dmitry leontiev (higher school of economics and moscow state university, russia) state university,...
TRANSCRIPT
Dmitry Leontiev(Higher School of Economics
and Moscow State University, Russia)State University, Russia
Activity Theory and the functional paradigm for the
21st century.
4th International ISCAR Congress, Sydney, September 30 – October 3, 2014
The failure of essentialist thinking, focus on change, future-mindedness, probabilistic world, self-organization.
Stetsenko (yesterday)
individuals maintain stable identity, are equal to themselves.
Aristotle: all bodies behave along
with their underlying inherent nature.
James Bugental: “on tape”
Examples: traits, drives, instincts
Essentialist (naturalistic) explanatory paradigm
Pavel Florensky: personality emerges through overcoming the logical law of self-equality
True, the challenge of the 20th century was making sense of human psychological consistency,
But the challenge and demand of the 21st century is making sense of human psychological change.
Is it enough to make sense of human activity and personality?
«Personality is a process rather that a ready product» G. Allport
«Ontological acceleration» G. Kelly
«Human essence consists in the lack of any fixed essence» E. Fromm
«A changing person in the changing world» A. Asmolov
Essentialist paradigm is no more satisfactory:
«Existence precedes essence» J.-P. Sartre
«Mental structures emerge and take shape through activity» A.N. Leontiev
«A task gives birth to an organ» N. Bernstein
The challenge of paradigm change
An individual resides in a permanent stream of changing relations to the world striving to improve them. These relations precede any sustainable mental structures of mind and personality and explain their emergence and change.
Functional sustainability
The functional explanatory paradigm
“It takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that.”
Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
From “functioning” rather than “function” N. Wiener used it to oppose his approach to
behaviorism
I. Prigogine preferred the word “processual”, it is also OK.
Transformative Activism – why not?
It is opposed to both reactive and dispositional views.
Why functional ?
Models of self-regulated activity in biological sciences (physiology of activity) and technical and information sciences (cybernetics): N. Bernstein, P. Anokhin, N. Wiener, W. Ross Ashby, G. Bateson etc.
Existentialist ontology of being-in-the world (M. Heidegger, J.-P. Sartre, K. Jaspers, M. Bakhtin, L. Binswanger, P. Tillich, R. Laing, R. May, M. Mamardashvili, J. Bugental
Activity Theory Approach (A. N. Leontiev, B. Zeigarnik, O. Tikhomirov, V. Zinchenko, A. Asmolov, V. Ivannikov, F. Vasilyuk etc.)
The confluence of three streams
1. ATA – Cybernetics.Mediation and regulation as the central concept for ATA at the present stage (Zeigarnik, 1981). Studies and theories of emotional regulation, meaning-based regulation, volitional regulation in 1970s-90s.
2. ATA – ExistentialismThomae, Laengle – Asmolov, Subbotsky, Vasilyuk
3. Cybernerics – Existentialism.Essentially the same, but expressed in different language (v. Bertalanffy); essentially the same but more optimistic (Wiener).
Parallels between the three approaches
• Narrow meaning: self-control over impulses, forceful imposing superordinate regulatory principles upon oneself (R. Baumeister a.o.)
• Broad meaning: the universal principle of activity of all living and quasi-living systems directed by goals or other superordinate criteria of the desirable (N.Bernstein, N. Wiener, W. Ross Ashby, G. Bateson, Ch.Carver & M. Scheier a.o.)
The key concept: self-regulation, or autoregulation (J. Valsiner)
Reflex circle rather than reflex arc – Nikolai Bernstein, 1929
Then A. Rosenbluth, N. Wiener & J. Bigelow, Behaviour, purpose and teleology, 1943
Autoregulation circle
Autocontrol: volitional inhibition of immediate impulses, saying “no” to them.
Autodiscipline: planning one’s activity in time, delay of reinforcement, prioritizing based on anticipation of future events. “Not now”.
Autotuning: readiness for uncertainty, sensitivity to the unpredictable dynamics, flexibility in goal implementation, disengagement capacity. “It depends”.
Autodetermination: agency, mastery of one’s motivation, flexible goal setting and disengagement, making use of possibilities. “Why not this?”
Self-organization: emergent restructuring of the whole activity system for coping with growing complexity, developmental leaps. “Eureka!”
Hierarchy of SR processes
In any uncertain situation – do evolve !
“Human life may be twofold: either unconscious, or conscious. By the former I mean life controlled by causes, by the latter life controlled by a goal”
Vassily Rozanov, Russian philosopher (1892)
You may, however, be either autoregulated or determined (driven, conditioned, programmed, zombied)
• Personality potential refers to the system of stable personality variables that account for the successful autoregulation in various domains of living, i.e., seeking and maintaining the way of acting leading to the desired outcomes and changing the way of acting leading to different outcomes.
• Not a trait or traits! It is related to the process of behavior, to its flexibility and adaptivity, rather than to special behavioral outcomes.
Personality potential = the individual autoregulation potential
Challenges
Indeterminacy Goal Self-preservation
Autoregulation functions
Self-orientation Attainment Maintenance
Structures of personal potential
Self-orientationpotential
Attainment potential
Maintenance potential
God grant me the serenity to accept things I cannot change (Maintenance)
The courage to change the things I can (Attainment)
And the wisdom to know the difference (Self-orientation)
What is really important for living:
The road to wisdom? Well, it’s plainAnd simple to express,Err, and err,And err again,But less,And less,
And less.
P. Heine
The summary
Thank you for your attention !