JOURNAL OF RUSSIAN & EAST EUROPEAN PSYCHOLOGY

2021, VOL. 58, NOS. 3–4, 176–187

https://doi.org/10.1080/10610405.2021.1933833

Chapter 5: Activities of the Subject’s Self-Positing

V.A. Petrovsky

Supra-Situationality. Intrinsic motivation. Nonadaptivity

Consider the famous schoolboy’s dilemma: “Is the Lord omnipotent?” “Yes,
omnipotent!” “Then can He create a stone that He cannot Himself lift?” (If
God cannot create such a stone, then He is not omnipotent; but if He can
create a stone that He cannot Himself lift, then He is also not omnipotent.)
It is difficult to say whether the creation of such a stone could have been in
the interests of the Most High, but what is remarkable is that it seems that
people constantly pose and solve this problem, thereby discovering
a paradoxical property of their own activity: its nonadaptivity.
. . . There are two girls in the room.1 The first girl is of school age. She has to
perform a very simple task: to reach an object lying in the middle of the table at
such a distance from the edges, fenced off by a low barrier, that it is impossible to
reach it directly with her hand; it would work to use a stick that is lying here. The
girl walks around the table, tries one thing and then another, but the problem is
still not solved. A younger girl, about five years old, at first watches quietly, and
then begins to give one suggestion after another: “jump up” (this tip is clearly
unsuccessful), “use the stick” (the only thing that can will work). Finally, she
takes the stick herself and tries to reach the object. But the older girl quickly takes
this “tool” away from her, explaining that it is not hard to reach it with the stick,
“anyone can do that.” At that moment, an experimenter enters the room, to
whom the test subject declares that she cannot reach the object on the table.
How should this phenomenon be interpreted? Does the schoolgirl per­
haps simply misunderstand the task (for example, assuming that she is “not
allowed” to use the stick)? . . . No, as it turns out. What if we slightly change
the conditions of the experiment? Without eliminating the objective sig­
nificance of the goal to be achieved (the object lying on the table), we
artificially change the subject’s attitude to how it can be achieved (for
example, we explain to her that she may use the stick). The subject, of
course, does not refuse to act as instructed, but tries to avoid the reward

English translation © 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC, from the Russian text, V.A. Petrovsky,
“Deaitel’nost’ samopolaganiia sub’’ekta,” in Chelovek nad Situatsiei (Moscow: Smysl, 2010), pp. 63–76.
Translated by Susan Welsh. References and Notes have been renumbered for this edition.—Ed.
Published with the publisher’s permission.
© 2021 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
 JOURNAL OF RUSSIAN & EAST EUROPEAN PSYCHOLOGY 177

(she tries to reject it or takes it reluctantly, then “accidentally” forgets it on

the table, etc.). This phenomenon is especially striking when the attractive­
ness of the object (the “goal/reward”) increases, while the difficulty of the
task remains the same.
What does this peculiar situation tell us? The most effective way to achieve
the goal is to use the simplest means: the tool that is ready at hand. Yet
another way of solving the problem is chosen. Should we not assume that we
are dealing with a phenomenon that is inherently nonadaptive?
A fundamental feature of human activity is that it not only brings to bear
the subject’s initial attitudes toward life, but also generates new ones; it
reveals its irreducibility to the original established life orientations by
including “supra-situational” elements.
Let us formulate a principle that goes against the postulate of congruity and
emphasizes the active direction of human activity, relatively independently of
the tasks of adaptation: “the principle of supra-situational activeness.”
According to this principle, the subject, acting to realize the initial relations
of his activity, goes beyond these relations, and ultimately transforms them.
Acting beyond what is required by situational necessity gives us an initial
characteristic of activeness as an aspect of the progressive motion of activity.
The starting point for introducing the term “supra-situationality” was
our definition of the activeness of the individual as “beyond what is
required by situational necessity” [45]. If we accept that “situational neces­
sity” is the obligation to perform actions that ensure adaptation, then
“supra-situationality” is the performance of actions that are superfluous
from the standpoint of the adaptation function (it does not matter what
caused these actions, whether they are a situationally caused violation of
homeostasis, or the action of hedonistic or pragmatic stimuli). The idea of
“superfluousness” [izbytochnost’] can be expressed in another way. We can
say that supra-situational actions are intrinsically valuable; they do not
serve as an instrument for the implementation of external goals or from
motivations external to them. They are performed “for themselves.”
The author came to the idea of the intrinsic value of some forms of
behavior in his first studies on “unselfish risk” [42], which will be discussed
later on. In the phenomenon of “unselfish risk,” however, there is some­
thing more than situational superfluousness or “non-instrumentality.”
Those who take risks go beyond their adaptive aspirations; they act contrary
to the functions of adaptation. Goals are chosen in advance without knowl­
edge of whether they can be attained, and that very uncertainty is the
reason that these goals are chosen. Situational superfluousness can at any
time become unprofitable for the individuum, if the exuberant feeling of “I
can!” does not bear fruit.
178 V.A. PETROVSKY

The combination of situational superfluousness and a preference for

goals the achievement of which is unforeseen gives us a special construct:
“active nonadaptivity.”
It is necessary to compare the concepts of super-situational activeness
(the author’s 1971 – 1978 studies) and active nonadaptivity [52], [53], on
the one hand, and the concept of “intrinsic” (that is, internal) motivation
for action, on the other hand, since the category of intrinsic value, “non-
instrumentality,” is equally applicable to both classes of phenomena.
Looking at the problem of extrinsic and intrinsic motivation,
H. Heckhausen, a leading expert in the psychology of motivation, noted in
passing that the description of behavior as motivated either “from within” or
“from without” and juxtaposing these forms “is almost as old as the experi­
mental psychology of motivation itself.” In Soviet psychology, D.N. Uznadze
identified a class of functional needs that give value to the process of action as
such. In Heckhausen’s work we encounter a parade of names of classical
psychologists, references to their works in which they postulate, sometimes
even experimentally investigate, and in any case discuss ideas of “internally
conditioned” motivation for action (starting with the works of R. Woodworth,
G. Allport, H. Harlow, H. Montgomery, W. Welker, R. Butler, S. Koch, and
others). Heckhausen considers in detail the empirical research in this area
conducted in later years and termed “intrinsic motivation.”2
It is reasonable to emphasize that for Heckhausen, “intrinsicality” is a way of
describing motivation and, we might add, the specific research strategies, the
choice of independent and dependent variables, and the distinctive views of
researchers when interpreting experimental data. This somewhat reduces the
pathos of the “intrinsic–extrinsic” discourse. The point is not only that the
“intrinsic–extrinsic” contrast is “as old as the experimental psychology of
motivation itself” [read: “as old as the world”–V.P.], but that it, we stress, is
logically vulnerable if, of course, by “internal” we understand the motivations
of “the individuum himself.” For it cannot be denied that “in reality, actions
and their underlying intentions are always conditioned only internally” [22,
vol. 2, p. 240), and that “motive,” including concepts such as “need, impulse,
attraction, inclination, striving,” etc., is “the direction of action toward certain
target states . . . that the subject seeks to achieve, whatever variety of means may
be required” [22, vol. 1, p. 33]. The concepts of motive and motivation
encompass the quality of belonging to the subject, to his subjectness, the
property of “being internal.” There is no internal motivation since there is
no external motivation. These are conventional terms of art (and, at the same
time, words of everyday speech) to denote a subjective localization of the source
of activeness.
It is therefore important, first of all, how we understand “intrinsicality”
(and there are undoubtedly differences on this matter), and second, what
constitutes the uniqueness of the phenomena being studied. The term
 JOURNAL OF RUSSIAN & EAST EUROPEAN PSYCHOLOGY 179

“intrinsicality” implies the marking of a certain class of phenomena; the

connection between the “family name” and the essence of these phenomena
is conventional.
Heckhausen identifies and categorizes six ways of understanding
intrinsic motivation:

● Attraction without reduction of attraction. Intrinsic motivation is not

directed at meeting physical needs. Research-oriented, manipulative,
and other types of activeness with intrinsic motivation do not serve the
interests of homeostasis.
● Freedom from purpose. Intrinsic motivation is described by terms such as
“self-purposing,” “motivation by effectiveness,” and “sense of efficacy.”
“Only those actions are intrinsically motivated that are performed purely
for the sake of the activity itself.” [“Processual motivation” and “func­
tional tendency” are more familiar terms for us.—V.P.]
● Optimal level of activation or dissonance. Intrinsic motivation is asso­
ciated with regulation aimed at maintaining or restoring some optimal
level of functioning: “optimal excitation (activation),” “optimal disso­
nance” between the current flow of information and the standard one
(schema, expectation, level of adaptation). Motivation should not only
reduce the detected dissonance, but should search out or restore the
optimal size of such dissonance—at this point, Heckhausen refers to
E. Deci [17, p. 40].
● Self-affirmation. The main thing here is the striving to be the cause of
one’s own actions (this is the guiding principle that permeates various
motives). In the mid-1970s, in the context of ongoing experimental
work on verifying the previously stated hypotheses of self-
determination by White [64] and DeCharms [16], Heckhausen used
two types of experiences: belief in one’s capabilities (White) and
subjective causation (DeCharms). This view is close to our own, but
we shift the emphasis to the conditions that generate the feeling of “I
can” as an excess of strength, and the feeling of subjectivity as an
alternative to man’s characteristic nonadaptivity. That said, we empha­
size that the nonadaptivity of vital, object-related, communicative, and
cogitative acts occurs, however paradoxically, within an adaptive goal-
setting strategy (that is, when a person pursues what seem to him
exclusively achievable goals, when he is convinced that he is acting on
the basis of certainty).
● Joyful absorption in an action. “Intrinsic motivation means in this case
that a person joyfully gives himself up to what he is doing, that he is
completely immersed in the experience of the action that is underway”
[22, vol. 2, p. 238]. The value of experience here is not that the “I” acts
as the cause of the action, but that the action itself is experienced,
180 V.A. PETROVSKY

a process of activeness. According to Csiksentmihalyi [15], this is joy

that comes from activeness, from the state of flow, when, dissolving in
the object, in a state of complete concentration on the task at hand,
you forget about your “I,” and the distinction between play and work
is blurred.3
● Uniformity of the subject matter (endogeneity) of an action and its
purpose. The criterion for intrinsic motivation is the answer to the
question “whether the subject has an experience, and if so, to what
extent this experience reflects a meaningful and integral relationship
between the action and its purpose or basis” [22, vol. 2, p. 241). It is
difficult to disagree with Heckhausen that “psychologically the clear­
est of the new concepts of intrinsic motivation is the concept of
endogeneity (homogeneity) of action” [22, vol. 2, 241].

But from this understanding there follows an important consequence for us:
The concept of “intrinsicality” in the interpretation of the homogeneity of the
subject matter of action and its purpose, as well as “supra-situationality” in the
interpretation of situational superfluousness (nonadaptivity), have a common
generic feature: the inseparability of the motivation of an action from the
content of the action itself; the irreducibility of an impulse to act to “supra-real”
motives and goals. Intrinsicality, as well as supra-situationality, characterize
the action in its intrinsic value, its non-instrumentality in relation to the
requirements of the situation (behind which there could emerge a desire to
receive a reward or avoid punishment). It’s not just that the individuum in his
activeness is independent from external penalties. He does not feel his suscept­
ibility to control by “internal penalties” imposed by “introjected others.” Isn’t
that why activity can bring him exceptional joy? And is there not in this
subjective causality or dissolution in flow, a sign of the stage of “magical
thinking” and the primary “oceanic I”? However, such stories are still taboo
in the “academic” experimental psychology of motivation.4
The author came to the idea of the supra-situationality, that is, super­
fluousness, “non-instrumentality,” of some forms of behavior, starting from
the experimentally identified phenomenon of “unselfish risk” [46], [43],
[45], [48]; the essence of the phenomenon is that the subject, without
external coercion and without any sort of reward, prefers to act in
a danger zone (the phenomenon of “unselfish risk” will be given a special
place in this book: See Chapter 6). We described the data as “risk for the
sake of risk” [46], as opposed to risk as an instrument for solving an
external problem.
The phenomenon of unselfish risk (“risk for the sake of risk”) was the
starting point for awareness of an extensive field of future research. The
concept of supra-situationality, like the concept of intrinsicality, setting the
general framework for categorizing multidimensional manifestations of
 JOURNAL OF RUSSIAN & EAST EUROPEAN PSYCHOLOGY 181

activeness (“intrinsic value,” “non-instrumentality”), appeared in different

empirical forms, in accordance with the differences in theoretical
approaches and research tasks in the field of the psychology of activeness.
In that way, new groups of phenomena were identified. The theory and
phenomenology of “intrinsic motivation” are those “six conceptions” and,
accordingly, the six groups of phenomena, that H. Heckhausen wrote
about, and which we, giving due credit to Allport, venture to call in general
terms “autonomy.”
The theory and phenomenology of “supra-situational activeness” is
represented by other conceptions and phenomena.
We distinguish such classes of “supra-situationality” (represented by
certain theoretical and empirical formulations) as “trans-situational” and
“counter-situational” (see Figure 5.1).
Trans-situationality. This term describes the phenomenon of going
beyond the requirements that, at the start of the activity, the individuum
placed upon himself (these requirements could have been made by others;
the important thing here is that the subject proceeds from them as though
from his own). More broadly, we are talking about the deepening or
transformation of the motives that initially prompted the activity; expand­
ing the range of goals pursued; updating the tasks; varying the ways of
solving them; about a new, generalized vision of the situation. Behind this
understanding there appears the general idea we are developing of “the
motion of activity,” an increase in its (activity’s) rank, expanding its scope,
deepening its content, and sometimes transforming it into another activity.
We can distinguish among the motivational, purposeful, operational,
approximate aspects of supra-situationality.
Supra-situational motivation is characterized by impulses that are super­
fluous from the standpoint of the need that originally initiated the behavior

THE-PERSON-IN-THE-SITUATION

SITUATIONAL INADEQUACY
(MALADAPTIVITY)
INTENSIVENESS
SITUATIONALITY (AUTONOMY)
(ADEQUACY,
ADAPTIVITY)
SUPRA-SITUATIONALITY
(SUPERFLUOUSNESS,
NONADAPTIVITY)

COUNTER-SITUATIONALITY
(ACTIVE NONADAPTIVITY)

Figure 5.1. The-person-in-the-situation schemа.

182 V.A. PETROVSKY

and may sometimes be in a contradictory unity with that need (we will
return to this when we discuss nonadaptivity).
A supra-situational goal is one, the adoption of which does not follow
directly from the requirements of the situation, but the implementation
of which presupposes the actual possibility of achieving the original goal.
A supra-situational image includes (as a subordinate and, possibly,
“deleted” moment) the initial image of the situation, but is not exhausted
by it, and so forth. A source of activeness is seen in activity generated by
excessive possibilities, going beyond the initial needs presented by the sub­
ject to himself.
The relationship between situationality and supra-situationality is similar
to that between a “task” and a “super task” in K.S. Stanislavsky’s terms.
Solving a “task” does not mean resolving a “super task.” “Problems,” my
teachers used to say, “are not solved; one just turns into another.” But
advancement toward resolution of a “super task” presupposes the feasibility
of solving a “task,” which specifies supra-situationality.5 An example of trans-
situationality can be any creative process, the solution of any serious task . . . .
Counter-situationality (active nonadaptivity). The idea of “supra-
situationality” was formulated as a methodological alternative to the “postulate
of congruity” (adaptivity) of the behavior and psyche of the individual, and
especially its variants such as the homeostatic, hedonistic, and pragmatic.
The phenomenology of “supra-situational activeness” contradicts the
lawful consequences of the postulate of congruity, but it is these phenom­
ena that are consistent with the idea of the motion of activity in general and
the existence of phenomena of nonadaptivity in particular.
The main difficulty in studying these phenomena is that a certain
criterion of nonadaptivity must be given, which could be valuable for
assessing the validity of criticism of the postulate of congruity from an
empirical standpoint. Such a criterion, in our view, could be constructed
on the basis of correlating the goal and the result of the subject’s activity.
While adaptivity in the broadest sense is characterized by correspon­
dence of the result of the individuum’s activity to the previously adopted
goal, nonadaptivity is the divergence, or more precisely, the contradiction
between the result and the goal. Consequently, it should be borne in mind
here not only that the action is superfluous, but also that there is
a confrontation between what is planned and what is achieved. The main
question concerns the possibility of intentionally preferring a nonadaptive
strategy of action to an adaptive one.
In the first case (an adaptive strategy), we mean actions that are based on
predicting the correspondence between the goal and the expected result of this
action. In the second case (a nonadaptive strategy), the prediction of a possible
discrepancy (even opposition) between the original goal and the future result
of this action acts as a condition for the preference of future action.
 JOURNAL OF RUSSIAN & EAST EUROPEAN PSYCHOLOGY 183

When a person goes beyond what is known and given, actively and
nonadaptively, we maintain that subjectness proper is manifested, the
tendency to act in a self-examining manner, assessing oneself as
a conveyor of “free causality” (“the causes are oneself”).6
The phenomenology of “trans-situationality” and “counter-situationality,” as
one might assume, intersect (see the diagram “The-Person-in-the-Situation,”
where this is presented graphically). In fact, we are talking about the super­
fluousness of the adopted goals in relation to what the situation regards and the
preference of these goals because it is uncertain whether they can be attained. In
addition to “a bird in the hand” and “pie in the sky,” a person guesses that
“something else” present; “something unknown”; “something on the horizon.”
The “horizon itself” is enticing: the boundary separating the known from the
unknown, the horizon line itself, promising an unexpected development of
events.

The method of virtual subjectness

The method that we propose to identify a person’s tendency to reveal
himself as a subject of activeness may be called the method of virtual
subjectness.7
This author was not immediately aware that the procedural method he
proposed in his student years for identifying tendencies of “unselfish risk”
(1971) consists of something more than “simply” a method for studying the
penchant to take risks, but that this method is a particular case of a more
general principle, which has implications for grasping the essentially personal
aspect of a person. It took time to comprehend the specifics of the type of
activeness which, being superfluous with respect to the activity required of
a test subject, was an activity driving the initial “supra-situational activeness”);
to understand that this particular activity is prompted by the very possibility
that the goal and the result (“active nonadaptivity”) may not match; and finally,
that such activeness shows the subject the ability to appear to himself in reality
as a free, self-determining being.
By the term “virtuality,” we emphasize the possibility of a person’s self-
manifestation as a subject in a certain observed situation. We note that this
term is almost never used in psychology.
An exception is A.N. Leontiev’s book, where this word is introduced to
denote the untenable attempt of preformism to explain what is personal in
a person as a result of the maturation of his genotypic traits. Meanwhile, this
term, in a different context, is extremely precise for designating the phenom­
enon of interest to us: the self-formation of the individuum as a person.
“Virtual” means, according to the Dictionary of Foreign Words [59], “possible;
able to be manifest; which must be manifest,” thereby distinguishing this term
from the synonymous “potential” (possible, existing in potentiality; hidden,
184 V.A. PETROVSKY

nonmanifest”). The difference lies in the very idea of the transition of the
possible into the real: The virtual as compared with the potential is, as it were,
closer to the effective self-discovery of possibility. This semantic nuance solves
for us the problem of choosing the right name to designate the method of
studying personality as a transcending subject.
The method of virtual subjectness consists of organizing the conditions
in which we can observe the very transition of the possibility of being
a subject of activeness into the reality of the person as a subject of
activeness.
The method of virtual subjectness involves creating or selecting situa­
tions for research that could to a certain extent be called problematic
situations, but taking into consideration that they differ sharply from the
traditional situations of studying a person who is faced with problems.
First of all—and this gave the original name to the method (“the method
of supra-situational activeness” [46])—we are talking about the problems
that a person poses to himself, without external prompting or compulsion.
In other words, an experimental situation, or a situation of special observa­
tion, must contain some conditions that dispose a person to formulate
a goal that is superfluous in relation to the requirements of that situation;
we designated this goal as “supra-situational.” Having a supra-situational
goal brings the method of virtual subjectness closer to some experimental
situations in the study of cognitive activeness of the personality in the
original works of V.I. Lenin, V.N. Pushkin, and D.B. Bogoiavlenskaia.
With reference to our own studies of “unselfish risk” [46] and relating
them to works in the field of cognitive activeness, we have tried to identify
the generic characteristics of the class of such research situations. The main
point is that a person transcends the requirements of a situation, displaying,
as we have said, supra-situational activeness. In other words, acting
“beyond what is required by situational necessity” [45].
However, the method of virtual subjectivity specifies that an activity
carried out by the test subject on his own initiative differs in content
from a situationally assigned one. For example, when solving cognitive
tasks, performing sensorimotor tests, and so forth, the person sets himself
a qualitatively different task (although at the moment of its performance it
does not necessarily have to be formulated by him at all): It is a task of
producing himself as a subject, a test of his personality. Freedom here is not
just a condition for continuing the activity that he had begun beyond what
was assigned; freedom here is intrinsically valuable; it is part of the content
of the supra-situational act itself.
However, “to be free” is only one of the conditions for “subjectness.”
Another condition is to be responsible for one’s choice, to bear the burden
of responsibility for the outcome of one’s own actions.
 JOURNAL OF RUSSIAN & EAST EUROPEAN PSYCHOLOGY 185

Second, this is a situation of responsible choice. If these consequences

were known in advance and predictable, in other words, if they were
predetermined, this situation would not be perceived by the person as
one of making a responsible decision. In other words, the situation of
observation or experiment should include the possibility of frustration of
certain human needs, whether they be pleasure, mental well-being, advan­
tage, success, and so forth. It is assumed that the very uncertainty of these
significant outcomes of action is capable of prompting the choice of
a supra-situational goal.
Free acceptance of responsibility for the outcome of an action that is not
determined in advance is also for us an indicator of the self-generation of
a person as a subject of activeness. It can equally be described as a free
choice of responsibility or as a responsible choice of freedom. What makes
a person a subject in the true sense of the word is evident here, for he
confronts the situation, rising above what is given and seizing an opportu­
nity. Going beyond the bounds of the predetermined in this case is no
longer a passive manifestation of nonadaptivity, but the person’s actual self-
transcendence, free positing of himself as a subject.
The essence of the experimental situations in which the manifestations of
nonadaptivity can be investigated is as follows. The test subject is asked to
execute a task that includes him in an activity (solving intellectual or
perceptual tasks, mastering some type of skill, etc.). By familiarizing himself
with the instructions and the conditions for performing this task, the
subject should develop a fairly clear idea of what is required, corresponding
to the situationally specified criterion for success (correctness of a decision,
accuracy of perception, error-free performance of some operation, etc.).
The conception of what is required must be personally significant for the
subject and must encourage him to fulfill the experimenter’s requirements
as well as possible. Failure to effectively fulfill these requirements should be
experienced by the subject as a failure.
Next. In addition to the external criterion of success, the situation
provides the test subject with the possibility of accepting an internal
criterion of the success of the action that does not coincide with the
situationally given one. The impossibility of meeting the internal criterion
of success should be experienced by the subject as frustration of one of his
needs, formed or actualized within the framework of the experimental
situation—in other words, it should have for him the sense of
a nonadaptive outcome of the action. Nonadaptive outcomes of actions
may be in the form of possible frustrations of the subject’s homeostatic,
hedonistic, or pragmatic impulses, and in particular may pose a threat to
his physical well-being, social status, and self-esteem, among others.
Finally, the experimental situation is constructed such that the subject can
act quite successfully, according to the situational criterion of success that he
186 V.A. PETROVSKY

has adopted, without risking being in an unfavorable position, in accordance

with his own internal criterion of the success of the action. At the same time,
the subject should have the possibility of acting nonadaptively, deliberately
increasing the possibility of internally unfavorable consequences if the action
fails. In other words, situational success in performing an experimental task
can be achieved at the cost of realizing the test subject’s nonadaptive tendencies
(if he actually has such tendencies).
And so, we will provide our future test subjects with the possibility of
situationally successful performance of an experimental task and at the
same time the possibility of acting nonadaptively: without any external
compulsion to prefer actions, the outcome of which is unknown to them
in advance and which may be unfavorable in the hedonistic, pragmatic, or
homeostatic sense.
Will it really be possible to experimentally establish a variety of nonadaptive
preferences, having revealed the existence of such manifestations of supra-
situational activeness? In what experimental conditions could they be regis­
tered? What can be said about people who exhibit or do not exhibit supra-
situational activeness in specific conditions of activity? What special task is
resolved by a person who is not content with gaining only situational success
and voluntarily subjects himself to all sorts of trials and tests “of strength”? We
will discuss these issues, keeping in mind a number of phenomena.
Some of them characterize the behavior of test subjects under circumstances
that simulate a threat to their physical well-being (danger) and social well-
being (prohibition). Other phenomena are associated with the presence of
a boundary symbol in a situation and consist of a nonpragmatic desire of the
subjects to “cross the line.” Next, we will look at supra-situational manifesta­
tions of activeness of the personality in cognitive activity and their possible
determinants. In addition, we will investigate the psychological manifestations
of what in philosophy and sociology is called the “Oedipus effect”: the influ­
ence of a forecast on the development of events. And, finally, in a hypothetical
plan, we will consider the phenomenon of nonpragmatic increase in readiness
for action in the process of self-reflection.

Notes

1. An experiment of the talented Kharkov psychologist V.I. Asnin, conducted

out about forty years ago. His work is a kind of forerunner both of our
research on supra-situational activity and the studies of V.N. Pushkin, D.B.
Bogoiavlenskaia, and others on “intellectual activeness.”
2. Guided by a purely subjective, purely personal criterion, I could call these
researchers contemporaries. They were and may still be living participants in
the discourse. The time has come when it has absolutely become possible to
discuss common problems in person without hindrance. However, the
 JOURNAL OF RUSSIAN & EAST EUROPEAN PSYCHOLOGY 187

situation is changing unpredictably and sometimes minimally depends on the

psychologists who study “unpredictability.” I witnessed a brilliant lecture by
V. Lefebvre, but this is not a case when the author’s reflexive constructions
are in turn being reflected by society and can actually reshape the way events
develop.
Now, a few words about the past, the years when personal contacts with
foreign colleagues were difficult. Thirty-three years have passed since then,
and I can allow myself to complain just a little! A biographical trait. Alas, the
author did not manage to get to the other side of what was then the border
that separated his homeland from the rest of the world. I was invited to the
Paris Congress of Psychologists (1976) to deliver a paper on supra-situational
activeness and excessive possibilities as its source. However, it is said that
instead of me, a very well-known woman scientist with an academic rank
went to the Congress, without a report—after all, someone had to defend the
purity of Soviet methodology in the West. Too bad! It would have been
interesting to speak directly with colleagues who were just then, in parallel
with me, dealing with issues so close to me.
3. Analyzing the structuring of time, we contrast “being gripped” with “proce­
dures” (“work,” “business”) [55].
4. Note that preoccupation with action, if we use Csikszentmihalyi’s terms, can
be a source not only of joy, but also of suffering, for example, “the torment of
creativity”: Taking on a problem headlong, at some point it is easy “to decide
to stop,” but it is not easy “to stop working it out” (F.D. Gorbov). The action,
meanwhile, continues to maintain the status of superfluousness and “does
not permit itself to be abandoned.” “Flow” can finally absorb . . . (And what?
“The more sweetly will the Lorelei respond with her singing . . . ”?!) Non-
adaptability here merges with disadaptivity.
5. In a study carried out jointly with a Lithuanian researcher, the educational
specialist Z.A. Launene, we asked children to tell a story based on a picture
and to talk only about what they actually see there (the pictures illustrated
a fairy tale well known to all the children). The subjects were children of all
school ages, from first to eleventh grades. The result was that only by
eleventh grade were children able to “tell the story from the picture” and
not just retell the fairy tale. The stories told by children from the elementary
grades were clearly more than the task required, but they could not cope with
the task itself. This is not a case of “situationally independent activeness” but
of maladaptivity, or, as we say, “situational independence.”
6. There is, we will agree, a difference between attribution to oneself of causality
(attribution of subjectivity) and manifesting oneself as reasons that directly
experienced subject at the moment of action. It would be interesting to
compare experimentally two kinds of experience - the cognitive assessment
of oneself as a cause and the experience of direct experience of oneself in this
capacity.
7. The gist of the method was explained in the other works [45], [44]; the title
was suggested later [56].
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