Structure and components of human consciousness in psychology

Definition of the concept

Psychologists and philosophers identify two aspects of the psyche that make a person human.

This is consciousness and self-awareness. Consciousness is understood as the highest degree of reflection of reality and control of life.

With the help of consciousness, a person controls his mental functions, forms a model of the external world, cognizes and evaluates everything that happens to him and around him.

The most important element of consciousness is self-awareness . It means the individual’s understanding of himself as an object of the world, the formation of an image of his “I”, ideas about himself.

Consciousness and self-awareness are functions that humanity acquired and developed in itself in the process of evolutionary development.

The first signs appear in infancy, when the child distinguishes sensations from different objects and processes that happen to him.

to clearly understand himself at 2-3 years old; at the age of seven, children develop self-esteem.

The most rapid and rapid development of consciousness and self-awareness occurs in adolescence , when a person is actively searching for himself, his style, and determining his place in life. During this same period, moral principles were formed.

Thus, the following forms are distinguished in consciousness:

• self-awareness,
• rationality, the relationship of oneself and one’s concepts with the world,
• reason, thinking consciousness,
• spirituality, the highest degree of consciousness.

There are many theories about consciousness . For example, Freud believed that every event and human experience is determined by the conscious and unconscious.

In the area of ​​the unconscious there is the sexual and aggressive side of the personality, as well as those events that the individual has deliberately repressed from his memory and mind. When the unconscious tries to “break through” into consciousness, a person experiences a feeling of anxiety.

From the point of view of idealism, consciousness is always primary. The world cannot exist outside of human perception.

Materialism considers consciousness to be a property of highly organized matter. It not only reflects the existing reality, but also controls it.

Functionalism defines consciousness as a function, that is, a person, being in a conscious state, performs certain functions. Artificial intelligence is built on this .

Functions of consciousness

Acting as the most important component of personality, consciousness successfully performs a number of functions, including the following:

• cognitive – thanks to consciousness, a person forms a system of knowledge;
• goal-setting - the individual is aware of his needs, carries out goal setting, planning strategies to achieve his goals;
• value-oriented – a person analyzes, evaluates phenomena and processes of reality, and formulates his attitude towards them;
• managerial - the individual exercises control over his own behavior, the implementation of his own behavioral patterns in accordance with the set goals, formulated strategies for achieving them;
• communicative – consciousness exists and is transmitted in a symbolic form, and is closely related to the communicative activity of the individual;
• reflexive – thanks to consciousness, a person exercises self-control, self-awareness, self-regulation, which provides opportunities for personal development.

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Structure

What is included in the structure of consciousness? In psychology, important structural components of consciousness are identified:

• being,
• reflection,
• self-awareness.

It performs the following functions:

1. Reflection . This includes an individual's ability to perceive, perceive, remember and store information.
2. Reflection . This is an opportunity to realize oneself as an object of the world, to understand one’s “I”.
3. Transformation . A person is able to set goals and achieve them.
4. Creative . With the help of the mind, a person shows imagination and creativity.
5. Grade . This includes emotions.
6. Communication . A person conveys his knowledge with the help of certain signs. That is, consciousness cannot exist without communication.
7. Time formation .
   This is a holistic picture of the world, containing memories of the past, understanding of the present and future. This property is the main difference between humans and animals.

Conscious and unconscious actions

Consciousness does not exclude unconscious activity. If at first we analyze our actions, evaluate them, reflect on the situation or a question that is new to us. All this is recognized without human intervention in psychological activity. However, the process of fulfilling and achieving the set goal is automated.

Unconscious actions include walking, singing, speaking, reading, counting, and writing. To achieve automation, a person actively manages these processes and works hard on them. Moreover, such unconscious repetition of habitual actions can in an instant go from automated to controlled and controlled. In an unconscious state, a person is not able to objectively assess the situation, he does not control it and does not own this problem, he needs help, his behavior is disrupted and there is no ability to keep track of time.

A clear manifestation of unconscious activity is sleep. During this complex process, countless reactions occur in the brain. GNI is inhibited, and thanks to dreams, psychological exhaustion is prevented.

Dreams are one of the forms of consciousness, which is characterized by the presence of ideas. One of the scientists emphasized that dreams are an amazing combination of past experiences. What we see in a dream has already happened in life. Some absurd pictures that may appear before our eyes are based on experiences that have already occurred, which enter into reactions and various connections in a certain part of the brain.

When we wake up, we move from an unconscious state to a conscious state. Therefore, life is a unity and harmonious combination of subconscious life and conscious life.

Consciousness is especially necessary in such situations:

In solving complex and conflict situations. Make a decision if necessary. At the moment of psychological or mental threat. As necessary to overcome psychological or mental resistance.

Marketers especially often take advantage of a person's ability to act unconsciously. These people purposefully use a person’s tendency not to catch some information, but immediately put it into the subconscious. As a result, when a person sees similar information again, it seems familiar to him and, accordingly, necessary. So, without realizing it at all, we purchase goods that we do not need at all.

Scientists have realized that it is possible to easily control a person’s psyche by providing him with information at a certain moment. So this knowledge bypasses consciousness and is immediately deposited in the subconscious. This theory is called the 25th frame.

The ability of the brain to quickly perceive new information without the participation of consciousness and remember it well is used not only for the selfish purposes of marketers. There are a number of methods for learning a foreign language. One of the most effective is to use the 25th frame. The training lasts 45 minutes, which are divided into three parts. During the first, you are offered to view pictures with written foreign words, which change 25 frames per second.

Then, for the next 15 minutes, review the same words, but listen to the pronunciation. This lesson proceeds at a normal pace. The last 15 minutes are practice and you need to make an effort to get the right words out of your subconscious. Thanks to this technique, a person is able to memorize 7,000 new foreign words in just an hour, and these words remain in memory, although you may not use the language you are learning. Compared to the traditional way of teaching and learning a foreign language, you will have to put in a year and a half of effort.

Stages and functions of self-awareness

Self-awareness is an individual’s perception of himself, understanding of his differences from others, awareness of his needs, emotions, feelings, experiences.

Self-awareness performs the following functions:

1. Distinguishing yourself from others, accepting your individuality.
2. Maintaining consistency of actions and behavior, responsibility for one’s actions.
3. Motivation for a specific activity.
4. Formation of a model of relationships with others.
5. The ability to develop personality traits, control emotions and feelings.

In its development, self-awareness goes through the following stages :

1. Natural . The child learns to distinguish and perceive sensations and the effects of external factors on him with the help of sensorimotor intelligence.
2. Social .
   A person perceives himself, evaluates and compares with others. At this stage, self-respect and will appear.
3. Personal . The individual understands the reasons for his actions and evaluates the possibilities for further development.

Thus, the psychological structure of self-awareness consists of the following components :

• self-knowledge,
• self-control and self-regulation,
• self-esteem,
• self-acceptance,
• self-respect.

Stages of development:

1. Awareness of identity, differentiation of oneself. Develops by 12 months of the baby’s life.
2. Understanding oneself as a subject of society and activity. Appears at 2-3 years of age.
3. Acceptance of individual mental characteristics. Formed in teenagers.
4. Formation of moral and ethical principles. Begins to develop in adolescence.

Human psyche as a system, its structure, components and elements

2.1. Psyche and body. Brain and psyche

Psyche

(from ancient Greek, spiritual) - the ability of a subject to actively reflect objective reality, which arose as a result of the interaction of highly organized living beings with the outside world.

Basic functions of the psyche:

• reflection of the surrounding world;
• ensuring the integrity of the body;
• regulation of behavior.

The integrative function of the psyche is to ensure the body’s adaptation to environmental conditions.

The psyche is the result of the complex activity of the nervous system, the structural and functional unit of which is the neuron (nerve cell).

Neuron
(
from ancient Greek fiber
)
is an electrically excitable cell that processes and transmits information through electrical and chemical signals.

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2.1. Neuron structure

Each neuron consists of a cell body (or soma

), which contains the cell nucleus.
From the cell body of a neuron grow dendrites
(short branches that receive nerve impulses going to the neuron) and
an axon
(a long thin tubular process that transmits nerve impulses from the neuron).

Neurons form chemical or functional connections with other neurons, making up a neural network

(eng. biological neural network);
points of conjugation (contact) of neurons in the network are called synapses
.

Stimulation of excitatory synapses causes a nerve impulse

, running along the axon.
Signals travel from one neuron to another through a complex electrochemical reaction. The transmission of signals from the sense organs to the brain and spinal cord is carried out by sensory neurons
, and from the brain and spinal cord to the muscles and glands by
motor neurons
.

Nerve

- a sheathed bundle of axons in the peripheral nervous system, which is the path for electrochemical nerve impulses transmitted along each of the axons to the peripheral organs.

Nervous system

humans and mammals consists of
a central nervous system
(
brain
and
spinal cord
) and
a peripheral nervous system
(cranial and spinal nerves, nerve plexuses).

Peripheral nervous system

consists of
the somatic nervous system

and
from the sensory organs, muscles, skin, and
the autonomic
nervous
system
, which regulates the activity of internal organs, glands, blood and lymph vessels.

Brain

- the center of the nervous system, the physiological functions of which are to centrally control all other organs of the body. The brain consists of the central brainstem, limbic system and cerebrum.

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2.2. Main parts of the brain (cross section)

To the central trunk

relate:

• medulla oblongata
  , whose functions include protective reflexes (coughing, sneezing, swallowing, vomiting), vital reflexes (breathing), regulation of vascular tone;
• cerebellum
  , whose functions are coordination of movements, regulation of balance and muscle tone, muscle memory;
• thalamus
  , responsible for the redistribution of incoming sensory information (with the exception of smell) to the cerebral cortex;
• hypothalamus
  , which regulates all body functions (except heart rate, blood pressure and spontaneous respiratory movements), as well as human emotions and behavior.

Reticular formation

(from Latin rete - network) - a structure consisting of more than 100 small neural networks of the brain stem and upper spinal cord that filters incoming sensory information and transmits it to the limbic system and cerebral cortex.

The limbic system located within the thalamus

participates in the regulation of the functions of smell and internal organs, controls instinctive behavioral reactions, emotions, memory, and plays an important role in learning.

Big brain

(cerebrum) consists of two
cerebral hemispheres
, covered with a convoluted
cortex
, which plays a key role in the implementation of higher mental functions - memory, attention, perception, thinking, language and consciousness.

Left hemisphere

The brain specializes in expressive and impressive speech, reading, writing, verbal memory, verbal and abstract thinking, is focused on forecasting,
the right
is responsible for visual-spatial orientation, non-verbal memory, and specific figurative thinking.

Vegetative

(
autonomic
)
nervous system
consists of two systems:

• sympathetic
  , which mobilizes the body’s nervous system in stressful situations, increasing metabolism and increasing tissue excitability;
• parasympathetic
  , whose functions are associated with actions that do not require an immediate reaction (salivation, lacrimation, urination, digestion, defecation).

The autonomic nervous system plays an important role in emotional reactions because its fibers mediate the functioning of smooth muscles and glands. Endocrine glands

(
endocrine glands
) synthesize and release hormones into the bloodstream that affect emotional state and motivation.

The human psyche is influenced by heredity

.
The molecular unit of heredity of a living organism is genes
- sections of DNA and RNA that store information about the creation and maintenance of body cells and transmit genetic characteristics to offspring.