Main classes of mental phenomena.
a) definition
The defining features of the psyche are: reflection, which gives an image of the objective environment in which living beings operate, their orientation in this environment and the satisfaction of the need for contacts with it. These contacts, in turn, use a feedback principle to control the correctness of the reflection. Thanks to feedback, the result of an action is compared with an image, the emergence of which precedes this result, anticipating it as a kind of model of reality.
b) Fundamental properties of the psyche
Mental phenomena:
have duration, intensity;
have states of excitation and discharge.
In addition to these properties, the psyche as a whole has a number of fundamental properties:
1. Psyche differs from non-psyche (other non-mental phenomena) in that they have common physical characteristics: spatial (three-dimensionality, volume) and energy (mass, weight, temperature, conductivity), but the psyche does not have them. Those. you can’t ask “how many mm. constitutes my perception of object A,” “how many grams = my perception of kindness.” Psychic phenomena do not interact physically and cannot be physically transformed. They can only interact with each other, but only indirectly - by updating some phenomena one can indirectly influence others.
2. Mental image formed in the process mental reflection differs from other types of reflection - physical, photo, fine art, physiological (nervous model of the stimulus - light falls on the retina and the nature of changes in electro-physiological processes depends on the color characteristics. That is, in this image there is both a representation (image) and material, from which the image is made). Mental reflection has only the image of an object, without the material of this image. It has only extension in time (but not space).
3. Subjectivity - the psyche is given only to the subject, the bearer of the psyche. We cannot see how others see the same object that we see. We cannot directly observe this and then compare our image with the image of another.
4. Localization of the psyche. Penfield's experiments on the open brain. He tried to localize certain mental functions. Where is the psyche located? Some say that this question is not correct, because... the psyche has no spatial characteristics. Leontyev: the psyche sits on the object.
c) Levels of mental functioning
All mental phenomena function on 2 levels: conscious and unconscious. There may be unconscious desires, values, experiences, cognitive phenomena (perception of the 25th frame), thinking (insight), emotions (living in stress). Evidence: dynamic stereotypes (Pavlov), dreams (all mental spheres can participate in it), hypnosis (suggestion to subconscious level- actions are already conscious).
d) Connection of the psyche with other phenomena
There are mental facts (mental phenomena), and there are psychological facts (mental and all phenomena, facts that can say something about mental phenomena). For example, crying, handwriting, psychosomatics, products of material and spiritual culture.
Consciousness
Consciousness is a reflection of the subjective world, accompanying knowledge, the ability to know what the psyche, consciousness, emotions are. Reflection. We can speak, consciously control, organize. Consciousness is the highest form of the psyche, a reflection of reality about which the subject can give an account. This is the subject’s representation of the surrounding world and himself in it, necessary for the reasonable organization of joint activities of people.
Specifics of mental reflection
Psyche is a systemic property of highly organized matter, which consists in the subject’s active reflection of the objective world, in the subject’s construction of a picture of the world that is inalienable from him, and self-regulation on this basis of his behavior and activities.
Irritability is a property of all living things, the ability to respond to external irritation. Hypothesis about the emergence of sensitivity. Leontiev’s criterion for mental reflection is the presence of sensitivity. Sensitivity is the ability of a subject to respond to biologically neutral (abiotic) properties of the environment, which are objectively related to biologically significant (biotic) properties and seem to indicate them ( special case irritability). The further development of Leontiev’s psyche is associated with the evolution of behavior and the adaptation of organisms to the environment. Development leads to activity (if there is no activity, there will be no development). Qualitative changes in behavior lead to qualitative changes in the psyche.
3 stages of behavior development – 3 qualitatively new forms of the psyche (reflections):
Instinct is the elementary sensory psyche, reflected individual properties environment, sensory sensations;
Skill – perceptual psyche, objects or situations as a whole are reflected in the form of images of perception;
Intelligence is the stage of intelligence, generalization of reflections occurs, reflection of relationships in the form of objective situations as a whole.
A specific form of human behavior is labor activity. Constructing a hypothesis about the need for the emergence of consciousness, Leontyev compares the behavior of animals in general with human labor activity. Labor (labor activity) is a transformation of nature (including our own). Animals do not have a transformation of nature, they have adaptive activity. It adapts to the conditions of the environment, but does not transform it. Labor is a process that connects man with nature, the process of man’s influence on nature. Biologically inappropriate forms appear in human behavior when motives and goals do not coincide. For example, human activity in collective work conditions. Action is a process, the final desired result (motive) and the real goal of which do not coincide. The meaning of action is the relationship of motive to goal. There is a need for consciousness - awareness, understanding of the meaning, for the sake of which a biologically inappropriate action is performed. A person must be aware of the meaning of his actions:
Consciousness arises due to the selection of actions occurring in work, the cognitive results of which are abstracted and idealized in the form of linguistic meanings. At the same time, they contain methods, subject conditions and results of actions. During ontogenesis, each person becomes familiar with it through mastering language, and thanks to this, his individual consciousness is formed.
The main components of consciousness are:
Meaning
Personal meaning
Sensual fabric
Features of mental reflection:
a) purely subjective education;
b) has only a temporary duration;
c) can be active and passive (involuntary);
d) the psychic is a symbol of reality;
e) the mental reflection is more or less correct
Conditions for constructing an image of the world:
a) interaction with the world;
b) The presence of a reflection organ;
c) full contact with society (for a person).
Main classes of mental phenomena
Psyche is a set of mental phenomena that make up the inner world of a person (desires, cognition, experiences, self-awareness). If you closed your eyes - the psyche (factors of the internal subjective world), but opened them - no (except when we see not the object itself, but its image. Example - a person looks at white screen and sees a certain image of the object).
Mental phenomena are understood as factors of internal subjective experience, which can be classified into 4 classes of mental phenomena:
Drives (motives, will, values, morality).
Self-awareness (knowledge of oneself, self-evaluation, locus of control).
Experiences, 2 classifications:
a) Based on the connection with the type of need:
emotions themselves (experiences associated with the satisfaction of basal needs)
feelings (experiences associated with the satisfaction of secondary needs)
b) Based on their intensity and duration:
mood
Cognition
Sensory cognition (at the level of phenomena perceived through the senses; we perceive mental phenomena through reflection/reflection
Indirect cognition/thinking - knowledge about objects, characteristics that we do not observe; they are not phenomena, because we think of them (the universe - no one has seen it, but there are theories about it)
Memory is a general mental process that also exists at the emotional level - memory for images and ideas.
Imagination - creating images of non-existent objects or with non-existent characteristics
Comprehension - decoding meanings given in sign systems
In addition to these general areas, there are individual characteristics functioning of the psyche, combined into certain types:
abilities (cognitive sphere),
character (motivation and self-awareness),
temperament ( emotional sphere)
Other classification:
Mental phenomena can manifest themselves at the following levels:
– conscious phenomena
Cognitive processes
The actual cognitive processes, their result – knowledge about the world and an idea of the subject himself
Feelings
Perception
Thinking
Universal mental processes (+ attention) – necessary conditions activities, their result - the distinctive characteristics of the mental (as a process in time, past, present, future)
Imagination
Affective processes
Needs
Regulatory processes
Attention
Personality
behavior phenomena
Reactions are any externally observable changes that occur in the human body under the influence of external stimuli.
Actions are directed and subordinated to a certain goal (walking, writing).
Actions are actions of a higher rank, more significant.
Phenomena of the unconscious
unconscious mechanisms of conscious actions;
a) unconscious automatisms
b) the phenomenon of an unconscious attitude;
c) unconscious accompaniments of conscious actions.
unconscious motivators of conscious actions;
supraconscious processes.
– a subjective idea of the world from a personal position. Rethinking reality, one’s worldview is formed from:
- events that have already occurred;
- actual reality;
- actions that need to happen.
The accumulated experience and reproduction of acquired knowledge settles firmly in the past. The present contains information about internal state personality. The future is aimed at realizing goals, objectives, intentions reflected in dreams and fantasies.
The essence of the worldview passing through the psyche
1. Activation.
The psyche is fickle, it changes under the influence external factors and is constantly improving in development. Everyone has their own opinion about how the world around them is built. Faced with the contradiction of other people, consciousness changes, transforms into reality, carrying a different meaning.
2. Focus.
By setting guidelines in life, a person sets himself tasks within his capabilities. He will never take on a business that contradicts his principles and does not bring him either moral or financial satisfaction of his needs. There is a deliberate effort to transform an existing substance.
3. Adjustment.
The approach and conditions may change, but the psyche is flexible to temporary transformations and adapts to any change.
4. Uniqueness.
Everyone has inherent specific motivational characteristics and goals for self-development. The view of the world is refracted through the prism of life guidelines. This prevents the study of psychological science from only one angle; all qualities must be assessed different people to the same extent.
5. Anticipation.
Society creates a platform for the future, displaying surrounding objects and ongoing events in current life. It attracts only the best and most significant for subsequent introduction into activity.
6. Evaluation by the object.
Individual traits are reflected directly in thinking. Analyzed possible situations, an attitude towards current events is formed.
There are several stages passing in consciousness from the bodily to the sensory:
- Sensory. A physical external aggressor affects a person’s cognitive processes, causing them to react with their body and mind. A reaction occurs only to a significant stimulus.
- Perceptual. A person unconsciously strives to general view display a complex of irritating elements.
- The individual focuses on the cumulative manifestation, reacting to biologically insignificant stimulants that provoke the emergence of sensitivity to important stimuli.
- Thoughtful. A strong relationship is established between objects. A person controls it with the help of brain function.
Stages of psychic reflection
- The first one is basic. The individual is guided by his feelings and information received from others, determines his behavior in the future. His actions are influenced by objects of reality. Having passed this stage, others are raised to it. This level is never empty, it is multifaceted and constantly changing.
- The second level has the main feature of creativity and imagination. This highest level development of the psyche, a person switches to it when he is created new model inferences about the world around us. She comprehends the actions and adds previously laid down images.
- A creative person has difficulty coping with emotions; her thinking consists of continuous ideas. Artistic abilities are superimposed on the pictures that appear in the head, and their assimilation depends on subsequent interaction.
- The third - its main criterion is the presence of speech. Logic and communication are related to mental activity, based on concepts and techniques used by ancestors. He pushes into the background imagination, memory, sensory images, relying only on rationality in thinking and experience from the previous generation. This allows you to plan and manage your life path.
Only by rethinking and incorporating all stages into his consciousness can a person present the world in a generalized form from a unique point of view, different from those around him. And show it through behavior: facial expressions, gestures, posture.
Mental reflection is a subjective idea of the world. Everything that enters the human consciousness through the senses is subjected to specific processing based on existing experience.
There is an objective reality that exists regardless of human consciousness. And there is a mental reflection, which depends on the characteristics of the senses, emotions, interests and level of thinking of the individual. The psyche interprets objective reality based on these filters. Thus, mental reflection is a “subjective image of the objective world.”
When a person rethinks his reality, he forms a worldview based on:
- events that have already occurred;
- actual reality of the present;
- actions and events that are about to happen.
Each person has his own subjective experience, it firmly settles in the psyche and influences the present. The present carries information about the internal state of the human psyche. While the future is aimed at realizing tasks, goals, intentions - all this is reflected in his fantasies, dreams and dreams. We can say that a person is in these three states simultaneously, regardless of what he is thinking about at the moment.
Mental reflection has a number of features and characteristics:
- The mental (mental) image is formed in the process of active human activity.
- Enables you to correctly reflect reality.
- It is proactive in nature.
- Refracted through a person’s individuality.
- Ensures the appropriateness of behavior and activities.
- The mental reflection itself deepens and improves.
This implies the main function of mental reflection: reflection of the surrounding world and regulation of human behavior and activity for the purpose of survival.
Levels of psychic reflection
Mental reflection serves to create a structured and integral image from dismembered objects of reality. Soviet psychologist Boris Lomov identified three levels of mental reflection:
- Sensory-perceptual. It is considered the basic level on which mental images are built, which arise first in the process of development, but do not lose their relevance subsequently. A person is based on information that comes through his senses and builds an appropriate behavior strategy. That is, a stimulus causes a reaction: what happened in real time affects a person’s behavior.
- Presentation layer. In order for a person to have an image, it is not at all necessary that it be present here and now and that it be stimulated with the help of the senses. For this there are imaginative thinking, and imagination. A person can evoke the idea of an object if it has appeared several times before in his field of vision: in this case, the main features are remembered, while the secondary ones are discarded. The main functions of this level: control and correction of actions in the internal plan, planning, drawing up standards.
- Verbal-logical thinking and speech-thinking level. This level is even less connected with the present time; it can even be called timeless. A person can operate with logical techniques and concepts that have developed in his consciousness and the consciousness of humanity over its history. He is able to abstract from the first level, that is, not to be aware of his sensations and at the same time fully concentrate, relying on the experience of humanity.
Despite the fact that often the three levels function as if on their own, in fact they smoothly and imperceptibly flow into each other, forming a person’s mental reflection.
Forms of mental reflection
The elementary forms of reflection are: mechanical, physical and chemical. The main form of reflection is biological reflection. Its specificity is that it is characteristic only of living organisms.
During the transition from the biological form of reflection to the mental form, the following stages are distinguished:
- Perceptual. It is expressed in the ability to reflect a complex of stimuli as a whole: orientation begins with a set of signs, and there is a reaction to biologically neutral stimuli, which are only signals of vital stimuli (sensitivity). Sensations are an elementary form of mental reflection.
- Sensory. Reflection of individual stimuli: the subject reacts only to biologically significant stimuli (irritability).
- Intelligent. It manifests itself in the fact that in addition to the reflection of individual objects, a reflection of their functional relationships and connections arises. This is the highest form of mental reflection.
The stage of intelligence is characterized by very complex activities and equally complex forms of reflecting reality.
Is our mental reflection immutable or can we influence it? We can, but provided that we develop, with the help of which we are able to change perceptions and even sensations.
Self-regulation
Self-regulation is a person’s ability, despite circumstances, to maintain internal stability at a certain, relatively constant level.
A person who does not know how to manage his mental state, sequentially goes through the following stages:
- Situation: The sequence begins with a situation (real or imagined) that is emotionally relevant.
- Attention: attention is directed to the emotional situation.
- Assessment: The emotional situation is assessed and interpreted.
- Answer: an emotional response is generated, leading to loosely coordinated changes in experimental, behavioral and physiological systems answer.
If a person is developed, he can change this behavior pattern. In this case, the model will look like this:
- Choice of situation: a person decides for himself whether this situation is needed in his life and whether it is worth getting emotionally close to it if it is inevitable. For example, he chooses whether to go to a meeting, a concert or a party.
- Changing the Situation: If a situation is unavoidable, then a person makes a conscious effort to change its impact. For example, he uses or physically moves away from an object or person that is unpleasant to him.
- Mindful deployment: involves directing attention to emotional situation or from her. This is achieved through distraction, rumination, and thought suppression.
- Cognitive changes: modification of how to appraise a situation to change its emotional meaning. A person uses strategies such as revaluation, distance, humor.
- Response modulation: attempts to directly influence experimental, behavioral, and physiological response systems. Strategies: expressive suppression of emotions, exercise, sleep.
If we talk about specific practical methods, we highlight the following:
- Neuromuscular relaxation. The method consists of performing a set of exercises consisting of alternating maximum tension and relaxation of muscle groups. This allows you to relieve tension individual parts body, or from the whole body.
- Ideomotor training. This is a sequential tension and relaxation of the muscles of the body, but the exercises are not performed in reality, but mentally.
- Sensory reproduction of images. This is relaxation by imagining images of objects and complete situations associated with relaxation.
- Autogenic training. This is training in the possibilities of self-hypnosis or autosuggestion. The main exercise is speaking affirmations.
As we see, a person can decide how to relate to a given situation. However, given that will is an exhaustible resource, it is necessary to obtain energy through sleep, rest, physical exercise, proper nutrition, as well as specific techniques.
Today it can hardly be denied that, along with the laws of the material world, there also exists the so-called subtle plane. The mental level is closely related to the energy structure of a person, which is why we have individual feelings, thoughts, desires, and moods. The entire emotional sphere of a person is subject to the laws of the psyche and completely depends on its coordinated work.
A person with a healthy mental organization feels happy and quickly recovers inner balance. He strives for self-realization, he has enough strength for new achievements and ideas. Anyone who lacks energy for activities that would bring him pleasure sometimes has a weak psyche, and he is often visited by a feeling of vulnerability, exposure to life, which every now and then throws new challenges at him. Self-confidence largely depends on mental processes and emotional sphere.
The psyche is an amazing and mysterious system that allows him to interact with the surrounding reality. Inner world human being is an extremely subtle immaterial substance that cannot be measured by the laws of the material world. Each person is unique, each person thinks and feels individually. This article examines the processes of mental reflection and their connection with the inner world of the individual. The material will be useful to all readers for the formation of general ideas about the human psyche.
Definition
Psychic reflection is special shape active interaction of an individual with the world, as a result of which new needs, views, ideas are formed, as well as choices are made. Each person is capable of modeling his own reality and reflecting it in artistic or other images.
Process Features
Mental reflection is accompanied by a number of characteristic conditions, which are its specific manifestations.
Activity
The individual perceives the surrounding space not passively, but trying to influence it in a certain way. That is, each of us has our own ideas about how this world should be structured. As a result of mental reflection, a change in the consciousness of the individual occurs, access to new level understanding of reality. We are all constantly changing, improving, and not standing still.
Focus
Each person acts in accordance with the task at hand. No one will spend time doing something for nothing if it does not bring material or moral satisfaction. Mental reflection is characterized by awareness and a deliberate desire to transform existing reality.
Dynamism
The process called mental reflection tends to undergo significant changes over time. The conditions in which an individual operates change, and the approaches to transformation themselves change.
Uniqueness
We should not forget that each person has distinct individual characteristics, your own desires, needs and desire for development. In accordance with this circumstance, each person reflects mental reality in accordance with his own individual qualities character. The inner world of a person is so diverse that it is impossible to approach everyone with the same standard.
Anticipatory character
By reflecting objects and phenomena of the surrounding world, an individual creates a kind of foundation for the future: he acts to attract better and more meaningful conditions into his life. That is, each of us always strives for useful and necessary progression.
Objectivity
Mental reflection, although characterized by subjectivity and individuality, still contains a set of certain parameters so that any such process is correct, complete and useful.
Features of mental reflection contribute to the formation of an adequate human perception of these processes.
Forms of mental reflection
It is traditional to distinguish several areas:
1. Sensory form. At this stage, the reflection of individual stimuli associated with the sensory organs occurs.
2. Perceptual form. It is reflected in the unconscious desire of the individual to fully reflect the system of stimuli as a whole.
3. Intelligent form. It is expressed in the appearance of a reflection of connections between objects.
Levels of psychic reflection
In modern psychological science, several significant stages of this process are distinguished. All of them are necessary, none can be rejected or discarded.
Sensory-perceptual level
The first level is closely related to a person’s feelings; it is the basic one, on which others later begin to be built. This stage is characterized by constancy and transformation, that is, it gradually undergoes changes.
Presentation layer
The second level is closely related to the imagination and creative abilities of the individual. Ideas arise in a person’s head when, based on existing images, as a result of certain mental actions, new models of the surrounding world and judgments are formed.
Such a phenomenon as creative activity, of course, in most cases depends on how developed the emotional-imaginative sphere is in a person. If an individual has strong artistic abilities, then he will develop his own ideas in accordance with how often and quickly new images will interact with existing ones.
Verbal-logical level
This level is characterized by the presence of a speech-thought process. It is known that a person’s ability to speak is closely related to thinking, as well as other cognitive processes. It must be recognized that reflection at the conceptual level contributes to the development of rational cognition. Here, not just ideas about some phenomena or objects are formed, but entire systems arise that make it possible to build substantive connections and relationships. In the process of conceptual thinking, language is the main sign system, which is actively used to establish and maintain contact between people.
The highest form of mental reflection is, of course, human consciousness. It is the degree of its development, as well as motivation, that determines whether a person can independently move through life, take active steps to achieve his desires, and act purposefully.
Question No.4 Definition of psyche. The concept of mental reflection.
Psyche - is a subjective image of the objective world. The psyche cannot be reduced simply to the nervous system. Mental properties are the result of the neurophysiological activity of the brain, however, they contain the characteristics of external objects, and not the internal physiological processes through which mental reflection occurs. Signal transformations taking place in the brain are perceived by a person as events taking place outside him, in external space and the world. The brain secretes psyche, thought, just as the liver secretes bile.
Mental phenomena are correlated not with a separate neurophysiological process, but with organized sets of such processes, i.e. psyche is a systemic quality of the brain, realized through multi-level, functional brain systems that are formed in a person in the process of life and his mastery of historically established forms of activity and experience of humanity through his own active activity. The human psyche is formed in a person only during his lifetime, in the process of assimilation by him of the culture created by previous generations. The human psyche includes at least three components: the external world, nature, its reflection - full-fledged brain activity - interaction with people, the active transmission of human culture and human abilities to new generations.
Idealistic understanding of the psyche. There are two principles: material and ideal. They are independent, eternal. Interacting in development, they develop according to their own laws.
Materialistic point of view – the development of the psyche occurs through memory, speech, thinking and consciousness.
Psychic reflection - this is an active reflection of the world in connection with some kind of necessity, with needs - this is a subjective selective reflection of the objective world, since it always belongs to the subject, does not exist outside the subject, depends on subjective characteristics.
Mental reflection is characterized by a number of features:
it makes it possible to correctly reflect the surrounding reality;
the mental image itself is formed in the process of active human activity;
mental reflection deepens and improves;
ensures the appropriateness of behavior and activity;
refracted through a person’s individuality;
is anticipatory.
The development of the psyche in animals goes through a number of stages. :
Elementary sensitivity. At this stage, the animal reacts only to individual properties of objects outside world and his behavior is determined by innate instincts (nutrition, self-preservation, reproduction, etc.), ( instincts– innate forms of response to certain environmental conditions).
Subject perception. At this stage, reality is reflected in the form of holistic images of objects and the animal is able to learn, individually acquired behavioral skills appear ( skills – forms of behavior acquired through individual animal experience).
Reflection of interdisciplinary connections. The stage of intelligence is characterized by the animal’s ability to reflect interdisciplinary connections, to reflect the situation as a whole; as a result, the animal is able to bypass obstacles and “invent” new ways to solve two-phase problems that require preliminary preparatory actions for their solution. The intellectual behavior of animals does not go beyond the biological need; it acts only within the limits of a visual situation ( Intelligent behavior– these are complex forms of behavior reflecting interdisciplinary connections).
The human psyche is the most high level than the psyche of animals. Consciousness and the human mind developed in the process of labor activity. And although the specific biological and morphological characteristics of humans have been stable for 40 thousand years, the development of the psyche occurred in the process of labor activity.
Spiritual, material culture of humanity- this is an objective form of embodiment of the achievements of the mental development of humanity. Man, in the process of historical development of society, changes the ways and techniques of his behavior, transfers natural inclinations and functions into higher mental functions - specifically human forms of memory, thinking, perception through the use of auxiliary means, speech signs created in the process of historical development. Human consciousness forms the unity of higher mental functions.
The structure of the human psyche.
The psyche is diverse and complex in its manifestations. Usually there are three large groups of mental phenomena:
mental processes,
mental states,
mental properties.
Mental processes - dynamic reflection of reality in various forms of mental phenomena.
Mental process- this is the course of a mental phenomenon that has a beginning, development and end, manifesting itself in the form of a reaction. It must be borne in mind that the end of a mental process is closely related to the beginning of a new process. Hence the continuity of mental activity in a person’s waking state.
Mental processes are caused both by external influences and by stimulation of the nervous system emanating from the internal environment of the body. All mental processes are divided into:
cognitive - these include sensations and perceptions, ideas and memory, thinking and imagination;
emotional - active and passive experiences; volitional - decision, execution, volitional effort, etc.
Mental processes ensure the assimilation of knowledge and the primary regulation of human behavior and activity. Mental processes occur at different speeds and intensity depending on the nature external influences and personality states.
Mental state - a relatively stable level of mental activity that has been determined at a given time, which manifests itself in increased or decreased activity of the individual. People experience various mental states every day. In one mental state, mental or physical work proceeds easily and fruitfully, in another it is difficult and ineffective.
Mental states are of a reflex nature: they arise under the influence of what is heard (praise, blame), the environment, physiological factors, the progress of work and time.
Divided into:
motivational, needs-based attitudes (desires, interests, drives, passions);
states of organized consciousness (attention manifested at the level of active concentration or distraction);
emotional states or moods (cheerful, enthusiastic, stressed, affective, sad, sorrowful, angry, irritable);
strong-willed (initiative, determination, perseverance).
The highest and most stable regulators of mental activity are personality traits. Mental properties of a person should be understood as stable formations that provide a certain qualitative and quantitative level of activity and behavior typical for a given person.
Each mental property is formed gradually in the process of reflection and is consolidated in practice. It is therefore the result of reflective and practical activity.
Personality properties are diverse, and they need to be classified in accordance with the grouping of mental processes on the basis of which they are formed. This means that we can distinguish the properties of intellectual, or cognitive, volitional and emotional activity of a person. As an example, let's give some intellectual properties - observation, flexibility of mind; strong-willed – determination, perseverance; emotional – sensitivity, tenderness, passion, affectivity, etc.
Mental properties do not exist together, they are synthesized and form complex structural formations of the personality, which must include:
1) a person’s life position (a system of needs, interests, beliefs, ideals that determines a person’s selectivity and level of activity);
2) temperament (a system of natural personality traits - mobility, balance of behavior and activity tone - characterizing the dynamic side of behavior);
3) abilities (a system of intellectual-volitional and emotional properties that determines the creative capabilities of the individual);
4) character as a system of relationships and modes of behavior.
Constructivists believe that hereditarily determined intellectual functions create the opportunity for the gradual construction of intelligence as a result of a person’s active influence on the environment.
Definition of the psyche according to Galperin P.Ya.
Psyche - special property highly organized matter. This is a short, condensed formula, and in order to better take into account its actual meaning, it is necessary to expand its content somewhat.
First of all, this affirms: the psyche is a property, and not a “substance” or a separate “thing” (object, process, phenomenon, force), as pre-Marxist and extra-Marxist teachings about the psyche considered it.
Psyche - property of highly organized matter; not all, but only highly organized ones - therefore, appearing relatively late, at a high level of development of the world. In the language of modern natural science, this is explained simply: the psyche arises only in living bodies, organisms, and not in all, but only in animals, and not even in all animals, but only in those that are active, active life in a complexly dissected environment 16. They have to actively and constantly adapt their behavior to the continuous changes in this environment and their position in it, and this requires a new auxiliary apparatus of behavior - mental activity.
As a property that appears only in highly organized beings, the psyche is not a universal and not a primary property, but a secondary and derivative one. It presupposes the presence of mechanisms that produce it, and its undoubted usefulness for the body, which justifies this production.
Psyche - special property. Against the background of subjective idealistic ideas about the psyche, its “specialness” was understood as exclusivity in relation to the entire material world. In the aspect of dialectical materialism, this “specialness” has a completely different meaning. It means, firstly, the irreducibility of the psyche to the physiological processes that produce it and constitute its physiological basis, and, secondly, the identification and division in the process of evolution of the organic world of two large levels of development of organisms: without psyche and equipped with mental activity.
Concept of mental reflection
What specific content is meant when they talk about the ideal? This is, first of all, an image, an image of some object, process or phenomenon." But it is precisely the image of the object, and not the object itself, and in this sense another, ideal object. This other object is “ideal” in two respects. Firstly, its the features - no matter how many there are and no matter what complex combination they are in - are presented in the image in isolation, separately from other properties of the original or its material reflection, without which no “thing” can actually exist. the isolation of the features of an image from other features of actually existing things, its original or its image appears as the purification of the image from everything unimportant. the advantage of such a reflection of an object in the form of its image, in which only what is important for physical or mental action is presented, is obvious. But there is also a flip side to this advantage: the image is revealed as a thing, free from the limitations of material things, as an ideal being. This is the illusion of thinking, which begins to reason about images, having only those ideas that it acquired in experience with physical things.
Unlike the material, which exists independently of consciousness, from the psyche, the image exists only in consciousness, only in the psyche. The ideal is not a type of being, but the totality of the features of an object that is revealed and appears to the subject - the way the object appears to the subject. This corresponds to the well-known definition of the ideal given by K. Marx: “... the ideal is nothing more than the material, transplanted into the human head and transformed in it” n . As such a phenomenon to the subject, the ideal is only the content of the mental reflection of the objective world.
Forms of mental reflection according to Galperin P.Ya.
For the brain, which realizes the mental reflection of the objective world, the reflected world is divided into two unequal and differently important parts: internal environment organism and its external environment. These significantly different parts of the objective world also receive significantly different mental reflections.
The internal environment of an individual is reflected in his needs, feelings of pleasure and displeasure, in the so-called “general feeling”. The external environment is reflected in sensory images and concepts.
What these types of mental reflection of the individual’s internal state have in common is that, firstly, they reflect not the stimuli that cause them, but their assessment based on the direct experience of the state caused by them and, secondly, they are closely related to the impulses to actions (in the direction of certain objects external environment or from them) or to active abstinence from all actions.
The mental reflection of the external environment occurs significantly differently. Firstly, from the entire composition of this environment, only those objects, their properties and relationships are represented in its mental reflection, with which the individual has to take into account when physically acting with them. This is no longer a continuous, united environment, but an articulated “surrounding world” (J. Uksküll). Secondly, these parts of the environment are presented in images, the content of which reproduces the properties and relationships of the things themselves (and not the states of the individual they cause). True, the content of images also includes such properties as colors, sounds, smells and other so-called “sensory qualities”, which are direct objects physical actions are not; but they serve as important distinguishing features, as well as signals of other vital properties of things or signals of expected objects and events.
The difference in how the internal states of an individual (drives) and the world around him (images) are represented in mental reflections is clearly related to their role in behavior: drives serve as its driving forces, and images serve as the basis for orientation in the surrounding world. Obviously, the interests of behavior dictate the difference between the main types of mental reflection and, at the same time, unite them in different ways to serve this behavior.
The concept of mental reflection according to A.N. Leontiev: There are three types of reflection:
1.reflection at level inanimate nature(physical interaction, energy metabolism, chemical reactions);
2.reflection at the level of living nature:
a) the first type of reflection at the level of living nature - irritability - reacting with agents involved in the processes of assimilation (process of resynthesis) and dissimilation (continuous process of decay), i.e. on biologically significant effects.
b) the second type of reflection at the level of living nature - mental reflection - sensitivity- irritability to such environmental reagents that are not involved in the processes of assimilation and dissimilation, i.e. ability to reflect abiotic influences. Sensitivity performs a signaling function. Definition according to Leontiev:
Sensitivity is genetically nothing more than irritability in relation to this kind of environmental influences that relate the organism to other influences, i.e. which orient the organism in the environment, performing a signaling function. The need for the occurrence of this form of irritability lies in the fact that it mediates the basic life processes of the body that occur in more complex conditions. Sensitivity processes must correspond to the objective properties of the environment and correctly reflect them in appropriate connections.
Thus, it is the presence sensitivity lets talk about mental regulation of life.
When it comes to sensitivity, "reflection", according to Leontief's hypothesis, has two aspects: objective and subjective. In the objective sense, “reflect” means to react, first of all, motorically, to a given agent. The subjective aspect is expressed in the internal experience, sensation, of a given agent.