Psychological characteristics of activities - Main types of activities

What is it in psychology

The first concept was developed by N.A. Leontiev in Soviet times. He first presented his theory in the 1940s, after which he repeatedly refined and changed it.

In the understanding of N.A. Leontief activity is defined in psychology as follows: the term refers to a system of active actions that is aimed at satisfying a need. It obeys the motive and is realized by man.

Important! The concept of “activity” should not be confused with “activity” - these are two different phenomena.

Other psychologists developed N.A.’s idea. Leontyev. Domestic specialists, S. L. Rubinstein and L. S. Vygotsky, also complemented the theory.

Main activities

The most important, historically the first type of human activity is labor. In the process of ontogenesis, play and learning activities arise that are associated with work and follow from it. Each of these types of activity has its own structure, psychological characteristics, purposefulness and is implemented in specific types of human activity: artistic, industrial, sports, technical, educational, scientific, practical, moral, religious, etc.

All main types of activity - play, study, work - are present in the life of every person; in the depths of these types of activities lies the development of the psyche and personality. All these types of activities are not isolated from each other, they interact, enrich each other, creating new prospects for the development of the individual who performs them. But each age level requires a special relationship between these activities, both in terms of presentation and content. Some types of activities are more important for personality development at a certain stage of ontogenesis, others are of less importance. A.N. Leontiev introduced the concept of leading activity.

Guiding activity is the activity that most contributes to the development of the psyche and personality of a child at a certain age. Leading activity is responsible for the most important changes in mental processes and psychological characteristics of the child’s personality at a certain stage of development.

For a preschool child, the leading activity is play, for a schoolchild - educational activity, and for an adult - work. Play and learning activities create conditions for the development of the child's skills and personality and enable him to enter the working life of adults with dignity.

Personality, individual and individuality. Personality and social roles. Personal self-awareness and “I-concept”. Mechanisms of psychological defense of the individual.

The question of what a personality is, what kind of person can be called a personality, is one of the central ones not only for psychology, but also for philosophy, literature, religion - for almost all branches of humanities.

In psychology, the concept of personality is one of the most fundamental. Personality,” wrote S.L. Rubinstein, forms the basis that determines from the inside the attitude towards the human psyche as a whole. All mental processes form the mental content of a person’s life. Each type of mental process makes its own specific contribution to the richness of inner life.”1 On the other hand, he emphasized: “All mental processes ... take place in the personality, and each of them depends on it in its real course.

2 The term “personality” correlates with such concepts as “individual”, “individuality”. Of these terms, "individual" is the broadest and most general; all others are contained within it.

The term "individual" can refer to both humans and animals. Man as an individual represents his biological species, the genus Homo sapiens, “reasonable man.” A person is a carrier of innate characteristics and acquired in the process of development. The main characteristics of personality are activity, integrity, stability and specific interaction with the outside world.

Subject and principles

Behaviorism is in psychology, briefly and clearly

Activity is always aimed at something or someone, i.e. it cannot be pointless. Scientists identify two main principles:

1. Functionality - a person relies on already developed mental elements and mobilizes forces to achieve a goal.
2. Systematicity - activity always has a certain structure, it is influenced by the individual qualities of the individual.

Psychological activity is of great importance, as it makes it possible to understand the peculiarities of the functioning of the human personality.

↑ The concept of “activity”

Activity
is a set of human actions aimed at transforming the world around us and achieving set goals.

Human activity has a certain similarity with the activity of an animal, but differs in its creative and transformative attitude to the surrounding world.

Differences from activity

Gestalt psychology - what is it in psychology briefly

Not every interaction with the environment is called an activity. Activity is a broader concept; it can describe physical, intellectual and other types of work of the body.

Activity in animals is subordinated to the satisfaction of instincts

Activity is always conscious and has a specific goal. It is believed that it is inherent only to people; animals are not capable of such organization of behavior.

Structure components

The content of the activity consists of cognitive, emotional and volitional components. The first category is also divided into perceptual, mnemonic and mental.

Psychoanalysis by S. Freud - brief and clear

ON THE. Leontiev presents activity in the form of a strict structure that can be divided into several stages. At the first stage, goal setting, task formulation and plan implementation take place. On the second, the result is checked and errors are corrected. At the third stage, the results are summed up and an analysis of the work is done.

Later, other psychologists expanded N.A.’s ideas. Leontyev. Experts put the motive in first place, i.e. defined need. Next, a goal was added to the structure, which can be presented as either the final result or the desired one.

After setting a goal, the individual develops an individual plan for achieving it. Whether a person gets the desired result depends on the adequacy of the means used. Afterwards the results are summed up and evaluated.

Activity in psychology is presented as a complex process that requires a high organization of the psyche. It comes in several types, each of which has its own characteristics.

Knowledge, abilities, skills, habits

Different components are responsible for implementing the program. The success of their implementation depends on the level of their development. Purposeful activity is possible only if there is knowledge - images, sensations and perceptions. They are processed by the brain into concepts and ideas.

Core skills are what enable a person to master certain activities. The method of implementation depends on the thinking and individual characteristics of the individual. In essence, skills allow you to find non-standard solutions to situations and respond to changing conditions. Skills are automated actions. They appear after repeated exercises.

A simple example. In order for a child to learn to read, he needs not only to remember the letters, but also to practice every day, after which he will not think about how to connect syllables into words.

Skills can be motor, behavioral, mental

The development of automated action follows one pattern. First, there is a general familiarization with the techniques of execution, then attempts to perform the action, then practice until it becomes automatic.

Important! Learning new skills is always influenced by old ones.

Habits can be understood as actions that have become a need. They appear through the process of repeated repetition, imitation or learning.

Activity as a subject of psychology, its main types and characteristics.

In the Activity Approach A.N. Leontief activity is understood as the original reality, which is studied by psychologists, and the psyche is considered as its derivative and at the same time as its integral side. This asserts that the psyche cannot be considered outside of activity, as well as vice versa: activity without the psyche. Activity is a specific type of human activity aimed at knowledge and creative transformation of the surrounding world, including oneself and the conditions of one’s existence. In activity, a person creates objects of material and spiritual culture, transforms his abilities, builds society, etc. Due to the productive, creative nature of his activity, a person creates sign systems, tools for influencing himself and nature.

It is activity that acts as the basis for the formation of personality. Personality does not precede activity, it is generated by this activity. A person in activity acts as an individual, driven by certain motives and pursuing intended goals. Motives can be needs, thoughts, feelings and other mental formations. Internal motivations are not enough to carry out activities. It is necessary to have an object of activity and correlate the motives with the goals that the person wants to achieve as a result of the activity.

The main types of human activity: play, learning, work.

A game is a type of activity that does not create products of social significance. The psychological structure of this type of activity is aimed at the formation of the individual as a subject of activity. The development of children's games contributes to the developmental stages of the entire human society. With age, games change; children move from functional games to constructive ones, gradually learning more and more complex stages of their development. A role-playing collective game allows you to significantly expand the social circle of each child directly involved in the game.

Teaching - the psychological structure of this type of activity is to prepare the individual for work. At this stage, the final formation and development of a person’s mental and physical abilities, mastering a profession, and cultural and material values ​​are formed. The learning process allows you to master the skills, knowledge and abilities that are necessary to perform specific work activities and ultimately educate. It helps to shape the child’s personality, his strong-willed character traits, orientation, abilities, etc.

Labor is one of the most important types of activity. The psychological structure of this type of activity is aimed directly at creating a product that is of great importance to the public. Labor is a process that allows a person to create spiritual and material values ​​of society. It allows one to reveal essential human forces, since a person takes a direct part by entering into relations of production. This manifestation of labor allows you to form your own attitude towards work activity and labor motives, reveal your own personality in work, etc. The motives of work are directly dependent on the required work tasks, the implementation of which leads to well-being and satisfaction of one’s own needs. The process of implementing labor activity depends on a limitless number of factors influencing the manifestation of the desire to work and perform quality work.

Characteristics of activity: - social conditioning (activity is a product of socio-historical development); — purposefulness (consciously chosen goals); — plannedness (all components of activity are subordinated to a certain system and are carried out according to a meaningful plan); — objectivity (focus on objects of material and spiritual culture in accordance with the methods and norms of action developed in society); — subjectivity (conditioned by personal characteristics).

Types and types

There are several main activity options. In psychology, it is customary to distinguish 4 types. From birth, a person receives the opportunity to communicate. To do this, he uses babbling, onomatopoeia and other methods of interaction. After the child begins to include words in speech activity, he gets the opportunity to contact not only his mother.

Gaming activities are aimed at mastering social experience. For example, when playing with dolls, kids practice family roles, then they try on professions, etc. This stage is preparation for work and training.

Educational activities allow you to assimilate information about the world around you. With its help, a person gets the opportunity to choose techniques and operations to achieve goals.

Labor activity is aimed at creating a socially significant product. To do this, a person can work on a joint project or involve other people to carry out his plans.

Types of activities are more widely represented. Cognitive - aimed at obtaining knowledge, artistic - at satisfying aesthetic needs, religious - helps solve issues in the spiritual sphere.

Psychological activity is a multicomponent structure, which is presented in different types and types. It directly affects a person’s development and level of achievement.

Activity. Psychological characteristics of activity

Activity. Psychological characteristics of activity

Activity is a specifically human activity regulated by consciousness, generated by needs and aimed at cognition and transformation of the external world and oneself.

Activity is a process of a person’s active relationship to reality, during which the subject achieves previously set goals, meets various needs and masters social experience. The distinctive features of human activity are its social nature, purposefulness, planning, and systematicity.

Activity structure

Activity has its own structure: motives, methods and techniques, purpose and result

Motives are those internal goals that are related to the needs of the individual and encourage him to perform certain activities. The motive of an activity is what prompts it, for the sake of which it is carried out.

The motives of human activity can be very different: organic, functional, material, social, spiritual.

Motive and goal form a kind of vector of activity that determines its direction, as well as the amount of effort developed by the subject during its implementation. This vector organizes the entire system of mental processes and states that are formed and unfold in the course of activity.

Goals are the most significant objects, phenomena, tasks and objects for a person, the achievement and possession of which constitute the essence of his activity. The goal of an activity is an ideal representation of its future result. It is necessary to distinguish between the final goal and intermediate goals. Achieving the ultimate goal is tantamount to satisfying a need. Intermediate goals include those set by a person as a condition for achieving the final goal.

Goals can be close and distant, personal and public, depending on the importance a person attaches to them and what role his activities play in public life.

Methods and techniques (actions) are relatively complete elements of activity aimed at achieving intermediate goals, subordinated to a common motive.

A complex external action for its implementation may require a number of acts related to each other in a certain way. These acts, or the links into which the action is divided, are operations.

Every activity includes internal and external components.

In its origin, internal (mental, mental) activity is derived from external (objective) activity. Initially, objective actions are performed and only then, as experience accumulates, a person acquires the ability to perform the same actions in the mind. The transfer of external action to the internal plane is called internalization.

Mastering internal activities leads to the fact that before embarking on external activities aimed at achieving the desired goal, a person performs actions in his mind, using images and speech symbols. External activity in this case is prepared and proceeds on the basis of the performance of mental activity. The implementation of mental action externally, in the form of actions with objects, is called exteriorization.

Activities are carried out in the form of a system of actions. Action is the main structural unit of activity, which is defined as a process aimed at achieving a goal). There are practical (objective) and mental actions.

Mastering the activity. Skills

When carrying out an activity, a person interacts with the objective (real or mental) world: the objective situation is transformed, certain objective situations are created, and intermediate results are achieved. Each operation in the structure of action is determined by the conditions of the changing situation, as well as the skills of the subject of the activity.

A skill is a stereotyped way of performing individual actions of operations, formed as a result of their repeated repetition and characterized by the collapse (reduction) of its conscious control. This is a chain of operations fixed in repetition, united through a common function. There are simple and complex skills.

Types of skills

Simple. Simple techniques and actions performed automatically, without sufficient concentration.

Complex. Learned automated motor, perceptual and intellectual complex actions, performed accurately, easily and quickly with little effort of consciousness and ensuring the effectiveness of human activity.

a) motor. Automated influence on an external object using movements in order to transform it, which has been carried out many times before.

b) perceptual. Automated sensory reflection of the properties and characteristics of a well-known object that has been repeatedly perceived before.

c) intellectual. Automated technique, a way to solve a previously encountered problem.

Skills are formed through exercise, i.e. purposeful and systematic repetition of actions. As the exercise progresses, both quantitative and qualitative performance indicators change. A skill arises and functions as an automated technique for performing an action. Its role is to free consciousness from control over the implementation of action techniques and switch it to the goals and conditions of action.

Stages of skill formation

Analytical. Isolation of individual elements of action and mastery of them.

Synthetic. Combining elements into a holistic action.

Automation. An exercise to give the action smoothness and the required speed.

The success of mastering a skill depends not only on the number of repetitions, but also on other reasons of an objective and subjective nature.

Since many skills are included in the structure of actions and various activities, they usually interact with each other to form complex systems. The nature of their interaction can be different: from coordination to opposition, from complete fusion to mutually negative influence..

To maintain a skill, it should be used systematically, otherwise deautomation occurs, i.e. weakening or almost complete destruction of developed automatisms. With deautomation, movements become slower and less accurate, coordination is impaired, movements begin to be performed uncertainly, and require special concentration and increased conscious control.

A skill is a method of performing actions mastered by a subject, provided by a set of acquired knowledge and skills.

Skills are formed as a result of the coordination of skills, their integration into systems using actions that are above conscious control. Through the regulation of such actions, optimal management of skills is carried out, which should ensure error-free and flexible execution of the action.

One of the main qualities of skills is that a person is able to change their structure (skills, operations and actions included in the skills, the sequence of their implementation), while maintaining the same final result.

Skills are based on active intellectual activity and necessarily include thinking processes. Conscious intellectual control is the main thing that distinguishes skills from skills. Activation of intellectual activity in skills occurs at those moments when the conditions of activity change, non-standard situations arise that require prompt adoption of various decisions.

Exercises are of great importance in the formation of all types of skills. Thanks to them, skills are automated, skills and activities are improved in general. Exercises are necessary both at the stage of developing skills and abilities, and in the process of maintaining them. Without constant, systematic exercise, skills and abilities are usually lost and lose their qualities.

Main activities

The emergence and development of various types of human activity is a complex and lengthy process. There are three types of activity that genetically replace each other and coexist throughout a person’s life: play, learning, and work. They differ in final results (product of activity), in organization, and in characteristics of motivation.

Game is a form of human activity in conditional situations, aimed at recreating and assimilating social experience, fixed in socially fixed ways of carrying out objective actions.

There are several types of games.

Often in life there are mixed types of games: subject-role-playing, plot-role-playing, plot-based games with rules, etc.

Types of games

Individual. One person is busy playing the game.

Group. Several individuals are included in the game.

Subject. Associated with the inclusion of any objects in a person’s play activity.

Plot. They unfold according to a certain scenario, reproducing it in basic details, etc.

Teaching is a type of activity whose purpose is to acquire knowledge, skills and abilities by a person.

The main goal of learning is preparation for future independent work, and the main means is mastering the generalized results of what was created by previous work.

The teaching consists of the following components:

assimilation of information about the properties of surrounding objects and phenomena (knowledge);

mastering the techniques and operations that make up the main activities (skills);

mastering ways of using information for the correct selection of techniques and operations in accordance with the goals and conditions of activity (skills).

Teaching can be organized and carried out in special educational institutions. It may be disorganized

Individual style

Many psychologists emphasize that any personality theory has fairly general characteristics. Therefore, you always need to take into account the characteristics of a particular person.

Individual style includes temperament, experience, skills, knowledge. All this is developed at different levels in each individual. Therefore, achieving the same goal cannot be the same.

The person also chooses which techniques to use to implement the plan. They may be chosen incorrectly, then the individual analyzes his activities, finds mistakes and does not make them again.

Manifestations of temperament can also be considered an individual style. Despite the fact that the structure of the nervous system is the same for all people, the ratio of the processes of excitation and inhibition will be different. A phlegmatic person takes longer to work, but has less risk of making a mistake due to inattention. It is easier for a sanguine person to cope with several things. The human body is designed in a complex way. Many of its functions are formed only under the influence of the external environment.

Children do not think twice and imitate the behavior of adults, this influences the formation of style

At school age, a child learns self-control and reflection. An adult is influenced by the professional sphere; the development of an individual style of activity depends on it.

Theory of activity psychology

ON THE. Leontyev and S.L. Rubinstein developed theories separately, but they were based on the same material - the works of L.S. Vygotsky and K. Marx, so their assumptions have a lot in common.

If we present a brief thesis, it is expressed in the following statement: activity determines consciousness - it is formed only through active interaction with the environment.

Rubinstein supplemented this thesis with the fact that, in his opinion, the psyche and consciousness can only be formed through activity. ON THE. Leontyev concluded: at each age stage, the leading one is a certain type of interaction with the outside world. Only by passing each stage does a full-fledged personality emerge.

At an early age, object-manipulative activity is important, as it affects the formation of practical skills

Features of interaction with the outside world are studied not only in psychology, but also in social science. In addition to Soviet theories, new ideas about the features of activity are being developed. Understanding the process will improve people's lives.

Psychology of activity

Powerful locomotives rush along steel rails. A spaceship goes into the sky. Steel is pouring in a steel foundry. The grain is poured onto the current. The scientist completes many years of work. All these are the fruits of human hands and minds, the embodiment of the diverse work of man.

Activity is meaningful activity, transformation, creativity. It is through activity that the development of both man and society occurs. Activity is also a person’s relationship to the world around him, changing and subordinating it.

We can talk here about a person’s specific way of relating to the outside world. All living beings, except humans, try to adapt to nature. They can only detect reactions that help them survive, guided by instinct. Unlike animals, man relates to nature not passively, but actively.

Human activity has many faces. It manifests itself in different areas and has a diverse character. The French philosopher Voltaire (1694-1778) believed that not only in man, but also in any animal there is a principle of activity, as in any machine. This, according to him, is the first engine. He, as the original driving force, is immutably and eternally controlled by the will of the Supreme Being, without which everything would be chaos, without which the world itself would not exist. “A person from birth strives for action, just as fire strives upward and a stone strives downward.” Mental life is an ongoing process of activity of many human individuals.

“Activity is our definition,” wrote I. Kant. If we were asked to name the main defining quality of a person, we would probably name activity. Of course, man has reason, and this elevates him above nature. However, the mind without human activity is practically sterile. People's plans are realized thanks to human transformative activity, which correlates with the laws of nature and society. Activity is a form of a person’s active relationship to nature and society.

In the interpretation of the Russian philosopher P.A. Florensky (1882-1937) activity is found in the plural: we are talking about activities. When we say the word “tool,” the immediate images that come to mind are hammers, saws, plows, or wheels. These are, in the crudest sense of the word, tools of technical civilization. P.A. For greater clarity, Florensky called them machines or instruments. The products of human activity are considered not as technical tools, but as “manifestations of an instrument for the construction activity of our spirit.”

Analysis of activity constitutes the decisive point and main method of scientific knowledge, mental reflection, and consciousness. In the study of forms of social consciousness, this is an analysis of the existence of society; in the study of the individual psyche is an analysis of the activities of individuals in the given social conditions that befall each of them. “The theory of activity created by S.L. Rubinstein and A.N. Leontiev, not only reveals the structure and content of psychological activity and its connection with needs, but also helps to understand how the study of external activity and behavior can become a method for studying internal states of the psyche.”

Every activity has motivation. This is a dynamic process of physiological and psychological control of human behavior, determining its direction, organization, activity and stability.

Motive is a stable internal psychological reason for a person’s behavior and actions.

The motive for achieving success is a stable motivational personality trait. A person has a need to achieve success in various activities, especially in situations of competition with other people. At the same time, a person strives to act in such a way as to avoid failure, especially where the results of his activities are perceived and evaluated by other people.

Creativity is a process of human activity, as a result of which new values ​​and new objects of the material world are born. In the history of psychology, creativity was viewed as a divine possession (Plato), as the “animal breath of the unconscious” (E. Hartmann), as a mystical intuition (Bergson), as an expression of instincts (Freud), as a revelation of divine power (Berdyaev).

Creativity is something that comes from within, from a bottomless and inexplicable depth. Creativity is an activity as a result of which something new is born. It is distinguished by its uniqueness and originality. One may ask: doesn’t any human activity presuppose novelty? To a certain extent, this is, of course, true. Activity is the birth of something that was absent in nature. In this sense, it is always distinguished by its novelty, if its results are compared with what exists in nature.

In human activity itself one can find acts of extraordinary ingenuity, of radical novelty. There are also activities where creativity is not so clearly expressed. Let's say the man who invented the wheel was certainly a genius. But people need more than one wheel, which, perhaps, was built by this most nameless creator. Once the wheel has already been invented, it must be reproduced on a mass scale. This is also an activity, but, strictly speaking, it cannot be called creativity.

Let us recall the amazing line: “And star speaks to star...”. The words here are simple and well-known. However, the image of immeasurable outer space is immediately born in the mind. For Lermontov, this is a biography of the heavenly roll call. It's also a certain mood. It is as if your soul is touching a roll call of stars. A mood of sadness, humility of spirit, and a feeling of loneliness is born.

As is known, the phenomenon of creativity was extensively studied by the Russian philosopher N.A. Berdyaev in his book “Philosophy of Creativity”. He notes that in the Gospel there is not a single word about creativity. If the paths of creativity were justified and indicated in the Holy Scriptures, then creativity would be obedience, that is, it would not be creativity. The secret of creativity is hidden. “And God expects from man the anthropological revelation of creativity, having hidden from man, in the name of God-like freedom, his ways of creativity and the justification of creativity.”

In creativity, man himself reveals the image and likeness of God in himself, reveals the divine power invested in him. According to N.A. Berdyaev, the Creator’s idea of ​​man is dizzyingly lofty and beautiful. So lofty and beautiful is the divine idea of ​​man that creative freedom, the free power to discover oneself in creativity, is inherent in man, as a seal of his godlikeness.

The creative secret is hidden to man and revealed to man. Creative impulses accompany the entire history of man. Man is completely free to reveal his creativity. We face the inevitability of justifying ourselves with creativity, and not justifying our creativity.

From these positions N.A. Berdyaev criticizes the contemporary science of knowledge - epistemology. In his opinion, critical epistemology exacerbates the crisis of culture and creativity, exposes the antagonism between culture and creativity. Critical epistemology substantiates and justifies all types of creativity of a differentiated culture, but this does not reveal, but closes the creative nature of man. The creative act turns out to be withdrawn from primary existence and transferred to the secondary sphere of consciousness. Creativity is addressed to the other side of the dual nature of man and is born from the other side. According to N.A. Berdyaev, one cannot expect from creativity an increase, an ascension of being, a revelation of man. Creativity in German philosophy turns out to be not a revelation of human nature, but a covering for it.

ON THE. Berdyaev believed that creativity is painful and tragic in its essence. The goal of the creative impulse is to achieve another life, another world, ascension in being. In every creative act there is absolute profit, growth. Such an essence of being, the growth that occurs in it, the profit achieved without any loss speaks of the creator and creativity. Creativity in the world is possible only because we create. Man is obliged to enrich the divine life itself. The creative act is inherent only in the face as a free and independent power. Human creativity is similar to God’s creativity, not equal, not identical, but similar. Man is not absolute and therefore cannot have absolute power. In his creativity, a person is connected with other people and the whole world of creatures, but he is not omnipotent. Knowledge of the creative era is active, not passive, it presupposes creative effort and therefore opens up creativity. The creative impulses of a new person are a symptom of the birth of a new being and new knowledge.

ON THE. Berdyaev notes that creativity is inseparable from freedom. Only the free one creates. Creativity is born from freedom. Creativity is inexplicable. Creativity is a mystery. The secret of creativity is the secret of freedom. The mystery of freedom is bottomless and the mystery of creativity is inexplicable.

“The Creator can be demonic, and his demonism can be imprinted on his creation. But a great creation, creative value and the creative ecstasy that gave rise to it cannot be demonic. I think Leonardo da Vinci had demonic poison in his nature. But in the creative act, Leonardo’s demonism burned out and was transformed into a different existence, free from the “world.” In Gioconda, in Bacchus, in John the Baptist, the demonism of Leonard's nature shines through. But are the great creations of Leonardo’s genius doomed to burn in hellfire? No, in these creations the evil of Leonard’s nature had already burned out, and his demonism was transformed into a different existence, passing through the creative ecstasy of genius. In Gioconda there is an eternal beauty that will enter into the eternal divine life. Creative life is eternal life, not perishable.”

According to Berdyaev, creativity is antagonistic, on the one hand, to human perfection, and on the other, to the perfection of culture. Only a creative religious era, as the philosopher believes, will emerge from the clutches of personal perfection and the perfection of cultural values.

One of the central aspects of creativity is explaining how new ideas arise. The ability not to pass by accidents, to notice them and give them an appropriate interpretation is an important aspect of creativity. When W. Herschel (1738-1822) discovered the planet Uranus in 1781, it turned out that many astronomers had already observed this celestial body (at least 200 recorded observations), but it turned out that some physicists had encountered this type of radiation and considered it as interference that causes photographic plates to deteriorate.

Of course, chance favors the prepared mind. The ability for scientific discoveries is manifested in people who have been distinguished by curiosity since childhood and who have received such training and education that did not suppress the ability to see events and processes from an unexpected angle. Creativity is an individual act, deeply personal, undoubtedly influenced by prejudices and preconceived opinions. The criteria for assessing what is new in science are the same for all scientists in the world. A new discovery is verified by comparing it with already known, established views in science. One of the conditions of scientific discovery is the ability to pay attention to oddities, to unusual, even seemingly insignificant, events. Some believe that guesswork is always associated with blind faith, a refusal of critical judgment. However, a guess may be a wild guess, made at random, but it may be based on deep thought.

Scientific discovery of the periodic law by D.I. Mendeleev (1834-1907), as academician B.M. showed in his studies. Kedrov (1903-1985), was evidence of creative thinking. A necessary condition for this insight was the extensive factual material that the great chemist collected for about 15 years. The actual “obstacle” to identifying the law turned out to be the way of subjective reflection of this material in consciousness. According to Mendeleev himself, in the system of elements he compared only the similar, and not the different. And only the thought of comparing chemically more different elements in terms of atomic weights led to the identification of a “key feature” - atomic weight.

According to A. Koestler (1905-1983), creativity is manifested in art, science and humor. Even though the logical structure of these manifestations is the same (the establishment of hidden similarities and similarities), the emotional coloring of the creative process is different. A comic comparison bears the stamp of aggressiveness, a poetic image is colored with sympathy and admiration, and scientific reasoning is dispassionate. The identical structure of the creative process causes the fragility of the boundaries between science and art. A mathematician speaks of an “elegant solution,” a surgeon speaks of a “beautiful operation,” a literary critic speaks of “two-dimensional characters.”

Attempts to connect creative talent with mysterious phenomena of the psyche have been made for a long time. So, E.P. Torrence (b. 1915) named “a craving for the mysterious” among the characteristics of a creative personality. G. Murphy (1895-1979) wrote two articles on the relationship between creative potential and parapsychological phenomena, in particular, he cited historical materials indicating that Mark Twain, Goethe and Schumann had parapsychological abilities.

The main condition for creativity is self-creativity. Since man is the source and meaning of every creative action, the most significant creativity can be considered the self-actualization of a person, his personal growth. To create yourself means in every aspiration and in every action to strive for the maximum expression of your humanity - to strive for the maximum share of holiness, goodness and love available to you, to constantly try to remain in a waking state of extreme attentiveness and openness to everything around you. Creativity is not only a special activity, it is, first of all, a way of life. And yet, all of the above conditions are necessary, but not sufficient; they do not provide any guarantee that a person can become a creator or live creatively. As long as humanity exists, creativity will always be the most mysterious and greatest mystery of its existence.

Play is also a form of activity. But it can also serve as a mode of human existence. It would be a mistake to say that the phenomenon of play has not received coverage in philosophical, cultural, sociological, pedagogical or psychological literature. The list of works devoted to various aspects of the game looks quite thorough. “However, the game is still actively, widely and multifacetedly studied and remains a mystery to understand, an insufficiently studied phenomenon of the social sphere. Presented in different forms, different in content, character, and positions of the players, it actually goes through a person’s entire life. The game of a child, the game of an artist and a spectator in the theater, “game” in ritual, sports and card games, business, computer and military games, playing one’s role in communication at home, at work - have different content, structure, meanings, etc. . And yet there is something in common that determines the unified nature of the game as a special type of activity, as a special necessary and important phenomenon in the organization of human life.”

Many European philosophers and psychologists see the source of culture in a person’s ability to play. Play in this sense turns out to be a prerequisite for the origin of culture. We find various versions of this concept in the works of G. Gadamer, E. Fink, J. Huizinga. In particular, G. Gadamer (1900-2002) analyzed history and culture as a kind of game in the elements of language, within which a person finds himself in a radically different role than the one he is capable of imagining.

The Dutch cultural historian I. Huizinga (1872-1945) noted in his book “Homo Ludens” (1983) that many animals love to play. In his opinion, if you analyze any human activity to the very limits of our knowledge, it will seem like nothing more than a game. This is why the author believes that human culture emerges and unfolds in play. The culture itself is playful in nature. The book considers play not as a biological function, but as an identification of culture and analyzes it in the language of cultural thinking.

Huizinga believes that play is older than culture. The concept of culture, as a rule, is associated with the human community. Human civilization has not added any essential feature to the general concept of play. All the main features of the game are already present in the animal game. “The game as such transcends the boundaries of biological or, in any case, purely physical activity. A game is a meaningful function with many facets of meaning.”

Everyone, according to Huizinga, who turns to the analysis of the phenomenon of play, finds it in culture as a given value that existed before the culture itself, accompanying and permeating it from the very beginning to the phase of culture in which one lives. The most important types of primary activity of human society are intertwined with play. Mankind is again and again creating a second, fictitious world next to the natural world. The driving forces of cultural life are born in myth and cult.

Huizinga makes the assumption that in the game we are dealing with the function of a living being, which can equally be determined only biologically, only logically or only ethically. Play is primarily a free activity. It is not “ordinary” life or life as such. All researchers emphasize the disinterested nature of the game. It is necessary for the individual as a biological function. And society needs it because of the meaning contained in it, its expressive value.

The Dutch cultural historian was convinced that play, rather than work, was the formative element of human culture. Before changing the environment, man did it in his own imagination, in the sphere of play. “Hizinga operates with a broad concept of culture. It cannot be reduced to spiritual culture, nor is it exhausted by it, much less does it imply a predominant orientation toward artistic culture. Although, due to deep idealism in matters of history, Huizinga interprets the genesis of culture one-sidedly, seeing the basis of the origin of cultural forms at all times in the spiritual aspirations and illusions of humanity, in its ideals and dreams, nevertheless, functioning culture is always considered by Huizinga, in all eras, as a whole , a system in which everything interacts: economics, politics, everyday life, morals, art.”

It is clear that the vulnerability of Huizinga’s concept does not lie in idealism as such. Correctly emphasizing the symbolic nature of play activity, Huizinga bypasses the main issue of cultural genesis. All animals have the ability to play. Where does the “craving for the game” come from? The German ethnographer L. Frobenius (1873-1928) rejects the interpretation of this craving as an innate instinct. A person not only enjoys the game, but also creates a culture. For some reason, other living beings are not endowed with such a gift.

Trying to solve this problem, Huizinga notes that archaic society plays as a child plays, as animals play. Little by little, the meaning of the sacred act penetrates into the game. At the same time, when speaking about the sacred activities of peoples, we must not for a moment lose sight of the phenomenon of play. “How and where did we rise from the lower forms of religion to the highest? From the wild and fantastic rites of the primitive peoples of Africa, Australia, America, our gaze moves to the Vedic cult of sacrifice, already pregnant with the wisdom of the Upanishads, to the deeply mystical homologies of the Egyptian religion, to the Orphic and Eleusinian mysteries.”

When Huizinga talks about the play element of culture, he does not mean at all that games occupy an important place among the various forms of cultural life. Nor does it mean that culture comes from play as a result of evolution. Huizinga's concept should not be taken in the sense that the original game has been transformed into something that is no longer a game, and only now can be called culture.

Culture arises in the form of play. Here is the initial premise of the named concept. Culture is initially played out. Those types of activities that are directly aimed at satisfying the needs of life (for example, hunting), in archaic society prefer to find a playful form. Human society rises to superbiological forms, giving it the highest value through games. In these games, according to Huizinga, society expresses its understanding of life and the world.

“Therefore, the matter should not be understood in such a way that play gradually ceases or is suddenly transformed into culture, but rather in such a way that culture in its initial phases is characterized by something playful, which is represented in the forms and atmosphere of the game. In this dual unity of culture and play, play is the primary, objectively perceived, concretely determined fact, while culture is just a characteristic that our historical judgment attaches to a given case.”

In the forward movement of culture, the hypothetical initial ratio of play and non-play does not remain unchanged. According to Huizinga, the game aspect in general recedes into the background as culture develops. It basically dissolves, assimilates into the sacred sphere, crystallizes in knowledge and poetry, in legal consciousness, in forms of political life. Nevertheless, at all times and everywhere, including in the forms of highly developed culture, the play instinct can again, as the Dutch historian believes, manifest itself in full force, involving an individual or a mass of people in the whirlwind of a gigantic game.

The concept of the playful genesis of culture is supported in modern philosophy not only by Huizinga. Let us turn to the work of the famous phenomenologist E. Fink (1905-1975) “Basic phenomena of human existence.” In the author’s typology there are five of them - death, labor, domination, love and play. The last phenomenon is as primordial as the others. The game covers the entire human life to the very foundation and significantly determines the existential makeup of a person, as well as the way of understanding human existence.

Play, according to Fink, permeates other basic phenomena of human existence. Play is an exceptional opportunity of human existence. Only a person can play. Neither the animal nor God can play. Only beings that are ultimately related to the all-encompassing universe and at the same time located in the gap between reality and possibility exist in the game.

These statements need clarification because they contradict common life experiences. “Everyone knows the game from his own life, has an idea about the game, knows the play behavior of his neighbors, countless forms of play, knows public games, Circean mass performances, entertaining games and games of adults that are somewhat more intense, less easy and attractive than children’s games; everyone knows about play elements in the sphere of work and politics, in the communication of the sexes with each other, play elements in almost all areas of culture.”

Treating play as a fundamental phenomenon of human existence, Fink highlights its significant features. In his interpretation, play is an impulsive, spontaneously occurring accomplishment, inspired action, similar to the movement of human existence in itself. The less we intertwine play with other life aspirations, the more aimless the game, the sooner we find in it a small but complete happiness. According to Fink, F. Nietzsche’s Dionysian dithyramb “Among the Daughters of the Desert,” often underestimated and misinterpreted, glorifies precisely the enchantment and oasis happiness of playing in the desert and the meaninglessness of modern existence.

Fink believes that man plays as a man, alone among all creatures. Play is a fundamental feature of our existence, which no anthropology can ignore. It would be necessary, the author argues, to someday collect and compare the gaming customs of all times and peoples, to register and classify the huge heritage of objectified fantasy imprinted in human games. This would be a history of “inventions” quite different from traditional cultural artifacts, tools, machines and weapons. They (these “inventions”) may seem less useful, but at the same time they are extremely necessary.

Fink associates the origin of culture with play, for without play human existence would plunge into plant existence. According to Fink, human play is difficult to distinguish from what is called animal play in the biological-zoological study of behavior. Man is a natural creature who tirelessly draws boundaries and separates himself from nature. “An animal does not know the game of fantasy as communication with possibilities; it does not play, relating itself to an imaginary appearance.” Since for a person play embraces everything, it elevates him above the natural kingdom. This is where the phenomenon of culture arises.

The psychology of play is represented by various schools of psychoanalysis, analytical psychology, Gestalt psychology, genetic epistemology of J. Piaget (1896-1980), and various movements of humanistic psychology. Game as an object of study is clearly separated from other spheres of human activity and life. Psychological analysis revealed a number of common features of the dynamics of game forms in the life path of an individual, among which were most clearly manifested in game biographies:

1. change in the quantity and diversity (increase, and then, starting from adolescence, decrease) of playful forms of life activity;
2. decrease in time spent playing as one gets older;
3. the increase in individual differences in the play forms of a person’s life as a person grows older.

Play is of great importance for the development of a child’s personality. The game recreates the general meaning of human work, norms and ways of relationships between people. It reproduces in ideal form the meaning of human activity and the system of relationships that adults enter into in their real lives1. D.B. Elkonin defined the importance of play for the development of various mental processes of a child as follows:

• play is an activity in which one overcomes “cognitive egocentrism”, the insufficient limitation of one’s point of view from other possible ones;
• the game acts as an activity in which the formation of prerequisites for the transition of mental actions to a new, higher stage of mental actions to speech occurs;
• During play, a significant restructuring of the child’s behavior occurs—it becomes arbitrary.

One of the features of a business game is that it can act as a simulation diagram of the situation in a broad sense (object, field of objects, system, processes, etc.) that interests specialists2. At the same time, as a model, a business game has “signature capabilities” of a wide range. If the use of symbolic means can be clearly recorded (for example, using operating rules), then it is much more difficult to limit and control the actions of players. This results in the relative freedom of behavior of the players. They have a choice, free within certain limits. Each player's decision is limited primarily by his own actions.

Another feature of a business game is that forms of gaming consciousness are organically realized in it. In itself, the gaming consciousness gives little in terms of serious activity. However, when combined with the modeling function, it becomes an effective tool for solving a number of business problems and tasks. In a business game, you can create a variety of situations that deviate significantly from the original, but still satisfy the organic logic of its existence. These can be situations of extreme modes of system behavior, logically conceivable but unusual states and relationships, various “subject monsters” and freaks.

As noted by V.M. Rozin (b. 1937), in many ways, the art of conceptualizing a business game consists in constructing a game reality in which various conflicts and problems related to a given business area can be played out. “The game implies the simultaneous implementation (and not sequential change in time) of practical and conditional behavior. The player must simultaneously remember that he is participating in a conditional (not a real situation) ... and not remember this ... “acts” the special mental attitude of the player, who simultaneously believes and does not believe in the reality of the conflict being played out”1. Since business games often have an element of competition and an “enemy” acts against the player, it can be argued that the game material is not passive, it changes, immerses the player in new situations, and influences him.

An educational business game is a variable, dynamically developing form of organizing the purposeful interaction of activities and communication of all its participants in the implementation of pedagogical guidance by the teacher. The essence of this form is the relationship between simulation modeling and the role-playing behavior of game participants in the process of solving typical professional and educational tasks of a fairly high level of complexity. “A business game reveals the student’s personal potential: each participant can diagnose their own capabilities individually and in joint activities with other participants. Students become creators not only of professional situations, but also “creators” of their own personality. They solve the problems of self-government, look for ways and means to optimize professional communication, identify their shortcomings and take measures to eliminate them. The teacher helps them with this.”

An object game is a child’s game with objects of human material and spiritual culture, in which the child uses them for their intended purpose.

Role-playing game is a joint group game in which its participants distribute, take on and perform various social roles: mother, father, teacher, doctor, child, student, etc.

Symbolic game is a type of game in which reality is reproduced in the form of symbols and signs, and game actions are performed in an abstract symbolic form. A children's game in which the child reproduces scenes from real life events, stories, fairy tales, etc.