Will and volitional personality traits

The specifics of volitional regulation

Will

Will- the highest level of arbitrary regulation of activity, which ensures overcoming difficulties in achieving the goal.

Among the levels of regulation of behavior are the following:

1. Involuntary regulation:

¨ prepsychic involuntary reactions;

¨ figurative (sensory and perceptual) regulation.

2. Arbitrary regulation:

¨ speech-thinking level of regulation.

3. Volitional regulation.

L. M. Vekker believes that volitional regulation begins where there is at least a two-level hierarchy of activity programs, where it is extremely important to correlate the levels of these programs and choose among them the level that meets the criteria of intellectual, emotional, moral and general social value.

Approximately the same meaning was put into the concept of will by I.M. Sechenov when he wrote that will is the active side of reason and moral feelings. Volitional regulation includes the following components:

1) cognitive;

2) emotional;

3) behavioral (active).

Into the structure of the will act the following components are included:

1) motivation and awareness of the goal;

2) struggle of motives;

3) the act of making a decision;

4) execution.

Volitional action is connected with needs, but does not follow directly from them. It is mediated by awareness of motives for action as motives and its result as goals (S. L. Rubinshtein).

Will arises when a person is capable of reflecting his own desires, can somehow relate to them. The will is inextricably linked with the available plan of action. Through volitional action, a person plans to achieve the goal facing him, subordinating his impulses to conscious control and changing the surrounding reality in accordance with his plan.

Will is a person's conscious regulation of his actions, which require overcoming internal and external difficulties.

Volitional behavior is characterized by the consciousness of activity. A person consciously goes to the goal.

Another important feature of volitional behavior is its connection with overcoming internal and external obstacles.

Fatigue, a desire to have fun, inertia, laziness, etc. can act as internal obstacles.

An example of external obstacles is the lack of the necessary tool for work or the opposition of other people who do not want the goal to be achieved.

On the basis of secondary signal connections, all conscious regulation of human behavior is carried out, the choice of place, time and nature, method, intensity of action in the implementation of the received information takes place.

Of great importance in the implementation of volitional regulation are the frontal lobes of the cerebral cortex. In them, a comparison of the achieved result with a previously drawn up program of the goal takes place. The defeat of the frontal lobes leads to apraxia (quick distractibility, the inability to concentrate for a long time on any activity). Abulia (painful lack of will) develops more often after encephalitis, meningitis, craniocerebral trauma).

An important contribution to the mechanism of volitional regulation is made by the reticular formation. It is a kind of filter that selects some impulses that go to the cortex, and delays others that are not of vital importance. The reticular formation is also a kind of accumulator and control panel for the energy supply of the cortex.

P. K. Anokhin put forward the concept of an action acceptor. Its essence is that the nervous processes, as it were, are ahead of the course of external events. On the basis of past experience, a person anticipates, foresees future effects on the nervous system. Based on the signal in the brain, the entire complex of nerve connections is restored, the entire system of associations, developed by repeated repetition.

Volitional properties of personality. The volitional properties of a person include the following: Purposefulness (manifested in the ability to set and achieve socially significant goals).

Decisiveness (manifested in a quick and thoughtful choice of a goal, determining ways to achieve it). He does not have enough strength to overcome conflicting thoughts and feelings, to direct them in some particular direction.

All this leads to the fact that a person loses time, and then, when, nevertheless, he finds himself in front of an extremely important choice, he grabs the first one that comes across, perhaps even the worst target. Indecision is also manifested in the fact that a person, without thinking it over, without weighing it, makes a hasty decision.

Perseverance (manifested in the ability to direct and control behavior in accordance with the intended goal for a long time).

There are people who at first glance seem exceptionally persistent. A close acquaintance with them shows that they are simply stubborn. A stubborn person recognizes only his own opinion, his own arguments and seeks to be guided by them in actions and deeds, although these arguments are erroneous or at least not the best.

Endurance (or self-control) (manifested in the ability to restrain mental and physical manifestations that interfere with the achievement of the goal). Independence (the ability to set goals on one's own initiative, find ways to achieve them and practically implement the decisions made). The property of the will, opposite to independence, will be suggestibility. People distinguished by suggestibility cannot, on their own initiative, start and finish a more or less complex volitional action; Οʜᴎ are active in the event that they receive instructions, orders, advice. Οʜᴎ are quickly influenced by other people.

The volitional properties of a person include such as courage, courage, courage, stamina, discipline. But they are largely an individual combination of the volitional qualities discussed above.

People with a high level of development of certain volitional properties are rightly called people of strong will. There are people who have a low level of development of all volitional properties. Such people are usually called weak-willed. Will as a regulator of behavior is formed in the process of life and activity. Of paramount importance in the development of the will and the formation of volitional properties of the personality is daily regular work.

Section four. Personality.

Physiological basis of will. - concept and types. Classification and features of the category "Physiological bases of the will." 2017, 2018.

Any activity, any behavior is primarily expressed in the form of certain movements of the body and its individual organs. This circumstance is so obvious and natural that some psychological trends, especially behaviorism, consider behavior to be completely derived from our muscular apparatus, believing that to explain it, it is quite enough to study the work of this apparatus. But, of course, our behavior is by no means only a muscular phenomenon, because the huge role of the psyche in behavior in general, especially in voluntary behavior, is absolutely undoubted. However, it is also undoubted that hardly much in the psyche is so closely connected with the body as volitional processes. Therefore, it seems absolutely necessary to consider the general bodily foundations of the will.

The anatomical and physiological basis of the will, without which no living creature would have it, is the big brain. When we act voluntarily, a physiological impulse arises in a certain center of the cerebral cortex of the brain, which is transmitted through the underlying apparatus - the medulla oblongata and spinal cord - to the motor nerve and thus causing muscle contraction

and movement of the corresponding organ. This movement is arbitrary, differing from the reflex movement not only in its cortical origin (whereas the reflex has a directly subcortical origin), but also in that in the case of a reflex, the physiological impulse propagates along unchanged, innate paths, causing movements of a stereotyped nature, and in the case of a volitional behavior, these innate ways have no meaning - arbitrary movements always proceed in a new form, changing in accordance with the goal pursued by the subject. The zone of the left hemisphere is considered to be the center that regulates these movements, and it is clear that when it is damaged, the subject's ability to carry out meaningful, purposeful activity is reduced. The disease first described by Hugo Lipmann and named by him apraxia It manifests itself precisely in the disorder of the ability to carry out voluntary behavior: the subject shows a complete inability to perform even the simplest deliberate actions, while impulsively he easily performs the same acts. For example, he is not able to unbutton or fasten a button according to the task, however, when he himself needs to unbutton or fasten it, that is, if urgent need in this, the performance of this act does not present any difficulty for him. Apraxia is a disorder of voluntary behavior associated, as already noted, with damage to a certain area of ​​the cortex.

The specificity of the will as a mental process. Physiological basis of will. Will functions. The structure of volitional action. The concept of the speech process. Theories of the origin of speech. Types of speech. Functions of speech. Stages of speech development. The development of speech in ontogenesis. Speech pathology.

Will is a mental function that literally permeates all aspects of human life. It sets orderliness, purposefulness, consciousness of human life and activity. “A volitional action is a conscious, purposeful action by means of which a person achieves his goal, subordinating his impulses to conscious control and changing the surrounding reality in accordance with his plan,” writes S.L. Rubinshtein. Will is, of course, the highest level of regulation of the psyche in relation to the levels of motivation, emotions and attention.

In the act of will, the objectification of the individual I and individual behavior takes place. In a volitional act, the subject, as it were, “falls out” of the stream of being and evaluates himself and the motives of his activity from the outside. Will is always perspective in its essence, it is directed to the future. Making a volitional act, a person thinks not about his position at the moment, but about what it will become in the future, if he does or does not do something. Will is experienced as the activity of the ego.

A.N.Leontiev believes that volitional action is the process of victory of openly social and ideal motives in the individual system of the hierarchy of motives over objective and objective and visual ones. If a person has a stimulating and inhibitory action of motives, an equiprobable alternative arises. Can win as one motive, and another. Leontiev believes that in an established personality, the social motive will always play a decisive role due to an act of will and will prevail over objective and biological ones. A.N.Leontiev calls this effect “the primacy of openly social motivation”.

The physiological mechanisms of voluntary regulation are based on complex types of afferentation, among which kinesthetic is the leading one. Voluntary actions are carried out with the participation of a complex system of arbitrary and involuntary brain mechanisms. Any movement is a complex multi-level system, in which each level has its own afferent and its own set of adjustable parameters.

The main function of the will is the conscious regulation of activity in difficult conditions of life. This regulation is based on the interaction of the processes of excitation and inhibition of the nervous system. In accordance with this, it is customary to distinguish 2 functions: activating inhibitory

Selective function - the choice of motives and goals in their conflict; The initiating function is to fill the deficit of motivation for action in the absence of its sufficient motivation; Inhibitory function - weakening of excessive motivation when the action is undesirable; Stabilizing function - maintaining the selected level of action in the presence of interference; Arbitrary regulation of external and internal actions and mental processes.

Intelligent determination. Motives begin to fade, leaving room for an alternative that is perceived quite calmly. in cases where indecision is delayed, there is a need for a decision. In this case, a person may make the wrong decision than not make any. The person seems to be subject to fate. moral rebirth, the awakening of conscience. The scale of values ​​changes and the internal struggle of motives stops. An internal fracture occurs in a person and a determination arises to act in a specific direction. in some cases, a person chooses a certain course of action. In this case, he strengthens the motive with the help of the will. Reason is replaced by will.

Speech is the process of communication between people through language. Language is a system of conditional symbols, with the help of which combinations of sounds are transmitted that have a certain meaning and meaning for people. The word and speech are the most important content components of the human psyche. Speech affects the course of human mental processes. But speech is especially closely connected with thinking, since thought exists in the word and is expressed by the word. Language acts as a material shell of thought

Learning theory. Every child has the need and ability to imitate. Receiving emotional reinforcement, imitation leads to the rapid assimilation of sounds first, then syllables, words and statements .. thus, mastering speech comes down to learning all the elements, and imitation and reinforcement act as mechanisms for the formation of speech. the theory of specific inclinations by N. Khomsky. He argues that in the human body from birth there are some specific inclinations for the assimilation of speech. They begin to appear towards the end of the first year of a child's life up to three years. It is during this period that speech develops without complications. Outside of this period, it is either quite difficult to learn speech, or even impossible. cognitive theory of J. Piaget. according to this theory, the development of speech occurs due to the innate ability of the child to perceive and intellectually process information. The development of speech is associated with the development of thinking, because. the child begins to initially pronounce the words, the meaning of which he understands. In the period from a year to three, a progressive development of thinking takes place, which creates the prerequisites for the development of speech in this period.

The development of speech is also considered from psycholinguistic positions. According to this theory, the process of speech development is a cyclically repeated transitions from thought to word and from word to thought, which become more and more conscious and rich in content. Initially, a thought is formed into a word, which is both a phrase and a sentence. Then the given word is expanded into whole phrases. As a result, the same thought can be expressed both in one word and in the whole sentence. theory of signs L.S. Vygotsky. According to his theory, at higher levels of development, visual-figurative thinking turns into verbal-logical thinking thanks to the word, which generalizes in itself all the features of a particular object. Thus, the word is a “sign” that allows human thinking to develop to the level of abstract thinking.

Oral speech is a speech that wraps thoughts in sounding words and transmits them to other people. Written speech is a speech that serves as a means of recording and storing information. Kinetic speech is speech that is used mainly as emotional and expressive elements, gestures. External speech - speech that has the corresponding external signs (sound, sign-written, motor, etc.) Inner speech - speech that does not have external signs, is not perceived by other people and is not realized by the person who uses it Dialogic speech - it is speech in the generation of which two people take part.

expression function. With the help of this function, a person expresses his attitude to objects. When speaking, our speech is emotionally colored, which contributes to the best understanding by others of our attitude to the subject we are talking about. impact function. With the help of speech, a person encourages others to take action or take a certain point of view. Usually, this function is implemented through an order, appeal or persuasion. message function. This function is to ensure the implementation of contact between people. notation function. With the help of this function, we are able to think abstractly with the help of abstract concepts. This function is the highest function of speech, its implementation became possible only at the highest levels of speech development.

The emergence of kinetic speech, which is very close to the language of animal communication. This form of speech is associated with primitive figurative thinking. Kinetic speech is understood as the simplest system for transmitting information using body movements. The appearance of gestures. With the gradual separation of speech movements from labor actions and their specialization as a means of communication. The appearance of sound articulate speech, which became a genuine revolution in the development of mankind, the essence of which was that sound speech and thinking could separate from the direct action of the development of writing. Initially, written signs arose and developed under the influence of kinetic speech. Later, with the emergence of sound speech, written signs began to reflect the meaning of sounds. This led to the emergence of modern writing.

The development of speech in a child goes through several stages: the period of preparation of verbal speech. This period begins from the first days of a child's life. period of initial language acquisition. This period begins at the end of the first, beginning of the second year of life. During this period, the need for verbal communication becomes one of the vital needs of the child. The speech of the child is always connected with his activity, the manipulation of objects. Moreover, the word expresses several objects at once. This one word also replaces the whole sentence. the period of development of the child's language in the process of speech practice. This period begins at two and a half years and ends at six years. During this period, the child develops verbal communication, abstracted from the specific situation. At this stage, verbal communication becomes one of the sources for the development of thinking, which, developing, forms the prerequisites for improving the child's speech capabilities. By the end of this period, children usually fully master the phonetics of the language. Their active vocabulary is 2-3 thousand words. stage of speech development in connection with language learning. Enormous shifts are taking place under the influence of learning. In the process of learning, the child masters more complex types of speech: written speech, monologue speech, and techniques of artistic literary speech.

Speech pressure is a speech disorder expressed by pathological speech excitation, in which the patient feels a continuous need to speak and cannot stop his verbose statements. Pretentious speech - is manifested by the patient's use of unusual, obscure, often inappropriate words, accompanied by mannered gestures and grimacing. Mirror speech (echolalia) - involuntarily repeated words heard from others. Monotonous speech is a speech disorder in which there are no changes in intonation. Detailed speech - slow speech, in which the patient expounds unimportant and unimportant details in excessive detail. Perseverative speech is represented by repeated repetition by the subjects of the same word or turn of speech and the inability to find the necessary words and turns to continue the speech. Puerile speech resembles babble, burr and intonation features of children's speech. Rhymed speech is a speech filled with rhymes that the patient often uses to the detriment of meaning. Scanned speech is a speech disorder in which the patient speaks slowly, pronouncing syllables and words separately.

In the parietal part of the cerebral cortex, there is an area that controls human motor activity. It is connected with all parts of the cortex, including the cortical ends of all analyzers. This connection ensures that the excitation that has arisen in any part of the cortex has the ability to reach the motor area and cause a similar process in it. The information from the analyzer, which came to the motor area, serves as a kind of trigger mechanism for the motor reaction. The connection of the motor area of ​​the cortex with other parts of the brain is a prerequisite for conscious movements and actions of a person.

Will has a conditioned reflex nature. On the basis of a temporary nervous connection, a wide variety of associations and their systems are formed and fixed, which in turn creates the conditions for purposeful behavior. The brain continuously receives information about how and what is being done at any given moment. These data are immediately included in the already worked out program of action. If the actions are consistent with the predetermined program, then no changes are made to the course of the action. If information is received that does not correspond to the program created in the cerebral cortex, then either the practical activity or the preliminary program changes. This process is based on the activity of the functional systems of the psyche and the action acceptor.

The reflex nature of volitional regulation of behavior implies the creation in the cerebral cortex focus of optimal excitability, which can be caused not only by the irritant acting at the moment, but also formed on the basis of previously received influences. The center of optimal excitability existing in the cortex requires constant increased attention to itself and supplying it with energy resources, which the person controls, achieving the goals he needs:

Volitional actions are simple or complex will act, which has its own structure and features and includes: the motivation to perform a volitional action, the presentation and understanding of the purpose of the action, the presentation of the means necessary to achieve the intended goal, the intention to carry out this action and the implementation of the decision.

1. Incitement to commit a volitional action. Certain needs and motives of a person act as motivating forces of specific volitional actions. They can be very different. But in any case, they force a person’s thinking to work actively, force him to evaluate the motivation for future behavior, and set certain goals for himself.

2. Presentation and comprehension of the purpose of the action. As a result
arises struggle of motives(i.e., the process of determining the most significant stimulus of volitional action), which serves as an indicator of a person’s ability to establish connections, understand, choose desires due to the necessary motives, and turn them into a goal. On the other hand, the struggle of motives shows a person's ability to strain, make efforts, makes one think about responsibility for the consequences associated with achieving or not achieving the goal, that is, to show will. In the course of the struggle of motives, target activity, comprehended its main specificity.

Presentation of the means necessary to achieve the intended goal. Usually, not only the goal of volitional action is comprehended, but also the means and methods for achieving it, the correct use of which determines the achievement of a specific result.

The intention to take this action. In the course of the struggle of motives, comprehension of the goal of activity and the choice of ways to achieve it, a person makes a decision. To do this is to distinguish one desire from others and thus create an ideal image of the goal. But in order to make a decision, you need to mobilize yourself for its implementation. This requires volitional effort. It is characterized by the amount of energy spent on performing a purposeful action or keeping from it. Initially, a person must realize his volitional efforts and decide on them.

Implementation of the decision. The person then proceeds to the practical implementation of the decision. He builds his behavior in such a way that the plan existing in his consciousness is embodied in a thing, object, movement, labor, mental skill, act. However, a person not only acts, he shows will, controls and corrects his actions. At every moment, he compares the result obtained with the ideal image of the goal (or part of it), which was created in advance.

A volitional act is performed with greater or lesser tension. This is the so-called willpower. It is characterized by the amount of energy spent on performing a purposeful action or keeping from it. For example, one student does not need much energy to start doing homework in mathematics and finish them, while another needs to work hard, “sweat” to cope with the task. In both the first and second cases, effort is necessary, but its intensity will be different. A different degree of volitional effort can also manifest itself in one person, since she is not equally prepared and disposed for all matters.

Volitional effort permeates all links of the volitional act, but it arises in connection with difficulties. Obstacles, reflected in the mind, give rise to a state of tension, from which you can get rid of either by refusing to overcome difficulties, therefore, from the goal, or by volitional effort to overcome them in practical activity.

It is customary to distinguish between simple and complex volitional actions. Simple, as a rule, have two links - the presentation of the goal and the execution. In them, one link follows another immediately, without intermediate links. In a complex volitional action, all these five links are clearly indicated.

Will and its possible physiological mechanisms. When a person makes a decision and is going to implement it, i.e. achieve the desired success, then he needs to take an action to do this. However, such an action is often associated with various kinds of obstacles. Sometimes they are so strong that it is impossible to overcome them. Sometimes these obstacles are insignificant, trifling. But in all these cases, a special mechanism is needed to recognize the obstacles and overcome them. Such a mechanism exists in the brain, and its external manifestation is a special mental process called “will”. There are various options for defining this most important component of the human psyche: 1) will is the regulating side of consciousness, thanks to which a person is able to perform deliberate actions, while overcoming various difficulties and obstacles;

2) will is a starting and braking process aimed at achieving the goal;

3) will is a conscious control of behavior;

4) will is a process due to which the stabilization of behavior aimed at satisfying the dominant need occurs;

5) will is the process of realizing the need to achieve the goal, despite the obstacles. Imposing one's will on another person is called suggestion.

According to I.P. Pavlova, the physiological basis of the will is the "freedom reflex", or "resistance reflex". This innate reflex is the realization of the need to overcome obstacles, including overcoming other motivations. Modern physiology believes that the frontal cortex, together with the hypothalamus, is the substrate that controls behavior, i.e. will. It is the interaction of these two structures that leads to the stabilization of behavior aimed at satisfying the dominant need. When these structures are damaged, lack of will is observed.

Among such GNI concepts as need, motivation, action, goal, positive and negative emotions, reinforcement, the concept of “will” occupies an important place, since at the expense of will the need generates motivation; at the same time, an action is realized due to the will.

aimed at satisfying the need. The positive emotions that arise when the goal is achieved serve as a kind of reward, or reinforcement, for the volitional mechanism. Negative emotions that arise in the absence of a visible achievement of the goal also serve as a stimulus for the implementation of volitional efforts, as they increase mental, vegetative and somatic activity.

Will is a conditioned reflex process formed on the basis of the unconditioned freedom reflex. It is obvious that there are many conditioned reflexes formed in ontogeny that make up the essence of behavior control. For example, a person may have a great will to achieve labor success and be almost weak-willed in everyday life. Reinforcement in the form of positive emotions probably plays an extremely important role in the formation of the will reflex. From this point of view, like any other conditioned reflexes, behavior control reflexes go through a stage of generalization, a stage of specialization, and a stage of automation; thus, volitional skills and abilities are formed. External and internal inhibition plays an important role in the implementation of behavior control reflexes.

Volitional process reflected by the following positive and negative (in the absence of will)