The difference between the human psyche and the animal psyche. Basic psychological characteristics of consciousness. The difference between the psyche of humans and animals The difference between the mental activity of animals and the human psyche

There is a huge difference between the human psyche and the psyche of the highest animal.

The first difference is the difference between the thinking of humans and animals. Thus, the “language” of animals and human language cannot be compared in any way. While an animal can only give a signal to its fellows about phenomena limited to a given, immediate situation, a person can, with the help of language, inform other people about the past, present and future, and convey to them social experience. Each individual person, thanks to language, uses the experience developed in the centuries-old practice of society; he can gain knowledge about phenomena that he has never personally encountered. In addition, language allows a person to be aware of the content of most sensory impressions.

The difference in the “language” of animals and the language of man determines the difference in thinking, since each individual mental function develops in interaction with other functions.

Many experiments by researchers have shown that higher animals are characterized only by practical thinking. Only in the process of indicative manipulation is a monkey able to solve one or another situational problem and even create a “tool”. Abstract modes of thinking have not yet been observed in monkeys by any researcher who has ever studied the psyche of animals. An animal can act only within the limits of a clearly perceived situation; it cannot go beyond its limits, abstract from it and assimilate an abstract principle. The animal is a slave to the directly perceived situation.

Human behavior is characterized by the ability to abstract (be distracted) from a given specific situation and anticipate the consequences that may arise in connection with this situation. People are not slaves to a given situation; they are able to foresee the future.

Thus, the concrete, practical thinking of animals subordinates them to the immediate impression of a given situation, and man's ability for abstract thinking eliminates his direct dependence on a given situation. A person is able to act in accordance with a recognized need - consciously.

The second difference between man and animal is his ability to create and maintain tools. An animal creates a tool in a specific visual-effective situation. Outside of a specific situation, an animal never singles out a tool as a tool and does not keep it for future use. As soon as the tool has played its role in a given situation, it immediately ceases to exist for the monkey as a tool. So, if a monkey has just used a stick as a tool for pulling up a fetus, then after a while the animal can chew it out or calmly watch as another monkey does it.

Thus, animals do not live in a world of permanent things. In addition, the instrumental activity of animals is never performed collectively - at best, monkeys can observe the activity of their fellow, but they will never act together, helping each other.

Unlike an animal, a person creates a tool according to a pre-thought-out plan, uses it for its intended purpose and preserves it. Man lives in a world of relatively constant things, uses tools together with other people, borrows the experience of using tools from some and passes it on to other people.

The third, very significant difference between animals and humans is the difference in feelings. Both man and the higher animal do not remain indifferent to what is happening around them. Objects and phenomena of reality can evoke positive or negative emotions in animals and humans. However, only a person can have a developed ability to empathize with grief and rejoice with another person. Only man can enjoy the pictures of nature or experience intellectual feelings when realizing any fact of life.

The fourth most important difference between the human psyche and the psyche of animals lies in the conditions of their development. If the development of the psyche of the animal world followed the laws biological evolution, then the development of the actual human psyche of human consciousness obeys the laws historical development.

Both animals and humans have in their arsenal the well-known experience of generations in the form of instinctive actions to a certain type of stimulus. Both of them acquire personal experience in all kinds of situations that life offers them. But only a person appropriates social experience, which develops his psyche to the greatest extent. From the moment of birth, a child masters ways of using tools and ways of communicating with other people.

Psychologists have established that without assimilation of the experience of humanity, without communication with one’s own kind, there will be no developed, strictly human feelings, the ability for voluntary attention and memory, the ability for abstract thinking will not develop, and a human personality will not be formed.

Cases of human children being raised among animals showed that in children raised by animals, it was impossible to detect those characteristics that distinguish a person from an animal. While a small monkey, by chance, left alone, without a herd, will still manifest itself as a monkey, a person only becomes a person if his development takes place among people.

The highest level of the psyche, characteristic of a person, forms consciousness. Consciousness is the highest, integrating form of the psyche, the result of the socio-historical conditions for the formation of a person in work activity with constant communication (using language) with other people.

What is the structure of consciousness, its most important psychological characteristics?

Its first characteristic is given in its very name: consciousness. Human consciousness includes a body of knowledge about the world around us. The structure of consciousness includes the most important cognitive processes, with the help of which a person constantly enriches his knowledge. These processes may include sensations and perceptions, memory, imagination and thinking. With the help of sensations and perceptions, with the direct reflection of stimuli affecting the brain, a sensory picture of the world as it appears to a person at the moment is formed in the mind. Memory allows you to renew images of the past in the mind, imagination allows you to build figurative models of what is an object of needs, but is absent at the present time. Thinking ensures problem solving through the use of generalized knowledge. A disruption, a disorder, not to mention a complete breakdown of any of these mental cognitive processes, inevitably becomes a disorder of consciousness.

The second characteristic of consciousness is the clear distinction between subject and object enshrined in it, i.e. of what belongs to a person’s “I” and his “not-I”. Man, for the first time in history organic world having separated himself from it and contrasted himself with his surroundings, he continues to retain this opposition and distinction in his consciousness. He is the only one among living beings who is capable of self-knowledge, i.e. turn mental activity to self-exploration. A person makes a conscious self-assessment of his actions and himself as a whole. The separation of “I” from “not-I” - the path that every person goes through in childhood, is carried out in the process of forming a person’s self-awareness.

The third characteristic of consciousness is ensuring the goal-setting activity of a person. The functions of consciousness include the formation of goals of activity, while its motives are formed and weighed, volitional decisions are made, the progress of actions is taken into account and the necessary adjustments are made to it, etc. Any violation, as a result of illness or for some other reason, of the ability to carry out goal-setting activities, its coordination and direction, is considered as a violation of consciousness.

Finally, the fourth characteristic of consciousness is the inclusion of a certain attitude in its composition. The world of feelings inevitably enters a person’s consciousness, where complex objective and, above all, social relations in which a person is included are reflected. Emotional assessments are represented in the human mind interpersonal relationships. And here, as in many other cases, pathology helps to better understand the essence of normal consciousness. In some mental illnesses, a disturbance of consciousness is characterized precisely by a disorder in the sphere of feelings and relationships.

A prerequisite for the formation and manifestation of all the above specific qualities of consciousness is language. In the process speech activity knowledge is accumulated, a person is enriched with the riches of human thought that humanity developed before him and for him, consolidated and transmitted to him in language. Language is a special objective system in which socio-historical experience or public consciousness. Having been mastered by a specific person, language in a certain sense becomes his real consciousness.

The concept of “consciousness” is used in psychology, psychiatry and other sciences in a sense that corresponds to its main characteristics given above. At the same time, psychiatrists, who are constantly faced with the question of the presence, preservation or impairment of consciousness in a patient, understand consciousness as the ability contained in the psyche of a given person to give an account of the place, time, environment, state and mode of action of one’s own personality.

Consciousness, being a social product, is inherent only to man. Animals do not have consciousness.

The origin of man and his psyche from the animal world has led some scientists to argue that there are no significant differences between the psyche of man and animals. Some of them relegated humans to the level of animals, while others, on the contrary, endowed animals with qualities inherent in humans. Anthropologization of the animal psyche has been widely used both in psychology and in fiction. Thus, the American psychologist Titchener wrote that the psychologist “tries, as far as possible, to put himself in the place of the animal, to find conditions under which his own expressive movements would be generally of the same kind; and then he tries to recreate the consciousness of the animal according to the properties of his human consciousness.”
The question naturally arises about the extent to which there are similarities between the psyche of humans and animals, and what their differences are.
1. First of all, the similarity between the human psyche and animals lies in the fact that they are characterized by lower forms of the psyche: sensory and perceptual. Both sense the properties and qualities of stimuli acting on the sense organs and perceive them. Animals, like humans, have visual, auditory, olfactory, gustatory and skin sensations. Both those and others have images of perceived objects. But perceptual images of humans are qualitatively different from images of animals, since they have not only an external, but also an internal, subjective orientation. On the basis of subjective images, a person’s objective consciousness begins to function, the content of which is determined by the images that make up the inner spiritual world of a person, connected both with external reality and with the physical existence of a person.
2. Elements of similarity in the psyche of humans and animals also occur intellectually. Higher animals begin to demonstrate visual-effective thinking, which allows them to grasp connections and relationships between perceived objects and find a way out of the existing problem situation. However, the ability for intellectual action in higher animals is only a potential possibility and is rarely realized under natural conditions, since problematic situations arise only in exceptional cases.
3. Some methods of communication are similar for humans and animals. Both humans and animals communicate through movements, postures, facial expressions, touches, etc. They are also characterized by sound communication. But in animals, sounds are only signals for the implementation of biological functions, while in humans they acquire semantic meaning and become a tool of intellectual activity. Thanks to this, a person has highest form intelligence - abstract theoretical thinking, which gives him the opportunity to free himself from the influences of the directly perceived environment and arbitrarily regulate his behavior. On the basis of abstract thinking, a person develops a higher ideal spiritual world, the content of which is views, beliefs, ideals and worldviews.
4. Both animals and humans are capable of passing on their experience to subsequent generations. But in animals it is transmitted biologically through inherited innate forms of behavior, while in people it is transmitted through special social learning carried out through language and speech, which are a means of consolidating, existing and transmitting socio-historical and individual experience.
5. Animals, like humans, are capable of experiencing emotions of pleasure and suffering, affection and gratitude, but only humans have socially determined moral feelings. Thanks to these feelings, a person develops a moral character associated with the experience of a sense of duty and conscience to people and to himself.
6. Humans and animals have similar natural needs, without the satisfaction of which they cannot live and develop as living beings. But a person, along with natural needs, has spiritual needs, thanks to which a person gains freedom and independence in his actions, both in relation to physical and mental states. The freedom of the spirit of a person is the main difference between a highly moral person not only from animals, but also from his relatives, who care only about their bodily well-being.
7. Animals and humans are capable of self-regulation. But in animals, self-regulation is unconscious, while in humans it is carried out consciously and has a volitional character. Will is inherent only to man. It gives him the opportunity to purposefully carry out behavior, mobilizing physical and mental resources to overcome obstacles that arise on the way to achieving a consciously set goal.
Thus, in the psyche of humans and animals there are many similarities based on the common origins of the emergence of the elementary psyche in the animal world. But if the psyche of animals is determined exclusively natural conditions existence, then in humans it has not only a natural, but also a social character. The psyche ensures not only the physical existence of a person, but also the spiritual, moral existence, which is the property of only man. But the spiritual development of a person does not occur spontaneously, but is carried out under the influence purposeful education, which occurs in the family, school and in society.

Literature

Gippenreiter Yu.B. Introduction to general psychology. M., 1988.
Vygotsky L.S. Collected works. T. 2, M., 1982.
Ladygina-Kots N.I. Development of the psyche in the process of evolution of organisms. M., 1958.
Leontyev A.N. Selected psychological works. T. 11. M., 1983.
Luria A.R. An evolutionary introduction to psychology. M., 1975.
Nemov R.S. Psychology. Book 1. General Basics psychology. M., 1994.
Rubinstein S. L. Fundamentals of general psychology. M., 1989.
Titchener E. Textbook of Psychology. M., 1914.
Fabry K.E. Fundamentals of zoopsychology. M., 1976.

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ABSTRACT ON PSYCHOLOGY

ON THE TOPIC

"DIFFERENCES IN THE PSYCHEANIMALS AND HUMANS"

FP and MNO students

Sinitskaya Valeria

Plan

I. Introduction

II. The nature and concept of the psyche

III. Development of the psyche in animals

IV. Structure of the human psyche

V. Features of the difference between the psyche of animals and the consciousness of humans

2. Thinking and intelligence

3. Cognitive processes

4. Motivation

VI. Conclusion

VII. Bibliography

I. Introduction

In my work on the topic “Differences between the psyches of animals and humans,” I want to compare the psyches of animals and humans and find the differences between them.

My tasks:

Give general concept psyche,

Consider the development of the psyche of animals and humans,

Identify the differences between them,

To give an idea of what periods of development the animal psyche went through before it turned into human consciousness.

This work consists of an introduction, a main part, which includes 4 main questions, and a conclusion. The first question reveals the concept of the psyche and its nature. The second question determines the development of the animal psyche. The third is the development of the human psyche or human consciousness.

And the last question is the main features of the difference between the psyche of animals and the consciousness of humans.

The work was done on 14 sheets.

II. The nature and concept of the psyche

PSYCHE (from the Greek psychikos - spiritual) is a form of active reflection by the subject of objective reality, arising in the process of interaction of highly organized living beings with the outside world and carrying out a regulatory function in their behavior (activity).

Psyche is a general concept that unites many subjective phenomena studied by psychology as a science. There are two different philosophical understandings of the nature and manifestation of the psyche: materialistic and idealistic. According to the first understanding, mental phenomena represent the property of highly organized living matter, self-control of development and self-knowledge (reflection).

In accordance with the idealistic understanding of the psyche, there is not one, but two principles in the world: material and ideal. They are independent, eternal, not reducible and not deducible from each other. While interacting in development, they nevertheless develop according to their own laws. At all stages of its development, the ideal is identified with the mental.

The modern understanding of the essence of the psyche was developed in the works of N.A. Bernstein, L.S. Vygotsky, A.N. Leontyeva, A.R. Luria, S.L. Rubinshtein et al. P. arose at a certain stage in the development of living nature in connection with the formation in living beings of the ability to actively move in space.

III. Development of the psyche in animals

psyche consciousness thinking cognitive

Psyche - from the Greek soulful - is a property of highly organized matter, which is a special form of reflection of reality, the result of specific interactions of living systems with environment.

The psyche is the product of a long and complex process development of organic nature. The simplest microorganisms do not have a psyche; they are characterized by a more elementary form of reflection - irritability - this is the property of living organisms to respond by changing their state or movement to external influences. The strength and nature of the responses depend not only on how strong the external influence is, but also on the internal state of the living creature (experiments by scientists have shown that a well-fed amoeba does not react to food). Whereas mental reflection is the reaction of a living creature not only to biologically significant stimuli, but also to those that serve as a signal, as if warning about a biologically significant impact (insects, focusing on sound, smell, color, find food or avoid danger) .

The appearance of the mental form of reflection is associated with the emergence of the simplest nervous system. It first appears in coelenterates (hydra, jellyfish) - they exhibit undifferentiated reactions of the whole organism to various stimuli, since they do not have a control center, which appears at the next stage of development of the nervous system, which is called ganglion (in worms). Their body acts as a single whole, but the head node is more complex than all the others, and therefore reacts more differentiated to external stimuli.

Subsequently, with the transition of animals to a terrestrial way of life and with the development of the cerebral cortex, a mental reflection of integral things by animals arises, a perceptual psyche arises.

The development of life leads to the emergence of sensory organs, organs of action and a nervous system, the function of which is to reflect the reality around them.

With the development of sensations in animals, perceptions appeared (reflections of objects with a number of their characteristics). In higher vertebrates, ideas arise (images of things that are not currently perceived; for example, a monkey is looking for a hidden banana that it just saw). The memory of animals is improved (its initial forms are also found in the simplest representatives of the animal world). Vertebrates have the rudiments of thinking, which, however, is much more primitive than human mental activity.

The level of mental development determines the forms of animal behavior: instincts, skills, intellectual actions.

IV.Structure of the human psyche

The psyche is complex and diverse in its manifestations. Usually there are three large groups of mental phenomena, namely:

1) mental processes, 2) mental states, 3) mental properties.

Mental processes are a dynamic reflection of reality in various forms of mental phenomena.

A mental process is the course of a mental phenomenon that has a beginning, development and end, manifesting itself in the form of a reaction. It must be borne in mind that the end of a mental process is closely related to the beginning of a new process. Hence the continuity of mental activity in a person’s waking state.

Mental processes are caused both by external influences and by stimulation of the nervous system coming from the internal environment of the body.

All mental processes are divided into cognitive processes - these include sensations and perceptions, ideas and memory, thinking and imagination; emotional - active and passive experiences; volitional - decision, execution, volitional effort; etc.

Mental processes ensure the formation of knowledge and the primary regulation of human behavior and activity.

In complex mental activity, various processes are connected and form a single stream of consciousness, providing an adequate reflection of reality and implementation various types activities. Mental processes occur with varying speed and intensity depending on the characteristics of external influences and personality states.

A mental state should be understood as a relatively stable level of mental activity that has been determined at a given time, which manifests itself in increased or decreased activity of the individual.

Every person experiences different mental states every day. In one mental state, mental or physical work is easy and productive, in another it is difficult and ineffective.

Mental states are of a reflex nature: they arise under the influence of the situation, physiological factors, progress of work, time and verbal influences (praise, blame, etc.).

The most studied are: 1) general mental state, for example attention, manifested at the level of active concentration or absent-mindedness, 2) emotional states or moods (cheerful, enthusiastic, sad, sad, angry, irritable, etc.). There are interesting studies about a special, creative state of personality, which is called inspiration.

The highest and most stable regulators of mental activity are personality traits.

Mental properties of a person should be understood as stable formations that provide a certain qualitative and quantitative level of activity and behavior typical for a given person.

Each mental property is formed gradually in the process of reflection and is consolidated in practice. It is therefore the result of reflective and practical activity.

Personality properties are diverse, and they need to be classified in accordance with the grouping of mental processes on the basis of which they are formed. This means that we can distinguish the properties of intellectual, or cognitive, volitional and emotional activity of a person. As an example, let's give some intellectual properties - observation, flexibility of mind; strong-willed - determination, perseverance; emotional - sensitivity, tenderness, passion, affectivity, etc.

Mental properties do not exist together, they are synthesized and form complex structural formations of the personality, which must include:

1) a person’s life position (a system of needs, interests, beliefs, ideals that determines a person’s selectivity and level of activity); 2) temperament (a system of natural personality traits - mobility, balance of behavior and activity tone - characterizing the dynamic side of behavior); 3) abilities (a system of intellectual-volitional and emotional properties that determine the creative capabilities of an individual) and, finally, 4) character as a system of relationships and modes of behavior.

V. Traits of difference between the psyche of animals and the consciousness of humans

The highest level of the psyche characteristic of a person forms consciousness. Consciousness is the highest stage of development of the psyche, characteristic only of man, which arose in the process of social labor activity of people with their constant communication with each other using language.

Consciousness is characterized by a number of specific properties that are not observed in the psyche of animals: in humans, the reflection of the surrounding world is different at different stages of historical development. The process of reflecting the surrounding world does not remain unchanged. Age changes, experience is gained, outlook on life changes. Similar changes also occur in animals, but they affect one individual, while a person can appropriate the socio-historical experience of all humanity. The unity of the historical and ontogenetic in man's reflection of the surrounding world is one of the main features that distinguishes human consciousness from the psyche of animals.

Another one distinguishing feature mental activity of a person - the transfer of social experience. Both animals and humans have in their arsenal the well-known experience of generations in the form of instinctive actions to a certain type of stimulus. Both of them gain personal experience in all sorts of situations that life offers them. But only man appropriates social experience. From the moment of birth, the child masters the ways of using tools and methods of communication. A person develops higher, strictly human, functions (voluntary memory, voluntary attention, abstract thinking).

An important difference between human consciousness and the psyche of animals lies in the presence of self-awareness, that is, the ability to cognize not only the external world, but also oneself, one’s typical and individual characteristics. This opens up the possibility of self-improvement, self-control and self-education.

The difference between man and animal lies in his ability to create and maintain tools. A monkey can use a stick to knock fruit from a tree; an elephant breaks off a branch and uses it to drive insects off its body. But animals use a stick accidentally and sporadically, so they do not make their own tools and do not store them for the future. An animal creates a tool in a specific situation. Outside of a specific situation, an animal will never single out a tool as a tool and does not save it for future use. Thus, animals do not live in a world of permanent things. In addition, the instrumental activity of animals is never carried out collectively - at best, monkeys can observe the activity of their fellow.

Unlike an animal, a person creates a tool according to a pre-thought-out plan, uses it for its intended purpose and preserves it. He lives in a world of relatively permanent things. A person, using tools, is aware and understands their purpose, therefore, when making them, they think about what material and what shape it should be made from. A person uses a tool together with other people. Each new generation of people receives ready-made tools and experience in their manufacture, so people inherit not only biological characteristics, but also socio-historical experience, accumulated and preserved primarily in the tools and means of producing material goods.

1. Language

While an animal can only give a signal to its fellows about phenomena limited to a given, immediate situation, a person can, with the help of language, inform other people about the past, present and future, and convey to them social experience. Each individual person, thanks to language, uses the experience developed in the centuries-old practice of society; he can gain knowledge about phenomena that he has never personally encountered. In addition, language allows a person to be aware of the content of most sensory impressions. As you know, animal communication is often expressed in the fact that one animal influences others with the help of sounds. Internally, these processes are fundamentally different. A person expresses some objective content in his speech and responds to speech addressed to him not just as a sound, but as a reality reflected in speech. Animal vocal communication is fundamentally different from this. It is easy to prove that an animal responds to the voice of a relative, regardless of what this key signal reflects: it only has a certain biological meaning for it. Or, for example, birds living in flocks have specific calls that warn the flock of danger. These calls are produced by the bird whenever it is frightened by something. In this case, it is completely indifferent what acts in in this case to a bird: the same cry signals the appearance of a person, the appearance of a predatory animal, or simply some unusual noise. Consequently, these screams are associated with certain phenomena of reality, the similarity of the animal’s objective attitude towards them. In other words, the mentioned animal cries are devoid of stable objective objective meaning. That is, animal communication, both in its content and in the nature of the specific processes that carry it out, also remains completely within the limits of their instinctive activity.

2. Thinking and intelligence

No less important differences are found in the thinking of humans and animals. Both of these types of living beings, almost from birth, have the potential ability to solve elementary problems. practical problems in a visual and actionable way. However, already at the next two stages of intellect development - in visual-figurative and verbal-logical thinking - striking differences are revealed between them.

Only higher animals can probably operate with images, and this is still controversial in science. In humans, this ability manifests itself from the age of two and three. As for verbal-logical thinking, animals do not have the slightest signs of this type of intelligence, since neither logic nor the meaning of words (concepts) are available to them.

It has been proven that simple nervous system animals can accumulate information that can change their behavior. In higher mammals, mainly monkeys and humans, thanks to high level As the brain develops, new abilities appear that make it possible to solve problems without preliminary trial manipulations. Obviously, the most advanced monkeys in the process of evolution and, of course, humans were able to develop this ability to grasp the connection between various elements of a situation and derive the correct solution from it by inference, without resorting to trial actions performed at random. Inferences are used in a wide variety of situations in everyday life, whether we are talking about performing a task, moving from one place to another, or receiving and making sense of information coming from the environment in which an individual lives. In vertebrates at the top of the evolutionary ladder, in particular in primates, new forms of individually variable behavior arise, which can rightfully be designated as “intelligent” behavior.

Thus, at higher stages of evolution, especially complex types of behavior with a complex structure begin to form, including: - approximately research activities, leading to the formation of a scheme for solving a problem; - the formation of plastically variable behavior programs aimed at achieving the goal; -- comparison of completed actions with the original intention.

Characteristic of this structure of complex activity is its self-regulating nature: if the action leads to the desired effect, it stops; if it does not lead to the desired effect, appropriate signals are sent to the animal’s brain and attempts to solve the problem begin again.

The most important differences between the human psyche and the animal psyche lie in the conditions of their development. If during the development of the animal world the development of the psyche followed the laws of biological evolution, then the development of the human psyche itself, human consciousness, is subject to the laws of socio-historical development. Without assimilating the experience of humanity, without communicating with others like oneself, there will be no developed, strictly human feelings, the ability for voluntary attention and memory, the ability for abstract thinking will not develop, and a human personality will not be formed.

3. Cognitive processes

Both humans and animals have common innate elementary abilities of a cognitive nature, which allow them to perceive the world in the form of elementary sensations (in highly developed animals - and in the form of images), and remember information. All basic types of sensations: vision, hearing, touch, smell, taste, skin sensitivity, etc. - are present in humans and animals from birth. Their functioning is ensured by the presence of appropriate analyzers.

But the perception and memory of a developed person differ from similar functions in animals and newborn babies. These differences run along several lines at once.

Firstly, in humans, compared to animals, the corresponding cognitive processes have special qualities: perception is objectivity, constancy, meaningfulness, and memory is arbitrary and indirect (the use by humans of special, culturally developed means of remembering, storing and reproducing information). It is these qualities that a person acquires during life and further develops through training.

Secondly, the memory of animals is limited compared to humans. They can use in their lives only the information that they acquire themselves. They pass on to the next generations of similar creatures only what is somehow fixed hereditarily and reflected in the genotype. The situation is different for humans. His memory is practically limitless. He can remember, store and reproduce a theoretically infinite amount of information due to the fact that he himself does not need to constantly remember and keep all this information in his head. For this purpose, people invented sign systems and means for recording information. They can not only record and store it, but also pass it on from generation to generation through objects of material and spiritual culture, training in the use of appropriate sign systems and means.

4. Motivation

Scientists have spent a lot of effort and time trying to understand the commonality and differences in the motivation of behavior of humans and animals. Both, no doubt, have many common, purely organic needs, and in this regard it is difficult to detect any noticeable motivational differences between animals and humans.

There are also a number of needs in relation to which the question of fundamental differences between humans and animals seems unambiguously and definitely unsolvable, i.e. controversial. These are the needs for communication (contacts with one’s own kind and other living beings), altruism, dominance (motive of power), aggressiveness. Their elementary signs can be observed in animals, and it is still not completely known whether they are inherited by humans or acquired by them as a result of socialization.

A person also has specific social needs, close analogues of which cannot be found in any of the animals. These are spiritual needs, needs that have a moral and value basis, creative needs, the need for self-improvement, aesthetic and a number of other needs.

5. Emotions

The number of basic, or “pure” emotional programs is small. In higher mammals it is;

Joy, pleasure - includes a program for repeating the action.

Interest, excitement - a program to attract an animal and study an object.

Surprise causes a shift in attention.

Disgust, contempt is the action of rejecting an object.

Anger, rage - destruction, removal of obstacles.

Grief and suffering are a signal for help for other members of the pack or activation of maternal behavior.

Fear, horror - a program of avoidance, removal from an object.

Shame, guilt - the behavior of subordination in a pack of one animal to another, one of a higher rank or to the leader of the pack.

The list of emotions is given based on the work “Human Emotions”. Author - K. L. Izard.

The last emotion may not be pure, that is, it is an emotional complex. (Fear makes animals obey the leader of the pack). Emotions of different directions, giving motivational coloring to signals from the external environment, can be activated simultaneously. In this case, the person experiences what is usually called feelings. In reality it's emotional complexes. The strongest emotional complex in a person, which also includes sexual need, which is not an emotion, is love. Such seemingly different feelings as greed and pity are formed by the same emotion - “grief, suffering.”

What do we have in the end? Animals, of course, are not people, but still, they can also experience, sympathize and mourn.

VI.Conclusion

So, the human psyche is a qualitatively different, higher level of mental development than that of animals.

The main differences between the human and animal psyches are as follows:

Animals cannot analyze (if the lion did not catch up with the antelope, he cannot understand why this happened and next time he cannot do it differently);

Animals do not have speech or verbal communication (there are sounds and signals that always mean the same thing, while the words of human speech can have different meanings);

There are no words that mean anything (a parrot can pronounce words, but for him they are an empty sound);

There is no ability to plan one’s activities, to consider various options for situations;

An animal, on its own initiative, does not pass on individual skills to its offspring or another individual (if a dog has learned that it gets a piece of meat when you press a red rather than a blue button, then its puppies will not know this until they learn it themselves);

Animals do not have consciousness (except monkeys and dolphins).

The human psyche is not only freed from those features that are common to all the stages of mental development of animals that we have considered, and not only acquires qualitatively new features - the main thing is that with the transition to man, the very laws governing the development of the psyche change. If throughout the entire animal world the general laws to which the laws of mental development were subordinate were the laws of biological evolution, then with the transition to man, the development of the psyche is subject to the laws of socio-historical development.

VII. Bibliography

1. Meshcheryakov B.G., Zinchenko V.P. Big psychological dictionary 2003 -672 p.

2. Personality psychology. Texts. -- M., 1982. (Character and social process (E. Fromm): 48--54.)

3. L.D. Stolyarenko, S.I. Samygin 100 EXAM ANSWERS IN PSYCHOLOGY. Rostov-on-Don. Publishing center "MarT", 2001

4. Rubinstein C.JI. Fundamentals of general psychology: In 2 volumes - T.I. - M., 1989. (Development of behavior and psyche of animals: 146--156.)

5. Fabry K.E. Fundamentals of zoopsychology. -- M., 1976. (Development of the animal psyche (ontogenesis): 88--171. Evolution of the psyche from elementary living beings to humans: 172--283.)

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Animal psyche

The science of the psyche of animals is called zoopsychology, and this very definition implies its existence.

This statement is not accepted by all researchers and they reduce the evidence to the fact that man, in the process of his development, acquired special qualities that animals lack. Another group of researchers believes that animals are also endowed with a psyche that developed during the process of evolution.

Animals differ from humans not in the absence of the psyche, but in its characteristics. The root cause of mental reflection is behavior. It is the psyche that directs the activity of the body in the desired direction of interaction with the environment.

The psyche helps the animal navigate the surrounding world and build its relationships with the elements of the environment. The classification of forms of animal behavior reached its development at the beginning of the 20th century.

To the basic forms of animal behavior I.P. Pavlov attributed innate elements of behavior - indicative, defensive, food, sexual, parental and childish.

G. Timbrock divided all forms of behavior into groups:

behavior related to metabolism (foraging for food, sleeping, defecation, etc.);
comfortable behavior (body care);
defensive behavior, which can be expressed by an appropriate posture of the animal;
sexual behavior associated with reproduction;
group behavior;
behavior associated with the construction of nests and shelters.

Animals are capable of experiencing both positive and negative emotions, but cannot sympathize, empathize, or experience pleasure from the beauty of nature.

Thinking is closely related to speech, but in animals these are signals about their emotional state.

The animal's activity is related to biological need and remains within the limits of natural instincts. The possibilities of mental reflection of the reality that surrounds them are also limited. They cannot perform collective actions and do not help each other. True, it must be said that there are exceptions, for example, the pack behavior of wolves - they help each other when attacking prey. The same behavior is observed in jackals and hyenas.

Lions provide real assistance in hunting prey, ensuring the safety of cubs and females.

The behavior of small mammals is of interest - they form organized colonies, which makes it possible to successfully escape from predators; the point is that the sentry on duty, when they see danger, makes a sharp sound, thus warning their relatives of the danger. Interesting fact is that the sound indicates who the danger is coming from. Thus, animals use information acquired by them in the process of life.

Note 1

Animals lack such important psychological processes as the assimilation of social, collective experience.

Human psyche

The human psyche consists of separate subsystems, the elements of which are very changeable and hierarchically organized.

Systematicity, integrity and non-division are its main properties.

In the human psyche there are:

mental processes,
mental properties,
mental states.

Mental processes occur in the human head and are divided into cognitive, regulatory, and communicative.

If cognitive mental processes transform information and provide a reflection of the world, then regulatory processes provide direction and intensity. These are the processes of motivation, goal setting, decision making, volitional processes and control processes.

Information processing, selectivity of reflection and memorization are ensured by attention.

People communicate with each other, express their thoughts and feelings, which is ensured by communicative processes.

The psyche is characterized by properties with an individual measure of expression - temperament, character, abilities.

The human psyche is characterized by a mental state that can be emotional, caused by joy, sadness, anxiety, associated with activity or passivity.

A tonic mental state occurs during times of vigor or depression.

All mental states are interconnected and can move from one to another.

Only humans are characterized by such a unique mental process as symbolization - this is the replacement of some images with others that have a distant resemblance to the primary ones.

Not all processes occurring in the human psyche are realized by him. Every person, in addition to consciousness, also has an unconscious, i.e. the initial level of the psyche. It is presented in the form of the individual unconscious and the collective unconscious.

Note 2

Man, thus man is a social-natural being both similar to animals and different from them. The natural and social principles in his life are combined with each other.

Comparing the animal psyche with the human psyche allows us to highlight the following main differences between them.

1. An animal can act only within the framework of a situation that is directly perceived, and all the acts it performs are limited by biological needs, that is, motivation is always biological.

Animals don't do anything that doesn't serve their biological needs. The concrete, practical thinking of animals makes them dependent on the immediate situation. Only in the process of oriented manipulation is an animal able to solve problematic problems. A person, thanks to abstract, logical thinking, can foresee events and act according to cognitive necessity - consciously.

Thinking is closely related to broadcasting. Animals only give signals to their relatives about their own emotional states, while humans use language to inform others in time and space, conveying social experience. Thanks to language, every person uses experience that has been developed by humanity over thousands of years and which he has never directly perceived.

2. Animals are capable of using objects as tools, but not a single animal can create a tool. Animals do not live in a world of permanent things and do not perform collective actions. Even watching the actions of another animal, they will never help each other or act together.

Only man creates tools according to a well-thought-out plan, uses them for their intended purpose and saves them for the future. He lives in a world of permanent things, uses tools together with other people, takes on the experience of using tools and passes it on to others.

3. The difference between the psyche of animals and humans lies in feelings. Animals are also capable of experiencing positive or negative emotions, but only a person can sympathize with another person in grief or joy, enjoy pictures of nature, and experience intellectual feelings.

4. The conditions for the development of the psyche of animals and humans are the fourth difference. The development of the psyche in the animal world is subject to biological laws, and the development of the human psyche is determined by socio-historical conditions.

Both humans and animals are characterized by instinctive reactions to stimuli and the ability to gain experience in life situations. However, only a person is capable of appropriating social experience, which develops the psyche.

From the moment of birth, the child masters how to use tools and communicate skills. This, in turn, develops the sensory sphere, logical thinking, shapes the personality of the individual. A monkey in any conditions will manifest itself as a monkey, and a person will only become a person if his development takes place among people. This is confirmed by cases of human children being raised among animals.

PRIMITIVE ISOLATION. Leaving the inhospitable Outer World for the Inner World. The baby, having cried, simply falls asleep. An adult plunges into the world of his own fantasies (worse, he uses alcohol or drugs).
Motto: The rabbit is not at home! Remember the episode from Winnie the Pooh, when Winnie came to the Rabbit, and he broadcast from the hole: “The Rabbit is not at home!” - “Where did he go?” - “To my friend Winnie the Pooh”/. - “But I am Pooh!” - "You are sure?" - "Certainly!" - “Then come in.”

Dignity: Since the Outer World is completely ignored (Rabbit does not accept!), it is not distorted (Rabbit is able to identify Winnie the Pooh).
Flaw: The Outer World is turned off. Whatever problems drive the Rabbit into his hole, he will not solve them there.
Disease: : Rabbit, in general, is an obsessive-compulsive personality (about personality types in general, and about Rabbit in particular, see Lecture 1 on our website). And indeed, “the leading defense in people with a predominance of OBSESSIVE symptoms is isolation” [M-V, p. 363]. Modern psychotherapists use “obsessiveness” instead of the old term “obsessiveness” (I hope not out of harm, but for altruistic purposes - so as not to frighten the patient; but if the patient knows English or is not too lazy to look in the dictionary, “obsessiveness”, in full accordance with with its own meaning, will return). “Obsessive” acts on the principle “I must” and “if not me, then who?” A very tiresome style of interaction with the Outside World! If you use it constantly, it is not surprising that from time to time you want to crawl into a hole and not accept anyone.
Another lover of self-absorption is the happy owner schizoid personality; if he is in the hole on business (creating!) - everything is OK, but if he just sits around continuously, then a diagnosis of SCHIZOID PERSONALITY DISORDER is made.

2. DENIAL. Refusal to accept the very existence of the problem.
Motto: No problem! or All is for the best in this best of all worlds!
Dignity: Ability to act effectively in extreme situations. Excellent mood.
Flaw: Who will solve this problem? Rabbit? Unsolved problems accumulate and eventually collapse in an avalanche.
Disease - MANIA. The condition, needless to say, is subjectively pleasant, but, unfortunately, sooner or later it ends in a “collapse”, right up to MANIC-DEPRESSIVE PSYCHOSIS. An easier option: BIPOLAR AFFECTIVE DISORDER (the same, but at the level of sanity). Even easier, more at the level of character than disease: CYCLOTHYMIA (periodic changes in mood: rise - decline).

3. OMNIPOTENT CONTROL. The illusion of the possibility of limitless influence on the Outside World. In a baby, this is a normal phase of development, when in response to an impulse of hunger, the mother’s breast is at his disposal, and in response to an impulse of cold, a warm blanket is at his disposal. The older he gets, the clearer it is that the breast does not belong to him, but to his mother, that - don’t shout - if mom is not around, food will not appear. Why can't it always be like this?! That's life, baby. Grow up quickly! But some never grow up. Contrary to evidence, they believe that they retain magical power over the world.
Motto: Everything is captured! or If a person really wants to, he can do anything!(Coelho even says in “The Alchemist” that in this case “the whole Universe will help him.” Make no mistake, Dear Reader! The Universe does not care about you - it is busy with its nebulae. Ostap Bender is closer to Reality: “Saving drowning people is a matter hands of the drowning people themselves!”)
Dignity: When used appropriately, this defense maintains the individual's vital sense of competence and effectiveness.
Flaw: unreasonably high expectations mislead both yourself and others. I recently watched Alan Chumak’s performance in the “School of Scandal”... Well, okay, at least Chumak is a humanist. But if anti-humanoids are infected with omnipotent control, and even those who have real power over the Outer World - trouble! Disgusting examples: Hitler, Stalin; disgusting results...
Disease - SOCIOPATHY, and at the lowest level (see Lecture 3 on our website).

4. PRIMITIVE IDEALIZATION AND DEVALUATION. It is also an illusion about omnipotence - but not our own, but the person who cares about us (parents, teachers, spouse, friend, psychotherapist). And since this is an illusion, wonderful expectations will sooner or later be deceived, and idealization is invariably followed by depreciation in order to make room for the next object of idealization.
Motto: Oh, how disappointed I am in you!(Who asked to be enchanted?)
Dignity: You live “like Christ in your bosom”: warm and safe.
Flaw: Periodic collapse-depreciation and a period of defenselessness until a new object suitable for idealization is found. Effective method to avoid devaluation is to place an object on an inaccessible pedestal, from where it cannot be thrown off. Of course, this is God, who is “unknowable,” “one in three persons,” and also follows “mysterious” paths. However, when you get tired of going with the flow with the banner “Everything is in the hands of God,” and God can be devalued, there will always be a reason.
Disease - NARCISSISTIC PERSONALITY DISORDER, which is characterized by a galloping drive of “idealization-devaluation” of significant self-objects (see Lecture No. 2).

5. PROJECTION, INTROJECTION and PROJECTIVE IDENTIFICATION.
McWilliams combined three defense mechanisms on the basis of “insufficient psychological differentiation between one’s own personality and the surrounding world” [M-V, p. 144]. There is still a difference:
- in PROJECTION, the internal state is mistakenly accepted as coming from the outside.
- in INTROJECTION, on the contrary, what comes from the outside is mistakenly attributed to internal processes.
- PROJECTIVE IDENTIFICATION mixes both processes with the resulting aggressive release into the Outer World: the object is not only not recognized, but is also subjected to pressure to resemble the projected structure.
Motto :
- PROJECTIONS: A maniac has come to you...(see the beginning of this Note).
- INTROJECTIONS: Soviet means excellent! This is one of the most harmless introjects of the “scoop”. Anyone who wants a modern motto can easily find a suitable one on the way to work (the metro is papered, the street is hung). Just remember: the introject must be swallowed, and not spat out immediately - an introject spat out is not an introject. But the one not spat out takes a long time and is difficult to digest; in this case, the digested introject is no longer an introject. The sign of a real (undigested) introject is disorder. Depressed, to put it bluntly.
- PROJECTIVE IDENTIFICATION: If I invented you, become what I want.(From a song from the 60s of the last century. Something pulled me into the Soviet era... The theme is probably something like this).
Dignity :
- PROJECTIONS: serves as the basis for empathy, i.e. the ability to “feel” into the mental world of another, selecting and projecting onto him a suitable particle from his own mental reserve. For example, you are not a sadist, but if you have even the thinnest sadistic string in you, you can, by tuning and projecting it, understand the seasoned sadist sitting opposite;
- INTROJECTION: serves as the basis for teaching trivial things that do not require critical rethinking (my mother, for example, taught me how to use a special cat litter box - and I swallowed this information without discussion, no matter how alien it seemed to me then);
- PROJECTIVE IDENTIFICATION: if you see a kind and noble person in your neighbor (even if in fact this is categorically not the case), then under the weight of your joyful expectations he may break down and take a step in a given direction. Example: Bulgakov’s Yeshua continuously repeats “ a kind person! and tirelessly argues and introduces his projection. He successfully “processed” the Roman governor in this way, but did not have time to deal with the local authorities, and therefore was nevertheless executed. (But Alan Chumak, it seems, would be able to “charge” everyone).
Flaw :
- PROJECTIONS: distortion of the object (you don’t see who really “came”);
- INTROJECTIONS: distortion of the subject (you “don’t see” yourself, mistaking alien, “undigested” introjects for parts of your own personality); in the USSR, entire generations of “builders of communism” suffered from corresponding indigestion;
- PROJECTIVE IDENTIFICATION: you harm not only yourself, but also the object, forcing him to “swallow” your own introjects (how to do this, see Lecture No. 3, section “And a sociopath needs protection”).
Diseases: PARANOIA (for projection), DEPRESSION (for introjection), SOCIOPATHY and BORDERLINE PERSONALITY DISORDER (for projective identification).

6. SPLITTING. Black and white perception of reality. The normal phase of initial development, when a baby needs to know “what is good and what is bad” in order to be able to interact socially with the Outside World. Mayakovsky wrote instructions for children. But if an adult operates at this level, things are bad: he does not see the halftones and colors of the Outer World accessible to a mature consciousness, but, unlike a child, he can have real power to change it.
Motto: I know how to do it.
Dignity: reduces the anxiety of comprehending complex (neither bad nor good, i.e. real) objects.
Flaw: The outside world is perceived inadequately because it is NOT black and white. Galich warned: “be afraid of those who know how to do it.” The division into “bad” and “good” always leads to conflicts and, ultimately, to war. We were on the verge of World War 3, when the “good” communists opposed the “bad” imperialists to the death - and vice versa. All with the best intentions to Save the World. Fortunately, most earthlings were not aware of the specific chronicle of the rescue (everything that could have exploded, but by luck - or sacrificial masculinity - did not explode). Now Islamic extremists “know how to do it.” The rest - already with their own eyes - are reaping the fruits of terror.
Disease - BORDERLINE PERSONALITY DISORDER. (Explanation: “borderline” does not mean arising as a result of crossing the state border. Nor does it mean some kind of intermediate, blurred state. This is a qualitatively distinguishable disorder on the border between neurosis and psychosis).

7. DISSOCIATION. McWilliams was unsure whether to classify this defense as lower or higher. For the higher ones, the “indivisibility of the Self” is not suitable: the entire personality as a whole dissociates (temporarily changes). Its “abnormality” is not suitable for the lower ones: all other lower defenses in reasonable quantities are naturally used by everyone in everyday life, and dissociation, by definition, occurs only in special, extreme conditions. Here let me partially disagree. Dissociation as role-playing behavior in a brightly playful style is a normal way of functioning of a personality of the histrionic (theatrical, hysterical) type (see Lecture No. 4), and there are many of us like that, and they are quite normal, unless they develop a personality disorder.
Motto: according to Pushkin - That our life is a game! or, according to Shakespeare - Life is a game, and the people in it are actors.
Dignity: brings joy and meaningfulness to the interaction of the Personality with the Outside World.
Flaw: You can get carried away and get confused. Then the roles become inadequate or get out of control. Contact with the Outside World is deteriorating: stimuli are not recognized, reactions are incorrect.
Disease: HYSTRIAN (hysterical) PERSONALITY DISORDER, DISSOCIATIVE PERSONALITY DISORDER (involuntary dissociation from minor stress), MULTIPLE PERSONALITY (severe pathology when role subpersonalities are not aware of each other).

Let's move on to defenses TOP LEVEL. According to McWilliams sixteen. That's a lot of space! The owner will rip my head off! (Projection? Projective identification?) There is a way out: You, Dear Friend, read the brilliant McWilliams yourself, and Here and Now I will present the highest defenses purely symbolically.

1. REPRESSION(CROWDING OUT). Nonsense, a matter of everyday life!(See Karlsson's defense in Lecture No. 4)
2. REGRESSION. - And I'm so little!(see ibid.)
3. ISOLATION. - Don't touch the Child!“Child” is the emotional sphere, since not the entire Personality is hidden here, as in PRIMITIVE ISOLATION, but only its emotional part. The goal is to isolate the inappropriate or traumatic affect (strong emotion) so as not to be overwhelmed by it. Has THREE DERIVATIVES OF PROTECTION:
4. INTELLIGENCE- dispassionately describes the affect without experiencing it;
5. RATIONALIZATION- explains affect or its frustration according to the principle The grapes are good and green;
6. MORALIZATION- justifies affect (anger, hatred, cruelty, etc. - that which needs justification).
7. COMPARTMENTALIZATION(SEPARATE THINKING). The amazing coexistence of two opposing actions or ideas, each of which is conscious, but the contradiction between them is not. Example: pedophile teacher.
8. CANCELLATION(UNDOING). Repentance, for example. (Religion is still a good thing! How much protection it provides!)
9. TURN AGAINST YOURSELF. Favorite defense of DEPRESSIVE and MASOCHISTIC individuals. Negative affect from an unattainable or dangerous object (God, parent, boss, president, etc.) is transferred to oneself: “It’s my fault that my father is an alcoholic, the boss is constantly unhappy, the country is a mess, and it’s been raining all week.”
10. OFFSET. It’s already better: negative affect does not hit you, but another object - living or inanimate. Just learn to automatically select the appropriate object. If the affect of anxiety has shifted to the subway or to a spider, a phobia develops. But if you spend your anger at your wife or boss on digging up the garden or tidying up your desk, this is what you need.
11. REACTIVE EDUCATION. In an effort to “be good,” you deny “bad” feelings: anger, hatred, etc., and transform them into the opposite - goodwill, love. Commendable. But it does not take into account the nature of Man, who, for example, experiences both love and hatred for the same object. By choosing only one thing, for example, love, and “adjusting” another to it, you risk getting something like LOVE TO DEATH or FRIENDSHIP TO THE TOMB. If you constantly feel the desire to cut off alternatives, remember the Rabbit. The obsessive-compulsive Rabbit offered Winnie the Pooh honey or condensed milk for breakfast. "Both!" - Pooh, not burdened by pathology, answered joyfully. I hope I’m not burdened either, so I’ll finish quickly:
12. REVERSE- from subject to object, and back; for example, a depressed (personality trait) psychotherapist who helps a patient overcome clinical depression himself receives relief;
13. IDENTIFICATION- from “identification with the aggressor” to mature forms that contribute to the development of your Personality;
14. RESPONSE- liberation from disturbing internal impulses; from the primitive “You’re a fool” to developed and socially acceptable forms (regular sports, for example);
15. SEXUALIZATION(INSTINCTUALIZATION) - who argues: healthy sex is always good!
16. SUBLIMATION- the highest of the highest defenses: the translation of disturbing impulses and affects into creativity.

Ufff... That's it! Now read McWilliams, and I’m off: you can’t sublimate everything, and you won’t get sick for long! Remember: using only one defense, even the highest one, leads to pathology. The more “protections” (but in reality they are just different ways of interaction Personality with the World), the richer and more stable the Personality. In the interests of patients, the Cat Supervisor is simply obliged to actively use at least five higher defenses daily!

P.S. Yesterday, when I described Lower Defense No. 5 (projection-introjection-projective identification), I could not remember the character of “The Master and Margarita”, which Yeshua “processed”. He called him “the governor of Rome.” I just remembered today: “The fifth procurator of Judea, horseman Pontius Pilate.” But this is a refrain, the most “charged” words of Bulgakov’s novel. SPEEDED OUT. I think because I unconsciously did not want to analyze Yeshua, compare goodness and love with “projective identification.” I still think that formally I’m right, but ethically?..
So, defenses act quietly, unconsciously. If the process is realized, it is no longer a defense (at least according to McWilliams). Then I wonder how I will apply the 5 highest defenses daily if I am not supposed to be aware of it? Question for the Owner!

The difference between the human psyche and the animal psyche. Basic psychological characteristics of consciousness. The difference between the psyche of humans and animals The difference between the mental activity of animals and the human psyche

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