Object and subject of psychology

To begin with, it is worth introducing the definitions of "subject" and "object".

An object part of the surrounding reality to which human activity is directed.

Subject- part of the object of interest to the researcher.

The object of psychology is the psyche.

In psychology, as a science, there are two approaches to understanding the psyche.

Idealistic, in it the psyche is considered as primary reality that exists independently of the material world.

Materialistic, it says that the psyche is property of the brain provide the ability to reflect objects and phenomena of the surrounding world.

Subject of psychology multifaceted, as it includes many processes, phenomena, patterns.

Under subject general psychology assumes the pattern of development and functioning of the psyche, as well as the individual characteristics of its manifestation.

What is the subject matter of psychology? First of all, psyche human and animal, which includes many subjective phenomena.

With the help of some, such as sensations and perception, Attention and memory, imagination, thinking and speech, a person cognizes the world. Therefore, they are often called cognitive processes. Other phenomena govern it communication with people, direct actions and deeds.

They are called mental properties and states of the personality, they include needs, motives, goals, interests, will, feelings and emotions, inclinations and abilities, knowledge and consciousness. In addition, psychology studies human communication and behavior, their dependence on mental phenomena and, in turn, the dependence of the formation and development of mental phenomena on them.

The main categories of psychology as a science

1. Psyche - a subjective image of the objective world, forms in the process of cognition of activity and communication.

In the psyche, such phenomena are distinguished as (Fig. 1):

Rice. one

v mental processes- these are the elementary units that we can distinguish in mental activity, its "atoms".

1) Cognitive:

W Feeling(mental reflection of individual properties and conditions of the external environment that directly affect our senses)

W Perception(the mental process of forming the image of objects and phenomena of the external world.)

W Thinking(the ability to solve new, urgently emerging problems in situations where the previous, already known solutions do not work.)

W Representation(the process of mentally recreating images of objects and phenomena that this moment do not affect the human senses.)

W Imagination(this is a reflection of reality in new, unusual, unexpected combinations and connections.)

2) Integrative:

W Speech(This is the ability to communicate using words, sounds, and other elements of language.)

W Memory(the ability to remember, save and at the right time to get (reproduce) the necessary information.)

3) Emotional:

W Emotions(fast and short elements of feelings, their situational manifestation.)

4) Regulatory

W Will(the ability to maintain focus in spite of difficulties, interference, distractions.)

W Attention(concentrated energy of consciousness directed at a particular object.)

v mental states

W Mood(a fairly long emotional process of low intensity, which forms an emotional background for ongoing mental processes.)

W frustration(a mental state that occurs in a situation of real or perceived impossibility to satisfy certain needs, or, more simply, in a situation where desires do not correspond to available opportunities.)

W Affect(an emotional process characterized by short duration and high intensity, accompanied by pronounced motor manifestations and changes in the functioning of internal organs.)

W Stress(a state of mental stress that occurs in a person in the process of activity in the most difficult, difficult conditions, as in Everyday life and under special circumstances.)

v Mental properties

W Temperament(sustainable association of individual personality traits associated with dynamic, rather than meaningful aspects of activity.)

Ш Character (this is a set of basic personality traits on which forms of social behavior depend, human actions that are designed to influence others.)

Ш Orientation (attitudes that have become personality traits.)

Ш Abilities (these are personality traits that are the conditions for the successful implementation of a certain type of activity.)

2. Consciousness is the highest stage in the development of the psyche, the result of the comprehensive development of a person in the process of communication and labor.

3. Unconscious - a form reflecting reality in which a person is not aware of its sources, and the reflected reality merges with experiences (dreams).

4. Behavior - an external manifestation of a person's mental activity, his actions and actions.

5. Activity - a system of goals, objectives, actions and operations aimed at realizing the needs and interests of a person.

The subject of psychology. Methods of scientific and psychological research.

Definition of psychology as a science.

Word "psychology", formed from the Greek words "psyche" (soul) and "logos" (doctrine, science), first appeared in the 17th century in the work of the German philosopher Christian Wolff.

Today, psychology is defined as the scientific study of behavior and internal mental processes and the practical application of the knowledge gained. Psychology studies the world of subjective (mental) phenomena, processes and states, conscious or unconscious by the person himself.

Why study psychology? We all live among people and by the will of circumstances must understand and take into account the psychology of people, as well as the individual characteristics of the psyche and personality. We are all psychologists to one degree or another. But our worldly psychology will only benefit and be enriched if we supplement it with scientific psychological knowledge.

It is important for everyone to understand what they want, what the people around us can do, how to navigate the personality traits, the motives of behavior, memory and thinking, character and temperament. Lacking such guidelines in complex processes interpersonal interaction and communication, one often has to go blindly, making mistakes, sometimes committing tactlessness, acquiring enemies where friends could be. It is equally important to understand your capabilities, advantages and disadvantages, in other words, to be able to psychologically authentically characterize oneself as a person. These tasks are precisely answered by the system of knowledge called psychology. It is useful just to a person, so to speak, for personal purposes to understand the state of your soul, and if necessary, consciously make changes to it. (auto-training, meditation, neuro-linguistic programming); she needs parents and teachers to know what is happening in the souls of children, to provide them with first psychological aid, to correct them mental development; she's just needed business person in order to make responsible decisions taking into account the psychological state of partners, skillfully influence their likes and dislikes, beliefs and tastes; can't do without it either. engineer, which solves the reliability problems of operators. (L.D. Stolyarenko "Fundamentals of Psychology")

Subject and object of psychology.

What makes up subject scientific study in psychology? This is first of all specific facts of mental life, characterized qualitatively and quantitatively. Thus, by investigating the process of perception by a person of objects surrounding him, psychology has established that the image of an object retains even under changing conditions of perception. For example, a textbook page in different lighting (white). In this case, we have quality characteristic psychological fact. An example quantitative characteristics psychological fact can be the speed of the reaction of a given person to an influencing stimulus. For example, pressing a button in response to a light bulb flashing (faster or slower). Individual differences in reaction rates observed in experiment are psychological facts established in scientific research. They allow us to quantitatively characterize some features of the psyche of various subjects.

However, scientific psychology cannot confine itself to describing a psychological fact. Scientific knowledge requires transition from describing phenomena to explaining them. The latter presupposes the disclosure of the laws to which these phenomena are subject. That's why subject studies in psychology, together with psychological facts, become psychological laws. (A.V. Petrovsky, M.G. Yaroshevsky "Psychology")

All of the above allows us to assume with a reasonable degree of certainty that subject of psychology is the study of the structure and laws of the emergence, development and functioning of the psyche in its various forms, including consciousness as the highest form of mental reflection.

Considering that "psychology is in a special position because the object and the subject of cognition seem to merge in it", and also imagining the relationship between the object and the subject of scientific cognition, under the object of psychology, we will further understand the unity of the three elements .

Each science has its own subject, its own direction of knowledge and, moreover, a specific object of study. Moreover, from the point of view of modern science, the object is not the same as the subject of science.

An object is far from being the whole subject, but only that aspect of the subject, sometimes quite insignificant, which is investigated by the subject of science, i.e. scientists. An object is only an aspect of an object that is included in one or another process of spiritual assimilation, in the subject's cognitive activity. Moreover, another part of the subject, and often very significant, inevitably remains outside the process of cognition.

Accounting for this difference is especially important for understanding the specifics of branches of science that have a complex, multifaceted subject, including psychology, in which, as we have already seen, more and more new objects of research are being identified.

Given this difference, the subject and object of psychology are defined as follows.

The subject of psychology is the psyche as the highest form of the relationship of living beings with the objective world, expressed in their ability to realize their impulses and act on the basis of information about it.

At the human level, the psyche acquires a qualitatively new character due to the fact that its biological nature is transformed by sociocultural factors. From the point of view of modern science, the psyche is a kind of mediator between the subjective and the objective, it implements the historically established ideas about the coexistence of the external and the internal, the bodily and the mental.

The object of psychology is the laws of the psyche as a special form of human life and animal behavior. This form of life activity, due to its versatility, can be studied in a wide variety of aspects, which are being studied by various branches of psychological science.

They have as their object: norms and pathology in the human psyche; types of specific activities, the development of the human and animal psyche; relation of man to nature and society, etc.

The scale of the subject of psychology and the possibility of distinguishing various objects of research in its composition has led to the fact that at present, within the framework of psychological science, general psychological theories are distinguished. guided by various scientific ideals, and psychological practice, which develops special psycho-techniques for influencing consciousness and controlling it.

The presence of incommensurable psychological theories also gives rise to the problem of differences between the subject and object of psychology. For the behaviorist, the object of study is behavior, for the Christian psychologist it is a living knowledge of sinful passions and the pastoral art of healing them. for a psychoanalyst - the unconscious, etc.

The question naturally arises: is it possible to speak of psychology as a single science that has a common subject and object of study, or should we recognize the existence of a plurality of psychology?

Today, psychologists believe that psychological science is a single science, which, like any other, has its own special subject and object. Psychology as a science deals with the study of the facts of mental life, as well as the disclosure of the laws that govern mental phenomena. And no matter how complex ways psychological thought has advanced over the centuries, changing its object of study and thereby penetrating deeper and deeper into its large-scale subject, no matter how knowledge about it changes and enriches, no matter what terms they are designated, it is possible to single out the main blocks of concepts which characterize the actual object of psychology, which distinguishes it from other sciences.

The most important outcome of the development of any science is the creation of its own categorical apparatus. This set of concepts constitutes, as it were, the skeleton, the framework of any branch of scientific knowledge. Categories are forms of thinking, basic, generic, initial concepts; these are key points, knots, steps in the process of cognition of one or another sphere of reality.

Each science has its own complex, set of categories, and psychological science has its own categorical apparatus. It includes the following four blocks of basic concepts:

mental processes - this concept means that modern psychology considers mental phenomena not as something initially given in finished form, but as something that is being formed, developing, as a dynamic process that generates certain results in the form of images, feelings, thoughts, etc. ;

mental states - cheerfulness or depression, efficiency or fatigue, calmness or irritability, etc.;

mental properties of the personality - with a general focus on the vehicle or other life goals, temperament, character, abilities. inherent in a person over a long period of his life, for example, diligence, sociability, etc.;

mental neoplasms - knowledge, skills and abilities acquired during life, which are the result of an individual's activity.

Of course, these mental phenomena do not exist separately, not in isolation. They are closely related and influence each other. So. for example, a state of cheerfulness sharpens the process of attention, and a state of depression leads to a deterioration in the process of perception.

Lecture 1. Psychology as a science and practice

Psychology studies the laws of the emergence, development and functioning of mental processes, states, properties of a person engaged in a particular activity, the laws of development and functioning of the psyche as a special form of life.

Features of psychology:

¦ psychology is the science of the most complex concept that is known to mankind so far. It deals with a property of highly organized matter called the psyche;

¦ psychology is a relatively young science. Conventionally, its scientific design is associated with 1879, when the German psychologist W. Wundt at the University of Leipzig created the world's first laboratory of experimental psychology, organized the publication of a psychological journal, initiated international psychological congresses, and also formed an international school of professional psychologists. All this made it possible to form the world organizational structure of psychological science;

¦ psychology has a unique practical significance for any person, as it allows you to better know yourself, your capabilities, strengths and weaknesses, and therefore change yourself, manage your mental functions, actions and your behavior, better understand other people and interact with them; it is necessary for parents and teachers, as well as for every business person, in order to make responsible decisions, taking into account the psychological state of colleagues and partners.

1. Subject, object, tasks and methods of psychology

Subject psychology are: the psyche, its mechanisms and patterns as a specific form of reflection of reality, the formation of the psychological characteristics of a person's personality as a conscious subject of activity.

In the history of science, there have been different ideas about the subject of psychology:

¦ soul as a subject of psychology was recognized by all researchers until the beginning of the 17th century, before the main ideas were formed, and then the first system of psychology of the modern type. Ideas about the soul were both idealistic and materialistic. The most interesting work in this direction is the treatise by R. Descartes "The Passions of the Soul";

¦ in the XVIII century. took the place of the soul phenomena of consciousness i.e., the phenomena that a person actually observes in relation to himself are thoughts, desires, feelings, memories known to everyone from personal experience. The founder of this understanding can be considered J. Locke;

¦ at the beginning of the 20th century. Behaviorism, or behavioral psychology, appeared and became widespread, the subject of which was behavior;

¦ according to the teachings of Z. Freud, human actions are controlled by deep motives that elude clear consciousness. These deep motives, according to psychologists - followers of 3. Freud, and should be the subject of psychological science;

¦ information processing processes And results of these processes as a subject of psychology, cognitive psychology and Gestalt psychology are considered;

The personal experience of the person The subject of psychology is humanistic psychology.

As the main object psychology are social subjects, their vital connections and relationships, as well as subjective and objective factors that contribute to or hinder their achievement of peaks in life and creative activity.

Main tasks psychology:

- study of mechanisms, patterns, qualitative features of the manifestation and development of mental phenomena;

- the study of the nature and conditions for the formation of the mental characteristics of a person at different stages of its development and in various conditions;

– use of acquired knowledge in various branches of practical activity.

Before talking about psychology methods, it is necessary to give a definition and a brief description of the concepts of "methodology", "method" and "methodology".

Methodology- the most general system of principles and methods of organizing scientific research, which determines the ways to achieve and build theoretical knowledge, as well as ways to organize practical activities. The methodology is the basis for the construction of the study, reflects the worldview of the researcher, his philosophical position and views.

Method- this is a set of more private, specific techniques, means, methods by which they obtain the information necessary to build a scientific theory and make practical recommendations.

Any method is implemented in a specific methodology, which is a set of rules for a particular study, describes a set of tools and objects used in specific circumstances, and also regulates the sequence of actions of the researcher. In psychology, a specific technique also takes into account gender, age, ethnic, confessional, professional affiliation of the subject.

The phenomena studied by psychology are so complex and diverse, so difficult for scientific knowledge, that throughout the entire development of psychological science, its success depended directly on the degree of perfection of the research methods used. Psychology stood out as an independent science only in the middle of the 19th century, so it very often relies on the methods of other sciences - philosophy, mathematics, physics, physiology, medicine, philology, history. In addition, psychology uses the methods of modern sciences, such as computer science, cybernetics.

All methods of psychology can be divided into three groups: 1) objective methods of psychology; 2) methods for describing and understanding human psychology; 3) methods of psychological practice.

Psychology is a science that studies the psyche in its development and manifestation in various activities.

• qualitative study of mental phenomena;
• analysis of the formation and development of mental phenomena;
• the study of the physiological mechanisms of the psyche;
• assistance in the systematic introduction of psychological knowledge into the practice of people's lives and activities.

Subject and object of psychology

The subject and object of psychology are defined as follows.

Subject of psychology- this psyche as the highest form of the relationship of living beings with the objective world, expressed in their ability to realize their impulses and act on the basis of information about it.

At the human level, the psyche acquires a qualitatively new character due to the fact that its biological nature is transformed by sociocultural factors. From the point of view of modern science, the psyche is a kind of mediator between the subjective and the objective, it implements the historically established ideas about the coexistence of the external and the internal, the bodily and the mental.

Object of psychology- this laws of the psyche as a special form of human life and animal behavior. This form of life activity, due to its versatility, can be studied in a wide variety of aspects, which are being studied by various branches of psychological science.

They have as their object:

• norms and pathology in the human psyche;
• types of specific activities, the development of the human and animal psyche;
• relation of man to nature and society, etc.

The scale of the subject of psychology and the possibility of singling out various objects of research in its composition has led to the fact that at present, within the framework of psychological science, general psychological theories. based on different scientific ideals, and psychological practice, which develops special psychotechnics of influencing consciousness and controlling it.

The presence of incommensurable psychological theories also gives rise to the problem of differences between the subject and object of psychology. For the behaviorist, the object of study is behavior; for the Christian psychologist, the living knowledge of sinful passions and the pastoral art of healing them. for the psychoanalyst, the unconscious, and so on.

The question naturally arises: is it possible to speak of psychology as a single science that has a common subject and object of study, or should we recognize the existence of a plurality of psychology?

Today, psychologists believe that psychological science is a single science, which, like any other, has its own special subject and object. Psychology as a science deals with the study of the facts of mental life, as well as the disclosure of the laws that govern mental phenomena. And no matter how complex ways psychological thought has advanced over the centuries, changing its object of study and thereby penetrating deeper and deeper into its large-scale subject, no matter how knowledge about it changes and enriches, no matter what terms they are designated, it is possible to single out the main blocks of concepts which characterize the actual object of psychology, which distinguishes it from other sciences.

The most important outcome of the development of any science is the creation of its own categorical apparatus. This set of concepts constitutes, as it were, the skeleton, the framework of any branch of scientific knowledge. Categories are forms of thinking, basic, generic, initial concepts; these are key points, knots, steps in the process of cognition of one or another sphere of reality.

Each science has its own complex, set of categories, and psychological science has its own categorical apparatus. It includes the following four blocks of basic concepts:

• mental processes- this concept means that modern psychology considers mental phenomena not as something initially given in a finished form, but as something forming, developing, as a dynamic process that generates certain results in the form of images, feelings, thoughts, etc .;
• - cheerfulness or depression, efficiency or fatigue, calmness or irritability, etc.;
• mental properties of personality- its general focus on certain life goals, temperament, character, abilities. inherent in a person over a long period of his life, for example, diligence, sociability, etc.;
• mental neoplasms- acquired during the life of knowledge, skills and abilities, which are the result of the activity of the individual.

Of course, these mental phenomena do not exist separately, not in isolation. They are closely interrelated and influence each other. So, for example, the state of cheerfulness sharpens the process of attention, and the state of depression leads to a deterioration in the process of perception.

A Brief Historical Sketch of the Development of Psychology

Since ancient times, the needs of social life have forced a person to distinguish and take into account the peculiarities of the mental make-up of people. In the philosophical teachings of antiquity, some psychological aspects were already touched upon, of which they were solved either in terms of idealism or in terms of . Thus, the materialistic philosophers of antiquity Democrat, Lucretius, Epicurus understood the human soul as a kind of matter, as a bodily formation formed from spherical, small and most mobile atoms.

Plato

The ancestor of idealism was (a large slave owner). He divided all people according to their superior qualities — intelligence(in my head) courage(in chest) lust(in the abdominal cavity). All governing bodies - have the mind of war - courage, slaves - lust. Plato is the founder of not only idealism, but also dualism. But the idealist philosopher Plato understood the human soul as something divine, different from the body. The soul, before entering the human body, exists separately in the higher world, where it cognizes ideas - eternal and unchanging essences. Once in the body, the soul begins to remember what it saw before birth. Plato's idealistic theory, which treats the body and mind as two independent and antagonistic principles, laid the foundation for all subsequent idealistic theories.

Aristotle

He was the successor of Plato's work. He not only overcame dualism (a direction that recognizes two independent principles at the basis of the world - matter and spirit), but also is the father of materialism(a direction that affirms the primacy of matter and the secondary nature of consciousness, the materiality of the world, the independence of its existence from the consciousness of people and its cognizability). Aristotle tried to place psychology on the basis of medicine. But Aristotle could not fully explain human behavior only through medicine. The great philosopher Aristotle in his treatise “On the Soul” singled out psychology as a kind of field of knowledge and for the first time put forward the idea of ​​the inseparability of the soul and the living body.

The works of Aristotle, Plato and other philosophers formed the basis of the works of philosophers of the middle ages of the 17th century. is the starting point from the materialism of philosophy.

History of psychology as an experimental science starts in 1879 in the world's first experimental psychological laboratory founded by the German psychologist Wilhelm Wundt in Leipzig. Soon, in 1885, V. M. Bekhterev organized a similar laboratory in Russia.

Famous psychologist of the late XIX - early XX centuries. G. Ebbinghaus was able to say very briefly and precisely about psychology - psychology has a huge prehistory and a very short history. History refers to that period in the study of the psyche, which was marked by a departure from philosophy, rapprochement with the natural sciences and the organization of its own experimental method. This happened in the last quarter of the 19th century, but the origins of psychology are lost in the mists of time.

Rene de Cartes - biologist, physician, philosopher. He opened the coordinate system, put forward the idea of ​​a reflex, the idea of ​​a reflex behavior. But he could not fully explain the behavior of the organism and therefore remained on the position of dualism. It was very difficult to separate the inner world of a person from his internal organs. The prerequisites for idealism were created.

There was another approach to understanding the psyche in the history of psychology, developed by domestic psychologists in line with the philosophy of dialectical materialism in the Soviet historical period. The essence of this understanding of the psyche can be seen in four words, the formal authorship of which belongs to V. I. Lenin (1870-1924). The psyche is a subjective image of the objective world.

General idea of ​​the subject of psychology

Each science has its own subject of study. Let us give a brief description of the approaches associated with a fundamental change in the view of the subject of psychology.

Stages of development of psychology

I stage- psychology as the science of the soul. This definition of psychology was given more than two thousand years ago. The presence of the soul tried to explain all the incomprehensible phenomena in human life. This long stage, called in the literature pre-scientific, is determined from the 5th - 4th centuries. BC. until the beginning of the 18th century.

II stage- psychology as the science of. Arises in the 17th century in connection with the development natural sciences. The ability to think, feel, desire is called consciousness. The main method of study was the observation of a person for himself and the description of the facts. According to the new approach, a person always sees, hears, touches, feels, remembers something. It is precisely such phenomena that psychology should study, since, unlike the soul, they can be experimentally investigated, measured, scientifically generalized, and cause-and-effect relationships and relationships can be established in them.

Stage III- psychology as behavioral science. Behaviorism took shape in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. in USA. "Behavior" in English - "behavior". The task of psychology is to set up experiments and observe what can be directly seen, namely, behavior, actions, reactions of a person (the motives that cause actions were not taken into account).

However, many "traditional" psychologists have expressed serious objections to some of the original components of the behaviorist approach. Behavior and the psyche are, although related, but by no means identical realities. So, under the influence of the same stimulus, there may be not one reaction, but a certain set of them, and, conversely, the same response is sometimes obtained in the presence of different stimuli. It is recognized in psychology, for example, that a person often looks at one thing and sees another, thinks about one thing, experiences another, says a third, does a fourth.

IV stage- psychology as a science that studies objective patterns, manifestations and mental mechanisms.

Methods of psychology

To solve a complex of problems in science, there is a developed system of means, directions, ways, and techniques.

Method This is the path of scientific knowledge. The way in which the subject of science is known.

Methodology- this is a variant, a private implementation of the method in specific conditions: organizational, social, historical.

A set or system of methods and techniques of any science is not random, arbitrary. They are formed historically, modified, developed, obeying certain patterns, methodological rules.

Methodology is not only the doctrine of methods, the rules for their selection or use. It is a systematic description of the very philosophy, ideology, strategy and tactics of scientific research. The methodology specifies what exactly, how and why we study, how we interpret the results obtained, and how we implement them in practice.

Subject, principles and tasks of psychology

Many years ago, in the forests of Aveyron, in the south of France, hunters found a boy fed, apparently, by some kind of animal and completely feral. Later, two girls were found in the jungles of India, kidnapped, as it turned out, by a she-wolf and fed by her. Science knows dozens of such tragic cases. What is the tragedy of these incidents, because the children found were alive and physically quite healthy? Ike these children, who spent their early childhood among the animals, did not have a single human quality. Even physically they resembled animals: they moved on all fours, ate just like animals, tearing pieces of meat with their teeth and holding them with two forelimbs, growling and biting everyone who came close to them. Their sense of smell and hearing were very developed, they caught the slightest changes in the forest environment. Making inarticulate sounds, they hurried to hide from people.

Scientists examined these children and tried to teach them human behavior, teach them to talk and understand human speech. But. as a rule, such attempts were unsuccessful: the time for the intensive formation of basic human qualities had already been irretrievably lost. A human being is formed as a human only in human society. And many human qualities are formed only in early childhood.

According to his biological organization, man is the result of an evolutionary process. The anatomical and physiological structure of his body is in many ways similar to the body of higher primates. But man is qualitatively different from all living beings. Its life activity, needs and ways of satisfying these needs differ from the life activity of animals. socio-cultural conditioning.

Man is a social being.

The natural features of man changed in the course of his socio-historical development. The human world is a field of socially developed meanings, meanings, and symbols. He lives in the world of social culture, which forms his so-called second nature, determines his essence. All human activity from birth to the end of his life is regulated by the regulations adopted in a given society, social norms, customs, and traditions. The individual formed in society becomes socialized personality- a person included in the system of general social, cultural and historical achievements of mankind, his life activity is realized in certain social conditions. Each individual becomes a man to the extent that he masters the universal human culture. He perceives the whole world as a world of humanly significant objects, interacts with them on the basis of socially developed concepts. “Man is the measure of all things,” the ancient Greek philosopher Protahors remarked deeply. A person correlates everything in the world with his inner spiritual world: he experiences emotional excitement when contemplating distant stars, admires the beauty of forests, mountains and seas, appreciates the harmony of colors, shapes and sounds, the integrity of personal relationships and the sublime manifestations of the human spirit. Man actively interacts with the world - he seeks to know and purposefully transform reality.

The behavior of animals is predetermined by an innate, instinctive program of life. Human behavior is determined by his mental, socially formed world, in which strategic and tactical planning of his life is carried out, the joys and sorrows of his human existence are experienced. A person is able to measure the present with the past and future, think about the meaning of life, reflect - reflect not only the world around him, but also himself.

A person is endowed with such a socially formed mental regulator as conscience - the ability to control one's command with the help of general social standards, to evaluate one's own Self through the eyes of other people. The socialized individual is a socio-spiritual being. The spirituality of a person is manifested in his ability to rise above everything base, primitive and mundane, to maintain an unchanging commitment to his human dignity and duty.

Man is a complex and multifaceted being. It is studied by many sciences - biology, anthropology, history, cultural studies, sociology, etc. The study of the inner world of a person, the general patterns of his interaction with the outside world is carried out by a special science - psychology.

The subject of psychology is a person as a subject of activity, systemic qualities of his self-regulation; patterns of formation and functioning of the human psyche: its ability to reflect the world, to know it and to regulate its interaction with it.

Psychology studies the emergence and development of the psyche; neurophysiological foundations of mental activity; human consciousness as the highest form of the psyche; patterns of transition of the external to the internal; the conditionality of the functioning of the psyche by socio-historical factors; patterns of formation of mental images of the world and the embodiment of these images in the external, practical activity of a person; the unity of biological and social factors in the mental self-regulation of a person; the structure of the psyche; reflective-regulatory essence of cognitive, volitional and emotional processes, individually psychological features personality; psychological features of human behavior in a social environment; the psychology of specific types of human activity; and etc.

Every educated person should master the basics of general psychological knowledge. Knowing yourself is no less important than knowing the various aspects of the surrounding reality. Psychological knowledge is necessary for a person to properly organize his relationships with other people, effectively organize his activities, introspection and personal self-improvement. It is no coincidence that the main commandment of the ancient thinkers reads: "Man, know thyself."

The practical need for the application of psychological knowledge in various fields of human activity has caused intensive development along with general psychology and its applied branches: pedagogical, medical, legal, engineering, aviation, space, psychology of art, labor, military affairs, sports, management, marketing, etc. At the same time, the study of applied branches of psychology is possible only on the basis of general psychological knowledge.

Psychological knowledge is needed wherever there is a need for the scientific organization of labor and the effective use of the resources of the human psyche. Psychologists fruitfully work in schools and clinics, in production, in cosmonaut training centers and management structures, in the law enforcement system and in analytical centers for social development.

Tasks of psychology

The main task of psychology is the knowledge of the mental by revealing those objective connections from which mental phenomena first arose and began to be defined as objective facts. Therefore, psychological knowledge is understood today as an indirect knowledge of the mental through the disclosure of its essential connections with the outside world.

With this understanding of the essence of the mental, it becomes obvious that of all the sciences of man, the most practical is psychology. After all, studying it. You can find a lot in the world around you, in yourself and in other people.

The growing interest in the inner spiritual world of people is also connected with the fact that the modern era more and more clearly reveals as host a tendency to integrate all aspects of the life of modern society: economic, political and spiritual. This integrative trend, the line towards strengthening the integrity of social development is also manifested in the fact that today the traditional, very narrow, technocratic understanding of the tasks of economic activity is being replaced by modernized concepts that bring to the fore in economic activity not technological tasks, but humanitarian and psychological problems.

Workers employed in modern manufacturing are all in more are aware of their activities not only as the use of high technologies, but also as an area in which participation is required from the employees employed in it managing oneself, other people, their communities.

This setting has now become a truism for specialists, entrepreneurs, managers of developed countries, both in the West and in the East.

The head of one of the largest American automobile companies, Lee Ya Kokka, believes that “all business operations can ultimately be summed up in three words: people, product, profit. People come first."

Akio Morita- the head of a well-known Japanese electrical company - claims that “Only people can make a successful enterprise”.

Thus, in order to be successful, a modern worker, businessman, manager, any specialist must provide a solution through his activity. dual task:

• achievement of economic results;
• impact on the people who create that outcome.

Therefore, in modern conditions for a domestic entrepreneur, manager, highly qualified specialist of any profile, as well as for every person urgent task becomes a psychological improvement of labor groups, production teams, and with them the whole of society. A modern leader, specialist, and any thinking person should know and take into account psychological factors activities of people and, on this basis, ensure the growth of labor and social activity.