What can be attributed to the results of human activities. Using the method of analyzing the products of activity in personnel work. Food classification: what is it

QUESTIONS FOR SELF-TEST

1. What is activity?

Activity is a process of conscious and purposeful change by a person of the world and himself.

3. How are activities and needs related?

Human activities are carried out for the sake of satisfying his needs.

A need is a need experienced and realized by a person for what is necessary to maintain his body and develop his personality. There are three types of needs: natural, social and ideal.

4. What is the motive of the activity? How is the motive different from the goal? What is the role of motives in human activity?

The motive is why the person acts, and the goal is what the person acts for. The same activity can be caused by different motives. For example, students read, that is, they do the same activity. But one student can read with a need for knowledge. Another is because of the desire to please the parents. The third is driven by the desire to get a good grade. The fourth wants to assert himself. At the same time, the same motive can lead to different types of activity. For example, striving to assert himself in his team, a student can express himself in educational, sports, social activities.

5. Give a definition of the need. Name the main groups of human needs and provide specific examples.

A need is a need experienced and realized by a person for what is necessary to maintain his body and develop his personality.

In modern science, various classifications of needs are used. In the very general view they can be grouped into three groups: natural, social and ideal.

Natural needs. In another way, they can be called congenital, biological, physiological, organic, natural. These are the needs of a person in everything that is necessary for his existence, development and reproduction. Natural ones include, for example, human needs for food, air, water, housing, clothing, sleep, rest, etc.

Social needs. They are determined by a person's belonging to society. Social needs are considered to be human needs for work, creativity, creativity, social activity, communication with other people, recognition, achievements, that is, in everything that is a product of social life.

Ideal needs. In another way, they are called spiritual or cultural. These are the needs of a person in everything that is necessary for his spiritual development. The ideal includes, for example, the need for self-expression, in the creation and development of cultural values, the need for a person to understand the world around him and his place in it, the meaning of his existence.

6. What can be attributed to the results (products) of human activity?

The products of human activity include material and spiritual benefits, forms of communication between people, social conditions and attitudes, as well as the abilities, skills, knowledge of the person himself.

7. Name the types of human activities. Expand their diversity with specific examples.

For various reasons, there are different types of activities.

Depending on the characteristics of a person's attitude to the world around him, activity is divided into practical and spiritual. Practical activity is aimed at transforming real objects of nature and society. Spiritual activity is associated with a change in the consciousness of people.

When a person's activity is correlated with the course of history, with social progress, then a progressive or reactionary orientation of activity is distinguished, as well as a constructive or destructive one. Based on the material studied in the history course, you can provide examples of events in which these activities manifested themselves.

Depending on the compliance of the activity with the existing general cultural values, social norms define legal and illegal, moral and immoral activities.

In connection with social forms associations of people for the purpose of carrying out activities distinguish collective, mass, individual activity.

Depending on the presence or absence of novelty of goals, results of activity, methods of its implementation, a monotonous, stereotyped, monotonous activity is distinguished, which is carried out strictly according to the rules, instructions, new in such activity is minimized, and most often it is completely absent, and the activity is innovative, inventive. , creative.

Depending on the public spheres, in which the activity takes place, distinguish between economic, political, social activities and others. In addition, in each sphere of society's life, certain types of human activity... For example, the economic sphere is characterized by production and consumer activities. Political activities are characterized by state, military, and international activities. For the spiritual sphere of the life of society - scientific, educational, leisure.

8. How are activity and consciousness related?

Any sensory image of an object, any sensation or representation, possessing a certain meaning and meaning, becomes part of consciousness. On the other hand, a number of sensations, experiences of a person are outside the framework of consciousness. They lead to unconscious, impulsive actions, which were mentioned earlier, and this affects human activity, sometimes distorting its results.

Activity, in turn, contributes to changes in the consciousness of a person, his development. Consciousness is formed by activity in order to at the same time influence this activity, define and regulate it. Practically realizing their creative ideas, born in consciousness, people transform nature, society and themselves. In this sense, human consciousness not only reflects the objective world, but also creates it. Having absorbed historical experience, knowledge and methods of thinking, having received certain skills and abilities, a person masters reality. At the same time, he sets goals, creates projects for future tools, consciously regulates his activities.

TASKS

1. In Kamchatka, known for its active volcanoes, special technologies for the processing of volcanic raw materials are being implemented. This work was initiated by a special decision of the Governor. Experts have determined that the production of silicates from volcanic rock is a very profitable business that does not require significant capital investment. According to their calculations, the work of one plant can bring 40 million rubles to the regional budget and 50 million rubles to the state budget. Consider this information from the standpoint of the topic studied: determine what types of people's activities manifested themselves in the described events, name in each case the subjects and objects of activity, trace on this example connection between consciousness and activity.

Type of activity - labor, material activity, subjects - workers, specialists, objects - volcanic raw materials, business profit. The connection between consciousness and activity - first we are aware of the event, make a report on it (profitability calculations), then we begin to act (introduce technologies).

2. Determine whether practical or spiritual activities include: a) cognitive activity; b) social reforms; c) production of essential goods.

a) cognitive activity refers to spiritual activity, because cognition is aimed at acquiring knowledge, and knowledge is ideal, it cannot be seen or touched;

b) social reforms will be related to practical activities, since this type of activity is aimed at transforming society;

c) the production of essential goods will be related to practical activities, since the object in this case will be nature, and the result will be material goods.

3. Name the actions that make up the activities of a doctor, farmer, scientist.

The doctor primarily works with people: he accepts, based on the results of the tests, he makes a conclusion, if necessary, he heals. Farmer: he studies the soil in order to know what will grow on it and whether it is necessary to fertilize it, processes it, plants everything that is necessary on it, takes care of the plants, reaps the harvest. Scientist: engaged in science, collects and tests materials in any scientific field, studies their properties, tries to improve and discover something new, conducts experiments, etc.

4. A. N. Leont'ev wrote: "Activity is richer, truer than the consciousness preceding it." Explain this thought.

Consciousness allows a person to think, but not every thought leads to action, which means that activity is richer and more true.

Among the methods of studying the personality of an applicant for vacant post employees of personnel departments can also choose such an undeservedly forgotten method as the analysis of the products of activity. This method is good for studying job candidates, but it is more effective when studying employees applying for another position or being promoted to the leadership talent pool.

Analysis of activity products- This is a method of studying a personality that allows you to indirectly study its psychological characteristics based on the practical results (products) of activity. Its essence lies in the reconstruction of personality traits according to the final and intermediate results of activity. The specificity of this method lies in the fact that a researcher may not come into direct contact with a person, but only deal with the products of his previous activity.

The method of analyzing the products of activity is often underestimated, since employees of personnel departments, not knowing what to study, sometimes identify this method with its particular case - study of labor results... Therefore, when it comes to this method, they mainly mean only the material products of human activity, that is, what the employee produces directly at the workplace.

But the products of activity can be by no means only material (like the activity itself - not only objective) and be produced not only at the workplace.

Considering activity as a form of mental activity of a person, in psychology, in addition to the main types of activity (play, study and work), such forms of activity as external and internal, practical and spiritual, objective and mental, transformative, cognitive, value-orientational and communicative. In addition, distinguish material and production, socio-political, managerial and organizational, scientific activity. Consequently, the products (results) of activities may be different. The result, for example, material-production activity, can be the creation of material goods, change and development of the material-object environment, the result of socio-political activity - the transformation of social institutions and relations, spiritual - a change in the forms of social consciousness, scientific - the emergence of new ideas and theories, communicative - the formation of interpersonal relationships, etc.

It is precisely in the variety of forms and types of activity and in an even greater variety of products of activity that one of the main difficulties in using this method in practice lies. The second difficulty lies in the fact that the analysis of products of activity refers to methods in which there is a non-standardized transition from features to conclusions. Such a transition is not algorithmized and, therefore, the quality of conclusions largely depends on the training and qualifications of the researcher himself, on his ability to notice and analyze various "little things". Obviously, this is why in books devoted to personnel selection, the method of analyzing the products of activity is only mentioned, indicated as one of the possible methods of studying candidates for a vacant position, but it is not described in detail as, for example, methods psychological testing... Let's try to fill this gap.

To use the method of analyzing the products of activity, you can carry out their kind of classification and group them into several categories: material or material-object, documented and functional... Let's dwell on these categories in more detail.

Material or material-object products of activity

These include primarily products manufactured in production... The subject of consideration in this case may be the contribution to the product that the employee makes to it in accordance with his job responsibilities. This can be the quantity and quality of products, the presence and quantity of defective products, the nature and characteristics of the marriage. This also includes the tools and devices created by the employee, the results of his graphic work - working drawings, diagrams, drawings, maps, etc. Such products of activity are inherently the results of the employee's work, and their analysis, as a rule, does not cause difficulties.

It is more difficult to analyze such material-object products of activity that can be attributed to the so-called side results and which are not directly related to the performance of the employee job responsibilities, but directly affect their performance or indicate the employee's attitude to the work performed.

These could be options registration of a workplace, office... This can include the order of arranging folders with documents in the office, books in a personal library, and even such a trifle as placing tools in the workshop or spices in the kitchen. These little things can tell a lot about a person's composure, his pedantry, foresight, his ability (or inability) to plan and organize own work.

For example, if at the workplace there is a complete absence of personal belongings (even a pen and pencil are purely office ones), then, most likely, the employee treats his work only as a means of earning money. Too many things that are not related to the performance of job duties, obviously, will indicate that a person in the workplace is doing anything, but not his job. With the help of things, an employee can also designate "his" territory, the invasion of which will cause him a negative reaction.

It is often said: if you want to know what is going on in a woman's head, look in her handbag. The same, to paraphrase a little, can be said about the leader and his desk. The head's thoughts cannot "move in orderly rows" if his desk is littered with mountains of papers. Moreover, with a high degree of probability it can be argued that such a leader will periodically "lose" Required documents, not adhere to (and sometimes fail) the deadlines for the implementation of individual activities, "forget" decisions taken and so on. Such a leader will be able to cope with his work only when there is an assistant “nanny” nearby, watching everything. The question arises: is such a leader needed? Perhaps his assistant will do better with leadership functions? After all, if a person cannot organize his own work, then how can he organize the work and interaction of others? The other extreme is a completely clean executive desk. In our opinion, comments are unnecessary here.

"By-product" of labor can be nomenclature or archival files sewn by an employee, which are carried out in almost any office work. Confused pages, errors in numbering, loose threads, loose sheets, etc. will be indicators of negligence, disinterest in the work.

The category of material-object products of activity also includes products that are in no way related to labor activity, but are the result of the realization of a person's hobbies, i.e. home products applied arts ... These can be any crafts (for example, wooden figurines, self-assembled receivers or aircraft models), household items (decorative shelves for books, knitted items), interior items (paintings, photographs, etc.).

In addition to the quality, practicality, usefulness of the things being studied (products of activity), it is important to pay attention to when and why they are produced. After all, one person makes shelves for books occasionally and only because there is not enough money to buy ready-made ones, another - because he wants his shelves to be distinguished by an original design, and the third is constantly doing this simply because he loves to tinker with something. One employee will knit hats, making time at lunchtime or before bedtime so that her children wear something bright and beautiful, and the other will sit in front of the TV in the evenings, because knitting soothes her after a day at work. Different reasons will indicate different personality traits.

Documented products of activities

This category includes various documents, drawn up or worked out and signed by the employee, namely: orders (instructions), resolutions on received documents (if the head is being studied), plans and reports, memoranda, statements, business records in "shift" journals, various publications, methodological developments, reviews, reviews, etc. But it can be other, more personal documents, for example, workbooks, notes, personal business diaries, notes to colleagues, notes on documents or in the margins of books, letters (mostly business).

According to the content of such documents, one can study the ability to express thoughts in writing, the style of presentation, the erudition of a person, his literacy. By design and appearance documents can be judged on his punctuality, attentiveness, attitude to the case and to subordinates (if the leader is being studied). After all, even a resolution can be written by hand (the leader himself wrote) or printed (the assistant prepared the resolution), written on a separate sheet (the resolution form) or on the document itself. In addition, the resolution can be written in an empty space at the beginning or at the end of the document (to make it easier to parse it) or on top finished text(“I like it so much, and if you don’t understand everything, then these are your problems”). Also, instead of the necessary resolution, there can only be a signature of the head, which will indicate that he has familiarized himself with the content of the document, but is not ready (does not want, cannot or is not able) to take responsibility for making a decision on the issue set out in the document.

A note pinned to a document written on a piece of paper can say a lot about the author. Stains from cups, sandwiches or dirty hands that appear on the document after some employees have worked with it will be no less eloquent.

You can often get additional information about a person even when he puts only a signature on the document. Consider real example... One of the deputies applying for vacant place the first head and being the acting head of the enterprise, he signed two letters to the parent organization. The time difference between the signing of these letters is two weeks. The content of the letters is mutually exclusive (but this can be explained by the fact that they were prepared in different structural units). At the same time, there is no mention of the previous one in the later letter.

What can you say about a person applying for a leadership position by analyzing these letters? Several options are possible here:

the manager does not read the documents before signing them;

if he reads documents, he does not delve into their content;

if he delves into the content, he does not remember the previously signed documents, and therefore does not fully own the information concerning the enterprise;

if he possesses information, he easily lends itself to persuasion on the part of subordinates, and therefore does not have his own opinion and a clear vision of the solution to the problem.

Of course, changes could have occurred in two weeks leading to a different decision. But in this case, the second letter should have contained references to these changes. Therefore, regardless of which of the considered reasons led to the signing of the letters, there can be only one conclusion: this applicant is not able to effectively fulfill the duties of the first head of the enterprise. Fortunately, this was the decision made by the parent organization.

It should be noted that if documents contain a large amount of text or are written by hand, then, if necessary, you can conduct a more in-depth study of them, using, for example, methods of content analysis, psycholinguistic analysis of text or psychographological analysis of handwriting, which can be considered as particular varieties of the analysis method. products of activity.

The category of documented products of activity can also include the results of labor streamlining material and information materials... This can be, for example, information materials selected by a person, various catalogs, inventories, card indexes and bibliographic indexes. Analyzing such products of activity, one can, for example, study a person's thinking, his composure, perseverance, the ability to monotonous work.

No less interesting information about an employee can also be given such documented products of activity, such as social transformations... And although a person himself may often have nothing to do with such documents as orders, instructions, etc., it is in them, as a rule, that the products of his social and social activities are recorded. This refers to human-created organizations or enterprises, their subdivisions, employees selected and selected by them, implemented and functioning organizational systems, etc. Some select employees according to the principle of professionalism, others according to their high learning ability, and still others according to the principle of personal loyalty. One manager implements a strict system of control over the use of working time by employees, another - a flexible working time, the third - does not pay attention to it. Therefore, most likely, the first adheres to an authoritarian leadership style, the second - democratic, the third - liberal.

The concept of a product has not been developed in activity theory. Even P.K.

31]. Analyzing the activity scheme of A. N. Leont'ev, L. I. Antsyferova also noted the insufficient elaboration of this concept. She found this fact paradoxical, since “it is the product that determines the type or type of activity” and “determines the division of activity into actions and operations” [Antsyferova L.I., 1969, p. 66].

In this scheme, the “product” is not always separated from the “subject” of the activity and from its “goal” (see above). Obviously, the philosophical and psychological plan of analysis justifies this approach: the principle of the objectivity of activity as a conceptual tool covers the needs of this type of analysis.

However, the study of the structure of activity as such, as well as the solution of many problems in the field of educational psychology, labor psychology, etc., require concretization and elaboration of the concept of a product. First of all, in the conceptual system of the theory of activity, the diversity of the results of activity should be reflected. At the same time, the corresponding ideas are still logically and substantively incomplete [Sukhodolskiy GV, 1981].

Reflection of the types of products and their ordering are needed not only for the sake of systematization as such - among the diverse types of products there are those concepts of which have undoubted heuristic significance for psychological analysis, and above all for the analysis of educational activity.

So what is a product of an activity?

In accordance with the definition of the subject of activity, the product of the activity is the result of the transformation of the former; it owes its origin to it.

As you know, instead of a successful one, i.e. a product that meets the goal of an activity, if its outcome is unsuccessful, another product can be obtained: the object of activity can turn into an unnecessary or even harmful thing (situation). This is a failed product. The subject can come to a result that only partially satisfies him, this is a partially successful product. The result is not excluded, which was not planned, but which at the same time meets some other need of the subject; like a successful product, it is a useful product. Finally, it is possible that a successful (failed, partially successful) result will be accompanied by an additional result (product). It can also be helpful (neutral, harmful). We are talking about a result that, along with the planned, or necessary, product comes from the very object of activity, for example: "The forest is being cut, the chips are flying."

In all these cases, we are talking about a direct product of activity.

However, as the results of an activity, a person receives not only certain modifications of its object itself - other structural moments also undergo changes. Some of them turn out to be significant for the agent.

So, the means (instrument) of activity comes to some extent in disrepair at the end of its process. A person acquires new skills or strengthens old ones, trains his neuromuscular system, sensory organs and achieves a healing effect, although at the same time he gets tired and, possibly, gets injured, and at large intervals of time, commensurate with life, his body wears out and grows old.

The air in the workroom can be saturated with various vapors from the materials used or smoke particles, its temperature rises, etc.

The result of the transformation of a structural moment, different from the subject of activity, can be called its by-product. By-products differ in their origin in their attribution to a particular structural moment - the subject of activity, its means or external conditions.

In the context of the description of the procedural components of the activity, the final and intermediate products, as well as the main and preparatory ones, are singled out. These terms clearly enough indicate the content of the corresponding concepts.

When considering the structure of educational activity, we will have to introduce a couple more concepts - the main and additional products. Unlike a necessary / additional pair, these results come from different things or situations. Below, in the chapter on learning activities, this distinction will be revealed.

So, the typology of products of activity involves the allocation of the following characteristics: 1)

direct / side; 2)

successful / partially successful / failed; 3)

useful / useless / harmful; 4)

necessary / additional; 5)

final / intermediate; 6)

main / preparatory; 7)

main / additional. When describing the results of the investigated activity, other adjectives can also be used, for example: one can speak of "business", "subject-specific" products. However, these words are not terms, and the respective products must be characterized by the seven characteristics identified above.

It is necessary to stipulate the ratio of "product" and "result". We can agree with G.V. Sukhodolsky that the first concept refers only to integral activity, while the second is more general character- it can also be attributed to the individual components of its process [Sukhodolskiy GV, 1981].

The list of types of products presented is, of course, incomplete. It characterizes only abstraction individual activities... When considering the same activity in a broader, social context, this list should be supplemented with other concepts. Among them, in particular, there will be "socially useful" and "socially harmful" results.

The concept of a product is essential for psychological analysis. Along with the goal, the product is the most important characteristic of the activity, the productivity of the activity is an indicator of its optimality.

As we will see later, different results are produced in learning activities; they are united among themselves by hierarchical links and determine the very structure of this activity. The product concept is used, in particular, when describing the reinforcement model.

The concept of a by-product is very important. With its help, “learning as a process” is described - an alternative option in relation to educational activities of gaining experience in the course of various types of “business” activities. As noted by Ya. A. Ponomarev, the unconscious reflection of a by-product can contribute to the intuitive solution of creative problems. This concept is actually used in solving the problems of "upbringing education", the formation of the personality.

Psychological and methodological work is also based on the concept of a product. For example, the problem of the “connection between two results is discussed - in the form of mental properties the subject itself ”[LI Antsyferova, 1969, p. 80]. This should be interpreted as a connection between direct (predominantly) and one of the by-products of human activity. 3.1.4.