Modern concepts of personality education in pedagogy

Personality development according to Vygotsky

The concept of personality development of the Russian scientist L. S. Vygotsky arose at the beginning of the 20th century. The first publication dates back to 1928 and is called “The Problem of the Cultural Development of the Child.”

Vygotsky was the first to focus on the child’s social environment. The scientist noted that during its development there are two interconnected lines - the first of them relates to the independent maturation of higher mental functions, the second - depends on the cultural and social environment. It is in his environment that the child masters behavior patterns and ways of thinking.

The development of attention, memory, speech, thinking and other functions always occurs first through external activity, and only then do these external functions become internal, or intrapsychic. Everything a child learns, he first does with an adult. The program of personal development, according to Vygotsky, cannot be implemented without dialogism - the main feature of consciousness, formed through interaction with an adult.

The basic concept of personality development, first introduced by Vygotsky, is called the “zone of proximal development,” or those actions that a child is not yet able to perform on his own, but can do them together with an adult. The researcher believed that only learning that goes ahead of development can be called good.

The basic concepts of personality development according to Vygotsky also include the concept of gradual development. The development process occurs according to a stepwise principle - smooth stages of knowledge accumulation are replaced by sharp leaps. Another important concept in Vygotsky’s theory is the child’s activity. The views of other psychologists of that time, for example, in the works of B. Skinner, were dominated by the idea that the child is the subject of the adult’s activity. But none of the scientists before Vygotsky considered children as those who themselves can actively influence their elders.

The concept of spiritual and moral development of personality

A person lives in society, among other people, so instilling in a child the following skills becomes quite important:

• It's normal to have a positive attitude towards other people.
• Be able to establish contacts with people.
• Strive to establish relationships with other people.

All this depends on what spiritual and moral values ​​the parents instill in the child during the first years of his life. The environment within the family in which the child lives is also important.

However, a person is capable of developing these moral qualities in himself at any period of his life. If you feel the need to become better, to devote a little time to improving yourself and regaining the skills to express thoughts beautifully and correctly, this suggests that you have finally noticed how easily and quickly you can become an uncultured and illiterate person. This is very much connected with the advent of mobile phones and computers with the Internet in human life. The rapid progress of technology influenced the rapid regression (decline) of human intelligence. And indeed: pay attention to how modern youth and even more mature people communicate, who constantly have access to such new technologies.

Unfortunately, neither mobile phones nor the Internet contribute to human development. All people get a lot of opportunities: quickly get through to the right person, get a lot of information on a certain topic, communicate with strangers using prepared templates - emoticons, etc. A person does not need to think, do or invent anything, everything is already provided to him. The main task is to see, read and “swallow”.

If you want not to lose your own writing and cultural speech skills, then start renewing your own knowledge and skills. Read more classical literature. Even reading modern books on scientific topics is much more useful than simply browsing articles on the Internet that are written by illiterate people. Reading books then helps a person express his thoughts. Moreover, reading books helps to remember written language, concise sentence construction and beautiful spelling. It’s better to limit yourself only to books, since magazines are written by the same analogy as Internet articles - somewhere you can stumble upon errors, and somewhere you can stumble upon modern vocabulary.

Stay away from computers and mobile phones more often. Take yourself for walks in nature several times a week, where no one can reach you (that is, leave your mobile phone and computer at home). Take a break from modern technology, remember what wild and living nature is. A person very often begins to quickly degrade and lose his skills simply because he is simply tired. And for proper rest you need not only sleep, but also walks and communication with nature. This way you calm down in real life, enjoying the silence and calm sounds. At the same time, you don’t need to run anywhere or decide anything. You are given complete freedom - enjoy it.

Rest more often and read classical or scientific literature - this will allow you to regain your cultural speech and gain new knowledge. Try at least sometimes to be detached from modern technologies, without which people used to get along just fine and live happily.

Meneghetti concept

Antonio Meneghetti is an Italian scientist who created the field of psychological knowledge called “Ontopsychology”. Meneghetti was both a scientist and a psychotherapist who received degrees in various fields - theology, philosophy, psychology. The word “ontopsychology” consists of three parts. “Onto” means “being,” “psycho” means “soul,” and “logos” means “meaning.” Meneghetti founded a scientific-psychological school dedicated to the development of ontopsychology. Meneghetti's concept of personality development is based on both philosophical and psychological knowledge. From philosophical works, his theory was influenced by the works of E. Husserl, M. Heidegger, Parmenides. Among psychological studies, the works of A. Adler, Z. Freud, A. Maslow, and K. Jung had the greatest impact.

The main practical task of onotopsychology was to achieve human compliance with his nature, inner essence. Meneghetti identified the basic concepts of personality development:

• “Essence in itself”, or the so-called “In-Se” - the inner core of the human soul, where its true existence lies;
• "In-se's Undistorted Projections";
• “Distorted projections”, or psychological complexes;
• The “conscious-logical self” is the only part of the human psyche that has awareness.

Ontopsychology views a person as immersed in his own mental processes, but at the same time having practically no information about himself. It is believed that the inner core of a person - “In-Se” - has a positive nature. Each person contains all the resources necessary for self-realization. And the more a person’s path deviates from the direction of realizing his capabilities, the greater the feeling of dissatisfaction becomes.

One of the main concepts of personality development according to Meneghetti is that all physical and mental illnesses arise when a person goes against his own nature. He is inclined to blame anyone for his troubles, but is unable to understand that he is destroying himself with his own hands. The implementation of a personal development plan begins with the fact that a person is aware of his individual characteristics and how his current lifestyle interferes with self-realization.

This situation is called existential schizophrenia by ontopsychologists. Translated from ancient Greek, the word “schizophrenia” means “split brain.” When internal desires conflict with circumstances, the demands of society, and a person surrenders to them, existential schizophrenia arises. The main task of a psychotherapist-ontopsychologist is for a person to achieve conformity with his life and inner essence.

Activity concept of personality

Man is a complex dynamic self-developing system, the essence of which can never become completely complete. Being a self-organizing system, it is at the same time an organic part of the “world - man” metasystem, since through its life and activity it is included in the system of social, natural and cosmic interrelations. Characterizing a person as an individual, the Soviet psychologist and philosopher A. N. Leontiev believed that this is primarily a genotypic formation, although its formation continues in ontogenesis, during life. An individual has a certain physical structure, type of nervous system, temperament, needs and other traits that change, develop, suppress, etc. during ontogenesis.

As an individual, a person forms a unified system with the surrounding social environment: the essence of the individual is revealed in the process of its active interaction with the conditions of social life. According to A. N. Leontyev, we habitually designate as “I” a certain mysterious “. Therefore, it is clear that personality is always a certain result of various influences and interactions, but the task is to isolate the main ones from them.

Theorizing within the framework of the social activity approach, A. N. Leontyev substantiated the idea of ​​personality as a specifically social formation, formed mainly in the activity of the subject. Personality is not formed through changes in innate properties, it is created by the entire system of its activities and the social relations in which this activity takes place. For example, the characteristics of higher nervous activity are an “individual” prerequisite for the development of personality, but they do not characterize its content. The latter lies in the individual’s relationship to activity and to other individuals, in the comprehension of both activity and the relationships into which this individual enters.

It follows that in ontogenesis, along with the modification of the innate properties of the individual, the emergence, accumulation and integration of his personal traits occurs. As a result, an alloy of genetically inherited and acquired is born: the substantive content of needs changes, motives and dominant behavior are formed, the individual becomes more and more individualized. Personality is not genotypically determined: people are not born as individuals, they are made as individuals. Personality is a social quality of a person, and its formation is the formation and development of social properties of an individual subject not only in content, but also in origin. The Marxist image of a comprehensively developed personality is an active person, possessing diverse creative abilities, with a pronounced individuality.

The activity concept of personality is developed by some other anthropological movements in European philosophy; it also “fits” into Christian ideas about man. One of the creators of personalism, the French philosopher E. Mounier, proceeded from the fact that human activity not only changes natural reality, but also shapes man himself; it brings people together and enriches the world of our values. The Marxist teaching about the spiritual value of practical activity, he wrote, fully coincides with the Christian concept of labor. Changing the world and personalization as the spiritual development of the individual are inseparable from each other, while changing the world is expedient and justified only to the extent that it serves personalization. Through this prism, personalism examines the concept of culture, believing that culture is a function of personal life, consisting in the profound transformation of the inner world of the subject through his activity: culture is the person himself, creating himself in activity.

So, activity acts as a systemic basis for the development of personality. The formula of the activity principle in its understanding can be expressed in the following form: “what is the activity of the individual, so is his personality.” Within the framework of the activity concept, personality is a relatively stable set of socially developed human properties. Here, through the prism of activity, the formation of all these properties is considered; activity acts as a systemic basis for their dynamics. By their neurodynamic nature, they are conditioned reflex and are associated with the functioning of the second signaling system.

But does every activity shape a person as a personality? The emphasis here is different. Thus, “humanistic psychology” claims that human needs develop on the basis of consumption. In studies devoted to the dynamics of needs, the determination and direction of their evolution, the concept put forward by A. Maslow of spontaneous actualization of higher human needs based on the satisfaction of lower ones still dominates. The latter, according to him, is capable of “revealing” the innate spiritual needs of a higher order dormant in a person.

From this point of view, the more comfortable the living conditions are, the greater heights an individual achieves in his personal development. It is easy to see that such “consumer fundamentalism” in understanding the dynamics of needs is an epiphenomenon of the cultural paradigm of technogenic civilization. This concept of increasing needs acts as a kind of theoretical self-justification for maximizing material consumption. Having been passed through the “filter” of a philosophical concept, the consumer attitude turns out to be theoretically built into the process of personal development and therefore acquires the appearance of genuine humanism.

The opposite view is more or less clearly expressed in the philosophy of such different thinkers as K. Marx, F. Nietzsche, L. N. Tolstoy, E. N. Trubetskoy, N. A. Berdyaev, and in the science and philosophy of our time - A. N. Leontyev and E. V. Ilyenkov. Its essence lies in the fact that the basis for the formation of actually human, personal qualities is the creative, creative and transformative activity of the individual, its content, social character, activity, intensity, etc. It was in labor activity that both the physical and social appearance of the modern person.

At the same time, different types of work have different effects on a person’s personal development. Hard physical labor and tedious monotonous mental work are not sufficiently effective factors in either the physical or, especially, the intellectual development of a person. This factor is creative activity, which most contributes to the accumulation of knowledge, the development of skills, the formation of skills and the formation of individual abilities. The harmonious development of the individual is possible only on the basis of a harmonious system of its social activities. The creation of such a system is the most important task of a society oriented towards humanistic ideals.

At the same time, human activity, of course, is not limited to professional work activity and extends to various forms of activity carried out in free time. The system of social activity of an individual includes socio-political activities, various types of amateur creativity, recreation, and entertainment. Free time can be filled with servicing the exorbitantly expanded material needs of the individual, or it can also become a field for the physical and spiritual development of the individual. The high culture of free time makes it an area of ​​targeted personal self-improvement.

Finally, human activity appears as a social process, that is, a process taking place in certain social forms and under certain social conditions. This circumstance is no less important for the formation of personality than the content of activity. Social conditions can limit the development of an individual in one direction or another, opening up to him only a more or less narrow range of opportunities for spiritual growth. Therefore, in different social conditions, individuals with different inclinations are formed. In addition, too narrow a horizon of freedom can limit the development of the entire spectrum of an individual’s creative inclinations.

Thus, according to K. Marx, private property leads to the alienation of the individual, to the dehumanization of man, the alienation of his own nature, because it gives rise to a purely external motivation for work - the need to ensure individual existence. In addition, it gives rise to alienated relationships between people, when the internal connection between individuals (collectivism) is replaced by the relationship of the usefulness of another person, a means to achieve individual goals.

Capitalist society creates an owner - an active, proactive, active person, but his activity is selfish in nature, it is aimed primarily at making profit. This contributes to the economic development of society, but does not contribute to the development of human moral qualities, developing in him greed, callousness, cynicism, and corruption. As for those who are deprived of property and forced to sell their labor power, they develop a tendency towards hypocrisy, currying favor with the owner and other manifestations of slave psychology.

K. Marx wrote about this: “To be a slave or to be a citizen are social definitions, the relations of person A

to

person
B. Person A
as such is not a slave. He is a slave in and through society." The modern Russian philosopher A. A. Zinoviev, who lived in the West for many years, said: “There I am a slave in the full sense of the word. A slave to the monetary totalitarianism that forms the social system of Western countries.” Private property gives rise to slavery and continuously reproduces it: one is a slave of the owner, the other is a slave of property, which ultimately makes life meaningless. A. Camus wrote about this: “Life too quickly becomes a habit. You want to earn money to live happily, and in the end all your strength, the whole color of your life goes into getting it. Happiness is forgotten, the means is taken for the end.” It is very difficult for a reasonable person in an unreasonable society. He does not look for the meaning of life outside of himself - it simply isn’t there.

A market society, focused on everyday life, on momentary success, is unable to generate creators and creativity (technical, social, political, pedagogical, moral, etc.) as a mass social phenomenon. What kind of personalities does modern Russian society “produce”, striving to maximize material consumption, focused on everyday life, on momentary success? According to experts, over the past two decades, not a single work of literature or art has been created in the country that even approaches the level of a masterpiece. There are no statesmen, no geniuses, no heroes. And just kind, decent people are lost in a sea of ​​criminal “business”, bargaining, rudeness, and general moral impotence... Such “reforms” are beneficial to people who are not burdened with morality and a disposition for the common good. According to surveys, among those who benefited from the reforms, only 29.6% follow moral standards, while among the losers - 62.1%.

Well, even G. Hegel saw that a person who works only for himself is doomed to selfishness. Only his work for society, in the name of society, elevates a person; it makes a person an individual. L.N. Tolstoy focused on the social orientation of human activity: “he can serve the world only by improving himself - only by serving the world.” This formula, paradoxical at first glance, expresses the idea of ​​the identity of activity oriented toward serving the world and the subject’s personal self-improvement. L.N. Tolstoy in his own way echoes E.N. Trubetskoy: when a person serves God, when he does work that is needed by society, his homeland, and even just close people, then, regardless of the content of the work, he forges his human image in it. A person understands himself as an element of an integral world.

If a person does not see happiness in working for the common good, if he is ready to work only for money, his place is in. A.P. Chekhov spoke through the lips of his hero: “They live richly, but they are afraid…” And he complained about the “cursed life”: “My soul is exhausted from the consciousness that I work for money.”

A developed person is impossible on his own; he is formed in the presence of appropriate social prerequisites - in social conditions favorable to his development. As a mass social phenomenon, a highly developed personality is a product of a highly developed society. This is a society where the creative content of work, personal improvement in free time, and the participation of people in social management, in the discussion and determination of social perspectives and ideals are cultivated. In Soviet society, notes A. A. Zinoviev, the most ambitious attempt was made to educate an exemplary, highly moral and comprehensively developed person on a mass scale. Masses of people rose from poverty, illiteracy and savagery to the heights of culture.

So, personality is an individual, “personified” being of social activity and social relations. By mastering the values ​​and patterns of behavior created by society, participating in their creation, reproducing social relations in the forms of his activity, the individual becomes a personality.

From this understanding of personality it follows: since human activity takes place in certain historical conditions, the individuals who make up this or that society always have some similarity both in natural and social characteristics. However, neither the content nor the social forms of activity, being basically the same, equate people according to their personal qualities. Simple life observations indicate that not all individuals follow the path of personal development consistently and to the end: some stop halfway, others even at the beginning. D. A. Leontyev notes in this regard: “People are equal in prerequisites, but not equal in the end.”

What explains this inequality? Raising this question brings us to the problem of the formation of human individuality. Through what theoretical lens can we see a solution to this problem? We have already talked about biologizing approaches to understanding personality and its formation. Taking the point of view of biologization is the same as reducing psychology to physiology. But in the same way, ignoring natural prerequisites, i.e., a sociologizing approach to personality, prevents us from understanding it, just as separating psychology from physiology does not help it. The formation of individuality occurs under the combined influence of natural and social factors, which are reflected in the spiritual world of the individual. Analysis of its structure and methods of development will allow us to better understand the interaction of internal and external, natural and social in the formation of an individual.

Personality Development and Jungian Analytical Psychology

As you know, Carl Gustav Jung was a student of Freud. But he moved significantly away from the central idea of ​​Freudian psychoanalysis. In Jung's theory, the struggle with the animal part of oneself does not occupy a central place. Jung's concept of personality development, in addition to the individual unconscious, includes the collective unconscious. The collective unconscious is the “memory of generations.” It includes all the experiences that people who lived before us could have experienced.

The collective unconscious manifests itself in archetypes - those images that are common to all humanity. Jung considered the images repeated among different peoples to be direct evidence of the theory of the collective unconscious. For example, in many myths and legends there is a figure of the goddess of fertility, who is the archetype of the Mother.

Other concepts in Jung's concept are "Ego", "Persona", "Anima", "Animus" and "Shadow". The “I” is the central part of a person’s conscious activity. “Persona” is a mask that is worn in public, in society. The female archetype within the male psyche is called “Anima”, and the male archetype within the female psyche is called “Animus”. “Shadow” are those character traits the presence of which the individual himself does not recognize in himself. “Ego” has two sides: light - what a person recognizes in himself, and also dark - “Shadow”.

Jung's concept of personality development: goal

Jung's concept of personality development suggests that the goal of becoming is to find oneself. The “I” always turns out to be hidden under a guise, a “Persona”. The process of self-knowledge begins with the fact that a person becomes acquainted with the “Shadow”. The process of individuation, or psychological birth, occurs throughout life. This is how Jung's theory differs from Freud's ideas, according to which personality development occurs mainly at the beginning of life.

According to analytical psychology, created by Jung, personality development occurs in the process of acquiring new skills and self-knowledge. It represents the desire for peace, wholeness and harmony. The main goal in life is the full realization of the capabilities of the “Ego”.

Personality development according to Adler

Alfred Adler was the first psychologist to introduce the concept of “inferiority complex.” In contrast to the psychoanalytic theory developed by Freud, Adler gives the main role not to sexuality, but to social factors. The basic concept of personality development according to Adler is that personality is formed through a “life style.” Life style is a set of psychological attitudes that are compensatory in nature. For example, the ancient Greek orator Demosthenes suffered from a stutter in his youth. Many of the commanders - Napoleon, Suvorov - were short.

Adler believed that all children from birth feel inferior to their omnipotent parents. Therefore, the task of combating an inferiority complex faces every child. It can be carried out both positively and negatively - in this case, a person grows with a desire for power over others. But usually the desire to compensate for one’s inferiority is the engine of development.

According to Adler, the main role in the development of personality is played by a person’s “Ego” - it is with its help that a person chooses a certain type of behavior and individual attitudes. An obstacle to development is social rules. However, no person can exist without society, so the conflict between creative self-realization and social norms is inevitable. Alfred calls this conflict "the eternal desire to gain the approval of society and cease to be a part of it."

System-role concept of personality formation

Education is considered as a process of mastering a number of social roles. As a result, a personality is formed that is ready to try on any of them.

Social roles of the student:

1. Interpersonal: friend, interlocutor, tormentor, helper and others.
2. Group: leader, outcast, renegade.
3. Household: daughter, brother, sister, neighbor and others.
4. Organizational: event organizer, client, partner, subordinate.

The essence of all pedagogical processes lies in an integrated approach to education, combining various methods. All activities are aimed at developing a full-fledged personality useful to society.

Personality development according to A. S. Makarenko

A. S. Makarenko is a brilliant domestic psychologist. In 1988, UNESCO identified four teachers who, with their works, defined the entire method of pedagogy of the 20th century - they turned out to be D. Dewey, G. Kershensteiner, M. Montessori and A. Makarenko.

Makarenko organized colonies for those children whom society considered completely spoiled - boys-thieves, girls-prostitutes. No one could cope with them - even parents sometimes brought their children to the teacher on their own. And Makarenko achieved enormous results in his skill. He independently, without the help of educators, headed the colony for juvenile offenders. Dzerzhinsky. The number of its inhabitants reached 500-600 people.

Currently, statistics from the Prosecutor General's Office show: about 10% of orphanage graduates adapt to society, 40% develop alcoholism or drug addiction, and about 10% commit suicide. For comparison, out of 3 thousand graduates of A. S. Makarenko there was not a single criminal case. Many already adult graduates considered themselves “happy people.”

However, despite the successes, the concept of personality development according to A. S. Makarenko was not recognized by official pedagogical science. One of his opponents was N. S. Krupskaya. The Makarenko system was banned in Soviet schools and orphanages. Makarenko was saved by the writer M. Gorky - it was thanks to his efforts that the teacher got the opportunity to work in the colony named after. Dzerzhinsky.

Basic concepts of the colonist program

How did Makarenko achieve such brilliant results? The personal development program for the colonists included several concepts - business, format, and the core of the team.

Business is an occupation that the colonists had. Business was a source of income for them and at the same time discipline. With the money they earned, the inmates of the colony supported themselves and their younger comrades, went on hikes, and saved money for the future. At the age of 17-19, many already became production masters.

The core of the team. The educator was not involved in educating the residents of the colony. The plan for the personal development of new arrivals was the responsibility of the authoritative members of the colony. In their own language, they explained to them the basic values ​​of the team - Makarenko himself only observed that this happened within the framework of civilization.

Format. Makarenko carefully ensured that there was strict discipline in the colony. He introduced special rules and rituals, thanks to which order was possible in the colony. The teacher was sure that the children should not even push each other, behave decently - Makarenko was never a supporter of humanistic theories, he valued restraint, discipline and military order.

Human development concept

1. Features of human development

The reality of poorly managed human development in the unique nature of the planet has led to many complex problems - from overuse of resources, pollution of nature and the emergence of signs of a global environmental crisis, to ongoing military conflicts, terrorism, inequality, poverty, homelessness, poverty of some and wealth of others . New realities are entering the complex life of humanity - the capitalization of life, the transformation of all its factors into capital (up to payment for each goal in football); computerization, virtual reality, which partially replaces real life, including many factors of real communication and interaction between people; many intermediate, important goals for the development of mankind arise - ending wars, eliminating terrorism, increasing welfare, universal access to the Internet, etc.; sometimes, against this background, goals are born that are environmentally unjustified, or are not sufficiently in demand in real life, but cause large material costs: flights to nearby planets, the creation of settlements on the Moon and other planets, the construction of gigantic buildings and structures, etc.; New “pink” technologies are constantly being developed, which will supposedly be able to solve many pressing problems of the present and future, and centuries-old unrealistic “pink” hopes for a better future, including ridding humanity of diseases with the help of new technologies, do not stop.

Against this complex background of growing problems in the development of mankind, the main goal of mankind is being pushed into the background - its natural development and survival as a species in conditions of the preserved natural nature of the planet. It is quite possible that the Earth with its flora and fauna, and humans, are unique in the Universe (no data on the presence of extraterrestrial civilizations has yet been found, despite searches). Preserving a unique planet for everyone living on it is the most important task of humanity. If we accept this concept, then the main vital factors in the development of mankind become factors that can ensure the survival of mankind and the preservation of the Earth’s nature necessary for this in the long term.

But the possibility of solving this problem is complicated by simplified human thinking, associated primarily with a multiple (somewhat simplified - triple, triune) brain, including ancient structures and the new cortex, united by neural networks and interacting with each other. Among them are the almost simultaneous passage of impulses from the receptors of sensory systems through many ancient, old and newer (but grown from old) structures, their active participation in analyzing information and making decisions, the important role of emotions in thinking and consciousness (coloring thoughts with feelings), limited short-term memory, unconscious analysis of the majority of incoming information and conscious analysis of minimal information, the presence of an individual “I”, etc. These features most often lead to a simplified perception of reality, which is not perceived as a disadvantage; a simplified analysis is completely acceptable for a person, since a simple - from two to three sides - assessment of objects and phenomena is the simplest and most understandable. Abstract “human” thinking is brightly colored by “animal” emotions and feelings.

Many emotions are not associated with the work of the cortex and consciousness. Some researchers believe that the emotional sphere plays a large and even decisive role in thinking. The idea expressed by many researchers that information from the senses does not enter directly into the neocortex, but through more ancient and deeply located structures, is quite legitimate. These structures “pass” information from the senses and response information through themselves, acting as a kind of filter, and, apparently, in a number of situations, conflicting with each other, producing contradictory decisions. “Man did not descend from lower species, but he carries them within himself: man is an all-animal and contains within himself, as it were, the entire program of creation” (S.N. Bulgakov) (Fig. 1). The human brain is an incredibly complex and complex organ. At the same time, many older structures are designed to perform the same functions as newer ones, and therefore signals from the senses arrive at many addresses and are simultaneously analyzed. The ancient structures perform this analysis as parts of the brains of various animal ancestors, while the neocortex acts as part of the brains of higher animals and humans. The human brain has not grown for a long time, which has led to the lack of growth of the new, upper part of the cortex, which is the most complex and responsible for the most complex functions of the brain.

Rice. 1. All-in-one “all-animal” brain?

Man, who is prone to a simplified interaction with nature, turned out to be unadapted to the real binary plural world. The features of this “crisis” thinking and corresponding actions leading to a crisis lie in phylogenesis, in the structure and functioning of the complex human brain. From here comes the desire to cut off the entire negative part of the world, to exclude negative branches of development from consciousness, and to imagine the possibility of achieving “paradise” without the huge negative half of the world. Human development is accompanied by a sharp increase in technogenic diversity, replacing biodiversity. The pace of natural and technogenic evolution is incomparable. Natural evolution proceeds slowly in human terms (compared to human lifespan). A person constantly strives to speed it up in order to quickly get results, so that a person can see the work of his hands. One of the rules of human development is its inability to foresee the future as a result of its actions. An analysis of previous experience shows that there are certain rules for the development and application of new technologies: 1. Every technological achievement of mankind is accompanied by a set of negative consequences. 2. The negative consequences of scientific and technological achievements may develop with a delay. 3. Humanity ultimately has to solve the problem of eliminating or reducing negative consequences. 4. Sometimes the costs of eliminating negative consequences are higher than the effect of a technical achievement. 5. The greater the level of technical achievement, the higher the level of negative consequences.

The perception of reality is complicated by the fact that any development (of nature, society, man) proceeds with ramifications that sooner or later balance the “positive” and “negative” (from the human point of view) branches. Only such evolution supports the existence of an integral binary multiple world, which can exist thanks to the binary plurality of objects and phenomena (Fig. 2).

Rice. 2. Branching development followed by balancing of branches

In the concept of development with ramifications, one of the main problems is the possibility of one-sided positive development. Can objects and phenomena be completely positive for a person? Can an existence of humanity not burdened by many problems come to pass? In accordance with the idea of ​​a binary plural world developing with ramifications, everything negative (sins, evil, lies, selfishness, ugliness) will never disappear. Apparently, the only true philosophy, the only true social formation will never be created. All of humanity will never completely become smart, beautiful, healthy, kind, or prone to altruism. As long as the binary plural nature is alive, man will be forced to fight sins and evil.

2. The concept of positive development. On the possibility of positive development

In the context of the continuous growth of negative human impacts on the natural environment, which has led to global environmental problems and a global environmental crisis, the question of the possibility of further positive development of humanity is becoming increasingly complex. This is confirmed by the graphs of human development, which moved from centuries of calm development in the 20th century to sharp exponential forms. The exponential form is dangerous because any of the development processes can become uncontrollable. The history of the evolution of environmental consciousness shows that the environmental crisis led to the emergence of new environmentally friendly ideas about the interaction of man and nature, the accelerated development of more environmentally friendly theories - environmental psychology, philosophy and ethics. New ideas about the intrinsic value of nature, the unity of man and nature, and the preferability of non-pragmatic interaction with nature have emerged and are gradually deepening.

3. Reducing the eco-footprint. Transition to “zero” growth

Humanity is able to survive only surrounded by an ecologically sound natural area of ​​the Earth. There is an urgent need to reduce the ecological footprint of humanity (simultaneously with its humane, environmentally and ethically sound equalization between countries and residents), including a return to preserving 2/3 of nature in its natural state, and control of the use of non-renewable resources to meet the needs of future generations. Humanity has no reserve of time to think about the need or unnecessaryness of reducing its ecological footprint. Life itself has raised the most important question about the permissibility of countries’ aspirations for sustainable economic growth on a planetary scale. Such growth is observed in many countries, but it leads not only to economic development and increased prosperity, but also to an increase in environmental problems. The concept of zero growth arose as a natural response to growing environmental problems. When analyzing this most important problem for humanity, one must proceed from the fundamental limitation imposed by the finite resources of the planet. It is necessary not only to move to “zero” growth, but also, in many cases, to reduce the already achieved negative impacts on the Earth’s nature, that is, to “negative” growth. There are sectors of human activity that require technological, environmental and ethical analysis in order to revise their development: this applies to sectors that use limited resources (automotive industry, a number of types of traditional energy, etc.), with dangerous impacts on the living environment (certain types of weapons, nuclear energy, etc.), irrelevant from the point of view of the survival of mankind (certain areas of space research, the creation of especially dangerous weapons, etc.), with large-scale interventions in nature (deforestation, etc.), with the growth of greenhouse effect and global climate change.

4. Humanity of equal access of people to resources

All people born on the planet should have equal access to the planet's resources, regardless of their place of birth or the degree of wealth of their parents. At birth, all people are equal before God, and only then, when the place of birth and the degree of provision of parents and the country with resources are taken into account, do they become unequal. It is wrong from a humane point of view to provide equal rights to all inhabitants in accessing the planet's resources. Therefore, one of the main features of a positive, humane society should be equal access for all residents to the Earth's resources. A. Peccei, a member of the Club of Rome, wrote about this in 1977: “Nowadays the opinion is increasingly spreading that natural resources represent the common heritage of all mankind.”

5. Optimization of human settlement on the planet

The resettlement of people across the planet occurred and is still happening spontaneously, without any plans providing for equal access of people to the territory, uniform settlement of different nations on land. The problem of optimal settlement of the planet's inhabitants is also connected with national traditions, with the adaptability of residents to certain geographical zones and landscapes. Modern, not optimal, settlement is due to the long and complex history of the planet, wars, conquests of territories, the selfish aspirations of former dictators and individual modern leaders (and peoples). Uneven population density is typical for both cities and large areas. The famous ecologist Yu. Odum calculated that 60% of the planet’s territory should be left in its natural state. But since then, in less than half a century, the situation has worsened significantly: humanity has already mastered the territory of the planet and is living on credit. In the course of the expected reduction of the ecological footprint, and the transition to the optimal distribution of humanity on the planet, it will be possible to eliminate borders between states, promoting greater trust and eliminating border conflicts.

6. Elimination of excessive wealth and poverty

Associated with the existence of rich and poor countries and people is the most important problem of eliminating excessive wealth and poverty that are unacceptable in the conditions of human survival. Rich people and countries consume far more resources (which is environmentally unacceptable) than other countries, and emit the bulk of humanity's pollution. It is necessary to introduce international restrictions on wealth and poverty, for example, on the amount of money, luxury goods, castles, yachts, cars, etc. owned by one person. All these things in the hands of one person have no value for humanity, and therefore they must be excluded . The same restrictions should apply to the most developed countries that have unacceptable ecological footprints. No one should live at someone else's expense.

7. Adoption of uniform laws aimed at preserving nature and people.

Now the laws of different countries regarding the conservation of nature and humans are different. Almost no one imposes sanctions for the rapid depletion of resources, since this depletion is often caused by the need for the survival of the people. Pollution of nature is also associated with the need for industrial or agricultural development of countries, and therefore no attention is paid to it. Many countries use their resources exhaustively, to the point of rapid exhaustion. Sometimes they do not take enough care of the safety of their resources. From the point of view of the interests of all mankind, natural resources that are especially important to it should be preserved as much as possible and used within environmentally acceptable limits. International monitoring is necessary to control these parameters. Sanctions should be applied for non-environmentally sound use of resources and pollution.

8. Ensuring social equality and preservation of individual races and ethnic groups

Social and economic inequality, poverty, destitution, homelessness, and the gradual extinction of individual nationalities persist in the world. At the same time, individual nationalities are growing rapidly in numbers, which cannot be considered environmentally and ethically justified in terms of ensuring the survival of the entire population of the planet. The planet must ensure social and economic equality, independent of nationality, and equal development of different peoples and nationalities, in order to preserve individual races, ethnic groups, and nationalities. All races, ethnic groups, nationalities are equally valuable for the planet and have equal rights to existence and development.

9. Elimination of excessive weapons. Prohibition on their creation

The world has accumulated a huge amount of weapons, making it possible to repeatedly destroy all life on Earth. The origins of humanity’s general belligerence and respect for the army, weapons, and their creators lie in the complex, conflict-ridden history of humanity, in the need for survival. All previous centuries were filled with armed conflicts, long-term wars, aggressive and liberating, often completely senseless. When assessing the need for weapons development, it is advisable to take into account the following circumstances: 1. All wars end in peace. 2. There is no point in humanity accumulating such a quantity of weapons that could destroy life on the planet many times over. 3. Weapons must be constantly modernized, and outdated ones must be disposed of (which is not always possible) or buried (which can be dangerous). 4. Modernization of weapons can and will inevitably lead to the creation of super-powerful weapons that are unacceptable on Earth from various points of view - the danger of their use, the difficulty or impossibility of disposal, and falling into the hands of criminals. 5. Therefore, it is necessary to eliminate excessive weapons and a subsequent ban on the creation of overly effective weapons. In modern conditions of interstate conflicts, global terrorism, confrontation between military blocs, the presence of huge armies, working military industry and research organizations, the interpenetration of military and civilian technologies, interstate mistrust, interstate competition in the creation of new weapons, coming from the depths of centuries of “poeticization” of many features of the military people (many military figures played an important role in the life of countries and enjoy well-deserved fame), this problem, apparently, is one of the most difficult to solve.

10. International ban on large-scale interventions in nature

Now large-scale interventions in nature and humans are flourishing, despite the presence of environmental postulates warning against their inadmissibility. Among the latest in time is the beginning of cutting down the largest and most productive “rain” tropical forest on Earth in the river basin. Amazon (Brazil); expansion of oil and gas production worldwide; untested based on the results of intervention at a subtle genetic level, etc. So far, humanity, fortunately, has not received a global negative response from technological improvement. In order to prevent this in the future, it is necessary to introduce an international ban on large-scale interventions in nature and humans that have not been tested for their consequences.

Literature. Tetior A.N. Integrity, beauty, expediency of the multiple world of nature - Tver: Tver Book Publishing House, 2005.

Basic provisions of the Makarenko system

Many teachers, seeing children marching in formation, fell into horror. Makarenko’s personal development program gave brilliant results - but, as they believed, “the methods were not right.” The main idea of ​​the teacher was the following: children can and should work. But now the time of child labor is prohibited. In fact, the Makarenko system is implemented only in some private enterprises.

Makarenko’s personal development program was based on discipline, which, at the same time, was not a method of education. Rather, order was its result. For the teacher, education was not a reading of morality - it was strictly established orders, the organization of the life of the colonists. The interests of the individual were always subordinated to the interests of the collective if the individual opposed public opinion. At the same time, Makarenko advocated democratic relations in the team and the possibility of creative self-expression. The teacher created all the conditions to ensure that the psychological climate in the colony was favorable. One of the main means of education was a mandatory regime for everyone. The regime must be precise and expedient.

Makarenko’s works were greatly influenced by the works of M. Gorky. The writer is known for having an optimistic approach to human nature, believing in his strength, and this is reflected in Makarenko’s concept of personality development. The teacher believed that the responsibility that a teacher bears is worth learning from Gorky. After all, the writer, having the ability to see the best in a person, was never moved by these traits and did not lower the bar of requirements.

Basic theories of child psychological development

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Biogenetic concepts of development

The emergence of the first concepts of child development was greatly influenced by Charles Darwin's theory, which for the first time clearly formulated the idea that development, genesis, is subject to a certain law. Then E. Haeckel and J. Müller formulated the famous biogenetic law: during intrauterine development, an animal or a person briefly repeats the stages that a given species goes through in its phylogenesis.

S. Hall formulated a similar law for postnatal development. Theories of mental development associated with the idea of ​​repetition in this development of human history are usually called theories of recapitulation,

they are based on the idea of ​​preformationism.

With the advent of the works of E. Thorndike and I.P. Pavlov, the idea of ​​linking mental development only with the development of instincts ceased to prevail. I. P. Pavlov showed that there are also acquired forms of behavior, which are based on a conditioned reflex

or a series of conditioned reflexes.
Human development began to be reduced to manifestations of instincts and training. W. Köhler's experiments on monkeys led to the discovery of intelligence in anthropoid apes. On this basis, theories began to appear according to which the psyche in its development goes through three stages: instinct, training and intelligence.
These views can be clearly seen in the development theory of K. Bühler. He associated three stages of development, their occurrence not only with the maturation of the brain and the complication of relationships with the environment, but also with the development of affective processes, with the development of the experience of pleasure associated with action.

And in modern theories of development, supporters of biologizing views, assigning the leading role in the development of a person’s personality to its natural biological basis, believe that the basic mental properties of a person are, as it were, inherent in the very nature of a person, which determines his destiny in life. They consider intelligence, immoral character traits, etc. to be genetically programmed. We see the assumption of preformationism in the theory of J. Piaget, who believes that the maturation of the mind looks like something biologically determined, and among representatives of humanistic psychology, such as, for example, A. Maslow, who , emphasizing the innate component of human humane needs (love, sympathy, respect), proves that they have an instinctoid nature specific to the human race.

Sociogenetic concepts of development

The origins of the sociogenetic trend are in the ideas of the 17th century philosopher. John Locke. He believed that a child is born with a soul as pure as a wax board. On this board, the teacher can write whatever he wants, and the child, not burdened by heredity, will grow up to be the way his close adults want him to be.

Emphasizing another factor in contrast to biologizers - social,

the authors of sociogenetic concepts believe that there is nothing innate in human behavior and every action is only a product of external stimulation. From here, by manipulating external stimuli, it is possible to create a person of any type. The representative of this concept is the American psychologist J. Watson.

The idea of ​​combining stimulus and response, conditioned and unconditioned stimuli, came to the forefront in learning research, after the idea of ​​conducting a rigorous scientific experiment, following the example of the experiments of I. P. Pavlov, entered American psychology

the associationist theory of learning
arose (J. Watson, E. Ghazri).

When the attention of researchers was attracted by the functions of the unconditioned stimulus in establishing a new associative stimulus-reactive connection, the concept of learning arose,

in which the main emphasis was placed on the value of
reinforcement.
These were the concepts of E. Thorndike and B. Skinner, called
behaviorism.
The search for answers to the question of whether learning depends on such states of the subject as hunger, thirst, pain, led to the emergence of the concepts of N. Miller and K. Hal.

Another idea of ​​Pavlov’s experiment was refracted in a special way in the minds of American psychologists—the idea of ​​constructing a new behavioral act in the laboratory. It resulted in the idea of ​​“technology of behavior”, its construction on the basis of positive reinforcement of any act chosen at the request of the behavior experimenter (B. Skinner). Such a mechanistic approach to behavior completely ignored the need to orient the subject in the conditions of his own action, i.e., a mental act.

In classical behaviorism, the problem of “child development” is not specifically emphasized - there is only the problem of learning based on the presence or absence of reinforcement under the influence of the environment.

Thus, in sociogenetic theories, the environment was considered as the main factor in the development of the psyche; the child’s activity was not taken into account.

The concept of convergence of two factors of child development

In an attempt to answer the question of how environment and heredity relate, the theory of convergence, or the theory of two factors, developed by V. Stern, arose. Stern is a specialist in the field of differential psychology, in which the most acute problem is the relationship between the biological and the social. In psychology, there were two theoretical concepts that equally had the right to exist - empiricism (“man is a blank slate”) and nativism (“there are innate ideas”). If each of two opposing points of view can be based on serious grounds, then the truth must lie in their combination, as V. Stern believed (1922). From his point of view, mental development is the result of the convergence of internal data with external conditions. In this convergence, the leading role remains with the innate components. V. Stern wrote that one cannot ask about any function or property: does it occur from the outside or from the inside? The only logical question is: what exactly is happening from the outside and what is happening from the inside? Because in the manifestation of a function, both always act, only each time in different proportions.

The theory of convergence considers mental development as a process that develops under the influence of the X-elements of heredity and the Y-elements of the environment. This is the most common concept in modern psychology. Thus, the English psychologist G. Eysenck believed that intelligence is determined 80% by the influence of heredity and 20% by the influence of the environment. 3. Freud also failed to go beyond the concept of two development factors. The method of psychoanalysis allowed him to create a structural theory of personality, which is based on the conflict between the instinctive sphere of a person’s mental life and the demands of society. According to 3. Freud, every person is born with innate sexual desires. This internal psychic authority - “It” - under the influence of prohibitions, distinguishes from itself a small piece of “I”. With the advent of not only physical prohibitions, but also moral maxims, a new instance of the “Super-I” develops, which limits our desires until old age. The “I” is under pressure from the “It” and the “Super-Ego”. This is a typical diagram of two development factors, but it is interesting because here environmental influences displace sexual desires - they are in an antagonistic, contradictory relationship with them.

Psychoanalytic theories of child development

Two discoveries of 3. Freud - the discovery of the unconscious and the discovery of the sexual principle - form the basis of the theoretical concept of psychoanalysis.

In the last model of personality 3. Freud identified three main components: “Id”, “I” and “Super-ego”. “It” is the most primitive component, the carrier of instincts, a “seething cauldron of drives”, subject to the principle of pleasure. The “I” instance follows the principle of reality and takes into account the features of the external world. The “super-ego” serves as the bearer of moral standards. Since the demands on the “I” from the “It”, “Super-Ego” and reality are incompatible, it is inevitable that he will remain in a situation of conflict, creating unbearable tension, from which the personality is saved with the help of special “defense mechanisms” - such as repression , projection, regression, sublimation.

3. Freud reduces all stages of mental development to stages of transformation and movement through various erogenous zones of libidinal, or sexual, energy.

Oral stage (0-1 year).

The main source of pleasure is concentrated in the area of ​​activity associated with feeding.

Anal stage (1-3 years).

Libido is concentrated around the anus, which becomes the object of attention of the child, accustomed to neatness.

Phallic stage (3-5 years)

characterizes the highest degree of child sexuality. The genital organs become the leading erogenous zone. Sexuality at this stage is objective and directed towards parents. Libidinal attachment to parents of the opposite sex 3. Freud called the Oedipus complex for boys and the Electra complex for girls.

Latent stage (5-12 years).

Decreased sexual interest. The energy of libido is transferred to the development of universal human experience.

Genital stage (12-18 years).

According to Z. Freud, a teenager strives for one goal - normal sexual communication, all erogenous zones are united. If normal sexual communication is difficult, then phenomena of fixation or regression to one of the previous stages can be observed.

Psychoanalysis was developed in the works of Freud’s daughter, Anna Freud. Adhering to the classic personality structure for psychoanalysis, in its instinctive part she identified the sexual and aggressive components. A. Freud views child development as a process of gradual socialization of the child, subject to the law of transition from the principle of pleasure to the principle of reality.

Erik Erikson's epigenetic theory of personality

E. Erikson's theory arose from the practice of psychoanalysis. Accepting Freud's personality structure, he created a psychoanalytic concept about the relationship between the “I” and society. Drawing attention to the role of the “I” in the development of personality, E. Erikson shifted the emphasis from “It” to “I”. In his opinion, the foundations of the human “I” are rooted in the social organization of society. Using psychoanalysis in post-war America, he saw various phenomena - anxiety, apathy, cruelty, confusion - as the result of the impact of the difficult period of war on the individual.

E. Erikson devotes his research mainly to the processes of socialization.

The works of E. Erikson mark the beginning of a new path in the study of the psyche - the psychohistorical method, which is the application of psychoanalysis to history. This method requires equal attention to both the psychology of the individual and the nature of the society in which the person lives.

E. Erikson conducted ethnographic field studies of child rearing in two Indian tribes and came to the conclusion that the style of motherhood is always determined by what exactly the social group to which he belongs expects from the child in the future. If an individual meets the expectations of society, he is included in it and vice versa. These considerations formed the basis of two important concepts of his concept - “group identity” and “ego identity”.

Group identity is formed due to the fact that from the first day of life, the upbringing of a child is focused on his inclusion in a given social group.

Ego identity is formed in parallel with group identity and creates in the subject a sense of stability and continuity of his “I”, despite the changes that occur to a person in the process of his growth and development.

E. Erikson identified the stages of a person’s life path, each of them is characterized by a specific task that is put forward by society.

Infancy (oral stage)

- trust - distrust.

Early age (anal stage) -

autonomy - doubt, shame.

Age of play (phallic stage)

- initiative - feeling of guilt.

School age (latent stage)

- achievement - inferiority.

Adolescence (latent stage)

— identity — diffusion of identity.

Youth

- intimacy - isolation.

Maturity

- creativity - stagnation.

Old age

- integration - disappointment in life.

The formation of all forms of identity is accompanied by a development crisis.

Social learning theory

The concept of social learning shows how a child adapts to the modern world, how he learns the habits and norms of modern society.

Representatives of this school of thought believe that along with classical conditioning and operant conditioning, there is also learning through imitation and imitation.

Thus, A. Bandura believed that reward and punishment are not sufficient to teach new behavior. Children acquire new behavior through imitation of a model. Learning occurs through observation, imitation (imitation of authority models), and identification (the process in which a person borrows thoughts, feelings, or actions from another person who acts as a model).

The famous American psychologist R. Sire proposed the principle of dyadic analysis of personality development. Since the actions of each person always depend on the other and are oriented towards him, many personality traits are initially formed in so-called “dyadic situations”. He identified three phases of child development:

- phase of rudimentary behavior

- based on innate needs and learning in early infancy;

— phase of primary motivational systems

- based on learning within the family (the main phase of socialization);

— phase of secondary motivational systems

- based on learning outside the family.

According to R. Sears, the central component of learning is dependence, that is, a child’s need that cannot be ignored.

The main concept of B. Skinner's concept is reinforcement, i.e. an increase or decrease in the probability that the corresponding act of behavior will be repeated again. Reinforcement can be positive and negative, primary (food, water, cold) and conditional (money, signs of love, attention, etc.).

J. Gewirtz focused his attention on studying the conditions for the emergence of social motivation and the attachment of an infant to an adult and an adult to a child.

The source of motivation for a child’s behavior, in his opinion, is the stimulating influence of the environment and learning based on reinforcement.

J. Whiting and his colleagues, continuing the well-known (cross-cultural) research of M. Mead, showed the fruitfulness of the comparative study of children in different cultures.

Having studied the ways in which infants are cared for in cultures, researchers have come to the conclusion that these aspects of a child’s life have a determining influence on his perception of the world.

Cognitive theory of development (concept of J. Piaget)

At the center of J. Piaget’s concept is the position about the interaction between the organism and the environment, or equilibrium. The external environment is constantly changing, so the subject strives to establish balance with it. Balance with the environment can be established in two ways: either by the subject adapting the external environment to himself by changing it, or by changes in the subject himself.

J. Piaget identified the mechanisms of this device;

assimilation

- this is when an individual adapts new information to his existing action patterns without changing them in principle; Assimilation is comparable to the digestion of food: the solution to a problem situation occurs with the help of existing action patterns or cognitive patterns. When reading, assimilation of information occurs. Using a general “grasping pattern,” a child can grasp a wide variety of objects. Assimilation ensures the safety and stability of cognitive structures. The problematic situation or new object itself undergoes some transformation.

accommodation

- a mechanism when an individual adapts his previously formed reactions to new information, that is, he is forced to rebuild old schemes. Accommodation is a change in schemas in relation to a new situation, a new task; it provides variability, development, and the development of new patterns. The child learns to prepare his hands and fingers differently, depending on whether he is handed a piece of paper or a ball (the grasping pattern has undergone accommodation).

Development of intelligence

- this is the process of maturation of operational structures (concepts), gradually growing out of the child’s objective everyday experience against the background of the manifestation of these two main mechanisms.

Balancing tendencies of assimilation and accommodation

provides the most effective adaptation, but this state is always only approximate and temporary, which is again replaced by an imbalance.

According to Piaget, the process of development of intelligence consists of three large periods.

Period of sensorimotor intelligence (0-2 years)

- stage of pre-conceptual intelligence. During this period, the newborn perceives the world without knowing himself as a subject, without understanding his own actions. At this stage, the formation and development of sensory and motor structures—sensory and motor abilities—occurs.

Period of specific operations (2-11/12 years).

At this age, there is a gradual internalization of action patterns and their transformation into operations that allow the child to compare, evaluate, classify, rank, measure, etc. The central characteristics of the child’s mental activity during this period of his cognitive development are egocentrism of thinking and the idea of preservation.
Within this period, J. Piaget identified the pre-operational stage,
which characterizes intuitive, visual thinking at the age
of 2 to 6/7 years
, and
the stage of concrete operations (6/7-11/12 years
).

Period of formal operations (11/12-14/15 years).

Within the framework of formal-logical intelligence, mental operations can be performed without relying on sensory perception of specific objects. The presence of this level of thinking allows teenagers to solve problems in their minds, as if “scrolling” in their heads all possible options for solving the problem, and only after that experimentally check the expected results.

Cultural-historical concept

In 1927, L. S. Vygotsky, together with a group of collaborators (A. N. Leontiev, A. R. Luria, A. V. Zaporozhets, L. I. Bozhovich, etc.) began to conduct an extensive series of experimental studies, the results of which allowed he will subsequently formulate the main provisions of the cultural-historical theory - the theory of the development of mental functions specific to humans (attention, memory, thinking, etc.), having a social, cultural, lifetime origin and mediated by special means - signs that arise in the course of human history . Moreover, a sign, from the point of view of L. S. Vygotsky, is primarily a social means for a person, a kind of “psychological tool.”

L. S. Vygotsky formulated the general genetic law of the existence of any human mental function: “... Every function in the cultural development of a child appears on the scene twice, on two levels: first - social, then - psychological, first between people... then inside the child... Functions first develop in a collective in the form of relationships between children, then become mental functions of the individual.”

According to L. S. Vygotsky, two types of mental development - biological and historical (cultural), presented in a separate form in phylogenesis and connected by the relationship of continuity and consistency, actually exist in a fused form and form a single process in ontogenesis.

Basic laws of mental development formulated by L. S. Vygotsky:

• Child development has a complex organization in time: its own rhythm, which does not coincide with the rhythm of time (a year in infancy is not equal to a year of life in adolescence).

• The law of metamorphosis in child development (a child is not just a small adult, but a being with a qualitatively different psyche).

• The law of uneven development: each side in the child’s psyche has its own optimal period of development.

• The law of development of higher mental functions “from the outside in.”

Distinctive qualities of higher mental functions: indirectness, awareness, arbitrariness, systematicity; they are formed as a result of mastering special tools, means developed during the historical development of society.

Learning is the driving force of mental development, which creates the child’s zone of proximal development (the distance between the level of actual development and the level of possible development).

The concept of mental development of a child by D. B. Elkonin

The value of this approach lies in the fact that the author tried to cover and connect two main vectors of child development:

1) the first vector characterizes the child’s relationship with the world of things, which presupposes knowledge and mastery of the objective world;

2) the second vector characterizes the child’s interaction with the world of people.

D. B. Elkonin believes that the child’s activity within these two vectors represents a single process in which personality is formed. However, in the course of development, this process, uniform in nature, bifurcates. In each age period, one vector dominates over the other, and within the next age stage they seem to change places. It is the change of the dominant vector to the subdominant that determines the beginning of a new age stage in the mental development of the child. In terms of its psychological content, a vector is nothing more than the activity inherent in the child at the moment, in other words, the child’s leading activity. At the same time, the presence of a leading activity does not negate other subdominant activities.

A cumulative analysis of the type of leading activity and its products, i.e., psychological new formations against the background of the social situation of the child’s development, allowed D. B. Elkonin to formulate a periodization of mental development in which two main vectors of child development are successively replaced.

When carrying out such types of activities as direct emotional communication between an infant and adults, role-playing play of preschoolers, and communication among younger adolescents, the child’s motivational-need sphere develops predominantly.

When carrying out object-manipulative activities in early childhood, educational activities of younger schoolchildren and educational and professional activities of older adolescents, methods of action and standards are predominantly mastered.

Thus, according to this concept, there are periods in child development in which the primary development of the need-motivational sphere occurs and, as a result of this, the development of tasks, motives and norms of relationships, and periods of primary development of intellectual and cognitive forces, which results in the development of socially developed methods actions with objects.

The prerequisites for new activity arise in the leading activity of a given period. (see continuation in No. 5)

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Conclusion

Knowing the basic concepts of personality development, you can significantly influence the process of its formation. This knowledge is indispensable when raising children, as well as for working on oneself and drawing up a plan for personal development. Creating a favorable environment for personal growth requires certain efforts, as well as spiritual, time, and monetary costs. Such expenses are necessary in order for the child’s positive qualities to develop and the motivation for activity to increase. But popular wisdom says: “trees grow on stones.” Even if there are environmental factors and one must remember the proverb - heredity is far from ideal, a person has a chance to improve his life and increase even the small potential that he has.