Some Prospective Problems of Soviet Psychology

Soviet psychology meets the fiftieth anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution with outstanding achievements. It is sufficient to recall its success in dealing with such fundamental problems as those of the sociohistorical character of the human mind, of activity, and of consciousness. Moreover, new prospects, emanating from the profound changes of recent years, have opened up before psychology. These changes have involved a considerable broadening in the range of problems dealt with, an expansion of its connections with practice, a more intensive development of borderline investigations, and a revision of its methodological arsenal, consisting of the inclusion of mathematical methods and the wide use of electrophysiological and other objective indicators.     

Guest Editor's Preface

Anniversaries, especially if they involve "round" numbers — and what could be more round than 50? — are apt to stimulate retrospection. The approach of the fiftieth anniversary, in October 1967, of the establishment of Soviet power in Russia brought out a veritable flurry of publications reviewing the development of the various aspects of science in the Soviet Union.     

Editor's Note

This issue of Soviet Psychology — Vol. V, No. 1 — marks a new point in the development of English translations of Soviet psychology and psychiatry. Our original journal, published in Volumes I-IV as Soviet Psychology and Psychiatry, has given birth to two new journals: Soviet Psychology and Soviet Psychiatry. This will give International Arts and Sciences Press the opportunity to publish twice as much material from the fund of Soviet theory and research in the study of human behavior. The increased space in this new journal will allow for a broader coverage of Soviet work in psychology, as outlined in our last issue, the special Handbook of Soviet Psychology.     

The 24Th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Tasks of Soviet Psychology

Congresses of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union are central events for Soviet society, for they adopt general lines of attack on the problems Soviet leaders view as centrally important. This brief statement concerning psychology makes very clear the role that psychology is asked to play in such areas as increasing labor productivity and improving the techniques of upbringing for the nation's youth.     

Editor's Preface

The occasion of the XVIIIth International Congress of Psychology in Moscow this summer is an event of importance for Soviet psychology and for world psychology. Accordingly, we have prepared this special issue of Soviet Psychology and Psychiatry to serve as a guide to Soviet psychology. I hope that this guide will be especially useful to Western psychologists participating in the Moscow Congress, and that it will be useful to a broader public as well.     

Editor's Introduction

On May 8-11 of this year [1962] an Ail-Union Conference was held in Moscow on philosophical problems of psychology and of the physiology of higher nervous activity. The conference was participated in by approximately 1,000 persons from 40 Soviet cities, including some 200 heads of scientific institutions and department, sector, laboratory and university department heads.     

The Concept of Set In Soviet Psychology in the Light of Research By The Georgian Psychological School

I. Scientific psychology in Georgia originated and developed only after the establishment of Soviet power (1921). The history of Georgian scientific psychology is the history of psychology in Georgia in the Soviet period.     

Some Manifestations of Categorization Processes in Perception

Study of the role of expectancy in cognitive activity has a long history in experimental psychology, extending back into the 19th century. Among German psychologists the idea of a "determining tendency" or "set" has long been influential. A variation of this same concept forms the foundation of the "Georgian" school of Soviet psychology founded by D. N. Uznadze (see Soviet Psychology, 1968-69, Vol. VII, No. 2 [Winter]).     

On the Content of Social Psychology

1. Attitude to the Discussion: A discussion of social psychology was opened in the pages of Voprosy psikhologii. [Translated in this journal, 1963, 1 (3), 32-38. — Ed.] This event has both a good and bad side. The good side is that, finally, the central organ of Soviet psychology has begun to speak about social psychology. Soviet psychologists will at last state their positive word about social psychology. The discussion will permit a more profound definition of the content of social psychology and will attract the attention of the Soviet public to the phenomena of social psychology. The bad side is that while much is said about the content of social psychology, the most urgent problems for Soviet social psychology is not so much one of its content as of the development of concrete methods and concrete investigations. A. V. Baranov's article [5] presents an incorrect understanding of the history and contemporary state of social psychology in the USSR.     

Psychological Attributes of the Culture of the Ukrainians in the Modern Stage of the Development of Society and Trends in Changes in These Attributes in the Post-Soviet Period

The authors of the article focus on the transition of the former Soviet state of Ukraine to a market economy. One aspect of the analysis is the cultural values and attitudes of the citizens in a new situation. Market economy and entrepreneurship demand new types of motivation and individual values from people. A challenge for social psychology in the country is the further elaboration of methodological basis of research.     

On The History of Soviet Military Psychology

Military psychology is a branch of psychology, which is in addition included among the military sciences. In it the psychological features of different kinds of military and, above all, of combat activity are studied in relation to social and historical conditions, military technology, personal qualities of the fighting men, and methods of military and political preparation. The general purpose of Soviet military psychology is to discover principles of human mental activity under the conditions of combat and of training for combat, and to use these principles for raising the fighting capacity of the Soviet armed forces.     

The Paths of Development of Mathematical Psychology

This article reviews current developments in Soviet mathematical psychology and relates them to the very extensive extant literature in the United States. Programmatic articles of this kind are frequent in Soviet journals. They serve the dual purpose of highlighting current areas of concern and pointing to probable future areas of growth. Mathematics in large doses is now a standard part of the Soviet psychologist's education, and can be counted on to be an important feature of future psychological research.     

The Problem of Child Development In Soviet Psychology

The problem of child development was central in Soviet psychology from the start. Interest in child development arose, on the one hand, in connection with the needs of pedagogical practice, for the reconstruction and improvement of the educational system for the new generation, and, on the other hand, as a result of the theoretical importance of the problem in working out a genetic approach to the study of the human mind [psikhika].     

The Development of Higher Psychological Functions

Soviet psychologists' views of the relationship between psychology and Pavlovian psychophysiology (or the study of higher nervous activity, as it is referred to in the Soviet literature) has long been a matter of curiosity and concern in the United States. Not accidentally, it has also been a matter of concern and dispute within the USSR. The following is an excerpt from a work by one of the Soviet Union's most seminal psychological theorists on this issue. Written in the late 1920s, this essay remains a classic statement of Soviet psychology's commitment to both a historical, materialistic science of the mind and the study of the unique characteristics of human psychological processes.     

Introduction

The major goal of this journal is to increase American psychologists' knowledge of Soviet psychology. The overwhelming majority of the material presented in these pages comes from journal articles and monographs. A shortcoming of this means of finding out what our Soviet colleagues are doing is the excessive delays that arise from the combination of publication lag in the USSR, time taken in translation, and the period necessary to produce each number of the journal. As a result, at least two, and sometimes three, years intervene between the conduct of research in Soviet laboratories and the publication of an English translation of reports on that research.     

Foreword to Psychological Science in the USSR

The realization of the many and varied practical tasks to be met by psychology calls for a thorough study of the theoretical problems. The basic questions with which psychology is concerned along these lines have been outlined above. Their solution must rest upon the concrete investigations carried out by Soviet psychologists, upon the data obtained in their research.     

Investigations on Educational and Child Psychology in Armenia

The leading Soviet psychology journal, Problems of Psychology, which is a major source of articles for this journal, regularly contains summary articles on research. Sometimes these reviews summarize a particular topic of research (e.g., programmed instruction); sometimes, as in the case of this article on Armenian psychology, the review covers research from a particular locale.     

Three Facets of Meaning

Vygotsky and Luria's "cultural-historical theory of psychology" is little known to broad circles of the Soviet public. Nor is this theory yet very familiar in the world of pedagogy, since the leaders in this area of psychology do not yet have a completed system of views. The "cultural-historical theory of psychology" is just in the process of being formed, but even so has managed to do much damage to psychology's theoretical front, deftly concealing its pseudoscientific aspects alien to Marxism with quotations from the works of the founders of Marxism. This theory is being aggressively introduced into pedagogical practice in higher education; its authors are forcefully publicizing it in the pages of journals and books, textbooks, and encyclopedias; and it makes claims to being the closest to Marxism of all the psychological currents existing in the USSR.     

Guest Editor's Introduction : Bakhtin's Dialogic Pedagogy

This issue of Soviet Psychology opens with an extensive round-table discussion of the shortcomings of institutionalized psychology in light of the ongoing changes in Soviet society associated with Mikhail Gorbachev's policies of perestroika (restructuring) and glasnost (openness). The participants varied widely in their professional expertise, thus providing an unusually broad view of Soviet psychologists' public views about the problems facing their science.