Theory of set

From Dimitry Uznadze

Author: Georgy Ketchuashvili

Uznadze discovered the path to the solution of a problem that was of prime importance in psychology ‘the relationship between physical and mental processes’ in their dialectical unity. In his view an explanation of psychological reality should be sought in the history of the development of the mind rather than in bio-physiological processes (although the mind is also a product of the brain). ‘Psychology,’ he wrote, ‘can fulfil its explanatory mission properly only if research is based on the idea that our consciousness is determined by social and historical factors’. 

The key task of psychology ‘to explain psychological reality on the basis of developmental principles’ remained unsolved within the traditional framework. It was taken for granted that there could not be an early stage in the development of consciousness. Therefore, the question of which stages preceded consciousness and how the transition to active consciousness occurred was never posed. Uznadze drew particular attention to the development of the mind and also to the stages preceding the emergence of consciousness. As consciousness was the highest form of mental development it had to be preceded by early, preconscious, forms of development. The shared and also the distinctive features of the conscious and the preconscious mind had to be established. Uznadze investigated this question at an operational level. In his view the most basic feature of the mind was the reflection of reality and the capacity to produce suitable behaviour on the basis of that reality.

Uznadze attempted to identify the psychological mechanism determining the activity of the subject in the initial stage of mental development, at the very time when the mind was formed. He held that any specific activity necessarily presupposed two factors: a subjective factor (need) and an objective factor (a situation in which that need was fulfilled). In every single instance the influence of the object depended on the need of the subject. The object could not in itself explain any specific change it brought about in the subject. In the eloquent words of D.I. Ramishvili, ‘The properties of the colour red cannot in themselves explain why it produces the effect of salivation and, in general, a readiness to take food. Only the existence of a need and the history of its formation, of the satisfaction of that need by the subject, enable us to understand a particular reaction’. But a need can explain a specific effect of the object on the subject only because in Uznadze’s theory of set the need itself is perceived as the product of the object’s influence imprinted many times over.

Thus, in set theory the stimulus that activates a living being is in each and every case a need, but the nature of the activity is determined by the actual situation. The combination of these two factors induces in a living being a general change that is expressed in a readiness to take appropriate action. This state of readiness mobilizes all the subject’s capabilities for meeting the challenge before him or her and anticipates the development of a process of activity. This is the set. For Uznadze, the set is a reality that is far removed from any opposition between the subjective and the objective. Uznadze’s set mediated the relationship not only between the physical and the psychological but also between psychological processes.

Uznadze’s original method based on the artificial inducing of sets provides the opportunity for accurate, objective experimental research on the unconscious state and for study of the set through its role in the process of illusory (erroneous) perception that accompanies its apparition and extinction.

The basic method for research on sets introduced by Uznadze is as follows: a need is engendered in the subject to perform a given task. For example, the subject may be asked to compare two balls placed simultaneously in his or her hand and say which is the larger. The balls are presented several (ten to fifteen) times so that the set or disposition (to identify the big one and the small one) induced on each occasion becomes sufficiently well reinforced (these are set-inducing tests), after which ‘say the sixteenth time’ the original balls of different sizes are replaced by two of identical size, although the subject is still asked to compare their sizes. This test usually reveals that the subject has acquired a fixed set corresponding to the previous tests and now judges one of the two equal-sized balls to be ‘larger’ or ‘smaller’. The set-inducing tests have created a state producing the illusionary perception that equal-sized balls are of different sizes. In Uznadze’s view this state is nothing other than a disposition towards a specific activity.

Uznadze and his students discovered many more illusions. It was established, in particular, that the illusory perception of weight considered by scientists for a half a century to be a peripheral phenomenon could actually be explained as being caused by set and was a reflection of the subject’s integrated-personality state. Among similar freshly discovered illusory effects were that of volume in the tactile and visual domains, that of pressure, auditory illusion, that of illumination and that of quantity.

In the course of their experimental research Uznadze and his pupils identified a number of characteristics of set. For example, a set established in one domain also manifests itself in other domains. For instance, after set inducing tests requiring subjects to compare large and small rings by touch, they visually perceived equal-sized rings as unequal. Summing up the results of these experiments, Uznadze wrote: ‘We can conclude that a set is not a partial psychological phenomenon but something integral characterizing, as it were, the personal state of the subject’. The set as a disposition to act is consequently an integrated-personality state and not some kind of partial psychological process. This is what distinguishes Uznadze’s conception of the set from its treatment in traditional psychology.

Moreover, according to Uznadze’s conception, sets are also a characteristic of animals. The ability to react to influences from the external world, chiefly through a set, that is to say ‘an integral modification of the subject’, is a primary characteristic of an organism: it is the most primitive form of reaction by an organism to the influence of the external environment. But, in animals, sets are much less largely differentiated than in human beings. The fact that the set as an integral dynamic state mediates the animal’s reaction to the influence of the external world does not mean, however, that the behaviour of animals and humans may be assigned to the same stage of development or that they are similarly determined. In the 1940s, Uznadze made a special study of the specific features of human behaviour that had social causes. The set theory also proved extremely productive in this context. His identification of the second level of behaviour, the level of ‘objectification’, which led to a new stage in the development of set theory, belongs to this period.

What is the identifying feature of human action? It resides primarily in the fact that human beings do not act only on impulse like animals but at will, in accordance with their judgement. This specifically human level Uznadze referred to as ‘the second level’ of the mind, i.e. its higher level. It is reached through a specific act, which Uznadze refers to as ‘objectification’, whereby the subject singles out an object in the external world. Before reacting to the object the subject perceives it as an object of cognition. He or she normally switches to action at the second level of speech when the smooth process of habitual forms of behaviour at the ‘first level’, which do not require the participation of the consciousness, runs into difficulties and encounters an obstacle. There may actually be spoken questions (‘What’s happening?’ ‘What is it?’) or simply astonishment. The subject then becomes aware of switching to the second theoretical level of action, the situation is objectified and the problem identified. He or she objectifies his or her activity, ‘mobilizes’ himself or herself, and ‘prepares’ for the next action. The set is established on the basis of objectified content.