Английский язык учебник

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human babies. There was some evidence of a critical pe riod between roughly the 30th and 90th days after birth, when attachment became strong and security firm. Another important observation was the distort ed emotional development of monkeys raised in wire cages or with wire mothers. The monkeys tended to be: (a) lacking affection; (b) lacking a will to co oper ate; (c) aggressive; and (d) deficient in sexual re sponses to other monkeys.

Cattell, in his seminal dynamic trait theory of moti vation, postulated a framework of interdependent fac tors called the dynamic lattice, using a technique known as factor analysis. Starting from a large number of measures by which human attitudes could be as sessed (devices), he produced two basic motivational in fluences. One he called ergs innate sources of reactivity to human needs such as food seeking, mating, gregari ousness. fear, self assertion, narcism (self care), pugnaci ty and acquisitiveness. Note that the needs included in this list are both viscerogenic and psychogenic in Mur ray’s terms: they go well beyond the physiological needs. The other influence he termed sentiments — acquired sources of reactivity to persons, objects and social institutions. Examples of sentiments already discussed are self semiment (the desire to maintain a favourable image in the eyes of oneself and signifi cant others, and comparable with the self concept), superego (rule abiding and maintaining a “moral” reputation), career, sweetheart/spouse, parental home, religion and sport.

Cognitive theories

The two previous groups of theories, instinct and need drive, place considerable emphasis on human be ings as passive agents, pawns in nature’s grand plan for the survival of the fittest. While some theorists ac knowledge the role of secondary needs, which to some

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extent are under the control of the individual, essen tially they are regarded as linked to the primary needs, which are rarely in one’s consciousness (e.g. we don’t sit down to a meal with our minds fixed on the need to nourish the body tissues).

Cognitive theorists hold that the intervention of human thinking has a substantial influence on our mo tivations (hence cognitive theories). A person’s aware ness of what is happening to him or her has an impor tant effect on future behaviour in similar situations. Perceiving, interpreting, selecting, storing and using information from the environment are crucial proces ses which affect our present and future motivation. In fact, this view has a lot in common with the field of in formation processing. Thus environmental information is perceived and processed in such a way as to have an impact on future parallel events.

As an illustration of the way our reaction to an event could be tempered by previous experience and our present perceptions, take a question and answer session in class. A particular child’s willingness to res pond (stressing that humans have a choice and do not simply react mechanically) will depend on many expe riential and circumstantial factors, e.g. what has hap pened previously when answering a particular teacher, how difficult the questions are, how other children view those who are willing to answer questions, and so on. It will be observed that the influences quoted here are en vironmental/ social.

One advanced cognitive theory was expounded by Rotter. Three basic concepts are behaviour potential, ex pectancy and reinforcement value. Behaviour potential is the likelihood that a person will respond in a given situation in order to receive reinforcement. This likeli hood of a person reacting in a given setting will depend on that person’s expectation of a reward, i.e. reinforce ment, and the value that person places on the reward. The expectations are that certain kinds of action (be

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haviours) will give rise to corresponding outcomes which will reward (or punish). The likelihood of a pupil completing homework set in a lesson will depend, in part, on how much the pupil values the rewards which accrue from completing it, e.g. mastering the work, praise from the teacher, achieving a good grade, learn ing for some future important exam, pleasing parents who value work at home, etc.

Another concept of locus of control by Rotter has been developed in recent years. A person grows to be lieve that his or her own actions will bring about rein forcements he or she values most. This is referred to as internal control. Examples of internally controlling factors are personal competence and effort. The logic of this statement is self evident: a person who is com petent at something (e.g. mathematics) and likes doing it is most likely to succeed by his or her own efforts and be reinforced and knows it! External control, that is, reinforcement which is beyond the control of an in dividual, is exemplified by luck or by the difficulty of the task. These are not within the control of an indi vidual.

This approach must not be confused with Skinner’s behaviourist view which also highlights the influence of the environment as a source of stimulation and rein forcement. Although Rotter uses terms familiar to be haviourists (extinction, reinforcement), the fundamen tal distinction between Rotter and Skinner lies in Rot ter’s emphasis on a situation having meaning for a per son in order to initiate and guide subsequent beha viour, that is, he introduces elements of conscious con trol. For Skinner this excursion into consciousness is irrelevant.

A line of argument presented by some cognitive psychologists suggests that activity by humans need not be the result of a stimulus (homeostatic need, pain, external incentive, etc.). Berlyne refers to ludic beha viour (actively seeking out particular kinds of external

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CREATIVITY

The ability to juxtapose ideas in a new and unusual way to find solutions to problems, create new inven tions, or to produce works of art.

Any human endeavor can involve creativity and is not limited to just the arts. Numerous theories of crea tivity were proposed by twentieth century psycholo gists, educators and other social scientists. Howard Gruber, who worked to understand creativity by study ing the lives of famous innovators, found broad com mon characteristics: (1) they were engaged in a variety of activities within their chose fields; (2) they held a strong sense of purpose about their work; (3) they had a profound emotional attachment to their work; and (4) they tended to conceptualize problems in terms of all encompassing images. Graham Wallas’s 1962 study of well known scientists and other innovators yielded a widely used four stage breakdown of the creative pro cess. The preparation stage consists of formulating a problem, studying previous work on it, and thinking intensely about it, In the incubation stage, there is no visible progress on the problem; it may be periodically “mulled over”, but it is largely left dominant, allowing subconscious ideas about it to emerge. In the illumina tion stage, an important insight about the problem is reached, often in a sudden, intuitive fashion. In the fi nal, or verification stage, the idea is tested and eva luated.

Creativity differs from the kinds of abilities mea sured by standard intelligence tests. Creative people tend to have average or above average scores on IQ tests. Beyond an IQ of 120, there is little correlation between intelligence and creativity. J.P. Guilford first distinguished the thought processes of creative people from those of other people in terms of convergent and

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divergent thinking. Convergent thinking – the type re quired for traditional IQ tests – involves the applica tion of logic and knowledge to narrow the number of possible solutions to a problem until one’s thoughts “converge” on the most appropriate choice. In con trast, divergent — the kind most closely associated with creativity and originality – involves the ability to envision multiple ways to solve a problem. Guilford identified three aspects of divergent thinking: fluency entails the ability to come up with many different solu tions to a problem in a short amount of time; flexibility is the capacity to consider many alternatives at the same time; and originality refers to the difference bet ween a person’s ideas and those of most other people.

Special tests, such as the Consequences Test, have been designed to assess creativity. Instead of based on one correct answer for each question, as in conven tional intelligence tests, the scoring on these tests is based on the number of different plausible responses generated for each question, or the extent to which a person’s answers differ from those of most other test takers. Typical questions asked on such tests include “imagine all of the things that might possibly happen if all national and local laws were suddenly abolished” and “name as many uses as you can think of for a paper clip.” While divergent thinking is important to the creative process, it is not the sole element necessary for creative achievement. Researchers have found lit tle correlation between the scores of fifth and tenth graders on divergent thinking tests and their actual achievements in high school in such fields as art, dra ma and science.

It appears that creative accomplishment requires both divergent and convergent thinking. Originality is not the only criterion of a successful solution to a prob lem; It must also be appropriate for its purpose, and

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convergent thinking allows one to evaluate ideas and discard them if they are inappropriate in the light of existing information. In addition, studies of people known for their creative accomplishments show that certain personality traits that may be impossible to measure on a test – such as motivation, initiative, tole rance for ambiguity, and independent judgment — are commonly associated with creativity. Other traits known to be shared by highly creative people include self confidence, nonconformity, ambition and perse verance. Albert Einstein (1879 1955) once remarked that for every hundred thoughts he had, one turned out to be correct.

In a 1986 study, a group of researchers identified three essential criteria for creative achievement: ex pertise in a specific field, which must be learned; cre ative skills, including divergent thinking; and the mo tivation to engage in creative activity for its own sake regardless of external reward. In this study, terms cre ated by people who were told that their work would be judged and possibly rewarded for creativity were found to be less creative that the results produced by those who were simply asked to work on a project with no prospect of external reward.

Creativity does not appear to be inherited. Studies with identical twins raised separately show that envi ronmental influences play at least as great a role in the development of creativity as intelligence. Creative skills of identical twins reared apart vary more than their intellectual abilities. Studies have shown that re inforcing novel ideas in both children and adults leads to increased creativity. The originality of block ar rangements produced by four year olds increased dra matically when novel designs were praised by adults; when this positive reinforcement was stopped, the chil dren reverted to producing unimaginative patterns.

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Other studies have used similar techniques to boost creativity scores of fifth graders, the originality of stories written by sixth graders, and increased the ability of college students to produce novel word asso ciations. One interesting finding in studies such as these is that positively reinforcing one kind of creative activity encourages original thinking in other areas as well. The play of children is closely related to the de velopment of creativity. The sensory stimulation that results from exposure to new objects and activities re inforces the exploratory impulse in both children and adults and results in an openness to new experiences and ideas that fosters creative thinking.

Schools as well as families can encourage creativity by offering children activities that give them an active role in their learning, allow them freedom to explore within a loosely structured framework and participa tion in creative activities for enjoyment rather than an external reward.

Gale Encyclopedia of Psychology, 2nd ed., Gale Group, 2001

COMMUNICATION AS AN EXCHANGE

OF INFORMATION

Communication in the narrow sense of the word re fers to the fact that, in the course of joint activities, people exchange various proposals, ideas, interests, moods, emotions, sets, etc. All of this can be consi dered as information, allowing the process of commu nication to be understood as a process of the exchange of information. In many aspects of socio psychological knowledge, the entire process of human communica tion is interpreted in terms of the theory of informa tion. However, such an approach cannot be considered as methodologically correct, since highly important

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characteristics as, for example, human communication are omitted which are not reduced only to the process of transferring information. Still another substantial oversight here is that in this approach basically only one direction of the flow of information is considered, namely, the one from the communication to the recipi ent. Only the formal aspect is analysed when human communication is investigated from the point of view of the theory of information; the way in which the in formation is communicated, but in actual fact, under the normal conditions of human communication, in formation is not only communicated, but also formed, improved and developed.

Therefore, in including the potential for the appli cation of certain positions of the theory of information in describing the communicative aspect of communica tion, it is necessary to place precisely all the accents and to reveal the specifics in the very process of the in formation exchange going on in communication.

First, communication cannot be considered as the dispatch of information through some sort of trans mitting system or as its reception by another system because, unlike the “simple movement of information” between two systems, between two contraptions, we are here involved with the relations between two individu als, both being active subjects: their mutually in formed state presupposes an adjusting of joint activi ties. This means that each participant in the communi cative process also presupposes the activity of his part ner. He cannot consider him simply an object. The other participant also appears as a subject and hence it is necessary, while directing the information towards him, orientate, on him, i.e. his motives, goals and atti tudes must be analysed ( in addition to the analysis of one’s own goals, motives and attitudes, of course). In such an instance it is necessary to presume that the an swer to the information sent fort will be new informa tion sent back by the partner. Therefore, in the commu

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nicative process an active exchange of information takes place rather than just a simple “movement of in formation”. According to Jaromir Janousek, the main “increase” in a specifically human exchange of infor mation is found in the special role the significance of information plays for each participant. Information ac quires significance because people do not simply “ex change” meanings but attempt to derive some general sense from the exchange. This is possible only under the condition that the information is not simply re ceived but also comprehended. Therefore each commu nicative process represents a unity of activities, com munication and knowledge.

Secondly, the character of the exchange of infor mation between people is different from the exchange of information between cybernetic devices because partners can have influence upon each other through a system of signs. In other words, an exchange, of such information necessarily presupposes an influence on the behaviour of the partner, that is, the sign changes the condition of the participants of the communicative process. The communicative influence arising here is nothing other that the psychological influence of one communicant on another with the purpose of changing his behaviour. The effectiveness of communication is measured by the success of this influence. This, in a definite sense, signifies the change of the type of rela tions which formed between the participants in com munication. Nothing of the kind takes place in “pure” information processes.

Thirdly, the communicative influence as a result of an exchange of information is possible only when a per son sending the information and a person receiving the information possess either the same or similar systems or coding and decoding. In everyday language, this rule is expressed in the phrase, “everybody must speak the same language”. This is especially important in the light of the fact that the communicator and recipient