Showing papers by "Jaan Valsiner published in 1998"

The Guided Mind: A Sociogenetic Approach to Personality

Abstract: How is something as broad and complex as a personality organized? What makes up a satisfactory theory of personality? In this book, Jaan Valsiner argues for a theoretical integration of two longstanding approaches: the individualistic tradition of personalistic psychology, typified by the work of William Stern and Gordon Allport, and the semiotic tradition of cultural-historical psychology, typified by the work of L.S. Vygotsky. The two are brought together in Valsiner's theory, which highlights the sign-constructing and sign-using nature of all distinctively human psychological processes. Arguing that the individualistic and the cultural traditions differ largely in emphasis, Valsiner unites them by focusing on the intricate relations between personality and its social context, and their interplay in personality development. The semiotic devices internalized from the social environment shape an individual's development, and the flow of thinking, feeling, and acting. Valsiner uses this theoretical approach to illuminate two remarkable, and remarkably different, phenomena: letters from the mother of Allport's college roommate, a key empirical case in Allport's theory, and the ritual movements of a Hindu temple dancer. Valsiner shows how both exemplify basic human tendencies for the cultural construction of life courses. The book shows the fundamental unities in the vastly diverse phenomenon of human personality.

How does autodialogue work? Miracles of meaning maintenance and circumvention strategies

Abstract: In contemporary sociocultural studies, the human mind is often claimed to be dialogic. Precise elaborations of models of dialogicality are rare, however. We present a process model of dialogicality that occurs within a person's self-system (autodialogue) in the context of two kinds of tasks: making sense of ordinary happenings and understanding religious miracles. We start from the assumption that the person is involved in an ongoing self-and world-reflecting meaning-making in which the semiotically mediated reflections on the world and on one's own self are constantly created, negotiated, and transformed. Once a meaning emerges in an ambiguous action setting, it is instantly worked on through a process entailing circumvention strategies, which allow the person to rigidify or qualify it. The work of these strategies is elaborated theoretically with the help of a hypothetical example of reasoning from everyday life, and is demonstrated empirically by evidence from adults'reasoning about biblical miracles. Autodialogue is shown to work through the flexible construction of circumvention strategies in any here-and-now setting.

Children, cities, and psychological theories : developing relationships

Abstract: Part 1 Prelude and dedication. Part 2 Exposition of theoretical perspectives: levels of relationship - as they appear in different cultures transactional, holistic, and relational-developmental perspectives on children in the city modern versions of Barker's ecological psychology and the phenomenological perspective sociology, attachment theory,and ecological psychology - marching towards the city. Part 3 The finale.

Construction of psychological processes in interpersonal communication

Abstract: Introduction, Maria C.D.P. Lyra and Jaan Valsiner PART I. HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION The Construction of Child-Rearing Theories in Early Modern to Modern Japan, Hideo Kojima PART II. CONSTRUCTIONS OF PSYCHOLOGICAL PROCESS: FROM INFANCY TO EARLY CHILDHOOD Innovation in Social Games, Susan A. Holt, Alan Fogel, and Rebecca M. Wood Towards a Pragmatical Conception of the Object: The Construction of the Uses of the Objects by the Baby in the Prelinguistic Period, Christiane Moro and Cintia Rodriguez Gestures, Words, and Objects: An analysis of Possible Configurations Within Interactive Dynamics, Ana Luiza B. Smolka and Maria Nazare da Cruz Making of a Personal Place at 18 Months of Age, Vera M.R. Vasconellos and Jaan Valsiner Peer Interactions and the Appropriation of Gender Representations by Young Children, Zilma de Moraes Ramos de Oliveira Dynamic Interplay Between Private and Social Speech: A Microgenetic Approach, Sumedha Gupta American, Estonian, and Swedish Mothers' Regulation of Their Childrens' Discourse Construction, Karin Junefelt and Tiia Tulviste PART III. THEORETICAL ELABORATIONS FOR SOCIOGENESIS Interaction, Regulation, and Correlation in the Context of Human Development: Conceptual Discussion and Empirical Examples, Ana Carvalho, Amelia Imperio-Hamburger, and Maria Isabel Pedrosa Cooperation, Competition and related Issues: A Co-Constructive Approach, Angela Branco A Model for Identity and Change in Relationships From a Personal-Cultural Point of View, Gorjana Litinovic Reflections on the Dynamics of Meaning Making: Communication Process at the Beginning of Life, Maria C.D.P. Lyra Author Index Subject Index '

Literacy in Human Development

Abstract: Part 1 Literacy processes - access to a symbolic system: the development of writing in the child, Alexander Luria parallels between the perspectives of Alexander Luria and Emilia Ferreiro, Maria Thereza Fraga Rocco educational tendencies in the beginning of reading and writing instruction, Berta P. De Braslavsky. Part 2 Learning and meaning in childhood: approaching knowledge and meaning elaboration in the classroom - some theoretical and methodological issues, Ana Luiza B. Smolka why there might be several ways to read storybooks to preschoolers in Aotearoa (New Zealand) - models of tutoring and socio-cultural diversity in how families read books to preschoolers, Stuart McNaughton literacy and language processes - orthographic and structural effects, Pratihibna Karanth. Part 3 Literacy and activity contexts in adulthood: illiterate adults in literate societies - interactions with a social world, Ann Hagell and Jonathan Tudge schooling, literacy and social change - elements for a critical approach to the study of literacy, Angela B. Kleiman conceptual organization and schooling, Marta Kohl de Oliveira learning to write letters - semiotic mediation in literacy acquisition in adulthood, Simone Goncalves de Lima and Maria Helena Favero.