Culture Psychology-2014-Valsiner-3-30 - Needed for Cultural Psychology- METHODOLOGY in a New Key

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DOI: 10.1177/1354067X13515941 2014 20: 3Culture Psychology

Jaan ValsinerNeeded for cultural psychology: Methodology in a new key

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Editorial

Needed for culturalpsychology: Methodologyin a new key

Jaan ValsinerAalborg University, Denmark

Abstract

This Editorial is a leftoveror maybe a dessertfrom my recent treatise on how

cultural psychology can lead the rest of the discipline out of the loops of dust-bowl

qualitative empiricism1 that is beginning to take form in the social sciences. Cultural

psychology of today operates at the intersection of these social tendencies, running the

risk of being caught in the middle. One of the results of active positivism-bashing and

witch-hunt on dualisms that has gone on for the past half-century is a qualitative

turn in the social sciences. While that turn restores the focus on context-bound

original phenomena as its empirical object, it remains as uninventive in the theoretical

realm as its declared opponents ended up being. It has simply replaced the focus of the

inductive generalization exercise from the field of quantified phenomena (as data) to

that of qualitative descriptions (some rich, some poor) that leave the illusion of

understanding based on our common sense, but do not lead the field into new theor-

etical breakthroughs. The unique feature of cultural psychologyin all of its various

versionsis the focus on complex human meaning systems. Analysis of such systems

requires a new look at methodology. It is demonstrated how this new look is actually a

historically old onereplacing the primacy of inductive generalization by the dynamics

of generalization that takes place between deductive and inductive lines, with a special

hope for the use of abductive processes.

Keywords

Methodology Cycle, catalysis, movement, innovation

Newer modes of manifestation cannot be stated in atomic terms without doing vio-

lence to the more synthetic modes which observation reveals. The qualities of ower

or fruit, for example, cannot be accounted for, much less predicted, from the chemical

formulas of processes going on in the tissue of the fruit tree.

Corresponding author:

Jaan Valsiner, Neils bohr Professor of Cultural Psychology, Aalborg University, Kroghstrde 3, 4.219,

DK-9220, Aalborg, Denmark.

Email: [email protected]

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Rafael BezerraHighlight

Rafael BezerraHighlight

A method is therefore called for which will take account of this something left over

and above the quantitative, something which presents new phases as the genetic

progression advances.

(Baldwin, 1930, pp.78)

James Mark Baldwin was wise. Trying all his life to understand the developmentalcomplexity of higher psychological functionsfrom the perspective of his genericlogic (Baldwin, 1915, 2010), he understood acutely the utility of the use of quan-tication in psychology as a social panacea for appearing scientic.Nowalmost a century laterwe in psychology have actively failed to listen tohis voice. Instead, we play the game of creating ever new measures of ever-complex (and ephemeral) psychological variables, analyze the results of suchmeasurements through ever-new (and increasingly modular) standard packagesof data analyses (where we do not precisely know what happens in these packages),and publish the results in peer-reviewed high impact journals. Psychology hasbecome an arena for a complex social game of a fashion of appearing scientic atthe expense of alienation of the data from the phenomena and the data makersfrom the theoretical and philosophical issues that were fundamental concerns fortheir predecessors at Baldwins time.

Baldwins understanding of the mist between psychological phenomena andthe operation of assigning numbers to these was based on two aspects of hisheritagesystematic emphasis on development and the recognition of the holisticsystemic nature of the developing systems. His contemporary traditions ofGanzheitspsychologie (Diriwachter, 2013) provided him with further support inthe rejection of the whole systems that develop into their constituent elements. Itwas in the very end of his lifeafter two decades long enforced exit from theacademic lifethat in 1930 he reached the seemingly devastating conclusionthat quanticationat least in the form of assigning real numbers to qualitativephenomena (Rudolph, 2013)is invalid for the science of psychology.

Of course nobody listened to the musings of the old and morally discreditedman, and psychology since 1930 has become increasingly quantied. Yet, the prob-lems of that favorite pastimeassigning numbers and using increasingly sophisti-cated (read: alienating) data analyses techniquesof normal science (in Kuhniansense) has its clear limits that have been pointed out in elaborate ways (Michell,1997; Molenaar, 2004; Toomela & Valsiner, 2010). However, the empirical enter-prise of contemporary psychology moves ahead in its usual locally reective ways,so the constructive critiques of the epistemic practices in the eld are easilypassed by.

The impasse of measurement in psychology

In psychology, we can often observe the construction of the superordinate qualitieson the basis of consensual selection of some common language terms as relevant

4 Culture & Psychology 20(1)


variables, followed by their quantication. The process of such construction issimple. It starts from a social consensus that the study of a particular commonsense phenomenon using the scientic approach is important. It continues to createa measure (scalein analogy of weight measurements), which is calibratedthrough standardization by way of yet another social consensus.

An example: Let us measure cheating

Human beings like to talk in moral terms. Our contemporary social discourses thenotion of cheating becomes highlightedspouses cheat upon each other, politicianscheat the public, bankers cheat the shareholders, athletes cheat as they use drugs,drug-sellers cheat as they smuggle the drugs, and so on, as if the whole world livesin the panic of being cheated.

Developing a measure of cheating can be a hypothetical example. We do notknow precisely what cheating isbut we do know it is something morally bad thatdeserves punishmentand guarantees income to the ever-increasing army of law-yers. Sopsychologists will be asked to develop psychological know-how aboutcheating. As scientists, they are led to believe in the primacy of inductive general-ization and importance of measurementso they start from constructing methodsthat to themconsensuallyseem to capture the common language meanings ofcheating. They may create a pool of statements about cheating and quantify itby a consensual rule (e.g. considering the number of cheating responses as theindex of how much cheating the give respondent accepts to be the case). Note thatthe vague common language encoded qualitydenoted by the word chea-tingis now translated into a concrete measurequantied accumulation ofthe set of items, consensually accepted as representations of the phenomenon.

As a result of such constructed (measured) characteristiccheatingwe havearrived at an illusory clarity of the notion. Cheating on psychological sciencebecomes dened through the very instrument that we have constructed to measureit.2 We call this act that of operationalization of the concept and fuse it with thephenomena. In reality, we have not operationalized the conceptthat does notexist other than in common languagebut we have created the concept based onour common sense, through the objective act of measurement. The process isprecisely the reversewe have entied a common language notion, turned it into athingand projected as a presumed entity into the minds of the ordinary persons.Now, one can accumulate data on measures on cheating and develop theoriesof cheating. In reality, we have cheated ourselvesthrough inventing a newpersonality characteristic supposedly located in the human mind. The qualitycheatingis presumed to be present, but its quantityhow much does thisperson do it?is presumed to vary.

In terms of quantityquality relationshipthis construction of illusory gen-eralized qualities (cheating) out of common sense involves a sequence of dominanceshifts. First, the (common sense) quality becomes represented by a quantity. Then,the quantitynow dominant (measured) becomes presented as if it were a

Valsiner 5


quality that stands behind the quantity as a given, and governs quantityallowingdierent amounts of it to occur under dierent circumstances. Through thatactsecond reversal of the dominance within the sign pair (qualityquan-tity)we arrive at a new qualitywhich is that of being high (or low) inthe given quality (cheating). Quantitative gradations become qualitative entitieshigh cheaters are morally wrong and low cheaters can become morallyright if they repent and restrict their cheating tendency. As a result, a frame-work of new essentialist characters projected into the human mind is created.

Psychology is lled with constructed entities believed to be essences of thehuman mind. In reality, psychology here has only demonstrated its capacity togenerate new signsthe common sense term (cheating) becomes substituted by ameasure of cheating that is supposed to be scientic. Such making of science isakin to making narratives about miracles. Such narratives look realistic and arefunctional in our everyday lives. Yet they are cultural constructionsmade avail-able through our use of signs. Our pet dogno matter how she or he wags her orhis tailis unlikely to interpret us in terms of our personality characteristics.But we ourselves do.

Where psychology stands in relation to culture

Psychology is lled with problems that have no solutions and solutions for which itis unclear to what problems they pertain. How to capture the emergence of newphenomena is one of the basic issues that both developmental and cultural orien-tations in psychology share. The latter has some specic focusthat on signs, theirconstruction, use, and maintenance. Each new instant of sign construction is new,each sign hierarchy that becomes constructed in new and unique, and each act ofdemolishing itor its mere abandonmentis a part of the general feature ofhuman living (Valsiner, 2014). We are always moving toward the unknownfuture, using the experiences of the past to prepare to make the not-yet-familiarinto the known, the remembered, andeventuallythe forgotten.

Hence, cultural psychology needs to clarify some of these issues by elaboratinghow methodology in science is a culturally set-up framework for producing newknowledge. Here, the human beings bet dramatically on the futurewhat is valuedis the discovery of something the value of which is not yet clear. Our focus on thesearch for thisambiguousnew knowledge is itself highly valued. We value sci-encebut science, at the frontiers, is never giving us full knowledge. Knowledge isalways partialrelative to the historical conditions of its emergence, and always intension with eorts to generalize it beyond its place of birth.3

The snares of psychology: It can discover what wasin the past

William Jameslargely a disciple of mid-19th century German scholar HermannLotze (Valsiner, 2012)was an astute observer of the changes in psychology that



were going on in the second half of the 19th century. In his Principles of Psychology(published rst in 1890), he both overviewed the knowledge of his time and pointedto a number of critical features of that knowledge. His concerns remain valid alsoin our times.

First of all, James observed, psychologists of his time trusted the use of commonlanguage, to the point where the meanings of the words were taken as if these werethe phenomena to which these words commonly refer. The naming of a psycho-logical state is not the same as the state itselfI feel angry is not the same as thefeeling that triggered such signication, but a state of saying-I-feel-angry (James,1950, p. 190). This feature is captured in the minimal hierarchy of sign construc-tionthe sign that represents some experience is of meta-level relative to theexperience, and succeeds the experience in irreversible time.4

James formulated this methodological concern as psychologists fallacyconcisely. It is

. . . the confusion of his own standpoint with that of the mental fact about which he is

making his report. (James, 1950, p. 196)

A corollary to this fallacy is

. . .the assumption that the mental state studied must be conscious of itself as the

psychologist is conscious of it. (James, 1950, p. 197)

This fallacy of psychologists has led to various eorts to overcome it, all ofwhich have failed. The behavioral credoof creating the clear distinction of theobserved from the observer (the observed behaves, the observer describes thebehavior) was a sincere but nave eort to solve James (and psychologys) prob-lem. Borrowing computer metaphors for the description of mental processesascognitive science has perfectedmaintains the distinction allowing for mentalisticdescription of phenomena but keeping to distanced mechanical description in theexplanations. Projecting the computer metaphor into the human mind reverses thehistory of the precedenceminds created computers, not vice versa.

In contrast, a new eort to develop methodology that would match the com-plexity and dynamicity of human psychological phenomena is the next frontier forthe science of cultural psychology. We need to honor William James critiques ofthe psychology of his time by solving the problems that have remained with us overa hundred yearsin new ways. A way to it is explicit acceptance of the complexityof the phenomena, and adjusting methodology to it, rather than forcing thephenomena to t our consensually validated methods:

If we take seriously the notion of holistic empirical investigation, then we must begin

holistically, re-establishing the indissoluable ties between theory, method and proced-

ure and resisting the manualization of research procedures. We must also learn to

develop theories of relations and not simply of elemental properties. Such theories

Valsiner 7


must concern particular units, elds, or systems of relations and not to be reduced to,

or interpreted in the terms of, other systems. Methodologically, this kind of unit

analysis requires a research situation that is functionally equivalent to the phenomena

being modeled and thus also requires more contextualized and dynamic observational

techniques and environments. (Clegg, 2009, pp.174175)

Thinking in science should survive manualizationand relevant social repre-sentations such as objectivity, methodology, and data need to be clearlyconceptualized.

The meaning of objectivity

Science is aimed at producing objective knowledgeyet from the perspective ofcultural psychology one would need to begin from the questionwhat is the mean-ing of that general term, and what role does it play in dierent sciences.

In the European societies by the end of the 19th century

Purity and objectivity became watchwords of professional social science, and as moral

values they helped to shape it, but the social sciences did not, indeed could not, cut

their links to politics and administration. (Porter, 2003, p. 254)

Thus, objectivity is a moral value, rather than a state of aairs that stands out all byitself. The call for purity through objectivityencoded into numbers and analyzedstatisticallyhas thus proliferated in the social sciences beyond the bounds ofrationality. Morality discourses are politicaland in the case of ethics of object-ivity in the social sciences, it is the role of these discourses in the guidance of whatwe are supposed to want to know.

If we were to claim that objectivity involves reliance on facts, the same questionremainswhat is a fact? What is the meaning of the data? A refreshing answerfor this is:

Historically the concepts of data and facts came into language around the 16th cen-

tury. Although they are generally used synonymously today, data and facts are

derived from dierent etymological roots. Datum means literally a thing given or

grantedles donnees in French. Factum means things done or performed. The

German word for fact implies a thing doneTatsache. The Latin verb facere, to

do, is the root of factum as well as of feat, manufacture, factory. Data are thus

given to things, not thoughts. Datum and factum are past participles, referring to

the nished past. (Kvale, 1976, p. 91)

The nished nature of the facts and data are a natural result of our inquiry as itis delimited within irreversible time. Yet, science is not collecting facts and clas-sifying these into pre-established categories. Instead, science explores new know-ledgewhich, from its beginning, is not knowledge at all. It may be an insight,



a hint, a hypothesisbut not a fact. The scientic enterprise in knowledge con-struction precedes the establishment of facts, and facts are linked with the theor-etical contexts in which they were generated. We need to understand the process ofknowledge constructionwhich happens through the methodology process.

Frames of reference as axiomatic starting points fortheory construction

Frames of reference are meta-cognitive models through which researchers recon-struct the phenomena into intelligible explanatory narratives. They are intellectualtelescopes that allow us to bring dierent features of the depths of psychologicalphenomena to our ways of understanding them. These frames are windows ofopportunity to see some features of the object more clearly than others. By focusingresearchers orientation, they also delimit it.

If we look at psychology from the historical viewpoint, it is the intra-individual(intra-systemic) reference frame that has been used in the emerging discipline sincethe 18th century. Psychology is a discipline that has focused on the psychologicalfunctions and faculties that are projected to be inside of the persons. Our thinking,feeling, and perceiving we consider to be in ususing the body as the boundaryof the in/out distinction. Beyond that the eorts to localize dierent psycho-logical functions have been widely and wildly dispersed, ending up with phrenologyof localizing such characteristics in the form of the skull, or in the functionalmagnetic resonance (fMRI) images of the brain (see Figure 1(a)).

Starting from approximately the 1920s, psychology at large adopted the inter-individual (inter-systemic) reference frame that radically changed the social practicesof research. Instead of analyzing psychological phenomena within individualcasesover time (i.e. relying on comparisons within the given person), the dier-ences between persons became the axiomatic domain for study. The hope for gen-eralization was now delegated to comparison of samples selected by some criteriaand turned into random ones. The belief was that through suciently largenumber and randomly selected set of subjects would warrant the treatment ofthe obtained dierences in averages of the samples as if these would representthe generic individuals of the compared classes (see Figure 1(b)).

All explanation for psychological phenomena Is made by attribution to

here: MIND or BRAIN

All explanation for psychological phenomena Is made by attribution to

DIFFERENCES between P and Q

P Q(a) (b)

Figure 1. Intra-individual (a) and inter-individual and (b) reference frames.

Valsiner 9


Considering individuals as mutually replaceable tokensin space and timerequired the axiomatic acceptance of ergodicity5which has been proven mathem-atically unwarranted (Molenaar, Huizenga, & Nesselroade, 2003). This proofrenders the overwhelming accumulation of psychologys data mute to anygeneralization as the dierences between averages of samples cannot representthe dierences between individuals. It is impossible to assume that an averagedierence in parameter X between samples of males and females can tell ussomething conclusive between the real gender dierences between Jim and Jill.

Both intra-systemic and inter-systemic reference frames are similarly context-free. Comparisons that are made do not include any relation of the systemsinvolved with their contexts. Yet, we know that all biological, psychological, andsocial systems are open systemsthey depend in their existence upon the exchangerelation with their environment. Hence, the use of both intra-individual and inter-individual reference frames is inadequate for psychology at large, and for develop-mental and cultural psychology. Alternatives are needed.

Among the alternative reference frames, two context-inclusive ones bring uscloser to an adequate look at developmental and cultural phenomena. TheIndividual-Ecological frame entails the look at the ongoing exchange relations ofthe organism with the environment. This frame ts all biological phenomena andthe study of most nonhuman species in comparative psychology (Figure 2).As it does not presume the constructive focus on something that modies thatrelationshiptools or signsit is not usable in cultural psychology.

Having eliminated the rst three reference frames from use in cultural psych-ology, we are left with the fourth onethe Individual-Socioecological frame(Figure 3). It is an extension of the Individual-Ecological frame as it adds to itsstructure the role of external guidance by goals-oriented otherspersons, institu-tions, etc. It ts the human condition, and complicates the elaboration ofmethodology.

Figure 3 indicates how in the construction of any method in culturalpsychologybased on the Methodology Cycle (Figure 4)four (rather than one)conditions have to be considered. In each and every research project, the researcherneeds to specify the following:

1. The nature of the System (person, social group, community, institution) as itrelates with the environment. The being (ontological status) of the system isviewed from its functional extension (how it establishes ties with environment).

P Environment

Figure 2. Taking environment into account: the Individual-Ecological frame.



Not establishing such ties is impossible for an open system, but selective ways ofestablishing these are the relevant information about the system.

2. The nature of the environment (structured, quasi-structured, random, etc.)what it could aord the system that is establishing relations with it?

Figure 4. The Methodology Cycle.

Figure 3. The focus in cultural psychology: the Individual-Socioecological reference frame.

Valsiner 11


3. The expectationsencoded both into the psyche and the environmentof dif-ferent social others that are expected to orient the SystemEnvironmentrelations. These can include immediate actions by others (e.g. mother to child ina church be quiet!), set-up explicit signs in the environment (e.g. an instruc-tion Silence! at the entrance to a church), or historically formed signs thatguide the relation with the environment in macro-time (e.g. the architecturalfeatures of a church that emphasize the notion of it being a special place andother social representations encoded into multiple sign forms).

4. The goal orientations of the given person, dealing with oneself (1), the structureof the environment (2), and the social guidance (3).

Thinking through the implications of the Individual-Socioecological reference frameleads us to the clear need for re-conceptualizing psychologys habits of collectingdata and their analysis eorts. The usual mode of data derivation in psychologyhappens with the Intra-Systemic reference frame implied (e.g. these dataX, Y,Zrefer to the person who has given these answers that we proceed to analyze).The following inductive generalization comes with the shift of reference framesinto the inter-individual one. The answers of persons in category A are now com-pared with those in category B, and the inter-individual variability is used to arriveat conclusionswhich are subsequently back-projected into the image of a genericcase (Valsiner, 1986).

The cycle of methodology

There are dierent ways of looking at methodology: toolbox of methods versusstrategy for generalization (Toomela, 2009, 2012). The former is simplemethod-ology is a set of methods that the researcher may elect to useor not useat oneswill, depending upon current fashions in the discipline, or perceived validity value.Thus, quantitative methods have been prioritized as scientic in psych-ologywithout anybody ever proving that these are that. Furthermore, proof oftheir scientic nature is in itself impossible within the realm designated as sci-ence. Statements about something (X is scientic) do not belong as members ofthe set {the something: e.g. method X, method Y, etc.}.

By insisting upon a method as if it is scientic is a nominalist solution tothe problem of knowledge (Wissenschaft) in the given area of expertise. It doesnot change the nominalist solution if further characteristics are added toit (e.g. standardized, i.e. coordinated across contexts and approved by astandardizing institution). The frames of reference described above guidethe actions of the researchers within the Methodology Cycle, renderingsome moves meaningful and others meaningless. They are located at the levelof the relation of the meta-codes (General Assumptions) with theory building(Figure 4).



Science starts from intuitionalbeit one that is educated in the process of ini-tiation into social practices of science (see center of Figure 4). The ways how suchinitiation works diers across disciplines. The educated intuition is in the very coreof all science. The rst question for a researcher iswhat research questions areworthwhile to ask in the rst place. Intuition here comes rstyet it is educated,not nave, andnot pure. There are many layers of personalcultural needs thatturn an ordinary person into a scientist. Here, the scientist and artist functionsimilarlythe emergence of an idea is hidden somewhere in the internal innityof our mind.

Methodology is in the center of our knowledge creation. Yet it is an ambiguoustermoften considered to be a synonym of method. I keep strictbutinclusiveseparation of the twomethod is part of methodology, but thelatter cannot be reduced to it. Figure 4 presents a model of methodology thathas been the core in my building up the system of semiotic cultural psychology(Branco & Valsiner, 1997). It is not a new idearather, it restores the basic notionof methodology as a system of generalizing thought to psychology at large andcultural psychology in its unique form. The latter is of holistic kinddisallowingthe breakdown of the whole into elements. Instead, we will examine particularmutual relations within the cycle and spell out their implications.

Basic assumptions Phenomena relation

The intuitively tuned researcher assumes someexplicit or implicitaxiomaticposition in taking a stance toward the eld of phenomena. The four frames ofreference, outlined above, are examples of such meta-codes. Basic decisions aboutthe focusinside (of a system), outside, or in-betweenare axiomatic.

As the researcher selects ones axioms on the basis of how these relate with thephenomena, the move to construction or adoption of theoretical frames proceedsin parallel. Every theoretical proposition that is constructed must coordinate wellwith the basic assumptions. It is usual that intellectual ruptures happen precisely incarving out this relation. For exampleat the level of Basic Assumptions, thenotion of human psychological functioning as an open system is declaredbutthen in the building of theory, all propositions are made in terms of inherentproperties of the persons.6 This constitutes a mismatch of referenceframessubstitution of the Individual-Socioecological frame by the intra-individualonewith the result that all subsequent empirical work rendering data that fail torepresent the phenomena, and are therefore useless.

The step at which mists between Basic Assumptions and Theory are revealedmost visibly is the construction of hypotheses. Hypotheses lead from the BasicAssumptions Theory relation to the next step within the MethodologyCyclethe TheoryMethod Construction relation. For example, the symbolicmeaning attached to randomization (in random sampling of subjects or random-ization in every aspect of setting up the study) is a frequently used

Valsiner 13


hyper-generalized sign that legitimizes the researchers thinking of the move toempirical investigation. A general paradox is involved in the use of that sign:

. . .to speak of a random individual is not to speak of an individual at all. When one

introduces random individuals, one can do so meaningfully only subject to the self-

denying ordinance represented by the convention that: Nothing is to be said about a

random individual that is not intended about ALL of the individuals of the domain at

issue. A random individual is therefore not a thing but a linguistic principle, a short-

hand device for presenting universal statements. (Rescher, 1968, p. 137)

Rescher here points to the paradox of treating heterogeneous classes as if thesewere homogeneousif we need to make any selection of random individual outof population we presume individuality (uniqueness), but our reason for makingsuch selection is to say something about all individuals in the class (homogeneity).Randomness also presumes independence of the elements among the objects of thestudyan unwarranted assumption in the case of psychological systems (Valsiner& Sato, 2006). Human beings are not marbles one can at ones will draw from anurnthe favorite image of statistics textbooksbut willful, desirous, reective,and at times resistant individuals who are tied to their peers by kinship, friendship,and prot relationships.

A similar diculty in the trajectory Basic Assumptions Theory Methodsin the Methodology Cycle is in the conceptualization of quality quantity rela-tionships. Here, sociopolitical rules interferequantication is a political credothat has dominated the social sciences over the past century (Porter, 1995).In reality, the philosophical underpinnings of that relation are highly complexqualities can include quantity as a sub-part of a quality (e.g. the general qualitytemperature includes sub-qualities determinable quantitatively on any used meas-urement scaleCelsius, Fahrenheit, or Kelvin). Quantityas a form of qual-itycannot exist without its superordinate quality. The quantitative qualitytodays air temperature is + 20C cannot exist without the qualitative notionof temperature in general.

Theory Methods Construction relation

As a theory is constructed and hypothesesqualitative rather than quantita-tiveset, the issue of constructing an appropriate set of methods comes to thefore (see Figure 4). It is here that the researcherbased on ones educated intu-itionneeds to coordinate the method construction with the relation on the otherside of the Methodology Cycle (The Phenomena Methods line).

The three general ways of looking at knowledge generalization inscienceinductive, deductive, and abductiveset up this relationship in vastlydierent ways. In the case of the inductive approach, the methods have an authori-tative existence on their own, and evidence will accumulate on the basis of the useof the methodsgenerating data. Theories here are either used as external



delimiters of the inductive generalization enterprise or mere nominal umbrellas(see Valsiner, 2000, pp.6465) that provide external legitimacy to the inductivegeneralization process.

Smedslund has been criticizing this aspect of psychologys methodologyitspseudo-empiricismsystematically over the past 40 years (Smedslund, 1978, 1980,1997, 2009, 2012)but to no avail. The factory of measurement in psychologyguarantees its continued pseudo-empiricism well into the 21st century. Culturalpsychology has the chanceof course at the risk of being socially excluded frombeing a scienceto bypass this semiotic/social trap. The completely deductiveschemeexemplied in psychology by Smedslunds eorts to dene theoremsof common sense (Smedslund, 1997)is the mirror image of the inductiveapproach, in its top-to-down determination of the whole set of psychologicalphenomena. Here the notion of method becomes replaced by the fully deduct-ive theorytheoretical work, based on educated intuition and observation ofphenomenabecomes the method.

Obviously, cultural psychology would be ill served by both of these directions.The third alternativethe abductive wayremains tting for areas of sciencewhere the object is constantly changing, despite diculties of making its meaningclear (Pizarroso & Valsiner, 2009). It is exemplied by Albert Einsteins treatmentof empirical evidencedismissing its accumulation as irrelevant, while remainingconstantly on the watch for the crucial experimental work that could introduce theneed for major modications in theory (Hentschel, 1992). The primarily theoreticalwork requires empirical vericationbut only once in a while, at specic theoret-ical bifurcation points. Yetat those points, and only therethat input of empir-ical work acquires absolute relevance. The adequacy of the methods used to gainempirical evidence at those points is crucialand any empirical nding requirescareful post-factum scrutiny of whether it might have been an interference by themethod that was used.7

Phenomena Methods Construction relation

While corresponding to the theoretical structure of argumentation, the constructedmethods cannot violate relevant aspects of the phenomena. Checking whether thephenomena are not violated by the articial steps of method construction is acrucial task at every moment.

Sometimes there are enormous gaps between the phenomena that are claimed tobe studied and the methods applied. For example, the use of fMRI techniques hasbecome popular in psychology in the recent decades. The persuasive value on thereaders of reports who observe beautiful color images of the brainwith someparts showing heightened activityhas been shown (McCabe & Castel, 2008). Yetsuch persuasiveness is not equal to knowledge. When it comes to the actual repre-sentation of neural processes, the method of magnetic resonance showing bloodow changes is inferior to traditional methods of electronic on-scalp recordings(Chelnokova, 2009; Miller, 2008). The neuronal processes proceed with speeds of

Valsiner 15


two biological processesthat of nerve impulses and of the speed of blood ow inthe cardiovascular system. These speeds are drastically dierentthe nerveimpulses proceed 50100 times quicker than the blood ow.8 Trying to study thefunctioning of the nervous system in all of its speed, using a method based on afunctional system that is slower by its functions, would not tthe speed of thephenomena under study renders the use of the magnetic resonance techniques mutewhen these are used beyond specifying the stable intensity of processes in staticparts of the brain. The MRI technique is highly productive in providing theresearchers and clinicians the best view possible to the anatomical structures ofthe body and even into their functioningyet in cases of relatively slowly proceed-ing processes.

Methods Data relation

At the very bottom of our Methodology Cycle, we nd the Data. It becomes clearthat the data are constructedor derivedentities that are not facts (that standalone). Data require an interpretive framework within which they become inform-ative. That framework is provided by one or another conguration of theMethodology Cycle. The usualdeeply impoverishedconguration that is usedin empirical psychology consists only of MethodsData relation, perhaps withthe Theory kept at a distance as an umbrella of convenience. In such case, theonly interpretability of the data is within the method discourseleading to evalu-ative claims (I have good datawhich may mean anything: many data points,approximated by the normal distribution curve, etc.).

The important feature of this bookinviting its readers to cultural psych-ologyis the absence of the data in most of my elaborations of key issues ofscience. This is deliberate. I have tried to present the selected abstract issues ofemerging cultural psychology in ways that are as near to the phenomena as pos-sible, turning some of these phenomena into de facto data. These data are quali-tative in their nature, which ts the systemic nature of culturalpsychologicalphenomena. There is no quantication imperative in cultural psych-ologyyet there is a quest toward abstract formalization of its general principles(Rudolph, 2013).

The art of science

The ways of the artist and those of the scientist meet in the middle of Figure 4.Both rely on the intuitionbe it educated in the scientic lores or artistic ingrasping the crucial features of human existence. An artist without such penetrat-ing subjectivity could perhaps devise advertising billboards, and a scientist withoutintuition may successfully write review articles. It is very unlikely that a personwith full knowledge of what others have done in the given science could arrive atbreakthroughs to arrive at new knowledge. In order for new knowledge construc-tion be triggered, there need to be holes, or unnished tasks, in it.



Albert Einstein, when queried about his self-view of thinking by JacquesHadamard, set the aective imaginative meaning-making into the center of thecreative process:

The words or the language, as they are written or spoken, do not seem to play any role

in my mechanism of thought. The psychical entities which seem to serve as elements in

thought are certain signs and more or less clear images which can be voluntarily

reproduced and combined.

There is, of course, a certain connection between those elements and relevant logical

concepts. It is also clear that the desire to arrive nally at logically connected concepts

is the emotional basis of this rather vague play with the above mentioned elements. . .

The above mentioned elements are, in my case, of visual and some muscular type.

Conventional words or other signs have to be sought for laboriously only in a sec-

ondary stage, when the mentioned associative play is suciently established and can

be reproduced by will. (Hadamard, 1954, pp.147148)

Einsteins self-reection is no sign of genius. Rather, it is a perceptive description ofthe move from what Ganzheitspsychologie has been considering the move fromintermediate to nal Gestalts (Friedrich Sanders and Erich Wolfahrts work in1920sAbbey & Diriwachter, 2008). We may also remember Einsteins charmingsuccess as a violin playerand it is exactly in the case of people well versed inmusic that the body-based aective intuition relates with the hyper-generalized eldof the musical signs. In terms of the version of cultural psychology of semioticdynamics, we can interpret this primacy of imagination over verbal encoding interms of the relationship of the pleromatic and schematizing pathways on signhierarchy construction (Valsiner, 2014). Orin Einsteins termsthe capacity tofeel-in into the current experience9 sets the stage for asking relevant research ques-tions. Orto generalizein order to be able to ask relevant questions in onesresearch, developing such intuitive Einfuhlung is crucial. Primate researchers inJapan build their studies of animal behavior on the cultural basis of feeling-inwith the primateswell in line with the general holistic and ecological worldview, and quite contrary to the Occidental suppression of the aect fromresearch.10

However, not every kind of feeling into ones experience leads us to science. Theart of intuitive grasping of relevant problems becomes streamlined in the process oftheory construction by creating a frame of reference.

Where psychology fails: Trust in correlations

The invention of the notion of correlation in the history of statistics by FrancisGalton, Charles Spearman, Felix Krueger, and Karl Pearson at the end of the 19thcentury has done a major disservice for psychology to transpose real relationshipsinto formal ones. Psychological generalization becomes mootany discovery of

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relationships between variable X and variable Y in a correlational analysisreveals little about the actual functioning of the system in which whatever X and Yrepresent are systemically linked. Correlational data do not explainthey needexplanation themselves! This claim has dramatic implications for the standardpractices in psychology of our days where correlational evidencegeneralized todiscourse about signicant relations between variablesis usually viewed asthe nal result of investigation.

An example from regular practice of data derivation would make it clear howthe specic tactics of data analysis create new hurdles for understanding, ratherthan new understanding. Let us consider an item from a personality question-nairea method set up explicitly within the intra-individual reference frameandlook at the dierent interpretations that could be given to the very same item thatseems to be a straightforward statement about the respondents self:

I am easily bothered by people making demands on me. (Valsiner, Bibace, &

Lapushin, 2005, pp.284285)

Items like this can be given to subjects with dierent pre-set responsetemplatesTRUE versus FALSE, or a Likert scale between these twooptions. If the response is TRUE (or FALSE), it becomes analyzed as if itrepresented the real self-reection of an internal quality of the person. That isconsistent with the intra-individual reference frame.

However, if we now shift to the Individual-Socioecological reference frame, theseemingly simple statement about oneself becomes quite complex. Dierentemphases and contextualizations can be given to dierent parts of the statement:

a. I am easily bothered by people making demands in me (P!E);b. I am easily bothered by people making demands on me (P E);c. I am easily bothered [BUT I WANTOR NOT WANTTO BE!] by people

making demands on me (P! {PE}]; andd. I am easily bothered [BUT OTHERS SAY I SHOULDOR SHOULD

NOTBE!] by people making demands on me (O! {PE}].

A quadruplet structure like the one shown here replaces a unitary question of aregular questionnaire. Either outcome answertrue or false (orevenworsequantication of that opposition on a scale) is a result of a microgeneticprocess that involves all four foci.

So, instead of a study of personality, we have here a study of the adaptationprocess of a person as a whole to the structure of ones environment. Traditionalpersonality psychology makes the attribution of causality for human conduct tosome imaginary personality characteristicspsychologys equivalent to ether orphlogiston in physics or chemistry. The cultural psychology of semiotic mediationwould turn the research question from ontological statements (I am bothered byX, Y, Z) into under what conditions would the meaning I am bothered emerge



at all in ones encounter with the social world. And, furthermore, once itemergeshow is it circumventedafter all, we create meanings that make ourencounters unpleasant, but we learn to neutralize these.

From causality to catalysis

Psychology has been trapped by its adherence to causal attributionswhile itsneighboring disciplines of chemistry and biology have already long time movedinto a noncausal systems of explanation. These systems are catalyticemphasizingthe relevance of presence of dierent conditions in the emergence and developmentof phenomena. The idea of catalysis is oldin chemistry, it goes back to1830sbut for psychology, it is very new (Cabell & Valsiner, 2013).

History of psychology includes earlier eorts to bring the notion of catalysisinto the discipline. Back in 1927, Kurt Lewin emphasized the notion of conditional-genetic nature of unitary complex phenomena (konditional-genetischeZusammenhangeLewin, 1927, p. 403) where through the study of varied condi-tions of functioning (Bedingungsstruktur) of the system its potentials for transform-ation into a new stateas well as conditions of its breakdowncould be revealed.Lev Vygotskys use of the same epistemological mindset led him to the elaborationof the Method of Double Stimulation as the methodological tool for developmen-tal psychology (see Valsiner, 2000, pp.7881, 2007; van der Veer, 2009; Wagoner,2009). That method is in the very core of Vygotskys methodological credocom-ing out from his primary focus on esthetics, interest in child development in edu-cational settings, and the prevailing atmosphere of dialectics of social turmoils inthe world surrounding him in the 1920s and early 1930s.

The crucial feature of Vygotskys method was the construction of means(stimulus-means)in the form of action tools or signs to make sense of thegiven setting. This entails a new look at methods constructionthe method fordevelopmental and cultural analysis needs to focus on the emergence of thosefunctional aspects of the situation that are called for by the setting, and createdby the intentional and goal-oriented agent. The notion of measurement appliesnot to what is, but to what is not yet, and to conditions that might bring it into being.The centrality of the whole of the Methodology Cycle makes the construction ofsuch methodsof the study of nothingness (that may become something) scientif-ically interesting.

Methods of movement

What our Methodology Cycleas applied to cultural phenomenaleads to is thefocus on human activities in constant movement. Our psychological functionsoperate as we movewalk, run, drive, dance, or even sleep. We move betweenhome and workplace or school. We go on a pilgrimage (Beckstead, 2012)or to apsychologist, which itself is also a kind of a pilgrimage. Rarely are we in a staticpositionsit down and act in ways expected from us in psychology laboratories

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or classrooms. Such periods of staying in one place are pauses between move-mentsthey are the context within which innovationan act ofmovementoccurs.

If method construction in cultural psychology were to remain tting psycho-logical phenomena, the primacy of the persons-on-the-move would need to beencoded into the ways in which methods are constructed. In cultural psychology,the key feature is the regulation by signsand hence the methods need to demon-strate how the presence of signs organizes the psyche. This is best observable whenthe previous organizational form is either demolished or made dicult to be put towork in real life. The testing conditions start from the top.

Figure 5 illustrates the basic focus of empirical investigative tactic in culturalpsychology of semiotic dynamics. The subject is givenor is discovered to haveones ownspecic goal direction (moving11 from position A to position B).

Once the subject has begun the move, the researcher either detects (in naturalconditions) or inserts (in experimental conditions) a meaning that suggests ordemands the opposite to the suggested and started move. This conictbetweenestablished and sought-for goal, and the border that prohibits access to it (mean-ing block in Figure 5) triggers the microgenetic process of adaptation to thechanged situation.12 It can entail boundary behaviorstruggling against theborder, trying to break through the barrier; or exiting from the setting, or,likewise, bypassing the barrier reaching the goal. The process of meanings-basedconstruction is expected to reveal the basic psychological processes that areinvolved in human ways of adapting to the environment and of the environmentto oneself. In that process, semiotic mediating devicessigns and cultural toolscome into use in specic time moments.

Figure 5. The epistemological master scheme in cultural psychology.



Methods of re- and pre-construction (post-factumand pre-factum)

As is obvious from the premises of considering irreversible time to be the inevitabledelimiter of our experiences and our study of them, methods that cultural psych-ology can create are always time dependent. The eort to capture the processes asthese unfold necessarily turn into post-factum (i.e. the currently observed process,when recorded, is already part of the past) or pre-factum (i.e. the process is ima-gined as if possibly taking place in the near or not so near future, but it has notbecome actualized)-based methods.

History of psychology provides us with a number of accounts of the post-factumfocused methodsthe introspection of the Wurzburg School of early 20th cen-tury (Humphrey, 1951), the Second Leipzig Schools methods of Aktualgeneseexpanded into idiographic microgenesis (Abbey & Diriwachter, 2008;Diriwachter, 2009, 2012), Heinz Werners focus on microgenesis (Wagoner,2009), the thinking aloud methods from Otto Selz and Karl Duncker to contem-porary cognitive science (Ericsson & Simon, 1993; Simon, 2007), and FredericBartletts method of repeated reproduction with its contemporary extension intoconversational repeated reconstructions (Wagoner, 2007, 2009, 2012), and the use ofmicrogenetic techniques in personality research (the Lund school of personalityresearch of Ulf Kragh and Gudmund Smith).

Psychologys method building has been remarkably poor about clarity about thepre-factum-based methods. Lev Vygotskys notion of zone of proximal development(Valsiner & van der Veer, 1993, 2014) poses the need for developing pre-factummethodsso far that need is not fullled. Dierent modeling eorts to look atdevelopmentthose of Paul van Geerts Experimental Theoretical Psychology, andTatsuya Satos Trajectory Equinality Model (TEM) touch upon the potential fordeveloping pre-factum-based methods. Of course, any study of creativityif seenfrom the perspective of cultural psychology of semiotic dynamicsneeds to belonghere (Tanggaard, 2014). Any act of creativity belongs to the pre-factum line when itunfolds but becomes recognized as such only post-factum. The diculty of plan-ning to be creative (move from internal innity to external innity in the pre-factum mode) is formidable since that state cannot be pre-determined because itneed the post-factum comparison for discovery of the creative act.

Introspection and extrospection

For psychology, the parallel processes of introspection and extrospection remaincentral for method construction. The combination of pre-factum and post-factumfoci of methods with that of introspection and extrospection gives us a mappingonto the tetradic scheme that is covering all of its four sides (Figure 6).

Every method in psychology that is ever constructed nds its own place withinthe coordinates of the scheme (Figure 6). The researchers positionsuggestedusually to the subjectis located in the center, at the intersection of the

Valsiner 21


four arrows. Method-building in cultural psychologydependent on the goals ofthe research projectneeds to include at least some of the four movement direc-tions, and/or their relation. An instruction to extrospectlook outwards fromoneselfin a study setting needs to be directed inwardly, toward the introspectionline. Likewise, the act of externalizing the results of introspective contempla-tion indicates the move into the extrospective line. Whatever form ofmethodsintrospective experiment, interview, questionnaire, analysis of everydayactivity settings or narratives or discourses, etc.is used in method construction,all these forms need to bring out to the open the processes of coordinated move-ment, challenged by various obstacles that trigger tensions (Figure 3).

Trajectory Equifinality Model

This pre-factum-focused method (Sato et al., 2012) innovates our method construc-tion realm, particularly as it unites the post-factum search and the contrast betweenpossible and actual trajectories considered as possibilities, in irreversible time. It isa method that is aimed at revealing the processes of construction of a trajectory ofmovement of a system as it is happening. In order to do that, the method needs toconsider what has already happened up to now, in the light of what could happen inthe next step into the future, and what should happenas determined by the personand the social demands upon the person.

Figure 6. Method construction mapped onto the tetradic scheme of infinities.



TEM breaks up the backbone of contemporary psychologyits reliance uponinductive generalization and its practical elaboration conventionally called meas-urement. TEM works with structural qualitative units of analysis that belong toboth sides of the border of the present. TEM involves careful investigation ofrelevant phenomena and our basic assumptions about them. Its basic structure(Figure 6) is centered on the distinction between FUTURE and PAST in the con-sideration of actual and potential trajectories. Both kinds of phenomena, real(what happened) and post-factum imaginary (X, Y, Z) and future imaginary(A, B, C) are treated as relevant in TEM. Consider the following comment givento Pierre Janet by one of his patients who commented upon the simple actof opening a book:

This book must be immoral, since, opening it, I have the same feeling I used to have

when I was secretly reading forbidden books in boarding school (Janet, 1928, p. 300)

Here in a brief statement, we have backward reference to actual activity in the past(reading forbidden books) that implies the contrast to what she did not do (refrainfrom reading such books) and the forward impact onto the act nowopening abook (without reading it yet) rather than not opening it (an alternative that wouldavoid the tension in the making). She still opens the book and immediately passesjudgment on it on the basis of the past real event that involved crossing boundary(forbidden). The impact of the past tension re-constructs new tension, in the newact. Figure 7 provides a generic structure of TEM.

The consideration that the real and the imaginary are equalyet distin-guishedsources for psychological data derivation. This feature keeps the TEMmethod apart from other ways of looking at life-course trajectories. The latter takestock of the actualized pasts, orif looking into the futureabout the expected tobe actualized future (e.g. any inquiry into adolescents future life plans).Furthermore, descriptions of life course trajectories of the actualized past (andfuture) fail to consider the central point of the immediate presentwhere thefuture is being negotiated. The TEM model does, it is located in the present (how-ever miniscule time moment it may bea microsecond or a year), querying peo-ples looking forward (pre-factum) and backward (post-factum) in their subjectivelives (inquiry into internal innity) through their social life events (externalinnity).

Since all moments of the present are those of an individual person, the TEMmodel is an example of application of idiographic science (Salvatore & Valsiner,2010). It is universal in its schemeTEM model captures any process of negoti-ation of past and future, for any individual person in the World, being centered inthe movement onwards from the here-and-now state. Yet, its material isuniquethe phenomena of the vanishing present are not only individual featuresof the person but also transient events within the life of the person. We here have aunity of the universal model that maps onto the absolute uniqueness of every lifemoment. Generality is expressed in the constant production of noveltya point that

Valsiner 23


Magoroh Maruyama understood well in his development of second cyberneticsin the 1960s.

At the level of the meta-code, it is reasonable to assume that all biologicalsystems (and derivations from thempsychological, social, and historical systems)work under the conditions of variability amplication (Maruyama, 1963, 1988).13

If this axiomatic point is taken, the traditional reliance in psychology on average orprototypical cases loses its centrality and becomes merely an anchor point in rela-tion to which the unique innovations are being judged. It is precisely the supposednonnormalitythe deviance from the average that takes the form of a novelsynthesisthat is in the focus of attention. Development is possible only in the caseof open systems. Methodology of open systems needs to analyze that process ofamplicationjust the opposite to the reduction of variability to averages orprototypes.

Conclusion: Methodology as movement

Methodology cannot be reduced to method. The data are subservient within thewhole of the Methodology Cycle. They become crucial only in theoretically rele-vant moments. Einsteins focus on looking for the experimentum crucis is broughthere into cultural psychology as a prevailing credo. This is in stark contrast to thenotion of accumulation of the data that, at some expected yet indeterminate futurepoint, would resolve our problems in psychology and its practical application. Theinductive pathway to generalization is necessarily limitedit requires combination

Figure 7. The Trajectory Equifinality Model.



with the opposite, top-down pathway of deductive guidance of where empiricalinvestigation can be crucial. Together, the two pathways can meet in the abductionprocess (Pizarroso & Valsiner, 2009).

When seen from the centrality of key empirical evidenceexperimentumcrucisit becomes clear that methodology cannot be manualized. This includessegregation of the methods from the Methodology Cycle and giving dierentmethods dierent social value by consensus (e.g. objective methods). All meth-ods in science are a part of a deeply subjectivesometimes exaggeratedlyaectiveeorts of knowledge construction. In line with this, I am purposefullyavoiding addressing (and answering) pragmatic questions usually asked aboutmethods (e.g. how should I create a valid questionnaire?). Answers to suchquestions come from the askers own thinking within the frame of theMethodology Cycle. If that thinking fails, psychology would be impoverished byyet one more empirical study that produces irrelevant data.

Cultural psychology has a chance to restore the focus of psychology to that ofhumanly relevant phenomena. This chance is based on its systemic look at themethodology as a wholeas a process of generalized meaning-making. The scien-tist in that process is centralthe intuitive grasp of phenomena can turn in thehands and minds of creative scientists into general knowledge. The complexity ofpsychological phenomena includes self-reexivity of the meaning-maker as a com-plicated condition that needs to be considered explicitly. Psychology has avoideddoing so for a centurybut cannot continue that practice any longer.

Acknowledgement

I am grateful to Pina Marsico for inspirationboth caeinated and intellectualin bringing

this paper to its conclusion.

Funding

The writing of this Editorial was supported by the Niels Bohr Professorship grant from theDanish Ministry of Science and Technology.

Notes

1. To appear as Valsiner, J. (2014) Invitation to cultural psychology. London, England: Sage.2. A real life example of this process is the fate of the notion of intelligencesince the 1920s,

it has become defined through the method that is devised to measure it.

3. This tension has led to the post-modernist denial of the possibility for generalization andconsideration of knowledge as always local (e.g. Geertz, 1983).

4. While it is true that James allows for temporal co-existence of the experience and its

naming (1950, p. 190, footnote)in the case of enduring experience (e.g. feelingdepressed can last long, including in time the claim I feel depressed)the meta-levelnature of sign mediation relative to the object of such mediation remains in place.

Hundred years and more have not changed the situation in psychologythe displace-ment of the original phenomena by the labels (words, ratings, etc.) attributed to themremains the confusing hindrance for psychological science.

Valsiner 25


5. Ergodicity presumes that inter-individual and intra-individual variations in a set areisomorphic. It fits to all phenomena that do not undergo change or developmentinthat case, the simultaneity or successivity of phenomena are equal. Ergodicity fits time-

free world. In the case of all phenomena that undergo transformation in irreversibletime, ergodicity does not apply.

6. A concrete example of such misfit is the history of attachment theory. Startedby John

Bowlbyfrom an axiomatic focus on attachment as a bondrelation of mother andchildin the 1950s1960s, it became empirically studied after 1970s as a characteristic(types) inherent to the child. The enormous accumulation of data in attachment research

has little to say about the bonding process as such.7. There exists a curious difference in the way physicists and psychologists look at their

datagenerated by some methodsafter the data are obtained. Physicists spendaround 90% of the time checking whether the results could have been artifacts generated

by the methods themselves (Knorr Cetina, 1999) while for psychologistsespeciallyafter considering their methods standardizedthat percent approaches zero. Thisdifference can be explained by the abductive approach of the physicists and inductive

approach by the psychologists.8. Speed of neural impulses in the nervous system: in muscles119m/s, in passive

touch76.2m/s, in the case of pain0.61m/s, as compared with the speed of blood

flow in the cardiovascular system, range of 0.281.78. m/s in carotid artery, range of0.10.45 m/s in vena cava; approximately 0.001 m/s in capillaries.

9. Einfuhlung in die Erfahrung. Theodor Lippss focus on Einfuhlung was described above.Furthermore, the holistic nature of the central feeling is emphasized by Kitaro Nishida:

. . .the feeling of harmony (Harmoniegefuhl) is not a mere combination of feelings, butconstitutes one feeling in itself. Feeling is the fundamental unit, in which we discriminatean indefinite number of qualitative differences (Nishida, 1979, p. 224). Science is a

passionate form of human activity where feelings lead the differentiation of rationalanalyses.

10. As Strum (2000, p. 492) commented: Empathy is part of standard practice in the Kyoto

tradition of Japanese primatology, while for North American traditions it is consideredbias. However, the status of empathy is unstable even among North Americanprimatologists. It is not unusual for a scientist to accept empathy and anthropomorph-

ism in one context like the study of nonhuman primate cognition while rejecting it asbias in others.

11. Moving here entails not only physical movement in space but also movement inones mind (e.g. imagine situation X or remember episode Y from your past).

12. The history of the various versions of microgenesis/Aktualgenese is best overviewed byCarl Graumann (1959) and in The Social Mind, chapter 7 (Valsiner & van der Veer,2000). It is the general method of tracing the emergence of novel phenomena in irre-

versible time, starting from very short time spans (hence the focus on micro) orfocusing on the emergence of the actual state of a phenomenon in time (the actualin Aktualgenese). For contemporary extensions of the microgenetic procedures, see

Abbey and Diriwachter (2008) and Abbey and Surgan (2012).13. In contrast to variability constrictionthe assumption that has been inserted into the

social sciences through the axiomatic insistence of the natural orderof normal,Gaussian distribution as a given. All the habit of homogenization of heterogeneous

classes is based on the consideration of the average as the representative of the



constricted version of normal distribution. Variability amplification is the opposite pro-cess that moves outwards from the normal distribution and generates ever-new formsthat may expand the distribution and alter its form.

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Author biography

Jaan Valsiner is the Niels Bohr Professor of Cultural Psychology at AalborgUniversity in Denmark, and Professor of Psychology and English at ClarkUniversity, USA. He is the founding editor (1995) of the Sage journal, Culture& Psychology and Editor-in-Chief of Integrative Psychological and BehavioralSciences (Springer, from 2007). In 1995 he was awarded the Alexander vonHumboldt Prize for his interdisciplinary work on human development.



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Culture Psychology-2014-Valsiner-3-30 - Needed for Cultural Psychology- METHODOLOGY in a New Key