Book•
Human Development in the Life Course: Melodies of Living
14 Nov 2013-
TL;DR: In this article, the authors propose a model of time for the life course and a melody of life as a melody, which they describe as "playing while being serious" and "playing under the influence".
Abstract: Preface: from dispute to collaboration Introduction: melodies of living Part I. Time for Development: 1. Solidity of science and fullness of living: a theoretical expose 2. Imagination and the life course 3. Moving through time: imagination and memory as semiotic processes 4. Models of time for the life course Part II. Spaces for Development: 5. Social framing of lives: from phenomena to theories 6. Stability and innovation in adults narrating their lives: insights from psychotherapy research 7. Paradoxes of learning Part III. Beyond Time and Space: Imagination: 8. We are migrants! 9. Playing while being serious: the lifelong game of development - and its tools 10. Playing under the influence: activity contexts in their social functions 11. 'Old age' as living forward 12. Epilogue: the course of life as a melody.
Citations
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24 Feb 2022
TL;DR: In this article , a semiotic cultural approach to life-course transitions is used to explore how a sample of educated and employed Australian men in heterosexual relationships experienced and made sense of their fatherhood and work and family conflicts.
Abstract: Becoming a parent is one of the most important transitional experiences in adulthood that has significant implications for new parents’ mental and physical health and psychosocial development. A growing body of research examines how men transition to fatherhood and balance their work and family obligations in complex contemporary societies. However, this phenomenological evidence remains under-theorised from the life-course development perspective. In this paper, a semiotic cultural approach to life-course transitions is used to explore how a sample of educated and employed Australian men in heterosexual relationships experienced and made sense of their fatherhood and work and family conflicts. Thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews with 20 fathers highlights how these fathers attempt to navigate between multiple, ambiguous and sometimes contradictory societal expectations about fatherhood, while also struggling to balance their desires to be a ‘good father’ with their wives and partners’ attempts to be a ‘good mother’, thus evidencing the weak cultural guidance of transition to fatherhood. The analysis shifts the focus away from developmental outcomes and moves towards understanding the semiotic processes through which development occurs in the complex intertwinement between person and their environment. The discussion of men’s dilemmas about fatherhood also underscores the future orientation of human development and highlights how persons are actively and intentionally involved in this movement towards an unpredictable but imagined future.
01 Jan 2015
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present a series of publicacoes, called "Advances in Culture Psychology: Constructing Human Development" (AACP), aimed at transforming societies through the power of ideas.
Abstract: A obra aqui revisada, Culture and Social Change: Transforming Societies through the Power of Ideas, compoe a serie “Advances in Culture Psychology: Constructing Human Development”, editada por Jan Valsiner (Clark University), publicada pela Information Age Publishing em 2012. A serie traz um conjunto de publicacoes que tem desenhado a Psicologia Cultural, enquanto campo de pesquisa e de producao de conhecimentos, engajada com a vida cotidiana e com as mudancas sociais. Como ressalta o editor, a serie de publicacoes pretende levar a “serio” a categoria cultura, na intersecao entre a Psicologia, a Sociologia e a Antropologia, que permita abrir a “caixa preta” e compreender a relacao bidirecional de construcao mutua do individuo, na sua singularidade, e da sociedade, no seu processo historico e indeterminado, em constante transformacao.
18 Jun 2018
TL;DR: In this article, the authors analyze the ways in which a woman diagnosed with a mental disorder gives meaning to her psychic suffering and the ways she integrates it into her conception of herself, and conclude that the psychiatric diagnosis should be analyzed in its various microgenetic semiotic dimensions, in order to better clarify its implications for the diagnosed person.
Abstract: Motherhood is a potentially disruptive experience in the life cycle. When the psychiatric diagnosis is added to this experience, it can become even more complex. Understanding the diagnostic categories as semiotic mediators, the present article seeks to analyze, through a narrative, the ways in which a woman diagnosed with a mental disorder gives meaning to her psychic suffering and the ways she integrates it into her conception of herself. It is proposed that in the case studied, in the face of a situation permeated by ambivalence, the diagnosis appears as a strong generalized sign which, while encompassing a series of personal experiences, inhibits the possibility of new subjective constructions. It is concluded that, as a sign, the psychiatric diagnosis should be analyzed in its various microgenetic semiotic dimensions, in order to better clarify its implications for the experience of the diagnosed person.
Cites background from "Human Development in the Life Cours..."
...According to Zittoun et al. (2013), even the experience can be conceived as a holistic field created by socially recognized signs as part of a given language, and which give us the feeling of being in touch with the world beyond the here and now....
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...Thus, they internalize and create signs capable of organizing and giving meaning to phenomena, self-regulating their mental functioning (Valsiner 2012; Zittoun et al. 2013)....
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01 Jan 2019
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors introduce some of the key concepts used in this book, such as identity, development and transitions, and discuss how these concepts are viewed from the semiotic cultural perspective.
Abstract: The opening chapter introduces some of the key concepts used in this book, such as identity, development and transitions, and discusses how these concepts are viewed from the semiotic cultural perspective. It also places the research study discussed in the book in relation to two interlinked contexts—transition to adulthood and mobility. By discussing the complexities of transitioning into adulthood in contemporary societies and considering the notion of ‘emerging adulthood’, the chapter places the case studies in relation to contemporary debates in sociology and youth studies and in mainstream developmental psychology. The chapter also briefly considers the different forms of mobility that were experienced by the eight young people whose lives are at the centre of this book.
01 Jan 2019
TL;DR: In this paper, it is argued that identity construction involves the crossing and maintaining, creating and dismantling of borders across two dimensions: spatial borders between self and others and temporal borders between past and future.
Abstract: The concluding chapter brings together the main ideas discussed in the book. It returns to the idea that identity construction can be seen as part of the ongoing meaning-making process and as a semiotic border-making process, where borders between various others, between self and others, and between past, present and future self are constantly drawn and redrawn. In this chapter, it is argued that identity construction involves the crossing and maintaining, creating and dismantling of borders across two dimensions: spatial borders between self and others and temporal borders between past and future. The chapter discusses how these ideas could be advanced in future theorising and research.
References
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Book•
01 Jan 1991
TL;DR: This work has shown that legitimate peripheral participation in communities of practice is not confined to midwives, tailors, quartermasters, butchers, non-drinking alcoholics and the like.
Abstract: In this important theoretical treatist, Jean Lave, anthropologist, and Etienne Wenger, computer scientist, push forward the notion of situated learning - that learning is fundamentally a social process. The authors maintain that learning viewed as situated activity has as its central defining characteristic a process they call legitimate peripheral participation (LPP). Learners participate in communities of practitioners, moving toward full participation in the sociocultural practices of a community. LPP provides a way to speak about crucial relations between newcomers and old-timers and about their activities, identities, artefacts, knowledge and practice. The communities discussed in the book are midwives, tailors, quartermasters, butchers, and recovering alcoholics, however, the process by which participants in those communities learn can be generalised to other social groups.
43,846 citations
Book•
01 Jan 1957TL;DR: Cognitive dissonance theory links actions and attitudes as discussed by the authors, which holds that dissonance is experienced whenever one cognition that a person holds follows from the opposite of at least one other cognition that the person holds.
Abstract: Cognitive dissonance theory links actions and attitudes It holds that dissonance is experienced whenever one cognition that a person holds follows from the opposite of at least one other cognition that the person holds The magnitude of dissonance is directly proportional to the number of discrepant cognitions and inversely proportional to the number of consonant cognitions that a person has The relative weight of any discrepant or consonant element is a function of its Importance
22,553 citations
Book•
01 Jan 1979TL;DR: The relationship between Stimulation and Stimulus Information for visual perception is discussed in detail in this article, where the authors also present experimental evidence for direct perception of motion in the world and movement of the self.
Abstract: Contents: Preface. Introduction. Part I: The Environment To Be Perceived.The Animal And The Environment. Medium, Substances, Surfaces. The Meaningful Environment. Part II: The Information For Visual Perception.The Relationship Between Stimulation And Stimulus Information. The Ambient Optic Array. Events And The Information For Perceiving Events. The Optical Information For Self-Perception. The Theory Of Affordances. Part III: Visual Perception.Experimental Evidence For Direct Perception: Persisting Layout. Experiments On The Perception Of Motion In The World And Movement Of The Self. The Discovery Of The Occluding Edge And Its Implications For Perception. Looking With The Head And Eyes. Locomotion And Manipulation. The Theory Of Information Pickup And Its Consequences. Part IV: Depiction.Pictures And Visual Awareness. Motion Pictures And Visual Awareness. Conclusion. Appendixes: The Principal Terms Used in Ecological Optics. The Concept of Invariants in Ecological Optics.
21,493 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the effects of reward or reinforcement on preceding behavior depend in part on whether the person perceives the reward as contingent on his own behavior or independent of it, and individuals may also differ in generalized expectancies for internal versus external control of reinforcement.
Abstract: The effects of reward or reinforcement on preceding behavior depend in part on whether the person perceives the reward as contingent on his own behavior or independent of it. Acquisition and performance differ in situations perceived as determined by skill versus chance. Persons may also differ in generalized expectancies for internal versus external control of reinforcement. This report summarizes several experiments which define group differences in behavior when Ss perceive reinforcement as contingent on their behavior versus chance or experimenter control. The report also describes the development of tests of individual differences in a generalized belief in internal-external control and provides reliability, discriminant validity and normative data for 1 test, along with a description of the results of several studies of construct validity.
21,451 citations
Book•
01 Jan 1968
TL;DR: Erikson as mentioned in this paper describes a process that is located both in the core of the individual and in the inner space of the communal culture, and discusses the connection between individual struggles and social order.
Abstract: Identity, Erikson writes, is an unfathomable as it is all-pervasive. It deals with a process that is located both in the core of the individual and in the core of the communal culture. As the culture changes, new kinds of identity questions arise-Erikson comments, for example, on issues of social protest and changing gender roles that were particular to the 1960s. Representing two decades of groundbreaking work, the essays are not so much a systematic formulation of theory as an evolving report that is both clinical and theoretical. The subjects range from "creative confusion" in two famous lives-the dramatist George Bernard Shaw and the philosopher William James-to the connection between individual struggles and social order. "Race and the Wider Identity" and the controversial "Womanhood and the Inner Space" are included in the collection.
14,906 citations