The development of the psyche in phylogenesis is characterized by several stages. Consider the two main stories associated with this process.
Phylogenesis is a historical development that spans millions of years of evolution, the history of the development of different types of living organisms.
Ontogenesis involves the development of an individual from birth to the last days of life.
Stages of the historical development of the psyche
Let us single out the main stages of the development of the psyche in phylogenesis. The first stage is associated with the sensory elementary psyche. For animals, the world around them is presented not in the form of objects, but as individual elements, features, including the satisfaction of vital basic needs.
A. Leontiev considers the behavior of a spider a typical example of the most important phenomena and objects. After the insect is in the web, the spider immediately goes to it, begins to entangle it with its own thread. According to the results of studies, it was found that for the spider only the vibration is significant, which produce the wings of the insect. It is transmitted throughout the web, and after its termination, the spider moves to the victim. The rest of the spider is of little interest, only vibration is important.
If you touch the sounding tuning fork to the web, the spider in response will move to the sounds, try to climb on it, entangle it with a web, try to strike him with its limbs. According to a similar experiment, we can conclude that vibration is a signal for a spider to receive food.
At this stage, the development of the psyche in phylogenesis can be considered instinctive behavior as an example of sensory elementary psyche.
What are instincts
They understand the actions of a living creature that do not require special training. As if from birth, an animal “knows” about what exactly it should do. As applied to a person, instincts can be understood as such actions that are performed automatically by a person, before he even has time to think about them.
How is the development of the psyche in the process of phylogenesis? People from ancient times 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 erection of dams by beavers.
Mankind sought to comprehend the secret of instincts. They meant a kind of solid program that operates only in situations where external conditions and a sequence of links were preserved.
Also, instincts meant template, stereotyped, automated actions, which are based on unconditioned reflexes.
Second stage of evolution
Considering the stages of the development of the psyche in phylogenesis, let us dwell on the perceptive stage (perceptual). Animals that are 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, in the behavior of living creatures an important role is played by certain skills that each individual creature masters during his life.
The development of the psyche in phylogenesis and ontogenesis is impossible without reflexes. At the highest stages of animal habits, they acquire specific parameters that indicate the presence of simple intellect.
The world around us systematically sets the living creature new tasks, the solution of which contributes to the evolutionary process. Otherwise, the creature will simply perish.
Highest Behavior
Considering the main stages of the development of the psyche in phylogenesis, we note that the latter is the stage of intelligence. We distinguish the distinctive features of this behavior of living creatures:
- lack of serious mistakes, quick choice of the right action;
- conducting any operation in the form of a continuous holistic act;
- application in such situations by animals of the correct decision;
- the use of certain items to achieve the goal.
Leontyev A.N. distinguishes two phases in such actions:
- preparation (selection) of a monkey stick;
- stick sticking 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 what happens at the third stage of the development of the psyche in phylogenesis.
But do monkeys use such devices in vivo? The Englishwoman D. Goodall, 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. Man specifically creates additional materials that simplify his food.
- The item that the monkey chooses to achieve its goal loses interest in the animal and importance in other situations. A person clearly plans to use the manufactured device for subsequent situations.
- Animals feel a certain need for novelty.
Preconditions 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.
One of them is the joint nature of the existence and relationships of animals. For example, the work of the zoopsychologist N. A. Tikh speaks of the importance of permanent groups 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 their own kind, the relationship between the individual members of the herd.
The origin and development of the psyche in phylogenesis is associated with the emergence in monkeys of a selective need associated with the desire to organize families. Zoopsychologists concluded that one monkey stands out for other individuals, which contributes to the emergence of relations between them.
Of course, the development of the human psyche in phylogenesis is associated with an animal pack. This is the result of a huge revolutionary leap.
Psychological features
How did human consciousness appear? How does it resemble humanoid monkeys? Note some of the psychological features:
- upright man allowed to free his 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 individual individuals;
- during such communication the distribution of responsibilities was carried out;
- as relations developed, a human language appeared, speech was formed as a result of relations between people.
The emergence and development of the psyche in phylogenesis is a long process, as a result of which a person has acquired significant differences from other living beings.
Animals do not have various concepts. It is thanks to speech that a person gets the opportunity to deviate from ideas, return to historical data, carry out their comparison, highlight the necessary information, apply it in certain situations.
Thanks to work, certain processes are formed in people: attention, memory, will. Labor allows man to rise above the animal kingdom. The creation of tools in itself is the development of the psyche in phylogenesis. Such activities 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 related to the appearance of language. It has become a collection of codes, thanks to which the 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, several versions of the origin of the human language are distinguished:
- he became a manifestation of spiritual life, has a "divine origin";
- language is the result of the evolution of the animal world;
- he appeared in the course of practical joint activity 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 appearance of a language introduces three serious changes into a person’s conscious activity:
- a language that denotes events and objects of the external world in words and full phrases makes it possible to highlight such objects, pay attention to them, save 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 language that is a means of experience, the transfer of information.
The development of the psyche in the evolution of phylogenesis contributed to the formation of consciousness. It can rightfully be considered the highest level of mental reflection of the human essence.
Characteristics of consciousness
A.V. Petrovsky distinguishes four main types in it. All levels of the development of the psyche in phylogenesis deserve detailed consideration and study:
- Consciousness is a body of knowledge about the phenomena of the world. It includes the basic cognitive processes: perception, thinking, memory, imagination, sensation.
- Fixing the differences between the object and the subject. Only a person in the history of the organic world isolated and contrasted himself with the world around him, strove for self-knowledge, enriched his own mental activity.
- Purposeful activity.
- Social contacts.
Patterns of ontogenesis
The higher the position that a particular living organism occupies on the phylogenetic development scale, the more complex its nervous system is. But at the same time, the body needs much more time in order to achieve full 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 compensated by the amazing plasticity of the brain, the ability to form various systems as the body grows.
In animals, the species experience is largely preserved at the level of genetic programs that are automatically deployed in the course of individual development. In man, this manifests itself in an external form, when transmitting cultural and historical experience from the older generation to children.
The mental development of the child is associated with two main factors:
- biological maturation of the body;
- interaction with the environment.
Each individual has certain psychological characteristics associated with the influence of external factors. For example, a sensitive period of speech formation is characteristic for 1-3 years of age.
The psychological formation of the baby occurs in several directions at once:
- personal development;
- social formation;
- moral improvement.
The development of various spheres of the psyche is carried out unevenly: along one line it is carried out more intensively, along other lines it proceeds rather slowly.
As a result of such unevenness, a person periodically develops crises of development. For example, contradictions appear in 1 year, at the age of three, in the teenage period, are the result of discrepancies in the formation of motivational and intellectual spheres. As a positive impact of such crises, one can single out their ability to stimulate the development of "underdeveloped" spheres. They act as the driving force for self-improvement of the individual.
Psychological research options
It includes several specific steps:
- problem statement
- putting forward a hypothesis;
- her check;
- processing the results of the study.
The method involves a certain organization of activity. 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 phenomena that cause a certain interest in the researcher.
A distinctive feature 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 inability to predict 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, and the comparison of the results obtained by different experimenters are allowed.
During the experiment, it is possible to organize a situation for which it will be possible to conduct clear control.
The hypothesis, which is put at the beginning of practical activity, suggests a connection between various variables. To verify it, the researcher selects an algorithm of actions, a technique, 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, suspicion manifests itself, a desire to leave the situation with the help of stereotypical, standard answers.
The success of the conversation is directly related to the qualification of the psychologist, the ability to establish contact with the interlocutor, separation from the content of the conversation personal relationships.
A few words in conclusion
Currently, psychodiagnostic research 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 personality.
The diagnosis is the main goal of the study, it can be installed at different levels:
- empirical (symptomatic), limited to the identification of certain signs (symptoms);
- etiological, which takes into account not only the characteristics themselves, but also the reasons for their manifestation;
- a typological diagnosis is to identify the place and value, the characteristics found in a single picture of a person’s mental activity.
Modern psychodiagnostics is used in a variety of practical areas: healthcare, staff placement, career guidance, selection, prediction of social behavior, psychotherapeutic assistance, education, psychology of interpersonal and personal relationships. Thanks to psychodiagnostics, children's psychologists identify problems specific to each specific child, help him to get out of difficult life situations in a timely manner, and establish contacts with peers.