The Problem of Activity in Psychology

Soviet Psychology
ISSN: 0038-5751 (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/mrpo19
The Problem of Activity in Psychology
A. N. Leont'ev
To cite this article: A. N. Leont'ev (1974) The Problem of Activity in Psychology, Soviet
Psychology, 13:2, 4-33
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.2753/RPO1061-040513024
Published online: 19 Dec 2014.
Submit your article to this journal
View related articles
Citing articles: 4 View citing articles
Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at

http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=mrpo19
Download by: [University of Arizona] Date: 24 September 2015, At: 10:16

Voprosy filosofii, 1972, No. 9, 95-108
A. N. Leont'ev
THE PROBLEM OF ACTIVITY IN PSYCHOLOGY

Downloaded by [University of Arizona] at 10:16 24 September 2015
1. Two Approaches in Psychology -

Two Schemes of Analvsis
In recent years Soviet psychology has undergone rapid devel-

opment in i t s various branches of applied research, while theo-
retical problems of general psychology have received much
l e s s attention. Nevertheless, Soviet psychological science,
based on Marxist -Leninist philosophy, has proposed a funda-
mentally new approach to the mind and has introduced impor-
tant Marxist categories that require further elaboration into
psychology.
I shall deal here with only one of these categories - the cat-
egory of activity. The importance of this category requires no
demonstration. We need only recall the famous theses of
K. Marx on Feuerbach, in which Marx said that the chief de-
fect of earlier metaphysical materialism w a s that it viewed
sensitivity only as a form of perception and not as a human
activity, not as practice. For this reason the active aspect of
sensitivity was developed by idealism - materialism's contra-
dictory opposite - which interpreted i t abstractly, not as the
Professor A . N. Leont'ev is a member of the Academy of

Pedagogical Sciences of the USSR.
4
WINTER 1974-75 5
real, sentient activity of human beings. (1)

This was the situation in pre-Marxist psychology, and things
remain much the same today in non-Marxist psychology. Ac-
tivity is interpreted either within the idealist framework o r
within generally naturalistic and materialistic trends as a r e -
sponse of a passive subject to an external influence, depending
on the subject's innate structure and learning history. But this
approach splits psychology into a natural-science discipline
and a science of the spirit, into a behaviorial psychology and
a "mentalistic" psychology. The c r i s e s this split has gener -
ated in psychology persist, though they have %become subter -

ranean" and indistinctly expressed.
The current intensive development of interdisciplinary re -
search, which joins psychology with neurophysiology, cyber -
netics , logicomathematical disciplines, sociology, and cultural
history, cannot in itself solve the fundamental methodological
problems of psychological science. Leaving these problems
unsolved only reinforces the tendency toward physiological,
logical, o r sociological reductionism, thus threatening psycho1 -
ogy with the loss of its proper subject. It is no proof of theo-
retical progress that the conflict of the various psychological
schools has today lost i t s earlier sharpness: militant behavior -
i s m has given way to compromising neobehaviorism, gestaltism
to neogestaltism, and Freudianism to neo-Freudianism and cul-
tural anthropology. Although the term "eclectic" is accorded
highest praise by American authors, eclectic positions have
never been successful. A scientific synthesis of various kinds
of complexes, psychological facts, and generalizations cannot
be achieved by simply binding them together in the same book.
It demands a further elaboration of psychology's conceptual
framework and a search for new scientific categories that can
mend the splitting seams in the structure of psychological science.
From a methodological point of view, the common denomina-
tor of all these diverse trends is a two-component, analytical
scheme: first, an influence on the subject's receptor systems;
second, a response phenomenon (objective and subjective)
evoked by the influence.
6 SOVIET PSYCHOLOGY
This scheme is already apparent with classic clarity in the

psychophysics and physiological psychology of the 19th century.
The primary task at that time was to study the dependence of
elements of consciousness on the parameters of the stimuli
evoking them. Later, in behaviorism, i .em,with regard to the
in the famous formula S -

study of behavior, this two-component scheme was expressed
R.
The deficiency of this scheme lies in i t s exclusion of the
content-bearing process that establishes the subject's real
connections with the world of objects - his object-type activity
(Tatigkeit, in contrast to Aktivitat). Such an abstraction from

the subject's real situation is justifiable only within the narrow
limits of a laboratory experiment seeking to clarify elementary
psychophysiological mechanisms, and we have only to go beyond
these narrow limits to see i t s groundlessness.
The inadequacy of this abstraction led the early researchers
to explain psychological facts in terms of interference of spe-
cial forces, such as active apperception and inner intention,
i.e., they were forced to describe the activity of the subject,
but did so in mystic and idealist terms.
The theoretical difficulties created in psychology by the two-
component analytical scheme and the ''postulate of immediacy''
(2) hidden behind it generated persistent opposition to the
scheme. One approach w a s to emphasize the fact that the ef -
fects of external influences depend on how the subject "refracts"
these influences, on the psychological '?intervening variables"
(Tolman and others) that characterize the subject's inner states.
S. L. Rubinshteyn expressed this position in a formula, stating,
"External causes act through internal conditions . I ' (3) Indeed,
this formula is quite indisputable. If, however, we include in
this formula adds nothing new, in principle, to the S

for mula.
-
the 'Tnternal conditions" those states evoked by an influence,
R
Indeed, nonliving objects also undergo various changes of

state as a result of their interactions with other objects: foot-
prints will be clearly imprinted in soft, wet earth but not in
dry, caked ground. This is all the more clear in animals and
WINTER 1974-75 7
human beings: a hungry animal will respond to a food stimulus

quite differently from one that is full, and a football fan will
respond to a report of a score quite differently from a person
indifferent to football.
Introducing the concept of intervening variables no doubt en-
riches the analysis of behavior, but it does not eliminate the
postulate of immediacy. Although the variables are intervening,
they are so only in the sense of internal states of the subject
-
itself. This postulate also relates to "motivational factors"
to needs and attractions. The role of these factors has been

described quite differently by the different schools of psychol-
ogy, such as behaviorism, the school of K. Lewin, and, espe-
cially, depth psychology. Although these schools differ in their
interpretation of motives and their role, they have this one
thing in common: a contraposition to the objective conditions
of activity and the external world.
Solutions to this problem attempted on the basis of the so-
called "culturology " are especially noteworthy. L. White (4),
a well-known protagonist of this school, has offered the notion
of "cultural determination" of phenomena in societies and in
individual behavior. With the rise of human beings and society,
organisms' previous direct natural link with the environment
comes to be mediated by culture, which develops on the base
of material production. (5) In this way culture takes the form
of meanings that a r e transmittable by spoken sign-symbols.
From this White proposes a three-component formula of hu-
man behavior: the human organism-cultural stimuli -behavior.
This formula creates the illusion that it has overcome the
postulate of immediacy and escapes from its two-component
scheme. Putting culture into this scheme as a direct link com-
municated by sign systems, however, inevitably closes psycho-
-
logical research within a circle of conscious phenomena both
social and individual. A simple substitution takes place: instead
of a world of real objects, we now have a world of socially elab-
orated signs and meanings. We thus have again a two -component
scheme, except that the stimuli in it are interpreted as "cul-
tural stimuli .I'
a SOVIET PSYCHOLOGY
Another complex derivative of the postulate of immediacy

comes from the discovery of feedback regulation of behavior
and the concept of information flow.
The first studies of how the complex human motor processes
are constructed revealed the role of the reflex loop with feed-
back links. These studies, especially those of N. A. Bernshteyn
(c), made possible the interpretation of a wide variety of hith-
erto enigmatic phenomena. In the 30 years since this early
work, control theory and information theory have acquired gen-
eral scientific significance, encompassing both processes in
living systems and in those of nonliving, "machine -type" systems.

It is curious that most psychologists perceived the concepts
of cybernetics elaborated in these years as something quite
new. These concepts experienced a second birth, we might say,
which encouraged certain cybernetics enthusiasts to see a new
methodological base for a universal psychological theory. It
soon became apparent, however, that the cybernetic approach
in psychology had i t s limitations, which could be overcome only
by replacing scientific cybernetics with a "cybernetic mythol-
ogy" that dispensed with such things as mental images, con-
sciousness, motivation, and goal-directedness. This was a
deviation from the early work, which developed the principle
of activity and representation at levels of regulation and clearly
distinguished the level of object-type actions and higher cogni-
tive levels.
Contemporary theoretical cybernetics is a very important
level of abstraction that facilitates description of the structure
and movement of a very broad class of processes that cannot
be described through the old conceptual apparatus. Neverthe -
less, research at this new level of abstraction, despite i t s un-
deniable productivity, cannot in itself solve the fundamental
methodological problems of any particular branch of knowledge.
For this reason there is nothing paradoxical in the fact that
presenting psychology with such concepts as control, informa-
tion processing, and self -regulating systems still does not
eliminate the postulate of immediacy.
WINTER 1974-75 9
The way out lies in the fact that no modification of the initial
scheme derived from this postulate 'Yrom inside," as it were,
can remove the methodological difficulties it has created in
psychology. To reject this postulate we must replace the two-
component analytical scheme with a fundamentally different
scheme that rejects the postulate of immediacy.
It is our position that the proper way for psychology to elim-
inate this 'Yatal" postulate, as D. N. Uznadze called it, is to
introduce the category of object-type activity (Gegenstendliche
Tatigkeit). We are speaking here about activity, not about be-
havior or the processes of nervous physiology that effect ac-

tivity. The segmentable, analytical units and language used to
describe behaviorial, cerebral, or logical processes are by no
means coincident with object-type activity.
Psychology was thus presented with two alternatives: either to
retain the basic two-component scheme of "object's effect
change of subject's present state'' (or the S -R scheme,
which is, in principle, the same thing), o r else to start from
a three-component scheme that includes a middle link (a "mid-
dle term") that mediates the connection between the other two
components. This middle link is the subject's activity and its
corresponding conditions, goals, and means.
With regard to the problem of what determines the mind, this
alternative can be formulated as follows: either we say that
consciousness is determined by the surrounding objects and
phenomena or else we say that it is determined by people's so-
cial being, which, according to Marx, is nothing other than the
real process of their lives. (7) The process of life is the total-
ity o r , more precisely, the system of interchanging activities.
In activity an object is transformed into i t s subjective form or
image, while at the same time activity passes into its objective
results and products. In this regard activity emerges as a pro-
cess that effects a reciprocal transformation between the
subject-object poles. In production, the personality is objecti-
fied; in the personality, the thing is subjectified, as Marx ex-
-
pressed it. (8)
10 SOVIET PSYCHOLOGY
2. The Category of Object-Type Activity
Activity is a molar and nonadditive unit of a material sub-

ject's life. In a narrower and more psychological sense, ac-
tivity is a unit of life mediated by mental reflection whose real
function is to orient the subject to the world of objects. Activity
is thus not a reaction o r a totality of reactions, but rather a
system possessing structure, inner transformations, conver -
sions, and development.
Introducing the category of "activity" alters the whole con-
ceptual framework of psychology, if one accepts all the cate-

gory's implications with respect to its structure, specific dy-
namics, and varied species and forms. Determining the pre-
cise nature of the category of activity in psychology involves
a s e r i e s of as yet unresolved theoretical problems, several of
which I shall touch on here.
Human psychology deals with the activity of specific individ-
uals carried out either collectively - among other people, with
-
reference to them, in interaction with them o r else face to
face with the surrounding, objective world - at the potter's
wheel or behind a desk. Such conditions and forms of human
activity would not exist or have any structure were they iso-
lated from social relations and the life of society. In all i t s
varied forms, the activity of the human individual is a system
set within a system of social relations. Without these relations
human activity could not exist. How, specifically, it exists is
determined by the forms and means of material and spiritual
intercourse (Verkehr) generated by the development of produc -
tion and unrealizable except through the activity of particular
people. (9) The activity of individual people thus depends on
their s o c k position, the conditions that fall to their lot, and an
accumulation of idiosyncratic, individual factors.
Human activity is not a relation between a person and a so-
ciety that confronts him. This must be emphasized, because
positivist ideas now spilling over into psychology continually
postulate a human individual distinct from, and placed in oppo-
sition to, society. For human beings, i t is said, society consists
WINTER 1974-75 11
only of an external environment to which one must accommo-

date if one is to avoid being "nonadaptive," just as animals
must accommodate to the external world of nature. From this
point of view, human activity is the result of reinforcement or
nonreinforcement, however indirect i t may be (for example,
through an attitude expressed by a "referent" group). But this
-
misses the key point that in a society a person does not sim-
ply find external conditions to which he must adapt his activity,
but, rather, these very social conditions bear within themselves
the motives and goals of his activity, i t s means and modes. In
a word, society produces the activity that shapes i t s individuals.

This is by no means to say that individual activity only per-
sonifies the relation between a society and i t s culture. There
a r e complex transformations and transitions that connect them
and make impossible any sort of simple reduction of the one to
the other. For a psychology limited to the concept of the indi-
vidual mind's "socialization," these transformations remain a
real secret. This psychological secret can be revealed only
through investigation of the generation of human activity and
i t s inner structure.
The fundamental and constituent characteristic of activity is
i t s "objectness." The expression "non-object-type activity" is
devoid of sense. Activity can seem to lack an object, but scien-
tific study of activity necessarily demands discovery of i t s ob-
ject. An object of activity appears in two ways: primarily in i t s
independent existence, and secondarily as a mental image of the
object, as a product of the subject's "detection" of i t s proper-
ties, which is realized through - and only through - his ac-
tivity.
The prehistory of human activity begins with "objectness"
related to vital processes. This necessitates the appearance
of elementary forms of mental reflection - the transformation
of irritability (irritabilitas) into sensitivity (sensibilitas) , o r
the "capacity for sensing."
The subsequent evolution of animal behavior and mind can be
quite adequately described as the development of the object -
type content of activity. At each new stage there is an ever
more total subordination and structuring of activity's effector

processes to the objective connections and relations with the
object properties, with which the animal interacts. The object-
type world is, so to speak, ever more "enmeshed" in activity.
Thus, an animal's movement along a barrier utilizes the bar-
r i e r ' s "geometry" and incorporates it within i t s self; a leap
is structured by the objective constraints of the environment,
and the choice of a detour route is structured by interrelations.
The development of the object-type content of activity is also
expressed in the resulting development of mental reflection,
which regulates activity in an object-type environment.

All activity has a loop structure: afferentation- effector
processes that make contact with the object-type environment
correction and enrichment through feedback connections
from the initial afferent image. The loop nature of organism-
environment interaction processes is now well accepted and
adequately described. The key point, however, is not the loop
structure itself, but the fact that mental reflection of the object-
type world i s born not of direct external influences (including
''feedback" influences), but of the processes that realize the
subject's practical contact with the object-type world and that
a r e thus necessarily structured by this world's independent
processes, connections, and relations. This means that the
"afferent" which controls activity processes is primarily the
object itself and only secondarily i t s image as a subjective
product of activity that fixes, stabilizes, and assimilates i t s
"object -
object-type content. In other words, we have the transitions of
."
process of activity" and "activity -its
product But the process-product transition occurs not just
subjective
at the subject's pole: it is even clearer at the pole of the ob-

ject, which is transformed by human activity. In this case the
activity regulated by the subject's mental image passes into a
"static property (ruhende Eigenshaft) of its objective prod-
uct. (10)
At first glance it might appear that the notion of the mind's
object-type nature relates only to the domain of cognitive pro-
cesses proper, not to the domain of desires and emotions. This
WINTER 1974-75 13
is, however, not the case. Theories about the emotional sphere
as a sphere of states and processes lying entirely within the
subject, changing their appearance only under pressure of ex-
ternal conditions, are in essence based on a confusion of dif-
ferent categories, which is especially crucial in the problem
of desires.
In the psychology of desires we must, from the beginning,
distinguish between desire as an internal condition, as one of
the necessary preconditions for activity, and desire as that
which directs and regulates a subject's specific activity in the
object-type world. Only in this latter function is a desire also

an object of psychological knowledge. In the former case a de-
sire appears only as a state of need that in itself can evoke no
specific directed activity: its function is limited to activating
the relevant biological functions and generally arousing the
motor sphere, which is expressed in hyperkinesis and direction-
less, searching movements. Only after a desire has "met" an
answering object can it begin to direct and regulate activity.
The meeting of a desire with an object is an extraordinary
act, an act of objectifying the desire - of ''filling it up" with
content drawn from the surrounding world. It is this that car-
ries desire to a properly psychological level.
The development of desires on this level takes place through
the development of their object-type content. It is worth noting
that only this factor explains the appearance in human beings
of new desires, which have no analogues in animals and are
"severed" from biological needs, being in this sense "autono-
mous." (11) The formation of new desires is explained by the
fact thatin human society, objects of desire are produced, and
the desires themselves are therefore also produced. (12)
Thus, with regard to the subject, desires do direct activity;
but they can fulfill this function only when they are object-type
desires. It is this that makes it possible for K. Lewin to speak
conversely of the "excitory force'' (Aufforderungscharakter) of
objects themselves. (13)
The situation is similar with emotions and feelings. We must
distinguish here between objectless states, on the one hand, and
true emotions and feelings generated by the subject's object-

type activity vis-'a-vis his desires and motives, on the other.
But something special should be said about this: when andlyzing
activity, we must point out that object-type activity gives rise
not only to the object-type nature of images but also to the
"abjectness" of desires and emotions.
3. External Object-Type Activity and Psychology

It is especially significant for psychology that ontogenetically,

the initial and fundamental form of human activity is external,
sensory -practical activity. No doubt psychology has always
studied activity, be it thinking activity, imaginative activity,
or mnemonic activity. But only such inner activity, falling un-
der the Cartesian category of "cogito," used to be considered
the proper domain of psychology, thus excluding the study of
practical, sensory activity. If external activity figured at a l l
in the old psychology, it did so only as an expression of the in-
ner activity of consciousness. The opposition of contemporary
behaviorists abroad to this mentalistic psychology, however,
has deepened rather than bridged the gap between conscious-
ness and external activity, turning things around and focusing
on external activity to the exclusion of consciousness.
The objective advance of psychological science has forcefully
posed the question, Is the study of external, practical activity
a task of psychology ? Like any empirically given reality, ac -
tivity can be studied by many sciences: we can study the physi-
ology of activity, its political economy, o r its sociology. Ex-
ternal, practical activity cannot, of course, be isolated from
psychological research proper, although such a proposition can
be interpreted in quite different ways.
In the 1930s S. L. Rubinshteyn (14) noted the important theo-
retical implications for psycholo&of Marx's ideas that we have
before us in everyday material industry an open book of human
beings' essential powers, that s o long as this book remains
closed for psychology, it cannot become a meaningful and real
science, and that psychology must not ignore the wealth of
WINTER 1974-75 15
human activity. Even so, Rubinshteyn emphasized in later

works that although psychology includes not only "mental" and
intellectual activity but also the practical activity by which peo-
ple change nature and remake society, the proper object of psy-
chology is nevertheless "only the specifically psychological
content, the motivation and regulation by means of which ac-
tions are coordinated with their objective conditions of execu-
tion, which a r e reflected in sensations, perceptions, and con-
sciousness ." (15)
For RubinshGyn, practical activity is thus an object of psy-
chological study, but only with respect to that aspect of its con-
tent appearing in the form of sensation, perception, and, in gen-
eral, in the form of consciousness, whose function is to direct
and regulate activity. But this assertion is somewhat one-
sided, because it does not include the key fact that mental re-
flection itself - consciousness - is generated by the subject's
object -type activity.
Let us take a very simple process, such as perceiving an
object's elasticity. This is an external-motor process in which
the subject makes practical contact and connection with an ex-
ternal object. Its execution can be directed noncognitively as
an immediately practical task, say, of deforming the object.
The resulting image is indeed mental and an indisputable ob-
ject for psychological study. However, to understand the nature
of this image I must study the process that generates it, which
in this case is an external and practical process. Whether or
not I want this, whether or not it corresponds to my theoretical
views, I must nevertheless acknowledge the subject's external,
practical action as an object for my psychological study.
This means that it is incorrect to say that external, object-
type activity is for psychology only something controlled by the
inner mental processes underlying it, and thus that psychologi-
cal study proper has no place on the level of this activity. One
could accept such a notion only i f one assumed a unilateral de-
pendence of external activity on the mental image, goal repre-
sentation, o r thought schema that control the activity, But
such is not the case. Activity necessarily puts human beings in
practical contact with the very objects that deflect, change, and
enrich human activity. In short, it is specifically in external
activity that the circle of mental processes is broken as it
meets, so to speak, the object-type d o r l d that imperiously
penetrates this circle.
Thus, activity becomes an object for psychology, not as a
special "component" or "element," but as a special function -
the function of placing the subject in object-type reality and
.
tr'ansforming this into subjectivity
Let u s return to a description of how a mental reflection of
an elementary property of a material object is generated under

conditions of practical contact. Although this case is only an
illustrative and oversimplified example, it has real ontogenetic
meaning. It is hardly necessary to demonstrate that in its orig-
inal developmental stages, activity necessarily took the form
of external processes and that, correlatively, the mental image
is a product of these processes, which in practice connect the
subject with object-type reality. It is clear that in the early
ontogenetic stages a scientific explanation of mental reflection
is impossible other than in terms of these external processes.
This does not mean that the study of the mind should be re-
placed with the study of behavior, but only that the nature of
the mind must be demystified. Indeed, there is no other alter-
native, except to postulate the existence of a secret "mental
faculty" by virtue of which external influences on the brain's
receptors cause a flash of inner light that illuminates the world
and irradiates one's images, which are then-localized and "ob-
jectified" in the surrounding space.
It stands to reason that the reality with which psychology
deals is incomparably more complex and richer than it is por-
trayed in our crude schemata of image generation through
practical contact with an object. However, psychological r e -
ality would not deviate so much from this crude schemata, nor
would the metamorphosis of activity be so profound, were it to
remain under all conditions the real life of the material sub-
ject, which is, in its very essence, a sensory-practical process.
The increasing complexity of activity and its correspondingly
WINTER 1974-75 17
more complex mental regulation raises an extremely wide

range of questions for scientific psychology, one of the most
important of which concerns the forms of human activity and
their interaction.
4. The Relation of External and Inner Activitv
The old psychology dealt only with inner processes: with the
movement of representations and their associations in con-
sciousness, with their generalization and the movement of their
substitutes -words. These processes, as inner experiences,

were considered the sole relevant subject of psychological
study.
The old psychology's reorientation began when the problem
of the origin of inner mental processes was first posed. The
decisive step w a s taken by I. M. Sechenov, who pointed out a
hundred years ago that psychology illegitimately extracts the
kernel from a unitary process, whose links are connected by
nature itself - the "mental" is separated from the "material."
Since psychology is born of this antinatural process, as Seche-
nov expressed i t , no trick whatever can rejoin these severed
links. Such an approach, Sechenov added, must be changed.
"Scientific psychology, by virtue of i t s very content, can be
nothing other than a series of theories about the origin of men-
tal activity." (16)
It is the historian's task to trace the developmental stages of
this idea. I would only note that careful study of the phylo-
genesis and ontogenesis of thinking has already advanced the
frontier of psychological research substantially. In psychology
there have appeared concepts, such as the concept of practical
intellect or manual thinking, that a r e paradoxical from a
subjective-empirical point of view. The idea that inner intel-
lectual processes ontogenetically preceded external processes
is no longer widely accepted. On the contrary, the hypothesis
has been advanced of a direct and mechanically interpreted
transition of external processes into hidden, inner processes.
We recall, for example, Watson's schemata: speech-whisper -
totally nonvoiced speech. (17) The main role, however, in the

development of specific psychological ideas about the origin of
inner thought operations has been played by the concept of
internalization.
Internalization is that transition by which external processes
with external material objects are transformed into processes
carried out on the intellectual plane, on the plane of conscious-
ness. When this happens, the processes a r e subjected to a spe-
cific transformation: they are generalized, verbalized, abbre -
viated, and, most importantly, become susceptible of further
development that exceeds the possibility of external activity.

To use J. Piaget's succinct formulation, this transition 'leads
from the sensorimotor plane to thought." (18)
The internalization process has been s t u z e d in detail with
respect to many problems, be they ontogenetic, pedagogical,
o r of interest to general psychology. Furthermore, serious
differences have become apparent both in the theoretical foun-
dations of research on this process and in its theoretical inter-
pretation. For Piaget the most important, fundamental point
about the genesis of inner thinking operations from sensori-
motor acts seems to be the impossibility of abstracting opera-
tional thought schemas directly from perception. Such opera-
tions as unifying, ordering, and centering originally arose
through performing external actions with external objects, and
then underwent further development on the plane of inner think-
ing activity, in accordance with characteristic logicogenetic
laws. (19)
Otherinterpretations of the transition from action to thought
have been advanced by P. Janet, H. Wallon, and J . Bruner. In
Soviet psychology, however, the concept of internalization is
usually connected with the name of L. S. Vygotsky, who made
important studies of this process.
The initial ideas that led Vygotsky to seek inner mental ac-
tivity's genesis in external activity were different in principle
from the theoretical concepts of his contemporaries. These
ideas sprang from"an analysis of the features unique to human
activity- to labor, productive activity aided by tools, which is,
WINTER 1974-75 19
from the beginning, a social activity that develops under condi-

tions of cooperation and social intercourse. From this position
Vygotsky distinguished two primary, interconnected features
that must form the basis of psychological science. These are
the tool-type ("instrumental") structure of human activity and
i t s inclusion in a system of mutual relations with other people.
It is precisely these features that determine the unique fea-
tures of human psychological processes. A tool mediates ac-
tivity that connects a person not only with the world of objects
but also with other people. This means that a person's activity
assimilates the experience of humanity. It means that a per-
son's mental processes (the 'higher psychological functions ")
acquire a structure necessarily linked to sociohistorically
formed means and modes, which are transmitted to him by
other people through teamwork and social intercourse. But to
transmit a means or a mode for carrying out some process can
be done only in an external form - in the form of action or in
the form of external speech. In other words, the higher and
specifically human psychological processes can arise only
through mutual interaction of person with person, as inter-
psychological processes, which only later come to be carried
out by the individual independently. When this happens, some
of these processes lose their original, external form, and are
converted into intrapsychological processes. (20)
Still more follows from the idea that inner mental activity
derives from practical activity historically shaped as a result
of the formation of human society based on labor and that these
processes are formed anew during ontogenetic development in
the separate individuals of each new generation. With the rise
of inner activity we also see a change in the very form of men-
tal reflection of reality: we see a rise of consciousness - a
reflection by the subject of reality, of h i s activity, of himself.
But what is consciousness ? 'Consciousness is co-knowledge,"
Vygotsky loved to say. Individual consciousness can exist only
in the presence of social consciousness and language, which is
its real substratum. In the process of material production, peo-
ple also produce language, which serves not only as a means of
communication but also as a vehicle of socially elaborated

meanings that are fixed in it.
Earlier psychologies viewed consciousness as some sort of
metaphysical plane of movement of mental processes. But con-
sciousness is not given a priori, and it does not generate na-
ture: consciousness is generated by society; it is produced.
For this reason consciousness is not a postulate and a condi-
tion of psychology, but its problem, the object of concrete, sci-
entific study.
Internalization is thus not a process by which external activ-
ity is transferred onto a pre-existing inner "plane of conscious-

ness": it is the process by which the inner plane is formed for
the first time.
After his initial cycle of works on the role of external means
and their internalization, Vygotsky focused his work on con-
sciousness. He chose verbal meanings as the "cell" of con-
sciousness and studied their formation and structure. Although
these studies emphasized the "inverse movement" of meaning
and gave the impression that meaning was something under-
lying life and directing activity, Vygotsky held quite the oppo-
site thesis: neither meaning nor consciousness underlies life;
rather, life underlies consciousness.
Research on the formation of intellectual processes and
meanings (concepts) "extracts" out of the general flow of ac-
tivity only one, although a very important, component - the in-
dividual's mastering of modes of thinking worked out by human-
ity. But this does not adequately cover even cognitive activity-
neither its formation nor i t s functioning. Psychologically,
thinking (and individual consciousness as a whole) is broader
than the logical operations and meanings in whose structure it
is embedded. Meanings do not generate thought, but mediate it,
just as tools do not generate action but mediate it.
In the last stage of his research, Vygotsky repeatedly ex-
pressed this key proposition in various ways. H e believed that
the affective -volitional sphere was the final and 'hidden" plane
of verbal thinking. A determinist view of mental life, he wrote,
excludes "attributing to thinking a magical power to determine
WINTER 1974-7 5 21
behavior by one's own single system." (21) - The positive pro-

gram evolving from this position, which retains the now-
revealed active function of meaning and thought, raised still
another problem, which required a return to the category of
-
object-type activity and i t s extension to inner processes to
the processes of consciousness. Specifically as a result of the-
oretical thinking along these lines, the principal essence of ex-
ternal and inner activity was shown to be the mediating inter-
connections between a person and his real-life world.
A s a consequence, the primary distinction, which undergirds
classic, Cartesian-Lockean psychology, between the world of

extension with i t s external bodily activity and the world of in-
ner phenomena and consciousness must yield to a different dis-
tinction, i.e., a distinction between object-type reality and i t s
idealized and transformed forms (ferwandelte Formen), on the
one hand, and the subject's activity, which includes both exter-
nal and inner processes, on the other hand. But this means
that the cleavage of activity into parts o r aspects, which belong
to two quite different spheres, is eliminated. This, however,
raises another problem, that of studying the specific inter -
relations and connections among different forms of human ac-
tivity.
This problem also existed in the past, although only in our
day has it become a fully realized idea. When social conditions
provide for people's well-rounded development, their intellec -
tual activity- -
their thinking is not isolated from their prac-
tical activity. It becomes, in Marx's words, reproducible "ac-
cording to the needs of individuals' integral lives." (22)
Looking somewhat ahead, let u s say straightaway that the
mutual transitions of which we are speaking are the most im-
portant advances of object-type human activity in the course of
i t s historical and ontogenetic development. These transitions
are possible because external and inner activity have the same
general structure.
The discovery of this general structure is, in my opinion, one
of the most important discoveries of contemporary psychologi -
cal science.
Activity that is internal in form, having arisen out of external

practical activity, is thus not separated from it and does not
rise above it, but retains its basic, two-way connection with it.
5. The General Structure of Activity
The commonality of the macrostructure of external practical

activity and inner theoretical activity makes possible prelimi -
nary analysis of activity in abstraction from i t s concrete form.
The idea of analyzing activity as a method for scientific psy-
chology is already apparent, as we have said, in the early works

of L. S. Vygotsky, which introduced concepts of tool, tool-type
("instrumental") operations, goal, and, later, the concept of
motive (the "motivational sphere of consciousness 'I). Years
passed, however, before the general structure of human activity
and individual consciousness was described even in a first ap-
proximation. (23) - This first description, after a quarter of a
century, is now in many ways unsatisfactory and extremely ab-
stract. But precisely because of its abstractness, it can be taken
as a starting point for further research.
We have hitherto spoken of activity in the general and inclu-
sive meaning of the concept. But in reality, we deal always with
specific activities, each of which answers a subject's specific
desire, seeks an object of this desire, terminates when the de-
sire is satisfied, and begins anew under perhaps quite different
conditions.
The varieties of concrete activity can be roughly classified
in terms of such categories as form, mode of execution, emo-
tional s t r e s s , temporal and spatial characteristics, and physio-
logical mechanisms. Nevertheless, the basic thing that distin-
guishes one activity from another is i t s object. It is precisely
i t s object that gives an activity its specific direction. According
to the terminology I have proposed, the object of an activity is
- - (24) With this definition, an object of activity
i t s real motive.
can obviously be either material o r ideal. The key point is that
behind the object there always stands a need or a desire, to
which it always answers.
WINTER 1974 -7 5 23
The concept of activity is thus necessarily connected with

the concept of motive. There is no activity without a motive;
"unmotivated" activity is not activity lacking a motive, but ac-
tivity whose motive is subjectively and objectively hidden.
The basic "components" of various human activities are
actions. We call an action a process that is structured by a
mental representation of the result to be achieved, i.e., a pro-
cess structured by a conscious - goal. Just as the concept of
motive correlates with that of activity, s o the concept of goal
correlates with that of action.
The appearance in activity of goal-directed processes - of

-
actions is a historical consequence of human beings' transi-
tion to life in a society. The activity of participants in mutual
labor is stimulated by i t s product, which originally answers the
desires of each participant directly. But the simplest division
of labor arising in this process necessarily leads to isolating
the "intermediate" and partial results achieved by the individ-
ual participants of the collective laboring activity, which can-
not, in themselves satisfy their desires. Their desires are not
satisfied by these 'Tntermediate" results but by the share of
their mutual activity's product each obtains by virtue of the
social relations with each other that arise through the labor
process.
It is understandable that this "intermediate" result, to which
a person's labor processes a r e subordinated, should also be
isolated for him subjectively - in the form of a mental repre-
sentation. Also differentiated is the goal, which 'like a law de-
termines the mode and character of action," as Marx expressed
it. (25) Picking out the goal and i t s subordinate action divides
functions that were formerly interwoven in the motive. The
function of energizing the activity is wholly retained by the mo-
tive, but the directive function is another matter: the actions
constituting activity are energized by the motive, but are di-
rected by the goal. Let u s take the case of a man's activity en-
ergized by food. Food is his motive; however, to satisfy this
desire with food he must carry out actions not immediately di-
rected at obtaining food. For example, his goal may be to make
a hunting weapon. Does he subsequently use the weapon he

made, o r does he pass it on to someone else and receive a por-
tion of the total catch? In both cases, that which energizes his
activity and that to which his action is directed do not coincide.
Their coincidence would represent a unique case, resulting
from a special process, about which more will be said below.
Selecting goal-directed actions as the components of concrete
activity naturally raises the question of how these components
are internally connected. A s we noted earlier, activity is not
an additive process. Likewise, actions are not special, separate
entities that comprise activity. Human activity exists only in

the form of actions or chains of actions. Labor activity exists
in labor actions; academic activity, in academic actions; the a c -
tivity of social intercourse, in the actions (acts) of social inter -
course. If, in thought, we abstract from activity the actions by
which it is realized, there is nothing left. Or,to put it differ-
ently, when a concrete process unfolds before us, be it external
or internal, then with regard to the motive, it appears as the
activity of a person, but with regard to subordination to a goal,
it appears as an action o r a chain of actions.
Activity and action a r e genuinely noncoincident realities. One
and the same action can realize different activities and pass
from one activity to another, thus revealing i t s relative'inde-
pendence. A simple example will illustrate this: Suppose I have
the goal of being at point N , and I achieve this. This action can
obviously have quite different motives, i.e., it can realize quite
different activities. The converse as well is clearly true, that
one and the same motive can be concretized in quite different
goals and thus generate quite different actions.
With regard to choosing actions as the most important "com-
ponents" of human activity, we must keep in mind that any kind
of well developed activity presupposes attainment of a series of
concrete goals, some of which are rigidly ordered. In other
words, an activity is usually realized by a certain set of actions
that a r e subordinate to particular goals, which can be distin-
guished from the common goal. In this it is characteristic that
for higher degrees of development, the role of a common goal
WINTER 1974-75
is played by a conscious motive that is converted into a motive-

-
goal precisely because it is conscious. One question which now
arises is that of goal formation. This is a big psychological
question because the range of objectively adequate goals de-
pends upon the motive of activity. Almost unstudied is the pro-
cess by which a goal is picked out and discerned objectively,
i.e., by which one becomes conscious of the most immediate
result to be obtained if the whole activity is to be realized,
which can satisfy the desire objectified in the motive. Under
laboratory conditions or in pedagogical experiments, we almost
always present the subject with a ''prepared" goal, and the goal-
formation process thus usually escapes the investigator. It is
only experiments of the type done by F. Hoppe that exhibit this
process, even if in a one-sided way, but a t least with sufficient
clarity in terms of quantitative dynamics. The situation in real
life is quite different, because goal formation emerges as a
most important aspect in the forming of specific activities. Let
u s compare in this regard the development of the scientific ac-
tivity of Darwin and of Pasteur, for example. This comparison
is instructive because there is a tremendous difference not only
in how they subjectively picked out their goals but also in the
psychological content of their discernment processes.
First of all, in both cases it is quite clear that goals are not
posited by the subjects as an act of will. They are given in ob-
jective circumstances. Moreover, discerning and becoming
aware of the goals is by no means an automatic and instanta-
neous act; instead, a relatively long process of testing goals
through action and object-type ''flushing out," so to speak, is
involved. An individual, Hegel remarked, cannot define the goal
of his acting until he has acted. (26)
Another important aspect of thegoal-formation process is
the concrete specification of a goal, the discernment of condi -
tions for i t s achievement. But this is a topic deserving special
treatment.
Every goal - even one such as "to reach point N" - objec-
tively exists in a certain object-type situation. Although i t is
true that for a subject's consciousness a goal can appear in
abstraction from this situation, the same cannot be said of his

-should be
action, Thus, apart from i t s intentional aspect (what
done), an action also has an operational aspect (the way it can
be done), which is not structured by the goal itself, but by the
objective, object -type conditions of its execution. In other
words, the executed action responds to a task, which is the
goal given under certain, specific conditions. An action has
special qualities, "components," and, especially, modes by
means of which it is realized. These modes of action realiza-
tion I call "operations

.I1
The terms "action" and "operation" are often not distin-

guished. In a psychological analysis of activity, however, it is
necessary to distinguish between them clearly. An action, as
we said above, correlates with goals, whereas operations cor-
relate with conditions. If a goal remains the same while the
conditions under which it is given are changed, then only the
operational structure of the action will be changed.
The differences between actions and operations is especially
visible in tool-type actions. A tool is a material object in
which a r e crystallized not actions or goals, but modes and op-
erations. For example, it is possible to dismember a material
body with different kinds of tools, each of which defines its own
mode of execution for the dismembering action. In some cases
-
the operation of slicing is best; in others, the operation of saw
ing, assuming one has mastered appropriate tools such as a
knife and a saw. It is the same in more complex cases, for ex-
ample, when we have the goal of graphically illustrating some
kind of complex relationship. To do this we have to apply vari-
ous modes of graphic construction, i.e., to carry out specific
operations; and to do this we have to know how to execute these
operations. It does not matter how, under what conditions, and
with what materials we learn to perform these operations. It
is important to see that the formation of operations takes place
in a way quite different from that of goal formation, i.e., from
that of action generation.
Actions and operations have a different origin, different dy-
namics, and a different fate. The genesis of an action lies in
WINTER 1974-75 27
relations of exchange of activities; every operation is the re-

sult of a transformation of an action, resulting from i t s inclu-
sion in another action and i t s ensuing "routinization." A simple
illustration of this process is the formation of operations whose
execution is required in driving a car. At first every operation,
such as shifting gears, is formed as an action, structured by
i t s specific goal and possessing i t s conscious "orienting basis''
(P. Ya. Gal 'perin). Subsequently this action is included in an-
other action, which has a more complex operational structure -
such as the action of changing the car's rate of motion. Shifting
gears thus becomes one of the modes of executing this action

and realizing its operations. It can no longer be carried out as
a special, goal-directed process: its goal is not picked out and
discerned by the driver; and for the driver, gear shiftingpsycho-
logically ceases to exist. The driver does something else: he
drives away from aplace, transports heavy loads, takes the c a r
foradrive,orparks itinagivenspot. Indeed,the gear-shifting
operation can completely drop out of the driver's activity and be
carried out automatically. It is generally the fate of operations
that sooner o r later they become the function of machines.
Like actions vis-'tt-vis activity, operations vis-It-vis actions
a r e not some sort of "separate entity." Even when an operation
is carried out with a machine, it realizes the action of a sub-
- When one u s e s a calculating device to solve a problem,
ject.
the action is not interrupted by this extracerebral link; the ac-
tion is realized through this link, as it is through i t s other
links. Performing operations that do not realize any kind of
goal-directed action on the subject's part is like the operation
of a machine that has escaped human control.
Thus, in the general flow of activity that forms the higher,
mentally mediated manifestations of human life, our analysis
distinguishes, f i r s t , various, separate activities - according
to the criteria of their excitative motive; second, actions -
the processes structured by conscious goals; and third, opera-
- -
tions which depend directly on the conditions under which a
specific goal is to be achieved.
These "units" form the macrostructure of human activity.
An important feature in the analysis of these units is that such

an analysis does not break living activity down into elements,
but instead lays bare its inner relations. The transformations
that arise during the development of activity lie behind these
relations. Objects themselves can become energizers, goals,
and tools only within a system of human activity. Out of the
context of this system, they lose their being as energizers, as
goals, or as tools. A tool, for example, viewed apart from i t s
connection with a goal, becomes as much an abstraction as
an operation viewed apart from i t s connection with the action

it realizes.
Examination of an activity demands specific analysis of i t s
inner, systemic connections. Without this we cannot handle the
most elementary tasks, such as judging in a given case whether
we have an action or an operation. Moreover, an activity is a
process that continuously undergoes transformations. An ac-
tivity can lose the motive that brought it to life, whereupon it
is converted into an action, which realizes, perhaps, a quite
different relation to the world, i.e., which realizes another ac-
tivity. Conversely, an action can assume independent excitory
force and become an activity in i t s own right. Finally, an ac-
-
tion can be transformed into a mode of attaining a goal into
an operation capable of realizing various actions.
The flexibility of structural "units" of activity is expressed
in the fact that each of them can be more highly divided o r ,
conversely, can take in units that were originally relatively in-
dependent. Thus, in the course of attaining a discerned com-
mon goal, intermediate goals can also be discerned that in ef-
fect divide unitary action into a series of separate, sequential
actions. This typically happens when conditions impede an ac-
tion's execution through previously formed operations. The op-
posite process involves consolidation of structural units of ac -
tivity. This happens when the subject ceases to discern and be
conscious of objectively achieved intermediate results.
Correlative to these processes we see division and consoli-
dation of the units of mental images: a text rewritten by a
child's inexperienced hand is broken down in his perception into
WINTER 1974-75 29
separate letters or parts thereof, whereas at a later time

whole words and even sentences become the units of percep-
tion. To the untutored eye the processes of division and con-
solidation of units of activity and mental reflection do not by
any means stand out in bold relief, through either external ob-
servation or introspection. Such processes can be studied only
with the aid of special analysis and objective indicators.
There are distinct activities that have only inner links, for
example, cognitive activity. A more special case is contained
in the fact that inner activity answering to a cognitive motive
is realized through processes essentially external in form.

These can be either external actions or external motor opera-
tions, although never their separate elements. The same is
true of external activity: some actions and operations that re-
alize external activity can have the form of inner intellectual
processes, but, again, 9as indivisible and unitary actions
and operations. The primary basis for this lies inlthe very na-
ture of the processes of internalization and externalization. In
general, any kind of transformation of separate "fragments"
of activity is impossible: it would mean not a transformation
of activity, but its destruction.
Introducing actions and operations does not exhaust analysis
of activity. Behind activity and the mental images that regulate
it lies the enormous physiological work of the brain. But to say
this is to say the obvious, for the problem is to delineate the
real relations that tie a subject's mentally mediated activity
with the physiological processes of his brain.
The relationship of the physiological and the mental is a
large and complex problem. I shall here only briefly charac-
terize the question of the place of physiological functions in the
structure of the object -type activity of human beings.
Brain processes and mechanisms are the indisputable object
of physiology, but this by no means implies that these functions
and mechanisms remain outside psychological study, that we
should "render unto Caesar only what is Caesar's. " This conveni -
ent formula, left over from physiological reductionism, commits
the greater sin of isolating the mental from the work of the brain.
The move from analyzing activity to analyzing i t s psycho-

physiological mechanisms answers to a - real transition between
them. We no longer approach brain (psychophysiological)
mechanisms as other than developmental products of object-
type activity. These mechanisms, however, are formed in
phylogenesis and ontogenesis in different ways and act in cor -
respondingly different ways.
Phylogenetically formed mechanisms appear in individuals
as prepared preconditions for activity and mental reflection,
but this is not the case with brain mechanisms formed under
the conditions of ontogenesis. Under such conditions these
mechanisms are formed right before our eyes, as new "mobile
physiological organs" (A. A. Ukhtomsky) and new "functional
systems" (P. K. Anokhin).
A person's specific functional systems result from mastery
of tools (means) and operations. These systems are nothing
other than external motor and intellectual operations (such as
logical operations) that have been deposited and consolidated
in the brain. These are not their simple ''tracing," but are
instead their physiological analogue. But if this analogy is to
be understood, it must utilize another language, other units.
Such units are the brain functions and their ensembles.
Including the brain (psychophysiological) functions in the
study of activity facilitates understanding a very important re-
ality , whose study began the development of experimental psy-
chology. The first works were, it is true, dedicated to the
-
"psychic functions'' sensory, mnemonic, selective, tonic
-
functions as they were called; but in spite of their concrete
contributions, these works lacked theoretical perspective. This
occurred because these functions were studied in abstraction
from the subject's object-type activity that realizes them. They
were instead studied as some kind of faculties - faculties of
the spirit or the brain. The essence of the matter is that in
both cases they were not viewed as generated by activity, but
as generating activity.
Psychophysiological investigation can clarify the conditions
and stages in the formation of activity processes that require
WINTER 1974 -7 5 31
reconstruction o r formation of new ensembles of psycho-

-
physiological functions of new functional systems in the
brain. A simple example is the formation and consolidation of
operations. Indeed, the generation of this or that operation is
determined by the existing conditions, means, and modes of
action, which are established and mastered from the outside.
However, the welding together of these elementary links that
form the structure of operations, their "contraction," and their
transmission to involuntary neurophysiological levels are all
based on physiological laws, which are not, and cannot be, the
subject of psychology.
Although i t opens up the possibility of using precise indica-
tors, cybernetics, and information measures, analysis of ac -
tivity on the psychophysiological plane unavoidably abstracts
from the concrete system generated by vital relations. In short,
object-type activity, like mental images, is not produced by the
brain, but is its function.
Another very important way of penetrating the structure of
activity with respect to the brain is that of neuropsychology and
psychopathology. Their general psychological meaning consists
in the fact that these techniques exhibit activity in a dissociated
state owing to a breakdown of various components of the brain
o r to more general functional derangements caused by mental
illness. (27) Thus, neuropsychology, in t e r m s of brain struc-
tures, facilitates examination of the "execution mechanisms "
of activity.
Indeed, neuropsychological research, like psychophysiological
research, necessarily deals with the problem of transition from
extracerebral to intracerebral relations. A s I said above, this
problem cannot be resolved by direct comparisons. Its solution
requires analysis of the movement of the object-type activity
system as a whole, which includes the functioning of the mate-
rial subject- his brain, his organs of perception and move-
ment. The laws that govern the functioning of these processes
do indeed reveal themselves, but only up to the point where we
move on to study their results in the form of object-type action
or images, which can be analyzed only through a psychological
study of human activity.

The same can be said when we move from the psychological
level to the social level proper; again the transition to the new,
i.e., social, laws involves a study of the results of the total ac-
tivity of the specific individuals who constitute society.
Thus, the systemic analysis of human activity is an analysis
of levels. Specifically, this analysis permits u s to resolve the
contradictions among the physiological, the psychological, and
the social and the reduction of one to another.
Notes
1) See K. Marx & F. Engels, [Works]. Vol. 3, p. 1.

2) D. N. Unadze, [Psychological studies]. Moscow, 1966.
P . 158.
3) S. L. Rubinshteyn, [Existence and consciousness]. Mos -
cow, 1957.
4) L. White, The science of culture. New York, 1949.
5) Recognition of the latter point, as well as recalling that
society is organized on the basis of property relationships,
sometimes serves as a pretext for placing White among the
partisans of historical materialism. True, one of his apologists
qualifies this by saying that his historical materialism derives
not from Marx, but from "common sense," which leads one to
believe that the basis for any culture is the problem of survival.
6) N. A. Bernshteyn, [The physiology of motion]. In F. P.
Konradi, A. D . Slonim, & V. S. Farfel', [The physiology of la-
bor]. Moscow; N. A. Bernshteyn, [Onthe formation of motion].
Moscow, 1947.
7) See Marx & Engels, [Works]. Vol. 3, p. 25.
8) Ibid. Vol. 12, p. 715.
9) Ibid. Vol. 3, p. 19.
10) Ibid. Vol. 23, p. 192.
11) G. Allport, Pattern and growth in personality. New York,
1961.
12) Marx & Engels, [Works]. Vol. 12, pp. 716-20.
13) K. Lewin,Adynamic theory of personality. New York, 1935.
WINTER 1974-75 33
14) See S. L. Rubinshteyn, [Problems of psychology in the

works of K. Marx]. [Soviet psychotechnology]; 1934, Vol. 7.
15) S. L. Rubinshteyn, [Principles and paths of development
of psychology]. Moscow, 1959. P . 40.
16) I, M. Sechenov, [Selected philosophical and psychologi -
cal works]. Moscow, 1947. P. 256.
17) See J. B. Watson, The ways the behaviorism [sic].
New York, 1928.
18) J. Piaget, [The role of activity in the formation of think-
ing], Vop. Psikhol., 1955, No. 6.
1 9 ) m S e l e c t e d psychological works]. Moscow, 1969.

20) See L. S. Vygotsky, [Development of higher psychological
functions]. Moscow, 1960. Pp. 198-99.
21) L. S. Vygotsky , [Selected psychological works]. Moscow,
1956. P. 54.
22) Marx & Engels, [Works]. Vol. 3, p. 253.
23) See A. N. Leont'ev, [Outline of the development of psy-
chology]. Moscow, 1947.
24) So narrow an understanding of the motive as the object
(material or ideal) that stimulates and directs activity toward
itself differs from the generally accepted version, although
there is no room here to go into a polemic on this issue.
25) Marx & Engels, [Works]. Vol. 23, p. 189.
26) See Hegel, [Works]. Moscow, 1959. Vol. IV,pp. 212-13
27) See A. R. Luria, [Higher cortical functions of man].
(2nd ed.) Moscow, 1969;[The brain and psychological pro-
cesses]. Moscow, 1970.
Translated by
Edward Berg

The Problem of Activity in Psychology

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

The Problem of Activity in Psychology

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Soviet Psychology

ISSN: 0038-5751 (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/mrpo19

The Problem of Activity in Psychology

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.2753/RPO1061-040513024

Published online: 19 Dec 2014.

Submit your article to this journal

View related articles

Citing articles: 4 View citing articles

Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at

Download by: [University of Arizona] Date: 24 September 2015, At: 10:16

THE PROBLEM OF ACTIVITY IN PSYCHOLOGY

1. Two Approaches in Psychology -

In recent years Soviet psychology has undergone rapid devel-

Professor A . N. Leont'ev is a member of the Academy of

real, sentient activity of human beings. (1)

ated in psychology persist, though they have %become subter -

This scheme is already apparent with classic clarity in the

in the famous formula S -

(Tatigkeit, in contrast to Aktivitat). Such an abstraction from

this formula adds nothing new, in principle, to the S

Indeed, nonliving objects also undergo various changes of

human beings: a hungry animal will respond to a food stimulus

to needs and attractions. The role of these factors has been

Another complex derivative of the postulate of immediacy

living systems and in those of nonliving, "machine -type" systems.

havior or the processes of nervous physiology that effect ac-

2. The Category of Object-Type Activity

Activity is a molar and nonadditive unit of a material sub-

ceptual framework of psychology, if one accepts all the cate-

only of an external environment to which one must accommo-

a word, society produces the activity that shapes i t s individuals.

more total subordination and structuring of activity's effector

which regulates activity in an object-type environment.

at the subject's pole: it is even clearer at the pole of the ob-

object-type world. Only in this latter function is a desire also

true emotions and feelings generated by the subject's object-

3. External Object-Type Activity and Psychology

It is especially significant for psychology that ontogenetically,

human activity. Even so, Rubinshteyn emphasized in later

an elementary property of a material object is generated under

more complex mental regulation raises an extremely wide

4. The Relation of External and Inner Activitv

substitutes -words. These processes, as inner experiences,

totally nonvoiced speech. (17) The main role, however, in the

development that exceeds the possibility of external activity.

from the beginning, a social activity that develops under condi-

communication but also as a vehicle of socially elaborated

ity is transferred onto a pre-existing inner "plane of conscious-

behavior by one's own single system." (21) - The positive pro-

classic, Cartesian-Lockean psychology, between the world of

Activity that is internal in form, having arisen out of external

5. The General Structure of Activity

The commonality of the macrostructure of external practical

chology is already apparent, as we have said, in the early works

The concept of activity is thus necessarily connected with

The appearance in activity of goal-directed processes - of

a hunting weapon. Does he subsequently use the weapon he

entities that comprise activity. Human activity exists only in

is played by a conscious motive that is converted into a motive-

abstraction from this situation, the same cannot be said of his

tion I call "operations

The terms "action" and "operation" are often not distin-

relations of exchange of activities; every operation is the re-