20. CHANGE OF LEADING ACTIVITIES

Activity - these are processes that, in carrying out a particular attitude of a person to the world, meet a special, corresponding to their needs. These processes are characterized psychologically by the fact that what this process as a whole is directed at (its subject matter) always coincides with the objective one, which induces the subject to the given activity, i.e. with the motive. A. N. Leont'ev pointed out that an important psychological feature of the activity is that a specific class of mental experiences — emotions and feelings — is specifically associated with the activity. These experiences do not depend on individual private processes, but are always determined by the subject matter, course, and fate of the activity in which they belong.

According to A. N. Leontiev, processes, called actions, differ from activities. An action is a process whose motive does not coincide with its object (that is, with what it is directed at), but lies in the activity in which this action is included.

There is a peculiar relationship between activity and action. The motive of activity can, moving, move on to the subject (goal) of action. As a result, the action turns into activity. This point is extremely important. It is this way that new activities are born, new attitudes towards reality arise. This process is precisely the psychological basis on which changes occur leading activity and, therefore, transitions from one stage of development to another.

The change of leading activity serves as the basis for further changes characterizing the development of the child’s psyche. According to the conclusions of A.N. Leontiev, in order for an action to occur, it is necessary that its subject (immediate purpose) be realized in its relation to the motive of the activity in which this action is included. The purpose of the same action can be recognized differently depending on the motive for which it appears. Thus, the meaning of the action for the subject changes. Suppose a child is busy preparing lessons and solving a problem assigned to him. He, of course, is aware of the purpose of his action. It is for him to find the desired solution and write it down. That is what his action is directed to. How is this goal recognized, that is, what is the meaning of this action for the child? To answer this question, you need to know in which activity this child’s action is included or, what is the same thing, what is the motive of this action. Perhaps the motive here is to learn arithmetic; maybe not to upset the teacher; maybe, finally, simply to be able to go play with his comrades. Objectively, in all these cases, the goal remains the same: to solve a given task. But the meaning of this action for the child will be different every time; therefore, his actions themselves will be psychologically different. Depending on the activity in which the action is included, it receives one or another psychological characteristic. This is the main law of the process of action.

Awareness - the child’s comprehension of the phenomena of reality - occurs in connection with his activity. At each stage of the child’s development, it is limited to the range of his activity, which in turn depends on the leading relationship, on the leading activity that characterizes this stage as a whole. As A. N. Leont'ev points out, the point here is precisely about awareness, that is, about what personal meaning this phenomenon has for the child, and not about its knowledge of this phenomenon.

According to A. N. Leontiev, the next group of changes observed in the process of child development are changes in the field of operations. Operations are a way to perform an action. The operation is the necessary content of every action, but it is not identical with the action. The same action can be carried out by different operations, and, on the contrary, the same operations sometimes carry out different actions. This is because while the action is determined by the goal, the operation depends on the conditions in which the goal is given. An operation is defined by a task, i.e., a goal given under conditions requiring a particular mode of action. It is characteristic of the development of conscious operations that, as shown by experimental studies, every conscious operation is first formed as an action and cannot otherwise arise. Conscious operations are first formed as purposeful processes, which only then can in some cases acquire the form of an automated skill. In order to turn the child’s action into an operation, one must put the child in front of such a new goal, in which his given action becomes a way of performing another action. In other words, what was the goal of this action should turn into one of the conditions for the action required by the new goal. (According to the materials of A. N. Leontiev).

LECTURE № 21. CONDITIONS OF DEVELOPMENT OF THE PERSONALITY AND CHANGES OF PSYCHOPHYSIOLOGICAL FUNCTIONS

Physiological functions carry out the highest form of life of the organism. This includes sensory functions, mnemic function, tonic function, etc. According to A. N. Leontiev , no mental activity can be realized without the participation of these functions. All these functions form the basis of the corresponding subjective phenomena of consciousness: sensations, emotional experiences, sensory phenomena, memory, forming a kind of subjective "matter of consciousness", sensual wealth, multicolor and relief of the picture of the world in human consciousness. As studies show, every function is developed and rebuilt within the process that it carries out. The development of sensations, for example, occurs in connection with the development of processes of purposeful perception. That is why sensations can be actively brought up in a child, and their upbringing cannot, by virtue of this, consist in their simple mechanical training, in formal exercises. As A. N. Leontiev states, numerous experimental data obtained by different authors prove the fact that the development of functions depends on the particular process in which they are included. Research has shown that rapid changes in the development of a function occur only if this function takes a certain place in the activity, namely, if it is included in the operation so that a certain level of its development becomes necessary to perform the corresponding action. In this case, the limits of the possibility of shifts, in

in particular, in the field of sensory functions, i.e., sensitivities, are extremely broad, so that the “normal” values ​​of the thresholds established by classical psychophysics can be significantly shifted. If we move from laboratory factors obtained in adults to consideration of the facts of child development, then the process of formation of the so-called phonemic hearing in a child can be a sufficient illustration of this. In the course of its development, the child acquires the ability to extremely subtly differentiate phonemes, i.e., significant sounds of the language, but precisely because their distinction is a necessary condition for distinguishing words of similar sound but different in meaning. Differentiation of sounds, the distinction of which is not a real way for a child to differentiate words by meaning, remains much less perfect for him. Therefore, later, when he begins to study a foreign language, at first he does not hear at all the difference between similar phonemes that are new to him.

Thus, as A. N. Leontyev points out, the development of the psycho-physiological functions of a child is naturally connected with the general course of development of his activity.

In relation to the psychological definition of personality, we encounter great contradictions in science. With regard to the concept of personality , different views and opinions were expressed, depending on the direction in their basic views, which were held by various psychological schools.

Some of the English associates, for example, J. Mill , understand personality as a series of representations, of which all, from first to last, are associatively linked with each other and can be reproduced by memory, forming as if one conscious series. In this regard, memory and personality are considered as different phenomena of the same order.

According to J. James, personality is also a function of memory, but the essence of a personality is that each thought is the possessor of the content of all preceding thoughts, and without knowing itself, it will in turn be recognized after its termination by the subsequent thought.

According to B. Sidis , a pure “me,” or a person, does not represent a series of thoughts, because an unrelated series cannot form the unity of the personality; also a person is not a simple synthesis of passing thoughts, because in each passing wave of consciousness there can be a synthesis or a memory, but there are still no personalities.

The central point of the “I” or personality is the fact that thought is realized and critically controlled in the very process of thinking, at the very moment of its existence. In a word, only the moment of self-consciousness makes consciousness a personality.

Other authors excessively expand the concept of personality, identifying with this concept all the processes of mental activity. For example, Professor Ya. A. Anfimov , speaking of the personality, or “I,” notes that all mental processes that constitute our mental abilities as a whole are related to personality characteristics. Our "I" is not a separate entity in the human psychic life: it is probably only a special function of consciousness that forms a complex picture of our soul world. From a strictly psychological point of view, it is a particular phenomenon in the life of consciousness, which may or may not be. Psychology of personality according to Anfimov includes in practical terms everything that constitutes the human mind, and in the scientific sense all those most complicated processes that are considered in psychology in the department of knowledge, feeling and will.

Other authors in the personality saw something unifying and synthesizing in psychic life. According to F. Janet, a person is nothing but a combination in the mental life of an individual of all the past, present and foreseeable future. This conclusion he made from the analysis of the dismemberment of mental processes in diseases of the individual. From his point of view, for the facts of doubling and tripling of personality, coordination of mental processes should be recognized as a distinctive feature. The unity of coordination and the lack of coordination are two extremes, among which personality rotates.

Some authors, developing the same view, recognize the most complete harmony, the highest synthesis and unification as distinctive features of the personality, and consider the personality itself as an expression of the harmony and unity of mental departures. As V. M. Bekhterev points out, besides the unifying principle, by personality one should also understand the directing principle, which guides the thoughts, actions and actions of a person. In addition to internal unification and coordination, personality as a concept also contains an active attitude to the outside world, based on individual processing of external influences. In this definition, along with the subjective side, the objective side of the personality is also advanced. According to V. M. Bekhterev, one cannot use subjective definitions alone in psychological matters. Psychic life is not only a series of subjective experiences, it is at the same time expressed always by a certain number of objective phenomena. These objective phenomena, in fact, contain the enrichment that the personality brings into the external world around it. Only objective manifestations of personality are available to external observation, and only they are of objective value. According to Ribot, a real person is an organism, and his highest representative is the brain, which contains the remains of everything we were, and the makings of everything we are. It traced the individual character with all its active and passive abilities and antipathies, its genius, talent and stupidity, virtues and vices, immobility and activity. V. M. Bekhterev asserts that from an objective point of view, a personality is a psychic individual with all its distinctive features — an individual who appears to be an amateur being in relation to the surrounding external conditions. Neither originality of mind, nor creative abilities, nor what is known under the name of the will, in particular, nothing constitutes a personality, but the overall totality of mental phenomena with all their features, distinguishing a given person from others and self-activity, determines the personality from its objective side . The mental outlook appears to be different between differently educated individuals, but not one of them loses the right to recognize a person in it, if only he manifests his individual attitude to the environment in one way or another, seeming to be an amateur being. Only the loss of this initiative makes a person quite impersonal; with a weak manifestation of amateur, you can talk about a poorly developed or passive personality.

From the objective point of view, a person is nothing but an amateur individual with its own mental structure and individual attitude to the world around it. (According to the materials of V. M. Bekhtereva.)

Speaking about the person, it means by it already taken place and the formed personality of an independent person. But it is logical to think about when this personality begins to form.

It is generally accepted to call the time of formation of personality age from 2 to 3 years. From the point of view of the behavior of the child is quite obvious. It is during this period of time that he begins to express his own opinion, different from the opinions of others, to try to manifest his own "I". However, is it possible to say that a person arises spontaneously? It is quite obvious that for such a sharp manifestation of the qualities inherent in an integral person, a long process of hidden accumulation of personal potential is necessary.

One of the main sources of obtaining information necessary for the formation of the child’s personality is the behavior of the people around the child themselves. Great influence on the self-esteem of any person has the approval or disapproval of any of his actions. The personality of children whose parents often praised them, protected, loved, developed into the strongest and most independent person, and children whose parents punished them, did not give them enough attention, acquire complexes and fears, get inadequate and poor quality development. And subsequently, the lack of normal communication with parents leads to the rejection by a person of any manifestation of attention, he becomes withdrawn and sometimes rude.

After self-awareness as a person, separate from the parents, the child begins to compare himself, his qualities and the qualities of other people around him, resulting in the child’s desire to fulfill the requirements unknowingly placed on him first of all by his parents. And in

depending on the success of achieving this level, he has a feeling of confidence, pride in case of success, or, conversely, some resentment and isolation in case of failure.

With the further development of the personality of the child, he goes through several stages, such as a sharp increase in independence and deterioration of behavior. The child’s autonomy is logical, since he has realized himself, has realized his independence and tries to show it to those around him and perceives any attempt to interfere as an encroachment on his independence. Disobedience at an early age is caused by the abundance of information that the child began to understand. He is ready for more knowledge than his parents allow, resulting in deterioration of behavior, disobedience, since for the child in most cases this is the only possible manifestation of protest.