Guilford's theory. Three sides of intelligence

American researcher J. Guilford developed the concept of the structure of intelligence. This model formed the basis of many psychological and pedagogical concepts for diagnosing, predicting the learning and development of gifted children in foreign psychological theory and practice.

It is considered one of the most famous models of intelligence ever proposed. Naturally, it is also one of the most criticized.

The property of this model is that it is comprehensive, contains a description of different types of cognitive abilities, and allows teachers to use a wide variety of methods that go far beyond the scope of conventional curricula to stimulate the educational process.

J. Guilford finds several common fundamental bases for numerous real manifestations (factors) of intelligence and on this basis classifies them, highlighting three fundamental ways of combining intellectual factors of the first block (“operations”) - identifying the main types of intellectual processes and operations performed. This hike allows you to combine five large groups of intellectual abilities:

cognition – perception and understanding of the presented material;

memory – remembering and reproducing information;

convergent thinking - logical, sequential, unidirectional thinking, manifested in tasks that have a single correct answer;

divergent thinking - alternative, deviating from logic, manifests itself in tasks that allow the existence of many correct answers;

assessment – ​​a judgment about the correctness of a given situation.

The second method of classifying intellectual factors, according to J. Guilford, corresponds to the type of material or content included in it, which can be presented as follows: figurative; symbolic; semantic; behavioral.

The processed information can take the form of one of the final products: units, classes, systems, relationships, transformations and implications.

These three types of classification are presented by J. Guilford in the form of a cube model, each dimension of which represents one of the ways to measure factors: in one dimension various types of operations are located; in another dimension – there are different types of final mental product; in the third dimension there are different types of content.

J. Guilford made a great contribution to the theory of giftedness. He identified the parameters of individual creativity. Developed the components of divergent thinking (speed, originality, flexibility, accuracy). All this made it possible to make new modifications of practical activities in the development, training and education of gifted schoolchildren.

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The model of the structure of intelligence by the American psychologist Joe Paul Guilford has become the basis of many psychological and pedagogical diagnostic concepts, as well as concepts of forecasting, development and training of gifted children. Today it is considered one of the most famous among all existing models of intelligence. And we want to talk about it for the reason that it may be of interest to anyone who cares about the topics of personal development, etc.

As Joy Paul Guilford himself once half-jokingly noted, his model of the structure of intelligence offers approximately 120 “ways to be smart,” which is why it represents an excellent basis for creating programs for diagnosing thinking and specifying factors that need to be purposefully developed. In many kindergartens and schools in the United States, the presented model is used as a basis when working with children, and mostly with gifted children.

Guilford names a number of fundamental principles for a huge number of intelligence factors (its real manifestations), and, based on this, classifies them, highlighting three basic ways of combining intelligence factors.

These three basic blocks are:

  • Operations
  • Content
  • Results

They are described like this.

Block "Operations"

The basis for the classification of intelligence factors in the “Operations” block is the definition of the basic types of processes of an intellectual nature and the operations performed. It makes it possible to combine intellectual abilities into five large groups:

  • Evaluation (what judgments are made regarding the correctness of the proposed situation)
  • Convergent thinking (is also sequential unidirectional thinking, manifested in tasks that involve only one correct answer)
  • Divergent thinking (is alternative thinking that deviates from logic and manifests itself in tasks that imply the presence of several correct answers)
  • (how the material is remembered and reproduced)
  • Cognition (how presented material is perceived and understood)

The “Content” classification block of intelligence factors, according to Guilford’s concept, refers to the type of material or content contained in it. The content, in turn, can be presented as follows:

  • Figurative
  • Symbolic
  • Semantic
  • Behavioral

Third block “Results”

And already, by applying one or another operation to the content, one can identify six results, which represent the final mental product. These results are:

  • Elements
  • Classes
  • Relationship
  • Systems
  • Transformations
  • Applications

Graphically, the set of blocks “Operations”, “Contents” and “Results” can be represented as follows:

Joy Paul Guilford depicted the three blocks of classifications presented in the form of a cube, in which each of the dimensions is one of the options for assessing manifestations of intelligence:

  • The first dimension includes different types of operations
  • The second dimension includes different types of contents
  • The third dimension includes different types of results

It is very important to say that, despite the fact that the model has been worked out quite deeply, it still remains an open system. Guilford himself speaks about this, pointing out that to the 50 factors that already exist, and which were obtained in the process of creating the model, another 120 factors can be added. However, today there are already over 150 of them.

Joy Paul Guilford's contribution to the development of giftedness theory is truly great: he was able to identify a person and developed the elements of divergent thinking (accuracy, flexibility, originality and speed). This is what made it possible to create innovative modifications of practical work in the process of training, development and education of gifted children.

And, it seems to us, it would not be superfluous to also talk about how, according to Guilford and some other scientists, creativity and intelligence are interconnected.

Creativity and Intelligence

Guilford's division of thinking into convergent and divergent was a major milestone in the division of mental abilities and greatly improved their understanding. In fact, it became the reason for the differentiation of the terms “creative giftedness” and “intellectual giftedness.”

One of the first to come to the understanding that intellectual talent, which is identified by the IQ system, cannot be considered as a universal personal characteristic indicating that a person is capable of achieving serious results in creative activity, was the American psychologist Lewis Theremin and his associates .

Theremin organized the largest and most long-term psychological and pedagogical study of giftedness, which changed ideas about the psychology of giftedness in general. So, in 1921, Theremin and his colleagues, using a modified version of the Stenfod-Binet test, selected 1528 children aged 8 to 12 years from 95 California schools. The average IQ of children from this sample was 150 units, and 80 children reached 170 or even more.

In addition to the fact that the children were tested using the Stanford-Binet method, they also underwent a medical examination, and with the help of various tests and ratings of parents and teachers, such characteristics of the subjects as interests and academic performance were studied.

At the same time, the scientists created a control group, consisting of children of the same age, but inferior to children from the first group on various indicators, for example, school performance and IQ test results. Then, every 12 years, control sections were carried out in both groups, in which the same methods were used.

Using these cross-sections, it was possible to establish that the IQ of gifted children increased, especially those who went to college (approximately 90% of children in the first group). 70% of the sample participants successfully completed their educational institutions, and 66% remained in graduate school. It is also interesting that already during training, 20% of girls and 40% of young people began.

In 1951, scientists assessed the life achievements of 800 men included in the sample. The assessment showed that their total assets included 67 published books and 150 patented inventions. 78 men had a doctorate in philosophy, 48 had degrees in medicine, 85 in law, 51 in engineering, and 104 men were able to become successful engineers. Also, 47 men from this list were listed in the directory “Men of Science in America for 1949.” The considered indicators turned out to be 30 times better than the indicators of people from the second – control group.

Among other things, the American psychologist Paul Torrance, who observed his students, concluded that in creativity it is not those who achieve good results or have high IQ scores. Of course, these indicators exist, but they alone are not enough, and something else is needed in creativity.

The concept, which was developed by Paul Torrance, consists of three main fundamental factors: creativity, creative skills and. According to this scientist, creativity is a natural process that is generated by a person’s high need to relieve tension that arises in conditions of uncertainty or incompleteness. Later, on this basis, various creativity techniques were developed, which were used in the process of identifying gifted children around the world.

Of course, you can give a lot of interesting facts on the topic of the connection between creativity and intelligence, but one thing is for sure: high intelligence indicators do not have a very big impact on creative abilities, and in order to create, you need to develop the qualities of creativity and.

FINALLY: Currently, there are many ways to diagnose creative abilities, but we would like to invite you to conduct not only a diagnosis of your creativity, but also a comprehensive assessment of your personality, which will help you understand the characteristics of your own motivation, and the most important values, and various character qualities, and much more. what else that you should know about yourself if you want to develop and grow personally. To do this, we invite you to take our specialized course on self-knowledge - you can find it.

We wish you success in your endeavors and good luck in life!

American researcher J. Guilford developed the concept of the structure of intelligence. This model formed the basis of many psychological and pedagogical concepts for diagnosing, predicting the learning and development of gifted children in foreign psychological theory and practice. It is considered one of the most famous models of intelligence ever proposed. Naturally, it is also one of the most criticized.

This model offers, according to the author’s half-joking statement, about 120 “ways to be smart,” which in turn is an excellent basis for developing programs for both diagnosing thinking and specifying what is subject to targeted development. This model has been used for many years as a base model in a number of American schools and kindergartens, primarily for gifted children. The property of this model is that it is comprehensive, contains a description of different types of cognitive abilities, and allows teachers to use a wide variety of methods that go far beyond the scope of conventional curricula to stimulate the educational process.

Teachers working with gifted children received a toolkit of theoretical and practical tools that help enliven lessons, stimulate cognitive activity and independent search activity.

J. Guilford finds several common fundamental bases for numerous real manifestations (factors) of intelligence and on this basis classifies them, highlighting three fundamental ways of combining intellectual factors of the first block (“operations”) - identifying the main types of intellectual processes and operations performed. This hike allows you to combine five large groups of intellectual abilities:

cognition – perception and understanding of the presented material;

memory – remembering and reproducing information;

convergent thinking - logical, sequential, unidirectional thinking, manifested in tasks that have a single correct answer;

divergent thinking - alternative, deviating from logic, manifests itself in tasks that allow the existence of many correct answers;

assessment – ​​a judgment about the correctness of a given situation.

The second method of classifying intellectual factors, according to J. Guilford, corresponds to the type of material or content included in it, which can be presented as follows: figurative; symbolic; semantic; behavioral.

The processed information can take the form of one of the final products: units, classes, systems, relationships, transformations and implications.

These three types of classification are presented by J. Guilford in the form of a cube model, each dimension of which represents one of the ways to measure factors: in one dimension various types of operations are located; in another dimension – there are different types of final mental product; in the third dimension there are different types of content.

It is especially important that despite the rather deep elaboration, this model remains an open system. The author himself points to this, noting that more than 120 can be added to the existing 50 factors (during the development of this model). Currently, more than 150 of them have been identified.

J. Guilford made a great contribution to the theory of giftedness. He identified the parameters of individual creativity. Developed the components of divergent thinking (speed, originality, flexibility, accuracy). All this made it possible to make new modifications of practical activities in the development, training and education of gifted schoolchildren.

57. Monometric (one-dimensional) approach to intelligence is characteristic of the concept G.Yu.Eysenka . He talks about the presence of "biological intelligence", "psychometric intelligence" and "social intelligence". The main parameter that Eysenck proposes to consider as an indicator of the level of intelligence is the individual speed of information processing, i.e. reaction time for choosing from many alternatives. According to other researchers, the level of intelligence is characterized not just by the speed of mental operations, but also by the ability to work with many alternatives. Biological intelligence - These are innate, predetermined information processing abilities associated with the structures and functions of the cerebral cortex. This is the basic, most fundamental aspect of intelligence. It serves as the genetic, physiological, neurological, biochemical and hormonal basis of cognitive behavior, i.e. associated mainly with the structures and functions of the cerebral cortex. Without them, no meaningful behavior is possible. Psychometric intelligence - This is a kind of connecting link between biological intelligence and social intelligence. Social intelligence - this is the intellect of an individual, formed during his socialization, under the influence of the conditions of a certain social environment.

58. Creativity- (from Lat. creatio-creative, creative) - the creative abilities of an individual, characterized by a readiness to accept and create fundamentally new ideas that deviate from traditional or accepted patterns of thinking and are included in the structure of giftedness as an independent factor, as well as the ability to solve problems that arise within static systems According to the American psychologist Abraham Maslow, this is a creative orientation that is innately characteristic of everyone, but is lost by the majority under the influence of the existing system of upbringing, education and social practice. 6 hypothetical intellectual abilities that characterize creativity.

Fluency of thought (number of ideas arising per unit of time);

Flexibility of thought (the ability to switch from one idea to another);

Originality (the ability to produce ideas that differ from generally accepted views);

Curiosity (sensitivity to problems in the world around you);

Ability to develop a hypothesis, irrelevance (logical independence of the reaction from the stimulus);

Fantastic (complete isolation of the response from reality in the presence of a logical connection between stimulus and response).

59. There is a non-linear relationship between intelligence and creativity: an increase in the level of intelligence entails an increase in creativity only to a certain limit. When a certain critical level of intelligence is exceeded (according to various sources - from 120 to 127 points), its connections with creativity either disappear or become negative, then with a further increase in intelligence, creativity begins to decline.

1. The ability to detect and pose problems.

2. The ability to generate a large number of ideas.

3. Semantic spontaneous flexibility - the ability to produce a variety of ideas.

4. Originality - the ability to produce distant associations, unusual answers, non-standard solutions.

5. The ability to improve an object by adding details.

6. The ability to solve non-standard problems, showing semantic flexibility - to see new features in an object, to find a new use.

Guilford developed a battery of tests for diagnosing creativity (10 tests for verbal creativity, 4 for non-verbal creativity). Here are examples of some creativity tasks: “ease of word usage” test (write as many words as possible containing the letter “o”); test of “fluency of ideas” (write as many words as possible denoting objects, phenomena that may be white); test for “flexibility of ideas, flexibility of using objects” (indicate as many different ways of using a tin can as possible); test for “composing images” (compose as many different images as possible using a set of shapes: triangle, square, circle, trapezoid).

Torrance continued research on creativity, but he also introduced a new shade of understanding creativity as the ability to heightened perception of shortcomings, gaps in knowledge, and sensitivity to disharmony. Torrance developed a series of creativity tests “from preschoolers to adults” and developed a program for developing children’s creative abilities: at the first stage, subjects were offered anagram tasks (searching for a word from a rearranged meaningless sequence of letters) to train convergent thinking. Then, using the pictures, the subject must develop all the probable and improbable circumstances that led to the situation depicted in the picture and predict its possible consequences. Later, the subject was presented with various objects and asked to list all the different ways they could be used. According to Torrance, this approach to ability training allows a person to free himself from externally imposed frameworks, and he begins to think creatively and outside the box. The Torrance battery includes 12 tests diagnosing three areas of creativity: verbal creative thinking, visual creative thinking and verbal-sound creative thinking.

Torrance used the following indicators to assess the level of creativity:

1. Ease - speed of task completion.

2. Flexibility - the number of switches from one class of objects to another class of objects in the course of responses.

3. Originality is assessed as the minimum frequency of a given answer among the answers of a homogeneous group of subjects. If this answer occurs less than 1% of the time (i.e. 1 person out of 100 gave such an answer), then originality is assessed as maximum - 4 points, if less than 2% - then originality is assessed as 3 points), if the answer occurs more than 6 % (6-7 people out of 100 gave the same answer), then there is no originality, 0 points.



Different methods can be used to diagnose the level of creativity.

Many researchers believe that when diagnosing creativity, one should abandon strict time limits for completing a task. M. Wallach and K. Kogan provided the subjects with as much time as they needed to solve the problem, testing was carried out in the form of a game, any answer was accepted. Under these testing conditions, the correlation between creativity and the level of intelligence was close to zero, i.e., the property of creativity reveals its complete independence from intelligence. Wallach and Kogan identified 4 groups of children with different levels of intelligence and creativity, differing in their ways of adapting to external conditions and solving problems.

Children with a high level of intelligence and creativity are confident in their abilities, have adequate self-esteem, show great initiative, personal independence of judgment and action, are highly successful, show talent, and are socially adaptable.

Children with a low level of creativity, but high intelligence, strive for school success, but experience failures extremely hard, are afraid to express their opinions, take risks, are afraid of a blow to their pride, and distance themselves from their classmates.

Children with a low level of intelligence and a high level of creativity (third group) often fall into the category of “outcasts”, do not adapt well to school requirements, often have hobbies and interests on the side, “strange dreamers”, they are not understood by either teachers or peers.

The fourth group of children with a low level of intelligence and creative abilities outwardly adapt well, stay in the “average” category, have adequate self-esteem, the low level of subject abilities is compensated by the development of social intelligence and sociability.

Gifted children are characterized by a high energy level, short sleep duration, increased cognitive activity, intellectual initiative - a tendency to set themselves new complex tasks, which, according to D. B. Bogoyavlenskaya, is an integral sign of talent.

What is creative thinking? J. Guilford was one of the first to try to formulate an answer to this question. He believed that the “creativity” of thinking is associated with the dominance of four features:

A. Originality, non-triviality, unusualness of the ideas expressed, a pronounced desire for intellectual novelty. A creative person almost always and everywhere strives to find his own solution, different from others.

B. Semantic flexibility, i.e. the ability to see an object from a new angle, discover its new use, and expand its functional application in Practice.

B. Figurative adaptive flexibility, i.e. the ability to change the perception of an object in such a way as to see its new hidden sides.

D. Semantic spontaneous flexibility, i.e. the ability to produce a variety of ideas in an uncertain situation, particularly one that does not contain guidelines for these ideas. Subsequently, other attempts were made to define creative thinking, but they introduced little new into the understanding of it that was proposed by J. Guilford. Research into creative thinking has identified conditions that facilitate or hinder the ability to quickly find a solution to a creative problem. These conditions are summarized here:

1. If in the past a certain method of solving certain problems by a person turned out to be quite successful, then this circumstance encourages him to continue to adhere to this method of solution in the future. When faced with a new task, a person tends to apply it first.

2. The more effort was spent on finding and putting into practice a new way to solve a problem, the more likely it is to use it in the future. The psychological costs of discovering some new solution are proportional to the desire to use it as often as possible in practice.

Creative people often surprisingly combine maturity of thinking, deep knowledge, diverse abilities, skills and peculiar “childish” traits in their views on the surrounding reality, in behavior and actions. What prevents a person from being a creative person and showing originality of thinking? Is it just the lack of developed creative abilities or is it also something else that is not directly related to creativity as such? G. Lindsay, K. Hull and R. Thompson give their answer to this question. They believe that a serious obstacle to creative thinking can be not only insufficiently developed abilities, but also, in particular:



1. Tendency to conformism (passive, uncritical acceptance of the prevailing order, norms, values, traditions, laws, etc.). Manifests itself in changes in behavior and attitudes in accordance with changes in the position of the majority or the majority itself. , expressed in the desire that dominates creativity to be like other people, not to differ from them in one’s judgments and actions.

2. Fear of being a “black sheep” among people, of seeming stupid or ridiculous in your judgments.

3. Fear of seeming too extravagant, even aggressive in your rejection and criticism of other people's opinions.

4. Fear of retaliation from another person whose position we criticize. By criticizing a person, we usually provoke a response from him. The fear of such a reaction often acts as an obstacle to the development of one's own creative thinking.

5. Overestimation of the importance of your own ideas. Sometimes we like what we ourselves have invented or created more than the thoughts expressed by other people, so much so that we have a desire not to show ours to anyone, not to share them with anyone, and to keep them to ourselves.

6. Highly developed anxiety. A person who has this quality usually suffers from increased self-doubt and is afraid to openly express his ideas.

7. There are two competing ways of thinking: critical and creative. Critical thinking aims to identify flaws in other people's judgments. Creative thinking is associated with the discovery of fundamentally new knowledge, with the generation of one’s own original ideas, and not with evaluating the thoughts of others. A person whose critical tendency is too pronounced pays the main attention to criticism, although he himself could create, and quite well. On the contrary, a person whose constructive, creative thinking dominates critical thinking often turns out to be unable to see shortcomings in his own judgments and assessments.

The way out of this situation is to develop both critical and creative thinking in the child from childhood. Human intellectual abilities, as it turns out, suffer greatly from frequent failures. If people are asked to solve only difficult tasks beyond the control of their minds for a sufficiently long period of time, and then given easier ones, then after long failures they will cope poorly with these latter ones. Not all creative adults necessarily did well in school. When comparing them to less creative people, there are many notable differences. The most interesting of them turned out to be a combination of intellectual maturity and “childish” character traits among creative individuals. The concept of intelligence is inextricably linked with the concept of creativity. It is understood as a set of the most general mental abilities that provide a person with success in solving various problems. In the first years of life, the intellectual development of children proceeds faster, but then, starting at about the age of 7-8 years, it gradually slows down.

The problem of creative thinking in cognitive psychology (R.L. Solso, G. Wallace)

Solso R.L. notes that the problem of creative thinking is poorly understood; over the past 20 years, not a single major theory has emerged (as was the case with memory or perception) that could unite the scattered and sometimes conflicting studies of creativity. The lack of a general theory indicates both the difficulty of this topic and the lack of attention paid to it by the wider scientific community. Yet the topic is widely stated as an important part of everyday life and education. Many years ago, in the history of cognitive psychology, G. Wallace described four sequential stages of the creative process:

1. Preparation: Formulation of the problem and initial attempts to solve it.

2. Incubation: Distraction from the task and switching to another subject.

3. Enlightenment. Intuitive insight into the essence of the problem.

4.Validation: Testing and/or implementation of the solution.

Wallace's four stages have received little empirical support; however, the psychological literature is replete with reports of introspection in people who generated creative thought. The most famous of these explanations comes from Poincaré, the French mathematician who discovered the properties of automorphic functions. After working on the equations for some time and making some important discoveries (preparatory stage), he decided to go on a geological excursion. During the trip, he “forgot” about his mathematical work (incubation stage). Poincaré then writes about the dramatic moment of insight. "When we arrived at Coutances, we were boarding an omnibus to go somewhere else. And the moment I put my foot on the step, the idea came to me, without any apparent preparation of thought, that the transformations that I had used in the definition of automorphic functions , are identical to the transformations of non-Euclidean geometry." The author writes that when he returned home, he checked these results at his leisure. Wallace's four-stage model of the creative process has provided us with a conceptual framework for analyzing creativity.

Sigmund Freud

Freud sought to reveal the essence of artistic, and above all poetic, creativity. The first traces of this type of human spiritual activity, according to Freud, should be sought in children. Both the poet and the child can create their own fantastic world, which does not fit into the framework of the ordinary ideas of a person lacking poetic imagination. In the process of play, the child rearranges the existing world to his own taste, and takes the fruit of his imagination quite seriously. In the same way, the poet, thanks to the ability of creative imagination, not only creates a new beautiful world in art, but often believes in its existence. Freud notices this fact. He receives the interpretation that the basis of both children's games and fantasies, and poetic creativity, are hidden unconscious desires, mainly of a sexual nature. Hence, another conclusion is that the motives, the stimuli of people’s fantasies, including poetic creativity, are either ambitious desires or erotic desires. These same unconscious drives, according to Freud, constitute the hidden content of the works of art themselves. Freud does not consider the relationship between consciousness and the unconscious in the process of the creative act. Perhaps he considers this unnecessary, since when analyzing the mental structure of the personality and the principles of functioning of its diverse layers, he has already made an attempt to comprehend the interactions between the conscious “I” and the unconscious “It”. However, then we were talking about the principles of functioning of the human psyche as a whole, regardless of specific manifestations of human life. Freud automatically transfers the abstract scheme of relations between consciousness and the unconscious that he created to specific types of human activity - scientific, artistic, sexual, everyday behavioral activity. At the same time, the specific features of each of these types of human activity remain unidentified. Freud also failed to determine the specifics of poetic creativity. And this is far from accidental. The fact is that within the framework of psychoanalysis, with its emphasis on the unconscious motivation of human activity, this problem seems fundamentally insoluble. However, Freud himself is forced to admit that psychoanalysis cannot always penetrate into the mechanisms of a person’s creative work. According to him, the ability for sublimation, which underlies the formation of fantasies, including artistic ones, does not lend itself to deep psychoanalytic dissection. And this means that “the essence of artistic creativity is also inaccessible to psychoanalysis.” Considering the motives of poetic creativity, Freud simultaneously raises the question of the psychological impact of works of art on humans. He correctly notes the fact that a person receives true pleasure from perceiving works of art, in particular poetry, independently. depends on whether the source of this pleasure is pleasant or unpleasant impressions. Freud believes that the poet achieves this result by translating his unconscious desires into symbolic forms, which no longer cause indignation of the moral personality, as would be the case with an open depiction of the unconscious: the poet softens the nature of egoistic and sexual desires, obscures them and presents them in the form poetic fantasies, causing aesthetic pleasure in people. In the psychoanalytic understanding, real pleasure from a poetic work is achieved because the soul of every person contains unconscious drives similar to those characteristic of the poet. Freud associates comprehension of the hidden meaning and content of works of art with the “deciphering” of unconscious motives and incestuous desires, which, in his opinion, predetermine the artist’s plans. Psychoanalysis, with its dissection of a person’s spiritual life, identification of intrapsychic conflicts of the individual and “deciphering” the language of the unconscious, seems to Freud, if not the only, then at least the most suitable method for studying works of art, the true meaning of which is determined on the basis of an analysis of the psychological dynamics of the individual personal activity of the creators and heroes of these works. If we consider that in the masterpieces of world art Freud seeks only confirmation of the assumptions and hypotheses that form the basis of his psychoanalytic teaching, then it is not difficult to predict the direction of his thinking in a specific analysis of artistic creativity. Along with the widespread popularity of Freud's ideas in the West, his psychoanalytic views on the essence of artistic creativity aroused internal protest and critical objections among the realistically minded intelligentsia. Many of them were disgusted not only by the sexual overtones that the founder of psychoanalysis always tried to find in the artist’s work, but also by the tendency in the study of artistic creativity, according to which an exclusive role in this process is given to a person’s unconscious drives, and conscious motives in creativity are not taken into account. From these positions, Freud's views on art were subjected to fair criticism not only in Marxist, but also in progressive bourgeois aesthetic and art criticism. At the same time, some of Freud's general theoretical ideas, and above all those related to the psychological impact of works of art on a person, the individual-personal side of artistic activity, the psychology of the artist, the viewer and art in general, were accepted by many representatives of the artistic intelligentsia of the West. If we consider that the founder of psychoanalysis in his theoretical works acted as an irreconcilable critic of the hypocrisy of bourgeois morality, religious illusions, bourgeois social foundations and capitalist civilization as a whole, then it becomes clear why some of his psychoanalytic concepts, including theoretical provisions on the psychology of art, had an impact such a great influence on the formation of the spiritual and intellectual atmosphere in certain circles of bourgeois society.