Cognition and experience

This article presents the results of a study of the relationship between the academic performance of military university cadets and the coping strategies they implement. It was found that strategies of coping behavior based on building interaction with other people, rational planning for solving difficulties and a positive attitude towards them allow cadets to achieve high academic performance. The results obtained made it possible to describe the features of the coping behavior of cadets, contributing to and hindering high academic performance.

The article examines the polemic of two well-known Russian philosophers concerning the factors determining human development, as well as the reasons for E.D. Ilyenkov’s falsification of the real conditions of the Zagorsky Experiment. If Ilyenkov argued that the formation of personality depends solely on social conditions and means, then D.I. Dubrovsky insisted that genetic factors also play an essential role in this process, which must be taken into account in solving problems of upbringing and education. In addition to the causes of falsification, we are talking about an old psychophysiological problem, however, in its modern form ‒ the relationship between the psyche and the brain, as well as the influence of genetic factors on the formation of an individual. The Zagorsky experiment is compared with an experiment on the domestication of wild animals, which was carried out around this time by geneticist Dmitry Belyaev, and the similarities and differences between these experiments are noted. The author sets the task to analyze the relationship of the psyche and physicality more thoroughly, for which he outlines the stages of the genesis of human formation. He shows that the need to adapt to communication, work with signs and tools, and act together transform the biological substance of hominids, creating on its basis, on the one hand, the human psyche, on the other ‒ the «an- thropobiological organization» of his physicality. These sides are connected by the principle of «psychosomatic unity», according to which every mental process requires its own somatic (physiological) provision (support) and vice versa. In the last part of the article, based on the theoretical concepts obtained, arguments are put forward in support of Dubrovsky’s position. The strategy of bringing the deafblind into the world of normal life and creativity is compared with the strategy of psychotherapist Pavel Volkov, which allows clients to withdraw from the world of schizophrenia.

The article discusses the principles of logotherapy through the analysis of children’s literature. It traces how certain aspects of the theory of logotherapy are described, and their further discussion with children. Children are a category of clients in logotherapy in whom the spiritual (noetic) dimension is not developed, because their personality is still being formed. Literature can become a source of information, a model of how to act and what to do, through which a child can learn about the world around him, as well as form his idea of himself and his capabilities. The given examples from children’s works allow adults to discuss with children such categories as fate-freedom, choice, decision-making, love, loss, values of creation, contemplation and relationships. As a result of the analysis of the literature, we can conclude that a child experiences the same events, circumstances and feelings in his life as an adult. Discussing experiences from books and life in the future will help the child to be more aware, open to the world and be prepared for various circumstances that he may encounter. Thanks to the plots and stories that authors describe in books for children, adults have the opportunity to discuss them with the child, thereby forming a conscious personality that will act from its noetic dimension

Author proposes to consider the processes of large group conflict in the paradigm of biologically programmed drive, which he calls the cohesive-divisive drive. This drive governs the mechanisms responsible for group cohesiveness, disintegration and enmity between groups. In a mental life of an individual, various manifestations of cohesive-divisive drive can be clearly observed as behavioral, cognitive, and emotional reactions. In psychoanalytic setting, the change from the polarity of cohesiveness to the polarity of divisiveness is manifested by freezing, loss of empathy, narrowing of consciousness, and restricted thinking in both participants. Author describes in detail the corresponding psychodynamics. Based on the data of neurophysiology and socioanthropology, he suggests that the biopsychological substrate of a cohesive pole is based on a mechanism of early attachment, while the divisive pole is rooted in mechanisms of aggression, specifically cold aggression. Author epistemologically unites these opposite trends of human activity into one drive, since only taken together they reflect “rational” (teleological) purpose – the selection of groups in the process of Evolution. At the same time, the choice of an overtly anthropocentric standpoint provides clear ethical basis to the epistemology of instincts, which must be both scientific and human at the same time.

In the note, the author proposes a theoretical understanding of the compensatory function of fantasizing as a mechanism for protecting the subject’s True Self from neuroticism and maladaptation due to psychotrauma from the perspective of the phenomenon of posttraumatic personality growth.