HISTORY OF APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY: SUBJECT-ACTIVITY APPROACH
Relevance. History of science is a necessary component of its progressive development; however, the history of Russian applied psychology has not been sufficiently studied. Purpose of the work: to present the results of the author’s historical and psychological works carried out on the basis of the subject-activity approach. Research method. The study uses systemic methodology and the subject-activity approach based on the provisions of Marxist philosophy, theory of science and traditions of Russian psychology and its history (A.A. Bogdanov, E.A. Budilova, E.A. Klimov and others). It also uses analogies for a better understanding of the unity of consciousness principle and the activity of its subject (an individual scientist, a group of researchers and practitioners, society as a whole, as a collective subject). The study demonstrates the advantages of the methodology chosen in comparison with the one adopted by scientists who are limited by the cognitive resources of one-sided approaches (for example, the traditions of internalism or externalism) in historical and psychological research. Sample. The article provides an overview of the author’s most important publications on historical and psychological topics over the past 35 years. Results. The study presents the author’s research of the formation, development and transformation of applied psychology on the example of psychological sciences on labor and working people carried out in Russia from the end of the 19th to the beginning of the 21st century, in correlation with the events of the country’s civil history. The author analyzes the development of certain scientific problems (problems of social psychology of labor, problems of working capacity and fatigue, the prehistory of competence-based approach in psychology, problems of safety psychology in ergatic systems, etc.). It also presents the analysis of the work done by a number of leading Russian psychologists in this field. The results of the research are included in the program of the special course “History of Applied Psychology”. Conclusions. The study formulates the main provisions of the subject-activity approach in historical and psychological research and the possibilities of its application in order to understand the past of psychology and predict the trends of its future development.