As the main ones, we will consider such concepts of differential psychology as “individual”, “personality”, “individuality”, “type”, “typology”, etc.

Individual- this is a person as a representative of the genus Homo sapiens, single natural being. Individual properties include: gender, age, type of nervous system, race, interhemispheric asymmetry.

Personality- a person as a subject of social relations and conscious activity.

Individuality- a person characterized by his socially significant differences from other people, his uniqueness.

There are many contradictions on the issue of the relationship between personality and individuality. The approaches of A. N. Leontiev, B. G. Ananiev, V. S. Merlin and others differ significantly. (B. G. Ananiev), integral individuality (V. S. Merlin), subject-activity individuality (A. V. Brushlinsky).

Type of- this is a stable set of signs, properties or a pattern of behavior in general, which is considered as typical for a group. Each person who has a certain symptom complex is referred to the corresponding type. In this case, the name of the corresponding type acts as a characteristic of a person, and the content is revealed by the description of a typical, average representative.

The compilation of scientific typologies is one of the most ancient methods of understanding the world. Each of us tends to create so-called naive, worldly typologies, which are often called implicit in science. If you remember yourself in childhood, you can certainly say that you “typologized” people,

and divided them into specific groups. At first, these could be contrasting groups (for example, "good", "bad"), then more differentiated "typologies" (for example, "kind", "sociable", "greedy", "obnoxious").

Typology- a theoretical construct that includes: base and different types(Table 2). Examples of typologies are the typologies of E. Kretschmer, W. Sheldon, Z. Freud, G. Eysenck, K. G. Jung, K. Leonhard, A. E. Lichko, etc.

table 2

early typologies,

including a certain base and mud

The advantages of typologies include the fact that they allow you to navigate the endless variety of individuals, make forecasts, corrective and preventive programs, optimize interpersonal interaction in psychology, pedagogy, and medicine.

At the same time, the incorrect use of typologies can lead to such negative consequences as labeling a person. In addition, everything that is not typical (but, perhaps, very significant for a given person) remains outside the scope of consideration.

So, today there are a significant number of typologies that allow us to understand human characteristics, subject to a flexible approach based on the attitude towards each person as a unique individuality.

Mathematically, in order to create some kind of empirical typology, factor analysis uses test subjects as input data, and "grouping" is performed by "test subjects". In other words, the typology is formed on the basis of classification of subjects(Table 3).

Table 3

Empirical Measures of Personality Traits

Subjects	Communicative	Open	Initiative	Closed	evasive	Calm	Touchy	alarming

For example, in table. 3 shows 8 subjects with different severity of certain qualities in the coordinates of extraversion and neuroticism. If we imagine the typology of these subjects, then they will “disperse” according to 4 classical types of temperament.

In differential psychology, the concept is also actively used. style[see: Cold]. This tradition goes back to the works of foreign psychologists. (first stage development of this concept). For example, A. Adler's style of life was considered in the context of personality psychology in order to describe individually peculiar ways of human interaction with his environment. For G. Allport, style is a way of realizing motives and goals; according to this author, the presence of an individual style is a sign of personal maturity. So, these authors use the concept of "style" to emphasize the individuality of a person.

On the second stage the formation of this concept, the emphasis is not so much on the individual originality of style, but on the study of general characteristics various styles. At this stage, the concept of "cognitive style" appears. This is a certain way of perception, analysis, structuring and categorization of information.

On the third stage the concept of "style" is transferred to a wide class of phenomena. For example, such concepts as “leadership style”, “teaching style”, “activity style”, “style of coping with difficult situations”, “self-regulation style” appear. A. Libin generally uses the concept of "personal style" [see: Libin].

In modern science, there is some confusion in the use of the concepts of "style" and "type". Sometimes these terms are used interchangeably. For example, Rusalinova's type of pedagogical communication and Kan-Kalik's style of pedagogical communication.

A person can belong to a certain type of personality, which is characterized by a certain style of activity. For example, a phlegmatic type of temperament can be characterized by a reflexive style of activity, and a sanguine person can have a proactive style of activity.

Style is a process characteristic. When I talk about style, I mean way(activities, coping with stress, communication, interaction, etc.) and the question is asked accordingly as? Speaking of types, it is implied that there are some dispositions, stable features, or even characteristic styles that determine the "general pattern of personality." When talking about types, they use the words “typical”, “usual”, “characteristic” and ask a question what?

Another of the basic concepts of differential psychology is classification. This term, like typology, denotes a grouping of objects. But if, in the typology the subjects are grouped, people, i.e. carriers of certain properties and qualities, then when classifying - the properties themselves qualities, personality traits. Mathematically, the classification is obtained as a result of factor analysis of individual descriptors that describe a particular trait. For example, if we refer to Table. 3, it will become clear that sociability - lack of sociability, initiative, confidence, anxiety, irritability are combined into two groups: extraversion and neuroticism.

Differential psychology.

Tutorial.

Part 1

Blower Psychology: A Study Guide. Part 1 - Chelyabinsk: Publishing house of SUSU, 2006. - 61p.

INTRODUCTION………………………………………………………………………...3

CHAPTER 1. DIFFERENTIAL PSYCHOLOGY AS A SCIENCE……….....4

The knowledge gained during the course will allow you to understand how the general laws of the functioning of the psyche manifest themselves in specific people, to feel the uniqueness and versatility of individuality, to learn how to analyze and synthesize information about a person, and to provide qualified assistance to clients in the process of individual and group psychological counseling.

In addition, mastering the course can contribute to the professional growth of future psychologists by developing the ability to formulate problems, integrate information and broadcast it from different areas of psychology.

The discipline is based on the courses "General Psychology", "Psychological Workshop", "Psychophysiology", "Higher Mathematics" and is the basis for a deeper study in the courses "Experimental Psychology", " Psychological diagnostics”, “Psychological counseling”, “Theories of personality”. When mastering the discipline, students can also use information from the courses "Age Psychology", "Social Psychology", "Clinical Psychology".

CHAPTER 1

DIFFERENTIAL PSYCHOLOGY AS A SCIENCE

Subject, purpose and tasks.

Historical prerequisites for registration as a separate science.

Status in the system of human sciences.

1.1 Subject and structure of differential psychology

In the most general terms, the term "differential" is interpreted as different, different in some way (features), or criteria, so differential psychology can be defined as the science of differences between people. At the same time, it is important to remember that this definition does not fully reveal the content of differential psychology and can only be used at the first stages of acquaintance with this discipline.

A deeper understanding of the content of differential psychology allows us to understand the definition of its subject, which in modern interpretation is formulated as follows: study of the structure of individuality based on the identificationindividual, typological and group differencesbetween people by comparative analysis.

Based on the subject of study, differential psychology includes three sections that are devoted to three types of differences: 1) individual, 2) group and 3) typological.

1. individual differences. The section is devoted to the study of manifestations of general psychological patterns at the level of an individual. Individual differences can be conditionally divided into two groups: a) intra-individual and b) inter-individual. The specifics of these two groups is as follows.

Inside-customized the differences mean:

Differences of a person from himself at different periods of life (for example, in childhood, youth and maturity; at the beginning of education and after its completion, etc.),

The difference between a person and himself in different situations and different social groups (for example, in a student group or in a family, in public transport or at a disco),

The ratio of various manifestations of personality, character, intelligence in an individual (for example, the ratio of verbal and non-verbal intelligence; the ratio of volitional and emotional personality traits).

Under inter-individual differences mean:

Differences of an individual from most other people (correlation with the general psychological norm),

Differences of a person from a specific group of people (for example, student or professional group).

2. Group differences. The section is devoted to the study of differences between people, taking into account their belonging to a particular community or group. We are talking about large groups that are distinguished according to the following criteria: gender, age, nationality (race), cultural tradition, social class, etc. Belonging to each of these groups is a natural manifestation of the nature of any person (as a biological and social being) and allows get a better idea of ​​his personality.

3. Typological differences. The section studies the differences between people who are distinguished by psychological (in some cases, psychophysiological) criterion or criteria, such as, for example, temperament, character, personality. At the same time, people are combined into certain groups - types. The selection of such groups is the result of attempts to classify information about the differences between people in order to explain and predict their behavior, as well as to determine the most adequate areas for the application of their abilities. Classifications can serve as an example of the first typologies, the creators of which singled out groups of people taking into account the date of birth and a number of relevant natural criteria - the properties of stones and trees (druid horoscopes), the location of stars (astrological horoscopes). Modern typologies are based on other criteria; in their development, certain patterns are taken into account, which will be discussed below.

1.2 Historical background of design

differential psychology into a separate science

The term "Differential Psychology" was introduced by a German psychologist William Stern, who managed to collect the ideas about the differences between people that were available by that time (1911) into a holistic concept.

The prehistory of the creation of the concept, first of all, is associated with the development of a number of empirical areas that differed in the use observation method, a low level of generalization, as well as attempts to link some anatomical, physiological and psychological characteristics of a person.

For example, within physiognomy, founded by J. Lavater, personality traits, facial expressions, and even just the image of a person's silhouette served as the basis for predicting his behavior. Supporters phrenology, developed, sought to determine the characteristics of a person according to the shape of the structure of the skull. Adherents graphology, which Abbé I. Michon studied more than others, diagnosed signs of individuality in writing letters, inclination, pressure and other characteristics of the exact movements of a person, reflected in his handwriting.

By the end of the 19th century, in connection with the introduction into psychology experimental method, the study of differences moves to a qualitatively new level, involving the measurement and subsequent analysis of individual and group characteristics. The key events of this period, which served as prerequisites for the formation of differential psychology into a separate science, include the following:

1.psychological laboratory in 1879, where he began, under experimental conditions, the study of mental processes. Very quickly after that, similar laboratories began to open in other countries of Europe and America.

2. Discovery of the phenomenon of reaction time. Back in 1796, thanks to an alleged oversight by an assistant at the Greenwich Observatory, Kinnybrook, reaction time was discovered as a psychological phenomenon (individual differences were found between astronomer observers in determining the location of a star). An explanation of the fact was given in 1816 FrederickBessel– differences in reaction time (crossing the coordinate grid by the star was given 0.5 seconds later). The publication in 1822 by Bessel of the results of his long-term observations of the time of the motor reaction of German astronomers can be considered the first scientific report on the study of the differential psychological aspects of human behavior.

Bessel was the main argument in favor of starting to consider the mental as a process that has a temporal duration, having a beginning, a middle and an end, and not as a one-time phenomenon. Later, the Dutch researcher F. Donders developed a special scheme for calculating reaction time, and an increase in reaction time began to be perceived as an indicator of the complication of mental processes.

3.Using methods of statistical analysis. In 1869, in England, the work Francis Galton(1869-1978) "Hereditary genius", in which the author interpreted the results of his statistical analysis of the biographical facts of prominent people, and also substantiated the hereditary determination of human abilities. Galton's work was written under the influence of evolutionary theory Charles Darwin.

F. Galton in 1884 organized the first anthropometric laboratory within the framework of the International Exhibition in London. He conducts the first mass survey of people (9.337 subjects during the year). It studies differences in constitutional (height, weight, body proportions), sensorimotor (reaction time to visual and auditory stimuli, grip strength), sensory (visual and hearing acuity) parameters. The result was the substantiation of statistical analysis methods and the development of new ideas.

4.Use of psychogenetic data- a field of psychology bordering on genetics, the subject of which is the origin of individual psychological characteristics of a person, the role of the environment and genotype in their formation. The most informative was the twin method, which was first used by Galton. This method allows you to equalize the impact of the environment as much as possible and differentiate differences depending on the source of their origin: genetic (passed down from generation to generation), congenital (relevant only to relatives of the same generation), acquired (associated with differences in the environment).

1.3 Founders of differential psychology

and their ideas about the subject of the new science

The first major representatives of differential psychology as a scientific direction, in addition to V. Stern, were in Europe - A. Binet and F. Galton, in America - D. Cattell, in Russia -. Individual and group tests (including tests of mental abilities) were used as the main research methods, and a little later, projective methods for measuring attitudes and emotional reactions were used.

In 1895, A. Binet and W. Henry published an article entitled "Psychology of Individuality", which was the first systematic analysis of the goals, subject and methods of differential psychology. As the main problems of differential psychology, the authors of the article put forward two: 1) the study of the nature and degree of individual differences in psychological processes; 2) the discovery of the relationship of the mental processes of the individual, which can make it possible to classify qualities and the possibility of determining which functions are the most fundamental.

In 1900, the first edition of V. Stern's book on differential psychology, The Psychology of Individual Differences, appeared.

The first part of the book deals with the essence, problems and methods of differential psychology. To the subject of this section of psychology, Stern attributed differences between individuals, racial and cultural differences, professional and social groups, as well as differences related to gender.

He characterized the fundamental problem of differential psychology as triune:

What is the nature of the psychological life of individuals and groups, what is the degree of their differences;

What factors determine these differences or influence them (in this regard, V. Stern mentioned heredity, climate, social or cultural level, education, adaptation, etc.);

What are the differences, is it possible to fix them in the spelling of words, facial expressions, etc.

V. Stern also considered such concepts as "psychological type", "individuality", "norm" and "pathology". Using the methods of differential psychology, he gave an assessment of introspection, objective observation, the use of materials from history and poetry, cultural studies, quantitative testing and experiment.

The second part of the book contains a general analysis and some data concerning individual differences in the manifestation of a number of psychological qualities - from simple sensory abilities to more complex mental processes and emotional characteristics.

Stern in a substantially revised form was republished in 1911, and again in 1921 under the title Methodological Foundations of Differential Psychology.

In the final version of his concept, V. Stern expanded the definition of the subject of differential psychology, including in its content not only individual, but also group and typological differences. At the same time, the author emphasized the integrative nature of the new science and especially noted that the comprehensiveness inherent in differential psychology is of a completely different kind than that of general psychology. It lies in the fact that the subject of differential psychological research are formal(rather than meaningful) signs of a person. That is, signs that:

Describe the structure of personality

Differ in versatility and stability,

They can be reproduced both in real life and in an experimental situation.

1.4 Purpose and tasks of differential psychology

The purpose and objectives of differential psychology are determined on the basis of several theoretical positions that are shared not only by the founders, but also by modern representatives of this direction.

1. universality of difference. Differences (intra - and inter - individual) are an essential feature of human behavior, as well as the behavior of all living organisms, including humans. Charles Darwin (1859) also wrote about this.

2. The need for measurement when studying differences. The study of individual differences is by definition associated with measurement and quantification (D. Cattell, 1890).

3. Stability of the studied features. Differential psychology studies the signs that are the most stable over time and in different situations.

4. Determination of behavior. Comparing differences in behavior with other known concomitant phenomena, one can identify the relative contribution of various factors to the development of behavior (A. Anastasi, 1937).

5. Interrelation and mutual complementation of the general and the special when exploring differences. On the one hand, differences reveal the effect of the most general laws of human behavior. On the other hand, "the concrete manifestation of any general law of psychology always includes the factor of individuality" (, 1985).

The last principle is of particular importance for differential psychology as an integrative scientific discipline and involves a combination of two approaches in the study of differences between people - nomothetic and ideographic.

The purpose of the first campaign is to study the general patterns and their variations, which is the main task of traditional experimental studies. The name itself comes from the Greek word "nomos", meaning "law" ("nomo-teteo" - to establish laws).

The Greek word "idios", from which the name of the second approach comes, means "peculiar", "belonging to someone". Accordingly, the purpose of this approach is to describe the characteristics of a particular person.

According to the concept of V. Stern (1911), the ideographic approach not only allows one to study that layer of psychological reality that is inaccessible to the nomothetic approach, but also deepens the understanding of the general patterns of functioning and development of the psyche. The nomothetic approach creates the basis for ideographic analysis and defines the points of reference necessary for a deeper study of individuality. The principle that implies the mutual complementation of these two approaches opens up a new opportunity for researchers - outputgeneral psychological patterns, without losing the individual characteristics of a person and his integrity .

Based on these principles goal differential psychology in modern interpretation is defined as " study of the mechanisms of development and functioning of human individuality as an integral phenomenon that exists in the field of interaction between subjective and objective realities» .

Realization of the goal is carried out by solving the following main tasks:

The study of the relationship between the measured features that characterize the characteristics of individuality;

Analysis of the group distribution of features;

Examining the sources of differences among the measured traits;

Development of theoretical foundations for psychodiagnostic research and correctional programs.

1.5 Status of differential psychology

The status characterizes the boundaries of differential psychology, its numerous connections with other human sciences.

presented these connections in the form of a diagram depicted in Figure 1.

external status

Fig.1. Status of differential psychology

As can be seen from the figure, external status differential psychology is defined by the boundaries passing from the physics of sensory systems, through genetics and physiology (lower boundaries), to the psychology of personality, social, as well as general and developmental psychology (upper boundaries).

internal status is determined by the sphere of boundary areas of psychological knowledge, which were formed as a result of the allocation of a differential psychological aspect in them: developmental psychology and gender psychology, social psychology of the individual (analysis of the interaction of a group and an individual), general psychology of the individual (structure and mechanisms of personal properties), differential psychophysiology, psychogenetics (models of determination of human differences), psychophysics.

In general, it can be argued that differential psychology plays the role of a link between general psychology and all the above directions in the science of man. At the same time, the central area of ​​mutual intersections is the psychology of personality. As he writes, “the intermediate position of differential psychology - and the psychology of personality as its central part - is due to the laws of human phylogenesis and ontogenesis. In the first case (phylogeny), we mean the movement of the psyche as a self-developing phenomenon from evolutionary-genetic (biological) laws to socio-cultural (social) patterns. In the second (ontogenesis) - the transformation in the course of the life path of the biologically determined properties of an individual into personal structures, which are manifested in the integral characteristics of the interaction of individuality with the world.

From the point of view of practical application, the connection between differential psychology and psychological diagnostics is of great importance. As W. Stern wrote, when a new concept is born (for example, "accentuation of character", "style of behavior"), this process is carried out in the bosom of differential psychology. When a test is created to diagnose the corresponding characteristics of a person, the relay task is transferred to specialists in the field of psychodiagnostics and differential psychometrics.

1.6 The problem of independence in differential psychology

Numerous connections of differential psychology with other human sciences give rise to doubts expressed by a number of researchers regarding its right to be called an independent science.

For example, Anna Anastasi(1958), considers differential psychology, rather than as a separate field of knowledge, but as an approach relevant to any psychological research: “The main goal of differential psychology, as well as psychology in general, is to understand behavior. Differential psychology approaches this problem through a comparative analysis of behavior in changing conditions.

Taking into account the disputes on this issue, one should take into account the point of view of V. Stern, who believed that “differential psychology will by no means lose its truly scientific and independent character if it takes part in solving problems of other sections of psychology” (1911).

The following arguments can be made in favor of V. Stern's position. On the one hand, the differential approach is really important for solving many problems of psychology, on the other hand, the specifics of this approach can serve as a basis for recognizing differential psychology as an independent science for the following reasons.

Firstly, this approach is a methodological basis for studying the subject of differential psychology, which, with the development of science, has acquired a clear, specific content - an analysis of the structure of individuality (taking into account differences at different levels). Thanks to the systematic study of the structure of individuality, psychology has been enriched with a number of unique concepts, such as the theory of integral individuality (1975–1986), an integrated approach (1976), and a special theory of individuality (1988–1991).

Secondly, it is in the differential psychological approach that the principle of combining the general and the special is laid down, in which the general laws and individual manifestations of the mental are given significant and equal importance. This principle makes it possible to reduce the distance between the results of scientific research and their practical application. In addition, this principle contributes to the realization of the value of any individuality, regardless of its specific features, which is of fundamental importance for the professional position of every psychologist.

CHAPTER 2

PROBLEMS AND METHODS OF STUDYING INDIVIDUALITY

System approach in differential psychology.

The role of heredity and environment in the formation of differences.

Methods of differential psychology.

The concept of psychological norm and psychological type.

2.1 Systems approach in differential psychology

In differential psychology, the study of individuality is carried out on the basis of a systematic approach, which is the methodological basis of numerous studies in various fields of modern science.

concept "system" defined as a set of elements that are in relationships and connections with each other, which form a certain unity. The following are the general characteristics of any system:

1. Integrity- the irreducibility of any system to the sum of its constituent parts and the irreducibility of any part of the system of its properties as a whole.

2.Structurality- connections and relations of the elements of the system are ordered into a certain structure, which determines the behavior of the system as a whole.

3. Relationship with the environment, which can have a "closed" (not changing the environment and system) or "open" (transforming the environment and system) character.

4. Hierarchy. Each component of the system can be considered as a system that includes another system, that is, each component of the system can be both an element (subsystem) of this system, and itself include another system.

5. Multiple descriptions. Each system, being a complex object, in principle cannot be reduced to just one picture, one display. This assumes for a complete description of the system the coexistence of the set of its mappings.

All of these characteristics are directly related to human individuality and are taken into account when selecting specific methods for studying it.

Within the framework of a systematic approach, in studies of the structure of individuality, four dimensions are taken into account, which correspond to four hierarchical levels: 1) corporal (organism), 2) individual (general mental characteristics), 3) personal, and 4) integral (holistic individuality).

Level organism involves the study of the physical and physiological properties of a person, such as physique, biochemical characteristics, neurodynamic properties of the brain, as well as features of functional asymmetry.

At the level individual the features of mental processes and temperament are considered, taking into account biological (gender, age, race) and social differences (cultural and professional identification, socio-economic status).

To personal the level includes features that are formed in the process of interaction of an individual with the social environment (psychosocial properties).

Integrative the level unites all previous properties and allows presenting individuality as a unique, holistic phenomenon - an integral of all levels of internal and external interaction, including the processes of integration and differentiation.

2.2 The role of heredity and environment in the formation of differences

As noted above, the relationship with the external environment is one of the essential characteristics of individuality as an integral system. In addition, the environment, along with hereditary prerequisites, creates conditions for the formation of differences between people.

For a deeper understanding of the role of heredity and environment, it is important to consider modern ideas about these concepts.

According to the traditional view presented in the textbook by A. Anastazi (1958), heredity It is made up of the totality of all genes that are passed on to an individual by both parents at the time of conception. Each individual receives a unique combination of genes, with the exception of identical twins.

Under environment refers to all the stimuli to which the organism responds: from the intracellular and intercellular environment within the organism itself to the large-scale external influences that it encounters from its conception to its death.

Heredity and environment include a large number of different factors interacting with each other in a complex complex that operates throughout the life of an individual. During this interaction heredity b determines the stability of the existence of the individual and the boundaries within which he can develop. Wednesday provides variability and the ability to adapt to changing conditions of life.

When considering the question of the role of heredity and environment in the formation of differences, it is necessary to take into account a number of more specific provisions related to the content of these two factors.

1. The mere physical presence of objects does not mean that we relate them to the environment: it is necessary that the object serve as a stimulus for the individual, have an impact on him. Thus, the environment of two individuals will always be different, even if they are placed in the same conditions.

2. Not everything that is present at birth is hereditary, since the prenatal environment can influence the basic characteristics of the organism.

3. Traces of environmental influences can be very stable in the psychological makeup of an individual, although they will not be genetically transmitted to subsequent generations (for example, developmental disorders of a child as a result of birth trauma).

4. The achievements of parents cannot be passed on to children through genetic inheritance, while social inheritance plays an important role, which means following cultural patterns (transmission of accentuation, for example, schizoid, from mother to child through cold maternal education, the formation of family scripts).

5. Heredity affects what can manifest itself after a long period of time after birth under appropriate environmental conditions. If such conditions do not arise, heredity may not manifest itself. Thus, it would be a mistake to believe that it is impossible to influence inherited qualities. Although heredity is responsible for the stability of a species, most hereditary traits are modifiable, and even hereditary diseases are not inevitable.

6. Resemblance to parents may depend on both heredity and the environment. Differences between parents and children may also be the result of each of the factors.

7. If you ask the question how much intellectual or personal qualities depend on heredity, and how much on the environment, then it will turn out to be meaningless, since there are as many answers to it as there are individuals. It is necessary to change the wording of the question and ask not how much, but how this influence is carried out, that is, what is the measure and content of these influences.

A similar task is set by the authors of integrative models of individuality (, etc.). According to the unanimous opinion of these authors, a person is both a representative of a biological species with a long evolutionary history and a member of society, which is the result of historical development. Therefore, considering the structure of psychological properties, it is fundamentally important to take into account the fact of the interaction of biological and social factors, as well as their complex influence on the formation of individuality.

8. As differential psychology develops, the content of the concepts of "heredity" and "environment" is refined. Yes, lately heredity became more widely understood. These are not just individual traits that affect behavior (for example, properties of the nervous system), but also innate behavior programs including the social one. Programs differ from signs replacing each other under the influence of the environment in that in this case the development trajectory is anticipated; the program contains both the time of its “launch” and the sequence of critical points.

concept environments also changed. It is not just a series of stimuli to which the individual reacts throughout his life (from air and food to the conditions of education and the attitude of comrades). This is a system of interactions between a person and the world, in which a person, as his individuality develops, gradually acquires a leading role.

As an illustration of the last statement, one can cite the orthogenetic concept of H. Werner (orthogenesis is a theory of the development of living nature). According to this concept, all organisms are born with functions (including mental ones) fixed at the lowest point of their development. Interacting with the environment, they acquire new experience, which, in turn, is fixed in new functional structures that again determine the minimum of interaction, but of a new quality.

X. Werner compared the organism with an actor on the stage: in the course of development, there is a shift from the stage to the actor. The higher the stage, the more often the initiative comes from the individual, who becomes more and more active, begins to manipulate the environment, and not just passively respond to it.

2.3 Methods of differential psychology

2.3.1 Classification of methods

Method in Greek means "the way of knowledge". To study (cognize) the structure of individuality, different methods are used, which can be classified, for example, as follows.

Differential Psychology (differential psychology )

D. p. is engaged in the study of the nature and origins of individual and group differences in behavior. The measurement of such differences has generated a huge amount of descriptive data, to-rye in themselves represent a great scientific and practical. interest. More importantly, however, D. p. is a unique way to understand behavior, because the approach that distinguishes it consists in a comparative analysis of behavior in different biologists. and environmental conditions. By relating observed behavioral differences to known concomitant circumstances, one can study the relative contributions of various variables to the development of behavior.

As an independent area of ​​psychology. science D. p. began to take shape in the last quarter of the XIX century. Great contribution to research. Francis Galton introduced individual differences by creating tests to measure sensorimotor and other simple functions, collecting extensive data in a variety of testing conditions, and developing statistical methods for analyzing this kind of data. The American psychologist James McKean Cattell, a student of Wilhelm Wundt, continued the development begun by Galton. tests and applied a differential approach in experimental psychology, which began to take shape in an independent area of ​​psychol. science.

The first systematic description of the goals, areas of interest and methods of the psychology of individual differences is the article "Individual Psychology" by Alfred Binet and Victor Henri ( La psychological individual) - The term differential psychology, which first appeared as a subtitle of his book, later, when it was reprinted, was included in the title, which sounded like "Methodological Foundations of Differential Psychology" ( Die differentielle psychology in ihren methodischen grundlagen). Further progress in the study of individual and group differences is closely connected with the development of psychol. testing, as well as with advances in related fields, especially in genetics, developmental psychology and cross-cultural psychology, which have made a significant contribution to the development of methodology, the accumulation of facts and the development of the concepts of D. p.

Range and distribution of individual differences

Individual differences in behavioral characteristics are inherent not only to people, but also to all representatives of the animal world. The results of studying the behavior of various animals - from single-celled organisms to great apes - indicate that different individuals differ significantly from each other both in learning ability and in terms of motivation, emotionality and other measurable distinctive features. These differences are so large that partial overlap in the distributions of individual outcomes is observed even when comparing widely separated biologists. types.

Although popular descriptions often place people in distinctly different categories, e.g. divide them into quick-witted and dumb, excitable and calm, the actual dimension of any psychol. traits reveals a strong variation of individuals along a continuous scale. The distributions of measurements for most traits approximate a bell-shaped normal probability distribution curve, with the largest clustering of cases near the center of the range of variation and a gradual decrease in the number of cases as one approaches its edges. First deduced by mathematicians in their research. according to probability theory, a normal curve is obtained whenever the measured variable is affected by a greater number of independent and equally weighted factors. Due to the huge number of hereditary and environmental factors that contribute to the development of most psychol. traits, the normal curve is generally recognized as the most appropriate trait distribution model, and psychol. tests are usually designed to fit this model.

Heredity and environment

Concepts

The origins of individual differences in behavioral characteristics must be sought in the countless interactions of heredity and environment throughout a person's life. The heredity of each person. consists of genes received from both parents at the time of conception. Genes are compounds of complex chemical. substances that are inherited in the chromosomes of the egg and sperm, cat. combine to form a new organism. If in one of these genes there is a chem. deficiency or imbalance, the result may be the appearance of a defective organism with physical pathology and profound mental retardation (as in the case of phenylketonuria). However, with the exception of such pathological cases, heredity sets wide limits for the development of behavior, and these limits in people. much wider than in species lower on the evolutionary ladder. What exactly will people achieve? within the limits allotted to him - depends on the environment in which he lives.

The environment is the totality of stimuli affecting the individual from the moment of conception to death, ranging from air and food to the intellectual and emotional climate in the family and immediate environment, as well as the beliefs and attitudes of those with whom the individual closely associates. Environmental factors begin to take effect even before the birth of the individual. Malnutrition, toxic substances, and other prenatal environmental factors have a profound effect on both physical and mental development, and the effects of these influences are felt over an extended period of time. Terms like congenital(born), inborn(innate) and inherent in birth(congenital), often misused by those who hold the wrong view that everything an individual is born with is inherited from their parents. The second common misconception is the confusion between hereditary and organic conditions. For example, about mental retardation, which is a consequence of damage to the brain in the early stages of development, it is quite possible to say that it is not of hereditary, but of organic origin.

Methodology

Numerous methods used to study the influence of heredity and environment on the development of behavior can be divided into 3 groups according to three main approaches: selective inference(selective breeding), experience control(experiential control) and statistical study of family resemblance(statistical studies of family resemblances). Selective inference to obtain certain behavioral characteristics has been successfully applied to several. biologist. types. Thus, it was proved possible to breed from one initial group two lines of rats that learn well and poorly to pass the maze (ie, relatively speaking, "smart" and "stupid", respectively). However, these lines did not differ from each other in terms of the level of general learning, since it turned out that both “smart” and “dumb” rats coped equally well with other learning tasks. Another research. of these specially bred lines has provided us with a clear example of the interaction of heredity and environment. When rats were reared in restrictive conditions, individuals from both strains learned to navigate the maze just as badly as genetically "dumb" rats raised in a natural environment. On the contrary, an enriched environment that provided a variety of stimuli and opportunities for motor activity improved the learning of individuals from the "dumb" line, and both groups now completed the maze approximately at the level of the achievement of "smart" rats in a natural setting.

Subsequently, experiments on selective breeding were extended both to other biological species and to other types of behavior. Of particular importance was the development of techniques for determining individual differences in the behavior of organisms such as fruit flies. Drosophilae. This has made it possible to take advantage of the wealth of available genetic information about the morphology of Drosophila, as well as such important advantages of fruit flies as fast generational change and numerous offspring. As a result, two lines of fruit flies were bred: Drosophila, which flew on the light, and fruit flies flying away away from light source.

The second approach to the study of heredity and environment deals with the behavioral effects of systematic, controlled changes in experience. Experimental research. of this issue are associated either with special training, or with blocking the normal performance of a particular function. This method has often been used in experiments with animals to study a wide range of behaviors, from swimming tadpoles and birdsong to sexual behavior and care for offspring. Significant effects of such controlled manipulation of experience have been found for almost all types of behavior, including perceptual, motor, emotional and social. reactions, and learning. Thanks to such experiments, it was possible to establish that actions that were previously considered exclusively "instinctive" that did not require any learning, for example. nest building and grooming of the young by rats depend on the previous experience of the animals. Even when the animal does not have the opportunity to learn some specific action that is of interest to the researcher, its behavior may be affected by the performance of other functions associated with it.

When conducting research. on infants and young children in one group of experiments, the method of paired twin control was used ( method of co- twin control), the essence of which is that one of the two identical twins is actively taught something, for example. climb the stairs, and the second plays the role of a "control group". Most of the results indicate that if learning is started at the moment when the child is physically ready for it, he progresses faster than when learning is started prematurely. In other research. compared children raised in a restricted environment, for example. in orphanages, and children growing up in a more stimulating environment. It was found that the striking differences between them depended on the amount of communication with adults, the degree of physical. stimulation and the availability of opportunities for physical activity. There is, however, evidence that appropriate educational programs, especially if children are introduced to them at an early age, can offset the negative impact of such an impoverished environment on intellectual development.

The third main approach is based on a statistical analysis of family resemblance. The degree of similarity in the performance of ability tests and personality tests by parents and children, siblings, as well as monozygotic and dizygotic twins was investigated. In general, the closer the hereditary relationship, the more similar the test scores are. On most intelligence tests, for example, monozygotic twin correlations approach 0.90, nearly as high as correlations between primary and secondary test scores of the same individuals. Dizygotic twin correlations cluster around 0.70 and sibling correlations cluster around 0.50, just like parent-child correlations. It should be noted, however, that the family is not only a biologist, but also a cultural community. In general, the more closely two people are related by kinship, the more similar will be their living conditions and the degree of their influence on each other. Special Research adopted children and identical twins reared apart allow a separate assessment of the contributions of heredity and environment, but the lack of control over some conditions in them does not allow us to draw final conclusions.

The nature of intelligence

Structure

Intelligence was most often identified with the intelligence quotient - IQ, obtained on a standardized intelligence test. Such tests reflect - at least in part - the concept of intelligence that has developed in the culture in which they are developed. The beginning of modern intelligence testing was laid by Alfred Binet, who developed a test to identify mentally retarded children among schoolchildren. The criteria for validating intelligence tests were often academic criteria such as school grades, teacher ratings of students in intelligence, transfer and final exam data, and education level. In terms of content, most intelligence tests are predominantly verbal, with varying degrees of coverage of arithmetic skills and quantitative reasoning. However, different intelligence tests may selectively evaluate slightly different combinations of abilities. Nonverbal and action tests, for example, often place greater demands on spatial representation, perceptual speed and accuracy, and nonverbal reasoning than conventional verbal tests.

As the participation of psychologists in career counseling and in the selection of personnel for various organizations has increased, there has been an awareness of the need for additional tests to measure abilities not covered by traditional intelligence tests. As a result, so-called tests of special abilities were developed to select people who are able to work as clerks, mechanics, and also have other abilities that are useful in terms of sp. a number of specialties. At the same time, fundamental research was carried out. nature of intelligence by methods of factor analysis. Essentially, these methods consist in a statistical analysis of intercorrelations between test scores in order to determine the smallest number of independent factors that can explain these intercorrelations. Abilities or factors identified in this way include verbal comprehension, fluency, arithmetic skills, quantitative reasoning, perceptual speed, handling of spatial patterns, and understanding of mechanical patterns. The functions themselves, measured by intelligence tests, were divided by factor analysis into verbal and numerical abilities relatively independent of each other. These abilities - combined with those that form the basis of special ability tests - now provide a more complete picture of people. abilities. Some of these are included in what are commonly referred to as complex ability batteries.

On the other hand, a steadily growing body of data from cross-cultural research. indicates that in different cultures, intelligence can be understood as different qualities of people. Both the qualities that make up the intellect and the relative level of development of these qualities reflect the requirements and conditional reinforcements from the culture, in a swarm of people. functioning. Conducted in modern preliterate cultures issled. show that those representatives of these cultures who have experienced a noticeable influence of European education are more likely to respond to test items based on abstract concepts and are less dependent on context than their peers who received a traditional upbringing. From a cross-cultural standpoint, currently available intelligence tests can be best described as a measure of academic intelligence or learning ability. These skills represent only a limited part of the intellect, but that part of it, which is widely used and extremely in demand in modern, industrialized societies. In such societies, academic intelligence significantly correlates not only with studies. achievements, but also with achievements in most professions and in other important areas of social activity.

Intellectual functions revealed by traditional intelligence tests have also been studied by cognitive psychologists as part of the study of information processing and machine modeling of human thinking. Although these research are only at an early stage, they contribute to the understanding of what exactly intelligence tests measure, because their focus is on the process of solving problems, and not on its final result. What does the test taker answering the test questions? Analyzing the execution of an intellectual test with t. sp. constituent elementary processes, can ultimately contribute to identifying the sources of the strengths and weaknesses of the intellect of each person. Such an analysis can enhance the diagnostic function of tests and facilitate the development of individual training programs that meet the needs of a particular person.

Development throughout life

Longitudinal research. The age-related changes in the level of performance of traditional tests of intelligence reveal its slow increase in infancy, replaced in childhood by a more rapid progress, continuing until maturity, when a gradual decrease in indicators begins. It should be noted, however, that at different stages of human development. the level of his intelligence is estimated by a different set of properties: IQ infants is determined mainly by the level of their sensorimotor development, a IQ children - according to the level of development of verbal and other abstract functions. During compulsory schooling, the content of intelligence tests closely mirrors what is taught in schools. In the future, situations are possible in which the changing patterns of an individual's intellectual development associated with an increase in the educational level and the acquisition of a certain specialty are not detected using widely used intelligence tests: this may require a wider range of tests and other assessment procedures.

Average performance on traditional intelligence tests shows a continuous increase with age up to the third decade of life. Among groups with high test scores, primarily college graduates and people engaged in knowledge work, such an increase can occur throughout life. In samples of individuals whose indicators are close to the average for the population, the tendency to decrease in the tested abilities appears after they reach the age of 30, and the greatest decline is noted when performing tasks for speed, visual perception, and the establishment of abstract spatial relationships. In research. cross-sectional method, which uses different samples at different age levels, age differences are likely to be mixed with cultural changes in the population, since different age groups also differ in educational levels and other changing living conditions. Well-planned longitudinal studies. adults show that the decline in intelligence test scores attributed to age is much smaller than the differences associated with educational and cultural changes over time.

Intellectual deviants

Mentally retarded and gifted people represent the lower and upper ends of the distribution of intelligence. Since this distribution is continuous, there are no clear boundaries between these groups and the statistical norm. On the basis of intelligence test performance, mental retardation is usually identified with IQ below 70, representing approximately 2-3% of the total population. Decisions about the final diagnosis and possible treatment for each individual case are based not only on the magnitude IQ, but on a comprehensive study of the intellectual development of the individual, the history of his education, social. competence, physical conditions and situations in the family. Although a few rare forms of mental retardation are the result of defective genes, the vast majority of cases are caused by exposure to environmental conditions before or after birth that have an adverse physical effect. and psychol. influence.

The intellectually gifted people at the opposite end of the scale were studied using different procedures and from different perspectives. One large longitudinal study. was performed at Stanford University by Lewis M. Thurman and his colleagues. In this research. 1000 children took part IQ which on the Stanford-Binet scale was equal to at least 140; children were carefully examined, and further examination was carried out at several stages of life. So high IQ has just over 1% of the population. The results of the Stanford study, confirmed by the work of other scientists, showed that a gifted child, as a rule, is successful in school, is healthy, emotionally stable and has a variety of interests. As they reach maturity, these children generally retain their superiority in adult activities.

Thanks to research. The notion of intelligence has been extended to include a range of creative abilities, in particular, ideational fluency and originality. It has been established that motivation, interests and other personal variables, as well as psychol., play an important role in creative achievements. the climate of the environment in which the individual grew up and in which he, having become an adult, works.

Group differences

Sex differences

The study of any group differences in behavioral characteristics challenges the researcher. a number of problems associated with both the methodology and the interpretation of the results obtained. When making group comparisons, individual differences inside of each group were much greater than the average differences between groups. The distributions of the different groups overlap to a large extent. Even when there are large, statistically significant differences between the mean scores of two groups, there are always people in the low-scoring group who outperform the high-scoring group. It follows from this that the group affiliation of an individual cannot serve as a reliable indicator of his position in the distribution of psychol. crap.

The second problem arises in connection with the use of non-representative samples, in which the sampling factors may have acted differently in the studied populations. For example, since boys have been shown to drop out of school more often than girls, a comparison of the IQ scores of pupils and high school students will show a difference in the averages in favor of boys. However, this difference would most likely disappear if we could include in the group of boys those who left school in due course, since their indicators tend to cluster in the lower end of the distribution. An error of interpretation similar in meaning, but opposite in direction, is illustrated by data from surveys of mentally retarded persons placed in hospitals, among which, according to published reports, there are generally more men. Although at first these findings were taken as evidence that there were more mentally retarded men than women, the origins of such data were later traced back to the principles of selection procedures ( selective admission policies). Due to various social and economic reasons, mentally retarded women are more likely to stay in the community ( community), than men with the same intellectual level.

The use of summary indicators on tests of intelligence tj in group comparisons can lead to incorrect conclusions. When developing a number of tests, such as the Stanford-Binet scale, gender differences were eliminated by discarding or balancing tasks that were easier to perform for males or females. Even when test designers have not followed this practice in selecting items, the heterogeneous test score may mask existing group differences in special abilities.

Reviews of psychol. The tests showed significant differences in mean scores between the sexes for a number of abilities and personality traits. Women as a group outperform men in finger dexterity, comprehension speed and accuracy, verbal fluency, and other tasks related to the mechanics of speech ( mechanics of language) and mechanical memory for various kinds of content. Men are superior to women in speed and coordination of gross bodily movements, spatial orientation, understanding of mechanical laws and mat. reasoning. Among the differences in personality traits, one of the most convincingly proven differences is the greater aggressiveness of the males. This difference manifests itself at an early age and is found in all cultural groups. It has also been found in animals, primarily in anthropoid apes and most other mammals. In a number of research a stronger need for achievement was reported in males, however, it was subsequently proved that this difference depends on the conditions in which achievement motivation is assessed: it is possible that the results partly reflect the extent to which the conditions are problematic. or subject-oriented. There is strong evidence in favor of greater social orientation of women and their greater need for social. approval; women are also less self-confident than men and show higher levels of anxiety in different situations.

Most of the research gender differences provide us with only descriptive data about the differences that exist within a given culture. Their origins must be sought in the complex interactions of the biologist. and cultural factors. With a biologist. t. sp., different roles, to-rye men and women perform in reproductive function, certainly contribute to the sexual differentiation of psychol. development. Maternal functions assigned by nature to a woman, including a long period of bearing and feeding a baby, have a huge impact on sex differences in interests, attitudes, emotional traits, professional goals and achievements. Sex differences in aggressiveness are associated with larger body sizes, greater muscle strength and physical fitness. endurance of men. There is also strong experimental evidence that aggressive behavior is associated with sex hormone levels. Dr. An important gender difference can be found in the acceleration of the age development of girls. Girls not only reach puberty earlier than boys, but throughout childhood they are in all physical. characteristics are closer to their adult physique. During infancy, girls' accelerated development may be an important determinant of faster language acquisition and may give them an advantage in overall verbal development.

It is not difficult to illustrate the contribution of culture to sexual differences. In most societies, boys and girls, while living in the same household, actually grow up in different subcultures. And parents, and other adults, and peers - all in many ways. cases are treated differently. The personalities of the mother and father themselves have a great influence on the formation of the child's ideas about sex roles and what a certain culture expects from men and women. It is very likely that gender-role stereotypes affect the gender differentiation of motivations, interests, and attitudes. There is some evidence that performance on cognitive tasks, such as problem solving and achievement tests in reading and arithmetic, is significantly associated with an individual's degree of gender-role identification and his or her own assessment of gender acceptability of various activities. Most of the descriptive data concerning sex differences in psychol. features, was collected in the USA and in Western European countries before the start of modern. feminist movement. Changes in the educational, professional and social spheres that have occurred under the influence of this movement can affect the relative development of males and females, both in the cognitive field and in other areas.

Racial and cultural differences

Race is a biologist. a concept referring to subdivisions of a species. It corresponds to such classifications as breed, tribe or line in animals. Chelov. races are formed when a group of people becomes relatively isolated due to the action of geographical or social. barriers, with the result that mating within the group becomes more frequent than mating of group members with "strangers". Many generations must change before the so-called. the process will lead to the formation of populations that differ in the relative frequency of certain genes. However, since these differences are relative, not absolute, any racial group exhibits some variation in hereditary racial characteristics. and partially overlaps with other populations in such characteristics. For this reason, the concept of race, in the strict sense, applies to populations and not to individuals.

When people are classified into categories such as socioeconomic level, nationality, or ethnic identity, significant group differences are often found in parenting practices, sexual behavior, emotional responses, interests and attitudes, and performance on many aptitude tests. In all such comparisons, the direction and degree of difference between groups depends on the particular trait of interest to researchers. Since each culture (or subculture) encourages the development of its own typical pattern of abilities and personality traits, comparisons based on such global measures as IQ or general emotional adjustment, pract. meaningless.

The isolation of groups leads to both cultural and racial differentiation. Hence, it is difficult to separately assess the contribution of a biologist. and cultural factors in racial differences in psychol. traits. In search of an answer to this question, they test "half-breeds", children from mixed marriages. It was believed that if, due to genetic factors, one race is more intelligent than another, the intellectual abilities of the "half-breed" should be intermediate. However, the general consensus is that this hypothesis is highly questionable, as it suggests an absolute link between the genes that determine skin color (or other racial traits) and the genes that determine intelligence. With an incomplete connection, the correlation between racial traits and intelligence will disappear after a few. generations if intermarriage continues. The interpretation of the results is further complicated by the fact that race mixing is usually selectable within one or both races, and also by the fact that "half-breeds" tend to assimilate into the culture to which the majority of the population belongs. In groups that are fairly homogenous in their assimilation into the majority culture, and in which people were racialized more on the basis of documents compiled from the words of their parents than on their appearance, the correlation between test scores and the degree of racial mixing was negligible.

Dr. approach is represented by the study of age-related changes in the comparative performance of tests by racial groups. For example, in the United States, a study of black infants and preschool children either did not reveal any mental retardation in them at all, or revealed only a slight lag behind the norms for children of the white population. However, testing of schoolchildren, conducted in the same regions and at the same time, revealed a noticeable difference in average indicators, which increased over the years. These results are similar to those obtained for other groups of children who grew up in a limited educational and cultural environment. In this case, age-related decline in intelligence has been attributed to the cumulative effects of children's experience limitations and the growing mismatch of the impoverished environment with the expanding intellectual needs of the growing child. Considering this problem from a broader perspective, we can say that such an age-related decline in performance relative to test norms occurs in cases where the test evaluates cognitive functions, the development of which is not stimulated in a particular culture or subculture.

The third approach is to compare samples of representatives of the same race who grew up in different conditions. As a rule, such studies reveal greater differences in test performance between subgroups of the same race living in different conditions than between different racial groups living in more comparable conditions. The fact that the regional differences identified within the same racial population are associated more with the cultural characteristics of these regions than with selective migration has been proven in several studies.

Research so-called. equalized groups ( equalized groups) of different races usually show a significant reduction in the differences in the means IQ, although some difference still remains. Conducting such research. associated with a number of methodological difficulties. One of them consists in statistical regression to the mean, which is manifested whenever an experiment. plan with pairwise adjustment of samples ( matched- sample experimental design) is used in research. populations that differ in the adjustment variable ( equating variables), e.g. on the socioeconomic level. As a result of this, the differences in the average indicators found when comparing the selected samples, for example. IQ, are just a statistical artifact of the selection procedure. Dr. the difficulty is associated with the use of very broad categories for classifiers. variables such as socioeconomic or educational levels. When dealing with such large categories, there is always the possibility that individuals from the same population will cluster at the lower level. inside each category, and individuals from another population at the top level of the same category, even if the selection was made so that the total number of individuals in all categories was the same.

A similar difficulty arises when using such traditional equalizing variables as the profession and education of parents, because the relationship of these variables with psychol. development of the child can be very indirect and distant. There is an increasing trend towards the creation of scales for the home environment ( home environment scales), which are more detailed and more directly related to the development of reliably determined properties, such as the ability to learn. The use of such scales to comparatively study black and white preschoolers and secondary school students has been fruitful: evidence has been obtained for the dependence of group differences in intellectual development on relevant characteristics of the home environment.

Based on the knowledge accumulated to date, only a few can be made with certainty. conclusions. First, a biologist. the basis of any observable psychol. racial differences have not yet been established. Secondly, a lot of evidence has been obtained - both from a comparative study of races, and from other studies in the field of D. n. - the fact that the role of cultural factors in the formation of behavioral differences is mainly revealed in the study of different racial groups. Finally, in relation to all psychol. traits and qualities, the range of individual differences within each race greatly exceeds the difference in averages between races.

As for group differences in general, we can say that the empirically established group differences turn into group stereotypes, if: 1) differences in group means are attributed to all members of the group without exception; 2) the observed differences are perceived as rigidly fixed, not amenable to change and inherited.

see also Adopted children, Genetics of behavior, Gifted and talented children, Heritability, Human intelligence, Individual differences, Psychological assessment, Racial differences, Sex differences

The subject of differential psychology

differential psychology - This is a branch of psychological science that studies psychological differences, as well as typological differences in psychological manifestations among representatives of various social, class, ethnic, age and other groups. Differential psychology has 2 tasks: highlighting individual differences and explaining their origin.

Differential psychology has areas of intersection with various other branches of psychological knowledge. Thus, it differs from general psychology in that the latter focuses on the study of the general laws of the psyche (including the psyche of animals). Comparative psychology (once this term was used as a synonym for differential psychology, which is a literal translation of the word) is currently studying the characteristics of the psyche of living beings located at different steps of the evolutionary ladder. She often uses the knowledge of zoopsychology, deals with the problems of anthropogenesis and the formation of human consciousness. Age psychology studies the characteristics of a person through the prism of patterns inherent in the age stage of his development. Social psychology considers the features acquired by a person by virtue of his belonging to a certain social group, large or small. Finally, differential psychophysiology analyzes the individual characteristics of the human psyche from the point of view of their conditioning by the properties of the nervous system.

Currently, differential psychology studies the individual, subject-content and spiritual-ideological qualities of individuality, features of self-consciousness, style characteristics of the individual and the implementation of various activities.

Stages of development of differential psychology

In its development, psychology, like all other scientific disciplines, went through three stages: pre-scientific knowledge, the natural science paradigm of cognition, and the humanitarian paradigm.

Prescientific knowledge is characterized by the predominance of the method of observation, the accumulation of worldly knowledge and a low level of generalization. The natural science paradigm proclaims the need to establish causal patterns based on experimental data and generalizes these patterns. The dominance of the humanitarian paradigm testifies to the maturity of the scientific discipline and is noted not only in the sciences of society and man, but also in the sciences of nature. Modern psychology allows itself to strive for psychography, knowledge - for understanding and description. Thus, differential psychology naturally emerged from general psychology, within which it existed for a long time under the name of the psychology of individual differences.

Directions of differential psychological research. Methods of differential psychology

As Rusalov V.M. , we can distinguish two main areas of research on individual differences, one of which answers the question "What distinguishes people from each other?", The other answers the question "How do these differences manifest themselves and form?". The first direction is connected with the study of the structure of psychological properties. The main task of this direction is to highlight the psychological properties that are most important for further comparative analysis. The solution of this problem is of fundamental nature for differential psychology, within the framework of this direction, the main methodological disputes were conducted, the question of the status of differential psychology as a science was resolved. An example of this is the discussion between the supporters of the idiographic approach, the brightest representative of which was G. Allport, and the adherents of the nomothetic approach (R. Cattell, G. Eysenck and their followers). The main subject of discussion was Allport's position, according to which personality traits, being an abstraction in themselves, form in each case a unique individual combination, which makes it impossible to compare people with each other. Cattell, objecting to Allport, emphasized that the problem of uniqueness is not a specific feature of personality research, the uniqueness of the subject of study is characteristic of all natural sciences: absolutely identical planets or stars have not been found in astronomy, two cars that have come off the same assembly line can differ significantly from each other , even hydrogen atoms are not identical, etc. The uniqueness of the object, however, did not become an obstacle to the development of astronomy, physics, chemistry, and other natural sciences. Cattell, and after him Eysenck, saw the solution to this issue in the consistent application of the natural-scientific approach in personality studies. The main result of these studies was a variety of models of mental properties: temperament, intelligence, character, as well as the corresponding methods of psychological measurements. The range of issues related to the choice of parameters for describing individual differences is traditionally called the feature problem. The choice of psychological variables for a specific comparative study is determined primarily by the specifics of the personality model within which the researcher works. One of the first attempts to isolate stable individual psychological characteristics to describe features is the study of the biological foundations of individual differences. V. M. Rusalov characterizes this direction in personality psychology in the following way: “Among the many directions in the study of personality and individual differences, the biologically oriented approach is perhaps the most fruitful. Possessing a number of fundamental advantages, it makes it possible to combine in itself not only the objective methods of the natural-science approach and, above all, evolutionary-biological ideas, but also concepts developed in other areas of psychology that study personality. The tradition of a biologically oriented approach to personality, having its origins in ancient Greece, has acquired the status of an independent scientific direction only in our century. Initially, temperament was mainly studied, but over time the scope of research has expanded, and today there is a wide range of biological theories of personality - from structural biochemical and neuropsychological theories of temperament (D. A. Gray, 6; P. Netter, 15) to evolutionary theories mechanisms of behavior (D. Bass). In Russian psychology, this approach is consistently implemented in differential psychophysiology, a scientific school founded by B. M. Teplov and V. D. Nebylitsyn. This direction was based on IP Pavlov's ideas about the types of higher nervous activity. The emphasis in research was on the study of the basic properties of the nervous system. The study of the properties of the nervous system was carried out using involuntary indicators of activity - electroencephalographic conditioned reflexes, parameters of reaction time to stimuli of different intensity and sensory indicators. As a result of the research, it was possible to identify features of nervous activity that are closely related to psychological characteristics. Among the widely used concepts in this direction are the model of G. Eysenck and the model of M. Zuckerman. The latter includes the following characteristics: sociability, emotionality, activity, "impulsive unsocialized search for sensations", "aggressive search for sensations". The severity of the properties included in these personality models is assessed using questionnaires developed by the authors. Another approach to identifying psychological characteristics that have pronounced individual differences is the theory of traits. The main hypothesis of the theory of traits is the assumption that psychological characteristics can be described using stable characteristics or traits that manifest themselves in different situations and differ in severity in different people. Most of the psychological traits are identified using the lexicographic method. This approach is based on F. Galton's idea of ​​reflecting the most significant individual psychological differences in the structure of a natural language. One of the first and most common structural models is the 16-factor personality model developed by R. Cattell (16 PF), in which the initial set of personality traits was obtained by analyzing English words. When determining the initial set of structural elements, the author used a list of English words denoting stable characteristics of behavior and personality traits. As a result of factorization of L- and Q-data by Cattell, 16 first-order factors were identified, the meaningful analysis of which allowed the author to interpret them as personality traits. As a result of the studies carried out to date, the low reproducibility of the structure of first-order factors proposed by Cattell on different samples has been shown. Another widespread factor model of personality is proposed by W. T. Norman, the so-called "Big Five", which includes five factors: extraversion (extroversion); friendliness (agreableness); conscientiousness, conscientiousness; neuroticism and culture. This model was revised in the studies of American psychologists R. McCray and P. T. Costa (McCrae R., Costa P. T., 1987); they replaced in their Five-Factor Inventory the name of the factor "culture" with "openness" (opennes). The second direction of differential psychological research is connected with the direct analysis of individual and group differences. Within the framework of this direction, groups of people identified for various reasons were studied, and questions about the sources of individual psychological differences were also resolved. Among the most obvious grounds for distinguishing groups of people is gender. Indeed, in addition to differences between races, ethnic groups and social classes, there is one that is primary in our consciousness and self-image - this is the difference between men and women. Anatomical differences, already evident at birth, increase from childhood to adulthood; in parallel with the anatomical development, a “I-image” is formed, specific for each sex. In any society there is a division of labor depending on gender, there are "male" and "female" professions, fashion, stereotypes of behavior. The universality of the cultural distinction between men and women throughout history has often served as evidence that social differences between the sexes are rooted in genes. It seems almost obvious that differences between the sexes in behavior and social roles are part of the same biological differentiation that allows the obstetrician to determine the sex of the child born. However, the research results allow us to speak with confidence about the existence of significant differences between the sexes only in some psychological properties: 1. Boys begin to consistently outperform girls in aggressiveness starting from the age of 2. A significantly higher level of aggression is manifested in a variety of areas - verbal manifestations, games, fantasies. 2. Emotionality, measured by various methods - from observations of the intensity and duration of emotional reactions in newborns to questionnaire scales of anxiety and emotionality, also demonstrates stable gender differences. Boys and men are more emotionally stable, less prone to fear, less anxious. 3. Starting from the age of 2, girls demonstrate a higher level of verbal abilities - they communicate more with other children, their speech is more correct, the turns used are more complex. By the beginning of school age, these differences cease to be significant; they reappear after completing primary school and are expressed in greater fluency and reading speed in girls. In older women, verbal functions last longer. The listed characteristics do not depend on such parameters as the specifics of the situation, level of education, professional status; in other words, they are sustainable. At the same time, it must be emphasized that, along with the biological conditionality of sex differences, the processes taking place in society play an important role. The recent decrease in the manifestation of sex differences gives reason to assume a strong connection between sex differences and the education and upbringing of children. So, in recent decades, stereotypes have been broken, according to which, for example, technical specialties, mathematics and military affairs were considered “not women's business”. Since the fifties of the XX century. systematic studies of individual psychological differences between representatives of different ethnic groups are being conducted. A fairly large number of studies are devoted to the study of differences in the development of newborns. American psychologist R. Friedman, comparing newborns from three ethnic groups - immigrants from northern Europe, Asians (Japanese and Chinese) and Navajo Indians, came to the conclusion that newborn Indians and Asians are more adaptable. Children of Europeans are more excitable and active, they calm down longer. In a similar comparative study of black and white babies, it was shown that Africans are characterized by a faster pace of development - they develop motor skills more easily, they start walking earlier. Thus, we can draw the following conclusions: the first direction of differential psychological research is connected with the study of the structure of psychological properties. The main task of this direction is to highlight the psychological properties that are most important for further comparative analysis; one of the first attempts to isolate stable individual psychological characteristics to describe features is the study of the biological foundations of individual differences; Another approach to identifying psychological characteristics that have pronounced individual differences is the theory of traits. The main hypothesis of the theory of traits is the assumption that psychological characteristics can be described with the help of stable characteristics or traits that manifest themselves in different situations and differ in severity in different people; The second direction of differential psychological research is connected with the direct analysis of individual and group differences. Within the framework of this direction, groups of people identified for various reasons were studied, and questions about the sources of individual psychological differences were also resolved; gender is one of the most obvious grounds for singling out groups of people. Indeed, in addition to differences between races, ethnic groups and social classes, there is one that is primary in our consciousness and self-image - this is the difference between men and women; a person's belonging to a certain social group is used by some researchers to explain the causes of gender and racial differences. When analyzing the differences between groups with different socioeconomic status, such characteristics as the level of education, professional status, housing conditions, income, nutritional habits, and many others are taken into account.

Methods of differential psychology

By the type of experience used, methods are distinguished introspective (based on data from subjective experience) and extraspective (based on an objective, measurable result).

By the activity of the impact, they distinguish observation and experiment .

By the level of generalization of the obtained regularities nomothetic (focused on general, psychology explanations) and idiographic (focused on the singular, psychography, psychology of understanding).

By stability - a change in the phenomenon under study is distinguished ascertaining and formative methods (in which the final state of the studied quality differs from the initial one).

The methods used by differential psychology can be conditionally divided into several groups: general scientific, psychogenetic, historical, and actually psychological.

General scientific methods represent a modification in relation to the psychological reality of those methods that are used in many other sciences.

Observation- a purposeful systematic study of a person, the results of which give an expert assessment. There are several types of observation.

The advantages of the method are that 1) the facts of a person's natural behavior are collected, 2) a person is perceived as a whole person, 3) the context of the subject's life is reflected.

The disadvantages are: 1) the confluence of the observed fact with incidental phenomena, 2) passivity: the researcher's non-intervention dooms him to a wait-and-see attitude, 3) the lack of the possibility of repeated observation, 4) fixing the results in a descriptive form.

Experiment- a method of purposeful manipulation of one variable and monitoring the results of its change. The advantages of the experimental method are that 1) it is possible to create conditions that cause the mental process under study, 2) it is possible to repeat the experiment many times, 3) it is possible to maintain a simple protocol, 4) the experimental data are more uniform and unambiguous compared to observation.

The disadvantages include: 1) the disappearance of the naturalness of the process, 2) the lack of a holistic picture of a person’s personality, 3) the need for special equipment, 4) separation from the natural perception of the reality being studied (the experimenter focuses more on the readings of the arrows of instruments, tests, etc.).

Modeling- reconstruction of the psychological reality of various content (situations, states, roles, moods). An example of psychological modeling can be mood induction (changing the background of the subject's mood by telling him emotionally colored stories, awakening memories, etc.).

Psychogenetic methods . This group of methods is aimed at identifying environmental and heredity factors in individual variations of psychological qualities.

Historical methods (document analysis methods) . Historical methods are devoted to the study of outstanding personalities, the characteristics of the environment and heredity, which served as impulses for their spiritual development.

Psychological methods. This group constitutes the main content of the differential psychological methods of research.

1) Introspective methods (self-observation and self-assessment) open the object of study directly, which is their main advantage.

2) Psychophysiological (hardware) methods designed to study the psychophysiological foundations of human behavior. They require laboratory conditions and special instruments; are rarely used in practical psychodiagnostics.

3) Socio-psychological methods include surveys and sociometry. Surveys rely on respondents' self-reported data rather than objectively recorded facts. Types of surveys are conversation, interview, questionnaire.

4) Age-psychological methods of "transverse" and "longitudinal" sections.

5) Psychosemantic methods are a group of maximally individual-oriented methods that allow to determine unconsciously acting dimensions (constructs) in relation to the world and oneself.

3. The concept of psychological norm

The main consumer of differential psychological knowledge is psychodiagnostics. In the psychology of individual differences, concepts are born, for the measurement of which methods are then created or selected. Here, an idea arises about the methods for evaluating and interpreting the results obtained. In this regard, the concept of psychological norm is very important, it is very heterogeneous in its content, which is influenced by at least four factors.

1. Norm is a statistical concept. What is considered normal is that which is a lot, which belongs to the middle of the distribution. And its “tail” parts, respectively, indicate the region of low (“subnormal”) or high (“supernormal”) values. To assess the quality, we must correlate a person's indicator with others and thus determine its place on the normal distribution curve. Obviously, the prefixes "sub" and "super" do not give an ethical or pragmatic assessment of quality (after all, if a person has a "supernormal" indicator of aggressiveness, this is hardly good for others and for himself).

Norms are not absolute, they develop and are obtained empirically for a given group (age, social, and others). So, for example, over the past years, the masculinity index according to the MMPI questionnaire among girls has been steadily increased; however, this does not mean that they are all behaving like young men, but the need to revise outdated norms.

2. Norms are driven by social stereotypes. If a person's behavior does not correspond to the generally accepted in a given society, it is perceived as deviant. For example, in Russian culture it is not customary to put your feet on the table, but in American it is not condemned by anyone.

3. Norms are associated with mental health. Anything that requires a referral to a clinician may be considered abnormal. It should be noted, however, that in psychiatry the evaluative approach is also discussed, and as the most significant indications of deviation from the norm, a violation of the productivity of activity and the ability to self-regulate is taken. So, for example, when an elderly person, realizing the weakness of his memory, uses auxiliary means (a notebook, laying out the necessary objects in his field of vision), then this behavior corresponds to the norm, and if he, treating himself uncritically, refuses to need to "prosthetic" his living space, then this ultimately leads to an inability to solve tasks and indicates a violation of mental health.

4. Finally, the idea of ​​norms is determined by expectations, one’s own non-generalized experience and other subjective variables: for example, if the first child in the family began to speak at the age of one and a half years, then the second, who had not yet learned to speak fluently by the age of two, is perceived as endowed with signs of lagging.

V. Stern, calling for caution in evaluating a person, noted that, firstly, psychologists do not have the right to draw a conclusion about the abnormality of the individual himself as a carrier of this property from the established anomaly of a particular property and, secondly, it is impossible to establish an abnormality of the personality reduced to a narrow sign as its only root cause. In modern diagnostics, the concept of "norm" is used in the study of non-personal characteristics, and when it comes to personality, the term "features" is used, thereby emphasizing the deliberate rejection of the normative approach.

So, norms are not a frozen phenomenon, they are constantly updated and changed. The standards of psychodiagnostic methods must also be reviewed regularly.

The interaction of environment and heredity

Determining the sources of individual mental variations is a central problem in differential psychology. It is known that individual differences are generated by numerous and complex interactions between heredity and environment. Heredity ensures the stability of the existence of a biological species, the environment - its variability and the ability to adapt to changing living conditions. Heredity is contained in the genes transmitted by parents to the embryo during fertilization. If there is a chemical imbalance or incomplete genes, the developing organism may have physical abnormalities or mental pathologies. However, even in the usual case, heredity allows a very wide range of behavioral variations resulting from the summation of the norms of reactions of different levels - biochemical, physiological, psychological. And within the boundaries of heredity, the end result depends on the environment. Thus, in every manifestation of human activity, one can find something from heredity, and something from the environment, the main thing is to determine the measure and content of these influences.

In addition, a person has a social inheritance that animals are deprived of (following cultural patterns, transferring accentuation, for example, schizoid, from mother to child through cold maternal education, the formation of family scripts). However, in these cases, rather stable manifestation of features over several generations is noted, but without genetic fixation. “The so-called social heritage cannot really withstand the influence of the environment,” writes A. Anastasi.

Regarding the concepts of "variability", "heredity" and "environment" there are several prejudices. Although heredity is responsible for the stability of a species, most hereditary traits are modifiable, and even hereditary diseases are not inevitable. It is equally true that traces of environmental influences can be very stable in the psychological makeup of an individual, although they will not be genetically transmitted to subsequent generations (for example, developmental disorders of a child as a result of birth trauma).

Different theories and approaches differently assess the contribution of two factors to the formation of individuality. Historically, the following groups of theories have stood out in terms of their preference for biological or environmental, socio-cultural determination. 1. In biogenetic theories, the formation of individuality is understood as predetermined by congenital and genetic inclinations. Development is the gradual unfolding of these properties over time, and the contribution of environmental influences is very limited. Biogenetic approaches often serve as the theoretical basis for racist teachings about the original difference between nations. F. Galton was a supporter of this approach, as well as the author of the theory of recapitulation, St. Hall. 2. Sociogenetic theories (a sensationalistic approach that affirms the primacy of experience) argue that initially a person is a blank slate (tabula rasa), and all his achievements and features are due to external conditions (environment). A similar position was shared by J. Locke. These theories are more progressive, but their drawback is the understanding of the child as an initially passive being, an object of influence. 3. Two-factor theories (convergence of two factors) understood development as the result of the interaction of innate structures and external influences. K. Buhler, V. Stern, A. Binet believed that the environment is superimposed on the factors of heredity. The founder of the two-factor theory, V. Stern, noted that it is impossible to ask about any function, whether it is from the outside or from the inside. It is necessary to be interested in what is in it from the outside and what is inside. But even within the framework of two-factor theories, the child still remains a passive participant in the changes taking place in him. 4. The doctrine of higher mental functions (cultural-historical approach) by L. S. Vygotsky argues that the development of individuality is possible due to the presence of culture - the generalized experience of mankind. The innate properties of a person are the conditions for development, the environment is the source of its development (because it contains what a person must master). Higher mental functions, which are peculiar only to man, are mediated by the sign and objective activity, which are the content of culture. And in order for the child to be able to appropriate it, it is necessary that he enter into special relations with the outside world: he does not adapt, but actively appropriates the experience of previous generations in the process of joint activities and communication with adults who are carriers of culture.

The contribution of heredity and environment tries to determine the genetics of quantitative traits, analyzing various types of dispersion of trait values. However, not every trait is simple, fixed by one allele (a pair of genes, among which there are dominant and recessive). In addition, the final effect cannot be considered as the arithmetic sum of the influence of each of the genes, because they can, manifesting themselves simultaneously, also interact with each other, leading to systemic effects. Therefore, studying the process of genetic control of a psychological trait, psychogenetics seeks to answer the following questions: 1. To what extent does the genotype determine the formation of individual differences (i.e., what is the expected measure of variability)? 2. What is the specific biological mechanism of this influence (on which part of the chromosome are the corresponding genes located)? 3. What processes connect the protein product of genes and a particular phenotype? 4. Are there environmental factors that change the studied genetic mechanism?

The heritability of a trait is recognized by the presence of a correlation between the indicators of biological parents and children, and not by the similarity of the absolute value of the indicators. Let us suppose that as a result of research, similarities were found between the characteristics of the temperament of biological parents and their children put up for adoption. Most likely, children in foster families will experience the influence of common and different environmental conditions, as a result of which, in absolute terms, they will also become similar to foster parents. However, no correlation will be noted.

At present, the discussion between supporters of heredity and environmental factors has lost its former sharpness. Numerous studies devoted to identifying the sources of individual variations, as a rule, cannot give an unambiguous assessment of the contribution of the environment or heredity. So, for example, thanks to the psychogenetic studies of F. Galton, conducted in the 20s using the twin method, it was found that biologically determined characteristics (skull size, other measurements) are genetically determined, and psychological qualities (intelligence quotient according to various tests) give a large spread and are determined by the environment. It is influenced by the social and economic status of the family, birth order, etc.

The current state of affairs in the field of studying the interaction between the environment and heredity is illustrated by two models of environmental influences on intellectual abilities. In the first model, Zajoncz and Markus argued that the more time parents and children spend together, the higher the correlation of IQ with the older relative (exposure model). That is, the child, in his intellectual abilities, is similar to the one who brings him up longer, and if for some reason the parents devote little time to the child, he will look like a nanny or grandmother. In the second model, however, the opposite was stated: McAsky and Clark noted that the highest correlation is observed between the child and the relative who is the subject of his identification (identification model). That is, the most important thing is to be an intellectual authority for the child, and then he can be influenced even remotely, and regular joint activities are not at all necessary. The coexistence of two essentially mutually exclusive models shows once again that most of the differential psychological theories are narrowly limited, and so far there are practically no general theories.

signs of the environment. microsystem. mesosystem. ecosystem. macrosystem

Microsystem: family. The personality of the child is formed by his family, parental attitudes and family atmosphere. If the family is friendly, the child grows up more calm, manageable and friendly. On the contrary, marital conflict is usually associated with inconsistent disciplinary measures and hostility towards children, which generates reciprocal childish hostility. At the same time, it should be taken into account that all relationships are reciprocal, that is, not only adults influence the behavior of children, but the children themselves, their physical properties, personality characteristics and capabilities also affect the behavior of adults. For example, a friendly, attentive child often evokes positive and calm reactions from parents, while a confused and restless child is often punished and his freedom of action is limited. The family, as an environment, is a very dynamic entity. Even in relation to two twins, we cannot assert the identity of the developmental environment, because they are subject to different requirements, different expectations, since one of them is inevitably assigned to the elder, and the other to the younger. Mesosystem: school, quarter of residence, kindergarten. The mesosystem affects the development of the child not directly, but in tandem with the microsystem - the family. The relationship between parents and children is influenced by the relationship of the baby with kindergarten teachers, and vice versa. If the family and kindergarten teachers are ready to cooperate, make friends and communicate, the relationship between the child and parents, as well as between the child and teachers improves. On the other hand, the situation in the family affects how the school, yard and kindergarten will affect the child. A child's progress at school depends not only on the situation in the classroom, but also on the situation in the family: academic performance improves if parents are interested in school life and teach the child to do homework. If a brother and sister go to the same school, but the sister is allowed to bring home friends, and the brother is not, the mesosystem of their life will be different. The influence of the mesosystem on a child is refracted not only through the family, but also through the personality of the child himself: children can go to the same school, but at the same time the circle of classmates can be significant for one and indifferent for another, all the important life events of which take place, for example , in the drama club. Exosystem: adult social organizations Exosystem - adult social organizations. These can be formal organizations, such as where the parents work, or the social and health services of the county. Flexible working hours, paid vacations for mothers and fathers, sick leave for parents in case of illness of children - this is how the ecosystem can help parents in raising children and indirectly contribute to development. Support from the exosystem can also be informal, for example, carried out by the forces of the social environment of parents - friends and family members help, with advice, friendly communication, and even materially. As a rule, the more connections a family has with social organizations, the more beneficial it is for the family and the development of the child, and the fewer such connections, the more unpredictable the situation in the family and the development of the child is. For example, in isolated families, in families with few personal or formal ties, an overestimated level of conflict and maltreatment of children is more often noted. macrosystem The macrosystem is the country's cultural practices, values, customs, and resources. If a country does not encourage fertility and does not provide parental leave, then the child will grow up in conditions of lack of maternal attention, and micro-, meso- and exo-systems may not be sufficient to compensate for this. On the other hand, regardless of particular external conditions, the main components of the way of life and worldview are preserved in the subculture. In countries where the highest standards are set for the quality of child care, and where special conditions are made in the workplace for working parents, children are more likely to have positive experiences in their particular environment. The rules under which children with developmental delays can study in a mainstream school have a significant impact on the level of education and social development both these children and their "normal" peers. In turn, the success or failure of this pedagogical undertaking may facilitate or, on the contrary, hinder further attempts to integrate lagging children into the mainstream school. Bronfenbrenner believed that the macrosystem has the most significant role in the development of the child, since the macrosystem has the ability to influence all other levels. For example, the American state program of compensatory education "Head Start", aimed at improving academic performance and developing the intellectual abilities of students from low-income families and national minorities, according to Bronfenbrenner, had a huge positive impact on the development of several generations of American children.

In ecological systems theory, children are both products and creators of the environment. According to Bronfenbrenner, situations in life can either be imposed on the child or be the result of the child's own activity. As children get older, they change their environment and rethink their experiences. But even here interdependencies continue to work, because how children do this depends not only on their physical, intellectual and personal traits, but also on how they were brought up, what they managed to absorb from the environment.6. Correlation of concepts: individual, individuality, personality.

Heredity and environment

Heredity began to be understood more broadly: these are not just individual signs that affect behavior (for example, properties of the nervous system, as was thought for a long time), but also innate behavioral programs, incl. and social (gracialization, reproductive, territorial behavior, etc.)

concept environments also changed. It is not just a changing series of stimuli to which the individual responds throughout life - from air and food to the conditions of education and the attitude of comrades. It is rather a system of interactions between man and the world.

Individual, individuality

Individual - a separate representative of a social group, society, people. From the moment of birth, a person is an individual, an individual is not "one", but "one of" human society. The concept emphasizes the dependence of a person on society.

Personality - it is a person actively mastering and purposefully transforming nature, society and himself. It has a unique, dynamic ratio of spatio-temporal orientations, need-volitional experiences, content orientation, levels of development and forms of activity implementation, which provides freedom of self-determination in actions and a measure of responsibility for their consequences.

Individuality - a person characterized by his socially significant differences from other people; the originality of the psyche and personality of the individual, its originality, uniqueness. Individuality is manifested in the traits of temperament, character, in the specifics of interests, qualities of perceptual processes. Individuality is characterized not only by unique properties, but also by the peculiarity of the relationships between them. The prerequisite for the formation of human individuality is the anatomical and physiological inclinations, which are transformed in the process of education, which has a socially conditioned character, giving rise to a wide variability in the manifestations of individuality.

Integral theory of individuality (V.M. Rusalov, B.C. Merlin)

It includes the following five provisions:

1. Biological factors of individuality are not only the bodily, morphofunctional organization of a person, but also behavioral programs created in the process of evolution of the living world. These programs begin their action from the moment of conception, and already in the third month of the life of the embryo, stable forms of individual behavior appear.

2. There are two types of simultaneously acting laws. As a result of the action of some, the subject-substantial characteristics of the psyche (motives, intellect, orientation) are formed, as a result of others, the formal-dynamic features of individual behavior are formed.

3. 3. The generalization of innate programs goes in three directions. The first direction is the dynamic-energetic characteristics of behavior (endurance, plasticity, speed). The second is emotional characteristics (sensitivity, lability, dominant mood). The third is preferences (stimulus environment, cognitive style). Thus, resilience, sensitivity, the desire for diversity or monotony are stable properties that practically do not change throughout a person’s life.

4. Formal properties (traditionally united under the general term "temperament") do not exist in isolation, but are included in more highly organized personality structures.

5. Formal-dynamic characteristics not only act as prerequisites and conditions for activity, but also affect its dynamics, originality and style, i.e. can determine the final results of the activity.

Since there are problems both with the field of definition of differential psychology and with terminology, then, apparently, it will not be easy to talk about the history of this science.

AT There are two main trends in history: characterological and psychognostic.

Characterology is a discipline that reduces the differences in the essence of people to certain simple basic types. It proceeds from the belief that the alleged source of individuality is either homogeneous or is a collection of a small number of basic properties - in both cases it must be made intelligible in its essence. Therefore, characterology tries to differentiate the main forms in which these basic properties can appear, and, if possible, to present them in the form of a clearly developed system.

A distinctive feature of characterology up to the present day is a kind of fusion of philosophical hypotheses about the essence and causes of human nature (character, temperament) with empirical research, limited to obtaining data from everyday experience or not always strictly scientific approaches to the consideration of the psyche.

Although the name "characterology" appeared only in the second half of the 19th century, this trend itself is much older.

The most famous example from antiquity, related to our topic, is Galen's teaching on temperament, in which four main types of individual originality are derived from the predominance of any one "juice" in the human body.

Galen(129 or 13 1 - about 200 or about 210) - an ancient physician. A common spelling of the name as Claudius Galen (lat. Claudius Galenus) appears only in the Renaissance and is not recorded in manuscripts; it is believed that this is an erroneous decoding of the abbreviation Cl(Clarissimus).

Galen was born around 130 AD. in the city of Pergamon. His father, Nikon, was a wealthy man, a famous architect, well versed in mathematics and philosophy. In order to give his son the best possible education, he first studied with him himself, and then invited prominent Pergamum scholars.

Galen was preparing to become a philosopher and studied the works of Greek and Roman thinkers. But by a coincidence, Galen's dream was misinterpreted - and he became a physician, although he continued to be interested in philosophy all his life.

At 21, Galen lost his father. Having received a large inheritance, he went on a seven-year journey. In Smyrna he studied philosophy and anatomy, in Corinth - natural science and the properties of medicines, in Alexandria - again anatomy.

Returning to Pergamon, Galen began to practice surgery, became a doctor at the school of gladiators. This work was for Galen a real school of medical art. He wrote: "I have often had to lead the hand of surgeons, little sophisticated in anatomy, and thus save them from public disgrace."

At the age of 34, Galen moved to Rome, where he received the position of court physician to Emperor Marcus Aurelius and his son Emperor Commodus. He became so famous that Ancient Rome coins were issued with his image.

In the temple of Peace, Galen opened a course of lectures on anatomy not only for doctors, but for everyone. Galen, the first to use live cutting, demonstrated the dissection of dogs, pigs, bears, ruminants, even monkeys. Since the opening of human bodies was then considered blasphemy, Galen could only study human anatomy on wounded gladiators and executed robbers.

According to sources, Galen lived for 70 years and died around 200 AD. e. According to Arabic sources, Galen lived for 80 years and therefore his death is dated around 210 BC.

Galen described about 300 human muscles. He proved that not the heart, but the brain and spinal cord are "the center of movement, sensitivity and mental activity." He concluded that "without a nerve there is not a single part of the body, not a single movement called arbitrary, not a single feeling." Having cut the spinal cord across, Galen showed the disappearance of the sensitivity of all parts of the body lying below the cut. He proved that blood moves through the arteries, and not "pneuma", as previously thought.

He created about 400 works on philosophy, medicine and pharmacology, of which about a hundred have come down to us.

Described the quadrigemina of the midbrain, seven pairs of cranial nerves, the vagus nerve; conducting experiments on transection of the spinal cord of pigs, he demonstrated a functional difference between the anterior (motor) and posterior (sensitive) roots of the spinal cord.

On the basis of observations of the absence of blood in the left parts of the heart of killed animals and gladiators, as well as the holes in the interventricular septum discovered by him during the anatomy of the corpses of premature babies, he created the first theory of blood circulation in the history of physiology (according to it, it was believed, in particular, that arterial and venous blood are liquids different, and if the first one “spreads movement, warmth and life”, then the second one is called upon to “nourish the organs”), which existed before the discoveries of Vesalius and Harvey.

Galen systematized the ideas of ancient medicine in the form of a single doctrine, which was theoretical basis medicine until the end of the Middle Ages.

He laid the foundation for pharmacology. Until now, "galenic preparations" are called tinctures and ointments prepared in certain ways.

This direction was widely represented in the German educational philosophy and "psychology of experience" of the 18th century, some of their examples are contained in various sources.

The most famous book is "Anthropology" by I. Kant (1798) - its special part ("anthropological characteristics") is devoted to a discussion of the problems of character, personality, gender, people and contains physiognomic descriptions, consideration of types of temperaments, types of thinking, etc., made with delicate taste.

After 70 years, characterology began to systematically address issues.

The little-known work of Bansen (1867), in which the name "characterology" is mentioned, contains treasures that deserve attention in our time. He identified three main areas of logical differentiation: temperaments, which refers to purely formal volitional relations,posodinika - expressing the measure of the ability to suffer andethics - character in the full sense of the word.

In recent times, individual experiments in the field of characterology by Sternberg, Luke, and Klages appeared in Germany. The French - Malaper, Paulan, Fule, Ribery and others turned to the topic of classification and description of character and temperament.

So let's clarify.

Characterology- the science of character. The term is a tracing-paper from the German Charakterkunde. Introduced at the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th centuries, however, attention was also paid to the study of characters at an earlier time. A feature of the study of character is that it is often inseparable from the study of temperament and personality as a whole.

The founder of characterology is the ancient Greek scientist and writer Theophrastus, the author of the work "Characters". Theophrastus' treatise contained a description of 31 types, each of which was determined on the basis of the dominance of a particular trait. Since the 19th century systematic attempts begin to bring a scientific basis to the differences in human characters, various classifications of characters and psychological types appear - L. Klages, K.G. Jung, E. Kretschmer,

A.F. Lazursky and others. Most of these (and earlier) classifications were built on various grounds.

In the USSR in 1920-1930. the doctrine of characters developed mainly within the framework of pedology. In the late 1930s all of these studies were discontinued. In Soviet psychology, a vulgar interpretation of the thesis of L.S. Vygotsky about the disclosure of individual characteristics through interaction with society: it was generally accepted that character is the result of the influence of society, while only differences at the level of temperament can be considered innate. In the repeatedly reprinted textbook by Kovalev and Myasishchev, characterology is declared "bourgeois pseudoscience."

In the 1960s, with the revival of interest in the individual characteristics of a person, including constitutional ones, the emphasis in their study also shifted. We are no longer talking about "characterology", but about differential psychology, in which a distinction is made between mental properties, states and processes (in Western psychology these concepts are referred to as psychological factors, in neuroscience - as mental functions).

Currently, one of the most common methods for classifying characters is a method based on the characteristics of behavior that have formed in a person and differ from the characteristics of a certain “ideal” behavior, which depends only on external factors. In pathological cases, such “deviations from the ideal” are observed especially clearly, therefore the types of character described are often called terms from psychiatry.

Based on this approach, several types of deviations can be distinguished: asthenic (disturbances of the psychasthenic, neurasthenic and sensitive type), dysthymic (disturbances of the hyperthymic, hypothymic and cycloid type), sociopathic (disturbances of the conformal, nonconformal and paranoid type), "psychopathic" (schizoid , epileptoid and hysteroid disorders).

There is a separate approach (the author's method of V.V. Ponomarenko), which pays more attention to the fact that the character combines several traits that are similar to a particular mental disorder. These groups of character traits have a uniform origin and are called radicals. There are seven main radicals: hysteroid, epileptoid, paranoid, emotive, schizoid, hyperthymic and anxious - Methodology "7 radicals". The real character is always a mixture of several radicals in one or another proportion to each other, but even a pronounced radical does not mean that a person is sick. Based on these seven radicals, a psychological profile and a psychological portrait are compiled.

The ideas of characterology underlie psychological testing. Useful characterology is found in conflictology and in personnel management.

Actually, differential psychology differs from characterology in this way: it chooses its starting point not “from above” (the single essence of the individual), but “from below”, and, based on the multiplicity of phenomena established in the individual, slowly and carefully tries to rise to the unity of individuality - with in this it is not satisfied in a way that is a vague fusion of philosophical speculation with naive chance experience, but seeks to develop a scientific method commensurate with its problems.

However, one should not expect that differential psychology will recognize characterology as completely superfluous and replace it. Rather, a more intuitive manner of considering the characterologist will continue to be a valuable addition to the analytical research of the psychologist, and, of course, it is still very far from the fact that the exact psychological method of research will be transferred to the development of characterological questions proper.

Of the two fundamental problems of characterology, only one, the problem of temperament, has so far shown a tendency to become accessible to more precise methods; but the study of the difficult and fundamental problem of character by modern methods is only just beginning.

Psychognostics- another large area that should be considered a preliminary stage in differential psychology. Its task is, on the one hand, to establish the relationship that exists between certain externally perceived states or movements of a person and his individual originality, and on the other hand, to use this revealed connection to interpret the character of a particular individual.

In three directions, psychognostics has acquired the form of fairly well-formed systems - these are physiognomy, phrenology and graphology. Along with this, there are a number of separate experimental studies.

Physiognomy, or the interpretation of the type of face, existed in the Middle Ages as a form of occult art, but only Lavater (1775)

made her popular; it is known that even the outstanding German writer and scientist Goethe was fascinated by this doctrine for some time. True, this wave of popularity lasted only a short time.

In fact, this method was too primitive, and the choice of grounds for interpretation (partly - the bone frame, partly - the soft tissues of the face) was arbitrary enough so that, in the end, physiognomy would not quickly lead itself to absurdity. She simplified the matter so much that, not considering it necessary to consider the real face of the subject, she turned only to his silhouette.

The second system had a greater impact - phrenology, created about 1810 by Hallem and also called cranioscopy. She performed with a completely different scientific instrumentation. And although the doctrine that individual mental abilities are localized in different parts of the brain was at least a controversial hypothesis, the conclusion that follows from this seemed convincing, that the strongest expression of any property is accompanied by a particularly strong development of the corresponding part of the brain and expressed in pineal formations or an increase in the surface of the skull. Thus, the convexity of the ridge and the deepening of the skull acquired the meaning of psychognostic signs of predominant or absent properties.

Today we know that some of the assumptions were only marginally correct, and some interpretations were completely wrong; but in spite of this, feeling skulls have long been considered an excellent means of determining character.

Gall had many followers, some of whom (for example, Spurzheim) continued to work independently.

Third psychognostic system - graphology - 19th century creation. Her country of birth is France; it was founded by Abbé Michon (1875) and developed by his follower Crepier-Jamin in the 1980s.

The main idea of ​​graphology is that a person’s movements can at least partially be considered forms of expression of his nature, which also applies to movements when writing, therefore the results of movements when writing (features of lettering and handwriting in general) are applicable as psychognostic means of interpretation. But the number of generally accepted, reliable links between handwriting features and character traits is still not fully understood (although it should be noted that graphology is used quite successfully all over the world in the search for criminals), so individual interpretations of graphologists, even the most authoritative ones, can still contain errors and inaccuracies. This area suffers from the fact that, along with serious experiments in scientific generalization (in the person of Preyer, Busse, Klages, and others), there is also a large number of artisans and charlatans.

All considered psychognostic systems suffer from two shortcomings:

• one of them situational nature, determined by their current state and therefore can be overcome in the future;
• another disadvantage fundamental nature: it consists in the arbitrary selection of any one group of symptoms as the sole means of knowledge. This mistake makes it impossible to transform amateur studies into truly scientific ones.

Differential psychology must strive to ensure the interaction of all available means of interpretation in order to understand mental characteristics, therefore handwriting or facial expressions will always be for it only individual symptoms along with many others, and not isolated explanatory principles.

Along with the two main currents, which were the preparatory stages of science, there are numerous currents of a narrowly specialized nature, which also contribute to the creation of differential psychology.

Here one should mention numerous works on the hereditary prerequisites for genius and individual geniuses, on the psychology of a woman, a criminal, a race, i.e. research that arose away from the mainstream of the development of psychology. They are created by people of various professions and levels: doctors and artists, amateur specialists and amateurs, and present a very variegated and disordered picture in methodology, points of view and problem posing. Their systematization should be hoped for only in the future.

Differential psychology, as a branch of general psychological science (the categories and types of methods of which were perceived by it, developed further and changed in accordance with new requirements), arose from the end of the 19th century.

Already in the 1980s. Charcot in France and Galton in England founded the doctrine of the types of memory and language.

In 1890, in America, D. Cattell first proposed the method of "mental tests", and in 1896, Wiene's work "Individual Psychology" appeared - a kind of program essay for a new field of science. At the same time, the German psychologist Baerwald published his "theory of giftedness", and in 1890, V. Stern, in The Psychology of Individual Differences, tried to give a summary of the then state of development and encourage scientists to future research in this field of science.

William Lewis Stern (eng. William Lewis Stem; April 29, 1871, Berlin - 1938, Durham, USA) - German psychologist and philosopher, considered one of the pioneers of differential psychology and personality psychology. In addition, he had a great influence on the emerging child psychology. The creator of the concept of the intellectual coefficient, which later formed the basis of the famous 1Q test by Alfred Binet. Father of the German writer and philosopher Gunther Anders. In 1897, Stern invented a tone variator, which allowed him to significantly expand the possibilities of studying human sound perception.

W. Stern was educated at the University of Berlin, where he studied with the famous psychologist G. Ebbinghaus. After receiving his doctorate, he was invited in 1897. at the University of Breslau, where he worked as a professor of psychology until 1916. Remaining a professor at this university, Stern founded the Institute of Applied Psychology in Berlin in 1906 and at the same time began publishing the Journal of Applied Psychology, in which he, following Mün- Sterberg, develops the concept of psychotechnics. However, he is most interested in research into the mental development of children. Therefore, in 1916, he accepted the offer to become the successor of the famous child psychologist E. Meiman as head of the psychological laboratory at the University of Hamburg and editor of the Journal of Educational Psychology. At this time, he is also one of the initiators of the organization of the Hamburg Psychological Institute, which was opened in 1919.

In 1933, Stern emigrated to Holland, and in 1934 moved to the United States, where he was offered a professorship at Duke University, which he held until the end of his life.

Stern was one of the first psychologists to place the analysis of the development of the child's personality at the center of his research interests. The study holistic personality, the laws of its formation was the goal of the theory of personalism developed by him. This was especially important in that period, i.e. in the tenth years of the 20th century, since the study of child development at that time was reduced mainly to the study of the cognitive development of children. Stern also paid attention to these issues, exploring the stages of development of thinking and speech. However, from the very beginning, he sought to explore not the isolated development of individual cognitive processes, but the formation of an integral structure, the person of the child.

Stern believed that personality - it is a self-determined, consciously and purposefully acting integrity, which has a certain depth (conscious and unconscious layers). He proceeds from the fact that mental development is self-development, self-expansion of the inclinations that a person has, which is directed and determined by the environment in which the child lives. This theory was called the theory of convergence, since it took into account the role of two factors - heredity and environment in mental development. The influence of these two factors is analyzed by Stern on the example of some of the main activities of children, mainly games. He was the first to single out the content and form of play activity, proving that the form is unchanging and is associated with innate qualities, for the exercise of which the game was created. At the same time, the content is set by the environment, helping the child to understand in what specific activity he can realize the qualities inherent in him. Thus, the game serves not only for the exercise of innate instincts (as the famous psychologist K. Gross believed), but also for the socialization of children.

Stern understood development itself as the growth, differentiation and transformation of mental structures. At the same time, speaking of differentiation, he, like the representatives of Gestalt psychology, understood development as a transition from vague, indistinct images to clearer, structured and distinct gestalts of the surrounding world. This transition to a clearer and more adequate reflection of the environment goes through several stages, transformations that are characteristic of all basic mental processes. Mental development has a tendency not only to self-development, but also to self-preservation, i.e. to the preservation of the individual, innate characteristics of each child, primarily the preservation of the individual pace of development.

Stern is one of the founders of differential psychology, the psychology of individual differences. He argued that there is not only a normativity common to all children of a certain age, but also an individual normativity that characterizes this particular child. He was also one of the initiators of an experimental study of children, testing, and, in particular, improved the methods for measuring the intelligence of children proposed by A. Wiene, proposing to measure not mental age, but IQ.

The preservation of individual characteristics is possible due to the fact that the mechanism of mental development is introception, i.e. connection by the child of his internal goals with those that are set by others. Stern believed that the potential possibilities of a child at birth are rather uncertain, he himself is not yet aware of himself and his inclinations. The environment helps the child to realize himself, organizes his inner world, giving it a clear, well-formed and conscious structure. At the same time, the child tries to take from the environment everything that corresponds to his potential inclinations, placing a barrier in the way of those influences that contradict his internal inclinations. The conflict between the external (environmental pressure) and internal inclinations of the child also has a positive significance for its development, since it is precisely the negative emotions that this discrepancy causes in children that serve as a stimulus for the development of self-consciousness. Frustration, delaying introception, makes the child look into himself and his environment in order to understand what exactly he needs to feel good about himself and what exactly in the environment causes him a negative attitude. Thus, Stern argued that emotions are associated with the assessment of the environment, help the process of socialization of children and the development of their reflection.

The integrity of development is manifested not only in the fact that emotions and thinking are closely related, but also in the fact that the direction of development of all mental processes is the same. - from the periphery to the center. Therefore, at first, contemplation (perception) develops in children, then representation (memory), and then thinking, i.e. from vague ideas they pass to the knowledge of the essence of the surrounding.

Stern believed that in the development of speech, the child makes one significant discovery - the discovery of the meaning of the word, the discovery that each object has its own name, which he makes at about a year and a half.

This period, about which Stern first spoke, later became the starting point for the study of speech by almost all scientists who dealt with this problem. Having singled out 5 main stages in the development of speech in children, Stern not only described them in detail, actually developing the first standards in the development of speech in children under 5 years old, but also tried to identify the main trends that determine this development, the main of which is the transition from passive to active speech and from word to sentence. Of great importance was Stern's study of the originality of autistic thinking, its complexity and secondary nature in relation to realistic thinking, as well as his analysis of the role of drawing in the mental development of children. Central to this is Stern's discovery of the role of schema in helping children move from representations to concepts. This idea of ​​Stern helped to discover a new form of thinking - visual-schematic or model thinking, on the basis of which many modern concepts of developing children's education have been developed.

Thus, it can be said without exaggeration that V. Stern influenced almost all areas of child psychology - from the development of cognitive processes to the development of personality, emotions or periodization of child development, as well as the views of many prominent psychologists who dealt with the development of the child's psyche.

In the first decade of the XX century. these initiatives resulted in a powerfully growing movement that continues to this day.

In the US, special committees have been set up to research testing methods and collect data on individual differences. At its convention in 1895, the American Psychological Association formed a Committee "...to consider the possibility of cooperation between various psychological laboratories in the collection of mental and physical statistics." Next year the American Association scientific development formed a standing committee to organize an ethnographic study of the white population of the United States. Cattell, being one of the members of this committee, noted the importance of including psychological tests in this study and the need to coordinate it with research work American Psychological Association.

In line with the main stream of research lay the application of newly created tests to various groups.

Kelly in 1903 and Northworth in 1906 compared normal and demented children on tests of sensorimotor and simple mental functions. Their discoveries shed light on the continuing division of children according to their abilities and made it possible to assert that the weak-minded do not constitute a separate category.

In 1903, Thomson's book The Intellectual Differences of the Sexes was published, containing the results of various testing of men and women carried out over several years. This was the first comprehensive study of the psychological differences between the sexes.

In addition, for the first time, sensory acuity, motor abilities and some simple mental processes were tested in representatives of various racial groups. Separate studies appeared before 1900.

In 1904, an original article by Spearman appeared, who put forward his two-factor theory of mental organization and proposed a statistical technique for investigating the problem. This publication opened the field of quality relationship research, as well as the way for modern factor analysis.

Of great importance for the development of differential psychology were the works of the Soviet psychologist Alexander Fedorovich Lazursky, who is the founder of differential psychology in Russia. Together with A.P. Nechaev, he created one of the first psychological laboratories in St. Petersburg. Subsequently, Lazursky for many years headed the psychological laboratory at the Psychoneurological Institute. V.M. Bekhterev.

In 1897, the first article by Lazursky on the problem of individual differences was published in the journal Review of Psychiatry - “ Current state individual psychology". Considering the achievements of this science, he emphasized that its goal is to study how "mental properties are modified in different people and what types they create in their combinations."

In his work Essay on the Science of Characters (1909), Lazursky developed the original concept of "scientific characterology", which was based on the idea that the individual characteristics of a person are associated with the activity of the nervous system. Lazursky's position differed in many respects from the views of Stern, Binet and Galton, since he considered it necessary not to confine himself to applied research and proved the importance of forming the foundations of a scientific theory of individual differences.

The approval of individual psychology as a theoretical discipline, as Lazursky emphasized, the significance of experience, primarily observation and experiment, the important role of which the scientist wrote about. At the same time, he considered empirical data on the activity of various mental processes not in isolation, but in a system, proving that the main task of experimental research is to build a complete picture of a person. Based on the inclinations, abilities, temperament and other individual qualities of a person, it is possible to build a complete, natural classification of characters, which, according to Lazursky, will form the basis of a new science. He introduced the concept of endopsychic and expsychic spheres of mental life, based on the diagnosis of which it is possible to draw up an individual portrait of a person. A detailed presentation of the main provisions of his characterology and typology of personality was given in the book “Classification of Personalities” (1922), published after the death of the scientist.

Another Soviet scientist - B.M. Teplov opened a new chapter in the study of the psychophysical foundations of individual differences.

Based on Pavlov's teaching on the properties of the type of the nervous system, he put forward a large program for diagnosing typological properties. Based on this program, a large scientific school has developed. differential psychophysiology, the most important contribution of which was the disclosure of the properties of the nervous system inherent in man, and the development of theoretically substantiated and based on objective methodology ways of studying the individual psychological differences of people.

The problems of differential psychology and psychophysiology were studied by a prominent Russian psychologist, Doctor of Psychology V.S. Merlin. He put forward the principle of "many-valued dependence" of mental phenomena on physiological ones, which made it possible to reveal the complex, indirect nature of the relationship between different levels of organization of individual personality traits - neurodynamic, psychodynamic and personal. Research in this area led him to create the concept of human temperament ("Essay on the theory of temperament", 1964; "Essay on the integral study of individuality", 1986).

Thus, the psychology of individual differences, called differential psychology, began to take shape as an independent branch of science only at the beginning of the 20th century.

The purpose of this direction was to create strict standardized methods and procedures for assessing individual psychological differences, mainly in the field of intelligence, on the basis of which it was supposed to conduct a preliminary professional selection and individualize the learning process. The main methods of differential psychology, called tests, were created to solve specific practical problems.

The psychology of individual differences in Russia began to be built on special methodological foundations. She dissociated herself, first of all, from testology and directed her main attention to the search for a theoretical concept that could form the basis of scientific differential psychology. In their theoretical searches, psychologists turned to the teachings of I.P. Pavlov about the properties and types of the nervous system. Thus, individual elements of a new scientific direction began to emerge - differential psychophysiology, which initially set as its goal a thorough study of the properties of the nervous system in humans and elucidation of their role in the determination of stable individual psychological differences between people.

Analyzing the formation of the psychology of individual differences and its current level, today it is already possible to combine research conducted in line with this psychological field into three large groups:

• the first direction is connected with the analysis of the structure of psychological properties. What psychological characteristics it makes sense to consider as the most important for the psychological appearance of a person and how they are interconnected - these are the main problems that are considered in these studies. In the works of this direction, individual differences act not only as a subject of research, but also as a condition that makes it possible to use statistical procedures that are used to structure psychological characteristics;
• the second direction is connected with the search for the causes of the origin of individual differences in psychological characteristics. The studies of this group are the most numerous and concern the analysis of the biological and social determinants of individual differences, the role of heredity and environment in the formation of such differences, the dynamics of individual differences in the development process;
• the third line of research is the ideographic analysis of individuality. In this case, the object of psychological research is an individual subject, and not a group, as happens with nomothetic approach implemented by the first two directions.

The zone of proximal development of differential psychological theory is determined by the nature of the methodological problems of paramount importance. Thus, many researchers note that the development of a program for studying the structure of the human genome is approaching its final stage - the determination of a causal relationship between the genetic and psychological level of personality traits.

It is now obvious that the differences between people are rooted in the genetic basis of personality. At the present stage, not a simple statement of the fact of the existence of a connection between a gene and the corresponding behavioral trait, but the identification of the consequences of a certain gene localization in the genetic structure, is of particular importance. The next step, after the adoption of the provision on the relationship between a single gene in human brain and individual differences in personality traits, it becomes the position that genetic influence does not determine human behavior, but is expressed in the assumption confirmed by statistical models that this influence must be taken into account for a certain spectrum in the range of behavioral variability.

On the other hand, concepts about the genetic determination of personality traits meet with experimentally confirmed social psychologists and interactionist-oriented researchers about the power of situational variables to influence the behavior of a person. There is a need to integrate the data obtained from relatively different levels of individuality into a single, conceptually and empirically consistent model. It is quite possible that the theoretical basis for the development of such a model will be a hierarchical approach, considered in the context of the dynamic organization of the processes of functioning of the individual at the "lower" and "upper" levels.

The identification of the real mechanisms that form the differences between people allows us to turn to the nature of the mutual influence of the three most important factors of human life - genetic predisposition, social conditioning and the structures of subjective life experience, differentiating and integrating the impact of nature and society in the process of human development.

Arranged in a form convenient for practical use, scientific knowledge about human differences is already becoming the basis for creating, for example, individual and general training programs that make it possible to correlate the highest level of skill development with the potential capabilities of the subject; to develop methods of medical, including psychiatric and psychotherapeutic, correction of adverse natural and social influences on individual behavior; finally, for the introduction of preventive diagnostics, which helps to identify pathological deformations of character and personality as a whole at the early stages of formation.

Today it can be said, and not without reason, that more than a hundred years of development of differential psychology became the prologue to the emergence of an integral science of human differences.

It should be remembered:

characterology, psychognostics, deformation of character, Galen, Kant, Banzen, pozodinika, Lavater, physiognomy, phrenology, graphology, Gall, Galton, Charcot, Cattell, Stern, Binet, introception, self-unfolding, idiographic approach, nomothetic approach, Teplov, Merlin , differential psychophysiology, endopsychic and exopsychic spheres, Lazursky, Nechaev, Spearman.

Questions and tasks for chapter 1

• 1. Name the main trends in the prehistory of differential psychology and describe them.
• 2. What role did physiognomy, phrenology and graphology play in the development of differential psychology?
• 3. Prepare reports on the life and work of V. Stern.
• 4. Tell us about the role played by Galen, Kant, Galton, Gall, Banzen and other scientists in the development of differential psychology.
• 5. Prepare reports on the role of Russian psychologists in creating a new branch of psychology.

B. What is the essence of the three main directions in individual psychology?

7. What are ideographic and nomothetic approaches?

• Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) - German philosopher, founder of German classical philosophy, standing on the verge of the Enlightenment and Romanticism.
• Gall Franz Josef (1758-1828), Austrian physician, founder of phrenology. The idea contained in this teaching about the localization of functions in the brain turned out to be fruitful. Gall owns anatomical studies of the nervous system, a description of the anatomy of the pyramidal tract in the brain. In his work "Anatomy and Physiology of the Nervous System in General, and in Particular the Brain" (1810-1820), Gall summarized the accumulated data in this area.
• Michon Jean Hippolyte (1807-1881). Collected and cataloged the specific features of handwriting and tried to establish strict correspondences
• Charcot Jean Martin (1825-1893) - French psychiatrist, teacher of Sigmund Freud, specialist in neurological diseases, the founder of a new theory of the psychogenic nature of hysteria. He conducted a large number of clinical studies in the field of psychiatry using hypnosis as the main tool for proving his hypotheses. Founder of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Paris.
• Galton Francis, Sir (1822-1911) - English explorer, geographer, anthropologist and psychologist; founder of differential psychology and psychometrics.
• Cattell James McKinley (1860-1944) - American psychologist, one of the first specialists in experimental psychology in the United States, the first professor of psychology.
• Alfred Binet (1857-1911) - French psychologist, doctor of medicine and law at the University of Paris, founder of the first experimental psychology laboratory in France. He sought to establish an objective method of research in psychology. He is known primarily as the compiler (together with T. Simon in 1905) of the first practical intelligence test, called the Binet-Simon mental development scale (an analogue of the modern IQ test). Later, in 1916, the Binet-Simon scale was redesigned by L. Theremin into the "Stanford-Bine intelligence scale."
• Spearman Charles Edward (1863-1945) - English statistician and psychologist, specialist in experimental psychology, methods of assessment and measurement, theory, history and philosophy of psychology, personality psychology and social psychology.
• Lazursky Alexander Fedorovich (1874-1917) - an outstanding Russian psychologist. Was an employee of V.M. Bekhterev, a professor at the Pedagogical Academy and the Psychoneurological Institute in St. Petersburg. He developed a doctrine of personality and character types (“characterology”) based on the identification of two mental spheres: innate features, to which he attributed temperament and character (“endopsychics”), and developing throughout life primarily in the form of the relationship of the individual to the surrounding world ("exopsyche"). In his classification, he relied on the data on the activity of the nerve centers known by his time. One of the first began to conduct a study of personality in natural conditions of the subject's activity.
• The nomothetic approach is an approach aimed at identifying common patterns. According to the classification of sciences and methods of G. Rickert, the nomothetic method is opposed to the ideographic method, aimed at identifying its uniqueness in the object under study (the latter, according to Rickert, should be used by sciences that study single, special phenomena, such as history).