EntranceFunctionalism. Main characteristics
Russian state social
University of Moscow
on the topic: Psychology of W. James.
Functionalism
3rd year students
Faculty of Social Psychology
Bodryagina O.O.
1. The contribution of functionalism to the development of psychology. William James (11/1/1842, New York - 08/16/1910) - American psychologist and philosopher, one of the founders of American functionalism. He considered consciousness, understood as a “stream of consciousness,” in terms of its adaptive functions. He proposed one of the first personality theories in psychology. In the “empirical self” or “personality” he identified:
1. Physical personality, which includes one’s own bodily organization, home, family, fortune, etc.;
2. Social personalities as forms of recognition of our personality by other people;
3. Spiritual personality as the unity of all spiritual properties and states of personality: thinking, emotions, desires, etc., with the center in the sense of activity of the Self.
Unlike structuralism, which arose in Europe and spread to the United States, functionalism arose on American soil. One of the prerequisites for its emergence was the Darwinian theory of evolution, which captured the minds of both Europe and America at the end of the 19th century. Charles Darwin's teaching radically changed the idea of man's place in nature. For psychologists, the theory of evolution has raised fascinating questions:
What is the adaptive significance of various human abilities?
Functionalism tried to answer these questions.
Functionalism was not as systematized as structuralism.
Functionalism was a general set of ideas covering a specific topic, especially the problem of the utility or adaptive significance of mental processes.
An outstanding American psychologist, whose research is often associated with functionalism, is William James. The works of W. James preceded the emergence of functionalism. The subject of human psychology is consciousness. “Psychology can best be defined in the words of Professor Ladd, as a science concerned with the description and interpretation of states of consciousness, as such. By states of consciousness here we mean such phenomena as sensations, desires, emotions, cognitive processes, judgments, decisions, desires, etc. The interpretation of these phenomena should, of course, include the study of the causes and conditions under which they arise, as well as the study of actions directly caused by them, since both of them can be stated” (James W. Psychology. St. Petersburg, 1911. P. 1).
The development of the views of J. Dewey and W. James gave impetus to some trends in psychology that were suppressed by structuralism. Thanks to functionalism, the sphere of interest of psychology expanded: children and the mentally ill, as well as animals (chimpanzees, dogs), the study of which was impossible using introspection methods, began to be studied. The most important direction has been the application of psychological research in various fields.
Unlike European, American functionalism (W. James, D. Dewey and the Chicago school) followed a more constructive path - function was interpreted not only as a mental act itself, but as a psychophysical activity that implements the process of adaptation of the body to the external environment.
Just as structuralism contrasted structure with association, functionalism contrasted function with structure and the content embodied in it. The situation does not require special comments on how important this aspect of the analysis of real work is for scientific theory, performed both within the composition of the mental act itself, and in the process of its organizing influence on the adaptation of the organism to the environment and on the active transformation of the latter. And by highlighting this aspect of analysis, functionalism undoubtedly enriched the conceptual apparatus of psychological theory.
However, in both directions of functionalism, the function of the mental process was opposed to the structure and the real extra-psychological material from which this structure is organized.
The separation of the mental structure from the source material necessarily leads to separation from the physiological mechanism that synthesizes this structure precisely from this material. At the same time, since neither the structure, nor, especially, the function in its real working activity can be isolated from the initial material, the function itself turns into such initial material, and this creates logical grounds for the assertion that acts construct stimulus objects ( Dewey, 1955). The stimulus ceases to be independent in relation to the organism and its reaction. The object becomes derived from the act or function. It is no coincidence that D. Dewey sharply criticized the deterministic concept of a reflex act, in which the object of the action does not depend on the action itself, and the mental components of the act carry out their working function, which consists in organizing the action adequately for the object that does not depend on it. In the context of the functionalist direction, the concept of function (like the concept of structure in structuralism), isolated from the real source material from which the physiological mechanism builds the mental process, ceases to work effectively in the conceptual apparatus of the theory. Therefore, despite the constructiveness of the concept of function itself, neither in European nor in American functionalism could theoretically make ends meet, and the concept found itself in a dead end.
2. Development of functionalism in America
The development of functionalism in America is closely connected with the name of V. James. V. James graduated from Harvard University, receiving medical and artistic education. His psychological works set out not so much a holistic system of views as a set of concepts that served as the basis for various approaches in modern psychology - from behaviorism to humanistic psychology. James made psychology one of the most popular sciences in America. He was the first professor of psychology at Harvard University, the creator of the first American psychological laboratory (1875), and president of the American Psychological Association (1894-1895).
James dealt with many problems - from studying the brain and the development of cognitive processes and emotions to personality problems and psychedelic research. One of the main issues for him was the study of consciousness. James came up with the idea of the “stream of consciousness”, i.e. about the continuity of the work of human consciousness, despite the external discreteness caused by partially unconscious mental processes. The continuity of thought explains the possibility of self-identification despite constant gaps in consciousness. Therefore, for example, when waking up, a person instantly becomes aware of himself and he “does not need to run to the mirror in order to make sure that it is him.” James emphasizes not only continuity, but also dynamism, the constant variability of consciousness, saying that the awareness of even familiar things is constantly changing and, paraphrasing Heraclitus, who said that you cannot enter the same river twice, he wrote, that we cannot have exactly the same thought twice.
Consciousness is not only continuous and changeable, but also selective, selective, acceptance and rejection always occur in it, the choice of some objects or their parameters and the rejection of others. From James's point of view, the study of the laws according to which consciousness works, according to which choice or rejection occurs, is the main task of psychology. This issue was the main reason for the disagreement between the school of functionalism of James and the American psychologist Titchener, who represented the school of structuralism. Unlike Titchener, for James the primary thing was not a separate element of consciousness, but its flow as a dynamic integrity. At the same time, Dzheme emphasized the priority of studying the work of consciousness, and not its structure. Studying the work of consciousness, he comes to the discovery of its two main determinants - attention and habit.
Speaking about human activity, the scientist emphasized that the psyche helps in his practical activities, optimizes the process of social adaptation, and increases the chances of success in any activity.
James's psychological views are closely intertwined with his philosophical theory of functionalism, which places pragmatism at the forefront. Therefore, James paid great attention to applied psychology, proving that its importance is no less than theoretical psychology. Particularly important, from his point of view, is the connection between psychology and pedagogy. He even published a special book for teachers, “Conversations with Teachers about Psychology,” in which he proved the enormous possibilities of education and self-education, the importance of forming the right habits in children.
James paid considerable attention to the problem of personality, understanding it as an integrative whole, which was fundamentally new in that period. He distinguished the cognizable and cognizing elements in personality, believing that the cognizable element is our empirical Self, which we recognize as our personality, while the cognizing element is our pure Self. The identification of several parts in the structure of the empirical personality was also of great importance - physical, social and spiritual personality. Describing them. James said that our empirical self is wider than the purely physical, since a person identifies himself both with his social roles and with his loved ones, expanding his physical self. At the same time, the empirical self can be narrower than the physical one, when a person identifies only with certain needs or abilities, isolating himself from other aspects of his personality.
Functionalism is a direction that studies mental processes from the point of view of their function in adapting the organism to the environment. It arose under the influence of evolutionary theory in biology (C. Darwin, G. Spencer) and in connection with the demands of social practice, which required a transition from the sterile element-by-element analysis of consciousness in the structural psychology of Wundt-Titchener to the study of the service role of consciousness in solving problems vital for the individual . There were several trends in functional psychology. In European countries, the natural scientific interpretation of mental functions was followed by T. Ribot (France), N. N. Lange (Russia), E. Claparède (Switzerland), and the idealistic interpretation by K. Stumpf and representatives of the Würzburg school (Germany). In the United States, another version of functional psychology developed, dating back to W. James and represented by two schools: Chicago (D. Dewey, D. Angell, G. Kerr) and Columbia (R. Woodworth). Psychology was understood as the science of the functions (or “activities”) of consciousness in their relationship to the needs of the organism and in connection with the task of its effective adaptation to the changing natural and social environment. The field of psychology thereby expanded significantly. It covered not only consciousness, but also behavior (adaptive actions), the motives for this behavior, individual differences between people, learning mechanisms and other problems that brought psychology closer to practice. Proponents of this trend have made significant contributions to experimental psychology. However, the weakness of their theoretical positions, dualism in understanding the relationship between bodily and mental functions, and the teleological view of consciousness as a purposefully acting entity led to the fact that this direction lost scientific influence. In the 20s XX century American functional psychology was pushed aside by behaviorism.
Under the influence of the ideas of act psychology, James (1842 - 1910) created functionalism. He denied the existence of consciousness as a substance and insisted on its existence as a function - cognition. He rejected the atomism of psychology: in self-observation it is not elements that are revealed to us, but entire concrete states of consciousness, changing at every moment of time. You need to study functions and operations. There are no connections in consciousness, it is a flow. In it one can distinguish qualities and transition states. A characteristic feature of the stream of consciousness is the presence of mental overtones, images, vague and indistinct phenomena of consciousness. Consciousness is always selective. He solved the question of the connection between states and the brain using the theory of mental automatism - a variation of the concept of psychophysical parallelism. After 1916, this trend turned into behaviorism. Representatives: Dewey, Angell, Moore, Mead. They opposed the structuralists on the need to exclude meanings, values, relationships, etc. from being considered as unobservable. In addition, they called not to limit ourselves to consciousness, but to consider the whole organism in the unity of mind and body. Disadvantages: the concept of function suffered from uncertainty, the content side of consciousness was underestimated.
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Functionalism. Basic characteristics. Functionalism- a direction that studies mental processes from the point of view of their function in adapting the body to the environment. -
Functionalism. Basic characteristics. Functionalism- a direction that studies mental processes from the point of view of their function in adaptation. -
Basic characteristics. Functionalism- a direction that studies mental processes from the point of view of their function in adaptation... more ». -
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John Dewey- psychologist, philosopher, teacher. IN 1896. The article “The Concept of the Reflex Arc in Psychology” is considered the beginning of functionalism. A reflex arc is divided into a beginning, middle and end; Each part has its own special function. According to Dewey, reflex is a single holistic act of coordination aimed at adapting the body to the environment. The beginning is aimed at identifying the conditions in which the organism finds itself; the middle is for comprehension and analysis of these conditions; reaction - bringing the body into conformity with the conditions in which it finds itself at the moment. By analogy with the reflex, the psyche should also be considered in connection with its useful function in behavior.
The social basis of functionalism is pragmatism, which permeated the entire American ideology, its philosophy and science. The practical usefulness of ideas was considered the main property of ideas. In this environment, the analysis of creation, devoid of practical significance, as it was in Titchener's structuralism, caused protest.
Functionalism instead of analyzing consciousness from the side of content in terms of its constituent elements; demanded consideration of consciousness from the perspective of its function in behavior.
Subject of study a function is declared, i.e. an operation.
To study a function means to reveal its coordination, on the one hand, with the body, with the state of the need that it satisfies, and with the external environment to which this function is directed.
The main provisions of the school of functionalism: 1. Psychology should study not What, but How (how consciousness works, and not what it consists of). 2. The task is to study the usefulness of consciousness in new situations, adaptation to new conditions.3. In behavior, an integral organism—soul and body—act in indissoluble unity.
Functionalism was the stimulus, the motivator of a major turn in psychology: from theoretical to applied forms of psychology: psychology split into 2 - theoretical and applied.
Functional psychology, as one of the new points of view, turned out to be useful for the new developing branches of psychological science - educational, industrial, etc. However, it did not stand the test of time and collapsed. The requirement to consider the psyche from its functional side did not open up a new understanding of the psyche itself, and the basic concept of “function” suffered from uncertainty and ambiguity: some authors understood mental acts (seeing, hearing, etc.) as function, others used this concept in the meaning which has developed in physiology as a function of function, for example, breathing is understood as performing the function of supplying the body with oxygen, etc.
Chicago school: Dewey, Angell and Carr.
Dewey criticized psychological molecularism, elementarism and reductionism of the reflex arc theory, in which the stimulus and reaction are considered as separate parts. A circle, not an arc! The response changes perception; the stimulus and response must be considered as a single entity, and not as a collection of individual sensations and reactions. It is impossible to explore consciousness by studying only its individual elements. The subject of psychology should be the study of the human body in the process of its life. Behavior as a form of adaptation to the environment.
James Rowland Angell(1869-1949) turned the functionalist movement into a real psychological school. Mental function– improve the body’s adaptive abilities. The purpose of psychology is to study how the psyche helps the body in its adaptation to the environment.
Functions of psychology:- study mental operations, not elements. The task is to study the processes and conditions in which they occur. - to study the role of consciousness and such mental processes as judgment and manifestation of will. - to study psychophysical connections (mind/body) in the general context of the relationship of the organism with the environment.
Harvey Carr– Functionalism reached its peak as a formal system.
The subject of study of psychology is mental activity (processes such as perception, thinking, memory, imagination, feeling, will).
The function of mental activity is the acquisition, recording, preservation, organization and evaluation of experiences and their use to guide behavior.
The type of behavior that reflects mental activity is adaptive behavior. The emphasis of the study has shifted from purely subjective thought to objective, outwardly manifested behavior.
Psychology studies the personality, thinking and “I” of a person, but these are only abstract objects that can be studied only in their manifestations - only in how they are expressed in human reactions.
Psychophysical processes are various mental operations included in the adaptive reactions of the body.
Columbia school: Woodworth. Representative of one of the areas of functional psychology, called dynamic psychology. The main point: the most important role in the organization of behavior belongs to its internal driving forces (the dynamics of motives). The subject of psychology is both consciousness and behavior. The reaction is influenced not only by the nature of the stimulus, but also by the organism itself with its different energy levels and all previous experiences. With the help of objective observation one can study the influence of an external stimulus and the response, but what happens inside the body is accessible only to the method of introspection. “Dynamic Psychology” (1918)
European functionalism: Ribot In Russia: Lange In Switzerland: Claparède (affirmed the activity of consciousness, highlighting the role of interests and needs in behavior.).
Functionalism as one of the main trends in American psychology of the late 19th - early 20th centuries, it was the result of bringing the scientific system of knowledge into line with the objective needs of human development and his social environment, that is, the result of the interaction of the logic of the development of science with real social practice. The heightened sensitivity of time to the possibility of using the achievements of psychology in various sociocultural spheres of human life and society served as an essential prerequisite for the separation of functionalism from the emerging system of psychological knowledge.
This direction took shape against a rather contradictory background: the cult of practicality and enterprise created by the growing capitalist state machine was reflected in American psychological functionalism. At its origins stood William James (1842-1910)- American psychologist and philosopher, popularizer of psychology as a science, creator of the first psychological laboratory in the United States. The main emphasis in the concept of the phenomena of consciousness of W. James is transferred from image to action, which determined his leadership in pragmatism and significant influence on the birth and development of functionalism and behaviorism in psychology.
Psychology was presented to them as a natural biological science, the subject of which is “psychic (mental) phenomena and their conditions.” When analyzing the conditions, the relationship between the mental and the physical and the importance of the researcher of consciousness turning to the findings of physiology are emphasized. James considered consciousness based on evolutionary theory as a means of adaptation to the environment. Consciousness “comes into play” when adaptation difficulties arise (problem situation), and regulates the individual’s behavior in a new situation (filters and selects stimuli, regulates the individual’s actions in unusual conditions). He rejected the division of consciousness into elements. Exists "mindflow", dividing which is as meaningless as “cutting water with scissors.” Thus, the position was put forward about the integrity and dynamics of consciousness, realizing the needs of the individual. James correlated consciousness not only with bodily adaptive actions, but also with the nature (structure) of personality. In the theory of personality, James identifies four forms of “I”: 1) “I” is material: body, clothes, property; 2) “I” social: everything connected with a person’s claims to prestige, friendship, positive assessment from others; 3) “I” spiritual: processes of consciousness, mental abilities; 4) “I” is pure: a sense of personal identity, the basis of which is organic sensations. The social “I,” according to James, is determined by the conscious reactions of others to my person and indicates the individual’s inclusion in a network of interpersonal relationships. Each person has several social “I”, which occupies a middle position in the designated hierarchy.
Raising the question of a person’s self-esteem and a person’s satisfaction (dissatisfaction) with life, James proposed a formula: self-esteem is equal to success divided by aspirations. This implied an increase in the individual’s self-esteem both with actual success and with the renunciation of the desire for it.
Based on the indicated attitudes, the source of genuine personal values is in religion: the empirical social “I” is contrasted with the “special potential social” “I”, which is realized only in the “social mind of the ideal world” in communication with the Almighty - the Absolute Mind.
Thus, W. James takes a step forward from the purely epistemological “I” to its systemic psychological interpretation, to its level-by-level analysis. In his analysis, he put forward a number of provisions that anticipated modern ideas about the level of aspirations, the motive for achieving success, self-esteem and its dynamics, the reference group, and others. His thoughts about the personal level were “swallowed” by a mystical fog.
In the doctrine of emotions, James proposed to consider emotion not as the root cause of physiological changes in the body, not as a source of physiological changes in various systems (muscular, vascular, etc.), but as a result of these changes. An external stimulus causes trumpets in the body (muscular and internal organs), which are experienced by the subject in the form of emotional states: “We are sad because we cry, enraged because we hit someone else.”
In his search for the bodily mechanism of “human passions,” James deprived emotions of their long-recognized role as a powerful stimulant of behavior. Emotions were derived from the class of phenomena to which motivation belongs. Instead, when creating this hypothesis, the category of action was affirmed. Emotions were also denied (in their Darwinian interpretation) an adaptive function.
The action of the interested subject is the supporting link of both W. James’s entire psychological system and his concept of emotions, considered in the context of the possibility of controlling the internal through the external: in the event of unwanted emotional manifestations, the subject is able to suppress them by performing external actions that have the opposite direction. But the final causal factor in the new physiological scheme, which affirms the feedback between the motor act and emotion, was the ancient “willpower”, which has no basis in anything except in itself. One of the goals of studying emotional states was to transform them into an object accessible to natural scientific experiment and analysis. The solution to this problem was carried out by reducing the subjective experience to the bodily.
Another talented representative of functionalism was John Dewey (1859-1952) - a famous psychologist at the beginning of the 20th century, later a philosopher and teacher. His book "Psychology" (1886) is the first American textbook on this subject. But his article “The Concept of a Reflex Act” had a greater influence on psychological views. V psychology" (1896), in which he opposed the idea that reflex arcs serve as the main units of behavior. Dewey demanded a move to a new understanding of the subject of psychology - whole organism in his restless, environmentally adaptive activity.
Consciousness, according to Dewey, is one of the moments of this activity; it arises when coordination between the organism and the environment is disrupted and the organism, in order to survive, strives to adapt to new circumstances. In 1894, Dewey was invited to the University of Chicago, where, under his influence, a group of psychologists was formed who declared themselves functionalists. Their theoretical credo was expressed by James Angel (1849-1949).
In his presidential address to the American Psychological Association, “The Field of Functional Psychology” (1906), he emphasized: psychology is the study of mental (mental) operations; it cannot limit itself to the doctrine of consciousness, it should study the diversity of the individual’s connections with the real world in collaboration and rapprochement with neurology, sociology, pedagogy, anthropology; operations act as intermediaries between the needs of the body and the environment; the purpose of consciousness is “accommodation to the new”; the organism acts as a psychophysical whole.
Formed in the functionalist tradition, the Chicago School attracted dozens of psychologists to its ranks. After D. Angel it was headed Harvey Carr (1873-1954), who reflected his positions in the book “Psychology” (1925). This science was defined in it as the study of mental activity (mental activity): perception, memory, imagination, thinking, feelings, will. “Mental activity consists,” wrote G. Carr, “of acquiring, imprinting, storing, organizing and evaluating experience and its subsequent use to guide behavior.” The Chicago School strengthened the influence of the objective method in psychology. It was considered appropriate to use introspection, objective observation (the experiment was interpreted as controlled observation), and analysis of the products of activity (language, art).
The Colombian school, headed by Robert Woodworth (1869-1962). His main works are “Dynamic Psychology” (1918), “Dynamics of Behavior” (1958). He considered himself an eclectic. The novelty of his psychological concepts lay in the fact that an important variable, the organism, was introduced into the “stimulus-response” formula popular in the 20s: 5 - O - Z. He separates motivation and the mechanism of behavior. The mechanism consists of two links: preparatory (installation); “consummatory” (the final reaction through which the goal is achieved). Motivation, in his opinion, activates the mechanism and puts it into action. After the need is satisfied, the use of the mechanism can acquire motivational force. Reflected approaches turned means into ends, which led from a vague interpretation of action as a function of consciousness to a concrete scientific development of this category.
Thus, functionalism sought to consider all mental processes from the point of view of their adaptive - adaptive character. This required determining their relationship to environmental conditions and the needs of the body. Understanding mental life on the model of biological life as a set of functions, actions, and operations was directed against the mechanical scheme of structural psychology. Hence functional psychology is interpreted as a "stream of consciousness" theory.
Proponents of the trend made significant contributions to experimental psychology. The natural-scientific interpretation of mental functions was supported by famous psychologists I. Ribot (France), N. Lange (Russia), E. Claparède (Switzerland), the idealistic one - K. Stumpf (Germany), representatives of the Würzburg school. The determination of the mental act, its relationship to the nervous system and the ability to regulate external behavior remained uncertain in functionalism. The very concept of “function” was neither theoretically nor experimentally substantiated and tended to merge with ancient teleologism.
The developing young psychology borrowed its methods from physiology. She didn’t have her own until a German psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus (1850 -1909) did not begin the experimental study of associations. In the book “On Memory” (1885), he outlined the results of experiments conducted on himself in order to derive the exact mathematical laws by which learned material is stored and reproduced. Taking up this problem, he invented a special object - nonsense syllables(each syllable consisted of two consonants and a vowel between them, for example, “mon”, “pit”, etc.).
To study associations, Ebbinghaus first selected stimuli that did not evoke any associations. He experimented with a list of 2,300 nonsense syllables for two years. Various options were tried and carefully calculated regarding the number of syllables, memorization time, number of repetitions, the interval between them, the dynamics of forgetting (it acquired a reputation as a classic "forgetting curve" showing that approximately half of what is forgotten falls in the first half hour after memorization) and other variables.
In various variants, data were obtained regarding the number of repetitions required for subsequent reproduction of material of varying volumes, forgetting of various fragments of this material (the beginnings of a list of syllables and its ends), the effect of overlearning (repetition of a list more times than required for its successful reproduction) and etc. Thus, the laws of association appeared in a new light. Ebbinghaus did not turn to physiologists for an explanation. But he was not interested in the role of consciousness either. After all, any element of consciousness (be it a mental image or an act) is initially meaningful, and the semantic content was seen as an obstacle to the study of the mechanisms of pure memory. Thus, the memorization method and the saving method were used, which made it possible to estimate: a) the number of repetitions necessary for the test subject to accurately reproduce the proposed sequence; b) the level of increase in the speed of re-learning supposedly completely forgotten material.
Ebbinghaus formulated the experimental data in several laws of memory: the volume of memorized after a single presentation is 6-8 meaningless syllables; with a slight increase in material, the number of repetitions for memorization increases many times. Therefore, an increase in memory load leads to a decrease in performance; it is advisable to distribute the time required to memorize the material over several periods separated by intervals (for example, if the material requires 30 repetitions, then 3 days 10 times is better than 30 times in one day); an older association is more strengthened by repetition and is better updated than a newly formed one; after the material has been learned, it must be repeated; forgetting immediately proceeds quickly, then the process slows down and stops after a certain time (“forgetting curve”); “edge factor or effect” - at the beginning and at the end the material is remembered better than in the middle of the presentation; a difference was recorded between memorizing meaningless and meaningful material: for memorization, it is not the number of elements that matters, but the number of independent semantic units (that is, memory is a meaningful process); training in memorizing one type of material leads to improved memorization of other types of material.
Ebbinghaus opened a new chapter in psychology not only because he was the first to venture into the experimental study of mnemonic processes, more complex than sensory ones. His unique contribution was determined by the fact that for the first time in the history of science, through experiments and quantitative analysis of their results, the actual psychological patterns, acting independently of consciousness, in other words - objectively. The equality of the psyche and consciousness (accepted as an axiom in that era) was crossed out.
What in the European tradition were designated as processes of association soon became one of the main directions of American psychology under the name "learning". This direction brought the explanatory principles of Darwin’s teachings into psychology, where a new understanding of the determination of the behavior of an entire organism and thereby all its functions, including mental ones, was established. Among the new explanatory principles, the following stood out: the probabilistic nature of reactions as a principle of natural selection and the adaptation of the organism to the environment in order to survive in it. These principles formed the contours of a new deterministic (causal) scheme. The former mechanical determinism gave way to biological determinism. At this turning point in the history of scientific knowledge, the concept of associations acquired a special status. Previously, it meant the connection of ideas in consciousness, but now it means the connection between the movements of the body and the configuration of external stimuli, on adaptation to which the solution of problems vital for the body depends.
The association acted as a way of acquiring new actions, and in the terminology that was soon adopted - learning. The first major success in transforming the concept of association came from experiments on animals (mainly cats) Edward Thorndike (1874 - 1949), American psychologist, researcher of learning problems and patterns of adaptation of the body. He used so-called problem boxes.
An animal placed in a box could get out of it and receive feeding only by activating a special device - by pressing a spring, pulling a loop, etc. The animals made many movements, rushed in different directions, scratched the box, etc. until one of the movements accidentally turned out to be successful. “Trial, error and accidental success” - this was the formula accepted for all types of behavior, both animals and humans. Thorndike explained his experiments using several laws of learning. First of all, the law of exercise (the motor reaction to a situation is associated with this situation in proportion to the frequency, strength and duration of repetition of connections). It was joined by the law of effect, which stated that of several reactions, those that are accompanied by a feeling of satisfaction are most strongly combined with the situation.
Thorndike assumed that the connections between movement and situation correspond to connections in the nervous system (i.e., a physiological mechanism), and connections are reinforced due to feeling (i.e., a subjective state). But neither the physiological nor the psychological components added anything to the “learning curve” drawn by Thorndike independently of them, where repeated trials were marked on the abscissa, and the time spent (in minutes) was marked on the ordinate. Thorndike's main book was called "The Intelligence of Animals. A Study of Associative Processes in Animals" (1898).
Before Thorndike, the originality of intellectual processes was attributed to ideas, thoughts, and mental operations (as acts of consciousness). In Thorndike they appeared in the form of motor reactions of the body independent of consciousness. In earlier times, these reactions belonged to the category of reflexes - mechanical standard responses to external irritation, predetermined by the very structure of the nervous system. According to Thorndike, they are intellectual, because they are aimed at solving a problem that the body is powerless to cope with using its existing supply of associations. The solution is to develop new associations, new motor responses to an unusual - and therefore problematic - situation.
Psychology attributed the strengthening of associations to memory processes. When it came to actions that became automated through repetition, they were called skills. Thorndike's discoveries were interpreted as the laws of skill formation.
Meanwhile, he believed that he was exploring intelligence. To the question: “Do animals have minds?”, a positive answer was given. But behind this there was a new understanding of the mind that did not need to appeal to the internal processes of consciousness. By intelligence we meant the body’s development of a “formula” for real actions that would allow it to successfully cope with a problematic situation. Success was achieved by accident. This view captured a new understanding of the determination of life phenomena, which came to psychology with the triumph of Darwinian teaching. It introduced a probabilistic style of thinking. In the organic world, only those who manage, through “trial and error,” to select the most advantageous response to the environment from many possible ones survive. This style of thinking opened up broad prospects for the introduction of statistical methods into psychology. The main achievements in the development of these methods in relation to psychology are related to creativity Francis Galton (1822 -1911). Deeply impressed by the ideas of his cousin Charles Darwin, he attached decisive importance not to the factor of adaptation of an individual organism to the environment, but to the factor of heredity, according to which the adaptation of a species is achieved through genetically determined variations of the individual forms that form this species. Based on this postulate, Galton became a pioneer in the development behavioral genetics.
Thanks to his tireless energy, the study of individual differences. These differences constantly made themselves felt in experiments to determine sensitivity thresholds, reaction time, dynamics of associations and other mental phenomena. But since the main goal was the discovery of general laws, differences in the reactions of the subjects were neglected. Galton placed the main emphasis on differences, believing that they are genetically predetermined.
In the book “Hereditary Genius” (1869), he argued, citing many facts, that outstanding abilities are inherited. Using available experimental psychological techniques, adding to them those invented by himself, he put them at the service of the study of individual variations. This applied to both physical and mental signs. The latter were considered to be no less dependent on genetic determinants than, say, eye color. In his laboratory in London, anyone could, for a small fee, determine their physical and mental abilities, between which, according to Galton, there are correlations. About 9,000 people passed through this anthropological laboratory. But Galton, sometimes called the first practicing psychologist, had a more global plan. He expected to cover the entire population of England in order to determine the level of the country's mental resources.
He designated his tests with the word “test,” which has widely entered the psychological lexicon. Galton pioneered the transformation of experimental psychology into differential psychology, which studies differences between individuals and groups of people. Galton's enduring merit was the in-depth development of variation statistics, which changed the face of psychology as a science that widely uses quantitative methods.
Galton used tests to study the functioning of the senses, reaction time, figurative memory (by finding, for example, the similarity of visual images in twins) and other sensory-motor functions. Meanwhile, practice required information about higher functions in order to diagnose individual differences between people regarding the acquisition of knowledge and the performance of complex forms of activity.
The first solution to this problem belonged to the French psychologist Alfred Binet (1857-1911), the founder of the first psychological laboratory in France at the Sorbonne (1889). He began with experimental studies of thinking (his two daughters served as subjects). However, soon, on instructions from government agencies, he began to look for psychological means by which it would be possible to separate children who were capable of learning and were not lazy from those who suffered from birth defects. Experiments to study attention, memory, and thinking were carried out on many subjects of different ages. Wiene turned experimental tasks into tests, establishing a scale, each division of which contained tasks that could be performed by normal children of a certain age. This scale has gained popularity in many countries.
In Germany William Stern introduced the concept "IQ"(English I-Q). This coefficient correlated “mental” age (determined by the Binet scale) with chronological (“passport”) age. Their discrepancy was considered an indicator of either mental retardation (when the “mental” age is lower than the chronological one) or giftedness (when the “mental” age is higher than the chronological one). This direction, under the name of testology, has become the most important channel for bringing psychology closer to practice. The technique of measuring intelligence made it possible, based on psychological data (and not purely empirically), to solve issues of training, personnel selection, professional suitability, etc.
The achievements of the experimental and differential directions, most clearly embodied in the work of these researchers, but made possible thanks to the work of the entire generation of young professionals, latently and inevitably changed the subject area of psychology. This was a different area than that outlined in the theoretical schemes from which psychology began its journey as a science proud of its originality. The subject of analysis was not the elements and acts of consciousness, unknown to anyone except the subject who had refined his inner vision. They became bodily reactions studied by an objective method. It turned out that their connections, which in the past were called associations, arise and are transformed according to special psychological laws. They are discovered by experiment in combination with quantitative methods. To do this, there is no need to turn to either physiology or self-observation.
As for the explanatory principles, they were drawn not from mechanics, which supplied psychological thought for three centuries with the principle of causality, but from Darwinian teaching, which transformed the picture of the organism and its functions.
American psychologist W. James, summing up the results of consciousness research, noted the fact that the method of traditional psychology is similar to the anatomical one. Most psychologists, as he writes, act as follows: first, the whole is divided into more or less stable parts, and then reconstructed, based on the assumption of the existence of the simplest ideas and following the Cartesian principle of ascent from simple to complex. As a result, an artificial structural structure is created that does not correspond to the real state of affairs.
Based on the results of a study of his own internal experience, James came to the conclusion that in self-observation we are dealing with a process of continuous changes in states of consciousness, to which the Heraclitean metaphor of a “river” or “stream” is applicable. But it is precisely this continuity or “solidity,” as he writes, that forms a single, dynamic whole, giving a person a sense of identity with himself.
Further analysis of consciousness allowed James to identify two types of states in it: “stable” and “changeable.” The former have a visual sensory basis, are verbalized in the form of nouns and are the main subject of research in traditional psychology. The second - changeable ones have neither visual-figurative content nor definite names and are very difficult to express verbally. According to James, the difficulties of verbally describing “changeable” states led sensualists to completely deny their reality, and rationalists to postulate “pure thoughts.”
From James's point of view, both are wrong. These states play an important role in the “stream” of consciousness: they prepare the transition from one “stable” state to another. Moreover, the expression of these states in speech is quite possible.” There is no conjunction, preposition, adverb of a prefix form or change in the intonation of human speech that would not express one or another shade or change of attitude, the reality we feel at the moment... Just as we talk about the feeling of blueness or cold, so exactly we have the right to talk about feeling “and”, “if”, feeling “through”
James believed that the difficulties of verbally expressing states of consciousness are associated with the ingrained habit of “substantivizing” only those parts of speech that denote the subject.
According to James, states of consciousness are not impersonal phenomena of introspection. They belong to a specific actor who knows his inner experience. He contrasts the concept of “pure thought” with “my thought” or “the thought of another person.” Even a priori ideas, the existence of which he was not entirely sure of, from his point of view, are “appropriated” by those who possess them.
Thinking, as interpreted by James, is a continuous and productive process. Continuity in his understanding means belonging to a specific subject, correlated with authenticity: while a person is authentic, his thinking is continuous; violation of the relationship of authenticity leads to corresponding disturbances in thinking.
Productivity is a distinctive feature of thinking compared to other cognitive processes. Each individual thought, according to James, is “unique.” Thought, in itself, as such, is least amenable to introspection. It is like a “flying arrow”, in an instant covering the distance from one object to another, and all attempts to “capture” it in flight end with it immediately being modified. However, thinking is not an incoherent process. There are very definite relationships between individual thoughts, which James calls functional.
Thinking, as James writes, “rescues us” in uncertain circumstances when sensory experience turns out to be powerless. It helps in choosing facts that are useful to us, “pushes” us to a conclusion and “gives” it such “evidence” that we could not extract from what is directly perceived. Thanks to thinking, it is possible to expand our knowledge about reality without resorting to the sensory premises of direct experience. Trying to distinguish thinking from the sphere of associative mental processes, James defines it as “the ability to navigate the data of experience that is new to us.”
Thinking, as interpreted by James, is an indirect process, including analysis, “distraction,” comparison and generalization. It presupposes knowledge, skills and “insight.” Selectivity of thinking, according to James, is manifested in the fact that a person selects only those facts that have moral or aesthetic value, practical significance or personal interest for him.
The main question of psychology is not what consciousness or thinking is, but why they exist, develop and what their functions are in the life of a particular person. James finds the answer to this question in the works of the famous English psychologist and evolutionist G. Spencer, according to which consciousness performs the function of adaptation to the environment. James accepted this point of view and his task as a psychologist, seeing the study of causal relationships between living conditions, states of consciousness and the actions of the subject.
A person in James’s concept is not a passive contemplator of what is happening, but a subject of activity and knowledge, possessing mental abilities and using his abilities for personal interests.
James' research shifted the focus of American psychology from the self-contained mind to the relationship between mind and behavior; they prepared the transition from structural to functional analysis, from the psychology of consciousness to the psychology of adaptive behavior. After James, American psychologists began to view thinking as an “instrument of adaptation” that can be developed and improved through training. Functional relationships acquired a specific form of expression in correlational relationships, where the independent variable was determined in accordance with the point of view of the researcher. The subject of research began to shift to the area of actions aimed at solving practical problems and meeting needs. The role of conscious processes began to be reduced to assessing the success of actions. Functional psychology as an independent direction, the founder of which is rightly considered to be W. James, did not exist for long, but the functional principle of explaining the relationships between psychological phenomena, on the one hand, and physical, physiological or social, on the other, has not lost its relevance today. In fact, all those who prioritize action share this principle.