Russian psychologist L Vygotsky. The formation of the psychological theory of L.S. Vygotsky

Biography

Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky (in 1917 and 1924 he changed his patronymic and surname) was born on November 5 (17), 1896 in the city of Orsha, the second of eight children in the family of a bank employee, a graduate of the Kharkov Commercial Institute Semyon Yakovlevich Vygotsky and his wife Tsili (Cecilia) Moiseevna Vygotskaya . His education was carried out by a private teacher, Solomon Ashpitz, known for using the so-called method of Socratic dialogue. A significant influence on the future psychologist in his childhood was also exerted by his cousin, later known literary critic David Isaakovich Vygotsky (-, English).

Daughter of L. S. Vygotsky - Gita Lvovna Vygodskaya - Soviet psychologist and defectologist, candidate psychological sciences, co-author of the biography “L. S. Vygotsky. Touches to the portrait" (1996).

Chronology of the most important life events

1924 - report at a psychoneurological congress, moving from Gomel to Moscow
1925 - dissertation defense Psychology of art(On November 5, 1925, due to illness and without protection, Vygotsky was awarded the title of senior researcher, equivalent to the modern degree of Candidate of Sciences, publication agreement Psychology of art was signed on November 9, 1925, but the book was never published during Vygotsky’s lifetime)
1925 - first and only trip abroad: sent to London for a defectology conference; On the way to England, I passed through Germany and France, where I met with local psychologists
1925 - 1930 - member of the Russian Psychoanalytic Society (RPSAO)
November 21, 1925 to May 22, 1926 - tuberculosis, hospitalization in the sanatorium-type hospital "Zakharyino", in the hospital writes notes, later published under the title Historical meaning of the psychological crisis
1927 - employee of the Institute of Psychology in Moscow, works with such prominent scientists as Luria, Bernstein, Artemov, Dobrynin, Leontyev
1929 - International Psychological Congress at Yale University; Luria presented two reports, one of which was co-authored with Vygotsky; Vygotsky himself did not go to the congress
1929, spring - Vygotsky lectures in Tashkent
1930 - On VI International conference on psychotechnics in Barcelona (April 23-27, 1930), a report by L. S. Vygotsky was read on the study of higher psychological functions in psychotechnical research
1930, October - report on psychological systems: the beginning of a new research program
1931 - entered the Faculty of Medicine at the Ukrainian Psychoneurological Academy in Kharkov, where he studied in absentia together with Luria
1932, December - report on consciousness, formal divergence from Leontiev’s group in Kharkov
1933, February-May - Kurt Lewin stops in Moscow while passing from the USA (via Japan), meeting with Vygotsky
1934, May 9 - Vygotsky was placed on bed rest
1934, June 11 - death

Scientific contribution

Vygotsky's emergence as a scientist coincided with the period of restructuring of Soviet psychology based on the methodology of Marxism, in which he took an active part. In search of methods for objective study of complex forms of mental activity and personality behavior, Vygotsky subjected critical analysis a number of philosophical and most contemporary psychological concepts (“The Meaning of the Psychological Crisis”, manuscript), showing the futility of attempts to explain human behavior by reducing higher forms behavior towards lower elements.

Exploring verbal thinking, Vygotsky solves in a new way the problem of localizing higher mental functions as structural units of brain activity. Studying the development and decay of higher mental functions using the material of child psychology, defectology and psychiatry, Vygotsky comes to the conclusion that the structure of consciousness is a dynamic semantic system of affective, volitional and intellectual processes that are in unity.

Cultural-historical theory

The book “The History of the Development of Higher Mental Functions” (, publ.) provides a detailed presentation of the cultural-historical theory of mental development: according to Vygotsky, it is necessary to distinguish between lower and higher mental functions, and, accordingly, two plans of behavior - natural, natural (the result of the biological evolution of the animal world ) and cultural, socio-historical (result historical development society), merged in the development of the psyche.

The hypothesis put forward by Vygotsky offered a new solution to the problem of the relationship between lower (elementary) and higher mental functions. The main difference between them is the level of voluntariness, that is, natural mental processes cannot be regulated by humans, but people can consciously control higher mental functions. Vygotsky came to the conclusion that conscious regulation is associated with the indirect nature of higher mental functions. An additional connection arises between the influencing stimulus and a person’s reaction (both behavioral and mental) through a mediating link - a stimulus-means, or sign.

The most convincing model of indirect activity, characterizing the manifestation and implementation of higher mental functions, is the “Buridan's donkey situation”. This classic situation of uncertainty, or problematic situation(the choice between two equal opportunities), interests Vygotsky primarily from the point of view of the means that make it possible to transform (solve) the situation that has arisen. By casting lots, a person “artificially introduces into the situation, changing it, new auxiliary stimuli that are not connected with it in any way.” Thus, the cast of lots becomes, according to Vygotsky, a means of transforming and resolving the situation.

Thinking and speech

IN last years Vygotsky's life focused on studying the relationship between thought and words in the structure of consciousness. His work “Thinking and Speech” (1934), devoted to the study of this problem, is fundamental for Russian psycholinguistics.

Genetic roots of thinking and speech

According to Vygotsky, the genetic roots of thinking and speech are different.

For example, Köhler's experiments revealed the ability of chimpanzees to solve complex tasks, showed that human-like intelligence and expressive language (absent in monkeys) function independently.

The relationship between thinking and speech, both in phylo- and ontogenesis, is a variable value. There is a pre-speech stage in the development of intelligence and a pre-intellectual stage in the development of speech. Only then do thinking and speech intersect and merge.

Speech thinking that arises as a result of such a merger is not a natural, but a socio-historical form of behavior. It has specific (compared to natural forms of thinking and speech) properties. With the emergence of verbal thinking, the biological type of development is replaced by a socio-historical one.

Research method

An adequate method for studying the relationship between thought and word, says Vygotsky, should be an analysis that divides the object under study - verbal thinking - not into elements, but into units. A unit is a minimal part of a whole that has all its basic properties. Such a unit of speech thinking is the meaning of a word.

Levels of formation of thought in a word

The relation of thought to word is not constant; This process, movement from thought to word and back, formation of thought in the word:

Motivation of thought.
Thought.
Inner speech.
External speech.

Egocentric speech: against Piaget

Vygotsky came to the conclusion that egocentric speech is not an expression of intellectual egocentrism, as Piaget argued, but a transitional stage from external to internal speech. Egocentric speech initially accompanies practical activities.

Vygotsky-Sakharov Study

In a classic experimental study, Vygotsky and his collaborator L. S. Sakharov, using their own methodology, which is a modification of N. Ach’s methodology, established types (they are also age stages of development) of concepts.

Everyday and scientific concepts

Exploring the development of concepts in childhood, L. S. Vygotsky wrote about everyday (spontaneous) And scientific concepts (“Thinking and Speech”, Chapter 6).

Everyday concepts are words acquired and used in everyday life, in everyday communication, such as “table”, “cat”, “house”. Scientific concepts are words that a child learns at school, terms built into a system of knowledge, associated with other terms.

When using spontaneous concepts, the child for a long time(up to 11-12 years) is aware only of the object to which they point, but not the concepts themselves, not their meaning. This is expressed in the absence of the ability “to verbally define a concept, to be able to give its verbal formulation in other words, to arbitrarily use this concept when establishing complex logical relationships between concepts.”

Vygotsky suggested that the development of spontaneous and scientific concepts goes in opposite directions: spontaneous - to the gradual awareness of their meaning, scientific - in the opposite direction, for “precisely in the sphere where the concept of “brother” turns out to be a strong concept, that is, in the sphere of spontaneous use, its application to countless specific situations , the richness of its empirical content and connection with personal experience, the schoolchild's scientific concept reveals its weakness. Analysis of the child’s spontaneous concept convinces us that the child has become much more aware of the object than the concept itself. Analysis of a scientific concept convinces us that the child at the very beginning is much better aware of the concept itself than the object represented in it.”

The awareness of meanings that comes with age is deeply connected with the emerging systematicity of concepts, that is, with the emergence, with the emergence of logical relationships between them. A spontaneous concept is associated only with the object to which it points. On the contrary, a mature concept is immersed in a hierarchical system, where logical relations connect it (already as a carrier of meaning) with many other concepts of different levels of generality in relation to the given one. This completely changes the possibilities of the word as a cognitive tool. Outside the system, Vygotsky writes, only empirical connections, that is, relationships between objects, can be expressed in concepts (in sentences). “Together with the system, relations of concepts to concepts arise, an indirect relation of concepts to objects through their relation to other concepts, a generally different relation of concepts to an object arises: supra-empirical connections become possible in concepts.” This is expressed, in particular, in the fact that the concept is defined not through the connections of the defined object with other objects (“the dog guards the house”), but through the relationship of the defined concept to other concepts (“a dog is an animal”).

Well, since the scientific concepts that a child acquires during the learning process are fundamentally different from everyday concepts precisely in that by their very nature they must be organized into a system, then, Vygotsky believes, their meanings are realized first. Awareness of the meanings of scientific concepts gradually extends to everyday ones.

Developmental and educational psychology

Vygotsky’s works examined in detail the problem of the relationship between the roles of maturation and learning in the development of a child’s higher mental functions. Thus, he formulated the most important principle, according to which the preservation and timely maturation of brain structures is a necessary, but not sufficient condition for the development of higher mental functions. The main source for this development is the changing social environment, to describe which Vygotsky introduced the term social development situation, defined as “a peculiar, age-specific, exclusive, unique and inimitable relationship between a child and the reality around him, primarily social.” It is this relationship that determines the course of development of the child’s psyche at a certain age stage.

Vygotsky proposed a new periodization life cycle human, which is based on the alternation of stable periods of development and crises. Crises are characterized by revolutionary changes, the criterion of which is the emergence neoplasms. The reason for the psychological crisis, according to Vygotsky, lies in the growing discrepancy between the developing psyche of the child and the unchanged social situation of development, and it is precisely at the restructuring of this situation that a normal crisis is aimed.

Thus, each stage of life opens with a crisis (accompanied by the appearance of certain neoplasms), followed by a period of stable development, when the development of new formations occurs.

Newborn crisis (0-2 months).

Infancy (2 months - 1 year).

Crisis of one year.

Early childhood (1-3 years).

Crisis of three years.

Before school age(3-7 years).

Crisis of seven years.

School age (8-12 years).

Thirteen Years Crisis.

Adolescence (puberty) period (14-17 years).

Seventeen year crisis.

Youth period (17-21 years).

Later, a slightly different version of this periodization appeared, developed within the framework of the activity approach by Vygotsky’s student D. B. Elkonin. It was based on the concept of leading activity and the idea of a change in leading activity during the transition to a new age stage. At the same time, Elkonin identified the same periods and crises as in Vygotsky’s periodization, but with a more detailed examination of the mechanisms operating at each stage.

Vygotsky, apparently, was the first in psychology to approach the consideration of the psychological crisis as a necessary stage in the development of the human psyche, revealing it positive meaning.

In the 1970s, Vygotsky's theories began to attract interest in American psychology. In the following decade, all of Vygotsky's major works were translated and formed, along with Piaget, the basis of modern educational psychology in the United States.

Notes

Bibliography L.S. Vygotsky

Psychology of Art ( idem) (1922)
Tool and sign in child development
(1930) (co-authored with A. R. Luria)
Lectures on psychology (1. Perception; 2. Memory; 3. Thinking; 4. Emotions; 5. Imagination; 6. Problem of will) (1932)
The problem of development and decay of higher mental functions (1934)
Thinking and speech ( idem) (1934)
- The bibliographic index of works by L. S. Vygotsky includes 275 titles

Publications on the Internet

Lev Vygotsky, Alexander Luria Sketches on the history of behavior: Monkey. Primitive. Child (monograph)
Course of lectures on psychology; Thinking and speech; Works from different years
Vygotsky Lev Semenovich(1896-1934) - outstanding Russian psychologist

About Vygotsky

Book section Lauren Graham“Natural science, philosophy and the sciences of human behavior in the Soviet Union”, dedicated to L. S. Vygotsky
Etkind A. M. More about L. S. Vygotsky: Forgotten texts and unfound contexts // Questions of psychology. 1993. No. 4. P. 37-55.
Garai L., Kecki M. Another crisis in psychology! A possible reason for the resounding success of L. S. Vygotsky’s ideas // Questions of Philosophy. 1997. No. 4. pp. 86-96.
Garai L. On meaning and the brain: Is Vygotsky compatible with Vygotsky? // Subject, cognition, activity: To the seventieth birthday of V. A. Lektorsky. M.: Kanon+, 2002. P. 590-612.
Tulviste P. E.-J. Discussion of the works of L. S. Vygotsky in the USA // Questions of Philosophy. 1986. No. 6.

Translations

Vygotsky @ http://www.marxists.org (English)
Some translations into German: @ http://th-hoffmann.eu
Denken und Sprechen: psychologische Untersuchungen / Lev Semënovic Vygotskij. Hrsg. und aus dem Russ. Ubers. vom Joachim Lompscher und Georg Rückriem. Mit einem Nachw. von Alexandre Métraux(German)

Psychology
Sections	General psychology Acmeology Differential psychology Psychogenetics Psychodiagnostics Psycholinguistics Psychology of perception (smell, color) Personality psychology Developmental psychology Psychophysiology Social psychology Special psychology Comparative psychology Evolutionary psychology Experimental psychology

Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky(original name - Lev Simkhovich Vygodsky; November 5 (17), 1896, Orsha, Russian Empire - June 11, 1934, Moscow) - Soviet psychologist, founder of the cultural-historical school in psychology and leader of the Vygotsky circle.

Biography

Lev Simkhovich Vygodsky (in 1917 and 1924 he changed his patronymic and surname) was born on November 5 (17), 1896 in the city of Orsha, the second of eight children in the family of the deputy manager of the Gomel branch of the United Bank, a graduate of the Kharkov Commercial Institute, merchant Simkha (Semyon) Yakovlevich Vygodsky (1869-1931) and his wife Tsili (Cecilia) Moiseevna Vygodskaya (1874-1935). His education was carried out by a private teacher, Sholom (Solomon) Mordukhovich Ashpiz (Aspiz, 1876-?), known for using the so-called method of Socratic dialogue and participating in revolutionary activities as part of the Gomel Social Democratic organization. His cousin, later a famous literary critic and translator, David Isaakovich Vygodsky (1893-1943), also had a significant influence on the future psychologist in his childhood. L. S. Vygodsky changed one letter in his surname in order to differ from the already famous D. I. Vygodsky.

In 1917, Lev Vygotsky graduated from the Faculty of Law of Moscow University and at the same time from the Faculty of History and Philosophy of the University. Shanyavsky. After completing his studies in Moscow, he returned to Gomel. In 1924 he moved to Moscow, where he lived the last decade of his short life. Vygotsky died on June 11, 1934 in Moscow from tuberculosis.

Places of work

Moscow State Institute of Experimental Psychology (1924-1928),
State Institute of Scientific Pedagogy (GINP) at LGPI and at LGPI named after. A. I. Herzen (both in 1927-1934),
Academy of Communist Education named after N.K. Krupskaya (AKV) (1929-1931),
Clinic of Nervous Diseases at the First Moscow state university(1st Moscow State University) (as an assistant, then head of the psychological laboratory; see Rossolimo, Grigory Ivanovich) (1929-1931)
Second Moscow State University (2nd MSU) (1927-1930), and after the reorganization of the 2nd MSU -
- Moscow State Pedagogical University (MGPI named after A. S. Bubnov) (1930-1934; head of the department of pedology difficult childhood) And
- 2nd Moscow State Medical Institute (MGMI) (1930-1934; head of the department of general and developmental pedology);
- Research Institute of Scientific Pedagogy at the 2nd Moscow State University (until the liquidation of the institute in 1931)
Institute for the Study of Higher Nervous Activity under the Natural Science Section of the Coma Academy (member of the section since 03/17/1930: ARAN. F.350. Op.3. D.286. LL.235-237ob)
State Scientific Institute for the Health of Children and Adolescents named after the 10th Anniversary October revolution(from the beginning of 1931 in the position of deputy director of the institute for scientific affairs)
Experimental Defectology Institute (EDI named after M. S. Epstein) (1929-1934, from 1929 - scientific director)

He also gave courses of lectures at a number of educational institutions and research organizations in Moscow, Leningrad, Kharkov and Tashkent, for example, at the Central Asian State University (SAGU) (in April 1929).

Family and relatives

Parents - Simkha (Semyon) Yakovlevich Vygodsky (1869-1931) and Tsilya (Cecilia) Moiseevna Vygodskaya (1874-1935).

Wife - Rosa Noevna Smekhova.

Gita Lvovna Vygodskaya (1925-2010) - Soviet psychologist and defectologist, candidate of psychological sciences, co-author of the biography “L. S. Vygotsky. Touches to the portrait" (1996); her daughter is Elena Evgenievna Kravtsova, Doctor of Psychology, Director of the Institute of Psychology named after. L. S. Vygotsky RSUH
Asya Lvovna Vygodskaya (1930-1980?).

Other relatives:

Claudia Semyonovna Vygodskaya (sister) - linguist, author of Russian-French and French-Russian dictionaries.
Zinaida Semyonovna Vygodskaya (sister) - linguist, author of Russian-English and English-Russian dictionaries.
David Isaakovich Vygodsky (1893-1943) (cousin) - a prominent poet, literary critic, translator (his wife is children's writer Emma Iosifovna Vygodskaya).

Chronology of the most important life events

1924 - report at a psychoneurological congress, moving from Gomel to Moscow
1925 - dissertation defense Psychology of art(On November 5, 1925, due to illness and without protection, Vygotsky was awarded the title of senior researcher, equivalent to the modern degree of Candidate of Sciences, publication agreement Psychology of art was signed on November 9, 1925, but the book was never published during Vygotsky’s lifetime)
1925 - first and only trip abroad: sent to London for a defectology conference; On the way to England, I passed through Germany and France, where I met with local psychologists
1925-1930 - member of the Russian Psychoanalytic Society (RPSAO)
November 21, 1925 to May 22, 1926 - tuberculosis, hospitalization in the sanatorium-type hospital "Zakharyino", in the hospital writes notes, later published under the title Historical meaning of the psychological crisis
1927 - employee of the Institute of Psychology in Moscow, works with such prominent scientists as Luria, Bernstein, Artemov, Dobrynin, Leontyev
1929 - International Psychological Congress at Yale University; Luria presented two reports, one of which was co-authored with Vygotsky; Vygotsky himself did not go to the congress
1929, spring - Vygotsky lectures in Tashkent
1930 - At the VI International Conference on Psychotechnics in Barcelona (April 23-27, 1930), a report by L. S. Vygotsky was read on the study of higher psychological functions in psychotechnical research
1930, October - report on psychological systems: start of a new research program
1931 - entered the Faculty of Medicine at the Ukrainian Psychoneurological Academy in Kharkov, where he studied in absentia together with Luria
1931 - father's death
1932, December - report on consciousness, formal divergence from Leontiev’s group in Kharkov
1933, February-May - Kurt Lewin stops in Moscow while passing from the USA (via Japan), meeting with Vygotsky
1934, May 9 - Vygotsky was placed on bed rest
1934, June 11 - death

Scientific contribution

Vygotsky’s emergence as a scientist coincided with the period of restructuring of Soviet psychology based on the methodology of Marxism, in which he took an active part. In search of methods for objective study of complex forms of mental activity and personality behavior, Vygotsky subjected a critical analysis to a number of philosophical and most contemporary psychological concepts (“The Meaning of the Psychological Crisis,” manuscript, 1926), showing the futility of attempts to explain human behavior by reducing higher forms of behavior to lower elements .

By exploring verbal thinking, Vygotsky solves in a new way the problem of localizing higher mental functions as structural units of brain activity. Studying the development and decay of higher mental functions using the material of child psychology, defectology and psychiatry, Vygotsky comes to the conclusion that the structure of consciousness is a dynamic semantic system of affective volitional and intellectual processes that are in unity.

Cultural-historical theory

The book “The History of the Development of Higher Mental Functions” (1931, published 1960) provides a detailed presentation of the cultural-historical theory of mental development: according to Vygotsky, it is necessary to distinguish between lower and higher mental functions, and, accordingly, two plans of behavior - natural, natural (the result of biological evolution animal world) and cultural, socio-historical (the result of the historical development of society), merged in the development of the psyche.

The difference between signs and guns, also mediating higher mental functions, cultural behavior, consists in the fact that tools are aimed “outward”, at transforming reality, and signs are “inward”, first at transforming other people, then at managing one’s own behavior. The word is a means of voluntary direction of attention, abstraction of properties and their synthesis into meaning (formation of concepts), voluntary control of one’s own mental operations.

The most convincing model of indirect activity, characterizing the manifestation and implementation of higher mental functions, is the “situation of Buridan’s donkey.” This classic situation of uncertainty, or problematic situation (a choice between two equal opportunities), interests Vygotsky primarily from the point of view of the means that make it possible to transform (solve) the situation that has arisen. By casting lots, a person “artificially introduces into the situation, changing it, new auxiliary stimuli that are not connected with it in any way.” Thus, the cast of lots becomes, according to Vygotsky, a means of transforming and resolving the situation.

Thinking and speech

In the last years of his life, Vygotsky devoted his main attention to studying the relationship between thought and words in the structure of consciousness. His work “Thinking and Speech” (1934), devoted to the study of this problem, is fundamental for Russian psycholinguistics.

Genetic roots of thinking and speech

According to Vygotsky, the genetic roots of thinking and speech are different.

For example, Köhler's experiments, which revealed the ability of chimpanzees to solve complex problems, showed that human-like intelligence and expressive language (absent in monkeys) function independently.

Research method

Levels of formation of thought in a word

The relation of thought to word is not constant; This process, movement from thought to word and back, the formation of thought in the word. Vygotsky describes “the complex structure of any real thought process and its associated complex flow from the first, most vague moment of the origin of a thought to its final completion in verbal formulation,” highlighting the following levels:

Motivation of thought Thought Inner speech Semantic plan (that is, the meaning of external words) External speech. Egocentric speech: against Piaget

Vygotsky-Sakharov Study

Everyday and scientific concepts

Exploring the development of concepts in childhood, L. S. Vygotsky wrote about everyday (spontaneous) And scientific concepts (“Thinking and Speech”, Chapter 6).

When using spontaneous concepts, a child for a long time (up to 11-12 years) is aware only of the object to which they point, but not the concepts themselves, not their meaning. This is expressed in the absence of the ability “to verbally define a concept, to be able to give its verbal formulation in other words, to arbitrarily use this concept when establishing complex logical relationships between concepts.”

Vygotsky suggested that the development of spontaneous and scientific concepts goes in opposite directions: spontaneous - towards a gradual awareness of their meaning, scientific - in the opposite direction, because “precisely in the sphere where the concept of “brother” turns out to be a strong concept, that is, in the sphere of spontaneous use, its application to countless specific situations, the richness of its empirical content and connection with personal experience, the student’s scientific concept reveals its weakness. Analysis of the child’s spontaneous concept convinces us that the child has become much more aware of the object than the concept itself. Analysis of a scientific concept convinces us that the child at the very beginning is much better aware of the concept itself than the object represented in it.”

Developmental and educational psychology

Vygotsky proposed a new periodization of the human life cycle, which was based on the alternation of stable periods of development and crises. Crises are characterized by revolutionary changes, the criterion of which is the emergence neoplasms. The reason for the psychological crisis, according to Vygotsky, lies in the growing discrepancy between the developing psyche of the child and the unchanged social situation of development, and it is precisely at the restructuring of this situation that a normal crisis is aimed.

Thus, each stage of life opens with a crisis (accompanied by the appearance of certain neoplasms), followed by a period of stable development, when the development of new formations occurs.

Newborn crisis (0-2 months)

· Infancy (2 months - 1 year)

Crisis of one year

· Early childhood (1-3 years)

Crisis of three years

· Preschool age(3-7 years)

Seven Years Crisis

· Junior school age (8-12 years old)

Thirteen Year Crisis

· Adolescence (puberty) period (12-16 years)

Seventeen Year Crisis

Vygotsky, apparently, was the first in psychology to approach the consideration of the psychological crisis as a necessary stage in the development of the human psyche, revealing its positive meaning.

Significant contribution to educational psychology is the concept introduced by Vygotsky zone of proximal development. The zone of proximal development is “an area of unripe but maturing processes”, encompassing tasks that a child at a given level of development cannot cope with on his own, but which he can solve with the help of an adult; this is a level that the child reaches so far only during joint activities with an adult.

Vygotsky's influence

Vygotsky’s cultural-historical theory gave birth to the largest school in Soviet psychology, from which came A. N. Leontiev, A. R. Luria, A. V. Zaporozhets, L. I. Bozhovich, P. Ya. Galperin, D. B. Elkonin , P. I. Zinchenko, L. V. Zankov and others.

In the 1970s, Vygotsky's theories began to attract interest in American psychology. In the next decade, all of Vygotsky's main works were translated and, along with Piaget, formed the basis of modern educational psychology in the United States. In European psychology, Laszlo Garai also developed problems social psychology(social identity) and economic psychology (second modernization) within the framework of Vygotsky’s theory. The name of the Soviet psychologist is associated with the emergence of social constructivism.

Questions of theory and history of psychology.

The first volume includes a number of works by the outstanding Soviet psychologist L. S. Vygotsky, devoted to the methodological foundations of scientific psychology and analyzing the history of the development of psychological thought in our country and abroad. This includes the first published work “The Historical Meaning of the Psychological Crisis*, which represents, as it were, a synthesis of Vygotsky’s ideas regarding the special methodology of Psychological Cognition.

Collected Works in 6 volumes. Volume 2. Problems of general psychology

In the second volume of the Collected Works of L.S. Vygotsky includes works containing the author's basic psychological ideas. This includes the famous monograph “Thinking and Speech,” which represents the summary of Vygotsky’s work. The volume also includes lectures on psychology.

This volume directly continues and develops the range of ideas presented in the first volume of the Collected Works.

Collected Works in 6 volumes. Volume 3. Problems of mental development

The third volume includes the main theoretical study of L.S. Vygotsky on the problems of development of higher mental functions. The volume included both previously published and new materials. The author considers the development of higher psychological functions (attention, memory, thinking, speech, arithmetic operations, higher forms of volitional behavior; the child’s personality and worldview) as the transition of “natural” functions to “cultural” ones, which occurs during the child’s communication with an adult on the basis of mediation these functions by speech and other sign structures.

Collected Works in 6 volumes. Volume 4. Child psychology

In addition to the well-known monograph “Pedology of the Adolescent” from the previous publication, the volume includes chapters from the works “Problems of Age”, “Infancy”, published for the first time, as well as a number of special articles.

Collected Works in 6 volumes. Volume 4. Part 2. The problem of age

The volume is devoted to the main problems of child psychology: general issues of periodization of childhood, the transition from one age period to another, characteristic features development in certain periods of childhood, etc.

In addition to the well-known monograph “Pedology of the Adolescent” from the previous publication, the volume includes chapters from the works “Problems of Age” and “Infancy” published for the first time.

Collected Works in 6 volumes. Volume 6. Scientific heritage

The volume includes previously unpublished works: “The Doctrine of Emotions (the Doctrine of Descartes and Spinoza on the Passions),” which is a theoretical and historical study of a number of philosophical, psychological and physiological concepts about the patterns and neuromechanisms of human emotional life; “Tools and Signs in the Development of a Child,” covering the problems of the formation of practical intelligence, the role of speech in instrumental actions, the functions of sign operations in the organization of mental processes.

A detailed bibliography of the works of L. S. Vygotsky is presented, as well as literature about him.

Imagination and creativity in childhood

The psychological and pedagogical foundations of development are considered creative imagination children. First published in 1930 and republished by Prosveshchenie in 1967, this work has not lost its relevance and practical value.

The book is equipped with a special afterword, which evaluates the works of L.S. Vygotsky. areas of children's creativity.

Thinking and speech

The classic work of Lev Semenovich Vygotsky occupies a special place in the series on psycholinguistics. This is the work that actually founded psycholinguistic science itself, although even its name was not yet known. This edition of “Thinking and Speech” offers the most authentic version of the text, untouched by later editorial revisions.

Main trends of modern psychology

The authors of the collection present and develop views on the psychology of the victorious clan of anti-mechanists in Soviet philosophy and openly support the positions of A.M.’s group. Deborin, who monopolized the study of philosophy in the country for almost the entire 1930.

However, already at the end of 1930, Deborin and his group were criticized for “Menshevik idealism” and were removed from the leadership of philosophy in the country. As a result of this criticism and the campaign to fight on two fronts against mechanism (leftist excess) and “Menshevik idealism” (right excess), this publication became inaccessible and rare.

Basics of defectology

The book includes those published in the 20-30s. works devoted to theoretical and practical issues of defectology: monograph " General issues defectology", a number of articles, reports and speeches. Children with visual, hearing, etc. defects can and should be raised so that they feel like full and active members of society - this is the leading idea in the works of L. S. Vygotsky.

Pedagogical psychology

The book contains the main scientific principles of the largest Russian psychologist Lev Semenovich Vygotsky (1896-1934), concerning the connection between psychology and pedagogy, the education of attention, thinking, and emotions in children.

It examines the psychological and pedagogical problems of labor and aesthetic education schoolchildren, taking into account their giftedness and individual characteristics in the process of training and education. Particular attention is paid to the study of the personality of schoolchildren and the role of psychological knowledge in teaching work.

The problem of a child's cultural development

In the process of its development, a child learns not only the content of cultural experience, but also techniques and forms of cultural behavior, cultural ways of thinking. In the development of a child’s behavior, therefore, two main lines should be distinguished. One is the line of natural development of behavior, closely related to the processes of general organic growth and maturation of the child. The other is the line of cultural improvement of psychological functions, the development of new ways of thinking, and the mastery of cultural means of behavior.

For example, an older child can remember better and more than a child younger age for two completely different reasons. Memorization processes were carried out during this period famous development, they rose to a higher level, but which of the two lines this development of memory followed - this can only be revealed with the help of psychological analysis.

Psychology

The book contains all the main works of the outstanding Russian scientist, one of the most authoritative and famous psychologists, Lev Semenovich Vygotsky.

The structural construction of the book is made taking into account the program requirements for the courses “General Psychology” and “Developmental Psychology” of psychological faculties of universities. For students, teachers and everyone interested in psychology.

Psychology of art

The book by the outstanding Soviet scientist L. S. Vygotsky, “The Psychology of Art,” was published in its first edition in 1965, the second in 1968, and won universal recognition. In it, the author summarizes his work from 1915 to 1922 and at the same time prepares those new psychological ideas that made up Vygotsky’s main contribution to science. “Psychology of Art” is one of the fundamental works characterizing the development of Soviet theory and art

1896-1934) - famous in world psychology of owls. psychologist. The greatest fame was brought to V. by the cultural and historical concept of the development of higher mental functions he created, the theoretical and empirical potential of which has not yet been exhausted (which can be said about almost all other aspects of V.’s creativity). IN early period creativity (until 1925) V. developed the problems of the psychology of art, believing that the objective structure of a work of art evokes in the subject at least two opposing affects, the contradiction between which is resolved in catharsis, which underlies aesthetic reactions. A little later, V. develops problems of methodology and theory of psychology (“The Historical Meaning of the Psychological Crisis”), outlines a program for constructing a concrete scientific methodology of psychology based on the philosophy of Marxism (see Causal-dynamic analysis). For 10 years, V. was engaged in defectology, creating in Moscow a laboratory for the psychology of abnormal childhood (1925-1926), which later became an integral part of the Experimental Defectology Institute (EDI), and developing qualitatively new theory development of an abnormal child. IN final stage In his creative work he dealt with the problems of the relationship between thinking and speech, the development of meanings in ontogenesis, the problems of egocentric speech, etc. (“Thinking and Speech”, 1934). In addition, he developed problems of the systemic and semantic structure of consciousness and self-awareness, the unity of affect and intellect, various problems of child psychology (see Zone of proximal development, Learning and development), problems of mental development in phylo- and sociogenesis, the problem of cerebral localization of higher mental functions and many etc.

He had a significant influence on domestic and world psychology and other sciences related to psychology (pedology, pedagogy, defectology, linguistics, art history, philosophy, semiotics, neuroscience, cognitive science, cultural anthropology, systems approach and etc.). V.’s first and closest students were A. R. Luria and A. N. Leontiev (“troika”), later they were joined by L. I. Bozhovich, A. V. Zaporozhets, R. E. Levina, N. G. Morozova, L.S. Slavina (“five”), who created their original psychological concepts. V.'s ideas are developed by his followers in many countries of the world. (E. E. Sokolova.)

Added ed.: Main works of V.: Collection. op. in 6 vols. (1982-1984); "Educational Psychology" (1926); "Sketches on the History of Behavior" (1930; co-authored with Luria); "The Psychology of Art" (1965). The best biographical book about V.: G. L. Vygodskaya, T. M. Lifanova. "Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky" (1996). See also Instrumentalism, Intellectualization, Interiorization, Cultural-historical psychology, Double stimulation method, Functionalism, Experimental genetic method for studying mental development.

VYGOTSKY Lev Semenovich

Lev Semenovich (1896-1934) - Russian psychologist who made a great scientific contribution to the field of general and educational psychology, philosophy and theory of psychology, developmental psychology, psychology of art, and defectology. Author of the cultural-historical theory of behavior and development of the human psyche. Professor (1928). Having graduated from the Faculty of Law of the First State Moscow University and at the same time from the Faculty of History and Philology of the People's University A.L. Shanyavsky (1913-1917), taught from 1918 to 1924 at several institutes in Gomel (Belarus). He played an important role in the literary and cultural life of this city. Even in the pre-revolutionary period, V. wrote a treatise on Hamlet, which contains existential motifs about the eternal sorrow of existence. He organized a psychological laboratory at the Gomel Pedagogical School and began work on the manuscript of a textbook on psychology for secondary school teachers (Pedagogical Psychology. Short course, 1926). He was an uncompromising supporter of natural science psychology, focused on the teachings of I.M. Sechenov and I.P. Pavlov, which he considered the foundation for building a new system of ideas about the determination of human behavior, including in the perception of works of art. In 1924, V. moved to Moscow and became an employee of the Institute of Psychology of Moscow State University, of which K.I. was appointed director. Kornilov and who was given the task of restructuring psychology on the basis of the philosophy of Marxism. In 1925, V. published the article Consciousness as a problem in the psychology of behavior (Collected Psychology and Marxism, L.-M., 1925) and wrote the book Psychology of Art, in which he summarizes his work of 1915-1922. (published in 1965 and 1968). He subsequently returned to the topic of art only in 1932 in a single article, dedicated to creativity actor (and from the standpoint of socio-historical understanding of the human psyche). From 1928 to 1932 V. worked at the Academy of Communist Education named after. N.K. Krupskaya, where he created a psychological laboratory at the faculty, the dean of which was A.R. Luria. During this period, V.'s interests concentrated around pedology, which he tried to give the status of a separate discipline and conducted research in this direction (Pedology of the Adolescent, 1929-1931). Together with B.E. Warsaw published the first domestic Psychological Dictionary (M., 1931). However, political pressure on Soviet psychology was increasing. The works of V. and other psychologists were subjected to sharp criticism in the press and at conferences from an ideological position, which made it very difficult to further develop research and introduce it into pedagogical practice. In 1930, the Ukrainian Psychoneurological Academy was founded in Kharkov, where A.N. Leontyev and A.R. Luria. V. often visited them, but did not leave Moscow, because During this period, he established relations with the Leningrad State University. In the last 2-3 years of his life, he began to formulate the theory child development, creating the theory of the zone of proximal development. Over ten years of his journey in psychological science, V. created a new scientific direction, the basis of which is the doctrine of the socio-historical nature of human consciousness. At the beginning of his scientific career, he believed that new psychology was called upon to integrate with reflexology into a single science. Later, V. condemns reflexology for dualism, since, ignoring consciousness, it took it beyond the limits of the bodily mechanism of behavior. In the article Consciousness as a problem of behavior (1925), he outlined a plan for the study of mental functions, based on their role as indispensable regulators of behavior, which in humans includes speech components. Based on K. Marx’s position on the difference between instinct and consciousness, V. proves that thanks to work, experience is doubled and a person acquires the ability to build twice: first in thoughts, then in deeds. Understanding the word as an action (first a speech complex, then a speech reaction), V. sees in the word a special sociocultural mediator between the individual and the world. He attaches special importance to its sign nature, due to which the structure of a person’s mental life qualitatively changes and his mental functions (perception, memory, attention, thinking) from elementary become higher. Interpreting the signs of language as mental tools, which, unlike tools of labor, do not change physical world, and the consciousness of the subject operating them, V. proposed an experimental program for studying how, thanks to these structures, a system of higher mental functions develops. This program was successfully carried out by him together with the team of employees who formed School B. The center of interests of this school was the cultural development of the child. Along with normal children, V. paid great attention to abnormal ones (suffering from defects of vision, hearing, mental retardation), becoming the founder of a special science - defectology, in the development of which he defended humanistic ideals. V. outlined the first version of his theoretical generalizations concerning the patterns of development of the psyche in ontogenesis in the work Development of Higher Mental Functions, written by him in 1931. This work presented a scheme for the formation human psyche in the process of using signs as a means of regulating mental activity - first in the external interaction of the individual with other people, and then the transition of this process from the outside to the inside, as a result of which the subject gains the ability to control his own behavior (this process was called interiorization). In subsequent works by V. focuses on the study of the meaning of a sign, that is, on the associated (mainly intellectual) content. Thanks to this new approach, he, together with his students, developed an experimentally substantiated theory of child mental development, embodied in his main work Thinking and Speech (1934). He closely connected these studies with the problem of learning and its impact on mental development, covering a wide range of problems of great practical importance. Among the ideas he put forward in this regard, the position on the zone of proximal development gained particular popularity, according to which only that teaching is effective that runs ahead of development, as if pulling it along with it, revealing the child’s ability to solve, with the participation of the teacher, those tasks that he can independently solve. can't cope. V. attached great importance to the crises that a child experiences during the transition from one age level to another in the development of a child. Mental development was interpreted by V. as inseparably linked with motivational (in his terminology, affective), therefore, in his research, he affirmed the principle of the unity of affect and intelligence, but he was prevented from implementing a research program analyzing this principle of development early death. Only preparatory work in the form of a large manuscript, The Doctrine of Emotions. A historical and psychological study, the main content of which is the analysis of the Passions of the Soul by R. Descartes - a work that, according to V., determines the ideological appearance of modern psychology of feelings with its dualism of lower and higher emotions. V. believed that the prospect of overcoming dualism was contained in the Ethics of V. Spinoza, but V. did not show how it would be possible to rebuild psychology based on Spinoza’s philosophy. V.'s works were distinguished by a high methodological culture. The presentation of specific experimental and theoretical problems was invariably accompanied by philosophical reflection. This was most clearly reflected both in works on thinking, speech, emotions, and in the analysis of the ways of development of psychology and the causes of its crisis at the beginning of the 20th century. V. believed that the crisis has a historical meaning. His manuscript, which was first published only in 1982, although the work was written in 1927, was called - The historical meaning of the psychological crisis. This meaning, as V. believed, was that the disintegration of psychology into separate directions, each of which presupposes its own, incompatible with the others, understanding of the subject and methods of psychology is natural. Overcoming this tendency towards the disintegration of science into many separate sciences requires the creation of a special discipline of general psychology as a doctrine of basic general concepts and explanatory principles that allow this science to maintain its unity. For these purposes, the philosophical principles of psychology must be rebuilt and this science must be freed from spiritualistic influences, from the version according to which the main method in it should be an intuitive understanding of spiritual values, and not an objective analysis of the nature of the individual and his experiences. In this regard, V. outlines (also unrealized, like many of his other plans) a project for developing psychology in terms of drama. He writes that personality dynamics are drama. Drama is expressed in external behavior when there is a clash between people playing different roles on the stage of life. Internally, drama is associated, for example, with a conflict between reason and feeling, when the mind and heart are not in harmony. Although V.’s early death did not allow him to implement many promising programs, his ideas, which revealed the mechanisms and laws of the cultural development of the individual, the development of his mental functions (attention, speech, thinking, affects), outlined a fundamentally new approach to the fundamental issues of the formation of this personality. This has significantly enriched the practice of teaching and raising normal and abnormal children. V.'s ideas received wide resonance in all sciences that study man, including linguistics, psychiatry, ethnography, sociology, etc. They defined an entire stage in the development of humanities in Russia and still retain their heuristic potential. Proceedings.V published in Collected Works in 6 volumes - M, Pedagogy, 1982 - 1984, as well as in the books: Structural Psychology, M., Moscow State University, 1972; Problems of defectology, M., Education, 1995; Lectures on pedology, 1933-1934, Izhevsk, 1996; Psychology, M., 2000. L.A. Karpenko, M.G. Yaroshevsky

Moscow State Institute of Experimental Psychology (1924-1928),
State Institute of Scientific Pedagogy (GINP) at LGPI and at LGPI named after. A. I. Herzen (both in 1927-1934),
Academy of Communist Education (AKV) (1929-1931),
2nd Moscow State University (1927-1930), and after the reorganization of the 2nd Moscow State University - into Moscow State Pedagogical Institute named after. A. S. Bubnova (1930-1934),
State Scientific Institute for the Health of Children and Adolescents named after the 10th anniversary of the October Revolution (from the beginning of 1931 as deputy director of the institute for scientific affairs), as well as in the one founded with his active participation
Experimental Defectology Institute (1929-1934);
also gave courses of lectures at a number of educational institutions and research organizations in Moscow, Leningrad, Kharkov and Tashkent, for example, at the Central Asian State University (SASU) (in 1929).

Family and relatives

Parents - Simkha (Semyon) Yakovlevich Vygodsky (1869-1931) and Tsilya (Cecilia) Moiseevna Vygodskaya (1874-1935).

Wife - Rosa Noevna Smekhova.

Gita Lvovna Vygodskaya (1925-2010) - Soviet psychologist and defectologist, candidate of psychological sciences, co-author of the biography “L. S. Vygotsky. Touches to the portrait" (1996); her daughter is Elena Evgenievna Kravtsova, Doctor of Psychology, Director of the Institute of Psychology named after. L. S. Vygotsky RSUH
Asya Lvovna Vygodskaya (born 1930).

Other relatives:

Claudia Semyonovna Vygodskaya (sister) - linguist, author of Russian-French and French-Russian dictionaries.
Zinaida Semyonovna Vygodskaya (sister) - linguist, author of Russian-English and English-Russian dictionaries.
David Isaakovich Vygodsky (1893-1943) (cousin) - a prominent poet, literary critic, translator (his wife is children's writer Emma Iosifovna Vygodskaya).

Chronology of the most important life events

1924 - report at a psychoneurological congress, moving from Gomel to Moscow
1925 - defense of the dissertation Psychology of Art (November 5, 1925, due to illness, without defense, Vygotsky was awarded the title of senior researcher, equivalent to the modern degree of Candidate of Sciences; the contract for the publication of Psychology of Art was signed on November 9, 1925, but the book was never published under Vygotsky's life)
1925 - first and only trip abroad: sent to London for a defectology conference; On the way to England, I passed through Germany and France, where I met with local psychologists
1925-1930 - member of the Russian Psychoanalytic Society (RPSAO)
1927 - employee of the Institute of Psychology in Moscow, works with such prominent scientists as Luria, Bernstein, Artemov, Dobrynin, Leontyev
1929 - International Psychological Congress at Yale University; Luria presented two reports, one of which was co-authored with Vygotsky; Vygotsky himself did not go to the congress
1929, spring - Vygotsky lectures in Tashkent
1931 - entered the Faculty of Medicine at the Ukrainian Psychoneurological Academy in Kharkov, where he studied in absentia together with Luria
1931 - father's death
1932, December - report on consciousness, formal divergence from Leontiev’s group in Kharkov
1933, February-May - Kurt Lewin stops in Moscow while passing from the USA (via Japan), meeting with Vygotsky
1934, May 9 - Vygotsky was placed on bed rest
1934, June 11 - death

Scientific contribution

Cultural-historical theory

The difference between signs and tools, which also mediate higher mental functions and cultural behavior, is that tools are aimed “outward”, at transforming reality, and signs are “inward”, first at transforming other people, then at managing one’s own behavior. The word is a means of voluntary direction of attention, abstraction of properties and their synthesis into meaning (formation of concepts), voluntary control of one’s own mental operations.

Thinking and speech

According to Vygotsky, the genetic roots of thinking and speech are different.

The relation of thought to word is not constant; This is a process, movement from thought to word and back, the formation of thought in word. Vygotsky describes “the complex structure of any real thought process and its associated complex flow from the first, most vague moment of the origin of a thought to its final completion in verbal formulation,” highlighting the following levels:

Motivation thoughts
Thought
Inner speech
Semantic plan (that is, the meanings of external words)
External speech.

Exploring the development of concepts in childhood, L. S. Vygotsky wrote about everyday (spontaneous) and scientific concepts (“Thinking and Speech,” Chapter 6).

Developmental and educational psychology

Vygotsky’s works examined in detail the problem of the relationship between the roles of maturation and learning in the development of a child’s higher mental functions. Thus, he formulated the most important principle, according to which the preservation and timely maturation of brain structures is a necessary, but not sufficient condition for the development of higher mental functions. The main source for this development is the changing social environment, to describe which Vygotsky introduced the term social situation of development, defined as “a peculiar, age-specific, exclusive, unique and inimitable relationship between the child and the reality around him, primarily social.” It is this relationship that determines the course of development of the child’s psyche at a certain age stage.

Vygotsky proposed a new periodization of the human life cycle, which was based on the alternation of stable periods of development and crises. Crises are characterized by revolutionary changes, the criterion of which is the emergence of new formations. The reason for the psychological crisis, according to Vygotsky, lies in the growing discrepancy between the developing psyche of the child and the unchanged social situation of development, and it is precisely at the restructuring of this situation that a normal crisis is aimed.

Thus, each stage of life opens with a crisis (accompanied by the appearance of certain neoplasms), followed by a period of stable development, when the development of new formations occurs.

Newborn crisis (0-2 months)

Infancy (2 months - 1 year)

Crisis of one year

Early childhood (1-3 years)

Crisis of three years

Preschool age (3-7 years)

Seven Years Crisis

School age (8-12 years old)

Thirteen Year Crisis

Adolescence (puberty) period (14-17 years)

Seventeen Year Crisis

Youth period (17-21 years)

A significant contribution to educational psychology is the concept of the zone of proximal development introduced by Vygotsky. The zone of proximal development is “an area of unripe but maturing processes”, encompassing tasks that a child at a given level of development cannot cope with on his own, but which he can solve with the help of an adult; This is a level reached by a child only through joint activities with an adult.

Vygotsky's influence

Vygotsky’s cultural-historical theory gave birth to the largest school in Soviet psychology, from which came