The Catalyzing Mind: Beyond Models of Causality
Abstract
How do we understand and explain phenomena in psychology? What does the concept of "causality" mean when we discuss higher psychological functions and behavior? Is it possible to generate "laws" in a psychological and behavioral science-laws that go beyond statistical regularities, frequencies, and probabilities? An international group of authors compare and contrast the use of a causal model in psychology with a newer model-the catalytic model. The Catalyzing Mind: Beyond Models of Causality proposes an approach to the qualitative nature of psychological phenomena that focuses on the psychological significance and meaning of conditions, contexts, and situations as well as their sign-mediating processes. Contributors develop, apply, and criticize the notion of a catalyzing mind in hopes of achieving conceptual clarity and rigor. Disciplines such as philosophy, psychology, semiotics and biosemiotics are used for an interdisciplinary approach to the book. Research topics such as history and national identity, immigration, and transitions to adulthood are all brought into a dialogue with the concept of the catalyzing mind. With a variety of disciplines, theoretical concepts, and research topics this book is a collective effort at an approach to move beyond models of causality for explaining and understanding psychological phenomena. © Springer Science+Business Media NewYork 2014. All rights are reserved.
Chapters (14)
This book, The Catalyzing Mind: Beyond Models of Causality, began from our quest to achieve three goals for the discipline of psychology, and more specifically, as elaborated within a semiotic cultural psychology. Cultural psychology is a new–“up and coming” (Cole, 1996, Cultural psychology: A once and future discipline. Cambridge: Harvard University Press) research field of interdisciplinary kind. It is older in its history than the experimental psychology tradition (of Wilhelm Wundt and his opening of the first experimental psychology laboratory in 1879) dating back to the Völkerpsychologie of the 1850s. The first professorship in the World that bore the name psychology was that of Moritz Lazarus in University of Berne, Switzerland, in 1860, with his Lehrstuhl in Völkerpsychologie. However, in the middle of social negotiations about how psychology “could be a science,” (Valsiner, 2012, A guided science: History of psychology in the mirror of its making. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers) it was the experimental psychology tradition that expelled the study of complex human phenomena out of the realm of concerns of hardcore experimentalists who happily substituted the behavior of a white rat to stand in for the psyche of all human beings. The rat had no aesthetic attitudes towards the mazes he or she was forced “to run”, nor sophisticated ideas about investment of one’s behavioral capacities for the sake of future gains. The rat did not drink champagne, show herself in fashion shows, construct nuclear bombs, or paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Human beings did all of that—and much more. Their pilgrimage to arts, sciences, and geographic explorations were willful, complex, and often unrewarded—at least during their lifetimes.
Theoretical models of catalysis have proven to bring with them major breakthroughs in chemistry and biology, from the 1830s onward. It can be argued that the scientific status of chemistry has become established through the move from causal to catalytic models. Likewise, the central explanatory role of cyclical models in biology has made it possible to move from the idea of genetic determination to that of epigenetic negotiation as the core of biological theory. In psychology, catalytic thinking has been outside of the realm of accepted scientific schemes, as the axiomatic dependence upon the General Linear Model continues to dominate. Basic history of the idea of catalysis is outlined in this chapter, and the need to overcome the use of simple cause–effect notions in psychology is recommended.
This chapter starts with a few landmarks throughout the history of philosophy, presenting the reader with various types of causes. For the discussion of the various meanings of causality developed from a theoretical standpoint, I take a transdisciplinary perspective based on the idea that causality is a semiotic tool, about which philosophy has much to say, and also empirical studies, for instance Piaget’s genetic epistemology, science education, or social psychology, stressing the everyday use of causality. The transdisciplinary perspective allows displaying a variety of semiotic roles played by causality in our attempts to explain, model, or simply make sense of the world and of our own actions. This perspective stresses the diversity of meanings encapsulated in the concept of cause, and shows relevant links between the development of cognition, the making of science, and the definitions of causality. From the selected landmarks and the routes chosen for our map of causality, it becomes possible to address the question of how causality is related to the newly introduced concept of semiotic catalysis, and to make a few suggestions for the philosophical definition of the semiotic catalysis.
Catalysis, which is normally applied in chemistry, is regarded to have explanatory power in psychology as well (Beckstead et al., Generalizing Through Conditional Analysis: Systemic Causality in the World of Eternal Becoming, 2009). This chapter is investigating to what extent this may be true. In this respect, the term is evaluated on the background of two crossing lines: sorts of explanation and sufficient or necessary reasons. Catalysis is primarily to be regarded as a functional explanation. Yet, by investigating how this type of functional explanation is applied in chemistry, biology and social sciences, the conclusion is that there are several types of functional explanations and catalysis can be related to a couple of them. The prototype of functional explanation is to be defined in terms of natural selection in biology. This is different from the functional aspect of catalysis in chemistry. A third type is functionalism in psychology. On this background, the chapter investigates and sorts out six different types of explanations that are relevant for achieving an understanding of catalysis, which is also regarded to be one of them. In addition, we have “causality”, “functional explanation”, “intentional explanation”, “functionalism” and “understanding”. However, the conclusion of this investigation is that explanations are primarily tools for making meaning, but they represent different levels of precision. On this background, catalysis may have explanatory power in psychology, but in a different way, and with a lower level of precision compared with how it is applied in chemistry.
We analyze the concepts of semiotic catalysis (or semiocatalysis) and semiotic scaffolding (or semioscaffolding) in the framework of general semiotics. Semiotic catalysis (as different from chemical catalysis) concerns the qualitative aspects of catalysis. In this sense, signs are catalysts for sign processes or semiosis. Life is catalytically closed namely in the sense of semiotic catalysis. Semiosis produces scaffolding which is the way to keep and canalize communicational processes. Catalytic and scaffolding functions of signs have an important role in semiotic dynamics.
This chapter explores the conditions and processes through which culture is reconstructed and diffused within and between social groups. It revisits the ideas of early diffusionist anthropology, in particular, the framework developed by Frederic Bartlett in his unjustly neglected book Psychology and Primitive Culture. In his framework, culture is conceptualized as heterogeneous, systemic and changing patterns of activity mediated by both individual and group processes. Furthermore, any society must be conceptualized in time, existing in a state of tension between stability and change, conservation and construction. A major catalyst for change is ‘culture contact’, whereby new cultural elements are introduced into a social group from outside, simulating constructive efforts to integrate them into its ways of life.
The chapter begins by providing some background in Cambridge anthropology between 1890 and 1912. It then proceeds to outline Bartlett’s framework for exploring cultural dynamics, according to which the investigator should focus on the systemic conditions that shape individual and group responses; these conditions include a whole individual, belonging to a particular social group and acting in a particular social and material environment. This framework is then applied to the study of cultural contact (where groups are in intimate contact with one another) and cultural borrowing (where foreign cultural elements are carried by single individuals to a receipt group). The results of these intercultural contacts will depend on a number of factors, including the symmetry of relationship between the groups concerned and the social organization particular to them. Finally, a discussion is made of how this framework can be extended so as to apply it to contemporary society.
In this work, the catalytic process is discussed as a semiotic process of transformation of the field. This is the precondition that allows the realization of semiotic processes of signification and action (semiotic function of pertinentization). Catalysis is seen as process of field which acts in temporal terms (mediating between continuity and discontinuity) and spatial terms (the relationship between the parts and the whole, and between the inside and the outside). Catalysis in psychological terms is understood as a process of contextual pertinentization triggered and organized by emotional/perceptual relationship of a subject with his relational environment. In this work, we define emotion as a psychophysical process of semiotic activation (symbolopoiesis) and organization of relations according to specific operating modalities (symmetry and generalization), believing that it always works in interaction with the perceptual processes (aimed at identification of differences and asymmetries). Catalysis, in our point of view, creates a contextual activation of a morphogenetic field of semiosis, which regulates the relationship between the parts and the whole (between the signs and their organization) and the development over time of the process of meaning making (in terms of continuity and discontinuity/rupture).
Young people's transition to adulthood is one of the most critical moments in the life course, when several psychosocial transformations simultaneously pervade the relationship of the person and their cultural context. As young people develop, they start to navigate new spheres of experience that can bring significant ruptures to their sense of self-continuity (Zittoun 2011, 2012a). For instance, a sense of self-discontinuity can emerge when young people enter the world of work and start to question what they are able to do (their knowledge and skills), their position in relation to others in the new contexts as well as their identity and the meaning of their actions. The notion of youth transitions that we are going to elaborate here comes from ideas developed in the field of cultural psychology (Valsiner 1997, 2007; Zittoun 2006a, b, 2007, 2012a) and Dialogical Self Theory (Hermans 2001; Hermans and Kempen 1995; Hermans and Hermans-Jensen 2003; Hermans and Hermans-Konopka 2010). The aim is to go beyond traditional approaches to the phenomenon of "transition" as a linear sequence of events organizing individual pathways. These approaches usually emphasize young people's movements between institutions and formal settings (i.e., from school to work, or from university to the labor market) or from one social role to another (i.e., adolescent-adult, student-worker). However, in-stead of privileging an outcome view of transitions, in this chapter we will advance a more systemic and dialogical perspective of youth transitions, focusing on transition processes (instead of outcomes) and on the occurrence of simultaneous ruptures in a young person's life (Camarano 2006; Sato 2006; Zittoun 2012a). We will also stress the centrality of semiotic mediation and the relevance of adopting a new perspective of causality (i.e., catalytic causality) in psychology in order to understand human transition experiences, and the different ways in which individuals configure their
In this chapter our aim is to show how the concept of catalysis, as taken from chemistry, can be used to understand the conditions that bring about change and support the emergence of new psychological phenomena following psychological ruptures, such as that of immigrating. Specifically, we use the concepts of semiotic catalysts and regulators, connecting the concept of catalysis to semiotic mediation (Cabell, Psychol Soc, 3(1):26–41, 2010) and to the theoretical framework of symbolic resources (Zittoun, Transitions: Development through Symbolic Resources, 2006) in order to analyse the case of Sabar, a Kurdish political refugee living in Greece (Kadianaki, Negotiating Immigration Through Symbolic Resources: The Case of Immigrants Living in Greece, 2010). Through this case study we show that catalysts are meanings introduced into the psychological system that provoke a rupture in the taken for granted. At the same time, another form of catalysts, cultural elements, introduce opposing meanings through their semiotic qualities. We show how Sabar uses these elements as semiotic regulators to deal with the immigration ruptures and orient himself in time, mediate his experiences at different levels of generality as well as his relationship with self, others, and the social world. We suggest that a catalytic framework can enrich our understanding of how ruptures emerge within the psychological system and how meanings, found or synthesized in semiotic forms, can be used to regulate these ruptures. Further, we argue that the transference of a catalytic framework into the realm of semiotic mediation can contribute to the theorization of the complexity of semiotic catalysts (i.e. complex sign arrangements), of the generativity of psychological change processes (i.e. regulators becoming catalysts) and of the complexity of the semiotic outputs (i.e. enabling multilevel mediation) of these processes.
The discipline of history has been traditionally associated with the construction of national identity. Since the eighteenth century, the whole discipline has been structured around the concept of nation, portraying a naturalized and romantic conception of nation and national identity. Romantic national narratives around the world were produced as a fundamental mediator for understanding history. However, in the late twentieth century, new approaches on nation and national identity began to address the national phenomenon as a social construction, challenging the established romantic conceptions. This modern disciplinary approach has constituted a profound revolution not only in producing history, but also in teaching and learning history. However, national narratives and national identities remain as catalytic conditions that in one hand, support a romantic conception of the own nation and national identity, and on the other hand difficult a historical understanding of these concepts. This chapter analyzes the role of these mediators in students’ historical understanding through two different studies. Both studies were conducted with Spanish students, but one addressing historical contents from Spain and the other from Greece. Dealing with a historical content of a foreign nation, in which students’ national identity is not involved, seems to enable a more disciplinary understanding of the historical content. The role of national identity and national narratives as key catalysts for romantic understanding of history is discussed.
The horizon’s metaphor has been often used in literature, natural sciences, and philosophy as a catalyzer of the human aspiration to the Unknown. The chapter develops the idea of the psychological horizon, understood as one of the semiotic elements characterizing the relationship between the self and the environment. The psychological horizon is one of the catalytic factors enabling psychological events. Drawing from Kurt Lewin’s field theory, the chapter describes the features of the psychological horizon as a semiotic device and its role in the process of meaning construction. Through the idea of psychological horizon this reality-not-yet-to-be comes into our life, playing a role in setting up our goals through the imaginative power. The psychological horizon is the infinite realm of possibilities ahead of time yet to be semiotized, thus still partially socially unbounded, that is necessary as a reference point to the person’s widening of life space. The horizon/sign is the specific sign that, once produced, establishes the conditions for the psychological horizon to participate in the production of new psychological phenomena through the co-regulation of psychological processes. If the idea of the horizon/sign is well-founded, then the process of its production and the different types of horizon/signs could be studied in order to better understand their role in catalyzing the new psychological objects and the phenomena they trigger. Besides, a therapeutic use of horizon/signs aimed at fostering a reconstruction of the field could be imagined. Another potentially relevant field of application of the idea of horizon/signs is how they play a role in development and education.
When facing the dilemma of what answer to give to the unforeseeable nature of life, we humans often try to find out the “right” thing to do and, even more, in some situations we would rather not make such decisions, so we would be able not to assume their inner responsibility. This chapter describes and highlights the catalytic function of silence when people are trying to solve a crisis and make sense of experience and existence in ways that promote welfare. With this purpose, a brief conceptualization of crisis-solving process is presented, followed by a description of different kinds of silence, here conceived as Silence Based Phenomena. It is my attempt here to demonstrate that, altogether with language, Silence Based Phenomena serve for dialogues with inner and outer voices during the course of life that help persons to made out difficult decisions by means of enabling or disabling the value-grasping of our meanings in life. This fact foregrounds the importance of axiological theories that could widen our comprehension of the affective charge of semiotic meanings, as well as of the boundaries of semiotics to explain meaning-making process and sense-making processes.
The notion of causality based on systemic and catalytic principles has brought to the discipline of cultural psychology of semiotic orientation the challenge to describe the processes through which a given sign assumes a catalyst role. It is argued here that an activation towards such function takes place one step before the catalyzed activation or inhibition of semiotic regulators (SRs). Semiotic mediators are initially activated through one’s emphasis on specific features of a given situation to which preexisting signs are meaningfully linked. What follows is a canalization of those signs into the current semiotic mediation, favoring the transformation of a certain semiotic mediator into a semiotic catalyst. The personally storied nature of semiotic catalysts is highlighted as those catalyst activators are taken into consideration in the semiotic catalytic cycle. The main objective of this chapter is to explore and understand how semiotic catalysts work in catalytic cycles over time, considering the complex “catalyst—catalyst activators” previously to the activation/inhibition of semiotic regulators. In order to accomplish such a goal, three narrative interviews performed by a bereaved mother who lost three children to homicide in a poor neighborhood in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, were analyzed in the aspects related to the processes of making sense of the child loss and integrating such losses to her sense of self.
In this chapter I compare catalytic theory of causality with structural–systemic theory of causality. I begin with the discussion about why the notion of causality matters and how it is related to scientific explanation. I show that linear cause–effect (i.e., efficient) understanding of causality followed in the modern mainstream psychology is limited and does not allow to understand what the studied thing or phenomenon is. I propose that structural–systemic causality is better grounded as a theory of scientific explanation. Next I analyze basic notions of catalytic causality theory and compare them with those from the structural–systemic theory. Theoretically important notions discussed in the chapter are: ‘system’, ‘whole’, ‘part’, ‘relationship’, ‘downward causality’, and ‘catalytic causality’. Structural–systemic definition of the notion of ‘quality’ is also provided and justified. I demonstrate that catalytic causality theory, even though being substantial achievement over efficient causality theory, is internally incoherent. I suggest that the very use for psychology in particular and science in general notion of catalysis is better understood in the framework of structural-systemic theory.
... for related approaches see [2,6,13,79]. Also, the evolution and reproduction of RAFs has been studied in an OOC context [35]. ...
... 5 In other words, it isn't that the fittest survive (in their entirety) while the less fit do not, but rather, all agents develop more adaptive structure (such as happens in learning and creative cognition). 6 Like natural selection, SOR has mechanisms for preserving continuity and introducing novelty, but reproduction is lower-fidelity than it is for natural selection, because it is the culmination of haphazard catalyzed interactions, as opposed to the accuracy afforded by copying from a self-assembly code, as in a Darwinian process. Table 2. Comparison between evolution through selection and evolution through Self-Other Reorganisation. ...
... Transmission of useful plasmids through horizontal exchange among bacteria or protists may be beneficial, but transmission of viruses may be damaging. Similarly, transmission of useful technologies may be beneficial to the recipient, but transmission of misinformation may be harmful.6 It has been suggested that creative cognition occurs through a Darwinian process[7], but this theory has been sharply criticized[12,25,28,96], and its current primary proponent now advocates a non-Darwinian version of the theory[91].7 ...
Natural selection successfully explains how organisms accumulate adaptive change despite that traits acquired over a lifetime are eliminated at the end of each generation. However, in some domains that exhibit cumulative, adaptive change -- e.g., cultural evolution, and earliest life -- acquired traits are retained; these domains do not face the problem that Darwin's theory was designed to solve. Lack of transmission of acquired traits occurs when germ cells are protected from environmental change, due to a self-assembly code used in two distinct ways: (i) actively interpreted during development to generate a soma, and (ii) passively copied without interpretation during reproduction to generate germ cells. Early life and cultural evolution appear not to involve a self-assembly code used in these two ways. We suggest that cumulative, adaptive change in these domains is due to a lower-fidelity evolutionary process, and model it using Reflexively Autocatalytic and Foodset-generated networks. We refer to this more primitive evolutionary process as Self-Other Reorganisation (SOR) because it involves internal self-organising and self-maintaining processes within entities, as well as interaction between entities. SOR encompasses learning but in general operates across groups. We discuss the relationship between SOR and Lamarckism, and illustrate a special case of SOR without variation.
... Desde os processos incutidos nos princípios da evolução das espécies (Darwin, 1859), articulados aos processos que circunscrevem os princípios da seleção funcional (Baldwin, 1896), podemos refletir sobre uma relação na qual variações possibilitam a emergência de estruturas como estados funcionais e adaptativos ao longo do tempo. Isso ocorre sobre processos de desenvolvimento humano e, portanto, atravessam relações de canalização cultural (Cabell & Valsiner, 2014) sobre o desenvolvimento da pessoa diagnosticada com TEA. ...
... A canalização cultural (Cabell & Valsiner, 2014) e o desenvolvimento de regulação cultural (Mattos & Chaves, 2014) sobre as experiências de vida da pessoa diagnosticada com TEA são mecanismos bi e multidirecionais de desenvolvimento na relação pessoa-cultura. Contudo, podem funcionar como maneiras de impor sobre a pessoa uma forma de regulação cultural desprovida de acurácia. ...
... Em processos terapêutico-educacionais, o tecido cultural funciona como base temporária de organização para a pessoa (Valsiner, 2012), construída na ação e ideação, na relação entre as pessoas, entre significados pessoais e coletivos. Isto aponta para a perspectiva de que, nos processos de desenvolvimento da cultura pessoal e coletiva, a cultura pessoal é desenvolvida sob a canalização da cultura coletiva, assim como a cultura coletiva é, ininterruptamente, desenvolvida, perpetuada e transformada a partir da canalização da cultura pessoal (Cabell & Valsiner, 2014) . ...
Este trabalho discute o lugar de processos terapêutico-educacionais junto a pessoas diagnosticadas com transtorno do espectro do autismo (TEA). O TEA é descrito como um transtorno do desenvolvimento que afeta a interação social, a comunicação, os comportamentos e o processamento sensorial da pessoa. As reflexões presentes neste trabalho partem da discussão de como os constructos teórico-metodológicos da perspectiva evolucionista e da perspectiva da psicologia cultural podem contribuir para a compreensão acerca do desenvolvimento da pessoa diagnosticada com TEA, bem como, sobre o posicionamento de responsabilidade ética nos processos terapêuticoeducacionais com essas pessoas. Destaca-se que, ao falar de compreensão e intervenção terapêutico-educacional sobre o desenvolvimento de pessoas diagnosticadas com TEA, estão implicados processos ligados a níveis filogenéticos, ontogenéticos e sociogenéticos de seleção/variação de formas pessoais e coletivas de funcionamento na relação pessoa-cultura. Conclui-se que os mecanismos semiótico-culturais – como a saúde e educação - assumem sua posição enquanto movimentos regulatórios e de responsabilidade ética sobre as pessoas diagnosticada com TEA.
... Infatti la catalisi -in maniera isomorfica al processo di trasformazione osservato in chimica ad opera degli enzimi -è quel processo che, mediante l'ausilio di un agente, fornisce le condizioni necessarie a regolare e a promuovere processi di trasformazione e cambiamento di un sistema all'interno del suo ambiente. Un catalizzatore cioè abilita la produzione di trasformazioni attraverso l'attivazione di altri meccanismi di mediazione (sintesi ed innesco) e di regolazione entro il sistema (promozione ed inibizione, oppure accelerazione e rallentamento) (Cabell & Valsiner, 2014). Tale costrutto consente di osservare e studiare i fenomeni mediante una prospettiva che raccorda più questioni insieme: -la formazione di strutture complesse (il cd problema del divenire), -l'identificazione delle direzioni lungo cui si muove lo sviluppo delle strutture complesse (il cd problema degli stati futuri dell'evoluzione), ...
... La presenza di una variabile non è di per sé rilevante, ma lo diventa contestualmente a partire da una certa soglia innescando lo sviluppo di un certo funzionamento o attivando altre variabili. Il concetto di soglia e di innesco/blocco induce a considerare un tipo di causalità che non è di tipo lineare ma sistemica(Lewin, 1965) e catalitica(Cabell & Valsiner, 2014;De Luca Picione & Freda, 2014). La nozione di causalità catalitica -introdotta da ...
Il lavoro mostra come un possibile rinnovamento dell'approccio idiografico si fondi non più sulla classica distinzione tra il "particolare" e l'"universale" (prerogativa storica dell'approccio nomotetico), ma sulla possibilità di produrre nuova conoscenza attraverso diverse forme di generalizzazione a partire dal caso singolo. Il caso singolo conserva grande interesse nello studio e nella ricerca dei feno-meni psicologici, in virtù della costitutiva contestualità, contingenza, variabilità temporale e situatività di ogni fenomeno umano. In virtù di tali considerazioni, viene presentato l'approccio idiografico attraverso un'attenta disamina storica, la rifondazione delle sue assunzioni teoretiche, epistemologiche e metodologiche, tra cui la ri-concettualizzazione di alcune opposizioni teoriche ormai obsolete, la considerazione di alcune debolezze epistemologiche dell'uso del campione nelle discipline psicologiche, il rapporto stretto tra l'unicità e il generale, il processo di generalizzazione abduttiva, la relazione circolare tra teoria e fenomeni, la riconsiderazione del processo di validazione delle ricerche.
... In application of the theory to culture, the products and reactants are not catalytic molecules 4 For related approaches, see [1,5,53] . CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 International license perpetuity. ...
... (2) F-generated: all reactants in R can be generated from the food set F by using a series of reactions only from R itself. 5 Although we use the term 'mental representation,' our model is consistent with the view (common amongst ecological psychologists and in cognition and quantum cognition communities) that what we call mental representations do not 'represent' but instead act as contextually elicited bridges between mind and world. ...
A bstract
A central tenet of evolutionary theory is that it requires variation upon which selection can act. We describe a means of attaining cumulative, adaptive, open-ended change that requires neither variation nor selective exclusion, and that can occur in the absence of generations (i.e., no explicit birth or death). This second evolutionary process occurs through the assimilation, restructuring, and extrusion of products into the environment by identical, interacting Reflexively Autocatalytic and Food set-generated (RAF) networks. Since there is no self-assembly code, it is more haphazard than natural selection, and there is no discarding of acquired traits (a signature characteristic of natural selection). We refer to this more primitive process evolutionary process as Self–Other Reorganisation because it involves internal self-organising and self-maintaining processes within entities, as well as interaction between entities. In the extreme, it can work with just one entity but it differs from learning because it can operate in groups of entities and produce adaptive change across generations. We suggest that this more primitive process is operative during the initial stage of an evolutionary process, and that it is responsible for both the origin and early evolution of both organic life, and human culture. In cultural evolution, this ‘evolution without variation’ process can increase homogeneity amongst members of a group and thereby foster group identity and cohesion.
... He shows that the approaches are complementary to one another and both necessary to understand a human being. Based on The catalyzing mind: Beyond models of causality, by Cabell and Valsiner (2013), Hejlesen develops a notion of catalysis in open systems as opposed to simple causality (simple determinism) in closed systems. ...
In this introduction to a thematic issue dealing with free will, some possibilities of free will in different physical, social, and technological worlds, as well as discussions of the possibilities are considered. What are the possibilities and limitations of free will in various other worlds differing from our world? What are the possibilities and limitations of free will in different species, both in our world and in other hypothetical worlds, including future species, naturally evolving, and artificially modified? What are the possibilities and limitations of free will related to the development of AI? How can the diversity of free will levels in an agent be related to possible levels (depth) of its self-knowledge? What can agents differing in levels of self-knowledge know and think about the issue of free will? How do different societies (social worlds) support and inhibit different manifestations of free will in different areas? What is the role of hard neurodeterminism and “mindless neuroscience” in general neuroscience? What are ethical aspects of the questions, including the initial one: “If a neuroscientist denies free will, how can they write a text of voluntary informed consent and propose to sign it?”.
... They act intentionally, memorise and learn. This limits possibilities for controlled and identically repeated cause-effect experiments (Bandura, 1986;Cabell & Valsiner, 2014;Fahrenberg, 2013;Rotter, 1954;Smedslund, 2002Smedslund, , 2004Uher, 2021a). ...
Quantitative explorations of behaviour, psyche and society are common in psychology. This requires methods that justify the attribution of results to the measurands (the entities to be measured, e.g., in individuals) and that make the results' quantitative meaning publicly interpretable (e.g., for decision making). Do rating scales—psychology's primary methods to generate numerical data—meet these criteria? This article summarises selected epistemological and methodological problems of rating scales that arise, amongst others, from the intricacies of language‐based methods and from psychologists' challenges to distinguish their study phenomena from their means of exploring these phenomena. Failure to make this logical distinction entails that disparate scientific activities are conflated, thereby distorting scientific concepts and procedures. Rating scales promote such conflations because they serve both as description of the empirical study system (e.g., behaviours) and as symbolic study system (e.g., data variables), leaving the interpretation of each system and the mapping relations between them to raters' intuitive decisions. Verbal scales, however, have broad semantic fields of meanings, which are context‐sensitive and therefore interpreted differently, and which cannot logically match the quantitative meaning commonly ascribed to the numerical scores derived from them. The ease of using verbal descriptions as means of exploration drew psychologists' attention to the conceptual‐interpretive level, away from their actual study phenomena. This also led them to overlook key elements of data generation and measurement. The pragmatic necessity to analyse rating scores through between‐individual comparisons entailed the erroneous assumption that psychometrics and sample‐level statistics could enable measurement. Improving data analyses, as currently discussed, is therefore insufficient for overcoming psychology's crises of replication, confidence, validity and generalizability. Data generation methods are necessary that make the entire process—from the empirical study phenomena up to the results—fully transparent and traceable. This rigorous analysis of rating scales highlights important steps for future directions.
... With rating 'scales' , psychologists implemented a simplified but appealing image of natural science from which they created an equally simplified and appealing image of psychology as a science, but which cannot meet the complexities of its subject matter (Mazur and Watzlawik, 2016). We need theories that allow us to conceive individuals as living beings, as open selforganising systems featuring complementary phenomena (Axiom 2) and dynamic interrelations across their multilayered systemic contexts (Axiom 1)-that is, theories not simply of elemental properties and structures but of processes, relations, dynamicity, subjectivity, emergence, catalysis and transformation (Fahrenberg, 2013(Fahrenberg, , 2015Cabell and Valsiner, 2014;Salvatore, 2015;Toomela, 2021;Valsiner, 2021). To explore continuous, dynamic, unprecedented and creative change and development, we need not simplistic dualistic but inclusive concepts (Table 2; Valsiner, 1997) as well as dialogic and dialectic theories (Veraksa et al., 2022). ...
This article explores in-depth the metatheoretical and methodological foundations on which rating scales—by their very conception, design and application—are built and traces their historical origins. It brings together independent lines of critique from different scholars and disciplines to map out the problem landscape, which centres on the failed distinction between psychology’s study phenomena (e.g., experiences, everyday constructs) and the means of their exploration (e.g., terms, data, scientific constructs)—psychologists’ cardinal error. Rigorous analyses reveal a dense network of 12 complexes of problematic concepts, misconceived assumptions and fallacies that support each other, making it difficult to be identified and recognised by those (unwittingly) relying on them (e.g., various forms of reductionism, logical errors of operationalism, constructification, naïve use of language, quantificationism, statisticism, result-based data generation, misconceived nomotheticism). Through the popularity of rating scales for efficient quantitative data generation, uncritically interpreted as psychological measurement, these problems have become institutionalised in a wide range of research practices and perpetuate psychology’s crises (e.g., replication, confidence, validation, generalizability). The article provides an in-depth understanding that is needed to get to the root of these problems, which preclude not just measurement but also the scientific exploration of psychology’s study phenomena and thus its development as a science. From each of the 12 problem complexes; specific theoretical concepts, methodologies and methods are derived as well as key directions of development. The analyses—based on three central axioms for transdisciplinary research on individuals, (1) complexity, (2) complementarity and (3) anthropogenicity—highlight that psychologists must (further) develop an explicit metatheory and unambiguous terminology as well as concepts and theories that conceive individuals as living beings, open self-organising systems with complementary phenomena and dynamic interrelations across their multi-layered systemic contexts—thus, theories not simply of elemental properties and structures but of processes, relations, dynamicity, subjectivity, emergence, catalysis and transformation. Philosophical and theoretical foundations of approaches suited for exploring these phenomena must be developed together with methods of data generation and methods of data analysis that are appropriately adapted to the peculiarities of psychologists’ study phenomena (e.g., intra-individual variation, momentariness, contextuality). Psychology can profit greatly from its unique position at the intersection of many other disciplines and can learn from their advancements to develop research practices that are suited to tackle its crises holistically.
... Minimally, words or more generally semiotic means enable us to distanciate from experience; if I feel uncomfortable, I may realize that I feel cold, I can name it, for instance, and then act upon it -there is a clear script (D'Andrade, 1992), partly learned from experience, partly from sociocultural accumulated knowledge, on how to behave then: put a jumper on or increase the heating. Jaan Valsiner has importantly shown the mechanisms of minimal semiotic mediation 20 years ago (Valsiner, 2001) and later has detailed the processes by which distancing can be analyzed as occurring at different levels of mediation, and then can be catalyzed, guide the future, and so forth (Cabell & Valsiner, 2014;Valsiner, 2014Valsiner, , 2021. In my own work, I found useful to further distinguish the dimensions along which semiotic mediation and distanciation take place. ...
This paper presents one line of sociocultural psychology aiming at a better understanding of people’s development in their courses of life, unfolding in changing social and cultural environment. Adopting such a position leads me to three core questions: First, if development occurs at the junction of the social and the psychological, how can we theoretically account for the guidance of the sociocultural world upon people’s learning and development, and people’s unique capacities to create and transform these environments? Second, if one adopts such perspective, how do we account for what it that people develop through life, as they move through a plurality of situations? And third, as people learn and develop through life, how can we account for what is unique and personal? To address these questions, I first situate the epistemological assumptions of sociocultural psychology in relation to the works of Piaget and Vygotsky. Second, I present the principles of a sociocultural psychology, and indicate the methodological strategies that I have adopted, together with a large group of colleagues over the years. The main part of the paper constitutes in responding to the three questions I raised. Finally, I propose a tentative synthesis.
... In the real world, whether or not the environment is temporally varying, we benefit from finding creative new ways of conceptualizing and responding to this world. 6 For related approaches, see (Andersson and Törnberg 2019;Cabell and Valsiner 2013;Muthukrishna et al. 2018). ...
This chapter focuses on the role and value of not knowing for creativity, learning and development. More specifically, it proposes a typology of states that are conducive, in different ways, for creative learning, including certain knowing, uncertain not knowing, uncertain knowing, and certain not knowing. They are discussed, in turn, in relation to four associated experiences: trust, anxiety, curiosity and wonder, respectively. Towards the end, two models are proposed that specify how and when these experiences contribute to the process of creative learning. The first is focused on macro stages, the second on micro processes. While the former starts from uncertain not knowing, goes through the interplay between uncertain knowing and certain not knowing, and ends in certain knowledge, the processual model reveals the intricate relations between these experiences in each and every instance of creative learning. The developmental and educational implications of revaluing not knowing as a generate state are discussed in the end.KeywordsUncertaintyKnowledgeAnxietyTrustCuriosityWonderCreative learning
... Creative insights often arise subconsciously from just beyond the bounds of working memory[63].5 The use of the word 'catalyze' in a cognitive context extends beyond autocatalytic models of cognition[64,65], though these other approaches are purely descriptive. ...
Psychotherapy involves the modification of a client’s worldview to reduce distress and enhance well-being. We take a human dynamical systems approach to modeling this process, using Reflexively Autocatalytic foodset-derived (RAF) networks. RAFs have been used to model the self-organization of adaptive networks associated with the origin and early evolution of both biological life, as well as the evolution and development of the kind of cognitive structure necessary for cultural evolution. The RAF approach is applicable in these seemingly disparate cases because it provides a theoretical framework for formally describing under what conditions systems composed of elements that interact and ‘catalyze’ the formation of new elements collectively become integrated wholes. In our application, the elements are mental representations, and the whole is a conceptual network. The initial components—referred to as foodset items—are mental representations that are innate, or were acquired through social learning or individual learning (of pre-existing information). The new elements—referred to as foodset-derived items—are mental representations that result from creative thought (resulting in new information). In clinical psychology, a client’s distress may be due to, or exacerbated by, one or more beliefs that diminish self-esteem. Such beliefs may be formed and sustained through distorted thinking, and the tendency to interpret ambiguous events as confirmation of these beliefs. We view psychotherapy as a creative collaborative process between therapist and client, in which the output is not an artwork or invention but a more well-adapted worldview and approach to life on the part of the client. In this paper, we model a hypothetical albeit representative example of the formation and dissolution of such beliefs over the course of a therapist–client interaction using RAF networks. We show how the therapist is able to elicit this worldview from the client and create a conceptualization of the client’s concerns. We then formally demonstrate four distinct ways in which the therapist is able to facilitate change in the client’s worldview: (1) challenging the client’s negative interpretations of events, (2) providing direct evidence that runs contrary to and counteracts the client’s distressing beliefs, (3) using self-disclosure to provide examples of strategies one can use to diffuse a negative conclusion, and (4) reinforcing the client’s attempts to assimilate such strategies into their own ways of thinking. We then discuss the implications of such an approach to expanding our knowledge of the development of mental health concerns and the trajectory of the therapeutic change.
... Creative insights (i.e., those that make significant contributions to culture) often arise subconsciously from just beyond the confines of working memory(Bowers, Farvolden, & Mermigis, 1995).3 We note that use of the word "catalyzing" in a cognitive context extends beyond autocatalytic models of cognition(Beghetto & Jaeger, 2021;Cabell & Valsiner, 2016) (though these other approaches are purely descriptive). ...
In reflexively autocatalytic foodset (RAF)-generated networks, nodes are not only passive transmitters of activation, but they also actively galvanize, or “catalyze” the synthesis of novel (“foodset-derived”) nodes from existing ones (the “foodset”). Thus, RAFs are uniquely suited to modeling how new structure grows out of currently available structure, and analyzing phase transitions in potentially very large networks. RAFs have been used to model the origins of evolutionary processes, both biological (the origin of life) and cultural (the origin of cumulative innovation), and may potentially provide an overarching framework that integrates evolutionary and developmental approaches to cognition. Applied to cognition, the foodset consists of information obtained through social learning or individual learning of pre-existing information, and foodset-derived items arise through mental operations resulting in new information. Thus, mental representations are not only propagators of spreading activation, but they also trigger the derivation of new mental representations. To illustrate the application of RAF networks in cognitive science, we develop a step-by-step process model of conceptual change (i.e., the process by which a child becomes an active participant in cultural evolution), focusing on childrens' mental models of the shape of the Earth. Using results from (Vosniadou & Brewer, 1992), we model different trajectories from the flat Earth model to the spherical Earth model, as well as the impact of other factors, such as pretend play, on cognitive development. As RAFs increase in size and number, they begin to merge, bridging previously compartmentalized knowledge, and get subsumed by a giant RAF (the maxRAF) that constrains and enables the scaffolding of new conceptual structure. At this point, the cognitive network becomes self-sustaining and self-organizing. The child can reliably frame new knowledge and experiences in terms of previous ones, and engage in recursive representational redescription and abstract thought. We suggest that individual differences in the reactivity of mental representations, that is, their proclivity to trigger conceptual change, culminate in different cognitive networks and concomitant learning trajectories.
... Now-looking back-I find that the publisher was right then. In my other experiment with terminology-bringing the idea of catalysis into psychology as part of the main title (Cabell & Valsiner, 2014) has led to a myriad of invitations to international conferences on catalytic chemistry as a keynote speaker that for obvious reasons were left unanswered. The mystique of labels seems to be easily picked up in our uses of dada bases. ...
... Autocatalytic networks have been used to model cognitive transitions associated with the origin of culture and the capacity for cumulative cultural evolution [43][44][45][46][47][48], and the onset of behavioural modernity (i.e. the capacity to think and act like modern humans) [47]; for related approaches see [49][50][51][52]. Also, the evolution and reproduction of RAFs has been studied in an OOC context [48]. ...
Natural selection successfully explains how organisms accumulate adaptive change despite that traits acquired over a lifetime are eliminated at the end of each generation. However, in some domains that exhibit cumulative, adaptive change—e.g. cultural evolution, and earliest life—acquired traits are retained; these domains do not face the problem that Darwin’s theory was designed to solve. Lack of transmission of acquired traits occurs when germ cells are protected from environmental change, due to a self-assembly code used in two distinct ways: (i) actively interpreted during development to generate a soma, and (ii) passively copied without interpretation during reproduction to generate germ cells. Early life and cultural evolution appear not to involve a self-assembly code used in these two ways. We suggest that cumulative, adaptive change in these domains is due to a lower-fidelity evolutionary process, and model it using reflexively autocatalytic and foodset-generated networks. We refer to this more primitive evolutionary process as self–other reorganization (SOR) because it involves internal self-organizing and self-maintaining processes within entities, as well as interaction between entities. SOR encompasses learning but in general operates across groups. We discuss the relationship between SOR and Lamarckism, and illustrate a special case of SOR without variation.
... This is because, according to Verheggen (2005), descriptive labels put on observed regularities in behavior can never be causal. Instead of causal phantasies, what is needed are approaches that enable us to come to grips with a sultry, preverbal realm that might-or might not-become manifest under catalytic conditions (Cabell & Valsiner, 2014;Lotman, 1992Lotman, /2009). What people do among each other is determined by real feelings and real stakes, but not by abstractions superimposed upon them. ...
Since the 1980s, psychologists and management scholars have contributed significantly to the popularity of the idea of culture in organizations. A common and tenacious pitfall surrounding this idea, at times pointed out by these scholars themselves, is that culture is too often hypostatized and superimposed upon people. In doing so, this can have harmful consequences for employees at every level of organization. In this article, we reiterate this critique, challenge familiar managerial notions used to address “shared” behavior among employees, and answer to an old but neglected call to bring back real people to the forefront of our analyses. Based upon our adaptation of the enactive approach to the social tuning of behavior developed by Paul Voestermans and Theo Verheggen—made applicable in empirical studies on culture change conducted by the first author of this article—and inspired by principles of Gestalt, we propose a novel heuristic model to address organizational culture change. We attempt to do so both from an analytical and interventionist standpoint, while avoiding attributing causality to the idea of culture.
... Human psychological processes are dynamically nonlinear (Puche, 2009) and are-as all open systems-organized via catalytic rather than causal principles (Cabell & Valsiner, 2014;Valsiner, 2019). Heterogeneity is everywhere. ...
We suggest that theoretical models in the social sciences would benefit from uses of nature’s images that map the complexity of the phenomena to be investigated. Such abstractions would better maintain the open-systemic character of the psychological and social phenomena in all their complexities. Particularly central in such complexities are dynamic catalytic processes that are operating in wholistic fields of psychological systems such as self, identity, and values Theoretical models taken from the mechanical realms of computational processes fail to capture these constantly changing and often nebulous fields. In particular, we analyze the promises of two abstract forms based on nature—spiral and helix—as providing temporal structure for understanding basic higher psychological functions, using the dialogical self theory as an example. The focus of that theory on dialogicality between I-positions in their transition through ruptures of the whole system is best fitted with nonlinear field-dependent models. For all systems of complex dynamic wholes kind, theoretical field models emulating various biocynotic systems (“meadow,” “mychorrea,” etc.) would constitute a new direction in theoretical advancement in the human sciences.
... As Valsiner (2014b) argued, subjects are guided by the environment, being immediate and mediated, but they are also governed by the self as they select and transform the environmental influences. In their construction of sign hierarchy, students needed to negotiate meaning with the teacher as a promoter sign (Cabell and Valsiner 2014), forcing them to use the Moodle room and their personal sense of internet. Thus, I should use the moodle room to learn was transformed into I won't because it distracts me /because it is not fun. ...
This chapter was written six months after COVID-19 pandemic was declared. The irruption of the virus has halted the socially constructed sense of normalcy and sparked a chain of alterities that triggers a new sense-making process of the learning processes. Engaging in a trajectory of the experience, subjects have gone through a discursive process in the which novelty is semiotized and a new self emerges. Universities, as open systems, are also treading their trajectory of experience. In a collective endeavor, subjects have engaged in a joint semiotic process to understand the disruption in their normalcy, and the educational practices that are new for many. The pervading culture of the presence has been suspended and even the traditional delivery of online learning has been recreated. A new online lecturer/ student is emerging. In this chapter, we will see that the interim responses that the university system has given are just steps in a trajectory of experience. Like any other individuals, faculty members, and students have also needed to deal with the fears, the anxiety, stress, and pain that lockdown periods, movement restrictions have brought with them.When COVID-19 resolves, as all pandemics do, Universities will hopefully learn that the culture of presence is necessary and so is the culture of online learning. Both can coexist to provide students with better tools in a digitalized world.
... The analysis of Felipe's narratives made possible to confirm the fundamental role played by significant social others in his life, either provoking or participating with a crucial role at the bifurcation points of his life trajectory. Such "others" -especially grandfather, Alberto and Paulo, acted as catalysts (Cabell & Valsiner, 2014) during significant moments of his life, and played a central role in Felipe's active internalization of specific meanings -through affective-semiotic processes -that led to the emergence of specific values, which, consequently, generated his particular dialogical self-positionings dynamic configuration along irreversible time. ...
This book takes a sociocultural, developmental and dialogical perspective to explore the constructive and interconnected nature of remembering and imagining. Conceived as cognitive-affective processes, both emerge at the border of the person and his or her socio-cultural world. Memory is approached as a functional adaption to the environment using the resources of the past in preparation for action in the present. Imagination is tightly related to memory in that both aim to escape the confines of the concrete here-and-now situation; however, while memory is primarily oriented to the past, imagination looks to the future. Both are embedded in the exchanges with the social and cultural milieu, and thus theorizing them has relied on key ideas from Lev Vygotsky, Frederic Bartlett and Mikhail Bakhtin.
Thus, this book aims to integrate theories of remembering and imagining, through rich empirical studies
• in diverse cultural settings and
• concerning the development of self and identity. These two groups of studies compose the subparts that organize the book.
... In discussing the core metaphor in developmental psychology, various metaphors for change have been imported from the natural sciences into the humanities and social sciences (e.g., catalysis (Cabell & Valsiner, 2014)). Here, we move away from using physics and chemistry as models of thinking, instead seeking metaphors that enable us to think differently about our object of enquiry (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980, 1999Leary, 1994). ...
Development is a core theoretical issue for psychology. Yet, the root metaphors that guide theory and research on development have rarely been questioned, and the limitations and blind spots of these metaphors have not been made explicit. In this article, we propose an exercise in theoretical imagination. We start by reviewing the metaphors commonly used in developmental psychology. We then develop four alternative metaphors that, despite being present in the general semiosphere, have not received much theoretical attention. In order to evaluate these metaphors, we introduce a case study of the development evident in a woman’s diary. On this basis, we invite psychologists to examine new metaphors and thus expand the horizon of possible theorizing.
... [19]). 2 Although some attribute cultural evolution uniquely to an increase in the number of ideas and cognitive skills (or 'cognitive gadgets') [20], not their interactivity. 3 For related approaches, see [33,37,38]. 4 Although we use the term 'mental representation', our model is consistent with the view (common among ecological psychologists and in the situated cognition and quantum cognition communities) that what we call mental representations do not 'represent', but instead act as contextually elicited bridges between mind and world. 5 A more detailed discussion can be found elsewhere [23,41]. ...
This paper proposes a model of the cognitive mechanisms underlying the transition to behavioural and cognitive modernity in the Upper Palaeolithic using autocatalytic networks. These networks have been used to model life’s origins. More recently, they have been applied to the emergence of cognitive structure capable of undergoing cultural evolution. Mental representations of knowledge and experiences play the role of catalytic molecules, the interactions among them (e.g. the forging of new associations or affordances) play the role of reactions, and thought processes are modelled as chains of these interactions. We posit that one or more genetic mutations may have allowed thought to be spontaneously tailored to the situation by modulating the degree of (i) divergence (versus convergence), (ii) abstractness (versus concreteness), and (iii) context specificity. This culminated in persistent, unified autocatalytic semantic networks that bridged previously compartmentalized knowledge and experience. We explain the model using one of the oldest-known uncontested examples of figurative art: the carving of the Hohlenstein–Stadel Löwenmensch, or lion man. The approach keeps track of where in a cultural lineage each innovation appears, and models cumulative change step by step. It paves the way for a broad scientific framework for the origins of both biological and cultural evolutionary processes.
... Origin of Culture (OOC) node catalytic molecule mental representation (MR) edge reaction pathway association cluster molecules connected via reactions MRs connected via associations connected graph autocatalytic closure [60,61] conceptual closure 5 [30] Table 1. Application of graph theoretic concepts to the origin of life (OOL) and origin of culture (OOC). 3 For related approaches, see [4,16,77]. 4 Although we use the term 'mental representation', our model is consistent with the view (common amongst ecological psychologists and in the situated cognition and quantum cognition communities) that what we call mental representations do not 'represent', but instead act as contextually elicited bridges between mind and world. Table 2. Abbreviations used throughout this paper. ...
A bstract
This paper proposes a model of the cognitive mechanisms underlying the transition to behavioral and cognitive modernity in the Upper Paleolithic using autocatalytic networks. These networks have been used to model life’s origins. More recently, they have been applied to the emergence of cognitive structure capable of undergoing cultural evolution. Mental representations of knowledge and experiences play the role of catalytic molecules, the interactions among them (e.g., the forging of new associations or affordances) play the role of reactions, and thought processes are modeled as chains of these interactions. We posit that one or more genetic mutations may have allowed thought to be spontaneously tailored to the situation by modulating the degree of (1) divergence (versus convergence), (2) abstractness (versus concreteness), and (3) context-specificity. This culminated in persistent, unified autocatalytic semantic networks that bridged previously compartmentalized knowledge and experience. We explain the model using one of the oldest-known uncontested examples of figurative art: the carving of the Hohlenstein-Stadel Löwenmensch, or lion-man. The approach keeps track of where in a cultural lineage each innovation appears, and models cumulative change step by step. It paves the way for a broad scientific framework for the origins of both biological and cultural evolutionary processes.
This theoretical study explores the complex interplay between interpersonal dynamics and cultural ecosystems, emphasizing how individuals shape and are guided by their sociocultural environments. Utilizing the Cynefin framework, the paper delineates between complicated and complex scenarios, advocating for continuous experimentation in managing the latter. The modern origins and significance of cultural ecology are traced, highlighting the importance of symbolic systems in guiding human behavior and development. We also examine the dynamic nature of cultural contexts and their influence on psychological processes, stressing the value of an ecological-cultural perspective for integrative analyses. In applied settings like clinical psychology and education, recognizing the interaction between cognitive, emotional, and physiological processes is crucial for effective interventions. The discussion extends to intrapsychological processes, internalization, and the recursiveness of signification, illustrating how emotions and cognitive distortions impact decision- -making and behavior. The study advocates for microgenetic analysis to understand the formation and evolution of prosocial values in educational environments. We conclude by integrating diverse psychological knowledge to offer a comprehensive approach.
Social sciences are fundamentally intertwined with every single scientific perspective and act of cultivation, whether in daily tasks, self-expressions, arts, or sports. It occurs to be difficult for the social sciences to integrate their own connective nature into research procedures. Frequently, we can retrace central intentions to overcome this challenge in the redefined notions of cultural Psychology. Nevertheless, this rethinking can still be seen as very young and anchors the potential of being dynamically cultivated further. Therefore, the organic perspective is introduced as a new approach to elaborate and position us toward how we can observe and reflect phenomenology. It is a positioning that integrates the central notion that the experience of time and space in daily life can differ between individuals. Furthermore, it can even be experienced as a polysemic experience, where the exact moment is perceived in a fragmental diverged experiencing of time. The method contrasts the fundamental mechanics of traditional positions towards the space and time dimensions by beginning with movement as the crucial starting point of making experiences. The organic perspective allows our methodological construction to learn from every process we can experience daily. At the same time, it underlines the fundamental notion of how we perceive and what we perceive. It is a process bonded to the act of living and profits essentially from being connected thoughtfully with its unique context. This process also includes the researcher’s individual approach in the context of phenomenological discovery.
Intentaremos plantear tres problemas que juzgamos centrales. Por
una parte, la necesidad de examinar las implicancias de las viejas y
vigentes críticas al aplicacionismo/reduccionismo y a la filosofía de
la escisión en los trabajos psicoeducativos.
De la mano de esta cuestión, en segundo lugar, consideramos
oportuno, recuperar ciertas distinciones de importancia entre las
categorías de desarrollo y aprendizaje, sumadas a la complejidad
de las situaciones educativas, de cara a lo que se ha descripto en
ocasiones como un ascenso acrítico de la llamada “cultura o sociedad del aprendizaje”.
En tercer lugar, nos interesa dejar bocetadas algunas ideas sobre la “autonomía funcional relativa” de los procesos de desarrollo, revisando el lugar de las formas de hibridación, canalización y
co-construcción de novedad. Será un modo de retornar al inicio, a
una suerte de dificultad en el discernir cuestiones “básicas” y “aplicadas” en nuestro campo. Para ello, proponemos abrevar en una
perspectiva psicoeducativa crítica, es decir, atenta a su naturaleza
epocal, sus efectos sociales y políticos (cf. Fleer et al., 2020; Parker,
2009) así como a sus propios supuestos de base (Castorina, 2007,
2011; Teo, 2005; Toomela, 2014).
This theoretical study explores the complex interplay between interpersonal dynamics and cultural ecosystems, emphasizing how individuals shape and are guided by their sociocultural environments. Utilizing the Cynefin framework, the paper delineates between complicated and complex scenarios, advocating for continuous experimentation in managing the latter. The modern origins and significance of cultural ecology are traced, highlighting the importance of symbolic systems in guiding human behavior and development. We also examine the dynamic nature of cultural contexts and their influence on psychological processes, stressing the value of an ecological-cultural perspective for integrative analyses. In applied settings like clinical psychology and education, recognizing the interaction between cognitive, emotional, and physiological processes is crucial for effective interventions. The discussion extends to intrapsychological processes, internalization, and the recursiveness of signification, illustrating how emotions and cognitive distortions impact decision-making and behavior. The study advocates for microgenetic analysis to understand the formation and evolution of prosocial values in educational environments. We conclude by integrating diverse psychological knowledge to offer a comprehensive approach to understanding and addressing psychological phenomena within cultural contexts.
This article aims to present Cultural Psychology, highlighting key concepts related to the sociogenesis of human development in the context of cultural ecology. Besides, we reflect on its theoretical possibilities and limitations. To understand complex human behaviors, influenced by symbolic and environmental relationships, it is necessary to use modern and systemic theoretical references. In this direction, Cultural Psychology provides a detailed framework for the study of sociogenesis, beliefs and values, highlighting the importance of concepts such as inclusive separation, cultural channeling, internalization and externalization. This perspective contributes to: (1) offering an integrative body-mind theoretical framework for understanding human biopsychological phenomena; (2) highlight the indissoluble relationship between the individual and the social context in development; (3) emphasize the influence of psychological processes in the construction of meanings and emotions; and (4) consider human phenomena in a cultural ecosystem, where each individual plays an active role. We conclude that there is considerable theoretical-methodological potential of this approach for cultural transformation and for the analysis of the regulation of social practices by values, being valuable for understanding diverse populations, territories and people.
This chapter examines the correlation between the prevailing numerical system and the assessment of psychological variables in contemporary psychology. As a science, psychology primarily relies on analysing data generated by a linear numerical system. However, such an approach presents limitations as it is challenging to accurately interpret dynamic and multilinear processes using a single linear system. Using linear numbers in a non-linear system can lead to unpredictable outcomes, and comparing linear variables with other linear variables can result in oversimplifications and a multitude of generalised conclusions. This chapter proposes an alternative perspective and a potential solution to address this problem.
In this article, I argue for the use of the hermeneutics of suspicion in the investigation of the conditions of our actions. I claim that by staying suspicious of immediate answers as well as manifest conditions, and remaining curious of other conditions that may influence us, we can come closer to an understanding of our actions and what structures them. By investigating the broad question of why we do what we do, I critically examine the concept of agency and its role in answering this question. I distinguish between two fundamentally different approaches to the understanding of our actions that relate to the concept of agency: On the one hand, is the agentic view that focuses on reasons and asserts that our agency is the basis of our actions. On the other hand, is the non-agentic view that focuses on causes and asserts that our actions are causally determined. To overcome this sharp distinction, I argue for a reconceptualisation concerning our understandings of why we act and of the human psyche itself. This reconceptualisation is twofold. Firstly, it consists of abandoning a simple causality in favour of the notion of catalysis. Secondly, it consists of viewing the psyche as an open system rather than a closed system. In linking the concept of catalysis with the hermeneutics of suspicion, I bring together the ontological and epistemological dimensions of my thinking. The concept of catalysis underlines the ontological complexity and multiplicity of the conditions of our actions and of the human psyche, while the introduction of the hermeneutics of suspicion tells us how we must face this epistemologically.
Este artigo tem o propósito de apresentar a Psicologia Cultural, destacando conceitos-chaves relacionados à sociogênese do desenvolvimento humano no contexto da ecologia cultural e diante de reflexões sobre suas possibilidades e limitações. Para compreender os comportamentos humanos complexos, influenciados por relações simbólicas e ambientais, é necessário usar referências teóricas modernas e sistêmicas. Nessa direção, a Psicologia Cultural oferece uma visão detalhada da sociogênese de ideias, crenças e valores, destacando a importância de conceitos como separação inclusiva, canalização cultural, internalização e externalização. Essa perspectiva contribui com: (1) um enquadramento teórico integrativo corpo e mente para a compreensão dos fenômenos biopsicológicos humanos; (2) a compreensão da relação indissolúvel entre o indivíduo e o contexto social no desenvolvimento; (3) a ênfase na participação de certos processos psicológicos na construção de significados e emoções; e (4) na contextualização dos fenômenos humanos em um ecossistema cultural, no qual cada indivíduo desempenha um papel ativo. Concluímos que existe um considerável potencial teórico-metodológico dessa abordagem para realização de transformações sociais e para a análise da regulação das práticas sociais por valores, sendo valiosa para a compreensão de diversas populações, territórios e pessoas.
I expand the efforts to overcome compartmentalization of clinical psychology by reversing the notion of causality to that of resistance, and specify the structure of such resistance. Clinical practices produce psychological knowledge of general kind that leads to the adoption of the basic world view of idiographic science as the basic framework for systemic analysis of generic cases and thus feeds forward to further improvement of the clinical practices. Three directions for the future are outlined: clinical psychology builds on the systemic efforts of idiographic science, used historically structured non-random sampling of lived-through experiences, and situates its generalized knowledge within life-course developmental perspectives.
Young developed a Neo-Piagetian/Neo-Eriksonian lifespan developmental model that consists of 25 substages in cognitive and socioaffective development. The model includes five stages X five cyclically recurring substages that develop with respect to both cognitive (Neo-Piagetian) and socioaffective (Neo-Eriksonian) development. Here, the model is elaborated by expanding the substage component from five steps to six, through adding a preliminary perception/ perturbation step. The six-step sequence is described according to three dimensions within which they can be situated, borrowing from qubit quantum theoric modeling. The transition mechanism related to substage transitions in the cognitive Neo-Piagetian portion of the model is described according to catalytic function, as developed in RAF network theory. The transition mechanism is also workable according to the qubit quantum theoric model. However, further conceptualization is needed to represent mathematically the revised model according to these two models. The paper also expands on the adult stage of Collective Intelligence. Network theory is given prominence to allow for testable predictions of the model. The overall theory is named Integrative Constructivist Relational Adaptation, and is referred to as a supra-theory.
We show how uncertainty and insight can be modeled using Reflexively Autocatalytic Foodset-generated (RAF) networks. RAF networks have been used to model the self-organization of adaptive networks associated with the origin and early evolution of both biological life, and the kind of cognitive structure necessary for cultural evolution. The RAF approach is applicable in these seemingly disparate cases because it provides a theoretical framework for formally describing systems composed of elements that interact to form new elements, and for studying under what conditions these (initial + new) elements collectively become integrated wholes of various types. Here, the elements are mental representations, and the whole is a conceptual network. The initial components—referred to as foodset items—are mental representations that are innate, or were acquired through social learning or individual learning (of pre-existing information). The new elements—referred to as foodset-derived items—are mental representations that result from creative thought (resulting in new information). The demarcation into foodset versus foodset-derived elements provides a natural means of (i) grounding abstract concepts in direct experiences (foodset-derived elements emerge through ‘reactions’ that can be traced back to foodset items), and (ii) precisely describing and tracking how new ideas emerge from earlier ones. Thus, RAFs can model how endogenous conceptual restructuring results in new conduits by which uncertainties can be resolved. A source of uncertainty is modeled as an element that resists integration into the conceptual network. This is described in terms of a maxRAF containing the bulk of the individual’s mental representations. Uncertainty produces arousal, which catalyzes one or more interactions amongst mental representations. We illustrate the approach using the historical example of Kekulé’s realization that benzene (Benzene is an organic chemical compound composed of six carbon atoms joined in a planar ring with one hydrogen atom attached to each.) is ring-shaped through a reverie of a snake biting its tail. We show how a single conceptual change can precipitate a cascade of reiterated cognitive ‘reactions’ (self-organized criticality) that affect the network’s global structure, and discuss why this may help explain why cognitive restructuring can be therapeutic. Finally, we discuss educational implications of the RAF approach.KeywordsAnalogyAutocatalytic networkConceptual networkCreativityCross-domain transferInnovationPotentialityUncertainty
Art is a rich area in which to study psychological life through the lens of cultural psychology. While any kind of art can be studied within cultural psychology, in the current piece we argue that an art form known as the donor portrait, and more particularly a subcategory thereof known as the contact portrait, visually depicts core aspects of our psychological lives that constitute matters of fundamental interest within cultural psychology. After briefly discussing this particular art form, we focus on how these portraits visually depict four core aspects of cultural psychology. We first explore how the contact portrait navigates the “frontier problem” found at the intersection of individuality and commonality. We then examine how contact portraits catalyze, but do not cause, the viewer’s emotional engagement. The third aspect concerns the human struggle to make sense out of an unknown future. Finally, we discuss the search for meaningfulness beyond meaning-making depicted within these images and lying at the core of our psychological lives. These characteristics of the contact portrait attest to our human striving towards what lies beyond our current state, something that finds expression in the idea of Schaufrömmigkeit—a pious, humble need to see that which is ultimately unseeable.
Approaching serious research in psychology is by far more rigorous than the efforts by a Catholic priest to investigate the state of affairs of the consenting beguine. The Methodology Cycle sets up very strict rules for how research can proceed—starting from its intuitive basis of curiosity. Development of educated intuition is the goal of preparation of any researcher who has the chance to introduce new knowledge to science. In this, artists and scientists are similar. The similarity ends with the guidance of the Methodology Cycle for the scientists—while artists have no such normative system for thinking. Methodology Cycle was outlined in general and the ways how one can use it—in counter-clockwise move starting from phenomena. The phenomena in general psychology—old and new—are the Person in all of its complexity of unitas multiplex. Linking William Stern’s personology with the new version of general psychology—look at the higher psychological functions—leads to the general assumption (meta-code) of all higher psychological functions being (a) systemically organized (b) dynamic and (c) meaningful. In the case of higher psychological functions we also need the assumption of intentionality for our look at the phenomena. Based on these axioms the person is to be studied as an intentional self-organizing system where the personal will to set up goals and invent means to try to reach these is central. Striving towards such personally set but societally guarded goals is a life-long personal project.
Despite widespread awareness of the psychological dimensions of pain, researchers often and easily slip into essentializing understandings that treat pain as a purely physiological experience that can be isolated within experimental research. This drive towards scientific objectivity, while at times of tremendous utility, can also limit our understanding of pain to reductionistic conceptualizations that in effect deny the subjective and even the psychological dimensions of pain. In other words, researchers often attempt to understand pain by means of empirical, scientific explanations, while being simultaneously aware that such an approach cannot grasp the phenomenon in its entirety. This yearning for deeper, ontological understanding in a world that admits of only empirical, scientific explanations has been called Cartesian anxiety. In the current study, it is argued that cultural psychology can help to alleviate this Cartesian anxiety by helping us to appreciate the psychological aspects of pain as dynamic processes of meaning making.
The science of resilience presents the opportunity to explain how natural, social, and physical systems interact to impact community functioning and well-being postdisaster. This paper describes the development and theoretical foundation of a comprehensive conceptual model, presenting a shift from the usual thinking about resilience to construe resilience more precisely as the trajectory of postdisaster recovery, with community functioning and well-being as the outcome of interest. Unique contributions of the results include the identification of the natural, social, and physical systems that are implicated in disasters, and the dynamic nature and directionality of how these elements relate in the context of hazards. The model represents the integrated and interdependent nature of the natural, social, and technical systems that influence community functioning, and resistance to and recovery from disasters. We argue that an integrated and interdependent model of community resilience can benefit scholars building theories of disaster and policymakers who need a guide for navigating the complex disaster environment. The paper concludes with a discussion of how the model is used in practice.
This chapter explores how donor portraits, and particularly contact portraits, are illustrative of cultural psychological processes. We will examine how by engaging with a contact portrait we are “doing” cultural psychology. What is more, both the donor and the donor portrait can be understood as a Vorbild (a guide, a role model), in the sense that they catalyze the forward-thinking psychological engagement of the viewer in the present. It is argued that cultural psychology and the cultural psychologist can be similarly engaging, inviting the other into cultural explorations of their own. An example of such a Vorbild in cultural psychology can be seen in the work and person of Jaan Valsiner.
People develop over time, in ways unpredictable for themselves and for others. However, they have also unique ways of doing so: they have styles of looking for newness and dealing with it, solving difficulties or being carried away when things go well, and specific motives, which, like signature, mark their ways. Jaan Valsiner, like everyone, has such a melody of living – a unique way of moving in time and space, across countries and worlds of ideas (Zittoun et al. Human development in the lifecourse. Cambridge University Press, Melodies of living, 2013). He does not develop a linear theoretical project; he pursues too many interests, too deeply, to progress in one direction only. Even though these interests grow according to their own logic, they eventually become part of an ever-evolving whole, thanks to Jaan Valsiner’s formidable integrative capacities.
Most psychologists today are aware that human beings are wonderfully complex, and even introductory psychology textbooks instruct students about the necessity of considering the systemic and layered nature of the psyche (e.g., Myers and DeWall, Exploring psychology. Worth Publishers, pp. 10–11, 2018). Yet acknowledging that psychological phenomena should be studied from different complimentary systemic perspectives does not address how these systems are organized, mutually linked, and transforming. Jaan Valsiner (Culture and human development. Sage, p. 75–76, 2000) first proposed that models of catalysis could explain how systems at different levels of hierarchical organization (i.e., biological, psychological, social) change and are transformed. This chapter reviews the status of catalysis in contemporary cultural psychology and then how catalysis might still yet be developed in the field. This leads me to the proposal that catalytic models of causality can be productively linked with notions of liminality by examining ordinary as well as rare and complex events.
This chapter explores the relationship between creativity and culture by arguing not only that the creative process is intrinsically social and cultural but, most of all, that the emergence, diffusion and transformation of culture are, ultimately, creative processes. This sociocultural proposition is supported by the sociogenetic diffusion of cultural innovations, the ontogenetic emergence of creativity and culture in early episodes of pretend play, and the microgenetic negotiation of cultural elements taking the form of tinkering and experimentation. The chapter ends with a few reflections on the theoretical, methodological and practical implications of understanding culture as a creative process.
This book is the first to discuss in detail the different sides of Jaan Valsiner’s thought, including developmental science, semiotic mediation, cultural transmission, aesthetics, globalization of science, epistemology, methodology and the history of ideas. The book provides an overview, evaluation and extension of Valsiner’s key ideas for the construction of a dynamic cultural psychology, written by his former students and colleagues from around the world.
See: https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783030778910#aboutAuthors
In this article, I part from the argument developed by Valsiner in a text on pathways to development and education (Valsiner, 2008): he claims we need to move from the static ontology of being—which asks “what is X?” to the epistemology of becoming—which asks “what is X becoming.” He then asks the consequent question: how to do empirical work on that new key? How to research on a crucial feature of human development—the self-reflexive intentional relating with the anticipated future? This article is an attempt to develop the epistemology of becoming on an empirical level, by analyzing my self-writings from the period I became a mother. I show that becoming a mother is a developmental process that happens through time and through the performing of daily activities such as nursing, bathing the baby and so on. In order to go beyond the study of the epistemology of becoming, I propose the poetics of performing.
Jaan Valsiner has been one of the most important leading figures in constructing psychology as a humanized science. The task of building cultural psychology as generalizing theories while at the same time not giving up the centrality of human lived-through experience with all the richness and uniqueness has not only posed himself a great challenge but also facilitated his creativity and productivity in re-discovering and integrating ideas from different disciplines and cultures and from the long “unseen” history of psychology. In this article, we pick up his work in conceptualizing transition and development as a dynamic process and try to build up on his thinking in the Yin-Yang model by introducing the concepts of Ti and Shi from Chinese philosophy to provide an alternative perspective in understanding development based on the whole system of individual-practical context. Inviting the “real individual” back to psychology requires researchers to be both enthusiastically “hot” and accurately “cold” about human life, and Valsiner has set us a good example.
Valsiner’s defining role as a mentor was always in his emphasis on the youth—that the smallest researcher was the most able to push the boundaries of science. In this article, I reflect on the smallest unit of psychological analysis—that of Valsiner’s stem concept—as the most able to critically push the boundaries of science and methodological advancement. In doing so, I walk through the importance of semiotic stems, mechanisms, and hierarchies and suggest that cultural psychology takes a deeper dive into mapping the movement and function of stems in order to push a generalizable psychology forward in more concrete directions. I end with further suggestions for research to explore, including the borders of semiotic stems, the duplicity of voices present in stem construction, and further engagement with mainstream psychological modeling.
A key contribution to semiotic cultural psychology is Valsiner’s examination of the self-reflectivity cycle or the “I-AM” loop. While it appears a relatively simple concept – the self constantly reconstructs itself in each moment – it ties together much of the essence of a cultural psychological lens: the future orientation, open-system modeling, semiotic mediation, and circumvention strategies. Reflecting on this loop, I seek to expand it by considering the reflected self as a constructed self of multiple actors – i.e., “the government,” “the hegemonic culture,” and politicians who give speeches. In reflecting on how speech and language at such a political level is constructed by a wide range of voices (a staff of speech writers, the clearance of a company policy through legal counsel), I note how this simple framework of “WE-AM” voices speaking through a singular “I” is lost in much of current research and how Valsiner’s model provides us with a novel way to analyze these uniquely human interactions.
This work describes the implementation of a hybrid course for student teachers of Portuguese in Argentina. Larrieu designed a virtual classroom on the Universidad Nacional de La Plata virtual campus to complement the in-person lessons. With a twofold aim, the online classroom offered interactive activities, videos, and podcasts to enable these practice teachers to build their knowledge of the Portuguese language and make sense of the development of digital literacy and multiliteracy applied in Foreign Language teaching. Although the students in that class used digitized instructional material, their smartphones to take pictures of the board instead of taking notes, and were avid social network sites users, they were reluctant to use the virtual room as a studying device. They resisted the methodology and it seemed that they were not able to make sense of technology as a means of study. For them, new technologies were only a source of entertainment.
Within cognitive and developmental psychology, it is commonly argued that perception is the basis for object concepts. According to this view, sensory experiences would translate into concepts thanks to the recognition, correlation and integration of physical attributes. Once attributes are integrated into general patterns, subjects would become able to parse objects into categories. In this article, we critically review the three epistemological perspectives according to which it can be claimed that object concepts depend on perception: state non-conceptualism, content non-conceptualism , and content conceptualism . We show that the three perspectives have problems that make perception inadequate as a conceptual basis. We suggest that the inquiry about the origin and development of object concepts can benefit from a pragmatic perspective that considers objects’ cultural functions as a conceptual foundation. We address this possibility from the theoretical framework of the pragmatics of the object , considering the importance of objects’ functional permanence .
Cultural psychology, in association with a Trajectory Equifinality Approach, consists of a very productive theoretical and methodological approach to make sense of human trajectories within cultural historical contexts. Our study is about the life trajectory of Felipe, a musician born and raised in a poor town located in Brazil. The study aimed at identifying and analyzing indicators in his narrative-obtained during four consecutive interviews-concerning the ontogenesis of hypergeneralized signs the participant considered as fundamental guides during his life trajectory. For Felipe, music turned out to be his utmost hypergeneralized sign, and he became a musician. However, financial circumstances led him to become a teacher as well, and Felipe developed a double self-positioning we designated as Musician/Teacher. Our focus is upon how personal values-and other significant events and memory reconstructions guided by imagination-progressively oriented Felipe's trajectory during developmental ruptures, bifurcations and transitions throughout his life.
Our knowledge is trapped in the discourse about causality. This trap is set by the common language notions of something causing something else and its penetration into scientific domains. The crucial feature of the phenomena in the social sciences is the flexibility for intentional coordination of conditions of personal and collective cultures with social representations which is a feature absent at the lower levels of catalysis. This is made possible for the use of sign systems at various levels—personal, communal, societal, economic, and political. We can look at human phenomena as semiotically catalyzed. Social sciences introduce a new demand for philosophy of science—to account for the agency of purposeful actors and their co(unter)-actions in any generalized scheme of catalytic processes. This demand is an opportunity that may lead all social sciences toward understanding the dramatic realities of the human condition.
Cultural Psychology has been progressively viewed as a multidisciplinary field on the borders of psychology, semiotics, and cultural studies focusing on how individuals make their experiences meaningful (Cabell & Valsiner, The catalyzing mind: beyond models of causality, Springer Science, New York, 2014). With that in mind, the purpose of this chapter is to use theoretical approaches in aesthetics to discuss meaning-making processes in human trajectories; in other words, to link Aesthetics to a developmental approach in Cultural Psychology. From the assumption brought by Valsiner (Cultural Psychology as basic Science: Dialogues with Jaan Valsiner, SpringerBriefs, 2018, target paper 2) that the sublime is the affective border of the mundane and the aesthetic, this chapter explores a theoretical perspective in aesthetics – Nicolas Bourriaud´s Relational Aesthetics, which takes into account people´s – artists and audience – personal, affective relation to works of art. In particular, we look into contemporary Brazilian artist Wagner Schwartz (1972-) and one particular piece, “La Bête”, to claim that genuine participation during an artistic work constitutes the main condition of transit. Participation, then, is the locus of the sublime.
Cultural psychology is the new effort to overcome an old problem in psychology as a science — its irrational effort to imitate the so-called ‘hard’ sciences by reducing complex phenomena to elementary constituents and attempt to ‘measure’ imaginary properties of the mind through quantitative methods applied to summary indices accumulated across various contexts. In a revolutionary move, cultural psychology reverses these social practices to replace them with a focus on the study of complexity of human psychological phenomena in their open-systemic flow in irreversible time — at all levels of (a) societal history, (b) personal life course and (c) immediate setting-specific innovations (microgenesis). The units of analysis used in cultural psychology are complex signs that entail the unity of observable and hidden parts of affective hyper-generalization by goals-oriented, meaning-constructing persons with agency. The example of one of the current theoretical frameworks — Cultural Psychology of Semiotic Dynamics — is used to illustrate the nature of cultural psychology as a basic human science.
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