The monograph is devoted to the research of the fundamental problem of modern science - personality psychology. The actual realization of a new methodological position (to understand a personality as an existing and self-developing unit), application of the genetic-modelling method of the research, the substantial analysis of the personality theories and empirical data allow to open essentially new aspects of the consideration of the personality as an object of the scientific study.
There is established the valid initial basis of the personality existence and self-development (“a unit”) which acts as a special life-building essence - the need, which is an inconsistent and “multilayer” entity of biological and social sources and contents of experience. A leading direction of the need action - Another person, - sets absolutely another understanding of both the person’s life essence and laws of its genesis and existence (realization).
The quintessence of the need, presented in the consciousness of the person, is the experience of love to the other person which, globally motivating the personality, defines its “beginning” and “continuation”.
The questions, traditional for the personality psychology, of its structure and formation are examined in the book in the context of the leading methodological paradigm; they open new ideas and patterns.
S.D. Maksimenko
Personality Psychology (the Genetic Approach)
THE CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION. STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM........................................................ .…..4
1. GENETIC MENTALITY AND PERSONALITY RESEARCH............................................ .…23
2. PERSONALITY CONCEPT IN PSYCHOLOGY .............................................................. .…40
3. THE PERSONALITY RESEARCH METHOD.................................................................... .…54
4. PERSONALITY BEGINS WITH LOVE ............................................................................. .…73
5. PERSONALITY ОNTOGENESIS……………………………………………………………92
5.1. PECULIARITIES OF THE NEED AT THE Teenage age........................................... ...119
6. PERSONALITY: FORECASTING OF DEVELOPMENT AND LIFE ............................... ...126
7. GENETIC-PSYCHOLOGICAL PROBLEMS OF PERSONALITY STRUCTURE ........... ...144
7.1. The internal world ...................................................................................... ...161
7.1.1.Emotional Experience ...................................................................... ...173
7.1.2. Personality activity Sources..................................................... ...188
7.2. Character ......................................................................................................... ...191
7.3. Mental conditions ....................................................................................... ...202
7.4. Biomental substructure ........................................................................... ...219
7.5. Experience ......................................................................................................... ...223
7.6. Personality Cognitive sphere.................................................................. ...226
7.7. Orientation ...................................................................................................... ...232
7.8. Abilities ............................................................................................................... ...234
CONCLUSION. WHAT IS EXISTENCE? ............................................................................. ...241
EPILOGUE .............................................................................................................................. ...254
BIBLIOGRAPHY .................................................................................................................... ...256
Vivid interest to the research of the problem of personality, rather obvious in the modern Ukrainian psychology, is natural. It is explained not only by the discovery of numerous and substantial achievements of world science (first of all the study of personality) in conditions of the young state, directed to the open democratic society. The comprehension of the necessity of existence initiated by the democratic process in the common space of the post Soviet mentality is more important for the practical psychologist figure as an expert solving significant and unique problems of personality existence, which only he is capable to solve.
So there appears demand for the realization of psychological knowledge - the phenomenon, which is entirely justified and absolutely natural, well-known to the representatives of all branches of the science: the existence of a scientific direction is justified only when its achievements are in due time and are actively used in the society. However, this phenomenon was almost unfamiliar to Soviet psychology (except for short, but the productive period of the existence of pedology which was productive because of its correctness and necessity). The appearance of real practical demand marks one more chance for the home psychology to become a true science. We remember the words of Ecclesiast adducted by L.S. Vygotsky as an epigraph to his work of 1927 “The Historical Sense of Psychological Crisis”: ”The stone which builders have neglected, became the foundation of the corner” [68]. At that time Vygotsky meant the practice: “Not only the life requires psychology and practices it in other forms, but for the psychology also must expect the rise from that collision with the life” [68, p. 390]. And further – the crisis in psychology “has begun, occurs and will end on the line of practice” [68, p.393].
In the quoted work the classic has shown, what kind of science psychology should become to be a true science - necessary and needed for life. “Psychology which is supposed to confirm the authenticity of its thinking in practice; which is directed not so much to explain mentality, but to understand it and to master it, which puts practical disciplines into the principally different position, than the psychology of the past”. [6, p.387] “Psychotecnique therefore cannot doubt a choice of the psychology which is necessary for it … it deals exclusively with causal, objective psychology; non-causal psychology does not play any role for the psychotecnique… We admit that the single psychology, which is required by the psychotecnique, should be a descriptive-explanatory science. Besides, now we can add, that this psychology is an empirical science, comparative science which uses the physiology data, and, finally, it is an experimental science” [68, p.390]. (We’ll note, that Vygotsky’s psychotecnique is a modern practical psychology). Vygotsky’s positions are indisputable and obvious, but it appears, that the results received within the limits of the scientific (empirical, comparative, experimental) psychology cannot be used directly and productively in psychological practice. They are not applied into practice. The comprehension of this fact has led to the appearance of the myths about the existence of two psychologies (again two, as well as in Vygotsky’s time), actual refusal of experts from the usage of scientific data in their activity (the fact, that our practical psychology today is out of diagnostic, unfortunately, does not cause any doubts).
On the other hand, enormous interest to various personality theories has arisen, and this interest is not so much cognitive, as pragmatical: not the personality theory is studied, but the model of the psychological help is elaborated within it. Further on this model is directly used, and patients are actively treated “after Freud”, “after Jung”, “after Rogers”, etc. There are corresponding “specializations”, absolutely inadmissible in practice of the psychological help. But what actually happens then? The real personality, with its unique internal world and mental originality, without any scientific psychodiagnostics is simply put into the correction and influence scheme existing in the head of the psychologist. And even this scheme is very superficial and abstract, as very few people acquire the corresponding theory, following the author on a long and difficult way of knowledge. The influence, therefore, becomes inadequate, as a result - numerous problems occur. We forget the precept of K. Jung: “I made for myself a rule to regard each case as an absolutely new problem the initial data of which are even unknown for me. Everyday answers can be practical and useful until we deal with the external, but as soon as we meet internal problems, the life itself come into its own, and even the most brilliant theoretical positions become blank words” [325, p. 425].
Undoubtedly, such individualized, the only correct position in the practical psychology, should be based on the objective scientific knowledge about the particular person, the individuality. Why is it ignored, why a psychologist cannot and does not wish to use scientific knowledge, but relies on everyday impressions and schemes? Because such is the objective state of affairs – the results of the scientific psychology cannot be directly used, put into practice. In the same way the ways of gaining this knowledge cannot be directly used either. The scientific psychology has been developing according to the scheme of natural science for a too long period - its object is artificially abstracted and considered in the logics of the research purpose, instead of the own logic of the object (mentality of personality). Separate facts about separate (artificially distinguished) phenomena are accumulated, but their sum is never equal to the whole. There occurs that, what G. Allport has figuratively told about: we know how the thinking of the majority of sane people works, but it gives us nothing to understand, what about and how the particular representative of this majority thinks [4, p. 206].
In this case the question is about the distinction of objects of the research: the investigation subject of the psychologist-researcher is always very particular (it can be even not a separate process, but its elements – constituents) and from the scientific point of view the more particular it is, the more effective the research will be. The subject of a psychologist-expert is always the same (and always - it is unique and original) – the psychological features of a specific person, that, which is in front of him. Thus, it proves, that a practical psychologist cannot directly use scientific knowledge, no matter how he would try to combine it, - there is an important nuance: it is on the different logic of the elementary research. He cannot use the ways of gaining this knowledge either (because of the same reason). This contradiction is removed if the methodology of the scientific researches changes - it should represent complete, instead of isolated-element knowledge and reflect the logic of an object, instead of the logic of researchers.
Therefore we consider, that the paramount task is the integration of the scientific psychology subject. The psychology of personality as an integrity should become this subject. It would be desirable to note: the person should be not a subject of theoretical speculations and generalizations of the infinite assembly of empirical data, but a subject of a real experimental scientific research. In due time we already mentioned, that the structure of the subject of cognition to a great degree depends on the level of the cognition where its formation takes place. There are two levels of cognition: empirical and theoretical. These levels are inconsistently interconnected, though they never form a unity. Empirical research requires artificially narrowed (due to the researcher’s logics), abstracted and separated subject of study. Empirical generalizations of the received facts in connection with the available theoretical ideas of the subject of cognition the appearance of the theoretical subject proper and the deployment of theoretical cognition. In personality psychology the theoretical subject (a theoretical level) as a whole approaches the uniting with the object of cognition. Such object in the psychology is the psychological reality; the person, in his integrity as a valid and discrete carrier of this reality. As the concept about a person is a systematizing one, directing an anthropological course of thinking, and at the same time the strategy of cognitive activity of the subject, this concept should be considered also as a world outlook principle which defines the character and the way of allocation both of the subject of cognition, and the way of its revealing.
The psychology really operates three objects. The primary object is the idea of a personality as a public spiritual creature. This object embraces all sciences about the person, thus, being the general (gnoseological) object which realizes the world outlook function in the determining of the specifics of the object of cognition concerning this or that concrete science.
The valid object of psychology is the person as a real, spiritual corporal reality, born in detail-practical activities in concrete historical conditions. This object addresses the researcher as an object-reality (and for the psychologist-expert he is the subject of his professional work).
An ideal object is the person as the universal, integral creature formed by the program of the realization of remote purposes. This object can be designated as an object-construct.
Thus, speaking about the change of methodological orientations of the scientific psychology, which would allow it to be more effective in practically demanded sphere, we mean rapprochement of empirical and theoretical levels of psychological knowledge, and that is why - rapprochement of the object and the subject of the research. Such opportunity, in our opinion, really exists. On the one hand the personality (as the valid object of personality psychology) is objectively integral. Integrity is an attribute, the form of existence and development of this formation, characteristic of it absolutely (it is reflected even on the lexical level – the expression “incomplete personality” is senseless). Any artificial, imagined division of this integrity which is carried out not according to its logics, leads to the impossibility (again) of its imagined filling by the empirical facts received in the whole “operation”. Here an adequacy of cognition is lost and “the researcher’s logic” starts to dominate.
The concrete empirical facts received in the modern psychology are enough for them being acquired by the subject of cognition to be used in the research of the personality as a valid subject And its further specification and also “the reduction” of the received data can occur, certainly, in separate branches of the psychological science, but only with narrow pragmatic research purposes. We are on that level of the experimental psychology development when the acquired scientific knowledge is sufficient for the integrated personality research. The new scientifically considered view and new methodological positions are necessary for the further productive movement. We are forced to create it by that obvious fact, that the modern psychology has achieved that level, when due to L. Vygotsky, “the further promotion on the straight line, and simple continuation of the same work, constant accumulation of material appears meaningless or even impossible” [68, p. 115].
A new vision of the personality problems as a valid subject of the scientific research demands serious methodological reflection: we should reveal and formulate new approaches to the organization of the psychological research, define original criteria of heuristics and practical efficiency of psychological knowledge of the nature, sources and motive forces of the personality development. We should develop the ways and methods of the empirical data verification and outline methodological paradigms, thus having an opportunity “to make the ends of the knowledge of the personality existence in the ontogenesis meet”. We are essentially interested in the way the research must be done. And this, in its turn, provides the search of the ways of the analysis and means of the experiments which will enable us to leave for new horizons of the understanding how the life arises, having defined where, why and how the mental arises - that reality, which determines the existence and which is the main in the life of each person.
All these questions of the general scientific and methodological plan are necessary to solve within the limits of modern achievements of not only pedagogical, general or pathopsychology, but also of practical psychology which is determined to be guided to the requirements of the national education, health protection and the organization of the social influences which are carried out in preschool establishments, schools, higher schools and in the postgraduate education.
To understand the personality is to answer one of the key questions: “What does the life begin with?”, “What does the human life constitute itself?”. In such a principal way we put the question, and from this position we try to reflex the scientifically historical experience accumulated in the world of psychology. It is necessary to be determined from the very beginning towards a powerful field of the modern personology: our work is not aimed at one more all-round analysis of the existing personality theories. We do not put tasks to create a new, our own theory either. The idea is different - to try not to explain, but to understand the personality psychology, the logics of its appearance, formation and existence, to reveal psychological mechanisms of this grandiose phenomenon, of this miracle which the person is. And having realized this, to build a theoretical paradigm of the existence of the personality and a method of its research. We aspire to an attentive, interested and professional use of the achievements, which are contained in the space of the personality psychology, the facts and ideas, which, as a rule, are very deep and true, and frequently are simply ingenious. In spite of it, they, however, do not answer the given pressing questions.
The genetic aspect of the personality development and functioning is the central one in our approach as there is an intrinsic interrelation between the genesis of the personality formation and practical realization of those conditions in which the person can be in the subsequent periods of his life way. From this position it is necessary to pay special attention to the analysis of authoritative theories of the personality development. There are a lot of such theories: A. Adler, L. Vygotsky, V. Davydov, P. Galperin, E. Erickson, G. Kostyuk, A. Maslow, K. Rogers, Z. Freud, etc. Here arises the task to find genetically initial relation, which highlightens the sense and sources of existence of these theories.
Thus, I would like to return to the question what the theory proper is? The theory, in my opinion, is the generalization of the isolated empirical data in the certain paradigm, which allows the scientist, his school to move within the limits of that direction which he has created (here is a typical example - Z. Freud’s psychoanalysis). The theory, generalizing empirical data, enables to take the certain methodological position and to make a start from the fundamental initial data received in the experiment and, basically, to use researches in practice.
It is possible to distinguish two layers out of the set of the existing personality theories: these, first of all, are theories, which build their initial beginnings, accenting the biological substratum of the individual (Z. Freud, Z. Lakan, A. Maslow, K. Rogers, etc.). And the second layer is made of the theories for which the presence of social learning is initial. Therefore, dominant in the given theories is everything that was told by L. Vygotsky (who, however, cannot be related to these groups): these theories define mental development as a lifetime process of an individual socialization. Here the valid acuteness of the question is clearly felt: where do the biological creature’s social functions come from, how does its social formation as an identity arise?
Are the specified layers of the personality knowledge correct in the whole? Yes, undoubtedly, they are correct. Is it possible to tell, that the majority of the theories, which form these layers, are beautiful, precisely logically built, is it possible to tell that some of them are ingenious? Yes, it is possible! But an essentially different question arises. How does the correlation of social and biological units exist in the quality, which forms the integral social individual? To answer this is necessary to develop a new theoretical methodological approach which will allow to define the most essential in the development, using all the important and significant in the existing theories, at the same time not claiming to the construction of any other metaphor of personality.
One of the modern investigators of personality, S. Maddi, postulates three possible directions due to which new researches of personality can develop: “Benevolent eclectism”, ”tendentious fanaticism” and “the objective comparative analysis” [158]. The first direction includes the description of the set of theories, each of which will be given a corresponding place and “the respect” is shown. In the second one the authors distinguish the single theory, or “build” their own one, subjecting all the remained theories to the pejorative criticism. S. Maddi considers the third direction as the most adequate one, marking, that his purpose is “the revealing of similarity and difference among the set of existing theories of personality on the basis of which it would be possible to draw conclusions which of the theories is the most productive one” [158, p.14]. We would like to attract reader’s attention to the following: Maddi’s position reflects the tendency: the modern personology has ceased to be an investigating, an experimental science proper. Maddi reasonably invites scientists to cooperation, but what for? “This joining of efforts for the sake of the determining, which directions really have a scientific value, will stimulate also the branch development” [158, p.15]. And after that we, as though, shall have reliable and effective theories which can be used for the further researches and practice. It is essential and true here that these theories are supposed to be discovered not in the personality as the subject of the psychological research, but in the existing personality theories. It is essential as it reorients the efforts of scientists, focusing them on the works of personality investigators (that in itself is very important and useful) and distracting from real empirical researches and the theoretical generalizations of the received facts, instead of other scientists’ ideas (and it is bad and harmful, though it occurs right now).
We are sure, that the personality psychology should be long and scrupulously studied, and only in the context of the acquired scientific knowledge, taking into account one’s own methodologically reflected theoretical position, one must analyze the facts and the statements gained by other researchers. The eternal and the only justified task of the scientist is to acquire and understand scientific facts in their own logic. All the rest is the creation of myths what Maddi himself also writes about, though it is not excluded completely, that at the same time invaluably important and bright facts, which should be analyzed, are stored. The scientific fact has its own logic, but there is also that which we can name the philosophy of the fact, and its existence, its presence lead to the appearance of the “catastrophic” set of constructions in the branch of the personality psychology. The person, his private world, his existence and development is the fact. By definition, it is very complicated (What is the more complicated in the world than the personality?) and many-sided. V. Frankl has properly explained, how each side of the personality gradually becomes initial in the thinking of the researcher of personality (not because it is such by nature of the phenomenon but because it is “up to the taste” for the scientist) and how further a harmonious, probably, ingenious by the vision of deep (or topmost) original sources, but actually, very partial and one-sided personality theory is created [281].
We should start with the recognition of the human nature entity, a complex structure of the personality and consequently the task of revealing and determining of this structure is important. On the other hand, it is necessary to reveal that central initial motive power which defines the dynamism and development of a complex structured personality, to define the mechanism of this dynamics. And if to investigate the explanations of the most outstanding personality theorists from this point of view, then the human nature unity will appear a little bit problematic. Each theorist considers, that he has found the sources of activity and the principles of the personality structure, however their leading ideas differ very much from each other, therefore there is sometimes an impression that absolutely different and unlike representatives of Homo species are spoken about. Each theorist draws his own picture of the human nature.
Certainly, the most authoritative and fundamental theories (Z. Freud, K. Jung, K. Rogers, A. Maslow and others) are constructed on the basis of the empirical facts acquired, however, not in the scientific research, but as a result of practical consultating advisory work. And it is a cardinally important point, because this is the way of the obtaining not scientific, but everyday facts and for this reason we name some theories ingenious as without a scientific research a “break-through” to the essence of the phenomena is made there, though the latter one is the merit of a scientist’s thinking, his intuition. On the whole, strictly speaking, the science cannot and should not be limited only to intuition. Through this substitution “the interpretation of empirical evidence contains assumptions from the very beginning - and this randomness becomes more and more obvious as the theory develops and gets more and more elaborated and refined form” - considers E. Kassirer [122, 25].
Повну версію книги можна купити! Звертайтеся до приймальні Інституту психології ім. Г.С. Костюка АПН України (м. Київ, вул. Паньківська, 2, другий поверх)