Higher Nervous Activity and Psychology

Every area of science has its sharply debated problems and questions. Physiology and psychology have long confronted the problem of their interrelationship.     

The Dialectical Method in the Psychology of Memory

The modern science of psychology grew out of the empirical psychology of the 19th century, construing itself as the complete negation of the latter. As such it contains two quite distinct basic tendencies: one away from the idealism of empirical psychology, the other away from its metaphysical mode of thought. These two tendencies are now a part of virtually all of progressive European psychology (1), and also reflect two problems posed by modern Russian psychology.     

Clinical Psychology: Status and Problems

Clinical psychology, an interdisciplinary domain (linked to clinical medicine, physiology, anatomy, biochemistry, psychopharmacology, genetics, pedagogy, jurisprudence, etc.), has helped in coping with the scientific and practical tasks of maintaining the health of the population and has also made a major contribution (given its extremely rich potential) to resolving fundamental problems of general psychology.     

Natural cooperators: Food sharing in humans and other primates

The study of cooperation is rich with theoretical models and laboratory experiments that have greatly advanced our knowledge of human uniqueness, but have sometimes lacked ecological validity. We therefore emphasize the need to tie discussions of human cooperation to the natural history of our species and its closest relatives, focusing on behavioral contexts best suited to reveal underlying selection pressures and evolved decision rules. 1 - 3 Food sharing is a fundamental form of cooperation that is well‐studied across primates and is particularly noteworthy because of its central role in shaping evolved human life history, social organization, and cooperative psychology. 1 - 16 Here we synthesize available evidence on food sharing in humans and other primates, tracing the origins of offspring provisioning, mutualism, trade, and reciprocity throughout the primate order. While primates may gain some benefits from sharing, humans, faced with more collective action problems in a risky foraging niche, expanded on primate patterns to buffer risk and recruit mates and allies through reciprocity and signaling, and established co‐evolving social norms of production and sharing. Differences in the necessity for sharing are reflected in differences in sharing psychology across species, thus helping to explain unique aspects of our evolved cooperative psychology.     

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.     

Dialogic Origin and Dialogic Pedagogy of Grammar : Stylistics in Teaching Russian Language in Secondary School

The development of any science is more than just the accumulation of specific knowledge: it also necessarily involves the development of ideas concerning its subject matter, its relationship to other, allied sciences, and its basic problems and fundamental methods. Such an evolution is evident with each major advance, even in scientific disciplines that have acquired their distinct contours, but especially in sciences that are just beginning their historical trajectory, just beginning to emerge from their prehistory, from the stage of their primary preparation. Literally every real step taken in moving a particular investigation forward involves a review of the most basic questions of the science. For this reason, even for psychology, which is at present undergoing an epoch of fundamental restructuring in the Soviet Union, the most acute and urgent problems are those dealing with its own formation.     

Creativity and Psychology

For a long time psychology has had a monopoly on the study of creativity. In the past few years it has become clear, however, that the means of psychology alone are not sufficient to meet the demands of contemporary practice, particularly the need to control creativity (the growth in the creative potential of scientists, inventors, etc.). Studies over a broad front are necessary, based on the principle of interdisciplinarity; this is now recognized by most researchers actively concerned with the problems of creativity. This consensus is, to a considerable degree, attributable to realization of the complexity of the problem and the impossibility of making any effective progress in it without drawing on other sciences. Nonetheless, such a broad-front approach has its difficulties. Studies of this kind must be organized in a specific way and have their own strategy.     

On The Fiftieth Anniversary of Soviet Psychology

1. The fiftieth year of Soviet psychology marks the fiftieth year in the struggle to construct a materialist psychological science on the firm foundation of Marxist-Leninist philosophy and on the progressive traditions of prerevolutionary Russian psychology. These fifty years have witnessed the concentrated efforts of Soviet psychologists to work out the basic theoretical problems of psychology, to integrate it vitally into the construction of a new way of life and a new society and into the development of the national economy and culture of our country.     

Problems in the Psychology of Development (Reading O. Mandel'shtam)

In August of this year, our regular author V.P. Zinchenko celebrated his sixtieth birthday. The editorial board asked him to give an interview about his view of the contemporary science of psychology. Vladimir Petrovich preferred a series of articles on the eternal problems of developmental psychology. We publish the first of these articles, written in the genre of an essay on scientific themes, in this journal issue. But the editorial board did not abandon its request, and hopes that his interview on the science of psychology will be published in the journal. The editorial board congratulates V.P. Zinchenko on his birthday and wishes him success in his scientific work.     

Investigation of Internal Speech Disturbance in Dynamic Aphasia

One of the central problems of psychology is the relationship between thought and speech, especially the significance of internal speech. An analysis of the unity of thought and speech is intimately linked with the analysis of internal speech, in which this unity finds its most distinct expression.     

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.     

Evaluating polygraphy from a psychophysiological perspective: a specific-effects analysis

It is suggested that purportedly scientific positions and technologies are actually spiritualistic or superstitious to the extent that specific effects are not identified and evaluated. This claim is then examined with respect to polygraphy, which appears to have particularly strong spiritualistic tendencies. This technology's putative basis is the science of psychophysiology, which is the study of psychological processes by means of unobtrusive physiological measures that reflect functions over which there is relatively little voluntary control. The underlying rationale of polygraphy is that information about these functions provided to the examiner has a specific, beneficial effect of improving the detection of deception. Before considering the validity of the polygraph in these specific-effect terms, the paper notes some serious societal problems involved in the use of the polygraph, problems that suggest that polygraphy is appropriately characterized as a serious "social disease". As to its scientific status, the technique suffers from at least three significant and possibly insurmountable problems: 1) the records are not read "blind"; 2) the method of scoring is subjective, compared to the standards of scientific psychophysiology; and 3) the so-called "control" question method does not involve control in the standard, accepted, scientific sense of that term. However, much of the rest of psychology is also criticised as teleological and spiritualistic, and it is suggested that the polygraph is merely a dramatic illustration of the spiritualist approach that permeates the thought of most researchers in, and practitioners of, the science of psychology.     

Evolutionary Psychology: The Burdens of Proof

I discuss two types of evidential problems with the most widely touted experiments in evolutionary psychology, those performed by Leda Cosmides and interpreted by Cosmides and John Tooby. First, and despite Cosmides and Tooby's claims to the contrary, these experiments don't fulfil the standards of evidence of evolutionary biology. Second Cosmides and Tooby claim to have performed a crucial experiment, and to have eliminated rival approaches. Though they claim that their results are consistent with their theory but contradictory to the leading non-evolutionary alternative, Pragmatic Reasoning Schemas theory, I argue that this claim is unsupported. In addition, some of Cosmides and Tooby's interpretations arise from misguided and simplistic understandings of evolutionary biology. While I endorse the incorporation of evolutionary approaches into psychology, I reject the claims of Cosmides and Tooby that a modular approach is the only one supported by evolutionary biology. Lewontin's critical examinations of the applications of adaptationist thinking provide a background of evidentiary standards against which to view the currently fashionable claims of evolutionary psychology.     

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.     

Three sensible paradigms for research on evolution and human behavior?

Far from being involved in a fundamental division, the study of evolution and human behavior is fortunate to have three potentially productive paradigms which could usefully coexist. In so far as “Darwinian psychology” (DP) is the study of causal mechanisms, guided by thinking about the tasks the mechanisms must perform, it has a clear place alongside the study of adaptedness. Instead of arguing its right to exist by pointing out problems with “adaptationism,” DP should present its audience with more examples of how DP research can be conducted. Meanwhile, adaptationists might move on from asking whether people behave as if they are maximizing fitness, and decide what to do with their finding that the answer is often “yes.” They might also get actively involved with dual inheritance theory, developing ways to make it yield more predictions.     

Understanding the psychology of geriatric edentulous patients

doi: 10.1111/j.1741‐2358.2011.00496.x Understanding the psychology of geriatric edentulous patients Objective: This article focuses on understanding our older patients who require complete prosthodontic care. By breaking down the patient psychology to its component parts, it is easier to obtain a clear picture of this special cohort of patients. Considering the increase in number of geriatric edentulous patients, this knowledge will help the dentist serve the geriatric population better. Background: The role of psychology and personality in complete denture treatment is well documented. The geriatric patient who needs complete dentures has a psychological aspect that needs consideration. Although significant, these aspects may sometimes be ignored or considered irrelevant. Materials and methods: A review of relevant literature was carried out to obtain data on the psychology and personality of geriatric, complete denture patients and their behavioural changes. The obtained data was filtered and condensed to provide a short but comprehensive look at the geriatric edentulous patient’s psychology. Conclusion: When handling geriatric edentulous patients, the dentist must be confident of addressing and managing the psychology of these patients. A thorough understanding of the geriatric mental state thus becomes important and significant for the clinician.     

Koffka, Köhler, and the "crisis" in psychology

This paper examines the claims of the Gestalt psychologists that there was a crisis in experimental psychology ca. 1900, which arose because the prevailing sensory atomism excluded meaning from among psychological phenomena. The Gestaltists claim that a primary motivation of their movement was to show, against the speculative psychologists and philosophers and Verstehen historians, that natural scientific psychology can handle meaning. Purportedly, they revealed this motivation in their initial German-language presentations but in English emphasized their scientific accomplishments for an American audience. The paper finds that: there was a recognized crisis in the new experimental psychology ca. 1900 pertaining especially to sensory atomism; that the Gestaltists responded to the crisis with new experimental findings and theoretical concepts (Gestalten) that challenged atomism; in both languages, they raised problems of meaning and discussed the contest with speculative psychology and philosophy only after presenting their scientific case; that they introduced phenomenological observations on meaning and perceptual organization into their psychology but did not develop a theory of meaning or solve philosophical problems; that they argued "philosophically," that is, using abstract, conceptual arguments; and that this aspect of their cognitive style was not received well by some prominent members of their American audience.     

The Interaction of Image-Based and Verbal Components of Comprehension

Study of the process of comprehension, which constitutes the informal basis of human thought, has a direct bearing on many areas of practice in addition to its theoretical importance for psychology. Some of these areas are: the organization of the educational process, problems of management and social interaction, and the creation of dialogue programs in man-machine systems.     

The use and abuse of Darwinian psychology: Its impact on attempts to determine the evolutionary basis of human rape

This paper evaluates the impact of the recent theoretical shift to Darwinian psychology on attempts to determine the evolutionary basis of human rape. The first step in this evaluation is a summary of the debate over whether human rape is an adaptation or a by-product of other evolved differences between men and women as it was presented in a pre-Darwinian psychological framework. These early evolutionary explanations are then contrasted with more recent works addressing the same issue from the perspective of Darwinian psychology. It is concluded that while the new approach may have helped generate new predictions, it has also led to the unwarranted exclusion of relevant data, led to questionable interpretations of new types of data, introduced ambiguous jargon, and potentially jeopardized the testability of certain evolutionary explanations. The root of most of these problems is suggested to exist, not in the principles of Darwinian psychology, but in the exaggeration of the differences between Darwinian psychology and earlier evolutionary approaches.     

单亲大学生心理问题干预策略的探讨

高校的单亲大学生由于受其生活经历的影响,在心理健康方面,有其问题发生率高、问题成因复杂的特点。是心理障碍的高发人群。本文试对单亲大学生的心理健康状况及心理问题的干预策略进行探讨,以期探索有效的干预策略,促进单亲大学生心理素质的提高和全面发展。