Summary The concept of the psyche

72 • Part I, Introduction to General Psychology
general ability to feel. According to A. I. Leontiev, the appearance of sensitivity in animals can serve as an objective biological sign of the onset of the psyche.
A distinctive feature of sensitivity compared with irritability is that with the onset of sensations, living organisms are able to respond not only to biologically significant environmental factors, but also to biologically neutral, although for the simplest representatives of this level of development, such as worms, mollusks, arthropods, still are biologically significant environmental factors. However, in this case, the nature of the response of animals with sensitivity to environmental factors is fundamentally different from the response of living organisms of a lower level. Thus, the presence of sensitivity allows an animal to react to an object that makes sense for it before direct contact with it. For example, an animal of a given level of development of the psyche may react to the color of the object, its paws or shape, etc. Later in the development of the organic mother, living creatures gradually form one of the main properties of the psyche — the ability of advanced and integral reflection of the real world. This means that in the process of evolution, animals with a more highly developed psyche are able to obtain information about the surrounding world, analyze it and respond to the possible impact of any surrounding objects, both biologically significant and biologically neutral.
In itself, the appearance in a certain class of animals of sensitivity, or the capacity for sensations, can be viewed not only as the birth of the psyche, but also as the appearance of a fundamentally new form of adaptation to the external environment. The main difference of this type of adaptation lies in the appearance of special processes connecting the animal with the environment, the processes of behavior.
Behavior is a complex set of reactions of a living organism to the effects of the external environment. It must be emphasized that living beings, depending on the level of mental development, have behaviors of varying complexity. We can see the simplest behavioral reactions by observing, for example, how the worm changes its direction of motion when confronted with an obstacle. In this case, the higher the level of development of a living being, the more complex its behavior. For example, in dogs we already see the manifestation of anticipatory reflection. So, the dog avoids a meeting with an object that contains a certain threat. However, the most complex behavior is observed in a person who, unlike animals, has not only the ability to respond to sudden changes in environmental conditions, but also the ability to form motivated (conscious) and purposeful behavior. The possibility of such a complex behavior due to the presence of human consciousness.
Consciousness - the highest level of mental reflection and regulation, inherent only to man as a socio-historical being.
From a practical point of view, consciousness appears as a continuously changing set of sensual and mental images that directly appear before the subject in his inner world and anticipate his practical activity. We have the right to assume that a similar mental activity