D. A. Leontiev - Três Facetas Do Significado (Em Inglês)

NOVEMBER–DECEMBER 2005 45
Journal of Russian and East European Psychology, vol. 43, no. 6,

November–December 2005, pp. 45–72.
© 2005 M.E. Sharpe, Inc. All rights reserved.
ISSN 1061–0405/2005 $9.50 + 0.00.
D.A. LEONTIEV
Three Facets of Meaning
“The problem of meaning . . . is the last analytical

concept that crowns the general doctrine of the psyche,
just as the concept of personality crowns the entire
system of psychology.”
—A.N. Leontiev (1994)
Over the past two decades psychology has undergone the latest in the crises of
its methodological foundations. This crisis is connected with the blurring not
only of the boundaries of psychology’s subject matter but also of the bound-
aries of science and of ideas about science in general. It is also connected with
the destruction of such fundamental, and in the preceding period very sharp,
binary oppositions as those between “everyday” and “scientific” psychology,
“scholarly” and “applied” psychology, “humanistic” and “mechanistic” psy-
chology, “depth” and “height” psychology. More work is being done on the
metatheoretical interpretation of the foundations of psychology and on the
construction of a new image of psychology. This has found expression in Rus-
sian psychology first of all in the revival of L.S. Vygotsky’s idea of “nonclas-
sical psychology” (Elkonin 1989; Asmolov 1996; Dorfman 1997; and others)
or “organic psychology” (Zinchenko 1997), and in Western psychology in
discussion of the idea of “postmodernist psychology” (Shotter 1990).
English translation © 2005 M.E. Sharpe, Inc., from the Russian text © 1999 by the
author and “Smysl.” “Tri grani smysla,” in Traditsii i perspektivy deiatel’nostnogo
podkhoda v psikhologii, Shkola A.N. Leont’eva, ed. A.E. Voiskunskii, A.N. Zhdan, and
O.K. Tikhomirov (Moscow: Smysl, 1999), pp. 290–331.
The author is affiliated with the Department of Psychology at Moscow State Uni-
versity and the Institute of Existential Psychology and Life Enhancement.
Translated by Stephen D. Shenfield.
45
46 JOURNAL OF RUSSIAN AND EAST EUROPEAN PSYCHOLOGY
In this context it is not accidental that many scholars, both in Russia and
abroad, should have taken an interest in the concept of meaning. This concept
entered psychology from philosophy and from the linguistic sciences and is
still outside of the basic thesaurus of the psychology of personality, except for
some particular scientific schools. However, there is growing interest in the
concept and it is being used with increasing frequency in the most diverse
contexts and within the framework of the most diverse theoretical and meth-
odological approaches. In addition to the activity theory approach in Russian
psychology, this concept is used in V. Frankl’s logotherapy, G. Kelly’s per-
sonal construct psychology, R. Harre’s ethogenic approach, E. Gendlin’s phe-
nomenological psychotherapy, and J. Nuttin’s behavioral dynamics theory.
This interest is aroused, in my view, by the fact, albeit not yet in the focus
of reflexion, that the concept of meaning, as even a cursory glance at the prac-
tice of its use clearly shows, enables one to overcome the binary oppositions
enumerated above. It does so because it is equally “at home” in everyday and
scientific psychology, in scholarly and applied psychology, in depth and height
psychology, and in mechanistic and humanistic psychology. What is more, it
finds a place in objective, subjective, and intersubjective (group, communica-
tive) reality, and is also situated at the intersection of activity, consciousness,
and personality, providing a link between these three fundamental psycho-
logical categories. The concept of meaning can therefore lay claim to the role
of the central concept of new, nonclassical, or postmodernist psychology, the
psychology of “the changing personality in a changing world” (Asmolov 1990,
p. 365). This, however, gives rise to difficulties in working with this concept.
Its numerous definitions are often mutually incompatible. Meaning itself, to
use a contemporary metaphor, has a protean nature: it is changeable, fluid,
and multifaceted, not fixed within its boundaries.
The concept of meaning first appeared in psychological works at the begin-
ning of the twentieth century, in the works of W. Dilthey, E. Spranger, S. Freud,
and A. Adler, then in the 1940s in the works of V. Frankl and A.N. Leontiev.
However, active introduction of this concept, permitting us to consider laws
and tendencies of its usage, starts only at the end of the 1960s and beginning
of the 1970s, while its theoretical reflexion starts even later. I have surveyed
various interpretations of meaning in a number of publications (D.A. Leontev
1984, 1988a, 1988b). I constructed a two-way classification of the various
approaches to meaning in psychology: by function—is meaning treated as the
supreme integrating force of the personality or as a universal mechanism for
regulating consciousness and activity? and by ontological status—is meaning
regarded as objective (existing in the world), as subjective (existing in the indi-
vidual mind), or as intersubjective (existing in the communicative field of dia-
logue)? The activity theory approach, however, stands apart in this classification,
being the sole school of thought that gives the multifaceted and “protean”
nature of meaning its due. At the same time, the authors of this school, having
identified many significant facets of meaning, have come up short before the
task of integrating these conceptions into a single consistent picture. And in-
deed, a comparison of the various approaches reveals the full difficulty of this
task, even arousing doubts concerning whether it is soluble in principle. Mean-
ing is multifaceted: it presents different facets to the investigator (to different
investigators), and its various definitions and descriptions turn out to contra-
dict one another. Most of the authors who use the concept of meaning and
concepts derived therefrom do not bother to puzzle out a definition (defini-
tions) or give superficial, logically nonrigorous formulations that resemble
the well-known definition of man as a two-legged being without feathers and
are just as easy to refute.
Nevertheless, let us set ourselves the task of integrating the conceptions of
meaning that have been elaborated within various theoretical approaches and
problem contexts into a single system of conceptions. We must cope with the
diversity of treatments and provide a substantiated ontological characterization
of meaning and of meaning-based reality. By an ontological characterization I
understand, following contemporary philosophers (for instance, Iudin 1978),
the place of our object in that general model of reality or world picture that is the
instrument of our scientific cognition and of our interpretation of reality.
The difficulty of this task finds reflection not only in the diversity of treat-
ments but also in the contradictions between different formulations of one and
the same author. Thus, in different places A.N. Leontiev interprets meaning or
meaning-based relation: (1) as the relation between the system of influences
significant to life, the relation of abiotic to biotic factors—that is, as an exter-
nal, objective reality; (2) as the subjective relation to the objective content
reflected in mind—that is, as a subjective, psychic reality; and (3) as the rela-
tion of the motive of an activity to the goal of action—that is, as a subject-
based reality, not reflexed in mind but manifest in the activity of the subject.
The first interpretation, in which meaning is understood as “the relation of that
influence or series of influences, that is, of the object to which the activity of
an animal is directed, to properties responding to a specific biological neces-
sity” (A.N. Leontiev 1994, p. 97), was characteristic of the works of Leontiev
devoted to problems of the evolution of the psychic and of the development of
the psyche of animals. The second interpretation of personal meaning as for-
mative of consciousness was connected mainly with the psychological-peda-
gogical context, with the problem of discrepancies between the objective
contents of consciousness (knowledge), presented in the first instance by cul-
tural meanings [znachenie], and the subjective relation to it, or personal mean-
ing or sense [smysl] (A.N. Leontiev 1983, p. 348 et seq.). Finally, the third
interpretation of meaning was connected with the problematic of the structure

and dynamic of activity. In this context the relations between the motives and
goals of action were regarded as “psychologically decisive,” inasmuch as the
main regulating influence of motives upon the course of activity consists in
the fact that they communicate the personal meaning to the goals and circum-
stances of activity, thereby “assessing” their vital significance to the subject
(A.N. Leontiev 1977, p. 150). It is interesting that chronologically all three
contexts and all three interpretations developed in parallel.
Of course, it would be incorrect to regard these three characterizations of
personal meaning, which reveal different facets of it, as three independent and
alternative definitions of this concept. On the contrary, the concept of meaning
embodies the principle of the unity of activity, consciousness, and personality
and is situated at the intersection of all three fundamental psychological catego-
ries. As F.E. Vasiliuk points out, meaning is “a borderline formation, a point of
convergence of consciousness and being, the ideal and the real, life values and
existent possibilities for their realization” (1984, p. 129). Indeed, the “activity”
characterization of personal meaning as the relation of motive to goal implies
that any purposive action is always—directly or indirectly—aimed at the real-
ization of one or another motive, and the goal of this action, reflected in con-
sciousness, contains a “reference” to this motive that appears in the coloration
of personal meaning. The “subjective” characterization of personal meaning
as the partial component of individual consciousness is based on the idea that
“personal meaning is generated not by cultural meanings but by life” (A.N.
Leontiev 1977, p. 279)—that is, the idea that the source of this partiality is the
object-related activity of the subject in the world, which realizes his real life-
relations, in particular those relations to which the third, “objective” charac-
terization refers.
Thus, meaning appears before us as the connection between the objective
life-relations of the subject, the objective contents of his consciousness, and
the object and structure of his activity. It is the partial relation of the processes
of the psyche to the processes of the subject’s life, of his consciousness to the
foundations of his being, as mediated by his practical life-activity. Switching
over to the language of philosophy, we may say that the concept of meaning
expresses the unity of the phenomenal, the ontic, and the ontological.
It is not surprising that this complexity and multidimensionality of mean-
ing remained unnoticed for a long time. As a rule, authors saw and absolutized
only a single one of the facets of meaning. Even A.N. Leontiev, who (as I have
shown above) saw meaning from at least three points of view, was unable to
explicate his own alternative interpretations and directly pose the task of inte-
grating them into a multidimensional image of meaning, but merely presented
clearly different interpretations side by side. For this reason his views are
often understood in a one-sided manner. The concept of personal meaning that

he introduced is sometimes treated simply as a subjective reflection of some
object in a person’s individual consciousness, as distinct from the conception of
this object that has taken shape in a certain social milieu (see, for example, Kotik
1985). Such a superficial and one-sided interpretation naturally leads to the con-
cept of personal meaning being accused of subjectivism (Brushlinskii 1982).
Actually, this is just one of the facets of personal meaning and by no means
exhausts this concept. As I shall strive to demonstrate, the fundamental signifi-
cance of the concept of meaning lies precisely in the fact that it takes the expla-
nation beyond the limits of the individual consciousness, onto the plane of the
subject’s real life-activity. In this it differs, in particular, from the concept of
connotative meaning (C. Osgood, J. Deese), which confines the explanation of
the individual coloration of meanings within the bounds of the individual con-
sciousness. In other words, this concept reflects the personal character of hu-
man consciousness, its rootedness in the subject’s real life-relations, in his practice.
“Personal meaning is the individualized reflection of the real relation of the
personality to those objects for the sake of which its activity unfolds, appre-
hended as the ‘significance for me’ of the impersonal knowledge of the world
appropriated by the subject” (“Lichnostnyi smysl” 1985, p. 164).
In order to examine and understand the phenomenon of meaning in all the
diversity of its manifestations, we shall make use of the dimensional method
that Viktor Frankl uses to demonstrate the relations between various facets or
aspects of human existence (e.g., Frankl 1985). Imagine, Frankl says, a text-
book on the pages of which various mutually incommensurable theories of
(let us suppose) the personality are set out. This can be portrayed symbolically
in the form of an open book on one page of which is drawn a square and on the
opposite page a circle. It is difficult to find a connection between them, for the
task of squaring the circle is, as is well known, insoluble. But let us take this
book, Frankl continues, and place these pages at right angles so that they lie in
two perpendicular planes that intersect along the book’s spine. Then we shall
have no difficulty in imagining a three-dimensional figure the projection of
which onto one plane (page) forms a circle and the projection onto the other
plane, perpendicular to it, a square. This figure will be a cylinder of height
equal to the diameter of its base. Thus, the task is solved by constructing a
common space of the various definitions and spotting behind the various
views partial projections of a complex multidimensional object—in our case,
of meaning—onto different planes of the space in which it is viewed.
Let us return to the problem posed earlier of the ontology of meaning. In
order to make progress toward its solution, it is necessary, first, to demar-
cate and describe each of the various forms (planes) of the existence of mean-
ing and, second, to understand the real psychological mechanisms of their
interconnections, of the transitions of meaning from one form of existence to

another, of the relations between the demarcated planes or facets. These mecha-
nisms are clearly much too complex to be revealed by our stereometric analogy.
Moving along the path indicated, we first characterize briefly the three planes
in which psychological analysis reveals the existence of meanings—in each
plane in its own special form. Then we shall describe them in greater detail.
The first plane is that of objective relations between the subject and the
world. In this plane, real objects, phenomena, and events that form part of the
subject’s life-world, including his own actions, possess living meaning for
him by virtue of the fact that objectively they are relevant to his life and influ-
ence its flow. Living meaning is an objective characteristic of the place and
role of real objects, phenomena, and events and of the subject’s actions in his
life. Living meaning is objective because it does not depend on being appre-
hended; at the same time it is individual and unique. This is not a psychologi-
cal but rather a metaphysical concept, though one essential to psychological
analysis. Living meaning and the dynamic of life-relations reflected therein
constitute the ontological aspect of meaning.
The second plane is that of the image of the world in the subject’s con-
sciousness, one of the components of which is personal meaning. Personal
meaning is the form in which the subject cognizes his living meanings, the
form of their reflection in consciousness. The personal meaning of objects,
phenomena, and events reflected in the subject’s consciousness is presented to
him through the emotional coloring of images, or of their structural transfor-
mation. By this means, however, the consciousness merely marks out and
emphasizes what is significant for the subject, and sets before him the “task
for meaning,” that of becoming aware of the concrete place that the corre-
sponding objects or events occupy in his life, of the motives, needs, and values
of the subject with which they are connected, and of the precise nature of the
connection. The answer to this question, the resolution of this task requires the
special inner activity of meaning-creation. Personal meaning and the dynamic
of the subjective image of reality reflected therein constitute the phenomeno-
logical aspect of meaning.
Finally, the third plane is that of the unconscious mechanisms of the inner
regulation of life-activity. In this plane, meaning-bearing life-relations take the
form of meaning-based structures of the personality, which form a coherent
system and facilitate regulation of the subject’s life-activity in accordance with a
specific meaning-based logic—the logic of vital necessity, which I shall discuss
below. Meaning-based structures and the dynamic of activity (life-activity) re-
flected therein constitute the activity-based or regulatory aspect of meaning.
Bearing in mind all three planes (facets) of the existence of meaning, we
may at a first approximation define meaning as the relation between the subject
and a real object or phenomenon that is determined by the objective place of

the object (phenomenon) in the subject’s life, marks out this object (phenom-
enon) in his subjective image of the world, and is embodied in personality
structures that regulate the subject’s behavior in relation to the given object
(phenomenon).
I proceed now to a more detailed description of each of the three facets of
meaning. Let us note that the three facets, forms of existence, or planes of analy-
sis of meaning correspond not only to its three interpretations and to the philo-
sophical categories of the ontological, the phenomenological, and the ontic, but
also to the three fundamental general psychological categories of personality,
consciousness, and activity.
The ontological aspect of meaning: Meaning in the context of

life-relations
The ontological (in the narrow sense of the word) aspect or facet of meaning
regards meaning as an element of the system of a person’s relations with the
world. I have given a detailed analysis of the nature and structure of these
relations in a separate publication (D.A. Leontiev 1990), so here I confine
myself to a brief summary.
The contours of the “ontology of the life-world” have been sketched by
F.E. Vasiliuk, who ascertains that “nowhere do we find a living being prior to
or outside of its connection with the world. It is implanted in the world from
the start, connected with it by the material umbilical cord of its own life-activ-
ity. This world, while remaining objective and material, is not, however, the
physical world. . . . It is the life-world” (1984, p. 86). If the world is viewed
outside of its connection with a subject, it loses its psychological characteriza-
tion and appears as a lifeless world.
Not only is the world constituted by man; man too is constituted by the
world. Vygotsky (1982), citing Gelb, points out that “while for the animal
there exists only the environment (Umwelt), for man there arises a conception
of the world (Welt). The history of the rise of this conception of the world has
its origin in human practice and cultural meanings and concepts emerging
therein, free of direct perception of an object” (p. 280). H.-G. Gadamer speaks
of the opposition between the concept world (Welt) and the concept surround-
ing world or environment (Umwelt), which all beings living in the world pos-
sess. “To have a world means to relate to the world. But relating to the world
requires such freedom from what we encounter there as enables us to set the
latter before ourselves such as it is. To have this possibility of presentation
means at the same to possess the world and to possess language” (Gadamer
1988, p. 513). “An animal does not ‘relate’ to anything and in general does not
‘relate’,” Marx and Engels remark. “For an animal its relation to others does not
exist as a relation” (1955, p. 29). And we find a very similar formulation in
Frankl: “An animal is not a personality because it cannot rise above itself, stand
against itself. Therefore, for an animal there does not exist a world that stands
against the personality; for it there exists only an environment” (Frankl 1982, p.
116). Thus, man is the only living being to which the world is given as a single
coherent whole that extends in space and time beyond the limits of the immedi-
ate situation and lies or stands before the subject rather than simply surrounds
him. This anthropological characterization of man is, as we shall see below, the
key to understanding the essence of personality.
And so, in the “ontology of the life-world” the relations that connect the
subject with the world are assigned the status of a special reality. This reality
is primary, in particular, in relation to the characteristics of the subject that
form in the process of realizing these relations (in particular, in relation to
acquired psychological, including personal, characteristics).
Our starting point is the concept of life-relation, by which we shall under-
stand the objective relation between the subject and some real object or phe-
nomenon that is characterized by the potential for a qualitatively specific form
of interaction between them.
Life-relations start out from me in all directions. I have definite relations to
things and people and definite positions in relation to them; I fulfill their
demands on me and expect something from them. Some of them contribute
to my happiness, broaden my existence, and strengthen me, while others put
me under pressure and constrain me. And on making any definite forward
motion in a definite direction, a person always notices and senses these rela-
tions. A friend for him is a force that elevates his own existence; each member
of his family occupies a definite place in his life; and he understands all that
surrounds him as life and spirit that are objectified in these surroundings. The
bench by the door of his dwelling, a shady tree, his house, and his garden
acquire their entire significance and power in this objectification. Thus the life
of each individual creates its own world out of itself . (Dilthey 1995, p. 217)
The organized aggregate of all the real objects and phenomena connected
by life-relations with a given subject constitutes his life-world. The life-world
of any subject differs from the objective world as a whole only in its bound-
aries; while the latter encompasses the whole of existence, the entire universe,
a subject’s life-world includes only some part of it. The entire aggregate of a
subject’s life-relations forms the potential aspect of his life-activity; the actual
aspect of his life-activity is formed by the aggregate of the activities in which
his life-relations find their realization.
The diversity of forms of a subject’s interaction with the world serves as the
basis for demarcating modes of life-activity, each of which is given by some

qualitatively specific form of such interaction: oxygen exchange, thermal regu-
lation, relations between the sexes, the cognitive relation, the esthetic relation.
Each mode of life-activity is characterized at each moment of time by a spe-
cific state of life-relations. The state of life-relations of a concrete mode is a
characteristic of the extent to which the character of the subject’s interaction
with the world in the given mode that is objectively possible under existing
conditions contributes to the continued existence and development of the sub-
ject. By realization of life-relations in a specific mode I understand activeness
of the subject aimed at the establishment of an optimal state of life-relations in
the given mode—that is, the state that makes the greatest contribution to the
continued existence and development of the subject.
Need I shall define as an objective relation between the subject and the world
corresponding to one of the modes of life-activity that requires for its realization
the subject’s intentional activity. The realization of any need can be represented
as a path. Given the extension of the life-world, a multitude of real objects and
phenomena that do not belong to the set of objects of any need become relevant
to the subject’s life-activity by virtue of their objective properties and a specific
localization in the world—namely, localization on the path toward realization of
one or another need. Thus, the subject’s life-activity comes to incorporate, often
by a multiply mediated route, a multitude of real objects and phenomena char-
acterized by a specific relation to realization of the subject’s needs—namely, by
meaning-based connections. A meaning-based connection is also an objective
relation between two objects or phenomena by force of which if one of them (or
some facet of it) is related to realization of some need of the subject then the
second object or phenomenon also becomes relevant to realization of this need,
is incorporated into the chain of its realization. All these connections are formed
in the course of the subject’s practical activity, in which the paths toward realiza-
tion of various needs are revealed and the place of various objects and phenom-
ena in the subject’s life is determined thanks to their incorporation into the
structures of meaningful experience.
An objective characteristic of the place and role of objects and phenomena
in the life-activity of a given concrete subject is their living meaning for him,
which is determined by the system (systems) of meaning-based connections
that encompass the given object or phenomenon.
However, the understanding of meaning in its ontological aspect that has
been set out above does not yet bring us close to an understanding of its psy-
chological nature and mechanisms of functioning. As V.K. Viliunas has rightly
noted, the concept “meaning,” defined through the relation of objective phe-
nomena to the needs of a living being, is “an abstraction, called into use to
indicate any such relation without exception, leaving unclear its special fea-
tures and quality” (1976, p. 90). It is “a purely logical construct” (Bassin 1973,
p. 22) that has no real psychological equivalent. Meaning becomes a psycho-
logical reality when it is considered in two other aspects—phenomenological
and activity-based (regulatory). Here the subjective basis for the construction
of activity on the foundation of the meaning-based logic of vital necessity is
not so much the direct reflection in consciousness of the living meanings of
objects and phenomena (the phenomenological aspect of meaning) as their
refraction in the converted form of meaning-based structures of personality
(the regulatory aspect). These structures, not being given to the subject in the
form of image, function as internal regulatory mechanisms that act upon the
flow of the very processes of activity and of psychic reflection. It is to their
analysis that we now turn.
Meaning-based structures and the meaning-based sphere of

personality
It is necessary to uncover the essence of the relation between the objective-

substantive aspect of meaning-based formations described in the preceding
section and the concrete-psychological forms and mechanisms of their exist-
ence and functioning.
This relation is a relation of converted form. The concept of converted form,
as elaborated in the works of M.K. Mamardashvili (1968, 1970), describes the
other-being of some reality in an alien substratum, characterized by its subor-
dination to the formative laws of the latter. “In place of the object as a system
of relations we have a quasi-object that attaches the manifestation of these
relations to some ultimate and indivisible substance that fills them in accor-
dance with its ‘properties’” (Mamardashvili 1970, p. 388). In contrast to the
classical relation between form and content, in the case of converted form
separate substantive determinations are lacking: “The form of manifestation
obtains independent ‘substantive’ significance, is detached, and content is re-
placed in the phenomenon by a different relation that merges with the proper-
ties of the material bearer (substratum) of the form itself (for example, in cases
of symbolism) and stands in place of the real relation” (ibid., p. 387). As a
result of this conversion and merging, the initial content itself undergoes cer-
tain transformations. The initial system of relations is displaced and reduced
in such a way that mediating links and intermediate dependencies fall away.
Moreover, some characteristics of the object, functionally significant in the
given converted form, are revealed, while others, unimportant for the corre-
sponding aspects of its functioning, are erased. All these transformations are
determined wholly by the properties of the substratum in which the initial
objective content finds its embodiment.
The concept of converted form was introduced as an explanatory device in

the analysis of structures of consciousness and their correlation with the sys-
tem of real existential relations that generates them (see Mamardashvili 1968).
Only by undergoing a series of transformations conditioned by the formative
laws of consciousness itself does reality “determine consciousness, represent-
ing itself therein by means of one or another definite image, content, sense, or
meaning, while at the same time concealing itself and the mechanics of trans-
formation from consciousness” (ibid., p. 21). In all these forms “real relations
are objectively abandoned and replaced as a result of specific transformations
(prior to and independently of consciousness)” (ibid., p. 20). Here conscious-
ness is understood in the broadest sense, practically being equated with the
entire sphere of the psychic in a person; as examples of converted form
Mamardashvili cites not only meanings and symbols but also, in particular,
motives. While, however, in its application to the problem of meaning the idea
of converted form has long been put to productive use in psycholinguistic
research (see, for instance, A.A. Leontiev 1975 and Tarasov 1979), in relation
to personality structures in the strict sense—in particular, to motives and per-
sonal meanings—this work still remains to be done.
It is expedient to begin the analysis of meaning-based formations from this
point of view by giving up the very term “meaning-based formation” that has
already acquired a number of significantly diverging definitions. What is more,
sometimes this concept refers to concrete qualitatively specific structures, but
sometimes it is used as a generalizing species concept that unites a whole
series of concrete varieties of meaning-based formations, while sometimes it
describes some complex system that includes a whole series of meaning ele-
ments. It is extremely important for us to distinguish all these referents, for
our investigation presupposes a sequential motion from the description of func-
tionally specialized elements to the organization of the meaning-based sphere
of the personality as a whole. In place, therefore, of the concept of meaning-
based formation we introduce two new concepts: meaning-based structure and
meaning-based system. Meaning-based structure is a generalizing species con-
cept for specific elements (described below) of the structural organization of
the meaning-based sphere of the personality; the concept of meaning-based
system refers to integral multilevel systems that are organized in a special
fashion and incorporate a whole series of various meaning-based structures.
Defined most generally, meaning-based structures are converted forms of
a subject’s life-relations. Living meanings and the underlying more or less
complex systems of the subject’s real life-relations are given to his conscious-
ness and incorporated into his activity in the converted form of meaning-based
structures, which in aggregate form the system of meaning-based regulation
of the subject’s life-activity. This system ensures the subordination of the
subject’s activity to the logic of vital necessity, the logic of his relations with
the world. At the same time, as already noted, the development and complica-
tion of meaning-based regulation expand a person’s ability to build his rela-
tions with the world at will.
The specific nature of converted form is determined to a great extent by the
substance to which converted relations are attached. The initial object is re-
placed by quasi-objects that exist objectively, discretely, and independently.
Mamardashvili cites as examples the following quasi-objects: “labor and capital
that have prices; the material signs of various kinds of languages that bear
within themselves the direct significance of objects; memory and coding de-
vices in electronic computers; and so on. In these objects there is and in fact
can be no direct connection between value and labor, between sign and object,
and so forth. But it is precisely out of this direct locking of the connection onto
some “bearer” that there develops a new fulfilled (or fulfilling) relation that
imparts structure and consistency to objective appearance and that signifies or
indirectly realizes a process that does not stand out directly in this phenomenon”
(Mamardashvili 1970, p. 388). Such quasi-objects, which replace in the struc-
ture of the personality its real life-relations, are meaning-based structures.
According to the conceptions that I have laid out, a classification of meaning-
based structures must rely on a demarcation of kinds of psychological quasi-
objects that may serve as a substratum for the transformed form of life-relations.
The role of such quasi-objects may be played either (1) by the mental image
and (2) the underlying individually specific dimensions of subjective experi-
ence that shape its organization or (3) by actual sets that orient object-practical
and cognitive activity and (4) the underlying generalized latent dispositions that
determine the spectrum of potential behavioral responses to specific objects
and situations or (5) by concrete objects of the life-world that demand a spe-
cific activity in relation to them and (6) the underlying ideal models of thought
that possess the capacity repeatedly to generate activity, appearing before the
subject each time in the guise of new concrete objects. Correspondingly, we
can distinguish six kinds of meaning-based structures: the personal meaning
in the narrow sense, understood as a component of consciousness (A.N.
Leontiev 1977); the meaning-based construct; the meaning-based set; the mean-
ing-based disposition; the motive; and the personal value.
The demarcation of these six varieties of meaning-based structures is not
the product of purely logical analysis. For all the differences of character and
functional manifestation between the structures enumerated, they are inter-
connected in the closest fashion. One and the same living meaning, refracted
in the structure of the personality, may take various converted forms and ap-
pear in different guises. For example, the objective place and role of money in
a person’s life (its living meaning) may manifest itself in experimental effects
of the subjective overestimation of the physical dimensions of coins (personal

meaning), in forgetting debts (meaning-based set), in the readiness to take on
heavy and tedious but well-paid work (motive), in the exaggeratedly careful
handling of expensive things (meaning-based disposition), in the choice of ac-
quaintances or of a spouse on the basis of their material possessions (meaning-
based construct), or in a life orientation toward the acquisition of material
welfare and wealth (personal value). Each of these psychological structures
serves a specific converted form of one and the same living meaning; in the
integral system of the meaning-based regulation of the life-activity of the per-
sonality they are all interconnected. At the same time they are still different
psychological structures that diverge significantly in their structural and func-
tional characteristics. We may say that the interconnections of these structures
belong to the personal dimension, to the plane of life-relations, while the dif-
ferences between them are conditioned by the specific nature of their con-
struction and functioning as regulatory formations of the psyche.
In essence, meaning-based structures of the personality represent points of
the interpenetration of two planes or dimensions of human life—the psychic
and the personal (personality-based). This interpenetration takes place by means
of the embodiment of the reality of meanings in converted form in specific
structures of the psyche. Meaning-based structures of the personality may there-
fore also be called meaning-based structures of the psyche, inasmuch as they
have as it were a dual nature. They are drawn simultaneously into two systems
of interconnections, into two motions. Through their meaning-based content
they partake in the sphere of life-relations and are incorporated into the net-
work of meaning-based connections localized therein. For their form, with
which the differences between various meaning-based structures are connected,
they are indebted to their specific place and role in the structure of the mecha-
nisms that regulate the processes of activity and psychic reflection, which are
closely interwoven with other, non–meaning-based regulatory structures and
mechanisms.
Figure 1 is a schematic portrayal of the functioning of the interconnections
of the aforementioned meaning-based structures—that is, of the interconnec-
tions that are realized in the processes of meaning-based formation. As can be
seen from the diagram, empirically observable effects upon consciousness and
activity are exerted only by the personal meanings and meaning-based sets of
a concrete activity, which are generated both by the motive of this activity and
by stable meaning-based constructs and dispositions of the personality. Motives
and meaning-based constructs and dispositions form the second hierarchical
level of meaning-based regulation. The highest level of systems of meaning-
based regulation is formed by values that play a meaning-forming role in rela-
tion to all remaining structures. The connections between these structures look
Figure 1. Functional Interconnections of Meaning-Based Structures
Personal value
Meaning-based construct Meaning-based disposition
Motive
Personal Meaning-
meaning based set
Empirically observable effects
Note: The triangle in the diagram encloses the structures and their connections that
exist and are realized within a single activity.
different in genetic cross-section; however, the genesis of meaning-based

systems and structures is a separate problem.
Let us consider the differences between these structures. First, half of the
personality structures enumerated cannot, strictly speaking, be assigned to the
structure of the personality because personal meaning, meaning-based set,
and motive are not stable, invariant formations. Unlike values and meaning-
based constructs and dispositions, which possess a trans-situational and “supra-
activity” character, they take shape and function only within a single concrete
activity; if they go beyond the bounds of this activity and acquire stability,
then this signifies their transformation into other, stable structures. At the same
time, the very close genetic links between the structures of an actual activity
and the stable elements of the structure of the personality do not permit us to
sever them even in theoretical analysis.
The second difference is connected with the specific nature of the function-
ing of each of the quasi-objects demarcated. Sets and dispositions pertain to
the plane of object-practical and psychic activity; they can be studied empiri-
cally by registering (on the basis of objective indicators or external observa-
tion) special features of the flow of this activity. Personal meanings and mean-
ing-based constructs pertain to the plane of consciousness, of the subject’s
image of the world; they can be studied empirically by analyzing various forms
of self-reporting by experimental subjects. Here it is necessary to bear in mind
that only personal meanings and meaning-based sets exert direct regulatory in-
fluences on the structures of activity and world-image. Thus, in order to study
meaning-based constructs and dispositions it is necessary to separate experi-
mentally the stable from the situational components of systems of meaning-
based regulation. Motives and values are connected with consciousness and
with the processes of activity in an even more mediated fashion. It is, in par-
ticular, a specific property of a motive that it sets the boundaries of a particular
activity and thereby the boundaries of the functioning of personal meanings
and meaning-based sets. In fact, the sole method that permits us experimen-
tally to isolate the influence of a motive is to impose a more or less artificial
motive on the experimental subject. Natural motives are extremely difficult to
distinguish in an experiment from personal meanings and meaning-based sets,
for it is only through the mediation of the latter that they manifest themselves.
The same applies to values to an even greater degree. Nevertheless, it seems
highly heuristic to distinguish the aforementioned meaning-based structures
as elements of a single system of explanatory concepts.
The phenomenological aspect of meaning: Meaning in the

structure of consciousness
Any concrete-psychological investigation inevitably rests on some explicit or

implicit conception of the nature and structure of consciousness. In explicat-
ing my own conception, I want first of all to make the reservation that by no
means do I ontologize it; I propose merely a working schema that conve-
niently assists us in examining concrete-psychological problems.
If the psyche is the regulator of activity, then the consciousness is the regu-
lator of being. It is not reducible to the psyche, just as being is not reducible to
activity, but contains within itself also the activeness of the inner world. The
consciousness is something greater than the psyche; moreover, the psyche
does not form a distinct part of the consciousness but is sublated by it, chang-
ing its properties and finding in its new quality its place in the systemic struc-
ture of human consciousness.
Contemporary ideas about consciousness differ significantly from tradi-
tional ones. First, consciousness is envisaged as something irreducible to aware-
ness, as “a level that contains within itself the ‘mechanisms’ of many levels of
different kinds of ‘unconsciousness’” (A.N. Leontiev 1991, p. 184). Second,
consciousness is understood as an “existential” entity that constantly goes
beyond its own limits and fits no single definition (Mamardashvili 1990). And
third, it is held that consciousness is not only aimed outward but also fulfills
the most essential function (more precisely, system of functions) of coordinat-
ing, ordering, and transforming the value-meaning structures that determine
the being of a person in the world (Vasiliuk 1984).
And so, what can we mark out, albeit crudely, in the structure of our
consciousness?
First, our consciousness contains an image of the world, which we perceive
as the world. This component or subsystem of consciousness corresponds in
its general features to the classical understanding of consciousness as ideal
subjectivized reflection. It is in this context that the antithesis conscious—
unconscious, and also many laws that have been well studied by classical
psychology, are valid.
But an image, as is well known, is not identical to the information entering
the brain at the neurophysiological level. The construction of this image out of
current stimuli is an active process, the true work of the consciousness. The
psychological mechanisms that perform this work comprise a second sub-
system of the consciousness—the entity within the consciousness that “pos-
sesses existential characteristics (which are subject to objective analysis) in
relation to consciousness in the sense of individual-psychological reality”
(Zinchenko 1981, p. 132).
Image is not unrelated to the subject’s needs, motives, and goals, inasmuch
as the consciousness is not self-sufficient but serves the being and living pro-
cesses that accomplish the realization of motives, goals, and so on. It is there-
fore expedient to mark out the subsystem that correlates the image of the world
with the meaning-based sphere of the personality and conveys a personal-
meaning coloration to the components of the image. This subsystem, like the
preceding one, belongs to the hidden side of the consciousness. B.S. Bratus
speaks in this connection of a meaning-based field or structure of the con-
sciousness that “constitutes a special psychological substance of the personal-
ity and determines a specifically personality-based stratum of reflection” (1988,
p. 99).
All three subsystems of the consciousness that we have examined so far
have to do only with purely psychic reflection. They do not suffice to enable
the consciousness to fulfill the function of regulator of being. Taking as an
axiom the complexity of a person’s inner world (Vasiliuk 1984), that is, the
presence within him of a number of divergent motivational lines, it is neces-
sary to presuppose also the presence of a system of mechanisms that perform
the work of coordinating, ordering, hierarchically organizing, and, in case of
necessity, reorganizing the motive-value-meaning sphere of the personality.
This fourth subsystem of the consciousness may be assigned with equal justi-
fication to the structure of the personality; in essence, it connects the personal-

ity and the consciousness and corresponds to what in everyday language is
called a person’s “inner world.” Here we meet the deepest, most intimate, and
most individual structures and processes, for which the traditional understanding
of consciousness simply has no place. The inner world has its own specific
content and laws of formation and development, which are in large degree
(although not completely) independent of the external world. The basic com-
ponents of a person’s inner world are the stable meanings of significant ob-
jects and phenomena that reflect his relation to them and also the personal
values that, together with needs, are the sources of these meanings. These
meanings and values are specific to the person concerned and emerge from his
unique personal experience.
Finally, any conception of the consciousness will be at least incomplete if it
leaves out of account a fifth subsystem—the unique human capacity to ma-
nipulate images in the field of consciousness at will and direct the beam of
awareness onto objects and mechanisms that usually remain outside this field.
I have in mind reflexion. This is a multivalent concept: different investigators
use the word to refer to quite different things. There are four main interpreta-
tions. The first is the understanding of reflexion as objectivization in the sense
explained by D.N. Uznadze (1966)—that is, as awareness of certain aspects of
an external situation (or task, etc.) and the ideal transformation of this situa-
tion. This understanding is common in research on the psychology of thinking
(see, for example, Semenov and Stepanov 1983). The second interpretation
connects reflexion with the concept of self-consciousness or introspection—
the inward-directed view, study of the content of one’s own consciousness.
This understanding is, in particular, implicitly present in the conception of
V.V. Stolin (1983). The third interpretation connects reflexion with the resolu-
tion of the “task for meaning” (A.N. Leontiev 1977). Finally, the fourth inter-
pretation portrays reflexion as processes for the resolution of inner conflicts in
the meaning-based sphere, as the critical reevaluation of values, the most gen-
eral expression of which is the question of the meaning of life (Kon 1967, p.
168). Comparing these four interpretations, we can find both common ground
and differences among them. The common ground pertains to process. In all
cases it is a matter of awareness of specific contents of consciousness and of
their manipulation at will in the ideal sphere. The differences pertain to the
contents of consciousness at which these processes are directed. They may be
directed at the “screen” of consciousness, at elements of an image; then we
have objectivization. They may be directed at the mechanisms of conscious-
ness, at the processes occurring “behind the screen”—that is, at the second
subsystem; then we have self-observation, classical introspection as a method
for the study of one’s own consciousness. They may be directed at the third,
“meaning-creating” subsystem of the consciousness; then we have the resolu-

tion of the “task for meaning.” Finally, they may be directed at the fourth
subsystem, at the inner world; then we have “value-orienting activity” (Kagan
1974), the reevaluation of values. In the last two cases the processes of reflexion
may not be fully conscious; the common ground between them is not aware-
ness of the processes but the fact that they are directed at the resolution of a
special task, that they are aligned “perpendicular to the line of realization of
life” (Vasiliuk 1984, p. 25).
Most likely, the five subsystems of the consciousness described above are
not exhaustive of its facets even at the superficial level of analysis to which I
have considered it possible here to confine myself. But let me note again that
the proposed model of the consciousness is not an ontological picture but a
working schema that serves a definite set of concrete tasks. In particular, it
enables us quite concretely to characterize the place, role, and form of exist-
ence of meaning in the consciousness. In essence, meanings and meaning-forming
mechanisms are present in almost all the substructures indicated above. First,
they are present in the inner world, the meaning-based structures of which func-
tion as meaning-forming sources or authorities in relation to the more superfi-
cial, image-based structures of the consciousness. Second, they are present in
the substructure that assigns meanings to images. Third, they are present in the
images themselves; recent theoretical investigations of the consciousness con-
cur in recognizing the presence of personal meaning in the structure of images
(A.N. Leontiev 1977, Vasiliuk 1993, Zinchenko and Morgunov 1994). And
fourth, they are present in the mechanisms of reflexion, in relation to which
meaning-based contents appear as one possible object or target. The result of
the reflexive processing of meanings is the transformations of the latter that I
have described as effects of meaning-based awareness (D.A. Leontiev 1997).
The regulatory aspect of meaning: Meaning in the structure

of activity
Recent decades have been marked by an increasing number of works in which

object-related activity appears not as a theoretical explanatory construct but as
the object of concrete-psychological experimental research. Moreover, the
“morphological” approach to the psychological analysis of activity in terms
of its structure is increasingly giving way to the “dynamic” approach, con-
nected with study of those elements which characterize “the dynamic in the
strict sense, the motion of activity itself and of its structural constituents”
(Asmolov and Petrovskii 1978, p. 72). The dynamic approach encompasses a
broad range of psychological problems, including study of the mechanisms of
the self-motion of activity, of its stabilization, of the situational development
of motivation, of the formation and transformation of the motive of an activity,

and of the regulation of the operational-executive aspect of an activity. All
these problems come down to the three basic aspects of the dynamic of an
activity: the generation and formation of the activity and of its motive; the
regulation of the activity in the course of its flow; and the development and
transformation of the activity.
Any regulatory influence is determined by criteria, whether external or in-
ternal in relation to the phenomenon being regulated, the specific nature of
which serves as the chief basis for demarcating kinds of regulation—in
particular, kinds of regulation of human activity. Incorporating within itself
subject and object as two opposite poles, activity possesses a two-sided plas-
ticity and sensitivity to influences from both subject and object, and this is
reflected in the existence of two forms of its regulation. The first form, which
I shall call object-based regulation, is connected with ensuring that the opera-
tional characteristics of an activity are adequate to the special features of its
object and of objective reality in general. The second form of the regulation of
an activity is its meaning-based regulation—the coordination of the aims and
means of the activity with the motives, needs, values, and goals of the subject.
These two forms of the regulation of an activity correspond to two funda-
mental characteristics of activity: object-relatedness and meaningfulness
(Zinchenko and Munipov 1976), or, in another version, object-relatedness and
subject-relatedness (Asmolov 1984). These two characteristics reflect the dual
determination of activity itself—by its subject and by its object. The inten-
tional aspect of activity is determined by the meaning-based content that
permeates from the pole of the object “from the top down” to all levels of
activity in accordance with the laws of the processes of meaning-based forma-
tion. “Higher levels fill lower levels with unique subjective coloration: motives,
goals, and meanings. It is precisely for this reason that any unit of activity on
the smallest scale, be it an operation or a functional bloc, must be analyzed as
a psychological and not a physiological unit” (Zinchenko and Munipov 1976,
p. 53). By comparison with the intentional aspect of activity, its operational
aspect is determined to a greater extent by the objective characteristics of the
object, which subordinates the logic of action to its own logic. V.V. Davydov
(1979) uses the term “universal plasticity,” referring to the adaptation of an
activity to the objective characteristics of its numerous potential objects. The
filling of an activity with object-relatedness proceeds as it were in the oppo-
site direction, “from the bottom up.” “These two properties of activity [object-
relatedness and meaningfulness] have different sources and move as it were
toward one another. It is their convergence that gives birth to the activity”
(Zinchenko and Munipov 1976, p. 53). At different levels of examination, as
V.P. Zinchenko and V.M. Munipov note, object-relatedness and meaningfulness
relate to one another in different ways and manifest themselves in different forms.
The two aspects are closely interconnected; what is more, each is capable of
transformation into the other (ibid.).
With respect to the regulation of a concrete activity, however, one cannot
speak of two independent regulatory mechanisms. In the system of internal
regulation of a concrete activity, which takes shape together with the activity
itself, the object-based and the meaning-based subsystems are merged into a
single whole. The dominant role in this system is played by meaning-based
regulation, inasmuch as “the linking together of separate actions into coherent
and, consequently, also effective activity . . . is brought about . . . by meaning”
(Zinchenko 1983, p. 9).
In a well-known cycle of investigations of the regulation of thinking activity,
the concept “dynamic meaning-based system” was used to indicate a multi-
faceted unit of regulation (Vasil’ev, Popluzhnyi, and Tikhomirov 1980). While,
however, the authors who introduced this concept regarded the meaning of the
final goal as the central structural formation of a dynamic meaning-based sys-
tem, I consider it necessary somewhat to expand the content of this concept.
The results of a number of investigations permit me to assert that the dynamic
meaning-based system (DMS) of regulation of a concrete activity emerges
together with the activity itself, the motive of which may be regarded as the
system-forming factor of the DMS. The motive is not the experienced impulse
but an external object that answers to some need (or a number of needs simul-
taneously), at which the activity as a whole is directed. The form of intrapsy-
chic representation of the motive is the motivational set, which is a specific
modification of the integral subject, orienting him toward performance of the
activity relevant to the motive.
The DMS of regulation of any concrete activity must fulfill at least two
functions. First, it must maintain the stability of the activity for so long as its
motive remains in force; in other words, it must ensure its “self-protection”1
from external disturbances. Second, it must ensure the natural termination of
the activity when it has exhausted itself, its motive having been realized and
thereby lost its impelling force, or the artificial termination of the activity in
those cases where other, more significant and urgent motives have arisen, re-
quiring the immediate performance of some different activity. It is, in essence,
a variety of functional system, which we understand as “a strictly outlined
group of processes and structures, brought together for the fulfillment of some
definite, qualitatively specific function of an organism or of an act of its be-
havior” (Anokhin 1978, p. 128). A functional system is built in accordance
with the principle of the mutual assistance of its elements for the attainment of
a final result that plays the role of a system-forming factor” (ibid., pp. 71–78;
see also Sudakov 1986). In the DMS of regulation of an activity meaning-
based structures and other kinds of structures are interwoven in the most
direct fashion, inasmuch as it is always constructed in light of the concrete
specifics of a given situation and is determined both by the highest personality
structures and by the objective characteristics of the situation. At the same
time, the dominant role in systems that regulate the performance of a concrete
activity belongs precisely to meaning-based structures and processes.
Meaning-based regulation as a constitutive function of

personality. Meaning in the structure of personality
Being a personality, a person appears as an autonomous bearer and subject of

socially evolved forms of active relation to the world. I have substantiated this
proposition in detail in an earlier work (see D.A. Leontiev 1989). Having exam-
ined the role of the psyche and of personality in the regulation of activity, I
arrived at the proposition that personality as a psychological formation, as a
regulatory system is constituted by the functions of the subject’s self-separation
from the surrounding world, of the separation, presentation, and structuring of
his relations with the world, and of the subordination of his life-activity to the
stable structure of these relations, as a counterweight to momentary impulses
and external stimuli.
This system of functions is performed by the main constitutive substructure
of personality—its meaning-based sphere. The meaning-based sphere of per-
sonality is the aggregate, organized in a special fashion, of meaning-based
formations (meaning-based structures) and connections between them that
ensures the meaning-based regulation of the integral life-activity of the subject
in all its aspects. Personality is fundamentally an integral system of meaning-
based regulation of life-activity that realizes through specific meaning-based
structures and processes and their systems the logic of vital necessity in all the
manifestations of a person as a subject of life-activity.
In order better to understand the mutual relations between meaning-based
regulation and other systems of the regulation of life-activity, we must exam-
ine the question: why do people do what they do? This is a key question for the
psychology of personality, inasmuch as personality incorporates into itself
and integrates various mechanisms of the regulation of activity and of life as a
whole. At least six answers are possible to this question; these answers define
six different systems of a person’s relations with the world and six different
systems of regulation of behavior, of the person’s life in the world. These
systems are interwoven with one another; nevertheless, in their pure form they
can be distinguished logically with sufficient clarity.
The first answer to this question is: “Because I want to.” This is the logic of
the satisfaction of needs. I have a desire or inclination and it must be satisfied.
The second answer, the second behavioral logic is: “Because he started first.”
This is the logic of response to a stimulus. The third answer is: “Because I
always do it.” This is the logic of predisposition or stereotype, which encom-
passes, perhaps, the greater part of the psychology of personality. With it are
connected such concepts as “character,” “style,” “goal,” and “learned habit.”
A very large part of our life proceeds precisely in accordance with this logic.
The three systems or mechanisms mentioned so far are common to the human
being and the animal. Any animal is capable of behaving within the frame-
work of these three logics or combinations thereof.
The fourth answer is already specific to man, but not to the personality:
“Because everyone does it.” Stolin (1983) introduced in his time the some-
what arguable concept “social individual,” which describes precisely this logic—
the logic of the social norm, of social expectations, according to which the criterion
of regulation is correspondence to the definite expectations of a significant so-
cial group. An extreme expression of this logic is total conformism. But, of
course, in building relations with the world it is necessary to take into account to
one or another degree social expectations, the interests of the social collectivity.
The fifth answer is: “I did it because it is important to me.” This logic is the
logic of meaning or the logic of vital necessity that I have described above.
This logic is specific to and constitutive of the personality. We may say that a
person is a personality to the extent that his life is determined precisely by this
logic. The first three systems of regulation of activity have no need for a con-
ception of the world as a whole. In order to react to a stimulus all that one
requires is the stimulus. In order to satisfy one’s needs all that one requires is
the needs. In order to behave in accordance with a stereotype all that one
requires is the stereotype. The determinants of all these forms of behavior do
not go beyond the bounds of a concrete situation. Acting within the frame-
work of these three logics, the subject can do nothing that is not already present
in the situation. The logic of the social norm broadens the context of activity
insofar as it takes account of something that is not in the here and now, in the
given situation. Nevertheless, it is connected not with the world as a whole,
but only with the incorporation of significant social groups into the structure
of life-relations. An action oriented toward meaning, by contrast, is an action
that is oriented toward the entire system of relations with the world as a whole.
This is behavior in which the entire system of relations with the world and the
entire long-term time perspective are taken into consideration in some definite
fashion. If I am oriented toward the meaning of an action for myself, then I
cannot do something that is destructive for my life in a long-term perspective.
Just as any small piece of a hologram enables one to reconstitute the whole, so
the entire life-world as a whole is reflected in the meaning of any concrete
action. By orienting himself toward meaning, a person rises above the situation.
Finally, the sixth answer to the question is: “And why not?” This answer
reflects the logic of free choice. While the first five behavioral logics (in de-
scriptive terms) or systems of regulation of activity (in explanatory constructs)
are inherent to one degree or another in all psychically healthy and nondefective
people, the sixth logic or system is not so inherent. It reflects, in my view, a
measure of personal (personality-based) maturity as its basic differential-
psychological characteristic. Here I am unable to dwell in greater detail on
this system (for this see D.A. Leontiev 1993).*
Let us now examine the mutual relations between the various regulatory sys-
tems. Although, to all appearances, different psychological mechanisms under-
lie them, in concrete behavior, as I have already noted, they do not function
separately but are integrated in unified multilevel functional systems of regula-
tion of activity and of its individual units. In principle, the six logics may be
regarded as six dimensions of human action; correspondingly, any action can
be broken down into six vectors that correspond to these six logics and appear as
projections of the integral action onto each of the six dimensions. If we look at
the personality through the prism of the proposed multi-regulatory model, we
can detect, first, marked individual differences in how strongly or weakly each
of the six logics is expressed. Thus, some people are more in thrall to their
immediate needs, others less. The reactions of some people to external stimuli
are triggered more readily than the reactions of others. Some people are more
inclined mechanically to impose readymade schemas and stereotypes, oth-
ers less. Some people are more sensitive to social expectations and pressure,
others less. Some people (consciously or intuitively) take greater account of the
multiplicity of contexts and the long-term consequences of their actions, while
other people take them into lesser account. And some people are more capable
of overcoming given determinants of their actions and exercising freedom of
choice, while others are less capable (or altogether incapable) of so doing.
Second, it is possible to trace quite clearly the genetic sequence by which
various regulatory systems are established. The first three logics start to de-
velop in parallel from the moment of birth. Learning of the logics of the social
norm and of vital necessity also starts in the first few months of a baby’s life,
but their real manifestation in behavior does not begin until the second year of
life and it is only at the age of three that they come to occupy a more or less
noticeable place in the spectrum of behavioral logics. The critical period for
emergence of the logic of free choice is adolescence. The essence of the crisis of
*Recently (Leontiev 2002), the seventh logic has been articulated, the logic of ulti-
mate understanding with the relevant answer: because this corresponds to the way things
are, this is the only way to do this or that. It is the level of mission, of understanding
some kind of ultimate truth. Very few ever reach it.—D.A.L.
adolescence lies precisely in the conflict between the striving for autonomy and
the inadequate development of the psychological mechanisms of the autono-
mous regulation of behavior. This crisis is resolved either through the formation
of these mechanisms or through the renunciation of autonomy (Kaliteevskaia
1997; see also D.A. Leontiev 1993). This model also enables us to give distinct
answers to the questions of when the personality is born and whether it is pos-
sible to measure personality quantitatively—that is, to say who has “more per-
sonality” and who has “less.” Indeed, if we accept that personality is constituted
by one of the six behavioral logics, namely, by the logic of vital necessity or by
meaning-based logic, then the specific gravity of this logic in the spectrum of
mechanisms of behavioral regulation will serve as a “quantitative measure of
personality.” Correspondingly, we may say that isolated manifestations of per-
sonality can be observed from approximately the age of one year, while its stable
influence on behavior (albeit in competition with other regulatory mechanisms)
begins at the age of three years. In the crucible of the crisis of adolescence there
is a chance of the emergence of a mature, autonomous, self-determined person-
ality, although by no means does this happen in all cases.
Finally, clinical psychology provides sufficient evidence of the existence of
specific forms of damage to one or another regulatory system. Thus, nervous
anorexia clearly exemplifies damage to the system of satisfaction of needs, au-
tism damage to the system of responding to stimuli, and so on. The task of
psychotherapy may be regarded in this connection as that of restoring the dis-
turbed balance between regulatory systems. In general, the capacity for self-
control that is characteristic of the healthy personality is, in my view, based
precisely on the balanced development of all six regulatory systems (or at least
of the first five of them), with the highest, specifically human regulatory systems—
the logic of meaning and the logic of free choice—playing the dominant role. It
is no coincidence that attempts to manipulate people’s behavior have to use one
of the four “lower” logics (temptation, provocation, stereotyping, and the impo-
sition of obligations) and as far as possible block the two higher logics.
Now let us examine the mutual relations between the meaning-based sphere
of personality and the other spheres, systems, and components that constitute
its structure.
It seems to me that the theoretically and empirically best substantiated
model of the structure of the personality currently available is that of Bratus
(1988). Bratus distinguishes the following levels in the structure of the per-
sonality: (1) the level of personality and personal meaning in the proper
sense, which is “responsible” for producing meaning orientations and for
determining the general meaning and purpose of a person’s life and how he
relates to others and to himself; (2) the level of individual performance or
realization, at which meaning orientations are realized in a concrete activity;
this level bears the imprint of traits, special characteristics, and properties of
character; and (3) the psychophysiological level, which describes special char-
acteristics of structure and dynamics and of regimes of the functioning of
psychic processes.
The three levels of the structure of the personality distinguished by Bratus
are consistent with the two spheres of the personality suggested by A.G.
Asmolov (1984): (1) the sphere of content—that is, the sphere of meaning-
based formations that characterize the personality from the substantive point
of view, from the point of view of its motives, life-goals, general orientation,
and so on; and (2) the sphere of expression, which contains such structures as
abilities and character traits that are responsible for special characteristics of
the manifestations of the personality in activity. Asmolov subdivides these
manifestations in the sphere of expression into expressive and instrumental
ones. He assigns the psychophysiological level that ensures the functioning of
personality structures not to the personality itself but to its preconditions.
While I accept as a foundation the common logic of the approaches of Asmolov
and Bratus to the understanding of the structure of the personality, I detect in
their theoretical models one fundamental shared defect, which, however, is con-
nected with the current state of psychology of the personality. This defect lies in
the undifferentiated conception of a higher, specifically human level of the struc-
tural organization of the personality. It seems to me that here it is necessary to
distinguish not one but at least two different levels, the content of which will be
structures and mechanisms that are fundamentally different in nature. There-
fore, I consider it necessary to distinguish three levels of the structural organiza-
tion of the personality (see D.A. Leontiev 1993): (1) the level of core mechanisms
of the personality, which form an unsubstantial psychological skeleton or frame-
work upon which everything else is subsequently hung; (2) the level of mean-
ings, comprising the relations of the personality with the world, taken in their
substantive aspect—in essence, that which is signified by the concept of a person’s
“inner world”; and (3) the expressive-instrumental level, comprising structures
that characterize typical forms or modes of external manifestation of the person-
ality, of its interaction with the world, its outer envelope. (Following Asmolov, I
am inclined to assign the psychophysiological level—the level of body and brain
mechanisms—to the preconditions of personality rather than to component parts
of its structure.)
My understanding of the expressive-instrumental level does not differ fun-
damentally from the understanding that Asmolov embodies in the concept
“sphere of expression” and Bratus in the concept “level of realization.” Unlike
these authors, however, I include among the structures of this level, alongside
character traits and abilities, the roles that a person has incorporated into his
repertoire. I understand the level of meanings in a similar fashion—as a stratum
of meaning-based structures within which the concrete substantive relations of

a person with the world are crystallized and which regulate his life-activity. At
this level the “production of meaning orientations” is indeed accomplished,
but only one kind of such production—the production of meaning orienta-
tions in the process of the person’s real life-activity, of the realization of his
relations with the world.
Responsible for the critical processes of change in meaning orientations
through free choice or by means of reflexive meaning-based technology di-
rected at the self are the core mechanisms of the personality—the mechanisms
of the third, highest level, erected over the first and second levels. These core
mechanisms are freedom and responsibility. The difficulty of grasping them
arises from the fact that we shall not find any structure in the personality that
can be called “freedom,” or “responsibility,” or “choice.” These are not ele-
ments or substructures of the personality like, let us say, abilities, needs, roles,
or relations. They are modes or forms of the existence and self-realization of
the personality that have no content of their own. In the process of the emer-
gence and formation of the personality, they occupy (or do not occupy) the
central place in a person’s relations with the world, become (or do not be-
come) the pivot of his life-activity, and are filled (or are not filled) with a value
content that gives them meaning. Filled with content from the level of mean-
ings, they in turn determine the lines of development of the meaning-based
sphere and create that force field in which the latter is formed (for a more
detailed discussion, see D.A. Leontiev 1993 and Kaliteevskaia 1997).
Note
1. The term “self-protection of activity” was proposed by V.A. Petrovskii.
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NOVEMBER–DECEMBER 2005 45

Journal of Russian and East European Psychology, vol. 43, no. 6,

Three Facets of Meaning

“The problem of meaning . . . is the last analytical

interpretation of meaning was connected with the problematic of the structure

often understood in a one-sided manner. The concept of personal meaning that

interconnections, of the transitions of meaning from one form of existence to

and a real object or phenomenon that is determined by the objective place of

The ontological aspect of meaning: Meaning in the context of

basis for demarcating modes of life-activity, each of which is given by some

Meaning-based structures and the meaning-based sphere of

It is necessary to uncover the essence of the relation between the objective-

The concept of converted form was introduced as an explanatory device in

of the subjective overestimation of the physical dimensions of coins (personal

Figure 1. Functional Interconnections of Meaning-Based Structures

Meaning-based construct Meaning-based disposition

Empirically observable effects

different in genetic cross-section; however, the genesis of meaning-based

The phenomenological aspect of meaning: Meaning in the

Any concrete-psychological investigation inevitably rests on some explicit or

fication to the structure of the personality; in essence, it connects the personal-

“meaning-creating” subsystem of the consciousness; then we have the resolu-

The regulatory aspect of meaning: Meaning in the structure

Recent decades have been marked by an increasing number of works in which

of motivation, of the formation and transformation of the motive of an activity,

Meaning-based regulation as a constitutive function of

Being a personality, a person appears as an autonomous bearer and subject of

of meaning-based structures within which the concrete substantive relations of

1. The term “self-protection of activity” was proposed by V.A. Petrovskii.

Davydov, V.V. 1979. “Kategoriia deiatel’nosti i psikhicheskogo otrazheniia v teorii

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