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Habituation (in psychophisiology)

Habituation (in psychophisiology), negative training resulting in the absence of reaction to a given
stimulus. Very generally, H. involves a gradual decrease of the reaction magnitude as a result of repeated stimulation. H. differs from fatigue and exhaustion in that the reaction may be evoked again by merely changing the stimulus. H. manifests itself most distinctly in the orientating reflex system.

Hallucinations

Hallucinations, pathological disturbances of perception activity resulting in the perception of objects which at the moment do not affect relevant sense organs. H. arise spontaneously as a consequence of involuntary outward projection of images, and their localisation in time and space which results in their perception as extent.

Halo Effect

Halo Effect, a general impression about the way a person’s actions and personal qualities are perceived under shortage of information about that person. When the initial impression forms and develops, H.E. may take the form of positive bias ("positive halo") and negative bias ("negative halo"). For instance, if the first impression is generally favourable, the person’s entire behaviour and all his features and actions would be reassessed positively to distinguish and exaggerate chiefly positive elements whilst underestimating or ignoring negative ones. If the first general impression about a given person proves negative, then even his positive qualities and actions would subsequently be either totally unnoticed or underestimated against the background of exaggerated attention to his shortcomings. Like many other phenomena of social perception, H.E. is based on mechanisms that allow to categorise, simplify and select social information essential for the success of given activity when there is shortage of relevant evidence.

Harmony in Work

Harmony in Work, a degree of coordination in interindividual interaction during some specific joint activities. H. in W. is characterised by high productivity of jointly working individuals, who are quite satisfied with the process and result of their work.

Hatred

Hatred, a stable and active negative 123 human feeling directed at phenomena that are counter to one’s individual needs, convictions, and values. H. can evoke not only a corresponding assessment of its object, but also high activity aimed against it. The forming of H. is normally preceded by acute dissatisfaction caused by an undesirable course of events, or by systematic accumulation of weaker influences of the source of negative emotional experiences; in such cases, the real or imaginary cause of these events becomes the object of H. In educational practice, the forming of H. is controlled by revealing the essence and causes of undesirable phenomena. To impede the development of undesirable H., the individual counters it with his moral convictions, and also with his awareness that unpleasant events are objectively inevitable. In concrete historical terms, morally justified H. (e.g. H. of the oppressed for their oppressors) plays a markedly positive role to become a meaningful motive for participation in political movements and revolutionary struggle.

Higher Mental Functions

Higher Mental Functions, complex, systems mental processes of social origin that form during one’s lifetime. H.M.F. are a major concept in modern psychology introduced by Lev Vygotsky and further developed by Alexander Luria and other Soviet psychologists. The idea that H.M.F. are socially conditioned mental formations or conscious forms of mental activity is essentially based on the tenets of Marxist psychology concerning the socio-historical origin of human psyche and the leading role of labour in forming human consciousness. As systems, H.M.F. involve highly flexible and interchangeable components. By developing the theory of H.M.F., psychologists could substantiate the tenet concerning the basic possibility of restoring impaired mental functions by restructuring the functional systems that constitute their physiological foundation. In this case, they distinguish intrasystemic and mtersystemic restructuring of functional systems (the transfer of a process to a higher, conscious level; the replacement of a fallen-out link in the functional system with a new one, etc.). The forming of H.M.F. is characterised by the fact that they initially exist as a form of interaction between people, and only later as a totally inner ( intrapsychological) process. The transformation of external functional means into inner psychological ones is termed interiorisation. Another important feature of the development of H.M.F. is that they become gradually “compressed” and automatic. In the initial stages of development, H.M.F. represent a broad form of objective activity that relies on relatively elementary sensory and motor processes; subsequently, this activity is “compressed” to assume the nature of automatised mental actions, and the H.M.F. psychological structure simultaneously changes, too. Psychophysiologically, H.M.F. are based on complex functional systems involving a large number of afferent and efferent links (see Afferent Synthesis; Effectors). Some links in the functional system are strictly “allotted” to definite brain 124 structures, while the rest are highly flexible and interchangeable, this being the factor underlying the restructuring mechanism of the functional system as a whole. Thus, each H.M.F. is associated with the work of not just one "brain centre", and not with the whole brain as a single uniform entity, but is caused by the brain’s systems activity, in which various brain structures are differently involved (see Localisation of Higher Mental Functions).

Historical Psychology

Historical Psychology, see Sociogenesis.

Historiography of Psychology

Historiography of Psychology, the totality of studies whose subject-matter is the history of psychology. In the 19th century, only a few works appeared in this field. In the 20th century, it has evolved into a particular trend which is quite substantially represented abroad in the works by E.Y. Boring (USA), Ludwig Pongratz (FRG), and others. In the USSR, the basic problems of the history of psychology are covered from the standpoint of the Marxist methodology in the studies by Boris Ananyev, Lyudmila Antsyferova, Yelena Budilova, Artur Petrovsky, Boris Teplov, Ovsep Tutunjan, Michail Yaroshevsky, and others. H. of P. sees its task as reconstruction of the past with the aim of working out a general theory of the evolution of psychological ideas, revealing the conditions and causes of this evolution ( sociocultural and personal), the conformity to the laws and methods of obtaining new knowledge on mental reality, the interaction of science and social practice.

History of Psychology

p History of Psychology. The first scientific notions concerning man’s psyche appeared in the ancient world (India, China, Egypt, Babilon, Greece, Georgia) within philosophy as a counterbalance of the religious tenet treating the soul as a particular entity connected with the body in an external and fortuitous manner. The development of these notions stimulated the requirements of the social practice, cure and education. Ancient physicians established that the brain is the organ of the psyche and elaborated the teaching on temperaments. This natural scientific trend was closely connected with the treatment of the human soul as a material (heat, air, etc.) particle of cosmos moving according to its own eternal and inevitable laws. In idealistic concepts, the soul was set apart from the body and was recognised as immortal. The teaching of Aristotle was the summit of psychology in the ancient world (treatises "On the Soul", "On the Origins of Animals", etc.). He interpreted the soul as a form of organisation of the material body capable of life, rather than a matter or an incorporeal entity. Aristotle set forth the first system of psychological notions elaborated on the basis of objective and genetic methods. In the Hellenistic period, the soul turns from the principle of life in general into a principle of its certain manifestations: the psychic is separated from the general biologic. In feudal times, the development of the positive cognition 125 of psyche was sharply curtailed but not stopped altogether. The ideas of progressive physicians and thinkers of the Arabic-speaking world (Ibn-Sina, Ibn al-Hassan, Ibn-Roshd and others) paved the way for the subsequent flourishing of natural, scientific psychology in Western Europe, where, with the emergence of capitalism, an urge was growing to examine man experimentally as a natural being whose behaviour is subject to the laws of nature (Leonardo da Vinci, Juan Vives, Huarte de San Juan, and others). The era of bourgeois revolutions and the triumph of a new, materialistic world-view engendered a totally new approach to the study of mental activity, at that stage explained and studied from the positions of strict determinism. Socio-economic transformations stimulated progress in psychological thinking which had been enriched by a number of fundamental categories. Descartes discovered the reflectory nature of behaviour (see Reflex), and transformed the notion of the soul into a non-theological notion of consciousness as a direct knowledge of the subject about his own mental acts. This era saw the emergence of a number of important scientific theories: of association as a natural link between psychic phenomena determined by links between body phenomena (Descartes, T. Hobbs); of affects (Spinoza); of apperception and the unconscious (Gottfried Leibniz); of the origin of knowledge from the individual sensual experience (John Locke). The specific scientific elaboration of the principle of association by the British physician David Hartley made this principle, for a century and a half, the basic explanatory concept in psychology. The psychological ideas of Denis Diderot, Russian scientists Mikhail Lomonosov, Alexander Radishchev, and other progressive thinkers developed within the bounds of a materialist world outlook. In the 19th century, psychology gave rise to experimental methods of study of mental functions, and the first attempts were made to introduce in the analysis of these functions quantitive assessments (Ernst Weber, Gustav Fechner, Hermann Helmholtz, and others). Darvinism proved the necessity of studying psychic functions as a real factor in the development of biological systems. By the 1870s-’80s, psychology became an independent field of knowledge distinct from philosophy and physiology. Special experimental laboratories became its main centres of development. The first of them was organised by Wilhelm Wundt ( Leipzig, 1879). Similar establishments were set up in Russia, England, the USA, France, and other countries. Ivan Sechenov put forward a consistent programme for the elaboration of psychology on the basis of the objective method. His ideas engendered experimental work in the field of psychology in Russia (Vladimir Bekhterev, Nikolai Lange and others), and later on, through the works of Bechterev and Pavlov, made an impact on the elaboration of objective methods in world psychological science. The basic topics of experimental psychology at the initial stage were sensations and 126 the reaction time (Franciscus Donders) and subsequently associations (Hermann Ebbinghaus), attention (James Cattell), emotional states (see Emotions) (William James, Theodule Ribot), thinking and the will (W’ iirtzburg School, Alfred Binet). Differential psychology, whose task was to determine individual differences between people with the help of measuring methods (Francis Gallon, Alfred Binet, Alexander Lazursky, William Stern, and others) was taking shape, along with the search for general regularities of mental processes. A crisis was in the making in psychology at the turn of the 20th century, a crisis engendered by the breaking of the old concepis. The notion of consciousness as a lotality of phenomena experienced by the subject proved to be totally untenable. Stress was now laid on the orientation of man in the environment, on the factors regulating behaviour which are concealed from consciousness. Behaviourism became the main trend in American psychology, according to which psychology should not go any further than observing organism’s responses to outside stimuli. The dynamics of these responses was conceived as a blind search accidentally leading to a successful action fixed by repetition (the trial and error method). The postulates of this trend were expressed by John Watson (1913). Another influential school was Gesta.lt psychology, whose experimental subject was the integral and structural nature of psychic formations. At the beginning of the century Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalysis also emerged, according to which the decisive role in the organisation of man’s psyche belongs to unconscious motives, first of all sexual ones. The new trends enriched the empiric and specific methodological basis of psychology and contributed to the development of its conceptual system (the categories of action, image, motive). However, the inadequate philosophical interpretation of these achievements led to erroneous and one-sided conclusions. The attempts to understand from idealistic positions, the dependence of man’s psyche on the world of history and culture and social life inevitably led to dualism, to the concept of "two psychologies" ( Wilhelm Wundt, Wilhelm Dilthey, Heinrich Rickert), according to which psychology cannot be an integral science since an allegedly natural scientific, experimental explanatory approach to psyche is incompatible in principle with the cultural historic approach. The psychologists who brought to the foreground the role of social factors in regulating human behaviour (James Baldwin, John Dewey, George Mead, and others) also failed to elaborate a productive approach to ’the socio-genesis of the personality and its psychic functions since sociality itself was interpreted as “pure” intercourse outside specific activity.

p Marxism introduced new principles into scientific psychology which have profoundly affected it. Konstantin Kornilov, Pavel Blonsky, Mikhail Bassov, and others actively supported the idea of restructuring psychology on a 127 Marxist basis. The Marxist principle of historicism played a key role in the works of Lev Vygotsky and his followers. Soviet psychology was inseparably linked with the development of research into psycho-physiology in the works of Ivan Pavlov, Vladimir Bekhterev, Alexei Ukhtomsky, Leon Orbeli, Sergei Kravkov, Nikolai Bernstein, and others. In refuting the idealistic and mechanistic (reactology, reflexology) influences, Soviet scientists asserted in psychology the Marxist teaching on activity and its socio-historical foundation, the ideas of Lenin’s theory of reflection. The theoretical and experimental study of the basic problems of psychology was carried out by Alexander Luria, Alexei N. Leontyev, Boris Teplov, Anatoli Smirnov, Sergei Rubinstein, Boris Ananyev, Nikolai Dobrynin, Alexei Zaporozhels, and others.

The development of psychology in the capitalist world in the 1930s-’40s can be described as the disintegration of the main schools. Behaviourist theories put forward the notion of intervening variables, i.e. the factors mediating the motor response (the dependent variable) to the irritant (the independent variable). The logic of the development of science and the demands of practice led psychology to the study of the "central processes" occuring between the sensory “input” and the motor “output” of the body system. This trend gained ground in the 1950s-’60s due to the experience accumulated in the use of computers. Such branches of psychology as engineering, social and medical psychology began to develop. The works of the Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget, who studied the transformation of the internal structure of mental activity in ontogenesis, exerted a strong influence on the interpretation of mental processes. The attitude towards neuro- psychological mechanisms is also changing: rather than being ignored, they are now perceived as an inalienable part of the structure of behaviour (Donald Hebb, Karl Pribram). Psycho-analysis engenders neo-Freudianism, a trend linking the unconscious psychic mechanics (see The Unconscious) with the operation of the socio-cultural factors (Karen Horney, Harry Sullivan, Erich Fromm), which has correspondingly restructured psychotherapy. The so-called existentialist, humanistic psychology, asserting that the study of scientific notions and objective methods leads to the dehuraanisation and disintegration of the personality and impedes its development, has begun to claim the role of a "third force" along with behaviourism and Freudianism. This trend develops into undisguised irrationalism. Dissatisfaction with biologistic and idealistic concepts has evoked a lively interest among progressive psychologists in the capitalist countries towards the dialecticmaterialist interpretation of the mental activity, the achievements of Soviet psychology (Georges Politzer, Henri Wallon, Lucien Seve, Paul Fraisse, and others).

Homeostasis

Homeostasis, a dynamic equilibrium maintained by a system by resisting 128 the internal and external factors threatening to upset it. The notion was originally evolved in physiology for the purpose of explaining the stability of the organism’s visceral phenomena (blood, lymph) and the constancy of the basic physiological functions, which is attained through the operation of the self-regulatory mechanism. The idea was developed by the US physiologist Walter Cannon as part of the "body wisdom" doctrine, the body being an open system constantly maintaining its own stability. Receiving signals about changes threatening the system, the organism switches on the adaptive mechanism which continues to operate until the equilibrium is reestablished and its parameters return to their initial value. The principle of H. was later adopted from physiology by cybernetics and other sciences, including psychology, assuming a more universal significance as a principle of systems approach and autoregulation through feedback. The idea that every system strives to maintain its stability was transferred to the interaction between the organism and the environment. Such transfer is a feature of, for instance, neo- behaviourism which holds that a new motor response is reinforced due to the organism release from the need which has upset its H.; of the doctrine advanced by Jean Piaget, who recognised that mental development occurs in the process of the individual’s adjustment to the environment; of Kurt Lewin’s concept of “field”, according to which motivation arises in an imbalanced "system of tensions"; of Gestalt psychology, which maintains that whenever the equilibrium between the elements of the mental system is disturbed it strives to re-establish it. Explaining the phenomenon of autoregulation, the principle of H. fails, however, to reveal the source of alterations in the mind and its activities.

Hope

Hope, an emotional experience arising when the subject anticipates a certain desired event. H. reflects an apprehended likelihood of its actualisation. Its formation is explained by the cognition of the objective causes upon which the anticipated events are dependent, or on the basis of subjective emotional experience (feelings of joy, failure, etc.) accumulated in similar situations in the past. By predicting the possible course of events in given circumstances, H. plays a role of an internal regulator of activity which helps the subject to determine its consequences and necessity. In case of strong motivation, H. may be maintained even in the absence of conditions that substantiate it.

Hormic Approach

Hormic Approach, the concept advanced by the US psychologist William Mcdougall who believed that the basis of individual and social behaviour is innate (instinctual) energy or “horme”, which determines the nature of the perception of objects, produces emotional arousal and directs the organism’s mental and bodily actions towards a certain goal. Corresponding to each instinct is an emotion (e.g. the instinct of taking flight and the emotion of fear), which turns, from a brief state, 129 into a sentiment as a stable and organised system of dispositions towards action. In his works Social Psychology (1908), and Group Mind (1920), Mcdougall attempted to explain social and mental processes by a striving towards a biologically meaningful goal inherent in the individual’s psychophysical organisation, thus rejecting their scientific causal explanation (see Depth Psychology).

Humaneness

Humaneness, a system of a personality’s attitudes determined by moral norms and values to social objects (individuals, groups, living beings), which assumes the form of commiseration and sharing joy in the consciousness and is realised in communication and activity through acts of cooperation, compassion and assistance. The notion of H. as a social attitude including cognitive, affective, and conative components is used when analysing a broad range of issues involved in assimilating moral norms, empathy, the so-called helping behaviour, etc. As distinct from ideas of bourgeois psychologists, the notion of humaneness as developed by Soviet psychology has a concrete historical character determined by the principles of equality and justice prevailing in socialist society. The notion of H. helps overcome the “altruism-egoism” opposition, which implies either a humiliating self- sacrifice or self-seeking conduct. In its advanced form, a subject’s H. finds expression in groups with a high development level (see Level of Group Development), where it is a form of existense of such interpersonal relations which imply that each member of the collective treats others as he does himself and vice versa, proceeding from the goals and tasks of joint activities. A collective secures each personality not only the respect due it but also sets it high standards. The empyrical embodiment of H. is collectivist identification (see Identification, Collectivist). The formation of H. in ontogenesis proceeds through the development of the self-awareness of the child who comes to distinguish himself from his social environment. Research has shown that of tremendous importance in the development of a child’s H. is his joint activities first with an adult and later with peers. Joint activities create a unity of emotional experiences, and the changing roles in play and communication shapes the child’s humane attitude to significant others; from direct manifestations of emotional responsiveness (such as commiseration with the unhappy and joy for the happy), he passes on to acts of commiseration in joint activities mediated by moral norms. A study of the laws of development and establishment of H. as a characteristic of the personality, as well as of the mechanism of its functioning is a major objective of moral education and the formation of a harmoniously developed personality.

Humanistic Psychology

Humanistic Psychology, a trend in Western, mainly US psychology which takes as its principal object the personality as a dynamic integral system with an open potential for self- actualisation characteristic only of man. H.P. is opposed, as a "third force", to both 130 behaviourism and Freudianism which lay the main emphasis on the personality’s dependence upon its past experience. H.P, maintains that an individual’s behaviour is determined by his present and future. According to this trend the main feature of the personality is the striving for freely realising his or her potentialities (Gordon Allport), especially creative ones (Abraham Maslow), strengthening self-confidence and attaining the "ideal self" (Carl Rogers). The principal part in this process is assigned to the motives which ensure, not conformist behaviour (see Conformity) but the growth of the constructive element of the human self whose integrity and intensity of emotional experiences are to be stimulated by a special form of psychotherapy. Rogers named it the “client-centered” psychotherapy, in which the physician enters into a close personal relationship with the patient and regards him not as patient but as a client who assumes responsibility for solving his own problems. The role of the physician is that of a counsellor creating a warm emotional atmosphere which makes it easier for the client to reorganise the structure of his self, his inner (phenomenal) world, attain the integrity of his personality and grasp the meaning of its existence. Opposing the concepts which ignore the specifically human in the personality, the latter’s representation by H.P. is nevertheless inadequate and one-sided, for it does not-recognise that the personality is shaped by socio-historical factors. H.P. is sometimes called existential psychology.

Humour

Humour, see Sense of Humour.

Hypermnesia

Hypermnesia, unusual, sometimes pathological sharpening of memorising, retention and recall. Pathological and borderline cases are characterised by the person’s ability to memorise a multitude of insignificant and irrelevant details (railway timetables, calendar dates, telephone numbers, etc.) Occurs irrespective of a person’s intellectual ability and is met even in feebleminded. May also appear in response to the stimulation of drugs, fever, brain injuries, and electric stimulation of certain areas of the cerebral cortex. In such cases, recollections assume the form of involuntary externally imposed "flashes of past experiences". H. may also occur under hypnotic state and in ordinary dreams. It is demonstrated by persons with the so-called phenomenal memory—mnemonists.

Hypnosis

Hypnosis, temporary state of consciousness characterised by sharp decrease of its span and concentration on the content of suggestion. It stems from changes in the function of individual control and self-awareness. H. is induced by the hypnotist’s thorough special technique of influence (see Hypnotisation) or purposeful self- suggestion (see Autohypnosis). One should distinguish between spontaneously manifested features of the hypnotic state and those induced by the hypnotist. The state itself is characterised by enhanced suggestibility, posthypnotic amnesia, involuntary forgetting the content of the hypnotic suggestion and 131 the very fact of hypnotisation, etc. While in a hypnotic state, the subject may display physiological and psychic responses unusual to him in his normal state of mind. They may affect the area of perception (positive and negative illusions); memory (forgetting or recalling facts and events from the past and more active memorisation of new material); attention (its higher concentration and distribution); thinking (disturbance of the normal logic or greater creativity); personality (change of motivation, habits, mood, personality traits, suggestion of another person’s image, manipulating with subjective time). The presence of these changes has been confirmed by physiological and-psychological tests. Until the mid-19th century, the notion of H. was based on the assumption of special “fluids” or magnetic waves supposedly emitted by the hypnotist (Franz Mesmer, 1771). It was materialistically considered in Ivan Pavlov’s works. Physiological theories regard H. as a specific state of the central nervous system—"partial sleep" (Ivan Pavlov, Konstantin Platonov). Psychological theories regard H. as changed functioning of the subject’s normal consciousness under unusual conditions: suggestion of motivation, attention, expectations and interpersonal relations. H. is used for treating alcoholism, drug addiction and smoking, and as an anaesthetic in surgery, obstetrics and stomatology. Psychotherapy uses the method of hypnoanalysis of conflicts and attitudes of the personality. The use of the H. technique makes it possible to conduct an experimental study of behaviour at different levels of the functioning of the subject’s consciousness.

Hypnotisation

Hypnotisation, inducement of the hypnotic state by the hypnotist or the subject himself (see Autohypnosis) through the use of verbal or non-verbal stimuli. The hypnotist using the classic verbal technique repeatedly or just once orders the subject to clote his eyes, feel his eyelids grow heavy, relax and fall asleep, and then proceeds to other necessary suggestions producing corresponding movements, actions, etc. The non-verbal technique implies the use of either extremely powerful external irritants or very gentle monotonous and rhythmical (sound, visual, tactile, thermal, etc.) ones; the subject is often ordered to fixate his eyes on a glistening object, to concentrate on the hypnotist’s words and passes; the sound of a metronome is also frequently used. Two varieties of H. are distinguished: the imperative one, based on strict directive-like injunctions of the hypnotist and powerful non-verbal stimuli, and the cooperative variety which implies the-use-of gentle forms of H., gentle repetitive stimuli and persuasive verbal suggestions. In certain cultures, ritual dances, rhythmic sounds of musical instruments (the beat of drums, tambourins) and monotonous choir singing are tantamount to H. The degree of the subject’s H. is ascertained by special tests ("clasped hands", " falling forward and backward", etc.) The choice of H. technique is determined by the individual traits of the subject and the hypnotist, as well as by the 132 objectives pursued by hypnosis. The effecj of H. depends on the subject’s susceptibility (“hypnoability”), the adequacy of the technique of the subject’s psychophysical organisation ( influencing predominantly this or that sense organ), the absence of hypnophobia (fear of being hypnotised).