The problem of conditions and driving forces of a child’s mental development in foreign and domestic psychology

Here she is! Finally, I wrote the second article from the “Developmental and Developmental Psychology” section! In it, I briefly described the main points of the topic “Basic patterns of mental development of a child.” While going over the main phenomena and concepts, I will also focus on some psychologists who, in fact, studied these issues.

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Content

• Determination of age development
• The problem of learning and development in developmental psychology
• Sensitivity, irreversibility, continuity and individualization of mental development
• Uneven mental development

The basic patterns of mental development are the most significant and common changes in the psyche of the same type for all from the birth of a person to his death.

Markova Aelita Kapitonovna proposes to interpret these patterns as principles of developmental and developmental psychology .

Basic patterns of mental development: 1. Determination of age-related development as the relationship between prerequisites, conditions and driving forces of development. 2. Sensitivity, irreversibility, continuity and individualization of mental development. 3. Uneven tempo and individual aspects of mental development.

How to learn to respect yourself

Of course, everyone wants to be respected, but this can only be achieved by learning to respect yourself. To do this you need to follow simple rules.

1. A person’s opinion should not depend on the opinions of other people and their assessments.
2. Never say negative things about yourself.
3. Don't let people tell you what to do and how to do it.
4. Never change your principles and life values.
5. Control your emotions.
6. Constantly develop your horizons, since the role of education in development is quite large.
7. Take responsibility for your own life.

Determination of age development

Determination of mental development is the factors of mental development on which it depends and by which it is determined (i.e. determinants).

Factors of mental development

1 factor - natural prerequisites for mental development (Alexander Vladimirovich Zaporozhets)

Hereditary factors:

• species characteristics of humans as representatives of Homo Sapiens (for example, the human brain);
• some private biological characteristics received from parents (for example, features of the nervous system).

Congenital factors:

• individual characteristics that are acquired during prenatal development (these may be inclinations that determine the development of certain abilities).

The prenatal period is the period from conception to birth.

The perinatal period is the period from the 28th week of pregnancy (6 months), including the period of birth and ending after 168 hours after birth (7 days).

Factor 2 - social environment as conditions for development (Daniil Borisovich Elkonin)

Social environment is:

• the socio-economic situation in which a person was born and lives (i.e. macroenvironment);
• the immediate environment of a person at each age stage (i.e. microenvironment).

The macroenvironment influences a person through the microenvironment.

The social environment should be:

1. human;
2. developing;

Training and education are necessary conditions for mental development.

Hospitalism is a set of mental and somatic (from the Greek soma - body) disorders caused by a child’s long stay in closed institutions.

Hospitalism

Deviations in the development of emotions in a child can be expressed both in their insufficient development (emotional coldness) and in the excessive development of negative emotions. An example of coldness and isolation can arise as a result of the development of hospitalism in a child and emotional deprivation.

Hospitalism is a syndrome of pathology of children's mental and personal development that appears in a baby as a result of his separation from his mother and his early institutionalization. Hospitalism is especially common in orphanages and children's homes, where children cannot be given enough attention.

Common signs of hospitalism are: weight loss, lethargy, apathy, increased drowsiness, muscle hypotonia, withdrawal from contact with others (lack of visual tracking, turning “to the voice”, “humming” in response to the caress of an adult), weak crying, etc. d.

In extreme forms, hospitalism can lead to serious mental illness of the child (infantile marasmus, etc.), chronic infection, and sometimes to the death of the baby.

“Modern hospitalism”, or institutionalization, is characterized by a lack of bright, varied emotions, curiosity, initiative, insufficient ability to play with objects, and a long delay in speech development.

Tronic's "Stone Face Experiment" demonstrated the weight and importance of emotional communication between parents and children. According to Tronick's idea, the main determinant of child development is related to the functioning of the two-way emotional communication system between the child and the adult caring for him.

During the experiment, the parent was asked to stop communicating with the child for a while (3 months), but while continuing to look at the baby, give his face a frozen or absent expression. At first this caused surprise in the baby, then he tried to influence the parent with a smile, humming and motor activity.

After a few minutes, the babies' behavior began to change. They would turn to the side, start sucking their thumb, and look pained. Some of the children reacted to the parent's indifference by whining, turning into continuous crying, some drooled and developed hiccups.

According to other studies, children who lose their mother immediately after birth often grow up to be withdrawn, unsociable people, and when they lose their mother at 6 months of age, they exhibit antisocial behavior traits.

Research has shown that one of the most important factors adversely affecting a child is the lack of emotional and social stimuli in his life. Thus, it is worth emphasizing that for a child to fully develop, he needs a person’s love and affection.

The baby should feel that he is dear to the adult, that he is loved. A child who grows up without love is usually fearful, gloomy, and distrustful. Lack of love in childhood affects the entire personality of the future person.

3rd factor - human activity itself, primarily leading (Alexey Nikolaevich Leontiev)

At every age of a person, one of the types of activity becomes the main, leading type. The concept of leading activity is disclosed in the works of A.N. Leontyev.

3 signs of leading activity:

• activity within which new types of activity arise;

• in this activity, cognitive mental processes are formed and restructured;
• The main personality changes at this age stage depend on this activity.

Each leading activity contributes to the manifestation of neoplasms characteristic of a given age stage, and the transition from one leading activity to another means a change in the age stage.

Leading human activity

Factor 4 - contradictions as the driving force of mental development (Alexey Nikolaevich Leontiev)

Contradictions may be as follows:

• between lifestyle and human capabilities;
• between a place in society and the desire to change this place.

External contradictions in themselves are not engines of development. Development occurs only when they enter into struggle with each other. If it happens that contradictions do not arise or are not resolved, then developmental deviations appear.

Introduction

Personal development is, first of all, its social development. Social development leads to mental development. But this latter has a strong influence on the social development of the psyche, prepares and anticipates the future social development of the individual, and determines its usefulness.

The unity of the social and mental development of the individual, with the leading importance of social development, is clearly revealed when psychologists try to highlight the criteria for the psychological maturity of the individual: psychological characteristics turn out to be filled with social and socio-historical content.

When studying personality development for psychology, the starting point is that personality develops through inclusion in systems of social relations. The so-called environmental factors that determine the socio-psychological development of the individual are beginning to be increasingly understood. Various social communities are differentiated, which in an ambiguous way mediate the influence on the individual of the forms of social consciousness and behavior dominant in society.

It should be noted that in psychological studies of the formation and development of personality, there is a different undesirable tendency: the works do not reveal how the pace and quality of personality development in one area of ​​social reality (for example, in work) are related to the characteristics of human development in other areas of its social existence (in the family, in communication with friends, etc.). In this case, the movement of research is towards systems with less rigid role prescriptions, in which the emotional and intuitive levels of the inner world of the individual and the forms of his behavior appear more clearly. These are amateur associations, systems of similarity, etc. The influence of the natural, physical environment is being studied in an increasingly differentiated manner. It reveals what personality traits are formed in different geographical conditions, what is the impact on individuals of different types of socio-physical environment: buildings, structures, buildings. Ecological psychology, environmental psychology, and architectural psychology are developing.

The problem of learning and development in developmental psychology

Lev Semenovich Vygotsky put forward the idea of ​​the leading role of learning in the mental development of higher mental functions (HMF) . HMF include speech, verbal-logical thinking, will, imagination, voluntary attention, voluntary memory. These are all products of cultural and historical development.

The development of HMF occurs due to the mastery of 2 types of means:

• tools (directed to the outside world and transform nature);
• signs (directed at the inner world of a person and revise the human psyche; for example, a word).

A child can master these 2 types of tools only through learning under the guidance of adults. Therefore, the development of the psyche cannot occur outside of education. Vygotsky believed that learning is developmental only when it goes ahead of development and leads it along.

Developmental education is based on 2 levels of development:

Level 1 - lowest - level of current development: functions already established at the moment. At this level, such functions are identified by the actions that the child performs independently.

Level 2 - highest - zone of proximal development (ZPD): those functions that are in the process of maturation. At this level, such functions are identified by the actions that the child performs with the help of adults. The value of the ZPD is a child’s potential capabilities, an indicator of his developmental reserve, an indicator of learning ability.

Children with the same level of actual development may have different levels of the zone of proximal development. When assessing a child’s development, their ZPD is taken into account. Education should not be separated from the ZPD. Looking ahead of the ZPD will not have a developmental effect.

The concept of personality

The words “person” and “personality” are not synonymous. Let's compare their values.

Humans are biological beings with innate physical characteristics. The conditions for its development are favorable external factors: warmth, food, protection.

Personality is a result, a phenomenon of social development, in which consciousness and self-awareness are formed. It has certain psychological and physiological properties acquired as a result of development and upbringing. Psychologists believe that personal qualities emerge only as a result of social relationships.

Each personality is unique, possessing only its own inherent positive and negative qualities. Each person has his own life goals and aspirations, intentions, reasons and motives for action. In choosing means, he is guided by his own circumstances and views on morality. An antisocial personality, for example, does not know or does not recognize generally accepted moral standards and is guided in his actions by selfish goals. Irresponsibility, conflict, a tendency to blame others for one’s own failures, and the inability to learn from one’s own mistakes are characteristic features of such a person.

Sensitivity, irreversibility, continuity and individualization of mental development

Age sensitivity is the greatest sensitivity to certain educational influences during certain age periods.

During the sensitive period, certain influences can only influence development when mental functions are in the process of maturation. When they mature, the same influences may not only be neutral, but even have a negative effect.

Sensitive periods coincide with what Vygotsky called the zone of proximal development. It is sensitivity that causes the uniqueness and irreversibility of age-related development . Any missed sensitive period leads to developmental delays.

Irreversibility is the ability to accumulate changes, to “build on” new changes over previous ones .

Periods of sensitive development are limited in time. Therefore, if a sensitive period of development of a particular function is missed, much more effort and time will be required for its development in the future.

Sensitive periods can be distinguished from neoplasms of age. Thus, several sensitive periods can be distinguished.

Sensitive periods

The irreversibility of mental development means that development in ontogenesis is unidirectional. Irreversibility does not mean that the changes that have occurred remain unchanged. The formed functions can be rebuilt in the context of a different age, but the result will be different than normal.

Continuity of mental development means that all recent stages of development are connected with the previous ones. At the same time, old structures and formations do not disappear, but are rebuilt and become part of new ones.

The cumulativeness (accumulation) of development is associated with continuity. Cumulative development is the accumulation of mental properties, qualities, abilities, skills during growth, leading to qualitative changes in their development.

Cumulative development means that the result of the development of each subsequent stage is included in the last, while being transformed in a certain way. This accumulation of changes prepares for a qualitative transformation in mental development.

An example of cumulativeness is the consistent formation and development of visual-effective, visual-figurative and verbal-logical thinking, when each subsequent type of thinking arises on the basis of the previous one.

Individualization of mental development is the existence of age-related characteristics in individual variants. Individualization in development does not appear immediately, not completely, but changes and is enriched from age to age.

Individual development options are manifested:

• in the timing of the onset of sensitivity to educational influences;

• in the pace and rhythm of approaching maturity and old age;
• in a variety of dynamic features caused by the type of HNA (higher nervous activity), the type of temperament.