Recently, the study of human psychology has become very popular. In the West, the consulting practice of specialists in this field has existed for quite some time. In Russia, this is a relatively new direction. What is psychology? What are its main functions? What methods and programs do psychologists use to help people in difficult situations?

Psychology concept

Psychology is the study of the mechanisms of functioning of the human psyche. She examines the patterns in various situations, the thoughts, feelings and experiences that arise.

Psychology is what helps us understand our problems and their causes more deeply, realize our shortcomings and strengths. Its study contributes to the development of moral qualities and ethics in a person. Psychology is an important step on the path to self-improvement.

Object and subject of psychology

The object of psychology should be certain carriers of the phenomena and processes studied by this science. A person could be considered such, but by all standards he is a subject of knowledge. That is why the object of psychology is considered to be the activities of people, their interaction with each other, and behavior in various situations.

The subject of psychology has constantly changed over time in the process of developing and improving its methods. Initially, the human soul was considered as it. Then the subject of psychology became the consciousness and behavior of people, as well as their unconscious beginnings. Currently, there are two views on what is the subject of this science. From the point of view of the first, these are mental processes, states and personality traits. According to the second, its subject is the mechanisms of mental activity, psychological facts and laws.

Basic functions of psychology

One of the most important tasks of psychology is the study of the characteristics of people’s consciousness, the formation of general principles and patterns according to which an individual acts. This science reveals the hidden capabilities of the human psyche, the reasons and factors influencing people's behavior. All of the above are theoretical functions of psychology.

However, like any other, it has practical applications. Its significance lies in helping a person, developing recommendations and strategies for action in various situations. In all areas where people have to interact with each other, the role of psychology is invaluable. It allows a person to properly build relationships with others, avoid conflicts, learn to respect the interests of other people and take them into account.

Processes in psychology

The human psyche is a single whole. All processes occurring in it are closely interconnected and cannot exist one without the other. That is why dividing them into groups is very arbitrary.

It is customary to distinguish the following processes in human psychology: cognitive, emotional and volitional. The first of these include memory, thinking, perception, attention and sensations. Their main feature is that it is thanks to them that it reacts and responds to influences from the outside world.

They form a person’s attitude towards certain events and allow them to evaluate themselves and those around them. These include feelings, emotions, and mood of people.

Volitional mental processes are represented directly by will and motivation, as well as proactivity. They allow a person to control his actions and actions, manage his behavior and emotions. In addition, volitional mental processes are responsible for the ability to achieve set goals and achieve desired heights in certain areas.

Types of psychology

In modern practice, there are several classifications of types of psychology. The most common is its division into everyday and scientific. The first type is based primarily on people's personal experience. Everyday psychology is intuitive in nature. Most often it is very specific and subjective. Scientific psychology is a science based on rational data obtained through experiments or professional observations. All of its provisions are thought out and precise.

Depending on the scope of application, theoretical and practical types of psychology are distinguished. The first of them studies the patterns and characteristics of the human psyche. Practical psychology sets as its main task providing people with help and support, improving their condition and increasing productivity.

Methods of psychology

To achieve the goals of science in psychology, various methods are used to study consciousness and human behavior. First of all, this includes experimentation. It is a simulation of a particular situation that provokes a certain human behavior. At the same time, scientists record the data obtained and identify the dynamics and dependence of the results on various factors.

Very often in psychology the observation method is used. With its help, various phenomena and processes occurring in the human psyche can be explained.

Recently, survey and testing methods have been widely used. In this case, people are asked to answer certain questions in a limited amount of time. Based on the analysis of the data obtained, conclusions are drawn about the results of the study and certain programs in psychology are drawn up.

To identify problems and their sources in a particular person, it is used. It is based on a comparison and analysis of various events in an individual’s life, key moments in his development, identifying crisis stages and defining stages of development.

1. Definition of psychology as a science.

2. Main branches of psychology.

3. Research methods in psychology.

1. Psychology is a science that occupies an ambivalent position among other scientific disciplines. As a system of scientific knowledge, it is familiar only to a narrow circle of specialists, but at the same time, almost every person with sensations, speech, emotions, images of memory, thinking and imagination, etc. knows about it.

The origins of psychological theories can be found in proverbs, sayings, fairy tales of the world and even ditties. For example, they say about personality “There are devils in still waters” (a warning to those who are inclined to judge character by appearance). Similar everyday psychological descriptions and observations can be found among all peoples. The same proverb among the French goes like this: “Don’t plunge your hand, or even your finger, into a quiet stream.”

Psychology- a unique science. Man's acquisition of knowledge has occurred since ancient times. However, for a long time psychology developed within the framework of philosophy, reaching a high level in the works of Aristotle (the treatise “On the Soul”), so many consider him the founder of psychology. Despite such an ancient history, psychology as an independent experimental science was formed relatively recently, only from the middle of the 19th century.

The term “psychology” first appeared in the scientific world in the 16th century. The word “psychology” comes from the Greek words “syhe” - “soul” and “logos” - “science”. Thus, verbatim psychology is the science of the soul.

Later, in the 17th–19th centuries, psychology significantly expanded the scope of its research and began to study human activity and unconscious processes, while retaining its previous name. Let us take a closer look at what is the subject of study of modern psychology.

R.S . Nemov offers the following scheme.

Scheme 1Basic phenomena studied by modern psychology

As can be seen from the diagram, the psyche includes many phenomena. With the help of some, knowledge of the surrounding reality occurs - this cognitive processes, which consist of sensation and perception, attention and memory, thinking, imagination and speech. Other mental phenomena are necessary in order to control a person’s actions and actions, regulate the process of communication - these are mental states(a special characteristic of mental activity over a certain period of time) and mental properties(the most stable and significant mental qualities of a person, his characteristics).

The above division is quite arbitrary, since a transition from one category to another is possible. For example, if a process continues for a long time, then it already enters the state of the organism. Such processes-states can be attention, perception, imagination, activity, passivity, etc.

For a better understanding of the subject of psychology, we present a table of examples of mental phenomena and concepts presented in the works of R. S. Nemov (1995).

Table 1Examples of mental phenomena and conceptsContinuation of the table. 1

So, psychology is a science that studies mental phenomena.

2. Modern psychology is a fairly extensive complex of sciences that continues to develop at a very fast pace (every 4–5 years a new direction emerges).

Nevertheless, it is possible to distinguish between fundamental and special branches of psychological science.

Fundamental The (basic) branches of psychological science are equally important for the analysis of the psychology and behavior of all people.

This versatility allows them to sometimes be combined under the name “general psychology.”

Special(applied) branches of psychological knowledge study any narrow groups of phenomena, i.e., the psychology and behavior of people engaged in any narrow branch of activity.

Let us turn to the classification presented by R. S. Nemov (1995).

General psychology

1. Psychology of cognitive processes and states.

2. Personality psychology.

3. Psychology of individual differences.

4. Developmental psychology.

5. Social psychology.

6. Animal psychology.

7. Psychophysiology.

Some special branches of psychological research

1. Educational psychology.

2. Medical psychology.

3. Military psychology.

4. Legal psychology.

5. Cosmic psychology.

6. Engineering psychology.

7. Economic psychology.

8. Psychology of management.

Thus, psychology is an extensive network of sciences that continues to actively develop.

3. Scientific Research Methods– these are techniques and means for scientists to obtain reliable information, which is then used to build scientific theories and develop recommendations for practical activities.

In order for the information received to be reliable, it is necessary to comply with the requirements of validity and reliability.

Validity- this is the quality of a method that indicates its compliance with what it was originally created to study.

Reliability– evidence that repeated application of the method will produce comparable results.

There are various classifications of psychology methods. Let's consider one of them, according to which methods are divided into basic and auxiliary.

Basic methods: observation and experiment; auxiliary - surveys, analysis of the process and products of activity, tests, twin method.

Observation is a method by which individual characteristics of the psyche are learned through the study of human behavior. Can be external and internal (self-observation).

Features of external surveillance

1. Planned and systematic implementation.

2. Purposeful nature.

3. Duration of observation.

4. Recording data using technical means, coding, etc.

Types of external surveillance

1. Structured (there is a detailed step-by-step observation program) – unstructured (there is only a simple listing of the data to be observed).

2. Continuous (all reactions of the observed are recorded) – selective (only individual reactions are recorded).

3. Included (the researcher acts as a member of the group in which the observation is carried out) – not included (the researcher acts as an outside observer).

Experiment– a method of scientific research, during which an artificial situation is created where the property being studied is manifested and assessed best.

Types of experiment

1. Laboratory– carried out in specially equipped rooms, often using special equipment.

It is distinguished by the rigor and accuracy of data recording, which allows you to obtain interesting scientific material.

Difficulties of the laboratory experiment:

1) the unusualness of the situation, due to which the reactions of the subjects may be distorted;

2) the figure of the experimenter is capable of causing either a desire to please, or, conversely, to do something out of spite: both distort the results;

3) not all mental phenomena can yet be simulated under experimental conditions.

2. Natural experiment– an artificial situation is created in natural conditions. First proposed A. F. Lazursky . For example, you can study the memory characteristics of preschoolers by playing with children in a store, where they will have to “shop” and thereby reproduce a given series of words.

Polls– auxiliary research methods containing questions. Questions must meet the following requirements.

Before the survey, it is necessary to conduct a brief briefing with the subjects and create a friendly atmosphere; If you can get information from other sources, then you should not ask about it.

The following survey methods are distinguished: conversation, questionnaire, interview, sociometry.

Conversation– a survey method in which both the researcher and the subject are in equal positions.

Can be used at various stages of research.

Questionnaire– a method through which you can quickly obtain a large amount of data recorded in written form.

Types of questionnaires:

1) individual – collective;

2) face-to-face (there is personal contact between the researcher and the person being surveyed) – correspondence;

3) open (questionees formulate their own answers) – closed (a list of ready-made answers is presented, from which the most appropriate one must be selected for the respondent).

Interview– a method carried out in the process of direct communication, answers are given orally.

Types of interviews:

1) standardized - all questions are formulated in advance;

2) non-standardized – questions are formulated during the interview;

3) semi-standardized - some questions are formulated in advance, and some arise during the interview.

When composing questions, remember that the first questions must be supplemented by subsequent ones.

Along with direct questions, it is necessary to use indirect ones.

Sociometry- a method through which social relationships in groups are studied. Allows you to determine a person’s position in a group and involves choosing a partner for joint activities.

Analysis of the process and products of activity– the products of human activity are studied, on the basis of which conclusions are drawn about the mental characteristics of a person.

Drawings, crafts, essays, poems, etc. can be studied.

Twin method used in developmental genetic psychology.

The essence of the method is to compare the mental development of identical twins, brought up by force of circumstances in different living conditions.

Tests– a standardized psychological technique, the purpose of which is to provide a quantitative assessment of the psychological quality being studied.

Classification of tests

1. Test questionnaire – test task.

2. Analytical (they study one mental phenomenon, for example, arbitrariness of attention) - synthetic (they study the totality of mental phenomena, for example, the Cattell test allows you to give a conclusion about 16 personality qualities).

3. Depending on the content, tests are divided into:

1) intellectual (study the characteristics of intelligence, the so-called IQ);

2) aptitude tests (examine the level of professional compliance);

3) personality tests (verbal; projective, when a person’s qualities are judged by how he perceives and evaluates the situation offered to him).

So, the methods of psychology are varied and their choice is determined by the objectives of the study, the characteristics of the subject and the situation.

2. The formation of psychology as a science

1. The development of psychology from ancient times to the middle of the 19th century.

2. The formation of psychology as an independent science.

3. Modern psychological concepts.

1. Interest in problems that are classified as psychological arose in man in ancient times.

The philosophers of ancient Greece in their treatises tried to penetrate the secrets of existence and the inner world of man.

Ancient philosophers explained the psyche based on the four elements on which, in their opinion, the world was based: earth, water, fire and air.

The soul, like everything in this world, consisted of these principles.

The ancients believed that the soul is located where there is heat and movement, that is, all nature is endowed with a soul.

Subsequently, the doctrine that spiritualizes the whole world received the name “animism” (from the Latin “anima” - “spirit”, “soul”).

Animism was replaced by a new philosophical doctrine - atomistic.

A prominent representative of this trend was Aristotle . He believed that world - this is a collection of the smallest indivisible particles - atoms, which differ from each other in different mobility and size, and the material carriers of the soul are the smallest and most mobile.

Based on this mobility of atoms, Aristotle explained the mechanisms and laws of functioning of many mental phenomena: thinking, memory, perception, dreaming, etc.

Aristotle's treatise “On the Soul” is considered by many scientists as the first major scientific study in psychology.

According to Aristotle, a person has three souls: vegetable, animal and rational.

The mind depends on the size of the brain, emotions - on the heart.

The representative of materialistic views was Democritus . He believed that everything in the world consists of atoms.

Atoms exist in time and space, in which everything moves along a given path. In infinite space, indivisible and impenetrable particles move according to certain laws; the soul is formed by light, spherical particles of fire.

The soul is a fiery principle in the body, and death occurs as a result of the disintegration of the atoms of the soul and body. Both body and soul are mortal.

The merit of Democritus is that he initiated the development of the theory of knowledge, especially visual sensations. He developed recommendations for memorization, dividing the methods of preserving material into material and mental.

We can’t help but mention the views Plato .

According to his views, a person is a prisoner in a cave, and reality is his shadow.

Man has two souls: mortal and immortal.

The mortal solves specific problems, and the immortal, whose life continues after death, is the very core of the psyche, the highest form endowed with reason.

Only the immortal soul gives true knowledge obtained as a result of insight.

There are eternal ideas, and the world is a weak reflection of ideas. In the process of life, the soul remembers those immortal ideas that it encountered before entering the body.

Plato's views regarding the functioning of human memory are interesting.

Memory- This is a wax tablet. People have different memories and it depends on the quality of the wax.

We retain memories as long as they are preserved on a wax plate.

The doctrine of the soul in the early Middle Ages became part of the theological worldview and was completely transferred to religion, which continued until the 17th century. in the era.

During the Renaissance, all sciences and art began to actively develop again.

Natural sciences, medical sciences, biological sciences, various types of art, one way or another, touched upon the doctrine of the soul.

French, English and other European philosophers of that time, based on the mechanistic picture of the world, began to interpret many manifestations of the psyche from the standpoint of biomechanics and reflex, while addressing the internal manifestations of the psyche, the soul remained outside the scope of their consideration.

However, internal phenomena really existed and required an explanation of their role in human life. As a result, a new philosophical direction began to form - dualism, which argued that there are two independent principles in man: matter and spirit.

The science of that time was unable to explain the relationship and interdependence of these two principles, so it abandoned the study of behavior and focused on the subjective experience of a person (XVII-XVIII centuries).

These positions were held R. Descartes And J. Locke .

The psyche was considered only as a manifestation of consciousness, the world of matter was excluded from the subject of psychology.

The main research method was the method of introspection (introspection), and natural scientific methods were considered unacceptable for studying the phenomena of the soul.

Simultaneously with such views, an atomistic understanding of the structure of the world developed. Simple manifestations of the psyche began to be considered as atoms.

This atomistic psychology developed over two centuries, until the end of the 19th century.

Thus, from ancient times until the middle of the 19th century. Psychology developed within the framework of other sciences, most often philosophy, medicine, and biology.

2. In the middle of the 19th century, profound changes occurred in the scientific worldview.

This also concerned the relationship between soul and body, material and mental manifestations.

Advances in medicine, in particular psychiatry, have undoubtedly proven that there is a close connection between brain disorders and mental disorders, which refutes the postulate of dualism about their separate existence.

There is a need to take a fresh look at the role of mental phenomena in human life and behavior.

The mechanistic understanding was good at explaining monotonous movements, but it became inadequate at understanding intelligent behavior.

The provisions of atomistic psychology also did not fit into the new scientific facts and required revision.

Thus, in the second half of the 19th century. psychological science was on the verge of a crisis, due to the following reasons:

1) understanding of mental phenomena has become impossible from the standpoint of exact natural knowledge;

2) the relationship between the mental and the physical defied reasonable explanation;

3) psychologists were unable to explain complex forms of human behavior that go beyond reflexes.

The emerging crisis led to the collapse of dualism and introspection as the only reliable source of obtaining psychological knowledge. In search of overcoming the crisis, three directions of psychological teaching arose: behaviorism, Gestalt psychology and psychoanalysis (Freudianism).

Let's take a closer look at them.

Behaviorism. Its founder is an American scientist D. Watson , who proposed to consider behavior (from the English behavior) as a subject of psychology, and to consider mental phenomena unknowable using natural scientific methods.

To understand behavior, it is enough to describe the behavior itself, find out and describe the external and internal forces acting on the body, and study the laws according to which the interaction of stimuli and behavior occurs.

Behaviorists believed that the difference between animal behavior and human behavior lies only in the complexity and variety of reactions.

Nevertheless, Watson could not help but recognize the existence of purely human mental phenomena.

He interpreted mental states as functions that play an active role in the organism’s adaptation to the world, while admitting that he was unable to understand the meaning of this role.

Scientists of this direction denied the possibility of studying consciousness.

As Watson wrote, the behaviorist "observes nothing that he can call consciousness, feeling, sensation, imagination, will, to the extent that he no longer believes that these terms indicate genuine phenomena of psychology."

However, already in the 30s. In the twentieth century, such extreme views of D. Watson were softened by neobehaviorists, primarily E. Tolman And K. Hallom . Thus, E. Tolman introduced the concept of reasonableness and expediency of behavior.

Target– this is the final result achieved as a result of performing behavioral acts.

The most important psychological phenomena, according to Tolman, are goal, expectation, hypothesis, cognitive picture of the world, sign and its meaning.

K. Hull developed a model of behavior based on reactions to a variety of stimuli.

The body responds to stimuli using innate and acquired ways that are associated with a system of “intermediate variables” that mediate this interaction.

Thus, behaviorism does not study the human mind, believing that psychology should explain behavior by examining the stimuli entering the body and the behavioral responses outgoing.

From this thesis comes the theory of learning, which is based on the use of all kinds of punishments and reinforcements when it is necessary to form appropriate reactions, due to which the theory is still popular, primarily among American psychologists (B. F. Skinner).

Gestalt psychology originated in Germany and spread throughout almost all of Europe, including Russia, especially in the pre-war years.

This direction was influenced by such sciences as physics and mathematics.

Prominent representatives are K. Levin , M. Wertheimer , V. Koehler and etc.

The essence of this direction was formulated by M. Wertheimer, who wrote: “... there are connections in which what happens as a whole is not derived from elements that supposedly exist in the form of separate pieces, then linked together, but, on the contrary, what manifests itself in a separate parts of this whole is determined by the internal structural law of this whole.”

That is, Gestalt psychology studies not phenomena, but the structure of connections, which is why it is sometimes called structural psychology (translated into Russian, the word “Gestalt” means “structure”).

K. Lewin is known for his work in the field of personality and interpersonal relationships.

He believed that the behavior of an individual can only be understood based on the holistic situation in which this individual finds himself.

The environment is determined by the subjective perception of the people operating in it.

The merit of Gestalt psychology is that it found modern approaches to the study of psychological problems, but the problems that caused the crisis were never fully resolved.

Psychoanalysis was developed by an Austrian psychologist and psychiatrist Z. Freud, hence sometimes called "Freudianism".

Founding a scientific theoretical direction in psychology, Freud proceeded from the analysis of his rich psychotherapeutic practice, thereby, as it were, returning psychology to its original subject: insight into the essence of the human soul.

The fundamental concepts of psychoanalysis are consciousness And unconscious.

It is the unconscious (the main of which is sexual attraction - libido) that plays a significant role in regulating human activity and behavior.

Censorship from the side of consciousness suppresses unconscious drives, but they “break through” in the form of slips of the tongue, slips of the tongue, forgetting unpleasant things, dreams, and neurotic manifestations.

Psychoanalysis has become widespread not only in Europe, but also in the USA, where it is still popular to this day.

In the first years of Soviet power, this direction was also in demand in our country, but in the 30s. Against the general background of restrictions on psychological research (the resolution “On pedological perversions in the Narkompros system”), Freud’s teachings were also subjected to repression.

Up until the 60s. psychoanalysis was studied only from a critical perspective.

Only since the second half of the twentieth century has interest in psychoanalysis increased again, not only in Russia, but throughout the world.

So, none of the newly emerging psychological trends has completely resolved the contradictions that led to the crisis of psychology as a science.

Let's consider some modern psychological concepts that began to actively develop starting from the second half of the twentieth century.

Cognitive psychology arose on the basis of the development of computer science and cybernetics.

Representatives of the cognitive school - J. Piaget , W. Naiser, J. Bruner, R. Atkinson and etc.

For a cognitive scientist, human cognitive processes are an analogue of a computer.

The main thing is to understand how a person learns about the world around him, and to do this, one should study the methods of forming knowledge, how cognitive processes arise and develop, what is the role of knowledge in human behavior, how this knowledge is organized in memory, how the intellect functions, how words and images are related in human memory and thinking.

The basic concept of cognitive psychology is the concept of “scheme”, which is a plan for collecting and processing information, perceived by the senses and stored in the human head.

The main conclusion reached by representatives of this direction is that in many life situations a person makes decisions mediated by the peculiarities of thinking.

Neo-Freudianism emerged from Freud's psychoanalysis.

Its representatives are A. Adler, K. Jung, K. Horney, E. Fromm and etc.

What all these views have in common is the recognition of the significance of the unconscious in people’s lives and the desire to explain by this many human complexes.

Thus, A. Adler believed that a person is controlled by an inferiority complex, which he receives from the moment of birth, being a helpless creature.

In an effort to overcome this complex, a person acts intelligently, actively and expediently.

Goals are determined by the person himself, and based on this, cognitive processes, personality traits, and worldview are formed.

K. Jung's concept is also called analytical psychology.

He viewed the human psyche through the prism of macro-processes of culture, through the spiritual history of mankind.

There are two types of the unconscious: personal And collective.

Personal the unconscious is acquired through the accumulation of life experience, collective– is inherited and contains the experience accumulated by humanity.

Jung described the collective unconscious as archetypes that most often appear in myths and fairy tales, primitive forms of thinking, and images passed down from generation to generation.

The personal unconscious is close to a person, it is part of him; the collective is often perceived as something hostile, and therefore causing negative experiences, and sometimes neuroses.

Jung is credited with identifying such personality types as introverts and extroverts.

It is common for introverts to find within themselves all the sources of vital energy and the reasons for what is happening, while extroverts find them in the external environment. In further studies, the identification of these two types was confirmed experimentally and became widely used for diagnostic purposes.

According to the personality typology developed by Jung, the following types are distinguished:

1) thinking (intellectual) – creates formulas, schemes, is prone to power, authoritarianism; mostly characteristic of men;

2) sensitive (sentimental, emotional) – responsiveness, the ability to empathize, a more feminine type predominates;

3) sensory – content with sensations, lacks deep experiences, adapts well to the outside world;

4) intuitive - is in a creative search, new ideas come as a result of insight, but they are not always productive and require improvement.

Each of the listed types can be either intro- or extroverted. K. Jung also introduced the concept of individualization, which means the development of a person as an individual, different from the community. This is the ultimate goal of the educational process, but at the initial stages a person must learn the minimum of collective norms that are necessary for his existence.

Another prominent representative of neo-Freudianism is E. Fromm , who was the founder of humanistic psychoanalysis. E. Fromm believed that the human psyche and behavior are socially determined.

Pathology appears where individual freedom is suppressed. Such pathologies include: masochism, sadism, recluse, conformism, tendency to destruction.

Fromm divides all social systems into those that promote human freedom and those where human freedom is lost.

Genetic psychology. Its founder is a Swiss psychologist J. Piaget, who studied the mental development of a child, mainly his intellect, so in part he can be considered as a representative of cognitive psychology.

There are three periods in the process of cognitive development:

1) sensorimotor (from birth to approximately 1.5 years);

2) stage of specific operations (from 1.5–2 to 11–13 years);

3) stage of formal operations (after 11–13 years).

The onset of these stages can be accelerated or slowed down depending on the nature of learning and the influence of the environment.

Training will only be effective when it is started on time and takes into account the existing level.

J. Piaget wrote: “Whenever we prematurely teach a child something that he could discover for himself over time, we thereby deprive him of this, and therefore deprive him of a full understanding of this subject.

This, of course, does not mean that teachers should not design experimental situations that stimulate students' creativity."

The main determinants of cognitive development are maturation, experience, and social learning.

The modern structure of psychological knowledge is characterized by the following trends:

1) erasing the boundaries between previously existing independent directions in psychological science, for example, many modern scientists use in their theories the knowledge accumulated within various directions;

2) modern psychology is increasingly becoming a popular practice, and this leads to differentiation not by theoretical schools, but by areas of application of knowledge in practical fields of activity;

3) psychological knowledge is enriched by those sciences with which psychology actively cooperates, solving common problems.

So, the area of ​​theoretical and practical application of modern psychology is very wide, and psychology is an actively and dynamically developing science.

Psychology(Greek - soul; Greek - knowledge) is a science that studies the behavior and mental processes of people and animals. Psyche- this is the highest form of relationship between living beings and the objective world, expressed in their ability to realize their motives and act on the basis of information about it . Through the psyche, a person reflects the laws of the surrounding world.

Thinking, memory, perception, imagination, sensation, emotions, feelings, inclinations, temperament, - all these points are studied by psychology. But the main question remains: what motivates a person, his behavior in a given situation, what are the processes of his inner world? The range of issues addressed by psychology is quite wide. Thus, in modern psychology there are a large number of sections:

• general psychology,
• age-related psychology,
• social Psychology,
• psychology of religion,
• pathopsychology,
• neuropsychology,
• family psychology,
• psychology of sports
• etc.

Other sciences and branches of scientific knowledge also penetrate into psychology ( genetics, speech therapy, law, anthropology, psychiatry and etc.). Happening integration of classical psychology with eastern practices. To live in harmony with oneself and with the world around us, modern man needs to master the basics of psychology.

"Psychology is the expression in words of what cannot be expressed in words", wrote John Galsworthy.

Psychology operates with the following methods:

• Introspection- observation of one’s own mental processes, knowledge of one’s own mental life without using any tools.
• Observation- study of certain characteristics of a particular process without active involvement in the process itself.
• Experiment— experimental research of a certain process. The experiment can be based on modeling activity in specially specified conditions or can be carried out in conditions close to normal activity.
• Development Research- the study of certain characteristics of the same children who are observed for several years.

The origins of modern psychology were Aristotle, Ibn Sina, Rudolf Gocklenius, who first used the concept of “psychology”, Sigmund Freud, which even a person who is not related to psychology has probably heard about. As a science, psychology originated in the second half of the 19th century, separating from philosophy and physiology. Psychology explores unconscious and conscious mechanisms of the psyche person.

A person turns to psychology to know himself and better understand his loved ones. This knowledge helps you see and realize the true motives of your actions. Psychology is also called the science of the soul., which at certain moments in life begins to ask questions, “ who am I?", "where am I?", "why am I here?" Why does a person need this knowledge and awareness? To stay on the road of life and not fall into one ditch or another. And having fallen, find the strength to get up and move on.

Interest in this area of ​​knowledge is growing. By training the body, athletes necessarily come to psychological knowledge and expand it. Moving towards our goals, building relationships with people, overcoming difficult situations, we also turn to psychology. Psychology is actively integrated into training and education, business, and art.

A person is not only a storehouse of certain knowledge, skills and abilities, but also an individual with his own emotions, feelings, ideas about this world.

Today you cannot do without knowledge of psychology, either at work or at home. To sell yourself or a manufactured product, you need certain knowledge. To have well-being in the family and be able to resolve conflicts, knowledge of psychology is also necessary. Understand the motives of people’s behavior, learn to manage your emotions, be able to establish relationships, be able to convey your thoughts to your interlocutor - and here psychological knowledge will come to the rescue. Psychology begins where a person appears and, Knowing the basics of psychology, you can avoid many mistakes in life. "Psychology is the ability to live."

ABSTINENCE - voluntary volitional refusal of something, suppression of any desires within oneself for a certain period of time or throughout life.

ABULIA - complete lack of initiative, complete inactivity with minimal preservation of the range of automated actions.

AUTHORITARIAN (powerful, directive) - a characteristic of a person as an individual or his behavior in relation to other people, emphasizing the tendency to use predominantly non-democratic methods of influencing them: pressure, orders, instructions, etc.

AGGRESSIVENESS (hostility) - a person’s behavior towards other people, which is characterized by the desire to cause them trouble and harm.

ADAPTATION - adaptation of the senses to the characteristics of the stimuli acting on them in order to best perceive them and protect the receptors from excessive overload.

ADDICTION - dependence, addiction; an obsessive need felt by a person for a certain activity.

ACTIVITY is a concept indicating the ability of living beings to produce spontaneous movements and change under the influence of external or internal stimuli.

ACCENTUATION - highlighting a property or feature against the background of others, its special development.

ALTRUISM is a character trait that encourages a person to selflessly come to the aid of people and animals.

APATHY - a state of emotional indifference, indifference and inactivity:

APPERCEPTION is a concept introduced by the German scientist G. Leibniz. Defines a state of special clarity of consciousness, its concentration on something. In the understanding of another German scientist, W. Wundt, it meant some internal force that directs the flow of thought and the course of mental processes.

APROZEXIA is a complete loss of the ability to direct and fix attention.

ASSOCIATION - connection, connection of mental phenomena with each other.

ATTRIBUTION - attribution of any directly non-perceptible property to an object, person or phenomenon.

CAUSAL ATTRIBUTION - attributing some explanatory cause to an observed action or behavior of a person.

ATTRACTION - attractiveness, attraction of one person to another, accompanied by positive emotions.

AUTOSuggestion - see Self-hypnosis.

AFFECT is a short-term, rapidly flowing state of strong emotional arousal, resulting from frustration or some other reason that has a strong effect on the psyche, usually associated with the dissatisfaction of very important needs for a person.

AFFILIATION - a person’s need to establish, maintain and strengthen emotionally positive: friendly, comradely, friendly relationships with people around him.

AFFIRMATION is a short phrase containing a verbal formula that, when repeated many times, reinforces the required image or attitude in a person’s subconscious, helping to improve his psycho-emotional background and stimulating positive changes in life.

PSYCHOLOGICAL BARRIER - an internal obstacle of a psychological nature (reluctance, fear, uncertainty, etc.) that prevents a person from successfully performing some action. It often occurs in business and personal relationships between people and prevents the establishment of open and trusting relationships between them.

UNCONSCIOUS - a characteristic of psychological properties, processes and states of a person that are outside the sphere of his consciousness, but have the same influence on his behavior as consciousness.

LARGE GROUP - a social association of people of significant quantitative composition, formed on the basis of some abstract socio-demographic characteristic: gender, age, nationality, professional affiliation, social or economic status, etc.

Delirium is an abnormal, painful state of the human psyche, accompanied by fantastic images, visions, and hallucinations.

VALIDITY is the quality of a psychological research method, expressed in its compliance with what it was originally intended to study and evaluate.

FAITH is a person’s belief in something that is not supported by convincing logical arguments or facts.

VERBAL - relating to the sound of human speech.

ATTENTION is a state of psychological concentration, concentration on some object.

INTERNAL SPEECH is a special type of human speech activity, directly related to the unconscious, automatically occurring processes of translating thoughts into words and back.

Suggestion is the unconscious influence of one person on another, causing certain changes in his psychology and behavior.

EXCITABILITY - the property of living matter to come into a state of excitement under the influence of stimuli and retain traces of it for some time.

WILL is a property (process, state) of a person, manifested in his ability to consciously control his psyche and actions. It manifests itself in overcoming obstacles that arise on the way to achieving a consciously set goal.

IMAGINATION - the ability to imagine an absent or really non-existent object, hold it in consciousness and mentally manipulate it.

PERCEPTION is the process of a person receiving and processing various information entering the brain through the senses. It ends with the formation of an image.

REPLACEMENT is one of the defense mechanisms in the psychoanalytic theory of personality (see psychoanalysis). Under the influence of V., information is removed from a person’s memory from consciousness into the sphere of the unconscious, causing strong unpleasant emotional experiences in him.

HALLUCINATIONS are unreal, fantastic images that arise in a person during illnesses that affect his mental state.

GENIUS is the highest level of development of any abilities in a person, making him an outstanding personality in the relevant field or field of activity.

GENOTYPE - a set of genes or any qualities received by a person as an inheritance from his parents.

HYPERBULIA is a pathological increase in volitional activity, an increased desire for activity.

HYPNOSIS is a temporary shutdown of a person’s consciousness caused by suggestive influence or the removal of conscious control over one’s own behavior.

HYPOBULIA is a pathological weakening of volitional activity, the desire for activity.

DREAMS - fantasies, dreams of a person, drawing pleasant, desirable pictures of a future life in his imagination.

GROUP - a collection of people, identified on the basis of one or more characteristics common to them.

GROUP DYNAMICS is a direction of research in social psychology that studies the process of emergence, functioning and development of different groups.

DEPERSONALIZATION (depersonalization) is a temporary loss by a person of psychological and behavioral characteristics that characterize him as a person.

DEPRESSION is a state of mental distress, depression, characterized by loss of strength and decreased activity.

DETERMINATION - causal conditioning.

ACTIVITY is a specific type of human activity aimed at creative transformation, improvement of reality and oneself.

DISTRESS - the negative impact of a stressful situation on human activity, up to its complete destruction.

DOMINANT - the predominant focus of excitation in the human brain, associated with increased attention or urgent need. It can be amplified due to the attraction of excitations from neighboring areas of the brain. The concept of D. was introduced by A. Ukhtomsky.

SOUL is an old name used in science before the advent of the word “psychology” for a set of phenomena studied in modern psychology.

DESIRE is a state of actualization, i.e. a need that has begun to act, accompanied by a desire and readiness to do something specific to satisfy it.

GESTURE is a movement of a person’s hands that expresses his internal state or points to some object in the external world.

LIFE ACTIVITY - a set of types of activity united by the concept of “life” and characteristic of living matter.

FORGETING is a memory process associated with the loss of traces of previous influences and the ability to reproduce them.

ADVANTAGES - prerequisites for the development of abilities. They can be congenital or acquired during life.

SUBSTITUTION (sublimation) is one of the defense mechanisms, which is a subconscious replacement of one, forbidden or practically unattainable, goal with another, permitted and more accessible, capable of at least partially satisfying the current need.

INFECTION is a psychological term denoting the unconscious transfer from person to person of any emotions, states, or motives.

DEFENSE MECHANISMS is a psychoanalytic concept that denotes a set of unconscious techniques with the help of which a person, as an individual, protects himself from psychological trauma.

MEMORIZING is one of the memory processes that denotes the introduction of newly arriving information into memory.

SIGN - a symbol or object that serves as a substitute for another object.

MEANING (of a word, concept) is the content that is put into a given word or concept by all people who use it.

ZONE OF POTENTIAL (PRIMEST) DEVELOPMENT - opportunities in mental development that open up for a person when he is provided with minimal outside help. The concept of Z.p.r. introduced by L.S. Vygotsky.

IDENTIFICATION - identification. In psychology, it is the establishment of the similarity of one person to another, aimed at remembering him and the own development of the person identified with him.

ILLUSIONS are phenomena of perception, imagination and memory that exist only in the human head and do not correspond to any real phenomenon or object.

IMPULSIVITY is a characterological trait of a person, manifested in his tendency to fleeting, ill-considered actions and deeds.

AN INDIVIDUAL is a single person in the totality of all his inherent qualities: biological, physical, social, psychological, etc.

INDIVIDUALITY is a unique combination of a person’s individual properties that distinguishes him from other people.

INDIVIDUAL STYLE OF ACTIVITY - a stable combination of characteristics of performing different types of activities by the same person.

INITIATIVE is a manifestation by a person of activity that is not stimulated from the outside and not determined by circumstances beyond his control.

INSIGHT (insight, guess) - unexpected for a person himself, a sudden finding of a solution to a problem that he has thought about for a long time and persistently.

INSTINCT is an innate, slightly changeable form of behavior that ensures the body’s adaptation to the typical conditions of its life.

An INTELLECTUAL is a person of deep internal culture and independent thinking.

INTELLIGENCE - the totality of the mental abilities of humans and some higher animals, for example, apes.

INTERACTION - interaction.

INTEREST - emotionally charged, increased human attention to any object or phenomenon.

INTROVERSION - turning a person’s consciousness towards himself; absorption in one’s own problems and experiences, accompanied by a weakening of attention to what is happening around. I. is one of the basic personality traits.

INTROSPECTION is a method of knowing mental phenomena through human introspection, i.e. careful study by the person himself of what happens in his mind when solving various kinds of problems.

INTUITION - the ability to quickly find the right solution to a problem and navigate difficult life situations, as well as foresee the course of events.

INFANTILISM is a manifestation of childish traits in the psychology and behavior of an adult.

SUBJECT - a person on whom scientific psychological experiments are conducted.

SOCIO-PSYCHOLOGICAL CLIMATE is a general socio-psychological characteristic of the state of a small group, especially the human relationships that have developed in it.

COGNITIVE HELPLESSNESS is a psychological state or situation in which an individual, having the necessary knowledge, skills and abilities to solve a problem, due to a number of cognitive reasons, cannot cope with it.

COLLECTIVE - a highly developed small group of people, relationships in which are built on positive moral standards. K. has increased efficiency in work, manifested in the form of a superadditive effect.

COMMUNICATIONS - contacts, communication, exchange of information and interaction of people with each other.

COMPENSATION - a person’s ability to get rid of worries about his own shortcomings through intensive work on himself and the development of other positive qualities. The concept of K. was introduced by A. Adler.

INFERIORITY COMPLEX is a complex human condition associated with a lack of any qualities (abilities, knowledge, abilities and skills), accompanied by deep negative emotional feelings about this.

REVIVAL COMPLEX is a complex sensory-motor reaction of an infant (about 2-3 months), which occurs when perceiving a loved one, primarily his mother.

CONVERGENCE - reduction of the visual axes of the eyes on any object or to one point in visual space.

CONSTANTITY OF PERCEPTION - the ability to perceive objects and see them as relatively constant in size, shape and color in changing physical conditions of perception.

INTRAPERSONAL CONFLICT is a state of a person’s dissatisfaction with any circumstances of his life, associated with the presence of conflicting interests, aspirations, needs that give rise to affects and stress.

INTERPERSONAL CONFLICT is an intractable contradiction that arises between people and is caused by the incompatibility of their views, interests, goals, and needs.

CONFORMITY is a person’s uncritical acceptance of someone else’s wrong opinion, accompanied by an insincere rejection of his own opinion, the correctness of which the person does not internally doubt. Such a refusal to conform to behavior is usually motivated by some opportunistic considerations.

CORRELATION is a mathematical concept indicating a statistical relationship that exists between the phenomena being studied.

INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT QUOTE - a numerical indicator of a person’s mental development, obtained as a result of the use of special tests designed to quantify the level of human intelligence development.

CRISIS is a state of mental distress caused by a person’s long-term dissatisfaction with himself and his relationships with the outside world. Age-related cancer often occurs when a person moves from one age group to another.

LABILITY is a property of nervous processes (nervous system), manifested in the ability to conduct a certain number of nerve impulses per unit of time. L. also characterizes the rate of onset and cessation of the nervous process.

LEADERSHIP - the behavior of a leader in a small group. The acquisition or loss of leadership powers by him, the implementation of his leadership functions.

PERSONALITY is a concept denoting the totality of stable psychological qualities of a person that make up his individuality.

LOCUS OF CONTROL is a concept that characterizes the localization of the reasons on the basis of which a person explains his own behavior and the behavior of other people observed by him. Internal L.k. - this is a search for the reasons for behavior in the person himself, and the external L.K. - their localization outside a person, in his environment. The concept of L.k. introduced by the American psychologist Yu. Rotter.

LONGITUDINAL RESEARCH is a long-term scientific study of the processes of formation, development and change of any mental or behavioral phenomena.

LOVE is the highest spiritual feeling of a person, rich in a variety of emotional experiences, based on noble feelings and high morality and accompanied by the willingness to do everything in one’s power for the well-being of a loved one.

MASOCHISM - self-humiliation, self-torture of a person, associated with dissatisfaction with oneself and the conviction that the reasons for failures in life are in oneself (see internal locus of control). M. is one of the main concepts used in the typology of social characters proposed by the German-American scientist E. Fromm.

SMALL GROUP - a small group of people, including from 2-3 to 20-30 people, engaged in common affairs and having direct personal contacts with each other.

MASS PSYCHIC PHENOMENA - socio-psychological phenomena that arise in masses of people (population, crowd, mass, group, nation, etc.). M.y.p. include rumors, panic, imitation, infection, suggestion, etc.

MASS COMMUNICATIONS - means of transmitting information designed for a mass audience: print, radio, television, etc.

MELANCHOLIC - a person whose behavior is characterized by slowness of reactions to current stimuli, as well as speech, thought and motor processes.

DREAMS are a person’s plans for the future, presented in his imagination and realizing the most important needs and interests for him.

FAMILY is a set of movements of parts of a person’s face that express his state or attitude towards what he perceives (imagine, think about, remember, etc.).

MODALITY is a concept denoting the quality of sensations arising under the influence of certain stimuli.

POWER MOTIVE is a stable personality trait that expresses the need of one person to have power over other people, the desire to dominate, manage, and dispose of them.

MOTIVE is an internal stable psychological reason for a person’s behavior or action.

MOTIVE FOR ACHIEVEMENT OF SUCCESS - the need to achieve success in various types of activities, considered as a stable personality trait.

THE MOTIVE OF AVOIDING FAILURE is a more or less stable desire of a person to avoid failures in those life situations where the results of his activities are assessed by other people. M.H.S. - a personality trait that is opposite to the motive for achieving success.

MOTIVATION is a dynamic process of internal, psychological and physiological management of behavior, including its initiation, direction, organization, support.

MOTIVATION is a reasonable justification, an explanation by the person himself of his actions, which does not always correspond to the truth.

THINKING is a psychological process of cognition associated with the discovery of subjectively new knowledge, with problem solving, with the creative transformation of reality.

OBSERVATION is a method of psychological research designed to directly obtain the necessary information through the senses.

SKILL - a formed, automatically carried out movement that does not require conscious control and special volitional efforts to perform it.

VISUAL-ACTIVE THINKING is a method of practical problem solving that involves a visual study of the situation and practical actions in it with material objects.

VISUAL-FIGURATORY THINKING is a method of solving problems that includes observing a situation and operating with images of its constituent objects without practical actions with them.

RELIABILITY is the quality of a scientific research method that allows one to obtain the same results when the method is used repeatedly or repeatedly.

INTENTION - a conscious desire, readiness to do something.

DIRECTION OF A PERSONALITY is a concept denoting a set of needs and motives of an individual that determine the main direction of his behavior.

TENSION is a state of increased physical or psychological arousal, accompanied by unpleasant internal feelings and requiring release.

MOOD is a person’s emotional state associated with weakly expressed positive or negative emotions and existing for a long time.

LEARNING - the acquisition of knowledge, skills and abilities as a result of life experience.

NEUROTICISM is a human property characterized by increased excitability, impulsiveness and anxiety.

NEGATIVISM is a person’s demonstrative opposition to other people, his failure to accept reasonable advice from other people. Often occurs in children during age-related crises.

NEUROPSYCHOLOGY is a branch of psychological science that studies the connection of mental processes, properties and states with the functioning of the brain.

SOCIAL NORMS - rules of behavior accepted in a given society or group that regulate relationships between people.

IMAGE is a generalized picture of the world (objects, phenomena), resulting from the processing of information about it received through the senses.

FEEDBACK is the process of obtaining information about the states of a communication partner in order to improve communication and achieve the desired result.

COMMUNICATION - exchange of information between people, their interaction.

ORDINARY CONSCIOUSNESS is the average level of consciousness of the masses of people who make up a given society. O.S. differs from scientific consciousness in the low reliability and accuracy of the information it contains.

OBJECTIVATION is the process and result of localizing images of perception in the external world - where the source of perceived information is located.

GIFTEDNESS is the presence of a person’s inclinations to develop abilities.

EXPECTATION is one of the basic concepts of cognitive psychology, expressing a person’s ability to anticipate future events.

ONTOGENESIS is the process of individual development of an organism or personality.

RAM - a type of memory designed to store information for a certain time necessary to perform some action or operation.

OPERATION - a system of movements associated with the performance of a specific action aimed at achieving its goal.

OBJECTIFICATION is a dialectical-materialistic concept that denotes the process and result of the embodiment of his abilities in the objects of human activity that make up material and spiritual culture.

SURVEY is a method of psychological study in which people are asked questions and, based on their answers, the psychology of these people is judged.

PERSONALITY QUESTIONNAIRE - a method of personality research based on the use of a system of written or oral, pre-thought-out questions addressed to the person whose psychological characteristics are to be studied.

ORIENTATIVE REACTION (REFLEX) - the body’s reaction to new stimuli, manifested in its general activation, concentration of attention, mobilization of forces and resources.

MEANINGFULNESS OF PERCEPTION is the property of human perception to attribute a certain meaning to a perceived object or phenomenon, designate it with a word, and assign it to a certain linguistic category.

DEVIANT (DEVIANT) BEHAVIOR - human behavior that deviates from established legal or moral norms, violating them.

REFLECTION is a philosophical and epistemological concept related to the theory of knowledge. In accordance with it, all mental processes and states of a person are considered as reflections in a person’s head of an objective reality independent of him.

ALIENATION is the process or result of a person’s loss of meaning or personal meaning of what previously attracted his attention, was interesting and important to him.

SENSATION is an elementary mental process, which is a subjective reflection by a living being in the form of mental phenomena of the simplest properties of the surrounding world.

MEMORY - processes of remembering, preserving, reproducing and processing various information by a person.

GENETIC MEMORY - memory determined by the genotype, passed on from generation to generation.

LONG-TERM MEMORY - memory designed for long-term storage and repeated reproduction of information, provided it is preserved.

SHORT-TERM MEMORY - memory designed to store information for a short period of time, from several to tens of seconds, until the information contained in it is used or transferred to long-term memory.

PANIC is a mass phenomenon of the psyche, characterized by the simultaneous occurrence in many people who are in contact with each other of feelings of fear, anxiety, as well as erratic, chaotic movements and ill-considered actions.

PANTOMIMIC is a system of expressive movements performed using the body.

PRIMARY DATA is that information about the phenomena being studied that is obtained at the beginning of the study and is subject to further processing before reliable conclusions about these phenomena can be drawn on its basis.

PRIMARY EMOTIONS - genotypically (see genotype) determined simplest emotional experiences: pleasure, displeasure, pain, fear, anger, etc.

EXPERIENCE is a sensation accompanied by emotions.

PERSONALIZATION is the process of turning a person into a person (see), acquiring individuality.

PERCEPTIVE - relating to perception.

IMITATION is a conscious or unconscious behavior of a person aimed at reproducing the actions and actions of other people.

GENDER ROLE BEHAVIOR - behavior characteristic of a person of a certain gender in the social role that corresponds to this gender.

UNDERSTANDING is a psychological state that expresses the correctness of the decision made and is accompanied by a feeling of confidence in the accuracy of the perception or interpretation of any event, phenomenon, or fact.

ACTION is an action consciously committed by a person and controlled by the will, proceeding from certain beliefs.

NEED - a state of need of an organism, an individual, a personality for something necessary for their normal existence.

PRACTICAL THINKING is a type of thinking aimed at solving practical problems.

OBJECTIVENESS OF PERCEPTION - the property of perception to represent the world not in the form of individual sensations, but in the form of integral images related to perceived objects.

PREJUDICE is a persistent erroneous opinion, not supported by facts and logic, based on faith.

PRECONSCIOUSNESS is a human mental state that occupies an intermediate place between consciousness and the unconscious. It is characterized by the presence of a vague awareness of what is being experienced, but the absence of volitional control or the ability to manage it.

REPRESENTATION is the process and result of reproduction in the form of an image of any object, event, phenomenon.

HABITATION - cessation or decrease in the severity of the response to a stimulus that is still in effect.

PROJECTION is one of the defense mechanisms through which a person gets rid of worries about his own shortcomings by attributing them to other people.

PROSOCIAL BEHAVIOR - human behavior among people, selflessly aimed at their benefit.

PSYCHE is a general concept denoting the totality of all mental phenomena studied in psychology.

MENTAL PROCESSES - processes occurring in the human head and reflected in dynamically changing mental phenomena: sensations, perception, imagination, memory, thinking, speech, etc.

PSYCHOLOGICAL COMPATIBILITY OF PEOPLE - the ability of people to find mutual understanding, establish business and personal contacts, and cooperate with each other.

PSYCHOTHERAPY is the complex psychological influence of a doctor on the patient’s psyche through words. The goal of psychotherapy is to eliminate painful symptoms and change attitudes towards oneself, one’s condition and the environment. Psychotherapy in a broad sense covers the entire area of ​​communication between doctor and patient. A doctor of any profile, communicating with a patient, has a psychological impact on him. When talking with a patient, the doctor seeks to assess his state of mind, understand and find out the reasons that led to the deterioration of the patient’s psychological state. The basis of all psychotherapeutic techniques is suggestion and explanation, offered in various proportions and sequences.

IRRITABILITY - the ability of living organisms to react biologically expediently (for the purpose of self-preservation and development) to environmental influences that are significant for their lives.

ABSORPTION - inability to concentrate attention on an object.

REACTION - the body's response to some stimulus.

RELAXATION - relaxation.

REFERENCE GROUP - a group of people who are somehow attractive to an individual. Group source of individual values, judgments, actions, norms and rules of behavior.

REFERENTOMETRY is a technique that allows you to find out the degree of importance of each group member for his fellow members of the community, to identify, on the one hand, those whose opinion in a given community the majority of its members are oriented towards, and on the other hand, those whose position on a particular issue is practically no one cares.

REFLEX - an automatic response of the body to the action of any internal or external stimulus.

REFLECTION is the ability of a person’s consciousness to focus on himself.

SPEECH is a system of sound signals, written signs and symbols used by humans to represent, process, store and transmit information.

DETERMINATION - readiness to move on to practical action, a formed intention to commit a certain act.

RIGIDITY is a retardation of thinking, manifested in the difficulty of a person’s refusal to once make a decision, way of thinking and acting.

ROLE is a concept that denotes a person’s behavior in a certain life situation corresponding to the position he occupies (for example, the role of a leader, subordinate, father, mother, etc.).

SELF-ACTUALIZATION is the use and development by a person of his existing inclinations, their transformation into abilities. The desire for personal self-improvement. S. as a concept was introduced in humanistic psychology.

SELF-SUGGESTION is a process aimed at instilling in oneself ideas, thoughts, feelings that help eliminate painful phenomena and improve overall well-being.

SELF-CONTROL is a person’s ability to maintain inner calm, act wisely and deliberately in difficult life situations.

SELF-DETERMINATION OF PERSONALITY is a person’s independent choice of his life path, goals, values, moral standards, future profession and living conditions.

SELF-ASSESSMENT is a person’s assessment of his own qualities, strengths and weaknesses.

SELF-REGULATION is the process of a person managing his own psychological and physiological states, as well as actions.

SELF-AWARENESS is a person’s awareness of himself, his own qualities.

SANGUINE - a type of temperament characterized by energy, increased efficiency and speed of reactions.

PROPERTIES OF THE HUMAN NERVOUS SYSTEM - a complex of physical characteristics of the nervous system that determine the processes of emergence, conduction, switching and termination of nerve impulses in various departments and parts of the central nervous system.

SENSITIVE PERIOD OF DEVELOPMENT is a period in a person’s life that provides the most favorable conditions for the formation of certain psychological properties and types of behavior.

SENSIBILIZATION - an increase in the sensitivity of the senses under the influence of certain stimuli, in particular those that arrive at the same time to other senses (for example, an increase in visual acuity under the influence of auditory stimuli).

SENSORY - associated with the work of the senses.

STRENGTH OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM - the ability of the nervous system to withstand prolonged and heavy loads.

SYMBOL - a sign of something that has a certain similarity with the designated object.

SYMPATHY is a feeling of emotional predisposition towards a person, increased interest and attraction to him.

SYNAESTHESIA is the ability of a stimulus, addressed by nature to an adapted sense organ, to simultaneously cause an unusual sensation in another sense organ. For example, when perceiving music, some people may experience visual sensations.

PROTECTION - predisposition to something.

VERBAL-LOGICAL THINKING is a type of human thinking where verbal abstraction and logical reasoning are used as a means of solving a problem.

PERSONAL MEANING - the meaning that an object, event, fact or word acquires for a given person as a result of his personal life experience. Concept of S.l. introduced by A. N. Leontiev.

CONSCIENCE is a concept that denotes a person’s ability to experience, deeply personally perceive and regret cases of violation of moral standards by himself or other people. S. characterizes a person who has reached a high level of psychological development.

COMPATIBILITY - the ability of people to work together, to successfully solve problems that require coordination of actions and good mutual understanding.

CONSCIOUSNESS is the highest level of a person’s mental reflection of reality, its representation in the form of generalized images and concepts.

EMPATHY is the experience by a person of the same feelings and emotions that are characteristic of the people around him (see also empathy).

COMPETITION is a person’s desire to compete with other people, the desire to gain the upper hand over them, to win, to surpass them.

FOCUS - the concentration of a person's attention.

COOPERATION is a person’s desire for coordinated, harmonious work with people. Willingness to support and assist them. The opposite of competition.

STORAGE is one of the memory processes aimed at retaining received information.

SOCIO-PSYCHOLOGICAL TRAINING is the theory and practice of special psychotherapeutic influence on people, designed to improve their communication and adaptation to living conditions.

SOCIAL EXPECTATIONS - judgments, actions and actions expected from a person occupying a certain position in society that correspond to his social role.

SOCIAL STEREOTYPE - distorted social attitudes of a person towards people of a certain category, which arose under the influence of limited or one-sided life experience of communication with representatives of a given social group: national, religious, cultural, etc.

SOCIOMETRY is a set of similarly constructed techniques designed to identify and present in the form of sociograms and a number of special indices of the system of personal relationships between members of a small group.

COHESION OF A SMALL GROUP is a psychological characteristic of the unity of members of a small group.

ABILITIES - individual characteristics of people on which their acquisition of knowledge, skills and abilities, as well as the success of performing various types of activities depends.

STATUS is a person’s position in the system of intra-group relations, which determines the degree of his authority in the eyes of other group members.

LEADERSHIP STYLE is a characteristic of the relationship between the leader and followers. Ways and means used by a leader to exert the necessary influence on the people who depend on him.

Aspiration is the desire and willingness to act in a certain way.

STRESS is a state of mental (emotional) and behavioral disorder associated with a person’s inability to act expediently and wisely in the current situation.

SUBJECTIVE - relating to a person - a subject.

THINKING SCHEME - a system of concepts or logic of reasoning habitually used by a person when encountering an unfamiliar object or a new task.

TALENT is a high level of development of a person’s abilities, ensuring the achievement of outstanding success in a particular type of activity.

CREATIVE THINKING is a type of thinking associated with the creation or discovery of something new.

TEMPERAMENT is a dynamic characteristic of mental processes and human behavior, manifested in their speed, variability, intensity and other characteristics.

ACTIVITY THEORY - a psychological theory that considers human mental processes as types of internal activity, originating from external activity and having a structure similar to external activity. Etc. developed by A.N. Leontyev.

TEST is a standardized psychological technique designed for comparative quantitative assessment of the psychological quality being studied in a person.

TESTING is the procedure for applying tests in practice.

ANXIETY is the ability of a person to enter a state of increased anxiety, to experience fear and anxiety in specific social situations.

CONFIDENCE - a person’s confidence in his own rightness, confirmed by relevant arguments and facts.

RECOGNITION - classifying a perceived object into the category of already known ones.

SKILL - the ability to perform certain actions with good quality and successfully cope with activities that include these actions.

INFLUENCE is the process of logical deduction of a certain position from some reliable statements - premises.

LEVEL OF ASPIRATIONS - the maximum success that a person expects to achieve in a particular type of activity.

ATTITUDE - readiness, predisposition to certain actions or reactions to specific stimuli.

FATIGUE - a state of tiredness accompanied by - (see autism, imagination, dreams, daydreams).

FAMILIARY - exaggeratedly casual, cheeky, unceremonious.

PHLEGMATIC - a type of human temperament characterized by reduced reactivity, poorly developed, slow expressive movements.

FRUSTRATION is an emotionally difficult experience by a person of his failure, accompanied by a feeling of hopelessness, frustration in achieving a certain desired goal.

CHARACTER is a set of personality properties that determine the typical ways of responding to life circumstances.

CENSORSHIP is a psychoanalytic concept that denotes subconscious psychological forces that seek to prevent certain thoughts, feelings, images, and desires from entering consciousness.

VALUES are what a person especially values ​​in life, to which he attaches a special, positive life meaning.

CENTRAL NERVOUS SYSTEM - part of the nervous system, including the brain, diencephalon and spinal cord.

CENTRAL - characteristics of nervous processes occurring at the highest levels of the central nervous system.

PERSONALITY TRAIN is a stable property of a person that determines his characteristic behavior and thinking.

AMBITION is a person’s desire for success, designed to increase his authority and recognition from others.

SENSITIVITY is the body’s ability to remember and respond to environmental influences that do not have direct biological significance, but cause a psychological reaction in the form of sensations.

FEELING is the highest, culturally determined human emotion associated with some social object.

EGOCENTRISM is the concentration of a person’s consciousness and attention solely on himself, accompanied by ignoring what is happening around him.

EXTRAVERSION - the focus of a person’s consciousness and attention mainly on what is happening around him. Extroversion is the opposite of introversion.

EMOTIONS are elementary experiences that arise in a person under the influence of the general state of the body and the process of satisfying current needs.

EMOTIONALITY is a personality characteristic manifested in the frequency of occurrence of various emotions and feelings.

EMPATHY is a person’s ability to empathize and sympathize with other people, to understand their internal states.

EFFERENT - a process directed from the inside out, from the central nervous system to the periphery of the body.

LEGAL PSYCHOLOGY is a branch of psychological science that studies mental processes, phenomena and states of people involved in the perception and adherence to legal norms. In U.P. Phenomena related to the investigation, trial and correction of convicts are also studied.

Psychology as a science, its object and subject of research.

The very name of the subject, translated from ancient Greek, means “psyche” - soul, “logos” - science, teaching, i.e. - “science of the soul.” The modern interpretation of this definition is as follows:

Psychology- this is the field of knowledge about the inner (mental) world of man

Psychology is a science that studies facts, patterns and mechanisms of the psyche.

Conventionally, we can distinguish 4 stages in the historical development of psychology.

Istage – psychology is the science of the soul. This definition was given more than 2 thousand years ago. All incomprehensible phenomena in human life were explained by the presence of a soul.

IIstage – psychology as a science of awareness, which originated in the 17th century, in connection with the development of natural sciences. Consciousness meant the ability to think, feel, desire.

IIIstage – psychology as the science of behavior. Receives development in the twentieth century. The subject of study is the behavior and actions of a person’s reaction to external influences.

IVstage – Psychology is a science that studies the psyche. Psyche– a special property of highly organized matter, which is a form of reflection by the subject of objective reality. Thus, subject of psychology at the present stage are the facts of mental life, mechanisms and patterns of the psyche.

Modern psychology represents a number of scientific disciplines: general psychology, developmental psychology, educational psychology, medical psychology, psychology of abnormal development, etc.

Classification of mental phenomena.

All mental phenomena are divided into three groups:

1) mental processes;

2) mental states;

3) mental properties of the individual.

A mental process is an act of mental activity that has its own object of reflection and its own regulatory function.

Mental reflection is the formation of an image of the conditions in which a given activity is carried out. Mental processes are orienting-regulating components of activity.

Mental processes are divided into cognitive (sensation, perception, thinking, memory and imagination), emotional and volitional.

All human mental activity is a combination of cognitive, volitional and emotional processes.

A mental state is a temporary uniqueness of mental activity, determined by its content and a person’s attitude to this content.

Mental states are a relatively stable integration of all mental manifestations of a person with a certain interaction with reality. Mental states are manifested in the general organization of the psyche.

Mental state is the general functional level of mental activity depending on the conditions of a person’s activity and his personal characteristics.

Mental states can be short-term, situational and stable, personal.

All mental states are divided into four types:

1. Motivational (desires, aspirations, interests, drives, passions).

2. Emotional (emotional tone of sensations, emotional response to phenomena of reality, mood, conflicting emotional states - stress, affect, frustration).

3. Volitional states - initiative, determination, determination, perseverance (their classification is related to the structure of complex volitional action).

4. States of different levels of organization of consciousness (they manifest themselves in different levels of attentiveness).

The concept of activity and its psychological structure

A person exists, develops and is formed as a person through interaction with the environment, carried out through his activities. An inactive person is unthinkable, because she has needs that must be satisfied.

Need is a mental phenomenon reflecting the need of an organism or personality for the necessary conditions that ensure their life and development. The presence of one or another need is created by an imbalance between the body and the environment (biological needs) or between the individual and society (social needs). The need manifests itself in a certain state of the psyche (in humans - consciousness, called experience). In order to compensate for the deficiencies reflected in the psyche, it is necessary to expend the appropriate forces through the manifestation of activity.

Activity is the energy used in a specific reaction, expressed in a person in the desire and implementation of activities in order to satisfy a given need.

Consequently, activity is the active interaction of a person with the environment in which he achieves a consciously set goal that arose as a result of the emergence of a certain need in him.

The goals that a person sets in his activities can be distant or close. Therefore, the concept of “activity” is very broad and sometimes merges with the concept of “life path”. The goal of all activities of a student at a vocational school is to acquire a profession in order to provide for himself financially and become a completely independent person. But the goal of the same student’s activity when performing a specific educational task is narrower - for example, to learn how to mark parts. However, in order to achieve this goal, he needs to carry out a number of private actions (coloring, marking, engraving), each of which has its own goal.

A goal is understood as the intended result of an action aimed at an object with the help of which a person intends to satisfy a particular need. Therefore, it is necessary to distinguish between a goal as an objective (objective result) and as a subjective mental (intended) phenomenon.

The emergence of aspiration is itself a process. First there is a need. This is a level of uncertainty when it is already clear to a person that he needs to do something, but what exactly is not sufficiently realized. With such uncertainty, various options arise for satisfying the need. At this level of uncertainty there is still no clear understanding of the means and ways to achieve the goal. Each of the realized possibilities is supported or refuted by different motives.

Motives are mental phenomena that have become incentives to perform one or another action or deed. In everyday life, the words “motive” and “stimulus” are often not distinguished, but these are different concepts. A motive is any mental phenomenon that has become an incentive to action, deed or activity.

A stimulus is an objective phenomenon that acts on a person (or animal) and causes a response. In a person, a stimulus, reflected by consciousness, becomes a motive, and it can also become a stimulus that has long been perceived and stored in memory. But the most significant thing is that the motive is a reflection of the stimulus, processed by the individual. The same stimulus in different individuals can be reflected as different motives.

Usually an action, deed, and especially behavior is caused not by one, but by a combination of various motives accompanying some dominant motive. Motives can be both fleeting and very persistent. A person may have unmotivated, so-called impulsive, sometimes even unconscious actions, but his activities and actions are always motivated.

Although activity is the function of a person as a whole: both as an individual and as an organism, its purposefulness and motivation are determined by the individual. Therefore, in animals, in newborns and in the “insane”, mentally ill, there is no activity, but only behavior - as an objectification of their psyche. Activity is the objectification of consciousness.

STRUCTURE OF ACTIVITY

Each specific activity has its own individual structure, which specifies the general structure inherent in any activity. The latter includes: the general goal of the activity, its motives (as incentives), individual actions, including skills, (as ways to achieve a common goal), and the mental acts included in them, and the results of the activity.

Any activity, be it filing a flat surface by a mechanic or installing a complex technological installation by a team of installers, from preparation for it to achieving the goal, is carried out by many interrelated actions.

Action is an element of activity in the process of which a specific, not decomposed into simpler, conscious goal is achieved.

Each action also has its own psychological structure: the purpose of the action, motives, operations and mental acts, the final result. According to the dominant mental act in their structure, emotional, mental, psychomotor, mnestic and volitional actions are distinguished. Impulsive actions have already been discussed, but actions will be discussed. According to their goals, work actions are divided into indicative, performing, corrective and final.

Indicative actions are the determination of the goal of an activity, conditions, means and ways to achieve it. Indicative actions are of two types: theoretical and practical.

Theoretical indicative actions are aimed at obtaining the information necessary for the activity, answering the questions: what to do? How to do? What conditions are needed and how to create them? What funds will be needed and where to get them? In what sequence is it advisable to act in the process of activity? Based on the answers, a working hypothesis is developed that defines the goal, process and result of the activity.

Practical indicative actions are included in executive actions in order to evaluate the activity process and its compliance with the overall goal. At the same time, at each stage of activity, answers are sought to the questions: how does it work? Is it as intended? That does not work? Why doesn't it work? What needs to be done to make it work better?

Performing actions always begin after theoretical orientation and consist in the sequential implementation of planned (designed or determined by technology) actions to achieve the general goal of the activity. Successful performance requires knowledge, skills, abilities, habits and abilities. However, even at the same time, they cannot be completely successful without corrective actions.

Corrective actions are the introduction of amendments, clarifications and changes to indicative and performance actions based on feedback about inaccuracies, errors, deviations and failures.

The more complex and responsible the activity, the better the feedback should be and the more corrective actions are required in the process of performing activities. Only under this condition can the final actions be successful.

Final actions come down to checking the quality of all actions at the final stage of activity based on their results. This is already an assessment of the achievement of the goal of the activity: has what was planned been achieved? By what means and costs? What lessons can be learned from this activity? What is the best way to implement it in the future?

Any type of activity is a very complex information process in which all mental processes and personality traits are included and somehow used. And the success of the activity depends on how regularly the message information is carried out, how carefully the command information is developed and how the feedback functions.

If we analyze the activities of students from the standpoint of information theory, it may turn out that to solve any technological problem they do not have a sufficient indicative basis, they do not know the rules of performing actions when solving these problems, do not control the correctness of actions, and therefore make mistakes, do not make adjustments to their actions and thereby aggravate the mistakes.

And it also happens: something is done according to the rules, but during the final check the result does not coincide with the specified one, perhaps because the task was defined incorrectly.

More serious violations of the structure of educational or work activities are also possible, when, for example, they begin performing actions without completing the necessary indicative actions, and therefore no adjustments are made to the performing actions, and at the final check it turns out that such activities are completely useless.

From the considered structure of activity it is clear that in any task, even in the simplest physical work, a large place is certainly occupied by mental (mental and mystical), indicative, corrective and finishing actions. Therefore, no matter what the teacher has to teach students, it is necessary, first of all, to develop their thinking, intelligence, resourcefulness and dexterity. The faster the structure of activity actually carried out by them will “wind down” due to the reduction and rapid removal of uncertainty, expressed in the questions: what to do? How to do? As it turns out? etc., and this will simplify, facilitate and speed up the process of activity and the achievement of its goals.

In various connections and relationships, personality is studied in sociology, philosophy, history, art history, aesthetics, pedagogy, medicine, legal and other sciences. Psychology examines the essence of the mental properties of a person, the patterns of its formation.

In the Old Russian language, a synonym for “personality” was the word “chekan”. Embossing is still understood as a finishing operation, giving relief to the surface of an object. Hence, it is quite acceptable to assert that personality is not just an individual, but a person formed in society.

Today, psychology interprets personality as a socio-psychological formation that is formed through a person’s life in society. Man as a social creature acquires personal qualities when it enters into relationships with other people, and these relationships become “personality-forming”. At the time of birth, the individual does not yet have these acquired (personal) qualities.

Personal characteristics do not include such characteristics of a person that are naturally conditioned and do not depend on his life in society. The concept of “personality” usually includes such properties that are more or less stable and indicate a person’s individuality, defining his traits and actions that are significant for people.

According to R. S. Nemov’s definition, a personality is a person taken in the system of such psychological characteristics that are socially conditioned, manifest themselves in social connections and relationships by nature, are stable and determine the moral actions of a person that are of significant importance for himself and those around him 1 .

Along with the concept of “personality,” the terms “person,” “individual,” and “individuality” are used. These concepts are substantively intertwined. That is why the analysis of each of these concepts, their relationship with the concept of “personality” will make it possible to more fully reveal the latter (Fig. 6).

Human- this is a generic concept, indicating that a creature belongs to the highest stage of development of living nature - to the human race. The concept of “man” affirms the genetic predetermination of the development of human characteristics and qualities.

Specific human abilities and properties (speech, consciousness, work activity, etc.) are not transmitted to people in the order of biological heredity, but are formed during their lifetime, in the process of assimilating the culture created by previous generations. As a living being, man is subject to basic biological and physiological laws, and as a social being, to the laws of social development.

Individual is a single representative of the species. As individuals, people differ from each other not only in morphological characteristics (height, bodily constitution, eye color), but also in psychological properties (abilities, temperament, emotionality).

Individuality- this is the unity of the unique personal properties of a particular person. This is the uniqueness of his psychophysiological structure (type of temperament, physical and mental characteristics, intelligence, worldview, life experience, etc.).

With all the versatility of the concept of “individuality,” it primarily denotes the spiritual qualities of a person. The essence of individuality is associated with the originality of the individual, his ability to be himself, to be independent and self-reliant.

The discrepancy between the concepts of individuality and personality is manifested in the fact that there are two different processes of formation of personality and individuality.

The formation of personality is the process of human socialization, which consists in his mastering his tribal, social essence. This development is always carried out in specific historical circumstances and is associated with the individual’s acceptance of social functions and roles developed in society, social norms and rules of behavior, and with the formation of skills to build relationships with other people.

The formation of individuality is the process of individualization of the subject. Personalization- this is the process of self-determination and isolation of the individual, his separation from society, the design of his uniqueness and originality. A person who has become an individual is an original person who actively and creatively manifests himself in life.

. Personality potentials

Personality – This is a person who actively masters and purposefully transforms nature, society and himself. From these positions, it can be characterized by five potentials: 1) epistemological, 2) axiological, 3) creative, 4) communicative, 5) artistic.

Epistemological (cognitive) potential determined by the volume and quality of information available to the individual. This information consists of knowledge about the external world (natural and social) and self-knowledge. This potential includes psychological qualities with which human cognitive activity is associated.

Axiological (value) potential personality is determined by the system of value orientations acquired by it in the process of socialization in the moral, political, religious, aesthetic spheres, i.e. by its ideals, life goals, beliefs and aspirations. We are talking about the unity of psychological and ideological aspects, the consciousness of the individual and his self-awareness, which are developed with the help of emotional-volitional and intellectual mechanisms, revealing themselves in the worldview and worldview.

Creative potential personality is determined by its acquired and independently developed skills and abilities, abilities to act, creative or destructive, productive or reproductive, and the extent of their implementation in one or another area (or several areas) of labor.

Communicativepotential personality is determined by the extent and forms of its sociability, the nature and strength of contacts established with other people. In its content, interpersonal communication is expressed in a system of social roles.

Artistic potential personality is determined by the level, content, intensity of its artistic needs and how it satisfies them.

The artistic activity of an individual is manifested in creativity, professional and amateur, and in the “consumption” of works of art. Thus, a personality is determined by what and how she knows, what and how she values, what and how she creates, with whom and how she communicates, what her artistic needs are and how she satisfies them.

Psychological structure of personality.

Personality is a unique combination of natural (biological) and social (social) properties and qualities that determine the mental in a person. There are several approaches to determining personality structure. The most general and widespread personality structure is determined by its four sides:

First side of personality – her socially determined properties: needs, interests, inclinations, aspirations, ideals, worldviews, beliefs that determine and shape the qualities of a person. This side is called personality orientation. It is formed through education and self-education.

The second side of personality - a person's stock of knowledge, skills, abilities and habits. It determines the individual’s preparedness for activity, his level of development, and his experience. This side is formed through teaching and learning (an independent process of forming knowledge, skills and abilities).

Third side of personality are characteristic of a given person and typical for him stable features of individual mental processes: perception, memory, thinking, emotions, will. This side is formed through exercise.

The fourth side of personality- herbiologically determined features , inclinations, features of higher nervous activity, manifested in temperament, age and gender characteristics.

Characteristics of sensation as a mental process.

Feeling- This is a reflection of the individual properties of objects that directly affect our senses.

Types of sensations O receptor location

External– receptors are located on the surface of the human body, in the sense organs, and with their help he learns the properties of objects that are outside of him – these are visual, auditory, olfactory, gustatory, tactile sensations.

Domestic– sensations arise from the receptors of those sense organs that are located inside the body – hunger, thirst, nausea, heartburn.

Motor- these are sensations of movement and body position in space; the receptors of the motor analyzer are located in the muscles and ligaments and provide control of movement on a subconscious level.

Sensations of all kinds depend on the sensitivity of the analyzers. Main sensitivity characteristics:

Lower threshold of sensations- the minimum amount of stimulus that causes a barely noticeable sensation. The upper threshold of sensations is the maximum magnitude of the stimulus that the analyzer is capable of adequately perceiving. Sensitivity range – the interval between the lower and upper threshold of sensations. The sensitivity of analyzers is not constant and changes under the influence of physiological and psychological conditions. The sense organs have the property devices, or adaptation. Adaptation can manifest itself as a complete disappearance of sensation during prolonged exposure to the stimulus, and as a decrease or increase in sensitivity under the influence of the stimulus.

Characteristics of perception as a mental process.

Perception - reflection of objects and phenomena that directly affect the senses as a whole, in the totality of the properties and characteristics of these objects. In other words, perception is nothing more than the process of a person receiving and processing various information entering the brain through the senses; it combines sensations coming from a number of analyzers.

Types of perception:

Simple: visual, auditory, olfactory, gustatory, tactile.

Complex: perception of objects, time, relationships, movements, space, people.

Perceptual properties:

Integrity – internal organic relationship of parts and the whole in the image.

Objectivity – the object is perceived by us as a separate physical body isolated in space and time.

Constancy – the relative constancy of the perception of surrounding objects as relatively constant in shape, color, etc.

Structurality – perception is not simply a sum of sensations; we perceive a structure abstracted from these sensations.

Meaningfulness – connection with thinking, understanding the essence of objects.

Selectivity – preferential selection of some objects over others.

Characteristics of attention as a mental process.

Attention- this is the orientation and concentration of consciousness on certain objects that have stable or situational significance for the individual.