TY - JOUR
T1 - Cultural psychology today
T2 - Innovations and oversights
AU - Valsiner, Jaan
PY - 2009/3/1
Y1 - 2009/3/1
N2 - Culture & Psychology has developed from a small start-up journal in 1995 into the key trend-setter in the field. This editorial analysis continues the tradition of inquiry started in previous efforts (Valsiner, 2001, 2004a) and extends it to the needs of psychology as a whole for the study of dynamic, meaning-making human beings. Cultural psychologyĝ€"using the term culture as a generic term in various versionsĝ€"continues to be an arena where innovations can occur. Separate research fieldsĝ€" such as the dialogical self, social representation processes, semiotic mediation, symbolic action, and actuation theoriesĝ€"have all been co-participants in this new advancement of ideas. Yet the central problemĝ€"an innovation of empirical research methodology which would appropriately capture human active meaning-makingĝ€"has not been solved. Likewise, cultural psychology has only marginally touched upon the lessons from indigenous psychologiesĝ€"the richness of folk psychological terms, and the cultural over-determination of objects used in human everyday living. Contemporary cultural psychology turns increasingly towards the study of objects as cultural constructs. Editing a journal is itself an act of construction of a cultural object, and the current state of contemporary scientific journals indicates a re-construction of the social nature of knowledge. Moving beyond its postmodernist and empiricist confines, psychology is set to return to the level of an abstracted generalization of its culture-inclusive theories. Cultureĝ€"in terms of semiotic mediators and meaningful action patternsĝ€"is the inherent core of human psychological functions, rather than an external causal entity that has 'effects' on human emotion, cognition, and behavior.
AB - Culture & Psychology has developed from a small start-up journal in 1995 into the key trend-setter in the field. This editorial analysis continues the tradition of inquiry started in previous efforts (Valsiner, 2001, 2004a) and extends it to the needs of psychology as a whole for the study of dynamic, meaning-making human beings. Cultural psychologyĝ€"using the term culture as a generic term in various versionsĝ€"continues to be an arena where innovations can occur. Separate research fieldsĝ€" such as the dialogical self, social representation processes, semiotic mediation, symbolic action, and actuation theoriesĝ€"have all been co-participants in this new advancement of ideas. Yet the central problemĝ€"an innovation of empirical research methodology which would appropriately capture human active meaning-makingĝ€"has not been solved. Likewise, cultural psychology has only marginally touched upon the lessons from indigenous psychologiesĝ€"the richness of folk psychological terms, and the cultural over-determination of objects used in human everyday living. Contemporary cultural psychology turns increasingly towards the study of objects as cultural constructs. Editing a journal is itself an act of construction of a cultural object, and the current state of contemporary scientific journals indicates a re-construction of the social nature of knowledge. Moving beyond its postmodernist and empiricist confines, psychology is set to return to the level of an abstracted generalization of its culture-inclusive theories. Cultureĝ€"in terms of semiotic mediators and meaningful action patternsĝ€"is the inherent core of human psychological functions, rather than an external causal entity that has 'effects' on human emotion, cognition, and behavior.
KW - Cultural objects
KW - Culture
KW - Globalization
KW - Methodology
KW - Scientific publishing
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=59549094216&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1177/1354067X08101427
DO - 10.1177/1354067X08101427
M3 - Review article
AN - SCOPUS:59549094216
SN - 1354-067X
VL - 15
SP - 5
EP - 39
JO - Culture and Psychology
JF - Culture and Psychology
IS - 1
ER -