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Journal of Russian and East European Psychology, vol. 43, no. 4, JulyAugust 2005, pp. 7692. 2005 M.E. Sharpe, Inc. All rights reserved. ISSN 10610405/2005 $9.50 + 0.00.

A.N. LEONTIEV

Will
Published based on a tape recording, the text represents a 1978 home lecture personally prepared for and read to the grandson of A.N. Leontiev [Dmitry], at his request when he was a first-year student at the School of Psychology of Moscow State University. The lecture was recorded on a tape recorder that had recently been given to A.N. Leontiev on the occasion of his seventieth birthday. In preparing the transcript for publication only stylistic corrections were made; repetition and grammatical and syntactical disparities were eliminated, along with clarifying questions and their answers when they added nothing to the main substance of the lecture. Chronologically, the lecture Will is one of the last, if not the last, original scholarly texts of A.N. Leontiev and it merits publication. It is significant in that A.N. Leontiev did not specifically devote a single published work, manuscript, or public lecture to the problem of will. Except for lecture notes and the stenographic records of his courses in general psychology, the publication of which would be possible only after extensive work, this lecture is the only source of clarification of his views on this issue. The content of this lecture probably does not require a special commentary, as it was designed for an audience with minimal understanding of psychology, and is distinguished by its exceptionally accessible explanations. It is difficult to talk about the psychology of will, especially if it has to be discussed briefly, although it is only as difficult as talking briefly about many

English translation 2005 M.E. Sharpe, Inc., from the Russian text, Volia. First published in Vestnik Moskovskogo Universiteta, Seriia 14: Psikhologiia, 1993, no. 2, pp. 314. Published with the permission of Dmitry A. Leontiev. Translated by Nora Favorov.
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other psychological processes. First, it will be necessary to say a few words about the history of the very concept of will. Will has long been treated as one of the mental faculties, so it was impossible to formulate any theory or to undertake any scientific analysis of it. The same was said at one point regarding thermogen. It was impossible to undertake an analysis of thermogenit represents a certain fundamental faculty that finds its own expression, the essence of which, however, is unknowable because it actually generates itself. The faculty of will generates the expression of will. When we talk about a thermogen, there are no other faculties that we can use in our explanation. It is enough to indicate that heat is generated by thermogen. Reason, will, and sensationhere are three faculties. Up to the present time, the theory of mental faculties, dressed in a new guise, continues to be applied specifically to will. Suffice it to say that even [William] James in whose time extensive factual material had already been compiled, experiments were being conducted, measurements were being taken, and there was quite a bit known about psychological research methodscontinued to hold to the position that certain special acts exist. He called them acts of fiatLet it be!using the famous Biblical fiat lux, Let there be light, and there was light. . . .* Even when James wrote about ideomotor** movements or actions, that is, when he examined the very important tenet that the emergence, the appearance of an idea of movement will of necessity be transformed into movement, he did not leave behind the idea of fiat, because some prerequisite was necessary for this transformation. And, he saw this prerequisite in the strength that could not be further divided, in the renowned fiat, itself. Nonetheless, an analysis of will was begun. There was discussion of some characteristics of volitional processes (I would prefer to say, of volitional acts), that distinguished these processes from other acts that are not volitional. This is a usual step in scientific analysis. The distinguishing features have to be identified, or to put it another way, the specifics of what is being studied. Here began the great and long history of the search for these specifics. First, only those actions or processes that serve a goal can justly be called volitional. So from the start, volitional processes (I prefer to say volitional acts) are contrasted with and distinguished from all those processes that do not have the attribute of serving a goal. A goal is understood to be some conscious result to which an action should lead. And processes were thus divided into two groups: involuntary processes (including automatic actions, instinctive actions, impulsive
**James used fiat lux to describe the transition from decision to action.Eds. **Ideomotor is the sequential and immediate movement of notion inside the mind of action, with little recognition between the conception of an idea and its executionperformance.Eds.

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actionsi.e., actions based on direct stimulation, affective actions, actions influenced by affect, by passion), and on the other hand, actions that are deliberate, voluntary, that is, actions serving a goal. It is completely obvious that when we talk about will, even intuitivelyor as they sometimes say now, on an intuitive levelwe always include these processes among voluntary processes. True, there has been a certain confusion of terminology here, because certain other movements that follow a circular pattern also came to be called voluntary. For instance, the term voluntary movement began to be coupled with descriptions of classical physiological experiments, of Pavlovs experiments with dogs, which were conducted in the following way: they raised a dogs paw and then they reinforced it, they fed it. As a result, the dog started to raise its paw on its own. It was a type of voluntary action. . . . Of course, there was no voluntary action here, everything was still at the reflex level. Identifying ideas about there being goal-oriented actions, that is, intending some presumed conscious result, turned out to be insufficient because there are very many actions that are goal-oriented, that is, that serve a goal. That is, they are even voluntary in the higher sense, but nonetheless do not have the attributes that we would agree to recognize as specific to these kinds of actions in particular. Goal-oriented actions were divided into two groups. Some of them, in the language of psychology, cannot be called volitional, and are never called volitional. The second group consists of goaloriented actions that, nonetheless, we clearly separate from the others, and this namevolitionalapplies to them. In the classical Marxist tradition, actions that are subordinate to a conscious goal, or especially to a rational goal, are called volitional acts. This goal is not only conscious, but it is seen as essential and rational. Then, for example, work activity is volitional. Thus, in the classical traditions of Marxism will is assigned a broader meaning than is the same term in psychology. Therefore, in psychology the search continues for the characteristics that distinguish these volitional goals from actions that are the same, but still somehow different, having special elements, special traits, special features. Choice is often singled out as first among these features. Will is thereand it is only presentwhen a goal-serving action takes place under conditions of choice between two possible or many possible actions. For example, Herbert Spencer is faced with a dilemma: either to go to Australia or to get married and stay in England. Spencer makes his decision on the basis of what he calls the moral arithmetic he devised: he evaluates the consequences either of leaving or of marrying and staying in England, assigning each alternative a value using a number of points; he then calculates the number of points. It turns out that the decision to go to Australia gets more points, but he stays in England

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and gets married. The same thing happens with the game of solitaire played by Bezukhov, who is wavering as to whether he should leave Moscow with the troops or remain in a Napoleon-occupied Moscow. He lays out a game of solitaire and receives an answer to his questionand then does the opposite. Regarding will as choice, the situation of Buridans ass is often mentioned. There is even a clever thought that the ass does not have the capability of volitional action, and therefore remains hungry because he cannot choose between the hay and straw; but man is smarter than an ass, and, even without having the ability to decide rationally, he casts the die and then follows the outcome, thereby not dying of hunger. And so, choice. A volitional act is an act carried out by choice. Choice is a feature of a volitional action. Where there is no choice there is no volitional act. If we point to the characteristics of choice, it is natural to introduce yet another conceptdecision making. Volitional action is action under the conditions of choice based on decision making. Here is the expanded characterization of volitional action. Then, the entire problem changes into a problem of choice, into a problem of decision making, of how a decision is made and what it is, and in investigating these formations of volitional action, we are at the same time studying the very act of will, at least to a certain extent. But the difficulty lies in the fact that neither the first nor the second criterion turns out to be satisfactory. And examples can be found where the choice made does not produce actions that correspond to this choice. The conscious choice is not usedleave for Australia; the actual decisionremain in London. Furthermore, there are situations that do not represent any choice and that nonetheless stimulate an action that is very clearly expressed and indisputably and uniformly seen by everyone as volitional. A very simple situationan order by a commanding officer. It is extraordinarily difficult to carry out, and, as they say, all the force of will must be mobilized. To prepare for an attack and leave the ground is very hard, but there is no alternative. It is never discussed, and does not even exist. There truly is no alternative, no choice, you have to act and that is it. We only create a choice, but psychologically it does not exist, in real terms it is not there. For drug addicts the situation is different. It is, one could say, a very great feat of will to give up narcotics, but is the use of narcotics really an alternative? No, it is not an alternative, it is just what is, what is happening, not serving any goal, and generally not an action. And suddenly there appears a volitional actionthe pack of cigarettes, or the bottle of vodka, or the narcotics are cast aside. And moreover, the well-known process of decision making does not occur. In short, choice and making a decision are simply not mandatory aspects in the characterization of will. But, perhaps, the overcoming of obstacles along the path to achieving a

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goal is not required, and when there are no obstacles, then the action is nonvolitional? If one rises up in a pretend attack and not in a war setting (I just got up, before I was lying down, and now I am standing or running), nobody will recognize this action as an act of will. It is voluntary, goal serving, it may even be an alternative, for instance, under conditions of a war game, but it is not an act of will in the narrow sense, described in saying: a man of will, or a great force of will is needed, or that is truly an act of will. If we say that we are maintaining a goal orientation and knowledge of what we are doing, that is, a rational goal orientation, then it is natural that we just have to find the specifics. We can also allow for indecisiveness when it is a matter of whether it is best to put sevruga or osetra sturgeon on the plate. That is a choice. But something is missing. Maybe there is not enough effort? And so, the third feature is the overcoming of obstacles, that is, the presence of obstacles. If an action is carried out without obstacles, it cannot be volitional, even if there is a choice and a decision is made. First, it must be said that we cannot think only of external obstacles. An external obstacle gives us nothing. To return to the same example, while it is known that serious drug addicts are capable of overcoming any obstacle to get drugs, this is not an expression of will, but of lack of will. A well-known rule in psychiatric clinics that deal with serious addicts is the following: do not take your eyes off them, they will always find some way to get drugs and will exert colossal energy to do it. So, external obstacles are eliminated. Here, another complication emerges. Volitional acts are not always acts. Even medieval writers described three types of volitional phenomena. There is facera, that is, activity, volitional action; and there is nonfacera, inactivity, very difficult, it turns out, abstention from action; for example, I am holding a military detachment under artillery fire, it is very difficult not to run, and it is hard for me and it is hard for the unit, but that is what we have to do. To stand on a roof under bombardment, on a roof outpost, something almost all adult Muscovites of a certain age have done. There is whistling in the air, you want to run from the attic downstairs, but nobody runs, they hold themselves back. And, finally, the third aspect: the most subtle, the most elevatedvati. It is simple to translate this word using the concept of patience, but that does not mean this is the most exact word. This is something that a very interesting psychologist, the author of the first Russian military psychology, General Dragomirov, called resilience, which he attributed as the greatest quality of the Russian troops. Let us retreat, but not weaken the pressure of resistance, we again retreat, but we do not weaken resistance. This is a taut rubber band; it is not yet known when you stretch it to a certain length whether it will propel you, like the elastic on a slingshot. Maintaining a certain calm, if you likethat is what is

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called psychological resilience. Psychological resilience describes the very essence of the matter rather well. So, the action is not the essence, making the problem even more complex. This leads to the need to conduct an analysis from the start, keeping in mind the possibility of attributing a characteristic to a volitional process, an act, regardless of the form in which it is taking place. Perhaps it is slightly nonfacera. First as an illustration, because it is a very good illustration. There is a story that at one point during the Inquisition a certain young Italian was arrested, put in prison, and charged with grievous sins, and on the basis of these charges the Italian was subjected to torture. In the eyes of the Holy Inquisition, torture was an original test of the righteousness or the lack of righteousness of the suspect, of the accused. It was presumed that if the person was not sinful, was pure before God, that he would withstand any torture without making a false admission, and then, if he withstood the torture, the Holy Inquisition would pronounce him not guilty, not subject to a bloodless execution, that is, by burning at the stake. The poor Italian was subjected to terrible torment with the secretary of the inquisition sitting there together with the inquisitor, who was conducting the interrogation. And the interrogation did not yield any results: the Italian did not admit guilt. When the torture was over and the inquisitor announced the decision of the inquisition that the Italian was not guilty, with the prison guards beginning to unfasten and free the prisoner, the inquisitor, turning to the accused, but now rehabilitated young Italian, said, You did not utter a single word of confession, but I heard how your lips whispered, I see you [io te vedo]. It cannot be but that the Holy Virgin appeared to you and strengthened you to endure such terrible torture. Your holiness, the now former prisoner replied, before my eyes something truly did appear, but that something was the bonfire in which you would have burned me if a single word of confession had escaped me. This type of situation regarding the problem of will led me to the necessity of undertaking an independent analysis. First, I decided not to investigate very complex forms, such as internal acts, internal deeds, abstaining from action, bearing pain or difficulty, and so on, but I decided to return to ordinary external action, to examine analytically the possibilities for characterizing will by means of the usual analysis, which is now often called analysis based on the so-called activity approach. Let us imagine an ordinary volitional, that is, goaloriented action. Behind the goal lies a motive in accordance with the general position that is called the activity approach to psychology. Then it is easy to imagine a very simple scheme, a diagram. Behind the goal (perhaps stated, perhaps stated only to oneself) may lie a positive motive, and then the action takes place and it is energetic, that is, in terms of the time, effort, and amount

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of work that is needed in certain interrelationships with the strength of the motivation, or rather the motive. It takes place and does not fall within the category of volitional actions. Imagine the opposite situation: behind the goal lies a negative motiveinaction, where action simply does not occur. A simple set of alternatives: a positive motiveaction occurs; a negative motiveaction does not occur. It could not be simpler. However, the point is that actions are alwaysand this must be remembered polymotivated. When I carry out some sort of action, I enter into a relationship not only with one thing, but with several things that may be motives in and of themselves. Using the simplest forms of polymotivation, we will take a look at two motives, actually we can keep in mind three, or any numberthis does not play a crucial role in the schematic analysis. Let us again look at an ordinary caseboth negative. Nothing at all will happenwhy should anything happen. And now let us look at this: one motive is positive, and the other is negative. We create a situation where something is done. This is not simply an action. This is a volitional action. Furthermore, it makes no difference at all whether both motives are conscious or one motive is conscious or neither is consciouswhat is important is that they both be motives. Let us get away from whether or not motives are conscious. For example, if I am giving an examination, I have a dual relationship. I am relating to my professional responsibilities, to my duties, and I cannot not relate to the examinee, I have no control over this. In conducting an examination, I cannot not deal with the examinee, when conducting the examination, and I cannot not deal with the program, with the requirements. What happens? There is a negative situation. I cannot give the student a B, because the answer was not a B answer, and I cannot give him a C, because then he, who clearly needs it, would lose his stipend. Whatever decision I make and whatever I do under these circumstances, my behavior will be volitional, my action will be volitional. In the end I gave a Cor I gave him a B. This is the definition of action I introduced at first, of something that is not necessarily volitional in the sense that it may be simply an action by choice, but rather a volitional deedthis is a volitional act in the true sense. So, a volitional act is an act carried out under conditions of polymotivation, when different motives have different affective signs, that is, some are positive and others are negative. So, here is the first definition; like any definition, it is crude, insufficiently developed, pointing only to a general characteristic, to a general approach to the problem. Now, naturally, a certain question arises: if we accept this formula, then we do not require that a motive necessarily be conscious. However, there is something else we do not require: we do not require a characterization of these motives, but this characterization must be required. Why, after all, does a person

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act this way and not another way? Why can he not simply draw lots or why does he not want to draw lots? If it is suggested to me that I give a B or a C based on lots, I would rather listen to myself, to what is happening inside me. Some process is taking place inside me; this is my willthis internal process is very subtle and very complex. This is a framework over which I lay my analysis, a crude diagram, a vector summation, and the most primitive sort, at that. Because they enter into very complex relations with one another. So, delving into the problem of will has required us to delve into the motivational sphere of personalityand this is why will is a deeply personal process. And if we do not examine the relationships that arise inside consciousness, generated through its development, if we do not examine these internal processes as self-generating processes, we cannot solve the problem of will. So, we have to conduct a further analysis, along much more complex and difficult lines. Some steps have already been taken in this regard. We have arrived at a certain scheme of any action that can be called volitional action. Again to repeat this scheme: action objectively realizes two different relationships, that is, two different activities are included and carried out, and, consequently, this action obeys two different motives. When one of these motives is negative, while the other is positively and emotionally charged, then a situation arises that is typical for the volitional action being carried out. If both motives are positive, then the action is carried out, but is not excluded from the category of volitional actions. The same is true of negative motives, where the action is simply not carried out, and there is no action. Certainly, it is possible to determine that any motive has a positive or a negative coloration, and unquestionably, there exist such alternatives by which it is possible to classify them with certainty. A simple criterion is that if there is no other motive and the action takes place, then this is a positive motive; if the action does not take place, then the motive is negative or there is no motive at all. This way there is always a very strict criterion: does the given motive have motivational force? Either it does not have itthen it is not a motive; or it has a positive, motivating force to act or a motivating negative force, not to act. If there is a cooking flame or a lit candle before me, then the action of putting my hand in it will not take place under usual circumstances. To the contrary, there is a tendency to draw my hand away, but if we have Mucius Scaevola, then to the contrary, the action takes place, because then we have, let us say, a supermotive (I am introducing a conditional term, not giving it any terminological significance), and then we have a typical act of will. Now, with respect to testing this thesis, there is something I can discuss in this connection: the coexistence of two motives, that is, the incorporation of action in two different activitiesand that means two different relationships

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to the world, to the object required, that is, to the motivehas, as one of its characteristic features different levels at which action is constructed, realizing one relationship and another. It is necessary to separate these levels and to devise an experimental design that could be a subject of study. I will now speak about such a design. I conducted the experiment I will tell you about now as a member of team of researchers (there were a number of us), several years before the war as part of a process to answer certain pressing questions about parachute jumping. We had received a request through the All-Union Institute of Experimental Medicine (AIEM) to conduct research on parachute jumps. The subject of this experiment was to analyze jumps from a parachute tower that exists to this day in the Park of Culture and Recreation. The height of this tower is approximately that of a seven-story building. A person went up this tower, and a socalled system was fastened to him, that is, what ties the person jumping with the parachute to the actual parachute canopy, and then he was told he could take a step forward off the platform of this tower, that is, take a step, so to speak, from the seventh floor into space. It should be said that sometimes these jumps went smoothly, and sometimes certain problems arose, that is, the person refused to jump. These cases were called refusals. These were very rare cases on the parachute tower. What we were interested in was the question of why, first of all, these cases were rather rare; and second, what were the refusals to jump associated with? Why were these cases rare? That is easy to explain. This was a tower that was offered as an amusement ride to the parks visitors. One had to pay some fee, say, a ruble, get a ticket, and go down to the base of the tower, where the equipment was put on you, and you climbed up top with this equipment attached, and then the process went as follows: you were quickly led to the barrier, and they fastened your equipment to the parachute canopy with a large snap hook, then they opened the gate to the tower and the instructor gave the command, warning, You do not have to jump, just step forward. And, as we observed, the subject would give a slight push in the physical sense. The jump was completed with a slight sense of excitement and a feeling of satisfaction, pleasure. We observed these jumps. I usually sat on the barrier, next to the part that opened, and watched in profile, with a camera in my hands, a Leica as they called them then. Then we changed the situation a bit. Instead of an instructor we put our man in and changed the circumstances in the following way. After the next visitor came to this tower, the barrier was already open. He was invited to walk up to the edge, which was now not separated by any barrier from, we shall conditionally say, the abyss. . . . The instructor hit the snap hook against the ring that the hook was supposed to fasten to several times,

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making it appear that it was not fastening right away. He stepped aside for a moment, during which this supposed instructor had a conversation along the lines of, Look at that, down below a dog ran right here, right onto the landing platform. And the subject, naturally, looked down. And then the instructor stepped back a half step and repeated the same instructions, You do not have to jump, just step over there, downward. It is not dangerous because the parachute is already balanced and you will descend smoothly. Here, it turned out, refusals became much more frequent. Then, we made another step forward, and the last board of the surface, on which the subject was standing, was made moveable, and this board was built onto hidden sensors so that the displacement of the center of gravity of the human body was recorded. Then, we observed a phenomenon, an occurrence that was rather curious. This was the phenomenon of the backward push, as we provisionally called it, giving it a temporary, working term for our own use. It turned out that after the first impulse forward, the board correspondingly inclined a fraction of a millimeter, so that the sensor was activated. The jumper himself did not feel this leaning, it was a micro-inclination. Then, there was a push back; it seemed that the emptiness pushed him back and the board inclined, but in the opposite direction, that is, the center of mass moved back. First, movement a little forward and then even more significantly backward, as if declining in essence. After that there was either a refusal or an inclination forward and finally a step, called a parachute jump. What was going on here? We needed to do further experiments. We then constructed an arrangement consisting of two planks with very fine tissue paper stretched between them on this same tower. It was translucent, that is, it was obviously very delicate. But it was opaque in the sense that it gave off a diffuse light. It was not possible to see objects through it or determine distances, and so on. It was a rather large frame obscuring a rather large portion of the field of vision. Furthermore, the whole construction was equipped with a mechanism such that when someone jumped, that is, when the boards were freed of the pressure of the jumper, this frame automatically flipped downward, that is, it bent and dropped down and became vertical, parallel with the tower. This was how we managed not to have to replace new tissue paper every time. It worked. One and the same sheet until the first rain. We explained to the subjects: Now, please, step onto this sheet of tissue paper. You, of course, understand that it is a very thin sheet and it cannot stop your jump, the paper is too thin. On the sides, of course, there was no partition. We used this device specifically with the refusersno refusals were repeated. We then made a proposition: there is, evidently, a lower levelneurologically this level is subcorticalthat gives the command, Dont! Stop! Back!a push back

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and refusal. There is a higher, cortical level, of course, a level that repeats the command to jump, since on that higher level there is no effect from height, but there is an effect from the idea of complete security. And, incidentally, this was completely correct because the jumps were absolutely safe. We had only one single accident the whole time we were working there. I must comment on certain details. The first detail: Of course, we did not content ourselves with working with the public, with random subjects. And we also took measures to gather groups of subjects. First, we had at our disposal a platoon of soldiers from the Moscow garrison. You would be wrong to think that we did not get any refusals from them. Without instructions there were quite a few refusals. With these circumstances in mind, we took an interest in the question of how grown men, trained and disciplined, were not following an order. Then, we decided to take professional parachutists, and we received refusals from them, and often with statements claiming that it was lousy to jump from a parachute tower, worse than from a wing (then they jumped from a biplane; they did not have hatches then, where they pour out like bullets, one after the other). . . . Why is it lousy? Because it is unpleasant to step into nothingness, and there is no boldness, consciousness of height, courage, or risk. There is no equilibrium: at the higher level, the commander, is not commanding, because he is very weak, and the lower level is crying loudly: I do not want to do this. Here is a very interesting situation: We raised the number of refusals among professional parachutiststhose parachutists who had a lot of jumpsto 100 percent with one modification. We said, So you have had a look, yes; now turn around and take a step backward, falling. Nobody could stand this, although it is not a tricky task. I did not try it myself, jumping backward. Otherwise, I jumped rather well, I did not have any particular problems. But, I understand what a push is. I cheated. I did this very quickly and then I did not get a push back, I simply knew in advance and acted immediately, like a shot. At this point, something started to become clear. Another detail that is very important came to light here. We had some refusals among visitors, and once a group from some facility came and they all went to jumpthere were ten of them with one woman refusing. A refusalnothing out of the ordinary. However, on the next day when I came to the parachute tower and sat down on my barrier, suddenly I saw the woman who would not jump the day before. This was the very woman who had refused yesterday. And then a conversation with her took place, or actually an interview. It was natural to ask her, Why did you come back? And after becoming a bit embarrassed she replied as follows: the fact that she had not been able to force herself to jump made an unpleasant impression, left her with a kind of regret. When she returned to

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work, someone who had not been to the parachute tower asked her if she had jumped and she replied, Yes. And then the regrets became even worse. She had said yes, when it was actually no, and, therefore, she decided to come to the park alone after work today and jump without fail. We helped her and she jumped and left entirely pleased: we helped by simply switching to the usual instruction, without any holding back; to the contrarylook at the parachute and jump. That is, we switched off the visual field at the critical moment, when the struggle was going on. We thus arrived at a hypothesis that was complicated by the fact that this is a very subtle and higher regulation; for instance, social factors intervene: she did not want to be deceptive, or admit that it was awful, very unpleasant to jump from the parachute tower, because it lacks boldness, this is not for professionals. The question arose, of course: would it not be possible to first of all construct a physiological hypothesis and then test this physiological hypothesis? We constructed the following physiological hypothesis and this is how we saw things. What is it exactly that the lower level, we will say the subcortical level of the brain, does during movement? Its function consists in preparing the execution of objective movement, that is, the actual movements of the appropriate extremitiesin this case the arms and the legs, which have to execute the jump, and so on. In short, it has to prepare the skeletal musculature. This function is usually called tonic function, in keeping with Bernshteins ideas. The level referred to here is a baseline level, that is, one that must form a certain baseline on which physical movement will develop. From this emerged the following conjecture: perhaps on this lower level of the organization of movements, only this unique tonic preparation is carried out. As far as the physics of movement are concerned, they are evidently [produced] by upper, higher cortical processes. This assumption is highly probable from the point of view of our physiological knowledge about the organization of movement, about the levels of the structure of movement, as they were called by Nikolai Aleksandrovich Bernshtein. From this perspective the assumption is highly likely that if you are evaluating the height from which you have to jump, the emptiness into which you have to step, then the initial evaluation prompts an instantaneous adjustment, a preadjustment, that is, tonic measurements within the musculature preparing movement not forward, that is, a movement to jump, or, to put it more precisely, a step that must be made into nothingness, but preparing a movement in the opposite direction, that is, a movement of moving away from the edge of this apparent abyss. At the same time, the command forward is issued, which is formulated on a high level. We wind up with a lack of coordination, a discrepancy between the tonic preparation and the physical movement that is starting to be realized. The tonic elementaway from

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the edge; the physics elementover the edge. Under these circumstances one can understand how the actual experience of volitional effort emergessimply put, why it is difficult to lift the arm when the arm, as they usually say, will not be lifted. Why it is difficult to unclench the fist holding onto the strut of a biplane up in the air before a jump when it is time to jump? The hand continues to squeeze this strut, it works against the jump, so the muscles of the hand are following the path continued by this preparation, happening instantaneously as soon as the person goes out onto the surface (the wing) of the plane. And executing the jump can be figuratively compared with a movement against the grain, against the flow. The flow is already happening, and the real action requires movement of the opposite muscle group. Let us assume that the group executing the drawing away of the hand has been brought to readiness in this direction, that is, the phasic movement of the extensor group has been prepared. But the command, or self-command in this case, goes to the flexor group. What do we wind up with? We wind up with having to relax the tension of the first group of flexors and complete a movement executed using the extensor group despite the absence of tonic preparation. We wanted very much to experimentally test this proposition, this explanation of volitional effort, metaphorically speaking, as being an inordinate effort due to the incongruity of the effect of tonic preparation and the content of the movement itself. This could be done fairly simply. For this it was necessary to design an experimental task in such a way that some muscle group would execute a movement that was demanded by a defensive reaction, let us say protecting against an electric shock; another group had to act in the direction of contact with the source of the electric shock, with the electrode. Then, according to the assumption, under the influence of previous experience of electric shock or electric stimulation under these conditions of moving toward the electrode a reaction will be prompted of drawing away the hand from the source of this electric shock. And what will the instructions demand? Moving closer to this source, that is, an opposite action. We built a setup so that we could record an electromyogram. The design of the recording was such that we could record both the actual tonic processes, changes in muscle tone, and, naturally, the tension and reaction of the antagonistic muscles. To put it simply, one electrode of the sensitive electromyogram was attached to one muscle group and the other electrode to the antagonist muscle group. The experiments were not conducted well. One important point in the instructions for using the setupwhich was very well done in terms of its electrical and biomechanical aspectswas neglected. The following picture emerged: the subject had to bend his arm together with the bar that the hand was holding toward the source of the electric shock. He felt this shock.

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During the following attempts to repeat the same thing we observed a change in the electromyogram. There arose rather sharply expressed bioelectric effects from the tonic state, the state of the tone of the muscles drawing the hand away, these were flexors, and almost no tonic preparation in the antagonist muscles, that is, under our conditions, in the extensor group. But the point is, I repeat, that the experiments themselves were not very well constructed. I was not very attentive in supervising them, because it seemed to me that the greatest difficulty was in setting up the apparatus, and the apparatus was set up by one of our workers who was very highly qualified, very experienced. I was not worried, and the experimenter, who worked under my supervision, a former graduate student, botched the order of the experiment: for instance, only when I insisted did he figure out that he should measure the very same movements, the very same electromyograms with the same calibration, with the same apparatus under conditions where there had not been a trialjust simple instructions: bend and unbend (the arm) using that same setup. Then we got the first set of tonic and phasic recordings. I had in my hands samples of these recordings, but I repeat, they were not adequately thought through. In short, all of this is still subject to study, to a repeat study, perhaps with better equipment. So, for now my answer is hypothetical, but still rather reliable: if you are lifting weights and the weights seem heavy, then you have to apply effort out of proportion to what the actual number of pounds of the weights would require, because on some levels there is a process taking place with an opposite orientation. I say weights metaphorically, as they say I cannot move a muscle, I cannot let go. Here we have the explanation. Now, briefly, the last question about the ontogenic development of volitional acts in the true sense, when you have to force yourself to do something. This is a dissertation, a well-thought-out, completely finished, and defended work by my now successful, former graduate student, K.M Gurevich, a person who is now no longer young. He was set the task of catching the moment of the generation and initial development of volitional behavior in children. Using a number of criteria, children of preschool age were selected; or, to put it another way, children of early, young, middle, and older preschool age. The experiments went as follows: They were all conducted using games, with Konstantin Markovich first familiarizing himself with life in a nursery school, working there as a teaching assistant, so the children grew accustomed to him. The experiment used children who for one reason or another were being kept inside, not as a punishment, but in some cases because of a runny nose, others had something else. Konstantin Markovich brought them toys, which were actually the main research tool in this study. We chose the toys very carefully, and we looked for them in stores in order to create a selection that we could

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work with, keeping in mind the goals of the experiment. I remember some of the toys; they were mostly toys of the sort that Konstantin Markovich and I called silly, but they were very appealing. For instance, I recall a mechanical toy: a pole and on the pole there was a plastic figure of a man with arms and legs that swiveled. The mechanism made the pole move in such a way that the acrobat on the pole turned this way and that and back again, then again to the other sidein short, this was a monotonous movement, although when you started it, it immediately drew your attention and seemed very appealing, and it had a great demanding quality, to use Kurt Lewins terminology. At the same time, it had the marvelous quality that it was impossible to play with itit is impossible to play intelligently with this kind of toy; in two, or at most, five minutes it will become boring, so the experiment did not drag on, and if that toy got into somebodys hands, it lost its appeal so quickly that it was no effort to take it away. The first experiments followed this scheme: the child had to do something unpleasant, uninteresting, and tedious and it was stipulated that after completing this tedious activity, he could play with one of the toys displayed before him. One version of this experiment was that (just as in the first case it was verified that the child did not have any other motive for completing the task) the toy was not placed before him but was shown to him and put away in a cabinet. In one case this appealing object was within the field of perception; in the other case it was not. The results pertaining to will were unexpected, although not very unexpected. The result was that this volitional action, perhaps voluntary to start with, first proceeded in the absence of the motivating object, and then also in its presence. We verified this conclusion with the mothers by asking one simple question: if your child does not eat well and you have promised him that after he eats, say, cream of wheat, you will give him a candy, what do you have to dopromise it or also place it in front of him? The mothers answered unanimously that of course you cannot put the candy in front of him or he will completely stop eating his cream of wheat and will only look at the candy. We received similar, analogous results. It is easier to have a decisive motive in the imagination than physically in viewthis is rather paradoxical. Development, it would seem, proceeds from the external to the internal; but here it is the other way around, it coordinates better with the internal image than when it is not an image, but a real object. This is the first paradoxical aspect. Second, we had toys that were appealing from a procedural perspective; it was possible to play with them for a long time, in any event to repeat actions over and over with these things, with these objects. The toy worked by releasing a spindle, where balls placed on little platforms were then knocked around

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it. Naturally, in order to play the game again you had to replace the balls, four of them (three and one ball on top) on the little platforms, and they were flat, and the balls would rollthis was quite monotonous. This was an observation or an experiment based on the idea, if you like to ride, youd better enjoy carrying the sled. And another experiment, which contrasted with this one was of a social type, that is, it was not the physical setting that objectively determined the experiment, but the experimenters requirement, in this case, Gurevich. It turned out that objective necessity is weaker than social necessity. If the first situation could fit the formula if you like to ride, youd better enjoy carrying the sled, the second situation fits the anecdote about the officer and the orderly. The orderly is puttering about and keeps moaning and groaning. The officer asks, Ivan, what are you groaning about? I am really thirsty. Go get yourself a drink. I dont want to go. A few minutes pass and the officer says to him in an official tone, Ivan. Yes, your honor, the orderly answers. Go and bring a glass of water. He runs and brings a glass of water. The officer says, Drink. The fellow drinks the glass of water and calms down. We conclude with a general rule that genetically, voluntary action appears first of all, earlier, and consequently, more simply, if we can put it that way, with an ideal stimulus than with a real stimulus; and the second paradox: it is more likely to appear in social subordination than in objective subordination to material conditions. That is all. Then things begin to become somewhat clear. For instance, when there is no social setting, that is, no demands from those around, we replace that with a self-command: one-two-three-jump, which is often practiced in volitional actions. In general, I would put it this way: keeping in mind several hypotheses that I have stated here, one could say that on the basis of these hypotheses, or rather, using these hypotheses, even in some sense using them as a point to start from, many essential facts become clear that have long been known in psychology. They acquire a certain regularity, a certain possibility of grasping these diverse facts with a narrow circle of concepts, without going outside those concepts, without calling for any external forces to explain them. Here the nature of volitional effort is also explained, which is very original. There has always been the problem: when we are talking about carrying out a volitional act, why do I show all the signs of having done some work, while in fact the actual job I have done was quite small. It is against muscle tone, it involves muscles that have not been prepared with the necessary tonethis is very difficult. For instance, in early motor development in children it has been established for a long time that it develops first along the line of development of tonic muscle contractions. Unless muscle tone has been exercised, no movement can be executed, it does not

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happen; therefore, for instance, the medical idea that an infant, they say, should not be carried aroundlet them lie in their cribsthis is an incorrect idea. What happens then is a lag in motor development, because when you carry a baby, he does not lie there like a sack, he is always working his muscle tone, his muscles are tensing and this tension of muscles prepares them to execute movements. It is an ordinary rule of physiology. So I have put this outline together very roughly. In summing up this entire subject I could say just one thing, that this very crude analysis of the facts from the area of volitional actions in the narrow sense of this term, of course, certainly does not exhaust the psychological problem of will. To the contrary, it is no more than an introduction.

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