Kulʹturno-istoričeskaâ Psihologiâ最新文献

The topic of the article refers to the way and method of the Mediation Action implementation. Specified method could be built by the Mediator in the connection of two Positions: in the first place, a consideration of behaviour that will, in the second place, allow to appropriately join («wedge») its flow. Correlating the consideration of behaviour and the method of its reconstruction is the key problem of upbuilding and unfolding the Mediation Action. It implies that the Mediator views the process of action performing by another person as/in a certain language – a language, in which appropriate method of joining the unfolding behaviour could be identified and comprehended.

The text is a review of the historical and theoretical book by E.E. Sokolova Psychology of activity: formation and prospects of development. The panorama of the ideas of the psychology of activity is reproduced based on the historical and logical foundations of the concept of activity in philosophy and psychology. These ideas are revealed in the context of the polylogue of scientists within the A.N. Leontiev school and its wide reference circle. Special attention is paid to the understanding of activity as casa sui as opposed to its mechanistic interpretation. The contradictions and paradoxes of activity are considered, through the fixation and resolution of which the way of thinking that characterizes the theory of A.N. Leontiev was formed.

The concept of the I that is present in the scholarly and mundane consciousness is inwardly paradoxical, as it contains the risk of regression to “bad infinity”. Thus, “I see an object” obviously creates in me the image of the object; by implication, “someone” inside me sees the image of the perceived object and, consequently, an image of the image, which has just arisen, emerges then; this new image further transforms into an object of internal perception, and so on and so forth, “to infinity”. The same logic of regression into bad infinity applies to the individual’s experiences and aspirations regressing into the far reaches of the Transcendental I. An alternative to such an understanding forms a viewpoint on the I as a dynamic whole in the unity of its four modes, “the Existential I”, “the Phenomenological I”, “the Presuming I”, and the “Self-valuable I”. The assumed fact that initially there is “someone” “in me”, as part of the Phenomenological I, that “feels”, “looks”, “acts” and “experiences”, is revised. It is surmised that the assumed (imaginary) I becomes real (acquires agency) through the mediation of the individual’s contacts with his or her environment. The four modes of the I are generated through the individual’s activity manifested in various ways (search, imitation, purposeful activity and supra-adaptive activity). The involvement of the I in the culture and activity discourse enables the unified interpretation of concepts that are present in philosophical and psychological systems that are significantly different in their premises.

The article analyzes the fundamental problem, known in philosophy as the problem of universals, and in psychology as the problem of the essence and types of generalizations. The authors point to the internal inconsistency and lack of persuasiveness of the traditional interpretation of the nature of generalizations proposed by Aristotle. All modern psychology, as indicated in the article, remains a prisoner of the empirical way of generating the general, imposed by the Stagirite. The authors see ways to solve the problem of generalizations in the paradoxical formula proposed by L.S. Vygotsky, who argued that generalization and communication are two sides of the same time. According to this formula, as we communicate, so we generalize, and vice versa. Guided by the most important principle of the cultural-historical approach - the principle of historicism, the authors consider the origin and essence of generalizations in ontogeny. The article highlights and discusses six types of sequentially emerging generalizations. The very first generalization that appears in young children, which can be called primary, sheds light on the inner nature and essence of generalizations, which are a folded program of actions to achieve the goal generated by the child. The next type and level of generalizations can be named after L.S. Vygotsky, worldly concepts and ideas. They differ significantly from the empirical generalizations imposed on children by existing educational methods and programs. According to the authors, the child's mastery of certain levels and types of generalizations is a natural process of development of the psyche and consciousness. At the turn of preschool and primary school age, children develop theoretical thinking with a predominant focus on the mode of action; in the middle grades, they master functional generalizations and a functional style of thinking. In older adolescence and youthful age, opportunities open up for them to familiarize themselves with the scientific and philosophical level of thinking, thanks to the scientific and philosophical types of generalizations. The development of generalizations in the cultural-historical theory is an internal, and, therefore, an essential characteristic of the development of human consciousness.

The need to create a questionnaire to study the psychological problems of adolescents in real and virtual environments arose since previously created and available methods in this sphere did not consider the influence of the virtual environment as a factor of socialization. The article reveals the continuity in the development of methodological tools for the study of psychological problems of adolescents and shows the novelty of the new questionnaire. The questionnaire was created and standardized during five consecutive stages (collection of primary empirical material, procedures of linguistic and frequency analysis, assessment of reliability, validity, double factorization, determination of age norms). 566 teenagers aged 13-17 years took part in standardization. The result of this work is a new psychodiagnostic tool that allows to determine the degree of adolescents’ concern with psychological problems, both in real life and in connection with their immersion in the Internet environment.

The subject of discussion in the presented article is the “immediacy postulate” and the task of overcoming it, specified in the methodological principle of mediating a two-term scheme of analysis. The options for solving the problem of mediation contained in the theoretical systems of L.S. Vygotsky, A.N. Leontiev and D.N. Uznadze are considered and analysed. D.N. Uznadze, who was the first to designate this methodological discourse, and A.N. Leontiev represented its essence approximately the same way, namely, as a question of the relationship between internal (mental) and external (transpsychic), while, as a mediating link, they proposed, respectively, the set and activity. The question is posed differently in the cultural-historical theory, where mediation is the process of transforming “natural functions” into higher mental processes, in which the “sign” acts as a mediating agent. In any case, the problem of mediation appears to be fundamental. However, the question of a mediator between the psychic and non-psychic world is inseparable from the psychophysical problem, which makes it difficult to reach the real empirical level of analysis. In the light of some considerations by D.N. Uznadze and certain empirical data, an opinion is expressed about the possibility of limiting the area of ​​action of the principle of mediation.

From perspective of cultural-historical approach in psychosomatics, the psychological regulation of a child's sleep and wakefulness is developed in children in interaction with significant adults. The aim was to reveal the relationship between dysfunctional beliefs of parents about their own sleep and its vulnerability as well as their violations of sleep hygiene and parental beliefs about the sleep of their children aged 5-13, the beliefs of the children about their sleep and their quality of sleep and wakefulness. 147 pairs of "parent-child 5-13 years old without diagnosed sleep disorders" participated (47 pairs with a child 5-6 years old, 49 pairs with a child 7-9 years old, 51 pairs with a child 10-13 years old). Parents answered questions about their child's sleep pattern, filled children's sleep habits questionnaire, dysfunctional beliefs about sleep and sleep vulnerability scales about their own and their child's sleep, insomnia severity index, and a scale of behavioral factors of sleep disturbances about their own sleep. Children answered the questions of children's self-report about their sleep, dysfunctional beliefs about and vulnerability of their sleep scales, pediatric sleepiness scale. According to the analysis of mediation, dysfunctional perceptions of parents about their own sleep are indirectly associated with sleepiness and sleep difficulties in children, since they increase the likelihood of the same perceptions of parents about their children's sleep. Sleepiness, according to the children appraisals, is additionally indirectly related to the dysfunctional beliefs of parents about their sleep through the mediation of the child's beliefs about their sleep. Parents' beliefs about their sleep vulnerability are associated with children's poorer sleep and sleepiness, as they increase the likelihood of the child's sleep vulnerability beliefs, which, in turn, increase the likelihood of the child's own perceptions of the vulnerability of his sleep. The data are consistent with the perspective of the psychology of physicality about the development of the psychological regulation of sleep and wakefulness of the child in interaction with significant adults.

Alexey N. Leontiev’s legacy – as part of cultural-historical activity theory – is discussed as an open-ended, dynamic, and continuously emerging system of ideas. The meaning and import of these ideas are becoming transparent in the context of contemporary conceptual revolution in psychology. Various trends within this cutting-edge movement have converged on the notion of relationality – in opposition to traditional “substance” metaphysics that posits self-contained, independent entities as the exclusive analytical focus. CHAT is revealed to be a pioneer in this conceptual revolution, contributing conceptual advances such as on embodied, situated, distributed, and enacted cognition/mind and on a (non-dual) “natureculture.” In CHAT, human development is an open-ended, dynamic, non-linear, and ever-unfolding, that is, emergent process with no preprogrammed blueprints. This process is composed of embodied bi-directional interactivities of persons-acting-in-the-world, embedded in fluid contexts – soft assemblages contingent on situational demands and affordances. Moreover, CHAT foregrounds collective dynamics of meaningful shared activities extending through history as a unified onto-epistemology of human development and mind. In addition, CHAT also offers, in outlines, steps to move beyond the relational paradigm towards a transformative worldview premised on the notion of a simultaneous persons-and-the-world co-realizing.

Specially designed cultural tools of psychologists’ and ethologists’ research activity are considered. The tools are objects stimulating a living being (an animal or a human) to unfold its behavior (activity) and, due to it, providing opportunity to study the behavior (activity). They serve as a base for psychological science and are included in systems of relationships between many people. A history of inventions of these objects (from behaviorists’ puzzle boxes, gestalt psychologists’ instruments and experimental objects designed in A.N. Leontiev’s activity approach to the newest objects) is a part of intellectual history of humankind and unfolding of its creative potential towards self-development and self-cognition. Some part of the objects become, in a transformed form, objects of mass culture (e.g. toys). These inventions by psychologists and ethologists are a component of cultural-historical process and modern humankind’s activity structures.

The relevance of the study of the conditions for the formation of the image of the world as an integral characteristic of the individual semantic system of the personality, that determines the interaction with the world and its life position, is due to the transitivity and high uncertainty of modern society. The aim of the study is to investigate the the image of the world in the current and future perspective among young people with different experience of participating in volunteer activities. The hypothesis was the assumption of differences in the image of the world in the time coordinates "present - future" among students with different experience in volunteering. The study used the Bipolar Semantic Differential method for two consecutive assessments of the image of the world: "The world now" and "The world in 5 years"; a questionnaire scale of basic beliefs, a questionnaire for participation in volunteer activities. The data consists of 211 Russian students aged from 18 till 23 (M=19.7; SD=1.61). Among them are 91 (43.1%) men and 120 (56.9%) women. Significant differences in world image in present and future are revealed. The image in present is contradictory, characterized mainly negatively as unpredictable, uncontrollable, anxious, complex. The image of "The World in 5 years" is positive, characterized as meaningful, active, fair and reliable (t-Student criteria, р ≤ 0.02). The connection between the characteristics of the image of the world and basic assumptions, primarily with the perception of the justice of the world, has been established. The positive role of participation in volunteer activities of student youth for the formation of a positive image of the world is proved: world nowadays is regarded as more active, and in future more controlled and benevolent (t-Student criteria, р ≤ 0.02, and significant (t-Student criteria, р = 0.043).