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Journal of Russian and East European Psychology, vol. 42, no. 4, JulyAugust 2004, pp. 2034. 2004 M.E. Sharpe, Inc. All rights reserved. ISSN 10610405/2004 $9.50 + 0.00.

L.I. BOZHOVICH

L.S. Vygotskys Historical and Cultural Theory and Its Significance for Contemporary Studies of the Psychology of Personality
L.S.Vygotskys historical and cultural theory of psychological development contains a number of ideas that have become seminal for the construction of new original theories. We are referring here, first of all, to the idea that activity plays a leading role in the psychological development of children. This idea formed the basis of A.N. Leontievs creation of an independent area of studythe theory of activitywhich is the focus of a large number of current studies. Vygotskys idea that the higher psychological functions are a result of the interiorization of initial practical human forms of activity has been developed in the theory of the formatin of development of psychological processes (P.Ia. Galperin and his
English translation 2004 M.E. Sharpe, Inc., from the Russian text 2001 Moskovskii psikhologo-sotsial nyi institut. O kul turno-istoricheskoi kontseptsii L.S. Vygotskogo i ee znachenii dlia sovremennykh issledovanii psikhologii lichnosti, in Problemy formirovaniia lichnosti: izbrannye psikhologicheskie trudy (Moscow: Moskovskii psikhologo-sotsialnyi institut, 2001), pp. 288301. (Originally published in Voprosy psikhologii, 1988, no. 5 [page numbers not available]).
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school). The idea that true teaching must lead development made it possible to understand the process of instruction as a type of activity with a special kind of structure and content, which can be specially organized and guided (V.V. Davydov and colleagues). Vygotskys notion of the linkage between the processes of formation of the higher psychological functions and new physiological structures was further developed by A.R. Luria and his students. Today, attempts are under way in psychology and in a number of related disciplines (psycholinguistics, psychiatry, psychopathology, etc.) to illuminate and refine Vygotskys concept of units as the indivisible psychological cells, and to develop and make more concrete his view of meaning (A.G. Asmolov, B.V. Zeigarnik, V.P. Zinchenko, A.A. Leontiev, and others). However, it seems to us that it is of particular importance to trace the logic of Vygotskys own thought without going beyond the theories he constructed and to continue his studies in accordance with their original logic. Before moving on to a discussion of this logic, we must emphasize that Vygotsky constructed his theories on the basis of experimental data, rather than using logical schemas arrived at a priori, and thus we will try to describe the development of his ideas in the context of the results of specific psychological studies. From our point of view, the logic of his ideas is the following: First, Vygotsky comes to the conclusion that qualitatively new psychological structures develop during the process of ontogeny and that these, the higher psychological functions, determine the specific features of human psychology. This development occurs along two lines: the maturation of the neurological apparatus that represents the organic (physiological) basis for every psychological process and the functional (cultural) development that results from an individuals assimilation of his societys cultural attainments. The method of double stimulation used by Vygotsky and his students established that the initial elementary psychological functionswhich, in the process of action and interaction with others,

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are mediated by a socially developed system of signsundergo changes in structure and content. They become intellectualized and voluntarized. In other words, they enter into certain relationships with thinking and become amenable to the individuals control. Vygotskys study of these complex psychological structures showed that, after being formed through the process of human interactions, they then undergo a kind of transformation (interiorization) and become the property of the individual. In other words, higher psychological functions represent the psychological reality that constitutes the inalienable essence of a human individual, serving as the content of his life, the regulator of his behavior, and the interior milieu through which all external influences are refracted. As a result of this, the new psychological structures that arise during ontogeny themselves begin to act as factors influencing further psychological development. Vygotsky reviewed the theoretical and methodological presuppositions of traditional psychology in light of these ideas. He considered its major methodological error to be the creation of a dichotomy between the biological and historical views of psychological development, between mind and body, a separation that inevitably leads to W. Diltheys dichotomy. It seems to me that it was Vygotsky who best succeeded in incorporating the tenets of dialectical and historical materialism in psychology. He did not restrict himself to the theoretical analysis of the problem, but created experimental models appropriate to it. Vygotsky did not arrive at the solution of the two psychologies problem by chance. In searching for the causes of the crisis that had beset psychology, he meticulously investigated all the attempts to resolve it in Soviet as well as foreign psychology. Some important positive tenets of his theory were based on a critical analysis of psychological directions taken by other psychologists who had attempted to search for a way out of the existing impasse. Thus, he not only considered the idea of a unified structural approach as formulated in Gestalt psychology to be important to the construction of a unified psychological science, but he adopted it as the most important tenet in the construction of his own theory.

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However, while he embraced the idea of this structure, Vygotsky rejected the basic theoretical foundation of Gestalt psychology as a whole. He had fundamental objections to putting structures pertaining to natural processes characteristic of animal psychology and the extremely complex acquired social structures* that are unique to human beings into a single category. The idea of a unified approach led Vygotsky to introduce the concept of the social context of development. He proposed to answer the question of the unique nature of psychological development, and the distinguishing features of each age through the analysis of this special unit. This unit involved the relationship between the external and internal contexts determining the agerelated and individual characteristics of the child. In this analysis, he significantly altered any previous understanding of the environment as a factor in psychological development. The next stage in Vygotskys research is associated with his foray into the discipline of psychopathology. This allowed him to investigate the characteristics of the human psyche not only under conditions of normal personality formation but also under conditions of various types of failure and disintegration of personality development. This marked the first appearance of the concept of psychological systems. Vygotsky comes to the conclusion that during development qualitative changes occur, not so much in the structure of individual psychological functions as in their multifunctional associations and relationships. He proposed that such interfunctional structures be called psychological systems.1 And so Vygotsky resolved the crisis in psychology by analyzing the origin and structure of higher psychological functions and creating a method for studying them. Thus, in the first phase of his creative work, he defined the subject appropriate for study by psychological science: the new psy*Bozhovich uses the word for neoplasm, but what seems to be meant are psychological structures that are acquired in the course of development; I use new or acquired structures here.Trans.

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chological structures arising in the course of a persons life and activity, based on his historical human experience. He also defined the research methodology: the decomposition of the whole he was studying not into elements but into units that retained the major features of the whole, that is, its unique qualities. During this period he continued and deepened his consideration of the psychology of the childs personality. In his own words, Vygotsky considered this problem to represent the pinnacle of all psychology, and he was rigorously moving toward its solution. He believed this required taking decisive steps in going beyond the methodological limits of traditional child psychology. The science of psychological systems made this possible. Vygotsky failed to create a complete science of personality: he died too soon. But his approaches to creating such a science can be seen in his work. After all, the last stage of his scientific exploration was associated with developing the problem of affect and its meeting with the intellectwith the problems of developing emotions and forming higher feelings. Evidently, it was here that he sought the key to understanding the special systemic structures, the higher psychological synthesis that, as he wrote, can with complete justification be called a childs personality (Vygotsky, 1960, p. 60). In my opinion, further psychological studies using the logic outlined by Vygotsky and his systems of concepts should lead to a productive study of the psychological processes specific to human beings, and of the personality as a whole. However, contemporary psychology is focused more on the development of individual aspects of Vygotskys theory and the construction of overarching theories outside of his logic. This seems to us to be a significant reason for the current crisis in psychological science. Of course, within the framework of dialectical materialism no one postulates an opposition between material and spirit. However, there is no unity in our consideration of purely psychological problems, especially those associated with solving the problem of the appropriate subject and methodology for psychological science.

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Among the proposed subjects for psychological research are: set seen as uniting psychological and physiological reactions; activity, which provides the context for an individuals assimilation of the cultural attainments of past generations, and the orientational basis of this activity. The current disagreement on the appropriate subject of psychological study first and foremost attests to the state of crisis that psychology is in today. Thus, A.N. Leontiev has written that crisis phenomena . . . have only gone into hiding, and have begun to manifest themselves in less overt forms (1975, p. 74). Leontiev suggests that the failure to resolve the question of the appropriate subject and methodology for psychology has led psychologists to conduct spurious applied investigations. In his Introduction to Psychology [Vvedenii v psikhologiiu], Galperin has written that the psychological experiment is developing extremely slowly, and that its successes are slight compared to the effort expended. This crisis shows up especially clearly in the discussion of the subject and methodology of psychology that occurred in 1972.2 Many psychologists participating in this discussion came to the conclusion that the higher psychological processes (significant experiences, semantic structures, etc.) cannot be studied experimentally and thus cannot be the subject of scientific psychological research. In other words, the psychological experiment in the strict, so to speak Galilean, definition of the term cannot be used here. Higher-order (personality) psychological processes cannot be formalized and studied as scientifically and rigorously as cognitive processes. The most well-grounded attempt to resolve the crisis in psychology today is A.N. Leontievs theory of activity. It is based on Karl Marxs tenet that an activity is embodied in its product. The ideas that give rise to and regulate the product are objectified in it. Thus, these ideas take on a new type of existence in the product. From this it follows that when a person operates with real world objects that were created by human culture throughout history, he assimilates objectified psychological reality. This is the process of psychological development. Taking this theoretical approach to

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the problem of psychological development, Leontiev has also discovered many very important psychological concepts. In particular, he provides a special interpretation of the concepts of need, motivation, and personality. For example, he treats motivations not as internal drives coming from the subjects personality, but as real objects embodying needs. The category of activity, which according to Leontiev, subsumes both the subject pole and the object pole of activity, leads to understanding personality itself as both a component of activity and as its product. By thus transforming the psyche into the reality of human activity and denying the possibility that it can be considered a reality that is intrinsic to a single subject, Leontiev has actually taken the subject of psychological study beyond the bounds of studying the interior life of the individual. It seems to us that Leontievs theoretical structure cannot be considered a resolution of the crisis in psychology because, in it, psychological reality per se disappears and is replaced by the reality of action. One might ask the following. If the appropriate subject of psychological study was already identified in Vygotskys works and an approach to it outlined, why has the crisis not been resolved, and why is there again discussion of the appropriate subject of study and methodology appropriate to the science of psychology? We can suggest two basic reasons by way of explanation. First, there may be some fear that acknowledgment that the appropriate subject of psychological study should be internal, purely psychological structures, which actually exist, might lead to a substantional* understanding of the mind. Second, there is the difficulty of the experimental approach to the study of the higher aspects of a human beings psychological life, especially personality. However, it seems to me that both of these barriers are beginning to be overcome. Investigations of complex psychological processes that have been undertaken, in spite of the continuing dispute about
*Referring to a philosophical position that gives substance primacy over processes.Trans.

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the appropriate subject of psychological study, shows that these very processes, which arise as a by-product of an individuals actions, his interactions with the world of people and objects, cannot be reduced either to actions or to interactions. The research on a childs emotions and needs with which our scientific team began its work has led us to conclude that development in this area occurs in accordance with the same laws as the development of cognitive processes.3 Initially, the elementary, unmediated needs of the child, motivated by socially acquired experience, enter into certain associations and relationships with various psychological functions, resulting in the development of completely new and separate psychological structures. These include both affective and cognitive components, which gives them unique properties. Unlike simpler psychological structures that require some sort of external stimulation to trigger their functioning, these new formations have their own stimulating force. As an example we may cite the differences between two of these new structureshabit and skill. Learned motor skills develop when some external conditions stimulate a person to perform some sort of action. Without this external stimulation the automated skill does not manifest itself. However, a habit, which contains its own motive force triggers its own performance. Furthermore, if for some reason the habit cannot be implemented, the individual experiences a sense of discomfort or lack of satisfaction. Other such structures that are even more complex include, for example, moral feelings, consciously set goals and intentions, and convictionsin other words, the systemic structures that define the personality. Results of the experimental research we performed on volition confirm this idea. They showed that volition develops in phases analogous to those that have been established through study of other psychological processes. The very first voluntary behavior occurs as a result of biological needs, which directly stimulate actions to overcome whatever impedes their satisfaction. This, to use the words of E. Krechmer, is the hypobulia phase in the development of the will. It is charac-

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teristic of infants and patients suffering from the disintegration of higher psychological systems. Next, under the influence of conflict between equally strong but opposing affective tendencies, the individual resorts to an intellectual plan of action. He weighs, evaluates, and imagines the consequence of his actions, inducing affects that correspond to each of the choices, and as a result makes a decision, sets himself a goal, or creates an intention. Thus, decisions, goals, and intentions are the kind of higher-order new structures in which there is a meeting of affect and intellect, which is the source of their motive force. This is the second stage in the development of volition. Here, volitional behavior occurs through an individuals conscious regulation of his motivations, but the motivation that is most important to the individual has additional weight in the process of analyzing, weighing, and evaluating. Finally, the third and last stage of development of volition occurs as a result of interiorization of ways of organizing behavior, as well as the formation of other higher psychological systems. The latter have enough stimulating force of their own to induce the individual to perform the voluntary act directly, bypassing any act of conscious self-regulation. At this stage, behavior takes on the appearance of something involuntary and impulsive. Thus, an individual may race to help someone who is in danger or take risks for some cause vital to him without contemplation or hesitation. We have called this behavior postvolitional. Postvolitional behavior occurs where there is a certain constellation of internal personality components, on the one hand, and in response to a particular situation, on the other. Every situation in life makes specific demands on the organization of volitional behavior, as well as on an individuals consciousness, emotions, and character traits. From this it follows that it would be more appropriate to speak of the volitional structure of an individuals personality rather than of volition as a separate psychological structure. Studies of motivation have also helped us understand another fundamental aspect of personalityits orientation. We established that a relatively stable motivational hierarchy

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forms in the process of development. Furthermore its stability, and thus that of human behavior, results from motivations generated by higher-order systems of developmentally acquired structures. The motivations that occupy a dominant place in the motivational hierarchy are generally a decisive determinant of the individuals personality. It is these motivations that determine the orientation of the personality and its moral stability. We studied the basis of the most essential types of personality orientation: concerning oneself (ego orientation), the interests of other people (social orientation), and the task (task orientation). People who differed in these orientations were also found to be different in many other personality traits. Our research also revealed that dominant orientations may be different at the conscious and unconscious levels. Thus, some people can have one conscious goal they are striving to attain, yet behave in a way that contradicts that goal, in accordance with motivations that are dominant on the unconscious level. In such cases the personality has an inharmonious structure (as if it is broken from the inside), which is constantly beset by internal contradictions. Clearly, a personality is harmonious not so much because all its aspects are equally developed, but because there exists a particular relationship among these internal components. Individuals who demonstrate the motivational aspects of their personalities have developed harmoniously can attain higher levels of development. In such personalities, motivations associated with the interests of others and not their own egotistical interests show stable dominance. They do not need to make a special effort in order to act in the interest of others or in the interests of a socially significant cause. In other words they are characterized by postvolitional behavior. The decisive role of motivations can also be seen in the study of such acquired systemic structures as the individuals character traits. We studied the process through which the traits of responsibility, diligence, and carefulness develop in children. It transpired that all these traits are formed on the basis of assimilation of certain types of behavior. However, a mandatory condition for this to oc-

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cur is the presence of a certain motive, one that stimulates the child to master the appropriate forms of behavior. If mastery occurs resulting from motives that are external to the trait (e.g., fear of punishment, desire for reward) the child acquires the necessary skills, but the corresponding personality traits do not appear and he does not feel an internal need to behave in accordance with these traits. Thus, as soon as he is not being monitored, the child ceases to be diligent and responsible. The trait that develops has the greatest stability when the desire to master it is part of the individuals value system, that is, is mediated by his strongest motivations. Analysis of the formation of human emotions suggests that their development is also linked to the process of cultural and historical development of needs (Vygotsky had already made this point in his time). And this is easy to understand because a psychological need is nothing more than the psychological experience of a biological need. In itself a biological requirement does not trigger actions in an individual. Thus, the development of psychological needs and feeling are two sides of the same process. Our research confirms that the feelings that arise in the process of social development of human psychological needs (moral, aesthetic, intellectual, etc.) are systems structures that have new psychological content. They differ qualitatively from primary (biological) emotions insofar as their structure is mediated, and they occupy a different place in the structure of personality, and serve a different function in behavior, action, and human psychological development. We note here two such differences: It has been found that, under certain circumstances, which have not yet been studied adequately, the feelings or experiences associated with satisfaction of one or another need can acquire an independent value for a person and they themselves become the object of a need (e.g., the need for love, for aesthetic experiences, for the experience of success, etc.). Thus, these experiences cease to be only a system of signals allowing the individual to orient to his adaptive behavior. They become the most important psychologi-

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cal content of a persons life and loss of this content leads to a devaluation of human life. The second characteristic is a direct result of the first. When a psychological experience associated with the process and result of meeting a need itself begins to have value for a person, he begins to try to induce this experience over and over. In this way, to use F. Brentanos term, insatiable needs develop, needs that are unique to human beings. They are not quenched by satisfaction, but instead increase in strength, inducing the individual to undertake new attempts and new creative acts to create objects to satisfy him/herself. Here it should be emphasized that what is important to the development of the personality is determined precisely by which one of the biological needs becomes insatiable. It is one thing when, for example, the need for impressions grows into an insatiable cognitive interest, and quite another thing if the drive to acquire food turns the individual into a miser or glutton. Certain concepts allowed us to make some progress in approaching the study of the content, structure, and formation of childrens personalities: the idea that affective and motivational development traverse the same cultural and historical developmental route as the cognitive processes as well as the systematic empirical study of these psychological systems. Vygotsky believed that these systems stand in special relationship to the personality and that their breakdown is associated with personality disintegration. It became clear that central to such development is the process of intellectualization and voluntarization of affect and motivation, and the resultant development of higher psychological systems, which are the source of special drives, unique to human beings. The presence of this type of system renders the human being capable of conscious self-regulation. Thus, we use the concept of personality to refer to a level of psychological development that allows an individual to control both the circumstances of his life and himself. From this standpoint, the concept of personality is not identical to the concept of individuality, and personality cannot be defined with reference to a persons individual traits. A human

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being as a personality is characterized by a set of his own views and attitudes, his own spiritual requirements, and the definite life goals that he strives to attain. All this renders him relatively stable and independent of the influences of the environment external to him. His characteristic behavior is active rather than passive. The above pertains only to the personality development of an adult, but its formation begins very early and passes through a series of sequential, qualitatively distinct phases. The center of this development is consciousness, which includes both intellectual and affective components. All the developmentally acquired psychological structures are integrated in consciousness and determine the human personality as a higher psychological system (L.S. Vygotsky). The unit for studying personality as a unified hierarchical system must be the act. The concept of an act differs from the concept of action (which does not necessarily include internal motivation), and from the overly broad concept of activity. An act always presupposes a special type of activity in the subject. It is accompanied by a competition among motives and the making of a decision, although in many cases this competition is not consciously perceived by the individual. Thus, a persons act characterizes his personality because he performs it in accordance with the winning motive, the one that is stably dominant in his personality structure. If we analyze various acts from this viewpoint, we may construct a hypothetical model of the given personality. Then we can test this model experimentally by varying the situation. Of course, we could use the collision method in such experimentation. However, in this case we cannot expect clear results: in the collision method the subject will solve the problem he is set rationally. Motivational systems, unconscious, and even consciously rejected, will always participate in an actual act. In this approach, using different variations of the methodology for experimental study of the act, we may be able to establish both age-related and individual characteristics, and the process of their development as well as associated pathological processes.

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Preliminary experimental testing conducted in this area supports optimism that this is a promising approach. In conclusion, I wish to return to the controversial questions that were posed at the beginning of this report, especially the question of the appropriate subject of study and the methodology of psychology. In our view, there is no basis for searching for the subject of psychological research in any reality other than the reality of the human psyche, as a special form of the motion of matter, which is not reducible to any other forms. Objections to this understanding of the object of psychological study seem to me to result from a false fear of acknowledging the objective existence of the psyche. The belief that the study of psychological processes per se inexorably leads to reductionism is unfounded, or at any rate, debatable. Reductionism represents a failure not only of those adherents of traditional psychology who have not yet found their subject, but also of those psychologists who have lost it and are looking for the mechanisms of psychological processes in psychology, logic, performancein other words, outside of psychology. The assertion that the psyche is the subjective form of the objective world, in no way presupposes that as an object of study it must be removed from the boundaries of the subjective, to be studied in the form of actions, and activity, and its products. L.S. Vygotskys cultural and historical theory showed the way to scientific understanding of the higher forms of psychological human life, and, until psychology includes these aspects in the subject of experimental research, it cannot progress in the study of the psychology of the living whole of human personality. Current studies (including our own) refute doubts that it is possible to study higher forms of psychological life, that is,personality (significant experiences [znachashchie perezhivaniia, meanings, moral feelings, and volition), by experimental means, which were voiced in the discussions of 1972. These structures are amenable to experimental study, which will establish the objective laws that govern them.

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Notes
1. Here we use the concepts of system and structure in the way they were used by Vygotsky. 2. Editors note: Here Bozhovich is referring to the discussion that was started by F.V. Bassins article O razvitii vzgliadov na predmete psikhologii [On the Development of Views on the Subject for Psychological Study] (Voprosy psikhologii, 1971, no. 4, pp. 10113) and continued in 1972 by articles in subsequent issues: L.I. Bozhovich and M.S. Neimark, Znachashchie perezhivaniia kak predmet psikhologii [Significant Experiences as the Subject of Psychological Study] (Voprosy psikhologii, no. 1, pp. 13034); E.I. Boiko, V chem sostoit razvitie vzgliadov (po povodu stati F.V. Bassina O razvitii vzgliadov na predmete psikhologii) [What Is the Development of Views? (on F.V. Bassins article On the Development of Views on the Subject for Psychological Study)] (Voprosy psikhologii, no. 1, pp. 13541); A.A. Vetrov, Zamechaniia po voprosu o predmete psikhologii (psikhologiia i kibernetika) [Remarks on the Subject for Psychological Study (Psychology and Cybernetics)] (Voprosy psikhologii, no. 2, pp. 12427); G.I. Ivanov, Chelovek, psikhika, i predmet psikhologii [The Human Being, the Psyche, and the Subject of Psychological Study] (Voprosy psikhologii, no. 2, pp. 12832); F.V. Bassin, Znachashchie perezhivaniia i problema sobstvenno psikhologicheskoi zakonomernosti [Significant Experiences and the Problem of Real Psychological Laws] (Voprosy psikhologii, no. 3, pp. 10524). 3. Editors note: What is referred to here is the Personality Formation Laboratory of the General and Pedagogical Psychology Scientific Research Institute, USSR Academy of Pedagogic Sciences, which L.I. Bozhovich headed between 1946 and 1976.

References
Leontev [Leontiev], A.N. 1975. Deiatelnost. Soznanie. Lichnost [Activity. Consciousness. Personality]. Moscow: State Publishing House for Political Literature. Vygotskii [Vygotsky], L.S. 1960. Razvitie vysshykh psikhicheskikh funktsii [Development of Higher Psychological Functions]. Moscow, 1960.

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