At the Origins of Personality

Abstract

The paper discusses the problem of personality development at the early stages of ontogenesis. The key idea is the L.S. Vygotsky’s concept of an infant as “the most social creatures” and perception of oneself as an infant in the form of “pre-we”. The development of Vygotsky’s views is considered in the concept of communication of M.I. Lisina, as well as in the studies of the primary pre-personal formation, the essence of which is the child’s experience of himself as a subject of communication and social interaction. The data obtained within the framework of the cultural-historical approach are compared with the results of foreign studies of socio-cognitive development, psychology of attachment and social interaction. We presented an evidence of a variety of innate manifestations of social activity, the social competence of a child, starting from the first months of his life, his readiness to perceive an adult and enter into social interaction. We consider the “inter-subjectivity” — a congenital psychological mechanism that ensures the infant’s ability to social interaction; a mutual predisposition to interaction in a mother-child pair. We offer an interpretation of L.S. Vygotsky ideas about the social situation of infant development taking into account modern data of Russian and foreign psychology.

The Many Nationalities of Tamara Khanum: Friendship of the Peoples at Home, Abroad, and Within

“…69 Khanum herself described the importance of dislocation: "My task is to force the viewer to complete a head-spinning round-the-world voyage, so he can be carried away with fairy-tale speed from the Mongolian highlands to the flowering gardens of Uzbekistan," to the Volga and the Ganges, from Albania to Norway. 70 Her performances toppled barriers with a centripetal energy and suggested the limits of language. Fluency was no prerequisite to international friendship; all that was required was an openness to being spirited away.…”