Background. The issue of the nature and origin of human psyche as a universal puzzle does not have a final solution for today. So, ideas about the subject matter of psychology, the issue of nature and the origin of human psyche discussed by A.N. Leontiev have not lost their significance for modern psychology.

Objective is to introduce the original assumptions of A.N. Leontiev that he coins discussing the nature of human psyche psyche and its origin in the course of the evolution of living beings.

Design. In this paper, the early representations of A.N. Leontiev about the nature and origin of human psyche are analyzed. The heuristic assumption of A.N. Leontiev about some living beings possessing the ability to react to external influences by displaying deep emotion or changing their primary sensation of various modality, which can be considered a pre-mental (biological) reflection, which further sets as reflection. The external objective activity of living beings changes their feelings as if they refer organism condition. The activity allows not only to create a motor image of the behaviour space, but also to use the primary experiences (feelings) to create ideas about the objects.

Results. These assumptions make it possible to view the psyche as a representation of the subject of activity and perception about the objective conditions and integral objects of the behavioural space that create the illusion of opening up the space for one's behavior. Such illusion arises due to the actual physical interaction of the subject of behaviour with the real objects of the external world.

Conclusion. A.N. Leontiev’s assumptions about the nature and origin of human psyche allow to elaborate a number of important provisions on this issue, which will be of great interest for modern psychologists and will occupy a worthy place in the theory of psychological science.

The paper presents a theoretical analysis of surprise from the perspective of social psychology. Surprise is an emotion that occurs in response to an unexpected event. The components of surprise are as follows: (1) the trigger event of surprise, (2) the expression of surprise and (3) the emotional experience of surprise. Various approaches to the trigger event of surprise and criteria of its analysis are emphasized: the first criterion whether the trigger event is influenced by the probability of information or the activity of the subjects, and the second criterion is whether the event is included in the broader context. Paraverbal and facial expressions of surprise are described on a par with the environmental influence on the expression repertoire and intensity. The basic approaches to understanding the emotional experience of surprise are as follows: (1) descriptive approach, (2) psychosemantic approach, (3) discursive approach. Although surprise is mostly considered as a basic emotion, some researchers suggest that it plays an important role in social cognition of expectation-discrepant events. Models that explain the role of surprise in this process are as follows: (1) the attributional model of surprise developed by B. Weiner and colleagues according to which surprise is a consequence of the attribution to luck; (2) the process model of surprise developed by W. Meyer and colleagues in which surprise is included in the broader context of social cognition as a general emotional reaction to an unexpected event and the attribution and various processes of social cognition are considered as consequences of surprise. However, these models analyze surprise of isolated subject without considering the social interaction. The author defines the possibilities of analysis of surprise as a mechanism of assimilation and modification of social information stored in the prototypes, scripts and schemas.