EMPATHY(from Greek empatheia– empathy).

1. Non-rational cognition by a person of the inner world of other people ( empathy). The ability to evaluate is a necessary condition for the development of such a professional quality as insight in a practical psychologist (consultant, psychotherapist).

2. Aesthetic E. - feeling for an artistic object, a source of aesthetic pleasure.

3. A person’s emotional responsiveness to the experiences of another, a type of social. (moral) emotions. E. as an emotional response is carried out in elementary (reflex) and in higher personal forms (sympathy, empathy, rejoicing). At the heart of E. as a social cognition and higher forms of emotion as an emotional response is the mechanism decentralization. It is human nature to experience a wide range of empathic reactions and experiences. The highest personal forms of emotion express a person’s relationship to other people. Empathy and compassion differ as a person’s experience of himself ( egocentric E.) and for another ( humanistic E.).

Empathizing, a person experiences emotions identical to those observed. However, empathy can arise not only in relation to the observed, but also the imaginary emotions of others, as well as in relation to the experiences of the characters works of art, cinema, theater, literature (aesthetic empathy). Cm. Identification.

At sympathy a person experiences something different from the one who caused an emotional response in him. Sympathy motivates a person to help another. The more stable a person’s altruistic motives are, the wider the circle of people whom he, out of sympathy, helps (see. Altruism).

Finally, sympathy - a warm, friendly attitude of a person towards other people. (T. P. Gavrilova)

EMPIRICISM(English) empirism) – alternative nativism, the concept that in development perception and other cognitive abilities, the main role is played by life experience; perception is a function of learning. see also Transactionism. (B.M.)

EMPIRICAL PSYCHOLOGY(English) empirical psychology) is a term introduced by German. philosopher of the 18th century X. Wolf to denote a special discipline that describes and studies specific phenomena of mental life (as opposed to rational psychology, which deals with “immortal” soul). The task of the E.P. was considered observation behind individual mental facts, their classification, the establishment of a logical connection between them, verifiable by experience. This attitude has been characteristic of many researchers of human behavior since ancient times.

In the teachings of ancient Greek. philosophers were kept not only general provisions about the nature of the soul and its place in the universe, but also numerous information about specific psychic manifestations. In the Middle Ages, the importance of the empiric-psychological approach was substantiated by Arabic-speaking thinkers (especially Ibn Sina), as well as such progressive philosophers as F. Bacon, W. Ockham, etc. During the Renaissance, the Spanish doctor was an ardent supporter of E. p. X. L. Vives, whose book “On the Soul and Life” (1538) had a great influence on the psychological theories of the New Age. Vives argued that it is not the metaphysical essence of the soul, but its real manifestations that should become the object of analysis, that the individual method is the only reliable way to acquire such knowledge about people, which could be used to improve their nature. The idea that psychological cognition must be based on experience, has become the cornerstone of teaching J. Locke, which divided experience into external and internal. If external experience was considered as a product of influence real world on the senses, then the internal one acted in the form of operations performed by the soul. This became a prerequisite for the splitting of economic psychology into two directions: materialistic and idealistic.

A number of idealists ( J. Berkeley, D. Hume), having rejected the division of experience into external and internal, they began to understand by “experience” the sensory impressions of the subject, which have a basis only in himself, but not in anything external. The French took a fundamentally different position. materialists of the 18th century Acting as supporters of ethnoscience, they understood it as a natural-scientific study of the mental properties of a person’s bodily organization.

Formed in the middle of the 19th century. The “experimental school” in psychology bore the stamp of duality, since it combined an attitude of observation, concrete analysis and inductive knowledge of mental phenomena with the doctrine of the special essence of these phenomena, comprehended only through introspection. The research of the “experimental school” prepared the transition from a speculative interpretation of the psyche to its experimental study. Subsequently, the ambiguity of the term “experience” led to a division between supporters of the natural science approach, understood as knowledge through observation and experiment of the processes of consciousness and behavior, and supporters of pure experience, which they reduced to subjective phenomena.

ENGRAM(English) engram) – a set of changes in nervous tissue that ensures the preservation of the results of the impact of reality on a person. E. – physiological basis memory. There are 2 types of E. with t.zr. their content characteristics: images– E., the structures of which reflect the structures of previously perceived objects, and models actions– E., the structures of which reflect action programs. A stable associative connection can be formed between E. Wed. Mneme, Memory physiological mechanisms, Memory traces, Ecphoria. (T. P. Zinchenko)

ENDORPHINS – cm. Drug addict.

ENDOPHASIA(English) endophasia) – syn. inner speech; in addition, it can mean performing movements of the lips, tongue and jaws that silently imitate speech movements (see oral praxis).

ENKEPHALINS – cm. Drug addiction, Information needs.

ENTASYS(Greek entasis – tension) - a small thickening in the middle of the column trunk (Doric order), created with purpose enhance the impression of tension, stability and eliminate optical illusion concavity of the column. On the Parthenon, E. was 1.75 cm.

ENTHYMEMS(English) . enthymeme; from Greek “in the mind”, “in thoughts”) - arguments, reasoning in which some premises or consequences are not formulated explicitly. Such logical constructions are not exotic. Their use is almost inevitable in the daily reasoning of any person. The removal of logic (filling in “gaps” and “discontinuities” in the course of thinking) leads to a huge increase in the text and the appearance of a large number of trivial logical links; it would slow down thinking And communication(under these conditions, the exchange of information would become not only a slow and boring process, but also a difficult process).

In an expanded sense, E. is understood as any reasoning in which one or more premises or the conclusion itself are omitted or not clearly formulated. In the latter case, when we prefer not to explicitly state the conclusion of the argument, we enter into the ground hints.

The main problem of mutual understanding lies in the individual nature of E. What is trivial for one person often turns out to be fundamentally important and not at all simple for another. However, the presence of individual E. can be considered as one of the main provisions for explaining the mechanisms creative thinking. (V. M. Krol)

ENTOPIC PHENOMENA(English) entoptic phenomena) – vision of the structures of the eye, in particular the blind spot (more precisely, the optical disk) or the Purkinje tree (see. Purkinje tree).

ENCEPHAL ISOLET(English) encephale isole; letters isolated brain) - an animal in which a surgical transection of the brain stem has been performed caudal end of the medulla oblongata, just above the spinal cord. Such an animal is paralyzed, but has normal sleep-wake cycles. When the cut is made higher, in the area between the superior and inferior colliculi (cerveau isole, or intercollicular dissection), the animal falls into a coma. When the bridge is dissected above the trigeminal nuclei, the so-called pretrigeminal drug. The first time after the operation the animal is constantly awake, but later the normal alternation of sleep and wakefulness is restored, although paradoxical sleep is absent. The caudal part of the drug continues to regulate blood circulation and respiration. The fact that the dissected animal does not feel pain makes it very convenient for neurophysiological experiments. (B.M.)

In the process of cognition, along with rational operations and procedures, irrational ones also participate. In its original meaning, reflected in the etymology of the term, rational is reasonable, associated with reason, including a moment of reflection and control. But rationality, taken in the epistemological aspect, is relative to the type of knowledge - i.e. in relation to various types of knowledge we should talk about various types rationality. We are talking about the types of conceptual knowledge that exist alongside science. In artistic, religious, and mythological knowledge, specific cognitive means are used and special logical laws apply. In each of these types of knowledge, there is normativity and some “core knowledge” is distinguished (a set of concepts, ideas, epistemological images in general that most closely correspond to standards), as well as a peripheral sphere in which the degree of compliance with standards is reduced (for religion this is a set of heresies, for art - avant-garde movements, etc.). This means that we can talk about mythological, religious and similar rationality as conformity to certain specific patterns and standards. Such rationality is relative: a mythologeme, rational in the coordinate system of mythological thinking as corresponding to its canons, is irrational from the point of view of science, but a scientific concept can also be assessed as irrational when looking at it from the outside, from the platform of a different type of knowledge. The internal normativity of each type of knowledge involves both the establishment of rules and standards of activity, and the determination of the forms and framework of expected results, the nature and degree of their compliance with the values ​​of human existence. For example, in religious knowledge this is a system of basic principles, accepted methods of argumentation and interpretation, and the combination of narrative and edifying plans. Thus, both components of rationality are present in each type of cognition; normativity is quite strict.

Knowledge becomes rational if it corresponds following requirements: 1) validity, 2) certainty, 3) consistency, 4) consistency, 5) objectivity. But as the history of the development of human thinking has shown, these requirements cannot be fully realized. Thus, there is no initial absolute knowledge from which everything else is derived. Therefore, the process of cognition includes non-rational components - intuition and faith. Irrational procedures and operations are carried out by different parts of the brain on the basis of special biosocial patterns that operate independently of the will and consciousness of a person. Thus, intuition turns out to be associated with the unconscious modeling of situations with the help of images and figurative schemes with the dominance of the right hemisphere of the brain, while the solution found looks like comprehension of the truth by directly observing it without substantiating it with the help of evidence. Moreover, the very inability to comprehend the intermediate stages of the decision is associated with the transition of information processing from the left hemisphere to the right. The right hemisphere represents: figurative perception, episodic and autobiographical memory, situational generalization, continuous and multi-valued logic. When the mental process is transferred to the left hemisphere, conceptual perception, categorical memory, classification by characteristics, and two-valued logic are activated.

Faith is both a fact of consciousness and the unconscious. As a phenomenon of consciousness, it acts as an ideological, ideological position of acceptance or non-acceptance (in this case we talk about disbelief) certain statements or actions (as expedient, valuable, true, fair, etc.) without prior factual or logical check. The most important aspect of faith is its cognitive (gnoseological) nature and, accordingly, its role in cognition. Like any act of cognition, it has its own specific subject: they believe in something or something or someone (in this case they talk about trust or distrust.

It should be noted that faith in cognitive situations comes in two forms. Firstly, these are different statements, assumptions, assumptions, and they do not always have to be expressed in language, but can also be included in the process of perception. The important thing is that it is precisely this kind of faith that is tested by experience and can turn out to be true or false, and if it is sufficiently justified, it turns into knowledge. Such a belief arises when the objective parameters of the explanatory procedure are not yet involved. The basis for such an act of consciousness is internal subjective confidence that does not need proof.

But there is a second form of faith, more fundamental, not reducible to faith-probability, but acting as a way of affirming a certain experience and a certain cognitive practice. With regard to this form of faith, the question of its truth or falsity does not arise; this faith cannot be verified by a given experience, since it creates the latter.

Faith plays an important role in scientific knowledge: not only in the process of putting forward paradigms, theories, hypotheses, but also in the course of their acceptance by the scientific community. Knowledge presupposes the validity of the assertion being made. Since full validity of this kind can only be said in some cases, scientific knowledge turns out to be inseparable from the presence of a certain element of faith. This element can be larger or smaller. It can be so small that we have every reason to talk about knowledge: this concerns, first of all, established empirical dependencies, various kinds experimental results.

In Russian there is one word "vera" for two different acts of faith. In one case we're talking about that a person is aware of the lack of persuasiveness, the lack of validity of his judgment. This is a situation when we are talking about a “subject”, which in principle you can know and if this possibility of knowing is realized or the person is convinced that it is realized, he says: “I know.” In another case of faith, a person is convinced, believes that he knows how things are, what decision needs to be made, what the next move should be. Faith in this case is also a subjective belief, but a belief based on internal confidence in the adequacy of the basis for such confidence. This faith is more than knowledge that still requires confirmation and verification; it is faith based on evidence. Thus, it becomes necessary to distinguish between two types of faith: 1) faith-probability, faith-assumption, which is characterized by the consciousness of the lack of persuasiveness in the validity of the judgment of faith, and 2) faith itself as belief - faith-evidence when the object of faith is in principle inaccessible to knowledge. Faith-probability arises in a situation of uncertainty; it is intended only to compensate for the lack of knowledge in a situation where it is necessary to make an evaluative decision and it is impossible to carefully analyze all the circumstances.

How is the process of knowing the world, the process of obtaining truth, carried out?

It is customary to highlight two levels of cognition– sensual and rational.

Sensory cognition- this is cognition carried out using the senses (vision, hearing, touch, smell, taste). There are three forms of sensory knowledge.

A) Feeling– reflection of individual aspects and characteristics of an object (for example, color, hardness, smell).

b) Perception– reflection of a complete object (for example, an apple).

V) Performance– reproduction of a sensory image of an object in memory. Unlike sensation and perception, representation is a generalized image: the direct connection with a specific object has already been lost. Therefore, representations may arise that combine the properties of different objects (for example, a centaur, a sphinx).

Every sensory perception is a subjective image of a cognizable object. Such an image is an image of an object, at the same time it carries symbolic components (having smelled the scent of a rose, a person can imagine what it looks like; if he casually sees an acquaintance, he recognizes him by his gesture, gait, etc.). Sensually perceiving the world, a person relies on previously accumulated knowledge, assessments, and preferences. The completeness of sensory perception also depends on practice (for example, an artist can distinguish more shades of color than a person not professionally associated with artistic activity).

But can a person, in a single act of perception, reflect a thing in all the diversity of its connections and patterns? This is impossible, if only because not all of these connections are obvious. In order to cognize essential, natural, necessary connections, it is necessary to distract, that is, abstract from the numerous aspects and features of sensory objects. This abstraction, generalization, comprehension of the essence is carried out at the rational level of cognition.

Based on representation, a person may have the ability to create in his mind images of objects that are absent in the objective world (imagination), which is the basis of creativity.

Rational cognition(abstract thinking) is cognition carried out with the help of reason, thinking; it is the ability of human consciousness to highlight individual aspects, attributes of an object and combine them into special combinations in order to obtain new knowledge.

With the help of abstract thinking, interaction with an object is carried out without direct human interaction with this object: in the process of a mental act, an objectively existing object is replaced by an ideal image, or symbol (sign). Such a symbol, replacing an object in thinking, is a word. Hence the main difference between sensory and rational cognition is the ability to express an object in words (i.e. verbalized or expressed in language). The basis of rational cognition are the processes of generalization and abstraction. Generalization– the process of mentally combining the essential properties of an object in order to obtain more general knowledge about him. Abstraction(Latin – abstractio – distraction) – the process of mental abstraction from a number of things that are not essential for at this moment properties and relationships of a cognizable phenomenon. Rational cognition is carried out in certain forms, the study of which is the subject of logic.

There are three forms of rational knowledge.

A) Concept– captures the general, essential properties of a certain class of objects (for example, the concept of a house, a river).

b) Judgment- affirmation or denial of something, carried out through the connection of concepts (for example, the house is not built; the river flows into the sea).

V) Inference – logical conclusion based on two or more judgments (for example, all houses have a roof, this is a house, therefore it has a roof). Evidence is built on the basis of inferences - i.e. a logical procedure during which the truth of a certain judgment is substantiated (the reverse procedure, where the falsity of a certain judgment is substantiated, is called refutation).

In the history of philosophy, the question of the predominant importance of the sensual or rational in knowledge was discussed very widely, which was reflected in the formation of special approaches - sensationalism and rationalism. Currently, it is believed that sensory perceptions directly connect a person with reality, with cognizable objects, therefore:

– sensory knowledge acts as the basis of the rational, it provides that initial information about the world, which is further processed at the rational level;

– rational thinking allows you to abstract, distract from the specific features of things, penetrate into their essence, and discover laws;

– thanks to this, sensory perceptions are rethought on the basis of rational knowledge. (For example, a person watches the sun rise, that is, sees how it rises from the horizon, moves across the sky above the Earth; meanwhile, he knows that in fact the Earth moves around the Sun).

Thus, the sensory and rational in the real cognitive process are inextricably interconnected.

Along with rational ones, they are of significant importance in cognition. extra-rational factors:

a) the unconscious content of the psyche. It can influence cognitive preferences and biases, interests and inclinations;

b) implicit personal knowledge (that is, ideas about the spatial organization of reality that are not realized by the subject - the “scheme of the world”, the ability to use their native language, etc.). Such knowledge is essential for setting cognitive tasks, choosing ways to solve them, formatting and perceiving new information.

V) Faith(something that does not require proof). A person always strives to rationally substantiate existing knowledge. He believes in what he accepts without evidence. Since people accumulate knowledge throughout their lives, relying on the achievements of the previous culture, it turns out that a significant part of the available information is taken on faith. Faith can be religious or non-religious. If a person believes in statements that are erroneous, his ideas conflict with new data, hypotheses, and discoveries. In this case, it turns out that faith complicates and slows down the process of cognition. On the other hand, faith can promote cognitive activity (for example, a scientist must believe that the problem he is working on can be solved). Faith - subjective confidence in the correctness of a guess, a hypothesis - determines the subject’s persistence in its justification and proof.

G) Intuition(from Latin intuere - to look closely, carefully), which is understood as the possibility of knowing an object as if directly, without logical reasoning. It is of particular importance in situations where information is incomplete and contradictory. As a result of an intuitive guess, a person suddenly, immediately sees a holistic solution to the problem, without yet having its logical proof. However, the surprise of an intuitive guess is only apparent: its success presupposes good knowledge of the subject and long-term reflection on it. Intuitive cognition plays a significant role in creative activity.

If cognition is the reproduction in consciousness of connections and relationships of an objectively existing reality, then creation- this is the creation of something fundamentally new, these are discoveries that take a person far beyond the limits of existing knowledge. There are various types of creativity: scientific, artistic, technical, etc.

The results of cognitive activity are recorded primarily in linguistic (verbal) form. At the same time, non-linguistic (non-verbal) forms of expressing the results of thinking are also possible: artistic image, gesture, etc.

There are natural and artificial languages. Natural languages ​​are formed spontaneously in the course of human development (Russian, French, Chinese, etc.). Constructed languages are created by people for specific purposes (Morse code, mathematical symbols, programming languages, etc.). The main functions of language: cognitive (a means of developing cognition) and communicative (a means of communication).

Language is a system of signs that have meaning and meaning. A sign is a word that replaces and represents an object. The meaning of a sign is the content assigned to it. The meaning of a sign is the meaning it acquires in a given situation and under given conditions. For example, the word "rain" is itself a sign representing a certain phenomenon. Its meaning is precipitation falling from the sky. The meanings of this sign are different: drizzling rain, downpour, etc. In addition, the meaning can be associated with a person’s emotional attitude to what is happening. So, depending on the situation, the word “rain” can express joy, sadness or indifference. Translating knowledge into linguistic form gives the results of thinking a universal, interpersonal character.

Philosophical analysis such knowledge, its functions and the characteristics of the subject’s perception led to the formulation of the question of the relationship between explanation and understanding.

Explanation– this is a logical, rational identification of the causes and patterns of the emergence, functioning and development of the object being studied. It allows us to predict further changes in such an object. The explanation is clear: if the identified patterns are verified and confirmed, then at this stage development of cognition, the proposed explanation is the only one.

Understanding- this is the identification of those meanings that are embedded in oral speech, written text, a material cultural monument (in a painting, an architectural structure) by their authors and creators. Understanding is closely related to interpretation. Since linguistic signs have many meanings, understanding is multi-valued: different ways of understanding the same text are possible.

The phenomenon of understanding is a special subject of study in a special philosophical movement - hermeneutics (M. Heidegger, G. Gadamer, P. Ricoeur, etc.). Supporters of this movement believe that a person lives in a world where everything is given a name, everything is described in linguistic form. Therefore, knowledge always has a dialogical and interpretive character: a person learns the world through dialogue with the authors of texts, which he must interpret and understand. In this case, the knowing subject (interpreter) is based on

a) knowledge of the established meanings of words, as well as the meanings that they previously had;

b) an idea of ​​the author’s personal characteristics and intentions. However, a person perceives any texts, including those written in previous eras, through the prism of the ideas of contemporary culture (through the prism of “historical tradition”). This causes the presence of prejudice (prejudice, pre-understanding) and calls into question the possibility of an absolutely accurate understanding of the text. It follows from this that in the course of interpretation the subject introduces new meanings into the text, which contributes to the development of cognition.

A special solution to the question of the possibilities of understanding was proposed in the philosophy of postmodernism, which developed in the second half of the 20th century (J. Derrida, R. Barthes, J. Lyotard, etc.). The basis of text analysis here is “deconstruction,” that is, the identification of internal contradictions and “residual meanings” (not noticed by either the author or the reader). The word no longer represents an object; it is associated not with meaning, but with “signifying traces.” Their number is so great that the possibilities of interpretation become endless. But this means that knowledge of the objective world itself, its explanation, as well as the understanding of accumulated knowledge, are virtually impossible. Any knowledge, even natural science, is assessed in postmodernism as a “narrative,” a kind of literary history. Thus, the “cognitive reason” that modern and modern philosophers admired is replaced by “interpretive reason.” As a result, supporters of postmodernism come to the conclusion that modern society overwhelmed redundant information, the subject “slides” along the surface of texts and phenomena, without penetrating or trying to penetrate their essence.

Specifics of scientific knowledge (epistymology)

Epistemology (Greek episteme - knowledge) is a theory of scientific knowledge that studies its essence, structure and patterns of functioning. The term was introduced in the middle of the 19th century. Scottish philosopher J.F. Ferrier, who divided philosophy into ontology and epistemology.

Knowledge is the result of people’s mental activity, representing the ideal reproduction in linguistic form of objective, natural connections of the practically transformable objective world.

It is customary to distinguish between scientific and extra-scientific knowledge.

If scientific knowledge is based on knowledge of the objective laws of nature, society and thinking, then extra-scientific knowledge is formed on the basis of production (so-called “everyday”) experience.

Scientific knowledge is divided into: natural science, social, humanitarian and technical knowledge. Extra-scientific knowledge is divided (with a certain degree of convention) into misconceptions associated with the research of people who are convinced that they are creating genuine science and practice (anti-science, “alternative science”), which includes detrology, occult “sciences,” magic, witchcraft, etc. d.

Features scientific knowledge is that it:

1) reflects the essential properties and objective laws of the reality being studied; as a result, it has explanatory and predictive functions; has a conceptual, systematized nature, has a developed conceptual apparatus;

2) is accurate, reasonable, proven;

3) is formed during professional activity scientists, carried out using specific methods.

The presence of such characteristics is a criterion for the scientific nature of knowledge.

In the structure of scientific consciousness, two philosophical and methodological categories are distinguished - “empirical” and “theoretical” as the main forms of the cognitive process and its levels, which differ in the methods of cognitive activity and in the forms of knowledge obtained.

Empirical research is directly aimed at the object and is based on the results of observation and experiment. Theoretical research – aimed at development conceptual apparatus science and is associated with improving the knowledge of objective reality and its laws. Both types of research are organically interconnected and represent an integral structure of scientific knowledge: empirical research contributes to the development of theoretical knowledge, providing new experimental data for its generalization, and theoretical research opens up new prospects for empirical research based on the explanation of facts and experimental data.

Empirical knowledge has its own methods and forms.

Observation– this is an organized, systematic perception of the objects being studied in order to solve certain scientific problems.

Measurement involves the use of special measuring instruments, which allows you to increase the accuracy of cognition.

Experiment characterized by intervention during the processes being studied, the use of a variety of instruments. An experiment makes it possible to isolate a cognizable object from the influence of random or minor factors and to repeatedly reproduce the course of the process under constant conditions.

Empirical fact is a substantiated scientific statement about certain phenomena of reality obtained as a result of experimental research.

Empirical law represents a generalization of empirical facts. It is experimental in nature and does not reveal the essence and causes of the process being studied.

Theoretical knowledge also has its own methods and forms.

Abstraction is expressed in abstraction from secondary, unimportant this study properties of an object (for example, when studying the movement of planets, a scientist abstracts from information about their chemical composition and origin).

Idealization involves the mental construction of an object in such a way that the property being studied is represented in its ultimate form (for example, in physics, idealized objects are: an absolutely black body, an absolutely solid, incompressible fluid, etc.).

Formalization– this is the translation of the acquired knowledge into the language of signs and mathematical formulas.

Math modeling means the creation of a special sign structure, a mathematical model that allows you to study the quantitative characteristics and patterns of a wide variety of objects.

Hypothesis– this is an explanation of the processes being studied, expressed in a probabilistic, conjectural form. The hypothesis put forward must be consistent with previously acquired knowledge, rely on empirically established facts, explain them and predict new ones. Consequences are derived from hypotheses and tested experimentally. If a hypothesis is confirmed, it acquires the status of a theory.

Theory is a system of knowledge reflecting essential, natural, necessary, internal connections of a certain area of ​​reality. The structure of the theory includes concepts, principles, and theoretical laws.

The empirical and theoretical in scientific knowledge are closely interconnected. When planning an experiment and interpreting the results obtained, the scientist relies on certain theoretical premises. An experiment can confirm the theoretical hypothesis put forward or, on the contrary, refute it. This causes, on the one hand, the need to set up new experiments, and on the other hand, it contributes to the development of theoretical knowledge.

Significant role In scientific knowledge, “prerequisite knowledge” also plays a role - the picture of the world, the thinking style of scientists, the ideals and norms of scientificity, worldviews.

If creation can be defined as the activity of people aimed at creating something new, then scientific creativity– as the creation of new knowledge.

In the structure of scientific creative process The following stages can be distinguished:

1) discovery of a scientific problem, selection of the subject of research, formulation of the purpose and objectives of the study; 2) collecting information and choosing a research methodology; 3) searching for ways to solve a scientific problem, “nurturing” a new scientific idea; 4) scientific discovery, the “birth” of a scientific idea, the creation of an ideal model of a phenomenon discovered by a scientist; 5) registration of the received data into a logically coherent system.

Communication as people’s perception of each other (perceptual side of communication)

The emergence and successful development of communication is associated with the peculiarities of people’s perception and understanding of each other. The effectiveness of mutual understanding depends on how people reflect each other’s traits and feelings, perceive and understand others, and through them, themselves and the communication situation as a whole. The process of cognition and understanding by one person of another in the course of communication acts as one of the main components communication. Conventionally, this process is called the perceptual side of communication (.

Social perception is people’s perception, understanding and assessment of social objects: other people, themselves, groups, social communities, etc.

Social perception is one of the most complex and important concepts in social psychology. It should be distinguished from the general psychological concept of “perception,” which is interpreted as an artificially isolated fragment of the holistic process of cognition and a person’s subjective understanding of the surrounding reality. Perception is associated with the conscious identification of a particular phenomenon and the interpretation of its meaning through various transformations of sensory information.

“The concept of “social perception” includes everything that in the general psychological approach is usually designated by various terms and studied separately, then trying to put together complete picture human mental world:

• the actual process of perception of observed behavior;
• interpreting perceived behavior in terms of causes of behavior and expected consequences;
• emotional assessment;
• building a strategy for your own behavior."

The very concept of “perception” does not fully reflect the communication situation. In Russian literature, often as a synonym for the concept

"person's perception" is the expression used "knowing another person"(A. A. Bodalev). At least two people are included in the process of interpersonal cognition, and each of them is an active subject and compares himself with a communication partner. The effectiveness of people's understanding of each other depends on the operation of a number of mechanisms of interpersonal cognition.

An important place among the mechanisms of interpersonal cognition is occupied by identification , literally meaning identifying oneself with another person. Likening yourself to another is one of the simplest and most accessible ways to understand another person. It represents the ability to put oneself in another person’s place, to look at things from their point of view. When we want to be understood, we say: “Stand in my place!”, “Be in my shoes!” Identifying yourself with someone allows you to build your behavior the way someone else builds it. The psychological meaning of this process is to expand the range of experiences, to enrich internal experience. Through the identification mechanism, many personality traits, behavioral stereotypes, value orientations, gender, ethnic and other aspects of identity are formed in a child from early childhood. M.R. Bityanova emphasizes the role of the identification mechanism in adolescence and adolescence: “Identification has a special personal significance at a certain stage of personal development, most often in older adolescence and youth, when it largely determines the nature of relationships between peers (for example, the attitude to the idol)" 1.

The completeness and nature of the assessment of another person depend on such qualities of the assessor as the degree of his self-confidence and his inherent attitude towards other people. These qualities make a person insightful, a kind of seer in the complex sphere of human interaction. In addition to general abilities and life experience great importance has such a human property as empathy.

Empathy (from Greek. ampatheia - empathy) is a person’s non-rational knowledge of the inner world of other people (feeling).

This mechanism of cognition and understanding of a person includes the ability to correctly imagine what is happening in the inner world of another person, what he experiences, how he evaluates the world. Empathy is an affective understanding of another. The emotional nature is manifested in the fact that the situation of the communication partner is not so much thought through as felt. Developed ability to empathy is a necessary condition for the development of such a professionally significant quality of a practical psychologist and teacher as insight.

Along with identification and empathy, one of the main mechanisms of interpersonal cognition and understanding is social reflection. Social reflection - this is a mechanism of self-knowledge in the process of interaction, which is based on a person’s ability to imagine how he is perceived by a communication partner. This is not just knowledge or understanding of a partner, but knowledge of how a partner understands me, a kind of doubled process of mirror relationships with each other.

The wider the circle of communication, the more diverse ideas about how a person is perceived by others, the more a person ultimately knows about himself and others. Including a partner in your inner world- most effective source self-knowledge in the process of communication. R. M. Bityanova explains this thesis using the example of the famous “Yogari window”.

Each personality is a combination of four psychological spaces.

At the beginning of communication, the area of ​​“what is unknown to me” is wider, but in the process of establishing open, direct relationships, we get the opportunity to get to know ourselves better, manifesting ourselves in interaction with our communication partner. Thus, by revealing our inner world in the process of communication, we ourselves gain access to the riches of our own soul 1 .

Another special form of perception and cognition of another person is attraction- is based on the formation of a stable deep feeling towards a partner, often affection. However, it does not always have to be positive: it is easier to understand a friend and an enemy than a stranger and a stranger.

Attraction attraction; from lat. attrahere - to pull towards oneself, to attract, in a figurative sense - to attract, to incline) - a concept denoting the emergence, when a person perceives a person, of the attractiveness of one of them for another.

The formation of attachment arises in the subject as a result of his specific emotional attitude, the assessment of which gives rise to a diverse range of feelings (from hostility to sympathy and even love) and manifests itself in the form of a special social attitude toward another person.

This mechanism of social perception, associated with expressed interest in another, contributes to a more complete and deeper understanding of the partner and communication. While studying the phenomenon of attraction, researchers found that the factor mutual reach influences the emergence of interest and mutual disposition. D. Myers emphasizes that we often find friends among those who use the same passages, parking areas and recreation areas. Colleagues who happen to be neighbors in the office and, of course, are doomed to constant interaction, are much more likely to become friends rather than enemies. Such interaction gives people the opportunity to discover their own traits in each other, feel mutual affection and perceive each other as members of one social community 1 .

The mechanism of social perception - causal attribution- associated with attributing reasons for behavior to a person. In everyday life, people often do not know the reasons for the behavior of other people, therefore, especially in conditions of a lack of information, they begin to attribute to people both reasons for behavior and more general traits that may not be characteristic of them. An entire section is devoted to the study of the process of causal attribution in social psychology. The most famous among the creators of causal analysis schemes are E. Jones, K. Davis, G. Kelly, D. Kennose, R. Nisbet, L. Strickland.

The ability to interpret behavior is inherent in every person and constitutes the baggage of his everyday psychology. Analyzing how the “ordinary person”, the “man on the street” tries to understand and explain the cause and effect of the events he witnesses, researchers have found that people choose different types of attribution depending on whether they themselves are participants in an event or his observers. G. Kelly identified three such types: personal attribution(when the reason is attributed to the personal inclinations of the person committing the act), object attribution(when the cause is attributed to the object to which the action is directed) and circumstantial attribution(when the cause of what is happening is attributed to circumstances). The measure and degree of attribution of reasons may depend on the degree of uniqueness or typicality of the action and the degree of its “desirability” or “undesirability.” The first case refers to the fact that typical behavior is associated with role models and is therefore easily explainable. In contrast, atypical behavior allows for multiple interpretations and therefore leaves room for attribution of causes and explanations.

One of the central questions in this direction of research is the origin of natural errors and distortions in the process of interpersonal perception and cognition. Attribution researchers have found that when we explain someone's behavior, we often underestimate the impact of the situation and overestimate the extent to which the individual's personality traits and attitudes are manifested. This skepticism about the role played by the situation is what Lee Ross (1977) called the fundamental attribution error.

The fundamental attribution error is the tendency of observers to underestimate situational and overestimate dispositional influences on the behavior of others 1 .

D. Myers illustrates this phenomenon by describing his observations when he taught classes that began at 8:30 and 19:00. At 8:30 he was met with silent glances; at 19:00 he had to ask that the company not chat during class. In every situation, some people are more talkative than others, but the difference between the two situations increases individual differences. Even though he knew how time of day affected classroom conversation, he was tempted to assume that the people who showed up to class at 7:00 p.m. were more extroverted than the silent types who crawled in at 8:30 p.m.

Among other errors and effects of perception that distort interpersonal cognition, the most well-known are: the effect of “simply being in the field of view”, the “halo” effect, the effects of “primacy” and “novelty” and the phenomenon of stereotyping.

Many experiments have shown that simply being in the field of vision can lead to feelings of sympathy. The effect of “simply being in the field of view” - This is the tendency to feel more favorable and to give a more positive evaluation to previously unfamiliar stimuli after their repeated appearance in the field of view of the evaluator. This effect influences how we evaluate others: we like people we know more. Advertisers and politicians make extensive use of this phenomenon. When people are uncertain about a product (or candidate), simply mentioning it repeatedly can increase sales (or votes). After repeated repetitions of the product name, buyers, without hesitation, completely automatically respond favorably to the advertised product. If the candidates are relatively unknown, those who are mentioned more often in the media usually win.

First impressions can shape our interpretation of later information. Essence effect « halo“The point is that the information received about a person is superimposed on the image that was already created in advance. This pre-existing image plays the role of a “halo” that prevents one from seeing the actual features and manifestations of the object of perception. A general favorable impression leads to positive assessments of unknown qualities of the perceived subject, while a general unfavorable impression, on the contrary, contributes to the predominance of negative assessments. For example, if we are told that someone is “smart,” we may then interpret a trait of theirs as “bold” to mean “brave” rather than “reckless.”

Visual appeal also causes a halo effect and contributes to misperception. People tend to overestimate an outwardly attractive person based on other psychological and social parameters that are important to them. For example, in an experiment, teachers were given identical information about a boy and a girl, but with photographs of an attractive and an unattractive child. Teachers perceived an attractive child as more intelligent and academically successful 1 .

A perceptual error may arise as a result of the fact that we tend to evaluate higher the psychological qualities of people who treat us well or share some of our important ideas. In other words, people close to me in convictions, in general better than people who profess other, opposing views. The most famous techniques of manipulative communication are built on this property of social perception. Let’s say, the rule of “three YES”: make sure that in a conversation a person answers your questions “yes” three times in a row (even the simplest ones), and you can count on his greater favor when resolving fundamental issues.

Closely related to the halo effect primacy effects And "novelty". Their essence is that when perceiving a stranger, the most significant for us is the first information about him (the first impression can serve as a “halo” effect), and when perceiving a familiar person, the most significant will be new information(analysis of actions is carried out on the basis of the latest information about the person).

In a broader sense, these effects are considered as a manifestation of a special process that accompanies interpersonal perception and is associated with the formation of an impression of a person on the basis of stereotypes developed by the group. This process is called stereotyping. Stereotyping performs the function of simplifying and shortening the process of perception, thereby being necessary and useful tool social knowledge of the world. Various social stereotypes (ethnic, gender, age, professional, etc.) are involved in selection, categorization, and limitation of the flow of social information that befalls a person every day, helping to “save” mental resources and “accelerate” the thinking process.