ABSTRACT
This chapter presents an overview of the development of psychology as an independent scientific discipline in Russia. Particular emphasis is placed on ways in which Russian psychology is similar to and differs from psychology as it exists in Western Europe and the United States. The chapter briefly discusses Nikolai Bernstein as one of the few Russian psychologists to challenge the Pavlovianization of Russian psychology. The political and social destabilization of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics as a consequence of Perestroika and Glasnost led to its collapse, and to significant changes in Russian psychology. The chapter provides an overview of the relationship between Western and Russian psychology and how this relationship changed over the course of the pre-Soviet, Soviet, and post-Soviet eras of Russian history. It describes the significance of Ivan Michailovich Sechenov’s publication of reflexes of the brain and the significance of Ivan Petrovich Pavlov’s research on the conditioned reflex.
