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    • Introduction - 2 -
    • What is psychology - 3 -
    • The emergence of psychology - 5 -
    • Subject of psychology - 10 -
    • - 16 -
    • - 24 -
    • Conclusion - 28 -
    • Literature - 29 -

Introduction

For centuries, man has been the subject of study for many, many generations of scientists. Mankind learns its own history, origin, biological nature, languages ​​and customs, and in this knowledge of psychology a very special place belongs.

So, S.L. Rubinstein in his book Fundamentals of General Psychology (1940) wrote: “The specific range of phenomena that psychology studies stands out distinctly and clearly - these are our perceptions, feelings, thoughts, aspirations, desires, etc. - that is, everything what constitutes the inner content of our life and what, as an experience, seems to be directly given to us ... ”.

Even the ancient sage said that there is no more interesting object for a person than another person, and he was not mistaken. At the basis of the development of psychology lies the ever-increasing interest in the nature of human existence, the conditions for its development and formation in human society, and the peculiarities of its interaction with other people.

At present, it is impossible to carry out many types of activities in production, in science, medicine, art, teaching, in games and sports without knowledge and understanding of psychological patterns. The system of scientific knowledge about the laws of human development, its potentialities is necessary for the entire social development.

What is psychology

What is psychology as a science? The answer to this question is not as simple as it seems at first glance. To answer it, it is necessary to turn to the history of psychological science, to the question of how, at each stage of its development, the idea of ​​the subject of scientific knowledge in psychology was transformed. Psychology is a very old and very young science. Having a thousand-year past, it is, nevertheless, all still in the future.

Psychology is the science of behavior, of human consciousness, the science of a progressive future. Studying the human psyche, this is the “science of the soul” of a person, it has not been fully studied, therefore it sets itself the goal of further research into the psychological factors of human thinking. Born at the end of the 19th century, the science of psychology is improving its principles of research into the unknown thinking of a person in our days.

The very name of the subject, translated from ancient Greek, means that psychology is the science of the soul (“psyche” - soul, “logos” - teaching, science).

The word "psychology" has many meanings. In everyday language, the word "psychology" is used to characterize the psychological make-up of a person, the characteristics of a particular person, a group of people: "he (they) have such a psychology."

Another meaning of the word "psychology", which is recorded in its etymology: psychology - the doctrine of the psyche.

Domestic psychologist M.S. Rogovin argued that three stages in the development of psychology as a science can be distinguished. These are the stages of pre-scientific psychology, philosophical psychology and, finally, scientific psychology.

Prescientific psychology is the knowledge of another person and oneself directly in the processes of activity and mutual communication of people. Here, activity and knowledge are merged, due to the need to understand another person and anticipate his actions. The source of knowledge about the psyche in pre-scientific psychology is:

personal experience arising from observation of other people and oneself;

social experience, which is the traditions, customs, ideas, passed down from generation to generation.

Such knowledge is not systematized, not reflected, therefore, it is often not recognized at all as knowledge.

Philosophical psychology - knowledge about the psyche, obtained with the help of speculative reasoning. Knowledge about the psyche is either derived from general philosophical principles or is the result of thinking by analogy. At the level of philosophical psychology, the initially vague, integral concept of the soul is subjected to analysis and mental dismemberment, followed by unification. Compared with pre-scientific psychology, which precedes it and, especially in the early stages, has a great influence on it, characteristic of philosophical psychology is not only the search for some explanatory principle for the mental, but also the desire to establish general laws to which the soul must obey in the same way. as all natural elements obey them.

Scientific psychology arose relatively recently - in the second half of the 19th century. Usually its appearance is associated with the use in psychology experimental method. There are undoubtedly some reasons for this: the "creator" scientific psychology W. Wundt wrote that if we define the physiological psychology he developed by the method, then it can be characterized as "experimental". However, Wundt himself repeatedly emphasized that experimental psychology is by no means the whole of psychology, but only a part of it.

Knowledge in scientific psychology has an empirical, factual basis. Facts are obtained in a specially conducted research, which uses special procedures (methods) for this, the main ones among which are purposeful systematic observation and experiment. Theories constructed by scientific psychology have an empirical basis and are (ideally) subjected to comprehensive testing.

The emergence of psychology

Psychology has gone through several stages in its development. The pre-scientific period ends approximately in the 7th-6th centuries BC, that is, before the beginning of objective, scientific studies of the psyche, its content and functions. During this period, ideas about the soul were based on numerous myths and legends, on fairy tales and initial religious beliefs that connected the soul with certain living beings (totems). The second, scientific period begins at the turn of the 7th-6th centuries BC. Psychology during this period developed within the framework of philosophy, and therefore it received the conditional name of the philosophical period. Also, its duration is somewhat conditionally established - until the definition of the actual psychological terminology, which differs from that accepted in philosophy or natural science.

In connection with the conditionality of the periodization of the development of psychology, which is natural for almost any historical research, some discrepancies arise in establishing the time limits of individual stages. Sometimes the emergence of an independent psychological science is associated with the school of W. Wundt, that is, with the beginning of the development of experimental psychology. However, psychological science was defined as independent much earlier, with the realization of the independence of its subject, the uniqueness of its position in the system of sciences - as a science both humanitarian and natural at the same time, studying both internal and external (behavioral) manifestations of the psyche. Such an independent position of psychology was recorded and with the advent of it as a subject of study in universities already in late XVIII - early XIX centuries. Thus, it is more correct to speak of the emergence of psychology as an independent science precisely from this period, referring to the middle of the 19th century the formation of experimental psychology.

But in any case, it must be recognized that the time of the existence of psychology as an independent science is much less than the period of its development in the mainstream of philosophy. For more than 20 centuries, psychological science has undergone significant changes. The subject of psychology, the content of psychological research, and the relationship of psychology with other sciences have changed.

The emergence of psychology in Ancient Greece at the turn of the 7th-6th centuries BC was associated with the need for the formation of an objective science of man, which considered the soul not on the basis of fairy tales, myths, legends, but using those objective knowledge (mathematical, medical, philosophical) that arose in that period. At that time, psychology was part of a science that studied the general laws of society, nature and man. This science is called natural philosophy (philosophy). From philosophy, psychology took an important position for any science about the need to build its theories on the basis of knowledge, not faith. The desire to avoid sacrality, that is, the connection of faith with knowledge, and not with reason, the desire to prove the correctness of the views expressed was the most important difference between scientific, philosophical psychology and pre-scientific.

The first ideas about the soul, which arose on the basis of myths and early religious beliefs, singled out some functions of the soul, first of all, energy, inducing the body to activity. These ideas formed the basis of the research of the first psychologists. Already the first works have shown that the soul not only induces to action, but also regulates the activity of the individual, and is also the main tool in the knowledge of the world. These judgments about the properties of the soul became the leading ones in subsequent years. Thus, the most important for psychology in the ancient period was the study of how the soul gives activity to the body, how it regulates human behavior and how it cognizes the world. An analysis of the patterns of development of nature led the thinkers of that time to the idea that the soul is material, that is, it consists of the same particles as the world.

The soul not only gives energy for activity, but also directs it, that is, it is the soul that directs human behavior. Gradually, cognition was added to the functions of the soul, and thus, to the study of activity, the study of the stages of cognition was added, which soon became one of critical issues psychological science. At first, only two stages were distinguished in the process of cognition - sensation (perception) and thinking. At the same time, for psychologists of that time there was no difference between sensation and perception, the selection of individual qualities of an object and its image as a whole was considered a single process. Gradually, the study of the process of cognition of the world became more and more significant for psychologists, and several stages were already distinguished in the process of cognition. Plato was the first to single out memory as a separate mental process, emphasizing its importance as a repository of all our knowledge. Aristotle, and after him the Stoics, also identified such cognitive processes as imagination and speech. Thus, by the end of the ancient period, ideas about the structure of the process of cognition were close to modern ones, although opinions about the content of these processes, of course, differed significantly.

At this time, scientists for the first time began to think about how the image of the world is built, what process - sensation or reason - is the leading one, and how much the picture of the world built by man coincides with the real one. In other words, many of the questions that remain leading for cognitive psychology today were posed precisely at that time.

The beginning of a new stage in the development of psychology was associated with an actual change in its subject matter, since theology became the official science of the soul. Therefore, psychology had to either completely yield to theology the study of the psyche, or find itself some niche for research. It was in connection with the search for an opportunity to study a single subject in its various aspects that major changes took place in the relationship between theology and psychology.

When Christianity appeared, it had to prove its uniqueness and push out other religions that were not compatible with it. Related to this is the intolerance of Greek mythology, as well as of the psychological and philosophical concepts that were closely associated with pagan religion and myths. Therefore, most of the well-known psychological schools(Lyceum, Academy, Epicurus Garden, etc.) were closed by the 6th century, and scientists who kept knowledge of ancient science moved to Asia Minor, opening new schools in the Greek colonies. Islam, widespread in the East, was not as intolerant of heterodoxy as Christianity in the 3rd-6th centuries, and therefore psychological schools developed freely there. Later, by the 9th-10th centuries, when the persecution of ancient science, especially the theory of Plato and Aristotle, ended, many concepts returned to Europe, some already in reverse translation from Arabic.

This situation lasted for several centuries, but by the XII-XIII centuries it began to change.

It was at this time that scholasticism was born, which at that moment was a fairly progressive phenomenon, since it assumed not only the passive assimilation of the old, but also the active clarification and modification of ready-made knowledge, developed the ability to think logically, provide a system of evidence and build your speech. The fact that this knowledge is already ready, that is, scholasticism is associated with the use of reproductive, and not creative thinking, then it was a little alarming, since even reproductive thinking is aimed at obtaining and proving knowledge. However, over time, scholasticism began to slow down the development of new knowledge, acquired a dogmatic character and turned into a set of syllogisms that did not allow to refute the old, incorrect or incorrect in new situation provisions.

After initial stage Development psychology began to strive to find its place in the study of the soul, to determine the range of questions that can be given to it by theology. Naturally, this partially led to a revision of the subject of psychology - a special category was singled out in the content of the soul, subject to scientific research. The need to stand out from theology led to the emergence of the theory of two truths, which argued that the truth of knowledge and the truth of faith do not coincide with each other and do not contradict each other, like two parallel lines, this theory was formulated in the 9th-10th centuries by the Arab scholar Ibn Sina and soon has become widespread in Europe. Somewhat later, in XII-XIII centuries, a direction arose in psychology, called deism, which claimed that there are two souls - the spiritual (it is studied by theology) and the corporeal, which is studied by psychology. Thus, a subject for scientific study appeared.

One of the first to use the term "soul" in his philosophical reasoning was Heraclitus of Ephesus. He owns famous saying, the validity of which is obvious even today: “You cannot find the boundaries of the soul, no matter what path you take: its measure is so deep.” This aphorism captures the complexity of the subject of psychology. Modern science is still far from comprehending the secrets of the human soul, despite all the accumulated knowledge about the human mental world.

The treatise of the Greek philosopher Aristotle "On the Soul" can be considered the first special psychological work.

The term "psychology" itself appears much later. The first attempts to introduce the term "psychology" can be dated to the end of the 15th century. In the title of works (the texts of which have not survived to this day) by the Dalmatian poet and humanist M. Marulich, for the first time, as far as one can judge, the word “psychology” is used. The authorship of the term is often attributed to F. Melanchthon, a German Protestant theologian and teacher, an associate of Martin Luther. Lexicography attributes the formation of this word to Melanchthon, who wrote it in Latin (psychologia). But not a single historian, not a single lexicographer has found an exact reference to this word in his works. In 1590, a book by Rudolf Haeckel (Gocklenius) was published, in the title of which Greek this word is also used. The name of Haeckel's work, which contains the statements of many authors about the soul, is "Psychology, that is, about the perfection of man, about the soul, and, above all, about its emergence ...". But the term "psychology" became generally recognized only in the 18th century after the appearance of the works of X. Wolf. Leibniz used the term "pneumatology" in the 17th century. By the way, the works of Wolf himself "Empirical Psychology" (1732) and "Rational Psychology" (1734) are considered to be the first textbooks on psychology, and on the history of psychology - the work of a talented philosopher, a follower of I. Kant and F.G. Jacobi, F.A. Karus.

Subject of psychology

In the literal sense of the word, psychology is the study of the psyche. Psyche, or Psyche, in Greek mythology, the personification of the soul, breath. The psyche was identified with a living being. Breathing was associated with wind, breath, flight, whirlwind, so the soul was usually depicted as a fluttering butterfly or a flying bird. According to Aristotle, the Psyche is the "soul" and the "butterfly". On the basis of various myths about Psyche, the Roman writer Apuleius created the book Metamorphoses, in which he presented in poetic form the wanderings of the human soul in search of love.

It is important to note that the concept of "soul" among all "tribes and peoples" is associated with the inner world of a person - his dreams, experiences, memories, thoughts, feelings, desires. M.S. Rogovin notes that the concept of the soul arises among all peoples as a generalization and reduction to some visual image of what the mind could grasp. ancient man in the sense of the psyche. In connection with the concept of the soul, man approached the concept of the driving cause, the source of action, the concept of the living in its opposition to the inanimate. Initially, the soul was not yet something alien to the body, some other entity, but acted as a double of a person with the same needs, thoughts and feelings, actions, like a person himself. “The concept of the soul as a completely different entity arose later, when, along with the development of social production and the differentiation of social relations, along with the development of religion, and then philosophy, the soul begins to be interpreted as something fundamentally different from everything that exists in real world". Gradually, the visual image that serves to designate the soul pales, giving way to the concept of an ethereal abstract force, heterogeneous to the body that contains it.

Thus, already in pre-scientific psychology, the separation of the spiritual from the material is completed, each of which begins to act as an independent entity.

For many centuries, the soul has been the subject of discussions of philosophers and theologians. No special studies were carried out: thinkers limited themselves to reasoning, the selection of relevant examples confirming their conclusions. Self-observation was not systematic, most often it was used to confirm the validity of speculative constructions, although in fairness, it should be noted that individual authors, such as St. Augustine, were surprisingly insightful.

The French philosopher R. Descartes eliminated the concept of the soul as an intermediary between the spirit and the body. Before Descartes, imagination and feeling were attributed to the soul, which animals were also endowed with. Descartes identified soul and mind, calling imagination and feeling modes of the mind. Thus, the soul was connected with the faculty of thinking. Animals have become soulless automatons. The same machine has become human body. The elimination of the soul in the former sense (in which it was understood in medieval and ancient philosophy) allowed Descartes to oppose two substances: thinking and extended (spirit and matter). Descartes entered the history of philosophy and psychology as the creator of a dualistic concept that contrasted the bodily and the spiritual. Later, the concept of consciousness was formed, which, according to Descartes, meant “everything that happens in us in such a way that we perceive it directly in ourselves.” Note that Descartes did not use the term "consciousness" itself, preferring to speak of the spirit. Descartes laid the foundations for understanding consciousness as an inner world closed in itself. He also proposed the idea of ​​a method of psychology: inner world can be studied with the help of intuition (self-observation). This is how a method appears, which later received the name introspection (from the Latin “I look inside, peer”). The advantage of this method (as the supporters of introspection believed) is that it allows one to obtain reliable, obvious knowledge. In any case, this followed from Cartesian philosophy.

The subject of psychology has changed many times. After Descartes, psychology was the psychology of consciousness. The scientific psychology that emerged in the second half of the 19th century was also a psychology of consciousness. Wundt viewed psychology as the science of direct experience. Many psychologists of the 19th century proceeded from the fact that self-observation, introspection is the main method of psychology. Among them are W. Wundt, F. Brentano, W. James, and others, although they interpreted the method in different ways. historical path psychology showed that self-observation still cannot be a source of reliable knowledge about the psyche. First, it turned out that the procedure of introspection is extremely subjective: as a rule, the subject in his report discovered exactly what interested the researcher and corresponded to his theoretical ideas. Secondly, after the work of the French psychiatrists J.M. Charcot, I. Bernheim, and especially the Austrian psychiatrist and psychologist 3. Freud, it became completely clear that consciousness is not the whole psyche. In addition to what is realized by a person, there are numerous mental phenomena that are not realized by him, therefore the method of self-observation is powerless in front of the unconscious. Thirdly, the need to investigate the psyche of animals, young children, mentally ill forced to do without the method of self-observation. Fourthly, the work of psychoanalysts has shown that what is realized by a person is often a rationalization, the result of the work of protective mechanisms, that is, a distorted perception, and not at all reliable knowledge.

The failure of the introspective psychology of consciousness prompted some psychologists (representatives of depth psychology, psychoanalysis) to turn to the study of the unconscious, others to study behavior rather than consciousness (behaviorists, representatives of objective psychology).

The emergence of these schools and trends in psychology led to an open crisis in psychology. The whole psychology broke up into several schools, between which there were no points of contact and which investigated different subjects and used different methods.

Similar problems faced domestic psychologists. In the 1920s and 1930s, the methodological foundations of Soviet psychology were laid and methodological principles were formulated. Especially great is the merit in the formation of domestic psychological science of such scientists as M.Ya. Basov, L.S. Vygotsky, A.N. Leontiev, S.L. Rubinshtein and others, in whose works the provisions that developed productively over the next decades took shape. In the monograph by M.G. Yaroshevsky "The Science of Behavior: The Russian Way" traces the history of the formation of the domestic psychological school of studying behavior, which largely influenced the psychological concepts of Soviet psychologists. The limitations of both subjective, introspective, and objective, behavioral psychology, Soviet psychologists managed to overcome with the help of the category "activity". In the works of S.L. Rubinshtein formulated the principle of "unity of consciousness and activity", which provided a methodological basis for the indirect study of the psyche. Great importance they also had methodological principles for the development of the psyche in activity, determinism, etc.

It took considerable time to come to the conclusion that the discrepancy between schools in world psychology is of a particular nature and indicates that the subject of psychology should be understood more broadly, including both internal subjective phenomena in which the subject can give himself an account, and human behavior. , which has a psychological "component", and the phenomena of the unconscious psyche, which can also manifest itself in behavior.

The data accumulated by the psychology of the 20th century also showed that the characteristics of a person’s behavior and mental make-up depend not only on the nervous system, but also on the “constitution” of a person, that is, ultimately, on biochemical processes in the body. Thus, the old idea returned to psychology, according to which there are inextricable links between the mental and the physical in a living organism.

By the 1960s, psychologists (both foreign and domestic) came to a compromise that was not explicitly formulated (ideological differences interfered with this), but in fact was achieved: foreign psychology studied behavior mediated by the psyche; domestic - focused on the psyche, manifested and formed in activity.

The psyche is the most complex phenomenon, perhaps the most complex thing in the world. Therefore, it is not possible to give an exhaustive definition of the psyche.

The psyche is the subjective inner world of a person, mediating the interaction of a person with the outside world. Modern psychological dictionaries define the psyche as “a form of active reflection by the subject of objective reality, arising in the process of interaction of highly organized living beings with the outside world and performing a regulatory function in their behavior (activity)” and as “ highest form the relationship of living beings with the objective world, expressed in their ability to realize their impulses and act on the basis of information about it.

It can be stated that today many researchers express dissatisfaction with the current state of affairs in scientific psychology. It becomes more and more clear that the understanding of the psyche as a purely individual phenomenon, the properties of highly organized matter does not reflect the real complexity of the mental. After the work of K.G. Jung and his followers can hardly doubt the transpersonal nature of the psyche. “Transpersonal psychology is the doctrine of transpersonal experiences, their nature, various forms, causes and effects, as well as those manifestations in the fields of psychology, philosophy, practical life, art, culture, lifestyle, religion, etc., which inspired by them or who seek to evoke, express, apply or understand them. Many researchers point out that the scientific approach to the study of the psyche is not the only possible one.

Psychology must remain (according to etymology) the science of the psyche. Only the psychic itself must be understood somewhat differently. In general, the entire historical path of scientific psychology, if you try to express it in one phrase, is an expansion of the subject of psychology and a complication of explanatory schemes. Obviously, in our time, psychology once again must change the understanding of its subject. For this, transformations within psychology itself are necessary. First of all, a new, broader understanding of the subject of psychology is required.

Psychology, as we have said, is a very young science. Therefore, perhaps, it has not yet found its true subject, and its discovery is the task of the psychology of the 21st century. Let us not forget that psychology, as a fundamental science, must make its decisive contribution to knowledge about the world. Creation is impossible without psychology scientific picture peace. Jung noted: “The world of mental phenomena is only a part of the world as a whole, and it may seem to some that, precisely because of its particularity, it is more cognizable than the whole world. However, this does not take into account that the soul is the only direct phenomenon of the world, and, consequently, necessary condition all world experience.

Tasks, structure and methods of modern psychology

Currently, there is a rapid development of psychological science, due to the variety of theoretical and practical tasks standing in front of her. The main task of psychology is the study of the laws mental activity in its development. In recent decades, the front of psychological research has expanded significantly, new scientific directions and discipline. Has changed conceptual apparatus psychological science, new hypotheses and concepts continuously appear, psychology is enriched with new empirical data. B.F. Lomov in the book "Methodological and theoretical problems of psychology", characterizing state of the art science, notes that at present "there is a sharp increase in the need for further (and deeper) development of the methodological problems of psychological science and its general theory." The field of phenomena studied by psychology is enormous. It covers the processes, states and properties of a person, which have varying degrees of complexity - from the elementary distinction of individual features of an object that affects the senses, to the struggle of personality motives. Some of these phenomena have already been studied quite well, while the description of others is reduced to a simple recording of observations. Many believe, and this should be especially noted, that a generalized and abstract description of the phenomena under study and their connections is already a theory. However, the theoretical work is not exhausted by this, it also includes the comparison and integration of accumulated knowledge, their systematization, and much more. Its ultimate goal is to reveal the essence of the phenomena being studied. In this regard, methodological problems arise. If theoretical research is based on a fuzzy methodological (philosophical) position, then there is a danger of substituting theoretical knowledge for empirical knowledge.

In the cognition of the essence of mental phenomena, the most important role belongs to the categories of dialectical materialism. B.F. Lomov in the already mentioned book singled out the basic categories of psychological science, showed their systemic interconnection, the universality of each of them and, at the same time, their irreducibility to each other. He singled out the following basic categories of psychology: the category of reflection, the category of activity, the category of personality, the category of communication, as well as concepts that can be equated to categories in terms of universality - these are the concepts of "social" and "biological". Identification of objective links between social and natural properties man, the correlation of biological and social determinants in his development is one of the most difficult tasks of science.

As is well known, in previous decades psychology was predominantly a theoretical (ideological) discipline. At present, her role in public life has changed significantly. It is increasingly becoming an area of ​​special professional practice in the education system, in industry, public administration, medicine, culture, sports, etc. The inclusion of psychological science in the solution of practical problems significantly changes the conditions for the development of its theory. Tasks, the solution of which requires psychological competence, arise in one form or another in all spheres of society, determined by the growing role of the so-called human factor. The “human factor” is understood as a wide range of socio-psychological, psychological and psycho-physiological properties that people possess and which, one way or another, are manifested in their specific activities.

Modern psychology is an intensively developing field of human knowledge, closely interacting with other sciences. Therefore, like any developing phenomenon, psychology is constantly changing: new directions of search, problems appear, new projects are implemented, which often leads to the emergence of new branches of psychology. Common to all branches of psychology is the preservation of the subject: they all study the facts, patterns and mechanisms of the psyche (in certain conditions, in this or that activity, at one or another level of development, etc.).

Modern psychology is not a single science, but a whole complex of scientific disciplines, many of which claim to be considered independent sciences. Various authors list up to a hundred branches of psychology. These scientific disciplines are at different stages of development and are associated with various areas of human practice.

core modern psychology is general psychology, which studies the most general laws, patterns and mechanisms of the psyche. The most important psychological discipline has become the history of psychology, which focuses on the historical process of the formation and development of psychological knowledge.

Numerous branches of psychology are distinguished for various reasons.

Traditionally, the following bases are used for classification:

1) specific activity ( labor psychology, medical, educational psychology, psychology of art, psychology of sports, etc.);

2) development (animal psychology, comparative psychology, developmental psychology, child psychology, etc.);

3) sociality, the relationship of a person to society (social psychology, personality psychology, group psychology, class psychology, ethnopsychology, etc.).

It is important to single out industries “according to the purpose of the activity (obtaining or applying new knowledge): fundamental and applied Sciences; on the subject of research: psychology of development, creativity, personality, etc. Psychophysiology, neuropsychology, and mathematical psychology can be singled out on the basis of the links between psychology and other sciences. The development of complex relationships of psychology with various areas of practice is observed in organizational, engineering psychology, sports psychology, educational psychology, etc.”

V last years practical psychology is intensively developing in our country. One can agree with the opinion of V.N. Druzhinin, who points out that "practical psychology partly remains an art, partly based on applied psychology as a system of knowledge and scientifically based methods for solving practical problems." However, there is reason to believe that there has been a trend towards the emergence of practical psychology as a special type of psychological science. The specificity of practical psychology is that it is not objective, but objective. It is more focused on a holistic characterization of the personality, it uses descriptions and typologies to a greater extent.

Currently, there is no complete classification of psychological branches. Psychology is a young science that is in the process of intensive development, so new areas constantly appear in it, which leads to the emergence of new industries.

Modern psychology uses various methods.

The word “method” (translated from Greek means the path of research or cognition, theory, teaching) means a method of constructing and substantiating scientific knowledge, as well as a set of techniques and operations for the practical and theoretical development of reality. In relation to psychology, the method means ways of obtaining facts about the psyche and ways of interpreting them.

Modern psychology uses an extensive system of methods that can be classified in various ways depending on the chosen bases. Rubinstein, a classic of Russian psychology, noted that “methods, that is, ways of knowing, are the ways by which the subject of science is known. Psychology, like every science, uses not one, but a whole system of particular methods, or techniques. Under the method of science -- in singular-- one can understand the system of its methods in their unity"

Initially (when singling it out as an independent science), psychology proceeded from the fact that self-observation is able to give true, and moreover direct, knowledge about mental life. The psychology of consciousness proceeded from the subjective method. The method of scientific psychology was thus empirical, subjective, and immediate. It is important to emphasize that self-observation was considered as a direct method of obtaining facts. The task of science was conceived by Wundt as a logical ordering of facts. No theoretical methods were provided. It is well known that introspective psychology of consciousness has encountered great difficulties.

The emergence of behavioral psychology (objective psychology) was a reaction to the insoluble problems of traditional psychology. Initially, it was assumed that a new interpretation of the subject of psychology - as "behavior" - removes all problems. The objective method in the form of observation or experiment made it possible, as the representatives of this direction in psychology believed, to obtain direct knowledge about the subject of science. The method was thus seen as empirical, objective and immediate.

The further development of psychological science (primarily Freud's research) showed that the method of research in psychology can only be indirect, mediated: the unconscious can be studied by its manifestations in consciousness and behavior; behavior itself presupposes the presence of hypothetical "intermediate variables" that mediate the subject's reactions to the situation.

Here is how the former President of the American Psychological Association (1960) Donald Hebb characterizes the state of affairs: “Mind and consciousness, sensations and perceptions, feelings and emotions are intermediate variables or constructs and, in essence, form part of the psychology of behavior.”

In domestic psychology, where the principle of the unity of consciousness and activity (S.L. Rubinshtein) was proposed as a methodological principle, the concept of the indirect nature of the psychology of methods was also developed.

In the very general view the method of objective mediated research consists in the following: 1) the conditions under which a mental phenomenon occurs are fixed; 2) objective manifestations of a mental phenomenon in behavior are fixed; 3) where possible, self-report data of the subject is obtained; 4) based on a comparison of the data obtained at the first, second and third stages, an indirect conclusion is made, an attempt is made to "reconstruct" a real mental phenomenon.

This method has been criticized in recent years. The psyche of another in this approach is considered as an object. Some researchers insist that a subjective approach should be used in psychology, which takes into account to a greater extent the fact that the subject is conscious and can change the strategy of his behavior in the course of the study.

Modern psychology has a large arsenal of specific methods (observation, experiment, questioning, conversation, interview, test, questionnaire, analysis of activity products, etc.) and special techniques designed to study certain mental phenomena.

Several classifications of psychological methods have been proposed. The most developed are the classifications of B.G. Ananiev and V.N. Druzhinin.

Ananiev distinguishes the following groups of methods:

1) organizational (comparative, complex);

2) empirical (observational, experimental, psychodiagnostic, biographical);

3) data processing (quantitative and qualitative);

4) interpretational (various variants of genetic and structural).

The classification made it possible to present a system of methods that meets the requirements of modern psychology.

An alternative classification of methods was proposed by V.N. Druzhinin. He identified three classes of methods:

1) empirical, in which external real interaction of the subject and object of research is carried out;

2) theoretical, in which the subject interacts with the mental model of the object (subject of study);

3) interpretations and descriptions, in which the subject “externally” interacts with the sign-symbolic representations of the object.

The theoretical methods of psychological research deserve special attention:

1) deductive (axiomatic and hypothetical-deductive), otherwise - the method of ascent from the general to the particular, from the abstract to the concrete;

2) inductive - a method of generalizing facts, ascending from the particular to the general;

3) modeling - a method of specifying the method of analogies, inferences from particular to particular, when a simpler or more accessible object is taken as an analogue of a more complex object.

The results of using the first method are theories, laws, the second - inductive hypotheses, patterns, classifications, systematization, the third - models of the object, process, state. Druzhinin proposes to distinguish methods of speculative psychology from theoretical methods. The author sees the difference between these methods in the fact that speculation is not based on scientific facts and empirical laws, but has justification only in the author's personal knowledge, intuition. According to Druzhinin, in psychological research, the central role belongs to the modeling method, in which two varieties are distinguished: structural-functional, that in the first case, the researcher wants to identify the structure of a separate system by outward behavior, for which he chooses or constructs an analogue (this is what modeling is about) - another system with similar behavior. Accordingly, the similarity of behavior, according to the author, makes it possible to draw a conclusion (based on the rule of logical inference by analogy) about the similarity of structures. This type of modeling, according to Druzhinin, is the main method of psychological research and the only one in the natural sciences of psychological research. In another case, by the similarity of the structures of the model and the image, the researcher judges the similarity of functions, external manifestations, etc.

It is important to describe the hierarchy research techniques. Druzhinin proposes to single out five levels in this hierarchy: the level of methodology, the level of methodical reception, the level of method, the level of research organization, the level of methodological approach. He proposed a three-dimensional classification of psychological empirical methods. Considering empirical methods from the point of view of the interaction of subject and object, subject and measuring instrument, object and instrument, the author gives a new classification of empirical psychological methods. It is based on the system "subject - tool - object". The relationships between the components of the model serve as the basis for classification. Two of them (the measure of interaction between the researcher and the subject and the measure of the use of external means or subjective interpretation) are the main ones, one is derivative. According to Druzhinin, all methods are divided into: activity, communicative, observational, hermeneutic. Eight "pure" research methods are also distinguished (natural experiment, laboratory experiment, instrumental observation, observation, introspection, understanding, free conversation, purposeful interview). In turn, synthetic methods are distinguished that combine the features of pure methods, but are not reduced to them (clinical method, in-depth interview, psychological measurement, self-observation, subjective scaling, introspection, psychodiagnostics, consulting communication).

It should be noted that the theoretical methods of psychological science have so far been described, analyzed and studied clearly insufficiently. This is one of the primary tasks of the methodology of modern psychological science.

The place of psychology in the system of sciences

psychology science soul human

The development of science is a complex process that includes both differentiation and integration of knowledge. Currently, there are a large number of independent scientific disciplines. The place that psychology occupies in the system of sciences largely determines the solution of two very important questions: What can psychology give to other sciences? To what extent can psychology use the results of research in other sciences?

In the 19th century, the classification of sciences developed by the creator of the philosophy of positivism, the French scientist O. Comte, was very popular. In Comte's classification, there was no place for psychology at all. The father of positivism believed that psychology had not yet become a positive science. For the first half of XIX century, this statement was generally fair.

Since then, much has changed: psychology has emerged as an independent science, has largely become "positive". Classifications of sciences subsequently were compiled repeatedly. At the same time, almost all authors unequivocally pointed to the special, central place of psychology among other sciences. Many well-known psychologists have expressed the idea that psychology in the future will take a leading place in the structure of human knowledge, that psychology should be the basis for the sciences of the spirit.

Classifications of sciences were developed in the 20th century. One of the most popular is the classification developed by the Russian philosopher and science expert B.M. Kedrov, According to Kedrov, the classification of sciences is non-linear. Kedrov distinguishes three groups of scientific disciplines: natural, social and philosophical. Schematically, this can be represented as a triangle, the vertices of which correspond to the natural (upper), social (left) and philosophical (right) disciplines. Psychology has close ties with all three groups of sciences, therefore it is located inside the triangle, since human thinking (one of the essential sections of psychology) is studied not only by psychology, but also by philosophy and logic. Psychology thus has connections with all scientific disciplines, but most closely with philosophy.

The outstanding Swiss psychologist J. Piaget approached the question of determining the place of psychology in the system of sciences somewhat differently. Traditionally, the question of the relationship of psychology with other sciences is considered in this aspect: what psychology can get from other sciences. Such a formulation of the question was logical, since psychology is one of the youngest sciences (“mathematics has existed for 25 centuries, but psychology is barely one century!”). In his report at the 18th International Congress of Psychology, which took place in Moscow in 1966, Piaget posed the question differently: what can psychology give to other sciences?

Piaget's response is significant: "Psychology occupies a central place not only as a product of all other sciences, but also as a possible source of explanation for their formation and development." Piaget notes that he feels a sense of pride about the fact that psychology occupies a key position in the system of sciences. “On the one hand, psychology depends on all other sciences ... But, on the other hand, none of these sciences is possible without logical-mathematical coordination, which expresses the structure of reality, but the mastery of which is possible only through the influence of the organism on objects, and only psychology makes it possible to study this activity in its development.

The fruitful future of psychology is seen in the development of interdisciplinary connections.

B.G. Ananiev in his work "Man as an object of knowledge" examined the connections of psychology with other scientific disciplines. An analysis of these connections within the framework of the concept of complex human knowledge developed by Ananiev led to the conclusion that psychology synthesizes the achievements of other sciences. Well-known domestic psychologist B.F. Lomov in his book “Methodological and Theoretical Problems of Psychology” noted that the most important function of psychology is that it “is an integrator of all (or, in any case, most) scientific disciplines, the object of study of which is a person.” Lomov notes that the interaction of psychology with other sciences is carried out through branches of psychological science: with social sciences through social psychology, with natural sciences - through psychophysics, psychophysiology, comparative psychology, with medical sciences - through medical psychology, pathopsychology, neuropsychology, etc., with pedagogical sciences - through developmental psychology, educational psychology and others, with technical ones - through engineering psychology, etc. Relations with other sciences are an important factor in the differentiation of psychology.

Today we can state that psychology has acquired the status of an independent scientific discipline, although in reality it has not taken a central position among other sciences. Thus, we have to admit that the forecasts and hopes that psychology would take a leading position in the system of sciences did not materialize on the whole: the status of psychology is not at all so high, and the influence on other disciplines is not so strong.

Having revised the narrow, inadequate understanding of its subject, psychology will gain the possibility of a real constructive intra- and extra-scientific dialogue, the possibility of integrating various concepts that are differently suited to the study of the human soul. Thus, psychology will find its rightful place in the system of sciences, acquire the status of a fundamental science and, possibly, become the basis of the sciences about the spirit.

Conclusion

The greatest mysteries in history are the mysteries of human consciousness. Labyrinths, catacombs, dead ends and avenues of thought are very often unpredictable. In my work, I tried to trace the history of the formation and development of psychology, one of the most complex and mysterious sciences. After all, this science is a tempting world of phenomena that have been of particular, exceptional interest for many centuries.

Knowledge of the basics of psychology, I think, is necessary for every person, it allows people to understand each other well, to act together.

The value of knowledge and skills gradually increased, it has become especially great in our days. It is no coincidence that there is a direct relationship between interest in psychology and the level of socio-economic development of countries. The most civilized countries have a large number of excellently trained psychologists.

Knowing the basics of psychology, a person can better understand himself, his loved ones, learn about human relationships, and explain people's actions. This knowledge will help him cope with life's problems.

Literature

1. Martsinkovskaya T.D., History of psychology: Proc. allowance for students. higher textbook institutions, M.: Publishing Center "Academy", 2003.

2. General psychology edited by Karpov A.V., M., Gardariki, 2002.

3. Zhdan A.N., History of psychology. From antiquity to the present day, Moscow, 2002.

4. Petrovsky A.V., Questions of the history and theory of psychology, Moscow, 2001.

5. Shults D.P., Shults S.E., History of modern psychology. St. Petersburg, 2000.

6. Nemov R.S., Psychology, M., 1998.

7. Psychological Dictionary, ed. Zinchenko V.P., Meshcheryakova B.G., M., Pedagogy-Press, 1997.

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Part 1 Essay on why I need knowledge of psychology.

Psychology studies very complex and difficult to know phenomena. Is it possible to see how a person thinks, remembers, what images arise in his mind, is it possible, finally, to see the feelings of a person - joy and sadness, love and hate? Of course not. One can learn about this invisible world only indirectly, by studying the behavior and activities of people in all their diversity.

People expect a lot from the research of mental life: their results are of concern not only to psychologists, to one degree or another they concern every person, because psychology is actively involved in solving many major social problems. The most important among them are training, education, work.

The volume of information necessary for a person in life is growing rapidly and uncontrollably. A modern worker, engineer, doctor, scientist must know much more than his predecessors. Each new generation is forced to acquire an increasing amount of knowledge at approximately the same time. Without a clear idea of ​​how a person perceives and cognizes the world around him, it is impossible to cope with this task.

Man is the only creature on Earth that feels the need for labor. But the satisfaction of this need occurs in complex ways. A person is now more deeply aware than ever before of the goals and social significance of his labor activity. He does not want to be a human robot, but he feels more and more keenly the desire for creativity, for the maximum disclosure of his inner capabilities.

In this regard, one more area of ​​psychological research should be mentioned - the search for opportunities for professional selection and career guidance. The study of the objective requirements set by various professions for the mental activity of people, the determination of the real possibilities of the person himself, ranging from the sensitivity of the organs of vision or hearing to the ability to build relationships with others, should lead to the fact that every young person will be able to correctly determine his place in general labor.

Psychological data show that the formation of a person's character, the properties of his personality depends not only on the influence environment, but to a large extent determined by the ability to self-education. Consequently, the results of psychological research lead to the conclusion that a person can actively "build" his personality.

Human mental life is unusually complex and diverse. Psychology studies its patterns - a person's perception of the world around him, thinking, feelings, the formation of his mental properties - needs, interests, skills, habits, abilities, character.

An important task of psychology is the knowledge of the objective laws of a person's mental life in order to guide the development of the individual, the formation of his consciousness, the purposeful change of his mental properties in accordance with the requirements of society.

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Journalism does not tolerate individuals. Those are the rules. However, it is precisely such texts (at least with a slight emotional coloring and the opinion of the author) that are most popular among readers. Just. Short. Available. And only the facts.

Therefore, now, when I begin to express my thoughts in the form of an essay, that person who fell asleep for several years re-ignites in me. It's time to wake up!

I could choose some equally interesting topic related to specific facts, find in scientific journals and in monographs the necessary information, to veil it in your own words and you would get quite good scientific material. Perhaps it could even be called an article ... It is likely that you will doubt whether I can write such texts at all. During my studies, I wrote and published several not only journalistic, but also scientific and analytical articles (it was not for nothing that I was sent to a group to study analytical journalism, not documentary journalism). I think to use additional sources information would be easier for me than writing a material in which, albeit briefly, I will describe what place psychology occupies in my life.

Until the age of eight, I did not think about the inner "I", about what people are and, of course, did not know about psychology. And, it seemed, why think about this for a small child who is going through one of the most beautiful stages in the life of every person - childhood. However, in the course of the circumstances that developed at that time in my family, I had to change dramatically and grow up very quickly. Why do children grow up and when? When trouble occurs in their life, or the death of loved ones knocks on their little world. I'm lucky this didn't happen to me. Circumstances have developed, as they say, the affairs of life. It was at that time, albeit unconsciously and not thoroughly, that psychology "knocked" on my door. Where did it start? From introspection and, as a consequence of it, self-criticism. The child began to blame himself for all the sins. I decided that everything that happens in the family is a consequence of the fact that he is not self-educated enough, obedient, smart, handsome, and so on. If it were different, there would be no problems (by the way, this idea and guilt, which was formed in early childhood, firmly settled in my head and even thoughts still flicker). Eight, nine, ten, eleven ... All this time I was so mentally depressed that I even thought about suicide. Do you know what saved me? Childish imagination given to me by nature. This mental process illuminated my gloomy interior. I think if it were not for the imagination and the power of thought, then perhaps I would not have become the person that I am now.

At the age of fourteen, the first realization came to me that I needed to engage in self-development and become better than others (yes, still better than others, and not myself yesterday). This desire to become the most-most nourished me for many years, and, even, has remained with me to this day. Only the attitude towards this process has changed.

When I finished school and did not enter where I wanted to (at the UGAI at the theater department), a crisis occurred in my life again. All positive thoughts, dreams, aspirations came to naught. I fell into a depression, and, to be honest, I did not plan to get out of it. It seemed to me that everything: the wonderful life that I dreamed about ended before I got used to it. The first year of study at the journalism and choreography faculties was the torture of hell (I entered two universities at the same time). I hated this study and all these people were unpleasant to me. Perhaps it would have been so painful and studied for all four years, if she had not changed her attitude to what was happening. As Dale Carnegie said in How to Stop Worrying and Start Living, “If life gives you a lemon, make lemonade out of it,” and that’s exactly what I did. It occurred to me that even if I'm not doing something that brings me pleasure, then it means that I need to do my best to become the best in this, and it is likely that I will like this business. And so it happened! I loved what I was doing. After all, experience is key. Everything in life is useful.

In my second year of study, I became a children's fitness coach at the Dynamo sports complex; and on the third, she began to teach variety dances to children. At the same time, she got a part-time job as a waiter. Therefore, I would characterize this period of time as "the study of the psychology of people in general." Children, like adults, turned out to be so different that I tried to approach communication with each individually. I admit, I didn't always succeed. There were moments when it seemed to me that I was a bad teacher, that I had to try myself in journalism and this is not my path (considering how close I take everything to my heart in life). But, this is what I learned. For four years of communication with children, I realized that at least sixty percent learned to communicate with them, and even to speak heart to heart, which happened quite often.

Working as a waiter, I studied the psychology of people quite well. When another client came to the cafe (for interest and not to get bored), I scrolled through all the received external information about the person in my head and drew his psychological portrait. It was a very exciting activity. The peak in this case was that I tried to guess what kind of person was inside. There was no limit to my surprise when, in the process of further closer friendly communication, I realized that I was right! Considering how many people flashed past me for twelve hours, several days a week for eight months, it can be said that I identified several subtypes of people for myself; and also built a plan in my head to communicate with each of them.

Two years later, I use this plan, and very rarely it does not work. Psychology in dealing with people in my life hooked me so much that I began to study the works of authors that allow me to improve these skills.

Today, having received two higher education and having, though small, but the experience of communicating with people, I realized that it was very interesting for me. Psychology in general is interesting, both the knowledge of one's inner world and the environment. Now, my first goal is self-development. As a consequence of this - an increase in the level of knowledge about psychology. Once I said to myself: “If I had a different life, I would go to study as a psychologist ...” And in that year an insight came: “Why do I need to wait for a different life? When can you do it in this one!

Such is the psychology in my life from eight to twenty-three years. What will happen next is unknown. And everything unknown and unknown attracts. Psychology for me is still an unexplored area. But I know for sure that without it there is no point in living.

Essay on the topic “Psychology in my life” updated: September 27, 2017 by: Scientific Articles.Ru

Part 1 Essay on why I need knowledge of psychology.

Psychology studies very complex and difficult to know phenomena. Is it possible to see how a person thinks, remembers, what images arise in his mind, is it possible, finally, to see the feelings of a person - joy and sadness, love and hate? Of course not. One can learn about this invisible world only indirectly, by studying the behavior and activities of people in all their diversity.

People expect a lot from the research of mental life: their results are of concern not only to psychologists, to one degree or another they concern every person, because psychology is actively involved in solving many major problems. social problems. The most important among them are training, education, work.

The volume of information necessary for a person in life is growing rapidly and uncontrollably. A modern worker, engineer, doctor, scientist must know much more than his predecessors. Each new generation is forced to acquire an increasing amount of knowledge at approximately the same time. Without a clear idea of ​​how a person perceives and cognizes the world around him, it is impossible to cope with this task.

Man is the only creature on Earth that feels the need for labor. But the satisfaction of this need occurs in complex ways. A person is now more deeply aware than ever before of the goals and social significance of his labor activity. He does not want to be a human robot, but he feels more and more keenly the desire for creativity, for the maximum disclosure of his inner capabilities.

In this regard, one more area of ​​psychological research should be mentioned - the search for opportunities for professional selection and career guidance. The study of the objective requirements imposed by various professions on the mental activity of people, the determination of the real possibilities of the person himself, ranging from the sensitivity of the organs of vision or hearing to the ability to build relationships with others, should lead to the fact that every young person will be able to correctly determine his place in general labor.

Psychological data suggest that the formation of a person's character, the properties of his personality depends not only on the influence of the environment, but is largely determined by the ability to self-education. Consequently, the results of psychological research lead to the conclusion that a person can actively "build" his personality.

Human mental life is unusually complex and diverse. Psychology studies its patterns - a person's perception of the world around him, thinking, feelings, the formation of his mental properties - needs, interests, skills, habits, abilities, character.

An important task of psychology is the knowledge of the objective laws of a person's mental life in order to guide the development of the individual, the formation of his consciousness, the purposeful change of his mental properties in accordance with the requirements of society.

* this work is not a scientific work, is not a final qualifying work and is the result of processing, structuring and formatting the collected information intended for use as a source of material for self-study educational work.

Introduction 3

What is psychology 4

Emergence of psychology 6

Subject of Psychology 9

Tasks structure and methods of modern psychology 13

Place of psychology in the system of sciences 18

Conclusion 20

Literature 21

Introduction

For centuries, man has been the subject of study for many, many generations of scientists. Mankind learns its own history, origin, biological nature, languages ​​and customs, and in this knowledge of psychology a very special place belongs.

So, S.L. Rubinstein in his book Fundamentals of General Psychology (1940) wrote: “The specific range of phenomena that psychology studies stands out distinctly and clearly - these are our perceptions, feelings, thoughts, aspirations, desires, etc. - that is, everything what constitutes the inner content of our life and what, as an experience, seems to be directly given to us ... ”.

Even the ancient sage said that there is no more interesting object for a person than another person, and he was not mistaken. At the basis of the development of psychology lies the ever-increasing interest in the nature of human existence, the conditions for its development and formation in human society, and the peculiarities of its interaction with other people.

At present, it is impossible to carry out many types of activities in production, in science, medicine, art, teaching, in games and sports without knowledge and understanding of psychological patterns. The system of scientific knowledge about the laws of human development, its potentialities is necessary for the entire social development.

What is psychology

What is psychology as a science? The answer to this question is not as simple as it seems at first glance. To answer it, it is necessary to turn to the history of psychological science, to the question of how, at each stage of its development, the idea of ​​the subject of scientific knowledge in psychology was transformed. Psychology is a very old and very young science. Having a thousand-year past, it is, nevertheless, all still in the future.

Psychology is the science of behavior, of human consciousness, the science of a progressive future. Studying the human psyche, this is the “science of the soul” of a person, it has not been fully studied, therefore it sets itself the goal of further research into the psychological factors of human thinking. Born at the end of the 19th century, the science of psychology is improving its principles of research into the unknown thinking of a person in our days.

The very name of the subject, translated from ancient Greek, means that psychology is the science of the soul (“psyche” - soul, “logos” - teaching, science).

The word "psychology" has many meanings. In everyday language, the word "psychology" is used to characterize the psychological make-up of a person, the characteristics of a particular person, a group of people: "he (they) have such a psychology."

Another meaning of the word "psychology", which is recorded in its etymology: psychology is the study of the psyche.

Domestic psychologist M.S. Rogovin argued that three stages in the development of psychology as a science can be distinguished. These are the stages of pre-scientific psychology, philosophical psychology and, finally, scientific psychology.

Prescientific psychology is the knowledge of another person and oneself directly in the processes of activity and mutual communication of people. Here, activity and knowledge are merged, due to the need to understand another person and anticipate his actions. The source of knowledge about the psyche in pre-scientific psychology is:

    personal experience arising from observation of other people and oneself;

    social experience, which is the traditions, customs, ideas passed down from generation to generation.

Such knowledge is not systematized, not reflected, therefore, it is often not recognized at all as knowledge.

Philosophical psychology is knowledge about the psyche obtained through speculative reasoning. Knowledge about the psyche is either derived from general philosophical principles or is the result of thinking by analogy. At the level of philosophical psychology, the initially vague, integral concept of the soul is subjected to analysis and mental dismemberment, followed by unification. Compared with pre-scientific psychology, which precedes it and, especially in the early stages, has a great influence on it, characteristic of philosophical psychology is not only the search for some explanatory principle for the mental, but also the desire to establish general laws to which the soul must obey in the same way. as all natural elements obey them.

Scientific psychology arose relatively recently - in the second half of the 19th century. Usually its appearance is associated with the use of the experimental method in psychology. There are undoubtedly some reasons for this: the "creator" of scientific psychology, W. Wundt, wrote that if we define the physiological psychology he developed by the method, then it can be characterized as "experimental". However, Wundt himself repeatedly emphasized that experimental psychology is far from being the whole of psychology, but only a part of it.

Knowledge in scientific psychology has an empirical, factual basis. Facts are obtained in a specially conducted research, which uses special procedures (methods) for this, the main ones among which are purposeful systematic observation and experiment. Theories constructed by scientific psychology have an empirical basis and are (ideally) subjected to comprehensive testing.

The emergence of psychology

Psychology has gone through several stages in its development. The pre-scientific period ends approximately in the 7th-6th centuries BC, that is, before the beginning of objective, scientific studies of the psyche, its content and functions. During this period, ideas about the soul were based on numerous myths and legends, on fairy tales and initial religious beliefs that connected the soul with certain living beings (totems). The second, scientific period begins at the turn of the 7th-6th centuries BC. Psychology during this period developed within the framework of philosophy, and therefore it received the conditional name of the philosophical period. Also, its duration is somewhat conditionally established - until the definition of the actual psychological terminology, which differs from that accepted in philosophy or natural science.

In connection with the conditionality of the periodization of the development of psychology, which is natural for almost any historical research, some discrepancies arise in establishing the time limits of individual stages. Sometimes the emergence of an independent psychological science is associated with the school of W. Wundt, that is, with the beginning of the development of experimental psychology. However, psychological science was defined as independent much earlier, with the realization of the independence of its subject, the uniqueness of its position in the system of sciences - as a science both humanitarian and natural at the same time, studying both internal and external (behavioral) manifestations of the psyche. Such an independent position of psychology was also recorded with its appearance as a subject of study in universities already at the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th centuries. Thus, it is more correct to speak of the emergence of psychology as an independent science precisely from this period, referring to the middle of the 19th century the formation of experimental psychology.

But in any case, it must be recognized that the time of the existence of psychology as an independent science is much less than the period of its development in the mainstream of philosophy. For more than 20 centuries, psychological science has undergone significant changes. The subject of psychology, the content of psychological research, and the relationship of psychology with other sciences have changed.

The emergence of psychology in Ancient Greece at the turn of the 7th-6th centuries BC. was associated with the need for the formation of an objective science of man, which considered the soul not on the basis of fairy tales, myths, legends, but using those objective knowledge (mathematical, medical, philosophical) that arose in that period. At that time, psychology was part of a science that studied the general laws of society, nature and man. This science is called natural philosophy (philosophy). From philosophy, psychology took an important position for any science about the need to build its theories on the basis of knowledge, not faith. The desire to avoid sacrality, that is, the connection of faith with knowledge, and not with reason, the desire to prove the correctness of the views expressed was the most important difference between scientific, philosophical psychology and pre-scientific.

The first ideas about the soul, which arose on the basis of myths and early religious ideas, singled out some of the functions of the soul, first of all, the energy one, which induces the body to activity. These ideas formed the basis of the research of the first psychologists. Already the first works have shown that the soul not only induces to action, but also regulates the activity of the individual, and is also the main tool in the knowledge of the world. These judgments about the properties of the soul became the leading ones in subsequent years. Thus, the most important for psychology in the ancient period was the study of how the soul gives activity to the body, how it regulates human behavior and how it cognizes the world. An analysis of the patterns of development of nature led the thinkers of that time to the idea that the soul is material, that is, it consists of the same particles as the surrounding world.

The soul not only gives energy for activity, but also directs it, that is, it is the soul that directs human behavior. Gradually, cognition was added to the functions of the soul, and thus the study of the stages of cognition was added to the study of activity, which soon became one of the most important problems in psychological science. At first, only two stages were distinguished in the process of cognition - sensation (perception) and thinking. At the same time, for psychologists of that time there was no difference between sensation and perception, the selection of individual qualities of an object and its image as a whole was considered a single process. Gradually, the study of the process of cognition of the world became more and more significant for psychologists, and several stages were already distinguished in the process of cognition. Plato was the first to single out memory as a separate mental process, emphasizing its importance as a repository of all our knowledge. Aristotle, and after him the Stoics, also identified such cognitive processes as imagination and speech. Thus, by the end of the ancient period, ideas about the structure of the process of cognition were close to modern ones, although opinions about the content of these processes, of course, differed significantly.

At this time, scientists for the first time began to think about how the image of the world is built, what process - sensation or reason - is the leading one, and how much the picture of the world built by man coincides with the real one. In other words, many of the questions that remain leading for cognitive psychology today were posed precisely at that time.

The beginning of a new stage in the development of psychology was associated with an actual change in its subject matter, since theology became the official science of the soul. Therefore, psychology had to either completely yield to theology the study of the psyche, or find itself some niche for research. It was in connection with the search for an opportunity to study a single subject in its various aspects that major changes took place in the relationship between theology and psychology.

When Christianity appeared, it had to prove its uniqueness and push out other religions that were not compatible with it. Related to this is the intolerance of Greek mythology, as well as of the psychological and philosophical concepts that were closely associated with pagan religion and myths. Therefore, most of the well-known psychological schools (the Lyceum, the Academy, the Garden of Epicurus, etc.) were closed by the 6th century, and the scientists who kept the knowledge of ancient science moved to Asia Minor, opening new schools in the Greek colonies. Islam, widespread in the East, was not as intolerant of heterodoxy as Christianity in the 3rd-6th centuries, and therefore psychological schools developed freely there. Later, by the 9th-10th centuries, when the persecution of ancient science, especially the theory of Plato and Aristotle, ended, many concepts returned to Europe, some already in reverse translation from Arabic.

This situation lasted for several centuries, but by the XII-XIII centuries it began to change.

It was at this time that scholasticism was born, which at that moment was a fairly progressive phenomenon, since it assumed not only the passive assimilation of the old, but also the active clarification and modification of ready-made knowledge, developed the ability to think logically, provide a system of evidence and build your speech. The fact that this knowledge is already ready, that is, scholasticism is associated with the use of reproductive, and not creative thinking, was then a little alarming, since even reproductive thinking is aimed at obtaining and proving knowledge. However, over time, scholasticism began to slow down the development of new knowledge, acquired a dogmatic character and turned into a set of syllogisms that did not allow refuting old, incorrect or incorrect provisions in the new situation.

After the initial stage of development, psychology began to strive to find its place in the study of the soul, to determine the range of questions that could be given to it by theology. Naturally, this partially led to a revision of the subject of psychology - a special category was singled out in the content of the soul, subject to scientific research. The need to stand out from theology led to the emergence of the theory of two truths, which argued that the truth of knowledge and the truth of faith do not coincide with each other and do not contradict each other, like two parallel lines, this theory was formulated in the 9th-10th centuries by the Arab scholar Ibn Sina and soon has become widespread in Europe. Somewhat later, in the XII-XIII centuries, a direction arose in psychology, called deism, which claimed that there are two souls - the spiritual (theology studies it) and the corporeal, which psychology studies. Thus, a subject for scientific study appeared.

One of the first to use the term "soul" in his philosophical reasoning was Heraclitus of Ephesus. He owns a famous saying, the validity of which is obvious even today: “You cannot find the boundaries of the soul, no matter what path you take: its measure is so deep.” This aphorism captures the complexity of the subject of psychology. Modern science is still far from comprehending the secrets of the human soul, despite all the accumulated knowledge about the human mental world.

The treatise of the Greek philosopher Aristotle "On the Soul" can be considered the first special psychological work.

The term "psychology" itself appears much later. The first attempts to introduce the term "psychology" can be dated to the end of the 15th century. In the title of works (the texts of which have not survived to this day) by the Dalmatian poet and humanist M. Marulich, for the first time, as far as one can judge, the word “psychology” is used. The authorship of the term is often attributed to F. Melanchthon, a German Protestant theologian and teacher, an associate of Martin Luther. Lexicography attributes the formation of this word to Melanchthon, who wrote it in Latin (psychologia). But not a single historian, not a single lexicographer has found an exact reference to this word in his works. In 1590, a book by Rudolf Haeckel (Gocklenius) was published, the title of which also uses this word in Greek. The name of Haeckel's work, which contains the statements of many authors about the soul, is "Psychology, that is, about the perfection of man, about the soul, and, above all, about its emergence ...". But the term "psychology" became generally recognized only in the 18th century after the appearance of the works of X. Wolf. Leibniz used the term "pneumatology" in the 17th century. By the way, the works of Wolf himself "Empirical Psychology" (1732) and "Rational Psychology" (1734) are considered to be the first textbooks on psychology, and on the history of psychology - the work of a talented philosopher, a follower of I. Kant and F.G. Jacobi, F.A. Karus.

Subject of psychology

In the literal sense of the word, psychology is the study of the psyche. Psyche, or Psyche, in Greek mythology, the personification of the soul, breath. The psyche was identified with a living being. Breathing was associated with wind, breath, flight, whirlwind, so the soul was usually depicted as a fluttering butterfly or a flying bird. According to Aristotle, the Psyche is the "soul" and the "butterfly". On the basis of various myths about Psyche, the Roman writer Apuleius created the book Metamorphoses, in which he presented in poetic form the wanderings of the human soul in search of love.

It is important to note that the concept of "soul" among all "tribes and peoples" is associated with the inner world of a person - his dreams, experiences, memories, thoughts, feelings, desires. M.S. Rogovin notes that the concept of the soul arises among all peoples as a generalization and reduction to some visual image of what the mind of an ancient person could capture in the sense of the psyche. In connection with the concept of the soul, man approached the concept of the driving cause, the source of action, the concept of the living in its opposition to the inanimate. Initially, the soul was not yet something alien to the body, some other entity, but acted as a double of a person with the same needs, thoughts and feelings, actions, like a person himself. “The concept of the soul as a completely different entity arose later, when, along with the development of social production and the differentiation of social relations, along with the development of religion, and then philosophy, the soul begins to be interpreted as something fundamentally different from everything that exists in the real world” . Gradually, the visual image that serves to designate the soul pales, giving way to the concept of an ethereal abstract force, heterogeneous to the body that contains it.

Thus, already in pre-scientific psychology, the separation of the spiritual from the material is completed, each of which begins to act as an independent entity.

For many centuries, the soul has been the subject of discussions of philosophers and theologians. No special studies were carried out: thinkers limited themselves to reasoning, the selection of relevant examples confirming their conclusions. Self-observation was not systematic, most often it was used to confirm the validity of speculative constructions, although in fairness, it should be noted that individual authors, such as St. Augustine, were surprisingly insightful.

The French philosopher R. Descartes eliminated the concept of the soul as an intermediary between the spirit and the body. Before Descartes, imagination and feeling were attributed to the soul, which animals were also endowed with. Descartes identified soul and mind, calling imagination and feeling modes of the mind. Thus, the soul was connected with the faculty of thinking. Animals have become soulless automatons. The human body has become the same machine. The elimination of the soul in the former sense (in which it was understood in medieval and ancient philosophy) allowed Descartes to oppose two substances: thinking and extended (spirit and matter). Descartes entered the history of philosophy and psychology as the creator of a dualistic concept that contrasted the bodily and the spiritual. Later, the concept of consciousness was formed, which, according to Descartes, meant “everything that happens in us in such a way that we perceive it directly in ourselves.” Note that Descartes did not use the term "consciousness" itself, preferring to speak of the spirit. Descartes laid the foundations for understanding consciousness as an inner world closed in itself. He also proposed the idea of ​​the method of psychology: the inner world can be studied with the help of intuition (self-observation). This is how a method appears, which later received the name introspection (from the Latin “I look inside, peer”). The advantage of this method (as the supporters of introspection believed) is that it allows one to obtain reliable, obvious knowledge. In any case, this followed from Cartesian philosophy.

The subject of psychology has changed many times. After Descartes, psychology was the psychology of consciousness. The scientific psychology that emerged in the second half of the 19th century was also a psychology of consciousness. Wundt viewed psychology as the science of direct experience. Many psychologists of the 19th century proceeded from the fact that self-observation, introspection is the main method of psychology. Among them are W. Wundt, F. Brentano, W. James, and others, although they interpreted the method in different ways. The historical path of psychology has shown that self-observation still cannot be a source of reliable knowledge about the psyche. First, it turned out that the procedure of introspection is extremely subjective: as a rule, the subject in his report discovered exactly what interested the researcher and corresponded to his theoretical ideas. Secondly, after the work of the French psychiatrists J.M. Charcot, I. Bernheim, and especially the Austrian psychiatrist and psychologist 3. Freud, it became quite clear that consciousness is not the whole psyche. In addition to what is realized by a person, there are numerous mental phenomena that are not realized by him, therefore the method of self-observation is powerless in front of the unconscious. Thirdly, the need to investigate the psyche of animals, young children, mentally ill forced to do without the method of self-observation. Fourthly, the work of psychoanalysts has shown that what is realized by a person is often a rationalization, the result of the work of protective mechanisms, that is, a distorted perception, and not at all reliable knowledge.

The failure of the introspective psychology of consciousness prompted some psychologists (representatives of depth psychology, psychoanalysis) to turn to the study of the unconscious, others to study behavior rather than consciousness (behaviorists, representatives of objective psychology).

The emergence of these schools and trends in psychology led to an open crisis in psychology. The whole psychology broke up into several schools, between which there were no points of contact and which investigated different subjects and used different methods.

Similar problems faced domestic psychologists. In the 1920s and 1930s, the methodological foundations of Soviet psychology were laid and methodological principles were formulated. Especially great is the merit in the formation of domestic psychological science of such scientists as M.Ya. Basov, L.S. Vygotsky, A.N. Leontiev, S.L. Rubinshtein and others, in whose works the provisions that developed productively over the next decades took shape. In the monograph by M.G. Yaroshevsky "The Science of Behavior: The Russian Way" traces the history of the formation of the domestic psychological school of studying behavior, which largely influenced the psychological concepts of Soviet psychologists. The limitations of both subjective, introspective, and objective, behavioral psychology, Soviet psychologists managed to overcome with the help of the category "activity". In the works of S.L. Rubinshtein formulated the principle of "unity of consciousness and activity", which provided a methodological basis for the indirect study of the psyche. Of great importance were also the methodological principles of the development of the psyche in activity, determinism, etc.

It took considerable time to come to the conclusion that the discrepancy between schools in world psychology is of a particular nature and indicates that the subject of psychology should be understood more broadly, including both internal subjective phenomena in which the subject can give himself an account, and human behavior. , which has a psychological "component", and the phenomena of the unconscious psyche, which can also manifest itself in behavior.

The data accumulated by the psychology of the 20th century also showed that the characteristics of a person’s behavior and mental make-up depend not only on the nervous system, but also on the “constitution” of a person, that is, ultimately, on biochemical processes in the body. Thus, the old idea returned to psychology, according to which there are inextricable links between the mental and the physical in a living organism.

By the 1960s, psychologists (both foreign and domestic) came to a compromise that was not explicitly formulated (ideological differences interfered with this), but in fact was achieved: foreign psychology studied behavior mediated by the psyche; domestic - focused on the psyche, manifested and formed in activity.

The psyche is the most complex phenomenon, perhaps the most complex thing in the world. Therefore, it is not possible to give an exhaustive definition of the psyche.

The psyche is the subjective inner world of a person, mediating the interaction of a person with the outside world. Modern psychological dictionaries define the psyche as “a form of active reflection by the subject of objective reality, arising in the process of interaction of highly organized living beings with the outside world and performing a regulatory function in their behavior (activity)” and as “the highest form of the relationship of living beings with the objective world, expressed in their ability to realize their impulses and act on the basis of information about him.

It can be stated that today many researchers express dissatisfaction with the current state of affairs in scientific psychology. It becomes more and more clear that the understanding of the psyche as a purely individual phenomenon, the properties of highly organized matter does not reflect the real complexity of the mental. After the work of K.G. Jung and his followers can hardly doubt the transpersonal nature of the psyche. “Transpersonal psychology is the study of transpersonal experiences, their nature, various forms, causes and effects, as well as those manifestations in the fields of psychology, philosophy, practical life, art, culture, lifestyle, religion, etc., which are inspired by by them or who seek to evoke, express, apply or understand them. Many researchers point out that the scientific approach to the study of the psyche is not the only possible one.

Psychology must remain (according to etymology) the science of the psyche. Only the psychic itself must be understood somewhat differently. In general, the entire historical path of scientific psychology, if you try to express it in one phrase, is an expansion of the subject of psychology and a complication of explanatory schemes. Obviously, in our time, psychology once again must change the understanding of its subject. For this, transformations within psychology itself are necessary. First of all, a new, broader understanding of the subject of psychology is required.

Psychology, as we have said, is a very young science. Therefore, perhaps, it has not yet found its true subject, and its discovery is the task of the psychology of the XXI century. Let us not forget that psychology, as a fundamental science, must make its decisive contribution to knowledge about the world. Without psychology, it is impossible to create a scientific picture of the world. Jung noted: “The world of mental phenomena is only a part of the world as a whole, and it may seem to some that, precisely because of its particularity, it is more cognizable than the whole world. However, this does not take into account that the soul is the only direct phenomenon of the world, and therefore the necessary condition for all world experience.

Tasks, structure and methods of modern psychology

At present, there is a rapid development of psychological science, due to the variety of theoretical and practical problems that confront it. The main task of psychology is to study the laws of mental activity in its development. Over the past decades, the front of psychological research has expanded significantly, new scientific directions and disciplines have appeared. The conceptual apparatus of psychological science has changed, new hypotheses and concepts are continuously emerging, and psychology is enriched with new empirical data. B.F. Lomov, in his book “Methodological and Theoretical Problems of Psychology”, characterizing the current state of science, notes that at present “there is a sharp increase in the need for further (and deeper) development of the methodological problems of psychological science and its general theory.” The field of phenomena studied by psychology is enormous. It covers the processes, states and properties of a person, which have varying degrees of complexity - from the elementary distinction of individual features of an object that affects the senses, to the struggle of personality motives. Some of these phenomena have already been studied quite well, while the description of others is reduced to a simple recording of observations. Many believe, and this should be especially noted, that a generalized and abstract description of the phenomena under study and their connections is already a theory. However, the theoretical work is not exhausted by this, it also includes the comparison and integration of accumulated knowledge, their systematization, and much more. Its ultimate goal is to reveal the essence of the phenomena being studied. In this regard, methodological problems arise. If theoretical research is based on a fuzzy methodological (philosophical) position, then there is a danger of substituting theoretical knowledge for empirical knowledge.

In the cognition of the essence of mental phenomena, the most important role belongs to the categories of dialectical materialism. B.F. Lomov in the already mentioned book singled out the basic categories of psychological science, showed their systemic interconnection, the universality of each of them and, at the same time, their irreducibility to each other. He singled out the following basic categories of psychology: the category of reflection, the category of activity, the category of personality, the category of communication, as well as concepts that can be equated to categories in terms of the level of universality - these are the concepts of "social" and "biological". Revealing the objective connections of social and natural properties of a person, the correlation of biological and social determinants in his development is one of the most difficult tasks of science.

As is well known, in previous decades psychology was predominantly a theoretical (ideological) discipline. At present, her role in public life has changed significantly. It is increasingly becoming an area of ​​special professional practice in the education system, industry, public administration, medicine, culture, sports, etc. The inclusion of psychological science in the solution of practical problems significantly changes the conditions for the development of its theory. Tasks, the solution of which requires psychological competence, arise in one form or another in all spheres of society, determined by the growing role of the so-called human factor. The “human factor” is understood as a wide range of socio-psychological, psychological and psycho-physiological properties that people possess and which, one way or another, are manifested in their specific activities.

Modern psychology is an intensively developing field of human knowledge, closely interacting with other sciences. Therefore, like any developing phenomenon, psychology is constantly changing: new directions of search, problems appear, new projects are implemented, which often leads to the emergence of new branches of psychology. Common to all branches of psychology is the preservation of the subject: they all study the facts, patterns and mechanisms of the psyche (in certain conditions, in this or that activity, at one or another level of development, etc.).

Modern psychology is not a single science, but a whole complex of scientific disciplines, many of which claim to be considered independent sciences. Various authors list up to a hundred branches of psychology. These scientific disciplines are at different stages of development and are associated with various areas of human practice.

The core of modern psychology is general psychology, which studies the most general laws, patterns and mechanisms of the psyche. The most important psychological discipline has become the history of psychology, which focuses on the historical process of the formation and development of psychological knowledge.

Numerous branches of psychology are distinguished for various reasons.

Traditionally, the following bases are used for classification:

    specific activity (labor psychology, medical, pedagogical psychology, art psychology, sports psychology, etc.);

    development (animal psychology, comparative psychology, developmental psychology, child psychology, etc.);

    sociality, the relationship of a person to society (social psychology, personality psychology, group psychology, class psychology, ethnopsychology, etc.).

It is important to single out industries “according to the purpose of the activity (obtaining or applying new knowledge): fundamental and applied sciences; on the subject of research: psychology of development, creativity, personality, etc. Psychophysiology, neuropsychology, and mathematical psychology can be singled out on the basis of the links between psychology and other sciences. The development of complex relationships of psychology with various areas of practice is observed in organizational, engineering psychology, sports psychology, educational psychology, etc.”

In recent years, practical psychology has been intensively developing in our country. One can agree with the opinion of V.N. Druzhinin, who points out that "practical psychology partly remains an art, partly based on applied psychology as a system of knowledge and scientifically based methods for solving practical problems." However, there is reason to believe that there has been a trend towards the emergence of practical psychology as a special type of psychological science. The specificity of practical psychology is that it is not objective, but objective. It is more focused on a holistic characterization of the personality, it uses descriptions and typologies to a greater extent.

Currently, there is no complete classification of psychological branches. Psychology is a young science that is in the process of intensive development, so new areas constantly appear in it, which leads to the emergence of new industries.

Modern psychology uses various methods.

The word "method" (translated from Greek - the path of research or cognition, theory, teaching) means a method of constructing and substantiating scientific knowledge, as well as a set of techniques and operations for practical and theoretical development of reality. In relation to psychology, the method means ways of obtaining facts about the psyche and ways of interpreting them.

Modern psychology uses an extensive system of methods that can be classified in various ways depending on the chosen bases. Rubinstein, a classic of Russian psychology, noted that “methods, that is, ways of knowing, are the ways by which the subject of science is known. Psychology, like every science, uses not one, but a whole system of particular methods, or techniques. Under the method of science - in the singular - one can understand the system of its methods in their unity.

Initially (when singling it out as an independent science), psychology proceeded from the fact that self-observation is able to give true, and moreover direct, knowledge about mental life. The psychology of consciousness proceeded from the subjective method. The method of scientific psychology was thus empirical, subjective, and immediate. It is important to emphasize that self-observation was considered as a direct method of obtaining facts. The task of science was conceived by Wundt as a logical ordering of facts. No theoretical methods were provided. It is well known that introspective psychology of consciousness has encountered great difficulties.

The emergence of behavioral psychology (objective psychology) was a reaction to the insoluble problems of traditional psychology. Initially, it was assumed that a new interpretation of the subject of psychology - as "behavior" - removes all problems. The objective method in the form of observation or experiment made it possible, as the representatives of this direction in psychology believed, to obtain direct knowledge about the subject of science. The method was thus seen as empirical, objective and immediate.

The further development of psychological science (primarily Freud's research) showed that the method of research in psychology can only be indirect, mediated: the unconscious can be studied by its manifestations in consciousness and behavior; behavior itself presupposes the presence of hypothetical "intermediate variables" that mediate the subject's reactions to the situation.

Here is how the former President of the American Psychological Association (1960) Donald Hebb characterizes the state of affairs: “Mind and consciousness, sensations and perceptions, feelings and emotions are intermediate variables or constructs and, in essence, form part of the psychology of behavior.”

In domestic psychology, where the principle of the unity of consciousness and activity (S.L. Rubinshtein) was proposed as a methodological principle, the concept of the indirect nature of the psychology of methods was also developed.

In its most general form, the method of objective mediated research consists in the following: 1) the conditions under which a mental phenomenon occurs are fixed; 2) objective manifestations of a mental phenomenon in behavior are fixed; 3) where possible, self-report data of the subject is obtained; 4) based on a comparison of the data obtained at the first, second and third stages, an indirect conclusion is made, an attempt is made to "reconstruct" a real mental phenomenon.

This method has been criticized in recent years. The psyche of another in this approach is considered as an object. Some researchers insist that a subjective approach should be used in psychology, which takes into account to a greater extent the fact that the subject is conscious and can change the strategy of his behavior in the course of the study.

Modern psychology has a large arsenal of specific methods (observation, experiment, questioning, conversation, interview, test, questionnaire, analysis of activity products, etc.) and special techniques designed to study certain mental phenomena.

Several classifications of psychological methods have been proposed. The most developed are the classifications of B.G. Ananiev and V.N. Druzhinin.

Ananiev distinguishes the following groups of methods:

1) organizational (comparative, complex);

2) empirical (observational, experimental, psychodiagnostic, biographical);

3) data processing (quantitative and qualitative);

4) interpretational (various variants of genetic and structural).

The classification made it possible to present a system of methods that meets the requirements of modern psychology.

An alternative classification of methods was proposed by V.N. Druzhinin. He identified three classes of methods:

    empirical, in which external real interaction of the subject and object of research is carried out;

    theoretical, in which the subject interacts with the mental model of the object (subject of study);

    interpretations and descriptions, in which the subject "externally" interacts with the sign-symbolic representations of the object.

The theoretical methods of psychological research deserve special attention:

1) deductive (axiomatic and hypothetical-deductive), otherwise - the method of ascent from the general to the particular, from the abstract to the concrete;

2) inductive - a method of generalizing facts, ascending from the particular to the general;

3) modeling - a method of specifying the method of analogies, inferences from particular to particular, when a simpler or more accessible object is taken as an analogue of a more complex object.

The results of using the first method are theories, laws, the second - inductive hypotheses, patterns, classifications, systematization, the third - models of the object, process, state. Druzhinin proposes to distinguish methods of speculative psychology from theoretical methods. The author sees the difference between these methods in the fact that speculation is not based on scientific facts and empirical laws, but has justification only in the author's personal knowledge, intuition. According to Druzhinin, in psychological research, the central role belongs to the modeling method, in which two varieties are distinguished: structural-functional, that in the first case, the researcher wants to identify the structure of a separate system by its external behavior, for which he chooses or constructs an analogue (this is what modeling is ) is another system with similar behavior. Accordingly, the similarity of behavior, according to the author, makes it possible to draw a conclusion (based on the rule of logical inference by analogy) about the similarity of structures. This type of modeling, according to Druzhinin, is the main method of psychological research and the only one in the natural sciences of psychological research. In another case, by the similarity of the structures of the model and the image, the researcher judges the similarity of functions, external manifestations, etc.

It is important to describe the hierarchy of research methods. Druzhinin proposes to single out five levels in this hierarchy: the level of methodology, the level of methodical reception, the level of method, the level of research organization, the level of methodological approach. He proposed a three-dimensional classification of psychological empirical methods. Considering empirical methods from the point of view of the interaction of subject and object, subject and measuring instrument, object and instrument, the author gives a new classification of empirical psychological methods. It is based on the system "subject - tool - object". The relationships between the components of the model serve as the basis for classification. Two of them (the measure of interaction between the researcher and the subject and the measure of the use of external means or subjective interpretation) are the main ones, one is derivative. According to Druzhinin, all methods are divided into: activity, communicative, observational, hermeneutic. Eight "pure" research methods are also distinguished (natural experiment, laboratory experiment, instrumental observation, observation, introspection, understanding, free conversation, purposeful interview). In turn, synthetic methods are distinguished that combine the features of pure methods, but are not reduced to them (clinical method, in-depth interview, psychological measurement, self-observation, subjective scaling, introspection, psychodiagnostics, consulting communication).

It should be noted that the theoretical methods of psychological science have so far been described, analyzed and studied clearly insufficiently. This is one of the primary tasks of the methodology of modern psychological science.

The place of psychology in the system of sciences

The development of science is a complex process that includes both differentiation and integration of knowledge. Currently, there are a large number of independent scientific disciplines. The place that psychology occupies in the system of sciences largely determines the solution of two very important questions: What can psychology give to other sciences? To what extent can psychology use the results of research in other sciences?

In the 19th century, the classification of sciences developed by the creator of the philosophy of positivism, the French scientist O. Comte, was very popular. In Comte's classification, there was no place for psychology at all. The father of positivism believed that psychology had not yet become a positive science. For the first half of the 19th century, this statement was generally fair.

Since then, much has changed: psychology has emerged as an independent science, has largely become "positive". Classifications of sciences subsequently were compiled repeatedly. At the same time, almost all authors unequivocally pointed to the special, central place of psychology among other sciences. Many well-known psychologists have expressed the idea that psychology in the future will take a leading place in the structure of human knowledge, that psychology should be the basis for the sciences of the spirit.

Classifications of sciences were developed in the 20th century. One of the most popular is the classification developed by the Russian philosopher and science expert B.M. Kedrov, According to Kedrov, the classification of sciences is non-linear. Kedrov distinguishes three groups of scientific disciplines: natural, social and philosophical. Schematically, this can be represented as a triangle, the vertices of which correspond to the natural (upper), social (left) and philosophical (right) disciplines. Psychology has close ties with all three groups of sciences, therefore it is located inside the triangle, since human thinking (one of the essential sections of psychology) is studied not only by psychology, but also by philosophy and logic. Psychology thus has connections with all scientific disciplines, but most closely with philosophy.

The outstanding Swiss psychologist J. Piaget approached the question of determining the place of psychology in the system of sciences somewhat differently. Traditionally, the question of the relationship of psychology with other sciences is considered in this aspect: what psychology can get from other sciences. Such a formulation of the question was logical, since psychology is one of the youngest sciences (“mathematics has existed for 25 centuries, and psychology is barely one century!”). In his report at the 18th International Congress of Psychology, which took place in Moscow in 1966, Piaget posed the question differently: what can psychology give to other sciences?

Piaget's response is significant: "Psychology occupies a central place not only as a product of all other sciences, but also as a possible source of explanation for their formation and development." Piaget notes that he feels a sense of pride about the fact that psychology occupies a key position in the system of sciences. “On the one hand, psychology depends on all other sciences ... But, on the other hand, none of these sciences is possible without logical-mathematical coordination, which expresses the structure of reality, but the mastery of which is possible only through the influence of the organism on objects, and only psychology makes it possible to study this activity in its development.

The fruitful future of psychology is seen in the development of interdisciplinary connections.

B.G. Ananiev in his work "Man as an object of knowledge" examined the connections of psychology with other scientific disciplines. An analysis of these connections within the framework of the concept of complex human knowledge developed by Ananiev led to the conclusion that psychology synthesizes the achievements of other sciences. Well-known domestic psychologist B.F. Lomov in his book “Methodological and Theoretical Problems of Psychology” noted that the most important function of psychology is that it “is an integrator of all (or, in any case, most) scientific disciplines, the object of study of which is a person.” Lomov notes that the interaction of psychology with other sciences is carried out through branches of psychological science: with social sciences through social psychology, with natural sciences through psychophysics, psychophysiology, comparative psychology, with medical sciences through medical psychology, pathopsychology, neuropsychology, etc., with pedagogical - through developmental psychology, pedagogical psychology, etc., with technical ones - through engineering psychology, etc. Relations with other sciences are an important factor in the differentiation of psychology.

Today we can state that psychology has acquired the status of an independent scientific discipline, although in reality it has not taken a central position among other sciences. Thus, we have to admit that the forecasts and hopes that psychology would take a leading position in the system of sciences did not materialize on the whole: the status of psychology is not at all so high, and the influence on other disciplines is not so strong.

Having revised the narrow, inadequate understanding of its subject, psychology will gain the possibility of a real constructive intra- and extra-scientific dialogue, the possibility of integrating various concepts that are differently suited to the study of the human soul. Thus, psychology will find its rightful place in the system of sciences, acquire the status of a fundamental science and, possibly, become the basis of the sciences about the spirit.

Conclusion

The biggest mysteries in history are the mysteries of human consciousness. Labyrinths, catacombs, dead ends and avenues of thought are very often unpredictable. In my work, I tried to trace the history of the formation and development of psychology, one of the most complex and mysterious sciences. After all, this science is a tempting world of phenomena that have been of particular, exceptional interest for many centuries.

Knowledge of the basics of psychology, I think, is necessary for every person, it allows people to understand each other well, to act together.

The value of knowledge and skills gradually increased, it has become especially great in our days. It is no coincidence that there is a direct relationship between interest in psychology and the level of socio-economic development of countries. The most civilized countries have a large number of excellently trained psychologists.

Knowing the basics of psychology, a person can better understand himself, his loved ones, human relations to explain the actions of people. This knowledge will help him cope with life's problems.

Literature

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