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.     

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.     

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.     

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.     

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.     

Noted Figures in the History of Soviet Psychology: Pictures and Brief Biographies

Presented below are Soviet evaluations of the careers and contributions of noted figures in the history of Soviet psychology. The passages are drawn from the Pedagogical Dictionary [Pedagogicheskiy slovar'; Moscow: Acad. Pedag. Sci. RSFSR, 1960] and Pedagogical Encyclopedia [Pedagogicheskaya entziklopediya; Moscow: Acad. Pedag. Sci., 1964-1965], unless otherwise indicated.     

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.     

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.     

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.     

In Lieu of an Introduction

Nikolai Veresov: Tatiana, in this volume of our journal we publish a selection of your articles. Two of your other articles were published in Soviet Psychology in the 1970s. Introducing you to the readers of that journal, James Wertsch (1978) wrote: "The author … is one of the leading young investigators from the Luria school of neurolinguistics. She has studied and conducted extensive research both with Luria and with A. A. Leontiev, a major figure in Soviet psycholinguistics. Her analysis of inner speech as a mechanism in speech production reveals the strong influence that L. S. Vygotsky has had on Soviet psychology."¹ But first of all, I suppose our readers would be interested in learning more about your life, about events that preceded your scientific achievements. Could you please tell us briefly about your childhood and your family? How did your parents influence your course of life and your occupational choice? What did they do?     

Glossary of Terms Frequently Encountered in Soviet Psychology

Numerous terms are used in Soviet psychology, the direct translation of which may be misleading to American psychologists because they are habitually used in a different sense from that familiar to Western psychology. For example, righteous indignation has been vented by Western psychologists over the "Russian preoccupation" with interpreting all behavior in terms of Pavlovian reflexes. To the Russian psychologist, the word refleks is no more a specific term than the word "response" is to an American psychologist. Its use does not imply the classical Pavlovian conditioning paradigm. Since interpreters are not necessarily aware that the cognates are not synonymous, it is worthwhile for any Western psychologist to become aware of the most common and easy sources of terminological confusion. The following is a glossary of terms which are so familiar to the Russian psychologist that he will seldom stop to explain them. Most of them are cognates. Some are synonymous with their usual English translations; many are not.     

Directory of Soviet Scientists Engaged in Psychological and Psychophysiological Research

For purposes of space, and because the International Congress deals primarily with problems of psychology and psychophysiology, we have not included in this listing scientists engaged in purely psychiatric research. (Such a listing will appear in the next issue of this Journal.) The list includes all authors of relevant articles published in 1964 and 1965 in the journals Voprosy psikhologii (designated as V), Zhurnal vysshey nervnoy deyatel'nosti im. I. P. Pavlova (P), and Zhurnal nevropatologii i psikhiatrii im. S. S. Korsakova (K), and in all past issues of Soviet Psychology and Psychiatry (S) (1962-1965). Also included are authors of relevant books published in the period 1962-1965. The list has been augmented by information provided by members of the Advisory Board of this Journal, and by the trip reports listed in "Reviews in English of Recent Soviet Psychology: A Bibliography" (this issue). As we stated in regard to the Directory of Institutions, above, no doubt this compendium contains gaps and inaccuracies, for which we beg the indulgence of our readers and our Soviet colleagues. We have done the best we could with the material available to us.     

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.     

The Theory of Set in the Light of Reflex Theory

It is well known to all those acquainted with D. N. Uznadze's theory of set [ustanovka] (1) that this theory was meant to answer the question of "the character and inner structure of human activity" [11; 79]. But, as A. T. Bochorishvili correctly noted, we do not yet have "clarity in basic concepts. … Soviet psychology cannot yet go so far as to speak of the content of the basic concept of the psychology of set, of the content of set itself" [5: 15]. As a panacea for overcoming these differences of opinion, Bochorishvili proposes that we "widely and actively develop investigations of the theoretical bases of the psychology of set as D. N. Uznadze understood if" (ibid.).     

Value Foundations of Conceptions of Activity in Psychology and Contemporary Methodology

The rebirth of Russian ethnic psychology became a reality in the 1980s. This was abetted by factors intrinsic to ethnopsychology and by purely external factors, in particular, the politics of glasnost, which accelerated the breakdown of ideological shibboleths such as "a single Soviet people," interethnic conflicts, which unexpectedly became a serious problem for the country, etc. But in this period as well, the inadequacy of methodological developments in ethnic psychology also became obvious after having been one of the main hindrances to the development of this science.     

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.     

Editor's Note

As readers of Soviet Psychology are aware, it has been my policy over the years to present historical materials that are pertinent to understanding contemporary Soviet and world psychology. By and large, I have come upon such materials through discussions with Soviet scholars or by following the lead in relevant articles. When I first read Jaan Valsiner's lucid and informative book Developmental Psychology in the Soviet Union, I was immediately struck by the gold mine of materials to which Professor Valsiner had succeeded in gaining access. First among these was the work of Mikhail Basov, to whom Valsiner devoted an especially illuminating chapter in his monograph.     

The 90th Anniversary of B.V. Zeigarnik (1900-1988)

9 November 1990 marked the 90th anniversary of Bliuma Vol'fovna Zeigarnik, Doctor of Psychology, professor at Moscow University, outstanding Soviet psychologist who enjoyed wide recognition abroad, an author of basic works on clinical psychology, and a researcher who in 1927 discovered a phenomenon (the "Zeigarnik effect") on which, even today, comprehensive books are written and international symposia are held.