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Historical and Contemporary
Significance of Vygotsky's
Sociohistorical Psychology
CARL RATNER
An adult's essence is found in the essence of the environmental
conditions.
-Vygotsky and Luria, 1930/1993
The thinking of a 3- to 4-year-old child has nothing in common with adult
forms of thinking that have been created by culture.
- Vygotsky and Luria, 1930/1993
Vygotsky is distinctive in the field of psychology because he articulated a
profoundly social explanation of human psychology. Whereas most other
psychologists postulate intra-organismic determinants of psychological
phenomena (such as physiological mechanisms or free will) or some interaction
between intra-organismic and social factors, Vygotsky regarded human
psychology as entirely social. He said that psychological phenomena originate in
social interaction, they are organized by social relations, and their constituents
are social artifacts such as linguistic symbols.
Vygotsky's social account of psychology is comprehensible when viewed in
relation to his political views and his early work experience. A brief discussion of
this context is therefore in order before explaining the details of his psychological
stand- point.
Vygotsky's Early Work and Politics
Born in 1896, Lev Vygotsky grew up during the Russian revolution. He graduated
from a university, where he studied law, in 1917, the year the Bolsheviks took
power. Instead of practicing law, Vygotsky became a school teacher. He read
extensively in pedagogy and psychology; he lectured at various institutes,
teacher's colleges, and workers' schools (on a wide range of topics including
psychology, pedagogy, art, and literature); and he conducted some elementary
psychological experiments. Although he was completely self-taught, he wrote a
masterful article, which was accepted at the 1924 Second Neurological Congress
of Psychology in Leningrad. Luria and Kornilov heard Vygotsky's address and
invited him to join their faculty at the Mos- cow State University Institute of
Experimental Psychology. After a 10-year career as a psychologist, Vygotsky
was dead from tuberculosis (Van der Veer & Valsiner, 1991, pp. 4-18).
Vygotsky was an avid supporter of the Russian revolution. He firmly believed that
socialism could improve the lot of the people, and he looked forward to a
classless society that would eliminate social conflict and exploitation (Van der
Veer & Valsiner, 1991, pp. 54-56). In 1930 he wrote an article titled 'The Socialist
Alteration of Man" (in Van der Veer & Valsiner, 1994, pp. 175-184), in which he
stated that revolutionary transformation of society was necessary to change the
material conditions (production, standard of living, economic opportunities),
social relations, educational opportunities, and cognitive and other psychological
capabilities.
Vygotsky's revolutionary political stance sensitized him to the influence of broad
social conditions on psychology: If social change in class structure, institutions,
and the division of labor can enhance cognitive functioning and reduce prejudice,
conflict, and aggression, then psychological processes must have a social
nature. That is, they must be formed and reformed by broad social factors (1).
Footnote 1:
Variations in social institutions highlight their effect on psychology. In contrast, the seeming
permanence and naturalness of contemporary social institutions in capitalist countries makes
them appear as a constant background outside psychological phenomena. Psychological
variations in individuals do not appear related to social factors because the latter appear to be
constant for everyone.
The importance of Vygotsky's political views on his psychological concepts
cannot be overemphasized. He explicitly sought to develop a Marxist psychology.
He said, "Marxist psychology is not a school amidst schools, but the only genuine
psychology as a science. A psychology other than this cannot exist. And the
other way around: everything that was and is genuinely scientific belongs to
Marxist psychology" (Vygotsky, 1997a, p. 341). Vygotsky sought to apply the
tenets of Marxist thinking to discover the nature of human psychology. He
renounced the facile path that some of his colleagues had taken, which was to
invoke certain abstract dialectical pronouncements-for example, that quantitative
change often leads to qualitative change, that the whole is more than the sum of
its parts - or to reduce psychology to categories that Marx had developed in his
critique of capitalism. Instead, Vygotsky wanted "to learn from Marx's whole
method how to build a science, how to approach the investigation of the mind"
(Vygotsky, 1997a, p. 331).
Vygotsky's early work at Moscow State University confirmed his view of the
social plasticity of human psychology. The warfare of the Russian revolution left
many victims suffering from a variety of somatic and psychological traumas.
Vygotsky worked with these patients and saw that many of these traumas could
be treated with social artifacts. Braille and sign language were obvious social
artifacts that helped compensate for physical impairments in vision and hearing.
Social support in the form of direct aid, guidance, and encouragement also
helped compensate for physical and psychological disabilities. Socially mediated
compensations enabled patients to engage in psychological functions such as
reading, communicating, reasoning, and remembering (Vygotsky & Luria,
1930/1993, pp. 213-228). Tone deafness can be successfully treated by teaching
individuals to recognize sounds. Individuals coached to sing prescribed tones,
thereby matching their vocalization to the tones, were, after two to six sessions,
able to more accurately hear the tones (Ratner, 1991, p. 212).
Vygotsky's work in "defectology" complemented his political outlook in leading to
the conclusion that psychological phenomena such as intelligence, reasoning,
language, memory, personality, perception, madness, and emotions rest on
"cultural means.
Sociohistorical Character of Psychological Phenomena
According to Vygotsky, psychological phenomena are social in two respects:
They depend on (originate in) social experience and treatment, and they embody
cultural artifacts. Social experience includes the manner in which people
stimulate and direct one's attention, model behavior, respond to behavior
(encourage, discourage, or imitate it), control bodily movements, and organize
the spatial relationships among individuals (e.g., many people sleeping in an
area or individuals sleeping in segregated areas). Cultural artifacts include signs,
symbols, linguistic terms, and humanly produced objects and instruments such
as chairs and books. Social treatment and socially produced artifacts generate
and shape psychological phenomena.
For example, parents controlling when, where, and how a child responds to an
insult (through modeling, encouraging, and discouraging behavior) determines
the kinds and intensity of emotion that the child develops. Whether individuals
are segregated or integrated by spatial relations affects whether they develop an
individualistic or collective self-concept (Ratner, 1991, pp. 55 - 56). Holding
babies so that they face toward other people or toward the individual caretaker
similarly inculcates collective or individualistic self-concepts, respectively.
Moreover, restricting infants' movements inculcates passivity, whereas allowing
them free expression inculcates active personalities (Ratner, 1991, pp. 173-174).
Directing attention toward certain things and away from other shapes perception
and emotions.
Cultural artifacts structure psychological phenomena by mediating the person's
relation with the world. Sitting in chairs and eating with utensils indicates a
segregated bodily space in contrast to sitting next to someone on a bench and
eating with one's hands. Living in a rectangular structure provides spatial cues
that are different from those in circular structures. Symbolic cultural artifacts, in
the form of socially constructed concepts of what, how, and why things are,
organize psycho- logical phenomena as the following examples demonstrate
(see Ratner, 1991, chap. 2, pp. 264-278, and Ratner, 1997a, chap. 3, for
citations).
The way we conceptualize or understand an event determines our emotional
reaction to it. We become angry because we interpret someone's action as
deliberately intending harm. The interpretive concept "deliberate intention to
harm" is a social construct. It is popularly accepted in Western society as a way
to understand behavior. However, some societies lack this social concept. They
interpret a harmful action as reflecting fate or God's will. In these societies
harmful action is not regarded as the perpetrator's fault, and it does not generate
anger.
Perception of distance, size, weight, color, and motion also depend on cues
whose significance is socially constructed. Cultures that have a different
understanding of cues have different perceptual experiences. For example, Luria
(1976) found that Uzbekistani peasants perceived certain colors as dissimilar
(not classifiable together), whereas administrators and teachers perceived those
colors as similar. Luria's explanation was that the two groups had a different
conception of color. The peasants regarded color as intrinsically tied to objects,
whereas the teachers regarded color as an abstract property. The peasants
perceived the color 'pig's dung" as different from 'cow's dung" because the two
objects in which the colors inhered were different. The teachers abstracted the
brown color from the objects and categorized the two shades of brown together
(2).
Footnote 2:
Luria's research was conducted in two important expeditions to Uzbekistan in 1931-1932. The
expedition was designed by Vygotsky and Luria to investigate the principles of sociohistorical
psychology by comparing the psychological processes of groups of people who had been
differentially affected by the Sovietization of agriculture. An important participant in the project
was Kurt Koffka, the famous Gestalt psychologist. The political system reprimanded Vygotsky
and Luria for their cross-cultural research in Uzbekistan. Findings of cultural psychological
differences were condemned as racist and as antithetical to the government's egalitarian
ideology, which insisted on the equal capability of all people. Vygotsky and Luria were
forbidden from publishing their findings and from continuing their cultural historical research.
Luria was forced to leave the Institute of Psychology at Moscow State University, and he
undertook a new program of clinical investigations of aphasia in the Psychoneurological
Academy in Kharkov (Vygotsky & Luria, 1930/1993, pp. 13-16; Van der Veer & Valsiner,
1991, pp. 253-255).
Misperception and unconsciousness are similarly structured by social concepts. I
have explained (Ratner, 1994) that unconsciousness can be explained as a subcategory of perception. Particular social values structure perception in a manner
that highlights certain characteristics and precludes noticing other aspects of self
and other people. I analyzed an individual who was unaware of various flaws in
his character. His unawareness stemmed, in part, from having adopted
competitive values that led to perceiving himself as superior to others.
Conceiving and perceiving himself as a superior person blinded him to his
weaknesses.
Memory of a past event is also structured by the social meaning that the event
has. Social definitions of events form templates that structure our recollection.
For example, Robbins (1963) studied the manner in which well-educated parents
of 3- year-old children distorted their memories of the manner in which they
reared their children and the developmental milestones of their children. Robbins
found that distortions in memory conform to culturally prescribed norms for these
aspects. About one-half of the mothers were mistaken in their recollections of
whether they fed their infants on demand or according to a schedule. Sixty-five
percent of the incorrect mothers erred in the direction of more demand feeding,
which is culturally favored over feeding on schedule. Bladder training was
recalled as having begun 6 months later than it actually was initiated. This
direction is also in accordance with cultural prescriptions. When mothers were
inaccurate in their reports of thumb-sucking, all of the errors involved denying
thumbsucking, which is culturally disfavored.
Along these lines, Cordua, McGraw, and Drabman (1979) demonstrated that
children's memory of gender roles described in stories depends on the
consistency of these roles with the normative gender division of labor in society.
Normative gender roles in the story (e.g., a male doctor and female nurse) are
recalled more accurately than gender roles that contradict the normal sexual
division of labor in society (e.g., female doctor and male nurse) (3).
Footnote 3:
Whereas social templates shape memory, they do not always distort it. In most cases they make
it more accurate. This is because social templates organize memory to recall what is most
commonly experienced. Relying on templates usually enables one to recall what is most likely to
have occurred. In cases where a past event does not conform to common experience, it may be
distorted. However, these cases are by definition rare. The same benefits and risks hold for
social templates that organize perception.
Memory of colors depends on the way that colors are used in social
communication. Numerous studies have found that colors that are linguistically
encoded and are used in the activity of communication are recalled more readily
than colors that are not encoded or used in communication.
Ratner and McCarthy (1990) demonstrated that the best predictor of color
memory is whether the color matches objects that have been experienced in
one's culture. The cultural relevance of colors is a better predictor of memory
than physical properties of color, such as saturation.
Psychological dysfunctions are similarly organized by social concepts. Disorders
depend on people's understanding of misfortune, their expectations about
receiving support and about resolving the misfortune, their sense of self and
body image, and their ideas about coping with stress. All of these components of
dysfunction are structured by social concepts. According to Lakoff (1993),
dreams also incorporate cultural values.
Expressing the link between psychological functions, concepts, and social life,
Vygotsky (1931/1991, p. 88) said that life problems
lead to the development of the central and leading function of all mental development, to
the formation of concepts, and on the basis of the formation of concepts a series of
completely new mental functions arises; perception, memory, attention, [etc.] are
reconstructed on this new basis [and] they are united in a new structure.
The relation between culture, consciousness, and psychological phenomena is
diagramed below.
The figure shows that culture (including tools) fosters cognitive schemata (which
maybe explicit or implicit, as Helmholtz maintained). Schemata mediate the
impact of impinging stimuli. Emotions, sensations, motives, needs, perception,
memory, and imagination are integral parts of cultural cognitive schemata and
are imbued with their social, conscious character. Finally, individuals act on the
world of objects, individuals, and institutions through the intermediaries of
technology and social institutions (cf Ratner, 1991, chap. 1).
Sociogenesis of Psychological Phenomena
Vygotsky recognized that whereas psychological phenomena are organized by
cultural processes and artifacts, they involve biological processes as well. The
role of biological processes in affecting psychological experience varies over the
life span. Biological processes entirely determine the infant's reactions; however,
the influence of biological processes recedes as social experience dominates
psychological phenomena. Vygotsky called this transformation the sociogenesis
of psychological phenomena.
According to this account, natural mechanisms-reflexes, instincts, and hormones
- determine the behavior of infants as they do animals. Naturally determined
infantile behaviors include smiling, grasping, crying, persistence, distractibility,
and reaction speed. They are simple, stereotyped, nonconscious, involuntary,
stimulus- bound, transient behaviors. Vygotsky called these behaviors
elementary, or lower, processes. The infant equipped only with these lower
processes is directly tied to the world; he reacts immediately to it; he is at one
with it. The infant does not truly perceive or think about the world; he is
submerged in it (Vygotsky & Luria, 1930/ 1993, pp. 144-145). Lower biological
processes are not psychological phenomena in the true sense: They do not
involve comprehension or experience. In Vygotsky's words, they are immediate
blind reactions to stimuli.
Psychological phenomena require that the organism be differentiated from the
world. The individual stands back from the world, so to speak, and thereby
comprehends and experiences it. This differentiation requires that the natural ties
between organism and world be broken. Instead of natural processes
determining the organism's reactions to the world, a complex system of mental
processes mediates between the organism and the world. Consciousness
understands, interprets, and anticipates features of stimuli. It also decides how to
respond psychologically to them (cf. Ratner, 1991, chap. 1).
Vygotsky and Luria (1930/1993) argued that "a significant cultural reconstruction
has to take place in order for the child to shift from the stage of primitive
perceptions to the next one -to the stage of competent forms of adaptation to the
external world" (pp. 149-150). This cultural reconstruction involves other people
prompting, guiding, rewarding, punishing, restraining, imitating, and modeling the
child's behavior. It also involves teaching the child to use cultural artifacts to
organize his or her behavior.
Biological changes in the brain are also necessary for lower, elementary
processes to be replaced by higher psychological ones. The cortex develops and
takes over most of the reactions that were handled by lower parts of the brain in
infants. However, the cortical changes are both stimulated and supplemented by
social relationships. Social experience stimulates cortical developments (4).
Footnote 4:
"The number of synapses and the arborization of neuronal dendrites are responsive to experience
in adult animals, even those considered quite old ... The distinction between hardware and
software that is so obvious in a computer is not present in the living brain where experience
continues to alter the connections throughout life" (Wahlsten & Gottlieb, 1997, p. 169).
Phylogenetic advances in the brain cortex were also stimulated by social complexity (Donald,
1991, pp. 137-139).
Social experience also provides the cultural means for regulating elementary
processes and placing them under conscious control, which transforms them into
psychological phenomena. Grasping, pointing, babbling, and even paying
attention are regulated by infants' caretakers. Caretakers channel them in new
directions by speeding them up, slowing them down, directing them to new
stimuli, and generally teaching the children to control them. In this way behaviors
lose their involuntary, impulsive, stereotyped, mechanical quality. They become
controlled by conscious decision and understanding. Vygotsky explained how
attention is transformed from a simple, involuntary "orientation reflex" controlled
by objects in the environment to a conscious, voluntary, psychological process:
The importance of the organic process, which lies at the foundation of the development of
attention, decreases as new, qualitatively distinct processes of attentional development
emerge. Specifically, we have in mind the processes of the cultural development of
attention. When we speak of the cultural development of attention, we mean evolution
and change in the means for directing and carrying out attentional processes, the
mastery of these processes, and their subordination to human control ... Voluntary
attention emerges owing to the fact that the people who surround the child begin to use
various stimuli and means to direct the child's attention and subordinate it to their control
... in and of itself, the organic, or natural, development of attention never could, and never
will, lead to the emergence of voluntary attention. (Vygotsky, 1981, pp. 193-194) In
exactly the same way, the child's first words are nothing other than an affective cry.
Objectively they express one need or another of the child long before the child
consciously uses them as a means of expression. Others, not the child, fill these affective
words with a certain content. Thus, the people nearby create the objective sense of the
first words apart from the will of the child. Only later are his words converted into speech
for himself, used deliberately and consciously. (Vygotsky, 1998, p. 172)
Memory is also culturally reconstructed from a natural process to a psychological
one. Young children directly memorize items before them. However, school-age
children use socially devised mnemonic devices in the form of symbolic
associations and reminders. "It is this transition from natural forms of memory to
the cultural ones that constitutes development of memory from child to adu lt"
(Vygotsky & Luria, 1930/1993, p. 177). The manner in which memory uses
cultural concepts to retrieve information is illustrated by a personal experience: I
could not recall the name of a book I needed. I knew the subject matter of the
book, however, then I remembered the course in which I had discussed this
topic. Next, I thought of the books I had used in the course, and, finally, I came
up with the name of the book I was searching for. This complex cognitive
operation produced recollection that was not available from direct memory.
Vast cultural differences in memory exist because of different cultural mnemonic
systems. Carruthers (1990) reported that, in medieval monasteries and schools,
mnemonic strategies were taught so that the educated elite could memorize an
enormous amount of information. In addition, medieval scholars had amazingly
agile memories. They could recite entire works backwards, they could recite the
next-to- last verses in each book of Virgil, and they could recall all the passages
on a given topic in a lengthy work. Students were taught to accomplish these
feats by dividing texts into sections, which were identified by cues. The cues
often were embedded in the written material to facilitate memory. Such cues
included capitalizing the first word of a paragraph with a large, vivid letter,
drawing images in the margins next to paragraphs, and even coloring the pages
to distinguish them. This cultural mnemonic system superseded natural memory
processes and accounts for the different memory capabilities among different
peoples (cf. Ratner, 1991, pp. 93-95) (5).
Footnote 5:
Ceci, Rosenblum, Bruyn and Yee (1997, p. 317) report that mnemonic systems rather than some
natural/physiological "raw recall ability" determine other aspects of memory: The speed in
recognizing letters and numerals depends on how those stimuli are represented in memory, with
more elaborate representations leading to faster recognition rates.
Vygotsky emphasized the fundamental difference between 'higher, social
psychological activities" and 'lower," natural acts as follows: "Within a general
process of development, two qualitatively different lines of development, differing
in origin can be distinguished: the elementary processes, which are of biological
origin on the one hand, and the higher psychological functions of sociocultural
origin, on the other" (Vygotsky, 1987, p. 46, emphasis added).
Primordial, natural, infantile functions are not simply supplemented by mature
social psychological processes; they are sometimes dispelled and replaced by
higher processes, and sometimes they are integrated into and reconstituted by
them. As Luria (1932) wrote:
The genesis of organized human behavior is through the development and inclusion of
new regulating systems which overcome the primitive forms of behavior and transfer
them to ... a new and more systematized organization. There is every reason to suppose
that the primitive forms of organization of behavior, characterized by the sub-cortical type
of activity, are completely transformed into the processes of the highest development. (p.
394, emphasis added)
Infantile processes have no adult analogue because they cease to exist as such
in the mature individual. Conversely, adult activity has no natural analogue with
human infants or animals (or machines!). Luria (1932) explained this in the
following words:
The reactive process as we know it in the normal adult human is a complicated
elaboration in structure not having anything in common with those impulsive relations
which we observed in the child or the reflex activity of animals. The chief difference of the
[adult] reactive process from those forms of activity in the child and animals is that in the
former the direct character of the motor discharge is controlled . . . It is thus incorrect to
say that the stimulus directly provokes the reaction [in the adult] ... The outstanding
feature of the reactive process is the fact that the tendency of every natural reflex act to
discharge its excitation directly is controlled by a complex reactive process. (p. 394)
Vygotsky used historical alterations in psychological phenomena to verify his
sociogenetic theory. The fact that humans across the world have nearly identical
biologies yet evidence vast cross-cultural differences in psychological
phenomena proves that the latter are not determined by biology (Vygotsky &
Luria, 1930/1993, pp. 168-171).
The social development of consciousness transforms the individual's biology. It
transforms biology from a set of mechanisms that directly determine responses
to stimuli into neutral conduits of information. From middle childhood onward,
biological processes only conduct information; they do not determine how the
information is organized and experienced. Sensory and motor processes transmit
information between the organism and the outside world, and neural processes
transmit information from one area of the brain to another within the organism.
The information is organized by signs, symbols, and instruments as discussed
above. Natural mechanisms lose their deterministic function and operate only as
a substratum for socially mediated mental processes (cf. Ratner, 1998).
The reduction in biological determinism of reactions is a prerequisite for the
emergence of psychological phenomena. Biological determinism of reactions is
inimical to psychological phenomena. Vygotsky and Luria (1930/1993) explained
how this is true is the area of perception: 'The child who at the beginning of life
had only organic sensations (of rest or anxiety, of tension and calm, of pain,
touch, warmth, and primarily of stimulations from the most sensitive areas) lacks,
of course, the perception of space that we possess" (p. 146). Only after biological
processes cease governing the child's being can he or she break through the
protective canopy to perceive reality. It takes about half a year for this to occur.
Perception of reality requires that biological processes step aside as
determinants of experience and allow the world to impinge on the organism and
affect perception.
Of course, the world does not directly and entirely determine perception. The
worldly information that biological processes make available to the organism is
organized by his or her social experience and cultural artifacts. "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, and in doing so
some- what alters the objects perceived" (Vygotsky & Luria, 1930/1993, p. 148).
"Ultimately, for man the environment is a social environment because even
where it appears to be a natural environment, nevertheless, in relation to man
there are always definite social elements present ... In his interaction with the
environment man always makes use of his social experience" (Vygotsky, 1997b,
pp. 53-54, 133).
Biological processes transmit physical attributes of things such as color, size,
and shape from objects to the mind; however, one's perceptual experience of
these at- tributes is shaped by cultural experience and artifacts (6).
Footnote 6:
Helmholtz (1867/1968, p. 181) made this point in stating that "reminiscences of previous
experiences act in conjunction with present sensations to produce a perceptual image ... [T]he
elements in the sense-perceptions that are derived from experience are just as powerful as those
that are derived from present sensations" (cf. Ratner, 1991, pp. 204-207). Melzack (1961)
similarly demonstrated that in higher species at least, there is much evidence that pain is not
simply a function of the amount of bodily damage alone. Rather, the amount and quality of pain
we feel are also determined by our previous experiences and how well we remember them, by
our ability to understand the cause of the pain and to grasp its consequences. Even the
significance pain has in the culture in which we have been brought up plays an essential role in
how we feel and respond to it. (p. 41)
Biological conduits of information do not determine how the information is
comprehended, ordered, preferred, stored, or accessed (cf Ratner, 1989a,
1989b, 1991, chap. 4, for documentation of this point) (7).
Footnote 7:
Wahlsten and Gottlieb (1997) demonstrate that even genetic information does not specify what
we think or remember, any more than the colors of the artist's palette dictate the artistic quality
of the painting. Genes do not make finished neural structures but rather code for protein
structure which is influenced by an amazingly complex metabolic system. 'The developmental
fate of the protein is not determined upon its production; influences from higher, supragenetic
levels in the developmental system play a role in specifying the incorporation of the protein into
a mature, functional unit that is integrated with other parts of the nervous system" (p. 186; cf.
Gottlieb, 1991). Gould (1997) provides a good example of an important psychological
phenomenon which is not genetically caused. Firstborn and later born siblings have substantially
different personalities. Firstborns are typically confident but conservative while laterborns are
flexible and innovative. These personality differences "cannot be ascribed to genetics" (p. 76).
They are only explainable by parental treatment of first- and laterborn children.
Biological impairments that disturb the transmission of information interfere with
perception. However, the vast majority of people have normal biological
processes, and their perceptual experience is determined by social experience
and cultural artifacts organizing sensory information.
Socially organized psychological functions enable the individual to comprehend
the environment more realistically than biologically determined processes do.
Biologically determined processes determine automatic, fixed responses in
infants and animals. They prevent true comprehension of, and adaptation to, the
environment. As Vygotsky and Luria stated in the foregoing quotation,
perception, memory, emotions, and motives that are socially mediated supersede
organic sensations and enable contact with the world (Vygotsky, 1998). This is
an important point because most people erroneously believe that biological
mechanisms provide the most valid in- formation and that social mediation
distorts information (8).
Footnote 8:
See Footnote 3. Size constancy is a good example of how experientially derived knowledge
deter- mines more valid perception than biological mechanisms do. The size of the physiological
image on the retina changes with the distance of the object from the viewer. However, the
objects true size remains constant regardless of its distance from the viewer. Size perception that
was determined by the physiological image on the retina would change with the object's distance
and would be an inaccurate reflection of the objects constant size. Perception that is determined
by experientially derived knowledge of an object's constant size accurately perceives size to be
invariant.
Perception, reasoning, memory, emotions, needs, motives, and personality use
social means (such as linguistic concepts) as their operating systems. They are
not natural functions determined by biological mechanisms. As Luria (1978b)
wrote:
Perception and memory, imagination and thought, emotional experience and voluntary
action [cannot] be considered natural functions of nervous tissue or simple properties of
mental life. It [is] obvious that they have a highly complex structure and that this structure
has its own sociohistorical genesis and has [thereby] acquired new functional attributes
peculiar to man. (p. 275)
Donald similarly contends that collectively devised and maintained systems of
verbal and written symbols constitute psychological functions. Such "external
symbolic systems" greatly enrich the individual by enabling him to utilize the fruits
of many people's efforts. The individual's capacity becomes expanded to include
the capacity of the group. This is especially noticeable with regard to memory. An
individual who participates in an external symbolic system is not limited to his
own memory of things. He has access to permanent records which have been
written down in collectively shared symbolic notations (Donald, 1991, pp. 308325). Echoing Vygotsky's point that collective symbols constitute new
psychological functions, Donald says that 'the external symbolic system ...
imposes new search strategies, new storage strategies, new memory access
routes, new options in both the control of and analysis of one's own behavior. It
enables new skill-complexes (like reading or programming) in which the locus of
memory is partly or mostly external" (Donald, 1991, p. 19).
If psychological functions are composed of social means rather than specific
biological mechanisms, then psychological functions are acquired according to
one's exposure to social means rather than upon a specific biological capability
for the psychological function. Individual differences in psychological functions
are there- fore due to differences in exposure to social experience that provides
the social means for performing psychological phenomena.
To illustrate this point, consider mathematical reasoning. There are no natural
determinants of this phenomenon because the human organism is not
preprogrammed to develop it. Humans lived for thousands of years without math.
It did not spontaneously arise because of natural determinants. Quite the
contrary: Historical needs (especially commerce) led to the invention of
mathematics at particular places and times (Ratner, 1991, pp. 98-99). When the
need arose, humans invented mathematical symbols and systems for
manipulating them. Therefore, it makes no sense to postulate a natural ability for
mathematics. Mathematics only depends on natural processes in the trivial sense
that a normal brain must exist to carry out the mathematical operations that are
devised. If natural processes do not determine mathematical thinking, then
individual differences in this capability must be due to differences in the social
experience that is necessary for performing it (cf Fischer et al., 1996, for a similar
argument and documentation).
If this argument seems perplexing, consider an analogous cognitive
phenomenon, computer programming. This recently acquired skill is obviously a
historical invention rather than a natural ability with natural determinants. Surely
nobody would postulate an innate capability to program computers, because
computers are only a few decades old. Computer programming involves the use
of humanly created symbols (artifacts), which are manipulated according to
humanly devised rules. These cultural artifacts can be learned by anyone. A
normal brain and sense organs are necessary for conducting the information that
is involved in computer programming; however, natural mechanisms do not
determine the quality or level of the skill. From Vygotsky's standpoint, the same
can be said for all psychological phenomena.
Donald (1991, pp. 9, 261-263, 373-380) supports this conception. He argues that
the human brain is characterized by an overall capacity to learn (a "generalpurpose learning capacity"), symbolize, and manipulate symbols which can be
tailored to produce any specific capability which peoples' cultural lives demand.
He cautions against modular neuropsychological models which specify an
architecture that depends on many built-in, specialized neural components.
Vygotsky argued that the distinction between lower and higher processes leads
to a new way of conceiving and treating psychological disturbances.
Psychological dysfunction may be due to disturbances in either higher or lower
processes, with crucial differences in the cause and treatment. Disturbances in
lower functions are due to damage to particular sense organs or cortical areas.
These dysfunctions can be partially alleviated by supplying alternative sensory
artifacts such as braille letters or hearing devices. Disturbances in higher
functions can often be caused by social impoverishment and can be treated by
restructuring the patient's social environment. 'Any given defect [in lower
processes] in a child produces a series of characteristics which impedes the
normal development of his collective relations, cooperation, and interaction with
others. Isolation from the collective or difficulty in social development, in its turn,
conditions underdevelopment of higher mental functions which would otherwise
arise naturally, in the course of normal affairs, linked to the development of the
child's collective activities" (Vygotsky, 1931/1991, p. 199). Vygotsky believed that
'the greatest possibilities for the development of the abnormal child most likely lie
in the higher rather than the lower functions" (p. 198) because the former can be
alleviated by incorporating the patient into a supportive social environment which
will foster the higher functions. Moreover, higher functions can compensate for
deficits in elementary processes. Thinking and understanding can compensate
for deficiencies in hearing, vision, and other senses because the patient can
know what things are like despite an, incapacity to sense them directly (cf.
McDermott & Varenne, 1995).
Contrasts Between Sociohistorical Psychology
and Other Approaches
Vygotsky's sociogenetic account of human psychology is distinctive in explaining
psychology in purely social terms. Not only did he oppose biological
reductionism, he also opposed interactionism between biology and culture as
well. In other words, not only can psychological phenomena not be reduced to
biological phenomena (such as genes, hormones, neurotransmitters), but these
mechanisms do not even determine a portion of psychological phenomena by
interacting with cultural means. For Vygotsky, cultural means supersede
biological mechanisms in providing the entire explanation of psychological
functions. Biological mechanisms only conduct information that is determined by
cultural processes.
The distinctiveness of Vygotsky's approach can be seen by contrasting it to other
psychological approaches, such as psychoanalysis and Piagetian psychology.
Vygotsky criticized both for overemphasizing natural, biological processes and
underemphasizing social processes in explaining human psychology.
Psychoanalysis
Luria was initially a firm believer in psychoanalysis. "It is no exaggeration to say
that Luria played one of the most prominent roles in the growth of the
psychoanalytic movement in the Soviet Union" (Van der Veer & Valsiner, 1991,
p. 87). He founded and led local psychoanalytic associations, and he
corresponded with Freud for some time. Luria believed that psychoanalysis was
compatible with Marxism. Vygotsky disagreed that the two are compatible and he
repudiated psychoanalysis. His strongest critique was leveled in his famous
booklet "The Historical Meaning of the Crisis in Psychology" (Vygotsky, 1997, pp.
262-269). Vygotsky argued that
psychoanalysis displays not dynamic, but highly static, conservative, anti-dialectic and
anti-historical tendencies. It directly reduces the higher mental processes - both personal
and collective ones to primitive, primordial, essentially prehistorical, prehuman roots,
leaving no room for history. The same key unlocks the creativity of a Dostoyevsky and
the totem and taboo of primordial tribes; the Christian church, communism, the primitive
horde - in psychoanalysis everything is reduced to the same source... We can see that
here it does not continue, it contradicts, the methodology of Marxism. (p. 263)
Vygotsky criticized psychoanalysis for postulating natural, biological mechanisms
as the basis of psychological phenomena. According to Freud, psychosexual
stages of development, the Oedipal complex, and id impulses are all assumed to
be natural, universal processes. Society's role is limited to regulating these
natural processes. Even when society represses them, natural mechanisms
called defense mechanisms determine the outcome of the repression.
Regression, projection, and conversion are all presumed to be natural, universal
ways of handling socially repressed im- pulses. Thus, both the initial impulses
themselves and the mechanisms that handle the social repression of the
impulses are natural, biological, and universal.
Freud modeled the psyche on mechanical physical principles. His mechanistic
conception of the mind culminated in his 1895 work "Project for a Scientific
Psychology." Although Freud became discouraged over his failure to devise a
systematic, coherent neuroanatomical basis to psychology and abandoned
further attempts to refine it, he never abandoned the basic percepts that
motivated it. Holt (1989) reviewed numerous instances of Freud's mechanistic
explanations throughout his later works. Freud continued to believe that the
Psychical apparatus was constructed like a reflex apparatus, that reflex
processes remain the model of every Psychical function, that the psyche was
composed of organiclike instincts that aimed at dis- charging energy and
reducing stimulation to maintain a minimum level, and that the psyche is
composed of forces and energies that operate according to physical principles
such as laws of thermodynamics (cf. Sulloway, 1979). Freud's mechanistic view
of the mind was not only derived from psychophysics; Darwinian biological
principles were equally influential. As Ritvo described in her book, Darwin's
Influence on Freud (1990), Freud adopted several biological assumptions from
Darwin's book The Expression of Emotions in Man and Animals (1872/ 1965).
Freud's naturalistic view of the mind contradicts Vygotsky's sociohistorical view.
According to Vygotsky, culture does not simply regulate natural processes; it
supersedes lower elementary processes and forms the entire content of
psychological phenomena. Cultural processes and products constitute mental
processes (cf. Ratner, 1994, for further discussion of the contrast between
Vygotsky's and Freud's standpoints).
Piagetian Psychology
Vygotsky criticized Piaget in many of the same terms he leveled against Freud.
This is not surprising in view of Piaget's endorsement of many of Freud's
concepts. Piaget believed that the mind was governed by biological mechanisms.
He also believed that cognitive processes are originally egotistical and antisocial.
They only become directed at reality and social intercourse after 7 to 8 years of
life (cf. Broughton, 1981; Ratner, 1991, pp. 120, 124-127, 142, for a discussion of
Piaget's biological concept of child psychology).
In the second chapter of his famous 'Thinking and Speech," Vygotsky (1987)
criticized Piaget's Rousseauian view of the child. In this view, the child is
originally an antisocial creature governed by biological impulses and the
tendency toward wish fulfillment in an-egotistical, subjective manner. Until 7 to 8
years of age, the child's natural processes assimilate and deform social
experience in accordance with their own laws (Vygotsky, 1987, p. 61). For
example, Piaget believed that children's language is originally directed at
expressing imaginary wishes of the self. True social communication only
develops after the stage of egocentric speech is surpassed.
Vygotsky held a quite different conception of the child. He believed that natural
mechanisms govern the behavior of infants. However, by 2 years of age, the
child participates in social relations. Biological mechanisms operate for a brief
time as survival aids. However, they are quickly superseded by social influences.
As soon as infancy ends, the individual begins to participate in social relations.
Social relations form the developmental context of children and constitute the
child's nature. Vygotsky regarded the child as inherently social, whereas Piaget
regarded the child as inherently antisocial. For Vygotsky, social relations
constitute the child's psychology from the start. For Piaget, social relations are
secondary to the child's biological nature. They also must combat this entrenched
nature much as Freud postulated.
Vygotsky believed that the child's first language is already a form of social
communication. It is only later that the child uses social language for private
ends. Thus, Vygotsky argued that egocentric speech develops after social
speech rather than before it, as Piaget believed. Vygotsky (1987) wrote:
In Piaget's view, the development of the child's thinking moves from autism to socialized
speech, from illusory imagination to logical relations ... Our hypothesis obligates us to
represent the overall process of development in the following way. The initial function of
speech is social, that of social interaction or social linkage. ... The notion that speech is
socialized is incorrect in that this implies that speech was originally non-social, that it
becomes social only through development and change. (p. 74)
Vygotsky further criticized Piaget's understanding of social influences on
psychology (9).
Footnote 9:
Bandura (1986, p. 488) echoed Vygotsky's critique of Piaget in stating that other people do not
simply cause perturbation in our cognitive equilibrium; they serve as indispensable sources of
knowledge and as models and shapers of our cognitive structures. Self-generated cognitive
development is generally a secondary process, which is stimulated by social encouragement and
which inevitably draws on many didactic aids.
Piaget only conceived of social interaction as pure communication. He did not
comprehend that social interaction also includes practical, socially organized
activity. In other words, people do not simply interact semiotically; they interact in
engaging in practical activities such as working, studying in school settings, and
following laws that are decided by governments. This context of social activities
shapes the child's psychology. Vygotsky (1987) wrote:
What is missing, then, in Piaget's perspective is reality and the child's relationship to that
reality. What is missing is the child's practical activity. This is fundamental. Even the
socialization of the child's thinking is analyzed by Piaget outside the context of practice. It
is isolated from reality and treated as the pure interaction or communication of minds. (p.
87; cf Ratner, 1997a, chap. 3; 1997b; Bruner, 1959)
Role of Individual Agency in Sociohistorical Psychology
I conclude this incomplete and summary exposition of Vygotsky's approach by
considering the question of individual subjectivity, or agency, in sociohistorical
psychology. If human psychology is socially determined, does this mean that the
individual is reduced to an automaton that passively receives social influences?
Does society become in this view a reified set of conditions and institutionalized
norms devoid of human action? In short, does Sociohistorical psychology
succumb to the problems of mechanism that plague behaviorism, role theory,
and other social theories?
Vygotsky clearly did not conceive his sociohistorical approach as endorsing
mechanical determinism. He certainly believed that individuals are active even
though their psychological processes are socially determined. Individuals think,
evaluate, analyze, synthesize, abstract, and select from social influences.
Individuals construct new meanings that modify existing socially constructed
ones, and they certainly recreate social institutions and norms. These do not
operate automatically apart from human maintenance. Figure I depicts the active
role of individuals in constructing culture (cf Ratner, 1991, pp. 179-182; Lawrence
& Valsiner, 1993).
Although Vygotsky recognized individual agency, he regarded it as socially
organized. He opposed Piaget's model of subjectivity that stands outside social
life and assimilates and deforms social experience in accordance with the mind's
own processes.
The thrust of Vygotsky's work leads to the conclusion that new meanings,
constructions, conditions, and institutions are fashioned from existing social
reality. Vygotsky's entire emphasis is on the socially mediated character of
psychology. His definition of higher psychological processes is mental activity,
which is shaped and objectified through cultural artifacts such as signs and
symbols. Individual subjectivity (agency) must exist as a moment of social
activity. Subjectivity is active; how- ever, it functions within parameters of social
life (Arievitch & Van der Veer, 1995). This is why Vygotsky wrote that what is
"essential is not that the social role can be deduced from the character, but that
the social role creates a number of characterological connections" (Vygotsky
1997a, p. 106).
Individual subjectivities exist as participants in a system of social activities and
values. Even novel psychological phenomena which individuals construct are
always permeated by the characteristics of social activities and values.
In the first place, the motivation to construct new psychological phenomena is
generated by social experience. Certain categories of individuals, occupying
particular positions in the social system, and experiencing definite irritations,
become motivated to construct new phenomena. The motivation is socially
distributed among classes, genders, and ethnic groups. It is not randomly
distributed among individuals.
In addition, new psychological phenomena rest upon social values. Most new
phenomena are simply new forms of existing values and social activities. For example, deviant behavior is innovative in that it violates social norms; however,
deeper analysis reveals that deviant behavior is only an exaggeration of existing
values and activities (violence, depersonalization, possessiveness,
competitiveness, materialism, self-aggrandizement); it does not transcend them
(Rieber, 1997). Although the deviant behavior is a creative invention, it
recapitulates prevailing values and activities. Unusual forms of psychosis have
been analyzed to be extreme forms of common social values such as
individualistic self-expression, presenting a false self, and blaming oneself
(Ratner, 1997b). Homosexuality is innovative in the sense that it rejects socially
sanctioned heterosexual sexual objects; however, homosexual couples
recapitulate the violence and other psychological phenomena of heterosexual
couples (cf. Lie, 1991). Consequently, homosexuality is innovative only in the
sense of expressing prevailing values and social relationships in a new form (10).
Footnote 10:
It is important to analyze the extent to which novel psychological phenomena reflect existing
cultural values, because this is an indicator of emancipation. Phenomena that only superficially
alter the form of cultural values tie individuals to existing social relationships and recapitulate
their deficiencies. For example, Davis (1997) argued that American slave culture, despite its
heroic efforts at resisting White oppression, was, nevertheless, dominated by it and was unable
to offset its harmful effects. Davis criticized the tendency to romanticize slave culture as an
escape from White oppression. Such a view, which exaggerates the autonomy of slave culture,
obscures the real problems that plagued it:
In his desire to refute the traditional image of slaves as passive victims,
Gutman overreacted to the point of denying the realities of power - not only
physical power ... but the subtle cultural and psychological influences that
emanate from superior power when it is exercised with conviction for any length
of time ... A central question is the degree to which slave family life, far from
being a wholly autonomous force as Gutman maintained, became subject to
rules which whites pragmatically chose to ensure the stability and profitability of
the slave system. (p. 37)
Although most innovations in psychological phenomena are variants of existing
social psychological characteristics, more radical transformations in psychology
are possible. Individuals may devise psychological phenomena that have social
characteristics that are substantially different from those of current phenomena.
In an era of extreme individualism, competitiveness, and materialism, individuals
may form personality traits and motives that are altruistic, empathetic, and
cooperative. Qualitative changes in social psychological phenomena are actually
inspired by social activities. These may be historically prior activities, which
inspire individuals to model their psychologies on those of previous "golden
ages." For example, people may reminisce about earlier times when individuals
respected, cared about, and listened to one other. They may attempt to recreate
these motives and traits in their own personalities. Another source of novel social
psychological phenomena are possibilities that are de-emphasized in the existing
social system. For example, individuals may see that in modern society people
are tremendously interdependent. Our food, ideas, and even air quality depend
on the activities of other people in far-flung places. This vast interdependence
may lead people to become more concerned with what others are doing and to
organize activities rationally for mutual benefit. In this case, developing a
cooperative, altruistic personality and motives would be inspired by aspects of
social life which are neglected by most people in their pursuit of private wealth.
The social values which underlie new psychological phenomena are distributed
among groups within the population. Only certain groups adopt certain values.
Consequently, psychological changes are socially distributed among social
classes, ethnic groups, and genders. They are not randomly distributed among
individuals. For example, romantic love was a psychological change of
momentous significance which was developed in its distinctive modern form by
the bourgeois class in the 18th century. The nobility and the working class, which
had not yet adopted bourgeois roles and values, did not experience romantic
love (Stone, 1977, pp. 272-284). The bourgeoisie actively constructed modern
romantic love although its construction had a social basis that confined it to this
group of people. Romantic love only generalized to other classes as changes in
life activities made it appealing to them.
Sexual liberation was another psychological innovation that was pioneered by
middle-class individuals. Working class people were slow to adopt sexual
experimentation. For example, 45%of college educated men had experienced
oral sex in 1948, whereas only 15% of high school educated men had (Rubin,
1976, pp. 134-144). That sexual experimentation was not randomly distributed
throughout the population testifies to play of cultural motives and values in
generating it among particular groups.
Similarly, hysteria was a psychological innovation of 19th century middle-class
women; it was uncommon among middle-class men or working-class women.
Anorexia nervosa is another psychological creation that is almost entirely
confined to middle- and upper-class Western women. Fright psychosis and
phobias are almost entirely female afflictions. Running amok in Malaysia is an
unusual reaction that is strictly a male phenomenon (Ratner, 1991, pp. 272-278).
The social conditions and values of these groups of people make certain kinds of
new expressions appealing to them but not to other people.
A final way in which novel psychological phenomena are social is that most of
them are formed through communication, persuasion, and other social
processes. An individual may initiate certain changes in psychological
phenomena; however, these are always compromised by other people's input. In
many cases, people form organizations to publicize new forms of evolution,
perception, personality, and cognition. The, social formation of psychological
phenomena was recognized by Wundt, Durkheim, and others. Wundt
(1912/1921) said that social psychological phenomena are "mental products
which are created by a community of human life and are, therefore, inexplicable
in terms merely of individual consciousness, since they presuppose the
reciprocal action of many" (p. 3). just as language, religion, and customs are not
the accidental discovery of an individual, so all higher psychological functions are
creations of the social community (cf. Durkheim, 895/1966) (11).
Footnote 11:
The social process that forms the content of psychological phenomena is usually not a
dispassionate give-and-take among isolated intellectuals. It often involves organized behavior
among groups of people who passionately try to have their psychological phenomena accepted.
Economic, political, and even police power are some of social actions that groups use to
promulgate psychological phenomena in the media, schools, family, and at work. Social
struggles were fought over whether workers should have a punctual sense of time, the level of
emotional expression that is appropriate at work (Ratner, 1997, p. 105), and the kinds of smells
that are perceived as disgusting (cf. Ratner, 1991, pp. 55-56, 73).
Although psychological phenomena are social creations, this does not mean that all
members of society are equally influential in constructing their form. In many, if not
most, cases, psychological phenomena are constructed by a small minority of
individuals who have the power to popularize them, institutionalize them, and get them
accepted by others (cf Ratner, 1997a, pp. 115 - 116). The extent to which psychological
phenomena are democratically or undemocratically formed is an important aspects of
their social character.
In conclusion, active subjectivity is integrated within social life. It does not
possess its own intrinsic processes for constructing psychological phenomena
from social interactions. Social life remains the inspiration for psychological
constructions. It also determines the extent to which subjectivity is active. Active
subjectivity is not a constant. It is more or less pronounced according to the
social system in which individuals reside. Extremely homogeneous, stable
societies restrict the creativity that subjectivity can muster. Heterogeneous,
dynamic societies would be more hospitable to the subjective and active
construction of truly novel social psychological phenomena. (The most profound
changes in social and psychological phenomena occur in periods of revolutionary
social upheaval.) In summary, subjectivity depends on social life not only for the
content of its activity but for the extent of its activity as well (12).
Footnote 12:
Cf. Luria (1978a) for an experimental demonstration of how different kinds of social context
lead to different degrees of creativity.
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WASHINGTON (AP) -- After slowly and deliberately working his way through a
mountain of words, a Colorado seventh-grader spelled "prospicience" -- meaning
foresight -- to win the 75th Scripps Howard National Spelling Bee.
Pratyush Buddiga, 13, survived 11 rounds, outlasting 249 other contestants who
began the competition Wednesday. He takes home an engraved trophy and
$12,000.
"I didn't think I really had a chance to win," he said. "I just wanted to be in the top
five."
Pratyush attends Mountain Ridge Middle School, a public school in Colorado
Springs.
A first-time competitor in the national bee, he went head-to-head in the final
rounds with Steven Matthew Nalley, 14, of Starkville, Mississippi. Nalley was
returning for his second try at the championship.
Ninety spellers began the day onstage, having survived
an unprecedented 25-word written test Wednesday.
WINNING WORDS
Correct spellings that won
bees in the past
In the final day of competition, contestants successfully
worked their way through "kakemono," "caulicolous,"
Bee basics:
"stultiloquence," "culgee," "hermeneutics,"
The first bee was organized
in 1925.
"soavemente" and "toreutics," among others.
The final rounds featured sudden exits by several
contestants who seemed virtually invincible.
The capacity crowd gasped when Michael Hessenauer,
14, of Dublin, Ohio, bowed out in Round 5, missing
"verticil," describing a circle of similar parts, as with
flowers or hairs. Michael was the highest ranked speller
returning from the 2001 competition. He tied for third
last year, and was in the finals for the third time.


The champion's prize is
$12,000.

There are 114 boys and 136
girls; 167 contestants attend
public schools; 26 attend private
schools; 29 parochial schools;
and 27 are home-schooled.
One attends a charter school.

Sixteen spellers have at
least one relative who has
competed in previous national
finals.

Two spellers are returning
for a fourth year; 8 are
participating for a third time; 44
are returning for a second year.
Source: Scripps Howard
National Spelling Bee
Erik M. Bolt, 14, of South Bend, Indiana, one of two finalists making their fourth
trip to the competition, was among the final nine contestants. He was eliminated
in Round 7 on "badigeon," a cement used to cover holes in wood or stone.
Also eliminated was Mallika Thampy of St. Louis, little sister of the 2000 champ.
She tripped up on "batture," a French word meaning the land between a low river
and a levee.
Emily Cole, 14, of Boiceville, New York, another speller making her fourth trip to
the bee, tripped up Wednesday on "pugilist," a boxer.
Other finalists stumbled on these tough nuts: "throstle," "roriferous," "tiralee,"
"objicient" and "icteric," among others.
Thursday's finals were broadcast live on ESPN, the cable sports network. First
lady Laura Bush opened the broadcast with taped comments, telling the
contestants, "I am very proud of you. I hope you'll always work hard at spelling
and at reading. The more you read, the better your spelling will become and the
more your vocabulary will grow."
Among the guests of honor watching the competition Thursday was Frank
Neuhauser, 88, winner of the first National Spelling Bee in 1925.
After he won, Neuhauser got to shake hands with Calvin Coolidge, then received
a hero's welcome in his hometown of Louisville, Kentucky.
After sitting through one round Thursday, Neuhauser said, "The words are, in my
judgment, much more difficult."
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