Mental activity is all types of activity that are carried out with the participation of various forms of consciousness. It largely affects the behavior of a person in everyday life, and also forms behavioral cliches and affects the character and personal qualities of a person. The features of mental activity have been the subject of study by many psychologists and scientists since ancient times, because people have always been curious how and why a person acts in certain situations. The answer lies in the deep spheres of the human psyche, which has a great influence on the external behavior of a person and his life attitudes.
Definition
Human mental activity includes all types of activities that are carried out with the participation of various forms of consciousness. All mental activity is based on a mechanism for satisfying human needs of various kinds, from the most basic level of physiological needs to spiritual ones. Mental activity is an extremely complex process, which includes many stages, types and levels. In this process, the psychology of each individual individual, as well as the person as a whole, is formed.
Mental activity
Mental activity is called a complex and multifaceted process that includes several main stages:
- Obtaining information and its further evaluation.
- The choice of the desired goal to be achieved as a result of the activity.
- Planning: the choice of means and methods by which the goal will be achieved.
- Actually the activity using the selected methods.
- Performance evaluation.
If at the last stage a person is not satisfied, he goes on to review all the stages, analyzing where exactly something went wrong: at the stage of choosing the desired goal, choosing methods, etc.
Thus, through the process of cognition, personal experience is formed - the psychic activity of the individual becomes more mature and effective. A person learns to draw the right conclusions, begins to take responsibility for the actions he does, makes a deeper analysis of his actions and, on the whole, acquires many other useful psychic and psychological skills that make him more developed psycho-emotionally.
Levels
Mental activity and mental processes are studied by science psychology. Theories of mental activity, philosophers and scientists began to express in ancient times. Previously, people spoke only about the relationship of behavior with mental activity. Although this statement also has the right to be, nevertheless, this process is much deeper and more complicated than previously thought. Mental activity is a system functioning simultaneously at three levels, the elements of which are closely related to each other.
Unconscious
The unconscious level is the instinctive-reflex activity with which every person is born. Behavior and mental activity in this case is regulated by unconscious biological mechanisms, which are mainly aimed at satisfying the simplest biological needs - self-preservation of the body.
But the genetic program of human behavior is also under the control of more complex brain structures. Only in extremely critical situations in the human psyche can this protective mechanism work: the body will go into autonomous self-regulation mode. A striking example of this is the state of affect.
Subconscious
The subconscious level includes generalized and automatic stereotypes of behavior - habits, skills, intuition, etc. The subconscious mind is a kind of behavioral core of an individual, which is formed already in the very early stages of its development. The impulsive-emotional sphere, which is structurally localized in the subcortex of the brain, also falls into this category. Here, all sorts of unconscious aspirations of the personality are formed - desires, addictions, drives. This is such an involuntary sphere of the individualās personality, which is also called the āsecond natureā of a person, the center of behavior and behavior stamps.
At the same time, the subconscious itself has its own multilevel structure, which includes the lower level with complexes and automatisms and the highest with intuition.
Automatisms are called complexes of stereotypical actions in typical situations. Dynamic stereotypes in this case are a sequence of reactions in a familiar situation (for example, the manner of interacting with familiar objects, controlling familiar techniques, speech and facial cliches, etc.). A set of ready-made behavioral blocks relieves consciousness for more complex work - in this way, automatisms free consciousness from regular repetitive solutions to standard tasks.
Also, various complexes fall into the subconscious, which are essentially unfulfilled desires, suppressed aspirations or anxieties, overstated expectations. Complexes are prone to hypercompensation: drawing a large amount of energy from the subconscious, they create a stable subconscious form of personality behavior.
The highest degree of subconsciousness is intuition, which is also sometimes called superconsciousness. Intuition is instant insights, unexpectedly emerging solutions to various situations, unconscious anticipation of events based on spontaneous generalization and analysis of previous experience. But intuition does not always arise precisely in the sphere of the subconscious, often it simply satisfies the request for consciousness for a certain block of previously received information.
The brightest subconscious dominants are capable of influencing a personās conscious activity, creating various psychological barriers and practically insurmountable attractions for him. The subconscious is very stable and motionless, largely typifies the behavior of each person.
Conscious
A conscious behavior program is a dominant behavioral system for a socially adapted person. Although the remaining areas of mental activity always play a background role in the behavior of an individual, being a kind of basis, nevertheless, the main active program in human life is conscious action.
Human consciousness is a mechanism of conceptual regulation of his behavior and activity. Human activity differs from animal behavior in creative productivity and structural differentiation, which is essentially an awareness of the goals and motives of oneās actions, as well as the use of tools and methods created during cultural and historical development, as well as the application of knowledge and skills acquired in the process of socialization and adaptation.
Thus, the mental self-organization of a person, as well as his adaptation to the world around him, occurs through the following autonomous programs:
- Unconscious instinctual program due to evolutionary development.
- The subconscious program, which includes subjective-emotional processes.
- Conscious programs that are arbitrary.
Level interaction
Processes originating in the unconscious phase can easily pass into consciousness. The reverse situation also happens when the conscious is forced out into the subconscious.
The interaction of the conscious and the unconscious can occur in a coordinated or contradictory manner, manifesting itself in various logically incompatible actions of a person, which are based on an intrapersonal conflict.
The presence of consciousness, subconsciousness, as well as the unconscious in a person determines the relative independence of various human reactions:
- Congenital, unconsciously instinctive.
- Automated actions.
- Consciously-willed.
Kinds
The most primitive example of the type of mental activity is stereotyped activity, which works at the level of reflexes. These are habitual actions that are repeated with constant frequency and work as a reaction to certain stimuli ā these can be any habits or simple labor skills.
Creativity can be called the most difficult type of such activity, since it is distinguished by originality and unique originality, and, in addition, carries a socio-historical meaning. As a result of such activities, a fundamentally new product is created - an invention, a work of art, etc.
Basically, mental activity is divided into the following types:
- sensation;
- perception;
- representation;
- thinking.
Functions
Human activity and mental processes that occur within each individual have a close causal relationship. A person as a psychoemotional being reacts to various kinds of changes in the external world, not only physically, but also at all levels of his consciousness - the human psyche reacts to every event, which cannot but affect his mental activity.
Mental activity tends to become more complex and self-improving throughout life, thanks to the process of cognition that is characteristic of a person. Having mastered knowledge of himself and the world around him, a person more successfully adapts to various kinds of changes in the external environment.
Thus, among the functions of mental activity is the function of adapting a person to the world, ultimately striving for the goal of a more effective existence in the world and society. Mental activity is aimed at adapting the personality to constantly changing environmental conditions.
Structure
Activity is called not only external, but also internal activity of a person. This is a complex category, which includes many aspects of human interaction with the world. Activities include simple and complex actions.
Simple, as a rule, include three structural elements:
- target selection;
- execution;
- evaluation of the results.
Complex actions consist of a series of simple ones that acquire the status of sequential operations.
Activity begins with motive - inner motivation. A motive is an argument in favor of performing an action, an awareness of its personal meaning. All motives can be divided into two large categories:
- Conscious - inherent in mature individuals. Direct activity for long periods of a personās life.
- Unconscious - usually appear in the form of emotions.
Motives may vary depending on the situation.
Mental activity in children
Each age has its own attitude to social reality. Children's mental development and the activities of the child are closely related to each other. In the process of growing up, the human psyche changes, and with it, his worldview and way of knowing the world change. Activities in the childās mental development are crucial. An important role in this case is played by the so-called leading activity - that activity that will form the childās main psychological neoplasms at a certain stage of growing up.
Mental activity is not only physical activity as such. It implies a deeper concept, affecting not only the realm of consciousness, but also the subconscious and unconscious. Leading activities are characterized by the following features:
- Inside the lead activity, new activities are highlighted.
- In the course of leading activities, private mental processes are formed and reorganized.
- All age-related psychological personality changes depend on the leading activity.
Each stage of development is characterized by a certain type of leading activity. Among the types of leading mental activity of the child are:
- Emotional contact of a child with an adult. This type of leading activity is inherent in children from the first days of life to a year. The individual in this period is focused on the establishment of social contacts.
- Subject-manipulative activity. Such cognitive mental activity is characteristic for ages from 1 year to 3 years. The child is in the process of knowing the world at a primitive level of study of the surrounding objects.
- The role-playing game inherent in children under 6 years. At this age, children understand that the people around them have different professions and specialties, and are also involved in complex relationships with each other.
- Learning activities - up to about 10 years. Educational activity is a special program for mastering the basic theoretical forms of thinking. Children master the skill of learning, as well as the ability to operate with theoretical knowledge.
- Communication of adolescents up to 15 years in various fields of activity, whether it is educational, labor, creative or any other group. In the process of such activities, the role of the child changes - he gets from the family to another social sphere with other social roles. At this stage, a person learns to look for his place in life and society in the process of contact with the outside world and society.
- At the age of 15-17 years, the leading activity again becomes educational activity, but now an important feature is the combination of training with production work, which will be of great importance in the future. The choice of a profession plays a role here, with which value guidelines will also be developed. The main psychological neoplasm of this period of life is the ability to build life plans, to seek means for their implementation.
In the process of development of the psyche of the child in the process of changing the leading types of activity, there are patterns. The named leading types consist in a genetically continuous connection, the formation of which can occur only in a certain order. Child development should be understood as a single process.
Human mental activity is a multifaceted and complex process inherent in every person. There is an inextricable link between the consciousness of man and his practical activities. There are a lot of types of activities, but it is important to understand that the psyche of each individual is engaged in their own mental activity, which has a great influence on behavioral stereotypes of behavior, as well as on value orientations of a person and many other areas of human life.