In my previous paper (Santosa, 2007) I argue that Vygotsky’s rejection of Cartesian dualism provides a way out of the crisis in psychology through reconceptualizing the two-part linear S-R scheme that views human as passively contemplating, and behavior as immediate response toward objective external world into the three-part triangular scheme of mediated action in which human’s relation to external world is mediated by tools and symbols which are provided by society.
Vygotsky’s triangular scheme conceives of human as active subject that through his action in certain activities using tools and symbols transforms Objekt in external world into his Gegenstand. In this paper I would like to introduce the psychology developed by Vygotsky’s followers. Leontiev and Engeström are the most important contributor that will be discussed.
Leontiev’s contribution: activity as the appropriate unit of analysis for psychology
Vygotsky’s thinking provides a way to resolve the crisis through three-part triangular scheme S-X-R where X being cultural artifacts that mediate human relation with his world. It is the most important contribution of Vygotsky to assert that higher mental functions cannot be reduced to linear S-R or S-O-R relation where human (the Organism) is conceived of having immediate relationship with the world.
There’s no dispute among Vygotsky’s followers concerning this. Debates among the followers after Vygosky’s death in 1934 centered around one other important aspect of his thinking, namely, the idea of appropriate unit of analysis for the science of psychology. He proposes several criteria against which the appropriateness of the unit of analysis of mind must be evaluated. Contrary to this, he is not quite consistent in using unit of analysis. Vygotsky, the psychologist does not live up the standard set up by Vygotsky the methodologist.
After Vygotsky’s death Alexei N. Leontiev may be said as the main theorist that develops Vygotsky’s ideas. In debates on unit of analysis, he argued that activity is the appropriate unit of analysis. Although almost all important features of activity theory have been discussed by Vygotsky in his life time, he is not quite systematic and explicit in developing the concept of activity. It is Leontiev who continues Vygotsky’s effort and systematically develops the idea.
Leontiev defines activity as
“..the non-additive, molar unit of life for material, corporeal subject…. It is the unit of life that is mediated by mental reflection. The real function of this unit is to orient the subject in the world of objects. In other words, activity is not reaction or aggregate of reactions, but a system with its own structure, its own internal transformations, and its own development.” (Leontiev, 1981: p.46)
In contrast to the two-part S-R scheme quite common in modern psychology where human mind and behavior are considered as reaction or aggregate of reactions to external world, activity is seen as a system with its own structure and transformation which involve dialectically human mind and external world.
Leontiev’s definition of activity above may be difficult to digest for western psychology. Cole (1981) experienced similar difficulties when he first read Leontiev’s complex formulation of activity. Ironically for Cole, the American Webster dictionary offers formulation in line with the idea of activity in Russian psychology. According to Webster dictionary, activity refers to “any process actually or potentially involving mental function”, and “an organizational unit for performing a specific function.” When these two formulations are combined we may arrive at the following: “an organizational unit for performing mental function.”
What is the importance of this? In mainstream American psychology behavior is the basic concept used for referring to subject matter of psychology as science. Behavior is understood in general as what humans do as a response to environment. The problem with this concept is that it’s not clear to which level behavior refers.
For example, when as a student I raise my hand in a classroom my intention is to ask a question to my teacher. Which one can be referred to as behavior: raising hand or asking question? Which one is more meaningful for understanding what I’m doing?
From behaviorism point of view it’s not clear which is referred to as behavior. From Leontiev point of view, raising hand and asking question refer to different levels of unit of analysis: operation (raising hand) and action (asking question). Operation in this case is an observable human movement; and action is operation plus the intention in the mind of the actor.
At this stage the question that follows is how is it possible that my raising hand means that I ask question? How is it possible that other people can ‘read’ my mind, that they understand what I intend to do while raising my hand?
If a human observer (not necessarily a trained psychologist) happens to be at the classroom it’s not very difficult to understand my intention while raising my hand. It comes as natural for people at the classroom that my raising hand means that I intend to ask question.
If Cartesian dualism is adopted it is difficult to understand how my mind can be easily understood by my classmates. How human mind that is locked inside human subjectivity can be accessed by other minds?
If Cartesian dualism is rejected, and instead the concept of practice or activity is adopted, it can be understood easily. To understand this, just imagine the same operation: the raising hand is put into different context, for example, at a bus stop. The same operation when put into different activity would constitute different action, in this case, to stop a bus.
This leads us to the concept of activity. What makes an operation understood as meaning a certain action is the activity in which it is embedded. The raising hand is understood as intending to ask question since it is embedded in classroom activity. The meaning of the action ceases to be private only in my mind and becomes public and accessible to other minds involved in the activity.
The above example makes clear that it is important to analytically differentiate the three levels but yet at the same time an activity cannot be decomposed into actions or operations if we were to understand human mind and behavior meaningfully.
For Leontiev, activity is the psychological cell that fulfills all the requirements of a unit posed by Vygotsky the methodologist. Analyzing activity is the appropriate method of scientific psychology, and concrete human activities are its true subject-matter. In order to be able to analyze activity it is important to understand how we are able to differentiate one concrete activity to another, how to differentiate activity, action and operation, and what gives activity, action and operation their structure, and functions, and what drives their transformation and development.
Leontiev asserts that what defines a concrete activity is its object (Gegenstand). Gegenstand reflects the motives that drive the actors involved in the activity.
Thus a sculpture artist driven by motive of beauty may perceive an abandoned piece of wood as his Gegenstand. This stimulates his imagination of a beautiful statue made from the wood. He then starts up an activity to fulfill the motive by sculpting the piece to realize the statue of his imagination. He moves the piece from a shore he found it abandoned to his own studio, and then perform various sequence of actions that is meaningful in sculpting activities.
Each action has its own goal which has to be achieved to realize the statue. For example, the first important action that has to be performed is to dry the wood so that it is ready for sculpting. To perform this action he has several alternatives of operation; he may do that by putting it in a stove or by putting it under the sun. He may think of several other alternatives.
Which operation he chose would depend on the conditions in which he finds himself. For example, he finds that the stove available is too small to contain the wood. Based on this condition he may think to buy another bigger stove, or he may decide to use sun heat to dry it. The above example shows that what constitutes an activity is its motive; an action its goal; and an operation its condition. Figure 7 illustrates the levels and the elements that constitute their form.
After finishing his magnum opus, the sculpture artist put it in front of his studio. Some of his friends asked if they could buy it, but he said it’s not for sale. Among his friends and wider circle it becomes well known that he has produced a very beautiful piece of art. One day a millionaire came and offered him big bucks if he let him to own the sculpture. It was quite an attractive offer that he then sold it to the millionaire.
He thought that with such amount of money he could produce another magnum opus. Since then his sculpting activities are driven not only by motive of beauty but also of profit. The profit motive drives him to think how he might be able to make piece of art more efficient and productive. The form of activities and their sequence of actions have changed to fulfill profit motive. Moreover he then hired more people to help him produce more variety pieces of art. He is successful in managing his people to work together, and establishes his own company.
At the end he becomes more a businessman than an artist. In this example, we can see how the form of activities and accordingly the personality of the actor may change and develop in line with change of motive.
Another important aspect of Leontiev’s thinking is the concept of internal and external activities. It can be seen from the example above that the activities of the sculpture artist involve not only external actions such as moving the piece of wood from the shore to his studio, but also internal ones such as imagining the end result, and thinking about whether to use stove or sun heat to dry the wood.
It is important to keep in mind not to understand this internal-external dichotomy in Cartesian paradigm. In Marxist paradigm the internal and external actions of the sculpting artist are embedded in the same activity. Each action has its own function in the activity. The difference between internal and external actions is related more to the operations.
While the external actions are embodied in operations that are visible to human sense, the internal ones involve operations in human physiology that cannot directly seen by human bare eyes. Only through technology in modern time human is able to capture the operations of human brain in performing certain internal activities such as feeling and thinking. Internal activities constitute what we understand as consciousness. Without internal activities what we refer to as consciousness does not exist.
Engeström’s contribution: activity system
Engeström’s activity system is described in figure 8. Basically it consists of triangles of mediated actions that dialectically relate subject, community and object (Gegenstand). The relation between subject-object is mediated by instrument, subject-community by rules, and community-object by division of labor. The significance of Engeström’s activity system is that it makes explicit the social aspect of an activity and its dynamics of development.
The general structure of the animal form of activity and its transition to human activity are described in figure 9 and 10.
In describing the human activity system, Engeström (1987) explicitly make use of Marx analysis of capitalist society in Grundrisse that conceives production as point of departure and consumption as conclusion of all human activity.
“Production creates the objects which correspond to the given needs; distribution divides them up according to social laws; exchange further parcels out the already divided shares in accord with individual needs; and finally, in consumption, the products steps outside this social movement and becomes a direct object and servant of individual need, and satisfies it in being consumed. Thus production appears to be the point of departure, consumption as the conclusion, distribution and exchange as the middle… “ (Marx, 1973 in Engeström, 1987)
Using Marx analysis it can be seen that the animal form of adaptive activity is transformed into consumption; and the three modes of adaptation are transformed into production, distribution and exchange respectively. From Engeström’s point of view every human activity is conceived as a process that starts with production and ends with consumption. This process however must not be understood as simply a linear process. The activities of production, distribution, exchange and consumption must also be understood dialectically.
The instruments of production used by the artist may be produced specifically for sculpting by some other companies. The artist and his co-workers themselves may be seen as the products of some art education activities. The art products then become a Gegenstand not only for the artist but also for people who become the artist’s co-workers, the art educators, and for consumers that enjoy the beauty of the art.
On this level one can see the artist’s and his co-workers’ activity as production activity which is related on the same level to consumption activity of the buyer of the art products. On the lower level, inside the artist’s and his co-workers’ activity one can find the full-range of production-distribution-exchange-consumption activities. For example, within the artist’s production activity (higher level) on may find the sculpting activity as production activity on the lower level. It can be differentiated from the activity of distributing tasks and labor among different workers. One can also find an exchange activity in the form of verbal communication and exchanging unfinished products of arts. The lower level consumption can be found in the form of consumption of raw material or of instruments of production.
This lower-level network of activities constitutes the artist’s production activity on the higher level. Depending on their development, these lower-level activities can be seen as action-types or as activities on their own. In a smaller company for example lower-level distribution of tasks may still be an action type, and not become an activity on its own.
Figure 11 describes the higher and lower network of activity systems.
Understood dialectically, a production activity can also be seen as a consumption activity. At the lower level, sculpting activity can be seen as both production of art products and consumption of the artist skills, knowledge and imagination of beauty.
At the higher level sculpting is the core activity that reproduced both the artist’s company as an institution and his role as an artist-businessman. The buyer’s activity of enjoying the art product can also be seen as both production of self and consumption of the beauty of art products.
At the societal level, we may see all activities that share the same Gegenstand (sculpture art products) and motive of beauty as an activity system that reproduces both the society of sculpture art lover and the identity or personality of those people involved in the society. Thus a moment of production is at the same time a moment of consumption.
Likewise, a moment of distribution is at the same time a moment of exchange. For example, art products purchasing activities found in art market can be seen as a moment of distribution of products that is determined by social economic status of the buyer. First of all, the art products are distributed as commodity into certain segment of market with certain price that not every buyer can afford. The distribution of the art products is determined by distribution of wealth in the society. Purchasing activities can also be seen as a moment of exchange determined by individual motive of the buyer.
Driven by a motive of beauty, imagining the he could enjoy (consumption activity) the beauty of the art product the buyer then exchange some amount of his money (determined by the price) for the art product that is already distributed in the market.
Engeström’s activity system can also be used for analyzing activities other than work activities. Family activity for example can be seen as a consumption activity where commodities exchanged in market are consumed. Basic motive that drives family activities in general centers on motives of care and protection for its members. Dialectically we can also see family as a production activity where the family members’ identities are reproduced.
If we were to understand our artist-businessman personality as a whole, we may need to see not only his working activities. The working activities occupy only some parts of his daily waking hours. Outside work, his life may be spent for domestic activities with family or for social activities with people outside his nuclear family. In his activities with family and friends, he can be seen dialectically as both a consumer of goods/ services, and a reproducer of roles as a father or husband in family and as a friend in his social circle.
Figure 12 describes the extended levels of units of analysis. At one level above activity we have institution and roles. The production activity initiated by the sculpture artist with his co-workers reproduces both an institution and the roles of the people involved in the activity.
The artist may name the institution after his own name which becomes a brand name meaningful for people who love sculpture art products. At another higher level we have society and personality/ self. The network of activities that relates the artist’s institution to the sculpture art product market and consumers reproduces on the one hand a society that shares the same Gegenstand and motive of love for sculpture art products. On the other hand, the activities also reproduce the personality of people that become members of the society.
Through the levels of units of analysis described in figure 12 we can see that human activities are basic building blocks that reproduce society, human personality and human mind and that make human behavior (operation) intelligible for members of human society.
This model can be used as a simple analytical framework for analyzing human personality and society, human mind and behavior and how they are related to each other. With this model we can hope to build a scientific psychology body of knowledge that is meaningful for people which become its subject, and that is potentially able to help solving real socio-cultural and economic problems.
Literature
Engeström, Y. (1987). Learning by expanding: an Activity Theoretical Approach to Developmental Research. Helsinki, Finland: Orienta-Konsultit Oy.
Santosa, E. (2007). Contribution of Russian Activity Theory to Psychology in Indonesia. Jurnal Psikologi Sosial. Vol. 13, no. 3, p. 235-245.
Leont'ev, A. N. (1978). Activity, consciousness, and personality. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall.
Leont'ev, A. N. (1981). The problem of activity in psychology. In James V. Wertsch (Ed.) The Concept of Activity in Soviet Psychology. New York: M.E. Sharpe Inc.
Wertsch, J. V. (1981). The Concept of Activity in Soviet Psychology: An Introduction. In James V. Wertsch (Ed.) The Concept of Activity in Soviet Psychology. New York: M.E. Sharpe Inc.
Zinchenko, V. P. (1985). Vygotsky’s ideas about units for the analysis of mind. In J.Wertsch (ed.), Culture, communication and cognition: Vygotskian perspectives (pp. 94–118). New York: Cambridge University Press.
About the author
For more than 10 years now, Eric spends most of his time living in two worlds: the academia and industry. He teaches Quantitative and Qualitative as Research Methodologies, Cultural Psychology, and Cultural Change Strategy, among others, at a renowned university in Jakarta.
He is also a freelance consultant in the capacity of a research technical advisor, strategic planner and brand consultant. He has worked with clients from various industries – mostly consumer goods, media that includes the internet, television and print; microfinance, mobile services.
His passion lies in exploring how products, brands and archetypal narratives may become meaningful for certain communities or segments of society. And Eric has a solid experience in doing this in both qualitative as well as quantitative research.
[1] The author is a market ethnographer, strategic planner, and brand consultant; He teaches Cultural Psychology, Social Change Management, and Qualitative Research Method at Atma Jaya Catholic University; He is also the founder of PT Bina Bisnis Lestari; Contact: eric.santosa@gmail.com or eric@omahsimbok.com
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