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PSYCHOLOGY RESEARCH PROGRESS
EPISTEMOLOGY OF PSYCHOLOGY -
A NEW PARADIGM
THE DIALECTICS OF CULTURE
AND BIOLOGY
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EPISTEMOLOGY OF PSYCHOLOGY -
A NEW PARADIGM
THE DIALECTICS OF CULTURE
AND BIOLOGY
ARNULF KOLSTAD
New York
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Epistemology of psychology : a new paradigm : the dialectics of culture and biology / editors,
Arnulf Kolstad (Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Norway; and
Hangzhou Normal University, China).
pages cm
Includes index.
ISBN: (eBook)

1. Psychology. I. Kolstad, Arnulf. II. Hangzhou shi fan da xue.
BF121.E585 2013
150.1--dc23
2012048206
Published by Nova Science Publishers, Inc. †New York
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CONTENTS
Preface vii
Chapter 1 Introduction 1
Chapter 2 The Epistemology of Human Development 17
Chapter 3 Culture and Cultural Psychology 41
Chapter 4 Mind, Psyche and Consciousness 81
Chapter 5 The Brain and Brain Development 111
Chapter 6 Mind – Brain – Culture 151
References 169
Index 193
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applicable copyright law.
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PREFACE
To understand the nature of human beings and their development means to clarify the
relationship or inter-functionality between contributing factors and ingredients. The mystery
of man is not revealed by studying each ingredient separately, but by focusing on the
relationships between the building blocks, and how these elements are changed and become
something else and typically human when combined. This book explains how higher
psychological functions develop from a biological basis. It presents the cultural-historical
approach separating lower and higher psychological functions, emphasizing the importance of
psychological tools like language for human consciousness. The book’s main aim is to
contribute to the discussion about psychological epistemology taking into consideration new
knowledge from research in human sciences like anthropology, cultural psychology, cognitive
psychology, developmental psychology, and neuroscience.
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Chapter 1
INTRODUCTION
A significant question for an understanding of human psychology is to clarify the

mind/brain relationship and how biology, culture and mind are related. Due to the complexity
of the phenomenon and the possibilities of choosing different perspectives makes it
understandable that there are disagreement and multiple explanations of the same phenomena.
Debates will never vanish in science, and a discussion about epistemologies, theories,
explanations and methods is necessary and desirable in every discipline.
This book is reviewing selected topics related to the relationship between mind, brain and
culture. Somesections give a resume of ancient traditions dealing with mind and culture, or
biology and culture, like ‘Cultural-historicalpsychology’, a school or an approach established
in the 1920s and 1930s with Lev Vygotsky and Alexander Luria as the two main
representatives. It was an influentialpsychological tradition in the Soviet-Union in the 1930s
and it has been further developed and commented upon by Russian and Western scholars in
recent years. The original approach and latestdevelopment of contemporary versions of
cultural-historical and cultural psychologyin general, will be reviewed. Mainstream cultural
psychology today is sometimes neglecting Vygotsky’s theoretical and epistemological
contribution to cultural psychology. Even if the cultural approach has become more
comprehensive and influential recently as an important branch of psychology, the theoretical
and epistemological clarifications are rare. The discipline is dominated by empirical and
cross-cultural studies revealing the ‘importance’ of culture and often without any theoretical
intentionor clarification on how biology and culture are related and develop.
When dealing with human psychology there are three contributing factors or elements
considered: (1) the biology, most often represented by the brain and the genetic outfit; (2) the
mind, especially the conscious mind and all psychological functions: cognitions, emotions,
motivations, self-appraisal etc.; and (3) the culture, or more generally the environment. We
will deal with all three factors or contributions to human psychology, and focus especially on
the interactions or theinter-functionality between them: (i) the mind-brain interaction, (ii)
the mind-culture interaction, the (iii) brain-culture interaction and (iv) the inter-functionality
between all three factors: mind-brain-culture. One aim of the book is to present the subject
matter, as well as previous and recent empirical evidence for all the interactions mentioned.
Some sections focus in particular on epistemological problems more generally and especially
connected to how the inter-functional relationship between biology, mind and culture may be
described and explained. This relation needs to be specified and explainedtheoretically and in
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Copyright © 2013. Nova Science Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. May not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except fair uses permitted under 2 Arnulf Kolstad
detail rather than being postulated and described simply as “interaction”, “relationships” or
“associations”.
There is a range of perspectives and paradigms at the interface of biology and culture as
well as the relation between mind and brain in ontogenetic development. This has led to
numerous meta-perspectives, models and theories that try to accommodate the entire range of
contributing levels. But there is no comprehensive, cohesive and universallyaccepted
theorythat addresses the inter-functionality between thecomponents.
Different epistemological perspectives and suggestions for the mind-brain-culture
interactions and their contribution to the development of human psychological outfit are
presented and discussed in the coming chapters. In addition to the ‘cultural-historical’
tradition other models and perspectives presented are for instance:
 Systems theory
 Inter-functionalism
 Bicultural co-constructivism
 Downward causation and Emergentism
 Inclusive separation
Since the focus is more at the epistemological subject matter than on empirical data,
some pragmatic/practical methodological issues are ignored and not emphasized to the same
degree. The epistemological approach has to do with how knowledge about human beings and
their development are understood, described and explained. This is a theoretical question, not
an empirical or methodological issue. Which empirical data to collect and how to collect them
is not a subject in the book.
1.1. THREE CONTRIBUTIONS TO HUMAN PSYCHOLOGY

Three contributions to human psychology are presented in detail in separate chapters:(i)
the culture/environment; (ii) the mind/consciousness; and (iii) the brain/biology. The main
focus is however on the interactions between the three building blocks and how they
contribute in a dialectical, inter-functional manner to the development of human psychology
from the time of conception.
The brain has been studied from many perspectives. The 1990s was the decade of the
brain and research on brain’s structure and function has flourished since then. Neuroscience
has become a very popular discipline and numerous psychologists and psychiatrists
havelooked at the brain as the most interesting center for psychological functions and
processes. Mind and consciousness has to a certain degree for some decades been
subordinated the activity in the biological brain. The tendency to accentuate what is going on
in the brain as the real and scientific explanation of the mind will be commented on and
criticized.
At the same time as the brain become the preferred study for many psychiatrists and
psychologists, the study of cognitive functions in general become the most predominant sub-
discipline in psychology, and the connection between cognitive psychology and neuroscience
became a fashionableapproach for many scholars in the social and biological sciences as well.
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Copyright © 2013. Nova Science Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. May not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except fair uses permitted under Introduction 3
The development and status of recent cognitive psychology as a contribution to the mind-
brain - culture interaction will therefore also be examined.
1.2. HUMAN PSYCHOLOGICAL CHARACTERISTICS

VS. ANIMAL CHARACTERISTICS
The role of biology in psychology changes from animals to humans. Biology, instincts
and drives determine animal behaviour in natural environments; for human psychological
functions and social behaviour biology changes to a potentiating, energizing function. As Carl
Ratner claims: “This is only logical, and it is Darwinian, for we have seen that the
fundamental principle of Darwinism is that organismic behavior is a function of environment.
Culture is a radically different environment from nature; therefore cultural behavior and its
mechanisms must be radically different from natural behavioral mechanisms of animals”
(Ratner, 2011). The different role played by biology is not a difference in degree between
animals and humans, but in principle, as formulated by Lev Vygotsky and Alexander Luria:
“behavior becomes social and cultural not only in its contents [i.e., what we think about] but
also in its mechanisms, in its means…A huge inventory of psychological mechanisms - skills,
forms of behavior, cultural signs and devices - has evolved in the process of cultural
development” (Vygotsky and Luria, 1930/1993).
The number of human activities under biological control is greatly reduced in comparison
with (other) animals. Conscious behaviour is for instance only possible if the instinctive or
lower functions characterising animal behaviour are set aside from their original function.
The most peculiar aspect of humans compared with other living species is that humans are
created by a culture that they have created. Their higher psychological functions are acquired
in a human culture using symbols and signs (language).Psychological phenomena, including
cognition, emotion, memory, motivation, self-appraisal, and identity are humanly constructed
when individuals participate in social interaction.
The instinctive, lower functions operate in different ways from cultural conscious
processes and therefore the former cannot govern the latter. The lower functions do not even
serve as the basis of the higher functions. The instinctive or elementary functions are actually
inimical to cultural conscious processes since they are automatic, mechanical, involuntary,
physical processes; which directly impel non-volitional, unconscious behaviour. The division
of the pre-social, lower psychological functions from the higher (cultural) ones illustrates the
difference between animal and human and defines the human psyche as a special system for
conscious, volitional regulation of the behaviour of the human organism whose individual
development (unlike the organism of the animal) integrates the biological and the socio-
cultural (Kolstad, 2012).
Natural processes operate in hummingbirds, for example, to automatically impel them to
fly toward red-coloured flowers; or they impel male dogs involuntarily and mechanically to
mount and mate with a female dog that emits a particular scent during the fertile period.
Hummingbirds and dogs do not think about what they are doing, they cannot control it, they
cannot plan it or imagine it, or remember (relive) it in specific detail; they do not appreciate
the object of their behaviour, as a human male appreciates his sexual partner or appreciates a
beautiful sunset or a symphony by Beethoven. This is why elementary natural processes
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cannot determine psychology in the same way that they determine behaviour of birds and
dogs (Ratner, 2011).
The lower psychological functions, those automatic, instinctive kinds of behaviour are
non-volitional and uncontrolled by consciousness. To be a human, however, means to reduce
the automatic, instinctive behaviour and become a conscious being, able to decide, choose,
and think with language as a cultural and psychological tool. Humans’ higher psychological
functions, their language and thinking, have to be the core of human psychology. Scientific
psychology cannot ignore the volitional and conscious mind. It has to be a significant topic in
psychology.
The distinction between lower and higher psychological functions is described and
explained in detail by Vygotsky and the school of cultural historical psychology. Other
contributions to a scientific psychology have made this distinction as well. Freud, following
Darwin, divided for instance “the brain into ‘lower’ parts that we share with animals, and that
process our brute animal instincts, and ‘higher’ parts that are uniquely human” (Doidge,
2007: p. 297). Freud believed that civilization rests on the partial inhibition of lower functions
such as sexual and aggressive instincts. He also believed we could go too far in repressing our
instincts, leading us to develop neuroses (Doidge, 2007).
The tools for the mind, for example language, giving humans the ability to reason and to
abstract thinking, are also changing the brain’s function and structure (see Chapter 5). The
tools are situated in and belong to the culture, and they are internalized and become
psychological tools during socialization. People in different cultures, with different tools such
as different languages also have different higher psychological functions, different
perceptions, motivations, emotions, and cognitions, and different brains; in short culture
affect everything that psychologists may be interested in.
The architecture of the neurosystem in the brain changes with the inclusion of symbols
and signs in the psychological repertoire. The brain has to follow the development of the
mind assimilatingwords, concepts and symbols, acquired in communications with others, and
has to change its structure and function to represent the communication experiences and the
changing mind. When we learn to read and write our mental, cognitive functions are
reorganized and changes even more and the structural and functional brain architecture adapt
and adjustas well.
1.3. THE CULTURAL-HISTORICAL EVOLUTION OF THE MIND

The first attempts to approach human mental processes as the products of evolution were
taken in the second half of the nineteenth century by Charles Darwin and his successor
Herbert Spencer. They both attempted to trace the ways in which complex forms of mental
activity develop through the evolutionary process. The evolutionary approach, which was
quite valid for a comparative study of development of the lower psychological functions in
the animal world, found itself in something of a blind alley when it tried to study evolution of
higher psychological functions among humans. Those functions cannot be explained
bynatural adaptation, but they originated as a result of social, culturaldevelopment and
adjustment.And definitely not by something innate in every human. This fact has been
recognized by scholars for many years.
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At the beginning of the 20th century, the French sociologist and social psychologist
Emile Durkheim assumed that the basic processes of the mind are not manifestations of the
spirit's inner life or the result of natural evolution, but rather originated in society (Durkheim
and Mauss, 1963). Durkheim's ideas formed the basis for a number of other studies, in which
the French psychologist Pierre Janet and others played a prominent part.The French school of
sociology, however, had shortcomings that invalidated its theories. It refused to interpret the
influence of society on the individual mind as the influence of the cultural and socioeconomic
system and the actual forms of social activity on individual consciousness. Unlike the
approach of cultural-historical psychology, the French school considered this process only as
an interaction between “collective representations” or “social consciousness” and individual
consciousness, all the while paying no attention to particular social systems, culture or
practices (Luria, 1976).
1.3.1. Evolution Made Us for Culture
The higher-order functions became,however, a possibility since natural evolution made

thinking and language appropriation possible, and because we established human cultures
which developed higher psychological functions in each individual whatever culture they
were born into (Fiske et al., 1998). When human beings participate in social interactions and
employ cultural and psychological tools, for instance language and other signs, they develop,
construct and create their higher psychological functions, ways of thinking, feeling,
remembering, their sensation and perception. These higher functions are not natural or innate
processes in human adults as the lower functions are in animals and human neonates. “Most
basic is the fact that man not only develops (naturally); he also constructs himself”
(Vygotsky, 1989: 65). Therefore there are qualitative differences between the psyche of
humans and that of animals. Unlike animals the key to human’s psychological functions is
socio-genesis, the transformation of social relations, through interiorization, into the
individual’s psychological functions.
1.4. NATURE – NURTURE. INTERACTION

BETWEEN BIOLOGY AND CULTURE
We need to understand the interweaving of genetic and environmental influences as they

affect both brain and mind. It is time for a new appreciation of the coactivity of nature and
nurture in development. Hereditary or genetic outfitting unfolds in concert with the

environment from the time of conception, also during pregnancy. The dynamic interplay
between gene action and the environment continues through life.
Traditionally there has been philosophical and epistemological discussions based on the
nature-nurture dichotomy, and more recently the problem has been central also among
psychologists when studying the interaction between biology and culture.The inseparability
of nature and nurture has profound implications for how we study and understand human
development. The way the interaction between nature and culture is conceptualized and
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comprehended during the course of ontogenetic development is crucial for an understanding

of human psychology.
The relative weight assigned to nature versus nurture in different historical eras has
varied. There are historical periods and recent traditions in which there was no place for any
interaction, as if biology and culture were independent entities. The misleading character of
such a dichotomous formulation has come to be recognized (Jahoda, 2002). The former sharp
distinction between biology and culture is giving way to the recognition of their
interrelationship, though its exact nature is still to be discussed and revealed. The perspective
in the book is that the relationships between biology, mind and culture can only be explained
if studied in a developmental and inter-functional, dialectic perspective as something
changing and growing. The inseparability of the aspects and how we should understand
human development as a result of their mutual interdependences is one topic considered in
this book, taking cultural-historical psychology as its point of departure and focusing
especially on the higher psychological functions and their development. This hasto be a
persistent topic in theoretical and epistemological considerations (Kolstad, 2012) and it will
also be a pivotal theme in the following.
However, although a developmental perspective has often been lacking in theoretical
discussions of biology and culture (Keller et al., 2002) since the “either nature or culture”
perspective has dominated, most professionals today will claim that culture and biology are
related. But how this relation or inter-functionality happens and what are the characteristics
are still controversial and not revealed in any detail in mainstream psychology. Joan G. Miller
describes for instance the relation as ‘intertwined and mutually influential’: “Individuals are
simultaneously biological and cultural beings, with processes of both levels intertwined and
mutually influential. It is no more possible to study a human without biology than it is
possible to separate individuals from their culture. Individuals always bring both common and
unique biological apparatuses that function as constraints, affordances and propensities and
always act in ways that have significance in terms of their adaptive consequences. Equally,
individuals always develop in sociocultural contexts that are historically situated and that
impact on their psychological functioning in respects that may be open-ended and
indeterminate. There is a sense that biological and cultural approaches represent new frontiers
and promising future directions for studies of child development” (Miller, 2002, p. 151).
The specific interpretation of the empirical evidence of relationship between mind, brain
and culture is colored by a more general view on the nature of the human speciesand
especially the importance of the genetic outfit and culture respectively. This is well known as
the already mentioned “old” dichotomy between nature and nurture.
1.5. THE HISTORY AND ORIGIN OF HOMO SAPIENS

The universal behaviour that defines human beings arises from our biological similarity.
In some way we are all Africans (Shipman, 2003) since the first Homo sapiens lived in
Africa. Researchers studying human origins do not, however, quite agree when and in what
shape the hominids left Africa. According to the Multiregional Continuity Model, Homo
erectus left Africa 2 mya (million years ago) to become Homo sapiens in different parts of the
world (Myers, Abell, Kolstad and Sani, 2009). The ‘Out of Africa Model’ claims that Homo
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sapiens evolved relatively recently in Africa and migrated into other parts of the world to
replace other hominid species, including Homo erectus (Johanson, 2001). In response to
climate change and the availability of food, those early hominids migrated across Africa into
Asia, Europe, the Australian subcontinent and, eventually, the Americas. As they adapted to
their new environments, early humans developed differences that, measured on
anthropological scales, are relatively recent and superficial. For example, those who stayed in
Africa had darker skin pigment, a “sunscreen for the tropics” (Pinker 2002) and those who
went far north of the equator evolved lighter skins capable of synthesizing vitamin D in less
direct sunlight.
We were Africans recently enough that “there has not been much time to accumulate
many new versions of the genes” (Steven Pinker, 2002, p. 143). Biologists who study our
genes have found that we humans are strikingly similar in genes, like members of one tribe.
We may be more numerous than chimpanzees, but chimps are more genetically varied. We
also share the majority of our genes with other species, for instance mice (Myers, Abell,
Kolstad and Sani, 2010).
1.5.1. Cultural Diversity
The diversity of humans’ languages, customs, and expressive behaviors confirms that
much of our behaviour is socially and culturally programmed, not hardwired. Humans, more
than any other animal, harness the power of culture to make life better. We have culture to
thank for our communication through language. Culture facilitates our survival and
reproduction, and nature has blessed us with a brain that, like no other, enables culture. No
species can accumulate progress across generations as smartly as humans due, amongst other
things, to the invention of written language. We can pass our experiences and transmit
information and innovations across time and place to the future generations in a unique way
(Myers, Abell, Kolstad and Sani, 2010).
We needn’t think of evolution and culture as competitors. Cultural norms subtly but
powerfully affect our attitudes and behaviour, but as discussed in Chapter 3, 4, and 5 they
don’t do so independent of biology. Advances in neuroscienceare conveyed in Chapter 5
which indicates how experience and activity change the brain and establish new connections
between neurons (Quarts and Sejnowski, 2002). Due to its plasticity the brain develops and
increases its capacity, and the culture puts its special marks on its structure and changes its
function.
1.5.2. Phylogenetic and Ontogenetic Development
The phylogenetic development of humans followed the principle of natural evolution.

During this evolution humans acquired the possibility of speech and thought owing to the
increased size of the brain and the voice-tube. The two abilities, language and thought, were
combined at a certain stage of development and the language ability combined with thinking
initiated a new era for humans: the cultural era, where psychological functions were no longer
dependent to the same degree on the lower instinctive reactions. Gradually consciousness
developed so that the instinctive biological forces were set aside. The acquired abilities
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changed human’s further development radically. "As the mind was given more to do, it
enlarged and it work more perfectly... the intellect rose to commanding power, and entered
intofinal possession of amonopoly which can never be disturbed. A new page in the history of
the universe has begun to be written. It means nothing less than that the working of evolution
has changed its course. On ceit was a physical universe, now it is a psychical
universe"(Drummond, 1894, p.148-9).
Evolutionary biologists have for many years discussed the reason why Homo sapiens
became a new species so different from its animal ancestors. Most often they have looked for
anatomical or morphological characteristics, for instance the size of the brain, the functional
benefits due to bipedalism, i.e. the ability to move on two legs, or the hand with opposable
thumb able to seize (Kolstad, 2010). The unique ability to use language and symbolic systems
were hardly mentioned by the biologists. Focusing intently on biological changes they do not
refer to culture as a cause of selection. Because of this the evolutionary biologists did not
analyze the relationship between biological and cultural development (deLima, 1997) and
they missed the most important for developing Homo sapiens. The Neanderthals, in many
ways similar to Homo sapiens from a biological point of view, did not develop in the same
way. They lacked the voice-tube and could not develop spoken language as did Homo
sapiens. “- unless he had learned to talk, he could never have passed very far beyond the
animal. Language formed the trellis on which mind climbed upward, which continuously
sustained the ripening fruits of knowledge for later minds to pluck. Before the savage's son
was ten years old he knew all that his father knew...And before the boy was in his teens he
was equipped for the struggle of life as his forefathers had never been even in old age"
(Drummond, p. 193).
Although the voice-tube had some biological drawbacks, for instance increased exposure
to choking and less effective chewing (Lieberman, 2006) it represented an enormous
enhancement in flexibility concerning production of sounds, and therefore an improvement of
communication. This benefit meant the start of human beings with higher psychological
functions as we know them today.
1.6. LANGUAGE AS A CULTURAL/PSYCHOLOGICAL TOOL

One of the earliest devices hit upon in the course of evolution was the principle of
co-operation. This means an enormous advantage in the struggle for life. The success of the
co-operative principle, however, depends upon one condition: the members of the herd must
be able to communicate with one another. Those which survive to propagate their kind will
be those whose signal-service is most efficient and complete. H ence the evolution of the
signal system or language (Drummond, 1894).

With the substantial growth in brain size that made human intelligent thinking possible,
an accelerated change began. Humans developed written language, rituals, arts and the ability
to abstract thinking using more complicated signs and languages. From a biological and
anatomical point of view however, we are in principal similar to our ancestors 200,000 years
ago. In a cultural and psychological sense however, there are such huge differences from our
ancestors that it cannot be explained by biological adaption (Kolstad, 2010). The hallmark of
humans is our capacity to learn and utilize psychological tools like language, spoken and
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written. To explain radical changes in humans the importance of language and other cultural
and psychological tools have to be accepted as a major contribution to human development
and higher psychological functions. Vygotsky said that the greatest drama of ontological
development was played out in the very first words of a child – this period illustrates and
represents the conflict between the natural and the socio-historical. Penetration of the plot of
that drama and its motive forces led Vygotsky to his principal theory: the theory of the
development of the higher psychological functions (Yaroshevsky, 1989).
From the very beginning a child is led along the path of psychological development by
adults. Communication serves as a necessary condition for each new turn of a child’s thought.
Communication assumes understanding, and the instrument of understanding is the word. The
word’s ‘adult’ meaning, however, cannot be poured into the head of a little child together
with the sign of the language; the words meaning will change during development and new
words or concepts develop understanding and enter into new connections, and knowledge and
understanding increase with the relation the word enters into.
Language is not created by the subject. It exists independently of it. The task with which
the subject is concerned is the use of a ready-made sign system (not one she/he creates on his
own) in communication, cognition or action in the surrounding world. We often hear that
‘language is a tool of thought’. This is a familiar expression among psychologists but
language is much more than a tool for thought. The word also has a volitional function.
Humans’ locomotive apparatus is subordinate to it. The word and verbal language has power
over the real actions of humans’ bodily structure and their psychological functions
(Yaroshevsky, 1989).
Written language has also contributed to human development and made Homo sapiens
different from all (other) animals. No species can accumulate progress across generations as
smartly as humans owing, amongst other things, to the invention of written language. We can
pass our experiences and transmit information and innovations across time and place to the
future generations in a unique way. It is significant that the history of writing is not only the
history of more abstract graphic representation, but also marks the development of more
abstract general ideas about reality.
What had been a natural evolution of Homo sapiens has become a cultural evolution for
every individual. Human culture influences every individual’s psychology and biology
(especially the brain), and culture creates higher psychological functions, i.e. human
perception, cognition, memory, motivation, emotions etc., all the functions with which
psychologists deal.
1.7. THE CULTURAL IMPACT REINSTATED

Mainstream epistemology in psychology was for a long time based on a comprehension

of atomistic, autonomous, isolated individuals whose properties were independent of
linguistic practice, cultural background and historical and social context. The contemporary
research on culture in psychology was re-initiated, in the early 1990s, with an arresting idea
that culture might in fact influence basic psychological processes (Kitayama and Uskul,
2011). The idea had an intoxicating quality at the time when the computer metaphor was still
alive and well, rigidly believed and practiced, with cognitive psychology (which did and still
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does espouse the most universalistic view in psychology) enshrined as the model case of all
human psychologies, including an elder sister of the current cultural psychology, i.e., cross-
cultural psychology (e.g., Berry et al. 1996).
The times have changed, however. With increasing knowledge on brain plasticity, it is no
longer possible to ignore the potent influences that socio-cultural environments can have on
human brain development and the psychological processes that ensue. Furthermore, with
increasing availability of international or cross-cultural data and ideas, the news of enormous
diversity in the human mode of existence has arrived in psychology at long last. The sibling
rivalry between cultural psychology and cross-cultural psychology has naturally subsided
without any scars left on either side. The time is quite ripe, then, for the field, now united, to
renew its commitment to the study of the human mind as enabled by the brain and the
underlying biology and evolution, and yet at the same time, profoundly shaped and enabled
by the socio-cultural environment. Two perspectives dominate current thinking about human
similarities and differences: an evolutionary perspective, emphasizing how biology and
human kinship makes us similar, and a cultural perspective that emphasises how cultural
impacts make us diverse. Nearly everyone agrees today that we need both: Our genes and
inborn qualities and instincts enable an adaptive and developing human brain, a cerebral
structure that receives cultural impact and develop and increases its capacity due to its
plasticity, i.e. its ability to change both structure and function.
1.7.1. The Evolutionary Approach
Evolutionary psychology has been looked upon as a modern variant of the deterministic
machine paradigm since living species’ behaviour, human beings included, is steered by the
“selfish gene” only interested to reproduce itself. Intentional or conscious behaviour is an
illusion; we are ruled by the genes motive to reproduction when we for instance fall in love.
The psychological makeup, our anxieties, worries and happiness is inherited and determined
by the genetic selection process in the past. There is however, no genetic determinism that
can account for all changes in living beings, and the changes in individuals represent a space
of freedom before the surviving comes into play to keep some of the creative changes and
eliminate others. This presentation on how the evolution actually happens, tells that in nature
(and of course in the culture) there are principles of creativity and indetermination governing
and deciding the development processes. First comes the variation in human individuals,
either deliberately or accidental, and then the selection. It is possible to develop and acquire
capacities more fit to the contemporary culture and situation and in this way increase the
possibility to survive and to spread the genes to the next generation. This ability the inert
objects do not have and this mechanism has consequences for the epistemology of human
psychological development.
1.7.2. The Cultural-Historical Approach: How Culture Overrules Biology

in Humans
The cultural-historical tradition in social psychology was founded by the Russian

psychologist Lev Vygotsky in the 1920s. He and his Russian colleague Alexander Luria were
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impressed, and at the same time dissatisfied, with the research on classical conditioning by
their fellow countryman Ivan Pavlov. Pavlov studied learning by associations among animals,
especially dogs and concluded that the animals become ‘conditioned’ to act in certain ways
by the presence of features in the environment. Vygotsky appreciated Pavlov’s scientific
methods, but he criticized Pavlov and other behaviorists for not studying the most important
subject in psychology: the human mind and consciousness. Pavlov’s work was, quite literally,
‘thoughtless’. To reveal that animals could be conditioned to learn through associations in
their environment did not reveal anything about the specific and most interesting ability in
humans; the capability to think, to use a language, to behave volitionally, and to adhere to
cultural norms and values.
Vygotsky distinguished between “lower” or natural psychological functions and “higher”
or cultural functions (Van der Veer and Valsiner, 1991, 1994). The lower functions are
biological mechanisms, such as blind reactions to stimuli as we would see in all animals. The
elementary or lower functions do not involve conscious experience or cognitive processing of
sense data. Over time, these lower functions are transformed and concerted, and they are
dominated or controlled by higher ‘cultural’ functions. The (higher) psychological functions
are sociocultural and historical in origin. The structure of psychological activity, not just
content but also the general forms, change in the course of historical and ontogenetic
development. From a phylogenetic point of view ‘Higher mental functions [are] the product
of the historical development of humanity’ (Vygotsky, 1998). These higher psychological
functions actually stimulate neuronal growth in particular directions and create their own
biological mediations, also restructuring the brain (Vygotsky, 1986, Wertsch, 2008). This
position and explanation of human development does not leave out biological factors or
disregard biological influences. According to cultural-historical psychology, biological
phenomena provide however, the framework for mental phenomena rather than directly
determining them. This leaves psychological activity as something to be built up from, rather
than reduced to biology. To be human means that human beings have surpassed a level of
functioning that the biological traits and features would otherwise dictate (Van der Veer and
van Uzendoorn, 1985).
Humans are at the same time biological organisms from nature, however, and Vygotsky
saw the contradictions between the natural and the cultural as the ‘locomotive’ of the history
of the child; he wanted to clarify the dialectics of that history and human development in
general. Ontogenetic development can only be understood as the development of the higher
psychological functions. It was from this position that Vygotsky embarked on the study of
ontogenesis. According to Miller (2002), culture is a “symbolic medium for human
development and participation in this medium is necessary for the emergence of all higher-
order psychological processes”.
But if human psychology is socially and cultural determined, does this mean that the
individual is reduced to an automaton that passively receives social influences? Quite the
contrary: "The child begins to see the external world not simply with his eye as a perceiving
and conducting apparatus - the child sees with all of his previous experience..." (Vygotsky
and Luria, 1930/1993, p. 148).
Vygotsky’s criticism of the dominating schools of psychology at his time was in some
ways similar to the criticism for accepting a machine or mechanistic paradigm today. In
Russia in the beginning of the 20th century humans were understood and studied as
determined by reflexes, reactions and associations with little room for subjectivity, agency
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and creativity. Vygotsky asserted that a scientific psychology cannot ignore that human
consciousness exists and that it has to be a significant topic in psychology (Vygotsky
1931/1997). Humans’ higher psychological functions, their language and thinking, have to be
the core of human psychology. Humans have many psychological functions in addition to the
ones we find in dogs and other living organisms. The number of human activities under
biological control is greatly reduced in comparison to animals. Psychological phenomena,
including perception, cognition, emotion, memory, psychopathology, personality and
malfunctions are humanly constructed as individuals participate in social interaction. This
position, that psychology has a constructed character, does not disregard biological
influences. Vygotsky (1931/1997) demonstrated the importance of biology for psychology
but without dissolving social consciousness into biological processes. This leaves
psychological activity as something to be built up from, rather than reduced to, a biological
substratum.
1.8. CULTURAL PSYCHOLOGY: CULTURE MAKES US DIFFERENT

Everybody is born into a specific culture that cultivates (the Latin word for culture) every
human being. Culture is a term that has been given many meanings. More than 60 years ago
Alfred Kloeber and Clyde Kluckhon (1952) presented in their article Culture: A Critical
Review of Concepts and Definitions 164 definitions. In psychology culture is most commonly
applied as the term for the patterns of knowledge, beliefs and behaviour, the set of shared
attitudes, norms, values, goals and practices that characterize a group. Culture creates and
maintains psychological tools like language that transform lower elementary processes and
creates the entire content of higher psychological functions (Ratner, 1994). The hallmark of
our species is our capacity to use cultural/psychological tools like language. Our biology and
especially our brain, developed through evolution, has prepared us to talk and to acquire and
internalize signs and symbols from ‘our’ culture and make them part of our thoughts and
emotions. Compared with other animals, nature has humans on a looser genetic leash. The
genetic or instinctive driving forces are overruled by what is acquired during socialization in a
culture.
Humans have been selected not just for big brains and biceps but also for the benefits of a
culture. We are prepared to learn language and to bond and cooperate with others in securing
food, caring for young, and protecting ourselves. The cultural perspective highlights human
development and socialization and cultural differences in psychological functions. Nisbett,
Peng, Choi, and Norenzayan (2001), for instance, have proposed that the influences of culture
on psychological processes are mediated through its effects on cognitive systems. That is,
culture can be conceptualized as a toolkit comprising specific cognitive tools acquired from
the culture. According to Nisbett et al. (2001), the toolkits can vary in several respects as a
function of cultural context: (i) the tool or the set of tools habitually used for a given problem;
(ii) the proficiency with a given tool or a set of tools; and (iii) the accessibility of a given tool
or a set of tools (Zhou and Cacioppo, 2010).
By emphasizing the interdependence between mind and cultural context, sociocultural
psychologists advocate thinking beyond the person and attending to super organismal
structures, such as culture (Zhou and Cacioppo, 2010). Yet, a strict social-level analysis will
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be, at best, incomplete. It is a well-grounded reality that engagement with the meanings and
practices of the social world makes us uniquely human beings, yet there is no denial that we
are also biological beings. Key principles from social neuroscience (i.e. multiple determinism,
non-additive determinism and reciprocal determinism) suggest that a more comprehensive
explanation of the mind and behaviour will be promoted by the integration of biological and
social-cultural approaches (Cacioppo and Berntson, 1992). Such a view is borne out by the
strides made in the nascent field of cultural neuroscience; see Chapter 5, which has already
produced important insights into the nature of the contingency between the psychological and
the sociocultural by bringing together biological, cognitive and social levels of analysis
(Chiao, Zhang, and Harada, 2008).
Many studies show that psychological functions or dimensions previously thought to be
universal actually vary widely with culture (Cohen, 2001). Cross-cultural and cultural
psychology have examined differences in psychological functions and provided accumulating
evidence for the diversity of human cognition and behaviour across cultures, including
perceptual processing, attention, attribution, motivation, language, number representation and
mental calculation. What (and how) we perceive, think and feel depend on the culture in
which we socialize. It also seeps much deeper into the structures of the brain than previously
thought, sometimes bypassing the conscious mind altogether (Cohen, 1997).
From cultural and cross-cultural psychology we know that there are subtle differences in
how people process information (Park and Huang, 2010). According to Nisbett et al. (2001)
Westerners have a tendency to process central objects and organize information via rules and
categories. In contrast, East Asians tend to view themselves as part of a larger whole, which
results in holistic information-processing in which object and contextual information are
jointly encoded.
The cultural dimension of individualism–collectivism has been shown reliably to affect a
wide variety of mental processes at a behavioral level, including self-concept, motivation,
perception, emotion and cognition (Markus and Kitayama, 1991; Triandis, 1995).
Individualism refers to when individuals construe themselves as separate from and
independent of each other, whereas collectivism refers to when individuals construe them as
highly interconnected and defined by their relations and social context. Western cultures
place more value on independence and individuality than do Eastern cultures, resulting in an
attention bias toward individual objects in an analytical, context-free manner and with less
regard for relationships between items. In contrast, East Asian cultures emphasize
interdependent relationships and monitoring of context, relationships and backgrounds (Chua
et al., 2005; Nisbett and Miyamoto, 2005), resulting in an attention bias toward contextual,
relational processing of information (Nisbett, 2003; Nisbett and Masuda, 2003; Nisbett et al.,
2001). The differences between individualistic and collectivistic cultures, originally studied
by Hofstede (1980), are sometimes presented as a dichotomy. Most cultures and therefore
also individuals, however, employ a unique blend of independent and interdependent self-
appraisal, which represent a composite mix of the individualistic and collective elements in
each culture (Kolstad and Horpestad, 2009).
Cultural psychology first revealed that all higher psychological functions were influenced
and actually created by cultural activity and communication. More recently it has been
conclusive evidence provided by cultural neuroscience for deep cultural impacts not only on
cognition and psychological functions (mind), but on the very architecture of the brain as well
(Ambady and Bharucha, 2009; Kitayama and Uskul, 2011). Recurrent, active long-term
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engagement in a cultural setting can powerfully shape the mind and modify brain pathways
(Chiao and Ambady, 2007; Chiao et al. 2010; Fiske, 2009; Han and Northoff, 2008;
Kitayama and Park, 2010; Park and Gutchess, 2006). Cultural neuroscience increasingly
provides evidence for the assumption that the brain is altered by learning and experience,
organized by culture: ‘The important message is that social interactions among humans shape
neural connections, i.e. the fine-tuning of the brain… these interactions occur at a variety of
neurophysiological and behavioral levels and are domain specific’ (Keller, 2002).
1.9. THE DEVELOPMENT OF MIND AND BRAIN

Human development is both biological and psychological. The one cannot take place
without the other. The biological brain is part of human psychology, and if the mind changes
and differs from one culture to another, the brain has to change and be different as well. The
brain internalizes the impact from its environment within its parameters of innate and
developmental constraints. That the mind and brain changes and depend on cultural signs has
been documented in numerous empirical studies recently. Some of these studies and results
are referred to in the Chapter 4 and 5. And they are also commented on in Chapter 2 about
Epistemology, discussing what the new knowledge means for the epistemology of
(developmental) psychology. What kind of paradigm is suitable and can incorporate the
empirical evidence? The epistemological question is to answer on the basis of empirical data,
how mind, brain and culture are related, and how the documented interaction, inter-
functionality and development can be conceptualized, described and explained.
The psychology of humans is not something laid down inside humans by birth, but it is
created by activity and communication in a culture. The human mind is therefore social
mediated, or as asserted by Vygotsky, “Every function in the child’s cultural development
appears twice: first, on the social level, and later, on the individual level; first, between people
(inter-psychological) and the inside the child (intra-psychological). This applies equally to
voluntary attention, to logical memory, and to the formation of concepts. All higher functions
originate as actual relationships between individuals” (Vygotsky, 1978).
When human beings participate in social interactions they develop, construct and create
their psychological substance, ways of thinking, feeling, remembering, their sensation and
perception, etc. In this way culture becomes part of a person’s nature.
How the socio-cultural is transformed into something psychological inside every
individual and how instinctive behavior become volitional will be discussed in subsequent
chapters. The principle of interiorization or transference of the external into the internal is
crucial for psychological epistemology and the essential question is how a psychological
function, originally a social function, is mediated by a cultural sign and becomes intra-
psychical (Yaroshevsky, 1989). A full account of creation and development of the human
mind requires understanding of the multiple and reciprocal influences between the biological
and the sociocultural (Zhou and Cacioppo, 2010). Psychology therefore involves and includes
natural, biological processes, such as neuronal and hormonal activity, but human psychology
cannot be explained exclusively by such processes. The development of mind and other
psychological functions involves the overcoming of two forms of reductionism: biological
(which sees development as the maturing of an organism) and sociological (which reduces
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development to the ‘appropriation’ by the child of socio-cultural characteristics. As regards

sociological reductionism, it completely ignores the proper inner logic of the transformations
which a child’s inner life goes through with the changes of the ‘seasons of life’ (Yaroshevsky,
1989).
The main topic in this book is therefore how the relationship between biology and culture
create and determine human psychology and how the interaction between mind, brain and
culture can be conceptualized and presented.
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Chapter 2
THE EPISTEMOLOGY OF HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

2.1. INTRODUCTION
This chapter deals with some fundamental epistemological problems in psychology;
especially connected to how the relationship between biology, psychology and culture may be
described and explained. The inter-functional relationships between mind, brain and culture,
how it changes during the course of ontogenetic development and how it manifests itself is an
epistemological question and has been a persistent topic in philosophy and psychology for
centuries. There is a range of perspectives and paradigms describing the interface of biology
and culture, culture and mind, and mind and brain concerning ontogenetic development. This
has led to numerous meta-perspectives that try to accommodate the entire range of
contributing levels. But there is no cohesive and accepted theory that addresses the inter-
functionality between all levels. This chapter presents and discusses a variety of different
epistemological perspectives.
The conceptualization of the dialectical interactions between the contributing building
blocks is crucial for psychological theorizing in general and for establishing a reasonable
psychological epistemology. On the basis of recent research and empirical findings in
cultural- and cognitive psychology and in neurosciences it is good reasons for claiming that
higher psychological functions develop from a biological/genetic basis and that these
functions changes owing to mental and physical activity in a specific culture. Higher
psychological functions are humanly constructed when individuals participate in social
interaction and in cultural activity and acquire cultural characteristics. The development of
higher psychological functions as well as the development of the brain (its function and
structure), cannot be explained without focusing on human activity and communication in a
particular culture.
Human beings strongly depend on cultural artifacts and the humanized environment.
They change themselves through changing their environment and adapting themselves to it.
“There is a circular and historical causality between human beings and their environment. In
this sense we are the most self-domesticated animals” (Kono, 2010:334). Vygotsky (1978)
also suggests that one’s autonomy or self-determination consists not only in the self-control,
but also in the capacity to control one’s own environment, which reversely or recursively
change one-self and that human psychological functions are realized in the loops between the
individual and the humanized environment.
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2.2. PSYCHOLOGICAL UNIVERSALS

The importance of culture and cultural differences for most psychological functions has
not been considered by mainstream psychological research until recently. Psychological
universals, or core mental attributes shared by humans everywhere, have been a fundamental
postulate of mainstream psychology not long ago. The ‘psychic unity of humankind’ holds
that, irrespective of their cultural background, all humans have at their disposal the same
psychological outfit. This position experienced a huge resurgence with the cognitive
revolution which studied the ‘inside’ of humankind independent of external influence (Miller,
2003). This concentration on internal mental phenomena disregarded external factors with
potential influence on psychological processes and up to the end of the twentieth century the
potential of the environment or culture to affect psychological processes and the brain was
widely ignored (Bang et al., 2007; Henrich et al., 2010). There were, however, also some
studies on cultural effects in cognitive development by authors with a socio-cultural
perspective, such as Barbara Rogoff and Michael Cole, among others.
There are of course similarities in psychological functions and behaviors among human
being independent of their cultural background (see Norenzayan and Heine, 2005 and
Poortinga and Soudjin, 2002) for a discussion of universalism and cultural relativism).
Humans are strikingly similar in their genes and some universal behaviour arises from their
biological/genetic similarity. Other psychological functions are universal because they are the
result of innate, naturally selected, psychological tendencies that emerge everywhere in the
same ontogenetic sequence (such as language acquisition; Pinker and Bloom, 1992), or they
are cultural byproducts of naturally selected tendencies (such as religion, e.g., Atran and
Norenzayan, 2004), or learned responses that serve a useful purpose everywhere, such as
counting systems, calendars, writing, trading, and cognitions and behaviors associated with
these inventions.
The often unstated assumption of human ‘psychic unity’ was strengthened by the
influence of biology and the focus on instinctive or lower psychological functions also found
in other species without language abilities and a complex culture. The biological heritage of
psychology presupposes that psychological mechanisms are not only shared by (other)
animals, they are also human universals (Norenzayan and Heine, 2005). This seems to justify
the widespread habit of exploring psychological processes with selective samples, namely
graduate students at Western universities. According to Arnett (2008) conventional
psychology has focused too narrowly on psychological characteristics among university
students in the West. They have been used as experimental subjects and the other 98% of the
world’s population has been neglected. In this way the cultural context has been ignored. If
cognitive processes are universal, a North American student should be as good a subject for
their exploration as anybody else. This assumption about universalism has however been
challenged by recent cultural and cross-cultural research and it cannot be justified any longer
to assume that a theory developed on the basis of research on a tiny proportion of the world’s
population can “apply to all of humanity”. It has been a grave error to import Western-based
theories and results into other cultures in the world and assume that they were based on
“laws” that applied equally well to all peoples (Arnett, 2008). Western mainstream
psychology is not the psychology about the human being in general, but has rightly been
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Copyright © 2013. Nova Science Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. May not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except fair uses permitted under The Epistemology of Human Development 19
characterized as “the indigenous psychology of (Northern) America.”(Smith, Bond, and

Kagitcibasi, 2006).
Current research in cultural and cross-cultural psychology documents numerous East-
West psychological differences (Kitayama and Uskul 2011); see for instance Chapter 4 in this
book. Culture is composed of cross-generationally transmitted values and associated
behavioral patterns (i.e., practices). Most mind-brain-culture models are hypothesizing that
the brain serves as a crucial site that accumulates effects of cultural experience, insofar as
neural connectivity is likely modified through sustained engagement in cultural practices.
Thus, culture is making the mind and the brain. On this basis recent research and models
dealing with culture, mind, and the brain are discussed in the following chapters.
2.3. INTEGRATING CULTURAL AND BIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES

Contemporary psychology is still concerned with the nature – nurture debate and how
biology and culture are related. The history of psychology bears witness to the same
epistemological conflicts we can see today. Metaphorically speaking, two related pendulums,
one swinging back and forth from nature to nurture and the other from brain to mind, have
been running the clocks of developmental and cognitive inquiries for centuries. Most
professionals today will agree that culture, mind and brain are related to one another. How
this relation or inter-functionality happens and what are the characteristics are however still
controversial and not revealed in any detail in mainstream psychology. The integration of
biological and cultural perspectives should be a main topic for current psychological
epistemology in order to prevent that they are presented as mutually exclusive interpretations
or as explanations that are each sufficient in themselves. Like Miller (2002) we will discuss
some of the challenges that must be addressed in developing perspectives that give weight to
both types of considerations in understanding human development.
The specific interpretation of the empirical evidence of relationship between mind, brain
and culture is colored by a general view on the nature of the human species and especially the
importance of the genetic outfit and culture respectively. The understanding is also related to
the “old” dichotomy between nature and nurture. The epistemology of human development
therefore depends on a scientific paradigm, a philosophical and a theoretical orientation
together with the associated methodology. This chapter and some sections of the book are
focusing in particular on epistemological questions, and not on more pragmatic/practical
methodological issues: which empirical data to collect and how to collect them. The
epistemological approach has to do with how human beings and their development are
understood, described and explained. This is a theoretical question, not an empirical or
methodological issue.
The cultural impact has since Lev Vygotsky and Alexander Luria established the cultural-
historical approach been looked upon by cultural psychologist as crucial for an understanding
of the higher psychological functions in humans. Miller’s (2002) point of departure is for
instance “that culture serves as a symbolic medium for human development and that
participation in culture is necessary for the emergence of all higher-order psychological
processes. This position is unassailable in so far as a human environment is an absolute
condition for human development.”
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One aim with this book is to present the cultural historical approach in psychology, a
largely forgotten alternative with valuable insights into the complexities of psychological
functions and how biology, mind and culture are related. Contemporary psychology can be
approached more critically if the science itself is studied in its development and with
references to relevant theories and epistemologies from earlier periods. For the time being the
problem in psychology dealing with the relation between the individual and culture is
primarily a conceptual and theoretical challenge and only secondarily an empirical question
(Smedslund, 1995). Theories explaining human development have to reflect the biological,
psychological and cultural reality and specify the functional relationships between the various
aspects during lifespan (Keller, Poortinga and Schölmerich, 2002).
2.4. WHAT IS ‘EPISTEMOLOGY’?

Epistemology means ‘theory of knowledge’. The root word episteme denotes 'knowledge'
in Greek and in early modern times the corresponding Latin word scientia involved
'organized knowledge'. Epistemology is therefore the philosophical theory and study of
knowledge. It considers how we know what we know. It is concerned with the following
questions: What are the necessary and sufficient conditions of knowledge? What are its
sources, its structure, and what are its limits? Epistemology therefore is about the creation,
dissemination, and justification of knowledge in particular areas of inquiry or about a specific
object, for instance the brain or the mind or the relation between the two.
What is regarded as true knowledge depends also on the social and historical context, and
epistemology becomes ‘social epistemology. Scientific facts are to a certain degree social
constructions on culture, and they are changing during history. As social constructed facts
they are laden with social, cultural, and historical presuppositions and biases. This involves
that truth and reality are themselves socially constructed (Goldman, 1999). In philosophy the
central question in epistemology include the origin of knowledge; and the changing forms of
knowledge that arise from new conceptualizations of the world. These issues link with other
central concerns of philosophy, such as the nature of truth and the nature of experience and
meaning.
Traditionally the most important objects of knowledge included the natural world as a
whole as well as specific parts of it (as in astronomy, geology, and zoology), and knowledge
of human nature, including the human body and brain (in medicine and physiology) and the
soul or mind. These topics have been discussed by scholars and lay people for centuries. We
will continue this discussion in this book and refer to recent empirical evidence.
There are in principle two main types of scientific justification of a theory or a point of
view: rationalism, which construct scientific knowledge by ‘pure’ reasoning; and empiricism,
which takes the impressions of sense-data as the foundation of all knowledge. The
epistemological focus on justification of knowledge has in the past typically explained the
cognitive basis of knowledge through the powers of the human mind, by rationalism. Various
cognitive powers had been distinguished in the Aristotelian scheme, including the senses,
imagination, memory, and intellect. Later authors in the epistemological debate accepted
these basic powers and focused on the intellect and senses as natural mental tools for the
production of knowledge. Rationalist epistemologists such as Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz
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agreed that the human intellect possesses the capacity by itself, without appeal to sensory
experience, to discern the essence or nature of God, matter, and the human mind and brain.
Empiricist philosophers such as Locke and Hume denied such power to the human
intellect, and sought to base all human knowledge of the natural world in sensory experience.
Hume held that the human mind differs only in degree from the minds of other animals, and
denied that the human cognitive faculties naturally confer rational justification on their
products. Kant later created a distinction between the empirical psychological study of the
mind (as in Hume), and the study of the logical or conceptual basis of knowledge. In this way
he distinguished epistemology as a subject area from empirical psychology.
Today rationalism and empiricism are both looked upon as producing scientific
knowledge.
2.5. HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

Development, continuity and change characterize human beings both phylogenetic and
ontogenetic. Home sapiens has changed over the evolutionary past, and each individual is
developing during the ontogenesis. Finally there is also a micro genetic change. To study
change and development is therefore a prerequisite for understanding and explaining human
beings. In psychology the emphasis is on ontogenetic change, i.e. the lifespan or the life
history of the individual person. During the course of ontogenetic development the mind and
the nervous system changes due to activity and communication in a culture and resulting in
qualitatively new psychological and brain functions. The changes in the body (brain) and
mind is related to external cultural impact as well as internal processes under the influence of
regulatory genes. The interaction between various processes is not exclusively genetically
determined. There is evidence that environmental events may influence regulatory, genetic
processes (Keller, Poortinga and Schölmerich, 2002).
The development of human beings is much more intricate than following a deterministic
genetic causality. The impact from the genes on the psychological functions is affected by a
complex environment. This epigenese i.e. the impact on the genes from the environment is
not transparent for human beings. People imagine the direct influence on the mind and
consciousness, but not the impact on the genes.
People live in a physical and symbolic environment created by humans (e.g. cultural
creations such as writing, meaningful objects such as churches, traffic signs, cars, to name a
few) and human systems thus co-evolve with a culturally constructed environment (Thommen
and Wettstein 2010). As a consequence, what are cultural achievements appear to human
beings in their ontogenesis as if coming ‘from outside’. Much of socialization consists of an
individual’s appropriation of these cultural achievements in the course of their development.

An individual internalizes externally given, culturally defined rules of behavior, norms and
values. This view was primarily introduced to psychology by Vygotsky (1997), and following
Vygotsky different studies in cultural-historical and developmental psychology have
demonstrated the close connection between sociocultural environment and
cognitive/psychological development (e.g. Toomela, 1996, 2003). Vygotsky conceived the
history of behaviour as “a history of the development of the higher psychological functions”.
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That was the title of a monograph from 1931 (Yaroshevsky, 1989, p. 246).This is discussed
further in chapter 3 and chapter 4.
Ontogenetic development is not solely change and alteration. It is also about continuity
and conservation. All development in humans is at the same time characterized by a certain
form of adjustment and stability. Earlier developments on domains of social-emotional as
well as cognitive functioning, for instance “IQ”, have systematic effects on later performance.
The concept of personality is also rooted in consistencies of reactions across time and
situations. From some temperamental rudiments every individual acquire a personality from
early age and even if there are changes during the lifetime there is at the same time constancy
and persistence. There is also continuity in terms of the perception of the self, and of personal
identity (Keller, Poortinga and Schölmerich, 2002).
2.5.1. The Interface of Biology, Mind and Culture in a Developmental

Perspective
There is a range of perspectives and paradigms at the interface of biology, mind and
culture when dealing with human development. This has led to meta-perspectives that try to
accommodate the entire range of levels from phylogenetic and ontogenetic to situational or
micro-genetic adjustments. But there is no cohesive theory that addresses concerns arising
from all levels. “The main thrust of the argument is” as formulated by Keller and her
colleagues, “that the three concepts of ontogenetic development, culture and biology are all
related to one another. Even though the culture-development relationship and the biology-
development relationship have received more attention in the literature than the biology-
culture relationship, no single relationship is a priori more important than any other” (Keller,
Poortinga and Schölmerich, 2002, p. 399).
Developmental psychology has long maintained links to both biology and culture. Most
often, however, human development has been presented as an either or phenomenon and
developmental psychologists can be counted as belonging to one of two camps, one focusing
on mind and culture the other focusing on brain and biology (Keller, Poortinga and
Schölmerich, 2002). It is however pivotal to understand the interplay between mind, brain,
culture and biology when dealing with ontogenetic development as an interactional processes
between organism and the social and natural environment. The development is rooted in the
biological makeup of the human species, including the elementary or lower psychological
functions like instincts, reflexes and drives which humans share with other animals. The
genetic or biological makeup is the starting point for every individual. But during the
ontological development these forces or potencies are converted to something else when
affected by the environment and cultural forces. They develop in a dialectical or inter-
functional manner and lose their significance as the guiding forces for human beings. The
development is in this process changing from a Darwinian process to a cultural created
process, portrayed by Michael Cole in this way: “In so far as it is dominated by phylogenetic
influences, development is a Darwinian process of natural selection operating on the random
variation of genetic combinations created at conception. In acquiring culture (and especially,
as both Piaget and Vygotsky emphasize, with the acquisition of culture’s most flexible form,
language), culture becomes a ‘second nature’ which makes development a goal-directed
process in a way in which phylogenetic change is not” (Cole, 1996, p. 317). According to
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Cole human beings are hybrids: “This hybrid nature is central to the process of postnatal
development in a way that is not true before birth. Understanding this hybridity is, I suggest,
necessary in order to understand if and how the principles of development change once
children leave the womb and are precipitated into the social group” (Cole, 2002, p. 317). The
“hybrid nature” is characterised by the contribution to human development from both nature
(genes) and the environment (culture). This starts actually before birth as explained in chapter
5 about the development of the brain. The impact from the environment and culture on the
brain and the mind increases dramatically after birth.
2.6. THE PERSON–ENVIRONMENT RELATIONSHIP.

HOLISM AND DUALISM
The relationship between person and environment has been a recurrent question in
epistemology. The solution and claims has often been one of the two extreme positions:
holism and dualism. Both positions pose major epistemological problems. Radical holism
proposes an inseparable person–environment unit and, as a consequence, it does not enable
thinking in terms of a person–environment relationship. Dualism, however, posits the radical,
exclusive separation of the person and the environment, which makes it difficult to consider
interactions between the two elements and disregards their mutual interdependency.
In recent years different proposals have been introduced to overcome the epistemological
problems concerning the person-environment relationship and there are more models that
integrate the contradictory positions. Some of the alternatives will be presented in the
following:
1. Inclusive Separation
2. Systems theory
3. Bio-cultural Co-constructivism
4. Downward causation and Emergence
5. Supervenience and deductive irreductibility
6. “Extended mind”
2.6.1. Inclusive Separation - Relationship between Person and Environment
Valsiner (1998) introduced the concept of ‘inclusive separation’ where the dangers of
dualism are eliminated a priori. In his model the person and the environment are both
separate and united. The separation makes it possible to study their actual relationship as a
process. The notion of unity becomes explicitly available for study, since the duality of the
person-environment structure entails both unity and separation. Differentiation of the person
and the environment makes it on the other hand possible to study the ways in which they are
interdependent.
Duality, co-presence and relation of differentiated parts that function within the same
whole are not dualism according to Jaan Valsiner. It is a form of systemic organization
(Valsiner, 1998, p. 21). He contrasts the person and the environment on a conceptual or
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analytical level, and relates them on a functional level as interdependent. He thus avoids the
problems of both extreme holism and extreme dualism. To grasp this solution it is necessary
to think in a dialectical manner accepting that there are similar and differences at the same
time. The relationship between the person and the environment becomes the primary
investigative focus. Several issues remain to be addressed in Valsiner’s ‘inclusive separation’
suggestion. Thommen and Wettstein (2010) for instance are asking what the methodological
consequences will be of positing both ‘unity’ and ‘separation’ and their mutual relation. And
how ‘environment’ and ‘person’ can be captured independently of each other? It is also a
problem to think about processes between the person and the environment as dependent and
independent at the same time (Thommen and Wettstein 2010). This way of thinking requires
a dialectical approach, something not common in Western philosophy and science. The
intricate descriptions necessary for this kind of approach and methodology demonstrate the
problems involved in expressing a dialectical process in Western language. Western language
and philosophy is much more suited to characterizing linear development with cause and
effect and either/or than to describe contradictions, dialectical interactions or inter-
functionality as they occur over time, see below.
2.6.2. Systems Theory. Luhmann’s Version
Some scholars have pointed to systems theory as a solution of the holism/dualism

problem and how a unit is independent and related at the same time. Systems theory is
fundamentally a developmental approach that describes and explains how a certain system
evolves from one state to the next. The position fits well with the claims made by Valsiner
(1994) and his ‘inclusive separation’ (see above) for a development-oriented psychology.
According to Thommen and Wettstein (2010) there are theoretical and conceptual
propositions in systems theory which could help to solve some of the problems dealing with
dependence and independence in a dialectical or inter-functional manner. They are drawing
on the principles of systems theory and present a new conceptualizing of the person–
environment relationship. They also present alternatives for dealing with methodological and
epistemological problems that arise in investigating these relationships, based primarily on
Niklas Luhmann’s (1995) version of systems theory. According to Luhmann (1995), a human
being is not a single homogeneous system but consists of different biological and
psychological systems: brain and mind, and theoretical statements or explanations refer to
both systems with their specific mode of operation. For each type of system (e.g.
psychological), the other system (e.g. biological) forms its environment, and they evolve
together (co-evolution). The biological brain is the environment for the mind, and vice versa.
Systems theories strongly emphasize on processes as a crucial characteristic of all

systems, human beings as well. This conception of man is unfamiliar in the West and it is and
goes against scientific and ordinary, everyday thinking about a stable, autonomous individual.
The dualism of structure versus function also mirrors a classic polarity between static and
dynamic world views which brought about far-reaching controversies even among the ancient
Greek philosophers. For Luhmann, the structure of a system consists of a constant, recurring
series of events and by positing structures as regular patterns of processes occurring in time,
he overcomes the dualism of structure and function. Luhmann’s conception is to some extent
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compatible with the theory of Vygotsky (1929), who posited psychological structure as a
collection and series of psychological operations (Thommen and Wettstein 2010).
Purely physical systems (e.g. planetary constellations) are largely subject to
environmental influences, while humans (and mammals) by means of cognitive processes
have the capacity to represent their environment. Primitive living systems depend on natural
mechanisms; human systems actively seek favorable conditions and withdraw from
undesirable conditions and influences. Living systems can be described through their bio-
physiological processes, such as neurobiological or motor processes, which are a precondition
for psychic processes but these psychological processes in humans cannot be reduced to
biochemical processes.
Humans are capable of developing representations of their environment and themselves
through their semiotic processes. This capacity differentiates psychological systems
qualitatively from biological systems and Luhmann (1995) defines this ability to reflect and
represent the environment and culture by semiotic tools as consciousness. Consciousness
does not exist independent of semiotic processes; it is linked to communication processes. It
has developed parallel to the development of the neural system and to social development and
communication. Language, the medium for communication, is the most important link
between psychological and social systems. According to Luhmann (1995), social systems are
‘nothing but communications’ and the communicative processes are constitutive of a social
system. Language is a powerful medium for semiotic processes as well as communicative
processes and it has a central function in all human and social systems.
Based on Luhmann’s systems theory and its implications for modern psychology, Maslov
(2012) analyzes the relationship between human, environment, and culture. To distinguish
three types of systems (biological (brain), psychological (mind), and social (culture)) that
function autonomously, is not sufficient, what is needed is to clarify on what level any
particular analysis should be done. The three systems: mind, brain, culture functions both
autonomously, but they function interdependently due to their structural connections. For
example, psychological functions are dependent on bio-physiological conditions, since neural
systems make cognitive, emotional and motivational processes possible. But psychological
functions cannot be reduced to biological functions, nor are they determined 100 percent by
them. Likewise, psychological processes are a precondition for communicative processes in
social systems, but communicative processes have qualities that cannot be derived solely
from psychological systems (Thommen and Wettstein 2010). Each of the three systems,
mind, brain and culture, can be considered as an environment for any other. As environments,
they simultaneously enable and delimit the possibilities of the related systems. The
conception of systems as operating simultaneously and in parallel makes this view possible
and it stands in contrast to traditional notions of systems as hierarchically structured. It also
opens up questions about how different systems evolve, and evolve in exchange with each
other as inter-functional systems, or by co-evolution, a term suggested by Thommen and
Wettstein (2010) and inspired by Luhmann (1995).
When dealing with systems theory and the relation between a living system (for instance
a person with mind and brain) and its environment, dialectical process causality has to be
reconsidered since the relation is not deterministic or linear. To the contrary, a person chooses
from the environment certain possibilities, depending on its perceptual and cognitive
capacities, which properties of the environment it recognizes and acts on. The person-
system’s perceptual sensibilities and cognitive capacities are crucial, because they render
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certain properties of the environment relevant while others remain unrecognized. Some
incidents in the environment can cause upset and change, while others do not. It is the
processes activated by an environmental incident in the system that are decisive. Bateson
(1972) speaks in this context of ‘a difference which makes a difference’. Only those
properties of the environment that a system can perceive as differences (in Bateson’s terms),
have the potential to influence the internal operations of the system. Vygotsky repeatedly
discussed this point in his writings as well: “Even when the environment remains the same,
the very fact that the child changes in the process of development, results in a situation where
the role and meaning of environmental factors, which seemingly have remained unchanged,
play a different role because the child has changed; in other words, the child’s relation to
these particular environmental factors has altered” (Vygotsky, 1935, cited in van der Veer and
Valsiner, 1994, p. 339).
As human beings we develop from a biological organism into cultural individuals. We
are permanently changing, influencing each other and developing personal abilities and
functions. Qualities are transformed, reshaped and new patterns or configurations are created
all the time, both in the mind and in the brain. Separate elements which intervene create new
elements, functions and phenomena and they again influence each other. Old functions or
elements, for instance biological instincts, are still part of a human being, but the elements
have changed to another form, with another meaning and signification in the mind as well as
in the brain. It is a significant task for an understanding of human developmental psychology
to clarify how biology, culture and mind interact in a dialectical, inter-functional manner.
New concepts and activity develop our understanding and this psychological activity also
changes the brain by establishing new connections between neurons due to the brain’s
plasticity. The words mean different things at different ages and with altered experiences. The
words enter into new connections and our knowledge and understanding changes in
accordance. The brain has to adapt to the elaboration of the mind and change its structure and
function to represent the altering and developing mind. The brain can also change its structure
and function without any conscious mind change (see Chapter 5). Experimental results have
shown that even in case when presented information does not get into consciousness, it
nevertheless can be successfully processed by brain and change brain structure. Thus, there is
a consequence that logic of brain performance and logic of consciousness performance are
different (Allakhverdov and Gershkovich, 2010).
The example with perception of the physical environment and aesthetic preferences (see
below) illustrates how the same environment is conceptualized, perceived and processed
differently as a result of development and education. This phenomenon was also studied and
clarified by Vygotsky and Luria in Uzbekistan in the 1930s (Luria, 1976) (See chapter 3 and
4). Even if psychological sensations and experiences are dealt with in the brain and activating
electric connections between neurons, psychological functions cannot be reduced to electric

impulses. There is a complex interrelation between the functioning of the biological brain and
the psychological mind, - both depending on culture.
2.6.3. Bio-Cultural Co-Constructivism
Shu-Chen Li (2003) has proposed another model, called bicultural co-constructivism for
the inter-functionality between biology-culture and brain-mind. Instead of polarizing nature-
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nurture and brain-mind, Li (2003) has approached human development through the lens of a
crosslevel dynamic bio-cultural co-constructivism. The key notions of the term is the effects
of a series of interconnected feed-downward (culture- and context-driven) and feed-upward
(neurobiology-driven) interactive processes and developmental plasticity at different levels
(hence, cross-level) are continuously accumulated via the individual’s moment-to-moment
experiences (hence, dynamic) so that, together, they implement concerted biological and
cultural influences (hence, bio-cultural co-constructivism) in tuning cognitive and behavioral
development throughout the life span (Li, 2003).
Development is dependent on interactions between endogenous and exogenous processes.
However, a general awareness of co-constructive notions is not enough in and of itself to
resolve the nature–nurture and mind–brain controversies. These debates again intensified
after the publication in 2001 of two working drafts of the sequence of the human genome was
published (Lander et al., 2001; Venter et al., 2001). The pendulum was swinging toward
genetic and brain determinism (Kay, 2000; Moore, 2002; Paä¨bo, 2001) and that makes it
according to Li (2003) more in need to counter this tradition and develop alternatives to the
genome era.
Integration of experiential and cultural influences into the day-to-day research practices
of behavioral genetics (e.g., McGuffin, Riley, and Plomin, 2001), neuroscience (Shepherd,
1991), and cognitive neuroscience (e.g., Gazzaniga, 2000) requires that interactive processes
and mechanisms implementing bio-cultural co-construction of brain, mind, and behavior at
different levels be further specified. The lack of such specifications has been one of the
reasons why the nature - nurture and mind - brain debates have continued (cf. Ingold, 1998;
King, 2000). The exact relationship between biological and environmental influences is still
unclear. The old nature-nurture controversy will remain unresolved until the function of genes
is better understood (Plomin and Rutter, 1998). Therefore studies about brain structure, neural
functioning and biochemical processes are essential (Kornadt, 2002).
Thus, a further critical aspect of reifying co-constructive conceptions to help integrate
research from related subfields of developmental and life sciences is the need for detailed
cross-level frameworks with which interactive processes and developmental plasticity across
different levels and time scales can be linked and unified (Li, 2003).
2.6.4. Downward Causation and Emergence
Also cognitive neuroscientists have developed models to describe person-environmental

and mind-brain interaction. One of these versions is presented by Barutta, Gleichgerrcht,
Cornejo, and Ibanez (2010b), focusing on global to local determination (downward causation)
also called ‘emergence’ on the neurophysiological level and used to describe an interlevel
model of mind-brain interactions from several perspectives. Mind represented as
consciousness act as the global activity governing or constraining local interactions of
neurons. This model seems to solve several difficulties with regard to descriptions of
consciousness on a neurophysiological and mental level (Barutta, Gleichgerrcht, Cornejo, and
Ibanez, 2010b).
The concept “emergence” may seem advantageous over the typical physicalist
explanation, and the emergentist strategy presents a novel and more ecological and
interactional approach to the issue of mind-body, especially in contrast to models of
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mechanistic and linear explanation, and which try to explain cognition from within the
organism only (Bechtel and Richardson 1993; Barutta, Gleichgerrcht, Cornejo, and Ibanez,
2010b).
Downward causation is the most frequent instantiation of emergence. The process
stipulates that higher mental phenomena (i.e., consciousness) can produce global-to-local
determination, or downward causation, at the neurophysiological level. As long as these
higher mental properties are understood as large-scale, global activity of the system that
governs or constrains local interactions, downward causation can be used as an alternative
explanation to some orthodox models of cognition. For instance, with consciousness being at
the core of the mind-body juxtaposition (Metzinger 2002), downward causation of global
properties (mental cause) onto local properties (neurological effect) could explain the bases of
such complex interactions. This implies that the neurophysiological and mental levels can be
approached bilaterally, that is to say causally, from top to bottom and vice versa (Barutta,
Gleichgerrcht, Cornejo, and Ibanez, 2010b).
Dealing with the mind-body issue, emergence must reflect some essential properties, for
instance the impossibility of thoroughly deducing the phenomenon from the separate analysis
of its components, which is expressed by the notion of supervenience (see below) (Kim 1995,
1999, 2001). It also has to be accepted that there are “systemic” or “global” properties of the
phenomenon (Emmeche et al. 2000) associated with local interactions, and that there must be
an influence of the global properties on the local level, which implies a downward causation,
i.e., a submergence or global-to-local determination (Campbell 1974, in Barutta,
Gleichgerrcht, Cornejo, and Ibanez, 2010b). Many authors share the belief that explanations
in terms of downward causation can explain intentionality, conscious subjectivity or meaning
(Barham 1996; Edelman 2004; Freeman 1999, 2000, 2003, 2004; Haken 2003; Harter and
Kozma 2005; Ibáñez 2007a, b; Ibáñez and Cosmelli 2008; Juarrero 1999; Kelso 1995, 2002,
2003; Orsucci 2002; Petitot 1995; Tschacher and Dauwalder 2003; Thelen 1995; Thompson
and Varela 2001; van Orden and Holden 2002). Promisingly, the explanation based on
downward causation may according to this approach solve the mind-body issue (Barutta,
Gleichgerrcht, Cornejo, and Ibanez, 2010b).
Within this perspective, intentionality has been interpreted as global to local
determination (downward causation) on the neurophysiological level. Consciousness would
act as the large-scale, global activity of the system that governs or constrains local
interactions of neurons. This argument seems to solve several difficulties with regard to
descriptions of consciousness on a neurophysiological and mental level. Nevertheless, the
inconsistencies of this argument are shown, and a contextual and pragmatic explanation of the
downward causation of consciousness is given (Barutta, Gleichgerrcht, Cornejo, and Ibanez,
2010b).
The emergent approach explains the appearance of the system which could not have been
explained or predicted on the assumption of former initial conditions. Consciousness is not
only “brain function”, but is also “high-level” (systemic, emergent) function, which appears
only on the specific level of organization, as a product of complex interaction of the elements
(atoms, molecules, neurons), which, taken alone, don’t have any “psychical” properties.
Barutta et al. (2010) give previously used examples, of a salt (NaCl), which is not toxic in
itself, neither is its components Na or CL, but is also the product of reaction involving two
compounds that are toxic to humans. There is also an example of a cell which is a macro-
property with respect to the organelles it contains, but is a basal property relative to the tissue
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to which it belongs: water supervenes on molecules of hydrogen and oxygen, as the mind
supervenes on a neurophysiological substrate.
According to Allakhverdov and Gershkovich (2010) the main advantage of Barutta et
al.’s (2010) approach is an accent on the fact that brain is an indispensable condition for
emergence of mind and consciousness, but must not be afterwards considered as an
explanation of their activity. Barutta et al. (2010) also stress this advantage of emergentism,
“the fact that the global properties depend on their basal properties is not contradictory with
the insufficient capability of the latter to explain the macro properties”. However, the next
step, which seems to be quite obvious, unfortunately, is not done. This step implies that only
after defining the functions executing by consciousness we can search for those
neurophysiological structures that provide the performance of these functions (Allakhverdov
and Gershkovich, 2010).
Allakhverdov and Gershkovich (2010) is criticizing Barutta et al (2010) and generally the
“emergent approach” for mentioning just several characteristics of the psyche, mind and
consciousness and not fully define what those entities are, coming to nothing more than
enumerating some properties of those entities, intentionality, qualia etc. “There is a difference
between examples with molecule and atoms compounding it and mind-brain interactions. We
all know quite well what water is (as we know what cell is). Of course we can quite
unambiguously define brain. But we don’t know quite well what we are talking about when
we use terms “mind” and “consciousness”. This makes it difficult to define global level (if to
use the authors’ term). Is mind an emergent property of the whole brain? Or is it the property
of one of its substructures (no matter anatomical or functional)? Is consciousness inherent in
any brain or only in human brain? Or could mind be the emergent property of the whole
organism, and not only of the brain? Unfortunately, the authors don’t comment on these
traditional critics of the emergent approach” (Allakhverdov and Gershkovich, 2010).
2.6.5. Supervenience and Deductive Irreductibility
Supervenience anticipates two simultaneous concepts. On the one hand is the idea that all
“macro” properties depend or “supervene” on an inferior (basal) level. Water supervenes on
molecules of hydrogen and oxygen, as the mind supervenes on a neurophysiological
substrate. None of these macro properties can exist without their basal properties, just like
mental phenomena do not float freely in a non-material space. On the other hand is the fact
that macro properties cannot be entirely explained on these basal properties: they are not
reducible to them. The “wateriness” of water is absent in its constituents (hydrogen and
oxygen), neither is the intentionality of the mind present at the single neuron level. Each
phenomenon acquires macro or basal roles relative to the context of its analysis. A cell is a
macro property with respect to the organelles it contains, but is a basal property relative to the
tissue to which it belongs. This understanding of supervenience relative to increasing levels of
complexity is known as mereological supervenience (Kim 2001 in Barutta, Gleichgerrcht,
Cornejo, and Ibanez, 2010b). This approach also characterizes certain varieties of systems
theory.
Supervenience involves two opposing ideas: macro properties are dependent on and
simultaneously independent of their basal properties. The fact that the global properties
depend on their basal properties is not contradictory with the insufficient capability of the
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latter to explain the macro properties. Therefore, supervenience is an indispensable and

essential condition for the existence of emergent properties, but it does not specify their
characteristics.
2.6.6. “Extended Mind” – Brain, Mind, Environment
According to Kono (2010) human mind functions as a part of the larger system of brain
plus body plus environment, an environment created by human beings and Tetsuya Kono
therefore proposes as a new paradigm for psychology: an “extended mind approach” or an
“ecological approach to humanized environment”, as an alternative to the ‘machine
paradigm’. The “extended mind” approach takes into consideration the close connection
between mind and environment/culture and the concept refers to an idea that mind is realized
not only in the brain, but the whole system of brain-body-environment. Higher psychological
functions therefore are based on larger systems extending outside the skull and skins.
The word “extended mind” was first proposed at the end of the 1990s by among others A.
Clark and D. Chalmers (Clark 1997; Clark and Chalmers 1998). Also Heidegger’s “Being-in-
the-world”, Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology of the body, Dewey’s pragmatism, James
Jerome Gibson’s ecological psychology, Gregory Bateson’s ecology of mind, and Hilary
Putnam’s externalism of meaning can be counted as precursors for the “extended mind”
approach, according to Kono (2010). The main idea is that higher psychological functions
depend upon and are embedded in the culture or humanized environment which includes tools
and artifacts. They are realized as higher order emergent functions and cannot be reduced to
its constitutive elements.
In the mind-body relation, the notion of downward causation argues that emergent
(mental) properties have an effect on a local (neurological or corporal) level. But the question
remains as to how the mind can exert an effect on the brain (Barutta, Gleichgerrcht, Cornejo,
and Ibanez, 2010b). The American neuropsychologist, neurobiologist and Nobel laureate
Roger Sperry has marked his opinion about this phenomenon (see Chapter 4) and he states
that “the neurophysiology, …controls the mental effects, and the mental properties in turn
control the neurophysiology” (Sperry, 1956, p. 532). In cognitive neurosciences, cases of
upward causation are often proposed in terms of efficient causation. In such cases, an entity (a
neurological event) causes another (a mental event) (Barutta, Gleichgerrcht, Cornejo, and
Ibanez, 2010b). Thus, the mind and the brain are conceived here as a unique entity which may
be studied from these two description levels, such that a particular mental supervenient state
is identified with its corresponding neurobiological substrate. As a consequence, it does not
seem valid to state strict psychophysical laws that link both levels, as efficient causality
cannot be stated between two different description levels of a same entity. Even more, a
particular mental state may supervene from different neurobiological substrates (multiple
realization) making also difficult the mere correlation between both levels. An alternative
way out, then, from the limitations imposed by this situation, is to employ a pragmatic
concept, and therefore a contextualized concept, of causality, which may allow top-down and
bottom-up causality attribution. Such a perspective can lead to a more complete view of the
whole process, accounting for the limitations of each description level solely. In fact, and as
mentioned above (i.e. genes and behavior), it is a widely accepted practice to attribute
causality between the part and the whole. This is a pragmatic, contextualized attribution
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which, in the case of brain and consciousness, is sustained through an analogy between two
macro description levels: the global properties of the brain and the global properties of
consciousness (Barutta, Gleichgerrcht, Cornejo, and Ibanez, 2010b).
On the other hand, the statement can be understood as predicating that mental events
exist in a physical and ontological sense, but they are described necessarily from a particular
language. This approach is not identified with a specific physical theory, and it therefore
depends on the particular level of description. The phenomenon should have to be explained
within its own description level. This is also applied to non-conscious events, even non-
mental ones. For instance, water does not only have properties irreducible to its constituents
(Huxley 1868), but can be approached from different levels of explanation, including
chemical principles (e.g., to explain changes in gaseous states), thermodynamics (e.g., to
explain changes in temperature), statics (e.g., to explain gravitational properties),
hydrodynamics and even geophysics (e.g., to explain the role of water in global climate). The
emergent properties of water are co-determined by the particular context of study, and the
ability to explain the macro properties depends on the availability of a vocabulary (a theory)
which describes such properties (Crane 2001). Even more so in the case of consciousness, this
must be considered as a multi-leveled phenomenon that is simultaneously neurological,
psychological and cultural. No level of particular analysis is then sufficient to cover the
phenomenon in its totality. In that sense, a particular conscious event could simultaneously be
a cultural at processes at different levels of description, but it could not be exhaustively
covered by any hegemonic explanations (neither of mathematical, neurological, psychological
nor social types (Barutta, Gleichgerrcht, Cornejo, and Ibanez, 2010b).
Many mental processes can be predicted and explained on a neurophysiological level but
they cannot be completely reduced to one particular level of description (either “high” or
“low”) when emergentism is assumed. When dealing with mind-brain issues the notion of
emergence presents advantages over the reductionist-physicalist explanation. This
explanatory strategy sustains an overcoming of the mutual incompatibility of the two laws. It
is therefore unnecessary to make statements about the reduction of mental processes to
physical states, and the incoherence “either bodies or minds exist, but not both” is surpassed.
Cognition and consciousness can be considered emergent properties of the organism and its
environment. This perspective allows for the placing of cognition in its context, and the
analysis of cognition centered on the connection between the organism and its environment,
and not exclusively based on the internal mechanisms (Barutta, Gleichgerrcht, Cornejo, and
Ibanez, 2010b). The properties of consciousness are a global activity of the system that
governs or constrains local interactions. Explanations in terms of downward causation can
explain intentionality, conscious subjectivity or meaning and may solve the mind-body issue
according to Barutta, Gleichgerrcht, Cornejo, and Ibanez (2010b).
The key issue is that of downward causation of higher mental phenomena, i.e. the
question of how it is possible for consciousness to have an impact onto the
neurophysiological level. It seems obvious that such influence exists. There is no doubt that
conscious experience can evoke changes in body activity and, particularly, in the activity of
brain (see Chapter 5). As was mentioned by Barutta et al. (2010), countless number of other
experiments, including those on biofeedback (Butler 1978), on imagery (Sheikh 2001) can
provide further evidence of that impact.
Suggesting a solution of the problem of downward causation, Barutta and his colleagues
accept the emergence approach. They consider mind-body interaction using different levels of
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description and they do not insist on the traditional causality principle, understood as the
effect of one entity on another. The entities are the mind and the brain and Barutta et al.
(2010) insist on the impossibility of using the notion of efficient causality when dealing with
two principally different levels of description of the very same phenomenon. This
misunderstanding by scientists explains according to Barutta et al. the “illusion of efficient
causality” between the mind and the brain.
Searle (1995) has argued that it may be possible to solve the dilemma how the mind can
exert effect on the brain if we accept that the mind and the brain are just two different levels
of analysis of the same system. In this sense, mental causality works because it is no longer
the case that there are two different causal realities, but rather, one unique system with two
different levels of description. Nevertheless, the use of the term “causality” raises other
difficulties when we move away from dualism to accept the coexistence of mind and brain as
different description levels of the same system. Traditional causality means that an entity A
produces an effect on another entity B, and there is a temporary latency between the former
and the latter. For example, one billiard ball causes another ball to move. The question is
however, if this notion is applicable to the causality between levels (upward and downward
causation)? Does the mind (cognitive processes) cause a neuronal reorganization in a way
such that there is downward causation? This is still an unanswered question both in principle
and how it happens in detail.
2.7. ATOMISTIC INDIVIDUALS AS MACHINES AND

“SCIENTIFIC PSYCHOLOGY”
Contemporary psychological epistemology is inherited from modern natural sciences.
The natural sciences and their methods became ideals for the social sciences and psychology
at the end of the 19th century. The social sciences and psychology also inherited from the
natural sciences the importance of quantification. The expulsion of reflexivity on the side of
subject matter has resulted in ‘The quantitative imperative’, an obligation commented on by
(Michell 2003): ’There are different sources of fragmentation in psychology, but the
quantitative imperative is certainly one of the strongest’.
Quantification is more than just a translation of qualities into quantitative data. It implies
according to Porter (1995) a moral and political philosophy required by modern societies
closely related to Auguste Comte’s ‘positive science’, see below. Quantification has been
applied as a general strategy in building superior scientific cultures of objectivity, in contrast
to the dominance of what has been called insecure and unpredictable subjective criteria. It is
assumed that quantification as a way of knowing endorses objectivity (Jovanović 2010). The
human sciences therefore adapted the empirical strait jacket borrowed from the old natural
sciences, and the modern drill in mathematical statistics.
It hardly existed a psychological science before the 20th century. The results from the
natural sciences became evident in the 19th and especially in the 20th century and therefore the
methods and techniques for understanding the law of nature obtained a prestige also in the
social sciences. It became an ideal for the social scientists and psychologists. One of the
founding fathers of sociology and social psychology, August Comte, said explicitly that the
scientific knowledge of nature, society and human beings, i.e. that all sciences had to pass
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through three stages; (i) the theological, (ii) the metaphysical, and (iii) the scientific or
positive. The social sciences and psychology could be scientific only by treating social and
psychological phenomena as objective “thing”, as facts. The new conception of science is
deeply embodied in the cultural setting of the time of enlightenment and its demarcation from
theology and metaphysic. In Comte’s (1853/2009) historical reconstruction, the positive state
has completed the development of human mind and human history by overcoming the
previous theological and metaphysical ones. The positive philosophy regarded all phenomena
as subjected to invariable natural laws and its task was to discover these natural laws. Also
human psychology has to be studied by the same methods as used in natural science since
there are general laws existing in all sciences, and the aim for the researchers is to reveal them
by “positivistic” methods. His most influential book written on his mother tongue French is
Course de philosophie positive (1830-1842). Comte became a main contributor to the idea
that the methods in the natural sciences had to be utilized by the social scientists if they
wanted to be scientific.
That linear mathematics and statistics also become tools for the social sciences in their
struggle to become scientific and be accepted. This eager to become scientific in the terms of
the natural sciences and to adopt the paradigm of the sciences with so much theoretical and
practical success is now dominating social sciences and psychology. Today the so-called
“evidence based methods”, resting on a simple cause–effect dichotomy and with the
randomized controlled experiment as the gold standard, maintain a particular epistemology in
the human sciences and contribute to the machine paradigm (see below). Quantitative
methods are representing a mechanistic way of constituting a human being and not a
dialectical or “organic” way (Kohler, 2011).
Though there was no place for subjectivity in Comte’s positivist system, psychology
nevertheless adopted the positivist framework in which positive was identified with the
scientific, and scientific with the discovery of natural laws. Paradoxically, psychology
adopted for the most part of its history the framework which deprived it of specificity of its
phenomena (subjectivity, intentionality, meaningfulness) (Jovanović 2010). Introspective
psychology was ascribed to the unscientific past and with this change in the subject-matter -
from consciousness to behavior - there was no place left at the level of subject-matter that
could be a source of reflexivity.
2.8. THE MACHINE PARADIGM AND THE COMPUTER METAPHOR

As accounted for in the previous, social and cultural influences are essential to
understand what is fundamental about the psychological ‘nature’ of human beings. However,
this was not always thought to be the case. From the perspective of many scientists during the
20th century, the contributions of the social world to psychology were neglected since social
factors were thought to be of minimal interest with respect to the basic development,
structure, or processes of the brain and mind (Zhou and Cacioppo, 2010).
Humankind as a machine has been not only a metaphor, but a model. Gaining knowledge
about complex living organisms by treating them and their context in this way gives distorted
knowledge about real human beings and this epistemology has to be rejected. The ‘machine
paradigm’ which has been a dominating approach to the human brain cannot explain the
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transformation or development of the brain and the paradigm has therefore been under attack
in recent decades. The comprehension of the humans as a machine and the brain as a
computer excludes the possibility for human beings to take an effective part in its own
development, and it therefore cast out of psychology any self-determination approach.
The dominant metaphor of the mind was the stand-alone desktop computer whose
functioning relies on the set of information-processing operations implemented exclusively
inside the machine. The sources of mind and behaviour were assumed to be located in the
recesses of the individual brain.
The analogy between a computer and a human being become fashionable with cognitive
psychology in the 1980s and neurobiology/neuropsychology and brain research in the 1990s
(the ‘decade of the brain’). The human brain was comprehended as the computer’s hardware:
it did not change. According to this popular metaphor, information processing in a human
mind is analogous to the information processing that takes place in a computer. Descartes’s
idea of the brain as a complex machine culminated in our current idea of the brain as a
computer and in localizationism. Mainstream psychology has relied heavily on these ideas
(Block, 1995). But there has been criticism to the machine and computer metaphor as well.
Kohler (2010) comments on three mismatches between the “machine paradigm” and
Homo sapiens: The machine model does not take into consideration some of the most
important features of the living human: (1) the role of experience and memory, (2) its agency
and (3) the plasticity (of the brain). The machine paradigm therefore does not offer a relevant
frame for understanding human psychological functions. An alternative epistemological
framework for understanding the psychology of Homo sapiens has to be established and since
an important purpose is to overcome the fragmentation and to study the ‘wholeness’ of
humans in their development, a “systemic approach” focusing on inter-functionality between
biology, psychology and culture and a dialectic development is an alternative. A machine is
unable to develop in a dialectic manner, i.e. change its qualities, structure and functions as a
result of impact from its surroundings. The distinction between living and inert entities is
important and it might require a radically different epistemological framework to study
humans than it does to explain a machine.
Today we know that the brain is more like a computer’s software since it due to its
plasticity is changing as a result of being used, see Chapter 5. That human beings are able to
change themselves is an important aspect making up the difference between inert and alive
human entities. There are also other important differences between a machine (computer) and
human beings: Human are creative and they have an active perception.
2.8.1. Creativity
Kohler (2010, p. 6) writes that “a human is creating the situation”, and more important:
we are able to change and create new situations with purposeful thinking and action. We are
not only giving meaning to a situation, but able to be creative and establish new knowledge,
meaning and situations. No machine can ever reach this ability to be creative in the human
way.
Humans are the architects of higher psychological functions by creating a culture and
environment that develop the mind and brain in turn. This inter-relationship between
individuals and environment cannot be simulated by simple cause-effect processes. The
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inborn ability to develop as a result of active perception of the environment makes humans
different from machines. Vygotsky’s (1930/1990) presentation of creativity and imagination
is important to understand human beings. He explains how creativity works together with
repetition and introduces creativity as an inborn ability and a necessity for human survival.
The dialectic understanding of human development and the focus on the repetitive and the
creative, how humans relate to the cultural context, is crucial for understanding of human
beings development.
A human being is constantly creating (new) meaning to sense impressions. To create new
meaning is also a human quality we do not find in a machine or in other animals to the same
degree. Humans are born with an ability to create new knowledge, not only to repeat what is
already known. The repetitive ability and the creative ability are both necessary for human
survival. The creative ability is impossible to replicate in an objective or mechanical way.
Creativity is subjective based on individual experience.
2.8.2. Perception = Sense Impression + Cognition
What is called perception in humans cannot be simulated by a machine or a computer

(Kohler 2010). Perception, giving meaning to sense impressions, is a fundamental capacity of
humans and represents the relationship to the outside world. The subjective reactions on the
sense stimuli received from the environment and the verbal communication with other human
beings create the “inner” psychology of every individual, different from each other and with
similarities in the same culture.
The human brain with its electrical and chemical circuits cannot give any cognitive
meaning to sensations, for instance the visual impressions, without input from the mind. The
experience of a sense impression therefore depends on former experiences, expectations just
now and the context, for instance the culture. The importance of culture for perception and
causal attribution is elucidated by the ‘fundamental attribution error’. This tendency to
explain others’ behaviour as arising from dispositions (personality) while neglecting
situational causality is more pronounced for Americans than for members of other cultures.
South and East Asians, for instance, give more weight to situational forces when perceiving
and explaining the causes of people's actions (Nisbett, 2003).
The same sense impression gives different impressions and cognizing also from time to
time and from person to person. People evaluating the same sense impression in
psychophysical studies do not see or hear the same. They very naturally interpreting or
processing identical sense stimulus, for instance a color or a sound, in different manners and
give it different meaning, depending on their subjective, personal experience stored in their
mind and memory. This fact was actually looked upon as a problem by some (machine)
psychologists at the turn of the 20th century, and introspection, or subjective experience, was
declared non-scientific. But introspection has to be at the core of every psychological
methodology. It tells what people actually feels, thinks and do, the main subjects of human
psychology. The machine paradigm and the computer metaphor do not offer a relevant frame
for understanding how and why humans develops, and it is a significant task for an
understanding of human developmental psychology to clarify how biology, culture and mind
interact in a dialectical, developmental and inter-functional manner.
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2.9. EVOLUTIONARY AND CULTURAL APPROACH

Although most psychologists today agree that human beings are able to change there is
no agreement about the reason for this ability. Two perspectives dominate current thinking
about human similarities and differences: an evolutionary perspective, emphasizing how
biology and human kinship makes us similar, and a cultural perspective that emphasises how
cultural impacts make us diverse.
Evolutionary psychology has by somebody been looked upon as a modern variant of the
deterministic machine paradigm since living species’ behaviour, human beings included, is
steered by the “selfish gene” only interested to reproduce itself. Intentional or conscious
behaviour is an illusion; we are ruled by our genes motive to reproduction when we for
instance fall in love. Our psychological makeup, our anxieties, worries and happiness is
inherited and determined by the genetic selection process in the past. This understanding of
human beings is wrong. There is no genetic determinism that can account for all changes in
living beings, and the changes in individuals represent a space of freedom before the
surviving comes into play to keep some of the creative changes and eliminate others. Also in
the nature (and of course in the culture) there are indetermination governing and deciding the
development processes. First comes the variation in human individuals, either deliberately or
accidental, and then the selection. It is possible to create individuals or to think and behave
consciously in a way that have a greater possibility to survive and to spread the genes to the
next generation and this mechanism has consequences for the content of evolutionary
psychology.
2.10. THE WESTERN WAY

The machine/computer paradigm and the non-dialectical way of thinking is a typical
Western way of reason, based on Western philosophy and epistemology emphasizing a
simple, deterministic world, focusing on salient objects instead of dialectical relationships. In
this Western epistemology there is also a prohibition against contradictions (Kolstad, 2012).
There is no place for quantitative development creating qualitative changes and a new inter-
functionality when combining components. The drive for consistency in Western
epistemology bears the cost that potentially useful information may be downplayed or
ignored. Chinese, in stark contrast, appear to accept contradiction as a natural part of life.
When presented with two contradictory arguments they tend to accept both and make no
effort to resolve the inconsistency. In fact, Chinese demonstrate a peculiar strategy whereby
they are more likely to prefer a weak argument if it is paired with a contradictory stronger
argument than when it is encountered alone (Peng and Nisbett, 1999). The world is viewed in
different terms when it is not forced to fit into a consistent and non-contradictory narrative
(Heine, 2001).
Contemporary human sciences psychology included have inherited the Western focus on
analyzing single elements or variables. They are knitted together in an additive or
interactional way by multivariate statistics and linear mathematics, and this represents a
mechanistic way of constituting a human being, not a dialectical or ‘organic’ way. The East
Asians on the other hand believe in interdependence, constant change and contradictions. In
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the East Asian epistemology the part cannot be understood without understanding the whole.
Confucians believed, far more than the intellectual descendants of Aristotle, in inseparable
connectivity and also malleability of human nature depending on the context. The world was
too complex and interactive for independent categories and strict rules to be helpful for
understanding objects and controlling them, according to East Asian philosophers and
scholars.
Admitting and tolerating contradiction is actually a significant characteristic of Eastern
thinking, difficult to grasp in the Western tradition. Empirical results have confirmed that
Chinese would give high praise to both sides of a contradiction when there is a conflict, and at
the same time strive for compromise as a mean to reach its purpose: harmony (Hou, Zhu and
Peng, 2003).
2.10.1. Dialectical versus Synthetic Thinking
Western psychology has largely assumed that individuals are uncomfortable with
incongruity and that they possess a basic and in-born need to synthesize contradictory
information about an attitude object (Festinger 1957; Lewin 1951; Thompson et al. 1995).
Attitudes have therefore traditionally been conceptualized as dichotomous or bipolar in
nature. That is, one’s attitude toward an object or event is either positive or negative, but not
both. In Western mainstream psychology there has been less acknowledgement of attitudinal
ambivalence. Most conventional theorizing assumes that attitudinal inconsistency leads to
psychic tension and the need for synthesis (e.g. cognitive dissonance theory, Festinger 1957).
However, a growing corpus of cross-cultural research has cast doubt on whether these
theoretical assertions are tenable across cultures (Choi and Choi 2002; Heine and Lehman
1997b; Peng and Nisbett 1999). (Spencer-Rodgers, Peng, Wang and Hou 2004).
Western research with split semantic differential scales, which allow for the possibility of
two evaluative dimensions, indicates that individuals may associate positive and negative
emotions, such as love and hate, relatively independently with certain objects (Thompson et
al 1995). Nevertheless, to evaluate the self as both good and bad, simultaneously, would
appear improbable, illogical, or even irrational in Western conventional psychology and even
in everyday thinking. Self-evaluative ambivalence may seem especially improbable in
societies where positive self-regard is culturally mandated, highly valued, and strongly
inculcated in the home and educational system (Heine, Lehman, Markus and Kitayama 1999;
from Spencer-Rodgers, Peng, Wang and Hou 2004).
East Asian epistemologies tend to tolerate, rather than eschew, psychological dissonance
or contradiction (Peng, Ames and Knowles 2001), and the East Asians more readily tolerate
psychological contradiction, including negative and positive evaluation of the self. Rather
than implausible or maladjusted, these dialectical cultures exhibit greater ambivalence or
evaluative contradiction in their self-evaluations.
2.10.2. Naïve Dialecticism
For dialectically oriented cultures, and dialectically oriented individuals within various
cultures, the nature of the world is such that masculinity and femininity, strength and
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weakness, good and bad, and so on exist in the same person or event simultaneously.
Recognizing and accepting the duality in all things (Yin Yang), including the self, is regarded
as normative and adaptive in dialectical cultures. Contemporary dialectical thought is
embedded within the lay cultural beliefs and folk epistemologies of numerous East Asian
cultures, including China (Peng and Nisbett 1999).
There is a fundamental dialectical epistemology among Chinese and other East Asian
cultures. Two central features of dialectical ways of knowing are moderation and balance:
good is counterbalanced by evil, happiness is offset by sadness, and self-criticism is tempered
by sympathy for the self (Kitayama and Markus 1999; Peng and Nisbett 1999). Dialecticism
also encourages holistic thinking and discourages the adoption of extreme positions. As a
result, ambivalence is deeply rooted in the Chinese self-concept. In common parlance, the
word ambivalence is often understood to mean ambiguity, indecision, or uncertainty
regarding a course of action and the term carries a negative connotation. … Ambivalence is
derived from the Latin terms ambo, meaning “two or both”, and valeo, meaning “to be of
value or worth” (Simpson and Weiner 1989).
East Asians report experiencing a greater balance of favourable and unfavourable
emotions, in some cases in equal proportions (Bagozzi, Wong, and Yi 1999; Diener et al.
1995; Suh, Diener, Oishi, and Triandis 1998). Dialectical cultures accept the coexistence of
good and bad in their lives (the dialectical principle of contradiction), and they embrace a
view of the world as constantly shifting (the dialectical principle of change).
Dialectical individuals may expect and accept greater negativity in their lives in general.
East Asian philosophical and spiritual traditions emphasize the transience of all things,
including favourable experiences, good fortune, and positive feelings (Bagozzi et al. 1999;
Diener et al. 1995; Kitayama and Markus 1999).
McCrae, Costa, and Yik (1996) have like Vygotsky separated different layers in the
individual from the general biological, instinctive and genetic predispositions to the influence
from a concrete culture and activity in a particular society. The personality consists of these
different layers and is therefore both cultural and non-cultural at the same time. They
distinguish “conceptually independent aspects of the person, including biologically based
basic tendencies, abstract potentials of the individual including abilities and dispositions;
external influences which provide the social environment in which individuals develop and
act; characteristic adaptations such as language, skills, values, attitudes, habits, goals,
relationships, and, of particular importance, the self-concept; and the objective biography,
what the individual does and experience across a lifetime” (McCrae, Costa, and Yik, 1996).
To look at the layers as “independent” is however, not very adequate. The layers are
intertwined and mixed, making up the particular individual in a specific culture. The
dialectical principle of aufheben (from Hegel) is important to conceive that the “layers”,
tendencies, dispositions and abilities are both there and not there, because the context in
which they participate changes during socialization and acquisition of the culture.
Due to the creative ability, perception as cognitive and the ever changing relationships,
the model of human being as a machine is of no help. Gaining knowledge about complex
living organisms by treating them and their context in this way gives distorted knowledge
about real human beings and this epistemology based on human beings as machines and their
brain’s as computers has to be rejected. There is however, a distinction between the “machine
paradigm” and the “natural scientific paradigm”. Psychology should be inspired by recent
natural sciences, both their theories and methods. Theory of relativity and “chaos” theory are
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both different from the Newtonian deterministic mechanics, and especially chaos theory
underlines a particular kind of indetermination (Kolstad, 2011).
Another research tradition characterizing mainstream psychology has been dealing with
individuals without reaching them: psychology of inter-individual differences (Valsiner
2009). Psychology has according to Jaan Valsiner invested the most rigor in measurement of
differences between individuals and instead of deepening insight into concrete individuals,
this tradition has favored looking at as many as possible individuals and focusing on common
traits or factors underlying the differences. In this way psychology substituted concrete
individuals for mass of individuals and it could still pretend dealing with individuals but this
time dealing with de-individualized subjects (Jovanović, 2010).
2.11. Alternatives to the Machine Paradigm
According to Kohler (2010), machine paradigm is (1) ignorant of the subject’s experience
or perspective, (2) unable to explain agency activity, and (3) cannot accept self-determination
as a use of freedom, namely, free-will. That humans are the creators of psychological reality
and that the development of human beings is dialectic and therefore cannot be simulated by
simple cause–effect understanding, irrespective of the number of causal variable included and
how “complex” the model is, should be underlined in an alternative epistemology for human
beings.
Kono (2010) comments on the qualitative discontinuity between human beings and
animals and he is referring to Merleau-Ponty. He does not, however, go into details about
what is the essence of humanity that distinguishes human beings from other animals except
for mentioning that human beings have collectively changed their environment, much more
than other animals have done and created a human culture: Humans make “unaccountably
various kinds of tools, raise animals, cultivate the fields, plant vegetables, construct houses,
buildings, monuments, villages and cities, make social systems such as government, law,
economy, intellectual and communicative tools such as language, characters, signs, symbols,
calculators, books, libraries, arts, mass medias, and so on” (Kono 2010: 334).
Although psychological events exist simultaneously in physical and ontological sense,
they must according to Barutta et al. (2010) be described only by means of one language of
description, i.e. either from psychological, or from social, or from neurological point of view.
An absolute reduction to the sole level of description is impossible (Allakhverdov and
Gershkovich, 2010).
2.12. The Neurological Fallacy
The brain is the most significant tool in carrying out our psychological tasks. We can say
that the brain is a central mediator in all psychological operations (Kitayama and Uskul
2011). However, the psychological operations cannot be reduced to the brain, even if the
brain is necessary for them being performed. The brain does not attend, think, feel, remember
or act. Only human beings do these things, and although they could not do them without their
brains, this does not mean that the brains are doing them. The fallacy of reducing
psychological phenomena to brain processes arises from a misguided metaphysics, deeply
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entrenched in Western thought, which is the tendency to suppose that ‘what anything is’ is
identical (in the very strongest sense) with ‘what it is made of’ (Coulter and Sharrock 2007, p.
ix). If the mind exists, so it goes according to this misguided metaphysics, it must be made of
physical matter (the brain), for anything in the universe is material, and mental predicates
must thus be ascribable to the brain, if anything. Understanding that the mind is not a thing
but skills and dispositions should enable us to overcome this metaphysics (Brinkmann, 2011).
A pervasive aspect of human life is the use of psychological/cultural tools to improve our
psychological functions, for instance the memory function, and our human behaviour. If we
cannot use the brain to remember particular details (e.g. birthdays), we may use a mediating
notebook instead. We use different sorts of cultural resources and cognitive technologies,
glasses, pencils, calculators, computers and books to carry out numerous tasks more efficient.
This allows us to “supersize our minds” as a species (Clark 2008). Such psychological tools
mediate the mind’s functions in the Vygotskian perspective (Wertsch 2007).
2.13. On Psychological Systems and Inter-Functional Connections
Cultural-historical psychology represents a dialectical and inter-functional understanding

of human development. It focuses on how humans’ higher psychological functions are created
and how they relate to lower functions (biology) and the cultural context. These interrelations
are crucial for an understanding of human development and the analysis of developmental
processes allows us to understand the interaction between biological predispositions and
environmental information with respect to the initiation of culturally informed developmental
pathways (Keller, 2002). The biological heritage and the cultural present are components of
the same developmental processes. Culture does not simply regulate natural processes; it also
develops and makes available psychological tools that transform lower elementary processes
and creates all higher psychological functions (Ratner, 1994). We will return to this issue in
Chapter 6.
Humans have to be understood by a systemic, dialectical paradigm more than a
mechanical and analytic epistemology. The inborn abilities make humans different from
machines. To be creative in the human way cannot in principle be simulated by a machine.
And to “forget” or to omit this ability does not make it possible to understand what a human
actually is. Vygotsky’s (1930/1990) presentation of creativity and imagination is important to
understand human beings. Vygotsky presents a dialectic understanding of human
development and his focus on how humans relate to the cultural context is crucial for
understanding of human beings development.
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Chapter 3
CULTURE AND CULTURAL PSYCHOLOGY

3.1. INTRODUCTION
“In summary, it can be concluded that human infants are predisposed with open genetic
programs for the acquisition of environmental information, which is of primordial significance
for shaping their neurophysiological and psychological development” (Keller, 2002, p. 217).
"Culture is not a product of biological evolution, although the capacity to develop and
maintain culture is" (Dobzhansky, 1964, p. 93)
This chapter is dealing with that part of the environment referred to as culture or cultural,
and its role in creating higher psychological functions. Questions concerning the relationship
between a person and the environment or culture are as old as psychology itself: How is an
individual formed by culture? How are new cultural phenomena created, and how do cultures
change? This chapter is dealing with the first of these questions, how individual minds and
behavior are formed and “become cultural not only in its contents (i.e., what we think about)
but also in its mechanisms, in its means…” (Vygotsky and Luria, 1993, p. 170).
Although much has been learned about cultural differences in psychology and brain
responses in recent years, much less is known about how culture is affecting mind and brains,
by which mechanisms and to which degree and how culture become internalized as
psychological functions. Although developmental evidence is strong that certain cultural
differences are quite evident very early on in life, even before birth, it is often not certain to
what degree the differences are due to environmental affordances provided, for example, by
caretakers (Kitayama and Uskul 2011). Sojourners know that once one misses a certain
critical or sensitive period, one can never get “it” in full, regardless of how long and how hard
the person tries to be a member of a new culture. The mind’s and the brain’s plasticity have
limitations.
Too often mainstream psychology has not taken into consideration the cultural impact
neither on psychological functions nor on the brains structure. The environmental and cultural
influence on cognitive, emotional and behavioral characteristics has not been addressed in a
scientific manner. Both cognitive psychology and personality psychology has to a certain
degree been a-cultural or even anti-cultural in recent decades. Even today, influential
psychological models do not take culture into consideration. Contemporary personality
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theory, for instance the popular five trait theory (“Big five”) (McCrae and Costa, 1997) is to a
great extent a psychology of dispositional constructs without any cultural impact.
In other research disciplines, for instance in the humanities, ‘culture’ has been a frequent
used concept and a topic of discussion for centuries (Busche, 2000). Various research
disciplines and famous scholars like Immanuel Kant, Wilhelm von Humboldt and Franz Boas
have treated the topic of culture and refer to discourses about culture. In spite of the extended
discussion among scholars there is no general consensus about definitions. The way culture is
treated sometimes even contradicts within disciplines. ‘Culture’ seems to be one of these
concepts nearly impossible to define in a scientific manner acceptable to most scholars.
Biology and recently also cognitive neurosciences have picked up on the cultural topic in
the last decades (Chiao, 2009;, Han and Northoff, 2008; Kitayama and Park, 2010; Losin et
al., 2010 and Vogeley and Roepstorff, 2009). A contemporary field of research in this
tradition is called cultural neuroscience. The number of publications and research grants
related to it has increased tremendously. The approach and some recent research results are
presented in Chapter 5.
The deficiency of dealing with culture in mainstream psychology in the 20th century is
not without exemption. In Russia ‘culture’ was a central topic and concept in psychology
already in the 1920s and 1930s when Lev Vygotsky and Alexander Luria as the main
contributors established the cultural-historical psychology. A central feature of this tradition
was the integration of human biology and consciousness and the study of cultural impact. The
Vygotskian approach has been highly influential, but the followers have not been primarily
concerned with the biological aspects of their approach. Contemporary cultural psychology in
the West the last three decades has focused primarily on the importance of culture on mind
and behavior and lately also on the brain, but seldom by taking the contribution from biology
and the genes into account.
This field of research has together with cross-cultural psychology developed several
measures of key cultural dimensions that characterize the world’s cultures and how people
react. But still there is no agreement about the definition of the concept ‘culture’.
3.2. DEFINITIONS OF CULTURE

What we call culture in everyday language as well in science is a specific kind or part of
the environment. As a scientific term, ‘culture’ has been given many different meanings by
social anthropologists, psychologists and other social scientists. Some definitions are close to
the everyday meaning, other are more ‘technical’ and peculiar. In 1952, Alfred Kroeber and
Clyde Kluckhohn presented in their monograph ‘Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and
Definitions’ 164 different concepts of culture and the number of definitions among scholars
has increased since then. Kroeber and Kluckhohn’s monograph also contains valuable
discussions and analysis focusing primarily on the concept in the humanities and the social
sciences. Considering the contemporary emphasises on cultural neuroscience and epigenesis,
it is interesting and probably surprising that only seven of the definitions in Kroeber and
Kluckhohn’s book contained any mention of biology, none of which made any direct link
between culture and biology.
Kroeber and Kluckhohn’s omnibus definition is:
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Copyright © 2013. Nova Science Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. May not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except fair uses permitted under Culture and Cultural Psychology 43
“Culture consists of patterns, explicit and implicit, of and for behavior acquired and
transmitted by symbols, constituting the distinctive achievements of human groups, including
the embodiment in artifacts; the essential core of culture consists of traditional (i.e.
historically derived and selected) ideas and especially their attached values; cultural systems
may on the one hand be considered as products of action, on the other as conditioning
elements of further action” (Kroeber and Kluckhohn, 1952, p. 181).
Explicitly or implicitly, culture has most often been treated as something acquired by
individuals during the process of socialization. This was and remained the dominant stance,
and is still reflected by current authors, for instance in the recent edition of the Handbook of
cross-cultural psychology (Jahoda, 2002). There is also a general consensus that culture is
organized by ideas (Kroeber and Kluckhohn, 1952), either in terms of explicitly shared
knowledge, beliefs and values or by implicit or hidden assumptions inscribed in daily
practices and institutionalized in routines, conventions, and societal norms (DÀndrade, 1995;
Kitayama and Park, 2010; Shweder, 1991).
The most popular scientific definitions of culture are in many ways similar to how most
lay people intuitively might define culture: as the shared knowledge, values, beliefs, and
practices among a group of people living in geographical proximity who share a history, a
language, and cultural identification (Brumann, 1999; Atran, Medin and Ross, 2005). Other
definitions are based on group-level traits that assume cultures as integrated systems
consisting of widely shared social norms (rules, theories, grammars, codes, systems, models,
world views, etc.) that maintain heritable variation (Laland, Olding-Smee, and Feldman,
2000; Rappaport, 1999; D. S. Wilson, 2002). Some scientists also tend to view cultures as
socially inherited habits (Fukuyama, 1995), or socially transmitted bundles of normative traits
(Axelrod, 1997b; Huntington, 1996). A more recent and shorter definition of culture
introduced by social anthropologists is: ‘a body of background traits that are automatically
imprinted and expressed in every individual of a certain culture’ (Vogeley and Roepstorff,
2009). In its most general sense, the term ‘culture’ refers to the socially inherited body of past
human accomplishments that serves as the resources for current life of a social group
(D’Andrade, 1997). Skinner, whose first pronouncements on culture appeared shortly after
the publication of the Kroeber and Kluckhohn monograph, wrote: “…the culture into which
an individual is born is composed of all the variables affecting him (sic) which are arranged
by other people” (Skinner, 1953, p. 419). Skinner hardly distinguished between culture and
development, since he later defines culture simply as “the contingencies of social
reinforcement maintained by a group” (Skinner 1987, p. 74).
According to Li (2003), the ambiguous application of the term culture in everyday
language is an indication of an increasing drain of meaning. For this reason and in order to
approach culture from a scientific perspective, it is necessary to clarify how the underlying
concept is defined in a specific study and when discussing cultural impact, for instance on
psychological functions and the brain’s structure.
Cognitive psychology had during the ’cognitive revolution’ little interest in culture and it
was common among most psychologists to see psychology as a purely cognitive approach
and without any connection to culture. Thus Jackedof (1987, xi) wrote, according to Jahoda
(2002, p. 25) that “the mind can be thought of as a biological information-processing device”.
Personality has also recently been defined as something outside and not influenced by culture,
exemplified by the BIG 5.
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As noted by the founding parents of the research on culture, the subject is best
conceptualized as a collective-level phenomenon that is composed of both socially shared
meanings such as ideas and beliefs and associated scripted behavioral patterns called
practices, tasks, and conventions (Kroeber and Kluckhohn, 1952, Shweder and Bourne 1984).
These ideas and practices are quite variable both within and between cultures. Elaborating on
this conception of culture, Kitayama and Park (2010) suggest that culture can be abstracted as
an amalgam of both cross-generationally transmitted values and corresponding scripted
behavioral patterns called practices. These two components of culture are anchored in icons,
stories, and other ideational elements of culture to be situated in a given place and time.
If only the resource aspect is emphasized, as is the case in most generic definitions, then
culture is merely the static and passive product of past civilization that is used to support the
current way of human life. For a conception of culture to join readily with co-constructive
conceptions, the resource-based view of culture needs to be extended and combined with a
process-oriented notion and a sense of developmental relevancy (Li, 2003). Vygotsky’s
contribution to the clarifying of cultural development and its role for higher psychological
functions is important in this connection. “A huge inventory of psychological mechanisms -
skills, forms of behavior, cultural signs and devices - has evolved in the process of cultural
development" (Vygotsky and Luria, 1993, p. 170).
That culture is something containing practices and values, something both material and
ideal, is further underlined by Michael Cole, a distinguished cultural psychologist inspired by
the Vygotsky tradition, in his definition of culture: “…a structured, artifact-saturated medium
that is simultaneously ideal and material, inside the head and in the humanly transformed
environment, that serves to coordinate newborns with their caretakers within the overall
circumstances of the social group.” And he continues, “The role of cultural mediation in
coordinating individuals with their environment is evident from the first days of postnatal
life” (Cole 2002, p. 307). As we will see in a later chapter the impact of culture on human
beings happen even before birth. The unborn in the womb seems to be influenced by
languages and able to discriminate speech sounds (Polka and Werker, 1994). The impact from
the cultural environment is further strengthened immediately after birth, and the baby is ready
for being affected in a certain direction, as emphasized by Cole “A basic fact about human
nature stemming from the symbolic character of cultural mediation is that when neonates
enter the world, they are already the objects of adult, culturally conditioned” (Cole, 2002, p.
309). After birth and early infancy cultural experience exerts its effects on mind and brain
throughout adulthood (see Chapter 5 about the development of the brain). Many innate
tendencies undergo maturational development and may not emerge until later when the
child’s mind is already fully immersed in and dependent on a cultural environment. The
cultural environment is necessary for developing what is biologically possible: “The
specification of content and timing of learning draws on the implicit notion that the genotype
needs specific information from the environment in order to develop its phenotypic
appearance, inborn environment” (Keller, p. 217).
3.2.1. Anthropological and Sociological Approaches
In social anthropology there are two main approaches to define and explain the nature of
culture: one is the biological/evolutionary, the other is the social/cultural approach. Biological
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anthropology focuses on the link between culture and biology and how culture depends on
and also creates biological characteristics. It regards culture as part of the evolutionary
process of humankind and focuses on the question of whether “culture” is unique for human
beings and also on evolution of the human species. In contrast to biological anthropology
social and cultural anthropology is based on Edward B. Tylor's influential definition from the
19th century: “Culture or civilization, taken in its wide ethnographic sense, is that complex
whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities
and habits acquired by man as a member of society” (Tylor, 1873). This approach introduces
the category of ethnic groups and focuses on differences in behaviors between groups.
Biological causes are not taken into consideration. Another definition of “culture” in social
anthropology is proposed by Ruth Bendict. She defines culture as something referring to
human’s cognition and behavior, as a “more or less consistent pattern of thought and action”
(Benedict, 1934).
According to Niklas Luhmann, a German sociologist and a prominent thinker in systems
theory, the characteristic feature of culture is that culture is constituted, maintained and
changed by communication. When communicative processes occur in the same or in similar
ways repeatedly, specific communicative patterns are formed. They are structurally related to
psychological systems, and communicative patterns can therefore influence (not determine)
parallel developments in psychological systems (as patterns of expectations, for example).
Psychological systems have a capacity for (symbolic) generalization, which is in turn a
condition for communicative processes (Thommen and Wettstein 2010).
The Dutch psychologist Hubert Hermans known as the creator of Dialogical Self Theory
further challenges the idea that a culture is an “entity” or involves “group membership”.
He suggests that a culture emerges from patterns of meaning between people in dialogue
with each other (Hermans, 2001, Adams and Markus, 2001), and in this way underline the
importance of communication in accordance with Luhmann. Niklas Luhmann and Hubert
Hermans both describes culture as the enduring patterns of the co-evolution of psychological
and communicative processes often expressing themselves in generalized symbolic forms.
Culture is still a hot topic in contemporary anthropology. Adam Kuper evaluates in his
book ‘Culture. The Anthropologists’ Account’, the usefulness of the term ‘culture’ as an
analytical concept and, referring to anthropology in the 1990s, he recommends avoiding “the
hyper-referential word (culture) altogether, and to talk more precisely of knowledge, or belief,
or art, or technology, or traditions, or even of ideology (though similar problems are raised by
the multivalent concept)” (Kuper, 1999). His suggestion underlines and illustrates the
difficulties of defining culture in an unambiguous way.
3.3. ARTIFACTS AND LANGUAGE

As we have seen, ‘culture’ is often conceived as a socially inherited combination of
human-made material artifacts, knowledge, values, and beliefs accumulated from the past of a
given social group (D’Andrade, 1996; Herskovitz, 1948; Tylor, 1874). Most contemporary
definitions and comprehensions of ‘culture’ both in psychological and anthropological
traditions include a material and an ideal part; and the word ‘artifact’ is often used to
characterize elements of culture. But what is an artifact? An artifact is according to Cole
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(2002) an aspect of the material world that has been modified over the history of its
incorporation into goal-directed human action. Artifacts are simultaneously material and ideal
(conceptual) and they play a central role in preserving and transmitting the kinds of social
inheritance referred to as recipes, beliefs, norms, conventions and the like.
By means of language, representations of semiotic processes can be transmitted over time
and space. Language and other cultural tools are major contributions to human development.
No species can accumulate progress across generations as smartly as humans owing, amongst
other things, to the invention of (written) language. We can pass our experiences and transmit
information and innovations across time and place to the future generations in a unique way.
Cultural experience can exert its effects even in the womb (see Chapter. 5), as is the case for
discriminating speech sounds (Polka and Werker, 1994). There is conclusive evidence for
deep cultural impacts on cognition and other psychological functions (mind) due to the
language acquisition. Language is probably the most effective medium to deal with culturally
relevant processes in both psychological and social systems. Language and the related
semiotic processes is in addition an effective cultural tool of coordinating individuals’
psychological processes, their manifest behavior and communicative processes (Thommen
and Wettstein 2010).
Language is not created by the subject. It exists independently of it. Humans acquire
language in the same way as they acquire basic cultural norms and values, through interaction
with other members of their cultural group. The task with which the subject is concerned is
the use of a ready-made sign system (not one she/he creates on his own) in communication,
cognition or action in the surrounding world. We often hear that ‘language is a tool of
thought’. This is a familiar expression among psychologists but language is much more than a
tool for thought. The word also has a volitional function. Humans’ locomotive apparatus is
subordinate to it. The word has power over the real actions of humans’ bodily structure and
their psychological functions (Yaroshevsky, 1989).
3.3.1. Written Language
Homo sapiens became l iterate late in its history. Unlike spoken language, writing is of
fairly recent invention. Systematic writing systems did not appear until 4000 to 3000 B.C.
(Scribner and Cole, 1981). Writing is the exclusive possession of the human animal. Its
origins are to be found in cultural history rather than in biological evolution. Many consider
the introduction of writing systems into social life a watershed in human history: “Literacy, it
is said, separates prehistory from history, primitive societies from civilized societies.
Profound changes in social life have often accompanied the introduction and adaption of
writing systems” (Scribner and Cole, 1981). Written language changes not only the
content but also the processes of thinking. The organization of these conscious
phenomena vis-a-vis each other is socially constituted. They are created by social or cultural
“evolution”, inheritance and learning, not by biological evolution.
Written speech provides an excellent example of how the social-cultural context may
guide the development of individual psychological and especially cognitive processes.
Writing is a cultural invention which involves not only mastery of an abstract sound to
grapheme coding system, but the mastery of technological implements for writing (pencils,
pens, keyboards and computers) and the use of appropriate surfaces to write upon. Writing
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may in many ways guide and constrain the way the writer thinks or, at the very least,
expresses thoughts. Learning writing involves engaging in culturally determined ways of
thinking.
On the other hand, written language is when it comes down to it, nothing more than black
ink on a white piece of paper, or today also electronic markers on a screen. Besides, it
remains a physical artifact, an incomprehensible sign, as long as it is not interpreted by
psychic processes and transmitted by communicative processes. Signs and letters are not
psychological processes by themselves; they are merely triggers and create psychological,
social, and communicative processes (Thommen and Wettstein 2010).
Written language, a prominent and powerful cultural tool in contemporary society,
illustrates that culture consists of material and ideal ingredients. Through writing in particular,
language attains constancy over time and enables the conservation of otherwise ephemeral
processes (see Donald, 1991). Paper, other writing materials and tools, books, and variants of
printed and electronic documents are examples of inherited cultural material tools
accumulated through cultural evolution. Cognitive and intellectual psychological functions
combining both conceptual (e.g., ideas and knowledge) and material products have resulted
from technological innovations of the past (e.g., the inventions of written language, paper,
and printing techniques) improved higher psychological functions.
Miller (2002) emphasises the role of cultural meanings and practices in completing the
self and in affecting the transformation of basic psychological processes. Miller is referring to
what is called ‘the incompleteness theses’. This thesis “stipulates that experience in a
particular cultural environment is essential to the emergence of higher-order psychological
processes” (Miller, 2002, p. 143). Individuals are agentic, actively interpreting and make
sense of experience (Bruner, 1990), and their interpretations of experience depend on
culturally based meanings and practices. Lower as well as the higher psychological processes
are affected continuously by these interpretations, and in this way culture is fundamentally
implicated in psychological functioning.
3.3.2. Symbolic Meaning
Besides language, culturally relevant semiotic processes are represented by other cultural
symbols. Different icons may channel and coordinate psychological and communicative
processes more or less successfully. Similarly, physical, material objects, for instance the
build environment can be loaded with cultural meaning and represent a symbolic language
that has to be learnt in a distinctive culture. Religious symbols like crosses and buildings such
as cathedrals, mosques or synagogues activate diverse psychological processes. In a church
the mood is different from the mood in a circus. A graveyard expresses sorrow, not because
we are born with a tendency to look at tombstone in a sad or gloomy way, but because we are
socialized in a particular culture where tombstones are a sign for the dead. We have learnt the
cultural sign that tombstone signalize death and sorrow. Other signs and symbols express
other mood states and they influence and release particular emotions and cognitions due to a
symbolic language. Children acquire this symbolic meaning and the accompanying emotions
during socialization into a particular culture (Kolstad, 1997, 2011).
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3.4. PERCEPTION OF THE ENVIRONMENT

We are responding on the environment and symbols in two ways. First, we are reacting
with spontaneous, instinctive emotions, and later on by cognitive reflection. Children perceive
visually the world as a functional and relational totality. When starting using words for telling
about and analysing this functional totality; the words divide the world in structural entities.
The immediate or ‘natural’ (animal) perception is supported by a complex mediated process
made possible with language as a cultural and psychological tool and an essential part of
cognitive development.
There has been considerable debate whether humans can experience emotional responses
independently of and prior to recognition and cognition (Zajonc, 1984). Concerning aesthetic
preferences the conclusion is that there are two forms of preferences, those that occur
independently of thinking or at least without any conscious assessment, and those that are
cognitively processed (Kolstad, 1997). There are also different fractions between the
immediate emotional and cognitively processed reactions. It happens in other words, a ‘pure’
emotional response to sensory impressions. "Before we get going about" we react
emotionally. As we try to understand, interpret and explain what we sense, and to get it in
place in the brain's filing system, we use cognitive or linguistic features. The immediate
emotional reaction occurs, however, without recoding, and happening faster than the
intellectual assessment.
The two forms of perception have recently been related to consciousness. There has been
proposed a distinction between two types of consciousness: phenomenal (P-consciousness)
and access (A-consciousness). P-consciousness is simply raw experience: it is moving,
colored forms, sounds, sensations, emotions and feelings with our bodies and responses at the
center. These experiences, considered independently of any impact on behavior, are also
called qualia. A-consciousness, on the other hand, is the phenomenon whereby information in
our minds is accessible for verbal report, reasoning, and the control of behavior. So, when we
perceive, information about what we perceive is access conscious; when we introspect,
information about our thoughts is access conscious; when we remember, information about
the past is access conscious, and so on. A-consciousness can in principle be understood in
mechanistic terms, but understanding P-consciousness is much more challenging.
According to Kaplan (1987) the preference for well-known sceneries will be based on
little cognitive processing, but the preference of the mystery and un-known involves a lot of
cognitive activity. Probably we all make a quick, almost automatic and unconscious
registration and evaluation of any environment we are in. Perhaps there is also completely
automatic deduction with respect to such qualities as ‘good or bad’, ‘ugly or pretty’,
‘dangerous or harmless’. Kaplan (1987) believes it would be advantageous to have an innate
ability or inclination to make such assessments, and also that the assessment resulted in
adequate and species-specific behavior.
The conclusion is that the visual and more generally the emotional, sensory impressions
are first reacted upon with emotions and later on the impressions are translated or encoded
into language and stored in memory - along with the feelings the sensory impressions, the
sight, smell etc. immediately triggered. Perception of architecture is for instance a "process in
which people take raw sensory inputs from the environment and interpret them using the
knowledge, experience and understanding of the world, so that the sensations are meaningful
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experiences" (Bernstein, et al., 1997). The immediate assessments we make of the

environment around us need not be based on any real thinking (Zajonc, 1980).
We are affected emotionally by visual signs even when we do not register them
consciously, by the so-called subliminal perception. Photos of weapons made subjects more
aggressive and violent when they were angry in a room with pictures of guns, even if the
images were not consciously registered (Berkowitz, 1968). The immediate response on the
surroundings is gradually superseded by the higher psychological functions and change to an
active, cognitive function in the same way as when children pick up language and acquire de-
contextual thinking. “The word takes one beyond the world of sensory experience and leads
to rational experience”, as Luria (1982, p. 38) puts it. Implicit patterns of ideas and practices
have a potential to regulate, express and transform the human mind. For instance, the
Whorfian hypothesis postulates a systematic relationship between one's linguistic background
and one's experience of and response to the environment, se Chapter 4 about the color
perception and categorization. Consistent with this hypothesis, Kay and Kempton (1984)
found that English speakers exhibited more differentiation among colors that straddle the
English category boundary between ‘green’ and ‘blue’ than speakers of a Uto-Aztecan
language in Mexico who uses a single word for these colors (see also Ames and Fiske, 2010).
There is what we can call a dialectical transition and a generalization from sensation to
thought and abstract thinking. Generalization is a verbal act of thought and reflects reality in
quite another way than sensations and pure emotions reflect it.
Perception contains sensing, thinking and feeling. Through the senses, for instance the
eye, we take the raw material for thinking and feeling. This triggers a cognitive activity and
creates associations with something that is known. Past experiences, interests and
expectations stored in memory give meaning to the sense impression. The psychological and
physical reaction to visual stimuli is the result of a combination between the distinctiveness of
the incoming stimuli and the cognitive interpretation of the stimuli, based on knowledge and
experience. The same physical and symbolic environment therefore triggers other
associations for an architect than it does for a child (Kolstad and Bjørnsen 1997).
3.5. INDIVIDUALISTIC VS. COLLECTIVISTIC CULTURES?

‘Collectivism’ and ‘individualism’ are analytical concepts often used to categorise and
describe cultures and societies as well as individuals. Most traditions distinguish between
cultural characteristics (Hofstede 1980) and individual (or psychological) self-perceptions
(Markus and Kitayama 1991, Singelis 1994). An independent self is expected to exist
primarily in individualistic cultures, whereas an interdependent self is to be found more often
in collectivistic cultures. To a great extent cross-cultural research on self-perception has been

related to the individualism – collectivism dichotomy. The aim has often been to clarify if
people in collectivistic cultures have interdependent self-appraisal and individuals in
individualistic cultures more independent self-appraisal. The cultural dimension of
individualism–collectivism has been shown to influence the distinctive self-appraisal and
reliably to affect a wide variety of psychological processes, including motivation, perception,
emotion and cognition (Markus and Kitayama, 1991; Triandis, 1995). Individualism or
independence refers to when individuals construe themselves as separate from and
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independent of each other, whereas collectivism or interdependence refers to when

individuals construe themselves as highly interconnected and defined by their relations and
social context. Western cultures place more value on independence and individuality than do
Eastern cultures, resulting in an attentional bias toward individual objects in an analytical,
context-free manner and with less regard for relationships between items. In contrast, East
Asian cultures emphasize interdependent relationships and monitoring of context,
relationships and backgrounds (Chua et al., 2005; Nisbett and Miyamoto, 2005), resulting in
an attentional bias toward contextual, relational processing of information (Nisbett, 2003;
Nisbett and Masuda, 2003; Nisbett et al., 2001).
The differences between individualistic and collectivistic cultures are sometimes
presented as a dichotomy. The basis of this framework was the work of Hofstede (1980) and
his studies nearly 40 years ago. Based on the dichotomy Australia, Europe and North America
were comprised as ‘individualistic continents’, while Africa, Asia and Latin America were
supposed to be ‘collectivistic continents’. Recent meta-analyses (Oyserman, Coon and
Kemmelmeier, 2002) have revealed that there is no support for treating individualism and
collectivism as opposite types of cultures or contrasting poles on a continuum (Fiske 2002).
Hofstede (1980) has mistakenly assumed a negative correlation between national
individualism and collectivism. A categorisation of cultures or countries as either
individualistic or collectivistic fails to reflect the cultural diversity in most modern societies
(Kolstad and Horpestad 2009).
More recently new models of individualism and collectivism and the relationship
between the two concepts have been introduced (Kashima et al., 1995; Rhee, Uleman and
Lee, 1996; Triandis, 1993, Brewer and Chen, 2007). Most cultures represent a combination of
individualism and collectivism qualities, which in turn will form the basis of the development
of the self-construal. The core issue turns out to be that people in different cultures have their
specific blend of ‘individualism-collectivism’. The mixture of individualism and collectivism
in a particular culture is unique, and creates also a specific kind of self-appraisal in every
culture, different from another culture (Kolstad, 2007). Independent and interdependent self-
appraisals are present in all cultures but the blend of the two constructs that make up a human
being is different from culture to culture, depending on cultural qualities and the historical,
political and economic situation (Kolstad and Horpestad 2009, Santamaria, de la Mata,
Hansen, and Ruiz 2010). This implies that any given culture may and do hold both
individualistic and collectivistic aspects at the same time. The special combination is what
gives unique consequences for the individual perception of the self (Kolstad and Gjesvik,
2012).
3.6. CULTURAL VARIATIONS IN PSYCHOLOGICAL FUNCTIONS

Often cross-cultural psychologists conceptualize nation or race as a proxy for culture;
however, such gross characterizations of culture are impoverished as they fail to capture the
individual variability within cultures, the dynamic nature of culture and the fact that an
individual can possess awareness of and appreciation for more than one cultural system
simultaneously. As mentioned above, the old dichotomy between individualistic and
collectivistic cultures does not seem to fit the reality. Most individuals can hold elements of
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both independent and interdependent self-construal in different combinations of different

content and quality (Kolstad 2007).
Another way to deal with the combination of individualism and collectivism is to
distinguish between ‘individuality’ and ‘individualism’ (Kluckhohn and Strodbeck
1961/1973). Individuality implies the cultivation of individual differences but at the same
time acceptance of obligations in well-defined spheres like the family, exercising
considerable control over the person. This is a type of individualism which serves the
interests of the collective (Kolstad and Gjesvik, 2012a).
Lu (2003) has proposed a construct of ‘composite self’ which intricately integrates the
traditional construct of interdependence with the Western construct of the independent and
autonomous self. The emerging composite self can be seen as a bicultural self encompassing
elements of both traditional collectivistic cultures and modern individualistic cultures (Lu and
Yang, 2006). The bicultural self develops for instance when people from traditional native
cultures undergo a ‘transition’ as a result of substantial Euro-American influences. The
bicultural model is in agreement with Triandis’ (1989) assertion and Sedikides’ and Brewer’s
(2001) three-part model that more than one form of self exists. In some ways the transition
can be compared to acculturation and change that is initiated by the conjunction of two or
more autonomous cultural systems (Berry, 1990; Lakey, 2003).
From cultural and cross-cultural psychology we know that there are differences in how
people process information (Park and Huang, 2010). According to Nisbett et al. (2001),
Westerners have a tendency to process central objects and organize information via rules and
categories. In contrast, East Asians tend to view themselves as part of a larger whole, which
results in holistic information-processing in which object and contextual information are
jointly encoded.
3.6.1. Cultural Priming Techniques
Cultural psychologists (Hong et al., 2000; Oyserman and Lee, 2008) have developed
cultural priming techniques to directly manipulate cultural value systems within mono- and
multi-cultural individuals to examine how cultural values dynamically shape mind, brain and
behavior. Cultural priming involves temporarily heightening individuals’ awareness of a
given cultural value system often represented by the alleged dichotomization between
individualistic and collectivistic cultures through either explicit (e.g. writing an essay about
individualism) or implicit means (e.g. search for synonyms of individualism in a word
search). A number of different types of cultural priming techniques have been successfully
used to elicit cultural variation in a range of a psychological, behavioral (Oyserman and Lee,
2008) and neural (Chiao et al., 2010; Ng et al., in press) processes. Notably, prior research has
revealed that not all cultural priming techniques have equivalent influence across domains;
that is, some cultural priming methods are more likely to trigger cultural variation in social
relative to cognitive processes and vice versa (Oyserman and Lee, 2008). Hence, when
adopting cultural priming to study the direct influence of cultural values on neural
mechanisms, it is important to select a cultural priming technique that is task-appropriate. In
addition to examining the effects of cultural priming at the neural level, conducting cross-
cultural comparisons of neural structure and function across the lifespan provide novel insight
to the varying influence of culture and life experiences on the maturation process at neural,
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psychological and behavioral levels of analysis (Park and Gutchess, 2006). Some examples of
the cultural priming technique are given in Chapter 5 in the section “Cultural neuroscience”.
3.7. CULTURE AS SOCIALLY INHERITED RESOURCES

The main focus of cultural psychology is the co-evolution of psychological functions and
social/cultural systems. According to Thommen and Wettstein (2010) the traditional
categorization of perspectives as sociological, social psychological or personality-
psychological cannot be maintained, because they are different aspects of the same co-
evolutionary process and should best be dealt with by some sort of systems theory combining
mind, brain and culture. Systems theory also conceptualizes the different types of system (1)
the micro-genetic (person), (2) the ontogenetic (persons development), and (3) the socio-
genetic. Systems theory also keeps the different systems linked without the subordination of
one system to another (Thommen and Wettstein 2010).
Contrary to many earlier accounts, culture and biology are not conceived as opposites,
but intrinsically interrelated and complementary (Greenfield 2002, Keller 2002, and Fiske
2000). The biological functions regulate natural processes and culture supersedes lower
elementary processes and forms the entire content of psychological phenomena (Ratner,
1994).
An important aspect of ‘culture’ is according to Li (2000) to be an active ‘co-producer’ of
behavioral, cognitive, and neurobiological development during the individual life span. It
should however be underscored that individuals are not merely passive recipients of cultural
influence, but they are active agents (Bell, 1968; Lerner and Kauffman, 1985) by participating
in making adaptive decisions (Gigerenzer, Todd, and the ABC Research Group, 1999) to
regulate the way cultural influences play out in their life histories (Baltes, 1997 in Li, 2003).
3.8. CULTURAL PSYCHOLOGY

As accounted for in the preceding, culture has a significant impact on human
development. The psychology of humans is not something laid down inside human by birth,
but it is created by activity and communication in a culture. In cultural psychology, it is a
basic, paradigmatic assumption that the human mind is socially or culturally mediated. Again,
Vygotsky’s (1978) work is foundational with the famous argument:
“Every function in the child’s cultural development appears twice: first, on the social
level, and later, on the individual level; first, between people (inter-psychological) and then
inside the child (intra-psychological). This applies equally to voluntary attention, to logical
memory, and to the formation of concepts. All the higher functions originate as actual
relationships between individuals” (Vygotsky 1978, p. 57).
Humans are therefore social in a deeper sense than other animals (Brinkmann, 2011).
Many animals live in flocks and some have division of labour (such as ants and bees). Some
even have culture in the sense that they can transmit information across generations that is not
hardwired genetically (e.g. some monkeys). But only humans are able to negotiate the norms
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that regulate the doings of individuals and populations and the only capable of considering
whether their current social practices are just or unjust. Only humans can intentionally
regulate their social behaviors in accordance with specific cultural values. This unique human
capacity is made possible as a result of human’s reflective powers, which are in turn products
of social relationships and psychological/cultural tools like language and the ability to think
with language, signs and symbols (Brinkmann, 2011).
Vygotsky was stressing the social origins of language and thinking - and he was probably
the first modern psychologist to suggest the mechanisms by which culture becomes part of
each person's nature. All higher psychological phenomena characterising humans, including
perception, cognition, emotion, memory, and personality, have a cultural basis and character.
They are humanly constructed as individuals participate in social interaction and therefore
initially interpersonal products, social and cultural in origin. Many schools in psychology, for
instance cognitive and personality psychology have ignored the cultural determination of
psychological functions and man. Vygotsky and Luria took however the view that higher
cognitive activities remain sociocultural in nature, and that the structure of mental activity –
not just the specific content but also the general forms basic to all cognitive processes –
change in the course of historical development.
Luria’s and Vygotsky’s general purpose with their study in Uzbekistan in the 1930s (see
Chapter 4) was to investigate the cultural-historical roots of basic cognitive functions and
examine if the structure of thought depends upon the structure of the dominant types of
cultural activity in different cultures. Their assumptions from their theoretical clarification
was for instance that practical thinking predominates in societies that are characterized by
illiteracy and practical manipulations of objects, and more ‘abstract’ forms of theoretical
activity will be prevalent in literate and more advanced technological societies. This means
that important manifestations of human consciousness have been shaped by the basic
practices of human activity and the actual forms of culture. The introduction of new cultural
tools and technologies, for example the alphabet, clearly have implications for psychological
functions, leading to new skills like reading and writing, but also new brain functions and
new ways of regulating bodies and new social practices.
3.8.1. Culture and Behavior
Perhaps our most important similarity, the hallmark of humans, is our capacity to learn
and use psychological tools like language. Evolution has prepared us to talk and acquire
qualities and symbols from a culture and make them our own. Compared with bees, birds, and
bulldogs, nature has humans on a looser genetic leash. The natural genetic or instinctive
driving forces are overruled by what is acquired during socialization. Ironically, it is our
shared human biology that enables our cultural diversity. It enables those in one culture to
value promptness, welcome frankness, or accept premarital sex, whereas those in another
culture do not. As social psychologist Roy Baumeister (2005, p. 29) observes, “Evolution
made us for culture”. Our biology and especially our brain, developed through evolution and
made thinking and language appropriation possible. People’s biology is similar, “natures are
alike,” said Confucius; “it is their habits that carry them far apart.” And far apart we are, note
world culture researchers Ronald Inglehart and Christian Welzel, despite increasing
education, “we are not moving toward a uniform global culture: cultural convergence is not
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taking place. A society’s cultural heritage is remarkably enduring” (Inglehart and Welzel,
2005, p. 46). But there are other social scientists who declare that ‘the Age of Globalization’
makes cultures and individuals more similar and that we in the future will belong to the same
‘World Culture’ (Myers, Abell, Kolstad and Sani, 2010).
3.8.2. Cultural Diversity
The diversity of our languages, customs, and expressive behaviour confirms that much of
our behaviour is culturally programmed, not hardwired. As sociologist Ian Robertson has
noted: Americans eat oysters but not snails. The French eat snails but not locusts. The Zulus
eat locusts but not fish. The Jews eat fish but not pork. The Hindus eat pork but not beef. The
Russians eat beef but not snakes. The Chinese eat snakes but not people. The Jalé of New
Guinea find people delicious (Robertson, 1987, p. 67).
But more than that, notes Roy Baumeister, we are, as he labels the title of his 2005 book,
The Cultural Animal (Oxford University Press, 2005). Humans, more than any other animal,
harness the power of culture to make life better. “Culture is a better way of being social,” he
writes. We have culture to thank for our communication through language, our driving safely
on one side of the road, our eating fruit in winter, and our use of money to pay for our cars
and fruit. Culture facilitates our survival and reproduction. Other animals show the rudiments
of culture, thinking and language. Monkeys have been observed to learn new food-washing
techniques, which then are passed across future generations. And chimps exhibit a modest
capacity for language. But no species can accumulate progress across generations as smartly
as humans due, amongst other things, to the invention of written language. We can pass our
experiences and transmit information and innovations across time and place to the future
generations in a unique way. Nineteenth-century ancestors had no cars, no indoor plumbing,
no electricity, no air conditioning, no Internet, no iPods, and no Post-It notes, and because of
that they were in many ways different people from the people living today. “Culture is what is
special about human beings,” concludes Baumeister. “Culture helps us to become something
much more than the sum of our talents, efforts, and other individual blessings. In that sense,
culture is the greatest blessing of all. ... Alone we would be but cunning brutes, at the mercy
of our surroundings. Together, we can sustain a system that enables us to make life
progressively better for ourselves, our children, and those who come after” (Baumeister,
2005, p. 29). Increasingly, cultural diversity surrounds us and we become aware of different
customs, lifestyles, ways of thinking and behaviour. Confronting another culture is sometimes
a startling experience, for instance concerning gender roles. Biological differences between
the sexes lose its influence on psychological functions and behaviour. What happens in
society and culture is more important than biology for gender roles and the relationships
between men and women.
3.9. CULTURE – MIND

From a traditional point of view in psychology, thinking seems to be invariable cross-
culturally; that is, people think in almost the same way in different cultures (DeVos and
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Hippler 1969; Hsu, 1981). However, studies of cultural psychology have not supported the
universal consistency of thinking. On the contrary, it is found that the characteristics of
thinking, reasoning style, and processes of cognition are closely tied to culture (Hou and Zhu
2002; Morris and Peng 1994; Norenzayan, Choi and Nisbett 1999; Peng, Ames and Knowles
2001; Markus and Kitayama, 1991, 1994, 1998). And there are important and interesting
similarities and differences in cognitive and psychological functions across cultures, as
revealed in the following description of the consequences of being brought up in an Eastern
and Western culture, respectively.
3.9.1. Thinking Styles in Western and Eastern Cultures
Comparisons between Eastern and Western cultures suggest that thinking styles also
reflects some meta-cognitive characteristics based on diverse folk epistemologies. Influenced
by the traditional Chinese culture, Chinese think in a holistic way, which is embodied in the
view-points of naïve dialecticism with roots in Taoist dialectical traditions (Nisbett, Peng,
Choi and Norenzayan 2001; Peng 1997; Peng and Nisbett 1999, 2000). As Hou, Zhu and
Peng (2003) indicate, cross cultural studies have shown that the Americans tend to think in an
analytic way. The typical Western ways of thinking seem to prefer the formal logical
traditions of Aristotle, which emphasize uniqueness, and do not acknowledge any opposition
or make any compromise. They regard things as absolutely right, or absolutely wrong (Peng
and Nisbett 1999, 2000; Peng, Rodgers and Hou 2003, Nisbett, 2003). Western cultures tend
to be more linear or synthetic in their cognitive orientation. Westerners are generally less
comfortable with contradiction and attitudinal ambivalence is associated with psychic tension
and conflict (Festinger 1957: Levin 1951). Recent research has shown that Westerners
experience cognitive dissonance when their values, preferences, and actions are incongruent
(Thompson et al. 1995). To be an “integrated” person in the West means not being
contradictory, incongruous, inconsistent or able to change depending on the context. In the
East this is not preferable abilities or traits. The opposite is looked upon as more valuable for
a human being.
When thinking about a particular object, for instance a person, a Chinese tend to pay
more attention to the connection between the person and its context, between the “figure” and
the “ground”. The cognitive tendency of the East Asians is therefore more holistic, strongly
emphasising connections and interrelations (Ji, Peng and Nisbett 2000; Nisbett, Peng, Choi
and Norenzayan, 2001). On the contrary, Western thinking styles are more likely to be
analytic or un-dialectical, emphasizing the characteristics of the object itself which is
perceived more isolated from the contexts and relations. The antagonism between the holistic
and analytic style is closely related to East Asian cultural and philosophical traditions and the
Western cultural and philosophical traditions respectively. The Chinese strive to explore
things in an often complicated context, and thus they analyse not only the object itself, but
also its background. On the contrary, the Western cultures, whose thought systems root in
ancient Greek civilization, consider that the world can be divided into single individuals and
other objects, each of which has its own characteristics and separated from the whole, thus
making it possible to concentrate on individual entities, to analyse their characters, and to
explain their behaviours in isolation, depending on inner characteristics (Hou, Zhu and Peng
2003; Nisbett, 2003).
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3.9.2. Self and Identity Created by Cultures. Examples from China and the
West
The self-concept relates to an individual perception of a “me”. It is like standing apart or

outside oneself, asking and answering the question: “who am I?” It is the reflective part of a
“me”. “I” can think, feel and act, but who is this person who is thinking, feeling and acting?
What characterize his cognitions, emotions and behavior? What kind of person am I? This is
what the concept “self” is dealing with.
‘Identity’ is a concept used in many ways as a substitute for self, even if there are some
differences as well. Like self, identity is not a clear cut concept, easy to define in a
straightforward and exhaustive manner. It is like the concept “culture”: easy to grasp and
understand in everyday language, but becomes more difficult when used as a scientific term.
Dialectical cultures like the Eastern cultures more comfortably acknowledge and accept
contradictory appraisals of the self. Contradictory aspects of the self, such as ‘goodness’ and
‘badness’, are viewed as mutually dependent and as existing in active balance within the
individual (Spencer-Rodgers, Peng, Wang and Hou 2004). Embracing the good and bad
things in all things (yin/yang) is regarded as normative and adaptive in East Asian dialectical
cultures. For dialectical cultures, and dialectically oriented individuals within various
cultures, the integrity of the self may be dependent on a balance of opposing forces and the
harmonious coexistence of positive and negative cognitions, emotions, and experiences.
In Eastern cultures the “self” is not something given once and for all. Among many
traditional Chinese the self does not even have a definite boundary; it is not perceived as
something homogenous inside one individual or inside the skin. The boundary of the Chinese
self is permeable and flexible. It can contain many persons and the meaning and feeling of
‘self’ is not limited to what is inside the one body. Self is a (social) psychological and not a
biological concept. The biological body is irrelevant for structuring the psychological self. A
wise person in China is said to have a large self, meaning there are many persons in his/her
self. The Chinese can increase their self by letting other people in, and let them be part of a
self which is growing. Persons can, however, also be expelled, and the self therefore
diminish.
The traditional Chinese view of the self, in contrast to the Western view, is of a
connected, fluid, flexible, committed being who is bound to others. This is what Markus and
Kitayama call the interdependent self (Markus and Kitayama, 1991). An interdependent view
of self derives from a belief in the individual’s connectedness and interdependence to others.
This characterization of the self locates crucial self-representations not within unique
individual attributes, but within his or her social relationships (Lu and Yang, 2006).
In sharp contrast to the traditional Chinese self, the essence of the Western self is its
individual-oriented nature which emphasizes personal talents, potentialities, needs, strivings

and rights. Westerners tend to develop the agency side of human nature that stresses the
attainment of self-assertion self-expansion, mastery, power, distinction, and separation from
others, while at the same time repressing the communion side of human nature that accents
striving for contact, cooperation, union, and association with others (Lu and Yang, 2006).
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3.9.2.1. Interdependence and Collectivism

The Chinese are interdependent not because they surrender to a social structure, society at
large or all people, but because they involve other persons in their self, making it bigger and
thereby become wiser. An outsider can become an insider and vice versa, depending on likes
or dislikes. If another person becomes an insider in a Chinese self, he/she will be taken care
of and treated well. An outsider does not belong to the self sphere and the Chinese do not
have to care and have no responsibility. To some extent this feeling of a self, filled with other
individual insiders and everybody else as outsiders, create a double personality, or a
situationalized self, expressed differently depending on the persons involved.
Hsu (1985) considered two aspects of the self: da wo (the greater self) and xiao wo (the
smaller self). The greater self is oriented to family and society, rather than to the individual.
The greater self is for instance viewed as the dominant force in the motivation of Chinese
students for academic success. Others have made a similar distinction by dividing
achievement motivation into that which is socially oriented and that which is individually
motivated. In Chinese societies, where the orientation is assumed to be toward the group, a
student’s motivation to do well in school is assumed to be based on societal values or parental
expectations, rather than simply on a desire for self-advancement” (Stevenson and Lee,
1996).
3.9.2.2. The Social Components of the Self

Western research instruments to measure self-concepts often fail to capture the social
components of the self in Chinese culture (Leung, 1996). A self, containing other persons and
groups is a basic unit in society, and the group-orientation has obvious implications for the
conception of the self. The self is not understood as something unrelated to others, it is always
containing other persons and it is always perceived in a functional context.
That does not mean that the Chinese self necessarily entail more ‘collective’ elements
than the Western self. It appears to be an over-simplification based on western concepts and
instruments not taking into consideration the specific Chinese self and the functional
relationships between individualism and collectivism in that culture. Chinese ‘collectivism’
has the underlying belief that the futures of individuals from the same in-group are inter-
related and that each person’s well-being depends upon the whole family’s or more general,
the group’s effort. “If each person follows the norms of the group and acts in interests of the
group, the group will be harmonious and prosperous” (Leung 1996).
3.9.2.3. Self-Esteem and Self-Evaluation

People in Eastern cultures do not strive to maintain an overly positive view of the self
(Heine et al., 1999; Heine and Lehman, 1997a), and this is likely due to both dialectical and
interdependent tendencies. A dialectical cognitive orientation and interdependent cultural

norms encourage the acceptance of negative self-relevant feedback, personal inadequacies,
and negative emotions (Bagozzi et al., 1999; Heine et al., 1999; Kitayama et al., 2000;
Schimmack et al., 2002). High self-esteem and personal well-being are therefore less
culturally relevant in East Asian cultures than they are in Western. Diener and Diener (1995)
noted that “life satisfaction itself is less likely to be a salient concept for the collectivist” (p.
662) and Heine and colleagues assert that esteeming the individual self is a primarily Western
preoccupation (Heine et al., 1999). Acknowledging and accepting the good and bad in self,
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and fulfilling the cultural demands of fitting and adapting to others, may be more important to
the integrity of the self than is maintaining a favourable self-image (Diener and Diener, 1995;
Heine et al., 1999; Markus and Kitayama, 1991; Oishi et al., 1999). Western notions of self-
enhancement may even be maladaptive in many East Asian cultures (Bond, 1986; Heine et
al., 1999; Markus and Kitayama, 1991).
While individualists tend to elaborate positive views of the self, collectivists tend to
evaluate themselves less positively and emphasize their shortcomings to bolster group
cohesiveness and harmony, according to Heine et al., (1999); Kitayama et al., (1997), from
Spencer-Rodgers, Peng, Wang and Hou (2004). East Asians are more willing to accept
information indicating their failures (Heine et al., 2000), are more likely to recall events
regarding negative information, and their self-evaluations are more affected by failures than
successes (Heine, 2001).
3.9.2.4. The Relational or Interdependent Self

Most Chinese feel being part of something outside themselves. They feel linked or
attached to something or somebody, and this is important for their perception of self. They are
not left alone, but belong to somebody: to the family, the kin, the village, the working place
or neighborhood. When Chinese express their personal characters they often do so either
through kinship identity or other social identities like kinship (Yang Yiyin, 2010).
The Chinese therefore makes the distinction between themselves and others less
important than the Westerner do, especially those close to them. The Chinese self would be
incomplete if it were separated from others and the context. The self can attain its
completeness only through integration with others and with its surroundings. The relational
aspects of the self influence all aspects of Chinese thinking, communication and behavior
(Gao, Ting-Toomey, and Gudykunst, 1996). This establishes an important feeling of
belongingness, not to be an atomistic individual alone in the world and society, but having
ties to important others, being interdependent and at the same time contributes to others well-
being and security.
The ‘horizontal’ integration of others into one’s self and the self as inseparable from the
context is combined with a vertical or hierarchical perception of self and other. In the
hierarchical structure, status is specified clearly and behaviors are guided by the principle of li
(ritual propriety), that is, doing the proper things with the right people in the appropriate
relationships. Another way to conceptualize the relationships in the mainly vertical direction
is by the role model. This models says that the sense of ‘self’ is embedded within multiple
prescribed roles, and as Cheng (1996) argues, it is the role, not the self, which determines the
behavior. A state of he (harmony) can be achieved if one maintains appropriate role
relationships, is other-oriented, and accepts the established hierarchy (Gao, Ting-Toomey,
and Gudykunst, 1996).

The role concept as it used in Western social psychology emphasis the more or less stable
relationships between persons, it is interpersonal, each person carrying a role, while the
Chinese understanding of relationships also contain the context, the hierarchy and the macro
social environment.
According to Hui and Tan (1996), Chinese believe the self is constituted by personal
attributes which are meaningful merely when defined in a relational context. For example,
Chinese consider themselves as part of a family only when they are accorded a relational
status, such as being termed a parent or sibling. A breakdown in harmony implies a disregard
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for interpersonal respect or disagreement in role assignment, thus causing stress and
dissatisfaction. However, respect begets respect. When respect is given, Chinese perceive
their personal worth is being reinstated in the group.
The Chinese children are taught from an early age that everything has to be connected,
and that nothing or nobody can exist unrelated to something else. To have ordered and
structured relationships they need to be planned and established with consciousness, and
hierarchies, obedience, respect and piety is necessary contributions to the indispensable
relationships.
3.9.2.5. The Contextualized, Complex and Contradictory Self

The Chinese self is not only containing others, it also perceives itself as part of a context
which cannot be taken away or forgotten. The self is nothing except than a self in a context.
As Zhuangzi (330-286 BC) wrote, ‘When you look at yourself as part of the natural scheme
of things, you are equal to the most minute insignificant creature in the world, but your
existence is great because you are in unity with the whole universe’(cited in Gao, Ting-
Toomey, and Gudykunst, 1996).
As part of a context, indispensable related to a ground, the context is sometimes
perceived more important than the self or the figure. The figure/ground concepts are used by
the Gestalt psychology. Based on experiments with people in the West the conclusion was
that humans perceive figures on a ground. People in the East seem to focus just as much on
the ground or context and have a perception and thinking style concentrating more on the
surroundings or the environment than people in the West (Nisbett, 2003).
The Chinese self is complex and contradictory. That humans are composite and
inconsistent was also a view in Europe at an earlier time. The contradiction in man was
accepted in the 18th century by philosophers. They talked about the polyphonic nature of man.
Man was pursued by selfishness and strong emotions, but also driven by altruism and reason.
This duplicity in man’s nature, that human beings are social and unsocial at the same time,
was an important topic in the moral philosophy during the 18th century. In China this is
accepted by most people even today. And this dialectical or contradictory perception of
human beings is part of an eastern philosophical tradition or way of thinking also among
ordinary, not scholar people.
3.9.2.6. Chinese Relationships

Independence, being an atomistic self, is no goal among the Chinese. They prefer a sort
of dependency, being part of something which is greater than themselves. To a certain degree
the Chinese do not know how to become independent from others or from the context. They
regard it as impossible, something in conflict with their fundamental impression of the world
and human beings. They are always in a relationship, a dependency to something or

somebody.
Personal relationships are therefore of particular high significance to the Chinese people.
The importance of being related to something is not an instrumental value to achieve goals. It
is part of a very old and traditional philosophy or way of thinking and therefor something
fundamental in life. The five cardinal relations of traditional Confucian philosophy, the Wu
Lan, illustrate the most significant relationships in traditional as well contemporary Chinese
society: the relation between 1) ruler/minister, 2) father/son, 3) elder brother/younger brother,
4) husband/wife, and 5) friend/friend. These five ethical relationships refer to an order of
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priority and superiority/inferiority in the roles and relationships in the family as well as in
society at large, implying a balance of duty and obedience. To accept and live according to
Wu Lan would maintain harmonious relationships in the family and in the society and thus
avoid conflicts and tensions (Mackerras, 2006). The roles associated with these relationships
to in-group members are relatively fixed within each relationship; each bear specific
obligations and they are significant in the construction of the self (e.g. Markus and Kitayama,
1991; Triandis, 1989; Heine, 2001). The Chinese self is accordingly described as largely a
relational phenomenon (Markus and Kitayama, 1991; Heine, 2001), where the relationships to
in-group members take precedence over abstracted and internalized attributes, such as for
instance attitudes, values and personality traits.
The Chinese self will find new roles, bearing different obligations when the situation and
the relationship changes and it are important for the Chinese self to determine the role
requirement for a given situation and to adjust itself accordingly. This ability to distinguish
between the demands across situations is viewed as integral to an individual’s maturity
(Bachnik, 1992; Heine, 2001). Much empirical research supports the cultural distinction
between the individual selves in the West perceived as whole, unified, integrated, stable, and
inviolate entities and the relational, changing, fluid and altered self, depending on the
situation and relationships in East Asia and China (Shweder et al., 1998; Heine, 2001). This
attenuated motivation for consistency among the Chinese and the ability to focus on the
situation and the relationship when evaluating self and others diminish their beliefs in
attitude-behaviour consistency. The cognitive dissonance theory therefore finds less support
in East-Asia. The so-called ‘fundamental attribution error’ is not committed to the same
degree as in the West. Heightened attention to the surrounding field is evident in the ways
Chinese attend to other people and their environment.
While Westerners stress the malleability of the outer world relative to the self (Su et al.,
1999), manifest in the view that the individual has potential control of shaping the world to fit
his or her desires, the Chinese believe that the (social) world is enduring and permanent and
that the individual is malleable and able to adapt to different role expectations and situational
demands, The flexible individual must accommodate to the inflexible social world and must
learn what aspects of themselves need to be changed in order to fit in (Heine, 2001). Failure
to fit in indicates insufficient effort and highlight were individuals need to work harder and
support the notion that Chinese are more likely than Westerners to view abilities as malleable.
Westerners tend to view successful performances as du to own abilities while Chinese more
rarely make ability attributions, and instead tend to see successes as due to hard work and
failures as due to insufficient efforts (Kashima and Triandis, 1986; Heine 2001).
Cultural differences in a preference for consistency are not limited to individual’s
understanding of themselves; Westerners do not like contradictions in reasoning and select
what they think is the better argument. Chinese, in stark contrast, accepts contradiction a
natural part of life. “When presented with two contradictory arguments they tend to accept
both and make no effort to resolve the inconsistency. In fact, Chinese demonstrates a peculiar
strategy whereby they are more likely to prefer a weak argument if it is paired with a
contradictory stronger argument than when it is encountered alone (Peng and Nisbett, 1999;
Heine 2001).
Of all human relationships, that between father and son is the most important in the
Confucian social fabric. Even if these ‘unequal’ interactions look hierarchical and
authoritarian, they are however, not one-sided or vertical: “rather, moral obligations to
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reciprocate in the appropriate form are evident on both sides, creating a network of role
interdependency within Chinese societies” (Yang, 1992).
Different terms have been used to express Chinese relationships and social interaction:
‘situation-centeredness’, ‘personage’, ‘social orientation’, ‘collectivism’, ‘personalism’.
Gabrenya and Hwang (1996) prefer the term relation-oriented personalism or relational
personalism to denote and emphasis the great extent to which Chinese culture is
stereotypically ‘collectivist’ (cooperative or harmonious) in certain social contexts but in
others exhibits an ‘individualistic’ (competitive, agonistic) style. The Chinese are both
individualistic and interdependent in a particular manner different from Westerner.
Zhang (2000) emphasizes that the old traditional values of Confucianism include
individualism as well as collectivism/interdependence. Although Confucius was greatly
concerned with reciprocity in his doctrines, the foundation of his doctrine is free will and
individual learning (Zhang, 2000). Education, as a way of moral and personal development,
enhances the potential and resources dwelling in each individual.
3.9.2.7. Guanxi - Chinese Social Network

In West, relationships are an interaction between equals, while in the Chinese culture
there is an accepted hierarchy in the relationships. The distinction between in-group members
(zijiren, typically kin, the romantic partner, and close friends) and the out-group (wairen, all
those not in the in-group) appears sharper in Chinese than in other societies (Triandis et al.,
1988). The membership of each group dictates different social interactions in a way quite
unfamiliar in Western societies (Goodwin and Tang, 1996).
The Chinese concept ‘guanxi’, meaning tight human or social relations, is particularly
interesting since it express something special in the Chinese culture, not easy to understand in
the West, and therefore often misunderstood. Social relations are a core concept in social and
cultural psychology, especially when dealing with social identity and interactions. Analysis of
‘guanxi’ in China has revealed that when Chinese distinguish between ‘we’ and ‘they’ they
activate a psychological classification schema which contains two main dimensions:
‘ascribed’ and ‘interactive’ (Yang Yiyin, 2010). The kinship system plays a key role when
people judge the interpersonal distance between themself and other. The category family
member/stranger became a symbol of insider/outsider, especially in stable rural communities.
When the boundary of the family or kinship is crossed, the notion as well as the feeling of
collectivism or interdependence disappears. This suggests that the boundary of the Chinese
self is permeable and flexible according to and dependent on ascribed kinship relations and
equivalent interactive relations. As a result, the individual contains others as insiders, which
become a part of oneself. Although this may look like a ‘collective self’, we can according to
Yang Yiyin (2010) more accurately describe this phenomenon as a ‘cultural self’.
Chinese participate in complex social networks of guanxi (relationships) which expands

day by day throughout their lives. Each individual is born into a network of family members
as in most other cultures. The ties to the family are still very strong in the Chinese society, but
the family is not the only group giving the feeling of belongingness. When growing older the
Chinese individual become member of other groups. Education, occupation, and residence
provide new opportunities for expanding group membership and the network (Gabrenya and
Hwang, 1996). In contrast to most social networks in the West, these relationships persist
long after the groups are dissolved or no longer have face-to-face interaction, forming
lifelong, rich network of guanxi. Once have been member of a group and related to other
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means to be a member always. People in Confucian societies recognizes that they are ‘in it for
the long run’.
Chinese patterns of day-to-day interaction reflect the importance of building lasting,
personal relationships and extending one’s guanxi. Chinese students are for instance more and
longer involved with other people than American students are. The Americans were more
‘butterfly’ like, engaged in a large number of dyadic interactions with many different people
(Gabrenya and Hwang, 1996). Triandis et al., (1988) noted that individualists are not less
sociable than are collectivists; indeed they must work harder to gain entrance to and maintain
relationships that are impermanent and subject to change any time. The Chinese have more of
the “basic trust” of belongingness to groups they once were and are member of.
In general, the Chinese (and East Asians) view in-group members as an extension of their
selves while maintaining distance from out-group members. The Westerners have a tendency
to view themselves as distinct from all other selves, regardless of their relationships to the
individual (Heine, 2001).
3.9.2.8. Family Relations and Kinship

It seems difficult to overstress the significance of the family relations in Chinese culture.
Although the importance of the family has in some way changed especially in the urban areas
recently, the family is still the basic unit of society, more influential for self impression and
identity than in the West. The “familism” is said to have four aspects: (1) A belief in harmony
and solidarity, (2) A stress in lineage prolongation and expansion, (3) An emphasis on family
prosperity, and (4) A strong sense of sentiment for the family. These are still key themes
among Chinese. The traditional extended family provides not only material security, but also
psychological security in terms of ancestral lineage. The family is therefore central to self and
identity. The Chinese do not separate the family and the individual self as in the West; the
family is most often part of their self.
Children socialized in a Chinese family will develop other values, attitudes, ways of
thinking and behavior than children in the West. In Western cultures and especially in the
protestant countries, children are taught to value independence and personal achievement
from an early age. Children are also trained in such behavior. Chinese children are given
independence at an age comparatively older than children in the West. Chinese parents are
often harsh with their children, particularly when they feel that the child is old enough to be
responsible for his or her own behavior. The Chinese children are taught to be responsible and
to take care of themselves in practical matters but not to think of themselves as somebody
independent of others. Nevertheless, Chinese youths have later expectations for autonomy,
and place lower value on individualism, outward success, and individual competence,
compared to youths in the Western Europe as well as in US and Australia (Gow, Balla,
Kember, and Tai Hau, 1996).

In Chinese culture a broader social responsibility is emphasized, paying particular
attention to socially desirable and culturally approved behaviors, such as the significance of
social harmony (Goodwin and Tang, 1996). The individual self, competing with other
individuals, is not in the focus as in the West. Paying respect to and have a caring attitude,
especially towards older, the wise or knowledgeable people, is still a prominent element in
Chinese family socialization.
Ho (1989) has identified two important characteristics of child rearing practices in China:
(1) authoritarian moralism (versus a democratic-psychological orientation) and (2)
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collectivism (versus individualism). The former characteristic stresses impulse control (rather
than expression), whereas the latter involves interdependence (rather than autonomy) and
conformism (rather than unique individuation). Authoritarianism and filial piety are in some
way positively related Gow, et al., 1996).
Authoritarian moralism is a central characteristic of Chinese patterns of socialization
guided by filial piety (Ho, 1993, 1994). This construct embodies two salient features of
Confucian societies: a hierarchical ranking of authority in the family, in educational, and in
socio/political institutions and a pervasive application of moral precepts as the primary
standard against which people are judged.
The absolute authority of parents and teachers is both a symptom and a cause of
authoritarianism. Moralism puts overriding emphasis on the development of moral character
through education. It predisposes parents to be moralistic, rather than psychologically
oriented: to treat their children in terms of whether their conduct meets some external moral
criteria, rather than in terms of sensitivity to their internal needs, feelings, and aspirations.
Children are to be transformed into adults who exercise impulse control, behave properly, and
fulfill their obligations – above all, filial obligations (Ho, 1987).
Filial piety underlies socialization characterized by authoritarian moralism, putting the
accent on obedience and indebtedness to parents, not self-fulfillment, on impulse control, not
self-expression, and on moral correctness, not psychological sensitivity. Such a pattern of
socialization is in line with the demands of Confucian societies. The emphasis on internal
impulse control prepares children to meet the strong demands of external control. The
insistence on obedience at home prepares children to function in the hierarchical social order
later in life.
Filial attitudes are closely associated with views of a socio-political order predicated on
hierarchical authority relations, sharp social-status distinctions, and faith in the moral
character of the leader rather than in institutions, the rule of law, and political participation.
Thus, filial piety is instrumental to the definition of authority relations not only within but
also beyond the family.
3.9.2.9. The Cultural, Social Impact

Most people know the importance of being together both from an emotional point of view
and from a more practical approach. Homo sapiens has survived and developed as a result of
making societies, support and fight together. Most people realize this fact, and there is
therefore a basis for behaving in a social, collectivistic manner. There has, however, in the
recent 250 years been a tendency in the West to give priority to an individualistic way of
thinking. A strong ideology has supported this thinking style, and made most people less
social and collectivistic than in the East.
The Chinese emphasises the precedence of social relationships and group welfare over
individual needs and desires. As a result, their behaviors, relative to the action of people in
the West, are more likely to strongly reflect social norms and obligations. Personal desires,
while also a determinant of behaviors, may play a secondary role. Cooperation is given
priority over individual interests (Triandis, et al., 1988; Waterman, 1984), and effort and
contribution is directed towards the collective good rather than toward personal benefits and
self-recognition (Hui and Tan, 1996).
People in Eastern cultures do not strive to maintain an overly positive view of the
individual self (Heine et al., 1999; Heine and Lehman, 1997a), due to both dialectical and
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interdependent tendencies. Dialectical cognitive orientation and interdependent cultural

norms encourage the acceptance of negative self-relevant feedback, personal inadequacies,
and negative emotions (Bagozzi et al., 1999; Heine et al., 1999; Kitayama et al., 2000;
Schimmack et al., 2002). To emphasize shortcomings contribute to bolster group
cohesiveness and harmony in collectivist societies (Heine et al., 1999; Kitayama et al., 1997)
(Spencer-Rodgers, Peng, Wang and Hou 20). Western individualists, on the other hand, tend
to elaborate positive views of the self.
High self-esteem and personal well-being are less culturally relevant in Eastern cultures
than they are in Western. Diener and Diener (1995) noted that life satisfaction itself is less
likely to be a salient concept in China; and Heine and colleagues assert that esteeming the
individual self is a primarily Western preoccupation (Heine et al., 1999). “If you are happy, I
am happy”, this saying is characteristic for the Chinese relationship and a consequence of the
deep feeling of responsibility and concern and collectivism.
Acknowledging and accepting the good and bad in self, and fulfilling the cultural
demands of fitting and adapting to others, may be more important to the integrity of the self
than is maintaining a favourable self-image (Diener and Diener, 1995; Heine et al., 1999;
Markus and Kitayama, 1991; Oishi et al., 1999). Western notions of self-enhancement may
even be maladaptive in many East Asian cultures (Bond, 1986; Heine et al., 1999; Markus
and Kitayama, 1991).
To establish and assure harmonious relationships is sometimes exaggerated and the
Chinese become so polite that they instead of saying no, tells what the other person would
like to hear. If you for instance ask a Chinese in the street about the direction, they will
answer even if they do not know the answer. They feel it is more polite to give an answer
when you ask about something than to say “Sorry, I do not know”. Such an answer will be
dissatisfying for the person asking, they think. To tell the truth, or the facts, is not as
important in China as it is in the West. It is better to keep the prevalent harmony and good
relation at the time being, not destroy the harmony and make another person sad or leave
him/her dissatisfied. The Chinese do perhaps not feel responsible for what happens next, in
the future, then another Chinese has to satisfy the person asking for the direction and then the
answer could be correct.
3.9.2.10. More Homogenous?

The cultural impact does not make all Chinese similar. But the Chinese actually perceives
themselves as more homogenous than they thought other national groups were (Triandis et
al., 1990). Triandis interpreted this finding as supporting the argument that the collectivistic
Chinese believed that the group is the basic unit of analysis, and thus perceived a higher level
of homogeneity than in out-groups.
Another explanation would be that Chinese are more similar due to the feeling of
belongingness to the persons in their self, and that it is impossible to separate between “them”
and ‘I’. The Chinese may also feel stronger ties to and as part of a culture survived and
persisted through thousands of years with relatively minor changes, compared especially with
US and to a lesser degree Europe. The Western cultures have experienced major changes the
last hundred years, and they are changing faster than ever before. This has not been the case
in China up to the end of the last 20th Century (Gabrenya and Hwang, 1996).
The Chinese self does not necessarily entail more ‘collective’ elements than the Western
self, and it appears to be an over-simplification based on western concepts and instruments
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not taking into consideration the specific Chinese self and the functional relationships
between individualism and collectivism in that culture.
Chinese ‘collectivism’ has the underlying belief that the futures of individuals from the
same in-group are inter-related and that each person’s well-being depends upon the results of
the family’s effort. “If each person follows the norms of the group and acts in interests of the
group, the group will be harmonious and prosperous” (Leung 1996), and the person inside the
skin will benefit from this and will therefore act in a selfish way when supporting the family
and the collective.
3.11. CULTURAL-HISTORICAL PSYCHOLOGY

As illustrated above, many studies show that psychological functions like self-
perception/self-appraisal, perception, categorization, cognition, previously thought to be
universal actually vary widely with culture (Cohen, 2001). Higher psychological functions in
human individuals therefore depend on human’s cultural experience. The culture in which we
socialize also seeps deeper into the structures of the brain than previously thought, sometimes
bypassing the conscious mind altogether, see Chapter 5. Recent research in cultural
psychology and cultural neuroscience has actualized Vygotsky’s and Luria’s approach and
the next sections therefore give a resume of the cultural-historical psychology, emphasizing
the relationship between biology, mind (consciousness) and culture.
3.11.1. How Culture Overrules Biology in Humans
The cultural-historical tradition in social and developmental psychology was founded by

the Russian Lev Vygotsky in the 1920s. He and his Russian colleague Alexander Luria were
impressed, and at the same time dissatisfied, with the ‘psychological’ research on classical
conditioning by their fellow countryman Ivan Pavlov. From the behaviorist tradition Pavlov
studied learning by associations among animals, especially dogs. Observing that dogs would
salivate before food was presented to them; Pavlov had wanted to find out if he could
condition this physiological response by manipulating features of the environment. Could he
teach, or ‘condition’ dogs to salivate to something other than food? Sure enough he found that
if dogs were presented with food immediately after sounding a bell, eventually they would
salivate just on the hearing the bell without the presentation of food. Pavlov concluded that
learning was dependent on features of the environment. Dogs can become ‘conditioned’ to act
in certain ways by the presence of marks in their environment. Although Vygotsky
appreciated Pavlov’s scientific methods he criticized Pavlov and other associationists and
behaviorists for not studying the most important subject in human psychology: the mind and
consciousness. Pavlov’s work was, quite literally, ‘thoughtless’.
The ancient picture of a human as a being molded out of soul and body still colored
mainstream scientific and philosophical thought. The alternative solution at which radical
reflexologists and behaviorists arrived was simple: they wanted to put an end to
consciousness, mind or “souls” by finding bodily equivalents for it in the organism’s reaction
to external stimuli. That was a reductionism that did no good to psychology, striking out as it
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did the most real and vital problems in its purview. It was assumed that psychology would be
able to establish its laws by studying the behaviour of animals: white rats, cats, dogs,
monkeys, and so on since a common biological psychology comprised all species.
Psychology became essentialist and was ‘zoologised’ (Yaroshevsky, 1989, p. 214). “What is
man?” Vygotsky asked and he answered: “For Hegel, he is a logical subject. For Pavlov, a
soma, an organism. For us, he is a social personality = an ensemble of social relations
embodied in the individual” (Yaroshevsky, 1989, p. 217).
To reveal that animals could be conditioned to learn through associations did not expose
anything about the specific and most interesting ability in humans; the capability to think, to
use a language, to behave volitionally and to adhere to and create cultural norms and values.
The development of the higher psychological functions acquired in a cultural setting therefore
had to be the main topic for understanding human psychology, according to Vygotsky:
“Pavlov’s theory stopped short of the higher forms of behaviour, the forms inherent in man
the personality, not just man the organism” (Yaroshevsky, 1989). Vygotsky divided the lower
functions from the higher ones because he wanted to define the psyche (consciousness) as a
special system in the regulation of the behaviour of the human being whose individual
development (unlike the organism of the animal) integrates the biological and the cultural
forces. As mentioned above, he saw the limitations in the theory of conditioned reflexes
created by Pavlov: consciousness was split off from the organism’s reflexes and thus
remained an extra-corporeal sphere. To take consciousness as a subject of study, the
explanatory principle must be sought in some other layer of reality. Individual consciousness
is built from outside through relations with others.
3.11.2. Culture Becomes Part of a Person’s Nature
The whole of previous psychology took the individual soul, the individual consciousness,
to be the fountainhead of psychological phenomena. The social world, just as the natural one,
was seen from this standpoint as external environment to which the self applies its psychical
forces and functions. The new historical-cultural psychology in Russia in the 1920s
demanded that this self and consciousness may be seen as a reflection of the relations that
arise among men regardless of that self. The individual psyche is a recent historical product
which has emerged from the depths of collective life and its ultimate basis is interaction
among men.
The task prompted by the logic of the development of psychological science was to grasp
the specificity of the formation of the individual psyche of man in connection with a special
type of its determination different from, though correlated with, the biological type and the
general scientific one (Yaroshevsky, 1989). Vygotsky therefore developed in cultural-

historical psychology a new model intended to cover all the psychical functions inherent in
man only, characterized by the higher psychological functions.
Vygotsky saw the contradictions between the natural and the cultural as the “locomotive”
of the history of human beings; he wanted to clarify the dialectics of that history and human
development in general. The cultural-historical psychology faced the task of overcoming the
gap between the natural and the cultural, and “had to transform the ancient conception of the
mind in a fundamental way, and to find an alternative to it” (Yaroshevsky, 1989, p. 18). The
key concept of psychology was consciousness and this concept was filled with a new content.
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Psychology was regarded as a science treating man as an integral corporeal-spiritual

being acting in an environment. The environment was taken to mean the socially organized
world of culture created by the individual who developed, in the process, his forces and
abilities. This view of the essence of man opened the way to elaborating a new concrete
scientific psychological theory. It was opposed to those trends that assumed that man’s
behaviour was subject to the same biological laws as the behaviour of other living beings.
This term ‘cultural-historical psychology’ stressed that the factors determining the
individual’s life activity and the wealth of his psychical world were produced by the historical
development of culture. “Put very crudely, one might say that for Vygotsky the young child is
a pre-cultural biological organism, which becomes transformed by a series of cultural devices
such as language, tools and artefacts into a cultural being and thereby acquires the higher
psychological functions” (Yaroshevsky, 1989, p.19). At the same time there is of course no
clear dividing line between ‘natural’ and ‘cultural’. It is also worth noting that Vygotsky did
not regard ‘primitives’ as biologically inferior, though agreeing with the then widespread
view that they were more restricted to the lower psychological processes. This was because
they had not yet been exposed to the historical changes that gradually enabled Europeans to
function at a higher level (van der Veer and Valsiner, 1991). Vygotsky and Luria studied the
consequences of the cultural and historical changes for the development of human mind in
Uzbekistan in the beginning of the 1930; see Chapter 4.
Vygotsky’s favorite aphorism was that behaviour can only be understood as history of
behaviour and he conceived the history of behaviour as “a history of the development of the
higher psychical functions” (Yaroshevsky, 1989, p. 246). That was the title of a monograph
from 1931.
The concept of the psychological function had long become part of the scientific lexicon.
Vygotsky’s reasoning imparted to it a content radically different from the one accepted in
traditional psychology, where it meant a separate homogenous form of the activity of
consciousness, such as perception, thinking, imagination or will. When they were studied in
ontogenesis, it was assumed that it was one of the same function that changed in a child,
while Vygotsky, first, split what seemed to be a unitary process into two, the two elements
having different histories and different determination; second, he asserted the view of the
psyche as a functional system of the organism that was just as obligatory as blood circulation,
nervous activity, etc.; third, he considered this functional system in terms of its development,
which acquires a socio-historical character in the transition from the animal organism to the
human one (Yaroshevsky, 1989).
The dependence of the individual psyche on social relations and forms had long intrigued
scientists. However, Vygotsky’s interests were invariable centered on social elements
embodied in works of culture with a structure of their own. The social is above all the socio-
cultural to Vygotsky (Yaroshevsky, 1989, p. 203). To the extent that sociocultural practices
diverge, so will the psychological functions (e.g. Cole, 1996; Vygotsky, 1978).
Vygotsky often quotes Marx’s dictum: “Peter only establishes his own identity as a man
by first comparing himself with Paul as a being of like kind” (Marx, 1978: 61). The real story
of the individual in the story about Peter and Paul …. lies in transferring a social relation (a
relation between men) into a psychological one (within the individual). Personality as a
reality does not exist ‘in itself’ from the beginning. Personality emerges only through the
individual ‘revealing to others his own in himself’. Accordingly, personality development,
which can be called cultural development of the individual psyche, emerges from collective
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life, and from the processes taking place there. The basis of these processes is interaction
between people.
The main topic in Vygotsky’s historical-cultural psychology was to explain what happens
when human beings participate in social interactions and develop, construct and create their
psychological substance, ways of thinking, feeling, remembering, their sensation and
perception, etc. In this way culture becomes part of a person’s nature (Kolstad, 2012). The
socio-cultural environment created by humans develops higher psychological functions. If,
however, human psychology is socially and cultural determined, does this mean that the
individual is reduced to an automaton that passively receives social influences and that
psychological functions are simple projections of socio-cultural relations? Quite the contrary:
“The child begins to see the external world not simply with his eye as a perceiving and
conducting apparatus - the child sees with all of his previous experience...” (Vygotsky and
Luria, 1930/1993: 148). Socially constructed psychological activity mediates the impact of
internal and external stimuli - by selectively attending to, interpreting, hypothesizing,
inferring, synthesizing and analysing them. The higher psychological functions, based on
psychological or cultural tools, are created by the individual in cultural/social interaction and
communication. They are acquired in an active and creative manner in the historical and
cultural context and are unique to every individual, depending alike on genetic features, lower
psychological functions, socio-cultural experience and cultural/psychological tools like
language.
An important task in psychology is to explain how the psychological function, originally
a social function, is mediated by a cultural sign and becomes intra-psychological
(Yaroshevsky, 1989). How does this transformation happen? How does reflex attention
become volitional? How does mechanical memory become logical, conditioned action
conscious and volitional? How is the socio-cultural experience translated into something
psychological inside every individual? The principle of interiorization or transference of the
external into the internal will be explained below.
3.12. A SOCIAL RELATION IS TRANSLATED INTO A PSYCHOLOGICAL

ONE: INTERIORIZATION AND MEDIATION
Vygotsky drew the conclusion that the social relation had to be analyzed on two planes:
on the plane of its transformation from an external into an internal psychological entity, and
on the plane of interpretation of that transformation as having a history of its own, with its
various stages, zigzags, difficulties and dramatic effect. The principle of interiorization, or
transference of the external into the internal, had been discussed earlier in psychology.
Language emerges from direct contact between individuals and, being inhibited, sinks in the
depth of the individual brain, thus forming an inner mechanism of consciousness formed from
the outside. The transformation of external objective relations between men into the invisible
psychological world, was however a mystery. Psychological functions, cognition, attention,
emotions are inherent in the individual but they are individualized only in the course of social
communication and development, and the individual personality is the highest form of
sociality.
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The content of Vygotsky’s first research programme was determined by the task of
studying the way in which biologically determined elementary psychical functions in a child
operating with such a tool as the sign are transformed into higher functions as a result of
which the actions of the organism become conscious and volitional. The idea was that the
word being a special kind of irritant (second signal), distinguishes man from animals and
introduces a new regulative principle in man’s behaviour. According to Pavlov, the word
signals all the external and inner excitations that come to the cerebral hemispheres. It replaces
these signals and is therefore a “signal of signals”. Although Pavlov noted that the psychical
correlate of first signals, sensation, was different from that of second signals, concept, he saw
no principle other than signaling to embody man’s relations with reality.
Vygotsky’s observation and research with children led him to conclude that children’s
acquisition of higher intellectual functioning occurs in, and is completely dependent on, a
social context. He suggested a number of implications of that perspective. One concerned the
child’s acquisition of speech. In terms of his analysis, an adult first uses words to guide a
child to do something, and then the child begins to imitate this style of using communication
and may use words to tell an adult to do something. Finally, the child uses words to direct or
guide him/herself. This sequence is an example of the very important process of
internalization. It suggests not only a mechanism for the child’s acquisition of speech, but
also how internal speech would function for the development of voluntary control. The
commonly observed egocentric speech of 3-to-5-year-old children is an intermediate stage
between use of speech to guide other people (inter-psychological) and implicit speech to
guide oneself (intra-psychological). “The transition from social action outside the individual
to social action within the individual will be made the focus of our study; we shall try to
elucidate the most important moments that form this transition”. That was how Vygotsky
formulated his master plan for the study of the history of higher psychical functions.
When discussing the principle of the social genesis of the higher psychological functions
Vygotsky developed (possibly, for the first time), the new understanding of internalization
(Akhutina, T.V. 2003):
“When we studied the processes of the higher functions in children we came to the
following staggering conclusion: each higher form of behavior enters the scene twice in its
development - first as a collective form of behavior, as an inter-psychological function, then
as an intra-psychological function, as a certain way of behaving” (Vygotsky, 1982b, p. 115)
This also meant to clarify the specific psychological mechanisms of the social genesis of
psychological functions: “each higher function was thus originally shared between two
persons. It was a reciprocal psychological process. One process took place in my brain; the
other in the brain of the one with whom I have an argument” (Vygotsky, 1982b, p. 115).
Sign is a psychological tool internally oriented. Vygotsky counts as psychological tools
language, system of numbers, letters, maps, sketches, drawings, pictures, figures, illustrations,
and works of art. When Vygotsky insists on the mediated activity of human mind, he is close
to the concept of “extended mind”, see Chapter 2. Cultural signs as psychological tools are
important elements in the stimulus-reaction connection for humans. These tools have become
the principal instrument for transforming elementary functions into higher ones. Language is
the most important sign and psychological tool. "Human psychological phenomena depend
upon and are infused with social concepts and language" (Ratner, 1991, p. 2). Originally
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language was used in communication between individuals. Higher psychological functions

are therefore just as cultural as they are social in origin. Each higher psychological function,
appears twice: first in communication between humans, and only then does it ‘move inside’
(is interiorized), becoming the subject’s property and inalienable from him/her.
3.13. ANIMALS AND HUMANS

Relevant to the phylogenetic aspect is that in the transition from animal to human a
change occurred in the relation between the individual and the environment. Animals adjusted
to their environment by means of evolution. Humans, on the other hand, adjust to their
environment by acting on it and changing it. In the transition from animal to human there is
an emergent property in relation to psychological functioning. Humans learn to reflect and
control their own mental processes, yielding higher psychological functions which are absent
in animals. Intimately involved in this control of one’s own psychological processes are the
emergence of cultural/psychological tools and the mediation of psychological functioning by
means of them (Pick and Gippenreiter, 1994).
The higher-order functions became a possibility since natural evolution made thinking
and language appropriation possible, and because we established human cultures which
developed higher psychological functions in each individual. When human beings participate
in social interactions and employ tools, for instance language and other cultural signs, they
develop, construct and create their higher psychological functions, ways of thinking, feeling,
remembering, their sensation, perception and communication.
Animal’s communication is different from human communication: "Nonhuman primate
communication consists of natural bodily and vocal expressions in direct response to
events. These expressions, in turn, directly stimulate behavioral responses in other members
of the species. Such biological reactions contrast with human communication which
consists of invented sounds that express symbolic concepts about things human words
cognitively mediates rather than being immediate by-products of them” (Geertz, 1966, p. 25-
26).
...."animals' natural dispositions can be elicited by crude communicative acts because the
organism already knows what to do. Human communication, in contrast, must tell the
individual what to do and how to do it because he has no biological guidance" (Geertz,
1966, p. 30).
"Words are conventional, movements and sounds are natural" (Drummond, 1894, p.
208).
One of Vygotsky’s main hypotheses was that cultural factors and cultural operating
mechanisms elevate and expand consciousness beyond animal consciousness (Ratner, 2011).
Human consciousness is more agentive since it is dependent on a human shaped culture and
not on biological mechanisms. Being a socially constructed phenomenon and possessing
cultural features and mechanisms, psychology cannot logically be simultaneously governed,
by natural, biological processes (Ratner, 2011). Biology has lost its determining function in
human behaviour. To live in a human constructed culture calls for socially constructed,
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designed, voluntary, changeable behaviour. Culture determines the form, content, and
conditions of behaviour. In contrast, the form, content, and conditions of animal behavior are
determined by natural, biological elements. Elementary, natural mechanisms are antithetical
to cultural-psychological mechanisms and features. Biological processes and lower,
elementary psychological functions therefore have to recede into the background as a general
potentiating substratum of behaviour (Ratner, 2011). The driving forces of biological
evolution within the animal world lose their decisive importance as soon as we pass on to the
historical development of man. New laws regulating the course of human history which cover
the entire process of the material and mental development of human society now take their
place (Vygotsky and Luria, 1930/1993). Because “this auxiliary stimulus possess the specific
function of reverse action, it transfers the psychological operation to higher and qualitatively
new forms and permits humans, by the aid of extrinsic stimuli, to control their behavior from
the outside. The use of signs leads humans to a specific structure of behavior that breaks away
from biological development and creates new forms of culturally-based psychological
processes” (Vygotsky 1978, p. 40).
The biological and elementary functions have not disappeared but they have changed
their function and importance as they mingle with higher cultural functions. There is inter-
functionality between the organic maturation and cultural learning which characterizes the
merging and the development of a child into a culture. Cultural learning and the acquisition of
cultural tools involve a fusion with the processes of organic maturation. The two
contributions to development – the natural and the cultural – coincide and mingle with one
another; they penetrate one another and essentially form a single line of sociobiological
formation of the child as a cultural human being, developed from a biological being
(Vygotsky, cited in Wertsch, 1985, p. 41)..
Humans capacity or requirement to acquire culture make human social in a sense that is
different from the sociability of other species and explain the new principles of development
which appear once a child is born (Cole, 2002). There is also another important difference
between humans and other living organisms in their relation to the environment. While most
organisms adapt and do not affect to any great extent their environment, humans create to a
certain degree the cultural, social (and partly physical) environment they experience and are
affected by. Biology therefore changes its role in behavior from animals to humans. ”The
struggle for existence and natural selection, the two driving forces of biological evolution
within the animal world, lose their decisive importance as soon as we pass on to the historical
development of man.
New laws, which regulate the course of human history and which cover the entire process
of the material and mental development of human society now take their place” (Vygotsky
(1994b, p. 175).
No other specie has a human language. Vocal reactions in animals are not connected with
intellectual reactions, i.e., with thinking. It originates in emotion and is clearly a part of the
total emotional syndrome, but a part that fulfills a specific function, both biologically and
psychologically. It is far removed from intentional, conscious attempts to inform or influence
others. In essence, it is an instinctive reaction, or something close to it. For humans language
is something else than an instinctive, emotional reaction. It is objective and social, connected
to thinking and the correspondence between thought and speech characteristic of man is
absent in (other) animals.
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Thought and language have different genetic roots but and the two functions develop
along different lines and independently of each other up to a certain age, about 3 years. The
close correspondence between thought and speech that characterizes man from about 3 years
of age is absent in animals. "(T)he most significant moment in the course of intellectual
development, which gives birth to the purely human forms of practical and abstract
intelligence, occurs when speech and practical activity, two previously completely
independent lines of development, converge" (Vygotsky, 1978, p. 24).
3.13.1. The “Doubling Experience”
According to Vygotsky, human behavior may be described in terms of conditioned and

unconditioned reflexes; however, this description excludes the specifics of human behavior.
The term “reflex” equally applies or refers to both animals and human beings, and is
sufficient for the former but incomplete for the latter. The initial formula by Vygotsky is the
following: human behavior differs from animal behavior because of human social and
historical experience, and the “doubling experience.” The term “doubling experience” implies
that a human can consciously represent (in mind) the goal of his/her action, illustrated by
Marx’s words about the difference between the worst architect and a bee:
“But what distinguishes the worst architect from the best of bees is this, that the architect
raises his structure in imagination before he erects it in reality. At the end of every labor
process we get a result that already existed in an ideal form, that is, in the imagination of the
laborer at its commencement” (K. Marx, Das Kapital, Vol. 1, Part 3, p. 193).
The difference between an architect and a bee was commented upon by Vygotsky and
Luria in this way:
“[T]o a large degree we owe this enormous superiority of intellect over instinct to the
mechanism of inner speech. ... Turning from outside inward, speech formed the most
important psychological function, representing the external world within us, stimulating
thought, and, as several authors believe, also laying the foundation for the development of
consciousness. (Vygotsky and Luria, 1993, p. 196)
Vygotsky explained how a reflexive response may become a phenomenon that could
allow the “doubling experience” to occur, and based on the concept of “reflexes” he
addressed the fact that the mechanism of a reflexive reaction is something special when
triggered by the stimulus of a word. “A verbal stimulus may be reproduced and become a
response. That response may in turn become a new stimulus and the reflexes become
reversible” (Akhutina, 2003). Among the multitude of stimuli those coming from other
people in communication stand out because they are reversible and can be reconstructed. Due
to this “the words and signs determine behavior in another way from all others stimuli and the
source of social behavior and consciousness lies in speech in the broad sense of the word”
(Vygotsky, 1982b, p. 95).
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3.14. Inter-Functional Connections and the Systemic Approach
The cultural-historical approach to psychology is fundamentally systemic (Toomela,

2008). That means a simultaneous search for (i) elements of a structure, (ii) relationships and
emerging wholes, (iii) development. It seeks for unified understanding of the human
culturally shaped mind as a semiotically mediated functional system. Different levels of
explanation must be dealt with in explicit complementary relationships and the unified
understanding at each level of explanation has to be related to the systemic properties of a
whole. No analytic study can make sense unless conducted with an understanding of the place
each element has in the totality. The cultural-historical approach seeks understanding of the
mind from biological, psychological and socio-cultural perspective simultaneously and the
approach tries to unify the contributing elements, corresponding to general stages of
evolution: the systemic stage – characterizing the physical world; the functional systemic
stage – characterizing the biological-psychological world, and the semiotically mediated stage
– the human or cultural-historical system (Toomela, 2008).
To understand for example memory in humans it is necessary to study semiotically
mediated memory as something different from systemic and functional systems memory in
animals. The following questions have to be answered: What “position” memory has in a
whole mind and how the memory structure depends on other components of mind:
perception, thinking, planning, motivation, and emotion? The architecture of the cognitive
system changes fundamentally with the inclusion of symbols into the psychological
organization. The answers to many important questions are not known at the moment, for
instance how the integrative process takes place at the level of neuronal groups or how the
semiotically mediated integrated process takes place at the level of individual neurons
(Toomela, 2008).
The idea of a ‘functional system’ is another important approach. The ideas about
functional systems were elaborated in the neuropsychological domain by Alexander Luria.
Cultural-historical psychology also dealt with the concept of inter-functional connections, and
how development can be understood as modifications and changes of relationships between
functions. All that is known about psychological development indicates that its very essence
lies in the change of the inter-functional structure of consciousness. It is the “inter-functional
structure” and the “changing set of relations” that matter, not changes in functions
themselves: “What is changed and modified are rather the relationships, the links between the
functions. New constellations emerge which were unknown in the preceding stage”
(Vygotsky, 1982b, p.110).
Vygotsky also formulated one of the principles of modern neuropsychology - the
principle of the system structure of the higher psychological functions (Akhutina, T.V. 2003):
“We must not view mind as (consisting of) special processes which supplementary exist
on top of and alongside the brain processes, somewhere above or between them, but as the
subjective expression of the same processes, as a special side, a special qualitative
characteristic of the higher functions of the brain. Through abstraction the mental process is
artificially separated or torn from the integral psychophysiological process within which it
only acquires its meaning and sense. The insolubility of the mental problem for the older
psychology resided to a large extent in the fact that because of its idealistic approach the
mental was torn from the integral process of which it forms a part. It was ascribed the role of
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an independent process existing alongside and apart from the physiological processes...”
(Vygotsky, 1982b, p. 137).
Vygotsky focused on process rather than states, and he studied dynamic systems in their
development more than abilities and statuses. The explanation and distinction Vygotsky made
between lower (or natural) and higher (or cultural) psychological functions is furthermore an
example of this approach.
3.15. LOWER AND HIGHER PSYCHOLOGICAL FUNCTIONS

The ‘lower’ psychological functions, such as elementary perception, memory, attention,
and will; are different in principle from the ‘higher’, or cultural, functions, which are
specifically human and appear gradually in a course of radical transformation of the lower
functions. The lower functions are biological mechanisms, such as the blind reactions to
stimuli that we see in animals and these mechanisms do not involve conscious experience.
Vygotsky used memory as an example of the difference between lower (illiterate) and higher
(literate) functions and described ‘natural memory’ in this way: "…, even at the earliest stages
of social development, there are two, principally different types of memory. One dominating
in the behavior of non-literate peoples is characterized by the non-mediated impression of
materials, by the retention of actual experiences as the basis of mnemonic (memory)
traces…This kind of memory is very close to perception, because it arises out of the direct
influence of external stimuli upon human beings...We call this natural memory" (Vygotsky,
1978, p. 39).
Natural memory is not the only kind, however, even in the case of nonliterate men and
women. On the contrary, other types of memory belonging to a completely different
developmental line coexist with natural memory. The use of notched sticks and knots, the
beginnings of writing and simple memory aids all demonstrate that even at early stages of
historical development humans went beyond the limits of the psychological functions given
to them by nature and “proceeded to a new, culturally-elaborated organization of their
behavior....we believe that these sign operations are the products of specific conditions of
social development” (Vygotsky, 1978, pp.38-39).
The higher psychological functions develop from the lower and at the same time change
the lower ones to something different, absorbing them into new functions by the principle of
developing inter-functionality. The transformation is described by Hegel as dialectical
aufhebung: the original is retained or preserved in sublated form. The elementary functions
do not disappear but are transmuted (and usually reduced in importance) when combined with
cultural components in the human mind and brain.

The genetic or instinctive driving forces are overruled by what is acquired during
socialization in a particular culture. Conscious behaviour is only possible if the elementary
lower functions are set aside from their original function. The number of human activities
under biological control is greatly reduced in comparison with animals. Psychological
phenomena in humans, including perception, cognition, emotion, memory, motivation,
personality, and identity are constructed when individuals participate in social interaction.
The most peculiar aspect of humans compared with other living species is that humans are
created by a culture that they have created. Their higher psychological functions are acquired
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in a human culture using symbols and signs (language). This position, that psychology has a
constructed and mediated character, does not disregard biological influences. Vygotsky
(1931/1997) demonstrated the importance of biology for psychology but without dissolving
social consciousness into biological processes.
The specific human psychological functions developed within the social and cultural
experience also have impact on the brain’s structure and function. It undergoes
transformations with a simultaneous modification of its reliance upon inborn biological
mechanisms: Initially, these functions are determined by biological mechanisms, but in a later
phase, the functions assume control over biological mechanisms. The higher psychological
functions actually stimulate synaptic and neuronal growth in particular directions and create
their own biological mediations, restructuring the brain (Vygotsky, 1986, Wertsch, 2008), see
Chapter 5.
A radically new element of Vygotsky’s theory was his inclusion of a third element in the
stimulus-reaction connection, that third element being a cultural sign as a psychological rather
than technical tool. It was this tool that became the principal instrument of transforming
elementary functions into higher ones characterized by conscious awareness and volition.
These higher functions include consciously modulated mental processes such as intentional
memory, strategically directed perceiving, problem solving, etc. (Pick and Gippenreiter,
1994).
The elementary lower functions operate in different ways from cultural conscious
functions. This is why the former cannot govern the latter. They cannot even serve as the
basis of the latter, these are qualitatively new formations: “Higher psychological functions are
not simply a continuation of elementary functions and are not their mechanical combination,
but a qualitatively new formation that develops according to completely special laws and is
subject to completely different patterns.” (Vygotsky, 1998, p. 34).
The mechanisms that control behavior at earlier stages of development do not disappear
entirely in the adult; they are included as an auxiliary, implementing mechanism in the
composition of complex, higher functions. Within it, they act according to laws other than
those that control their independent life. But when the higher function disintegrates for any
reason, the subordinate factors preserved within it are emancipated and begin again to act
according to the laws of their primitive life. ... Disintegration of the higher function also
means, in a conditional sense, of course, a kind of return to a genetically prior stage of
development (Vygotsky, 1984a, p. 166).
Another important aspect of the higher psychological functions is their systems character.
They do not function separately but form an articulate whole. Each of them can therefore be
scientifically explained only if the dynamics of its interrelations with the other functions are
considered.
The interpretation of the higher psychical functions sets off the features of the general
style of Vygotsky’s thinking. They can be characterized in terms of several principles, such as
1. the principle of mediation (any psychical act of the individual is mediated by a supra-
individual factor, in the present case, by a cultural sign),
2. social conditioning (in any psychical act of an individual, another person is
represented),
3. systems nature (any psychical act depends on the whole in the dynamics of which it
is realized),
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4. development (the system of psychical acts undergoes evolutionary and revolutionary

transformations).
3.15.1. The Principle of Mediation. Mediation by Psychological Tools
As we have seen, the higher psychological functions develop in children as they are
socialized in their culture. A central aspect of this acculturation is what Vygotsky terms
mediation. An essential difference between lower and higher psychological functions are that
the latter is mediated. Lower, instinctive and biological psychological functions are
characterized by immediate registration or reaction to stimuli while higher mental functions
involve some kind of mediating processes between the stimuli and reaction. While this
mediation may be as simple as tying a string around one’s finger to help one to remember
something, it may be as complex as an entire linguistic or symbolic system such as that of
mathematics to help in problem solving (Pick and Gippenreiter, 1994). One type of
psychological tool particularly emphasized by Vygotsky is that of signs and symbols. These
range from the very simplest mnemonic devices to the most complex of symbol systems used
in logical analysis. To use a psychological tool is an example of higher intellectual
functioning which animals never exhibit, and Vygotsky tried to understand how children
come to achieve these forms of mediation via psychological tools and their consequent higher
levels of intellectual functioning.
"As technology develops, human interaction with the environment becomes less direct;
it is mediated in increasing complex way from the tools that human society devises.
Vygotsky brilliantly extended this concept of mediated human-environment interaction to
the use of signs as well tools. By 'sign' he referred to socially created symbol systems such
as language, writing and number systems, which emerge over the course of history and
vary from one society to another" (Scribner and Cole, 1981, p. 8).
Vygotsky considered three sources of mediation (Kozulin, 1990): (i) material tools, (ii)
symbol systems, and (iii) the behavior of other persons. He sometimes referred to symbols as
psychological tools. Material tools mediated human action directed at objects while symbolic
tools mediate one’s own psychological processes. As soon as speech or signs are involved in
action, the action is transformed completely and is organized along entirely new lines.
Initially speech, like tools, is used to master one’s surroundings, then to master one’s own
behavior. The internalization of culturally produced systems brings about behavioral
transformations and forms the bridge between early and later forms of individual
development. The role of mediator is played by psychological tools and means of
interpersonal communication when the outward, inter-psychological relations become the
inner, intra-psychological mental functions. The transition from egocentric to inner speech
manifests for instance the internalization of an originally communicative function, which
becomes individualized inner mental functions.
Psychological functions depend upon and are embedded in the culture or humanized
environment which includes tools and artifacts. They are realized as higher order emergent
functions which cannot be reduced to its elements (Elstrup 2010). Also Vygotsky’s idea on
social interaction, saying that “psychological phenomena, […] are humanly constructed as
individuals participate in social interaction” (Kolstad 2010, p.64) may be considered as a
precursor of the theory of “extended mind”, see Chapter 2.
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The feature of human psychological functions is according to Vygotsky that they are
mediated activities and determined by stimulation from the environment. The central feature
of higher psychological functions is that human beings create and use artificial stimuli,
namely signs. Words and language are the prototype of mediators and social context is
essential for their acquisition. Children learn and first use words in social settings; they first
respond to words of others, and then they use words in an interpersonal way to attract the
attention or guide behaviors of others. Subsequently they use words and language overtly to
guide their own behavior. Humans regulate more and more of their own behavior with
implicit internal language.
3.16. MACRO-CULTURAL PSYCHOLOGY

Vygotsky’s and Luria’s cultural-historical psychology can also be comprehended as a
macro-cultural psychology (Ratner, 2011) where psychological phenomena originate in
macro cultural factors: “Higher psychological functions (are) the product of the historical
development of humanity” (Vygotsky, 1998, p. 34). “Once we acknowledge the historical
character of verbal thought, we must consider it subject to all premises of historical
materialism, which are valid for any historical phenomenon in human society. It is only to be
expected that on this level the development of behavior will be governed essentially by the
general laws of the historical development of human society” (Vygotsky 1986, pp. 94-95).
Vygotsky also stated a central principle of macro-cultural psychology, “Already in primitive
societies…the entire makeup of individuals can be seen to depend directly on the
development, the degree of development of the production forces, and on the structure of that
social group to which the individual belongs…Both these factors, whose intrinsic
interdependence has been established by the theory of historical materialism, are the decisive
factors of the whole psychology of primitive man” (Vygotsky, 1994b, p. 176).
This avoidance of concrete social behavior - whether intentional or not - impedes the
scientific development of psychology as a science. It also renders psychological science
politically impotent as a force for social critique and change, and for psychological
enrichment. For the academic discipline of psychology to become scientific, and to improve
the social environment in ways that will enrich psychological functions and social relations, it
must according to Carl Ratner elucidate the macro cultural origins, characteristics,
mechanisms, and function of psychological phenomena. This is what macro cultural
psychology aims to do, according to Ratner (2006, 2008, 2011a, b).
3.17. CONTEMPORARY CULTURAL PSYCHOLOGY.

EXAMPLES OF CULTURAL INFLUENCE ON
PSYCHOLOGICAL FUNCTIONS
We now have the tools necessary to discover cultural variation across multiple levels in
ways previously unimagined, due in large part, to fortuitous theoretical and methodological
advances in three distinct fields: cultural psychology, neuroscience and molecular genetics. In
recent years, cultural psychology has made major advances in identifying cultural traits that
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characterize the diversity in social groups around the world as well as articulating the criteria
for creating culturally appropriate behavioral measures that ensure the psychological
phenomena of interest is tractable in people of all cultures (Norenzayan and Heine, 2005;
Kitayama and Cohen, 2007).
The new developments in cultural psychology and cultural neuroscience and the
technological advances that make mapping of brain cell activity and brain structure possible
are extending interest in higher-order psychological functions. Contemporary cultural
psychology is highlighting the role of cultural meanings and practices in completing the self
and in effecting the form of basic psychological processes (Miller, 2002). The two decades
since the 1990s have witnessed an explosion of research on cultural psychology and exploring
diversity in psychological functions, especially in cognitive processes between cultures has
become one of the hot topics in the field (Cohen, 2001; Gentner, 2010; Lloyd, 2007).
Norenzayan and Heine (2005) have reviewed evidence of cultural influence on the nature of
basic and higher psychological processes. They cite the following studies indicating some
phenomena are less evident or appear in significantly divergent forms in other cultures. They
include, from cognitive psychology, memory for and categorization of focal colors
(Roberson, Davidoff, Davies, and Shapiro, 2004; Roberson, Davies, and Davidoff, 2000),
spatial reasoning (Levinson, 1996), certain aspects of category-based inductive reasoning
(Bailenson, Shum, Atran, Medin, and Coley, 2002; Medin and Atran, 2004), some perceptual
illusions (e.g., Segall, Campbell, and Herskovits, 1963), perceptual habits (e.g., Masuda and
Nisbett, 2001), habitual strategies for reasoning and categorization (e.g., Nisbett, Peng, Choi,
and Norenzayan, 2001; Norenzayan, in press), the relation between thinking and speaking
(e.g., Kim, 2002), and certain aspects of numerical reasoning (Gordon, 2004; K. F. Miller and
Paredes, 1996); from judgment and decision making, preferred decisions in the ultimatum
game (e.g., Henrich et al., in press) and risk preferences in decision making (Hsee and Weber,
1999); from social and personality psychology, independent self-concepts (e.g., Markus and
Kitayama, 1991), the similarity-attraction effect (e.g., Heine and Renshaw, 2002),
motivations for uniqueness (e.g., Kim and Markus, 1999), approach–avoidance motivations
(e.g., Elliot, Chirkov, Kim, and Sheldon, 2001), the fundamental attribution error (e.g., Choi
and Nisbett, 1998; J. G. Miller, 1984; Morris and Peng, 1994; Norenzayan and Nisbett, 2000),
self-enhancing motivations (e.g., Heine, Lehman, Markus, and Kitayama, 1999), predilections
for violence in response to insults (e.g., Nisbett and Cohen, 1996), high subjective well-being
and positive affect (e.g., Diener, Diener, and Diener, 1995; Kitayama, Markus, and
Kurokawa, 2000), feelings of control (e.g., Morling, Kitayama, and Miyamoto, 2002),
communication styles (e.g., Sanchez-Burks et al., 2003), consistent selfviews (e.g., Suh,
2002), and emotion (e.g., Elfenbein and Ambady, 2002; Mesquita, 2001); from clinical
psychology, the prevalence of major depression (Weissman et al., 1996), depression as
centered on negative mood (e.g., Kleinman, 1982; Ryder, 2004), social anxiety (Okazaki,
1997), the prevalence of eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa and bulimia (e.g., Lee,
1995), and a number of other indigenous syndromes that have not yet received much attention
in the West (e.g., agonias among Azoreans, S. James, 2002; ataque de nervios among Latino
populations, Liebowitz, Salmań, Jusino, and Garfinkel, 1994; hikikomori among Japanese,
Masataka, 2002; and whakama among the Maori, Sachdev, 1990); and from developmental
psychology, the noun bias in language learning (Tardif, 1996), moral reasoning (e.g., A. B.
Cohen and Rozin, 2001; J. G. Miller and Bersoff, 1992; Shweder, Much, Mahapatra, and
Park, 1997), the prevalence of different attachment styles (e.g., Grossmann, Grossmann,
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Spangler, Suess, and Unzer, 1985), and the tumult and violence associated with adolescence,
Schlegel and Barry, 1991).
According to Miller culture is a “symbolic medium for human development and
participation in this medium is necessary for the emergence of all higher-order psychological
processes” (Miller, 2002, p. 142).
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Chapter 4
MIND, PSYCHE AND CONSCIOUSNESS

4.1. INTRODUCTION
The whole of previous psychology took the individual “soul”, the word for psyche, mind
or consciousness, to be the fountainhead of psychological phenomena. The social world, just
as the natural one, was seen from this standpoint as external environment to which the self
applies its psychical forces and functions. The new view in scientific psychology demanded
that this self may be seen as a reflection of the relations that arise among men regardless of
that self. The individual psyche is a recent historical product which has emerged from the
depths of collective life, a product that bears an indelible imprint of the processes taking place
in these depths. The ultimate basis of these processes is interaction among humans.
As accounted for in the preceding chapter it gives no meaning to deal with humans
(higher) psychological functions without dealing with social interaction, communication and
cultural creation of these functions. There is no psyche/mind or consciousness outside or
before cultural impact. The genes and the brain as a material structure exists before the impact
from culture, but there is no “psychology”, consciousness or mind existing as material
structures in the same way as the brain and independent of culture. This does not mean that
the mind - or the brain - is an empty blackboard or a tabula rasa. There are lower
psychological functions, instincts etc. in brain and mind, but these properties are not
characterizing human psychology.
The development of mind and other psychological functions involves the overcoming of
two forms of reductionism: biological which sees development as the maturing of an
organism and sociological which reduces development to the ‘appropriation’ of socio-cultural
characteristics. As regards sociological reductionism, it completely ignores the proper inner
logic of the transformations which a child’s inner life goes through with the changes of the
‘seasons of life’ (Yaroshevsky, 1989: 277).
4.2. PSYCHE
The basic meaning of the Greek word (psūchê) from which the terms 'psyche' and
'psychology' derive, was ‘life’. In older texts English words like ‘spirit’, ‘ghost’, and ‘soul’,
something opposed to the body and ‘living’ forever even after the body is dead, in a Christian
tradition, has sometimes been used synonymously. But these translations are in several
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respects misleading since psyche is intimately connected to the notion of life: only living
things possess a psyche. The psyche, in sum, is the living self.
Many philosophers have naturally been concerned with the human psyche; Aristotle
offers for instance two connected definitions of psyche. The first definition emphasizes the
connection between psyche and the body; the second indicates the existence of interdependent
psychic 'parts' or faculties. In one important respect at least, the Greek notion of 'psychology'
is strikingly different from the modern notion. For the Greeks, all living things, including
plants and the lower animals, have, by definition, a ‘psyche’. For modern scientists a primary
distinction is between what possesses mind and consciousness, and therefore psyche and what
does not. Other relevant questions in contemporary philosophy and psychological science are
the connection between the ‘mental' and the ‘physical', between mind and body; and how man
develops his/her ‘psyche’.
‘Psychology’ is the scientific study of the ‘psyche’ meaning the totality or the center of
the human mind, thought, feeling, and motivation, conscious and unconscious, with
implications for behavior. It has been one of the fundamental concepts for understanding
human nature from a scientific point of view. In psychoanalysis, the psyche refers to the
forces in an individual that influence thought, personality and behavior. In recent decades
cognitive psychology has replaced psychoanalysis as the dominant school of psychology and
the word ‘mind’ is preferred by cognitive scientists to ‘psyche’. The mind as opposed to the
body is functioning as the center of thought, emotion, and behavior and consciously or
unconsciously mediating the body's responses to the social and physical environment.
4.3. THE MIND

The mind is a complex of cognitive faculties that enables consciousness, thinking,
reasoning, perception and judgment, a characteristic of human beings. The evolution of the
human mind is closely tied to the evolution of the human brain, and to the emergence of
human language. As for the psyche, a long tradition of inquiries in philosophy, religion,
psychology and cognitive science has sought to develop an understanding of what mind is
and what are its distinguishing properties. It is generally agreed that mind is that which
enables a human to have subjective awareness and intentionality towards their environment,
to perceive and respond to stimuli with some kind of agency, and to have a consciousness,
including thinking and feeling. An essential issue in today’s discussions regarding the nature
of mind is its relation to the physical brain, the mind-body problem. This issue considers
whether mind is somehow separate from physical existence (dualism and idealism), deriving
from and reducible to physical phenomena such as neurological processes (physicalism), or
whether the mind is identical with the brain or some activity of the brain, see below. Another
question concerns the differences between humans and animals regarding mind and
psychological functions.
Important philosophers of mind include Descartes, Leibniz, Kant, Heidegger and Searle,
and psychologists such as Sigmund Freud and William James have developed influential
theories about the nature of the human mind. In the late 20th and early 21st century cognitive
psychology has developed varied approaches to the description of mind and its related
phenomena.
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Copyright © 2013. Nova Science Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. May not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except fair uses permitted under Mind, Psyche and Consciousness 83
The concept of mind is understood in different ways by different cultural, scientific and
religious traditions. Some see mind as a property exclusive to humans whereas others ascribe
properties of mind to non-living entities, to animals and to deities. Which attributes make up
the mind is also much debated. Some psychologists argue that only the "higher"
psychological functions constitute mind, particularly thinking, reason and memory.
According to this view the emotions, for instance love, hate, fear, joy, belong to the lower,
instinctive psychological functions. They are more primitive or subjective in nature and
should be seen as different from the human mind as such. Others argue that various
psychological, behavioral and emotional functions cannot be so separated, since they are of
the same nature and origin, and should therefore be considered as belonging to what we call
the mind.
In popular usage mind is frequently synonymous with thought: the private conversation
with ourselves that we carry on "inside our heads." Thus we "make up our minds," "change
our minds" or are "of two minds" about something. One of the key attributes of the mind in
this sense is that it is a private sphere to which no one but the person self has access.
4.3.1. Mental Faculties
Thoughts, concepts, memories, emotions, percepts and intentions are the items that are
thought of as being "in" the mind, and capable of being formed and manipulated by mental
processes and faculties. Thought is a mental act that allows human beings to make sense of
things in the world, and to represent and interpret them in ways that are significant, or which
accord with their needs, goals, commitments, plans, ends, desires, etc. Thinking involves the
symbolic or semiotic mediation of ideas or data, as when we form concepts, engage in
problem solving, reasoning and making decisions. Words that refer to similar concepts and
processes include deliberation, cognition, ideation, discourse and imagination.
Broadly speaking, mental faculties like thinking, memorizing and imagination among
others, are the various functions of the mind, or things the mind can do.
Thinking is sometimes described as a "higher" psychological function (see Chapter 3) and
the analysis of thinking processes is a part of contemporary cognitive psychology. It also
depends on human’s capacity to create and apply cultural and psychological tools, especially
language; to understand cause and effect to recognize patterns of significance; to comprehend
and disclose unique contexts of experience or activity.
Memory is the ability to preserve, retain, and subsequently recall, knowledge, information
or experience. Memory has been a persistent theme in philosophy and emerged in the late
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as a subject of inquiry within the paradigms of
cognitive psychology. In recent decades, it has become a main subject also in cognitive
neuroscience, studying how experience and knowledge is stored in the brain.
Imagination is the activity of generating or evoking novel images, ideas, situations in the
mind. The term is used in psychology for the process of reviving in the mind percepts of
objects formerly given in sense perception. Things that are imagined are said to be seen in the
“mind’s eye”, to "see" things from another's perspective, and to change the way something is
perceived.
Consciousness (see below) is an aspect of the mind generally thought to comprise
qualities such as subjectivity, self-appraisal, and the ability to perceive the relationship
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between oneself, other and the environment. It is a subject of much research in philosophy of
mind, psychology, neuroscience, and cognitive science.
4.3.2. Mind and Brain. Philosophy of Mind
Understanding the relationship between the mind and the brain, the ‘mind-body
problem’, has been one of the central issues in the history of philosophy. ‘Philosophy of
mind’ is the branch of philosophy that studies the nature of the mind, mental events, mental
functions, mental properties, consciousness and their relationship to the physical body. The
mind-body problem is commonly seen as the central issue in philosophy of mind, although
there are other issues concerning the nature of the mind that do not involve its relation to the
physical body. In addition to the philosophical questions, the relationship between mind and
brain involves a number of scientific questions, including the relationship between mental
activity and brain activity, and it is therefore a challenging topic also in contemporary
psychology and neuroscience and other disciplines as well.
There have been four major philosophical schools of thought concerning the mind-body
problem: dualism, monism, materialism, and idealism. Dualism holds that mind and body are
in some way separate from each other and that the mind exists independently of the brain.
This position was most precisely formulated by René Descartes in the 17th century. Monism is
the position that mind and body are not physiologically and ontologically distinct kinds of
entities. This view was espoused by the 17th century rationalist Baruch de Spinoza. According
to Spinoza's dual-aspect theory, mind and body are two aspects of an underlying reality which
he variously described as "Nature" or "God". Materialism holds that mental phenomena are
identical to neuronal phenomena. The philosopher of cognitive science Daniel Dennett argues
for example that there is no such thing as the "mind", but that instead there is simply a
collection of sensory inputs and outputs. Idealism holds that only mental phenomena exist
and idealists maintain that the mind is all that exists and that the external world is either
mental itself, or an illusion created by the mind. Physicalists on the other hand argue that only
the entities postulated by physical theory exist, and that the mind will eventually be explained
in terms of these entities as physical theory continues to evolve. Some modern philosophers
of mind adopt either a reductive or non-reductive physicalist position, maintaining that the
mind is not something separate from the body.
These approaches have been influential in some contemporary sub-disciplines like
sociobiology, computer science, evolutionary psychology and various neurosciences. Other
philosophers, however, adopt a non-physicalist position which challenges the notion that the
mind is a purely physical construct. Many philosophers found it inconceivable that cognition
and psychological functions in general could be implemented by a physical substance such as

brain tissue (that is neurons and synapses), and they claimed that even if there is an intimate
connection between the brain and the mind, the two are not the same entity. René Descartes,
who thought extensively about mind-brain relationships, did for instance not believe that
complex thought, and language in particular, could be explained by reference to the physical
brain alone. Psychologist B.F. Skinner argued that the mind is an explanatory fiction that
diverts attention from environmental causes of behavior; he considered the mind a "black
box" and thought that mental processes may be better conceived of as forms of covert verbal
behavior.
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In philosophy of mind, epiphenomenalism is the view that psychological phenomena are

epiphenomena in that they can be caused by physical phenomena, but cannot cause physical
phenomena. In strong epiphenomenalism, epiphenomena that are mental phenomena can only
be caused by physical phenomena, not by other mental phenomena. In weak
epiphenomenalism, epiphenomena that are mental phenomena can be caused by both physical
phenomena and other mental phenomena, but mental phenomena cannot be the cause of any
physical phenomenon.
The way philosophers have dealt with the mind – body, or mind – brain question has not
solved the puzzle or presented a convincing epistemology on how to understand and explain
the interaction. Psychologists and neuroscientists doing empirical studies on the brain-mind
issue are contributing to the epistemology and today there are varied scientific approaches to
the old philosophical problem on how the mind is related to the body and brain.
4.3.3. Science of Mind
Psychology is the scientific study of human mind, mental functioning, perception,

cognition, emotion, personality, self, identity, as well as environmental influences, such as
social and cultural influences, and interpersonal relationships. Psychology also refers to the
application of such knowledge to various spheres of human activity, including problems of
individuals' daily lives and the treatment of mental health problems. Historically, psychology
differed from biology and neuroscience in that it was primarily concerned with mind rather
than brain. Modern psychological science incorporates physiological and neurological
processes into its conceptions of perception, cognition, behaviour, and mental disorders to
contribute to the solution of the mind-body interaction.
4.4. CONSCIOUSNESS
Alexander Luria and Lev Vygotsky used ‘consciousness’ as a starting point and rejected
the view that consciousness represents an “intrinsic property of mental life,” invariably
present in every mental state and independent of socio-historical development. They
maintained that consciousness is the highest form of reflection of historical reality and shaped
by activity. "We should not seek the origins of abstract thinking and categorial behavior,
which mark a sharp change from the sensory to the rational, within human consciousness
or within the human brain. Rather, we should seek these origins in the social forms of
human historical existence" (Luria, 1982, p. 27). Environmental factors are decisive for the
socio-historical development of consciousness and thinking and speech is the key to

understanding the nature of human consciousness (Vygotsky, 1982c). Individual
consciousness is built from outside when humans participate in social interactions and
communications. They develop, construct and create in this way their psychological
substance, ways of thinking, feeling, remembering, their sensation and perception etc. all that
belongs to human consciousness and the higher psychological functions.
This is the explanation and definition of consciousness given by the leading
representative of cultural-historical psychology. But how is ‘consciousness’ comprehended in
Account: s3700943
mainstream Western philosophy and science? Most often it is referred to as the quality or
state of being aware of an external object or something within oneself, and defined as:
subjectivity, awareness, the ability to experience, having a sense of selfhood, and the
executive control system of the mind, having perceptions, thoughts and feelings. The
American philosopher John Rogers Searle adheres to this tradition and poses that
consciousness and experiences of consciousness are the same thing: “consciousness only
exists if it is experienced as such” (Searle 2007, p.213).
4.4.1. Defining Consciousness
Eight neuroscientists tried in 2004 to give a definition of consciousness. They did not
succeed and their attempt ended as an apology (Frackowiak et al., 2004):
"We have no idea how consciousness emerges from the physical activity of the brain and
we do not know whether consciousness can emerge from non-biological systems, such as
computers... At this point the reader will expect to find a careful and precise definition of
consciousness. You will be disappointed. Consciousness has not yet become a scientific term
that can be defined in this way. Currently we all use the term consciousness in many different
and often ambiguous ways. Precise definitions of different aspects of consciousness will
emerge ... but to make precise definitions at this stage is premature."
In contrast to philosophical or theoretical definitions, an operational definition can be

tested experimentally, and is useful for current research. Christof Koch lists in his latest book
(Koch, 2012) four definitions of consciousness, which can be summarized as follows: (i)
Consciousness is the inner mental life that we lose each night when we fall into dreamless
sleep, (i) consciousness can be measured with the Glasgow Coma Scale that assesses the
reactions of patients, (iii) an active cortico-thalamic complex is necessary for consciousness
in humans, and (iv) put philosophically, consciousness is what it is like to feel something.
Many fall into the trap of equating consciousness with how the word is often used in
everyday language, as self-consciousness. To be conscious however, it is only necessary to be
aware of the external world. Despite the difficulty in definition, many scholars believe that
there is a broadly shared underlying intuition about what consciousness is. Others have
however been in doubt whether the concept is fundamentally valid; whether consciousness
can ever be explained; and how consciousness relates to mind, brain and language. Perhaps
the thorniest issue is the same we discussed when presenting the concept ‘mind’: whether
consciousness requires a dualistic distinction between mental and physical states or
properties.
The first influential philosopher to discuss this question specifically was as already
mentioned René Descartes, and the answer he gave is known as Cartesian dualism. Descartes
proposed that consciousness resides within an immaterial domain he called res cogitans (the
realm of thought), in contrast to the domain of material things which he called res extensa
(the realm of extension). He suggested that the interaction between these two domains occurs
inside the brain, perhaps in a small midline structure called the pineal gland.
Descartes explained the problem persuasively, but today philosophers have not been
satisfied with his solution. Alternative solutions have been diverse and can be divided broadly
Account: s3700943
into the two main categories already mentioned: dualist solutions that give different answers
for the distinction between the realm of consciousness and the realm of matter; and monist
solutions that maintain that there is really only one realm of being, of which consciousness
and matter are both aspects. Each of these categories has been divided further in
contemporary philosophy. The two main types of dualism are substance dualism (which holds
that the mind is formed of a distinct type of substance not governed by the laws of physics)
and property dualism (which holds that the laws of physics are universally valid but cannot be
used to explain the mind). The three main types of monism are physicalism (which holds that
the mind consists of matter organized in a particular way), idealism (which holds that only
thought truly exists and matter is merely an illusion), and neural monism (which holds that
both mind and matter are aspects of a distinct essence that is itself identical to neither of
them).
For many philosophers the word "consciousness" connotes the relationship between the
mind and the world. They consider experience to be the essence of consciousness, and believe
that experience can only fully be known from the inside, subjectively. Some argue that
traditional understanding of consciousness depends on the dualism that improperly
distinguishes between mind and body, or between mind and world. Thus, by speaking of
'consciousness' we easily end up misleading ourselves by thinking that there is any sort of
thing as consciousness separated from behavioral and linguistic understandings.
4.4.2. Scientific Approaches to Consciousness
For many decades, consciousness as a research topic was avoided by the majority of
mainstream scientists, because of a general feeling that a phenomenon defined in subjective
terms could not properly be studied using objective experimental methods. In recent years,
consciousness has become a significant topic of research in cognitive neuroscience. The
primary focus is on understanding what it means biologically and psychologically for
information to be present in consciousness; that is, on determining the neural and
psychological correlates of consciousness. The majority of experimental studies assess
consciousness by asking human subjects for a verbal report of their experiences (e.g., "tell me
if you notice anything when I do this") and at the same time monitor what happens in the
brain. Starting in the 1980s, an expanding community of neuroscientists and psychologists
has associated themselves with a field called Consciousness Studies, giving rise to a stream of
experimental work published in books and journals.
Modern scientific investigations into consciousness are based on psychological
experiments. Broadly viewed, such scientific approaches are based on two core concepts. The
first identifies the content of consciousness with the experiences that are reported by human
subjects (see above); the second makes use of the concept of consciousness that has been
developed by neuroscientists and other medical professionals who deal with patients whose
behavior are impaired. In either case, the ultimate goals are to develop techniques for
assessing consciousness in humans, and to understand the neural and psychological
mechanisms that underlie it.
The scientific literature regarding the neural bases of arousal and purposeful movement is
very extensive. Their reliability as indicators of consciousness is disputed, however, due to
numerous studies showing that alert human subjects can be induced to behave purposefully in
Account: s3700943
a variety of ways in spite of reporting a complete lack of awareness. Studies of the

neuroscience have also shown that the experiences that people report when they behave
purposefully sometimes do not correspond to their actual behaviors or to the patterns of
electrical activity recorded from their brains. This makes the experimental studies of
consciousness dubious for developing a valid epistemology of consciousness and the mind-
brain interaction.
4.4.3. Neural Processes Underlying Consciousness
A major part of the scientific literature on consciousness consists of studies that examine
the relationship between the experiences reported by subjects and the activity that
simultaneously takes place in their brains; that is, studies of the neural correlates of
consciousness. The hope is to find that activity in a particular part of the brain, or a particular
pattern of global brain activity, will be strongly predictive of conscious awareness. Some
philosophers have been tempted by the idea that consciousness could be explained by the
vision of simple mechanical principles governing the entire universe and modern ‘physical’
theories of consciousness seek to explain consciousness in terms of neural events occurring
within the brain.
One idea that has drawn attention for several decades is that consciousness is associated
with high-frequency (gamma band) oscillations in brain activity. A number of studies have
shown that activity in primary sensory areas of the brain is not sufficient to produce
consciousness: it is possible for subjects to report a lack of awareness even when areas such
as the primary visual cortex show clear electrical responses to a stimulus. Higher brain areas
are seen as more promising, especially the prefrontal cortex, which is involved in a range of
higher cognitive functions collectively known as executive functions. There is substantial
evidence that a "top-down" flow of neural activity (i.e., activity propagating from the frontal
cortex to sensory areas) is more predictive of conscious awareness than a "bottom-up" flow of
activity.
A science of consciousness must explain the exact relationship between subjective mental
states and brain states, the nature of the relationship between the conscious mind and the
electro-chemical interactions in the body. Discovering and characterizing neural correlates
does not offer a theory of consciousness that can explain why particular systems experience
anything at all, why they are associated with consciousness and why other systems of equal
complexity are not.
4.4.4. Roger Sperry: Consciousness and the Biological Brain
According to Roger Sperry, the Nobel laureate in Medicine for his research in
neuropsychology, one of the areas in which humanists should have greater influence on the
scientific and medical research is when it comes to understanding the relationship between
consciousness and brain function. This relationship is crucial also to medical science, and a
deficiency in the current medical paradigm is that psychological processes are omitted or at
best only act as sources of error or epiphenomena, aspects of the human it is impossible to
obtain objective knowledge about and which must therefore be omitted. In this area,
Account: s3700943
humanistic traditions inspire medical science to a better understanding of the important forces
in the whole person.
Roger Sperry has been particularly interested in the relationship between consciousness
and the body/brain. He has from his position as one of the leading neuro-psychologists
discussed the interaction between consciousness and the biological brain in a way that
radically changes the traditional notions of what controls what. His assertion that
consciousness, i.e. the mental forces, initiate and cause of subsequent neurological,
biological, and physiological reactions in the brain and thus the body is a radical critique of
the Cartesian dualism and with the medical standard paradigm, where awareness is not only
seen as something subordinate, as a result of biological processes, if consciousness and
mental activity is discussed at all. I will refer some of Sperry’s major aspects since his
explanation and understanding of the relationship between the psychological and the somatic
represents a challenge for the separation of psyche and soma.
Roger Sperry calls it a humanistic perspective in modern brain research, where people,
not just neurons, are central. Before medical science decided how the brain and the associated
psychological activities should be understood, most people had an opinion based on their own
experience and they were sure they had a will and consciousness about themselves and other.
Modern, objective neuroscience wanted to help the brain to get rid of such an absurd view
and wanted to eliminate the idea of not only a conscious mind but most other psychological
/spiritual qualities and forces in human nature. It was looked upon as an illusion to believe in
something like a free will and that humans were spiritually free beings. Science tells us that
free will is a deception and its project is to replace it with causal determinism. Where there
used to be purpose and meaning in human behavior, brain science shows us a complex
biophysical machine with positive and negative feedback, composed entirely of material
items that everyone obeys. The brain and behavior are dependent on physics and chemistry
following inexorable and universal laws. When medicine and natural sciences portray people
in this way one can understand why humanistic thinkers look around for other ways to the
truth.
Sperry says that his own experience in brain research brings him to quite different
conclusions than the mainstream neuroscience and normal scientific materialistic reductionist
view of human nature and consciousness. His disagreement is illustrated by the following
question: "Is it possible, in theory or in principle, to construct a complete and objective
explanation of brain function without including consciousness in the causal chain?" If the
prevailing view in brain research is correct, that consciousness and mental powers in general
can be ignored in the objective model, and then we end in a pure materialism and all its
consequences.
Otherwise, if it turns out that conscious mental effort actually controls and directs nerve
impulses and other biochemical and biophysical events in the brain, and thus must be
included as key features of the objective cause-and-control chain, then we end in the opposite
extreme with mentalism or idealism. Here we are at the core of the traditional body-mind
dichotomy that has preoccupied philosophy since time immemorial an issue that can be
exemplified by the discussion about free will. This time it is not philosophical speculation to
solve the problem, but the study of the brain, for instance recent neuroscientific investigations
of questions concerning free will.
Account: s3700943
4.4.5. Consciousness and Free Will
One question is whether, and in what sense, humans exercise control over their actions or
decisions. Relevant findings include the pioneering study by Benjamin Libet and its
subsequent redesigns. These studies detected that the activity appears to be occurring briefly
before people become conscious of it. These various findings show that at least some actions -
like moving a finger - are initiated and processed unconsciously at first, and only after enter
consciousness (Haggard, 2011). It is worth noting that such experiments - so far - have dealt
only with free will decisions made in short time frames (seconds) and may not have direct
bearing on free will decisions made ("thoughtfully") by the subject over the course of many
seconds, minutes, hours or longer. Scientists have also only so far studied extremely simple
behaviors. In many senses the field remains highly controversial and there is no consensus
among researchers about the significance of findings, their meaning, or what conclusions may
be drawn. There have been a number of problems regarding studies of free will (Klemm,
2010). Particularly in earlier studies, research relied too much on the introspection of the
participants. "Free will" means different things and the term can encapsulate different
hypotheses and there is no single model of consciousness which would be favored by the
researchers. No single study would disprove all forms of free will and it is too early to draw
very strong conclusions about certain kinds of "free will". It is quite likely that a range of
cognitive operations are necessary to freely press a button. Our conscious self does not
initiate all behavior and unconscious processes may play a larger role in behavior than
previously thought. The issue about “free will” may be controversial for good reason: There
is evidence to suggest that people normally associate a belief in free will with their ability to
affect their lives (Baumeister, Crescioni and Alquist, 2009; Holton, 2011). How the brain
constructs consciousness is still a mystery and cracking it open would have a significant
bearing on the question of free will. Numerous different models have been proposed, for
example, that there is no specific space where conscious experience would be represented, but
rather that consciousness is located all across the brain. In contrast, there exist models of
Cartesian materialism that have gained recognition by neuroscience, implying that there
might be special brain areas that store the contents of consciousness; this does not, however,
rule out the possibility of a conscious will.
4.4.6. Level of Arousal and Content of Consciousness
There are two common but distinct dimensions of the term consciousness (Zeman, 2001),
one involving arousal and states of consciousness and the other involving content of
consciousness and conscious states. To be conscious of anything the brain must be in a

relatively high state of arousal (sometimes called vigilance), whether in wakefulness or REM
sleep, vividly experienced in dreams although usually not remembered. Brain arousal level
fluctuates in a circadian rhythm but may be influenced by lack of sleep, drugs and alcohol,
physical exertion, etc.
High arousal states are associated with conscious states that have specific content, seeing,
hearing, remembering, planning or fantasizing about something. Different levels or states of
consciousness are associated with different kinds of conscious experiences. The "awake" state
is quite different from the "dreaming" state (for instance, the latter has little or no self-
Account: s3700943

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PSYCHOLOGY RESEARCH PROGRESS

PSYCHOLOGY RESEARCH PROGRESS

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NOTICE TO THE READER

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

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Published by Nova Science Publishers, Inc. †New York

A significant question for an understanding of human psychology is to clarify the

1.1. THREE CONTRIBUTIONS TO HUMAN PSYCHOLOGY

1.2. HUMAN PSYCHOLOGICAL CHARACTERISTICS

1.3. THE CULTURAL-HISTORICAL EVOLUTION OF THE MIND

1.3.1. Evolution Made Us for Culture

The higher-order functions became,however, a possibility since natural evolution made

1.4. NATURE – NURTURE. INTERACTION

We need to understand the interweaving of genetic and environmental influences as they

nurture in development. Hereditary or genetic outfitting unfolds in concert with the

comprehended during the course of ontogenetic development is crucial for an understanding

1.5. THE HISTORY AND ORIGIN OF HOMO SAPIENS

1.5.1. Cultural Diversity

1.5.2. Phylogenetic and Ontogenetic Development

The phylogenetic development of humans followed the principle of natural evolution.

1.6. LANGUAGE AS A CULTURAL/PSYCHOLOGICAL TOOL

signal system or language (Drummond, 1894).

1.7. THE CULTURAL IMPACT REINSTATED

Mainstream epistemology in psychology was for a long time based on a comprehension

1.7.1. The Evolutionary Approach

1.7.2. The Cultural-Historical Approach: How Culture Overrules Biology

The cultural-historical tradition in social psychology was founded by the Russian

1.8. CULTURAL PSYCHOLOGY: CULTURE MAKES US DIFFERENT

1.9. THE DEVELOPMENT OF MIND AND BRAIN

development to the ‘appropriation’ by the child of socio-cultural characteristics. As regards

THE EPISTEMOLOGY OF HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

2.2. PSYCHOLOGICAL UNIVERSALS

characterized as “the indigenous psychology of (Northern) America.”(Smith, Bond, and

2.3. INTEGRATING CULTURAL AND BIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES

2.4. WHAT IS ‘EPISTEMOLOGY’?

2.5. HUMAN DEVELOPMENT

individual’s appropriation of these cultural achievements in the course of their development.

2.5.1. The Interface of Biology, Mind and Culture in a Developmental

2.6. THE PERSON–ENVIRONMENT RELATIONSHIP.

2.6.1. Inclusive Separation - Relationship between Person and Environment

2.6.2. Systems Theory. Luhmann’s Version

Some scholars have pointed to systems theory as a solution of the holism/dualism

Systems theories strongly emphasize on processes as a crucial characteristic of all

electric connections between neurons, psychological functions cannot be reduced to electric

2.6.3. Bio-Cultural Co-Constructivism

2.6.4. Downward Causation and Emergence

Also cognitive neuroscientists have developed models to describe person-environmental

2.6.5. Supervenience and Deductive Irreductibility

latter to explain the macro properties. Therefore, supervenience is an indispensable and

2.6.6. “Extended Mind” – Brain, Mind, Environment

2.7. ATOMISTIC INDIVIDUALS AS MACHINES AND

2.8. THE MACHINE PARADIGM AND THE COMPUTER METAPHOR

2.8.2. Perception = Sense Impression + Cognition

What is called perception in humans cannot be simulated by a machine or a computer

2.9. EVOLUTIONARY AND CULTURAL APPROACH

2.10. THE WESTERN WAY

2.10.1. Dialectical versus Synthetic Thinking

2.10.2. Naïve Dialecticism

ISBN: (eBook)