Download Evolutionary Psycology Part 2-History of Psycology-Lecture Handout and more Exercises History of Psychology in PDF only on Docsity! History and Systems of Psychology – PSY502 VU Lesson 26 HISTORICO-EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY Alexei Leontiev (1904-1979) Alexei Leontiev Alexei Leontiev was born in 1904 and he died in 1979. He worked with Vygotsky from 1924 to 1930, collaborating on the development of a new school in psychology as a response to behaviorism and the focus on stimulus-response mechanism as explanation for human behavior. Leontiev left Vygotsky's group in Moscow in 1931. He continued to work with Vygotsky for some time but, eventually, there was a split, although they continued to communicate with one another on scientific matters. Leontiev returned to Moscow in 1950 as Head of the Psychology Department at the Faculty of Philosophy of Moscow State University. In 1966, Leontiev became the first ever Dean of the newly established Faculty of Psychology at the Moscow State University, where he worked until his death in 1979. He died of a heart attack Leontiev also tried to look at how consciousness developed in human beings. Therefore, he is also included among the Historico-Evolutionary psychologists. Historico-Evolutionary Psychology tried to see how consciousness in humans developed, what exact role it played in different historical stages of man’s development and how it impacts behavior. To answer these questions related to the development of consciousness of man, Leontiev put forward the view that consciousness is a product of sensitivity to symbolic stimuli. When the body receives stimuli from the environment, it reacts to them. Leontiev classified these stimuli into two categories. The first category was of the ordinary stimuli which were, for example, touching something hot, seeing something coming towards you etc. Humans tend to respond to these stimuli. Leontiev classified another kind of stimuli which he called the symbolic stimuli. The symbolic stimuli were related to the ordinary stimuli but they represented something different. For example, the ringing of bell might be considered as dangerous. This means that the bell is a symbolic stimulus which symbolizes danger. Another example of a symbolic stimulus is that when a person hears about food, his or her mouth starts to water. Therefore, hearing about food represents a symbolic stimulus. A parallel explanation could be seen between the concept of learning by conditioning given by Pavlov and the explanation of development of consciousness given by Leontiev. According to Leontiev we learn these symbolic stimuli by conditioning. Pavlov conducted experiments on dogs. He associated the ringing of a bell with food. When the dog was given food, a bell was rung. The food caused the dog to salivate. Later it was seen that the dog had started to expect food with the ringing of the bell as it salivated every time the bell was rung, even though food was not presented to it. The response of the dog was said to be a conditioned response. Similarly, Leontiev said that man also learns these symbolic stimuli through conditioning. As a person finds that whenever any danger appeared a bell is rung, he starts to associate the ringing of a bell with the danger. Therefore, the ringing of the bell serves as the symbolic stimulus for him. ©Copyright Virtual University of Pakistan 60 docsity.com
