions arise associated with the transition from one stage to another.One of the main contradictions of this kind is the contradiction between the increased physiological and mental earlier types of relationships with surrounding people and forms of activity.These contradictions, sometimes acquiring a dramatic character age crises are resolved by establishing new relationships between the child and others, the formation of new types of activity, which marks the transition to the next age stage of mental development.

L. S. Vygotsky

IMAGINATION AND ITS DEVELOPMENT IN CHILDHOOD 2

Studies indicate that children who are delayed in their speech development turn out to be extremely retarded in the development of their imagination. Children whose speech development goes along an ugly path, like, say, deaf children, who, because of this, remain half-

It is necessary to strictly distinguish between the meaning, on the one hand, of the term “spontaneity of development” used by the representatives of…biological concepts (as allegedly independent of the conditions of life and fatally predetermined by internal genetic factors) and the dialectical-materialistic concept of “spontaneous- development” as a process in the course of which internal contradictions arise, which are its internal driving reasons

2 Vygotsky L S. Development of higher mental functions;

children, deprived of verbal communication, are at the same time children with extreme poverty, paucity, and sometimes even positively rudimentary forms of imagination...

Thus, observation of the development of the imagination revealed the dependence of this function on the development of speech. A delay in the development of speech, as established, also marks a delay in the development of the imagination ...

Speech frees the child from direct impressions, contributes to the formation of his ideas about the subject, it gives the child the opportunity to imagine this or that object that he has not seen, and think about it.

With the help of speech, the child gets the opportunity to free himself from the power of direct impressions, going beyond them. The child can also express in words what does not coincide with the exact combination of real objects or corresponding representations. This gives the child the possibility of extremely free access to the sphere of impressions denoted by words.

Further research showed that not only speech, but also the further steps of a child's life serve to develop his imagination; such a role is played, for example, by the school, where the child can painstakingly think in an imaginary form before doing something. This undoubtedly underlies the fact that it is precisely during school age that the primary forms of daydreaming in the true sense of the word are laid, i.e., the possibility and ability to more or less consciously surrender to certain mental constructions, regardless of the function associated with realistic thinking. Finally, the formation of concepts, which marks the onset of adolescence, is an extremely important factor in the development of the most diverse, most complex combinations, connections and connections that can be established between the individual elements of experience already in the adolescent's conceptual thinking. In other words, we see that not only the very appearance of speech, but also the most important key points in the development of speech are at the same time key points in the development of children's imagination.

Thus, the actual research not only does not support the fact that children's imagination

speech is a form of wordless, autistic, non-directed thought, but, on the contrary, they show at every step that the course of development of a child's imagination, as well as the course of development of other higher mental functions, is essentially connected with the child's speech, with the basic psychological form of his dealing with others, i.e. with the main form of collective social activity of the child's consciousness...

If we take the so-called utopian constructions, i.e., such obviously fantastic ideas that are magnificently differentiated in consciousness from realistic plans in the exact sense of the word, then they are nonetheless carried out not at all subconsciously, but quite consciously, with a clear setting to build a well-known fantastic image relating to the future or the past. If we take the area of ​​artistic creativity, which becomes available to the child very early, the emergence of the products of this creativity, say, in a drawing, in a story, then we will see that here, too, imagination has a directed character, i.e., it is not a subconscious activity. .

If, finally, we turn to the so-called constructive imagination of the child, to all the creative activity of consciousness, which is connected with a real transformation, say, with technical-constructive or construction activity, then we will see everywhere and everywhere that, as in of a real inventor, imagination is one of the main functions with which he works, so in all cases the activity of fantasy is extremely directed, that is, it is directed from beginning to end towards a certain goal, which a man is chasing. The same applies to the plans of the child's own behavior related to the future, etc. ...

The psychology of childhood has noted an important moment for the activity of the imagination, which in psychology has been called the law of real feeling in the activity of fantasy. Its essence is simple, it is based on actual observation. The movement of our senses is very closely connected with the activity of the imagination. Very often with us both constructions turn out to be unreal from the point of view of rational moments that underlie fantastic images, but they are real in an emotional sense.

To use the old crude example, we could say: if I, on entering a room, take the hanging dress for a robber, then I know that my frightened imagination is false, but my feeling of fear is a real experience, and not a fantasy in relation to to a real feeling of fear. This is indeed one of the fundamental moments, which explains much in the peculiarity of the development of the imagination in childhood. The essence of this fact lies in the fact that imagination is an activity extremely rich in emotional moments...

But it is worth turning to the other two points to see that combination with emotional moments is not or does not constitute the exclusive basis of the imagination and the imagination is not exhausted by this form.

The realistic thinking of a person, when it is connected with an important task for a person, which is somehow rooted in the center of the personality of the person himself, calls to life and awakens a whole series of emotional experiences, of a much more significant and genuine nature than imagination and daydreaming. If we take the realistic thinking of a revolutionary who is considering ... some complex political situation, delving into it, in a word, if we take thinking that is aimed at solving a task that is vitally important for a given personality, we see that emotions The emotions associated with such realistic thinking are very often immeasurably deeper, stronger, more moving, more significant in the system of thought than those emotions associated with daydreaming. What is essential here is another way of connecting emotional and thought processes. If in dreamy imagination the originality lies in the fact that thinking appears in a form that serves emotional interests, then in the case of realistic thinking we do not have a specific dominance of the logic of feelings. In such thinking, there are complex relationships between individual functions. If we take that form of imagination which is associated with invention and influence on reality, then we will see that here the duration of imagination is not subject to the subjective whims of emotional logic.

The inventor who conjures up a blueprint

Tezh or the plan of what he has to do is not like a man who in his thinking moves according to the subjective logic of emotions, in both cases we find different systems and different types of complex activities.

If we approach the issue from a classificatory point of view, then it would be wrong to consider imagination as a special function among other functions, as some uniform and regularly recurring form of brain activity. Imagination should be considered as a more complex form of mental activity, which is a real union of several functions in their peculiar relationships.

For such complex forms of activity, which go beyond the limits of those processes that we are accustomed to call "functions", it would be correct to use the name psychological system, bearing in mind its complex functional structure. This system is characterized by interfunctional connections and relations dominating within it.

An analysis of the activity of the imagination in its various forms and an analysis of the activity of thinking shows that only by approaching these types of activity as systems can we find the possibility of describing the most important changes that occur in them, those dependencies and connections that are found in them. .. At the same time, we observe two more extremely important points that characterize the relation of interest to us between thinking from the positive side, and not only from the critical side.

These two points are the following. On the one hand, we note the extreme affinity, the extreme closeness of the processes of thinking and the processes of imagination. We see that both processes reveal their major successes at the same genetic moments. Just as in the development of children's thinking, in the development of the imagination the main turning point coincides with the appearance of speech. School age is a turning point in the development of children's and realistic and autistic thinking. In other words, we see that logical thinking and autistic thinking develop in an extremely close relationship. A closer analysis would allow us to venture a bolder formulation: we could say that both of them develop in unity, which, in essence, is

speaking, in independent life in the development of one and the other, we do not observe at all. Moreover, observing such forms of imagination that are associated with creativity aimed at reality, we see that the line between realistic thinking and imagination is blurred, that imagination is absolutely necessary. , an integral part of realistic thinking. Here contradictions arise that are natural from the point of view of the basic state of things: correct cognition of reality is impossible without a certain element of imagination, without departing from reality, from those direct, concrete, unified impressions by which this reality is represented in the elementary acts of our consciousness. Take, for example, the problem of invention, the problem of artistic creation; here you will see that the solution of the problem to a great extent requires the participation of realistic thinking in the process of imagination, that they act in unity.

However, despite this, it would be completely wrong to identify one with the other or not to see the real opposition that exists between them. It consists, as one of the best students of the imagination says, in the following: imagination is characterized by no greater connection with the emotional side, no less degree of consciousness, no less and no greater degree of concreteness; these features are also manifested at various stages of the development of thinking. Essential for the imagination is the direction of consciousness, which consists in a departure from reality into a certain relative autonomous activity of consciousness, which differs from direct cognition of reality. Along with the images that are built in the process of direct cognition of reality, a person builds a number of images that are perceived as an area built by the imagination. At a high level of development of thinking, images are constructed that we do not find ready-made in the surrounding reality. Hence, the complex relationship that actually exists between the activity of Realistic thinking and the activity of the imagination in its highest forms and at all stages of its development becomes understandable, as each step in gaining a deeper insight into reality

is achieved by the child simultaneously with the fact that the child is to a certain extent freed from a more primitive form of cognition of reality, which was known to him before.

Any deeper penetration into reality requires a freer attitude of consciousness to the elements of this reality, a departure from the visible external side of reality, which is directly given in the primary perception, the possibility of more and more complex processes, with the help of which the cognition of reality becomes more complex. and rich.

I. WITH.Leites

AGE PRECONDITIONS OF MENTAL ABILITIES 1

In this article, we are not talking about special abilities (for example, to music, to drawing), but about the so-called general, or mental, abilities (mind, intellect). In the conditions of a comprehensive school, it is the mental abilities of students that come to the fore ...

It is clear that the assessment of a child's mental merits presupposes taking into account his age. Thus, a judgment about the rate of mental growth of a student is possible only when compared with the advancement in development achieved by a given age period. At the same time, it is impossible, for example, to assess the learning ability of a junior schoolchild, a middle school student or a high school student in some unified, absolute units of measurement (after all, not only the volume, but also the content of what is learned changes;

there is a peculiarity of mental development at different ages, so it is difficult to compare the rates of mental development of students of different ages).

When dealing with children, naturally, every time we encounter the fact that under normal conditions of training and education, as the child grows older, his mental powers increase very noticeably.

"Soviet Pedagogy, 1974, No. 1, pp. 97-107.

At the same time, from the point of view of the age-related dynamics of the development of abilities, it is essential that the transition from one age stage to the next one also means a transition to qualitatively new age-related features that are not reduced to the mental level. It would be a mistake to think that with age the internal conditions of development become more favorable in all respects. It is known, for example, that younger schoolchildren are especially susceptible to environmental influences, and one can hardly think that their mental susceptibility only increases as they grow older. In other words, in the manifestations of the intellect of schoolchildren, as the transition from previous years of study to the next, shifts occur, due to both the rise of mental strength and the limitation or even loss of some valuable features of the passed age periods.

Not only the increasing level of mental development, but also the internal prerequisites for this development at different age stages can be related to the formation and growth of abilities.

Age characteristics as components of abilities. Each stage of childhood has its own special, inimitable virtues, inherent only in a certain stage of development. Moreover, there are reasons to believe that in certain periods of childhood there are increased, sometimes extraordinary opportunities for the development of the psyche in one direction or another, and then such a possibility! and gradually or abruptly weaken. This deserves the utmost attention...

Many fakures point to the importance of "age sensitivity" as a prerequisite for the formation of abilities and as a component of the abilities themselves. Very indicative, for example, is the period of children's mastery of speech, when every normal child is distinguished by a special sensitivity to language, activity in relation to linguistic forms, elements of linguistic creativity ... At the same time, something else is noted: a special disposition to language, having fulfilled its vital function, making it possible to quickly master the forms of language and thinking, then it declines. It is known that if, due to some exceptional circumstances, acquaintance with the language in these early years is delayed, then the development of speech is then extremely difficult ...

This is the case not only with speech abilities.

mi. Manifestations of very general mental qualities are timed to the age periods of childhood: special curiosity; freshness, sharpness of perception; the brightness of the imagination, which manifests itself, in particular, in creative games; traits of clarity, concreteness of thinking, etc. Traits of the child's psyche, which are very significant for the development of mental abilities, seem to come and go, due to a certain age stage.

Let us point out some features that are characteristic of the main periods of school childhood, which are already much more complex, which can be attributed to internal conditions conducive to the growth of general abilities. Thus, the youngest schoolchildren are distinguished by a special willingness to assimilate, trusting obedience to authority, faith in the truth of everything that is taught - all these are unique prerequisites for learning at primary school age (but the same properties, if they continue to be inherent in the child, can become source of formalism, scholasticism, i.e., negative qualities). Schoolchildren who have entered adolescence are distinguished by an increase in energy and a breadth of inclinations, a need to test and apply their growing strength, and a desire for self-affirmation. Such age traits open up opportunities for general development from a new angle. In older schoolchildren, first of all, attention is drawn to a new level of consciousness, the enrichment of the moral sphere, the search for a life perspective; for high school students, a tendency to self-education becomes characteristic. Mental growth in early youth is also favored by the strengthening of more specialized interests and inclinations...

There is nothing unusual in the noted age features, these are normal features of a growing person, which make it possible to understand how, in the corresponding age period, one or another mental capacity is activated and general development is prepared...

It should be especially noted that the most common mental properties are activity and self-regulation. These two sides fundamental principles abilities change in a quite definite way from one age level to another. Increased mental activity is a characteristic age-related feature of children and adolescents; it largely expresses a naturally conditioned need

and mental impressions and mental efforts... In younger schoolchildren, it appears primarily in direct curiosity, constituting, as it were, the primary source of future research thought. At middle school age, mental activity is combined with increasing perseverance, and is found in the breadth and changeability of hobbies (in children and adolescents, general activity noticeably outstrips the development of more special interests and inclinations). In older schoolchildren, it is already largely selective in nature and is more closely associated with the meaningful aspirations of the individual. It is significant that age differences also relate to such manifestations of activity that do not increase at all from the younger classes to the older ones, for example, the ease of its awakening, the immediacy of reactions to the environment during age development is clearly on the decline. It is important to keep in mind that the development of abilities is associated with the age characteristics of activity...

Another important prerequisite for the development and side of mental abilities is the features self-regulation. Self-regulation, like activity, appears in all mental acts (the vital role of the psyche lies precisely in the regulation of behavior and activity). Undoubtedly, the characteristics of a child's self-regulation are inseparable from the properties of age and cannot be reduced only to the results of the study. In the years of school childhood, along with the growth of a person's nervous capabilities, the ability to self-regulate increases and qualitatively transforms. The consistent change in the levels and peculiarities of self-regulation that occurs in the course of age development is very noticeable, again when comparing pupils of primary, middle and senior school age. Thus, spontaneity, haste and imitativeness in the actions of younger schoolchildren are replaced in the middle classes by a readiness for longer efforts, an inclination to things that require gradual mastery and independence; Senior Schoolchildren are distinguished by a special disposition towards conscious self-regulation. In contrast to the course of development of certain features of mental activity, the possibilities of self-regulation increase in all respects, increase with age.

Age properties in each period of childhood

jump over one of them. The words of A. V. Zaporozhets about the special logic of mental development, about the presence of a certain self-movement in it, about the fact that each new stage of the child’s mental development naturally follows the previous one, and the transition from one - noy to the other is conditioned not only by external, but also by internal conditions...

The course of age development and becomingnno abilities. Observations of changes in the mental make-up of students often draw attention to cases of uneven age-related mental development: acceleration or deceleration of mental growth, unexpected rises or delays. Such features of the course of development, which distinguish pupils of the same age from each other, can be found under relatively identical conditions.< обучения и воспитания. Различия в темпе и ритме приближения к зрелости, существование различных вариантов самого хода возрастного разви- тия -важная сторона проблемы становления способно- стей...

Cases where a child develops very quickly mentally and, other things being equal, are far ahead of their peers, are not so rare. In every generation there are children with an early flowering of mental powers. What is the development of their abilities?

From time immemorial, along with enthusiastic admiration for such children, a very critical, distrustful attitude toward them developed and then began to prevail. Views have become widespread, according to which the very early development of mental abilities is a painful phenomenon or the result of “training”;

it was considered, almost established, that the "wunderkinds" did not retain their talents in the future. The skeptical and wary attitude towards children, who stand out for their capable gyami, was a kind of reaction to immoderate enthusiasm and had real grounds: disappointing declines in the course of their development, very noticeable cases of discrepancy between the “declared” in childhood and attained in the years of maturity. But in recent decades there has been a transition to a more rationalized and at the same time more optimistic attitude towards children with an early rise in mental strength. Accumulating evidence suggests that these children in

For the most part, contrary to popular belief, they are not distinguished by morbidity, a tendency to first breakdowns, and by no means lag behind in physical development. Their early success in studies and the volume of activity, as a rule, cannot be explained by “training”, since the rapid growth of their mental strength often occurs in adverse conditions and contrary to the wishes of their elders. Along with the facts that reveal in children with very rapid mental development a subsequent slowing down of the pace and "levelling out", something else is also known: quite a few prominent people in the most diverse fields of activity, they were early ripening in the old days. Judging by everything, "ahead of peers, other things being equal, may indicate a full-fledged and promising version of age development.

However, perhaps only in music, drawing and some sports, where a lot of experience has been accumulated in raising gifted children, the early achievements of the child are perceived as a possible omen of his future achievements. As for children with unusually fast mental development, not only in everyday life, but also for a practical teacher, they often turn out to be, first of all, something dubious and, as it were, unnecessary, sometimes they cause irony. relation. But such an attitude is unjustified. Of course, the advance of age indicators, no matter how significant it may be, does not give rise to sensations, it cannot fully determine the properties of the mind in the future, but there are certain grounds for believing that rapid mental growth (if, of course, it is due to the characteristics of the child himself) - this is a favorable sign in any case.

With regard to children with an early flowering of intellect, it is especially important to take into account the relationship between manifestations of abilities and age characteristics. As A. V. Petrovsky correctly notes, “focusing on the first part of the word “wunderkind”, we involuntarily consign its second part to oblivion. At the same time, the most essential thing for understanding this interesting (and, by the way, not so rare) phenomenon is that all these child prodigies remain children with their own childish features.

The materials of special observations show that such children not only retain, but also especially clearly stand out the virtues of their age (age-related

ability components) discussed above. But this is not enough: even the most complete development in a child of the virtues of only his age cannot explain the amazing wealth of possibilities with which some children shine: the greatest acceleration of mental development occurs in cases where the virtues of a subsequent age are revealed ahead of time! ..

It is another matter whether the beneficial effect of the combination of age-related components of abilities will continue. It is known that the further development of children who have such a combination can proceed in different ways. The very possibility of the appearance of children “stepping over” through classes (without any extraordinary external circumstances), and the subsequent decrease in the rate of mental development in many of them can be considered as confirmation that the manifestations of abilities are due precisely to age, t i.e., at a certain time in life, emerging, largely transient features.

The type of age-related mental development, directly opposite to the one considered, is also well known; somewhat slowed down, stretched out, when gradually, gradually, there is an accumulation of certain virtues of the intellect. It is interesting that such a path of age-related development, at first glance, less favorable, associated with the prolongation, delay of childhood traits, may turn out to be promising and cause a subsequent rise in mental strength. The absence of early achievement does not mean that the prerequisites for very great or outstanding ability will not be able to emerge later. It is significant, for example, that in the upper grades there are students who for the first time at this age, often to the surprise of teachers and classmates, begin to discover a sharply increased level of mental capabilities. I do not mean those cases when an unexpected rise in educational success is associated with health promotion, the elimination of gaps in knowledge, an increase in the time devoted to studies, etc. As the observations show, significant shifts in the mental development of some Other students are the result of increased sensitivity to what was previously indifferent. This kind of "reorientation" of susceptibility and, accordingly, activity, judging by the available materials,

can significantly depend on the characteristics of the course of age development ...

It is characteristic of both considered paths of the formation of intelligence that the uneven course of age-related development appears in the very level of abilities manifested by children (early and late rise of abilities in relation to school childhood). But variants of age-related development with less abrupt shifts are also of significant interest, when the acceleration or deceleration of age-related changes is found not so much in the level as in the originality of mental abilities. Such differences between schoolchildren are especially noticeable in the critical years of adolescence (among middle school students), when some students, in their interests and attitudes towards the environment, already gravitate toward older adolescents, while others attract attention with childlike features. At the same time, it should be taken into account that one or another rate of age development often affects different aspects of the personality in different ways: an increase in maturity in some respects can be combined with the preservation of infantilism in others.

The available evidence suggests that the retention of features of an earlier age does not necessarily mean a general retardation in mental development;

schoolchildren who gravitate towards the previous age period are also found among the strongest students. The lingering features of childishness can appear in some of these students as a virtue, even as an advantage (this is not so surprising, given the special disposition of younger schoolchildren to perceive and assimilate) ...

In children with signs of lagging behind age in personality development, apparently, some mental limitation can also be found more often. But it is also very significant that the signs of the passed period can affect primarily the originality, and not the level of intellect. They should not be considered as a disadvantage, because it is quite natural that there are different variants of the course of age development and related mental characteristics.

The role that shifts in the direction of advance can play is also not unambiguous. Of course, advancing age means accelerated development, but, often leading to a premature limitation of merits

of its age, i.e., some of the prerequisites for general development (which may not affect immediately, but in the future), it has only a relative value ...

It should be emphasized that in all the cases considered, we are talking about the unevenness of the very course of age development. It is known that completely different psychological traits are the result, for example, of attempts to force the development of a child by excessive workload, or, conversely, attempts to preserve childishness by isolating the child, etc. Of course, the most complete age-related development is not such one in which childhood is artificially extended, stretched out, or, conversely, deliberately excessively compressed, and one where each of its periods fully contributes to the formation of personality.

Age features do not pass without a trace: they not only crowd out each other, but to one degree or another are fixed in the personality. At the same time, the different degree of manifestation of these properties and belonging to a certain variant of the course of age development, apparently, may indicate the emerging personality traits. Individual differences in intelligence are not something external to the age components of ability. The formation of individual abilities occurs in the course of age development, and much depends on what will be taken, developed from those properties that appear in different periods of childhood, the traits of what particular age and to what extent will affect the traits of the Intellect.

At the same time, there is no doubt that the individual prerequisites for development (the so-called individual inclinations) already initially exist, which also undergo certain age-related changes. Of paramount importance is the deep interpenetration of age and actually individual moments ...

The age components of abilities characteristic of all children indicate that the versatile and high development of intelligence is a normal expression of human capabilities, as well as how important timely the formation of certain psychological qualities...

f The study of the school years of life makes it possible to judge emergencies only about the significance of the age sources of the formation

abilities, but also about the significance of the individual-peculiar course of age-related development. During the years of a long rise along the “age ladder” and very distinct age-related changes, the unity of the age and individual in the personality of a growing person is revealed.

Training and education, the driving forces of mental development, have a formative influence on the student's personality not directly, but through the internal conditions of development.

B. M. Warmly e ABILITIES AND GREAT 4

The three signs, it seems to me, are always contained in the concept of "ability" when used in a practically reasonable context.

First, abilities are understood as individual psychological characteristics that distinguish one person from another; no one will talk about abilities where it is a matter of properties in relation to which all people are equal.

Secondly, abilities are not called any individual characteristics in general, but only those that are related to the success of performing an activity or many activities. Such properties as, for example, irascibility, lethargy, slowness, which are undoubtedly the individual characteristics of some people, are usually not called abilities, because they are not considered as conditions for the success of any activity.

Thirdly, the concept of “ability” is not limited to the knowledge, skills or abilities that a given person has already developed. It often happens that the teacher is not satisfied with the work of the student, although this latter reveals knowledge no less than some of his comrades, whose success pleases the same teacher. The teacher motivates his dissatisfaction with the fact that

"Teplov B.M. Problems of individual differences. M.,

that this student, “considering his abilities”, could have had much more knowledge. The same knowledge and skills in a field, for example, mathematics, for an experienced teacher can mean completely different things for different students: for one, with brilliant abilities in mathematics, they indicate completely insufficient work, for another, they may indicate great achievements.

We cannot understand abilities as innate abilities of the individual, because we have defined abilities as “individual psychological characteristics of a person,” and these latter, by their very nature, cannot be innate. Only anatomical and physiological features can be innate, i.e., the inclinations that underlie the development of abilities, while the abilities themselves are always the result of development.

Thus, having rejected the understanding of abilities as innate features of a person, we, however, do not at all reject the fact that in the basis of the development of abilities, in most cases, there are some innate features, inclinations.

The concept of "innate", sometimes expressed in other words - "innate", "natural", "given from nature", etc. - is very often associated in practical analysis with abilities.

It is only important to firmly establish that in all cases we mean the innateness not of the abilities themselves, but of the inclinations underlying their development. Yes, hardly anyone, even in practical use of words, understands anything else when speaking about the innateness of this or that ability.

Further, it must be emphasized that ability in its very essence is a dynamic concept. Ability exists only in movement, only in development. In psychological terms, one cannot talk about the ability as it exists. before the beginning its development, just as one cannot speak of an ability that has reached its development, just as one cannot speak of an ability that has reached its complete development that has completed its development.

Having understood that the ability exists only in development, we must not lose sight of the fact that this development is carried out only in the process of this or that practical and theoretical activity. And from here 43

It follows that a capacity cannot arise outside the corresponding concrete activity. It is only in the course of psychological analysis that we distinguish them from each other. It is impossible to understand the matter in such a way that the ability exists before the corresponding activity has begun, and is only used in this last one. Absolute pitch as an ability does not exist in a child before he first faced the task of recognizing the pitch of a sound. Before that, there was only a deposit as an anatomical and physiological fact.

The development of abilities, like any development in general, does not proceed in a straight line: its driving force is the struggle of contradictions, therefore, at certain stages of development, contradictions between abilities and inclinations are quite possible. But from the recognition of the possibility of such contradictions does not at all follow the recognition that inclinations can arise and develop independently of abilities or, conversely, abilities, regardless of inclinations.

Above, I have already pointed out that abilities can only be called such individual psychological characteristics that are related to the success of the performance of a particular activity. However, it is not individual abilities as such that directly determine the possibility of successfully performing some activity, but only that peculiar combination of these abilities that characterizes a given person.

One of the most important features of the human psyche is the possibility of an extremely wide compensation of some properties by others, as a result of which the relative weakness of any one ability does not at all exclude the possibility of successfully performing even such an activity that is most closely related to this ability. The missing ability can be compensated within a very wide range by others highly developed in the given person. It is necessary to recognize the merit of a number of foreign psychologists, and primarily Stern in his "Differential Psychology", the promotion and development of the concept of compensation for abilities and properties.

It is precisely because of the wide possibility of compensation that all attempts to reduce, for example, musical talent, musical talent, musicality, and the like, to any one ability are doomed to failure.

To illustrate this idea, I will give one very elementary example. A peculiar musical ability is the so-called absolute pitch, which is expressed in the fact that a person with this ability can recognize the pitch of individual sounds without resorting to comparing them with other sounds whose pitch is known. There are good reasons to see absolute hearing as a typical example of "innate ability," that is, ability that is based on innate inclinations. However, it is also possible for people who do not have absolute pitch to develop the ability to recognize the pitch of individual sounds. This does not mean that absolute pitch will be created in these individuals, but it means that in the absence of absolute pitch, it is possible, relying on other abilities - relative pitch, timbre pitch, etc. - to develop a skill that in other cases is carried out on the basis of absolute pitch , but the practical results may in some cases be exactly the same.

It must be remembered that individual abilities do not simply coexist side by side and independently of each other. Each ability changes, acquires a qualitatively different character, depending on the presence and degree of development of other abilities.

Based on these considerations, we cannot directly move from individual abilities to the question of the possibility of a given person successfully performing one or another activity. This transition can only be made through another, more synthetic concept. Such a concept is “giftedness”, understood as that qualitatively peculiar combination of abilities, on which the possibility of achieving greater or lesser success depended. \a in the performance of any activity

The peculiarity of the concepts of “giftedness” and “abilities” lies in the fact that the properties of a person are considered in them from the point of view of the requirements that this or that practical activity imposes on him. Therefore, one cannot speak of giftedness in general. One can only speak of giftedness for something, for some kind of activity. This circumstance has

especially important when considering the issue of the so-called "general giftedness", which we will touch on a little later.

That correlation with specific practical activity, which is necessarily contained in the very concept of "giftedness", determines the historical nature of this concept. The concept of “giftedness” essentially depends on what value is attached to certain types of activity and what is meant by the “successful” implementation of each specific activity.

BUT. N. Leontiev O FORMING ABILITYY"

It is necessary from the very beginning to clearly distinguish between two sets of abilities in a person: firstly, natural abilities, or natural, basically biological, and secondly, specifically human abilities that have a socio-historical origin. .

By abilities of the first kind, I mean such abilities as the ability to quickly form and differentiate conditioned connections, or to resist the effects of negative stimuli, or even the ability to analyze, for example, sound signals, etc. Many of these abilities are common in humans and higher animals. . Although this kind of ability is directly related to innate inclinations, they are not identical with inclinations.

According to the generally accepted definition proposed by B. M. Teplov in our country, inclinations are congenital anatomical and physiological features. These are features that represent only one of the conditions of certain abilities, namely, an internal condition that lies in the subject himself. Thus, inclinations in general are not a psychological category (Teplov, 1941).

Another thing is abilities, including abilities that I called natural. These are not the makings themselves, but

"Questions of Psychology", I960, No. 1.

what is formed on their basis. The widely accepted definition of abilities is that these are the properties of an individual, the ensemble of which determines the success of a certain activity. This refers to properties that develop ontogenetically, in the activity itself and, consequently, depending on external conditions.

As an example of natural abilities, the ability to quickly form conditional connections is given above. Of course, every normal person, like animals, has the necessary anatomical and physiological conditions for this. However, the following fact is well known: in animals that have extensive "laboratory experience", the development of artificial conditioned reflexes and differentiations proceeds faster than in animals that do not have such experience. This means that in the course of acquiring laboratory experience by animals, something changes in its capabilities, some internal changes occur - the animal acquires the ability to more successfully solve laboratory problems (Leontiev and Bobneva, 1953).

The same is noted in the case when it comes to congenital typological features of the nervous system. They may also appear in development not quite unambiguously: it suffices to refer to the frequently cited facts that characterize animals brought up under normal conditions and animals with "prison education". Finally, this statement remains true when we turn to the development of sensory abilities. Isn't even such rough facts evidenced in principle, such as those obtained in Berger's well-known old experiments?

Thus, even an analysis of the simplest facts points to the need to preserve, in relation to natural abilities, the distinction between inclinations and actual abilities.

From natural faculties it is necessary to distinguish clearly the faculties of the second kind, which I have called specifically human. Such, for example, are speech, musical, design abilities, etc. This has to be specially emphasized, because the fundamental originality of specifically human abilities has not yet been sufficiently revealed.

What is the difference between specifically human

human abilities and natural abilities inherent in man in terms of their origin and conditions of formation?

From this point of view, let us first of all consider natural, elementary abilities. They are formed on the basis of innate inclinations in the course of the development of activity processes, including the processes of study, which, in addition to the formation of connections, skills, and habits, also give a certain “formal” result, namely, a change in those internal prerequisites or conditions from which further possibilities for carrying out activities depend. In a word, their development proceeds due to, as it were, the “involvement” of inclinations (or internal conditions that have already changed in the development) in activity and, as it is said in the thesis of the report by S. L. Rubinshtein, occurs in a spiral (Rubinshtein, 1959 ).

It is quite obvious that the described process is a real process that characterizes the development of human abilities; a similar process exists in animals, in which, in the course of ontogenetic development, the internal conditions of behavior also change

The main question, however, is whether what has been said about the development of abilities extends to all the abilities of a person, it has only a limited meaning in relation to a person and does not exhaust the essential features of nature in the formation of abilities specific to a person, i.e. such , which are inherent exclusively to man and which, speaking of human abilities, we usually have in mind.

Specifically human abilities have a different origin, are formed in a significantly different way than natural abilities, and, therefore, have a different, as is sometimes said, determination.

What has been said necessarily follows from the analysis of the process of social historical development human abilities.

It can be recognized as scientifically established that from the moment the modern type of man appears, the process of morphogenesis proper stops. This means that the further development of a person no longer occurs due to morphological fixation, the action of selection and hereditary transmission of changes in his nature, i.e., his heredity, slowly accumulating in generations; that although the action of the laws of biological

The natural variability and heredity continues, but these laws now cease to serve the process of the historical development of mankind and man, and they do not control it. From that moment on, the development process begins to be governed by new laws - socio-historical laws that apply both to the development of society and to the development of the individuals that form it. In other words, unlike the previous period - the period of the formation of man, the action of socio-historical laws is no longer limited now by the success of his morphological development, and these laws receive full scope for their manifestation.

This constitutes the point which is the key to the whole problem and which must be made clear to the end. We are talking about the following alternative: either, in contrast to the above, it is accepted that the acquisitions of a person in the process of socio-historical development (such as, for example, speech hearing, tool actions or theoretical thinking) are fixed and transmitted hereditarily in the form of corresponding endowments, and that, consequently, people essentially differ from each other in endowments directly expressing these historical acquisitions of mankind; or the position is accepted that, although the inclinations, i.e., the anatomical and physiological characteristics of people, are not equal (which also creates an inequality in their natural abilities), they do not fix and do not directly carry such abilities that correspond to specific historical acquisitions of people, and that, consequently, abilities of this kind can be reproduced only in the order of their ontogenetic formation, i.e., as lifelong neoplasms.

As regards the first of these propositions, despite the countless attempts made to give its scientific substantiation, it remains unproven, since its argumentation, in particular, by the factual data of special studies, invariably turns out to be imaginary, it is enough to refer, for example, "a F. Mayle's study, which completely exposed the otological data of R. Wien, allegedly indicating the presence of histological differences in the structure of the cortex in representatives of the white and black races, or on the established fundamentally identical distribution

ing the indicators of "intellectual coefficients" of natural and adopted children in families of different social status, which, in essence, overturns the idea of ​​​​the existence of a direct connection between these coefficients and hereditary characteristics.

But the point is not only in the lack of scientific evidence for the proposition that the achievements of socio-historical development are fixed hereditarily. The main thing is that this provision logically necessarily leads to the assumption of differentiation of people according to their birth. given inclinations on the “primitive”, on the one hand, and “superhumans”, on the other, that it is resolutely refuted by the practice of gigantic shifts taking place before our eyes in the level of spiritual development of entire peoples, when countries before almost complete illiteracy for the shortest historical period, they turn into countries of advanced culture with numerous intelligentsia, and when, at the same time, intra-racial and intra-national differences are completely erased in this regard, supposedly fatally destining some for physical labor, and others for professions that require the so-called "higher" abilities. .

Another opposite position comes from the fact that continuity in the historical development of man is not determined by the action of biological heredity, but is carried out due to a special form of transmission that occurs only in human society to the achievement of previous generations by subsequent generations.

The fact is that these achievements are fixed not in morphological changes, further transmitted to posterity, but in the objective products of human activity - material and ideal, - in the form of human creations: in tools, in material industry, in language (in the system of concepts, in science) and in works of art.

Behind all these creations of people, from the first tool created by a human hand to the latest technology, from the primitive word to modern highly developed languages, lies the total labor of specific people, their material and spiritual activity, which takes on the form of objectivity in its product. . But this means that what is manifested in activity

a person, i.e. his essential properties, abilities, is embodied in the product.

On the other hand, developing in society, each individual person encounters a world transformed and created by the activities of previous generations, with a world that embodies the achievements of the socio-historical development of human abilities.

But a person does not just “stand” in front of this world, but must live, act in it, he must use tools and tools, use the language and logic developed by social practice; finally, he does not remain indifferent to the works of art and enters into an aesthetic relationship with them.

He does not, however, have the ready inclinations to, for example, speak a particular language or discern geometric relationships. Although, of course, he is endowed with inclinations, but only inclinations for abilities that I called natural; these inclinations are, as it were, “faceless” in relation to the types of human activity that have historically emerged, i.e., they are not specific to them. They are in a fundamentally different relation to the possibility of developing abilities to carry out these specifically human activities than the relation in which they stand to abilities of the first kind, manifesting themselves directly in them.

A person's abilities for socio-historically formed forms of activity, i.e., his specifically human abilities, are genuine neoplasms that are formed in his individual development, and not the revelation and modification of what is inherent in him by heredity. This is the main feature of abilities, specific 1| abilities that are of social-historical origin, social nature.

\ The formation of specifically human abilities - GTen is a very complex process, on which T "opoM must be dwelled on specifically.

The development of these abilities in a separate individual C "occurs in the process of mastering them. (... appropriating by them) what was created by mankind in its historical development - BIiT ™, what was created by society ...

I want to emphasize that the process of assimilation or appropriation cannot be confused with the process of acquiring individual experience, that the difference between them is absolutely fundamental.

The process of acquiring individual experience is, as is known, the result of an individual's adaptation to changing environmental conditions on the basis of innate, inherited species experience, experience that expresses the nature of his species, this process is characteristic of the entire animal world.

In contrast, the process of appropriation, which does not exist at all in animals, is the process of acquiring species experience by a person, but not the phylogenetic experience of his animal ancestors, but human species experience, that is, the socio-historical experience of previous generations of people. This does not lie in the hereditary organization. of a person, not inside, but outside - in the external objective world, in human objects and phenomena surrounding a person. This world - the world of industry, on) to and arts - expresses truly human nature, the result of its socio-historical transformation, he carries within himself the human

Mastering this world, appropriating it by a person is the process, as a result of which the highest human abilities embodied in external form become the internal property of his personality, his abilities, the true "organs of his individuality"

The idea of ​​the special nature of human mental development as a process based on the transfer and assimilation by individuals of what was accumulated by previous generations is increasingly accepted in psychology (see, for example, Pieron)

What is the very process of appropriation by individual people of the achievements of the development of human society, embodied, crystallized in the objective products of collective activity - a process that is at the same time a process of formation of specifically human abilities^

First, it must be emphasized that this is always an active process on the part of the subject.

Secondly, this is a process taken not only from the side of its so-called "material" result, but first of all from the side of its "formal" effect, i.e. a process that creates new prerequisites for the further development of activity, creates a new ability, or function Therefore, when, for example, we say that a small child for the first time mastered some kind of tool, this means that in the course of his activity he developed the ability to carry out tool operations

However, the ability for these operations cannot be formed in a child under the influence of the tool itself. Although these operations are objectively embodied in the tool, for the child, subjectively, they are only given in him. They are revealed to him only because his relationship to the objective world is mediated. his relationship to people. Adults show the child how to operate with a tool, help him to use it adequately, that is, build him gun operas | By this - if we keep in mind the early stages of development - they restructure, as it were, the very logic of the child's movements and create in him, as a new formation, the ability to use tools

The situation is no different, of course, when the child is faced with the task of mastering a word, a concept, knowledge, i.e., ideal phenomena.

I note, by the way, that the implementation of the assignment process | constitutes that function of human learning, which qualitatively distinguishes it from the learning of animals, whose only function is adaptation | It is necessary to make one more remark in connection with (the question of the relationship between inclinations and natural abilities, on the one hand, and higher, specifically human abilities, on the other | It is said above that the former are, as it were, "faceless | mi" in relation to the second This means that, although they | and constitute an indispensable condition for the development of higher, specifically human abilities, they do not positively determine their content. sounds, is determined not directly by these inclinations, but by the nature of the language that a given child masters, as for 53

the role of the inclinations themselves, they determine only some individual features of both the course of the process of formation of a given ability and its final product. At the same time, the widest possibilities of so-called monosystem compensation are revealed, so that the same specific ability can have as its natural basis different ensembles of inclinations and natural abilities corresponding to them.

All these provisions determine, however, only the most general approach to the problem of the formation of specifically human abilities. The implementation of this approach in the study encounters rather serious difficulties and raises a number of questions that need specific development.

One of the most important issues that require special research is the question of the nature of specific mechanisms that form the basis of abilities that develop in humans in the order of life-forming neoplasms.

This question arises from the following controversy. On the one hand, as was said, specifically human abilities are not transmitted in the order of action of biological heredity, that is, in the form of inclinations. On the other hand, it is impossible, of course, to admit the existence of such abilities that would not have their own material substratum, their own organ. After all, ability is a property ready for manifestation, for functioning.

But then the question is, what exactly functions when it comes to specifically human abilities that do not have their own special and direct basis in innate morphological organs - inclinations?

The solution to this complex problem was prepared by the progress in the development of the physiology of higher nervous activity (First of all, I have in mind the classical works of IP Pavlov and his school, as well as the work of AA Ukhtomsky). It was also prepared by many psychological studies devoted to the formation and structure of the higher mental functions of a person.

The fundamental answer to this question is that in the process of formation in a person of an activity that is adequate to objects and phenomena that embody a person

eternal abilities, he also develops during his lifetime the functional brain organs capable of carrying out this activity, which are stable reflex associations or systems, which are characterized by new special functions.

Although we find the possibility of intravital formation of functional brain organs already in higher animals, however, only in humans do they for the first time become realizing true neoplasms, and their formation becomes the most important principle of ontogenetic development.

In order to trace experimentally the formation of the mechanisms of specifically human abilities and to study their structure, in recent years we have been engaged in the study of specifically human spirit in our laboratory. We reasoned thus. Man lives in the world of sounds created by people - in the world of music, in the world of audible speech. Therefore, he develops a special human ear, that is, the ability to analyze the specific features of this - human - world of sounds.

I will not go into details and will go straight to the most important results that we have obtained. It turned out, firstly, that the sound-pitch discrimination thresholds that interested us in these subjects dropped sharply. Secondly, we got the phenomenon of transfer to the sounds of another timbre. Finally, thirdly, the loud singing of the compared sounds began to naturally give way to singing “inwardly” with an undoubted tendency to form an internal, mental “representation”, in the words of B. M. Teplov (Teplov, 1947) , the pitch of sounds, i.e., that very ability, which is a necessary condition for musical activity.

Thus, we were able to see in the laboratory, under the conditions of accurate records and measurements, the birth, the formation of a genuine neoplasm, a truly new ability for these subjects, which was based on a new fundamental mechanism of analysis.

"from the main height of complex sounds of different timbres. f f J

At the same time, we were convinced that this ability, in cases where it did not form spontaneously, by itself, can be actively built.

The above, of course, does not exhaust the problem of abilities. At the same time, I think that the proposition put forward by me about the special nature and special process of the formation of the specific abilities of a person as life-forming formations has not only a general, abstract meaning, but also allows us to focus specific research in this most difficult area. .

The point is not to confine ourselves to an analysis of ready-made, already established abilities or a description of the process of their ontogenetic development in conditions when the corresponding ability has actually been determined, but to conduct research further, experimentally studying the mechanisms of their formation.

Precisely the investigations proceeding along this path will apparently have the last word in the disputable questions of the problem of higher human abilities.

S. L. Rubinstein

ABILITY PROBLEMYAND QUESTIONS PSYCHOLOGICALLYYTHEORIES"

The first general position that I would like to formulate is that the question of abilities should be merged with the question of development, the question of mental abilities with the question of mental development.

The development of a person, in contrast to the accumulation of “experience”, the acquisition of knowledge, skills, and habits, is the development of his abilities, and the development of a person’s abilities is what constitutes development as such, in contrast to the accumulation of knowledge and skills. (I do not touch here on other equally important aspects of personality development.)

Decisive for the doctrine of abilities is the question of determining their development - the main issue of the theory of any phenomena.

"Questions of Psychology", 1960, No. 3.

To connect, as we have done, the problems of abilities with the question of development means to recognize, on the one hand, that abilities cannot simply be implanted from outside, that prerequisites, internal conditions for their organic growth must exist in the individual, and, on the other hand, on the other hand, that they are not predetermined, not given ready-made before and outside of any development.

The relationship between external and internal conditions for the development of abilities is the starting point and theoretical basis for solving the fundamental debatable issues of the theory of abilities. It is no coincidence that the whole discussion on the question of abilities is connected with this question of determination. The theory of innate abilities transfers their determination entirely inside the individual and takes it outside of his development. As is well known, this theory is opposed by theories that place the determination of development entirely outside the individual. These are the various versions of theories relating the determination of abilities and their development entirely due to external conditions - the external environment and external influences. Theories of the second type have also gained considerable currency in our country. This is understandable: they obviously have a materialistic character and have a progressive meaning, since they open up the fundamental possibility of developing abilities by changing external conditions. However, the mechanical nature of these concepts, breaking the relationship and interdependence of external and internal conditions, makes both theoretically and practically untenable and undermines the significance of their above-mentioned advantages.

Among the theories that one-sidedly and therefore incorrectly emphasize the role of external factors, should, in my opinion, be included the theory, which has received a certain distribution in our country recently, which declares the “internalization” of external actions to be the main “mechanism” of mental development. The concrete and “meaningful” expression of this theory is the assertion or assumption that the material Action determines the composition of the mental action (P. Ya. Galperin), that the mental action reproduces, somehow modifying them, the composition of those material Actions from which it occurs. In this position, which gives definiteness to the theory of internalization, at the same time its weakest harrow is revealed. It is wrong to think that every intellectual 57

“action” has its prototype in material action, and the fact that a necessary condition for the emergence of mental action is an appeal to the “corresponding” material action, which it mentally “reproduces” or from which it proceeds.

The theory of internalization is undoubtedly the most refined version of the theories that affirm the external determination of human development. We therefore focus our criticism on it. This theory one-sidedly emphasizes the determination of the internal by the external, without revealing the internal conditionality of this external determination. It is no coincidence that mental activity is ultimately reduced by supporters of this point of view to the functioning of operations that are switched on according to predetermined criteria. It is no coincidence that, furthermore, cognition is reduced to orienting activity: in order to carry out the mental activity understood in this way, there is no need for any comprehensive analysis and cognition of reality; it suffices to “orient oneself” according to this signal sign.” With such a one-sided determination from the outside, mental activity inevitably loses its internal mental content.

According to this concept, "the formation in ontogenesis ... of intellectual abilities - mathematical, logical, and others" is reduced to "the assimilation of historically developed operations"; processes that are built "outside" are projected into the ability. This means that abilities for mathematics, languages, etc. arise only as a result of the assimilation of operations, as a result of learning; there is allegedly nothing in the individuals themselves, due to which the learning of some is better, more successful than that of others; ignores-

"There is no doubt, of course, that cognitive activity allows one to orient oneself in one's surroundings, but this does not mean that one can replace the term (or characteristic.) with the "orienting" concept cognitive activity. Such a substitution means, at first, an attempt to define cognitive activity only by the “pragmatic” effect that it gives, without revealing what it is in itself; but further behind this inevitably lies some idea of ​​the nature of cognitive activity. The characterization of cognitive activity as indicative actually involves the isolation of the indicative component of cognitive activity, associated with the tendency to push aside the characterization of cognitive activity as an analytic-synthetic activity.

the initial general dependence of learning on learning ability, on the prerequisites that lie in the subject of learning;

the commendable desire not to miss feedbacks - certainly really existing and important - obscures the ability of the supporters of this theory to see direct, initial dependencies. Everything seems to come only from the object, from the outside, and only the internalization of the external fills the internal void. As a result of learning, since it also gives a “formal” effect (this is recognized), internal prerequisites for further learning arise, but initially, according to the logic of this concept, learning does not have any initial internal prerequisites in the individual; learning is only a condition for the formation of abilities; it is in no way conditioned by them; ability is only a product of learning; they don't show up at all. among its prerequisites. In fact, in the process of learning and assimilation, abilities develop and are specified, but in an undeveloped and general form they also form the initial prerequisites for learning to assimilate them. In fact, it is necessary to speak not only about abilities as products of the development of objects of activity, but also about these objects themselves, as products of the historical development of abilities, i.e., abandoning the assertion that the development of people and their abilities are one-sidedly dependent on external products. their activities, proceed from the interconnection and interdependence of the internal development of the people themselves, their own nature, their abilities and external objectified products of their activity. The consciousness of these latter has both as its consequence and as its condition a change in the nature of people, their abilities. Man and the objective world must be considered in their interaction, and consideration of their interaction cannot be limited only to the sphere of assimilation, completely outside the sphere of production.

The abilities of people are formed not only in the process of assimilation of products created by man in the course of historical development, but also in the process of their creation; the process of creation by man of the objective world is at the same time the development of his own nature.

It is sometimes argued that with the beginning of historical development, the role of natural development ceases. But this last position may mean

only that in the course of historical development organic, natural, in particular physiological, conditions play an unchanging, i.e. permanent role, not that they play no role. In other words, this means that they cannot by themselves explain changes in human mental activity, but this in no way means that they fall out as a condition from the explanation of this activity itself. Moreover, the truth of the proposition, according to which, with the beginning of human history, the natural development of man ceases, is very limited; The historical development of mankind in no way removes the natural, organic development of each person in the process of his individual development. It is not only necessary, speaking about the internal prerequisites and natural foundations of abilities, to create a false alternative of objects outside and morphology inside as “depositors” of abilities; inside there is also activity in relation to external objects. The development of man and his abilities is indisputably fundamentally different from the development of animals; this fundamental difference is due precisely to the fact that the results of human activity are deposited in the form of objectified products that cement the continuity of the historical development of mankind and mediate the individual development of children.

It does not follow from this, however, that it is possible - continuing, apparently, the concept of natural and cultural development - to split the very abilities of a person into natural, natural (biological) and proper human - social and, recognizing internal conditionality and development “in a spiral” for the first, in relation to the second, to put forward only determination from the outside. The whole concept of the determination of abilities from the outside, their extraction from the objects in which they are deposited, has as its premise precisely this recognition - at least in relation to the doctrine of abilities - of the dual nature of man, allegedly disintegrating and forming from two separate alien parts. Without this premise for single, undivided abilities, the idea that human abilities are built from outside would be too obviously untenable. But even this premise cannot improve things, since it is difficult to defend the idea that a person has human

(“truly” human) and inhuman abilities. In a man - if he really is a man - everything is human.

The correct position about the social conditioning of human thinking and human abilities is overlapped in the theory of internalization by a mechanistic understanding of this social determination, which breaks any interdependence of the external and internal, etching out any dialectic of external and internal, social and natural in a person 2 .

The results of human activity, condensing in the course of historical development, are deposited in its products. Their development by man is a necessary and essential condition for the development of human abilities. This conditionality of historically developing products of human activity is a specific feature of human development. The development of people's abilities takes place in the process of creating and mastering the products of the historical development of human activity, but the development of abilities is not their assimilation, the assimilation of finished products; abilities are not projected in a person from things, but are realized in him in the process of his interaction with things and objects, products of historical development.

The process of development of human abilities is the process of development of a person, and not of the things that he creates. Any reasoning that does not go beyond the limits of the alternative is false: either everything is from within, or weight is from the outside, any reasoning that does not correlate the external and the internal in a certain way. Nothing develops purely immanently only from within, regardless

"In "refuting" our characterization of the theory of internalization, one can seem to object that, according to this theory, the instriorilation of the external is mediated by the activity of the subject in Assimilation of the given from the outside. However, this circumstance does not in any way remove the mechanistic nature of this interpretation of the personality and the development of its abilities, since the very activity of the subject is conceived as determined only by the object, only from the outside.

2 Justice requires recognizing that A.N. Leontiev himself sometimes, in particular in his polemic against D.N. N. Leontiev did not take it into account properly when defending the theory of internalization.

in relation to something external, but nothing enters the process of development from the outside without any conditions internal to it.

Assimilation by a person of certain knowledge and methods of action has as its prerequisite, as its internal condition, a certain level of mental development, the development of mental abilities; in turn, it leads to the creation of internal conditions for the assimilation of knowledge and methods of action of a higher order. Ability development proceeds in a spiral: the realization of an opportunity, which represents the ability of one level, opens up new opportunities for further development, for the development of abilities of a higher level. A person's giftedness is determined by the range of new opportunities that the realization of available opportunities opens up. A person's abilities are the internal conditions of his development, which, like other internal conditions, are formed under the influence of external ones - in the process of human interaction with the outside world.

Before we go any further, we need to clarify the very concept of ability. Abilities are usually understood as the properties or qualities of a person that make him suitable for the successful implementation of any of the types of socially useful activities that have developed in the course of socio-historical development. For the most part, these complex, complex properties are considered without connection with those properties common to all people, which, using Marx's term, can be called "generic" properties of a person - such as, for example, sensitivity, say, auditory. musical (pitch) or speech (predominantly timbre). The separation of abilities from these initial human properties and the laws of their formation immediately excludes the possibility of explaining the development of abilities and leads to mystified ideas about them. (There is no way to explain and understand, say, the development of the abilities of a great musician without starting from the laws of auditory perception.)

The nature of abilities and these "generic" properties is common. The reflex concept extends to one as well as to others. Their common neurological basis is, in the words of A.A.-Ukhtomsky, a functional organ-system of reflex-functioning connections. In this combination of abilities 62

In their usual understanding with the “generic” properties of a person, I agree with A.N. Leontiev and consider very important the experimental study he is conducting (Rationing of these functional systems. I must, “however, say: it is impossible, when dealing with a system of conditional V , "Chiezei, ignore their unconditional reflex | | basis as an internal condition mediating special || “difference of the effect of the object's impact on this system. (This is essentially the same question: one- | 4 a general emphasis on external determination without correlating it with the internal one.)

But before us, as the main question, is the question of abilities in the usual, proper sense.

The very term "capabilities" characterizes what it means only from the point of view that this something gives a person, but does not yet directly determine in any way, does not reveal that this something itself is. It is necessary to somehow determine the composition, the structure of abilities

Each ability that makes a person fit to perform a certain activity always includes some operations or methods of action through which this activity is carried out. Not a single ability is an actual, real ability until it has organically absorbed the system of corresponding socially developed operations; but the core of the ability is not an assimilated, not an automated operation, but those mental processes by means of which these operations, their function and clarification, are regulated, the quality of these processes

Any operation (logical, grammatical - word formations and inflections) is always based on certain relations that it realises. Therefore, the generalization of these relations, and hence the isolation of these relations and their analysis, is a necessary condition for the successful functioning of operations based on them. Such is the conclusion to which a theoretical analysis leads. An analysis of empirical dacha data from a recently published study by V. A. Krutitsky confirms this conclusion. Studying schoolchildren who showed aptitude for mathematics, V. A. Krutsky encountered, first of all, the presence in them of a large and easy generalization of mathematical material.

Tetsky leads the curtailment of reasoning. But our research has shown that the measure of curtailment of thought processes is a derivative expression of the ratio of generalization and analysis: the thought process is all the more “curtailed” the more it operates with already established or rapidly developing generalizations, removing the need for analysis in some links, it is all the more developed, the longer a person goes through analysis to new generalizations. Thus, according to our research, the second indicator does not go beyond the first. It would be easy to show that the third indicator that appears in Krutetsky - the easy reversibility of relations - can also be reduced to the first, if only, speaking of generalization, we emphasize the generalization of relations.

So, there are some grounds - theoretical and empirical - to accept as a preliminary hypothesis. For further research, the core or common component of various mental abilities, each of which has its own special features, is the quality of analysis processes inherent in a given person (and therefore , and synthesis) and generalization of relations. The generalization of subject content relations then appears and is recognized as a generalization of operations performed on a generalized subject content; generalization and consolidation in the individual of these generalized operations lead to the formation of the corresponding abilities in the individual.

Due to the fact that the degree of differentiation, and differentiability, in the same person in relation to different areas can be and usually actually is different, the same people also have different generalizability of relations in different areas. . Although, say, for both linguistic and mathematical abilities, the generalization of the relevant material is essential, but in some cases we are talking about the generalization of phonetic and grammatical relations (determining the rules by which word formation and inflection is performed), in other-quantitative or ordinal relations. Therefore, despite the fact that the quality of generalization is a common component of all mental abilities, the same person

may have different abilities in different areas.

If our hypothesis about the role of the quality of the processes of analysis and generalization is correct, then it is clear that the study of the dynamics of these processes and the laws of their interdependence, on which our study of thinking is mainly focused, is at the same time the threshold of the path that we Gradually we are working towards the study of the mental abilities of people and, therefore, in the future - towards their formation.

So, the analysis of the composition (and structure) of abilities led us to distinguish two components in the actual ability: a more or less well-coordinated and well-developed set of operations - the ways in which the corresponding activity is carried out, and the quality of the processes that regulate the functioning of these operations.

This structure of abilities explains the difficulties that judgments about people's abilities usually face both in life and in research. A person's abilities are usually judged by his productivity. This latter directly depends on the presence in a person of a well-coordinated and regularly, smoothly functioning system of appropriate operations or skills, methods of action in a given area. But, observing people in life, one cannot get rid of the impression that people, apparently, generally gifted, sometimes turn out to be not very productive, give not as much as they promised, and, conversely, people seem to be less gifted ones turn out to be more productive than one might expect. These inconsistencies are explained by different correlations between the perfection with which the processes of analysis and generalization are carried out in a person, and the sophistication, coherence of the operations built on this basis, mastered by the individual. In some cases, it happens that on the basis of generalization processes that open up great opportunities, a poorly developed and uncoordinated system of operations is built up, and due to the imperfection of this component of abilities, as well as the conditions of the characterological and emotional-volitional order, productivity turns out to be relatively insignificant; in other cases, on the contrary, on the basis of generalization, analytical and synthetic processes of a lower level, greater productivity is achieved due to greater efficiency.

efficiency of operations based on this base. The productivity of activity, of course, is important in itself, but it does not directly, not unambiguously determine the internal capabilities of a person, his abilities.

With this discrepancy or not direct, ambiguous correspondence, coincidence is connected, yes. Moreover, it is impossible to determine the mental abilities of a person's intellect by the mere result of his activity, without revealing the process of thinking that leads to it. In an attempt to approach the definition of intelligence, i.e., the mental abilities of people, in this way lies the fundamental defect of the usual test definitions of intelligence.

This or that understanding of mental abilities is inextricably linked with this or that understanding of thinking.

In general, we share the point of view of V. N. Myasishchev, G. S. Kostyuk and many other psychologists, according to which the “relationship between motivational qualities and abilities of the individual” (G. S. Kostyuk) is affirmed and it is considered necessary to “overcome a gap in abilities and character, potency and tendencies, human relations and the mechanisms of brain activity ”(V. N. Myasishchev). But here, in the order of scientific abstraction, we will dwell specifically on one side of the issue - on the connection of abilities with thinking.

Now two approaches to the problem of thinking are confronting each other, two conceptions of thinking that differ radically from one another precisely in the point most directly related to the question of abilities in their development.

According to one of these concepts, appearing in different versions, softened and sharpened, thinking is mainly operating in a ready-made form with generalizations obtained; mental activity is the functioning of operations that are automatically activated according to predetermined signs. The problem of thinking is reduced to the problem of studying, lasting assimilation of knowledge presented to students in finished form as a result of the processing of educational material produced by the teacher; thinking, thus, affairs) only the teacher, not the student!

By subordinating the entire problem of thinking to the task of assimilation of knowledge, this concept inevitably focuses psychological research primarily on results.

„„.ax mental activity; the study of the very process of thinking recedes into the background; In addition, the main focus on the assimilation of knowledge artificially emphasizes the receptive aspect of thinking - the ability to assimilate the given - and masks its active, creative aspect - the ability to discover something new.

It goes without saying that by this we in no way reject the indisputable legitimacy and necessity of a psychological study of the assimilation of knowledge, but only point out the danger that is fraught with the subordination of the entire psychology of thinking to this attitude.

The subordination of the psychological theory of thinking to the problem of mastering knowledge becomes especially pernicious when it is combined with the notion - mechanical and illusory - that the knowledge that the teacher teaches to the student is mechanically projected into his consciousness and out of sight, thus the mental the work of the student, which is mediated by assimilation. And here the position remains in force, according to which the effect of any external influence depends on the internal conditions through which these influences are refracted.

The tendency outlined here finds its sharpened expression in the reduction of thinking to functioning in the finished form of these operations, which are switched on according to predetermined signs. To organize mental activity as a set of well-performed operations, switched on according to predetermined criteria, means, of course, to greatly simplify the task of teaching and to ensure a quicker and easier achievement of a direct, strictly organized educational result. But at what cost? At the cost of etching out of the so-called mental activity of the actual thinking. Following this path, it is undoubtedly possible (there is nothing tricky in this!) to achieve a certain effect in each individual case. But what will be the final overall result? The transformation of a person into a teacher's creature, into a person who knows how to live only according to cribs, to do only what the teacher has "programmed" in him. He will be able to reproduce what is invested in him, but do not expect more from him!

This conception of thinking obviously means, as applied to the question of mental faculties, the illumination of faculties for the totality of Operations and the exclusion of that which constitutes faculties proper. This 4* 67

the concept knows only thinking-skill, but not thinking-ability.

In the second concept, the emphasis is on the study of the process of thinking and it is explored not only there and when it operates with ready-made generalizations, and also—and even more especially—when it proceeds to new generalizations by means of an analysis of objective relations and a new synthesis of the elements singled out by the analysis.

This second path is followed by research that, within a few recent years held by me c my team of employees. The general principles and some of the results of these investigations have already been covered by me in the press, and therefore there is no need to present them here. I will highlight just one point very briefly. The main, in my opinion, fact established in our research is as follows: the ability of a person to master and use the knowledge presented to him from the outside - conceptual generalizations and methods of action or operations - depends on how much internal conditions for their development and use. This empirical position, while generalizing the specific facts of research, is at the same time a particular, concrete expression of a very general theoretical position, according to which the effect of external influences also depends on internal conditions. Knowledge and methods of action that cannot be used in the early stages are included in the thought process and become the means of its further movement. For the effective use of knowledge and ready-made methods for solving a problem (operations), for such their development and use, in which they could become means (methods) of further movement of thoughts, a necessary condition is some own preliminary work of thought. This means that it is not enough to provide students with ready-made schemes of action (although without this it is impossible to get by). We must also think about creating internal conditions for their productive use (not to mention the possibility of finding new generalizations, new techniques, new modes of action-operations). In order to successfully form thinking, it is necessary to take into account this interconnection of external and internal conditions in the determination of thinking.

The results of our research in terms of upbringing and pedagogy show that it is wrong to think G8

as if the help of a teacher to a student can only consist in telling him ready-made answers or deciding - q ^ o any pedagogical work should be reduced to "direct teaching and training, to training in a narrow

sense of the word.

There is another, of course, more difficult, but also more fruitful way, the way of guiding students' independent mental work. In contrast to direct study, this is the path of education, the path of the actual development of independent thinking. This is also the way to form the mental abilities of students. In previous years, our school made a certain tilt towards studying, the maximum load of students with knowledge; - sufficient attention was not paid to the development of thinking. This roll needs to be corrected.

In the course of our research, we often broke the deadlock and set in motion a thought process that was stuck in our subjects, using "prompts" of a special kind. These “hints”, consisting only in the formulated, intonational or visual highlighting - emphasizing - of a certain element of the task, determined only the direction in which the analysis should go, leaving its implementation to the subject himself. In the methodology of our experiments, using appropriately dosed auxiliary tasks, we focused on revealing and creating internal conditions for independent mental work of our subjects.

In our interpretation of thinking as its methodological basis, we proceeded from the dialectical-materialist understanding of its determination, according to which all external conditions, given influences on thinking, determine the results of the thinking process, only being refracted through its internal conditions.

We tried to embody this general methodological position in the methodology of our study, using auxiliary tasks that introduce, one after another, individual links of the main task to be solved, and “hints” of the above type to determine, through such a “probing” of the existing in the course of Thinking, the internal conditions of its further independent movement and guidance of this process of the student's own thinking.

I think that this method of studying thinking

with appropriate didactic and methodical gn processing, which would bring it into line with tre. not only the experiment, but also the lesson, could in the future find some application for itself in teaching methods.

In any case, one thing is clear: the two concepts of thinking about which I spoke correspond also to two sub-heads. progress towards the tasks of mental education. At the same time, one point of view is directed only at the external sophistication and coherence of the operations with which a person is equipped, leaving out of his field of vision the culture of those internal processes, the quality of which actually constitutes ability as such. Only with the second approach, which puts forward the task of the actual development of thinking, and not just learning, can we seriously talk about the development of people's mental abilities. Nothing is such an obvious indicator of mental giftedness as the constant emergence of new thoughts in a person.