The psychological theory of Leontief: concept and main provisions

Adherents of the concept of an activity approach have argued for a long time about the psychological structure of the personality in it.

Having included a large number of different elements in the personality structure, such as features of temperament, character, mental processes, psychologists got too complex a model of large dimension. For this reason, it was necessary to find a structure that would receive a theoretical justification, and would be practically suitable.

In short, Leontief ’s theory was that the structure of a person’s personality does not come from his genes, inclinations, knowledge, and skills. Its basis is objective activity, namely, the mechanism of relations with the environment, which are realized through a hierarchy of various activities.

A person is in certain social relations. Some of them are leaders, and some are subordinates. The core of the personality, therefore, includes a hierarchical representation of these activities, which, in turn, does not depend on the state of the human body.

The main parameters of the personality structure are:

• the diversity of the individual’s relationship with the world through the prism of diverse activities;
• the degree of hierarchy of connections with the world and activities;
• the generalized structure of the subject’s relations with the outside world, formed by the internal relationships of the main motives in the totality of activities.

Objective circumstances form a person through a set of activities. An individual develops only through creation, not consumption.

Short biography of A. N. Leontiev

Leontyev Alexey Nikolaevich is a famous representative of psychology of the period 1940–70s in the USSR. He made a huge contribution to the development of domestic psychological science: the creation of a department of psychology at the faculty of philosophy, and then the faculty of psychology at Moscow University. Leontyev wrote a large number of scientific works, books.

Alexei Nikolaevich Leontiev was born in 1903 in Moscow. Studied at Moscow University. Initially, he was fond of philosophy, as he had the desire to comprehensively evaluate the events that took place in the country then. However, then, on the initiative of G. I. Chelpanov, Leont'ev wrote his first scientific works on psychology: a work on Spencer and an essay on the theme “The Doctrine of James on Ideomotor Acts”. The first publications continued the research of Luria on the topic of affects, the associated motor technique, and were carried out in collaboration with him.

After a number of such publications in 1929, Leontiev began to work in the cultural and historical paradigm of Vygotsky. In 1940 he defended his thesis in two volumes, "Development of the psyche." The first volume included an analysis of the occurrence of sensitivity with theoretical and practical justifications, which was then included in the book "Problems of the development of the psyche." For this book, Leontyev received the Lenin Prize. The second volume is written about how the psyche develops in the animal kingdom. The main postulates were subsequently published posthumously in Leontief's collection of scientific legacy Philosophy of Psychology.

Leontyev began studying and publishing materials on the subject of personality since 1968. His final ideas on the concept of personality were the basis of his main work “Activity. Consciousness. Personality ”, which refers to 1974.

Individual formation

Leontyev’s personality theory is distinguished by abstractness.

It is formed through social relations, that is, "produced." Leont'ev was a supporter of the Marxist postulate that the individual acts as a set of social relations.

The psychological study of this concept begins with human activity, while the concepts of "action", "operation" are characteristics of the activity, not the individual.

Difference concepts

Leontief's theory differentiates the definition of the terms "individual" and "personality."

An individual is an indivisible, holistic formation, due to hereditary factors, with its own specific characteristics. Under the specific characteristics are understood the features that arose as a result of heredity, and as a result of adaptation to the natural environment: physical construction, temperament, eye color, etc.

The concept of personality is applicable only to a person and not from his birth, that is, a person must still become it. Until about two years old, the child does not yet have a personality. Thus, individuals are not born, but become.

She, in turn, begins to form when a child enters into social relations, in relationships with other people. A personality is a holistic entity, but not acquired, but produced, created as a result of the interconnection of a large number of objective activities. The child forms cultural forms of behavior, and his psyche becomes different. The emphasis in Leontief’s developmental theory is on how the motives of the subject change under the influence of culture, because a child has many new social motives.

Motives arise in connection with the requirements that society presents to him. Many new motifs form a hierarchy: some are more significant and others less. Leontyev’s personality theory connects its appearance with the formation of a stable hierarchy of motives. Such a hierarchy appears at the age of three to four years. The personality of the child begins to emerge through relations with the outside world and objects in it. Initially, children study the physical properties of objects, and then their functional purpose, which is used in activities. For example, a child looks at a glass and holds it, and then understands that it is needed to drink, and therefore to carry out specific activities. Thus, the stage of subject-practical activity proceeds to the assimilation of the hierarchy of activities at the stage of social relations.

The phenomenon of "bitter candy"

The theory of A. N. Leontyev demonstrates this on the phenomenon of "bitter" candy. So, in an experiment, the child was offered to perform a deliberately impossible task. For example, get something from the place where he sits. Without getting up, it was impossible to do. For this, the child was promised candy. Then the experimenter leaves the room, provoking the child to break the rules, which he does. Then the experimenter enters the room and hands the child a well-deserved candy. But the child refuses her and begins to cry. Here a motivational conflict manifests itself: to be honest with the experimenter or to receive a reward. The main motive here was an attempt to be honest.

Personality Development Parameters

The stage of development of a child’s personality in Leontyev’s theory is determined by the following parameters:

• The position that the child occupies in the system of social relations.
• Leading type of activity.

A sign of leading activity is not a quantitative indicator, that is, it is not the activity that the child likes to do most. Leading is an activity that corresponds to 3 properties:

1. Inside it, new species develop and arise. In particular, the educational activity in the early school years comes from the plot role.
2. It is in it that mental processes are mainly reconstructed or formed.
3. In this activity there are major changes in the personality of the child.

Thus, the first significant theoretical position in Leontief's theory is the presentation of activity as a unit of psychological analysis.

Activity hierarchy

Then Leontiev developed the concept of S. L. Rubinstein about the external, which realizes itself through internal conditions. It is understood that if a person owns activity, then the internal (subject) acts through the external and thereby changes itself.

A personality develops in the process of interaction of a large number of activities that are interconnected by hierarchy relationships and act as a set of hierarchical relationships.

The topic of the psychological characteristics of this hierarchy remains open. To interpret the hierarchy of activities within the framework of psychology, A. N. Leontyev uses the terms “need”, “emotion”, “motive”, “value”, “meaning”.

Leontief's theory of activity in some way changes the meaning of these concepts and the generally accepted analogies between them.

Motive replaces needs due to the fact that prior to satisfaction, the need does not have an object and therefore it is necessary to identify it. Once identified, the need acquires its objectivity. At the same time, the presented, conceivable object is made a motive, namely, it acquires its motivating and directing activity. Thus, when a person is in contact with objects and phenomena of the world around him, he learns their objective value. Meaning, in turn, is a generalization of reality, and it correlates with the world of objective historical phenomena. This is how a hierarchy of activities becomes a hierarchy of motives.

Leontiev developed further the concept of Vygotsky. The theories of Leontief and Vygotsky (pictured below) highlighted the decisive influence of the social factor on the individual, while minimizing the importance of the inherited, natural factor.

However, in contrast to Vygotsky, Leontief’s psychological theory further developed Rubinstein’s activity concept. What was his main task?

One can evaluate the key idea of ​​personality theory from A. N. Leont'ev based on the main critical problem that he solved. It consisted in the assimilation of a naturalistic understanding of personality and lower mental functions, which are rebuilt by mastering them. In this regard, Leontiev could not include a natural component in its structure, since it cannot be existential, empirically existing. Probably, Leontiev considered all domestic concepts that were prevailing in those times to be naturalistic, although they did contain an interpretation of the formation of the essence of the personality.

Personality as a special reality

In Leontyev’s theory of development, the personality goes beyond the boundaries of the concept of the psyche into the field of relationships with the world. It represents a kind of special reality, it is not an ordinary biological entity, but a higher education, historical in its essence. Moreover, a person is not a person initially, from birth. It develops with the subject throughout his life and first appears when he enters into social relations.

Personality structure

The personality in Leontief's theory is endowed with a structure. Appearing gradually, it undergoes formation throughout life. In this regard, there is a separate structure of the individual and the structure of the personality, which is characterized by the process of differentiation of activities.

A person has the following characteristics:

1. A lot of real human relationships that fill his life. They constitute the real basis of personality. However, not every activity present in the life of the subject is part of it. A person can carry out many things that are secondary to life.
2. The degree of development of higher links of actions (motives) among themselves and their hierarchy. The direction of the formation of personality is at the same time the direction of its ordering.
3. Type of structure: mono-vertex, poly-vertex, etc. Not every goal or motive can become the highest point, because it is necessary to withstand the load of the peak of personality.

Thus, the pyramid will not be a familiar picture with a base from the bottom and a gradual narrowing, but an inverted pyramid. The life goal, which is at the top, will bear the entire burden. The driving motive will influence how strong the structure is, so it must be such that it can withstand it.

Leont'ev argued that only imagination is a source of searching and building mechanisms that will allow a person to comprehend his own behavior.

Personal development

The theory of Leontief in psychology illuminates the fundamentally new stages of personality development, not related to the formation of mental processes. At the first stage, spontaneous folding takes place, and this period prepares the birth of a self-conscious person. At the second stage, a conscious person arises.

Along with natural functions, there are higher human functions. They begin their formation in life, then become individual and move from the interpersonal area to the intrapersonal.

The formation of the subject's personality in the development theory of A. N. Leontyev occurs during an individual story, in interaction with surrounding people.

Development is from simple to complex. First, a person acts in order to satisfy his innate needs, drives, and then - he satisfies needs in order to be in action, to carry out the work of his life, to realize the human task of life. Thus, the causal structure changes from actions for needs to needs for actions. An aspect of the formation of personality are inclinations. They affect the final result, but do not predetermine it. Makings provide the basis for the formation of abilities, but in reality abilities are formed in the process of real activity. A person is a special process that consolidates internal premises and external conditions. Thus, it determines the life of the individual.

The concept of personality denotes the unity of characteristics that are formed together with the individual development of the human body.

Leontyev’s theory of the development of the psyche also consisted in the fact that a person goes through two births, as it were. The first time this happens at the moment when the child becomes polymotivated, that is, he has a one-time presence of several motives for any activity, and also his actions become subordinate. This period corresponds to a crisis of three years, when for the first time hierarchy and subordination is manifested. The second time she is “born” when an already conscious person arises. Such a birth corresponds to a teenage crisis in the development of their own behavior through consciousness.

True personality

There are cases when a personality does not arise, the criteria of a true personality are singled out from here:

1. Focus on one’s own worldview and active functioning according to it.
2. He is a participant in the life of society.
3. Its purpose is to change or maintain the principles of human life in accordance with its value orientations.

We briefly examined the basic concepts of Leontief's theory.