4.05.2024 р. | ЄФВВ | Психологія

Main ideas and concepts

1) Historical background: conditions for psychology’s emergence (17th–early 20th c.)

• The period is framed as part of a broader transformation in Western Europe (scientific revolution; shift toward a new worldview).
• Key change in the organization of science
  • Growth of scientific research centers (scientific academies) distinct from church-controlled universities (examples given: Rome, London’s Royal Society, France’s Royal Academy).
• Psychology’s development begins within philosophy
  • Especially the “teaching of consciousness.”
  • New scientific approaches aimed at theories that were more rational and demonstrable.
  • Despite strong philosophical ties, psychology still sought to establish its own subject matter and domain.
• Methodological shift reshaping knowledge
  • Move from authority/dogma to empiricism (knowledge grounded in observation and experiment).
• Need to move beyond the older “soul” framework
  • The soul becomes insufficient to explain psychological life.
  • Scientists seek explanations of bodily activity and new sources of “energy” for internal/external activity.
• Competing emphases in cognitive life
  • Some researchers treat feelings as the basis of knowledge.
  • Others treat thinking as primary.

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2) Oleksandr Lazursky: theory of personality, inclinations, and giftedness

Who/why he matters

Oleksandr Fedorovych Lazursky (Ukrainian-born) is presented as:

• a doctor, psychiatrist, psychologist, and teacher
• a founder (or key figure) of characterology and differential psychology
• a major contributor to personology and the classification of personality types

His work is described as an attempt to build a holistic personality theory at the intersection of:

• psychology, pedagogy, sociology, medicine, physiology

Core claims

• A person is treated primarily as a natural being (crown of evolution).
• Self-consciousness / the I is not assumed to be ready-made at birth:
  • it arises at a stage of mental development
  • it results from brain-development processes plus environmental influence
• Personality is an integrated unity of mental processes and personal properties.

Two leading ideas of Lazursky’s personality theory

Idea 1: Separate two spheres of the psyche

• Endopsychics
  • internal interdependence of mental elements and functions
  • the nervous-mental organization / internal mechanism of personality
  • tied to temperament, character, giftedness, and relations to the central nervous system
• Exopsychics
  • content determined by the individual’s attitude toward external objects/environment
  • “environment/objects” is interpreted broadly as whatever confronts the individual and may be approached differently

Idea 2: Personality development occurs in three levels

• Lower level
• Middle level
• Higher level
• Criterion for the levels: how the individual adapts to the social environment
  • adaptation is broadly understood (relationships, ideas, values, moral/aesthetic aspects, etc.)

Adaptation and mental growth

• The main task of the individual: adaptation to the environment
• Mental development is described as mental growth
• Development differs across people depending on:
  • innate giftedness (strength/intensity/wealth of innate abilities)
  • external conditions (upbringing and education can foster or hinder growth)
• The higher the mental level:
  • the richer the person’s spiritual life/worldview
  • the less the biological foundation influences it

Four key indicators of personality development (lower/middle/higher)

• Wealth vs. poverty of personality
  • amount and variety/complexity of mental production expressed outwardly
• Strength and intensity of individual mental manifestations (abilities)
• Consciousness
  • awareness of mental manifestations
• Growing coordination of mental elements forming personality

Type-classification note

• Lazursky is said to use a complex classification of personality types:
  • based on combinations of endo/exopsychic complexes
  • and on variable criteria depending on the level of development
• “Types within each level” follow from that variable interaction.

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3) Wilhelm Wundt: psychology as science of direct experience

Who/why he matters

Wilhelm Wundt is presented as:

• a German doctor, physiologist, philosopher, and psychologist
• credited with separating psychology from philosophy and biology
• the first to call himself a psychologist and to use experimental psychology
• founder of the first official psychological research laboratory (Leipzig; mentioned date: 1899)
• a major contributor to psychology becoming an independent science

Definition of psychology

Psychology is defined as:

• the science of direct experience, studied in relation to the subject and attributed properties
• “Direct experience” is treated as closely tied to consciousness (framed as equal to consciousness/psyche)

It is also positioned as:

• an empirical human science (not reducible to physiology)
• distinct from “science of the soul”

Subject matter constraints (what psychology studies)

Experimental psychology’s subject is described as:

• processes and phenomena accessible to both external and internal observation

• with both physiological and psychological components

• Consciousness is emphasized; unconscious components are treated as not the experimental subject in Wundt’s view.

Key features/properties of Wundt’s psychology

• Direct-experience science vs. natural sciences
  • natural sciences are said to deal with mediated content and abstract from the subject
• A human/form-based science
  • focuses on forms of direct human experience (basis for humanities)
• Ethics/morality relevance
  • results contribute strongly to general problems of morality and ethics

Methods and research areas (explicit list)

• Method: introspection (self-observation)
  • borrowed/analogized from physics methodological attitude
• Two areas of research
  • Experimental
    • analysis of individual consciousness via experimentally controlled observation of sensations, feelings, ideas
  • Social
    • study of psychological aspects of culture (e.g., language, mood), extending beyond strictly experimental individual consciousness

Wundt’s tasks (step-like aims)

• Analyze processes of consciousness by studying its basic elements
• Determine how those elements connect
• Establish principles by which such connections occur

Laws/principles mentioned

• Creative synthesis
  • individual sensations combine into a complete picture
  • laws of mental relations arise from internal relations of elements
• Examples of principles/laws referenced:
  • laws of contrast
  • laws of heterogeneity of goals (actions may have unpredictable goals affecting outcomes)

Scope limits of the experimental method (explicit contrast)

• Suitable for:
  • lower-level processes like sensations and feelings
• Not suitable for:
  • higher mental functions (learning ability, thinking, memory, language-related processes)
• Higher mental processes are approached via non-experimental methods practiced in sociology/anthropology and social psychology.

Institutional impact

• Wundt’s institute:
  • Institute of Experimental Psychology (Leipzig; described as an international training center)
• Publication output:
  • about 420 books/articles (approximate figure as stated)

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4) Hermann Ebbinghaus: forgetting curve, interval effect, and learning/retention rules

Who/why he matters

Hermann Ebbinghaus is presented as:

• a German psychologist, experimenter, and philosopher
• who initiated experimental study of memory
• known for:
  • the forgetting curve
  • the interval effect

Foundational work

• Major monograph on memory (published around 1900).
• Credited with providing early objective experimental evidence that:
  • even complex mental phenomena follow lawful regularities
  • these can be studied mathematically
• Research conditions:
  • conducted without financial support
  • without a laboratory
  • without working at a university

Core experimental materials and approach

• Uses meaningless syllables and poorly meaningful material to study memorization and forgetting.

Key memory/learning regularities (explicit list)

1. Strong impression events
   • strongly impressed, relatively simple events are remembered immediately and persistently for many years.
2. Less interesting events
   • more complex but less interesting events may be experienced repeatedly but fade faster.
3. Attention enabling reconstruction
   • with steady attention, a single experience can later be reproduced with main moments in the proper order.
4. Confidence without correctness
   • a person may reproduce correctly without fully realizing it, and reproduce incorrectly while feeling certain.

Mathematical/experimental effects mentioned (curve-related)

• When the number of items exceeds short-term memory capacity:
  • the number of correctly formed items after a single presentation decreases
• Findings about repetition and timing include an edge effect:
  • best recall tends to occur for the beginning and end of long series (primacy/recency pattern)

Forgetting curve and interval effect (explicit outcomes)

• From the forgetting curve, Ebbinghaus derives the rule/effect:
  • Ebbinghaus effect
    • over time, a person forgets part of information

Repetition schedules (explicit methodology)

Scheme 1 (rapid learning / short horizon)

• Read
• First repetition: immediately after reading
• Second repetition: 20 minutes later
• Third repetition: 8 hours later
• Fourth repetition: 24 hours later

Scheme 2 (longer-term retention / extended horizon)

• Read
• First repetition: immediately after reading
• Second repetition: 20–30 minutes later
• Third repetition: after 1 day
• Fourth repetition: after 2–3 weeks
• Fifth repetition: after 2–3 months

Practical recommendations (explicit claims)

• Meaningful memorization is far more effective:
  • stated as about nine times faster than mechanical memorization
• Learn text as a whole:
  • don’t memorize poems stanza-by-stanza; learn the whole
• Don’t over-repeat on the same day:
  • rereading 20–30 times is said not to help much
• Future usefulness improves retention:
  • if people expect material will be useful later, they memorize faster/better
• Expertise advantage:
  • specialists remember new information faster due to existing structured context and logical connections
• If the learner doesn’t understand meaning:
  • memorized material is harder/slower to retain

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5) Psychology in Ukraine: development through education and philosophical-religious thought (17th–20th c.)

General educational/institutional context

• In Ukraine, literacy and knowledge spread through brotherhood schools:
  • teaching literacy, culture, and philosophical/psychological knowledge
  • publishing wisdom and educational texts
• Religious influence is described as significant for advanced intellectual life.
• A key higher educational institution:
  • Kyiv-Mohyla Collegium (founded by Petro Mohyla; stated timeframe/figure: 1632), later became an academy.

Figures and their contributions (timeline-style highlights)

17th century / early period representatives (psychological thought rooted in moral/soul themes)

• Kasyan Sakovych

  • philosopher, cultural-educational figure, writer
  • wrote works including “Aristotelian problems…” and a treatise on the soul
  • proposes practical tasks of living according to nature (highlighting reason and memory)
  • builds a typology of people based on self-knowledge and alignment between personality and broader human traits

• Innocent (Gizel)

  • educator, philosopher, church figure, historian
  • substantiates Christian morality and public humanism
  • presents “Man” as creator of his own happiness (not merely an instrument of providence)

• Stefan Yavorsky

  • conservative church figure, educator, philosopher
  • doctrine of the soul aligned with an Aristotelian division
  • emphasizes functional interaction among soul capacities
  • rational soul’s independence from the body and ethical arguments for immortality
  • self-knowledge reduces fear of death

• Transition to more “naturalistic” discussions of psyche

  • Feofan Prokopovich
    • theory of feelings and their excitation
    • psyche based on properties of life:
      • vegetative life
      • sensitivity via senses (sight/hearing/touch/etc.)
      • thinking leading to judgments
    • includes criminological/moral interpretive ideas:
      • crime requires careful study of the person
      • explores what constitutes “good” and the “highest good”
  • Mykhailo Kozachinsky
    • links morality with habits that incline a person to certain actions
  • Stepan Kalinovsky
    • morality as life skills; will realizes through mind’s guidance
    • justice and virtues depend on scientific knowledge
    • discusses age psychology and adolescence vs maturity:
      • mature people rely more on experience and show firmness/objectivity (including objective content of human relations)
    • happiness as a life goal:
      • people coordinate/select goals rather than having multiple equally valued aspirations
  • Hryhorii Skovoroda
    • happiness and self-knowledge
    • serves humanity by multiplying real benefits and countering harmful prejudices/passion
    • seeks truth within oneself; mind chooses (good vs evil; lie vs truth)
    • emphasizes sincerity (honesty and exactingness toward oneself)
    • “mind’s nourishment” for soul and body; central role of transformation/conscience warmth

19th–20th century representatives

• Mykhailo Maksymovych
  • person elevated above earthly beings due to an immortal soul
• Pamfil Yurkevych
  • the soul opens subjectively through inner vision; sincerity from the heart gives meaning
• Volodymyr Vernadsky
  • universalist view of connections between psyche and the external world
  • personality/consciousness understood through one’s place in the universe
  • development linked to the noosphere and biosphere/system-level planetary change
• Hryhorii Kostiuk
  • leading Ukrainian psychologist
  • developed age/developmental and pedagogical psychology, and the history/methodology of psychology
  • institutional achievements:
    • 1939: Ukrainian-original textbook (as editor)
    • 1970: textbook on age psychology (also as editor)
  • defended psychology’s independence while emphasizing close ties with related disciplines
• Kharkiv psychological school (30s focus)
  • informal group developing an activity-based approach via “inferential formation”
  • early 1930s initiative:
    • plan to organize a psychology department at the Psychoneurological Academy in Kharkiv
    • group under leadership of Leontiev developed/improved a version of Vygotsky’s theory
  • experimental studies on mechanisms of forming higher mental functions:
    • attention, memory, voluntary attention/memory
  • institutional timeline:
    • 1926: Ukrainian Research Psychoneurological Institute in Kharkiv
    • 1936: Ukrainian Institute of Clinical Psychiatry and Social Psychohygiene established
    • after capital shifted to Kyiv (1936), Kharkiv studies wound down but continued at the Ukrainian Research Institute of Pedagogy
  • activities tied to Leontiev
    • described as leading both a psychology department of a pedagogical institute and psychology work in Kharkiv

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Speakers / sources featured (as named)

• Olga Olegovna Dovzhenko (PhD in Pedagogical Sciences; Associate Professor; webinar speaker)
• Oleksandr Fedorovych Lazursky
• Wilhelm Wundt
• Hermann Ebbinghaus
• Petro Mohyla
• Kasyan Sokovich
• Innocent Gisel (Gizel)
• Stefan Yavorsky
• Feofan Prokopovich
• Mikhail Kozachinsky (spelled as “Mikhail Kozachinsky” in subtitles)
• Stepan Kalinovsky
• Hryhorii Skovoroda (spelled “Grigory Savich / Skovoroda”)
• Mykhailo Maksimovich
• Pamfil Yurkevych (spelled “Pamphilus Yurkevich”)
• Volodymyr Ivanovich Vernatsky (spelled “Vernatsky Volodymyr Ivanovich”)
• Grigoriy Silovich Kostyuk (Kostiuk)
• Leontiev (leading figure mentioned for the Kharkiv school)
• Vygotsky (referenced via “Vygotsky’s theory”)