A Sociopsychological Analysis of Conflicts among Children during Play

Abstract

The problem of conflict has been attracting the increasing attention of scholars [3,4,7,8,11,12], Whereas earlier, conflicts of various sorts—intergroup, interpersonal, and internal conflicts—were regarded mainly as a negative phenomenon, today the positive consequences of conflict in relations among members of a group or a family in the process of a person's creative activity are being studied more and more. The next stage of research might deal with the role conflict plays in mental development as a whole and in the development of the personality. Vygotsky's ideas on the development of higher mental functions, which he regarded in terms of the development of the personality, are of value in this connection: Cultural forms of behavior are responses of the individual personality. When we study them, we are dealing not with Aparate processes considered abstractly and playing themselves in the individual, but with the individual personality as a whole. 111 following the cultural development of mental functions, we are tracing out the path of development of a child's personality. [l. P. 841