Integration in modern psychological science

Abstract

This article draws upon a review of domestic and foreign studies in order to highlight the tasks of integrative work as one of the most important components of modern methodology in psychological science. In the most general terms, integration issues can be systematized at the level of solving applied psychological problems, integrating knowledge about psychological phenomena, developing individual branches of psychology, fostering integration with other scientific disciplines and solving fundamental theoretical and methodological problems faced by psychological science. It is shown that the problems and tasks of integrative work in domestic and foreign psychology largely coincide, which can facilitate their mutual enrichment. One of such areas of mutual enrichment is the experience of developing original approaches by modern Russian psychologists aimed at integrating psychological knowledge and the psychological community. A brief description of the integrative approaches offered by G.V. Akopov (typological approach to the integration of knowledge in the field of psychology of consciousness), V.V. Kozlov (integrative psychology as the seventh wave of psychology), V.A. Mazilov (integration as the implementation of the model of relationship between theory and method in psychology), V.A. Medintsev (descriptive and prescriptive integration of psychology) and V.N. Panferov (methodology of integral synthesis). The above approaches are compared on the following three grounds: justification of the relevance of integrative work in psychology; the methods and means of integration proposed in the approaches; and the key idea (methodological attitude) defining the possibilities and direction of integration in psychology. The of these approaches recognize the intensive growth of psychological knowledge as a problem, which is the basis for implementing integrative processes in psychology. What these approaches have in common is the recognition of the high demand for the integration of psychological knowledge, the need to implement the idea of integrity in psychology and the implementation of communication in the psychological community. Comparison and analysis of integrative approaches allow us to assert that the differences between them are associated with the presence of different theoretical foundations in their design. The idea substantiated here is that the urgent task of integration in psychology involves not only the development of tools for real integrative work, but also their extensive testing based on a whole array of data and the results of domestic and foreign psychological research.