On the Subject Matter of Social Psychology

Psychology and sociology (in that they have to do with social consciousness) study general problems of human consciousness. Both sciences investigate, in the final analysis, the same thing, inasmuch as all human consciousness is socially conditioned, and this is the meaning of all consciousness of the social. Soviet psychology has long since adopted this thesis.     

The Problem of Personality in Social Psychology

The development of any science, including psychology, is determined today by two opposing but intimately interrelated tendencies: differentiation and integration.     

Some Problems of Research in Social Psychology

The field of social psychology is the center of an extremely complex and ideology-laden controversy among Soviet psychologists. The complexity arises chiefly from the fact that in the era approximately bounded by 1930 and 1960 there was no research carried out in the USSR labeled "social psychology." All such research had ceased in the very early 1930s, replaced by the Marxist-Leninist theory of historical materialism that was said to make social psychology superfluous, if not harmful.     

On Cultural Psychology

Acts of Meaning . Jerome Bruner. Jerusalem-Harvard Lectures. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1990. 200 pp. $19.95 (cloth).
Cultural Psychology: Essays on Comparative Human Development . James W. Stigler, Richard A. Shweder , and Gilbert Herdt , eds. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990. 636 pp. $59.50 (cloth), $19.95 (paper).
Human Behavior in Global Perspective: An Introduction to Cross-Cultural Psychology . Marshall H. Segall, Pierre R. Dasen, John W. Berry , and Ype H. Poortinga. Pergamon General Psychology Series, 160. New York: Pergamon Press. 458 pp. $48.50 (cloth), $24.50 (paper).     

On the Problem of Man in Psychology

Very few works in our literature have been devoted to human ethology and social ethology, particularly of children. Psychological-pedagogical approaches predominate; these are based on an assessment of verbal information and on the results of experimental or educational inputs. But such studies should rest on knowledge of the distinctive features of a person's immediate behavior, and these can be ascertained solely through objective study, in which every directed input is precluded.     

On the Question of the Psychology of Scientific Creativity

In every scientific discovery, we can distinguish at least two aspects: first, the precise course of the discovery with all details and in all its individuality; second, its final result, abstracted from all circumstances and subjective considerations connected with the personal characteristics of the discoverer and the circumstances under which the discovery was made. In this "purified view" the substance of the discovery usually enters into science and establishes itself there in the quality of ascertained truth. Because of this, in the great majority of cases, the history of science does not present information about the specific path that a particular discovery followed; but even if it preserves this information, it is usually only in the form of anecdotes that have come down to us, or fragments about some one moment of the whole discovery, which possibly did not play a decisive role, but was preserved thanks to simple chance.     

On Medical Psychology for Physicians

"The psychological influence of the doctor plays a role of the very highest importance in the treatment of all diseases, and the ability to make use of psychological factors in therapy has always been one of the outstanding qualities of notable physicians of all times."     

On the Information Content of Classifications

Abstract— The best fit estimate of the retrospective information content of a classification is argued to be the proportion of the maximal sum of informative subgroups to which each included taxon is assigned. The best fit estimate of the prospective information content of a classification is argued to be the proportion of fully resolved dadograms prohibited by that classification. Those (wo proportions are multiplied to provide a general information index that is sensitive to both the degree of resolution and the contents of individual subgroups. That index and the best fit considerations supporting it have implications for congruence studies, consensus indices, and the choice between Adams and Nelson consensus trees.     

Evolutionary Psychology, Human Universals, and the Standard Social Science Model

Proponents of evolutionary psychology take the existence of humanuniversals to constitute decisive evidence in favor of their view. Ifthe same social norms are found in culture after culture, we have goodreason to believe that they are innate, they argue. In this paper Ipropose an alternative explanation for the existence of humanuniversals, which does not depend on them being the product of inbuiltpsychological adaptations. Following the work of Brian Skyrms, I suggestthat if a particular convention possesses even a very small advantageover competitors, whatever the reason for that advantage, we shouldexpect it to become the norm almost everywhere. Tiny advantages aretranslated into very large basins of attraction, in the language of gametheory. If this is so, universal norms are not evidence for innatepsychological adaptations at all. Having shown that the existence ofuniversals is consistent with the so-called Standard Social ScienceModel, I turn to a consideration of the evidence, to show that thisstyle of explanation is preferable to the evolutionary explanation, atleast with regard to patterns of gender inequality.     

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.     

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.     

On the Information Content of Protein Sequences

Abstract

TATA-box binding protein (TBP) in a monomelic form and the complexes it forms with DNA have been elucidated with molecular dynamics simulations. Large TBP domain motions (bend and twist) are detected in the monomer as well as in the DNA complexes; these motions can be important for TBP binding of DNA. TBP interacts with guanine bases flanking the TATA element in the simulations of the complex; these interactions may explain the preference for guanine observed at these DNA positions. Side chains of some TBP residues at the binding interface display significant dynamic flexibility that results in ‘flipflop’ contacts involving multiple base pairs of the DNA. We discuss the possible functional significance of these observations.     

On the Social Behaviour of Cells

Polystyrene Petri dishes are in use in hundreds of thousands of laboratories world wide. Cell culture experiments performed in them provide fundamental information in a wide range of applications, including but not limited to testing novel biomaterials and pharmaceuticals, and stem cell research. These experiments cost billions of dollars per year. In this study we report on a potential deficiency of polystyrene Petri dishes, possibly caused by an increase in interracial pH under relevant culture condi-tions and affecting cell performance. We conclude that cell performance on Petri dishes could be improved by improving the Petri dishes. As a spin-off of our study we postulate the concept that cancer cells and stem cells are social. It is impossible to validate this concept on the basis of the model established in this paper. However. the coherence of our insights may encourage further study and lead to the development of a qualitative improvement of cell culture devices, including Petri dishes and culture flasks, to the identification of potential strategies for chemotherapy and chemoprevention that could suppress progression of metastasis, and to the establishment of improved settings for tissue engineering and stem cell research. An immediate recom-mendation of our study is to use chemically and biologically inert substrates for important cell culture experiments, for example, nanocrystalline diamond.