A person not only thinks, feels, but also acts accordingly. A person realizes conscious and purposeful regulation of activity with the help of will. Will is the conscious ability and desire of a person to perform deliberate actions aimed at achieving a consciously set goal, and consciously regulate their activities, controlling their behavior. Will is the desire to choose the type of activity, to the internal efforts necessary for its implementation. Even the simplest labor activity requires willpower. It is a link between consciousness, on the one hand, and action, on the other. Will is a person's ability to overcome obstacles and achieve a goal, it is a conscious self-regulation of one's behavior, this is the most difficult psychological process, which causes human activity. Will is, first of all, power over oneself, over one's feelings and actions. It is necessary both when performing certain actions, and for refraining from undesirable actions. Will must accompany all types of human activity in order for them to be effective. Where the effort of a person, the tension of the psyche and physical strength is required, the will necessarily comes into play. Volitional effort is a special state of mental tension, in which the physical, intellectual and moral forces of a person are mobilized. Each volitional effort begins with the realization of the goal and the manifestation of the desire to achieve it. The will of a person is manifested in actions, for the implementation of which a person consciously regulates their strength, speed and other dynamic parameters. The level of development of the will determines how well a person is adapted to the activity that he performs. The volitional act is characterized by the experience of "necessary", "I must", awareness of the value characteristics of the purpose of the activity. Will governs man. Depending on the degree of volitional effort a person expends in achieving a goal, one speaks of the strength and stamina of the will. Volitional action is always performed on the basis of a specific goal and motive. It includes three main points: 1) goal selection; 2) drawing up a plan, that is, defining tasks, means and organizing the achievement of a goal; 3) performing the action itself. Volitional action can be motivated by both the individual's own needs and the needs of society. The transition to volitional regulation of actions is necessary when insurmountable obstacles arise on the way to achieving the goal. The main volitional qualities include the following: purposefulness, independence, determination, perseverance, endurance, impulsiveness, weak will, stubbornness and others. Purposefulness is understood as the ability to subordinate one's behavior to a stable life purpose. Setting affordable goals that require significant effort tempers the will. People differ from each other in the degree of volitional activity: Autonomy of volitional activity is called independence. This volitional quality is manifested in the ability to build one's behavior on one's own impulse, in accordance with one's own views and beliefs. Leading a team of independent people is not easy. But it is even more difficult if there is a group of workers in the team with such negative qualities of will as suggestibility and negativism. They cannot subordinate their actions to the arguments of reason and act, blindly accepting or blindly rejecting other people's influences, advice, explanations. Both suggestibility and negativism are expressions of weak will. Life constantly poses a lot of tasks for a person that require their solution. Choosing and making a decision is one of the links in the volitional process, and decisiveness is an important quality of a volitional person. An indecisive person constantly hesitates, because his decision is not analyzed enough, he is not completely sure of the correctness of the decision made. For volitional action, the implementation of the decision is very important. People are not equally stubborn in overcoming difficulties, not everyone brings the decision to the end. The ability to bring the decision to the end, to achieve the goal, to overcome various external and internal difficulties on the way to the goal, is called perseverance in psychology. In contrast to persistence, a person can show negative quality- stubbornness. Stubbornness manifests lack of will, the inability to force oneself to be guided by reasonable arguments, facts, and advice. Important volitional qualities are endurance and self-control. By mastering himself, a person refrains from actions and manifestations of feelings that are recognized as undesirable, unnecessary or harmful in given conditions or at a given time. The opposite of endurance and self-control is impulsiveness. The normal system of human behavior is based on the balance of excitatory and inhibitory processes (nervous processes of excitation and inhibition). Philosophy, psychology, pedagogy and social practice confirm that the will of a person can be educated. The basis of the education of the will of a person is the education of his volitional qualities, which are acquired primarily by self-education. It requires not only knowledge, but also training. A person himself must want to become strong-willed, and for this he must constantly train himself, his will. Methods of self-education of the will can be very diverse, but they all include the observance of the following levels: you need to start with acquiring the habit of overcoming relatively minor difficulties and obstacles; any self-justification (self-deception) is extremely dangerous; difficulties must be overcome in order to achieve great goals; the decision made must be carried out to the end; a separate goal must be divided into stages, the achievement of which creates conditions that bring closer to the goal; observance of the regime of the day and life is an important condition for the formation of the will; systematic exercise is a training not only of muscles, but also of will; the success of the activity depends not only on volitional qualities, but also on the relevant skills; self-hypnosis is important for educating the will. The constant education of the will is an important condition for the fulfillment of any professional activity, as well as the improvement of the individual to achieve the goal.
Introduction ................................................ ................................................. ........3
Chapter #1 Psychological features will......................................5
1.1 Definition of the concept of “will” .............................................. ........................5
1.2 Structure and general characteristics of volitional qualities .............................. 8
1.3 Classification of volitional qualities.................................................... ..............eleven
Chapter No. 2 Volitional processes of a person's personality .................................... 13
2.1 Will as a factor of self-education .............................................. ...............13
2.2Volitional regulation of behavior............................................................... ...................16
Chapter No. 3 The development of the will in man .............................................. ............19
3.1 Volitional qualities of a person .............................................. .......................19
Conclusion................................................. ................................................. 26
Bibliography................................................ .........................................27
Application
Introduction
In connection with the general revival of interest in the humanitarian, specific human problems of psychology in last years there is an increased attention to the will. Once, back in the 17th - 19th centuries, this problem was one of the central ones in psychological research. At the beginning of the XX century. in connection with the general crisis in this science, studies of the will have faded into the background. This problem turned out to be the most difficult of those that had to be raised and solved on a new methodological basis. But it was impossible to ignore it and completely ignore it, since the will is one of those mental phenomena (along with the imagination), a vital role that does not need to be proved.
One of the essential features of an act of will is that it is always associated with the application of efforts, decision-making and their implementation. Will presupposes a struggle of motives. That's why essential feature volitional action can always be separated from the rest. A volitional decision was usually made under the conditions of competing, multidirectional drives, none of which is able to finally win without making a volitional decision.
Will presupposes self-restraint, the restraint of some fairly strong drives, the conscious subordination of them to others, more significant and important goals, the ability to suppress desires and impulses that directly arise in a given situation. At the highest levels of its appearance, the will involves reliance on spiritual goals and moral values, on beliefs and ideals.
Another sign of the volitional nature of an action or activity regulated by the will is the presence of a well-thought-out plan for their implementation. An action that does not have a plan or is not carried out according to a predetermined plan cannot be considered volitional. “Volitional action is a conscious, purposeful action by means of which a person achieves his goal, subordinating his impulses to conscious control and changing the surrounding reality in accordance with his plan” (Rubinshtein S.L.).
The essential features of a volitional action are increased attention to such an action and the absence of direct pleasure received in the process and as a result of its implementation. This means that a volitional action is usually accompanied by a lack of emotional rather than moral satisfaction. On the contrary, it is usually the moral satisfaction from the fact that he managed to perform that is usually associated with the successful completion of an act of will.
Chapter I. Psychological features of the will.
1.1. Definition of the concept of "will"
The manifestation of will (more precisely, it would be “willpower”, volitional effort) in various specific situations makes us talk about volitional qualities, personality traits. At the same time, as the very concept of volitional qualities”, and the specific set of these qualities remain very uncertain, which leads some scientists to doubt the actual existence of these qualities.
Until now, there are great difficulties in breeding or identifying concepts denoting volitional activity. Does a child who demands from his parents to buy the toy he likes, persistence, perseverance? Do discipline and initiative always characterize willpower? Why do psychologists always mention decisiveness together, with courage. Where is the line between moral and volitional quality? Are all volitional qualities moral? These and a number of other questions are of not only theoretical but also practical interest, since methods for diagnosing volitional manifestations and pedagogical methods development of a specific volitional quality.
Volitional qualities are features of volitional regulation, manifested in specific specific conditions, due to the nature of the difficulty being overcome.
Desire, wanting, will are states of consciousness well known to everyone, but not amenable to any definition. We desire to experience, to have, to do all sorts of things that at this moment we do not experience, do not have, do not do. If with the desire for something we have the realization that the object of our desires is unattainable, then we simply desire; if we are sure that the goal of our desires is achievable, then we want it to be realized, and it is carried out either immediately or after we have performed some preliminary actions.
The only goals of our desires, which we realize immediately, directly, are the movement of our body. Whatever feelings we desire to experience, whatever possessions we strive for, we can achieve them only by making a few preliminary movements for our goal. This fact is too obvious and therefore does not need examples: therefore, we can take as a starting point for our study of the will the proposition that the only immediate external manifestations are bodily movements. We now have to consider the mechanism by which volitional movements are performed.
Volitional acts are arbitrary functions of our organism. The movements we have so far considered were of the type of automatic or reflex acts, and, moreover, acts whose significance is not foreseen by the person who performs them (at least by the person who performs them for the first time in his life). The movements which we now begin to study, being intentional and knowingly being the object of desire, are, of course, made with full awareness of what they should be. From this it follows that volitional movements represent a derivative, and not the primary function of the organism. This is the first proposition which must be kept in mind in order to understand the psychology of the will. And reflex, and instinctive movement, and emotional essence primary functions. The nerve centers are so constituted that certain stimuli cause their discharge in certain parts, and the being experiencing such a discharge for the first time experiences a completely new phenomenon of experience.
Will as a conscious organization and self-regulation of activity aimed at overcoming internal difficulties is, first of all, power over oneself, over one's feelings, actions. It is well known that different people have this power varying degrees expressiveness. Ordinary consciousness fixes a huge range of individual characteristics of the will, differing in the intensity of their manifestations, characterized on one pole as strength, and on the other as weakness of the will. A person with a strong will is able to overcome any difficulties encountered on the way to achieving the goal, while revealing such strong-willed qualities as determination, courage, courage, endurance, etc. Weak-willed people give in to difficulties, do not show determination, perseverance , do not know how to restrain themselves, to suppress momentary impulses in the name of higher, morally justified motives of behavior and activity.
The concept of will, as is known, has many meanings in psychology. We will assume that the will is the ability of a person to achieve a consciously set goal, while overcoming external and internal obstacles. Volitional behavior in this aspect implies purposefulness, self-control of behavior, the ability to refrain, if necessary, from certain actions, that is, mastery of one's own behavior.
The ability to control one's behavior is an important quality of a mature, adult person. “Only then can we talk about the formation of personality,” wrote L.S. Vygotsky, - when there is a mastery of one's own behavior.
First of all, only purposeful actions or processes can be called a volitional act. A goal is understood as some supposed conscious result to which an action should lead. And, thus, the processes can be divided into two groups: involuntary(these include automatic, instinctive, impulsive actions, i.e. actions on direct impulse, actions under the influence of affect, passion) and intentional, arbitrary i.e. purposeful. It is quite obvious that when we talk about the will, we already intuitively always refer these processes to the group of arbitrary ones.
So, we have come to a certain scheme of any action that can be called volitional. Once again, this scheme: an action objectively realizes two different relationships, that is, it carries out two different activities, therefore, it is subject to two different motives. In the case when one of these motives is negatively emotionally colored, and the other, on the contrary, positively, then a situation arises that is typical for an ongoing volitional action. If both motives are positive, then the action goes on, but falls out of the category of volitional. The same with negative motives, the action simply does not go, it does not exist.
P. A. Rudik (1962) notes that “the study of the structural features of the volitional qualities of a personality results in a scientific psychological substantiation of the means and methods of educating these qualities. Outside of such a psychological study, the methodology of volitional education acquires a roughly empirical character and often leads to results that are opposite to those goals that the educator set for himself.
Like any personality traits, volitional qualities have a horizontal and vertical structure.
horizontal structure form the makings, which are the typological features of properties nervous system. However, recognizing this, in a number of cases psychologists make a mistake in presenting this issue. The fact is that some authors, relying on the authority of IP Pavlov, believe, like him, that there are good and bad typological features. Strong nervous (strength, mobility and balance of nervous processes are classified as good, opposite typological features are classified as bad). In accordance with this, many textbooks, until recently, stated without evidence that good academic performance, high achievements in sports, etc. are inherent only in persons with a strong, mobile and balanced nervous system. A.P. Rudik adheres to the same point of view, believing that “positive volitional qualities (courage, determination, stamina, etc.) are usually possessed by athletes with a strong, balanced and mobile nervous system, while negative volitional qualities (indecision, weak will, fear are based on the structural features of a weak nervous system.” This statement has little to do with reality.
It has been established that a low degree of courage (fearfulness) is associated with a certain set of typological features: a weak nervous system, the predominance of inhibition according to the "external" balance, and the mobility of inhibition. There are almost no athletes with this typological triad among representatives of those sports that are associated with the experience of fear and lack of insurance (skydiving, ski jumping, diving).
A high degree of decisiveness is associated with the mobility of excitation and with the predominance of excitation in terms of the "external" and "internal" balance of nervous processes, and in a dangerous situation - with a strong nervous system. In addition, a high degree of determination is noted in individuals with a low level of neuroticism.
A high degree of patience is connected with the inertia of excitation, with the predominance of inhibition according to the "external" balance and excitation according to the "internal" balance, with a strong nervous system.
Thus, each volitional quality has its own psychophysiological structure, which in some components may coincide with different volitional qualities, and in others it may diverge. For example, people who have a high degree of patience may not have a high degree of determination, since two of the four typological features they have are opposite to those that: a high degree decisiveness. Even the strength of the nervous system, which is not entirely legitimately considered by some researchers as a synonym for "willpower", is not related to the decisiveness shown in a normal, non-dangerous situation.
vertical structure. All volitional qualities have a similar vertical structure. This similarity lies in the fact that each volitional quality is like a three-layer cake. At the bottom lie natural inclinations - neurodynamic features, on which the second layer is superimposed - volitional effort, which is initiated and stimulated by the social, personal factors that form the third layer - the motivational sphere, primarily moral principles. And on how much a person expresses the power of need, desire, how developed he is in moral attitude, the degree of expression of each volitional quality largely depends.
At the same time, the role of vertical components in each volitional quality can be different. Studying the severity of a number of "related" volitional qualities (patience, perseverance and perseverance), E.K. Feshchenko revealed that patience is largely determined by natural inclinations - typological features of the properties of the nervous system, and according to some data - by the biochemical characteristics of the body, and perseverance - to a greater extent motivation, in particular - the need for achievement. Perseverance, on the other hand, occupies an intermediate position, and for the appearance of this volitional quality, both are equally important.
Thus, we can talk about the properties inherent in the will as a whole: breadth, strength and stability. The breadth or narrowness of the volitional quality is determined by him through the number of activities in which it is clearly manifested. The strength of volitional quality is determined by the level of manifestation of volitional effort aimed at overcoming difficulties. The main sign of the stability of volitional qualities is the degree of constancy of manifestation of volitional effort in the same type of situations. The ratio of these properties in different people can be different.
At the moment, in psychology, there are several approaches to the classification of volitional qualities of a person.
For example, F.N. Gonobolin divides volitional qualities into two groups associated with activity and inhibition of undesirable actions and mental processes. To the qualities of the first group, he refers to decisiveness, courage, perseverance and independence; qualities of the second - endurance (self-control), endurance, patience, discipline and organization. True, at the same time, F.N. Gonobolin adds that it is impossible to strictly divide all the volitional qualities of a person into two groups depending on the predominance of the processes of excitation and inhibition. Sometimes, suppressing one action, a person is active in others. And this distinguishes from his point of view, discipline and organization.
V. I. Selivanov also considers the dynamics of the processes of excitation and inhibition to be an objective basis for distinguishing between various volitional qualities. In this regard, he divides volitional qualities into those that cause, enhance activity and those that inhibit, weaken or slow it down. To the first group, he refers initiative, determination, courage, vigor, courage; to the second group - endurance, endurance, patience.
R. Assagioli identifies the following volitional qualities:
1) energy - dynamic force - intensity; this quality is defined
the difficulty of achieving the goal;
2) skill - control - discipline; this quality emphasizes the regulation and control of other mental functions by the will;
3) concentration - concentration - attention; this quality is of particular importance when the object of influence and the task are unattractive;
4) decisiveness - speed - agility are manifested in decision-making;
5) perseverance - steadfastness - patience;
6) initiative - courage - determination to act; it is the propensity to take risks;
7) organization - integration - synthesis; the will acts here as an organizing link in the unification of those means that are necessary to solve the problem.
In this classification, attention is drawn to the combination of qualities that are not related to "willpower" and sometimes incompatible, into triads (for example, skill - control - discipline). There is a mixture of volitional manifestations with the functions and processes of managing human activity.
Another approach to the classification of volitional qualities is based on the idea expressed by S. L. Rubinstein about the correspondence of various volitional qualities to the phases of the volitional process. So, he refers the manifestation of initiative to the very initial stage of volitional action, after which independence and independence appear, and at the stage of decision-making, decisiveness is manifested, which at the stage of execution of volitional action is replaced by vigor and perseverance.
Chapter No. 2 Volitional processes of a person's personality
2.1 Will as a factor of self-education
WILL is a conscious purposeful activity of a person, which involves overcoming external and internal obstacles on the way to achieving the goal. Having arisen historical in the process of labor and social activities, will, according to I.M. Sechenov, is the active side of the mind and moral feelings. It is closely connected with the character of a person and plays an important role in the process of cognition and transformation of nature, society and himself.
Volitional actions are causally predetermined by the conditions of life and are connected with them by human needs. For example, if a person freezes in the steppe, and there is no place nearby where he can warm himself, he sets himself the goal of finding a warm shelter and, overcoming external and internal obstacles (blizzard, darkness, distance, lack of strength, pain in frostbitten parts of the body), stubbornly goes to the intended goal. Consequently, the will of a person is not free from the environment, the conditions of his life, objective circumstances. In the process of a volitional act, the obstacles that arise on the way to the goal are overcome with the help of volitional effort - the neuropsychic stress of a person, which mobilizes his physical and spiritual forces to overcome these obstacles. “Great will,” wrote A.S. Makarenko, is not only the ability to wish and achieve something, but also the ability to force oneself to give up something when necessary. If a strong will helps a person to survive in a difficult, extreme environment, then lack of will, despair in such a situation can lead to his death.
The physiological basis of a volitional act is the conditional neural connections of a person with the environment, which are determined by external influences and are carried out through speech, thinking and consciousness. The source of any volitional act is an unsatisfied biological or social need of a person. In its development, a volitional act goes through a number of stages that make up its structure. At the 1st stage (attraction), a person, realizing the dissatisfaction of his need, still does not see the goals, the achievement of which could lead to its satisfaction (“I know that it is no longer possible to live like this, but I don’t know how to live”). At the 2nd stage (desire), the goal is already clear, but there is no means to achieve it (“I know what I want, but I don’t know how to achieve it”). The 3rd stage of volitional action (desire) consists in determining and realizing the ways, means and ways to achieve the intended goal. The stages of "desire" and "want" in the act of will constitute the period of choice of goals and means, in the determination of which there is often a struggle of motives. A person weighs all the pros and cons of a particular goal and the path leading to its achievement, and in the end stops at a specific goal and a specific way to achieve it (makes a decision). This final choice is the result of the victory of some motives over others. If the achievement of the desired goal is a complex and remote process in time, then a person, having made a decision, outlines an action plan for its implementation. Further development of the volitional act leads to its main stage - the execution of the decision and ends with the assessment of the volitional action. The implementation of the decision requires a person to display various qualities of strong will: determination, determination, self-control, perseverance, discipline, courage, courage and nobility.
Decisiveness is the ability to make sound and firm decisions without a protracted struggle of motives and quickly move on to their implementation. It is needed by all people, and especially by representatives of those professions whose work often requires the manifestation of this strong-willed quality: pilots, military leaders, machinists, assemblers, rescuers and many others. It is difficult for an indecisive person to make a decision in case of desire or desire, but does not go into execution.
Purposefulness is the direction of movement towards the goal. Willpower, realizing the movement towards the goal, is perseverance, perseverance - the ability of the individual, by all means, regardless of any obstacles, to achieve the goal.
Such a volitional quality as self-control (or endurance, endurance, patience), expressed in the ability to overcome internal obstacles in one's striving for a goal, helps a person overcome a sense of fear, illness, bad habits, fatigue, desires that are unnecessary at the moment.
A sign of a strong will of a person is courage - the ability to overcome obstacles at the risk of life, physical well-being or moral peace. Courage is also manifested in the fact that a person who is convinced that he is right openly expresses and defends his point of view in a dispute, even if it does not coincide with the opinion of the majority.
The presence of all the qualities of a strong will is - courage - the highest characteristic of the will. courageous man always purposeful and decisive, persistent, courageous, disciplined and endowed with self-control. The social significance of a strong will depends on the moral content of those goals that a person strives for are really achievable, then the volitional effort aimed at achieving them turns out to be sustainable; if the goals do not have a proper logical and scientific justification, that is, they are untenable, unrealistic, then the willpower turns out to be unstable. That is why, while cultivating a strong will in the younger generation, we must simultaneously form a conscious worldview and high morality. Such an upbringing will make a person's will socially useful and unshakable in achieving a highly moral goal: to live for people and for himself.
For the education of the will, paradoxically, one thing is required - the systematic manifestation of the will itself. Without exercising oneself in the choice of useful goals, in the systematic manifestation of a strong-willed effort aimed at overcoming obstacles, it is practically impossible to educate the will.
Will arises as a result of life practice, education and self-education of the individual. You need to educate it in a child with early age. At the age of up to 3 years, when the child already masters the movements of his arms, legs, torso quite well, learns to fulfill many of the requirements of adults based on understanding their speech, the prerequisites for volitional (voluntary) actions are formed, which differ from involuntary (impulsive) awareness and purposefulness. There are 3 main directions in the development of will in a preschooler: the development of purposeful actions, the formation of moral goals and motives for actions, and an increase in the regulatory role of speech in the performance of actions. The child should be praised for the effort of will, help in case of difficulty, and in case of failure - to express confidence in the final success, to help achieve it. The development of the will is facilitated by various activities of the preschooler and, above all, the game.
To overcome oneself, to change one's way of life, a person needs a strong will - an effort of will.
There are also violations of volitional activity. The most common include abulia (lethargy, lack of initiative, weakening of the will) and various forms of apraxia (violation of voluntary, purposeful motor acts, complex volitional actions associated with a disorder of speech and conceptual thinking).
2.2 Volitional regulation of behavior
The function of volitional regulation is to increase the effectiveness of the corresponding activity, and volitional action appears as a conscious, purposeful action of a person to overcome external and internal obstacles with the help of volitional efforts.
At the personal level, will manifests itself in such properties as willpower, vigor, endurance, etc. They can be considered as primary, or basic, volitional qualities of a person. Such qualities define behavior that is characterized by all or most of the properties described above.
A strong-willed person is distinguished by determination, courage, self-control, self-confidence. Such qualities usually develop somewhat later than the group of properties named above. In life, they manifest themselves in unity with the character, so they can be considered not only as volitional, but also as characterological. Let's call these qualities secondary.
Finally, there is a third group of qualities, which, reflecting the will of a person, are connected at the same time with his moral and value orientations. This is responsibility, discipline, adherence to principles, commitment. The same group, designated as tertiary qualities, can include those in which the will of a person and his attitude to work simultaneously act: efficiency, initiative.
Volitional action, the need for a person arises when an obstacle appears during the manifestation of the implementation of motivated activity. The act of will is connected with its overcoming. It is necessary to understand, comprehend the essence of the problem that has arisen.
Volitional regulation is necessary in order to keep in the field of consciousness the object that a person is thinking about for a long time, to maintain attention concentrated on it. The will is involved in the regulation of almost all basic mental functions: sensations, perception, memory, thinking, speech. The development of these processes from the lowest to the highest means the recognition by a person of volitional control over them.
Volitional action is always associated with the consciousness of the purpose of the activity, its significance, with the subordination of the functions performed to this purpose. Sometimes there is a need to give some special meaning, and in this case, the participation of the will in the regulation of activity comes down to finding the appropriate meaning, the increased value of this activity. If necessary, it may be necessary to find additional situations of fulfillment, bringing to the end of an already begun activity, and then the volitional meaning-forming function is connected by the process of performing the activity. In the third case, something may be learned, and actions associated with learning acquire a volitional character.
Volitional regulation can be included in the activity in a way from the stages of its implementation: the initiation of fundraising activities and methods for its implementation, following the planned plan or deviating from it, monitoring execution. Finally, the volitional regulation of control over the execution of an action consists in the fact that a person consciously forces himself to carefully check the correctness of the actions performed when there is no more strength left for this.
Chapter number 3 Techniques for the development of will.
3.1 Will phases
Modern psychology, psychotherapy and education are little concerned with and are interested in such a quality as will. Therefore, before talking about the technique aimed at its development, it is necessary to make some preliminary remarks about this less studied quality.
It is not our task to analyze the causes of this strange state of affairs - the reaction to the once exaggerated attention to the will as a suppressive factor, and the strong resistance that one has to face in the training of the will. I would like only to draw attention to the paradox in which the very central position of the will, its direct relation to the human self, became the reason why the will was neglected. As Rank rightly remarks, "man experiences his individuality in terms of will, which means that the existence of his personality is identical with his ability to express his will in this world" (cited in: Progoff I. Death and Rebirth of Psychology, p. 210) . In addition, as we have already pointed out when describing other techniques, a person is most often not aware of his Self and, therefore, in the same way is not aware of the direct function of this Self, i.e., will.
The world is dominated by two very one-sided ideas about will. The first sees in it a mechanism of suppression and curbing, the purpose of which is something like the taming of wild animals. The second relates the will to forcible forward movement, comparable to what happens when a person pushes a stuck car from behind. It seems to us that this comparison is so successful that we will continue to refer to it when explaining some provisions that are dripping will.
An analysis of the will shows that it has several phases or stages, which will be discussed below. However, keeping in mind the practical goals of developing and educating the will, we will mainly consider the completed, effective and successful act of the will and its use, that is, the will in action.
Therefore, in order to train the will, it is not necessary to have a complete theory or idea about it, or to decide which of its stages is the most important and inherent in the will as such. The goal of educating the will is obvious: without it it is impossible to make decisions or achieve their implementation. Without it, it is impossible to allocate time and effort to the use of any other technique, and consequently, the work of psychosynthesis itself is impossible. But the education of the will also has another more important and urgent task - this is the development of the will for the development of the will. Those of our patients who say that they have no will actually have some kind of will, since will is a direct function of the ego, although it is true that it is in a latent state. Such people need to learn how to use at least their small "capital", their tiny reserve of will, to grow and strengthen it to such an extent that it turns into an important and significant factor that would be sufficient at least at some separate stage of psychosynthesis, not to mention already about the boundless benefit that a constantly strengthening will can generally bring.
PHASES OF WILL
As has already been said, we are interested in the training of the will as a whole at all its stages, or, to put it more precisely, in the achievement of a completed volitional act.
1. The first phase of the exercise of the will includes:
a. task - goal - intention;
b. evaluation;
in. motivation.
Since we are considering the conscious will, here we must first speak of a task or an end, for without a conscious task there can be no talk of a pure will. Once a decision is made about a goal, the intention to achieve it appears, and motivation arises.
In an effort to avoid erroneous ideas that could throw psychosynthesis back to the level of nineteenth-century psychology, which excluded the most important unconscious factors from consideration of the will, we would like to make a reservation right away: psychosynthesis arose from psychoanalysis, and therefore it should be completely obvious that there are no exceptions of this kind out of the question. The author in no way closes his eyes to the existence of very complex unconscious motives operating beyond the level of awareness. Therefore, the development of the will must be preceded by an investigation of the unconscious, one of the most important and most useful moments of which is the discovery of unconscious motives and their rationalization so that they become accessible to the conscious self of a person. In the process of psychosynthesis, we fully take into account this most important aspect of psychoanalysis.
As a consequence, consideration of motivation is basically reduced to the discovery of unconscious drives, but after they are revealed, it is important not to fall into the mistakes of eighteenth-century psychology, which condemned and suppressed these drives. The function of the will is to use them and ensure their interaction in the process of achieving the chosen goal.
Motivation necessarily involves evaluation. As we have already pointed out, evaluation is inevitable and, in a certain sense, simply necessary. A true assessment can only be carried out if there is a scale of values, which in turn expresses the philosophical concept of the life and world of a given person (Weltanschaunung). Everyone has such a concept or philosophy, but usually it does not exist in any particular form. Often it is rather illusory and contains many contradictions. By the way, from the point of view of the author, clarification and awareness of the position of the Self and its relationship with the world is the most productive side of existential analysis. It is clear that the task or goal to which the will will be directed must have an obvious positive value or, in Levin's terminology, "positive valence."
2. The assessment phase is followed by a phase of consideration, reflection, weighing. In any particular situation, it may seem that there is nothing to think about and that the highest possible goal or goal should be preferred. However, in reality, things are somewhat more complicated. The goal or objective should not only be of high value, but also be achievable. You can imagine high goals, but at the same time understand that their achievement is unrealistic, at least in the existing psychological and physical conditions. Therefore, before proceeding to the next stage (decision and choice), the process of reflection and consideration should not automatically stop at the highest task; various conditions and circumstances must be taken into account. Even if the alternative goal is not so high, it may be much more important in this situation. Here, in considering and weighing numerous circumstances, wisdom will be required from a person, for each case is unique.
3. At the third stage of volitional action, a decision is made. This is a very difficult stage, because there is a choice that is contrary to the inherent human desire to "eat the cake and keep it at the same time." From the point of view of psychoanalysis, this can be called following the pleasure principle, which is irrational in nature. Instead, when making a deliberate decision, a person uses the reality principle, which is relative in nature and is based on the fact that you cannot have everything at the same time and you always have to choose one of several possibilities. Previously, psychological works on the will, considering this point, emphasized its negative side and used the term "renunciation". However, it seems to us that for theoretical and especially practical purposes it is much better to use the positively colored term "preference". When choosing and making a decision, we give preference to what we think is more attractive and achievable compared to other options that we refuse. The difficulty of a volitional decision lies in the fact that a person directly or indirectly understands: a decision implies responsibility, a decision is a free act that entails responsibility. Not so long ago, some researchers, including E. Fromm, managed to very clearly show how individuals and entire communities are running away from freedom in an absolutely amazing way. They have to pay for this flight from responsibility by giving up one of the greatest human values - free will.
Here I would like to mention broadly known fact that indecision is one of the most striking symptoms of depression. However, we will talk about this later in connection with the limitations in the training of the will.
4. The fourth phase of the act of will immediately following the adoption of the decision is the affirmation in this decision. An effective statement in a decision needs several factors. The first of these is faith. And this is not just "trust", it is a living, dynamic faith, moreover, a firm confidence. If not, the basis for affirmation may be the willingness or decision to "try", to take risks, to seek adventure.
A statement in a decision consists of a statement or command that a person gives to himself. It involves the use of the imperative and words such as the Latin "Fait" or "so be it." The intensity or "psychological intensity" of a statement determines how effective it is.
It is often necessary for a person to repeat, or rather reaffirm, his decision from time to time. This gives him great strength and helps to overcome obstacles that stand in the way. It is important to understand that sometimes approving a decision can cause backlash. And this needs to be explained to patients. Then they will not be taken by surprise, and instead of giving up, they will be able to calmly endure these reactions and learn to overcome them. Reaffirmation of the decision is one of the ways to overcome this.
5. The fifth phase of the act of will consists in planning, organizing activities in accordance with a clearly defined program. To do this, it is necessary to imagine in advance the various steps or stages that need to be passed from the starting point to the final goal of the complete implementation of the task. Naturally, in some cases, the final goal will be quite far away, but then you can have in mind several intermediate goals, gradually leading to the full implementation of the plan. Therefore, it is necessary to have a clear, wise, well-organized program of successive steps or intermediate tasks.
Here there is a danger of falling into two opposite errors. One of them is that a person is so absorbed in the main direction and ultimate goal of the volitional act that he loses his sense of reality. In the second case, on the contrary, intermediate tasks and ways to achieve them become so important and significant that a person loses sight of the final goal or begins to pay too much attention to the ways to achieve it.
6. The sixth phase of the act of will is to direct the execution of the decision. There is a need here for two wonderful properties of the will as a whole. This is, firstly, the dynamic willpower, its directed driving energy, and secondly, perseverance or endurance. Of course, ideally, the will should combine maximum driving force and maximum endurance and perseverance, but more often we are faced with the fact that in some people one property prevails, while in others the other. In addition, for some tasks the predominantly dynamic aspect of the will is needed, while for others, less strenuous but longer duration, patience and perseverance. Therefore, the question of which of these two aspects of the will prevails in a particular person, and which of them is more required for the performance of a given task, is quite subjective. Obviously, in the development of the will, more attention should be paid to that aspect of it, which is comparatively less developed in a given person.
The dynamic will manifests itself mainly through the affirmation and command "so be it", while the persevering will is necessary for one of the most efficient technician, using the will in order to constantly keep a clear mental picture or image in the spotlight. Such held images are incredibly powerful, but we will talk about this below, considering the work with imagination and visualization.
Another property required for the final stage of solution execution is direction holding, i.e. in unidirectionality. In addition, it also requires the ability to "suppress", in the sense - to exclude and destroy, all obstacles that could interfere with the use of the will at the stage of implementation of the decision.
Conclusion
The concept of “will” is used by psychiatry, psychology, physiology and philosophy. At the personal level, will manifests itself in such properties as willpower, energy, perseverance, endurance, etc. They can be considered as primary, or basic, volitional qualities of a person. Such qualities define behavior that is characterized by all or most of the properties described above. The will ensures the performance of two interrelated functions - incentive and inhibitory, and manifests itself in them. Will is understood as a complex mental process that causes the activity of a person and awakens him to act in a directed way.
The development of the will in a person is associated with such actions as:
transformation of involuntary mental processes into arbitrary ones;
the acquisition by a person of control over his behavior;
development of volitional qualities of a person;
and also with the fact that a person consciously sets himself more and more difficult tasks and pursues more and more distant goals that require significant volitional efforts for a long time.
Will is the ability of a person to overcome obstacles, to achieve the goal. Specifically, she acts in such character traits as purposefulness, determination, perseverance, courage. These character traits can contribute to the achievement of both socially useful and anti-social goals.
Bibliographic list
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Application
Exercise I. Part A
Get comfortable, try to relax.
1. Try as vividly as possible to imagine all the troubles that brought you and your loved ones the absence of you enough developed will. Imagine all the troubles that can still happen to you in the future because of this. Explore each of them in detail, trying to clearly define what it consists of. Then write a list of those troubles. Feel in yourself all the feelings that these memories and expectations aroused in you: shame, dissatisfaction with yourself, the desire to avoid repeating such behavior and the persistent desire to change the existing state of affairs.
2. Imagine as vividly as possible all the benefits that the development of the will can bring to you, all the benefits and joys that you and your loved ones will receive from this. Explore each of these benefits in detail. Try to clearly articulate each of them and then write them down. Surrender fully to the feelings that these thoughts will evoke in you: the joy of the opportunities before you, the burning desire to realize them, the strong desire to start right away.
3. Try as best you can to imagine that you have a strong and persistent will. Imagine how firmly and resolutely you walk, how decisively you behave in various situations: you are focused on achieving your plan, you know how to mobilize all your efforts. Imagine how persistent you are, how well you can control your behavior. Nothing can embarrass you. Imagine how you achieve success in your plan. Try to pick up situations similar to those in which you have not been able to show sufficient willpower and perseverance before. Imagine how in similar situations you manifest the desired qualities.
Exercise I. Part B
Select reading material that will develop and sustain the feelings and determination that the first part of this exercise evoked in you. It should be encouraging, optimistic and dynamic literature that stimulates self-confidence and encourages action. However, for this reading to be of real benefit, it must be done in a certain way: read slowly, fully focusing on what you are talking about. in question, marking passages that make a special impression on you, and rewriting those that seem especially striking and appropriate to your case. It is good to re-read these passages several times, as you should be imbued with them. Biographies are best suited for this purpose. prominent people who had a strong and constructive will, or other books directly aimed at awakening the desired inner energy. After devoting some time to such reading, you will feel a growing, even keen desire to get to work immediately. This will be just the right moment to decide with all the firmness you can to devote your time, energy and all possible means to the development of your will.
However, I want to warn you: never tell anyone about your decision, even if with the best of intentions you want to persuade someone to follow your example: Talking usually weakens the stored energy needed for action. In addition, if others find out about your goal, it can easily lead to skeptical and hurtful remarks, which in turn will sow doubt and discouragement in you. Work silently. In any case, it won't do any harm.
The two parts of the above exercise are one of the techniques, or rather one of the methods, for mobilizing other drives to bring about an increase in that will energy that already exists in you.
Exercise II. Doing useless exercises
This technique consists in performing actions that have no other meaning than the training of the will. They can be compared with gymnastic exercises, which are only important for developing muscles and improving neuromuscular coordination and physical condition of a person as a whole. This technique was first proposed by William James in his book "Conversations with Teachers": "Keep up your ability to dare with a daily short, completely pointless exercise. Systematically show heroism in some unnecessary trifles: every day or every other day do something which has no other meaning than simply overcoming the obstacle, and when the hour of the real test comes, you will be able to meet it fully armed. This kind of asceticism is akin to the insurance that we pay for the house and other property. In giving this money, we do not receive in return nothing, and it is very unlikely that they will ever return to us.But if there is a fire in the house, insurance will save us from ruin.So it is with a person who daily in small things developed in himself concentration, an energetic will and a capacity for self-denial. When everything around him staggers, and the more pampered mortals around him are swept away by the elements, he will remain unshakable, to the rock"
III. An exercise in educating the will in everyday life
The next group of exercises for the development of the will is based on the use of the countless possibilities that are fraught with everyday cares and duties. Most activities can do for this: our life aspirations, our inner attitudes, and the way we do these activities can easily turn them into excellent exercises for training the will. Such an exercise, for example, can be a morning rise, if you get up ten to fifteen minutes before your usual time. The same can be said about morning dressing, if you set yourself the task of making each movement with concentration, quickly and accurately, but without haste. At the same time, you can develop a very important property in everyday life - learn to "hurry up slowly." Modern busy life with all its stresses makes us rush even in those cases when it is not necessary, just out of habit.
Hurrying without fuss is not easy, but it is quite possible. If you learn this, you will be able to operate effectively and achieve good results without tension and excessive fatigue. This kind of skill doesn't come easily. It requires almost a splitting of the personality - into the one who acts and the one who at the same time observes these actions. But even if you just try to do it, such an attempt will be a good way to develop the will.
In the same way, during the rest of the day - whether at work, at work or at home - you can do numerous exercises for the development of the will, which at the same time will help you develop certain necessary qualities. To learn, for example, to maintain peace of mind and "be aware of yourself" during routine work, no matter how boring and tiring it is. Or manage your feelings and control the expression of impatience when faced with small annoyances and annoying factors, such as when you are driving in a crowded transport, waiting for the door to open, or seeing the mistakes of subordinates or injustice on the part of superiors.
And later, at the end of the day, at home, we have a lot of opportunities for such exercises: you can try to control yourself when you have a desire to give free rein to a bad mood, which you owe to some kind of irritation, worries or troubles at work. Try to calmly perceive what is happening and settle all domestic troubles. While eating, you can do an exercise that is useful not only for educating the will, but also for health: control the desire or impulses to eat quickly when thinking about work, etc. It is necessary to force yourself to chew food well and eat in a calm, relaxed state. In the evening, new opportunities open up for us to train the will, for example, not to succumb to temptations that would distract us from fulfilling our plans.
Both at work and at home, we must, if possible, decisively stop work when we feel tired, and stop the desire in ourselves to speed up the pace in order to finish it faster. Instead, it’s better to give yourself the opportunity to take a smart break. It is much more useful to take a short break, only feeling tired, than then, overtired, rest for a long time. When short and frequent rest breaks were introduced in industry, this markedly increased the productivity of labor.
During such a rest, it is enough to do some physical exercises or relax by closing your eyes for a few minutes. Fatigue caused by mental work is usually best relieved by physical exercise, although each person must find out by experience what suits him best. One of the advantages of such frequent and short breaks is that a person does not lose interest and desire for the work being done and at the same time overcomes fatigue and nervous tension. The ordered rhythm of activity ensures the harmony of our existence, and harmony is the universal law of life.
To train the will, it is useful to try to go to bed at a certain time, decisively stopping an exciting reading or an interesting conversation. It is difficult, especially in the beginning, to succeed in all these exercises, and if you take on all at once, it will easily lead to the fact that you will lose heart. Therefore, it is better to start with several exercises that would evenly cover the whole day. When you succeed in them, add new ones, replace something, change something. Perform the exercises with interest and pleasure, noting successes and failures, writing down all your achievements and defeats and trying to treat them with sports enthusiasm. So you will be able to avoid a life that is too rigid and overorganized; you can make interesting and colorful what would otherwise be tedious duties. In addition, without knowing it, everyone with whom you have to face will become your allies. For example, a strict boss or a boring partner will become something like parallel bars on which your will to improve human relations will develop your abilities and strength. If food is not served for too long, this is a great chance to exercise patience and peace of mind, as well as an opportunity to read interesting book. Overly talkative friends and talkers will help you learn to restrain yourself during a conversation: thanks to them, you can master the ability to refuse to participate in an unnecessary conversation. The art of saying "no" is very difficult, but very rewarding.
Exercise IV. Physical exercises for the education of the will
Physical exercises can be very effective when used specifically for the development of the will. As the French writer Gillet said, “Gymnastics is elementary school for the education of the will ... and serves as a model for the education of the mind. "In fact, any physical movement is an act of will, an order given to the body; and the persistent repetition of these acts, carried out with concentration, diligently and patiently, trains and tempers the will. a feeling of physical energy, increased blood circulation - the limbs become warm, mobile and obedient.All this creates a feeling of moral strength, determination and perfection, which increase the tone of the will and contribute to an increase in its energy.However, it should be emphasized once again that these exercises will bring the greatest benefit only in in the event that we make them the only or, at least, the main goal - the education of the will.
Exercises must be performed with great precision and attention. They should not be too energetic or too relaxed. Each movement or series of movements must be carried out with vivacity and determination. The most suitable sports exercises for these purposes should not be of a power or too exciting nature, exercises that require patience, calmness, dexterity and courage from a person are more suitable here. They must allow the possibility of interruption and suggest a variety of movements.
Most sports activities are suitable for will training. outdoors. Golf, tennis, ice skating, walking and climbing are especially good for this. But even if you do not have the opportunity to engage in one of these types, you can always find physical exercises that are suitable for secluded activities at home.
Ilyin E.P. Psychology of will. - St. Petersburg, 2000. p-114
James W. Psychology.-M., 1991. p-98.
Vygotsky L.S. Sobr. Op. T. 4.-M., 1983. p. 225
Rudik P.A. Psychology of the athlete's will. - M., 1973. p. 6
P.A. Rudik Psychology of the athlete's will.-M., 1968. p.14
I.P. Petyaikin Psychological features of decisiveness.-M., 1978. p. fifteen
E.P. Ilyin Psychology of will. - St. Petersburg, 2000. p.132
E.K. Feshchenko Age and gender characteristics of self-assessment of volitional qualities. St. Petersburg, 1999. p. 32
Gonoblin F.N. Psychology. Textbook.-M., 1976. p.42
Selivanov V.I. Will and its education. - Ryazan, 1992. p. 3
Will is one of the most complex concepts in psychology. It is considered both as a mental process, and as an aspect of most other major mental processes and phenomena, and as a unique ability of a person to arbitrarily control his behavior.Will is a person's conscious overcoming of difficulties in the way of carrying out an action. Faced with obstacles, a person either refuses to act in the chosen direction, or “increases” efforts to overcome the barrier, that is, he performs a special action that goes beyond the boundaries of his original motives and goals; this special action consists in changing the very urge to act. A person intentionally attracts additional motives for action, in other words, builds a new motive. An important role in the construction of new motives is played by the imagination of a person, foresight and the ideal "playing" of certain possible consequences activity.
Ultimately, the complexity of the concept of "will" is explained by the fact that it is very closely related to the concept of "consciousness", an extremely complex psychological phenomenon, and is one of its most important attributes. Being closely connected also with the motivational sphere of personality, will is a special arbitrary form of human activity. It involves the initiation, stabilization and inhibition (inhibition) of a number of aspirations, impulses, desires, motives; organizes a system of actions in the direction of achieving conscious goals.
In general, volitional processes perform three main functions.
The initiating, or incentive, function (directly related to motivational factors) is to force one or another action, behavior, activity to start, overcoming objective and subjective obstacles.
The stabilizing function is associated with volitional efforts to maintain activity at the proper level in the event of external and internal interference of various kinds.
An inhibitory or inhibitory function consists in inhibiting other, often strong motives and desires, other behaviors that are inconsistent with the main goals of activity (and behavior) at one time or another. A person is able to slow down the awakening of motives and the implementation of actions that contradict his idea of \u200b\u200bthe proper, is able to say “no!” motives, the exercise of which could jeopardize values of a higher order. Regulation of behavior would be impossible without inhibition.
Along with this, volitional actions also have three main features.
The first is awareness of the freedom to carry out actions, a sense of the fundamental "uncertainty" of one's own behavior.
The second is the obligatory objective determinism of any, even seemingly extremely “free” action.
The third - in volitional action (behavior) the personality manifests itself as a whole - as completely and clearly as possible, since volitional regulation acts as the highest level of mental regulation.
The most important place in the problem of will is occupied by the concept of an act of will, which has a certain structure and content. The most important links of a volitional act - decision-making and execution - often cause a special emotional state, which is described as an effort of will.
Volitional effort is a form of emotional stress that mobilizes a person’s internal resources (memory, thinking, imagination, etc.), creates additional motives for action that are absent or insufficient, and is experienced as a state of significant stress.
Its components are the following main steps:
the presence of the purpose of the action and its awareness;
the presence of several motives and also their awareness with the alignment of certain priorities between motives according to their intensity, significance. As a result of volitional effort, it is possible to slow down the action of some and ultimately strengthen the action of other motives;
"struggle of motives" as a clash in the process of choosing one or another action of conflicting tendencies, desires, motives. It becomes the stronger, the more weighty the opposing motives, the more equal they are to each other in their strength and significance. Taking a "chronic form", the struggle of motives can give rise to a personal quality of indecision; in situational terms, it provokes the experience of internal conflict;
making a decision regarding the choice of one or another variant of behavior is a kind of phase of “resolving” the struggle of motives. At this stage, either a feeling of relief arises associated with resolving the situation and relieving tension (in this case they speak of “victory over oneself”), or a state of anxiety associated with uncertainty about the correctness of the decision made;
implementation of the decision taken, the embodiment of one or another variant of actions in one's behavior (activity).
In most cases, decision-making and volitional behavior in general are associated with great internal stress, often acquiring a stressful character.
Volitional manifestations of a person are largely determined by those to whom a person is inclined to ascribe responsibility for the results of his own actions. The quality that characterizes the tendency of a person to attribute responsibility for the results of his activities to external forces and circumstances, or, on the contrary, to his own efforts and abilities, is called the localization of control.
There are people who tend to explain the reasons for their behavior and their actions by external factors (fate, circumstances, chance, etc.). Then one speaks of external (external) localization of control. Studies have shown that the propensity for external localization of control is associated with such personality traits, as irresponsibility, lack of confidence in one's abilities, anxiety, the desire to postpone the implementation of one's intentions again and again, etc.
If an individual, as a rule, takes responsibility for his actions, explaining them on the basis of his abilities, character, etc., then there is reason to believe that internal (internal) localization of control prevails in him. Revealed
8-674 ^ but that people who have internal localization of control are more responsible, consistent in achieving goals, prone to introspection, sociable, independent. Internal or external localization of control of volitional action, which has both positive and negative social consequences, are stable human qualities that are formed in the process of education and self-education.
Will as a conscious organization and self-regulation of activity aimed at overcoming internal difficulties is, first of all, power over oneself, over one's feelings, actions. It is well known that different people have this power in different degrees of expression. Ordinary consciousness fixes a huge range of individual characteristics of the will, differing in the intensity of their manifestations, characterized on one pole as strength, and on the other - as weakness of the will. A person with a strong will is able to overcome the difficulties encountered on the way to achieving the goal, while revealing such strong-willed qualities as determination, courage, courage, endurance, etc. Weak-willed people give in to difficulties, do not show determination, perseverance, they do not know how to restrain themselves, to suppress momentary impulses in the name of higher, morally justified motives for behavior and activity.
The range of manifestations of weak will is as great as the characteristic qualities of a strong will. The extreme degree of weak will is beyond the norm of the psyche. These include, for example, abulia and apraxia.
Abulia is the lack of motivation for activity arising on the basis of brain pathology, the inability, upon understanding the need, to make a decision to act or execute it.
Apraxia is a complex violation of the purposefulness of actions caused by damage to the brain structures. If the damage to the nervous tissue is localized in the frontal lobes of the brain, apraxia occurs, which manifests itself in a violation of the voluntary regulation of movements and actions that do not obey a given program and, therefore, make it impossible to carry out an act of will.
Abulia and apraxia - comparatively rare events inherent in people with severe mental disorders. The weak will that a teacher encounters in everyday work is due, as a rule, not to brain pathology, but to certain conditions of upbringing; correction of lack of will is possible, as a rule, only against the background of a change in the social situation of personality development.
Will as a person's ability to self-determination and self-regulation makes him free from external circumstances. The will makes a person largely unpredictable, irreducible to the simple arithmetic of acting motives. It introduces a truly subjective dimension into a person's life.
Will is a mental function that literally permeates all aspects of human life. It sets the orderliness, purposefulness and consciousness of human life and activity. “Volitional action is a conscious, purposeful action by means of which a person accomplishes his goal, subordinating his impulses to conscious control and changing the surrounding reality in accordance with his plan,” writes S.L. Rubinstein. Will is, of course, the highest level of regulation of the psyche in relation to the levels of motivation, emotions and attention.
A volitional action is determined by the following options for the conditions for its implementation:
The choice of motives and goals in their conflict (selective function);
Compensation for the lack of motivation for action in the absence of its sufficient motivation (initiating function);
Weakening of excessive motivation when the action is undesirable (inhibitory function);
Maintaining the selected level of action performance in the presence of interference (stabilizing function);
Arbitrary regulation of external and internal actions and mental processes.
The ability to perform volitional actions (deeds) is formed as the personality develops and is embodied in sustainable personal qualities: purposefulness, perseverance, endurance, determination, initiative, independence, organization, discipline, courage, etc. A weak-willed person is characterized by indecision, suggestibility, weakness of will, stubbornness. Stubbornness is often confused with true willpower.
Will as activity
As the main attribute of a volitional act, three main characteristics can be distinguished. First, in the act of will, the objectification of the individual I and individual behavior takes place. In a volitional act, the subject, as it were, “falls out” of the stream of being and evaluates himself and the motives of his activity from the outside. For example, you must admit your views are wrong, although you, of course, really do not want to do this. In order to internally agree with the recognition of one's mistake, it is necessary to subjectively oppose oneself and one's activity, to distance oneself for some time from the usual merged coexistence of subject and activity.
In this sense, one can speak of an act of will as a completely special state of consciousness. Secondly, the will is always perspective in its essence, it is directed to the future. Making a volitional act, a person thinks not about his position at the moment, but about what it will become in the future, if he does or does not do something.
Thirdly, will is experienced as an activity of the Self. For example, a person feels thirsty. He gets up, takes a decanter of water, pours and drinks. In this type of behavior, there are no attributes of an act of will: there is neither a subjective separation of the subject and the situation, nor any pronounced orientation to the future, nor the activity of the subject. In other words, in normal (impulsive) behavior, the need itself is experienced as its source rather than the active ego. Volitional behavior, on the other hand, is never the realization of an actual impulse and, therefore, it borrows the energy necessary for the realization of activity from another source. What is this source? This source is a person's personality.
Will as a function of the hierarchy of motives
A.N. Leontiev believes that volitional action is the process of victory of openly social and ideal motives in the individual system of the hierarchy of motives over object-subject and visual ones. In an insufficiently mature personality or in a situation of an extremely strong action of a biological motive, the regulatory role will pass to someone else's will - an order or will pass into outer plan self-commands.
Now let's turn to the second component of the original thesis about the conditions for the flow of a volitional act. For example, you need to get a small child to eat porridge. Which would be more effective: to promise him that he will get a delicious cake after he eats porridge (the ideal form of the motive), or to put a coveted cake in front of him? The answer is obvious. In the first case, the child will instantly swallow an unloved dish, and in the second, it will burst into tears.
That is, in the case of a conflict of motives, the method of subordinating them as successive stages of activity and presenting one of them in an ideal (imaginary) plan is quite effective. With the simultaneous presence of both porridge and cake, a strong-willed effort should be applied much more. Thus, the volitional act, which is, in fact, the result of the struggle of competing motives, unfolds in the direction of actualizing the social in origin and the ideal in form of a motive to the detriment of the biological and visual.
The structure of the act of will
S.L. Rubinstein distinguishes four stages of an act of will.
Emergence of motivation and preliminary goal setting. Subjectively, this stage is experienced as a desire to do something.
The stage of discussion and struggle of motives.
Solution. The decision making process can be different. In the first case (when there is no "struggle of motives") it proceeds as if asymptomatically: setting a goal conditionally coincides with making a decision. As S.L. Rubinstein: “One has only to imagine the goal in order to feel and know: yes, I want it! One has only to feel it in order to move on to action. In the second case, if the motives are different in significance, the solution comes as a complete and final resolution of the conflict that caused the struggle of motives. In the third case (here the motives are almost equal in importance and intensity), the solution comes as a violent removal of the still raging struggle of motives. The act of making a decision is characterized by a kind of subjective experience. The person feels that the further course of events depends on him. “Awareness of the consequences of a future act and the dependence of what will happen on one’s own decision gives rise to a sense of responsibility specific to a conscious volitional act.”
Performance.
Cognitive components of a volitional act
V.A. Ivannikov considers volitional regulation as an arbitrary change (strengthening or weakening) of the impulse to action, consciously accepted by necessity (external or internal) and performed by a person according to his own decision. The need for such a change arises, as already noted, with a lack of motivation corresponding to the action taken. What is the person doing about it? How does he achieve the necessary change of motivation? The formation of an impulse to volitional action is achieved through the transformation or creation of an additional meaning of the action. That is, the action after the completion of an act of will is carried out not only due to the initial (insufficient) motive, in accordance with which the decision was made to implement it, but also due to other motives.
In the study of A.V. Zaporozhets, it was shown that depending on what meaning the task has for the subject, the level of its performance changes dramatically. Three groups of subjects were asked to lift and lower a fairly heavy load. The subjects of the first group were not told the meaning of the task. The subjects in the second group were told its goal, i.e. they were asked to lift the load as many times as possible in order to set a personal best. The subjects of the third group were asked to imagine a situation where they did not just lift a load, but generated electricity with the power of their muscles in order to turn on the light in the city. It is easy to guess that the highest result was obtained from the participants of the last group.
Changing the meaning of an action is possible through changing the position of the subject. So, in the work of A. I. Lipkina, lagging behind students were instructed to patronize elementary school students. The change of position from “student” to “teacher, mentor” led to a change in the very meaning of study and, as a result, to an increase in perseverance in mastering the curriculum. The meaning of an action can also be changed by anticipating the consequences of an action. P. V. Simonov, the author of the information theory of emotions discussed above, cited a case from his life to illustrate this mechanism. When he did not have the courage to jump with a parachute, he thought of his comrade, who had not dared to jump the day before. Putting himself in his place and imagining how ashamed he was to look his friends in the eyes, Simonov jumped with a parachute.
Another mechanism for changing the meaning of the accepted action is to add a new meaning to the existing one. For example, not only "run 2 kilometers", but also "count all the trees in the park along the way."
Giving additional meaning to the accepted action can be carried out by the methods of "mythological thinking". Then an insufficiently motivated action can turn into a symbolic act. For example, a student may think that if she prepares well for a seminar, a young man she likes will invite her to the cinema. The last of the common options for transforming meaning is linking an action with new motives that are not typical for it (using the technique of self-stimulation). For example, a woman who has decided to go on a diet can strengthen her will by telling herself, "If I last a week, I'll buy myself a new dress." The hypothesis of V. A. Ivannikov can be well illustrated with the help of the famous parable about the construction of Chartres Cathedral. When three people, each of whom was pushing a cart loaded with stones, were asked, “What are you doing?”, one answered: “I am carrying stones,” the other: “I am earning money to feed my family,” and the third said: “I am building a temple ". It is obvious which of them pushed his cart with more enthusiasm and whose behavior was more strong-willed.
10) The problem of personality in psychology. Driving forces and conditions in the development of personality. Theories of personality. Man is the most incomprehensible phenomenon of all that exists in the world and the most interesting subject for himself. He appears to be a multilateral, multidimensional and complexly organized being. Understanding the essence of human subjectivity is possible only from the standpoint of a holistic, systematic and historical-evolutionary approach. AT domestic psychology Traditionally, three main conceptual categories have been established, reflecting the three aspects of human existence: "individual", "personality", "individuality". Such a distinction was made most consistently in the works of A.N. Leontiev. Man as an individual appears in his natural, biological characteristics, i.e. as a material, natural, bodily being in its integrity and indivisibility. The knowledge of a person as an individual involves consideration of the natural foundations of his life, his psychology.
Man as an individual- this is a natural creature that has so-called organic needs: food, warmth, rest, etc. The form, structure, functioning of the human body is a continuation of the evolutionary series; it is in many ways similar to the organism of higher primates. At the same time, man is qualitatively different from all other living beings. N.A. Berdyaev, a Russian religious philosopher, wrote: “Man is a fundamental novelty in nature. The human body is a cultural body, it is spiritualized and subordinated higher goals person."
Even human organic needs are fundamentally different from the needs of animals: they are satisfied by other objects, in other ways, they are culturally conditioned. The fundamental difference between a person is a free attitude to the experiences of organic needs. With the help of the will, a person can block the feeling of hunger and thirst, overcome the feeling of fear and pain, if this is necessary to achieve personally significant goals. At the heart of the concept of "individual", according to A.N. Leontiev, lies the fact of the indivisibility, integrity and peculiarities of each person, which arise already at the early stages of the development of life. "The individual is born."
Personality- one of the basic categories psychological science and one of the most widely used concepts. Traditionally, in psychology, this concept includes ideas about the most developed level of human subjectivity. The reality that is described by the term "personality" is already manifested in etymology. The word "personality" (persona) originally denoted the mask worn by an actor in the ancient Greek theater. Gradually, the concept of personality was filled with an increasing variety of semantic meanings, the shades and range of which are to a certain extent specific to each particular language. In Russian, the word “personality” is close to the word “personality”, which, according to V.I.
Thus, in the meaning of the word “personality”, two main meanings can be distinguished.
The first, most obvious meaning - discrepancy between a person's own characteristics and the content of the role he performs.
Second - the social typicality of the role being performed, its openness to other people.
Some general points:
personality- this is a special quality or characteristic of a person, which is acquired by an individual in society, in the aggregate of those social relations by nature in which he is included. If an individual is born, then a person becomes;
personality characterizes a person from the side of his social connections and relations, i.e. interconnected with other people. A.N.Leontiev called the personality "supersensible formation", because. these connections and relationships with other people constitute a special reality, inaccessible to direct perception. Consequently, the concept of personality in psychology denotes a special way of human existence - his existence as a member of society, as a representative of a certain social group;
essence of personality is the ability of a person to act freely, independently and responsibly. Personal behavior is behavior of one's own free choice;
personality- this is not a quality formed once and for all, but a constant development.
Individuality- the highest level of human integration in relation to the individual and personal levels. Individuality simultaneously captures the originality and uniqueness of a person as an individual and as a person. Personality development is life path person.
The driving forces of personality development are contradictions:
general (universal) contradictions -between needs human (material and spiritual) and opportunities to meet them; as well as contradictions that manifest themselves in the imbalance between organism and environment, which leads to a change in behavior, a new adaptation of the body;
individual contradictions- contradictions characteristic of a single person;
internal contradictions arise on the basis of ``disagreement with oneself'" and are expressed in the individual motives of a person, one of the main internal contradictions- discrepancy between emerging needs and opportunities to meet them(for example, between the desire of high school students to participate in social and production processes and the real level of development of their intellect, social maturity, that is, contradictions are typical: " and etc.);
external contradictions stimulated by external forces, human relations with other people, society, nature (for example, between human capabilities and society's requirements).
Will- this is the property (process, state) of the chela, manifested in his way of consciously controlling his psyche and actions. Under the influence of volitional processes, a person can make efforts to activate his actions and deeds and achieve their successful completion in the face of overcoming difficulties. Volitional activity always consists of certain volitional actions, which contain all the signs and qualities of the will. The initial moment of any volitional action - its first phase - is the emergence of motivation and setting a goal to achieve a cat. this action is directed. Track. moment of volitional action second phase volitional process - the stage of discussion and struggle of motives, the choice, use and creation of means, methods and techniques to achieve the goal. Track. moment of volitional action third phase - decision-making, that is, the choice of action in accordance with the goal. Next next. final - fourth phase - implementation of the decision.
Types of volitional actions:
Willpower manifests itself at all stages of a volitional act, but most clearly - in what obstacles are overcome with the help of volitional actions.
Volitional effort is characterized by the amount of energy expended on the performance of a purposeful action. or restraint from unwanted behavior.
Purposefulness - a conscious and active orientation of the individual to a certain result of activity.
Initiative is usually based on the abundance and brightness of new ideas, plans, rich imagination.
Exposure allows you to slow down actions, thoughts, feelings, cat. inappropriate situations.
Decisiveness is the ability to make and implement quick, informed and unshakable decisions.
Energy is the mobilization of forces to achieve a goal.
Perseverance - the ability to pursue a goal without losing the fuse in the fight against difficulties.
Intention. Actually the executive stage of the decision is usually associated with one or another time-term.
Self control. In the implementation of the decision, self-control and self-esteem play. Self-control ensures the dominance of higher motives over lower ones, general principles- over instant impulses, desires.
An act is a personally meaningful behavior, evaluated by other people as an act of moral self-determination.
Stubbornness is expressed in the desire to act in your own way anyway.
Suggestibility is expressed in a decrease in consciousness and criticality in the perception and implementation of the suggested content.
24. The concept of conflict, its causes. Classification of conflicts.
Conflict is the lack of agreement between two or more parties, which may be specific individuals or groups, i.e. it is a clash of opposing goals, positions, views, objects of interaction.
Types of conflicts:
1. By possible results 2. By source 3. By the status of conflicting relations 4. By the degree of publicity (overt, secret, possible) 5. By the number of conflicting
Conflict types:
1. Depending on whom, who is involved in the conflict: intrapersonal, interpersonal, personal-group, intergroup, intragroup.
2. The sphere of the emergence and manifestation of the conflict: socio-political conflicts, interethnic conflicts, conflicts in the sphere of production, services, trade. 3. In scientific divisions 4. Conflicts of military divisions (deformation in statutory relations) 5. In conditions of isolation. 6. Family conflicts. 7. Marital conflicts. 8. By value for the group: positive and destructive.
9. By the nature of the reasons: objective, subjective, genuine (by the criterion of falsity or reality), displaced, erroneous, latent, false
The structure of the conflict:
1. Individuals, groups
2. Images conflict situation(representation of the participants about themselves and the opposite side and the conditions of the conflict)
3. Conditions for the course of the conflict (social time frame, place, etc.)
4. Actions.
5. Outcomes of a conflict situation (options for resolving the conflict and its consequences) Conflictogen is a word, an action that can lead to conflict.
Reasons for conflicts:
1. Informational (incomplete, inaccurate information, concealment of information)
2. Structural (reward and punishment)
3. Value (between beliefs)
4. Relationship (satisfaction or dissatisfaction with communication)
