1. Introduction 2. The emergence of learning activity as a historical form of human learning 3. The zone of proximal development as the basic category of expansive research 4. The instruments of expansion 5. Toward an expansive methodology 6. Epilogue.

Learning by expanding: An activity-theoretical approach to developmental research

Part I. Experimental Studies: 2. Experiment in psychology 3. Experiments on perceiving III Experiments on imaging 4-8. Experiments on remembering: (a) The method of description (b) The method of repeated reproduction (c) The method of picture writing (d) The method of serial reproduction (e) The method of serial reproduction picture material 9. Perceiving, recognizing, remembering 10. A theory of remembering 11. Images and their functions 12. Meaning Part II. Remembering as a Study in Social Psychology: 13. Social psychology 14. Social psychology and the matter of recall 15. Social psychology and the manner of recall 16. Conventionalism 17. The notion of a collective unconscious 18. The basis of social recall 19. A summary and some conclusions.

Remembering. A Study in Experimental and Social Psychology, Cambridge (University Press) 1964.

From the Publisher:
The old opposition of matter versus mind stubbornly persists in the way we study mind and brain. In treating cognition as problem solving, Andy Clark suggests, we may often abstract too far from the very body and world in which our brains evolved to guide us. Whereas the mental has been treated as a realm that is distinct from the body and the world, Clark forcefully attests that a key to understanding brains is to see them as controllers of embodied activity. From this paradigm shift he advances the construction of a cognitive science of the embodied mind.

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Being There: Putting Brain, Body, and World Together Again

The measurement of meaning

How we Think

This chapter discusses the relationship between children and money in developmental psychology researches. It summarizes the four maxims of developmental psychology for money. First, it is not predicated on the homo economics as rational economic decision-makers. Second, in analyzing children's understanding and knowledge of money, such understanding and knowledge should be always discussed in association with children's life-world, instead of separating from it. Third, it is not predicated on a neutral money goods exchange system in market economy, but should be analyzed in the social context with its own cultures and histories. Fourth, developmental psychology for money inquires how children would appropriate money as a cultural tool and change their participation in their societies through the appropriation. The chapter explores how they would form new culture through implementation of such activities, instead of inquiring how children would understand money as a neutral tool which functions in a market economy system.

The Cambridge Handbook of Sociocultural Psychology: General Conclusions: Socio-Cultural Psychology on the Move: Semiotic Methodology in the Making

Qualitative Forschung in den Sozialwissenschaften ist nicht ein neuer Trend, sondern ein realistischer (Wieder-) Einsatz von Methoden, mit denen die Passung zwischen der Qualitat der erforschten Phanomene mit den von ihnen abgeleiteten Daten erreicht werden soll. Viele Methoden sind bereits fur ein solches "intellektuelles Recycling" vorhanden; damit ist die De-Quantifizierung und Wiederverwendung der ursprunglichen Items mit neuen Funktionen moglich. In unserem Beitrag beschreiben wir den produktiven Gebrauch von klassischen, standardisierten Forschungsmethoden uber Personlichkeit durch deren systematische De- Quantifizierung. Das Resultat ist ein neuer Gebrauch originarer Items als bedeutungsbildende Ausloser in einer Studie zu Selbstbeobachtungsprozessen. Wir zeigen, wie der qualitative Gebrauch von ausgewahlten NEO-PI-R Aussagen es ermoglicht, die spezifische Art zu ermitteln, in der Personen ihre Eigenschaften auffassen. Es wird dargestellt, wie individuell Bezuge zwischen den NEO-PI-R Aussagen und dem ganzheitlich wahrgenommenen Selbst hergestellt werden. Die Entwicklungstradition der Ganzheitspsychologie, d.h. der Gebrauch aktualgenetischer Techniken, wird kurz in ihrer Bedeutung fur qualitative Forschungspraktiken zusammengefasst.
URN: urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs0501113

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Microgenesis in Making Sense of Oneself: Constructive Recycling of Personality Inventory Items

In this paper I complement Moscovici’s focus on the processes of social representation by
theory of personal presentation that involves construction and destruction of dynamic
hierarchies of signs. Such hierarchies enable intra-psychological dialogues about one’s
self-positioning while proceeding further in the flow of experience. Both the processes of
social representation and semiotic mediation feed into each other, creating potential for
change at both personal and societal levels. Forms of such relationships -ranging from
conflict, contradiction and opposition on the one extreme to those of oppositional coexistence,
constructed harmony, and dialectical synthesis, on the other -are multiple and
co-exist in human lives at the same time. The process of social representation -similarly to
personal presentation -is simultaneously oriented towards the not-yet-known future and
presently-reconstructed past. Such simultaneity makes the processes of representing
generative - we can view social representation as a presentation process on the border of
the Future and the Past, as the construction of self-organization takes place in the Present.

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Creating sign hierarchies: Social representation in its dynamic context

While everyday life is necessarily using common sense for solving practical problems, it is not sufficient for psychology’s advancement of generalized knowledge. Our recognition of the conceptual-methodological unfeasibility of the common-sense foundation of psychology raises the necessity of developing a theory of intervention that considers the psychologist’s actions as belonging to the in-between zone: while everyday life is based on common sense, the science of psychology and its practices transcend that very common sense. The relationship between general psychological knowledge and the concrete situatedness of psychologists’ practice gives the discipline a number of tension points: (a) the social construction of the client’s requests at the intersection of practical interests, general knowledge, and local social expectations; (b) how one can interpret current psychological knowledge for the grounding of professional use; and (c) the tension between the scientific knowledge and the client’s practical ...

Outlines of a general psychological theory of psychological intervention

Discussion of co-constructionism as a theoretical orientation participates in parallel in two social discourses. First, it serves as a re-classificatory device for the discourse about developmental psychology as a scientific discipline. Secondly, it acts as a conceptual canalizer for the construction of developmental methodology. It is in the latter discourse that co-constructionism can lead to novel solutions to old problems in developmental psychology. Elaborations in the realm of developmentally adequate methodology lead to the centrality of irreversible time and emerging phenomena in any theory construction.

Jaan Valsiner

Papers

The Cambridge Handbook of Sociocultural Psychology: General Conclusions: Socio-Cultural Psychology on the Move: Semiotic Methodology in the Making

Microgenesis in Making Sense of Oneself: Constructive Recycling of Personality Inventory Items

Creating sign hierarchies: Social representation in its dynamic context

Outlines of a general psychological theory of psychological intervention

Co-constructionism: What is (and is not) in a name?