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Barrier, Semantic

Barrier, Semantic, an incongruity of meanings in the demands, requests, orders, etc., as understood by partners in communication (1), resulting in hindrance to their mutual understanding and interaction. For instance, B.,S. in adultchild relationships arises because a child, though finding the adults’s demands justified, would not accept them because they are alien to his experience, views, attitudes, and system of personalised meanings.

Barriers, Psychological

Barriers, Psychological, mental states manifested in the subject’s inadequate passivity which prevents him from performing certain actions. The emotional mechanism of B.,P. consists in intensified negative emotional experiences and attitudes—shame, feeling of guilt, fear, anxiety, and low self-appraisal, etc.—all associated with a given task (e.g. stage fright). In an individual’s social behaviour, B.,P. are represented by communicative barrier [ barriers in communication (1)], which are manifested in the absence of empathy, regidity of interpersonal social attitudes, and also in semantic barriers (see Barrier, Semantic).

Behaviour

Behaviour, interaction with the ambient environment, inherent in living creatures and mediated by their external (motor) and inner (psychic) activeness. The term "B." is applicable both to individual species and their aggregations (B. of a biological species and B. of a social group). Initial attemps to scientifically comprehend B. were based on mechanistic determinism, whose categories interpreted B. as analogous to interaction of physical bodies. The evolutionary teaching in biology (Charles Darwin) allowed to explain the purposeful nature of B. of living creatures by intensely developing objective methods of B. examination in unity with its external and internal manifestations. The teaching on the higher nervous activity of animals (the Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov considered it to be synonymous to B.) developed on the basis of biological determinism. 36 Behaviourism contrasted B. to consciousness, assuming B., reduced to a set of motor responses to external stimuli, to be the only subject of psychology. Subsequently, the proponents of behaviourism introduced amendments into this scheme (see Neobehaviourism). In Soviet psychology, human B. is interpreted as activity with natural premises, but basically conditioned socially by language and other symbol and semantic systems, labour being the typical form of that activity, and communication (1) its attribute. The peculiarity of personal B. would depend on the nature of the individual’s relationships with groups of which he is member, and on group norms, value orientations, and role prescriptions. Inadequate B. (manifesting itself, among other things, in overestimation by the individual of his potentials, splitting of verbal and real plans, and weakened criticalability in controlling the implementation of the B. programme) negatively affects interpersonal relations. B. is studied not only by psychology, but also by other biological and social sciences, and in some aspects by cybernetics as well.

Behaviour, Aggressive

Behaviour, Aggressive, a specific form of human action characterised by display of superiority in or use of strength towards another person or group of persons to whom the subject in question seeks to do damage. B.,A. may vary in intensity and form, ranging from display of hostility to offensive language ("verbal aggression") and use of brute physical force ("physical aggression"). In socio-psychological terms, summation of individual B.,A., i.e. transformation of interpersonal aggression into intergroup aggression within the framework of so-called mass phenomena, is essentially significant. West European and US psychologists give numerous explanations of B.,A. For instance, psychoanalysts see it as a manifestation of the Aedipus complex, the result of suppressed instinctive libidinal (see Libido) drives in early childhood (Sigmund Freud). N eobehaviourism believes B.,A. to be caused by frustrations experienced by the individual in the course of " social learning" (John Dollard, Neal Miller, Albert Bandura, and Leonard Berkowitz). Interactionism, asserts that it is the result of an objective "conflict of interests", "incompatibility of goals" of individuals and social group’s (Donald Campbell and Muzafer Sherif). Cognitivism sees it as the result of “dissonances” and “ incongruencies” in the subject’s cognitive sphere (Leon Festinger) (see Cognitive Balance, Theories of). There are also open attempts to explain B.,A. as biologically-conditioned and purely instinctive (Konrad Lorenz). Despite the explanations of B.,A. proposed by Western psychologists, they prove unsatisfactory because they tend to ignore the distinctions between the social nature of man and biologically-conditioned animal behaviour, and to often interpret behaviour motivations in an overtly idealistic way. To understand the origin of specific B.,A. manifestations, one must establish the place of B.,A. within the overall structure of individual and collective activity, e.g. to 37 show whether an aggressive act is either an inadequate defence reaction, or has an independent purpose and meaning to i urn into a specific individual or collective activity (in cases of so-called deviant behaviour).

Behaviour, Field

Behaviour, Field, a subject’s prevalent orientation to situationally meaningful objects of perceived surroundings, in contrast to orientation to a chosen goal of activity; a set of impulsive responses to environmental stimuli. B.,F. is observed in early childhood, and also in certain disorders of self-control in adults.

Behaviourism

Behaviourism, an orientation in 20 thcentury US psychology that rejects consciousness as a subject of research and reduces psyche to various forms of behaviour understood as a set of body reactions to environmental stimuli. In the fate 19th and early 20th century the previously dominant introspective "psychology of the mind" (see Introspective Psychology) was found to be unsound, particularly in solving problems related to thinking and motivation. The existence of mental processes unrealised by man and inaccessible to introspection was experimentally proved. In studying animal responses by means of labyrinths, problem cages, devices for examining discriminating power, (see Methods of Animal psychology), Edward Thorndike established that the problem could be solved by the trial and error method, which he interpreted as a “blind” selection of random movements. He also applied this conclusion to man’s learning processes, and Behaviourists denied that in this case human behaviour differed qualitatively from animal behaviour. At the same time, the Russian physiologists Ivan Pavlov and Vladimir Bekhterev further developed Ivan Sechenov’s ideas and elaborated experimental methods for objective examination of animal and human behaviour. Their works significantly influenced the Behaviourists, but the latter interpreted them in the spirit of extreme mechanicism. The first behaviourist programme, formulated by the US psychologist John Watson, appeared in 1913. Subsequently, B. came to involve the "physical monism" of Albert Weiss, the “ anthroponomy” of Walter Hunter, the views of Karl Lashley, etc. Proceeding from the fact that consciousness is allegedly inaccessible to objective study, B. rejects its role as a regulator of human activity. B. reduces all psychic phenomena to chiefly locomotor responses of the organism, while identifying thinking with speech articulation, emotions with visceral changes, etc. In this case, the stimulus-response relationship is taken for a behavioural unit. According to B., the laws of behaviour fixate relations between what is happening at the “input” (stimulus) and “output” (locomotor response) of an organism. In line with the positivist methodology, B. regards both mental and physiological processes in that system as scientifically non-analysable, since they cannot be directly observed. B.’s principal method is observation and experimental study of body responses to environmental effects so as to reveal 38 mathematically describable correlations between the two variables. Behaviourists performed most of their experiments on animals (chiefly on white rats) to subsequently apply all established regularities to human beings. At the same time, they ignored body activeness and the role of its psychological organisation in transforming the environment, and also man’s social nature. Behaviourist ideas influenced linguistics, anthropology, sociology, and semiotics and became a source of cybernetics. Behaviourists made a substantial contribution to the development of empirical and mathematical methods for studying behaviour, and to posing a number of psychological problems, especially those relating to learning, whereby the organism acquires new forms of behaviour. B.’s main contribution to the development of conceptual system of psychology (see Categorisation) was in elaborating the category of action previously regarded only as an internal act or process, whereas B. expanded the sphere of psychology by also including outward bodily responses in that category. Yet, due to methodological drawbacks in the initial B. postulates, already in the 1920s it began to break up into a number of trends combining the mainstream doctrine with elements of other theories, e.g. Gestalt psychology and psychoanalysis and this gave rise to neobehaviourism. B.’s evolution showed that its initial principles cannot stimulate progress of scientific knowledge about behaviour. Even psychologists educated on these principles are coming to the conclusion that they are unsound, and that there is a need to include the concepts of image, inner (“mental”) aspect of behaviour, etc. in the main explanatory concepts of psychology, and to also refer to the physiological mechanisms of behaviour. At present, or.ly few US psychologists (Burrhus Skinner and his school being most consistent and irreconcilable) continue to defend the postulates of orthodox B.

Behaviour Therapy

Behaviour Therapy, a method of psychotherapy based on the principles of behaviourism (widespread in the United States). B.T. regards mental and emotional disorders as disturbed individual adjustment to existing conditions. B.T. is designed to form habits that would facilitate conforming human adjustment to reality. The difference between normal and abnormal behaviour is determined merely by the degree of individual adjustment. Hence, any disagreement with social conditions and any action against them are also interpreted as “anomalies” which, like neuroses, need to be corrected therapeutically. In equating psychopathologic phenomena and actions against the injustices of capitalist society, B.T. is an ideologically reactionary theory. At present, the notion "behaviour modification" is quite often substituted for the concept of B.T.

Belief

Belief, a realised personal need prompting the individual to act in accord with his value orientation. The need’s content expressed in the form of B. essentially reflects a definite understanding of nature and society. Forming a structured system of political, 39 philosophical, aesthetic, natural-science, and other views, the totality of B’s takes the form of individual world outlook. The presence of stable B’s with elements of communist world outlook is indicative of the individual’s high level of activeness under the socialist system, the measure of this activeness being the organic unity of knowledge, B’s and practical actions.

Bias

Bias, an attitude that prevents adequate perception of a given communication or action. As a rule, people either do not realise that they are biased, or are reluctant to do so, and regard their attitudes towards an object of B. as the result of objective and independent assessments of certain facts. B. may result from hasty and unfounded conclusions based on personal experience (see Stereotype, Social), and also from uncritical assimilation of standardised judgements that have been accepted in a given social group (prejudice). People often use B. to justify unseemly actions.

Biogenetic Law (in psychology)

Biogenetic Law (in psychology), extrapolation to child’s mental development of the correlations between ontogenesis (individual development of organisms) and phylogenesis (historical development of organisms) established by the German naturalists Fritz Miiller and Ernst Haeckel. This approach incorrectly asserts that the ontogenesis of child’s mind reproduces the basic stages of biological evolution and the stages of human cultural development (James Baldwin, Karl Biihler, Stanley Hall, William Stern et al.). As a result, the proponents of this view maintain that a child’s psychological development is predetermined, and ignore the concrete historical nature of this process and its dependence on the forms and ways in which the child communicates with the environment ( primarily with adults), and on the nature and substance of his own activity (see Developmental Psychology).

Boomerang Effect

Boomerang Effect, a socio- psychological phenomenon manifesting itself in the fact that, in receiving and assessing information aimed to change an individual’s social attitudes, judgements and opinions, the said individual not only sticks to his original views, but also becomes even more convinced in their correctness. B.E. occurs most frequently when persons to whom information is addressed show manifest hostility towards its source or towards the person who transmits it, and also when people are forcibly compelled to lengthily perceive information in which they are totally disinterested.

Bouguer-Weber Law (sometimes called Weber’s Law)

Bouguer-Weber Law (sometimes called Weber’s Law), a directly proportional dependence of differential threshold (see Sensation Threshold) A/ on stimulus intensity 7, to which a given sensory system is adapted (see Adaptation, Sensory):  j- = k (const.). The dependence serves to distinguish between univariate sensory irritants. The coefficient k, which has been termed the Weber factor, differs for various sensory irritants: 0.003 for sound pitch; 0.02 for visible clarity; 0.09 for sound loudness, etc. It establishes the level the stimulus should 40 be increased or decreased to in order to obtain a hardly discernable change in sensation. This dependence was established in the 18th century by the French scientist Pierre Bouguer, and studied subsequently in detail by the German physiologist Ernst Weber. The Fechner Law (see Weber-Fechner Law) developed and to a certain extent interpreted B.-W.L.

Brain

Brain, the central part of the nervous system of men and animals, the main organ of psyche. In vertebrate animals and man, distinction is made between the spinal cord (situated in the spinal canal) and cerebrum (in the cranium). B. is covered by three membranes— hard, arachnoid and vascular. The B. tissue consists of grey (accumulation of nerve cells) and white ( accumulation primarily of nerve-cell appendages) matter. The spinal cord is divided into four parts: cervical, thoracic, lumbar and sacral, and also into segments (altogether 31 to 33). The continuation of the spinal cord in the cranium is a medulla. The cerebrum consists of a stem and the forebrain. The latter is divided into two hemispheres—right and left—by a central fissure. The main mass of the hemispheres of the big (fore) B. is comprised of subcortical (or basal) nuclei, and also of subcortical white matter. The hemispheres of big B. are covered with a layer of grey matter—the cortex. From the viewpoint of psychology we cannot speak of “localisation” of a separate psychological function in one or another area of B. Psychological functions represent functional systems operating through the joint work of the ensemble of the B. zones. Moreover, Alexander Luria distinguished three main blocks in the B. of man:
(1) tonus block of the cortex (energy block of the brain); the sources of tonus are both the inflow of information from the outside world and impulses from the internal medium;
(2) the block of the reception, processing and storage of information comprising the mechanisms situated in the back parts of the brain cortex, and, as distinct from the mechanisms of the first block, possessing modal-specific characteristics (visual, audio or tactile information); each zone of the cortex included in this block, which is built on an hierarchical pattern, consists of three levels: the primary zones carry out the function of dividing (analysis) of incoming information; the secondary zones carry out the function of uniting (synthesis) or complex processing of the information received by the subject; the tertiary zones serve for combining the information received from individual analysers; (3) the block of programming, regulating and controlling activity, which includes mechanisms situated in the front lobes of the big hemispheres, in which the leading place is occupied by the forehead parts of big B. This block is also built on the hierarchical principle: the primary motor areas carry impulses to definite muscle groups; the secondary ( premotor) areas prepare the release of motor impulses and ensure performance of complex motor (kinetic) “melodies” (motor skills); the tertiary 41 parts of the frontal lobes (well- developed only in man) play a decisive role in creating intentions and forming action programmes which implement these intentions, and in activity control (see also Functional Asymmetry of the Brain).

Brain Biorhythms

Brain Biorhythms, a form of background or spontaneous electrical activity of the brain. A biorhythm represents a regular or rhythmic activity characterised by prolonged recurrence of a given wave with insignificant frequency variation. At a given body state (mental strain, emotional stress, sleep, etc.) one would record B.B. of definite frequency and character. Apart from B.B. distinguished are irregular or arhythmic type of brain activity, which involves waves of different lengths and amplitudes, and paroxysmal activity in the form of groups of waves and complexes whose amplitudes would suddenly rise and fall.

Brain-Storming

Brain-Storming, a method of stimulating creative activeness and productivity, based on the assumption that during the usual methods of discussion and solution of problems the appearrance of innovative ideas is obstructed by control mechanisms of consciousness which fetter the flow of these ideas under the pressure of customary, stereotyped forms of decision-making. An inhibitive influence is also exerted by the fear of failure, fear of looking funny, and others. To remove the effect of these factors a meeting of a group is held, where each member states any thought on the proposed subject without controlling their flow, or assessing them as genuine or false, senseless or strange, etc., endeavouring at the same time to induce others to similar free associations of ideas. After the first round of B.S. the general mass of expressed ideas is analysed in the hope that among them there will be at least a few that contain the most propitious solutions. The method of B.S. was widely used in the 1950s in such countries as the USA and France primarily when discussing the technological problems of planning and forecasting. The practical use of the method led to a sceptical attitude to its efficacy, and experimental psychological testing failed to confirm its superiority in solving creative problems.