What is a cognitive need?

Three whales cognitive needs

The cognitive need did not immediately acquire the rights of citizenship. For a long time, scientists believed that this need only serves all others. You need to eat, and you need to find food, find out where it is, how to get it - this is where the cognitive need arises. Who are friends, who are enemies, whose territory is again a cognitive need for help. In a word, hunger, thirst, the instinct of procreation, protection of offspring - the cognitive need serves only as a means of satisfying them.

That is why we know less about cognitive needs than about others. It took a lot of research, a lot of debate among scientists (sometimes bloody in a scientific sense, of course) for a serious conversation about cognitive needs to become possible. First of all, its independence was proven. Let us describe several experiments. The first experiment is quite unusual. A man plunges into water; The water is neither particularly warm nor cold, about 34 degrees. The face is covered with a paraffin mask, so that the person can neither see nor hear. He also cannot move in the water. There is a button that the subject can press if he becomes completely unbearable. All organic needs are fully satisfied as needed.

It turned out that most subjects could not stand this condition for long. Some - two to three hours, some - a little more. Without exception, everyone characterizes their condition in the water as extremely difficult. Some subjects experienced mental disorders, although they disappeared quite quickly.

What's going on? A person has a very comfortable ambient temperature, nothing threatens him, he experiences neither hunger nor thirst - and yet he experiences extremely negative emotions. He feels bad!

Psychologists have come to the conclusion that there is a special need at work here - the need for impressions, the need for an influx of new information. The need for impressions is one of the elementary manifestations of cognitive needs.

Then they decided to change the experience somewhat. Now the subject was no longer immersed in water, but left in an ordinary room. True, not quite ordinary. The room was closed from external influences, no sounds of any kind reached here, there were no windows in it. The subject was thus completely isolated from the outside world. As in the previous experiment, all the natural needs of a person were fully satisfied, he knew for sure that nothing threatened him. As soon as he becomes completely unbearable, he can submit symbol, and the experiment will be terminated.

It turned out that a long stay in this psychological chamber was extremely painful for the subjects. And although their stay in these conditions was no longer measured in hours, but in days, the condition of the subjects at the exit was very difficult. And precisely because the cognitive need was not satisfied. As soon as a person was given appropriate intellectual food (books, paper, etc.), the experimental picture changed dramatically.

The independence of cognitive needs from organic needs is already demonstrated by young children. They clearly demonstrate this need (reaching for a toy, looking at their surroundings) precisely when they experience neither hunger nor thirst, when nothing bothers them.

Of course, a person’s cognitive need is a completely and only human characteristic. However, animals also have certain prerequisites for its development; some of the roots of this need can be traced to them.

Here is an experiment demonstrating the independence of cognitive needs in animals.

Bananas have just been placed in the cage where the monkey is sitting. A monkey from another cage extends his paw towards them. The lattice is large, so with a little effort, your neighbor will take all the bananas. But at this time a box appears in the cage, in which something is mysteriously knocking (it’s just a metronome). The monkey has a difficult choice, a struggle of motives, as psychologists say. What to prefer? The monkey chooses a box (however, not all monkeys do this, and, in addition, the monkey must be sufficiently well-fed).

Now psychologists are convinced that the cognitive need is not a servant of other needs, but an independent, independent science of the individual.

The means of satisfying a cognitive need is always new knowledge, new information. It was the lack of new impressions that caused in people the difficult state that arose in the experiments described above.

New knowledge, of course, does not at all mean the need to move on to a new object each time. Take, for example, reading books - perhaps the most common way to satisfy cognitive needs. Very often, when rereading a book you already know, you suddenly discover something completely new in it. There is even evidence that people who are prone to re-reading books are distinguished by a special depth of mind. And one famous literary critic believes that any serious book must be read twice. From the first time, the reader learns only the plot of the work or a set of specific facts; The author’s very intention, his ultimate task, can be understood by already knowing all these specifics. Interesting point of view!

By the way, one of the definitions of creativity refers to obtaining new information from familiar objects. (Everyone knows what it is; someone comes along who doesn't know it, and as a result a discovery is made).

The following is also very important: acquiring new knowledge does not extinguish the cognitive need, but, on the contrary, strengthens it. The cognitive need in a developed form becomes unsaturated - than more people finds out, the more he wants to know.

In this sense (as in many other respects) the cognitive need is fundamentally different from any organic needs. In the latter, one can sharply draw a line: the need to eat (the person is hungry, thirsty) or has disappeared, satisfied (the person is full, does not feel thirsty).

A real cognitive need cannot be satisfied: it is limitless, just as knowledge itself is limitless.

There has been a long debate about how the cognitive need operates - actively or passively.

Proponents of the first point of view believed this: as soon as a person begins to get used to environment, he develops a specific state of boredom, and he himself seeks new impressions, new information. There is a need for knowledge. Whatever this need is expressed in, it is always active. A person reads books, performs experiments, or at worst goes to the cinema, buys an illustrated magazine.

Proponents of the second point of view believed that cognitive need is something like a mirror in which everything is reflected. Something appears in the field of vision - a person makes an assessment (consciously or unconsciously), whether it is new or already familiar, interesting or not very interesting, worth considering or not worth considering. If it is new and interesting, then the cognitive need begins to operate. In other words, a cognitive need arises when there are already opportunities to satisfy it. Not boredom, that is, an internal need forces a person to look for something new, and external stimuli cause a state of cognitive need. A person passively follows a new stimulus, new problem, unable to get away from them.

The dispute was resolved by several very striking experiments. Let's list just a few of them.

In the same experiment in the psychological chamber that was described above, there were several subjects in whom a serious state did not appear at all (or was very smoothed out), despite a long stay in the chamber. It turns out that these subjects found a source of satisfying their cognitive needs in vigorous activity. They wrote poems and came up with problems. One of the subjects, a mathematician by training, remembering and re-deriving a theorem he had once learned, at the same time deduced several new ones. By the way, these days his condition has improved sharply, and according to the total score, he endured this very difficult test better than anyone else.

The activity of cognitive needs is especially pronounced in children.

The Belgian scientist Nutten conducted such an experiment. In the experimental room, two machines were installed - A and B. Machine A is all shiny with multi-colored lights and bright handles. Machine B is much simpler in appearance, there is nothing colorful or bright in it, but in this machine the handles can be moved depending on this, turn the light bulbs on and off yourself.

When the five-year-old children participating in the experiment entered the room, then, of course, they first of all paid attention to the elegant machine A. After playing with it, they discovered machine B, and it turned out to be the most interesting for them. The children moved their hands, turned the light bulbs on and off - in a word, they showed cognitive activity.

The experiment was modified in every possible way, but the conclusion each time turned out to be the same: children prefer the most elegant, bright object to one with which they can actively act. (Remember what toys children love most.)

Now scientists no longer doubt: cognitive need is characterized primarily by activity.

…Scientists continue to struggle with Fermat’s famous theorem, although its conclusion has long been known. It is not known how it was proven. In a number of sciences - astronomy, biology, medicine - complex experiments are being conducted, the results of which will be known only to distant descendants (for example, experiments on long-term suspended animation of animals).

Of course, on the scale of all science, this work is quite understandable. However, what motivates each individual scientist who undertakes work, the result of which is already known, or, on the contrary, will certainly not be known to him? The motivation here is not at all simple, but there is no doubt that there is a need for the very process of searching for truth.

The student wants to solve the problem on his own (there are still such students), although the solution can be obtained from a neighbor.

Riddle a riddle to a friend and immediately offer a solution, and you will see how your subject’s face lengthens. You ruined his small, but still a holiday of the mind - the opportunity to find the solution to this trifling problem himself.

Even in the distorted cognitive need - the love of detective stories - there is the joy of intellectual search. (It is said that one English detective lover filed for divorce from his wife only because she wrote the name of the criminal in the margins. The court found his statement to be quite justified.) Montaigne gives an amusing fact. One day, when Democritus was eating figs that smelled like honey during lunch, he suddenly thought about where this unusual sweetness came from in figs, and to find out, he got up from the table, wanting to examine the place where these figs were picked . His maid, having learned why he was alarmed, laughing, told him not to bother himself: she simply put the figs in the honey jar. Democritus was annoyed that she had deprived him of a reason to investigate and had taken away from him the subject that had aroused his curiosity. Go away,” he told her, “you caused me trouble; I will still look for the cause of this phenomenon as if it were natural. And he did not fail to find some true basis to explain this phenomenon, although it was false and imaginary.

Of course, like any activity, cognitive activity, driven by a cognitive need, has its own specific goals, its own range of actions planned based on the result. And the cognitive need also refers to an orientation towards a certain result. However, orientation to the result only sets the direction of thought. Cognitive need, first of all, is the need to move towards a result, in the process of cognition itself.

The end result here is impossible. Any knowledge, any result is only a milestone, a stage on the path of knowledge.

The activity of the cognitive need, the desire for the process of cognition itself, is possible only thanks to another feature of this need - pleasure from mental stress and the positive emotional state associated with it. The cognitive need manifests itself, develops, and strengthens as a need because the mechanism of positive emotions is activated along with it. Without emotions there is no need, including cognitive needs.

Cognitive activity (but not a need) can be carried out (and sometimes very successfully) without such pleasure - out of the desire to earn an A, a diploma, world fame.

The student studies diligently so that they don’t scold him at home. A student sits over his textbooks during a session to receive a scholarship. This does not apply to cognitive needs. But the same student, coming home from school and having barely had lunch, grabs a book about animals and, forgetting about everything, reads until he finishes. Having devoured one book, he takes on the next. Every time the need for knowledge grows. And the more this need is reinforced, the stronger it becomes.

In its highest development, the cognitive need becomes, as already mentioned, insatiable. It is impossible to re-know.

Joy at the moment of intellectual activity (which some people experience more intensely, others less intensely, but which is familiar to everyone) can now be registered. A number of strictly physiological indicators (electroencephalographic, biochemical) indicate that at the moment of intellectual tension, along with the area of ​​the brain engaged in mental work, as a rule, the center of positive emotions is also excited. For some people, this connection is so strong and strong that deprivation of intellectual activity leads them to a serious condition.

What exactly does the feeling of pleasure include during full intellectual activity?

Some scientists believe that the point here is mental tone, which becomes optimally high at the moment of intense mental activity, that is, high activity in itself is pleasant. Others believe that joy and pleasure are the result of a certain connection between the center of positive emotions and the activity of the brain departments that manage mental work. We turn on one, the other turns on at the same time. Evolution, so to speak, made sure that Noto became hargsth, and chose such a mechanism. Still others believe that at the moment of successful intellectual activity, there is a kind of release of searching, problematic tension; this produces a feeling of satisfaction.

We will not go into scientific disputes in which scientific truth should be born. The fact remains: full-fledged mental activity causes a feeling of joy, pleasure, and this feeling intensifies and strengthens in the process of intellectual activity.

So, the cognitive need rests on three pillars: activity, the need for the process of mental activity itself, and the pleasure of mental work.

People cannot live without needs. Everyone has a cognitive need. For some, the need is expressed in scientific passion, while for others in the love of crosswords and detective stories, etc.

Need is the objective need of the organism in certain conditions that ensure its life and development. All needs are characterized, first of all, by subject content, i.e. targeting a specific object. The object to which the need is directed is the direct stimulator of activity. Needs are characterized by their periodic updating.

Human needs do not remain unchanged: some needs become more complex, others die out and new needs arise.

The basis for a change in need is, on the one hand, a change in the range of objects that satisfy the need, and on the other, a change in the method of satisfaction.

The Encyclopedic Dictionary gives the following definition of need: “Need is internal state, expressing the dependence of a living organism on the specific conditions of the individual’s activity.”

The pedagogical dictionary gives the following definition of need: “Needs are the need for something that is objectively necessary for the maintenance of life and development of the human personality and society as a whole.”

The pedagogical significance of needs follows from their role in personality development. Therefore, only such pedagogical influence will lead to the desired result, which correctly takes into account the needs of the child, adolescent and which is one way or another aimed at nurturing these needs through various motives of the child’s activity.

The concept of cognitive need has come a long way to date, including a complete denial of the need as an independent one and its “exaltation” as central in the hierarchy of human needs. Since the 50s, it has been shown that the cognitive need does not “serve” other needs, but is an independent need of the individual, which has its own tasks in the structure of behavior. A number of aspects of cognitive need, namely its structure, dynamics, and connection with other needs remain the subject of serious debate. The very definition of the essence of cognitive need is also controversial.

Cognitive need and its formation have not been sufficiently studied in the psychological and pedagogical literature. IN Lately interest in this problem has increased, firstly, in connection with the study of the patterns of comprehensive personality development, an integral part of which is the development of cognitive needs, and secondly, in connection with the study of the motivational regulation of mental activity, and in particular the motivational conditioning of creative thinking.

O.K. Tikhomirova emphasized the importance of analyzing the needs for the development of new knowledge, which, along with the needs for searching for knowledge, relate to the actual intellectual cognitive needs. However, there are difficulties in solving this problem, primarily of a methodological nature.

According to V.S. Yurkevich, cognitive need is based on three pillars: activity, the need for the very process of mental activity and pleasure from mental work.

A cognitive need, if it is caused specifically by a cognitive need, may not be related to the specific practical goals of the individual (the possibility of reward, social success, etc.) and in this sense the cognitive need is “disinterested.” This allows us to separate the cognitive need, directed precisely by the need for cognition, from activities motivated by other needs: “the need for achievement,” “the need for success,” etc.

We often hear that by the end of primary school the need for learning in general fades away, hence the loss of interest in learning, and learning is a supporting link in the formation of a cognitive need. Well, fading leads to dissatisfaction with educational activities. Every activity begins with needs.

A need, according to A.N. Leontiev, is the direction of a child’s activity, a mental state that creates a prerequisite for activity. However, the need itself does not determine the nature of the activity; this is explained by the fact that in the “need” state itself, the object and satisfaction are not strictly written down: the same need can be satisfied with different objects, in different ways. The subject of its satisfaction is determined only when a person begins to act - this leads, as psychologists say, to the “objectification” of the need. But without need, the child’s activity does not awaken, he does not develop motives, and he is not ready to set goals.

According to L.I. Bozhovich, every child is characterized by a need for new impressions, which turns into an unsatisfied cognitive need. If a student has not actualized this broad cognitive need, which creates readiness for learning activities, then he does not move on to other, more active forms of behavior. For example, in setting goals, if the teacher fails to rely on the cognitive needs of schoolchildren and use them to independently set goals for students, then he has no choice but to set ready-made goals for students.

In cases where the need for general cognitive activity does not find expression in forms of independence in the student’s educational activities, difficulties arise in working with the student: his unfulfilled needs can find a way out in stubbornness, conflict and other undesirable forms of behavior.

And finally, it is important for the teacher to specifically use the question of the content of the educational activity in which the need is realized. The so-called unsatisfiable need can be satisfied in different ways in educational activities - it depends on the conditions academic work, teacher requirements. In some cases, the cognitive need can be satisfied by already receiving good grades, in others - with properly organized educational activities - by the student's orientation towards the internal content of the educational activity, the methods of actions performed. In the course of the educational activity itself - depending on the conditions of its organization, its general atmosphere, the type of communication with the teacher - the needs of learning are formed, restructured, and improved. In the process of educational activity, not only the actual indicative component of needs changes, but also the social attitudes of learning - the need for inclusion in socially significant work, for another person, the need for self-improvement, etc. All this creates the basis for the emergence of a specifically human need for activity, for creation.

Cognitive need in its most typical form primarily acts as a situationally arising cognitive need, generated by the conditions of a specific task and the peculiarities of communication and interpersonal interaction. A situationally generated cognitive need arises in the conditions of such intellectual tasks, in the process of solving which a problematic situation arises, requiring the subject to “discover” new knowledge or a method of action that ensures the solution of the task. Cognitive need, thus, is born in task situations, the conditions of which appear primarily as subjectively known and familiar. Only in the process of solution itself is revealed the discrepancy between the used habitual methods of action and the requirements of the problem, which constitute its “hidden” conditions, and the impossibility of solving it using known methods. The requirements of the task revealed in this way appear as “new” ones, imposed by the intellectual task on mental activity. New requirements of a mental task act as a source of situational generation of cognitive needs and a condition for the emergence of search cognitive activity aimed at discovering the unknown. A situationally generated cognitive need, thus, arises on the basis of new demands “imposed” on cognitive activity by the emerging problem situation. We can also say that a cognitive need arises in a problematic situation. Needs need to be developed and strengthened in order to arouse in the child a desire to develop his capabilities, to self-cultivate his abilities.

Further research has shown that the desire for knowledge, or, in other words, the cognitive need, is most responsible for the level of development of mental abilities. It is thanks to the highly developed need for cognition (currently there are several concepts to denote the desire for mental activity: mental activity, cognitive need, intellectual activity) that children develop abilities, and to a greater extent, the better. V.S. Yurkevich in his work identifies the main characteristics of cognitive needs.

1. Cognitive need is, first of all, the need for new information, however, new information itself can appear in the most various forms: in a new stimulus (new color of an object, unexpected sound, unusual shape), in new knowledge about the subject (its purpose, structure, etc.), and finally, in a new system of ideas about the world (scientific knowledge, science in general). Both the most elementary and the most complex methods of satisfying a cognitive need generally characterize the same cognitive need, however, depending on these methods, the levels of development of the cognitive need differ.

If the infant’s cognitive need is satisfied with a new rattle, a new unusual sound (the level of need for impressions), then the preschooler, in order to satisfy his passion for knowledge, already needs children’s books, films and stories from adults. The age from two to five years is the age of “why”, when the child is most in an active way trying to understand the world around him. This is the initial stage of another level - curiosity. In its further development, in a teenager or high school student, the cognitive need reaches a higher level - purposeful activity, when the student strives for a special area of ​​​​knowledge and on this basis his interests and inclinations arise, develop, and strengthen.

Without going into an analysis of each level, we can emphasize that, appearing from the birth of a child and being an integral characteristic of the life of every person, cognitive need fundamentally changes with age, consistently becoming more complex, with more complex levels of cognitive need replacing more elementary ones. With age, the differences between children and, accordingly, adults in the complexity of ways to satisfy cognitive needs increase sharply. Each person, child or adult, to one degree or another has different levels of satisfaction of cognitive needs, but one of the levels is leading, and it depends on it general level intellectual development.

2. Precisely from the fact of existence different ways satisfying a cognitive need implies the fact that the cognitive need is “not sated.”

A person needs new knowledge, new stimuli almost at every moment of life, without this a person literally gets sick.

Cognitive need is one of the few that cannot be fully satisfied. It always manifests itself (excluding sleep time, of course), either in a more complex form (different types of cognition) or in the most simplified form.

3. Cognitive need is independent of the tasks of adaptation to a specific situation and is aimed, first of all, at the process of cognition itself. The “unselfishness” of the cognitive need, its orientation mainly towards the process and not towards the result - most important characteristic this need. A student who truly loves mathematics rejoices at every new problem and will not be at all happy if he is suddenly given a ready-made solution. But it is not only mathematically gifted children who exhibit this need to “rack their brains.” Pleasure from the process of cognition itself, no matter in what form it may be, is familiar to every person, and this is the most characteristic feature of the cognitive need.

4. Closely related to this feature - orientation towards the process of cognition - is another feature of the cognitive need, namely a close connection with positive emotions.

A student who truly loves mathematics rejoices. It is the feeling of pleasure, joy that distinguishes mental activity performed on the basis of a cognitive need from cognitive activity directed by other needs.

The student studies diligently in order to earn praise or so as not to be scolded at home. This does not apply to cognitive needs. But the same student, coming home from school, grabs a book about animals and, forgetting about everything, reads until he finishes. Those. The student studies on his own, he likes it, and it evokes bright positive emotions. This is a cognitive need.

Joy at the moment of cognitive activity initiated precisely by a cognitive need can now be registered. A number of physiological indicators indicate that at the moment of intellectual stress, along with the area of ​​the brain engaged in mental work, the center of positive emotions is always excited (provided that mental stress is caused precisely by the need for cognition, and not by any other need, say fear of not completing the task). For some people, this connection is so strong and strong that deprivation of intellectual activity leads them to a serious condition. The fact of the connection between cognitive need and positive emotions is important, firstly, for diagnosing the nature of cognitive activity, and secondly, for developing the necessary strategy and tactics for the development of cognitive need. The specific content of the process of development of a cognitive need, highlighting the levels of its development, has usually not been the subject of special research. The problem of the levels of development of cognitive needs was developed in the most detail by V.S. Ilyin, who identified four of its levels (indicative-introductory need, curiosity, need - thought, passion), and V.S. Yurkevich identified three levels: the need for impressions, curiosity, purposeful cognitive need.

V.S. Yurkevich characterized the levels as follows, at the first level of cognitive need main role plays the so-called need for impressions, which is expressed in the individual’s desire for new stimuli, in his reaction to new impressions coming to him from the outside. At the initial level of cognitive need there is still no desire to acquire new knowledge - this is the need for new stimuli. The level of need is most pronounced in infants and young children preschool age, maintaining a certain value in the future. The next level is curiosity, at which there is already a personal selection of the information that comes to him and which he himself is able to receive. The cognitive need at this level is much more focused; interests and various forms of personal attitude to knowledge arise and become stronger. Only at this level does the need for knowledge appear. However, at this level, the cognitive need is not yet sufficiently defined and is associated with social tasks, is spontaneous-emotional and often of a narrowly individual nature. Curiosity is especially pronounced in adolescents; we can say that the age of curiosity is the entire school age. At this age, curiosity is formed, experiences a “blooming” and is replaced by the next stage of cognitive need. The third level is the level of targeted cognitive need; the need itself is not spontaneous, but reflects the life values ​​of the individual. It is this stage of cognitive need that manifests itself as the individual’s stable desire for one or another area of ​​knowledge, as the formation of a propensity for his specific activity. There are certain reasons to believe that the previous levels of cognitive need are not completely lost, but are, as it were, removed, subsequently being included in it as one of the components of this more developed level of cognition.

V.S. Yurkevich identifies two forms of cognitive need:

The need for knowledge can manifest itself in the form of assimilation of ready-made knowledge (the need to assimilate impressions, integrate, systematize them and the need to accumulate knowledge);

The need for research activities in order to obtain new knowledge. The first is the least active form of cognitive need. As a result of this form, new knowledge is acquired, but not created. The second is a more active form, directly aimed at obtaining new knowledge. Students who have one form or another of cognitive needs differ markedly. Schoolchildren with a need to assimilate knowledge are inclined to memorize factual material; they often have a particularly clear system in storing it. Students with a need for research try to reach the correct answer themselves, solve unfamiliar problems with interest, and love “tricky” questions. These forms differ precisely in the degree to which various needs are involved. Cognitive need contributes to the intensive development of intellectual processes (perception, thinking, imagination). The formation of a cognitive need has a positive effect on the development of motivation and personality: a type of motivation is formed where the leading motive becomes a cognitive need, a personality of high intellectual activity is formed, with a thirst for constant search and reflection, the speed and accuracy of perception increases educational material, logical thinking, the desire to penetrate into the depth of the issue being studied, the need for tasks that require independence, a creative approach to tasks of increased difficulty increases, knowledge becomes larger in volume. The transition of cognitive needs to the next level is associated with the further development of the student’s personality, his motivational sphere, and with the expansion and deepening of the quality of knowledge. This gives new qualities that she possessed at the first and second levels. In classrooms where the cognitive need reaches such a level of development, there are individual students in whom it develops into passion, into a thirst for thinking about the subject. These are usually students with outstanding abilities. Cognitive needs develop in different ways, including information technology.

Summarizing a large amount of empirical data, I came to the conclusion that already in the third to fifth week of life a child has a need for external impressions, the appearance

which marks the transition from newborn to infancy. This need will play a decisive role in the entire further development of the child. The new need differs significantly from the simple organic needs that appeared earlier - for food and warmth. If the “engine” of the latter is largely the desire to overcome negative emotions (to get rid of unpleasant sensations, discomfort), then the basis of the new need is a positive emotion - the elementary joy of knowledge. Therefore, this need falls into the category of “unsatisfiable”. If the need for food, as it becomes satiated, loses its motivating power, then new impressions not only cause more and more positive emotions, but also develop curiosity.

The years of preschool and preschool childhood pass under the sign of the rapid development of this need - to know such a complex and at the same time such an attractive world around us.

And now the child approaches the threshold of the school. By this time, his cognitive need reaches a new level, which is expressed in the emergence of interest in solving cognitive problems themselves, acquiring new knowledge and skills in the learning process. This need finds its satisfaction in schooling.

However, some time passes, and a strange, paradoxical situation arises. Mental functions the child improves - observation, logical memory, basic mental operations (analysis, synthesis, abstraction, generalization) develop, attention becomes more stable, and at the same time the cognitive need as such in many cases not only does not rise to a higher level, but manifests itself much more less brightly than at the previous age stage. Researchers describe groups of children whose "cognitive potential" declines significantly with age. Psychologist Z.I. Kalmykova, having thoroughly studied the thinking characteristics of such children, notes that the older the children are, the greater the gap they have between verbal formulations and the specific reality that they should reflect. These schoolchildren seem to be formulating generalized judgments, but verbal formulations mask the passivity of thought, the desire to escape from intellectual tension. Productive thinking (thinking acting as the ability to acquire new knowledge, the ability to learn) is replaced by a mechanical reproduction of known provisions.

What are the reasons for this phenomenon? Is this not a result of the age characteristics of children? Partly - yes. In modern science

the thesis about the presence of so-called sensitive periods in the mental development of a child is substantiated. The essence of this thesis is that everyone age period has its own special, unique capabilities.<...>

Upon closer examination, it becomes obvious that in fact we are not talking about a decrease in cognitive motivation, but about some change in its direction. Thus, a special study has shown that a junior schoolchild who begins systematic education for the first time usually has to begin with mastering the external side of objects and phenomena. This ability develops especially intensively - to absorb external signs, to remember them without any significant comprehension and processing. Psychologists characterize this ability to perceive the external side of reality as an age-related feature of a primary school student. In this regard, primary schoolchildren differ unfavorably from preschool children, whose mental activity, as is known, is aimed at finding out the reasons for what is happening around them (“why?”). But this may be the reason for the predominant development of such ability in junior schoolchildren are the characteristics of the organization educational process V primary school, which really focuses to a large extent on describing the external signs of objects and memorizing?..

Cognitive need and personal position of a schoolchild

The manifestation of cognitive needs significantly depends on the personal position of the student. In this regard, let us recall the widespread last years problem-based learning. It should be noted that at present there are a number of works on this issue. We want to emphasize only one, but very important, side of it, to which, apparently, insufficient attention is paid: problem-based learning is addressed to the student’s personality.

As is known, problem-based learning presupposes the presence of a problem situation, which is characterized by a mismatch between the knowledge already known to the student and the problem that needs to be solved. In order to do this, you need to find new way complete the task, find the means to achieve the goal. However, what has been said is only the external side of problem-based learning. For us, the changes that occur in the student’s personality are more important.<...>

Problem-based learning does not impose knowledge on the student. It is based on his interests, based on faith in the child’s abilities, in the strength of his intelligence. The true essence of problem-based learning is respect for the child’s personality. Such training

changes his personal position. The schoolchild ceases to be a “dependent”, a “consumer” of knowledge, he ceases to be only a student, and in in a certain sense becomes an ally of the teacher, solving the problem together with him. This new position also forms a different attitude towards knowledge, which is “appropriated” as if by itself in the process of solving a problem, and most importantly: intellectual activity is activated not thanks to an artificially introduced motive (as was the case, for example, in a special experiment, when the psychologist achieved significant increasing intellectual activity by giving attractive pictures to the child as a reward for correctly solving a problem). Thanks to the new position, the student begins to gain satisfaction from the very process of acquiring knowledge. This means that problem-based learning puts students in a situation somewhat similar to that in which gifted children find themselves: it contributes to the formation of a propensity for mental work.

However, problem-based learning is only one of the ways to develop cognitive needs. The teacher can use other ways to achieve this goal. It is only important that the method used puts the student in active position in relation to knowledge.<...>

The highest (and most difficult) stage of development of students' cognitive needs is the development of a position in which they consciously begin to work on developing their educational and cognitive motivation. When organizing such work, it should be taken into account that the motivation for learning activities varies among different groups of schoolchildren. Thus, low achievers are characterized by “avoidance motivation.” The strongest motive that encourages such schoolchildren to study their lessons is the desire to avoid bad grades and troubles from teachers and parents. Well-performing schoolchildren have stronger cognitive motivation. As research shows, in order to form educational and cognitive motivation, it is necessary to organize educational activities so that schoolchildren focus not only on the knowledge itself, but also on the method of acquiring knowledge. In this case, the teacher evaluates not only the results of the work, but also the way in which these results were obtained; At the same time, students themselves are involved in the process of such assessment.

Putting the student in an active position in relation to the acquired knowledge is a condition not only for the development of cognitive needs, but also for the effective development of his abilities.

Chudnovsky V.E. Nurturing abilities and formation
personality. - M., 1986. - P. 32-40.

See: Bozhovich L.I. Personality and its formation in childhood: Psychological research. - M., 1968.

See: Productive thinking as the basis of learning ability. - M., 1981.-S. 113. 178

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Personality orientation is a fairly generalized characteristic, indicating a set of various motivations that cause activity and determine its direction. Therefore, it is no coincidence that the content of the orientation includes wide circle motives. For example, K.K. Platonov in his time identified worldview, ideals, inclinations, interests, desires, drives, and beliefs as the main forms of personality orientation. Let's look at some of these forms. Personal interests are associated with cognitive needs.

Interest - a form of manifestation of a cognitive need that ensures that the individual is focused on understanding the goals of the activity and contributes to a more complete knowledge of reality.

Interests are emotional manifestations of a person’s cognitive needs. Subjectively, interests are revealed in the positive emotional tone that the process of cognition acquires, in the desire to become more deeply acquainted with an object that has acquired significance, to learn even more about it, to understand it. Thus, interests act as a constant incentive mechanism for cognition.

Interests can be classified by content, purpose, breadth and sustainability. By content interests are determined by the objects to which they are directed. Interests of different content are assessed from the point of view of their social significance: some - positively, if they correctly combine public and personal moments; other - negative, as petty, philistine, associated only with the satisfaction of their sensual needs or low passions. The difference based on the purpose reveals the presence immediate And indirect interests. The former are caused by the emotional attractiveness of a significant object, the latter only occur when the real meaning of the object and its significance for the individual coincide.

There are broad and narrow interests. Diversified personality development presupposes a greater breadth and versatility of interests in the presence of a basic central interest. Narrowness of interests is understood as the presence of one or two limited and isolated interests in a person with complete indifference to everything else. A valuable personality feature is the multifocality of interests - substantive interests are located in two (and sometimes three) areas of activity that are not related to each other.

Interests can also be divided according to the degree of their stability. The stability of interest is expressed in the duration of maintaining relatively intense interest. The interests that most fully reveal the basic needs of the individual and therefore become essential features of his psychological make-up will be stable. Sustained interest is one of the evidence of a person’s awakening abilities.

Another form of personality orientation is beliefs.

Belief- a system of conscious needs of an individual that encourages her to act in accordance with her views, principles, and worldview.

Beliefs are something that is not only understood and comprehended, but also deeply felt and experienced. The content of needs, appearing in the form of beliefs, is knowledge about the surrounding world of nature and society, their certain understanding. When this knowledge forms an orderly and internally organized system of views, then they can be considered as a person’s worldview.

We should not forget about another form of orientation - aspirations.

Aspirations- these are motives of behavior where the need is expressed for such conditions of existence and development that are not directly presented in a given situation, but can be created as a result of specially organized activity of the individual. If not only the conditions in which a person feels the need are clearly realized, but also the means that he expects to use, then such aspirations take on the character intentions.

Aspirations can take on various psychological forms. The specific form of a person’s aspirations is, along with intentions, dream as an image of what is desired, created by fantasy, encouraging a person not only to contemplate in the finished picture what remains to be accomplished, created and built, but also supporting and enhancing a person’s energy. Aspirations should also include passions - motives that express needs that have an irresistible force, relegating to the background in human activity everything that is not associated with a significant object, and for a long time invariably determining the direction of a person’s thoughts and actions. Unsatisfied passion causes violent emotions. Aspirations are also ideals as the need to imitate or follow an example accepted by a person as a model of behavior.

Of course, intentions, dreams, passions, ideals and other aspirations of an individual are characterized psychologically and assessed practically in accordance with their specific content. Dreams, passions, ideals, intentions can be high and low and depending on this they can play different role in the activities of people and the life of society.

Already from the consideration of the given forms of orientation, one can see what role they play in human life. One can agree with the words of the famous Soviet scientist B.I. Dodonov, who wrote: “A person’s orientation is the leading component of the personality structure. Its other components can be correctly defined and assessed only in connection with its direction.”

Cognitive need

More precisely, the need for external impressions. As such, as the need to acquire new knowledge, it develops only in situations that promote awareness of the need for this knowledge for life and activity.

The development of the need for knowledge is closely related to the general development of the individual, with his ability and skills to find answers to vital questions in the content of the sciences being studied and in external reality.

Dictionary of a practical psychologist. - M.: AST, Harvest. S. Yu. Golovin. 1998.

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