1. SUBJECT OF AGE PSYCHOLOGY

1.1. HISTORICAL REFERENCE

The science of mental development originated as a branch of comparative psychology at the end of the 19th century. The starting point for systematic research into child psychology is the book of the German Darwinist scientist W. Preyer, “The Soul of a Child.” According to the unanimous recognition of psychologists, he is considered the founder of child psychology.

There is practically not a single outstanding psychologist who has dealt with problems of general psychology who would not at the same time deal with problems of mental development. Such world-famous scientists as V. Stern, K. Levin, Z. Freud, E. Spranger, J. Piaget, S. L. Rubinstein, L. S. Vygotsky, A. R. Luria, A. worked in this area. N. Leontyev, P. Ya. Galperin, D. B. Elkonin and others.

Development is characterized by qualitative changes, the emergence of new formations, new mechanisms, new processes, new structures. L. S. Vygotsky and other psychologists described the main signs of development. The most important among them are: differentiation, the dismemberment of a previously unified element; the emergence of new sides, new elements in development itself; restructuring of connections between the sides of an object. Each of these processes meets the listed development criteria.

At first, the task of developmental psychology was to accumulate facts and arrange them in time sequence. This task corresponded to an observation strategy, which led to the accumulation of various facts that needed to be brought into the system, to highlight stages and stages of development, in order to then identify the main trends and general patterns of the development process itself and understand its cause. To solve these problems, psychologists used the strategy of a natural scientific ascertaining experiment, which makes it possible to establish the presence or absence of the phenomenon under study under certain controlled conditions, measure its quantitative characteristics and give a qualitative description.

Currently, a new research strategy is being intensively developed - the strategy of forming mental processes, active intervention, constructing a process with given properties, which we owe to L. S. Vygotsky. Today there are several ideas for implementing this strategy, which can be summarized as follows.

The cultural and historical concept of L. S. Vygotsky, according to which interpsychic becomes intrapsychic. The genesis of higher mental functions is associated with the use of a sign by two people in the process of their communication; without fulfilling this role, a sign cannot become a means of individual mental activity.

A. N. Leontiev’s theory of activity is based on the fact that any activity acts as a conscious action, then as an operation and, as it is formed, becomes a function. The movement here is carried out from top to bottom - from activity to function.

The theory of the formation of mental actions by P. Ya. Galperin is based on the formation of mental functions that occur on the basis of an objective action, and comes from the material execution of the action, and then through its speech form passes into the mental plane. This is the most developed concept of formation.

The concept of educational activity is the research of D. B. Elkonin and V. V. Davydov, in which a strategy for personality formation was developed not in laboratory conditions, but in real life - through the creation of experimental schools.

Let us consider and compare in more detail the basic concepts and theories of mental development belonging to domestic and foreign psychologists, starting with the theory of recapitulation by S. Hall and the psychoanalytic theory of S. Freud, and to the theories and concepts of modern psychologists.

1.2. Bio-and sociogenetic concepts of mental development

Biogenetic theory focuses on the biological determinants of development, from which socio-psychological properties are derived or correlated. The development process itself is interpreted mainly as maturation, the stages of which are universal. Types of development and variations in age-related processes are derived from genetically determined constitutional types.

S. Hall's theory of recapitulation.

S. Hall considered the main law of developmental psychology to be the biogenetic “law of recapitulation,” according to which individual development, ontogenesis, repeats the main stages of phylogenesis. Infancy reproduces the animal phase of development. Childhood corresponds to an era when the main activities of ancient man were hunting and fishing. The period from 8 to 12 years, which is sometimes called pre-adolescence, corresponds to the end of savagery and the beginning of civilization, and adolescence, covering the period from the beginning of puberty (12-13 years) to adulthood (22-25 years), is equivalent to the era of romanticism. This is a period of “storm and stress”, internal and external conflicts, during which a person develops a “sense of individuality”. Although Hall brought together a large amount of factual material, which contributed to the further development of developmental psychology, his theory was immediately criticized by psychologists who pointed out that the external similarity of children's play with the behavior of animals or primitive people does not mean the psychological identity of their behavior. The superficial analogies on which the “law of recapitulation” is based prevent us from understanding the specific patterns of mental development.

Another version of the biogenetic concept was developed by representatives of German “constitutional psychology”. Thus, E. Kretschmer and E. Jaensch, developing mainly the problems of personality typology based on certain biological factors (body type, etc.), suggested that there should be some kind of connection between the physical type of a person and the characteristics of his development. E. Kretschmer believed that all people can be placed along an axis, on one pole of which there are cycloid (easily excitable, spontaneous, extremely unstable in mood), and on the other - schizoid (closed, non-contact, emotionally constrained) types. Kretschmer's follower K. Conrad suggested that these characteristics also apply to age stages, for example pre-teenage with its violent outbursts corresponds to cycloid periods, youth with its craving for introspection corresponds to schizoid ones.

Representatives of the biogenetic direction attracted the attention of scientists to the study of the interdependence of physical and mental development. This has important implications for psychophysiology. However, attempts to understand the patterns of mental development based only on biological laws, naturally, were not crowned with success. They underestimate the role of social factors of development and overestimate its uniformity. In most cases, the emphasis on the organic nature of the development process, typical of the biogenetic approach, is combined with some other provisions.

In contrast to the biogenetic approach, the starting point of which is the processes occurring inside the body, sociogenetic theories try to explain the properties of age based on the structure of society, methods of socialization, and the interaction of the object with other people. Thus, K. Lewin proceeds from the fact that human behavior is a function, on the one hand, of the individual, and on the other, of his environment. However, personality properties and environmental properties are interrelated. Levin connects the mental development of an individual with a change in his social status. However, this concept is too abstract. By making the child's life world dependent on his immediate environment, the microenvironment, Levin leaves in the shadows his general social determinants, such as social origin, occupation, and general conditions of development.

A common feature of the bio- and sociogenetic approach to the development of the psyche is that they see the sources and driving forces of development mainly in extrapsychic factors. In the first case, the emphasis is on the biological processes occurring in the body, in the second - on the social processes in which the individual participates or is exposed.

1.3. Psychoanalytic theory of S. Freud

Analysis of free associations of patients led S. Freud to the conclusion that illnesses of the adult personality are reduced to childhood experiences. Childhood experiences, according to Z. Freud, are of a sexual nature. This is a feeling of love and hatred for a father or mother, jealousy for a brother or sister, etc. Z. Freud believed that this experience has an unconscious influence on the subsequent behavior of an adult, and also plays a decisive role in personality development.

Personality, according to Z. Freud, is the interaction of mutually stimulating and restraining forces. libidinal energy, which is associated with the instinct of life, is also the basis for the development of personality and human character. Freud said that in the process of life a person goes through several stages that differ from each other in the way they fix libido, in the way they satisfy the life instinct. At the same time, Freud pays great attention to exactly how fixation occurs and whether a person needs foreign objects. Based on this, he identifies several stages - stages of mental genesis during the life of a child.

Oral stage (0-1 year). The oral stage is characterized by the fact that the main source of pleasure, and therefore potential frustration, is concentrated in the area of ​​activity associated with feeding. The oral stage is characterized by two successive libidinal actions(sucking and biting). The leading erogenous area at this stage is the mouth, an instrument of feeding, sucking and initial examination of objects. At the oral stage of libido fixation in a person, according to S. Freud, certain personality traits are formed: gluttony, greed, demandingness, dissatisfaction with everything offered. Already at the oral stage, according to his ideas, people are divided into optimists and pessimists.

Anal stage (1-3 years). At this stage, libido is concentrated around the anus, which becomes the object of attention of the child, accustomed to neatness. Now children's sexuality finds the object of its satisfaction in mastering the functions of defecation and excretion. Here the child encounters many prohibitions, so the outside world appears before him as a barrier that he must overcome, and development here acquires a conflicting character. In relation to the child’s behavior at this stage, we can say that the “I” instance is fully formed, and now it is able to control the impulses of the “It”. Social coercion, punishment from parents, fear of losing their love force the child to mentally imagine and internalize certain prohibitions. Thus, the child’s “Super-I” begins to form as part of his “I”, where the authorities, the influence of parents and adults who play a very important role as educators in the child’s life are mainly based. Character traits that are formed at the anal stage, according to psychoanalysts, are neatness, neatness, punctuality; stubbornness, secrecy, aggressiveness; hoarding, thriftiness, penchant for collecting.

The phallic stage (3-5 years) characterizes the highest stage of childhood sexuality. The genital organs become the leading erogenous zone. Until now, child sexuality has been autoerotic, now it becomes objective, that is, children begin to experience sexual attachment to adults. The first people who attract a child's attention are parents. Libidinal attachment to parents of the opposite sex S. Freud called Oedipus complex for boys and the Electra complex for girls, defining them as motivational-affective the child's relationship with the parent of the opposite sex. According to S. Freud, the phallic stage corresponds to the emergence of such personality traits as introspection, prudence, rational thinking, and later – exaggeration of male behavior with increased aggressiveness.

The latent stage (5-12 years) is characterized by a decrease in sexual interest. The psychic authority “I” completely controls the needs of the “It”; being divorced from a sexual goal, libido energy is transferred to the development of universal human experience, enshrined in science and culture, as well as to the establishment of friendly relationships with peers and adults outside the family environment.

The genital stage (12-18 years) is characterized by the return of childhood sexual desires, now all former erogenous zones are united, and the teenager, from the point of view of S. Freud, strives for one goal - normal sexual communication. However, the implementation of normal sexual intercourse may be difficult, and then phenomena of fixation or regression to one or another of the previous stages of development with all their features can be observed during the genital stage. At this stage, the “I” agency must fight against the aggressive impulses of the “It”, which again make themselves felt. So, for example, at this stage it may arise again Oedipus complex, which pushes a young man towards homosexuality, the preferred choice for communication between people of the same sex. To fight against the aggressive impulses of the “Id,” the “I” instance uses two new defense mechanisms. This is asceticism and intellectualization. Asceticism, with the help of internal prohibitions, inhibits this phenomenon, and intellectualization reduces it to a simple representation in the imagination and in this way allows the teenager to free himself from these obsessive desires. The two most striking types of character that form at this stage are described: mental homosexuality and narcissism. What is the secret of S. Freud’s enormous influence on all modern psychology right up to the present day? Firstly, this is a dynamic concept of development, and secondly, this is a theory that has shown that for human development, the main thing is the other person, and not the objects that surround him. Z. Freud was ahead of his century and, like Charles Darwin, destroyed the narrow, rigid boundaries of the common sense of his time and cleared new territory for the study of human behavior.

1.4. Epigenetic concept of E. Erikson

Erik Erikson, a student of Freud, created a new theory based on Freud's teaching about phases psychosexual development. Erikson's theory is a theory of psychosocial development; it includes eight stages of development of the “I”, at each of which guidelines in relation to oneself and the external environment are worked out and clarified. Erikson noted that the study of personal individuality becomes the same strategic task of the second half of the twentieth century as the study of sexuality was during the time of S. Freud, at the end of the nineteenth century. The difference between Erikson's theory and Freud's theory is as follows.

Firstly, Erikson’s 8 stages are not limited only to childhood, but include the development and transformation of personality throughout life from birth to old age; it is argued that both adulthood and mature age are characterized by their own crises, during which the corresponding tasks are solved .

Secondly, unlike pansexual theory According to Freud, human development, according to Erikson, consists of three interrelated, although autonomous processes: somatic development, studied by biology, development of the conscious self, studied by psychology, and social development, studied by the social sciences.

The basic law of development is the “epigenetic principle,” according to which at each new stage of development new phenomena and properties arise that were not present at the previous stages of the process.

Erikson identifies 8 main tasks that a person solves during his life. These tasks are present at all age stages, throughout life. But every time one of them is updated with the next age crisis. If it is resolved in a positive way, then a person, having learned to cope with such problems, then feels more confident in similar situations. Having not successfully passed any age period, he feels like a schoolboy who does not know how to solve problems of some type: “what if they ask, what if they find out that I don’t know how.”

This situation is not irreversible: it is never too late to learn, but it is complicated by the fact that the time allotted for solving this problem has been lost. New age-related crises bring new problems to the fore, each age stage “throws up” its own tasks. And for the old, familiar ones there is often no longer enough strength, time, or desire. So they continue in the form of negative experience, the experience of defeat. In such cases, they say that a “tail of problems” trails behind a person. Thus, E. Erikson considers the correspondence between the stages of growing up and problems that a person, having not solved at a certain stage, then drags along with him throughout his life.

Stages of mental development according to Erikson

Stage I. Oral-sensory

Corresponds to the oral stage of classical psychoanalysis.

Age: first year of life.

The task of the stage: basic trust versus basic distrust.

Valuable qualities acquired at this stage: energy and hope .

The degree of trust an infant has in the world depends on the care shown to him. Normal development occurs when his needs are quickly met, he does not feel sick for a long time, he is rocked and caressed, played with and talked to. The mother's behavior is confident and predictable. In this case, trust in the world into which he has come is developed. If he does not receive proper care, mistrust, timidity and suspicion develop.

As a result of successful passage of this stage, people grow up who derive their vital faith not only from religion, but also from social activities and scientific pursuits. People who have not successfully passed this stage, even if they profess faith, actually express distrust of people with every breath.

Stage II. Muscular-anal

Coincides with the anal stage of Freudianism.

Age: 2-3 years of life.

Stage challenge: autonomy versus shame and doubt.

Valuable qualities acquired at this stage: self-control and willpower.

At this stage, the development of independence based on motor and mental abilities comes to the fore. The child masters various movements. If parents leave the child to do what he can, he develops the feeling that he controls his muscles, his impulses, himself and, to a large extent, the environment. Independence appears.

If educators show impatience and rush to do for the child what he himself is capable of, shyness and indecision develop. If parents constantly scold a child for a wet bed, soiled pants, spilled milk, a broken cup, and the like, the child develops a feeling of shame and uncertainty in his ability to manage himself and his environment.

External control at this stage should firmly convince the child of his strengths and capabilities, and also protect him from anarchy.

The outcome of this stage depends on the relationship between cooperation and self-will, freedom of expression and its suppression. From the feeling of self-control as the freedom to manage oneself without loss of self-respect, a strong sense of goodwill, readiness for action and pride in one’s achievements, a sense of self-worth, arises. From the feeling of loss of freedom to manage oneself and the feeling of someone else's overcontrol comes a persistent tendency towards doubt and shame.

Stage III. Locomotor-genital

Stage infantile genitality corresponds to the phallic stage of psychoanalysis.

Age: 4-5 years – preschool age.

The task of the stage: initiative (enterprise) versus guilt.

Valuable qualities acquired at this stage: direction and determination .

By the beginning of this stage, the child has already acquired many physical skills and begins to invent activities for himself, and not just respond to actions and imitate them. Shows ingenuity in speech and the ability to fantasize.

The preponderance of qualities in a child’s character largely depends on how adults react to a child’s ideas. Children who are given the initiative in choosing activities (running, wrestling, tinkering, riding a bicycle, sledding, skating) develop an entrepreneurial spirit. It is reinforced by the parents’ willingness to answer questions (intellectual entrepreneurship) and not interfere with fantasizing and starting games.

If adults show a child that his activities are harmful and undesirable, his questions are intrusive, and his games are stupid, he begins to feel guilty and carries this feeling of guilt into adulthood. The danger of this stage is the emergence of a feeling of guilt for one’s goals and actions while enjoying the new locomotor and mental power, which requires energetic curbing. Failure leads to resignation, guilt and anxiety. Overly optimistic hopes and wild fantasies are suppressed and contained.

At this stage, the most important division in terms of consequences occurs between the potential triumph of man and the potential for total destruction. And it is here that the child forever becomes divided within himself: into a child set, which preserves an abundance of growth potential, and a parent set, which supports and enhances self-control, self-government and self-punishment. A sense of moral responsibility develops.

A child at this stage tends to learn quickly and greedily, to grow up rapidly in the sense of sharing responsibilities and tasks. Wants and can do things together, comes up with and plans things together with other children. Imitates ideal prototypes. This stage connects the dreams of early childhood with the goals of active adult life.

Stage IV. Latent

Corresponds to the latent phase of classical psychoanalysis.

Age: 6-11 years.

The task of the stage: hard work (skill) against feelings of inferiority.

Valuable qualities acquired at this stage: system and competence .

Love and jealousy are at this stage in a latent state (as its name suggests - latent). These are the elementary school years. The child shows the ability for deduction, organized games, regulated activities, interest in how things work, how to adapt them, and master them. During these years, he resembles Robinson Crusoe and is often interested in his life.

When children are encouraged to make crafts, build huts and airplane models, cook, cook and do handicrafts, when they are allowed to finish what they have started, and are praised for their results, then the child develops skill and ability for technical creativity.

When parents see their child’s work as nothing but “pampering” and “messing around,” this contributes to the child developing a sense of inferiority. The danger of this stage is a feeling of inadequacy and inferiority. If a child despairs of his tools and work skills or his place among his comrades, this can discourage identification with them; the child considers himself doomed to mediocrity or inadequacy. He learns to win recognition by doing useful and necessary work.

The child’s environment at this stage is no longer limited to the home. The influence of not only the family, but also the school. The attitude towards him at school has a significant impact on the balance of the psyche. Falling behind causes feelings of inferiority. He had already learned from experience that there was no feasible future within the family. Systematic learning in all cultures occurs at this stage. It is during this period that the wider society becomes important in terms of providing the child with opportunities to understand significant roles in the technology and economics of society.

Freud calls this stage latent, since violent drives are dormant. But this is only a temporary calm before the storm of puberty, when all the earlier instincts reappear in a new combination to be subordinated to genitality.

V stage. Adolescence and early adolescence

Classical psychoanalysis notes at this stage the problem of “love and jealousy” towards one’s own parents. A successful decision depends on whether he finds the object of love in his own generation. This is a continuation of Freud's latent stage.

Age: 12-18 years.

Stage task: identity versus role confusion.

Valuable qualities acquired at this stage: dedication and loyalty .

The main difficulty at this stage is identification confusion, the inability to recognize one’s “I.”

The teenager matures physiologically and mentally, he develops new views on things, a new approach to life. Interest in the thoughts of other people, in what they think about themselves.

The influence of parents at this stage is indirect. If a teenager, thanks to his parents, has already developed trust, independence, enterprise and skill, then his chances of identification, that is, of recognizing his own individuality, increase significantly.

The opposite is true for a teenager who is distrustful, insecure, filled with a sense of guilt and awareness of his inferiority. When self-identification is difficult, symptoms of role confusion appear. This often happens with juvenile delinquents. Girls who show promiscuity in adolescence very often have a fragmented idea of ​​their personality and do not correlate their promiscuity with either their intellectual level or their value system.

The isolation of the circle and the rejection of “outsiders.” Identification marks of “our own” - clothes, makeup, gestures, words. This intolerance (intolerance) is a defense against the “darkening” of identity consciousness. Teenagers stereotype themselves, their ideals, and their enemies. Often teenagers identify their self with an image that is opposite to what their parents expect. But sometimes it is better to associate yourself with “hippies”, etc., than not to find your “I” at all. Teenagers test each other's ability to be faithful. The readiness for such a test explains the attractiveness of simple and rigid totalitarian doctrines for young people.

VI stage. Early adulthood

Genital stage according to Freud.

Stage Challenge: Intimacy vs. Isolation.

Valuable qualities acquired at this stage: affiliation and love .

By the beginning of this stage, a person has already identified his “I” and is involved in work activities.

Closeness is important to him - not only physical, but also the ability to care for another person, to share everything essential with him without fear of losing himself. The new adult is willing to exercise moral strength in both intimate and companionate relationships, remaining faithful even when significant sacrifices and compromises are required. Manifestations of this stage are not necessarily in sexual attraction, but also in friendship. For example, close bonds are formed between fellow soldiers who have fought side by side under difficult conditions—an example of intimacy in the broadest sense.

The danger of the stage is avoidance of contacts that oblige intimacy. Avoiding the experience of intimacy for fear of losing the ego leads to feelings of isolation and subsequent self-absorption. If he does not achieve intimacy either in marriage or friendship - loneliness. There is no one to share your life with and no one to care for. The danger of this stage is that a person experiences intimate, competitive, and hostile relationships with the same people. The rest are indifferent. And only by learning to distinguish a fight between rivals from a sexual embrace does a person master an ethical sense - a distinctive feature of an adult. Only now does true genitality emerge. It cannot be considered a purely sexual task. It is a combination of methods of selecting a partner, cooperation and competition.

VII stage. Adulthood

Classical psychoanalysis no longer considers this and the subsequent stage; it covers only the period of growing up.

Age: mature.

The task of the stage: generativity versus stagnation.

Valuable qualities acquired at this stage: production and care .

By the time this stage occurs, a person has already firmly tied himself to a certain occupation, and his children have already become teenagers.

This stage of development is characterized by universal humanity - the ability to be interested in the destinies of people outside the family circle, to think about the life of future generations, the forms of the future society and the structure of the future world. To do this, it is not necessary to have your own children; it is important to actively take care of young people and to make it easier for people to live and work in the future.

Those who have not developed a sense of belonging to humanity focus on themselves, and their main concern becomes the satisfaction of their needs, their own comfort, self-absorption.

Generativity - the central point of this stage - is an interest in the organization of life and the guidance of the new generation, although there are individuals who, due to failures in life or special talent in other areas, do not direct this interest to their offspring. Generativity includes productivity and creativity, but these concepts cannot replace it. Generativity is the most important stage of both psychosexual and psychosocial development.

When such enrichment cannot be achieved, there is a regression to the need for pseudo-intimacy, with a feeling of stagnation and impoverishment of personal life. The man begins to indulge myself as if he were his own child. The very fact of having children or wanting to have them is not generativity.

The reasons for the lag are excessive selfishness, intense self-creation of a successful personality at the expense of other aspects of life, lack of faith, trust, and the feeling that one is the desired hope and concern of society.

VIII stage. Maturity

Age: retired.

Stage challenge: ego integrity versus despair.

Valuable qualities acquired at this stage: self-denial and wisdom.

The main work in life is over, the time has come for reflection and fun with the grandchildren.

A feeling of wholeness and meaningfulness in life arises for those who, looking back on their lives, feel satisfaction. Those who see their life as a chain of missed opportunities and annoying mistakes realize that it is too late to start all over again and that what has been lost cannot be returned. Such a person is overcome by despair at the thought of how his life could have turned out, but did not work out. Hopelessness. The absence or loss of accumulated integrity is expressed in the fear of death: the one and only life cycle is not accepted as the end of life. Despair expresses the awareness that there is little time left to live to try to start a new life and experience other paths to wholeness.

Disgust hides despair, although in the form of “a mass of small disgusts” that do not add up to one big repentance.

Comparing this stage with the very first, we see how the circle of values ​​closes: integrity of an adult and infantile trust, confidence in honesty (integrity) are denoted by Erickson in the same word. He argues that healthy children will not be afraid of life if the old people around them have sufficient integrity not to be afraid of death.

1.5. The concept of intelligence development by J. Piaget

Jean Piaget is a psychologist who paved new paths in science. He created new methods and discovered the laws of a child’s mental life that were unknown before him. He developed a cognitive concept of child development, which he viewed as a gradual process passing through several stages.

Piaget based his theory of children's thinking on the basis of logic and biology. He proceeded from the idea that the basis of mental development is the development of intelligence. In a series of experiments, he proved his point of view, showing how the level of understanding and intelligence affect children's speech, their perception and memory. He also developed the idea that the child’s thinking cannot be derived only from innate psychobiological factors and from the influences of the physical environment, but must also be understood primarily from the relationships that are established between the child and the social environment around him.

The study of the stages of development of thinking in Piaget himself occurred gradually. In 1919, he was invited to Paris to work on scales for measuring intelligence; he worked in an orphanage; the materials he received during this period formed the basis of his first books: “Judgment and Reasoning of the Child”, “Thinking and Speech of the Child”, where he sets out the foundations of his concept of the cognitive development of the child. Piaget said that in the process of development the body adapts to the environment, that the stages of mental development are stages of intellectual development through which the child gradually passes in the formation of an increasingly adequate scheme of the situation. The basis of this scheme is precisely logical thinking.

Also in the 1920s. Based on the connection between thinking and speech, he built his research on the development of thinking through the study of the development of children’s speech and came to the conclusion that the process of development of thinking is exteriorization process, i.e. thinking appears as autistic, internal, and then, having passed the stage of egocentrism, becomes external, realistic. The same is the process of development of speech, which from egocentric (speech for oneself) becomes social speech, speech for others. Later, L. S. Vygotsky and V. Stern proved the inconsistency of these conclusions, but, however, during this period, Piaget made discoveries that were of great importance for understanding the formation of children’s intelligence. This is, first of all, the discovery of such features of children's thinking as egocentrism, syncretism (indivisibility), transduction (the transition from the particular to the particular, bypassing the general), artifactualism (artificiality), animism, and insensitivity to contradictions.

The next stage of Piaget's research, which began in the 1930s, was associated with the study operational sides of thinking. He comes to the conclusion that mental development is associated with interiorization, since the first mental operations - external, sensorimotor - subsequently move to the internal plane, turning into logical, actually mental. Piaget also discovers the main property of these operations - their reversibility.

Research led Piaget to the conclusion that the process of development of intelligence represents a succession of three large periods, during which the formation of three main intellectual structures occurs.

First, sensorimotor structures are formed - systems of sequentially performed material actions. Then structures of specific operations arise - systems of actions performed in the mind, but based on external, visual data. Even later, the formation of formal logical operations occurs.

Formal logic, according to J. Piaget, is the highest level in the development of intelligence. The intellectual development of a child represents a transition from lower to higher stages. But at the same time, each previous stage prepares the next one and is rebuilt at a higher level.

The sensorimotor period covers the first two years of a child's life. At this time, speech is not developed and there are no ideas, and behavior is based on the coordination of perception and movement. Once born, the child has innate reflexes. Some of them, such as the sucking reflex, can change. After some exercise, the child sucks better than on the first day, then begins to suck not only during meals, but also in between - his fingers, any objects that touch his mouth. This is the reflex exercise stage. As a result of reflex exercises, the first skills are formed. At the second stage, the child turns his head towards the noise, follows the movement of the object with his eyes, and tries to grab the toy. The skill is based on primary circular reactions - repeated actions. The child repeats the same action over and over again (say, pulling a cord) for the sake of the process itself. Such actions are reinforced by the child’s own activity, which gives him pleasure.

Secondary circular reactions appear at the third stage, when the child is no longer focused on his own activity, but on the changes caused by his actions. The action is repeated in order to prolong the interesting experience. The child shakes the rattle for a long time to prolong the sound that interests him, runs all the objects in his hands along the bars of the crib, etc.

The fourth stage is the beginning of practical intelligence. The action patterns formed at the previous stage are combined into a single whole and used to achieve the goal. When a random change in an action produces an unexpected effect—a new impression—the child repeats it and reinforces the new pattern of action.

At the fifth stage, tertiary circular reactions appear: the child already specifically changes actions to see what results this will lead to. He actively experiments.

At the sixth stage, the internalization of action patterns begins. If previously the child performed various external actions in order to achieve the goal, tried and made mistakes, now he can already combine patterns of actions in his mind and suddenly come to the right decision.

It takes about 2 years for an internal action plan to be formed. This ends the sensorimotor period, and the child enters a new period of representative intelligence of specific operations. Representational intelligence is thinking with the help of ideas. A strong figurative beginning with insufficient development of verbal thinking leads to a kind of childish logic. At the stage of preoperative ideas, the child is not capable of evidence or reasoning. The child does not see things in their internal relationships, he considers them as they are given by direct perception. (He thinks that the wind blows because the trees are swaying.) J. Piaget called this phenomenon realism. The preschooler slowly, gradually moves from realism to objectivity, to taking into account other points of view and understanding the relativity of assessments.

A child who has pre-operational ideas is also characterized by insensitivity to contradictions, a lack of connection between judgments, a transition from particular to particular, bypassing the general, a tendency to connect everything with everything, etc. This specificity of children's logic, as well as realism, is due to the main feature of thinking child - his egocentrism.

1.6. Cultural and historical concept of L. S. Vygotsky

All scientific activity of L. S. Vygotsky was aimed at ensuring that psychology could move “from a purely descriptive, empirical and phenomenological study of phenomena to the disclosure of their essence.” He introduced a new experimental genetic method for studying mental phenomena, since he believed that “the problem of the method is the beginning and basis, the alpha and omega of the entire history of the cultural development of the child.” L. S. Vygotsky developed the doctrine of age as a unit of analysis of child development. He proposed a different understanding of the course, conditions, source, form, specificity and driving forces of the child’s mental development; described the eras, stages and phases of child development, as well as transitions between them during ontogenesis; he identified and formulated the basic laws of the child’s mental development. The merit of L. S. Vygotsky is that he was the first to apply the historical principle in the field of child psychology.

According to L. S. Vygotsky, higher mental functions arise initially as a form of collective behavior of the child, as a form of cooperation with other people, and only subsequently do they become individual functions of the child himself. So, for example, at first speech is a means of communication between people, but in the course of development it becomes internal and begins to perform an intellectual function.

L. S. Vygotsky emphasized that the attitude towards the environment changes with age, and therefore the role of the environment in development also changes. He emphasized that the environment should be considered not absolutely, but relatively, since the influence of the environment is determined by the child’s experiences. L. S. Vygotsky formulated a number of laws of child mental development.

Child development has a complex organization in time: its own rhythm, which does not coincide with the rhythm of time, and its own pace, which changes in different years of life. Thus, a year of life in infancy is not equal to a year of life in adolescence.

The law of metamorphosis in child development: development is a chain of qualitative changes. A child is not just a small adult who knows less or can do less, but a being with a qualitatively different psyche.

The law of uneven child development: each side in the child’s psyche has its own optimal period of development. This law is associated with L. S. Vygotsky’s hypothesis about the systemic and semantic structure of consciousness.

The law of development of higher mental functions. Distinctive features of higher mental functions: indirectness, awareness, arbitrariness, systematicity. They are formed during life, formed as a result of mastering special tools, means developed during the historical development of society. The development of external mental functions is associated with learning in the broad sense of the word; it cannot occur otherwise than in the form of assimilation of given patterns, therefore this development goes through a number of stages. The specificity of child development is that it is not subject to the action of biological laws, as in animals, but to the action of socio-historical laws. The biological type of development occurs in the process of adaptation to nature by inheriting the properties of the species and through individual experience. A person does not have innate forms of behavior in the environment. Its development occurs through the appropriation of historically developed forms and methods of activity.

One of the proofs of the influence of training on a child’s mental development is L. S. Vygotsky’s hypothesis about the systemic and semantic structure of consciousness and its development in ontogenesis. He believed that human consciousness is not the sum of individual processes, but a system, their structure. No function develops in isolation. The development of each function depends on what structure it is included in and what place it occupies in it. Thus, at an early age, perception is at the center of consciousness, at preschool age - memory, at school age - thinking. All other mental processes develop at each age under the influence of the dominant function in consciousness. According to L. S. Vygotsky, the process of mental development consists of a restructuring of the systemic structure of consciousness, which is determined by a change in its semantic structure, i.e., the level of development of generalizations. Entry into consciousness is possible only through speech, and the transition from one structure of consciousness to another is carried out thanks to the development of the meaning of the word, in other words, generalization.

1.7. Concept by D. B. Elkonin

D. B. Elkonin made an assumption that was exceptional in its psychological depth and insight. According to his hypothesis, in the process of child development, the motivational side of activity must first be mastered (otherwise objective actions have no meaning!), and then the operational-technical side; In development, one can observe the alternation of these types of activities. In the concept of D. B. Elkonin, one of the serious shortcomings of foreign psychology is overcome, where the problem of splitting two worlds constantly arises: the world of objects and the world of people. D. B. Elkonin showed that this splitting is false and artificial. In fact, human action is two-faced: it contains the actual human meaning and the operational side. Every object contains a social object. There are always two sides to be seen in human action: on the one hand, it is oriented toward society, and on the other, toward the method of execution. This microstructure of human action, according to the hypothesis of D. B. Elkonin, is also reflected in the macrostructure of periods of mental development.

D. B. Elkonin discovered the law of alternation, periodicity of different types of activity: activity of one type, orientation in the system of relations, is followed by activity of another type, in which orientation occurs in the ways of using objects. Each time, contradictions arise between these two types of orientation. They become the cause of development. Each era of child development is built on one principle. It opens with an orientation in the sphere of human relations. Action cannot develop further if it is not inserted into a new system of relations between the child and society. Until intelligence has risen to a certain level, there can be no new motives.

Developing the ideas of L. S. Vygotsky, D. B. Elkonin proposed considering each psychological age based on the following criteria.

Social development situation

This is the system of relationships into which a child enters in society. This is how he navigates the system of social relations, what areas of public life he enters.

The main, or leading, type of activity of the child during this period. In this case, it is necessary to consider not only the type of activity, but also the structure of activity at the appropriate age and analyze why this particular type of activity is leading.

Major developmental neoplasms

It is important to show how new achievements in development outgrow the social situation and lead to its “explosion” - a crisis. Crises are turning points on the child development curve that separate one age from another. D. B. Elkonin’s hypothesis, taking into account the law of periodicity in child development, explains in a new way the content of developmental crises. Thus, 3 years and 11 years are crises of relationships, followed by orientation in human relationships; 1 year, 7 years – crises of worldview that open up orientation in the world of things. D. B. Elkonin’s hypothesis creatively develops the teachings of L. S. Vygotsky; it overcomes the intellectualism of his teaching about the systemic and semantic structure of consciousness. It explains the emergence and development of the child’s motivational-need sphere of personality.

1.8. V. S. Mukhina’s view on the development of the psyche

The condition for human development, in addition to the reality of nature itself, is the reality of culture created by him. V.S. Mukhina classifies the historically determined realities of human existence as follows, determined by cultural development.

The reality of the objective world is objects of nature and man-made objects that man created in the process of his historical development, as well as a system of relations to these objects. These relationships are reflected in language, mythology, philosophy and human behavior.

The reality of figurative-sign systems is a system of signs that influence internal mental activity, determining it, and at the same time determine the creation of new objects of the real world. Modern sign systems are divided into linguistic and non-linguistic (signs-attributes, signs-copies, autonomous signs, signs-symbols, etc.).

The reality of social space is the entire material and spiritual side of human existence, along with communication, human activities and the system of rights and responsibilities.

Natural reality is the condition and source of human life and activity. Man introduced nature itself and its elements into the reality content of the figurative-sign system he created and formed an attitude towards it as a source of life, a condition for development, knowledge and poetry.

The process of mental development of a person himself, according to numerous studies by ethnologists and psychologists, occurs according to historical laws, and not according to biological ones. Thus, it has been proven that the process of formation of the animal’s brain basically ends at the time of birth, while in humans it continues after birth and depends on the conditions in which the child’s development occurs. Consequently, these conditions not only fill the “blank pages” of the brain, but also affect its very structure. If in the animal world the achieved level of development of behavior is transmitted from one generation to another, like the structure of the body, through biological inheritance, then in humans the types of activities characteristic of him, and with them the corresponding knowledge, skills and mental qualities, are transmitted in another way - through social inheritance. The natural properties of a child, without giving rise to mental qualities, create the prerequisites for their formation. The qualities themselves arise due to social inheritance. Thus, by nature, the child receives the structure of the auditory apparatus and the corresponding parts of the nervous system, suitable for distinguishing speech sounds. But speech hearing itself develops only in the process of mastering a particular language under the guidance of adults. Consequently, in the process of assimilation of social experience, individual reflex mechanisms are combined into complex forms - functional organs of the brain.

During childhood, intensive maturation of the child’s body occurs, in particular the maturation of his nervous system and brain, which is very important for mental development: thanks to this, the ability to master various actions increases, the child’s performance increases, conditions are created that allow for more systematic and targeted training and education .

The progress of maturation depends on whether the child receives a sufficient number of external impressions and whether adults provide the educational conditions necessary for the active functioning of the brain.

Each age is characterized by selective increased susceptibility to different types of learning. There are age periods of particular sensitivity when certain educational influences have the greatest impact on the course of mental development.

V. S. Mukhina offers a fundamentally new approach to understanding the mechanisms of development and existence of the individual through identification and isolation.

Identification- a mechanism for appropriating a comprehensive human essence by one individual.

Separation- a mechanism for an individual to defend his natural and human essence.

Mukhina considers identification and isolation as dialectically related mechanisms, which in their deep essence are in unity and opposition.

Many psychological trends fill the concept of isolation with exclusively negative content, insisting that alienation arises as a result of social development as something that fetters the freedom of the individual, its needs and dignity. However, society has always needed an independent and active personality, and the individual has always needed harmonious interaction with society. This circumstance determined the formation of a certain mechanism in the genesis of human development.

Identification and isolation are two equally significant and at the same time dialectically contradictory elements of a pair of a single mechanism that develops a personality and makes it psychologically free. Derivatives from the main pair (conformity - independence, empathy - envy, etc.) receive their development in specific social situations: personality properties are formed from situationally arising behavior in certain conditions. In the personality structure, the dominant member of the pair determines personal characteristics. In extreme terms, each member of the couple is antisocial.

The periods that represent age-related achievements in mental development within the most typical limits are defined by V. S. Mukhina as follows.

Infancy (from 0 to 12-14 months) is a period when a child develops physically, mentally and socially extremely quickly, going through a colossal path in a short time from a helpless newborn with a small set of innate reactions to an active baby capable of looking, listening, acting , solve some clearly perceived situations, cry for help, attract attention, rejoice at the appearance of loved ones. In the baby, one can already observe such reflexes as protective, indicative, indicative-food, as well as sucking, clinging and repulsion reflex. Under the influence of external impressions, the child undergoes intensive development of the brain and sense organs. Communication with an adult during this period develops into joint activity, and the actions that the child masters under the guidance of an adult create the basis for mental development. By the end of the first year, the child develops a connection between the name of an object and the object itself - the initial form of understanding speech. By the end of infancy, on the basis of the child’s movements and actions organized by adults, he develops initial ideas about the world around him and elementary forms of perception and thinking arise.

Early age (from 1 to 3 years). The main achievements of early childhood, which determine the development of the child’s psyche, are: mastery of the body, mastery of speech, development of objective activity. These achievements are manifested: in bodily activity, coordination of movements and actions, upright walking; in the development of correlative and instrumental actions; in the rapid development of speech; in the development of the ability to substitute, symbolic actions and use of signs; in the development of visually effective, visually figurative and symbolic thinking; in the development of imagination and memory; in feeling oneself as a source of imagination and will; in highlighting one’s “I” and the emergence of the so-called sense of personality.

Preschool age (from 3 to 6-7 years) is a period of mastery of the social space of human relationships through communication with close adults, as well as through play and real relationships with peers. Communicating with adults and peers, the child learns subtle reflection on another person, intensively develops the ability to identify with people, fairy-tale characters, toys, images, etc. At the same time, the child discovers the positive and negative sides of isolation. A preschool child learns accepted positive forms of communication that are appropriate in relationships with other people, and advances in the development of verbal and emotional communication. The child begins to acquire an interest in gender differences, which contributes to the development of gender identification. Throughout the entire period from three to seven years, this tendency of early human ontogenesis is visible: the unstoppable, rapid development of mental properties, interrupted by pronounced stops - periods of stereotypical reproduction of what has been achieved. At this age, the child’s self-awareness develops so much that it gives the right to talk about the child’s personality.

Junior school age (from 6-7 years to 10-11 years). By the beginning of primary school age, the child is, to a certain extent, an individual. He discovers a new place for himself in the social space of human relations. He already has sufficiently developed reflexive abilities; A significant achievement in the development of a child’s personality is the predominance of the “I must” motive over the “I want” motive. This age promises the child new achievements in a new sphere of human activity - learning. A child in primary school learns special psychophysical and mental actions that should serve writing, arithmetic operations, reading, physical education, drawing, manual labor and other types of educational activities, on the basis of which, under favorable learning conditions and a sufficient level of mental development of the child, the prerequisites for theoretical consciousness and thinking. Educational activity requires special reflection from the child associated with mental operations: analysis of educational tasks, control and organization of executive actions, as well as control of attention, mnemonic actions, mental planning and problem solving. The new social situation tightens the child’s living conditions and acts as stressful for him. Every child who enters school experiences increased mental tension. At school, the child’s living conditions are standardized; as a result, many deviations from the intended path of development are revealed: hyperexcitability, hyperdynamia, severe lethargy. General sensitivity to the influence of environmental living conditions, characteristic of childhood, promotes the development of adaptive forms of behavior, reflection and mental functions. In most cases, the child adapts himself to standard conditions. The leading activity is educational.

Adolescence (from 11-12 to 15-16 years) is the period when a teenager begins to re-evaluate his relationship with his family. The desire to find oneself as a person gives rise to the need for alienation from all those who habitually influenced him from year to year, and first of all this applies to the parental family. This is the period when a teenager begins to value his relationships with peers. The desire to identify oneself with others like oneself gives rise to the need for a friend, which is so valued in universal human culture. It is through friendship that a teenager learns the features of high interaction between people: cooperation, mutual assistance, mutual assistance, risk for the sake of another, etc. Friendship in adolescence, thanks to the desire of adolescents for mutual identification, increases conformity in relationships. If adolescents are negativists in the family, then among their peers they are often conformists. Reflections on oneself and others in adolescence reveal the depths of one’s own imperfection - and the teenager goes into a state of psychological crisis. Subjectively, these are difficult experiences. But the crisis of adolescence enriches the teenager with knowledge and feelings of such depths that he did not even suspect in childhood.

1.9. conclusions

Using the concepts presented above, one can trace how views on the process of mental development have changed over the course of a century: from primitive and naive theories to modern mature ideas and views. Of course, each approach, each concept has positive and negative sides, but they are all of great value not only for developmental psychology, but also for all psychology in general and each of its branches in particular.

Thus, the work of V. Preyer, where he considered the psychological development of a child as a particular version of the biological, despite its limitations and naivety, is the first work where the psyche was considered objectively, and not introspectively. It was his work “The Soul of a Child,” as well as similar works by N. Menchinskaya and V. Stern, that laid the foundation for child psychology.

A little later, attempts appear to understand the patterns of mental development based on biogenetic laws, and in parallel with them, opposing, sociogenetic theories are created. Followers of the biogenetic theory underestimated the social factors of development. Sociogenetic theory is generally too abstract, since, placing emphasis on social processes, it leaves the general and biological conditions of development in the shadows. However, despite all the shortcomings, the biogenetic principle is interesting because these were the first attempts to scientifically comprehend the facts of development, put them into a known biological sequence, and establish the fact that development obeys known laws. If there had not been this - albeit incorrect, but still theoretical concept - then for a long time there would have been no other theoretical concepts.

S. Freud, with his theory of personality, which is based on the conflict between the instinctive sphere of a person’s mental life and the demands of society, turned the entire understanding of the human psyche of that time on its head. According to Freud, every person is born with innate sexual desires. Until now, despite numerous criticisms, the influence of Freud’s ideas on modern psychology is enormous. His theory was the first to show that for human development, the main thing is the other person, and not the objects that surround him, and his concept was the first dynamic concept of development. S. Freud revealed a vast and yet unexplored territory for the study of the psyche, mental processes and human behavior.

E. Erikson, a student of S. Freud, expanded the Freudian concept and went beyond its scope. The difference and advantages of his theory over Freud’s theory are that Erikson considered not only childhood, but the course of his entire life, and also that Erikson connected human development with somatic development, the development of the conscious “I” and social development, which distinguishes his views from the pansexual views of S. Freud. 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.

The teachings of J. Piaget, in the opinion of many psychologists, are the highest achievement of psychology of the twentieth century. There is a huge gap between what existed in child psychology before Piaget's work and the level of development of theory that now exists thanks to his work. He created new methods, discovered laws of the child’s mental life unknown before him.

A huge, undeniable contribution to the development of modern developmental psychology was made by the domestic psychologist L. S. Vygotsky, who described the principle of the cultural and historical development of the child, according to which the interpsychic becomes intrapsychic. According to Vygotsky, the main source of development of the psyche is the environment in which the psyche is formed, whereas in previous concepts the environment was considered only as a condition, one of the factors of development. L. S. Vygotsky was able to move from a purely descriptive study of phenomena to revealing their essence; this is his colossal merit to science. The cultural-historical concept is also remarkable in that it overcomes the biologism that reigned in developmental psychology, in basic theories and concepts, such as the theory of recapitulation, the theory of convergence of two factors, psychodynamic theory personality development of Z. Freud, concept of intellectual development of J. Piaget, etc.

D. B. Elkonin, a student and follower of L. S. Vygotsky, in his works developed Vygotsky’s legacy, overcame the intellectualism of his scientific concepts, and also suggested that in the process of child development, the motivational side of activity should first be mastered, and then the operational and technical ; In development, one can observe the alternation of these types of activities.

V. S. Mukhina proposed a fundamentally new theory of personality development through the mechanisms of identification and isolation. Also a feature of V. S. Mukhina’s concept is its universality for any segment of the population, geographical and ethnological characteristics, and social groups.

2. ONTOLOGICAL ASPECT OF AGE PSYCHOLOGY

2.1. Abstract

Human development combines biological and social factors. By creating the noosphere, humanity changes the natural components of the environment, which leads to negative consequences not only for nature as a whole, but also specifically for humanity itself as a biological species. Sociobiology offers one approach to solving these problems.

Man is inferior to animals in many individual functions, but his advantage is maximum adaptability to biological and social conditions.

After the birth of an animal, the biological program unfolds almost without individual differences, and as a result it is ready for adult life, that is, there is a so-called natural path of its development. At the same time, a newborn child goes through a natural developmental path - the path of maturation of hereditarily given structures - during infancy. Subsequently, throughout life, individualized development of the psyche occurs.

Each age has its own leading types of activity, which are the determining factors of mental development. In the early periods, this is emotional communication with adults; at the age of 1-7 years - this is a game; at school age it is learning; Next comes work.

2.2. The relationship between biological and social in human development

For all its social nature, humanity does not cease to be a biological species, homo sapiens.

By creating the noosphere, humanity changes the natural components of the environment, which also leads to negative consequences not only for nature as a whole, but also specifically for humanity itself as a biological species.

2. Demographic problem of population size.

3. Genetic problems, an increase in hereditary pathologies, including mental ones.

One of the approaches to solving these problems is offered by sociobiology, which considers humanity as one of the species inhabiting the Earth.

Let's compare the dynamics of human development and the resources that support it on the planet as a whole.

1. The number of people doubles in 35 years.

2. Food production doubles in 30 years.

3. Energy consumption doubles in 14 years.

Let us note that the production of food and energy today is mainly associated with the expenditure of the planet’s irreplaceable resources (oil, coal, soil, etc.).

Statistical calculations show that if the current level of per capita consumption is maintained, only 500 million people will be able to exist on Earth indefinitely using solar energy. At the same time, the world population is about 5 billion people and tends to further increase.

It is known from biology that the number of any species increases until it exhausts the resources for its existence; after this, its numbers are reduced due to the direct action of external factors. What are these factors?

If the average amount of food decreases, then the energy spent on searching for it is no longer covered by the food found. This leads to a decrease in the vital activity of the weakest specimens (apathy), and then to their death. The total number of specimens in the population decreases, and the average per capita amount of food is restored.

The problem of hunger on Earth is very acute. According to statistics, today 500 million people have plenty of food, 2 billion people lack food or go hungry, and 20 million people die from hunger a year.

Species competitors

As the population grows, the pressure on its habitat increases, which improves the living conditions of species competitors. An example is a forest after a silkworm invasion.

In humans, the main species competitors are agricultural pests and weeds. Humanity is waging a fierce fight against them (the growth in the production of pesticides is 10% per year, while the growth in energy production is only 7% per year), but these measures are fundamentally ineffective. At the same time, rich countries can afford to simply “give” part of the harvest to species competitors. In this case, their numbers stabilize, and it becomes possible to produce environmentally friendly, chemical-free food.

But in nature there are other mechanisms that proactively reduce the growth of an animal population when it approaches a possible limit - mechanisms of signal regulation. Let us list these mechanisms.

Aggressiveness

In this case, when two individuals communicate, one of them seeks to suppress the other. In the population, there is a group of suppressed ones who experience constant stress, which reduces their fertility and life expectancy. Under the influence of this stress, those who are suppressed reduce their concern for their own hygiene, which leads to the development of diseases. Robbery from aggressive individuals and theft from suppressed individuals occurs, which also reduces the quality of life of the population as a whole. Dominant individuals do not allow others to eat, although there could be enough food for everyone, i.e., starving individuals appear.

Aggression in people can manifest itself at various levels of community - in a separate group (in a family with problems), between groups (clashes between gangs, clans, etc.).

Associations

Stress reduces aggression in suppressed individuals so much that instead of biologically determined individualism (defending their life site, protecting offspring, etc.), they develop a desire for aggregation and lose the instinct of self-preservation. Young individuals form flocks in which individuals almost do not reproduce; their main occupation is hypertrophied communication. Such groups either wander, dying on foreign territory (for example, the migration of locusts or lemmings), or stay in place, separated from the main population.

In humans, such mechanisms take place in large cities. The city “sucks” young people with low individual potential out of the village and reduces fertility to the level of 0.7 daughters per mother. This figure is typical for large cities in any era (for example, Rome during the Empire, modern megacities of Latin America, etc.). Statistical studies show that without a constant influx of population from outside, megacities would shrink by 2 times in 2 generations.

Today, unbridled urban growth takes place mainly in developing countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America, and young people who arrive, as a rule, do not “find themselves”, but simply eke out a useless existence.

Decrease in fertility

Offspring ceases to be the main value. Birds lay eggs not in the nest, but anywhere, care for the offspring decreases, they are born and grow up weak. Biology has shown that a single (“emancipated”) female on average raises 2.5 times fewer children than a pair of animals.

There are many examples of similar behavior in people.

Example: in Rome I-III centuries. there were fruitless calls for Roman women to give birth to children, and not replace them with dogs, lion cubs or monkeys.

As world historical experience shows, methods of regulating the birth rate through political or social measures turn out to be ineffective.

Example: the number of French people has been stable for the last 100 years, despite all government measures aimed at increasing the birth rate. India's population growth rate, on the other hand, remains extremely high despite all the government's efforts.

Thus, humanity, despite all its intellectual potential, largely remains an ordinary biological species for which general biological regulatory mechanisms are valid. They have different expressions - from the most cruel (for example, the stratification of society) to the completely harmless (setting up a one-child family).

The uniqueness of humanity as a species is that it is the species with the slowest generational turnover, but the one that changes the environment as quickly as possible. Therefore, relying only on sociobiological mechanisms to solve universal human problems is, of course, unacceptable.

Man is inferior to animals in many individual functions; but its advantage is maximum adaptability to biological and social conditions.

Let us highlight the main characteristics of man as a biological being (as opposed to other animals):

A) lack of specialization at birth;

b) universal adaptability.

Example : people live throughout the Earth at temperatures from +40° to –40°. In this respect, few animals are comparable to it - the rat, the cockroach.

1. High degree of activity.

2. At the neurodynamic level (including the second signaling system) it has abstract thinking and hemispheric asymmetry, which creates unlimited opportunities for progress not only in the cognitive sphere, but also in life in general.

3. Individual characteristics prevail over individual characteristics.

4. In the process of human development, unlike animals, social factors predominate, i.e. socialization occurs. The specificity of the relationship between the biological and the social in ontogenesis is that the natural capabilities of a person can be realized only in social conditions (communication, study, work, sports, etc.). This is how the socialization of the individual’s secondary properties occurs.

So, a baby animal was born. What happens after birth? The biological program is unfolding with almost no individual differences, and as a result he is ready for adulthood. True, the higher the animal is on the evolutionary ladder, the longer this path; it may require some training, but still there is a so-called natural path of its development (that is, it is almost exactly known what will come of this cub).

This process looks completely different in a newborn baby. It also goes through the natural path of development, but in a relatively short period of time, mainly during infancy, when, through the maturation of hereditarily given structures, the mechanisms of all forms of the psyche are formed in their elementary form. On this basis, in the future, throughout life, the social development of the psyche takes place, which is extremely diverse. As a result, transformations of mental forms of natural development and the effects of social influence (mental new formations of varying degrees of complexity) simultaneously take place.

All this is easy to understand if you imagine the psyche of an adult Mowgli and an adult city dweller.

2.3. Genetic development of mental functions

A person is born with only 2 forms of the psyche ready for action - sensory And motor skills and specialized to varying degrees.

Maximum specialized sensory-. a person is born with a completely ready-made sensory system. Example: in infants the sensory structure is the same as in adults, then only a quantitative increase in its indicators occurs. As the child grows to a certain age, all sensitivities increase - visual acuity, taste, etc.

Motor development consists in building new movement systems based on the interaction of phylogenetically defined specialized motor acts and undifferentiated movements. Examples: the formation of drinking from a cup based on the sucking reflex, the act of grasping based on the palmar reflex, etc.

The development of perception (perception of a holistic image) also occurs on the basis of a combination of general and specific mechanisms in the interaction of sensory and motor skills. A newborn has a genetically determined reaction to color (red - black, etc.), shape (distinguishes a circle from a square, etc.), and movement. It has now been shown that the same genetic mechanisms occur in animals (in particular, they selectively respond to straight lines, to boundaries, etc.). The child also has a genetically specified general mechanism for comparing objects in the environment: the newborn prefers moving figures to stationary ones; centered complexes - diffuse; complex complexes - simple; volumetric - planar, etc.

On this basis, perception develops together with motor activity, and not along the path of direct growth, but along the path of systemogenesis, when one system uses the achievements of another, and a dynamic synthesis of components of different systems occurs.

Naturally, the formation of both perception and complex forms of motor skills is based not only on primary sensory-motor mechanisms, but also on the genetically early ability to capture traces of various kinds of influences (a kind of memory). The exceptional importance of the richness of presented stimuli and situations for the correct development of perception should now be clear. If there is a shortage of them, a hospital effect characteristic of orphanages occurs, the consequences of which are irreparable.

Based on perception, the final product of the development of sensorimotor circuits is formed - visual and effective thinking (by the end of the first year of life). It manifests itself in the fact that a one-year-old child solves various problems using workarounds and means to achieve a goal (for example, he goes around an obstacle placed between him and a toy). This occurs on the basis of a genetically specified comparison mechanism.

Example: a moving object hides behind the screen and appears 1 s later - the baby experiences a slight change in heart rate. The same experience, but the object has changed in shape - the heart rate changes much more strongly.

There is also a genetically determined path for the development of speech (which is not the case in animals). The baby already has a primary vocal reaction, that is, there is a certain structure of the baby's cry, similar to the intonations of the narrative speech of an adult. In other words, a genetically determined connection between vision, hearing and the speech-motor analyzer is shown.

Let us summarize everything stated in Table 1. Readiness for functioning of the mechanisms of an individual’s mental organization at the time of birth.

Table 1.

During the period of infancy (from 1 month to 1 year), psychological readiness for socialization is formed based on the development of the structure of inclinations. Speech communication and almost all natural forms of the psyche (except ideas) are formed. There is emotional selectivity of behavior, as well as diverse (gestures, vocal, motor and general emotional reactions) influences of the child on the adult.

Emotional communication between a child and an adult is the leading activity of an infant. This activity is difficult for a child, so you cannot constantly squeeze the baby, carry him in your arms and demand his attention, as is often done.

Children's play fulfills the needs for education, etc. It corresponds to systemogenesis (unlike animal games, where instincts are trained).

The types of children's games change in order of increasing age.

The main motive in the game is to gain pleasure (other positive emotions). She is process oriented rather than result oriented. Therefore, in the 1st grade, one of the components of inclusion in school is reorienting the child to the result. At school, the gaming motive remains, but it negatively correlates with educational success and can even block a positive attitude towards work. Thus, in preschool age, it is necessary to simultaneously form a motive for study/work.

Let us formulate the main elements of a child’s readiness for school, adopted in Russia.

1. Development of voluntary behavior.

2. Formation of orientation towards results.

3. Formation of useful skills.

Let us note that in American schools, during grades 1-3, only games are used, i.e. children behave spontaneously (if I want, I’ll sit down, if I want, I’ll lie down), and volitional regulation of behavior is not expected from them. This, of course, is comfortable, but it creates infantilism.

Games for adults, while remaining a game in form, are focused on socially significant goals, that is, not on the process, but on the result. Therefore, in educational activities, the game enriches the learning process, especially in a probabilistic situation. Example: business games (a person can use those ways of behavior that are most adequate to his psyche).

Teaching is a directed influence that shapes various aspects of personality. Teaching creates the socialization of the individual (forms value orientations, structures of social connections, self-esteem, etc.) and the socialization of the cognitive process (voluntary attention, verbalization, etc.).

Thus, at school age there should not only be an accumulation of knowledge, but also the formation of personal self-determination (orientation, motivation, etc.).

Labor activity supports all human vital functions.

After 50 years, the aging process of sensory functions slows down more and more, i.e., what a person has preserved by the age of 70 will practically not deteriorate until death.

Let us separately consider the most socially important functions – visual and mnemonic.

Visual function: for visual acuity A = 4.3 years, for visual field A = 6.2 years; Not statistically identified; C = 79 years.

The memory function is oscillatory in nature; in the period from 7 to 40 years, there is an irregular alternation of moments of increase and decrease in the productivity of all types of memory; the amplitude of these fluctuations is maximum in the period 12-27 years, then decreases. Moreover, the higher the productivity of this type of memory, the greater its fluctuations during age dynamics.

Law of Heterochrony– the different timing of the passage of the main stages and the internal inconsistency of the somatic, sexual and neuropsychic development of a person.

Heterochrony of development exists both in early (childhood) and late (aging) ontogenesis. The general pattern is this: those functions that are of greatest importance at the moment develop; this saves the total supply of energy allotted to a person for life.

Intrasystem (intrafunctional) and intersystem (interfunctional) heterochrony are distinguished.

An example of intrafunctional heterochrony is an age-related decrease in sensitivity to color perception. The perception of the middle part of the spectrum (yellow-green) is preserved for the longest time, as well as the trained functions (red - for steelworkers; for pilots it does not fall at all).

Intersystem heterochrony manifests itself in the fact that different systems are formed at different times; in this case, formations that are older in the phylogenetic sense are formed first.

An example of intersystem heterochrony

1. In a child, evolutionarily older areas of the brain (ancient brain, midbrain) are fully formed by the time of birth; at the same time, the frontal and parietal parts of the brain complete their formation only by 2 years.

2. Achieving various types of maturity: physiological – 16 years (puberty); personal – 18-22 years (completion of studies); maturity as a subject of activity – 34-40 years.

We will talk separately and in detail about the development of all mental functions in childhood and adolescence. Now let's look at the periods of early adulthood and adulthood/aging.

In early adulthood (18-21 years), there is a multidirectional development of mental functions: the field of vision, eye, spatial representations, attention, characteristics of recognition and recognition increase; visual acuity and short-term memory decrease; observation is stable.

During the aging period, heterochrony performs a compensatory function, promoting the preservation of some functions at the expense of others, and most of all, vital and trainable functions are preserved: verbal-logical memory (compared to figurative); all functions of the hand; speech-auditory and visual orientation. In particular, for transport drivers, all visual-spatial functions as the main components of working ability remain almost unchanged until old age.

The ontogenetic development of intelligence in adulthood is contradictory: non-verbal characteristics (practical intelligence) gradually decrease after 30-35 years; progress after 30-35 years and reach a maximum after 40-45 years. In general, verbal-logical functions, being formed in early childhood, are characterized by the greatest preservation and are an essential factor that resists human aging.

These data, which have an obvious economic explanation, are also quite fair from the point of view of sociobiology. The development of the human population has led to a lengthening of the period of growing up; therefore, growth in life expectancy is required (for the reproduction of the next generation and the creation of at least a minimum of conditions for its existence).

From a physiological point of view, these data also find an explanation. The development of the organism begins with the first division of the fertilized egg. On the 5th day, by the time the egg is implanted into the wall of the uterus, the small organism already consists of 128 cells, by the time of birth there are 800 billion of them, and in the prime of life, between 20 and 30 years - about 50 trillion. Many scientists support the opinion that the number of successive divisions in the progeny of one cell in a person throughout life is limited to fifty. Taking into account the rhythm of division processes, it must be assumed that the life expectancy of a person (with rare exceptions) cannot exceed 110 years. Apparently, unless any sensational discoveries are made, this “ceiling” is unlikely to be surpassed.

We emphasize that if life expectancy has increased by 15-20 years over the past half century, this does not mean that the life of an adult has become 15-20 years longer. In the West, a person reaching the age of 60 today can expect to live another 17 years, which is only 1 year more than it was 50 years ago. The increase in life expectancy is mainly associated with a significant drop in child mortality due to mass vaccinations.

Example: a person occupies a certain average position in life expectancy among all representatives of living nature: a bacterium lives for several minutes, a cypress lives up to 10,000 years, a baobab lives up to 5,000 years.

Individual life expectancy

Individual life expectancy ( IPZh) depends on a number of factors.

1. Socio-economic factors (economic development of the state, improvement of hygienic conditions, reduction of child mortality, medical advances). Thus, in underdeveloped countries, the life expectancy is 32-45 years; and in developed countries – 68-73 years.

2. Environmental factors (temperature, air environment, etc.). It has been shown that a decrease in body temperature, i.e. living in the cold, slows down the intensity and pace of metabolic processes and thereby slows down aging. So, in fruit flies at a temperature of 10? The life expectancy is 177.5 days, and at a temperature of 30? – 15.2 days. Similar data were obtained for mice and rats.

3. A decrease in oxygen content in the air leads to under-oxidation of many substances in the body (the problem of free radicals) and premature aging. Let us remember that most centenarians live in rural areas.

4. Genetic factors. There is a correlation between the ILI of children and parents. Thus, 86% of people over 90-100 years old have long-lived parents; twins have approximately the same ILI; Cardiovascular diseases are easier if the parents are long-lived.

5. Sexual dimorphism. Women have higher reliability of self-regulation systems, therefore the ILI of women is higher than that of men.

6. Heterosis (mixing of different racial groups). Children from mixed marriages live longer on average.

7. Lifestyle (diet, motor mode, activity of a person as an individual and as a subject of activity). A high correlation (0.8-0.9) was obtained between the total calorie content of food, the intensity of protein metabolism and species life spans.

Example: the higher the protein intake per unit. body weight, the lower the life expectancy. Obesity of 25-34% of the norm leads to an increase in mortality by 41%, while life expectancy falls by 6-8 years. Chronic overstrain of the central nervous system reduces life expectancy. Undervoltage also works poorly (this has been shown in rats). Selye’s theory about the role of stress is very well confirmed here, i.e. an optimal level of stress is required, including emotional .

8. Creative activity. The life expectancy of outstanding scientists and artists is 3-3.5 years higher than the species average. People in creative professions are less susceptible to the most common disease of old age – cerebral atherosclerosis. Among them, cases of senile dementia (dementia) are extremely rare, that is, there is no decline in creative activity until old age. Thus, late completion of activity is one of the main factors of longevity, because only in activity are all the basic human resources not only realized, but also reproduced.

3.2. Species-specific changes in the temporal structure of life expectancy

These are mainly phenomena such as acceleration and retardation.

Acceleration is the acceleration of development (mainly physical) in early ontogenesis, starting from the neonatal period.

Example: doubling the weight of newborns 100 years ago was achieved by 6 months, and today - by 4.5 months; the onset of puberty is at 17 and 13 years old, respectively. The same applies to mental functions. Thus, it is shown that children, regardless of the forms and methods of education in the 1960s. read faster than in the 1920s. There are also negative manifestations of acceleration. For example, among young people of the 90s. XX century an increase in intelligence and a decrease in fantasy were revealed.

Retardation – slowing down the aging process. As a result, the period of acme (most productive life) expands.

1. Newborn (0-1 month).