He proposed a theory of instincts of social behavior. History of the formation of socio-psychological thought

Biosocial nature of instincts,

Definition of instincts of social behavior.

Definition of instincts:

Instinct is a hereditary predisposition to perceive certain objects of the internal and external world, the ability to experience special sensory arousal when perceiving such an object and to perform corresponding acts or, at least, to experience an impulse towards them.

Types of complex instinctive processes:

1. Instinctive reactions allowed by both the perception of stimulus objects and the idea of ​​them.

2. Reactions that can change and become more complex.

3. Complex ideas that arise simultaneously, when several processes are intertwined with one another (fear and love, tears and laughter).

4. Instinctive aspirations, grouped around certain objects or ideas about them.

Instincts are the root cause of human action.

Instinct groups:

I. Instincts that contribute to the self-preservation of the individual. Continuations of primary emotions:

1. flight instinct and emotion of fear;

2. instinct of repulsion and emotion of disgust;

3. instinct of curiosity and emotion of surprise;

4. the instinct of pugnacity and the emotion of anger;

5. the instinct of self-humiliation or self-confidence and the emotion of negative or positive well-being.

II. Instincts aimed at preserving the genus, species, that is, social instincts:

1. parental instinct;

2. sexual instinct (instinct of reproduction) – associated with the parental instinct, includes jealousy;

3. herd instinct.

III. Social instincts, peculiar only to humans, but not particularly important:

1. instinct of acquisition;

2. building instinct.

IV. Natural tendencies that have great importance for social life. They have a general character, but do not have a permanent core of the pathogen. Pseudo-instincts.

1. sympathy – sharing emotions with another being;

2. suggestion - the process of assimilation of a transmitted thought in the absence of a logical basis for understanding this thought (one cries - everyone cries);

3. imitation: occurs through the mechanism of sympathy or the mechanism of ideomotor reactions, based on the fact that the idea seeks to turn into action, or through the mechanism of social imitation.

In other words, instinct is the ability to act expediently, but without a conscious vision of the goal and without prior training to perform this action (i.e. impulsively). This is an impulse.

A person, unlike an animal, can be aware of his behavior.

Additions to the lecture:

The beginnings of ideas about instinct can be seen in Aristotle's doctrine of the soul, which assumed the existence of a certain “animal soul” that provided the mental functions of animals. The term instinct (Latin instinctus, ancient Greek ὁρμή) appeared in Stoic philosophers. A significant breakthrough in understanding the essence of instinct was associated with the emergence of the first evolutionary teachings. The first theory of evolution was developed by Jean Baptiste Lamarck. According to Lamarck's teaching, evolution occurs under the influence of the environment, mediated by behavior. Lamarck considered the psyche to be inextricably linked with the nervous system.

The first psychologist to include instinct in psychological theory was Sigmund Freud. He believed that instincts serve as a source of energy for the subconscious and manifest themselves in the form of desires. According to Freud's ideas, all living organisms are characterized by oppositely directed desires for self-destruction and self-preservation. The desire for aggression and destruction is determined by the instincts of death (thanatos), sexual desire, self-preservation, love are determined by the instincts of life (eros).

According to hormic psychology, the source of motivation was a special intangible force “gorme”, manifested in the form of instincts. The concept of "gorme" was developed by American psychologist William McDougall. He also developed his own classification of instincts (the first two groups of instincts listed in the lecture).

The theory of instincts of social behavior by the English psychologist W. McDougall (1871-1938). He believed that the activity of consciousness is directly dependent on the unconscious principle. The expression of instincts is emotions(for example, the fight instinct corresponds to anger and fear). Everything was derived from instincts social processes. It was this situation that played a negative role in the history of science.

The main thesis of McDougall's theory is that the cause of social behavior is recognized innate instincts. This idea is the implementation of more general principle, accepted by McDougall, namely the desire for a goal, which is characteristic of both animals and humans. It is this principle that is especially significant in McDougall's concept; in contrast to behaviorism (which interprets behavior as a simple reaction to an external stimulus), he called the psychology he created goal-oriented or hormic (from the Greek word “gorme” - desire, desire, impulse). All social institutions are derived from instincts: family, trade, various social processes, primarily war.

Biosocial nature of instincts.

Guerin: all instincts are biosocial, man is inseparable from people.

Instincts.

Instinct group number.	Name.	Characteristics of the content of instinct.
Exist		Eat, drink, breathe, keep alive, have shelter, seek comfort, pleasant sensations, relax, be happy
Grow		Physically, spiritually, intellectually become stronger, expand your possessions, increase property, income, hobbies, start a family, raise children, achieve your own uniqueness, educate
Be established		Take your place in the sun, be noticeable, respected, achieve rank, rise above the weaker, compete with the stronger, have a feeling self-esteem 0 8 10
Defend yourself		Do not allow others to invade your life, your own personality, protect your tribe, homeland, faith, freedom, protect their secrets at all costs, even to the point of own life, avoid the blows of fate, nature and people
To interact		Connect your life with others, create groups of like-minded people, partners, enter into communication and dialogue with them, share knowledge and experience, become emotionally attached to them, share joys and sorrows, be a patriot, remain faithful to the ideal and goodness, sacrifice yourself for the sake of others

Addition to lectures:

Unlimited social progress associated with the emergence of man as biosocial being characterized by reason and a pronounced social orientation. As an intelligent being producing material means of production, man has existed for about 2 million years, and almost all this time, changes in the conditions of his existence led to changes in man himself - in the process of purposeful labor activity his brain and limbs improved, his thinking developed, new creative skills, collective experience and knowledge were formed. All this led to the emergence of humans about 40 thousand years ago modern type- Homo sapiens (reasonable man), who stopped changing, but instead society began to change at first very slowly, and then more and more rapidly.

The social and biological principles in man are reflected in social, biological and social formations, as well as in science and culture. Being a highly developed social being, man is the only organism on Earth that has a clearly defined social essence, collectivism, language and legal knowledge. The social essence of a person determines not only the laws of development of society, but also the level of development of his social thinking, moral qualities, ethical and religious views, etc., which makes it possible to model the structure of the society of the future.

But man is also a biological species, endowed with innate (genetic) instincts of survival, procreation and preservation of offspring (family), which modern stage developments are becoming increasingly closer to social instincts. Therefore, it would be more correct to characterize a person as biosocial being, that is, through a concept reflecting the duality of its nature - the dialectical unity and struggle of opposites, responsible on the one hand for peace and love, and on the other - for the destructive consequences - crimes, murders, wars, etc.

The biological and social in the nature of modern man are organically connected with each other, and are expressed at the present stage of his historical development, primarily in the instinct of reproduction and preservation of offspring, in the need for communication, friendship, love, expression of emotions, the formation of social norms of community life, and more. Since everything biological in him becomes his inheritance (biological gene pool), and the social is not genetically inherited, but is consolidated over a number of generations as collective experience (law, science, art, culture, etc.), human evolution at the present stage includes biological (reproduction, sexual behavior, care of offspring) and social dominance of the development of human society. At the present stage of development, social dominance is predominant and shapes social behavior, which certainly affects the formation of legal thinking.

Man is a biosocial being; he has both biological and social qualities. B The iological and social in a person is realized through his behavior, activity, culture, etc. Man not only creates culture, but we ourselves create it. This undeniable dialectical connection between the natural, social and cultural in man is what makes him the most complex of all living systems existing in the world.

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What is good

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The need to revise the theory of instincts The theory of basic needs, which we discussed in previous chapters, urgently requires a revision of the theory of instincts. This is necessary at least in order to be able to differentiate instincts into more basic and less basic, healthier and less healthy, more natural and less natural. Moreover, our theory of basic needs, like other similar theories (353, 160), inevitably raises a number of problems and questions that require immediate consideration and clarification. Among them, for example, is the need to abandon the principle of cultural relativity, to resolve the issue of the constitutional conditionality of values, the need to limit the jurisdiction of associative-instrumental learning, etc. There are other considerations, theoretical, clinical and experimental, that push us to re-evaluate certain provisions of the theory of instincts, and perhaps even to its complete revision. These considerations make me skeptical about the opinion, which has become especially widespread recently among psychologists, sociologists and anthropologists. What I'm talking about here is the undeservedly high valuation of personality traits such as plasticity, flexibility and adaptability, and the exaggerated emphasis on learning ability. It seems to me that a person is much more autonomous, much more self-governing than modern psychology assumes behind him, and this opinion is based on the following theoretical and experimental considerations: 1. Cannon’s concept of homeostasis (78), Freud’s death instinct (138), etc.; 2. Experiments to study appetite, food preferences and gastronomic tastes (492, 491); 3. Levy's experiments on the study of instincts (264–269), as well as his study of maternal overprotection (263) and affective hunger; 4. Discovered by psychoanalysts are the harmful consequences of early weaning of a child from the breast and persistent inculcation of toilet habits; 5. Observations that forced many teachers, educators and child psychologists to recognize the need to provide the child with greater freedom of choice; 6. The concept underlying Rogers therapy; 7. Numerous neurological and biological data cited by supporters of the theories of vitalism (112) and emergent evolution (46), modern embryologists (435) and holisticists such as Goldstein (160), data on cases of spontaneous recovery of the body after injury. These and a number of other studies, which I will quote below, strengthen my opinion that the body has a much greater margin of safety, a much greater ability for self-defense, self-development and self-government than we have previously thought. In addition, the results of recent studies once again convince us of the theoretical necessity of postulating a certain positive tendency towards growth or self-actualization inherent in the body itself, a tendency that is fundamentally different from the balancing, conservation processes of homeostasis and from reactions to external influences. Many thinkers and philosophers, some as diverse as Aristotle and Bergson, have in one form or another, with more or less directness, already attempted to postulate this tendency, the tendency towards growth or towards self-actualization. Psychiatrists, psychoanalysts, and psychologists spoke about her. Goldstein and Buhler, Jung and Horney, Fromm, Rogers and many other scientists discussed it. However, the most powerful argument in favor of the need to convert to the theory of instincts is probably the experience of psychotherapy and especially the experience of psychoanalysis. The facts that appear before the psychoanalyst are inexorable, although not always obvious; The psychoanalyst is always faced with the task of differentiating the desires (needs, impulses) of the patient, the problem of classifying them as more basic or less basic. He is constantly faced with one obvious fact: the frustration of some needs leads to pathology, while the frustration of others does not cause pathological consequences. Or: the satisfaction of some needs increases the health of the individual, while the satisfaction of others does not cause such an effect. The psychoanalyst knows that there are needs that are terribly stubborn and willful. They will not be able to cope with persuasion, cajoling, punishment, or restrictions; they do not allow alternatives; each of them can be satisfied only by one single “satisfier” internally corresponding to it. These needs are extremely demanding, they force the individual to consciously and unconsciously look for opportunities to satisfy them. Each of these needs appears before a person as a stubborn, irresistible fact that defies logical explanation; a fact that must be taken for granted, as a starting point. It is very significant that almost all existing schools of psychiatry, psychoanalysis, clinical psychology, social and child therapy, despite fundamental differences on many issues, are forced to formulate one or another concept of instinct-like needs. The experience of psychotherapy forces us to turn to the specific characteristics of a person, to his constitution and heredity, forces us to refuse to consider his external, superficial, instrumental habits and skills. Whenever the therapist is faced with this dilemma, he chooses to analyze the individual's instinctive rather than conditioned responses, and this choice is the basic platform of psychotherapy. Such an urgent need for choice is unfortunate because, and we will return to this issue later, there are other, intermediate and more important alternatives that give us greater freedom of choice - in a word, the dilemma mentioned here is not the only possible dilemma. And yet today it is already obvious that the theory of instincts, especially in the forms in which it is presented by McDougall and Freud, needs to be revised in accordance with the new requirements put forward by the dynamic approach. The theory of instincts undoubtedly contains a number of important provisions that have not yet been properly assessed, but at the same time, the obvious fallacy of its main provisions overshadows the merits of others. The theory of instincts sees a person as a self-moving system; it is based on the fact that human behavior is determined not only by external, environmental factors, but also by a person’s own nature; it argues that human nature contains a ready-made system of ultimate goals and values ​​and that in the presence of favorable environmental influences, a person strives to avoid illness, and therefore wants exactly what he really needs (what is good for him). The theory of instincts is based on the fact that all people are a single biological species, and asserts that human behavior is determined by certain motives and goals inherent in the species as a whole; she draws our attention to the fact that in extreme conditions When the body is completely left to itself, to its internal reserves, it exhibits miracles of biological efficiency and wisdom, and these facts are still waiting for their researchers. Errors in the theory of instincts I consider it necessary to immediately emphasize that many errors in the theory of instincts, even the most outrageous and deserving of sharp rebuff, are in no way inevitable or inherent in this theory as such, that these errors were shared not only by followers of the theory of instincts, but also by its critics. 1. The most glaring in the theory of instincts are semantic and logical errors. Instinctivists are rightly accused of inventing instincts ad hoc, resorting to the concept of instinct whenever they cannot explain specific behavior or determine its origins. But we, knowing about this error, having been warned about it, will, of course, be able to avoid hypostatization, that is, confusing a fact with a term, and will not build shaky syllogisms. We are much more sophisticated in semantics than instinctivists. 2. Today we have new data provided to us by ethnology, sociology and genetics, and they will allow us to avoid not only ethno- and classocentrism, but also simplified social Darwinism, which the early instinctivists were guilty of and which led them into a dead end. Now we can understand that the rejection that the ethnological naivety of the instinctivists met in scientific circles was too radical, too ardent. As a result, we got the other extreme - the theory of cultural relativism. This theory, widely accepted and influential over the past two decades, is now under severe criticism (148). Undoubtedly, the time has come to once again direct our efforts to the search for cross-cultural, general species characteristics, as the instinctivists did, and I think that we will be able to avoid both ethnocentrism and hypertrophied cultural relativism. So, for example, it seems obvious to me that instrumental behavior (means) is determined by cultural factors to a much greater extent than basic needs (goals). 3. Most anti-instinctivists of the 20s and 30s, such as Bernard, Watson, Kuo and others, criticizing the theory of instincts, said mainly that instincts cannot be described in terms of individual reactions caused by specific stimuli. In essence, they accused instinctivists of adhering to a behavioristic approach, and on the whole they were right - instincts really do not fit into the simplified scheme of behaviorism. However, today such criticism can no longer be considered satisfactory, because today both dynamic and humanistic psychology proceed from the fact that no more or less significant, integral characteristic of a person, no integral form of activity can be defined only in terms of “stimulus-response”. If we claim that any phenomenon must be analyzed in its entirety, this does not mean that we call for ignoring the properties of its components. We are not against considering reflexes, for example, in the context of classical animal instincts. But at the same time, we understand that a reflex is an exclusively motor act, while instinct, in addition to the motor act, includes a biologically determined impulse, expressive behavior, functional behavior, a goal object and affect. 4. Even from the point of view of formal logic, I cannot explain why we must constantly make a choice between absolute instinct, instinct complete in all its components, and non-instinct. Why don't we talk about residual instincts, about instinct-like aspects of drive, impulse, behavior, about the degree of instinct-likeness, about partial instincts? Many authors thoughtlessly used the term “instinct,” using it to describe needs, goals, abilities, behavior, perception, expressive acts, values, emotions as such and complex complexes of these phenomena. As a result, this concept has practically lost its meaning; Almost any of the human reactions known to us, as Marmor (289) and Bernard (47) rightly note, can be classified by one or another author as instinctive. Our main hypothesis is that of all the psychological components of human behavior, only motives or basic needs can be considered innate or biologically determined (if not entirely, then at least to a certain extent). Behavior itself, abilities, cognitive and affective needs, in our opinion, do not have a biological conditionality; these phenomena are either a product of learning or a way of expressing basic needs. (Of course, many of the inherent human abilities, for example, color vision, are largely determined or mediated by heredity, but this is not about them now). In other words, there is a certain hereditary component in the basic need, which we will understand as a kind of conative need, unrelated to internal, goal-setting behavior, or as a blind, undirected urge, like the Freudian impulses of the Id. (Below we will show that the sources of satisfaction of these needs are also biologically determined, innate in nature.) Purposeful (or functional) behavior arises as a result of learning. Proponents of the theory of instincts and their opponents think in terms of “all or nothing”; they talk only about instincts and non-instincts, instead of thinking about one or another degree of instinctuality of a particular psychological phenomenon, and this is their main mistake. And in fact, is it reasonable to assume that the entire complex set of human reactions is entirely determined by heredity alone or is not at all determined by it? None of the structures underlying any integral reactions, even the simplest structure underlying any integral reaction, can be determined only genetically. Even colored peas, experiments on which allowed Mendel to formulate the famous laws of distribution of hereditary factors, need oxygen, water and fertilizing. For that matter, the genes themselves do not exist in a vacuum, but surrounded by other genes. On the other hand, it is quite obvious that no human characteristic can be absolutely free from the influence of heredity, because man is a child of nature. Heredity is a prerequisite for all human behavior, every human act and every ability, that is, whatever a person does, he can do it only because he is a man, that he belongs to the species Homo, because he is the son of his parents. Such a scientifically untenable dichotomy led to a number of unpleasant consequences. One of them was the tendency, according to which any activity, if it showed at least some component of learning, began to be considered non-instinctive and, conversely, any activity in which at least some component of instinctive heredity was manifested. But as we already know, in most, if not all human characteristics, both determinants are easily detected, and therefore the debate itself between supporters of the theory of instincts and supporters of the theory of learning, the more it begins to resemble a dispute between the party of sharp-pointed and blunt-pointed. Instinctivism and anti-instinctivism are two sides of the same coin, two extremes, two opposite ends of a dichotomy. I am confident that we, knowing this dichotomy, will be able to avoid it. 5. The scientific paradigm of instinctivist theorists was animal instincts, and this became the cause of many errors, including their inability to discern unique, purely human instincts. However, the biggest misconception that naturally follows from the study of animal instincts was, perhaps, the axiom about the special power, about the immutability, uncontrollability and uncontrollability of instincts. But this axiom, which is only true in relation to worms, frogs and lemmings, is clearly unsuitable for explaining human behavior. Even recognizing that basic needs have a certain hereditary basis, we can make a lot of mistakes if we determine the degree of instinctivity by eye, if we consider only behavioral acts, only those characteristics and needs that do not have an obvious connection with factors, as instinctive. external environment or are distinguished by a special power that clearly exceeds the power of external determinants. Why don't we admit that there are needs that, despite their instinctoid nature, are easily repressed, which can be restrained, suppressed, modified, disguised by habits, cultural norms, feelings of guilt, etc. (as this seems to be the case with the need for love)? In a word, why don’t we admit the possibility of the existence of weak instincts? It was precisely this error, precisely this identification of instinct with something powerful and unchanging, that most likely became the reason for the sharp attacks on the culturalist theory of instincts. We understand that no ethnologist can even temporarily escape the idea of ​​the unique identity of each people, and therefore he will angrily reject our assumption and join the opinion of our opponents. But if we all treated with due respect both the cultural and biological heritage of man (as the author of this book does), if we viewed culture simply as a more powerful force compared to instinctual needs (as the author of this book does), then we would For a long time we have not seen anything paradoxical in the statement that our weak, fragile instinctual needs need protection from more stable and more powerful cultural influences. I will try to be even more paradoxical - in my opinion, in some sense, instinctual needs are in some sense stronger the same cultural influences, because they constantly remind themselves, demand satisfaction, and because their frustration leads to harmful pathological consequences. That is why I argue that they need protection and patronage. To make it completely clear, I will put forward another paradoxical statement. I think that revealing psychotherapy, depth therapy and insight therapy, which combine almost all known methods of therapy, except hypnosis and behavioral therapy, have one thing in common, they expose, restore and strengthen our weakened, lost instinctoid needs and tendencies, our suppressed animal self, pushed into the far corner, our subjective biology. In the most obvious form, in the most concrete way, only the organizers of so-called personal growth seminars set such a goal. These seminars, which are both psychotherapeutic and educational, require participants to spend an extremely large amount of personal energy, full dedication, incredible effort, patience, courage, they are very painful, they can last a lifetime and still not achieve their goal. Should you teach your dog, cat or bird how to be a dog, cat or bird? The answer is obvious. Their animal impulses declare themselves loudly, clearly and are recognized unmistakably, whereas human impulses are extremely weak, indistinct, confused, we do not hear what they whisper to us, and therefore must learn to listen and hear them. It is not surprising that the spontaneity, naturalness of behavior characteristic of representatives of the animal world , we more often notice self-actualized people and less often - neurotics and not very healthy people. I am ready to declare that the disease itself is nothing more than the loss of the animal principle. A clear identification with one’s biology, “animality” paradoxically brings a person closer to greater spirituality, to greater health, to greater prudence, to greater (organic) rationality. 6. The focus on studying animal instincts led to another, perhaps even more terrible mistake. For some incomprehensible, mysterious reasons for me, which probably only historians could explain, the idea that the animal nature is a bad principle has become established in Western civilization, that our primitive impulses are selfish, selfish, hostile, bad impulses.22 Theologians call is it original sin or the voice of the devil. Freudians call it id impulses; philosophers, economists, and teachers come up with their own names. Darwin was so convinced of the bad nature of instincts that he considered struggle and competition to be the main factor in the evolution of the animal world, and completely did not notice manifestations of cooperation, which, however, Kropotkin was easily able to discern. It is this way of looking at things that makes us identify the animal nature of man with predatory, evil animals such as wolves, tigers, wild boars, vultures, and snakes. It would seem, why don’t more cute animals come to mind, for example, deer, elephants, dogs, chimpanzees? Obviously, the above-mentioned tendency is most directly related to the fact that the animal nature is understood as bad, greedy, predatory. If it was so necessary to find a resemblance to man in the animal world, then why not choose an animal that really resembles man, for example, an ape? I maintain that the monkey as such is, in general, a much nicer and more pleasant animal than the wolf, hyena or worm, and that it also possesses many of the qualities that we traditionally classify as virtues. From the point of view of comparative psychology, we, to be honest, are more like a monkey than some kind of reptile, and therefore I will never agree with the fact that the animal nature of man is evil, predatory, bad (306). 7. On the question of the immutability or non-modifiability of hereditary traits, the following must be said. Even if we assume that there are such human traits that are determined only by heredity, only by genes, then they are also subject to change and, perhaps, even more easily than any others. A disease such as cancer is largely due to hereditary factors, and yet scientists do not give up trying to look for ways to prevent and treat this terrible disease. The same can be said about intelligence, or IQ. There is no doubt that to a certain extent intelligence is determined by heredity, but no one will dispute the fact that it can be developed with the help of educational and psychotherapeutic procedures. 8. We must allow for the possibility of greater variability in the field of instincts than instinctivist theorists allow. It is obvious that the need for knowledge and understanding is not found in all people. In intelligent people it appears as an urgent need, while in the weak-minded it is represented only in a rudimentary form or is absent altogether. The same is true with the maternal instinct. Levy's research (263) has revealed a very large variability in the expression of the maternal instinct, so much so that it can be said that some women do not have a maternal instinct at all. Specific talents or abilities that appear to be genetically determined, such as musical, mathematical, artistic abilities (411), are found in very few people. Unlike animal instincts, instinctoid impulses can disappear and atrophy. So, for example, a psychopath has no need for love, no need to love and be loved. The loss of this need, as we now know, is permanent and irreplaceable; psychopathy cannot be treated, at least not with the help of the psychotherapeutic techniques that we currently have at our disposal. Other examples can be given. A study of the effects of unemployment conducted in an Austrian village (119), as well as a number of other similar studies, showed that prolonged unemployment has not just a demoralizing, but even a destructive effect on a person, since it suppresses some of his needs. Once suppressed, these needs can fade away forever, they will not awaken again even if external conditions improve. Similar data were obtained from observations of former prisoners of Nazi concentration camps. One can also recall the observations of Bateson and Mead (34), who studied the culture of the Balineses. An adult Balinese cannot be called “loving” in our Western sense of the word, and he, apparently, does not feel the need for love at all. Balinese babies and children react to a lack of love with violent, inconsolable crying (this crying was captured by the researchers’ film camera), which means we can assume that the absence of “love impulses” in the adult Balinese is an acquired trait. 9. I have already said that as we climb the phylogenetic ladder, we discover that instincts and the ability to adapt, the ability to flexibly respond to changes in the environment begin to act as mutually exclusive phenomena. The more pronounced the ability to adapt, the less distinct the instincts. It was this pattern that became the cause of a very serious and even tragic (from the point of view of historical consequences) misconception - a misconception whose roots go back to antiquity, and whose essence boils down to the opposition of the impulsive principle to the rational. Few people think that both of these principles, both of these tendencies are instinctive in nature, that they are not antagonistic, but synergistic with each other, that they direct the development of the organism in the same direction. I believe that our need for knowledge and understanding can be as conative as our need for love and belonging. The traditional instinct/mind dichotomy is based on a misdefinition of instinct and a misdefinition of reason—definitions in which one is defined as the opposite of the other. But if we redefine these concepts in accordance with what we know today, we will find that they are not only not opposite to each other, but also not so different from one another. A healthy mind and a healthy impulse are directed towards the same goal; at healthy person They in no way contradict each other (but in the patient they may be opposite, oppositional to each other). The scientific evidence we have indicates that it is essential for a child's mental health to feel secure, accepted, loved and respected. But this is exactly what the child wants (instinctively). It is in this sense, sensually and scientifically demonstrable, that we declare that instinctoid needs and rationality, reason are synergistic and not antagonistic to each other. Their apparent antagonism is nothing more than an artifact, and the reason for this lies in the fact that the subject of our study is, as a rule, sick people. If our hypothesis is confirmed, then we will be able to finally solve the eternal problem of humanity, and questions like: “What should a person be guided by?” instinct or reason? or: “Who is the head of the family—the husband or the wife?” will disappear by themselves, lose their relevance due to obvious ridiculousness. 10. Pastor (372) convincingly demonstrated to us, especially with his deep analysis of the theories of McDougall and Thorndike (I would add here the theory of Jung and, perhaps, the theory of Freud), that the theory of instincts gave rise to many conservative and even anti-democratic in their essence social, economic and political consequences caused by the identification of heredity with fate, with a merciless, inexorable fate. But this identification is wrong. A weak instinct can be revealed, expressed and satisfied only if the conditions predetermined by culture are favorable to it; bad conditions suppress and destroy instinct. For example, in our society it is not yet possible to satisfy weak hereditary needs, from which we can conclude that these conditions require significant improvement. However, the relationship discovered by Pastor (372) can in no way be considered either natural or inevitable; Based on this correlation, we can only once again state that in order to assess social phenomena, it is necessary to pay attention not to one, but at least to two continua of phenomena. The opposition expressed by the “liberalism-conservatism” continuum is already giving way to such pairs of continual antagonisms as “socialism-capitalism” and “ democracy-authoritarianism", and we can trace this trend even in the example of science. For example, today we can talk about the existence of such approaches to the study of society and man as exogenous-authoritarian-socialist, or exogenous-social-democratic, or exogenous-democratic-capitalist, etc. In any case, if we consider that the antagonism between a person and society, between personal and public interests is natural, inevitable and insurmountable, then this will be an avoidance of solving the problem, an unlawful attempt to ignore its very existence. The only reasonable justification for this point of view can be considered the fact that in a sick society and in a sick organism this antagonism really takes place. But even in this case, it is not inevitable, as Ruth Benedict brilliantly proved (40, 291, 312). And in a good society, at least in the societies that Benedict described, this antagonism is impossible. Under normal, healthy social conditions, personal and social interests in no way contradict each other; on the contrary, they coincide with each other, are synergistic with each other. The reason for the persistence of this false idea of ​​the dichotomy of the personal and the social is only that the subjects of our study so far have been mainly sick people and people living in poor social conditions. Naturally, among such people, among people living in such conditions, we inevitably discover a contradiction between personal and social interests, and our trouble is that we interpret it as natural, as biologically programmed. 11. One of the shortcomings of the instinct theory, like most other theories of motivation, was its inability to discover the dynamic interrelationship and hierarchical system that unites human instincts, or instinctual impulses. As long as we consider impulses as independent formations independent of each other, we will not be able to get closer to solving many pressing problems; we will constantly revolve in a vicious circle of pseudo-problems. In particular, this approach does not allow us to treat a person’s motivational life as a holistic, unitary phenomenon, and condemns us to compiling all kinds of lists and lists of motives. Our approach equips the researcher with the principle of value choice, the only reliable principle that allows us to consider one need as higher than another, or as more important or even more basic than another. The atomistic approach to motivational life, on the contrary, inevitably provokes us to reasoning about the death instinct, the desire for Nirvana, for eternal peace, for homeostasis, for balance, since the only thing that a need in itself is capable of, if it is considered in isolation from other needs, is it is to demand one’s own satisfaction, that is, one’s own destruction. But it is absolutely obvious to us that, having satisfied a need, a person does not find peace, much less happiness, because the place of the satisfied need is immediately taken by another need, which was not felt until now, weak and forgotten. Now she can finally make her claims known with all her might. There is no end to human desires. It makes no sense to dream of absolute, complete satisfaction. 12. It is not far from the thesis about the baseness of instinct to the assumption that the richest instinctual lives are lived by the mentally ill, neurotics, criminals, feeble-minded and desperate people. This assumption naturally follows from the doctrine according to which consciousness, reason, conscience and morality are external, outward, ostentatious phenomena, not characteristic of human nature, imposed on a person in the process of “cultivation”, necessary as a restraining factor of his deep nature, necessary in the same sense as shackles are necessary for the inveterate criminal. In the end, the role of civilization and all its institutions - schools, churches, courts and law enforcement agencies, designed to limit the base, unbridled nature of instincts - is formulated in full accordance with this false concept. This mistake is so serious, so tragic that we can put it on the same level as such misconceptions as belief in the chosenness of the supreme power, as blind conviction in the exclusive rightness of one or another religion, as the denial of evolution and the holy belief that the earth is a pancake lying on three pillars. All past and present wars, all manifestations of racial antagonism and religious intolerance that the press reports to us, are based on one doctrine or another, religious or philosophical, inspiring a person with disbelief in himself and in other people, degrading the nature of man and his capabilities. It is curious, but such an erroneous view of human nature is held not only by instinctivists, but also by their opponents. All the optimists who hope for a better future for man - environmental mentalists, humanists, Unitarians, liberals, radicals - all renounce the theory of instincts with horror, mistakenly believing that it is it that dooms humanity to irrationality, war, antagonism and the law of the jungle. Instinctivists, persistent in their delusion, do not want to abandon the principle of fatal inevitability. Most of them have long lost all optimism, although there are those who actively profess a pessimistic view of the future of humanity. An analogy can be drawn here with alcoholism. Some people slide into this abyss quickly, others slowly and gradually, but the result is the same. It is not surprising that Freud is often put on a par with Hitler, for their positions are largely similar, and there is nothing strange in the fact that such remarkable people as Thorndike and MacDougall, guided by the logic of base instinctuality, came to anti-democratic conclusions of the Hamiltonian kind. But in fact, it is enough just to stop considering instinctoid needs as obviously base or bad, it is enough to at least agree that they are neutral or even good, and then hundreds of pseudo-problems, over which we have been unsuccessfully racking our brains for many years, will disappear by themselves. If we accept this concept, then our attitude towards learning will radically change, it is even possible that we will abandon the very concept of “learning”, which obscenely brings together the processes of education and training. Every step that brings us closer to agreement with our heredity, with our instinctual needs, will mean recognition of the need to satisfy these needs and will reduce the likelihood of frustration. A child who is moderately deprived, that is, not yet fully cultivated, who has not yet parted with his healthy animal nature, tirelessly strives for admiration, security, autonomy and love, and does this, of course, in his own way, in a childish way. How do we meet his efforts? A seasoned adult, as a rule, reacts to children’s antics with the words: “Yes, he’s showing off!” or: “He just wants to attract attention!”, and these words, this diagnosis automatically mean a refusal of attention and participation, an order not to give the child what he is looking for, not to notice him, not to admire him, not to applaud him. However, if we learn to reckon with these childhood calls for love, admiration and adoration, if we learn to treat these pleas as legitimate demands, as manifestations of a natural human right, if we respond to them with the same sympathy with which we treat his complaints to hunger, thirst, pain or cold, then we will stop dooming him to frustration, we will become a source for him to satisfy these needs. Such an educational regime will entail one single, but very important consequence - the relationship between parent and child will become more natural, spontaneous, fun, there will be more affection and love in them. Do not think that I am advocating total, absolute permissiveness. Pressure on inculturation, that is, education, discipline, the formation of social skills, preparation for future adult life, awareness of the needs and desires of other people, to some extent, of course, is necessary, but the process of education will cease irritate us and the child only when he is surrounded by an atmosphere of affection, love and respect for each other. And, of course, there can be no question of any indulgence in neurotic needs, bad habits, drug addiction, fixations, the need for the familiar or any other non-instinctoid needs. Finally, we must not forget that short-term frustrations, life experiences, even tragedies and misfortunes can have beneficial and healing consequences.

Parameter name	Meaning
Article topic:	THEORY OF INSTINCTS OF SOCIAL BEHAVIOR.
Rubric (thematic category)	Sociology

PSYCHOLOGICAL DIRECTION IN SOCIOLOGY.

The basis of social behavior is mental reality. Towards the end of the 19th century. arises in sociology psychological direction, which had a strong influence on the development of it as a science. The emergence of a new direction was associated with the successes of psychology, especially experimental psychology. At the same time, psychology, which at the beginning of the 19th century. studied only the individual, by the end of the century it was exploring social processes and behavior of groups (communities) of people. A kind of biological reductionism, the reduction of the diversity of social phenomena to biological ones, no longer suited sociology. As a reaction to dissatisfaction with this reductionism, on the one hand, and as the emergence of interest in the problems of motivation of human behavior, its psychological mechanisms, on the other hand, a psychological direction in sociology arises. The psychological direction in sociology, formed at the turn of the century, had a complex structure. Let us highlight psychological evolutionism, group psychology, psychology of imitation, psychology of peoples, instinctivism, interactionism (a direction that studies interpersonal interaction). An important point for researchers of scientific research turned out to be that representatives of psychological sociology drew attention to the problem of the relationship between public and individual consciousness as the most significant. In general, it should be said that for supporters of this direction the main categories are consciousness and self-awareness.

Associated with behaviorism. The basis of the behavior of society and people is instinct: an innate reaction to external influences, a psychophysical predisposition. Any instinct is accompanied by a corresponding emotion, which is not conscious, but determines further behavior.

The instinct to fight is anger, fear;

I. flight - self-preservation;

I. acquisitions – ownership;

I. construction - a feeling of creation;

I. herdism - a sense of belonging: the most social and main instinct, because thanks to it people are grouped, activities acquire a collective character, the consequence of this is the growth of cities, mass gatherings, etc.

M. Dowgall identifies group intelligence as the result of evolution.

In the course of evolution, instinct was enclosed by intellect. Due to the difference between man and animal, on the basis of intellect, the spirit of reason is distinguished, which has 3 forms of spiritual interconnection:

1) Sympathy 2) Suggestion 3) Imitation

41. "PSYCHOLOGY OF PEOPLES".

At the root lies a purely philosophical concept. The main driving force of history is the spirit of an entire people, it is expressed in art, religion, language, customs and rituals. The most important thing is national consciousness, which determines the direction of activity. The spirit of an individual is not an independent whole, it is only part of the whole. Everything is decided in favor of society, the individual is only a link. Later he abandoned the concept of the “spirit of the whole” and gave a more clear concept. Next he suggested exploring the language, customs and mythology. Language contains great meanings; different languages ​​are unique (word order, lexical meaning). Peoples think differently. Wundt created the world's first psychological laboratory for the study of individual psychology. There they studied layers of everyday consciousness: culture, the formula of everyday behavior. All studies make it possible to predict the reaction of peoples to certain external influences. Wundt contrasted individual psychology with the psychology of nations. Thinking and speech and other psychological phenomena cannot be understood outside the psychology of peoples. It must grasp the generalities in the psychology of large masses. Language, myth, custom are not fragments of the national spirit, but the very given spirit of the people in its relatively untouched individual form, which determines all other processes. Language contains the general form of ideas living in the spirit of the people and the laws of their connection; myths - the content of these ideas; customs are the general direction of the will arising from these ideas. The word “myth” is usually understood to mean the entire primitive worldview, and the word “custom” - all the beginnings legal order. The psychology of peoples explores these three areas and, no less important, their interaction: language is a form of myth; custom expresses myth and develops it.Τᴀᴋᴎᴍ ᴏϬᴩᴀᴈᴏᴍ, methods of psychology of peoples according to W. Wundt - ϶ᴛᴏ analysis of cultural products (language, myths, customs, art, everyday life). Moreover, the psychology of peoples uses exclusively descriptive methods. It does not claim to discover laws. Psychology, any, incl. and the psychology of peoples is not a science about laws, at least not only about them. Its focus is the problem of development (an important category for Wundt), in the case of the psychology of peoples - the development of the “soul of the people”.

The third theoretical premise modern science about human communication can be considered the theory of instincts of social behavior, which arose from the idea of ​​evolutionism of Charles Darwin (1809–1882) and
G. Spencer (1820–1903).

At the center of this direction is the theory of W. McDougall (1871–1938), an English psychologist who has worked in the USA since 1920. The main theses of his theory are as follows.

1. Personality psychology plays a decisive role in the formation of social psychology.

2. The main reason for the social behavior of individuals is innate instincts. Instincts are understood as an innate psychophysiological predisposition to perceive external objects of a certain class, evoking emotions and a readiness to react in one way or another. In other words, the action of instinct presupposes the occurrence of an emotional reaction, motive or action. Moreover, each instinct corresponds to a very specific emotion. The researcher paid special attention to the herd instinct, which generates a sense of belonging and thereby underlies many social instincts.

This concept has undergone some evolution: by 1932, McDougall abandoned the term “instinct”, replacing it with the concept of “predisposition”. The number of the latter was increased from 11 to 18, but the essence of the doctrine did not change. Unconscious needs for food, sleep, sex, parental care, self-affirmation, comfort, etc. were still considered the main driving force of human behavior, the foundation public life. However, gradually the American intellectual climate changed: scientists became disillusioned with the rather primitive idea of ​​\u200b\u200bthe immutability of human nature, and the scales tipped in favor of the other extreme - the leading role of the environment.

Behaviorism

The new doctrine, called behaviorism, dates back to 1913 and is based on the experimental study of animals. Its founders are considered to be E. Thorndike (1874–1949) and J. Watson (1878–1958), who were strongly influenced by the works of the famous Russian physiologist I.P. Pavlova.

Behaviorism, the science of behavior, proposes a rejection of the direct study of consciousness, and instead, the study of human behavior according to the “stimulus-response” scheme, that is, external factors are brought to the fore. If their influence coincides with innate reflexes of a physiological nature, the “law of effect” comes into force: this behavioral reaction is reinforced. Consequently, by manipulating external stimuli, any desired forms of social behavior can be brought to automaticity. At the same time, not only the innate inclinations of the individual are ignored, but also the unique life experience, attitudes and beliefs. In other words, the focus of researchers is the connection between stimulus and response, but not their content. However, behaviorism has had a significant influence on sociology, anthropology and, most importantly, management.

In neobehaviorism (B. Skinner, N. Miller, D. Dollard, D. Homans, etc.), the traditional “stimulus-response” scheme is complicated by the introduction of intermediate variables. From the point of view of the problem of business communication, the theory of social exchange by D. Homans is of greatest interest, according to which the frequency and quality of reward (for example, gratitude) is directly proportional to the desire to help the source of a positive stimulus.

Freudianism

A special place in history social psychology occupied by S. Freud (1856–1939), Austrian doctor and psychologist. Freud lived in Vienna almost his entire life, combining teaching work with medical practice. A scientific internship in Paris in 1885 with the famous psychiatrist J. Charcot and a trip to give lectures to America in 1909 had a significant influence on the development of his teaching.

Western Europe at the turn of the 19th–20th centuries. was characterized by social stability, lack of conflict, an excessively optimistic attitude towards civilization, boundless faith in the human mind and the possibilities of science, bourgeois hypocrisy of the Victorian era in the sphere of morality and moral relations. Under these conditions, the young and ambitious Freud, brought up on the ideas of natural science and hostile to “metaphysics,” began research mental illness. At that time, physiological deviations were considered the cause of mental disorders. From Charcot, Freud became acquainted with the hypnotic practice of treating hysteria and began to study the deep layers of the human psyche.
He concluded that nervous diseases are caused by unconscious mental traumas, and connected these traumas with the sexual instinct, sexual experiences. Scientific Vienna did not accept Freud's discoveries, but a revolution in science nevertheless took place.

Let's consider those provisions that are directly related to the patterns of business communication and, to one degree or another, have stood the test of time.

model of mental structure of personality, according to Freud, consists of three levels: “It”, “I”, “Super-Ego” (in Latin “Id”, “Ego”, “Super-Ego”).

Under " It ” refers to the deepest layer of the human psyche, inaccessible to consciousness, the initially irrational source of sexual energy, called libido. “It” obeys the principle of pleasure, constantly strives to realize itself and sometimes breaks into consciousness in the figurative form of dreams, in the form of slips and slips. Being a source of constant mental tension, “It” is socially dangerous, since the uncontrolled implementation by each individual of his instincts can lead to the death of human communication. In practice, this does not happen, since a “dam” in the form of our “I” stands in the way of forbidden sexual energy.

“I ”subjects to the principle of reality, is formed on the basis of individual experience and is designed to promote the self-preservation of the individual, its adaptation to the environment based on the containment and suppression of instincts.

“I”, in turn, is controlled by “ Super-ego ”, which refers to social prohibitions and values, moral and religious norms internalized by the individual. The “super-ego” is formed as a result of the child’s identification with the father, and acts as a source of guilt, remorse, and dissatisfaction with oneself. This leads to a paradoxical conclusion that there are no mentally normal people, everyone is neurotic, since everyone has an internal conflict, a stressful situation.

In this regard, the mechanisms proposed by Freud for relieving stress, in particular repression and sublimation, are of practical interest. Their essence can be illustrated as follows. Imagine a hermetically sealed steam boiler in which the pressure steadily increases. An explosion is inevitable. How to prevent it? Either strengthen the walls of the boiler as much as possible, or open the safety valve and release the steam. The first is repression, when unwanted feelings and desires are pushed into the area of ​​the unconscious, but even after displacement they continue to motivate the emotional state and behavior and remain a source of experiences. The second is sublimation: sexual energy is catalyzed, that is, transformed into external activity that does not contradict socially significant values, for example, artistic creativity.

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