Merlin biography. Merlin Wolf Solomonovich, biography. Pedagogical and social activities

merlin psychological personality

Wolf Solomomnovich Memrlin (January 22, 1898, Mogilev, Russian Empire - April 6, 1982, Perm, USSR) - Russian psychologist, doctor of psychological sciences (1950), professor, founder of the Kazan and Perm psychological schools; disciple and follower of M. Ya. Basov and A. F. Lazursky in the theoretical and experimental development of a systemic methodology for interdisciplinary research of personality and and its development in different types of activity; author of the theory of individual styles of activity and life activity; author and developer of a systemic methodology for transdisciplinary studies of integral personality.

Born and raised in the family of the teacher of mathematics of the Mogilev classical gymnasium Solomon Naumovich Merlin. Wolf Merlin graduated from the same gymnasium in 1918. At the gymnasium, Merlin received a classical education, mastered 5 languages, including Greek and Latin. From 1918 to 1920 he worked as an instructor in out-of-school education.

Petrograd-Leningrad period (1920-1931)

In 1920, Merlin entered the pedagogical faculty of the Petrograd Pedagogical Institute of Out-of-School Education, where, in 1921, Professor M.Ya. Basov. While studying at the institute, he moonlighted with public lectures in Petrograd on the unconscious with a demonstration of mass hypnosis.

After graduating from the institute, in 1923-1924. Merlin worked in the psychotechnical commission at the regional soviet school named after K. Zetkin in Leningrad. Scientific activity began in the Leningrad Gubernia Political Education in the fight against illiteracy (1923-1924), led by M. Ya. Basov, who also headed the pedological department of the Leningrad Institute named after I. A.I. Herzen. In 1924, Merlin received an invitation from Basov to work at the Department of Psychology as an assistant at the Department of Psychology at the Leningrad Pedagogical Institute. A. I. Herzen; here he prepared the first publications of the results of his research. In 1929 V.S. Merlin was transferred to the post of associate professor of this department.

Working at the same time in 1927-1931. at the Leningrad Institute of Scientific Pedagogy, Merlin developed Basov's research and led a scientific group to study the formation and development of the worldview and personality of younger schoolchildren from different social groups in connection with the social and emotional attitudes of the personality, the form of organization of the child's emotional structure and the individual characteristics of verbal thinking in a collective communication. The study was conducted during the 1927/1928 academic year. years with the participation of the experimenter and the second observer by the significantly modernized method of clinical conversation Jean Piaget, the structured observation methodology and personality research scheme of M.Ya. Basov and the natural experiment of A.F. Lazursky using emotionally rich stories about problem social relations of people, which, along with the main The question to the story was used as stimulating material for comprehension and detailed assessments by children. According to M. Ya. Basov, in this formulation, the problem of worldview was new for world pedology and at the same time acted as "the final concluding question of the whole problem of thinking." The study, due to its pioneering nature, set first of all the task of testing the developed methods, nevertheless, it made it possible to draw preliminary but important conclusions about the relationship between the forms of organization of thinking and the emotional structure of the personality of children with a peculiar system of social representations of the child of different types of content: narrow social, extended social and widespread social. So it was shown that the close connection of the emotional and volitional life of the individual with his behavior, activity, thinking, speech and other cognitive processes is already fully formed by the beginning of schooling, but the nature of these connections is ambiguous: it is different for different types of content of social representations of children and with psychologically clearly expressed emotional properties of the personality.

(1989, Mogilev - 1982) - Russian psychologist.

Biography. Born into a teacher's family. Scientific activity began in the psychological department of the Leningrad Institute of Scientific Pedagogy. Later he worked at the Leningrad Pedagogical Institute. AI Herzen, Saratov and Sverdlovsk Pedagogical Institutes, Kazan University. In 1940 he defended his candidate's dissertation, in 1950 - his doctoral dissertation. From 1954 he worked at the Perm Pedagogical Institute, until 1979 as a head, then - professor of the Department of Psychology.

Research. A student of M.Ya.Basov. He began his professional career as a psychophysiologist. He dealt with the problem of the connection between volitional action and conditioned reflex mechanisms, then - with the problems of differential psychophysiology. They focused on the neurodynamic and psychodynamic characteristics of human personality. He developed the concept of integral individuality, in which the concept of an individual style of activity occupies a key place, acting as a mediating link between the multilevel personality traits.

Compositions. Essay on personality psychology. 1958;

Essay on the theory of temperament. M., 1964;

Problems of experimental personality psychology. Perm, 1968

Lectures on the psychology of motives. 1970

MERLIN Wolf Solomonovich

(1898 - 1982) - Russian psychologist, specialist in the field of personality psychology and social psychology, differential psychology and psychophysiology, labor psychology. Doctor of Psychological Sciences (1952), Professor, Head. Department of Psychology, Perm State Pedagogical Institute (1954-1982). Since 1959 - the chairman of the Ural branch of the OP of the USSR, since 1959 - member. Central Council of the OP. He graduated from the Pedagogical Faculty of the Petrograd Institute of Out-of-School Education (1920-1924), after which he taught at the Leningrad Pedagogical College named after V.I. K. D. Ushinsky. In 1925 he moved to the Department of Psychology of the Leningrad Pedagogical Institute named after V.I. A.I. Herzen, where he conducted research on the child's worldview and the connections between the target setting and the conditioned reflex. In subsequent years, he taught at the Saratov State Ped. in-those (1932-1938), where in 1938 he defended the candidate. dis: Volitional activity and conditioned reflex. From 1938 to 1948 he taught at the Sverdlovsk State Pedagogical Institute. During the Second World War, he was a scientific consultant and employee of the clinic of the Institute of Psychology of Moscow State University at the evacuation hospital located in Sverdlovsk. He studied the issues of coordination of movements and rehabilitation of the blind military (1942). From 1948 to 1954 he taught at Kazan State University, where in 1950 he defended his doctorate. dis: Psychophysiological uniqueness of conditioned reactions in the structure of the volitional act. In 1954, Mr .. M. moved to Perm, where he headed the department of psychology of the Perm State Pedagogical Institute until the last days of his life. M.'s scientific views were formed under the influence of M. Ya. Basov, who, in turn, in many respects was guided by the works of A.F. La-zursky and V.M. Bekhterev. Thus, there is a visible connection between the interdisciplinary approach to the child within the framework of pedology, which was developed by M.Ya. Basov, and subsequent studies of M. integral individuality in the 1970s and 1980s. The works of A.F. Lazursky were in the field of M.'s attention and in the development of problems of personality psychology. Under the influence of work with wounded soldiers (when the questions of coordination of movements and rehabilitation of the military-blind were studied) M. began to consider the problem of psychological conflicts. This event was a key one in his scientific biography. He embarked on an experimental study of work and for the first time drew attention to the fact that different people come to success in different ways. In subsequent years, M.'s hypothesis was experimentally confirmed by his student E.A. Klimov based on the material of the labor activity of multi-station weavers, taking into account some properties of their nervous system. This was the beginning of numerous studies of the individual style of activity in various areas of human practice. In 1959, the monograph M .: Essay on personality psychology was published, in which he was one of the first in Russian psychology to raise the question of the uniqueness and uniqueness of each personality, showed the sources of their generation, and developed the concept of personality structure. In particular, the concepts of the composition and structure of the personality were clearly divorced, the role of the interconnections of the components of the personality among themselves (structure) with the same composition was shown. It was also important to study the mathematical relationships in which the structure of temperament and the patterns of its occurrence in ontogenesis can be expressed. In 1964, Mr .. M. publishes a book: Essay on the theory of temperament, which formulates the first domestic (psychological) concept of temperament. In 1973, its second edition was published, which summed up the results of new research on the theory of temperament. In the late 1960s and early 1970s. M. returns to the problem of personality and develops it in an experimental manner. During these years, separate chapters of his book Problems of Experimental Psychology of Personality (1968, 1970) and the textbook Lectures on the Psychology of Motives (1971) were published. The central concept that characterizes personality, M. designated, following V.M. Myasishchev, her relationship. The integrity of the personality is created not due to the additivity of its properties, but due to the fact that the same personality relations acquire different functions, being considered as direction, character, ability or self-awareness. As for temperament, according to M., it cannot be considered in the structure of the personality due to other sources of its origin. In subsequent years, this provision was strengthened by new arguments. In particular, it was shown that there are polysemantic connections between the properties of personality and temperament; they are mediated by various intermediate variables, in particular, the individual style of Activity. This indicates that personality and temperament belong to different levels of individuality. Since 1975, a new stage of M.'s scientific activity begins, associated with the development by him and his employees of a direction that has received the name of integral individuality. In this theory, the principles of consistency were successfully implemented in combination with broad interdisciplinary studies of human personality. The theory of integral individuality actually outgrew the framework of differential research, within its framework a new, systemic version of the concept of an individual style of activity was developed, fundamental provisions and experimentally confirmed ideas about the individual style of communication were put forward. Since 1986, the Merlin Readings have been held annually. M. is the author of a large number of scientific works, more than 10 collections of scientific works have been published under his editorship, and a number of his works have been republished in the form of textbooks for the special course Fundamentals of Personality Psychology. M.'s scientific heritage was generalized and published by his students: Essay on the integral study of individuality, Moscow, 1986; under scientific. ed by B.A. Vyatkin published Personality as a subject of psychological research, Perm, 1988; Personality structure: Character, Abilities, Self-awareness, Perm, 1990; Personality and Society, Perm, 1990. L.Ya. Dorfman, R.N. Yudina

Plan:

1 Biography
2 Pedagogical and social activities
3 Integral personality theory
4 Proceedings
5 Public reaction

Introduction

Wolf Solomonovich Merlin (January 22, 1898, Mogilev - April 6, 1982, Perm) - Soviet psychologist. Disciple of M. Ya. Basov. The author of the theory of integral individuality.

1. Biography

Born into a teacher's family. In 1920 he entered the Petrograd Pedagogical Institute of Out-of-School Education, from which he graduated from the Pedagogical Faculty. In 1923-1924. worked in the psychotechnical commission at the regional Soviet Communist Party school. K. Zetkin in Leningrad. Scientific activity began in the Leningrad Gubernia Political Education on the fight against illiteracy (1923-1924), where he met M.Ya. Basov. In 1924 - assistant, 1929 - associate professor of the Department of Psychology at the Petrograd Institute named after I. A.I. Herzen. In 1930-1931. at the Leningrad Institute of Scientific Pedagogy, he leads a research group for studying the child's worldview and the relationship between the target setting and the conditioned reflex. From 1932 to 1938 works at the Saratov Institute. In 1938 he defended his Ph.D. thesis on volitional activity and conditioned reflex. From 1938 to 1948 works at the Sverdlovsk Pedagogical Institute. During the Great Patriotic War, he was (since 1942) a scientific consultant at the clinic of the Institute of Psychology of Moscow State University in Sverdlovsk. From 1948 to 1954 he worked at Kazan University, where he prepared a doctoral dissertation on the topic Psychophysiological originality of conditioned reactions in the structure of a volitional act (defended in 1950). From 1954 he worked at the Perm Pedagogical Institute, until 1979 as a head, then - professor of the Department of Psychology. The main areas of interest in the Perm period: personality psychology (1956-1971), then a systemic study of human individuality (1972-1982). He developed the concept of integral individuality, in which the concept of an individual style of activity occupies a key place, acting as a mediating link between the multilevel personality traits. Researcher of the principle of multivalued dependence of mental phenomena on physiological processes in the human body.

2. Pedagogical and social activities

Teaching activity is associated with work at the Faculty of Preschool Pedagogy and Psychology of the Perm Pedagogical Institute, V.S. Merlin is teaching General Psychology and Specialty Courses. The problems of the content and methods of teaching have always been in the field of close attention, which manifested itself in publications in the journal Voprosy psikhologii (1964) in the article "What and How to Teach Future Teachers in Psychology", as well as in the collection "To educate psychological curiosity among teachers" ( Perm, 1966) Since 1958, he headed the Ural branch of the Society of Psychologists of the USSR. From 1959 to 1982 he was a member of the central council of the Society of Psychologists. In 1965 - a member of the Program Committee of the XVIII International Congress of Psychology, and since 1967 - a member of the Scientific Commission on Psychology of the Ministry of Education of the RSFSR.

3. Integral personality theory

One of the systemic theories of personality, based on the principle of the functioning of Bertalanffy systems and cybernetic integrality, the theory of self-organization according to Ashby. The theory is based on the division of individuality systems according to the parameter of the development of matter (according to dialectical materialism) - psychodynamic, neurodynamic, personality, social component. Between the lower and higher lying levels, there is a multi-multi-valued relationship, and within the level there is one-one-multi-valued relationship. Thus, the peculiarity of each person, his uniqueness is reflected. An important contribution of Merlin was the definition of temperament as a non-personality phenomenon based solely on the interaction of the properties of the nervous system. Thanks to Merlin, provincial psychology began to develop new statistical complexes of mathematical statistics to confirm complex systems of human psychological filling.

4. Proceedings

"An outline of the theory of temperament." - M.: Education, (1964). - 303 p.
"Problems of Experimental Psychology of Personality" (1968)
Essay on the Theory of Temperament, 2nd ed. - Perm: Book Publishing House, (1973). - 291 p.
"Lectures on the psychology of motives." - Perm, (1970). - 120 p.
"Essay on the Integral Study of Individuality." - M.: Pedagogy, (1986). - 254 p.

5. Public reaction

Since 1985, the Perm State Pedagogical University has been holding a conference dedicated to the memory of V. S. Merlin, which was named "Merlin Readings". In 2010, the XXV anniversary conference was held.

Since 1998, among the prizes of the Perm Region, the Wolf Solomonovich Merlin Prize has been established on the problems of philosophy, psychology, sociology and cultural studies.

Sources

Vyatkin B.A., Silina E.A. V.S. Merlin: scientist and teacher (To the 100th anniversary of his birth) // Questions of psychology, 1998
Peshkova L.A. The theory of integral individuality (V.S.Merlin) // Psychology of personality: dictionary-reference book / Ed. Ermine P., Titarenko T. (ed.). К .: "Ruta", 2001

Categories: Characters by alphabet,

Wolf Solomonovich Merlin

Merlin Wolf Solomonovich (1989-1982) - Russian psychologist. Biography. Born into a teacher's family. Scientific activity began in the psychological department of the Leningrad Institute of Scientific Pedagogy. Later he worked at the Leningrad Pedagogical Institute. AI Herzen, Saratov and Sverdlovsk pedagogical institutes, Kazan University. Pupil M. Ya.Basova ... In 1940 he defended his candidate's dissertation, in 1950 - his doctoral dissertation. From 1954 he worked at the Perm Pedagogical Institute, until 1979 as a head, then - professor of the Department of Psychology. Research. He began his professional career as a psychophysiologist, addressing the problem of the connection between volitional action and conditioned reflex mechanisms. Then he studied the problems of differential psychophysiology. As a result of these studies, he identified 6 levels of human individuality: biochemical, somatic, neurodynamic (properties of the nervous system), psychodynamic (temperament), personality traits, social roles. They focused on the neurodynamic and psychodynamic characteristics of a person's individuality. So, when analyzing the psychodynamic level, that is, temperament, they distinguished such characteristics as extraversion , psychodynamic anxiety, reactivity, impulsivity, activity, emotional stability, emotional excitability, rigidity. He developed the concept of integral individuality, in which the concept of an individual style of activity occupies a key place, acting as a mediating link between the multilevel personality traits.

Kondakov I.M. Psychology. Illustrated Dictionary. // THEM. Kondakov. - 2nd ed. add. And reworked. - SPb., 2007, p. 324-325.

Works:

Essay on personality psychology, Perm, 1959; Essay on the theory of temperament. M., 1964; Problems of experimental personality psychology. Perm, 1968; Lectures on the psychology of motives. 1970; Problems of experimental psychology of personality // Uchenye zapiski Perm ice. in-that. Perm, 1970. T. 77; An outline of the integral study of personality. M., 1986; Selected psychological works. M., 1996.

Literature:

Vyatkin BA Creative way of VS Merlin as the process of creating a doctrine of integral individuality // Psychological journal. 1998. No. 1. T. 19; Vyatkin B. A., Silina E. A. V. S. Merlin - scientist and teacher (To the 100th anniversary of his birth) // Questions of psychology. J 998. No. 1. S. 90-95.

personality, temperaments and individual styles of activity; interdisciplinary studies of personality psychology and transdisciplinary studies of the integral individuality of a person. Place of work: Alma mater:

Petrograd Pedagogical Institute of Out-of-School Education

Supervisor: Notable students:

Wolf Solomonovich Merlin (January 22, Mogilev, Russian Empire - April 6, Perm, USSR) - Russian psychologist, doctor of psychological sciences (1950), professor, founder of the Kazan and Perm psychological schools; disciple and follower of M. Ya. Basov and A. F. Lazursky in the theoretical and experimental development of a systemic methodology for interdisciplinary research of personality and its development in various activities; author of the theory of individual styles of activity and life activity; author and developer of a systemic methodology for transdisciplinary studies of integral personality.

Biography

Petrograd - Leningrad period (1920-1931)

After graduating from the institute, in 1923-1924. Merlin worked on the psychotechnical commission at the regional Soviet Communist Party School. K. Zetkin in Leningrad. Scientific activity began in the Leningrad Gubernia Political Education on the fight against illiteracy (1923-1924), led by M. Ya. Basov, who also headed the pedological department of the Leningrad Institute named after A.I. Herzen. In 1924, Merlin received an invitation from Basov to work at the Department of Psychology as an assistant at the Department of Psychology at the Leningrad Pedagogical Institute. A. I. Herzen; here he prepared the first publications of the results of his research. In 1929 V.S. Merlin was transferred to the post of associate professor of this department. ...

At the same time working in 1927-1931. at the Leningrad Institute of Scientific Pedagogy, Merlin developed Basov's research and led a scientific group to study the formation and development of the worldview and personality of younger schoolchildren from different social groups in connection with the social and emotional attitudes of the personality, the form of organization of the child's emotional structure and the individual characteristics of verbal thinking in a collective communication. The study was carried out during the 1927/1928 academic year with the participation of an experimenter and a second observer by a significantly modernized method of clinical conversation by Jean Piaget. , a structured observation methodology and a scheme for researching the personality of M.Ya. Basov and a natural experiment by A.F. Lazursky using emotionally rich stories about problematic social relations of people, which, along with the main question to the story, acted as stimuli for comprehension and detailed assessments by children. . According to M. Ya. Basov, in this formulation, the problem of worldview was new for world pedology and at the same time acted as "the final concluding question of the whole problem of thinking." The study, due to its pioneering nature, set first of all the task of testing the developed methods, nevertheless, it made it possible to draw preliminary but important conclusions about the relationship between the forms of organization of thinking and the emotional structure of the personality of children with a peculiar system of social representations of the child of different types of content: narrow social, extended social and widespread social. So it was shown that the close connection of the emotional and volitional life of the individual with his behavior, activity, thinking, speech and other cognitive processes is already fully formed by the beginning of schooling, but the nature of these connections is ambiguous: it is different for different types of content of social representations of children and with psychologically clearly expressed emotional properties of the personality.
It is noteworthy that the outstanding Russian psychologist S.L. Rubinstein, who in 1930 at the invitation of M.Ya. Basov headed the Department of Psychology, Department of Pedology, Leningrad State Pedagogical Institute. Herzen, also in his "Foundations of Psychology" (1935) and "Foundations of General Psychology (1940), in fact actively developed the concept of M.Ya. Basov about the emotional structure of the individual in its connections with activity, thinking, worldview, like many ideas of V.S. Merlin, who significantly rethought the popular theory of emotions by W. James.

Saratov period (1931-1938)

After the death of M. Ya.Basov in 1931, V.S.Merlin moved from Leningrad to Saratov, where from 1932 to 1938 he worked at the Saratov Pedagogical Institute and continued to study volitional activity, and in 1938 he defended his Ph.D. thesis on the topic "Volitional activity and conditioned reflex". It reflected the search for new forms and methods of pedagogical and psychological science in Russia, was a continuation of the personal approach to the study of the psyche on the basis of the ideas of A.F. Lazursky and M. Ya.Basov, was associated with the practical tasks of pedagogy and at the same time carried a new an approach that would later be characteristic of the entire school of V.S.Merlin is the experimental study of the psyche in connection with the properties of the nervous system. In 1934 he published his work entitled "Lecture notes in general psychology."

Sverdlovsk period (1938-1948)

From 1938 to 1948, Merlin worked at the Sverdlovsk Pedagogical Institute. During the Great Patriotic War (since 1942), simultaneously with pedagogical work at the institute, in 1942, he became a scientific consultant at the clinic of the Institute of Psychology of Moscow State University at the evacuation hospital in Sverdlovsk, providing psychological and psychotherapeutic assistance, including with the help of hypnosis, to war invalids, who have lost limbs and vision. At this time, he studied the problems of coordination of movements in the wounded and rehabilitation as a result of the injury of blind soldiers. Some of the materials of these practical works were summarized and published by V.S.Merlin in the Scientific Notes of Moscow State University, in his report at a meeting on the psychology of personality in the USSR Academy of Pedagogical Sciences, and the main part was only in 1968-1970 in the book. "Problems of Experimental Psychology of Personality".

Kazan period (1948-1954)

From 1948 to 1954, Wolf Solomonovich Merlin worked at Kazan University, preparing for the defense of his doctoral dissertation on differential psychology of personality: "Psychophysiological uniqueness of conditioned reactions in the structure of the volitional act" (defended in 1950, published in Scientific Notes of Kazan University in 1953). At this university, V.S.Merlin continued the tradition of educating scientists from among the research students of his teacher Mikhail Yakovlevich Basov and the experience of creating scientific schools of Vladimir Mikhailovich Bekhterev, Alexander Fedorovich Lazursky.

The Kazan scientific school of psychophysiology of V.S.Merlin was founded in 1948 - 1953 from among the students-researchers of the department of the Russian language, logic and psychology of the historical-philological faculty of the University and the participants of the university-wide student "psychological circle" created by V.S.Merlin, who performed serious scientific research on differential psychophysiology, and psychology of personality and individuality already in the student body.

In VS Merlin's own experiments, in the experiments and careful observations of student researchers, the concept of an individual style of activity, individual differences in personality research began to take shape. The research of that period was mainly aimed at finding the ways in which different people come to success at work, become leaders. At that time, under his leadership, the Ph.D. thesis of Evgeny Aleksandrovich Klimov was completed, which gave rise to the direction of research on the individual style of activity. Thus, in the center of V.S.Merlin's scientific interests in the postwar years were problems of personality, psychophysiology of individual differences, temperament and individual style of activity.

Permian period (1954-1982)

In 1953, Merlin accepted an invitation to work as the head of the general institute department of general psychology at the Pedagogical Institute in Molotov (now Perm, Perm Territory). In 1954 he moved to Perm, where until his death in April 1982 he headed the Department of Psychology at the Perm State Pedagogical Institute. In (now PSPU), he worked for a quarter of a century, from 1954 to 1979 as the head of the department, then, until his death in 1982, as a professor of the department, head of the laboratory and postgraduate studies of the department, leading a course in general psychology and special courses at the faculty of pedagogy and the psychology of preschool education (now the Faculty of Pedagogy and Psychology of Childhood). The main areas of interest in the Permian period: philosophy and multivalued logics, mathematical languages \u200b\u200band methods of statistical multivariate analysis of probabilistic processes, general (theoretical) and developmental psychology, psychophysiology and personality psychology (1954-1971), then a systemic study of human individuality (1972-1982) , realized initially in the 2nd, radically revised edition of the "Sketch of the Theory of Temperament", Perm, 1973.).

In 1959, Merlin's monograph Essay on the Psychology of Personality (1959) was published. From 1958 he headed the Ural branch of the Society of Psychologists of the USSR, from 1959 to 1982 he was a member of the Central Council of the Society of Psychologists, in 1965 - a member of the Program Committee of the XVIII International Congress of Psychology, since 1967 - a member of the Scientific Commission on Psychology of the Ministry of Education RSFSR.

In 1964, the publishing house "Prosveshchenie" published the fundamental work of V. S. Merlin "An Outline of the Theory of Temperament", which summed up a long period of research by the author, his students and collaborators and to this day is a textbook on the problems of temperament. The second edition, which appeared in 1973, includes chapters written by students and collaborators of V.S.Merlin, devoted to the age-related development of temperament, the relationship of temperament and abilities, temperament and various types of activity. In 1968, Merlin published the first part of the monograph Experimental Psychology of Personality.

By 1975, Merlin, together with his staff and students, developed the experimental and theoretical foundations of the systemic multi-level concept of integral individuality, in which the genome acts as the basis for the maturation of different types and properties of the nervous system and the psychosomatic organism as a whole, and the individual styles of various activities and multilevel language communication that are formed in vivo occupy a key place, act as mediating links between the hierarchized levels of properties and invariant symptom complexes of individuality.

Shortly before his death, Merlin finished the typewritten version of the monograph Essays on the Integral Study of Individuality. The book was published by the Prosveshchenie publishing house four years later, in 1986.

Scientific contribution

In the tradition of the St. Petersburg research tradition, founded by Bekhterev and Lazursky, V.S.Merlin developed the interdisciplinary scientific concept of integral individuality, and also led a large group of differential psychophysiologists, differential psychologists, psychologists of higher qualification, working in dozens of areas of activity of social groups and society in several countries the former USSR. Merlin is the author of more than 250 scientific publications on physiology, psychophysiology, general differential psychology of species and typological properties of the nervous system and temperament of animals and humans, experimental study of individual and socially typical properties and qualities of human individuality in various organizational forms of play, educational, work, professional creative activities and in different types of individual style of creativity and work.

One of the systemic theories of holistic, multilevel individuality, based on the principles of the functioning of Bertalanffy's hierarchical dynamical systems and cybernetic integrality, the theory of self-organization according to Ashby. The theory is based on the division of individuality systems according to the multidimensional parameters of the development of hierarchical levels of an integral organism as an active and polymorphic agent in various spheres of the material and spiritual worlds (Mikhail Basov and (holistic concepts of the organism and environment, coming from Hippocrates, developed in pre-revolutionary Russian medicine, Vladimir Bekhterev) , - genetic, psychodynamic, neurodynamic, personal, socio-psychological and social worlds. Between the lower and higher levels there is a multivalued connection, and within the level one-one-ambiguous connections. This reflects the peculiarity of each person, his uniqueness. Merlin's contribution was the definition of temperament as a non-personality phenomenon based solely on the interaction of the properties of the nervous system.

One of the most important theoretical constructions of V.S.Merlin - the concept of personality - is closely connected with the concept of personality in A.F. Lazursky and his students M. Ya. Basov and V.N. Myasishchev. Merlin's book An Outline of the Psychology of Personality, published in 1959, was highly praised by the psychological community. The author not only discussed the issue of the uniqueness and uniqueness of each personality, but also made an attempt to show the origins of this uniqueness and present an original position in understanding the structure of a personality, the relationship and influence of its individual components. Later, in 1968-1970. VS Merlin published "Problems of Experimental Psychology of Personality", "Lectures on the Psychology of Human Motives", which reflected the current state and research of domestic and foreign psychology of that time and the development by the author of theoretical and experimental works on personal problems.

Another area of \u200b\u200bresearch activity of VS Merlin and his collaborators is differential psychophysiology. Works on temperament, wrote V.S.Merlin in 1967, were the logical development of his previous study of the dependence of the volitional act on the structure of conditioned reflex connections, which began in the laboratory of M. Ya. Basov in 1929: “Developing the thoughts of his teacher , on the basis of experimental facts, I came to the conclusion that the connection between neuro-physiological processes has a multi-valued character "(Materials for a meeting dedicated to the 50th anniversary of Soviet psychology in the Urals. Perm, 1967). Guided by this general principle, in his studies on temperament, V.S.Merlin also sought to reveal the multivalued relationship between the general type of the nervous system and temperament. The principle of a multivalued connection between the type of the nervous system and the type of temperament led him to the assertion of the specificity of the psychological laws of temperament. In contrast to the "analytical" direction of research inherent in the school of BM Teplov ("from properties to types"), VS Merlin analyzed not individual properties, but certain symptom complexes. This direction determined the content of his subsequent works: it allowed significant progress in the development of the typological problematics itself. Therefore, the greatest success by this team was achieved precisely in the study of the psychological characteristics of temperament as a psychodynamic formation, conditioned by the properties of the nervous system, and then in the identification of stable types of temperament. Since in domestic science the school of B.M. Teplov carried out a systematic and most profound study of the properties of the human nervous system, the team led by V.S.Merlin could concentrate their efforts on determining the psychological variables determined by these parameters. Using in the future the principles of systems analysis in the study of various levels of human organization (neurodynamic, psychodynamic and personal) and the relationships between them, V.S.Merlin outlined the foundations of the theory of integral individuality, which is a logical continuation of the entire direction of his scientific activity.

Essay on the Theory of Temperament (1964)

In 1964, the work of VS Merlin, "An Outline of the Theory of Temperament" Based on the work of the natural science direction of such scientists as V.A.Vagner, Severtsov A.N., V.M.Bekhterev, A.F. Lazursky, M. Ya. Basov and such physiologists as I.P. Pavlov and A. A. Ukhtomsky, Merlin develops their ideas from the point of view of concrete historical determination and different social conditions for the formation of personal attitudes of children and adolescents. Merlin's research group studied the diverse connections of stable personality relationships and the semantics of their social representations, semasiological connections of the processes and results of thinking and speech of children with their emotional goals, the formation of elementary and complex conditioned reflexes and psychophysiological dominants in them.

Following A.F. Lazursky and M. Ya.Basov, Merlin considered the stable anthropological and physiological characteristics of the GNI and the dominants of an individual, on the one hand, as a heuristic means for putting forward psychological hypotheses and predicting the development of the nature of connections of higher mental functions, psychological particular and generalized relations personality, the system of its motives and psychodynamic properties of the individual. On the other hand, as a way for the psychologist to clarify and concretize the physiological mechanisms and foundations of personality relationships. ...

In addition to the development of fundamental problems of general psychology, generalizing theoretical and experimental psychological research, integrating psychological knowledge and studying the most general psychological laws, theoretical principles and methods of psychology, the relationship of basic concepts and categories in their historical development and the current state of knowledge, Merlin deeply studied in his generalizing works used the results of related natural (biological) and social sciences: neurology, psychiatry, psychophysiology, general and comparative physiology of humans and animals, physiology of higher nervous activity, comparative psychology, personality psychology, theory and methods of general and experimental psychology, developmental and educational psychology , the theory of anthroposociogenesis and ontogenesis, linguistics, semiology, sociology and social psychology, and others.

One of the most important areas of the theoretical searches of Merlin - the general psychological concept of personality and typology of character - is closely connected with the theory of personality relations and characterology developed by A.F. Lazursky and M. Ya. Basov. ... Merlin worked on the study of the problem of "personality as an organism and as an active agent in the environment", formulated by M. Ya. Basov, and through rethinking the heritage of A. F. Lazursky, M. Ya. Basov and V. N. Myasishchev, the concept of generalized relations personality was concretized and deepened in the concept of the personality of Merlin. Merlin persistently emphasizes the huge specific role of communication languages \u200b\u200band the second signaling system (according to Pavlov), and in experiments - the role of verbal or effective instructions of the experimenter and / or hidden self-instruction of the subjects, expressing their emotional relationship to the experiment).

1970s. Development of the theoretical foundations of integral studies of individuality

The 70s can be considered the most favorable for V.S.Merlin. His long-standing interest in the individual as a whole system coincided with the growing public interest in the human factor, the discussion of the psychological community about the structure of the personality, and the ever wider application of the systems approach. In the late 70s - early 80s. a new stage begins in the scientific work of V.S.Merlin and his students, which is associated with the study not of individual properties of a person, but of his integral individual characteristics - integral individuality. A new systemic interdisciplinary approach to the study of a person and the psychological and pedagogical support of his development in vigorous activity, aimed at an independent active choice of actions, which is determined not only by objective requirements and tasks, but also by the previously existing individual characteristics of a person, has emerged. The use of a systematic approach, the principle of significance has led to the emergence of studies of different-level properties and relationships, their ontogenetic development, the influence on the mediating links in the multi-level hierarchy of individuality. The first graduate students of V.S.Merlin defended their doctoral dissertations (E.A.Klimov, B.A.Vyatkin, V.V.Belous).

Publication of the legacy of M. Ya.Basov: 1968-1975

After the publication of the Resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks "" (July 4, 1936), the works of M. Ya. Basov largely fell out of use among Soviet psychologists. V.S.Merlin made several attempts to republish the works of his teacher, but he managed to do this only in 1975.

Together with Corresponding Member of the USSR Academy of Pedagogical Sciences V.N.Myasishchev, in 1968 Merlin held a conference at the Leningrad Pedagogical Institute dedicated to the 75th anniversary of M.Ya. and in state libraries sent to the special storage. Merlin and other former students and collaborators of M. Ya. Basov managed to publish his "Selected Psychological Works" only in 1975, that is, 7 years after the conference. ... At the same time, these works of Basov were published in the publishing house of the USSR Academy of Pedagogical Sciences "Pedagogy" with significant cuts and abbreviations.

The place of Merlin's theory among other psychological trends in the USSR

Merlin realized that his new program directly opposes the generally accepted normative scientific paradigm of "Marxist-Leninist dialectics" in its development in the activity concept of the students and followers of L. S. Vygotsky, who occupied many leading administrative positions in the hierarchy of Soviet science at that time. Disputing some of Vygotsky's ideas, back in 1934, Merlin emphasized that at most stages of his life, any person has not one, but several zones of proximal development. ...

In his Ph.D. (1940) and doctoral dissertation (1950), studying the multidimensional connections of the structure and phases of volitional acts with the phasic and tonic conditioned reflex mechanisms and dominants formed in the experiment, Merlin puts forward and substantiates the principle of ambiguous, relatively free (later - “many - multi-valued ") dependence of the mental on the physiological and the same nature of the inverse dependence of the physiological on the mental, which has a deep theoretical significance for psychological science as a whole. So here at Kazan University, V.S.Merlin is developing a program and methodology for the experimental study of the higher processes of purposeful formation of a typologically determined style of labor activity, which is formed only with a stable highly positive attitude to work in different ways among typologically different workers of mass professions. Such a "harmonization" of technological requirements with the properties of the nervous system of workers, on the contrary, is not achievable with a psychologically indifferent or negative attitude to work. Thus, already in the Kazan period, V.S.Merlin acts as the author of a multilevel and multidimensional differential psychophysiological metatheory of connections of a whole organism, included in active interaction with a multitude of "possible" and real "worlds", where significant differences in the influence of the activity of a person's personal attitudes on the course of physiological functions in people of the same typological type demonstrate the presence of specifically human dependences of the physiological states of the body on the mental properties and relationships of the personality in people with the same type of nervous system. At the same time, in the works of his former graduate students, he acts as the founder of the so-called "Kazan psychophysiological and psychological school."

Pedagogical, social and scientific and administrative activities

Teaching activity is connected with the work of the head of the department of psychology of the institute and professor at the faculty of pedagogy and psychology of preschool education of the Perm Pedagogical Institute, where V.S.Merlin reads a fundamental original course of lectures "General Psychology", reads numerous special courses for students, supervises research coursework and diploma works, the results of which are often referred to in his works. Merlin attached great importance to educational and methodological issues of teaching psychology. Under the editorship of Merlin was published the collection "To educate psychological inquisitiveness in future teachers" (Perm, 1966), he wrote the chapters "Temperament" and "Character" in the first two editions of the textbook "General Psychology" edited by A. V. Petrovsky, created the first " Collection of tasks in general psychology "(Moscow: Education, 1974). Under the scientific supervision of V.S.Merlin, Ph.D. and doctoral theses of Klimov E.A., Vyatkin B.A., Belous V.V. and dozens of Ph.D. theses in various areas of general and developmental psychology and differential psychophysiology of personality and individuality have been completed.

Since 1958 he headed the Ural branch of the Society of Psychologists of the USSR. From 1959 to 1982 he was a member of the Central Council of the Society of Psychologists of the USSR. In 1965 - a member of the Program Committee of the XVIII International Congress of Psychology. Since 1967 - Member of the Scientific Commission on Psychology of the Ministry of Education of the RSFSR. Merlin was the initiator and organizer of many scientific forums in Perm: the All-Union Symposium on Personality Psychology, dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the birth of V. I. Lenin (1970), the All-Union seminar-meeting on developmental and educational psychology (1973), the All-Union symposia “ Problems of differential psychophysiology and its genetic aspects "(1975)," Individual characteristics of mental and somatic development and their role in the management of human activities "(1982). With his active participation in Perm, three All-Union symposia "Mental stress in sports" (1973, 1975, 1977) were held. In 1982, as a member of the organizing committee of the VI Congress of Psychologists of the USSR, Merlin was preparing a Symposium on the Integral Study of Human Individuality, but the symposium was held after his death.

Tradition

Since 1985, Perm State Pedagogical University has been holding a conference dedicated to the memory of V. S. Merlin, which was named "Merlin Readings". In 2011, the XXVI Merlin Readings were already held: Psychological innovations in education

Also, in the literature, with a certain frequency, the expression "Perm Scientific Psychological School"

Published works by V.S.Merlin

The list of Merlin's publications has more than 250 titles in Russian and English (not completed)

Merlin V.S. On the forms of using the social experience of students. // Experience in studying pedagogical work with adults / Under. ed. M.Ya.Basova, E.A. Golant. L.: GIZ, 1926
Merlin V.S., Khryakova M.F. Development of social outlook in children. M .; L .: GIZ, 1930, - 126 p.
Merlin V.S. On training and development // Uch. app. Saratov State ped. in-ta, 1934. S. 61-75.
Merlin V.S. Psychological bases of education of restraint .. Sov.pedagogika, 1939, №11,12. S. 138-148.
Merlin V.S. On coordination of movements in case of injuries of the upper extremities // Uch.zap.Moskovskogo Gos. University, 1947, T.2. Issue 3. P.87-96
Merlin V.S. "The originality of conditioned reactions in the structure of an act of will." // "Scientific notes of Kazan State University." 1953, Vol. 113. Book 3. 124s.
Merlin V.S. Characterization of the conditioned galvanic skin reflex // Physiological journal I.M.Sechenov. 1954. T.40. No. 2. S. 155-161.
Merlin V.S. The role of temperament in the emotional response to the mark // Questions of psychology, 1955, No. 6, pp.61-71.
Merlin V.S. Personal recovery after severe emotional upheavals // Report at the meeting. on personality psychology. - M.: Publishing house of the USSR Academy of Pedagogical Sciences, 1956.
Merlin V.S. "Methods for the study of the neuro-physiological foundations of human mental activity" // "Materials of the conference on psychology (July 1-6, 1955), Institute of Psychology of the Academy of Pedagogical Sciences of the RSFSR", M., 1957, -751 S.; // Merlin V.S. ... - p. 160-167.
Merlin V.S. Dynamics of "transfer" of conditioned reflex connections from one signaling system to another // Questions of psychology. 1957. No. 2.P.53-67
Merlin V.S. Physiological tests and psychological characteristics of special types of higher nervous activity // Problems of personality psychology in connection with the types of higher nervous activity.-Perm, 1958, pp. 217-26
Merlin V.S. On the question of the relationship between the type of higher nervous activity, temperament and personality relationships. // Problems of personality psychology in connection with the types of higher nervous activity.-Perm, 1958. S.3-36.
V.S. Merlin "Essay on the psychology of personality" Perm, 1959.-172C.
Merlin V.S. "An outline of the theory of temperament." - M.: Education, (). - 303 p.
Merlin V.S. "Problems of Experimental Psychology of Personality" (1968, 1970)
Merlin V.S. Essay on the Theory of Temperament, 2nd ed. - Perm: Book Publishing House, (). - 291 p.
Merlin V.S. "Lectures on the psychology of motives." - Perm, (). - 120 p.
Merlin V.S. "Essay on the Integral Study of Individuality." - M.: Pedagogy, (). - 254 p.
Merlin V.S. Collected Works in 4 Volumes:
- Volume 1. Issues of development of social outlook in children. Perm: PSI, 2006. - 330 s; ...
- Volume 2. The originality of conditioned reactions in the structure of the volitional act. Perm: PSI, 2006. - 192 p .;
- Volume 3: Essays on the theory of temperament Perm: PSI, 2007. - 276 p .;
- Volume 4. Problems of experimental personality psychology (chapters from the monograph). Perm: PSI, 2007.- 400 p.
Merlin V. S. Psychology of individuality: selected psychological works / V. S. Merlin; ed. E. A. Klimova. - M.: Publishing house of Moscow. Psychological and social institute; Voronezh: MODEK, 2005 .-- 544 p. ISBN 5-89502-403-3. - The book includes the main works of V.S. Merlin:
"Essay on Integral Individuality" (1986),
"Experimental Psychology of Personality" (1968),
"Essays on the Theory of Temperament" (1964),
"Lectures on the psychology of human motives: a textbook for a special course" (1971).
In these works, theoretical and applied issues of an individual specific approach to a developing person in the process of education, training, and activities are considered. The book is intended for psychologists, physiologists, anthropologists, doctors, teachers and students preparing for medical and / or psychological and pedagogical activities.

Sources

VS Merlin "Essay on the integral study of individuality." - M .; Pedagogy, 1986.-254 p.

Merlin biography. Merlin Wolf Solomonovich, biography. Pedagogical and social activities

Petrograd-Leningrad period (1920-1931)

MERLIN Wolf Solomonovich

Plan:

Introduction

1. Biography

2. Pedagogical and social activities

3. Integral personality theory

4. Proceedings

5. Public reaction

Sources