What is biographical method in psychology?

the systematic use of personal histories—gathered through such means as interviews, focus groups, observations, and individual reflections and other narratives—in psychological research and analysis.

Methods of psychology return the researcher to the object under study and deepen its understanding. In essence, methods are a way of studying reality. Any of the methods consists of several operations and techniques that are carried out by the researcher in the process of studying the object. But each method corresponds only to its inherent form of these techniques and operations, corresponding to the goals and objectives of the study. Based on only one method, several methods can be created. It is also an indisputable fact that psychological science does not have any unambiguous set of research methods.

In this lesson, we divided the methods of psychology into 2 groups: methods of theoretical psychology and methods of practical psychology:

Fundamental (general) psychology engaged in psychological research on the general laws of the human psyche, his beliefs, ways of behavior, character traits, as well as what affects all this. In ordinary life, the methods of theoretical psychology can be useful for researching, analyzing and predicting people's behavior.

Practical (or Applied) Psychology is aimed at working with specific people, and its methods make it possible to carry out psychological procedures designed to change the mental state and behavior of the subject.

Methods of theoretical psychology are the means and techniques by which researchers are able to obtain reliable data and subsequently use them to create scientific theories and draw up practical recommendations. These methods are used to study mental phenomena, their development and change. But not only the characteristics of a person are studied, but also “external” factors: age characteristics, the influence of the environment and upbringing, etc.

Psychological methods are quite diverse. First of all, there are methods of scientific research and only then practical methods. Among the theoretical methods, the main ones are observation and experiment. Additional are self-observation, psychological testing, biographical method, survey and conversation. Combinations of these methods are used to study psychological phenomena.

EXAMPLE: If an employee of the organization shows irresponsibility and this is repeatedly noticed during observation, then in order to find out the reasons contributing to this, one should resort to a conversation or a natural experiment.

It is very important that the basic methods of psychology are used in a complex way and are "sharpened" for each specific case. First of all, you need to clarify the problem and determine the question to which you want to get an answer, i.e. there must be a specific goal. And only after that you need to choose a method.

So, the methods of theoretical psychology.

In psychology under observation refers to purposeful perception and registration of the behavior of the object under study. Moreover, all phenomena using this method are studied under normal conditions for the object. This method is considered one of the most ancient. But it was scientific observation that was widely used only at the end of the 19th century. At first it was applied in developmental psychology, as well as educational, social and clinical psychology. Later it began to be used in labor psychology. Observation is usually used in cases where it is not recommended or impossible to interfere with the natural process of the course of events.

There are several types of observation:

As already mentioned, observation should be used in cases where the intervention of the researcher can disrupt the natural process of human interaction with the outside world. This method is necessary when you need to get a three-dimensional picture of what is happening and to fully capture the behavior of a person / people. The important features of observation are:

Biography as a biography of an outstanding person is rightfully considered one of the oldest artistic, journalistic and scientific genres. Biography as a form of scientific research and the life path of a person as its subject are found in philosophy, sociology, the history of science, psychology and other humanitarian fields. This is not surprising, since each of these disciplines tries in its own way to answer questions concerning the circumstances and essence of human existence, which means that it must inevitably address the problem of individual life.

For a sociologist, biography analysis is one of the ways to study the life path of a representative of a certain social stratum in a particular historical era. The biographical method in sociology makes it possible to reveal the patterns of manifestation of social processes in individual life, as well as the mechanism for transforming the events of a single life into trends in social development. When processing biographical material, individual biographies seem to be superimposed on each other, as a result of which the points common to all of them stand out especially brightly, and everything atypical, purely individual is discarded. For the purposes of sociological research, biograms are also used, which the American sociologist T. Abel defines as a story about one's own life, written by a person representing a certain social group and compiled in accordance with a certain scheme set by the sociologist. At the same time, one biography is not yet a biogram; it becomes such only among the biographies of other members of the same social community. Therefore, a biogram, according to Abel, is interesting for a sociologist, while a life story is for a psychologist.

In historical and scientific research, the biographies of scientists are perhaps the most widely used and are rightfully considered one of the main scientific genres. In them, in contrast to the sociological approach, the analysis is aimed at the biography of not a typical, but an outstanding scientist. From the point of view of the historian of science, the life of every outstanding scientist is in itself a historical event, a turning point in the development of scientific knowledge. A feature of the historical-scientific approach to the study of the life of a man of science is that it focuses mainly on the "biographies" of certain scientific ideas, embodied in the biographies of their specific carriers. In such biographies, the development of science is presented mainly as a process of accumulation of knowledge, in which the scientist acts not so much as a living person, but as a personification of the logic of the development of science, as its agent, through whose activity objective patterns are embodied in reality.

In its broadest sense, the biographical method in psychology is a special conceptual approach to the study of personality, based on the idea that a person is a "product" of one's own biography or life story. It can be briefly expressed by the formula "personality is the life path of a person." In this capacity, the method is much more than a tool for studying individual functions or personality traits. It embodies the specific principle of personality analysis: through the history of its development and formation.

Turning to the history of the emergence of this method, it can be said without exaggeration that, in essence, all psychoanalysis is based on the use of a biographical approach to the study of personality, although this term itself was practically not used by orthodox Freudians. However, it is no coincidence that it was within the framework of psychoanalysis that such a modern trend as psychobiography was born and is successfully developing.

The approach to the analysis of personality through its life path was presented in the 20s of the XX century by N.A. Rybnikov, who widely used the biographical method in his research and was its tireless propagandist. He believed that it was the study of biography, which he understood as the history of the development of a complex of psycho-physiological, mental and socio-psychological properties, that would make it possible to reveal the general and immutable laws of a person's spiritual development. However, in practice, in full consonance with the requirements of the first post-revolutionary years, the task of the researcher was to demonstrate the direct and immediate impact of social changes (in particular, the October Revolution) on the development of the individual, starting from its psychophysiological properties and ending with the worldview, beliefs and motivation. . The life path for Rybnikov was the history of the realization of the abilities inherent in a person in specific socio-historical conditions that prevent or favor their manifestation. Therefore, the role of such determinants of the life path as social origin, material conditions, events of social life, etc., was exaggerated, which brings this approach closer to the sociological view of biography.

At the same time, N.A. Rybnikov pointed out the great possibilities of using this method to study the conditions for achieving success in the field of scientific creativity, believing that there are much more potentially outstanding people born than they actually become. Consequently, the goal of studying the life path of a scientist was, according to his plan, to identify external factors that hinder the realization of talent.

The beginning of a deep understanding of the life path as one of the categories of psychology was laid by S.L. Rubinshtein and then became the central point of research by B.G. Ananiev. To date, he owns the most developed, although not indisputable, concept of the life path as a movement from the individual to the personality. He also formulated the idea of ​​a life path as a specifically human way of individual development. It was the works of Rubinstein and Ananiev that laid down a fundamentally new view, according to which a person is not only a product of his biography, but also its subject, i.e., an active creator.

At different stages of the life path, the ratio of the contribution of external influences and internal determination differs and depends on the already achieved level of personal development. However, under any conditions, a person is not completely a slave to his biography. He always has the opportunity to change himself and his life. It is no coincidence that Rubinstein singled out among the significant events of life actions-events, i.e., choices emanating from the personality itself.

So, the essence of the biographical method in its first meaning is to answer the question of what life events and through what mechanisms a particular person is born and how in the future she herself builds her own destiny. As a special methodological principle of psychological analysis, it consists in reconstructing events and choices significant for the individual, building their causal sequence and identifying their influence on the further course of life.

However, by no means every use of biographical data for the study of the psychology of a scientist serves the purpose of reconstructing his personality through the history of his life. The biographical method also means any use of biographical materials - autobiographies, diaries, eyewitness accounts, biographical questionnaires, etc. - for a wide variety of research and practical purposes. Among these goals, G. Allport names the collection of phenomenological data, the study of the mental life of adults, the compilation of various topologies, the illustration of certain theoretical positions in psychology, and many others.

In the American psychology of creativity, the so-called biographical questionnaires have become widespread. They were developed for very specific practical purposes: diagnosing scientists by the criterion of their suitability for their own research or administrative activities in science, predicting the future achievements of a scientist when hiring him, etc.

Their task is by no means to recreate the idea of ​​a whole personality or the history of its formation. These questionnaires are built on the traditional assumption that a scientist must possess a certain set of qualities that will ensure his success in this field. It is believed that these qualities can be more easily and reliably diagnosed on the basis of information about the past, rather than about the actual, experiences, preferences and patterns of behavior of the individual.

In its third, narrowest sense, the biographical method is obtaining information of interest to the psychologist from existing biographical directories, collections, etc. For example, C. Cox, R. Cattell, J. Cattell used similar biographical sources to highlight features inherent in a creative person. Based on the available biographies of prominent people of art and science, N.E. Perna tried to highlight the patterns of creative cycles throughout life. Associating the upsurge of creativity with the rhythmic flow of all physiological and biological processes, he suggested that the peaks of creativity occur every 6-7 years. As a material to confirm his hypothesis, Perna used biographical literature. On the basis of biographies, he analyzed the productivity, as well as significant events in the creative life of a certain circle of creative people. According to his ideas, the events of creative life occur without direct dependence on external circumstances and factors. However, this independence generally distinguishes creative people, since the innate nature of creativity was quite obvious to Parn. According to his views, the life path of a genius is the deployment of a talent inherent in a person, determined by universal biopsychological (and maybe even cosmological) patterns of existence. Thus, Perna used the biographical method in his research, as it were, twice: using biographical directories as the source material for analysis, but also as a certain methodological approach to building the concept of the life path of a genius, although his idea of ​​​​the driving forces of life development is presented today bankrupt.

The use of reference and biographical literature is usually used in cases where it is either impossible to use empirical methods, because the objects of study are outstanding scientists of the past, or when it is required to analyze a large amount of data to identify some statistical patterns. However, it should be borne in mind that when using biographical literature as a source of data, the researcher conducts a secondary interpretation of biographical material that has already been selected and analyzed in a certain way by previous authors, and therefore bears the stamp of some bias and subjectivity.

Biographers and psychologists often draw attention to the fact that many prominent people were placed in very difficult living conditions in childhood or adolescence: this is the loss of parents, and the need to earn a living from an early age, and a difficult psychological situation in the family, long-term severe illnesses and etc. The traditional explanation for this phenomenon is that such circumstances provoke the child's isolation, encourage him to focus on his inner world and thereby stimulate intellectual activity. The main psychological element of such situations is, apparently, the need to overcome unfavorable life circumstances, the desire to break out of their clutches and direct life in a different direction than that which, it would seem, is predetermined by the objective course of events. This is possible only if one develops the ability to clearly present goals, to mobilize personal resources and to self-restraint, i.e., all that in worldly language is called character training.

The ability to remain oneself in any situation, and even more so in those that require defending one's views and positions, is one of the fundamental characteristics of a creative person.

One of the main tasks of the biographical method as a tool for studying a creative personality should be to identify biographical factors that contribute to personal growth, the formation and implementation of a personal position in science. From this point of view, the study of mediocrity in science as a model of the impact of unfavorable biographical conditions and barriers that prevented the development of an individual into a full-fledged creative person could be no less, and perhaps even more useful.

Biographical methods in psychology (new Greek βιογραφία - biography from other Greek βίος - life, γράφω - I write) - methods of research, diagnosis, correction and design of a person's life path. Biographical methods began to be developed in the first quarter of the 20th century (N. A. Rybnikov, S. Buhler). Modern biographical methods are based on the study of personality in the context of the history and prospects for the development of its individual existence. The use of biographical methods involves obtaining information, the source of which is autobiographical techniques (questionnaires, interviews, spontaneous and provoked autobiographies), eyewitness accounts, content analysis of diaries, letters, etc.

Biographical methods in psychology (from the Greek bios - life, grapho - I write) - methods of research, diagnosis, correction and design of a person's life path. Biographical methods began to be developed in the first quarter of the 20th century. (N. A. Rybnikov, S. Buhler). Modern biographical methods are based on the study of personality in the context of the history and prospects for the development of its individual existence. The use of biographical methods involves obtaining information, the source of which is autobiographical techniques (questionnaires, interviews, spontaneous and provoked autobiographies), eyewitness accounts, content analysis of diaries, letters, etc.

The complex of research methods used to study the process of age-related development of a child consists of three blocks and their corresponding methods. One third of the methods are borrowed from general psychology; The second third of the methods are from differential psychology (comparative); A third of the methods are from social psychology.

Introductory remarks. The biographical method is a method of synthetic description of a person as a person and a subject of activity. Currently, it is the only method that allows you to study the personality in the process of development. The biographical method is historical and at the same time genetic, as it allows you to trace the dynamics of the life path. The shortcomings of this method - descriptiveness and the susceptibility of the past to memory errors - can be corrected by more objective data from a comprehensive study of personality.

The development of the biographical method dates back to the first third of the 20th century. The first comprehensive biographical study, covering all age stages and spheres of human life, is associated with the name of Charlotte Buhler.

In Soviet psychology, N. A. Rybnikov first turned to this method, emphasizing that the use of the biographical method plays an essential role in understanding the overall potential of a person.

The development of the biographical method is of great importance in the system of the formation of human knowledge and the complex psychological study of a person as an individual, personality, subject of activity, begun by Academician B. G. Ananiev in 1968 and continued by his students N. V. Loginova, N. M. Vladimirova, L. A. Golovei and others.

The subject of the biographical method is the life path - the history of the individual and the subject of activity. The sources of biographical information are the person being studied and the events of his environment.

includes the following sections:

1. Life path data.

2. Stages of socialization (nursery, kindergarten, school, university, etc.).

3. Development environment (places of residence, educational institutions, etc.).

4. Interests and favorite activities in different periods of life.

5. State of health (including past illnesses).

The purpose of this method allows you to follow the spiritual and psychological development of a person, from childhood to the moment of growing up. This observation method is based on continuous recording.

The subject of the biographical method is the life path - the history of the individual and the subject of activity. The sources of biographical information are the person being studied, the facts and data that occur in his life. This method allows you to study personality in the process of development.

The biographical method is at the same time genetic, as it allows you to trace the dynamics of the life path. The disadvantages of this method - the susceptibility of the past to memory errors - can be corrected by more objective data from a comprehensive study of personality.

diaries

The diary system is the first system that was used in child psychology and is the beginning of scientific child psychology. As early as 1882, a German psychologist presented records that tracked his son's development from the first day of his birth to the age of three. Writing down all his observations during the day, he reflected in the diary the data on the development of motor skills, sensations, emotions of his child ...

However, despite the fact that this diary was the first of scientific significance, it was not the only diary to see the light of day. Another diary was written in 1877 "Biographical Notes of the Infant", before that time in 1818 another doctor published a diary of the child, which contained notes taken over two and a half years about the development of motor skills, language, sensations, however, and these were not daily entries.

A comprehensive biographical study, covering all age stages and spheres of human life, is also associated with the name of Charlotte Buhler. In Soviet psychology, N. A. Rybnikov was the first to turn to this method. The development of the biographical method is of great importance in the system of the formation of human knowledge and the complex psychological study of a person as an individual, personality, subject of activity, begun by Academician B. G. Ananiev in 1968 and continued by his students N. V. Loginova, N. M. Vladimirova and etc. The biographical method usually uses data from a certain limited period, for example, the period before the birth of a brother is considered, or the period of the beginning of the child’s speech activity, etc. Here, tests made during this period, exam results, grades, etc. can be used. d. Using normative data, the psychologist can trace through biographical records the behavior of the child in relation to the norm of behavior for a given age.

Two ways to select normative data.

1) The so-called wide slice of data, when a psychologist examines a group of different children of different ages, emphasizing the typical behaviors inherent in a certain age.

2) And the so-called long cut, when the behavior of the same child is considered continuously for many years, in order to track the changes occurring in his behavior, comparing them with the norm for a given age. The complexity of this method is that it requires a very long time to observe the object. The biographical method has much in common with the method of participant observation and, in fact, is another kind of ethnographic approach to "case analysis". The difference between the biographical method can be considered highlighting unique aspects in the history of a person's life (sometimes groups, organizations) and a subjective-personal approach to describing a person's life, career, love story, etc.

Observation is a purposeful systematic study of a person, based on the results of which an expert assessment is given. This method often underlies other methods of research (for example, diary, autobiographical, etc.).

BIOGRAPHICAL METHOD (in psychology) - a method of studying an individual, a group of people, based on an analysis of the life path, biography facts. The biographical method, like an autobiography, recreates the atmosphere of a person's real life, is a source of knowledge about his spiritual development, the stages of his life path. The method plays an important role in the promotion of science, provides unique material about the life of people of science, scientific creativity.

Biographical methods in psychology (from the Greek bios - life, grapho - I write) - methods of research, diagnosis, correction and design of a person's life path. Biographical methods began to be developed in the first quarter of the 20th century. (N. A. Rybnikov, S. Buhler). Initially, they were limited to a retrospective description of the past stages of a person's life or the entire life path of historical characters of the past. Subsequently, biographical methods began to include the analysis of current and future events (future autobiography, controlled fantasy, life schedules, causometry), as well as studies of the social circle (additional biographies, lines of relationships of the subject). Modern biographical methods based on the study of a personality in the context of the history and prospects for the development of its individual existence and relationships with significant others are aimed at reconstructing life programs and scenarios for the development of a personality, the spatio-temporal organization of its business, family, spiritual life, natural and social environment. The use of biographical methods involves obtaining information, the source of which is autobiographical methods (questionnaires, interviews, tests, spontaneous and provoked autobiographies), eyewitness accounts (survey of loved ones, memories of contemporaries), the study of activity products (content analysis of diaries and letters, construction of productivity curves). and life measurement charts).

Characteristics of biographical methods

Biography is rightfully considered one of the oldest artistic, journalistic and scientific genres. Biography as a form of scientific research and the life path of a person as its subject are found in philosophy, sociology, the history of science, psychology and other humanitarian fields. This is not surprising, since each of these disciplines tries in its own way to answer questions concerning the circumstances and essence of human existence, which means that it must inevitably address the problem of individual life. Rather, something else is surprising: interest in the life path on the part of the humanities is still clearly insufficient. The conscious or unconscious desire to search in the life of another person for guidelines for building one's own life path is one of the reasons for the popularity of the biographical genre when it comes to fictional biographies, the main purpose of which is precisely to serve as a guiding thread and an example for self-improvement and self-education of youth. But what does the study of a single life give to a professional scientist? What contribution does this knowledge make to science? It is difficult to unequivocally answer these questions, since representatives of different scientific disciplines seek and find in biographies each one of his own and read human life in their own way. Biographical methods in psychology (new biography from - life, - I am writing) - methods of research, diagnosis, correction and design of a person's life path. Biographical methods began to be developed in the first quarter of the 20th century (N. A. Rybnikov, S. Buhler). Modern biographical methods are based on the study of personality in the context of the history and prospects for the development of its individual existence. The use of biographical methods involves obtaining information, the source of which is autobiographical techniques (questionnaires, interviews, spontaneous and provoked autobiographies), eyewitness accounts, content analysis of diaries, letters, etc. In psychology, there is still no established opinion regarding the goals, objectives and methods of applying the biographical method. The proof of this is the presence of at least three different meanings in which the very concept of "biographical method" is used. At the same time, the authors themselves often do not realize that the same term in the psychological literature denotes completely different realities. In its broadest meaning, the biographical method in psychology is a special conceptual approach to the study of personality, based on the idea that a person is a "product" of one's own biography or life story. It can be briefly expressed by the formula "personality is the life path of a person." In this capacity, the biographical method is much more than a tool for studying individual functions or personality traits. It embodies the specific principle of personality analysis: through the history of its development and formation. Turning to the history of the emergence of this method, it can be said without exaggeration that, in essence, all psychoanalysis is based on the use of a biographical approach to the study of personality, although this term itself was practically not used by orthodox Freudians. However, it is no coincidence that it was within the framework of psychoanalysis that such a modern trend as psychobiography was born and is successfully developing. In psychoanalysis, personality was viewed as a derivative of psychologically significant events that occurred in early childhood. Such events were considered to be various psychological conflicts, traumatic situations, impressions and experiences, which were recognized as decisive for the subsequent stages of personal development. Their role and embodiment in the characteristics of a mature person and her activities, as well as in the content of her scientific or artistic creativity, were traced. Such a specific understanding of the determination of personal development, characteristic of psychoanalysis, turns the biographies made within its framework into a kind of history of mental illness rather than a history of life. The approach to the analysis of personality through its life path was presented in the 20s of our century by N.A. Rybnikov, who widely used the biographical method in his research and was its tireless propagandist. He believed that it was the study of biography, which he understood as the history of the development of a complex of psycho-physiological, mental and socio-psychological properties, that would make it possible to reveal the general and immutable laws of a person's spiritual development. However, in practice, in full consonance with the requirements of the first post-revolutionary years, the task of the researcher was to demonstrate the direct and immediate impact of social changes (in particular, the October Revolution) on the development of the individual, starting from its psychophysiological properties and ending with the worldview, beliefs and motivation. . The life path for Rybnikov was the history of the realization of the abilities inherent in a person in specific socio-historical conditions that prevent or favor their manifestation. Therefore, the role of such determinants of the life path as social origin, material conditions, events of social life, etc., was exaggerated, which brings this approach closer to the sociological view of biography. At the same time, N.A. Rybnikov pointed out the enormous possibilities of using the biographical method to study the conditions for achieving success in the field of scientific creativity, believing that there are much more potentially outstanding people born than they actually become. Unfortunately, the biographical studies of N.A. Rybnikov's works did not receive their further development, partly because they did not have a well-developed psychological concept under them, partly because they seemed too "subjective" against the backdrop of the objectivist tendencies in psychology that prevailed in those years. The beginning of a deep understanding of the life path as one of the categories of psychology was laid by S.L. Rubinshtein and then became the central point of research by B.G. Ananiev. To date, he owns the most developed, although not indisputable, concept of the life path as a movement from the individual to the personality. He also formulated the idea of ​​the life path as a specifically human way of individual development. It was the works of Rubinstein and Ananiev that laid down a fundamentally new view, according to which a person is not only a product of his biography, but also its subject, i.e., an active creator.

Conclusion

A biographical study of a person, his life path and creativity is a kind of historical research in any field of knowledge - art history, the history of science and technology, psychology, etc. In a comprehensive study, the biographical method exists in a monographic version. In ontopsychology, the biographical method becomes a psychological study of the social existence of the individual. Here, in general terms, the history of a person is considered as a particle of an era, the general laws of the development of a life path in historical time, the dependence of the phases of the “culmination” and “finish” of life on the “start”, the age dynamics of creativity in connection with the profession and era, the reflection of biography in the subjective world person, the "productivity" of the life path. The biographical method was strongly influenced by idealistic theories - psychoanalysis by Z. Freud, personalism by V. Stern, "understanding" psychology by V. Dilthey, humanistic psychology. In domestic psychology, the foundations of a scientific understanding of the life path as a socio-historical form of individual existence and human development have been created. Currently, in this regard, such issues as the patterns of development throughout the life of an individual, the nature of the life path and social life, the reflection of the structure of a biography in the self-consciousness of the subject of life, the psychological time of a person on a biographical scale are discussed, new “techniques” for measuring biographical phenomena are proposed, eg causometry, multivariate statistical biographical analysis. Specific features of the biographical method. First, it is historical in origin, as it migrated to psychology from the historical sciences. The connection with them can be traced in such features as significant retrospectiveness, mediation by sources, striving for the completeness of the reconstruction of the past, closeness to art. Psychological biography borrows some specific techniques from source studies. The main thing is that the very object of the biographical method - the life path - is historical in nature. Both in the historical sciences and in psychological biography, the basic unit of analysis is the event. Secondly, the biographical method undoubtedly belongs to the genetic ones. In this respect, it is similar to an experimental longitudinal study. Due to its retrospective nature, the biographical method can partly replace the longitudinal method, when it is not possible to study development directly year after year over a long period of time. Thirdly, the facts of the life path, as a rule, cannot be reproduced in laboratory conditions - they can only be reconstructed. The biographical method, aimed at the real process of the life of the individual, is distinguished by its “naturalness”. The biographer, like the observer, does not interfere in the course of events. Biographical facts can be considered as life indicators of personality structures. Fourthly, the biographical method, which operates with molar units - events, actions, circumstances, etc., aimed at discovering the "law" of the individuality of the person being studied, is synthetic, and at the same time largely descriptive. However, the biographical method has its own methods of analysis and measurements are quite possible. Finally, the biographical method illuminates not only the objective side of life, but also experiences in the inner world, in which there are also events. In its monographic version, the method is characterized by intimacy, if you can call this feature that way. Often, memories, letters, diaries are in the nature of a confession, and then subjective factors work especially powerfully - defense mechanisms, the influence of motives, a reaction to the researcher, memory distortions. Here the level of subjectivity is high, so the problem of validity, reliability, accuracy of the biographical method is acute. In terms of overcoming the shortcomings of the method (however, relative ones: laboriousness, descriptiveness, subjective distortions), studies on the psychology of memories, self-consciousness, and psychognosis are important. The complexity of the procedure, ie, the use of various biographical sources and specific methods, serves to overcome subjectivism in biographical research. It is useful to compare biographical data with norms and types obtained statistically from large samples. The objectivity of the biographical method increases when the materials are discussed among specialists at a kind of clinical conferences, when the same persons are studied in parallel by different researchers. For the further development of the biographical method, special methodological experiments are very necessary in which the cognitive capabilities of different biographical methods would be compared. At the same time, the multilateral connections of the personality structure, represented by talent and character, and the life path determine the place of these integral formations in the circle of biographical problems: they are the result of the life path and its regulators, moreover, they are the basis of life creation. The study of biographical phenomena has not only theoretical but also practical significance. Understanding the patterns of life and life path, a person can better imagine the best option for his own development, determine his life path. Understanding the role of the individual in planning and implementing the life path contributes to a more responsible attitude towards it, the desire to set serious life goals and achieve their implementation.

Directions

and methods of personality research

Nikolai Rybnikov

BIOGRAPHICAL METHOD IN PSYCHOLOGY**

Biographical method - a new method of systematic study of mental life

The Great War and the events that followed it shook to some extent the usual idea of ​​the role of the individual in the process of building life. This role turned out to be incomparably greater than it was usually thought; a certain influence on the course of the historical process must undoubtedly be attributed to the initiative of individual personalities, their will, personal energy. This process is not only the result of impersonal forces subject to once and for all established laws.

True, modern life has at the same time revealed a striking poverty of strong personalities capable of becoming true leaders of the masses. But at the same time it showed with amazing clarity that the masses want to be led, they want to obey. These facts, it would seem, should have prompted us to reconsider our attitude towards great personalities of both the past and the future, meaning in the latter case future

* Published by: Rybnikov N. Biographical method in

psychology // Psychology and children. Scientific and popular magazine. - 1917. - No. 6-8. - S. 1-14.

PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT

Understand the human personality as a whole

life builders. The problem of educating "leaders" should become another problem in our "impersonal" time. Oddly enough, but modern pedagogy pays much more attention to backward, handicapped children than to talented children. We still have very little information about gifted children who are above the norm in their development. This information boils down to a few biographical notes about the childhood and youth of great people and very few observations on the development of gifted children. These observations still need to be verified from the side of time, because we are not yet sure that early development is a guarantee of talent even in adulthood. As for biographical data; then they must be subjected to careful and systematic development precisely from the point of view of the question posed above. It is only very recently that an attempt has been made to take such a scientific approach to biographical material, and a new method for the systematic study of psychic life, the biographical method, has been outlined. This method, which is still only emerging, promises to be extremely fruitful for a number of disciplines - and above all for the science that studies the spiritual world of man - psychology.

For a psychologist, the systematic study of a huge number of biographies will help, first of all, to understand the human personality as a whole, since experimental, experimental study usually deals with some particular side of a given personality. The holistic, inner world of a human personality, united in itself, usually eludes such an experimental study of the fragmented elements of this personality.

On the basis of those fragmentary data that experimental psychology receives when studying individual aspects of the psyche, it is powerless to recreate the personality, because in the spiritual world the whole is not equal to the sum of the terms. The “aroma of individuality” is lost in such an artificial reduction into one whole of what must be considered in a certain context, against the background of a holistic experience of the personality as such. Further, the experimental study of personality deals with the continuously changing, impermanent manifestation of some one side of a given personality in its, so to speak, "dynamic" state. Biographical material, consistently depicting this or that person, makes it possible to consider this person in its finished form, in its "static"

Biographical Method in the Psychology of Individual Differences

Biographical method in the psychology of creativity

condition. Taking as an object of study a separate phenomenon of mental life, experimental psychology pulls it artificially out of the continuous flow of mental life and thereby makes it difficult to establish a causal relationship between this phenomenon and the previous mental state, drawing a single, integral, successively changing world of mental phenomena, biography provides many advantages. to clarify the causal relationship between the living, real facts of the spiritual world in their natural manifestation. Finally, the study of biography allows the psychologist to look into aspects of the soul that are inaccessible to the most sophisticated experimental observation.

But not only in general psychology, the biographical method promises to give many valuable additions to the results obtained by experience.

The psychology of individual differences can hope to achieve no less with the help of this method. Psychological analysis of these differences has always faced the lack of specific material on which one could test one or another theory, trace the correlation of various mental properties. This circumstance forced the characterologist to often turn to the help of word artists, to the artistic images they created. But no matter how real and typical these images, they are nevertheless the products of the creativity of a certain creator and bear the stamp of his individuality; there is always a lot of arbitrary, fictional in them. In any case, biographical material, under certain conditions, gives a more real, truthful, less arbitrary description of the true life of the hero, and not a description refracted through the prism of the creative arbitrariness of the writer.

The biographical method also promises a lot for studying the psychology of creativity, introducing the psychologist into such recesses of the laboratory of creativity, acquainting him with such aspects of the creator's psyche that he would not be able to reveal with the help of any other methods. Toulouse's biography of Zola is very instructive in this respect.

With regard to children's creativity, the biographical method has been used more than once and has given brilliant results. So in relation to children's drawings, with the help of biographical study, it was possible to decipher children's "doodles", to penetrate into a kind of

Biographical method in genetic psychology

the world of childhood experiences. A program has also been worked out for such a systematic collection of drawings by the same child over a long period of time*.

Getting acquainted with each of the steps in the process of development

Biographical Method in Applied Psychology

personality, the biographical method undoubtedly provides a lot of value for genetic psychology. We have a number of biographies of "little men", these are "mother's diaries", there is also a developed method for observing the developing soul of a child.

The study of the lives of many leaders in various fields will help to take into account their life experience for future generations, that is, it undoubtedly provides valuable material for applied psychology. What, for example, rich material would be provided by the study of biography in the matter of ascertaining the reasons for the success of certain persons in this or that field, in a certain profession! After all, every profession makes a natural selection among those who are most suitable for it. If we study a large number of representatives of one or another profession from the category of successful people, then we can establish the presence of certain factors that determine the success of these people in this profession. Thus, it seems possible to find out the structure of the "professional type", to find out the requirements that are necessary for success in a particular profession. In any case, the study of biography from this point of view can be instructive in many respects. In the footsteps of a single person who has clearly shown himself in a certain profession, many will follow and, infected with the inspiring power of the image, they will sooner find themselves, will be able to creatively reveal their personality. In the matter of self-determination, the biographies of persons who have successfully shown themselves in one or another field will be especially useful. Finding out the reasons for the success of these individuals, indicating those mental properties that determined their success, determining the ways in which this person found himself and creatively revealed his vocation - all this will only help to clarify his own properties, his vocation. Undoubtedly, for applied psychology, the biographical method is able in the future to give much more than what exact laboratory research has already given. In some ways biographical

* Such a program for collecting children's drawings was developed by the Pedagogical Museum of the Teacher's House ("How to study a child." "Library of the Pedagogical Museum").

PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT

Biographical Method in Gender Psychology

The biographical method in psychoanalysis

the material is more instructive in comparison with other data of scientific psychology. “In order to understand the human life of one’s own and that of others,” Frank says, “it is necessary to study works of art, letters and diaries, biographies and histories, and not the scientific literature of psychology. Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, Maupassant and Ibsen, Flaubert, Goebbel, Amiel in their diaries and letters, Corneille, Mommsen and Klyuchevsky - these are the only teachers of psychology in our time.

Comparative psychology of the sexes can also be enriched with very valuable information obtained with the help of the biographical method. After all, until now this question has been solved most often on the basis of some, very few observations, or with the help of an analysis of artistic types. On the question of the psychology of women, one can name only the work of Geimans, which tries to approach the solution of the issue in a scientific way. Yes, and this method is questionnaire, not free from many very significant shortcomings. Of course, an analysis of perhaps a large number of biographies of men and women could advance the study of the comparative psychology of the sexes.

The experimental study of the life of the soul deals with the comprehension of the experiences of others. But no matter how accurate and subtle the observation of an experienced psychologist or a talented writer, nonetheless, neither one nor the other will ever be able to look into someone else's soul to such a depth that a person himself can penetrate into his own soul. That is why biographical, and especially autobiographical, material makes it possible to look into aspects of the soul that are inaccessible to ordinary observation. For psychoanalysis this kind of material can give especially much. And for a number of other branches of special psychology (ethnic, etc.), the biographical method promises to be no less fruitful.

biographical method in

historical science

Along with psychology, the study of a huge number of biographies of human personalities of different times, peoples, classes, positions, etc., will prove to be extremely fruitful for history.

In the study of the spiritual life of the past, the biographies of the most typical representatives of a particular era are extremely valuable material.

biographical method

in the study of heredity

The educational function of the biographical method

For example, Rozhkov follows this path of research in his Survey of Russian History from a Sociological Point of View: in order to characterize this or that era, he takes the highest type of development achieved by this era. The life of great people is one of the most important and most remarkable forms of historical presentation. On the example of Klyuchevsky, one can see what a huge influence the study of worldly literature can have on the liveliness of a historical image.

According to the same Klyuchevsky, "mental labor and moral feat will always remain the best builders of society, the most powerful engines of human development." Goethe expresses the same idea when he says that "a great personality passes into the culture of the people."

No less fruitful will be the study of a large number of biographies for economic science, pedagogy, the history of everyday life, the history of culture, trade, technology, and also for the history of science in general. A lot of instructive information in this area can also be found for solving the problem of heredity, giftedness, and pathology. How fruitful this method can be for the study of heredity is very convincingly shown in the book of prof. R. Sommer: "The study of families and the doctrine of heredity", in which the author traces the history of one family for fifteen whole generations. Sommer's work is the first experience in this direction, because until now the problem of heredity has been studied mainly with the help of natural scientific methods. As an independent discipline, the study of surnames and families needs a long and systematic work of many generations. The sooner the preservation and collection of the relevant material is begun, the more durable results can be expected from the disciplines interested in preserving such materials. The study of many biographies of gifted people makes it possible to compare how much the general degree of giftedness of individuals can exceed the average level and how far individual giftedness can deviate from the average degree of giftedness.

Much has been said about the enormous significance that acquaintance with the biographies of the great people of the motherland has for the younger generation. But still, the school still very little and unsystematically uses this material as a means of educational influence. This is especially noticeable in relation to Russian

The pedagogical significance of the biographical method

school. Experiments and observations in this respect convincingly show that the Russian youth heard very little about their national heroes and read little about them. American, Swedish, Swiss and other schoolchildren show a somewhat greater, but still insufficient awareness. But it is precisely the school that has the duty to bring the child into communion with great souls, whose example the child could be inspired by, it must, by examples of the great deeds of strong personalities who have managed to carry out these deeds, inspire him with an idea of ​​that higher and better thing to which he should strive. For the purpose of education, says Münsterberg, is to give boys and girls the desire and ability to contribute to the realization of ideal values. Of course, this suggestion on the part of the school must be made in a form accessible to the concrete mind of the child, that is, in the form of an example, an image, a biography, adapted in its presentation to the child's present interests. If the school has not yet done this systematically, then one of the reasons for this was the lack of suitable material, insufficient attention to this educational material. This material must be created by careful study and selection of such biographies, the influence of which would be desirable in one way or another.

Until very recently, the Russian intellectual most often had a prejudiced attitude towards his native past and its leaders: this past in his eyes was worthy of contempt, the slightest glimpses of healthy patriotism were doomed to ridicule in advance or were taken under suspicion from the point of view of their sincerity. Such an attitude towards the great people of the motherland makes it clear why their national significance is so little known to the pupils of our school. After all, the slightest glimpse of a healthy patriotic feeling in a public figure or a scientist was so diligently obscured in those biographies that were considered acceptable from the point of view of the still “progressive” Russian pedagogical thought.

“Reading the biographies of various prominent people of Western Europe in the 18th-18th centuries,” says A. Skabichevsky, “we see what a big role Plutarch played in their youth with his comparative biographies of great people and heroes of antiquity: they rushed about with Plutarch, dreamed and raved about him heroes." Our youth

Psychography - description of the soul

Analytical method and general scheme of psychography

society no longer raves about the heroes of the past, at school the “cult of heroes” is given very little space, and the young man is forced to turn in search of samples of great personalities to the literature of the Pinkerton type, perhaps our experiences should change the view of the role of the individual in history, and on the importance of the biography of great people as a means of educational influence.

So, a systematic comprehensive scientific study of as many biographies as possible is the task that modernity puts forward as the next problem. Recently, a way has also been outlined for solving this problem - this is the so-called "psychography". Psychography means, in fact, "description of the soul." In order to give this description a systematic character, a scheme is drawn up containing a list of all the main features and properties that are important in the study of individuality. Such a "psychological card", "psychogram" is, in a way, a psychological photograph. Skilfully completed, these schemes are extremely convenient and valuable material for further processing, for classification, for the interpretation and understanding of personalities.

Personality analysis based on a predetermined psychological scheme is called the analytical method. We have had several attempts at drawing up such schemes in order to give the observation a systematic and scientific character. Some of them strive to make this observation more complete, to give the psychogram an exhaustive character. This is Stern's scheme, compiled by him in collaboration with Lipman and Baade, but filling out such a "general psychographic scheme" presents enormous difficulties, since one has to deal with a huge number of properties of this or that individual. That is why one should prefer Lazursky's scheme, which concludes a list of the most important personality traits. In contrast to these general schemes, which are marked mainly from general psychological points of view, schemes of this kind can be of a more special nature. Thus, from a pedagogical point of view, one can outline a scheme that should include traits that are especially important in terms of upbringing, i.e., characterizing the student's ability to receive upbringing and education. This will

"Goal-descriptive" method of psycho-graphy

already a “special scheme” that considers a person from the point of view of a certain ideal, goal.

This "goal-descriptive" method of psychography is meant to investigate the specific giftedness of this or that subject. In this case, one or a number of related properties are taken as a starting point in order to find out, based on it, other properties related to the main one. We often resort to this kind of “purpose-descriptive” device in everyday life when we say about someone that he is a good speaker, musician, teacher, etc. this basic character trait, as it were implied. Yes, and as a scientific technique - this method starts from a certain ideal, goal, vocation, from the point of view of which the characteristics of the subject are given, it is established to what extent this vocation, ideal is in accordance with the basic properties of the individual. Correspondence of the innate features, the prevailing interests of the individual and his external, professional activity makes this type, in the terminology of Professor Lazursky, “pure”. If, on the other hand, external conditions impede, suppress, and pervert the manifestation of the real aspects of a given personality, then this type can be called "perverted." Depending on the adaptability of one type or another to environmental conditions, Lazursky distinguishes three possible levels: the lowest (insufficiently adapted), the middle and the highest (adapting). The task of the researcher using this “goal-descriptive” method is to find the paths that the individual followed in the discovery of this ability, that is, the paths on the basis of which one or another ideal image is created, a vocation was developed. This method, therefore, tries to find out what properties are especially desirable for a given calling and whether they are present in a given subject. This method promises to be especially fruitful from the point of view of applied psychology.

Characteristic Both methods of psychography described above - and analysis -

individual personality, and target - mean to characterize an individual, and the analytical describes it on the basis of a psychological scheme, while the goal-descriptive one is by comparison with a certain ideal. But research

The researcher may also set himself the goal of comparing different persons, establishing typical features characteristic of a whole category of persons, or ascertaining differences in the structure of their psyche. This classifying method consists in the fact that people, in relation to the main character traits, are distributed into certain classes.

Some particularly important mental attribute is taken as the basis for division. Such a sign in some classifications is the speed of the mental process.

Based on this property, Baldwin distinguishes between mobile (quickly responding) and sensitive (slowly responding) types. Based on the same principle, Ostwald divides scientists according to their type of work into "classics" and "romantics". Having established the main types on the basis of one of the most important properties of a mental character, the researcher then gives a detailed description of each of the main types, using analytical methods.

A typical example of work on this method is the Heimans study. In order to test some of his assumptions about the relationship between various mental properties, Geimans studied 110 biographies of famous figures in various fields: 40 poets and novelists, 2 artists, 12 philosophers, 15 naturalists and doctors, 4 historians, 12 theoretical and practical figures, 2 military leaders, 18 criminals and 5 others. Of the 110 biographies used by Gaymans, 94 are male and 16 are female. About each of these persons, the author wrote down everything that was in the biography regarding the most important mental properties. For the convenience of processing the collected material, these properties were recorded on counting cards, on which 88 of the most frequently encountered mental properties were printed. The presence or absence of any of these properties was indicated on the card under the appropriate heading. The psychograms compiled in this way were divided into three categories, according to the predominance of one of the following mental functions: emotionality, activity and stability of mental processes, which Geimans calls the primary (instability) or secondary (stability) function. By a secondary function, he understands, therefore, the echo of some experience, even if it has already disappeared from consciousness, but still continues to influence the present content of consciousness. Under

The need to develop the biographical method

the primary function must be understood as the ability to influence only in the case of presence in consciousness. Therefore, the stronger the secondary function in any person, the more his past can influence his thoughts, feelings and behavior.

Based on these features, Geisman outlines the following character scheme:

1) Emotional, non-active, primary = nervous.

2) Emotional, non-active, secondary = sentimental.

3) Non-emotional, active, primary = sanguine.

4) Non-emotional, active, secondary = phlegmatic.

5) Emotional, active, primary = choleric.

6) Emotional, active, secondary = passionate.

7) Non-emotional, non-active, primary = amorphous.

8) Non-emotional, non-active, secondary = apathetic.

Each of these main types (with the exception of the last two) the author characterizes in more detail on the basis of psychographic data, and he is mainly interested in the degree of prevalence of other qualities in the main types. A careful study of psychograms leads the author to the conclusion that the prevalence of secondary qualities turned out to be much more different in individual groups than one might expect, and, more importantly, a remarkable correctness was noticed in these differences. Thus, this first attempt to use the biographical method for the purpose of studying individual characteristics proved to be extremely fruitful. But the same attempt very convincingly showed that this method needs more detailed deepening and processing. The researcher, first of all, has to deal with outstanding personalities, because only a few chosen ones of mankind claim the honor of having their own biography. But this drawback of the method will lose its sharpness to a large extent if we assume that there is no fundamental difference in the ratio of mental processes in average and outstanding people. As for the absolute distribution

On the way to creation

Biographical

institutions

Since the existence of individual qualities in exceptional people, psychology is not interested in this side, but in the prevalence of combinations of certain qualities.

Further, as the biographical method becomes more and more naturalised, there must necessarily be institutions, Biographical Institutes, which will collect "human documents" not only of great men. Such material is available in abundance in life, it only needs to be collected and systematized. In addition, it can be brought to life by those who believe in the great scientific value of the biographical method. A biographical institute*, should it ever arise, should carefully collect all kinds of human documents, such as: biographies, autobiographies, diaries, family archives, notes, memoirs, letters, obituaries, curricula vitae, photographs, handwriting, phonograms, products of creativity and etc. Of course, all this abundant material relating to the life of at least one person presents, due to its bulkiness, enormous difficulties for study. The founder of this method, Geimans, had to face this difficulty. The fact is that the biographical literature about some, especially prominent persons, is unusually large. In order to compose a completely impartial and exhaustive biography, the psychologist himself must become a historian and spend an enormous amount of time, perhaps a lifetime, compiling one or more psychograms. To compile his psychograms, Heimans refused to use all the biographical material about each of the 110 outstanding personalities in advance, and used two or three of the most complete and reliable biographies. As for the subjectivism of the biographer - the inaccuracies and incompleteness of the description, then with a sufficiently abundant material, all these errors will be largely smoothed out. Here, as in all sciences based on the statistical method, the law of large numbers gives the general results a probability infinitely greater than that which belongs to single facts. Thus, the very essence of the biographical method is such that it needs a massive collection of material.

* At the Pedagogical Museum of the Teacher's House in Moscow (Mal. Ordynka, 31), a Biographical Department is being organized to collect and study materials using the biographical method.

PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT

ala, and the correlation method should be used to process this material. This last method, when applied to the phenomena of the psychic world, promises to be very fruitful. Even the few results obtained with the help of this method are in many ways capable of undermining our usual views on the connection between mental phenomena. Thus, Spearman, on the basis of a number of studies using this method, comes to the conclusion that finding a close connection between any two mental abilities is by no means always determined by the internal means of these abilities, but indicates the participation of a common factor, a common fund, mental energy. Hence, for a researcher in this area, the task is to establish a correspondence between various mental functions and their relationship to the central factor. And in solving this problem, biographical data, collected in a larger number, can give especially much. That is why it is necessary to start collecting them, it is necessary to create an organization that would be in charge of collecting and studying biographical material on a large scale. And the sooner this is done, the more the description of the life of outstanding figures of the past and present will be preserved for future generations.

The biographical institute, if it could be created, would be the most worthy monument to the outstanding figures of the past, those who honorably passed "their valiant noble path." Its creation would show that society has become aware of the need for a more careful and attentive attitude to the human person, to its past, the consciousness that we are people of not yesterday, that we have a past. The underestimation of this past, its influence on the present is typical for us - Russians. “We are so positive,” wrote Pushkin, “that the past does not exist for us. We are on our knees in front of a real event, success, but the charm of antiquity, gratitude for the past and respect for moral qualities are with us ... ”The difficult time we are experiencing encourages us to carefully look into the past, we are only now beginning to discover ourselves and our antiquity, Russian antiquity ... That is why recent years have been marked by an increased interest in all kinds of reminiscences.

Biographical Institute as a monument to prominent figures of the past

center of study of the psychology of the average person

pits, notes, memoirs, chronicles, letters, etc. All this rich material can and should be studied from the point of view of psychology, for which it provides many valuable observations, comparisons, etc. Biographical Since science is interested in the most typical -

institute as a new one - it would be no less necessary to call for

life and to preserve a description of the life of average people, those of whom (says Ruskin) "the world neither thought nor heard, but who now perform the main part of all his works and from whom we can best learn how to perform them." Characterology and individual psychology have always experienced a particularly acute need from the lack of material to characterize average people. For lack of better material, they most often had to turn to literary types. Of course, this material is in many respects inferior to materials of a biographical nature. Life, carefully and lovingly studied, will give for the psychologist incomparably more than the most brilliant artist. One can only regret that only the chosen ones of mankind claim the honor of having biographies. In essence, any biography, any confession, provided there is a suitable form, is interesting, instructive and entertaining. Tolstoy, himself a great master of the word, considered biographical material to be the most interesting form of creativity, which should supplant all other types of literature. The same Tolstoy was so fond of re-reading Amhel's Diary, although the author of this work was a very ordinary person, whom no one would have known about if the diary had not been left after him. The sincerity and sincerity with which the author of the diary speaks about his feelings and thoughts about the most ordinary objects can deeply affect the reader. Preserving and bringing to life this interesting material in all respects is one of the tasks of the future Biographical Institute.

In psychology, the biographical method is a system of methods for research, diagnosis, correction and design of a person's life path. This method of empirical knowledge began to be developed in the first quarter of the 20th century. (M.O. Ribnikov, S. Buhler). At first, they limited themselves to a retrospective description of the past stages of a person's life or the entire life path of historical characters of the past. Subsequently, the biographical method began to include an analysis of current and future events (future autobiography, controlled fantasy, life schedules, causal metrics), as well as studies of the social circle (additional biographies, lines of relationships of the subject). M. O. Ribnikov considered an autobiography as a psychological document, documenting a personality and its history.

He shared spontaneous autobiographies, when the initiative of a retrospective look at one's own life belongs to the individual himself, and forged autobiography, when the researcher uses the technique of prompting the subject to talk about himself with a certain plan. This technique guarantees the homogeneity of the collected material, which makes it possible to compare, combine, generalize the facts obtained, and the like.

Modern biographical techniques based on the study of a personality in the context of the history and prospects for the development of its individual existence and relationships with "significant others", aimed at reconstructing life programs and scenarios for the development of a personality. Analysis is also subject to the spatial and temporal characteristics of the organization of the business, family, spiritual life of the individual, its interaction with the natural and social environment.

The application of the biographical method involves obtaining heterogeneous objective information, for which various forms of autobiographical methods are used: surveys, interviews, tests. It is also necessary to analyze the testimony of eyewitnesses, the data are obtained during conversations and interviews with loved ones, during the initial analysis of the memories of contemporaries. Modifications of the method of studying the products of activity are also used, when a content analysis of diaries and letters is carried out, performance curves and diagrams of life measurements of a person's activity are constructed.

One of the methodological methods of organizing and conducting psychological research within the framework of the biographical method is heard. This technique involves the joint work of the experimenter and the individual on the meaningful materials of her personal life. The reception is carried out in two stages:

Biographical research is a qualitative research approach aligned to the social interpretive paradigm of research. The biographical research is concerned with the reconstruction of life histories and the constitution of meaning based on biographical narratives and documents. The material for analysis consists of interview protocols (memorandums), video recordings, photographs, and a diversity of sources. These documents are evaluated and interpreted according to specific rules and criteria. The starting point for this approach is the understanding of an individual biography in terms of its social constitution. The biographical approach was influenced by the symbolic interactionism, the phenomenological sociology of knowledge (Alfred Schütz, Peter L. Berger, and Thomas Luckmann), and ethnomethodology (Harold Garfinkel). Therefore, biography is understood in terms of a social construct[1] and the reconstruction of biographies can give insight on social processes and figurations (as in Norbert Elias), thus helping to bridge the gap between micro-, meso-, and macro- levels of analysis. The biographical approach is particularly important in German sociology.[2] This approach is used in the Social Sciences as well as in Pedagogy and other disciplines. The Research Committee 38 "Biography and Society"[3] of the International Sociological Association (ISA) was created in 1984 and is dedicated "to help develop a better understanding of the relations between individual lives, the social structures and historical processes within which they take shape and which they contribute to shape, and the individual accounts of biographical experience (such as life stories or autobiographies)".[4]

Biographies, including autobiographies, have always contained a sociological dimension since their advent in the Antiquity (Plutarch). For the most part of the usage of this notion, biographers dealt with outstanding individual personalities (such as politicians and artists) but there were also exceptions, such as Ulrich Bräker's autobiography, "The Poor Man of Toggenburg" (Der arme Mann im Toggenburg). The emergence of Sociology influenced an approach to biography that extended this notion beyond the individual dimension, such as the works of Alphons Silbermann on the life of the composer Jacques Offenbach and Norbert Elias on the life of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.[5]

The biographical method as a research approach to understand larger groupings was used as sociological material by Florian Znaniecki and William Isaac Thomas in the 1920s. After their work, the biographical approach was considered amongst the dominant research approaches in empirical social research. The study The Polish Peasant in Europe and America (1918–1920) by Znaniecki and Thomas used an extensive collection of diaries, letters, memoirs, autobiographies, and other personal and archival documents as main source for a sociological investigation. The reception of this work was initially late due to linguistic barriers, but it was then absorbed and disseminated in the Social Science Research Council (SSRC). The biographical research approach formed an important foundation for the development of the Chicago School, which later influenced the symbolic interactionism and the work of sociologists such as Robert E. Park, Ernest W. Burgess, and George Herbert Mead.

Another milestone in the development of biographical research was the analysis of the life course of delinquent youths written by Clifford R. Shaw in 1930[6] and 1931.[7] After 1945, the interest in biographical research declined due to the success of quantitative methods and structural-functionalist theories. The biographical approach influence was felt mainly in the study of deviance. In 1978, Aaron Victor Cicourel published a case study on the life history of a boy named Mark, that received special attention in the discipline of social work. Cicourel's study explored in detail how a criminal career was constructed through police interrogation, individual and distorted interpretations, and institutional documents.

Since the 1980s, biographical research gained momentum in the wake of a growing interest for qualitative social research. Biographical research is now a recognized approach in sociology, especially in the German Sociological Tradition (see Fritz Schütze,[8] Martin Kohli,[9] Werner Fuchs-Heinritz and others). This development was supported by a tendency to shift the sociological focus from system and structure to the lifeworld, the everyday life, and the resurgence of phenomenological approaches in sociology (under the influence of Edmund Husserl). The sociology turned to the reconstruction of biographical cases and individual life courses as a form to gain insight on social processes.

With the increasing pluralization of life-worlds, modernization, and differentiation in Postmodern societies, the dissolution of traditional values and the conference of meaning, the biographical approach proved useful to study these social phenomena of the turn of the millennium. The actor became an intersection of different and sometimes divergent determinants, logics, expectations, normative models, and institutionalized mechanisms of control (see Georg Simmel's chapter "The Intersection of Social Circles"[10]). The "normal biography" broke up and prompted the individual to manage his life course on his own and to find solutions amongst different and contradictory influencing factors and figurations. In this situation, the self-discovered biographical identity with its endangered transitions, breaks, and status changes becomes a conflict between institutional control and individual strategy.

The reconstructive approach in biographical research, which is connected to the phenomenological and Gestalt approaches, was methodologically developed by the German sociologist Gabriele Rosenthal. Rosenthal used principles of the method of objective hermeneutics and the reconstructive analysis of Ulrich Oevermann, and the Gestalt and structure considerations proposed by Aron Gurwitsch and Kurt Koffka to develop a method for the reconstruction of biographical cases.[11][12]

In the context of qualitative researches, the biographical research is to be seen as a case-reconstructive approach. The decision to reconstruct cases is in itself an approach to the field rather than a specific research method. Biographical research does not use a single method for data analysis. The most commonly used methods for data construction in biographical research is the biographical narrative interview (see Fritz Schütze[8]) and/or open interviews. Many use content analysis to analyze the biographical data. The diversity of biographical sources turns an inductive approach, as used in quantitative social research, unfruitful. The logic of an abductive reasoning process is preferred by many researchers that use the biographical approach. The principles of a grounded theory (as in Barney Glaser and Anselm Strauss)[13] are often applied alongside a biographical research.

The questions regarding the possibility to use individual cases to create scientifically valid generalizations arise from the use of the abductive reasoning. This is the question of the sustainability of abductive conclusions (as in Charles Sanders Peirce). The abductive conclusion that biographical cases are socially relevant and bear general patterns of behavior, action, and interpretation in them is common in sociological practice, although some think that it is not yet fully developed. Different approaches to the development of typologies exist, as well as for the contrastive comparison between types in order to allow for theoretical generalizations (see Uta Gerhardt, 1984; Gabriele Rosenthal, 1993;[11] and Susann Kluge, 2000[14]).

A fundamental problem exists regarding the differences between the levels of the experienced (erlebte) life history and the narrated (erzählte) life story.[11] Another fundamental implication is the interrelation of experience, memory, and narration.[15] In the early studies of biographical research, great value was placed on the reconstruction of the actual life course of the individual using data from additional sources (such as institutional archives, diaries, interviews with relatives and friends, etc.) and thus eliminating "errors" in the memory and presentation of the interviewee. Today – according to the phenomenological "bracketing" of the being of objects (as by the grounded theory principles) – it is increasingly assumed that the actual life course cannot be reconstructed: experiences are always interpreted by the subject and are mediated by perception, thus constituting the memory in regard to the framework of the overall biography as well as to the situation (for more, see Erving Goffmann notion of frame analysis) where the narrative is collected.[12]

Thus, the main concern of the biographical research should be the life as experiences and narrated by subjects in clear contrast to the "true facts" of a life course reconstruction. Interpretations and constructions of meaning are of utmost importance to reconstruct a biographical case, as the actions and the self-interpretation of these actions by the individual turns his own biography into a coherent totality. Based on empirical experiences with narrated life history and using the research method of biographical narrative interviews, the method of biographical case reconstruction has developed in the last decades in fields that range from the study of migration[16] to professional careers and healthcare.

The question of the construction of meaning leads to the questions of the subjectively intended and the objective meaning. Ulrich Oevermann says that an actor in a situation of interaction produces more meaning than he is aware of. Therefore, some researchers consider the task of the biographical research to be the reconstruction of both types of meaning – the intended and the objective.[17] Behind and below the interpretations expressed by the interviewees are the latent structures of meaning that constitute the sense of life and manifest themselves in biographical life situations.[17] In these latent, hidden patterns of meaning, individual experience and societal conditioning are intertwined. Thus, behind individual action lies a direction and a framework for action. According to Heinz Bude, the method of objective hermeneutics and reconstruction of structures of meaning is used in biographical research as a method for the reconstruction of the latent structures of meaning at play in specific situations of a case[18]

Biographical research is a qualitative research approach aligned to the social interpretive paradigm of research. The biographical research is concerned with the reconstruction of life histories and the constitution of meaning based on biographical narratives and documents. The material for analysis consists of interview protocols (memorandums), video recordings, photographs, and a diversity of sources. These documents are evaluated and interpreted according to specific rules and criteria. The starting point for this approach is the understanding of an individual biography in terms of its social constitution. The biographical approach was influenced by the symbolic interactionism, the phenomenological sociology of knowledge (Alfred Schütz, Peter L. Berger, and Thomas Luckmann), and ethnomethodology (Harold Garfinkel). Therefore, biography is understood in terms of a social construct[1] and the reconstruction of biographies can give insight on social processes and figurations (as in Norbert Elias), thus helping to bridge the gap between micro-, meso-, and macro- levels of analysis. The biographical approach is particularly important in German sociology.[2] This approach is used in the Social Sciences as well as in Pedagogy and other disciplines. The Research Committee 38 "Biography and Society"[3] of the International Sociological Association (ISA) was created in 1984 and is dedicated "to help develop a better understanding of the relations between individual lives, the social structures and historical processes within which they take shape and which they contribute to shape, and the individual accounts of biographical experience (such as life stories or autobiographies)".[4]

Biographies, including autobiographies, have always contained a sociological dimension since their advent in the Antiquity (Plutarch). For the most part of the usage of this notion, biographers dealt with outstanding individual personalities (such as politicians and artists) but there were also exceptions, such as Ulrich Bräker's autobiography, "The Poor Man of Toggenburg" (Der arme Mann im Toggenburg). The emergence of Sociology influenced an approach to biography that extended this notion beyond the individual dimension, such as the works of Alphons Silbermann on the life of the composer Jacques Offenbach and Norbert Elias on the life of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.[5]

The biographical method as a research approach to understand larger groupings was used as sociological material by Florian Znaniecki and William Isaac Thomas in the 1920s. After their work, the biographical approach was considered amongst the dominant research approaches in empirical social research. The study The Polish Peasant in Europe and America (1918–1920) by Znaniecki and Thomas used an extensive collection of diaries, letters, memoirs, autobiographies, and other personal and archival documents as main source for a sociological investigation. The reception of this work was initially late due to linguistic barriers, but it was then absorbed and disseminated in the Social Science Research Council (SSRC). The biographical research approach formed an important foundation for the development of the Chicago School, which later influenced the symbolic interactionism and the work of sociologists such as Robert E. Park, Ernest W. Burgess, and George Herbert Mead.

Another milestone in the development of biographical research was the analysis of the life course of delinquent youths written by Clifford R. Shaw in 1930[6] and 1931.[7] After 1945, the interest in biographical research declined due to the success of quantitative methods and structural-functionalist theories. The biographical approach influence was felt mainly in the study of deviance. In 1978, Aaron Victor Cicourel published a case study on the life history of a boy named Mark, that received special attention in the discipline of social work. Cicourel's study explored in detail how a criminal career was constructed through police interrogation, individual and distorted interpretations, and institutional documents.

Since the 1980s, biographical research gained momentum in the wake of a growing interest for qualitative social research. Biographical research is now a recognized approach in sociology, especially in the German Sociological Tradition (see Fritz Schütze,[8] Martin Kohli,[9] Werner Fuchs-Heinritz and others). This development was supported by a tendency to shift the sociological focus from system and structure to the lifeworld, the everyday life, and the resurgence of phenomenological approaches in sociology (under the influence of Edmund Husserl). The sociology turned to the reconstruction of biographical cases and individual life courses as a form to gain insight on social processes.

With the increasing pluralization of life-worlds, modernization, and differentiation in Postmodern societies, the dissolution of traditional values and the conference of meaning, the biographical approach proved useful to study these social phenomena of the turn of the millennium. The actor became an intersection of different and sometimes divergent determinants, logics, expectations, normative models, and institutionalized mechanisms of control (see Georg Simmel's chapter "The Intersection of Social Circles"[10]). The "normal biography" broke up and prompted the individual to manage his life course on his own and to find solutions amongst different and contradictory influencing factors and figurations. In this situation, the self-discovered biographical identity with its endangered transitions, breaks, and status changes becomes a conflict between institutional control and individual strategy.

The reconstructive approach in biographical research, which is connected to the phenomenological and Gestalt approaches, was methodologically developed by the German sociologist Gabriele Rosenthal. Rosenthal used principles of the method of objective hermeneutics and the reconstructive analysis of Ulrich Oevermann, and the Gestalt and structure considerations proposed by Aron Gurwitsch and Kurt Koffka to develop a method for the reconstruction of biographical cases.[11][12]

In the context of qualitative researches, the biographical research is to be seen as a case-reconstructive approach. The decision to reconstruct cases is in itself an approach to the field rather than a specific research method. Biographical research does not use a single method for data analysis. The most commonly used methods for data construction in biographical research is the biographical narrative interview (see Fritz Schütze[8]) and/or open interviews. Many use content analysis to analyze the biographical data. The diversity of biographical sources turns an inductive approach, as used in quantitative social research, unfruitful. The logic of an abductive reasoning process is preferred by many researchers that use the biographical approach. The principles of a grounded theory (as in Barney Glaser and Anselm Strauss)[13] are often applied alongside a biographical research.

The questions regarding the possibility to use individual cases to create scientifically valid generalizations arise from the use of the abductive reasoning. This is the question of the sustainability of abductive conclusions (as in Charles Sanders Peirce). The abductive conclusion that biographical cases are socially relevant and bear general patterns of behavior, action, and interpretation in them is common in sociological practice, although some think that it is not yet fully developed. Different approaches to the development of typologies exist, as well as for the contrastive comparison between types in order to allow for theoretical generalizations (see Uta Gerhardt, 1984; Gabriele Rosenthal, 1993;[11] and Susann Kluge, 2000[14]).

A fundamental problem exists regarding the differences between the levels of the experienced (erlebte) life history and the narrated (erzählte) life story.[11] Another fundamental implication is the interrelation of experience, memory, and narration.[15] In the early studies of biographical research, great value was placed on the reconstruction of the actual life course of the individual using data from additional sources (such as institutional archives, diaries, interviews with relatives and friends, etc.) and thus eliminating "errors" in the memory and presentation of the interviewee. Today – according to the phenomenological "bracketing" of the being of objects (as by the grounded theory principles) – it is increasingly assumed that the actual life course cannot be reconstructed: experiences are always interpreted by the subject and are mediated by perception, thus constituting the memory in regard to the framework of the overall biography as well as to the situation (for more, see Erving Goffmann notion of frame analysis) where the narrative is collected.[12]

Thus, the main concern of the biographical research should be the life as experiences and narrated by subjects in clear contrast to the "true facts" of a life course reconstruction. Interpretations and constructions of meaning are of utmost importance to reconstruct a biographical case, as the actions and the self-interpretation of these actions by the individual turns his own biography into a coherent totality. Based on empirical experiences with narrated life history and using the research method of biographical narrative interviews, the method of biographical case reconstruction has developed in the last decades in fields that range from the study of migration[16] to professional careers and healthcare.

The question of the construction of meaning leads to the questions of the subjectively intended and the objective meaning. Ulrich Oevermann says that an actor in a situation of interaction produces more meaning than he is aware of. Therefore, some researchers consider the task of the biographical research to be the reconstruction of both types of meaning – the intended and the objective.[17] Behind and below the interpretations expressed by the interviewees are the latent structures of meaning that constitute the sense of life and manifest themselves in biographical life situations.[17] In these latent, hidden patterns of meaning, individual experience and societal conditioning are intertwined. Thus, behind individual action lies a direction and a framework for action. According to Heinz Bude, the method of objective hermeneutics and reconstruction of structures of meaning is used in biographical research as a method for the reconstruction of the latent structures of meaning at play in specific situations of a case[18]