Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dzt6s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-19T18:44:39.800Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

11 - Cross-cultural research in the cultural-historical activity theory tradition

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2012

By
Michael Cole ,
Boris G. Meshcheryakov  and
I. V. Ponomariov
Edited by
Fons J. R. van de Vijver ,
Athanasios Chasiotis  and
Seger M. Breugelmans
Michael Cole
Affiliation:
Laboratory of Comparative Human Cognition, University of California, San Diego, USA
Boris G. Meshcheryakov
Affiliation:
Dubna University, Dubna, Russia
I. V. Ponomariov
Affiliation:
Institute of African Studies, Moscow, Russia
Fons J. R. van de Vijver
Affiliation:
Universiteit van Tilburg, The Netherlands
Athanasios Chasiotis
Affiliation:
Universiteit van Tilburg, The Netherlands
Seger M. Breugelmans
Affiliation:
Universiteit van Tilburg, The Netherlands
Get access

Summary

Introduction and purpose

The purpose of this chapter is to create a dialogue between Russian and American research on the role of culture in the constitution of human psychological functioning. Collectively we share the ‘cultural-historical activity’ tradition, which takes its inspiration and initial empirical work from the studies carried out by L. S. Vygotsky and his colleagues in the then-Soviet Union in the 1920s and 1930s. Common to this line of theorising is a belief in the central role of culture in the constitution of specifically human nature. However, issues of both theoretical and methodological origin (which are, of course, not distinct from each other) have led to several decades of discussion among Russian and non-Russian advocates of the cultural-historical approach concerning the interpretation of comparative, cross-cultural studies. It is our hope to make clear the importance of these differences to the broad community of cross-cultural psychologists in finding the ways to move forward the common programme of understanding the role of culture in human psychological processes and the specific role of cross-cultural research in that enterprise.

Cross-cultural experimental research: common dilemmas

As was true among Russian intellectuals, a pervasive belief in sociocultural evolution pervaded early Anglo-American psychology based upon the writings of nineteenth-century social philosophers such as the Englishmen Herbert Spencer and Edward Tylor, the putative ‘father of anthropology’ (for summaries see Cole, 1996, and Jahoda, 1992, this volume).

Type
Chapter
Information
Fundamental Questions in Cross-Cultural Psychology , pp. 261 - 287
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ash, M. G. (1982). The emergence of gestalt theory: Experimental psychology in Germany 1890–1920. Harvard University Ph.D., University Microfilms International.Google Scholar
Bergson, H. (1911/1983). Creative evolution. Lanham, MD: University Press of America.Google Scholar
Cole, M. (1985). The zone of proximal development: Where culture and cognition create each other. In Wertsch, J. V. (ed.), Culture, communication, and cognition: Vygotskian perspectives (pp. 146–61). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Cole, M. (1996). Cultural Psychology: A once and future discipline. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Cole, M., and Means, B. (1981). Comparative studies of how people think: An introduction. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Cole, M., Gay, J., Glick, J., and Sharp, D. W. (1971). The cultural context of learning and thinking. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Cole, M., Levitin, K., and Luria, A. (2006). The autobiography of Alexander Luria: A dialog with the making of mind. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
D'Andrade, Roy G. (1989). Culturally based reasoning. In Gellatly, A. R. H., Rogers, D. and Sloboda, J. A. (eds.), Cognition and social worlds (pp. 132–43). Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Deglin, V. L. (1995). Functional asymmetry of a brain and heterogeneity of thinking or how the syllogisms with a false premise are solved in a condition of temporary oppression of one lobe. In Chomskaya, E. D. (ed.), Neuropsychology today (pp. 28–37). Moscow: Moscow State University.*Google Scholar
Dewey, J. (1963). Experience and education. New York: Macmillan. (Original work published 1938.)Google Scholar
Dias, M., and Harris, P. (1990). The influence of the imagination on reasoning by young children. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 8, 305–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dias, M., Roazzi, A., and Harris, P. (2005). Reasoning from unfamiliar premises: A study with unschooled adults. Psychological Science, 16, 550–4.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ermath, M. (1978). Wilhelm Dilthey: The critique of historical reason. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Gay, J., and Cole, M. (1967). The new mathematics and an old culture. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.Google Scholar
Goody, J. (1977). The domestication of the savage mind. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Greenfield, P. M. (1972). Oral and written language: The consequence for cognitive development in Africa, the U.S., and England. Language and Speech, 15, 169–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harvey, O. J., Hunt, D. E., and Schroder, H. M. (1961). Conceptual system and personality organization. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Jahoda, G. (1992). Crossroads between culture and mind: Continuities and change in theories of human nature. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Judd, N. M. (1926). Archaeological observations north of the Rio Colorado. Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 82, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Kravtsov, L. G. (2002). Psychological means of managing of thinking in a structure of a scientific concept. Unpublished Ph.D. thesis.*
Latour, B. (1987). Science in action: How to follow scientists and engineers through society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Li, S. (2007). Biocultural co-construction of developmental plasticity across the lifespan. In Kitayama, S. and Cohen, D. (eds.), Handbook of cultural psychology (pp. 528–44). New York: Guilford Press.Google Scholar
Luria, A. R. (1928). The problem of the cultural behavior of the child. Journal of Genetic Psychology, 35, 493–506.Google Scholar
Luria, A. R. (1929). Review of H. Werner's book. Natural Science and Marxism, 1, 175–7.*Google Scholar
Luria, A. R. (1971). Psychology as a historical science. In History and psychology (pp. 36–62). Moscow: Pedagogika.*Google Scholar
Luria, A. R. (1973). The bases of neuropsychology. Moscow: Moscow State University.*Google Scholar
Luria, A. R. (1974). About a historical development of cognitive processes. Moscow: Pedagogika.*Google Scholar
Luria, A. R. (1975). The basic problems of neurolinguistics. Moscow: Moscow State University.*Google Scholar
Luria, A. R. (1979). Language and consciousness. Moscow: Moscow State University.*Google Scholar
Luria, A. R. (1982). Language and cognition. New York: Wiley.*Google Scholar
Meshcheryakov, B. G. (2000). Logical-semantic analysis of L. S. Vygotsky's concept. Unpublished Ph.D. thesis.
Meshcheryakov, B. G. (2000). Vygotsky's conception: A logico-semantic analysis. Journal of Russian and East European Psychology, 38, 34–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meshcheryakov, B. G. (2007). Terminology in L. S. Vygotsky's writings. In Daniels, H., Cole, M. and Wertsch, J. (eds.), The Cambridge companion to Vygotsky (pp. 155–77). New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ponomariov, I. V. (2007). The discursive questions of cross-cultural researches of the literacy influence on the cognitive development and the concept of sympractical society. Cultural-historical psychology, 4, 59–67.*Google Scholar
Ratner, C., and Hui, L. (2003). Theoretical and methodological problems in cross-cultural psychology. Journal for the Theory of Social Behavior, 33, 67–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schubert, A. M. (1930). The experience of pedology-pedagogical expeditions on the study of people of distant districts. Pedology, 2, 167–71.*Google Scholar
Scribner, S. (1975). Recall of classical syllogisms: A cross-cultural investigation of error on logical problems. In Falmagne, R. G. (ed.), Reasoning: Representation and process in children and adults (pp. 153–73). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Scribner, S. (1977). Modes of thinking and ways of speaking: Culture and logic reconsidered. In Johnson-Laird, P. N. and Wason, P. C. (eds.), Thinking: Readings in cognitive science (pp. 483–500). New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Scribner, S., and Cole, M. (1981). The psychology of literacy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Segall, M. H., Dasen, P. R., Berry, J. W., and Poortinga, Y. H. (1999). Human behavior in global perspective: An introduction to cross-cultural psychology. Boston: MA: Allyn and Bacon.Google Scholar
Sharp, D. W., Cole, M., and Lave, C. (1979). Education and cognitive development: The evidence from experimental research. Monographs of the Society for Research in Children Development, 44, 1–2.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sheef, J. I. (1935). Development of scientific notions of a schoolchild. Moscow and Leningrad: Uchebno-Pedagochiskoe.*Google Scholar
Tamm, T., and Tulviste, P. (1980). Theoretic syllogistic reasoning: Regressing when not used?Acta et Comentationes Universitatis Tartuensis, Tartu, 50–9.Google Scholar
Tulviste, P. (1979). On the origin of theoretic syllogistic reasoning in culture and the child. Newsletter of the Laboratory of Comparative Human Cognition, 1, 73–80.Google Scholar
Tulviste, P. (1988). Cultural-historical development of verbal thinking (psychological research). Tallin: Valgus.Google Scholar
Tulviste, T. (1985). About the determination of reflection in verbal thinking. Unpublished Ph.D. thesis.*
Vygotsky, L. S. (1929). To the question of the scientific exploration plan for the pedology of national minorities. Pedology, 3, 367–78.*Google Scholar
Vygotsky, L. S. (1931). The history of the development of higher psychological functions. Moscow and Leningrad: Uchebrio-Pedagogicheskoe Izdatel'stvo.Google Scholar
Vygotsky, L. S. (1934). Thinking and speech. Moscow and Leningrad: Socio-Economics Publishers.*Google Scholar
Vygotsky, L. S. (1966). Play and its role in psychic development of a child. Questions of Psychology, 6, 62–76.*Google Scholar
Vygotsky, L. S. (2004). Letters to students and colleagues. The newsletter of MSU, 3, 3–40.*Google Scholar
Vygotsky, L. S., and Luria, A. R. (1930). Studies in the history of behavior: Monkey, primitive, child. Moscow and Leningrad: Governman Publishers.*Google Scholar
Vygotsky, L. S., Samukhin, N. V., and Birenbaum, G. V. (1934). To the question of dementia in Pick's disease. Clinical and Experimental-Psychological Research: Soviet Neuropathology, Psychiatry, and Psychohygiene, 3, 97–136.*Google Scholar
Wason, P. (1968). Reasoning about a rule. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 20, 273–81.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wertsch, J. V. (1985). Vygotsky and the social formation of mind. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Whorf, B. L. (1956). Language, thought and reality. Boston: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Witkin, H. A., and Goodnough, D. R. (1982). Cognitive styles: Essence and origins: Field dependence and field independence. New York: Wiley.Google Scholar
Wundt, W. (1921). Elements of folk psychology. London: Allen and Unwin.Google Scholar
Zaporozhets, A. B. (1930). Mental development and psychic particularities of Oyrot children. Pedology, 2, 222–35.*Google Scholar
Zaporozhets, A. V., Zinchenko, V. P., and El'konin, D. B. (1964/1971). Development of thinking. In Zaporozhets, A. V. and El'konin, D. B. (eds.), The psychology of preschool children(pp. 186–254). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×