The development of the psyche in phylogenesis is characterized by several stages. Let's look at two main stories related to this process.
Phylogenesis is a historical development covering millions of years of evolution, the history of the development of different types of living organisms.
Ontogeny involves the development of an individual from birth to the last days of life.
Steps of the historical development of the psyche
Let's highlight the main stages in the development of the psyche in phylogenesis. The first stage is connected with sensory elementary psyche. For animals, the world around them is presented not in the form of objects, but as separate elements, features, including the satisfaction of vital basic needs.
A. N. Leontiev considers the behavior of a spider to be a typical example of the most important phenomena and objects. After the insect is in the web, the spider immediately goes to him, begins to entangle him with his own thread. According to the results of the research, it was found that only the vibration produced by the wings of the insect is significant for the spider. It is transmitted throughout the web, and after its termination, the spidermoving towards the victim. Everything else is of little interest to the spider, only vibration is important.
If you touch the web with a sounding tuning fork, the spider in response will move towards the sounds, try to climb it, entangle it with a web, try to strike it with its limbs. According to a similar experiment, we can conclude that the vibration is a signal for the spider to receive food.
At this stage in the development of the psyche in phylogenesis, instinctive behavior can be considered as an example of sensory elementary psyche.
What are instincts
They understand the actions of a living being that do not require special training. The animal, as if from birth, "knows" what exactly it should do. In relation to a person, instincts can be understood as such actions that are performed automatically by a person, while he has not even had time to think about them.
How is the development of the psyche in the process of phylogenesis? Since ancient times, people have been trying to find the answer to this question. For example, it was possible to establish unusual complexity in the behavior of bees, ants, birds, and the construction of dams by beavers.
Humanity sought to comprehend the secret of instincts. They meant a kind of solid program, acting only in situations where external conditions were preserved, a sequence of links.
Instincts also meant formulaic, stereotyped, automated actions based on unconditioned reflexes.
The second stage of evolution
Considering the stages of the development of the psyche in phylogenesis, let us dwell on the perceiving stage (perceptual). Animals at this stage of development are able to reflect the world around them not only in the form of elementary individual sensations, but also in the form of images of objects, their relationships with each other.
In this case, the development of the psyche in phylogenesis needs a certain level of development of the central nervous system. In addition to instincts, certain skills play an important role in the behavior of living beings, which each individual creature masters during his life.
The development of the psyche in phylogenesis and ontogenesis is impossible without reflexes. At the highest stages, the habits of animals acquire specific parameters that indicate the presence of the simplest intelligence.
The surrounding world systematically sets new tasks for a living being, the solution of which contributes to the evolutionary process. Otherwise, the creature will simply die.
Highest level of conduct
Considering the main stages in the development of the psyche in phylogeny, we note that the last stage is the stage of intellect. Let's highlight the distinctive features of this behavior of living beings:
- no serious mistakes, quick selection of the right action;
- carrying out any operation in the form of a continuous integral act;
- applying the right decision to animals in similar situations;
- use of certainitems to achieve the goal.
Leontiev A. N. distinguishes two phases in such actions:
- preparation (selection) monkey stick;
- pulling up with a stick of fruit (exercise).
To implement such an action, the animal must identify the relationship of objects, their relationship to each other, provide for the results of the actions taken. This is exactly what happens at the third stage of the development of the psyche in phylogeny.
But do monkeys use such devices in natural conditions? The Englishwoman D. Goodal, who has been studying the behavior of chimpanzees in Africa for a long time, made the following conclusions:
- Animals use those additional devices that they met on the way. A person specially creates additional materials that make it easier for him to get food.
- The object that the monkey chooses to achieve its goal loses interest and importance for the animal in other situations. A person clearly plans the use of the manufactured device for subsequent situations.
- Animals feel a certain need for novelty.
Prerequisites for the emergence of human consciousness
The development of the psyche in phylogenesis and ontogenesis in animals is characterized by many prerequisites, on the basis of which human consciousness appeared under special conditions.
As one of them, we can note the joint nature of the existence and relationships of animals. For example, in the works of the zoopsychologist N. A. Tych is talking about the importance of constant groupings in monkeys, caused by the instinct of self-preservation. It was he who led to the formation of an independent need for life in an environment of his own kind, the relationship between individual members of the herd.
The origin and development of the psyche in phylogeny is associated with the appearance in monkeys of a selective need associated with the desire to organize families. Animal psychologists concluded that some monkeys have a desire for other individuals, which contributes to the emergence of relationships between them.
Of course, the development of the human psyche in phylogenesis is associated with the animal pack. This is the result of a huge revolutionary leap.
Psychological characteristics
How did human consciousness come about? How is it similar to apes? Let's note some of the psychological features:
- upright posture allowed freeing the hand to perform simple operations;
- the creation of tools contributed to the emergence of various activities;
- the life and work of primitive man were collective, which implies certain relationships between individuals;
- during such communication, the distribution of responsibilities was carried out;
- as relations developed, human language appeared, speech was formed as a result of relations between people.
The emergence and development of the psyche in phylogeny is a long process, as a result of which a person has acquired significant differences from other living thingscreatures.
Animals don't have different concepts. It is thanks to speech that a person gets the opportunity to deviate from ideas, return to historical data, compare them, highlight the necessary information, apply it in certain situations.
Thanks to labor, certain processes are formed in people: attention, memory, will. Work allows a person to rise above the animal kingdom. In itself, the creation of tools is the development of the psyche in phylogenesis. Such activity contributed to the formation of conscious activity.
Language as a system of symbols
The development of the psyche in the process of ontogenesis and phylogenesis is closely connected with the appearance of language. It has become a set of codes, thanks to which objects of the external world, their qualities, actions, relationships between them are designated. Words combined into phrases can be considered the main means of communication.
Currently, there are several versions of the origin of human language:
- he became a manifestation of spiritual life, has a "divine origin";
- language is the result of the evolution of the animal world;
- appeared in the course of practical joint activities of individuals.
The problem of the development of the psyche in phylogenesis is closely related to the transfer of information about objects that can be used in practical life.
The importance of language for evolution
The advent of language introduces three major changes into human conscious activity:
- language,which denotes events and objects of the external world in words and full phrases, makes it possible to single out such objects, pay attention to them, store them in memory, store information, create a world of internal ideas and images;
- it provides a process of generalization, which makes it possible not only to be a means of communication, but also to be a powerful tool of human thinking;
- It is the language that is the means of experience, the transmission of information.
The development of the psyche in the evolution of phylogenesis contributed to the formation of consciousness. It can rightly be considered the highest level of mental reflection of human essence.
Characteristics of consciousness
A. V. Petrovsky distinguishes four main types in it. All levels of development of the psyche in phylogeny deserve detailed consideration and study:
- Consciousness is a set of knowledge about the phenomena of the surrounding world. It includes the main cognitive processes: perception, thinking, memory, imagination, sensation.
- Fixing the differences between the object and the subject. Only man in the history of the organic world singled out and opposed himself to the world around him, strove for self-knowledge, enriched his own mental activity.
- Purposeful activity.
- Social contacts.
Patterns of ontogeny
The higher the position that a certain living organism occupies on the scale of phylogenetic development, the more complex the structure of its nervous system. But at the same time, a much longer amount of time is needed for the body in order to achievefull behavioral and psychological maturity.
The human individual at birth is almost not adapted to independent life in comparison with all creatures living on our planet. This is easily offset by the amazing plasticity of the brain, the ability to form different systems as the organism grows.
In animals, species experience is largely preserved at the level of genetic programs, automatically deployed in the course of individual development. In humans, this manifests itself in an external form, in the transfer of cultural and historical experience from the older generation to children.
The mental development of a child is associated with two main factors:
- biological maturation of the body;
- interaction with the external environment.
Each individual has certain psychological characteristics associated with the influence of external factors. For example, the sensitive period of the formation of speech is typical for 1-3 years of age.
The psychological formation of the baby occurs in several directions at once:
- personal development;
- social development;
- moral improvement.
The development of various spheres of the psyche is carried out unevenly: along some lines it is carried out more intensively, along others it proceeds rather slowly.
As a result of such unevenness, developmental crises periodically appear in a person. For example, contradictions appear at the age of 1, at the age of three, during adolescence, are the result of a discrepancy information of motivational and intellectual spheres. As a positive impact of such crises, one can single out their ability to stimulate the development of “underdeveloped” areas. They act as the driving force behind the self-improvement of the individual.
Psychological research options
It includes several specific steps:
- problem statement;
- proposing a hypothesis;
- checking it;
- processing the results of the study.
The method involves a certain organization of activities. In psychology, the following methods are used to refute or confirm the hypothesis put forward: conversation, experiment, observation, psychodiagnostic research.
The most common way a researcher works is to establish observation of an individual (a group of observers) in anticipation of the appearance of those phenomena that arouse a certain interest in the researcher.
The hallmark of this method is the non-intervention of the researcher. Observation is effective at the stage of obtaining empirical information.
The advantage of this method is the fact that in the process of conducting psychological research, the observer behaves naturally. Its main drawback is the impossibility to foresee the final result, the impossibility of influencing the course of the analyzed phenomenon, situation, behavior.
To overcome the subjectivity of observation, the work of a group of researchers, the use of technical means, comparisonresults obtained by different experimenters.
During the experiment, you can organize a situation over which you can keep a clear control.
Hypothesis, which is put at the beginning of practical activity, suggests a relationship between various variables. To check it, the researcher chooses an algorithm of actions, a methodology, then proceeds to the experimental part.
There are several options for its implementation: natural, formative, ascertaining, laboratory.
The conversation involves identifying relationships based on empirical data that the researcher needs.
But in the case of insignificant psychological contact between the subject and the researcher, suspiciousness appears, a desire to get away from the situation with the help of stereotypical, standard answers.
The success of the conversation is directly related to the qualifications of the psychologist, the ability to establish contact with the interlocutor, to separate personal relationships from the content of the conversation.
A few words in conclusion
Currently, a psychodiagnostic study is used to identify the characteristics of the subject, the level of his emotional state.
Psychodiagnostics has become a separate area of psychology, it is aimed at measuring the individual characteristics of an individual.
Diagnosis is the main purpose of the study, it can be set at different levels:
- empirical (symptomatic), limited to identifying certain signs (symptoms);
- etiological, which takes into account not only the characteristics themselves,but also the reasons for their manifestation;
- typological diagnosis is to identify the place and meaning of the found characteristics in a single picture of human mental activity.
Modern psychodiagnostics is used in various practical areas: he alth care, placement of personnel, career guidance, selection, prediction of social behavior, psychotherapeutic assistance, education, psychology of interpersonal and personal relationships. Thanks to psychodiagnostics, child psychologists identify problems specific to each individual child, help him get out of difficult life situations in a timely manner, and establish contacts with peers.
