Formation in students of the need to master knowledge and motives for learning. Material and spiritual needs The need for knowledge is a need

To consider what the need for cognition is, it is necessary to understand what cognition is. Cognition is one of the philosophical categories that is inextricably linked with such a category as knowledge, and is defined as follows:

Cognition - spiritual activity aimed at reproducing in the subjective form of the world of objects, states and processes, etc., their systematization and storage. In addition, knowledge can be characterized as the process of acquiring and developing knowledge, conditioned primarily by socio-historical practice, its constant deepening, expansion and improvement. Cognition is a dialectical process of reflecting the world in people's minds. This is the movement of thought from ignorance - to knowledge, from incomplete and inaccurate knowledge - to more complete and more accurate knowledge.

Knowledge - a reflection of objective reality in our consciousness, a connecting thread between nature, the human spirit and practical activity. In his consciousness, a person reflects the objective, natural connections of the real world.

Cognition as a form of spiritual activity has existed in society since its inception, and at each stage of the development of society, the process of cognition is carried out in diverse socio-cultural forms. This is everyday-practical, playful, mythological, artistic-figurative, religious, philosophical knowledge.

Ultimately, all sciences arose from the practical needs of people: mathematics - from the needs of measuring land plots and the capacity of vessels; astronomy - from the needs of navigation; medicine - from the needs of fighting diseases, etc.

The needs for cognition and self-knowledge play an important role in ensuring a normal, successful human life and activity. People do not learn about the world through innate curiosity. Knowledge allows us to reveal the secrets of nature and put them at the service of man. Thus, studying the structure of the atomic nucleus allowed humanity to find a new source of energy.

Let's give one example. In the jungles of South America there is a tiny frog, only 1-3 cm long and weighing 1 g, but it has the most powerful poison of animal origin known to date: it can kill 50 jaguars with its poison. The Indians of one tribe living there do not have firearms, and they still use blowguns, shooting arrows poisoned with poison from them. They get the deadly poison they need from this frog. This example shows that practical need forced the Indians to learn the properties of the poison of this frog. Practical needs in the treatment of certain human diseases led to the discovery that in small doses poison can be used as a medicine.

The theory of knowledge, or epistemology, took shape along with the emergence of philosophy as one of its fundamental sections.

Cognition is the process of acquiring and developing knowledge, conditioned primarily by socio-historical practice, its constant deepening, expansion and improvement, the process of purposeful active reflection of reality in the human mind. In the course of cognition, different facets of existence are revealed, the external side and essence of things, phenomena of the surrounding world, as well as the subject are explored cognitive activity- a person studies a person, i.e. yourself. The results of knowledge not only remain in the consciousness of a specific person who has learned something, but are also transmitted from generation to generation, mainly with the help of material media - drawings, objects of material culture, books, and today with the help of television, CDs, etc. .

In contrast to consciousness, which is the unity of sensations, knowledge, desires, experiences, the result of reflection

knowledge of the material world and is associated with matter, cognition means the process of acquiring knowledge and is correlated with practice. Cognition is carried out on the basis of human practical activity and acts as a way of spiritual mastery of reality. In the theory of knowledge, the initial concepts are activity, practice, cognition.

Cognition is carried out in two main forms - in the form sensory knowledge and in the form of abstract thinking. We learn the laws of the world, the essence of objects and phenomena, and what they have in common through abstract thinking, a more complex form of cognition. Abstract, or rational, thinking reflects the world and its processes deeper and more fully than sensory knowledge. The transition from sensory cognition to abstract thinking represents a leap in the process of cognition. This is a leap from knowledge of facts to knowledge of laws.

Based on previous knowledge, a person gets the opportunity to foresight, create plans for the development of various sectors of the economy, science, education, etc. The activity of thinking is manifested in human creative activity, in the ability of imagination, scientific, artistic and other fantasy. Abstract thinking determines the purpose, method and nature of human practical activity. According to Marx, the worst architect differs from the best bee in that before he builds anything, he creates a plan for his building in his head.

Under practice understand all the production and social activities of people in certain historical conditions - the material production activities of people in the spheres of industry and agriculture, political activity, scientific experiment, etc. Practice is the basis and driving force of knowledge, because all knowledge is brought to life primarily by the needs of people’s practical activities, and at the same time ultimate goal cognition, since cognition is carried out for the subsequent use of the acquired knowledge in the practical activities of people. In his practical activities, a person encounters various properties of objects and phenomena, often incomprehensible to him. Therefore he must study nature in order to extract

11.3. The need for knowledge and self-knowledge

material benefits for yourself. Currently, practice has confronted humanity with the following global problems, such as preserving nature on our planet, mastering new energy sources, exploring space, the resources of the World Ocean, etc. Knowledge is aimed at solving these problems.

In the process of life, a person performs two types of cognitive actions:

o perceives the world around him directly, i.e. he himself discovers something new either for himself or for humanity;

o learns about the world around him through the results of the cognitive activities of other generations (studies, reads books, watches films, becomes familiar with all types of material and spiritual culture).

The history of human development shows that the world is knowable and this is a condition for the creation of material and spiritual culture, the development of science and technology.

The need for knowledge is realized in diverse and interconnected socio-cultural forms developed in the course of human history; it permeates all human life, since a person from birth to death is interested in everything that has happened and will happen next.

The need to know life objective world is implemented in the following main directions:

o through scientific knowledge, when the goal of knowledge is truth. The leading feature, the peculiarity of such knowledge is the objectivity of knowledge. The more scientific knowledge is, the more it becomes objective, independent of a person’s subjective aspirations, positions, and preferences. Such knowledge expands a person’s capabilities, makes him more secure, allows him to take adequate, right decisions, predict your actions and actions;

o through art, in which the desire for direct, imaginative, subjective perception, knowledge and understanding of life and man is manifested. The purpose of such knowledge is to know the truth of life. All types and genres of art present a subjective vision of social life and its individual facets. The central place in literature, poetry, music, painting and other forms of art is occupied by the image of a person, his interests, experiences, thoughts, and actions. Ys-

Chapter 11. The need for reflection, cognition and self-knowledge

Art is one of the sources of knowledge of the human psyche;

Oh, through religion, since a significant (maybe even most) part of the planet’s population (our country is no exception in this regard) lives by a religious attitude and worldview. Therefore, a modern specialist must know the scientific and religious picture of the world;

O through your own social, ethnic, professional and other experience and knowledge.

The need for knowledge is an integral part of the development of society and man. If all members of society are highly literate and educated, then there will be fewer conflicts of various kinds (economic, legal, social, etc.), however, to achieve this, every person must be interested in this. In addition, a person receives knowledge not only for peaceful purposes, but also for waging conflicts and wars. Therefore, the need for knowledge, like any other need, must be weighed against moral principles. The need for knowledge has given humanity many discoveries and inventions in many branches of science. However, unfortunately, not all discoveries have benefited humanity.

The need for cognition can be classified as follows: the need for social cognition, scientific cognition and beyond scientific knowledge.

A motive is an impulse that causes human activity and determines its direction.

What makes a student active? Instincts and needs can act as its sources.

The concept of need is the most important concept in the motivational sphere. The need activates the student’s body, gives rise to his behavior aimed at searching for what interests and attracts him.

Our task is to attract students to educational and cognitive activities. But how can we ensure that students have a need for learning and an interest in acquiring knowledge, thereby eliminating student failure.

This process is influenced by a whole set of pedagogical factors and methodological techniques. The psychological mechanism of influence of these factors and techniques is that they arouse in students the experience of internal contradictions between how they learn and how they should learn, and stimulate their desire (activity) to master knowledge. The famous didact M.A. Danilov argued that the experience of internal contradictions between knowledge and ignorance is the driving force of learning and the cognitive activity of students.

But how to put this into action? driving force? How to develop students' need for learning? A very effective factor in this regard is the personality of the teacher, his erudition and teaching skill. When a teacher is fluent and deeply proficient in science, during the teaching process he uses interesting details and facts, amazes students with his vast horizons, and delights them with his education. In this case, the psychological mechanism of imitation is triggered, and students experience internal contradictions between the achieved and the required level of their knowledge, which stimulates them to more active learning.

The formation of the need for learning is facilitated by the teacher’s benevolent attitude towards students, based on respect and exactingness towards them. Respect for a teacher helps to strengthen students' self-esteem and the manifestation of mutual goodwill, which naturally encourages them to diligently master his subject. The exactingness of a respected teacher allows them to experience shortcomings in their teaching and behavior (internal contradiction) and causes them to strive to overcome them? If a negative relationship develops between the teacher and students, this has a very negative impact on the cognitive activity of the latter. M.A. Efremov notes that in such cases, the law of inhibition of the human psyche, including his cognitive activity, immediately comes into force.

To develop the need and interest in acquiring knowledge, great importance have teaching methods specifically used by the teacher: demonstration of visual aids, technical teaching aids, and the use of vivid examples and facts in the process of presenting new material. Creation problem situations, arousing in students internal contradictions between newly emerging cognitive tasks and the insufficient level of existing knowledge to solve them, the teacher’s ability to arouse surprise at the ingenuity and power of the human mind in understanding the deep phenomena of nature, the development of science and technology.

A significant influence on the formation of the need to master knowledge is exerted by the general pattern of education, according to which the active activity of students is stimulated by the joy of achieving success in learning. Every student lives with hope and strives to successfully master knowledge. When these hopes and aspirations are realized, students become more confident and eager to learn. In those cases when a student begins to lag behind, when difficulties in learning are not only not overcome, but also increase, he loses faith in success and weakens his efforts, and in other cases, he completely stops his educational work. In this sense, the thought of Ya. A. Komensky that learning should be easy and pleasant does not lose its pedagogical relevance. Difficult learning, as a rule, is unproductive and often completely kills the desire not only to study, but also to attend school.

In connection with the provisions considered, it is necessary to correctly approach the assessment of those cases when a student studies poorly, violates order and discipline in the classroom, does not show due care and activity when the teacher presents new material, and sometimes demonstratively interferes with the learning of others. In such situations, other teachers usually say that the student does not want to learn, although it would be more correct to say: he has no need to learn. If we proceed from the last assessment, then such a student does not need elaboration, reproaches and notations, but rather assistance in overcoming difficulties, in the use of more skillful methods of shaping his need for learning, and developing interest in mastering knowledge.

Also, in developing students’ need to master knowledge, students’ independence when performing exercises plays a big role. "" main feature independent work of students - write N.A. Menchinskaya and M.I. The problem is that in the course of such work, the student is disturbed for some time by the teacher’s usual care for him, and is left alone with the task assigned to him. When completing a task, the student must try his strength, and relying on his own knowledge, skills, observation, and ingenuity, find ways to solve it and bring it to a successful end." It is this kind of work that contributes to the conscious assimilation of educational material.

The emotionality of learning also influences the assimilation and formation of students’ need to master knowledge. Emotional learning means the nature of the organization of educational work in which students’ interest and internal attraction to learning activities are aroused.

Of great importance here, first of all, is the skillful formation of needs and motives for learning, which arouse the desire to master knowledge and make learning attractive to students.

Thus, the correct presentation of pedagogical requirements by the teacher, the correct approach to students will organize their behavior, help improve their work and thus attract them to educational activities, and thereby eliminate underachievement.

20.05.2016 17:28

In my books, I often described the traits of neurotic personalities, their problems and difficulties. What characteristics do absolutely normal psychological people have? What is the set of qualities of a successful, self-confident person? Let's figure it out.

Neurotics often see the world distortedly, through their sensations and experiences formed in childhood. A neurotic person does not like change and spontaneity; it is easier for him to exist in his own imaginary world, but at the same time he is very dependent on the opinions of the people around him. A psychologically healthy person is happy, busy with what he loves and developing. This happens when the natural - basic needs of the body are satisfied. Maslow identified the definition and levels of needs, let's take a look at them.

1. Physiological needs are a person’s primary need for food; hunger does not allow one to think about anything other than how to get enough.

2. Security need - the desire to feel protected. If this condition is not sufficiently satisfied, a person goes deeper into creating comfort at home or at work. He is afraid of change and wants stability, afraid of peace and danger.

3. Sexual need - satisfying this need is one of the foundations of human happiness. It manifests itself already in adolescence, if, of course, the first needs are normal. But often people satisfy their need for food and security with the help of other people - and this can lead to a number of problems.

4. At the fourth level, a person is overtaken by the need for love - everyone needs their own unit of society, relatives and loved ones who appreciate and accept. A person without a family is filled with loneliness and anxiety.

5. It is important for a person to be self-confident; this ensures the fulfillment of the need for recognition, which is divided into two levels - the need to realize one’s importance and power and the thirst for prestige. If a person loses self-confidence, he feels humiliated, lost, and dependence on other people’s opinions is also very bad for health, especially if it is the basis of self-esteem.

6. Maslow called the realization of the abilities inherent in a person self-actualization. The need for self-actualization helps a person understand that he is doing something other than his own, something that is not intended for him. And a person begins to look for his own path, because a musician must create songs, an artist must create paintings, etc.

7. The need for understanding and knowledge is a person’s craving for new information. This need is not as expressive as others, and its dissatisfaction also does not immediately appear, but can lead to great troubles. So, for example, if an intellectually developed person is engaged in boring work that does not develop his abilities and does not satisfy the need for new knowledge, sooner or later he will get sick or have a nervous crisis.

Curiosity and a desire for new things are most noticeable in children, and it is very important to support this desire, rather than counteract it. When the need for knowledge is satisfied, a person realizes himself happy, involved in what is happening in the world and in life in general, as if he is touching the truth. Knowledge is a kind of pleasure, it improves our mood; by learning something, we become more developed and better, so it is necessary to constantly feed our intellect with a new piece of information.

Needs are divided into lower and higher; Maslow identified the following differences between them.

High-level needs begin to stand out in developed individuals, that is, a number of needs are characteristic only of man, since he has intelligence. Physical needs are also present in animals - for food, safety and sex, but satisfaction is sharply different from human ones - animals pounce on food, dig holes for themselves where it is convenient. A person studies, works, earns money in order to feed himself and buy a house.

During individual development, lower and then higher needs appear first. A newborn is concerned only with physiological needs, later the need for security appears, and after a few months - the need for love. When these needs are satisfied, the need for self-actualization appears; it is usually identified early in children. It is very important that parents and teachers do not try to change the child, because if a child wants to be an actor or an artist, then this is how it should be.

The lower needs are directly our physiology and the work of the body, therefore they dominate and their dissatisfaction is immediately noticeable. If a need is very high in the structure of needs, it is not very important in the process of survival, and can remain unfulfilled for a long time without any threats to life arising.

The realization of the highest needs causes the greatest joy and a large number of endorphins. If a person lives taking into account and satisfying higher needs, he gets sick less, his quality of life improves, and its duration increases. Recognizing your highest needs is a difficult task, because they are not as obvious as the lower ones. Therefore, understanding and identifying them is already a great achievement. When a person satisfies his highest needs, he approaches the state of a harmonious personality, finds happiness and peace, and feels that his life is exactly the way it should be.

If a person strives to seek and satisfy higher needs, then this leads him to psychological balance and health. To realize higher needs, much more effort and preparation is needed than to satisfy the lower ones. In order for a person to think about satisfying higher needs, a favorable environment is necessary. In childhood, we all dreamed of becoming someone, but if a child does not think about who he will be when he grows up, it means that all his desires and dreams are so easily fulfilled by his parents that the child is deprived of motive for future activities. And it's very bad. Or another unfavorable condition - when parents force a child to study for a profession that is useful, in their opinion, and the person ultimately does not become what he really should be.

For a person, the realization of a higher need is the most significant and for the sake of it he is ready to endure various difficulties. With an increase in the level of higher needs, the amount of love in a person increases. He is happy, and the number of loved ones is growing. And here we mean love, not sex. Higher needs are non-selfish, this is their important difference from the lower. The need for love leads to communication and relationships with people. Therefore, the realization of higher needs makes a person better - both civilly and socially.

Fulfilling higher needs is the most important step towards self-actualization. A self-actualized person is happy, harmonious and lives at peace with himself. Individualism is a consequence of satisfying higher needs, the ability to love oneself, one’s life and the people in it. A person with a high level of needs is much more susceptible to psychological influence.

A hungry person will not be able to accept psychotherapeutic help. Lower needs are limited and clear, and the need for their satisfaction is more noticeable and obvious than the fulfillment of needs top level. Hunger is satisfied by food, but the need for knowledge is not satisfied by a certain amount of information, it is endless.

Identifying your highest needs is a complex process, but necessary, since our health depends on it. It is important that a person hears and knows himself, therefore psychotherapy is faced with the task of helping a person get to the bottom of the truth, remove clamps and internal boundaries, those frameworks that are imposed on us by education, in schools and institutes.

In writing, research can primarily be understood as learning something new. In the book by A. Maslow (one of the founders of humanistic psychology) “On the Approaches to the Psychology of Being” there is an interesting chapter about the need for knowledge and the fear of knowledge. According to A. Maslow's pyramid of needs, cognitive needs are second only to two even higher needs: aesthetic and the very top - self-actualization. I was interested in the thoughts in this chapter, because I love to explore the world and I am interested in the view of this phenomenon from the point of view of A. Maslow and partially humanistic psychology.

I present this chapter in this entry. Anyone who strives for self-development can here discover new discoveries in the sphere of the meaning of knowledge. Understand why we are sometimes afraid to learn new things. When reading, the main thing is to remember that this is only one point of view among many. There are no objective empirical (experimentally proven) facts here, but the thoughts are quite correct.
For those who don’t want to read it, I’ll probably insert the main idea in the form of the words of S. Freud
"Being completely honest with yourself is the best thing a human being can do." The phrase “this is the best” I think refers to the field of psychological health.

Need for knowledge and fear of knowledge

From our point of view, of all Freud’s discoveries, the most remarkable is that the cause of many psychological diseases is a person’s fear of knowing himself - of understanding his emotions, impulses, memories, abilities, potentialities, his purpose. We have found that the fear of knowing oneself is often isomorphic and parallel to the fear of the external world. That is, the essence of internal and external problems is the same, and they are interconnected. That is why we talk about the fear of knowledge in general, without making much of a difference between the fear of the external world and the fear of the internal world.

In principle, this kind of fear is a defensive reaction, in the sense that it protects our self-confidence, self-esteem and pride. We tend to fear any knowledge that might make us despise ourselves, give us an inferiority complex, or make us feel weak, worthless, sinful, and shameful in our motives. With the help of this and similar protective techniques, we protect our ideal image of ourselves. Essentially, it is a technique for avoiding awareness of unpleasant or dangerous truths. In psychotherapy, the maneuvers by which we avoid recognizing painful truths and resist the therapist's attempts to help us see the truth are called "resistance." Every therapy session is aimed, in one way or another, at revealing the truth and helping the patient gain the strength to bear that truth. (“To be completely honest with oneself is the best thing a human being can do.” - Freud)

But there are other truths that we also tend to ignore. Not only do we cling to our psychopathology, but we also tend to avoid developing our personality because it may bring with it other kinds of fears and feelings of weakness and inadequacy. So we turn to another type of resistance, denying the presence of our best side, our talents, our noble impulses, our potential and creativity. In short, this is a struggle with one’s own greatness, “fear of heights”

Here we involuntarily recall that our myth about Adam and Eve, with its Tree of Knowledge, the fruits of which cannot be touched, has analogues in many other cultures, where absolute knowledge is also considered the prerogative of the gods. Most religions have an aspect of anti-intellectualism (along with many other aspects, of course), a tendency to favor faith over knowledge, or a belief that "certain" forms of knowledge are too dangerous for anyone to pry into and should therefore be made available forbidden or open only to a very select few. In most cultures, "revolutionaries" who challenged the gods and tried to get at their secrets were subject to severe punishment (Adam and Eve, Prometheus and Oedipus), which was supposed to discourage everyone else from trying to become equal with the gods.

To put it very briefly, it is our godlikeness that fascinates and frightens us, we don’t know what to do with it, we both strive for it and run away from it. One aspect of human destiny is that we are both worms of the earth and gods. Each of our great creators, our god-like people, spoke of a certain courage necessary for an individual at the moment of creation, the affirmation of something new (contrary to the old). This is daring, the ability to “break ranks” when everyone is standing still, a challenge. The presence of fear is understandable, but for creation to be possible, fear must be overcome. For example, the discovery of great talent in oneself should, of course, inspire a person, but it also brings with it the fear of danger, responsibility and the duty of a leader, whose destiny is loneliness. Imagine the confusion of feelings, horror, confusion, even panic that the people who won the presidential elections told us about.

A few standard clinical examples that can be quite instructive. The first is a widespread phenomenon that therapists encounter in women. Many intelligent women suffer from an unconscious identification of intelligence with masculinity. It seems to people that searches, curiosity, research, the desire to discover or affirm something deprive a woman of her femininity, especially for men who have not proven their masculinity and see a woman’s mind as a threat to themselves. Many civilizations and many religions did not allow women access to knowledge and learning, and it seems to me that the basis of this policy was only the desire to preserve their “femininity” (in the sadomasochistic sense); for example, a woman cannot be a priest or rabbi. (This last point does not apply to everyone. modern religions. - Approx. trans.)

A shy person may also be inclined to equate curiosity and inquisitiveness with the desire to challenge other people, as if an intelligent and truth-seeking person should take a tough and courageous position that he is unable to defend, and this may incur the wrath of others, older and stronger. of people. Also, children can identify curiosity with an attempt to illegally invade the domain of their “gods,” omnipotent adults. In adults, of course, it is even easier to detect the corresponding attitude. For they often consider the active curiosity of their children to be at least a hindrance, and sometimes even a threat or danger, especially when it comes to sexual relations. Parents who encourage and celebrate their children's curiosity are still rare. Something similar can be seen among the exploited, the oppressed, the weak minority, the slaves. A slave may be afraid to know too much and openly demonstrate a desire for knowledge. This may anger the owner. In such groups, a common defense technique is pseudo-dumbness. In any case, the exploiter or tyrant, due to the dynamics of the situation, is unlikely to encourage curiosity and the desire for knowledge in the people who depend on him. A man who knows too much is a likely rebel. Both the exploited and the exploiter cannot help but regard knowledge as a thing incompatible with the obedience of a good slave. In such a situation, knowledge is a dangerous, very dangerous thing. A weak or subordinate position, or a not very respectful attitude towards oneself, dulls the need for knowledge. A direct, unblinking gaze is the main method by which the leader monkey establishes its dominance. A characteristic feature of other members of the pack is drooping eyes.

Unfortunately, this dynamic can sometimes be seen in classrooms as well. A truly intelligent student, a great questioner, eager to get to the bottom of things on his own, especially if he is smarter than the teacher, is too often considered a "smart guy" who undermines the teacher's authority and poses a threat to classroom discipline.

That "knowledge" is unconsciously perceived as dominance, power and perhaps even arrogance can also be demonstrated by the example of the voyeur, who may feel a certain power over the naked woman he is spying on, as if his eyes are an instrument of repression that he can be used for rape. In this sense, almost every man behaves like “Curious Tom” (a character from an old English legend - approx. Per.) and openly looks at women, undressing them with his gaze. The Bible's use of the word "to know" as a synonym for "to have" is another use of metaphor.

The fact that at the unconscious level knowledge acts as an aggressor, a certain equivalent of the masculine principle in its sexual manifestations, can help us in understanding the ancient complex of contradictory emotions that overcome a child who spies on the secrets of adults, trying to penetrate the unknown, or a woman experiencing a conflict between femininity and a bold desire for knowledge, or a slave who believes that knowledge is the prerogative of the owner, or, finally, religious person, fearing that the knowledge that forces him to invade the domain of the gods is dangerous and should be branded with shame. Cognition - as such - can be an act of self-affirmation.

Knowledge for safety and development

So far I have been talking about the need for knowledge for its own sake, for the sake of pure joy and primitive satisfaction from knowledge and understanding as such. They give weight to the personality, wisdom, maturity and strength, develop and enrich it. They represent signs of the fulfillment of a person’s capabilities, of the fulfilled destiny determined by these capabilities. This is akin to a freely blossoming bud or the free singing of birds. This is how the apple tree bears fruit, easily and simply, thereby expressing its original nature.

But we also know that curiosity and the desire for knowledge are “more sublime” needs compared to the need for security, that is, the need to feel confident and calm is much stronger than curiosity. This is clearly evident in baby monkeys and children. A small child, finding himself in an unfamiliar environment, characteristically strives to cling to his mother, and only then, little by little, decides to get down from her lap in order to study the things around him. If the mother disappears and the child becomes frightened, curiosity disappears until a sense of security is restored. The child makes forays only if there is a reliable rear. Harlow's experiments with baby monkeys showed the same thing. As soon as the cub gets scared, it rushes to the mother-substitute object. Hanging there, he first looks around, and only then risks making a new foray. If there is no “mother”, then the cub simply curls up and whines. Harlow's film shows this very well.

An adult human being is much better at hiding his fears and anxieties. If they do not overwhelm him, a person is quite capable of suppressing them without even admitting to himself their existence. Often he does not “know” that he is afraid.

There are many ways to cope with this kind of anxiety and some of them are actually cognitive. For such a person, everything unfamiliar, unclear, mysterious, hidden, unexpected can pose a threat. The only way to make it familiar, predictable, manageable, controllable, that is, non-fearful and harmless, is to know and understand them. Therefore, cognition can have not only a developmental function, but also a function of relieving anxiety, a protective function of homeostasis. The outward behavior may be very similar, but the motivation may be completely different. This means that the subjective consequences are completely different. On the one hand, we have a sigh of relief and a feeling of release of tension from, say, the worried owner of a large house when, in the middle of the night, with a gun in his hand, he goes down the stairs towards mysterious and frightening sounds, and finds nothing. This is completely different from the enlightenment and delight, even ecstasy, of a young researcher who looks through a microscope and for the first time in his life sees the structure of a kidney in detail, or suddenly comprehends the structure of a symphony, the meaning of a complex poem, or political theory. In this case, the person feels more significant, more intelligent, stronger, more complete, more capable, more successful, more attentive. Let's imagine that our senses have become more efficient, our vision more acute, and our hearing extremely sensitive. Then we will have the same feeling. This is something that can happen in training and in psychotherapy - and quite often does happen.

This motivational dialectic can be found in the paintings of great artists, in philosophy and religion, in political and legal systems, in the sciences, in civilization as a whole. Simply put - extremely simply - it can represent simultaneously the results of the needs for cognition and security in different proportions. Sometimes the need for security can almost completely put the need for cognition at its service in order to overcome feelings of anxiety. A person free from fear can be more determined and courageous and, therefore, can engage in research and theorizing for the sake of knowledge in itself. It is quite reasonable to assume that the latter will be closer to the truth, to the real nature of things. The philosophy of security, like religion or science, is more likely to go astray than the philosophy of development.

Escape from knowledge as escape from responsibility

Yes, anxiety and uncertainty subjugate curiosity, cognition and understanding, “using” them, so to speak, as “tools” in the fight against fear, but lack of curiosity can also be an active or passive expression of anxiety or fear. (This is not at all the same as the atrophy of curiosity caused by its “downtime.”) That is, we can seek knowledge in order to relieve anxiety, but we can also avoid knowledge in order to relieve anxiety. Speaking in Freudian language, a lack of curiosity, learning problems, and pseudo-stupidity can be a defensive reaction. Everyone agrees that knowledge and action are closely related to each other. I go much further and am convinced that knowledge and action are often synonymous, and even identical, as Socrates said. If we start from full knowledge, then the corresponding action follows automatically, like a reflex. In this case, the choice is made completely spontaneously and without hesitation.

This is highly characteristic of the healthy individual, who seems to know what is good and what is bad, what is right and what is wrong, and demonstrates this knowledge by his easy, complete functioning. But we can see this on another level - in the small child (or in the "child" hidden in every adult), for whom the thought of action can be identical with the action itself - psychoanalysts call this the "omnipotence of thought." That is, if a child wanted his father to die, then his unconscious reactions are as if he actually killed him. By the way, one of the tasks of adult psychotherapy is to “defuse” these childhood ideas and relieve the patient of the feeling of guilt for his thoughts, as if they were his actions.

In any case, this close connection between knowledge and action can help us explain one of the reasons for the fear of knowledge - a deep-seated fear of action, of the consequences that flow from knowledge, fear of the threat of responsibility. Often it is better not to know something, because if you know this “something”, then you will have to act and risk your head. This desire to remain small, like the man who said: “I’m so glad I don’t like oysters! Because if I liked them, I would eat them, but I can’t stand that crap.”

Of course, it was safer for the Germans living near the Dachau concentration camp not to know what was happening there, to be “blind” or pseudo-fools. For if they knew what was happening there, they would have to act or feel guilty for their cowardice.

A child can also use a similar technique, refusing to see what is obvious to everyone else: that his father is a despicable weakling or that his mother does not truly love him. This kind of knowledge is a call to action that cannot be accomplished. Therefore, it is better not to know.

One way or another, we now know enough about anxiety and cognition to discard that extreme point of view, which many philosophers and psychological theorists have held for centuries, and according to which absolutely all cognitive needs are generated by anxiety, being just attempts to relieve tension. For a long time this assumption seemed quite plausible, but now the results of our experiments with animals and children disprove this idea in its entirety. pure form, because they all show that, as a rule, anxiety kills curiosity and the desire for knowledge, that they are incompatible, especially if anxiety takes extreme forms. The need for cognition manifests itself most openly in calm and safe conditions.

Material needs— human needs to ensure their material existence. They are divided into material-biological and material-social. Material-biological needs include food, clothing, and housing needs. In modern service there are many industries and areas that serve each of these needs. Thus, the catering system and restaurant service are responsible for satisfying food needs; clothing needs - sewing workshops, shops, laundries, etc.

To material and social needs include labor, communication - interaction in the process of labor activity and exchange of labor products (Fig. 3.2).

Rice. 3.2. Systematization of material needs

Spiritual Needs- needs for knowledge, moods, experiences and impressions. Spiritual needs include the needs for knowledge, education, upbringing and the meaning of life (Fig. 3.3).

Rice. 3.3. Systematization of spiritual needs

Need for cognition— a person’s desire to know objective phenomena, properties and patterns of reality. It is generated by material needs for successful work activity, which cannot exist and improve without accumulating knowledge about the world.

Music- a type of art that reflects reality in sound artistic images. Music intended for singing is called vocal. If a piece is performed only on instruments, then such music is called instrumental.

Theater- a type of art, the specific means of expression of which is stage action that occurs during the actor’s performance in front of the public.

Circus- the art of acrobatics, tightrope walking, gymnastics, pantomime, juggling, magic tricks, clowns, musical eccentricities, horse riding, animal training.

Ballet- a type of art whose content is revealed in dance and musical images.

Movie- a type of art whose works are created using filming of real events, specially staged or recreated by means of animation.

Photographic art- the art of creating, using chemical and technical means, a visual image of documentary significance, artistically expressive and authentically capturing an essential moment of reality in a frozen image.

Stage- an art form that includes small forms of drama, music and choreography, the main works of which are individual completed numbers.

Specifics of art as a form of artistic knowledge is that, firstly, it is figurative and visual. The subject of art - people's lives - is extremely diverse and is reflected in art in all its diversity in the form of artistic images. The latter, being the result of fiction, are nevertheless a reflection of reality and always do not bear the imprint of really existing objects, events and phenomena.

The artistic image performs in art the same functions as a concept in science: with its help, the process of artistic generalization occurs, highlighting the essential features of cognizable objects. The created images constitute the cultural heritage of society and are capable, having become symbols of their time, to have a serious influence on public consciousness.

Secondly, artistic cognition is characterized by specific ways of reproducing the surrounding reality, as well as the means by which artistic images are created. In literature, such a means is the word, in painting - color, in music - sound, in sculpture - volumetric-spatial forms, etc.

Third, a huge role in the process of understanding the world through art is played by the imagination and fantasy of the learning subject. Artistic invention, which is acceptable in art, is completely unacceptable, for example, in the process of scientific knowledge.

Unlike various social sciences that study individual aspects of people’s lives, art explores man as a whole and, along with other types of cognitive activity, is a special form of knowledge of the surrounding reality.

Art included into an integral system of forms of social consciousness, which, along with it, includes the philosophy, politics, law, science, morality, and religion already discussed above. All of them realize their functions in a single cultural context that arises due to their interrelations.

Education— the process of assimilation of systematized knowledge, skills and abilities. It is one of the main human needs, as it has become a necessary condition for preparing for work and communication. The need for education is essentially a specification and a more developed form of the need for knowledge. In modern society, a person does not need some vague set of knowledge, but a high-quality education system and reliable criteria for this quality.

Educational need is distinguished by multi-level functional diversity. At the personal level, the need for education performs the functions of enriching the individual with new knowledge necessary for various types of activities, socialization, individualization, self-determination, self-realization, professional and status growth, the implementation of lifelong education, changing the structure of the personality, the formation of its educational interests, goals , value orientations, motives, attitudes towards educational activities, shaping the individual’s lifestyle, stimulating the individual’s work activity, work efficiency, adapting the individual to the social environment through the acquisition of knowledge, information, etc.

At the group level the need for education implements the functions of social development of groups, social communities, the whole society, increasing the educational level of the individual, individual social groups and society as a whole, institutionalization of lifelong education, the formation of a subculture of a social group, community, the formation of an intellectual culture of social groups and society, self-identification social groups, reproduction of social groups and the institution of profession, changing the nature of social labor, increasing its efficiency, regulating the processes of social mobility, adapting social groups and communities to changes in social conditions in society, etc.

Upbringing— purposeful influence on a person to prepare him to perform the whole variety of social functions (work, communication, cognition). It is part of the socialization process and is a need, since without the targeted influence of adults, a child will not be able to become a capable member of society.

Raising in in a broad sense words- the process and result of human development that does not stop throughout his life. The essence of education is the transfer, assimilation and acquisition by a person of experience of life in society and in the conditions of a specific culture (subcultures), creating conditions for the emergence and development of internal motivation. Hence the emphasis in education on the tasks of a person developing a system of personal meanings in the process of self-actualization and self-determination.

« Good manners" - "bad manners" act as one of the main attributes of human individuality, characterizing both an adult and a child in various typological situations of interpersonal interaction, in their ability and desire to adequately assess situations and themselves in these situations, in the choice of strategies actions that imply approval in a certain culture (subculture) and/or do not lead to “internal” discord and negative assessments.

Need for meaning in life- the most complex spiritual need. It is expressed in the formation of a worldview - a person’s system of views on the world as a whole and his place in this world.

The search for the purpose of life has in its based on the idea of ​​value human life, and values ​​not only for the person himself, but also for society, for other people. Each person has his own ideas about the meaning of life. But in these individual ideas there is inevitably a general element, determined by the goals and interests of the society to which the person belongs. The question of the meaning of human life is a key ideological problem. The direction of his social activity depends on its decision. It is no coincidence that religion and idealism have fought against materialism since ancient times precisely on issues of the meaning of life. Correctly determining the meaning of your life means finding yourself.

The meaning and purpose of human life is to change the world around us in order to meet its needs, this is undeniable. But by changing external nature, a person also changes his own nature, that is, he changes and develops himself. Exploring the processes of personality development, we consider a number of levels of analysis of the meaning of life (“purpose”) of a person: development as the meaning of life, comprehensive development as the meaning of life of a new type of personality, self-realization of a person as an active fulfillment, the fulfillment of his purpose.

The meaning of life is most prominent flexible characteristics of both material and spiritual needs. Ultimately, the system of needs itself is determined by the meaning of life: if this is the increase in personal wealth, then, naturally, this leads to an exaggerated development of material needs. And vice versa, spiritual development, which has become the goal of life, dominates the structure of the personality in the form of corresponding spiritual needs. The meaning of life is determined, first of all, by specific historical conditions, interests and needs. Ultimately, the meaning of life is determined by an objectively existing system of social relations.

IN real life material and spiritual needs, as well as techniques and methods for satisfying them, interact and intertwine.

Thus, satisfying material needs always requires some level of knowledge, i.e., spiritual prerequisites.

To satisfy any spiritual needs material objects are used - such as books, paints, canvas and other equipment. Therefore, the satisfaction of spiritual needs becomes possible thanks to the satisfaction of the material ones accompanying them.