Abstract: Understanding relations between the social and cognitive contributions to thinking and acting has become a pressing goal for psychological theorizing. Central to understanding these relations is th...

Abstract: Considerable debate has arisen regarding many aspects of attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), including the existence, diagnosis and prevalence of the disorder, the use of medications in treating young children for the disorder, and the long-term side-effects of the medications. A fundamental catalyst in this debate involves the numerous and diverse social representations of ADHD: the differing ways of perceiving what ADHD is, whom it affects, and the most appropriate treatments. This paper presents a discussion of social representations theory and its previous applications to the study of mental illness, connecting this theory with research in media framing. Quantitative and qualitative content analyses of print media representations of ADHD over a ten-year period are presented. Using results from the media analysis, we examine different processes through which these representations might influence perceptions of individuals experiencing ADHD-related symptoms, particularly as these perception...

Abstract: The wide-ranging review by Coelho and Figueiredo (2003) serves as a useful point of departure for highlighting two major limitations of discussions on intersubjectivity: first, rifts between differ...

Abstract: In this commentary, I analyze Zittoun and her collaborators’ idea of symbolic resources as mediators of the representational work demanded by ruptures or discontinuities in the experience of ordina...

Abstract: The article studies the meaning of individualism and collectivism from two different perspectives—from the viewpoints of the academic discipline of cross-cultural psychology and of Estonian public discourse. More specifically, the aim of this study is to explore and understand the difference between Estonians' autostereotype of their extreme individualism and the opposing opinion held by the cross-cultural research community that sees Estonia as a collectivistic country. The findings show that the definitions and conceptualizations of individualism and collectivism by cross-cultural psychologists and Estonian lay-people are indeed only partially overlapping. If Estonians speak about their individualism or collectivism, they seem to emphasize their being/acting alone versus being/working in groups, whereas for cross-cultural researchers the defining attributes of individualism are striving for affective and intellectual autonomy and egalitarian values versus conservatism. Moreover, the findings clearly sug...

Abstract: In this paper I explore and exemplify the processes through which youngsters become committed insiders of countercultural youth groups and how under-aged (child) soldiers go through a similar proce...

Abstract: Realo (2003) raises the interesting point that the opinions about a culture by culture `experts' may or may not correspond to the beliefs about that same culture held by people of that culture. In ...

Abstract: This essay includes two principal themes: firstly, conceptual and theoretical consequences of taking culture into consideration within social psychology; and, secondly, the methodological consequences of adopting a constructionist perspective. The framework of these reflections is the theory of social representations (SRT) created by Serge Moscovici. However, the methodological state of affairs of research within SRT is the same for any culturally constructed psychology. The challenges researchers have to face have to do with finding new ways for approaching our subject matter in our science. They reflect on methodology—renovation of which must not be feared.

Abstract: Realo (2003) argues that Estonian society in public discourse is construed differently compared to the way it is in academic discourse. We suggest that such discrepancies arise because of the proce...

Abstract: This contribution is written as a challenge to Schmitz, Filippone and Edelman’s (2003) analysis of the clinical diagnosis ADHD from the perspective of social representations theory. The focus of the present article is on the implications of a clinical diagnosis for the organization and reorganization of the self. As an illustrative example, a client is presented who seemed to be ‘enslaved’ to the diagnosis depression, incorporating it as a central element in the construction of his identity. Two observations were discussed: (a) a precious memory of the contact with a former teacher who served as ‘protected area’ in the client’s self; (b) an increasing opposition between ‘I as depressed’ as a dominant I position and ‘I as a fighter’, an emergent I position in the self. These observations led to the question whether social representations theory takes sufficiently into account the self as a dynamic multiplicity of relatively autonomous parts of a system that is capable of organizing and reorganizing itself.

Abstract: This commentary examines how the `matrices' of intersubjectivity distinguished by Coelho and Figueiredo (2003) may link to the levels of intersubjectivity identified in recent research on infant social cognition and communicative development, and follows up their point about `simultaneous' supplementary processes Illustrations are offered of how a primary intersubjective mode of participant perception of actions in others is sometimes also bodily manifested in contexts of higher-order intersubjectivity, for example when spoon-feeding caregivers unwittingly open their mouth as the patient opens the mouth to take in the food, or when spectators open their mouth when watching a video of a newborn trying to imitate mouth-opening Such virtual other participation, leaving a participatory emotional memory of having been a virtual co-author, simulating the other's movements, is seen to play a role in cultural learning and circular re-enactment of care and abuse, pertaining to intrapsychic and traumatic aspects

Abstract: Coelho and Figueiredo (2003) raise the issue of intersubjectivity. I propose to consider the problem from an action-theoretical and constructivist perspective that in some ways agrees, in others contradicts, the theses of the authors. The view I present is based on various publications on the `I'-Other problem since 1975. The centrality of the person's `I', as the overarching locus of action control and regulation, is re-claimed. By the same token, the role of society is re-defined, society being too heterogeneous, too contradictory, to influence directly the formation of the `I'; social impacts have to be filtered, selected, evaluated and assimilated by individual `I's, and thus the `social other' is itself personally constructed.

Abstract: I start by attempting to clarify the ways in which Coelho and Figueiredo (2003) use the logic of supplementarity to conceptualize the discourses on intersubjectivity in terms of four dimensions of otherness. A new domain of application is proposed and the limits of the approach are pointed to. In the second section I critically examine the extent to which these four dimensions, and the movements of supplementarity between them, adequately capture the theories of intersubjectivity. The use of these dimensions seems, on the one hand, to obfuscate several interesting contradictions between the theoretical approaches within the dimensions, and, on the other hand, to artificially partition the theoretical traditions between the four dimensions. In the final section, Mead's account of intersubjectivity, and the constitution of subjectivity, is presented, and developed, as operating in the spaces between the proposed dimensions of otherness.

Abstract: Contemporary social sciences suffer from a fragmentation of ideas. This is often related to the dominance of empirical papers—conveniently labeled ‘contributions to the literature’. This creates a new phenomenon in the social organization of the sciences—instead of crucial, key empirical evidence (experimentum crucis), which has been an ideal for the role of empirical validation of researchers’ ideas for a long time, we are faced with a new form of decision making about scientific knowledge. That new form can be called ‘democracy of the literature’ (Valsiner, 2000). Without doubt we prefer to live under democratic rule in our social lives—at least as long as we do not experience the repressive function of the Tocquevillian take on ‘democracy’ being the ‘tyranny of the majority over the minority’. Yet when it comes to deciding about matters of science, ‘democracy of the literature’ may eliminate the very essence of science—that of making new knowledge about our objects of investigation, rather than taking other positions vis-à-vis these phenomena. The centrality of the phenomena is crucial for science— and in psychology this has been gradually slipping away (Cairns, 1986). If a science—such as cultural psychology—wants to be what it declares, researchers need not ‘contribute to the literature’, but rather have to ‘create the literature’. This is best done through careful orchestration of theoretical and empirical efforts. Methodology—contrary to currently accepted views that consider it a ‘toolbox’ of ready-to-use

Abstract: In Explaining Culture (1996), Dan Sperber argues for the naturalization of anthropology through conjunction with cognitive psychology. Culture is to be explained in terms of the production and spread of representations. I charge Sperber with two errors. First, his view of culture, given in terms of thoughts natives have about their social settings, is too inert. By contrast, to participate in a culture is to do things as much as it is to have thoughts. Second, Sperber focuses on the wrong sort of mental representations for his naturalization project. Instead of propositional knowledge, I argue we should be much more concerned with know-how, which is easily linked to the culturally specific skills deployed in participation in a culture. Through development of these charges, an alternative way of studying culture naturalistically is developed. This conception, unlike Sperber's, does not amount to the psychologization of anthropology.

Abstract: Coelho and Figueiredo (2003) explore the relationship between a heterogeneous collection of theoretical approaches that they term `intersubjectivist'. The authors' aim is not to integrate or synthesize the different dimensions into a coherent framework, but rather to invoke one depiction of subject-other meeting points where another appears incomplete. It is argued in this commentary that the authors do not pay sufficient attention to the incompatibilities between the various projects that they include in their discussion. It is also argued that the metaphor of the autonomously constituted subject may serve important existential and ethical functions.

Abstract: This article concerns intersubjective understanding; what it is to establish a shared understanding of the conversational activity in research interviews. This discussion was inspired by interpersonal subjectivity (Mead, 1910/1978) and constitution of otherness, one of the four matrices of intersubjectivity proposed by Coelho and Figueiredo (2003). In drawing attention to the interview as an intriguing and instructive realm of inquiry for social scientists, this article assumes two objectives: (1) outlining the concept of positioning as undergirding Coelho and Figueiredeo's third element of intersubjectivity—interpersonal intersubjectivity; and (2) suggesting how this might be studied using the discursive psychological and social constructionist approach. A specific task involved for this argument is a discourse analysis of an extract taken from interviews with British World War II veterans regarding their reconciliation experiences. I will argue that intersubjectivity is interactionally accomplished as a...

Abstract: Over 90% of infants born in the world live in lowincome countries, but most scholarly knowledge about infancy is produced in wealthy countries. We therefore need far more information on infancy thr...

Abstract: This paper examines the process of the emergence of new social representation among abusive men vis-‡-vis their own behavior. The discussion focuses on a group of 65 men who were sent to a closed h...

Abstract: Sawyer (2002) criticizes as untenable the two foundational assumptions that allegedly characterize 'socioculturalism' (process ontology and inseparability of individual and social levels of analysis). While sympathizing with his aim, this comment challenges his construal of both assumptions, as well as his claim of analytic dualism as an alternative to the 'unresolved tensions' in sociocultural theory. A call is made to further this debate. Keith Sawyer's article in a recent issue of Culture & Psychology (Sawyer, 2002) is a very good example of the complexities faced in the effort to clarify even seemingly 'basic' issues within sociocultural psychological theorizing. He must be credited for showing, in the context of certain current debates in social theory, the need for a more careful examin- ation of our background assumptions, and not simply taking for granted that the 'sociocultural community' agrees on the basics. This does not mean that one can easily subscribe to Sawyer's views on any of the issues he discusses, however. This comment intends not to examine his argument in depth, although I expose some critical comments, but rather to suggest the relevance for the development of sociocultural psychology of explicitly addressing the issues raised in his paper. With this end in mind, let us start with Sawyer's characterization of sociocultural psychology. Sawyer asserts that socioculturalism can be characterized by two 'foundational' theoretical assumptions: a process ontology and the inseparability of individual and social levels of analysis. Before going into the details of this assumption, let me make two general comments. First, Sawyer's label 'socioculturalism' seems to take for granted the existence of a clear-cut intellectual field, defined at least by the two 'foundational' assumptions. Though the label may be used for the sake

Abstract: Cultural relativism and multiculturalism are very useful analytic frameworks. But when the cultural insider’s view becomes the entire story of the analysis, we are in danger of covering up or even legitimizing existing cultural dysfunction or oppressive inequality in the name of cultural relativism. The result is a significantly incomplete representation of social contexts of childcare. This commentary explores several possible areas of cultural dysfunction mentioned in DeLoache and Gottlieb’s (2000) book AWorld of Babies: Imagined Childcare Guides for Seven Societies, though not elaborated and explored for their possible impact on childcare. This is done in an effort to include some of the problematic aspects of childcare in cultural context that may have been left out of the DeLoache and Gottlieb volume. It is argued that a truly open-minded approach assumes that particular social practices or cultural ideas may be right or wrong, freely adopted or coerced, beneficial or detrimental. Not only does the e...

Abstract: Can we have a ‘science of science’? Can we discover (by experimental inquiry) the mechanisms and patterns that make scientific thinking so special, so rigorous? If we could somehow identify the ‘machinery’— that is, the algorithms—of which scientific thinking is made, and if we could pit ordinary patterns of reasoning against them, then we could gain precious insights about how discoveries are made and—why not?—about the scientist slumbering in any one of us. These, precisely, are the core questions of the book written by David Klahr and his collaborators: they direct the analytical torchlight on the cognitive machinery of scientific discovery (p. 19) and examine how well ordinary people (mostly young adults and children) apply cognitive algorithms to problem-solving. This is a fascinating task, and one that has preoccupied social scientists for a long time. Is there any clear-cut line between everyday reasoning forms and scientific ones? Are children actually better than adults at scientific problem-solving? Are they miniature scientists? If this is so, then they somehow lose this important ability on the way to adulthood. It would be important to recover it, but how?

Abstract: There are many ways to approach the relationships between anthropology and psychology. Lawrence Hirschfeld and I have tried our best to give a sense of this diversity of approaches, and also of their complementarity, in one of the introductory chapters to the MIT Encyclopedia of the Cognitive Sciences (Sperber & Hirschfeld, 1999). For the past thirty years I have been developing one such approach. My work in this area is close in particular to that of Scott Atran (e.g. Atran, 1990), Pascal Boyer (e.g. Boyer, 1994) and Lawrence Hirschfeld (e.g. Hirschfeld, 1996). To the best of my knowledge, our works had never been reviewed or discussed in the pages of Culture & Psychology, the editor and contributors of which clearly favor approaches different from ours. I was pleased, therefore, when Jaan Valsiner informed me that an article ‘dedicated to [my] theoretical perspective’ would be published in the journal and proposed that I write a reply. When Andrew Sneddon’s (2003) piece arrived, however, I was rather dismayed. Sneddon is not discussing my views at all. He is attributing to me and discussing views that I don’t hold, and that I find too silly to be worth attacking, let alone defending. I have expounded my views on culture and psychology in three books (Sperber, 1975, 1985, 1996) and many articles. These views have often been discussed, favorably or unfavorably, but never so grossly misunderstood. It is true that Sneddon bases his construal on just a few passages of my third book (all but one in the first 60 pages), and shows no awareness of my other

Abstract: In ‘Naturalistic Study of Culture’ (2003), I criticized the account of the explanation of culture that Dan Sperber offers in Explaining Culture(1996). I argued that Sperber unduly overemphasized the explicit propositional, or propositionally expressible, beliefs of native members of cultures to be explained. The result was a neglect of the importance of skills and overt activities in the constitution of a culture, and of the tacitly represented know-how that is an important part of the cognitive underpinning of such skills and activity. In his response, Sperber (2003) argues that I have badly misrepresented his position. He claims that he does not represent culture as inert. Moreover, he claims to give a very important role to tacit representations in the explanation of culture. Further, he objects to my characterization of his position as reductive. He cites portions of Explaining Culture in response to my criticisms. My present purpose is to examine Explaining Cultureclosely to show that I did not misre...

Abstract: The title of this review might sound ambiguous or intriguing; might indicate suspicion or point to the complexity of the problem. It might suggest some kind of interaction and incite curiosity: Who are voice hearers? To whom do they listen? And who listens to them? In the interplay of listeners’ positions, Ivan Leudar and Phillip Thomas propose a dialogical approach to this interesting issue. Voices of Reason, Voices of Insanity becomes, hence, a most sensitive, careful, broad, serious and convincing book about this phenomenon. In contemporary science and diagnosis procedures, hearing voices is taken as a psychological disorder and mental pathology. Most of the time, the phenomenon is related to insanity, eccentricity or even violence. Also referred to as verbal hallucinations, they are seen as incompatible with reason. But how does the phenomenon emerge? How are voices produced? How do they function for those who listen to them? As the authors live, share and face the drama of voice hearers from a professional, psychological or psychiatric perspective, they pursue the understanding of such unusual experience, inquiring about the features, the forms, the functions, the force, the power of voices, while also asking about the hearers’ pragmatic ways of dealing with them. In this sense, beyond asking what and/or whom do voice hearers listen

Abstract: This commentary relates the kind of coercive social structure described by Hundeide (2003) to multilevel selection theory, a general evolutionary framework for thinking about social organizations.

Abstract: The self is an alluring topic for debate, and Boesch’s (2003) article creates ample space for playing with ideas and positions on personhood. I have chosen specific portions of the article to lead towards discussions of self and ‘I’, the notion of an inner self, multiplicity of the self, and the cultural configuration and language of selfhood. This commentary has been sprinkled with examples of self-related experiences from Indian communities in order to demonstrate the important ways in which cultures can diverge in the organization of activity around being a person. Hopefully, these examples will help to distract readers from aspects of their own cultural and personal lives while entering into different perspectives on sociality and individual existence. I end by questioning whether, despite its attractions, the self has become somewhat overexposed to academic attention in the recent past.

Abstract: This article presents a new characterization of the concept and experience of intersubjectivity based on four matrices that we see as organizing and elucidating different dimensions of otherness. The four matrices are described through key references to their proponents in the fields of philosophy, psychology and psychoanalysis: (1) trans-subjective intersubjectivity (Scheler, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty); (2) traumatic intersubjectivity (Levinas); (3) interpersonal intersubjectivity (Mead); and (4) intrapsychic intersubjectivity (Freud, Klein, Fairbairn, Winnicott). These intersubjective dimensions are understood as indicating dimensions of otherness that never occupy the field of human experience in a pure, exclusive form. The four matrices proposed need to be seen as simultaneous elements in the different processes of the constitution and development of subjectivity.

Abstract: Through his discussion of emotional characteristics in general and of specific emotional aspects in particular, Aaron Ben-Ze’ev provides a comprehensive and elaborate theory of emotional mechanisms. His theory is mostly based on philosophical claims, yet he attempts to strengthen these claims by citing empirical research. Although he strives to bring the subject matter closer to the reader by providing real-life examples, interesting quotes and trivia, his philosophical approach and writing style can at times be difficult to follow. Ben-Ze’ev develops a comprehensive interpretation of emotional phenomena. His model is based on prototypical emotions in order to simplify somewhat the otherwise monumental task he has undertaken. According to Ben-Ze’ev, typical emotions are caused by a change in our situation, are always comparative in nature, and are generally focused on other human beings. In other words, emotions occur when we perceive a change in our situation that is of concern to us. This change is then compared to an alternative situation or to the situations of others in our social group. The emotional reaction to this perceived change is generally oriented toward the self or toward another human being. All typical emotions are considered to have a few basic characteristics: instability, great intensity, a partial perspective and relative brevity. The instability of emotions is related to the change in our situation that