In search of lost time: psychological development and historicity

Abstract

Psychological changes are studied by psychology with great interest by at least two research traditions. On the one hand we have the Developmental Psychology, on the other the Historical Psychology. The objective of the emerging research is the investigation of how different conceptions about the nature of psychological functions and psychological changes contributed to the establishment of the contemporary context of disinterest of Developmental Psychology by historical dimension of human development on the one hand, and Psychology by ontogenetic historical dimension of psychological transformations, on the other. We understand that this issue is of great relevance since the entanglement between these perspectives could shed light on a series of phenomena of interest to both areas, e.g. the relationship between processes of cultural transmission and invention. In earlier works we have had the opportunity to draft on the subject, studying how the perspective of Vygotsky undertook with some Marxist assumptions about the nature of historical change and how this commitment led him to face the psychological changes in a peculiar way. At present we intend to extend this type of analysis in three ways: a) to other theories of human development; b) taking in consideration more basal epistemological questions, such as the very concepts of change and temporality; c) studying the consequences of these choices on some ethical and methodological issues such as the cultural hierarchization; d) the effects of psychological knowledge production on the psyche itself. We hope to achieve four distinct classes of results: a) metatheoretical contributions to Developmental Psychology; b) interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary contributions regarding to the relationship between Psychology, History and other Social Sciences; c) a proposal for a methodological enrichment in the fields of Developmental Psychology and Historical Psychology promoting the integration of contemporary work on the impacts of technology on the psyche to these sub disciplines; d) we believe that some of our results may be of relevance to the History of Psychology, insofar as we discussed the idea of the historicity of the psyche. (AU)