Menyoal Ilmu Psikologi Positivistik

Okki Sutanto, adalah salah satu anak muda yang langka di mata saya karena semangatnya menulis di blog. (klik di sini untuk baca blognya) Ia mengirimkan salah satu artikel lama yang saya sendiri sudah tidak punya arsipnya. Kalau tidak salah artikel ini saya tulis tahun 2001. Terima kasih Ki!

Oleh Eric Santosa

1. Pengantar

Alkisah di Leipzig tahun 1879, Wilhelm Wundt mendirikan laboratorium psikologi pertama. Itulah tanda kelahiran psikologi sebagai ilmu pengetahuan empiris. Begitu kira-kira cerita yang sering dituturkan di dalam kuliah-kuliah sejarah psikologi. Sebagai ilmu pengetahuan empiris, psikologi mendeklarasikan dirinya sebagai studi ilmiah tentang perilaku dan proses-proses mental. Misi yang diembannya kurang lebih adalah: menggambarkan, secara objektif, perilaku dan proses-proses mental dengan menggunakan pengamatan yang hati-hati dan sistematis; menjelaskan mengapa perilaku dan proses mental itu terjadi; dan meramalkan apa yang seseorang akan lakukan di masa depan, berdasarkan peristiwa yang sudah lalu.

Deklarasi seperti ini cukup untuk mengindikasikan bahwa ilmu psikologi menganggap dirinya sebagai bagian dari ilmu positivistik yang mengadopsi premis-premis tertentu tentang kenyataan yang menjadi objek studi (tataran ontologis), dan bagaimana memperoleh pengetahuan tentang kenyataan tersebut (tataran epistemologis). 

Pada intinya, premis ini mengatakan bahwa ada suatu kenyataan objektif berupa substansi yang memiliki esensi terlepas dari lingkungan sekitarnya, dan bahwa substansi tersebut merupakan sebuah sistem yang diatur oleh suatu hukum tertentu. Tentu substansi itu mungkin saja dipengaruhi oleh lingkungannya, akan tetapi esensinya sudah diasumsikan terlebih dulu ada terlepas dari lingkungannya. Kita akan menyebut premis ini sebagai premis esensialis, karena mengasumsikan esensi objektif dari kenyataan yang sedang diamati.

Premis berikutnya yang sangat erat kaitannya adalah premis representasionis dan verifikasionis. Premis-premis ini berbicara mengetahui pengetahuan. Di luar kenyataanobjektif diasumsikan ada subjek pengamat yang berkesadaran. Pengetahuan merupakan implikasi logis dari kesadaran subjek pengamat. 

Premis representasionis mengatakan bahwa pengetahuan dapat diumpamakan sebagai gambar yang mewakili (to represent) kenyataan objektif. Implikasinya lebih jauh adalah bahwa secara prinsipil hanya ada satu gambar saja yang benar, yaitu yang benar-benar tepat menggambarkan kenyataan objektif tersebut.

Disinilah premis verifikasionis memainkan perannya. Premis ini mengatakanbahwa pengetahuan mesti dibuktikan (verified) kebenarannya. Pengetahuan yang benar adalah yang memiliki korespondensi dengan kenyataan objektif (bebas nilai). Metode eksperimental dianggap sebagai model ideal cara memperoleh pengetahuan objektif. Berdasarkan pengetahuan yang objektif ini, maka sang subyek pengamat akan mampu meramalkan apa yang akan terjadi pada objek studinya di masa depan. 

Mudah ditebak, bahwa premis-premis ini mengikuti premis ilmu alam ala Newton yang mengandaikan alam semesta itu bagai sebuah mesin besar yang secara prinsip dapat 100% diramalkan tindak tanduknya, baik di masa depan (to predict) maupun di masa lalu (to retrodict), apabila manusia mengetahui hukum yang mengaturnya.

Tentu saja tidak semua aliran pemikiran di psikologi menganut metode eksperimental. Akan tetapi dapat dikatakan bahwa mayoritas menerima premis esensialis dengan memperlakukan kenyataan psikis sebagai substansi objektif (relatif terhadap peneliti sebagai subyek pengamat) yang diatur oleh suatu hukum universal seperti hukum alam. Tujuan utama berbagai aliran psikologi tersebut adalah untuk menemukan ‘hukum alam’ tersebut. Pandangan seperti ini dapat ditemui mulai dari psikologi Freudian, behavioristik, humanistik sampai dengan psikologi kognitif yang mutakhir.

Tulisan berikut ini bermaksud mempersoalkan premis-premis di atas. Ini dilakukan dengan menunjukkan bahwa ketika pendekatan positivistik dipakai untuk mengerti kenyataan psikis dan sosial, ia akan berbenturan dengan premis penting lainnya, yang juga diterima secara parsial oleh pendekatan positivistik, yaitu premis kesadaran manusia. Benturan ini secara logis menimbulkan masalah baik pada tataran teoretis maupun etis.

Untuk mencapai maksud di atas, tulisan ini dibagi menjadi beberapa bagian. Sebagai ilustrasi bagaimana ilmu positivistik memahami objek studinya, di bagian kedua akan digambarkan secara sederhana bagaimana ilmu fisika ala Newton memahami gejala spektrum cahaya. Ilustrasi ini kemudian akan digunakan di bagian ketiga untuk menggambarkan bagaimana psikologi positivistik mencoba mengerti manusia. Di bagian keempat akan dibahas masalah-masalah pada  tataran teoretis dan etis bila pendekatan positivistik dipakai untuk memahami perilaku manusia.

2. Ilustrasi Cara Kerja Ilmu Positivistik

Di bangku sekolah menengah, kita belajar bahwa bila cahaya matahari masuk ke sebuah prisma, ia akan keluar kembali dalam bentuk spektrum cahaya. Cahaya matahari adalah cahaya putih yang sebenarnya merupakan kombinasi berbagai cahaya yang dapat diamati melalui cahaya yang keluar dari prisma tersebut. Spektrum cahaya matahari adalah spektrum yang paling lengkap, terdiri dari tujuh warna yang dapat dilihat mata manusia yaitu merah, jingga, kuning, hijau, biru, nila, dan ungu, dan dua yang tidak dapat dilihat mata manusia, yaitu infra merah dan ultraviolet. Itu adalah spektrum cahaya matahari. 

Akan tetapi tidak semua cahaya menghasilkan spektrum yang lengkap seperti cahaya matahari. Cahaya yang berasal dari zat-zat kimia tertentu menghasilkan spektrum yang tidak lengkap. Zat tersebut memancarkan cahaya bila diberi energi tambahan dengan cara memanaskannya. Sodium, misalnya, bila diberi energi akan memancarkan cahaya kuning. Bila cahaya ini memasuki prisma, maka spektrum yang akan keluar adalah dua garis cahaya kuning tipis. Sebaliknya sodium juga akan menyerap energi yang dipancarkan oleh cahaya. 

Apabila cahaya matahari yang berspektrum lengkap diarahkan menembus uap sodium, cahaya yang keluar akan berspektrum lengkap minus dua cahaya kuning di atas. Ini berarti sodium menyerap sebagian energi cahaya matahari yang masuk. Dapat dikatakan bahwa pancaran atau penyerapan cahaya kuning merupakan sifat zat sodium. Zat-zat lainnya memiliki berbagai sifat yang berbeda sehingga secara prinsip pengamat dapat mengenali suatu zat melalui sifatnya.

Para fisikawan kemudian bertanya: mengapa zat kimia memiliki sifat-sifat seperti itu? Penjelasannya mesti terletak di partikel-partikel terkecil yang membentuk zat tersebut, yaitu atom. Di tahun 1913 seorang fisikawan Denmark bernama Niels Bohr memberi penjelasan dengan menggunakan model sistem solar yang diciptakan dua tahun sebelumnya oleh Ernst Rutherford. Atom digambarkan berisi nukleus yang menjadi pusat berbagai orbit dimana elektron-elektron bergerak mengelilinginya. Tiap jenis atom memiliki jumlah elektron yang berbeda-beda. Energi yang diterima oleh atom akan menyebabkan elektron tertentu lompat keluar orbitnya. Dalam perjalanannya kembali ke orbit mereka akan memancarkan energi. Inilah yang menyebabkan sodium memancarkan cahaya berspektrum kuning ketika dipanaskan.

Pelajaran apa yang dapat ditarik lewat ilustrasi di atas mengenai cara ilmu positivistik memahami objek studinya? Pertama-tama para ilmuwan mesti memperhatikan variasi dan konstansi dari gejala yang menarik perhatiannya. Sodium secara konstan memancarkan dan menyerap cahaya kuning. Zat lainnya memancarkan dan menyerap spektrum cahaya yang berbeda. Kedua, mereka mencari esensi dari substansi untuk menjelaskan variasi dan konstansi gejala. 

Penjelasan seperti ini dapat digambarkan lewat skema stimulus-organ-response (S-O-R). Sodium adalah substansi atau organ yang esensinya mengada terlepas dari lingkungannya. Ia menerima stimulus berupa energi yang menyebabkannya berrespons dengan memancarkan spektrum cahaya tertentu. Yang menjadi pertanyaan bagi para fisikawan adalah apa yang membuat sodium (O) memancarkan spectrum kuning (R) apabila diberi tambahan energi (S). Mereka berpikir jawabannya mesti terdapat di dalam esensi dari sodium. Ini adalah premis esensialis.

Ketiga, para ilmuwan kemudian membuat berbagai hipotesis untuk menjelaskan apa yang terjadi di dalam sodium. Model atom sistem solar merupakan salah satu penjelasan apa yang terjadi di dalam sodium sehingga ia “berperilaku” seperti itu. Diterima atau tidaknya penjelasan di atas sebagai pengetahuan objektif yang universal bergantung pada korespondensinya dengan perilaku objektif sodium yang bisa diamati melintasi ruang-waktu. Ini adalah premis representasionis-verifikasionis.

3. Cara Kerja Ilmu Psikologi Positivistik

Cara psikologi sebagai ilmu positivistik memahami perilaku manusia mirip dengan cara ilmu fisika ala newton memahami “perilaku” sodium di atas. Ini bisa diamati lewat penelitian-penelitian yang dilakukan untuk memahami perilaku manusia. Salah satu contoh yang kurang lebih tipikal adalah penelitian persepsi sosial yang dilakukan oleh Duncan (1976).

Di dalam penelitian ini dua kelompok mahasiswa kulit putih menonton sebuah film yang berisi situasi dimana seseorang mendorong seorang lainnya. Kelompok pertama menonton situasi dimana sang pelaku adalah orang kulit putih, sedangkan yang kedua orang kulit hitam. Kedua kelompok kemudian diminta untuk mengkategorisasi situasi itu sebagai “main-main” atau sebagai “perilaku agresif.”

Duncan menemukan bahwa peserta penelitian cenderung mengkategorisasi situasi tsb sebagai “perilaku agresif” bila sang pelaku berkulit hitam, dan sebagai “main-main” bila sang pelaku berkulit putih. Hasil penelitian ini dijelaskan dengan mengatakan bahwa kategorisasi tersebut terjadi karena peserta penelitian yang berkulit putih memiliki stereotipi dan prasangka negatif (prejudice) terhadap orang berkulit hitam.

Penelitian Duncan ini dilakukan berdasarkan premis-premis ilmu positivistik yang sama dengan ilmu fisika ala newton. Skema S-O-R yang sama dapat diterapkan dalam penelitian ini. Film yang berisi interaksi dua aktor di atas merupakan informasi (S) yang kemudian diproses sedemikian oleh peserta penelitian (O) sehingga menghasilkan respons (R) Berupa kategorisasi “main-main” atau “perilaku agresif.” Skema S-O-R ini mengantar peneliti pada dugaan bahwa mesti ada sesuatu yang terjadi di dalam diri subjek penelitian (O) yang membuat variasi stimulus sejajar dengan variasi respons. Ini adalah premis esensialis.

Penelitian yang mutakhir mengenai perubahan sikap tetap menganut premis-premis positivistik yang sama. Ini dapat dilihat lewat penelitian yang dilakukan oleh Dasgupta dan Greenwald (2001). Tujuan dari penelitian mereka adalah mencari cara untuk mengurangi prasangka negatif otomatis terhadap orang berkulit hitam.

Penelitian ini dilakukan dengan mengikuti skema S-O-R. Peserta penelitian (O) dibagi menjadi tiga kelompok: dua kelompok eksperimen, dan satu kelompok kontrol. Peserta di dua kelompok eksperimen diberi tugas yang mengharuskan mereka melihat dan mengenali berbagai tokoh publik berkulit hitam dan putih, baik yang dikagumi maupun yang tidak disukai. Kelompok eksperimen pertama memperoleh gambar (S1) orang kulit hitam yang dikagumi dan kulit putih yang tidak disukai (gambar pro kulit hitam).

Kelompok eksperimen kedua memperoleh gambar (S2) orang kulit hitam yang tidak disukai dan kulit putih yang dikagumi (gambar pro kulit putih). Kelompok kontrol memperoleh tugas mengenali gambar (S3) serangga dan bunga. Setelah melihat berbagai gambar orang kulit putih dan hitam, peserta penelitian kemudian diminta untuk mengerjakan dua macam tes (R) yang bertujuan mengukur sikap rasial otomatis (Implicit Association Test) dan sikap eksplisit. Hasil penelitian ini menunjukkan bahwa peserta penelitian (O) di kelompok eksperimen pertama yang memperoleh gambar (S1) pro kulit hitam mengalami perubahan sikap rasial otomatis (R) menjadi lebih pro kulit hitam.

Berbagai teori tentang persepsi sosial dan perubahan sikap umumnya berusaha menjelaskan apa yang ada dan terjadi di dalam organ (O) sehingga ia berperilaku tertentu. Sama seperti para fisikawan yang menggambarkan esensi dari berbagai zat kimia dengan mengandaikan keberadaan proton, neutron dan elektron, para ahli psikologi menggambarkan esensi kenyataan psikis manusia dengan mengandaikan keberadaan berbagai instansi mental. Fiske dan Taylor (1991) misalnya mengandaikan adanya dua instansi mental dasar yang ada di dalam diri manusia: kognisi dan motivasi. Ini adalah premis esensialis. 

Pengandaian yang mirip juga dapat dilihat melalui teori McGuire (1969) tentang perubahan sikap. Ia mengandaikan adanya dua proses mental yang mengantar seseorang ke perubahan sikap yaitu reception dan yielding. Reception adalah proses kognitif dimana seseorang mencerna suatu pesan hingga sampai ke pemahaman, sedangkan yielding adalah proses motivasional dimana seseorang menerima pesan sebagai positif sehingga bersedia berperilaku sesuai dengan pemahaman tersebut. Diterima atau tidaknya penjelasan Fiske dan Taylor (1991) dan McGuire (1969) di atas sebagai pengetahuan bergantung pada korespondensinya dengan perilaku manusia yang objektif.

4. Menyoal Ilmu Psikologi Positivistik

Premis esensialis dan verifikasionis menjadi bermasalah bila dipakai untuk memahami perilaku manusia. Masalahnya datang dari premis lain yang sebenarnya penting bagi, dan diterima oleh pendekatan positivistik, yaitu premis kesadaran manusia.

Dalam pendekatan positivistik, pemisahan antara subjek dan objek merupakan faktor penting yang menentukan kebenaran suatu pengetahuan. Kesadaran diterima secara parsial hanya sebagai karakteristik subjek pengamat, dan bukan karakteristik objek. Lebih jauh lagi dapat dikatakan bahwa objek mesti diasumsikan tidak sadar sehingga perilakunya ditentukan sepenuhnya oleh hukum sebab akibat alamiah. 

Tujuan ilmu positivistik adalah menemukan hukum tersebut. Ketika pendekatan ini diterapkan untuk memahami perilaku manusia, ia menjadi tidak konsisten karena premis kesadaran manusia diterima hanya secara parsial. Di satu pihak sang manusia pengamat dianggap berkesadaran sehingga mampu memiliki pengetahuan yang benar. Di lain pihak sang manusia yang diamati dianggap tak berkesadaran, dan perilakunya dikendalikan oleh berbagai kekuatan alamiah yang tidak bisa dikendalikannya. Kalaupun ia dianggap berkesadaran, perilakunya dipandang dikendalikan oleh sebab-sebab yang berada di luar kesadarannya.

Penerimaan premis kesadaran manusia secara parsial menuntun ilmu positivistik untuk memperlakukan manusia sebagai objek belaka. Ini menimbulkan permasalahan baik di tataran teoretis maupun etis. Di tataran teoretis, permasalahannya berawal dari ambisi ilmu positivistik untuk menemukan hukum alamiah universal yang secara tak terelakan mengatur perilaku manusia mengatasi ruang dan waktu.

Ini adalah cita-cita ideal ilmu fisika ala newton yang secara prinsipil dapat dicapai melalui metode eksperimental. Citacita ini tidak bisa hidup berdampingan dengan premis kesadaran manusia. Ketika metode ini diterapkan untuk mencari sebab musabab perilaku manusia, ia boleh jadi menghasilkan pengetahuan tentang faktor-faktor penyebab perilaku yang berada di luar kesadaran manusia yang diamati.

Akan tetapi, begitu pengetahuan tersebut menjadi wacana di luar komunitas peneliti dan menjadi bagian dari kesadaran manusia secara umum, maka secara prinsipil juga hukum sebab-akibat di atas menjadi tidak tak-terhindarkan. Artinya, seseorang kemudian mampu memutuskan apakah ia akan mengikuti atau tidak mengikuti, dan bahkan bila ia memiliki cukup kekuasaan ia dapat mengubah hukum tersebut.

Dengan perkataan lain, hukum itu sendiri menjadi tidak universal, tetapi menjadi bagian dari sejarah manusia yang terikat di dalam ruang dan waktu (Gergen, 1973). Dengan demikian, cita-cita ilmu positivistik untuk menemukan hukum yang mengatur perilaku manusia mengatasi ruang dan waktu secara prinsipil tidak dapat dicapai. 

Argumen di atas bukan bermaksud mengatakan bahwa tidak ada hukum, universal ataupun bukan, yang mengatur perilaku manusia. Yang hendak dikatakan adalah bahwaperilaku manusia tidak diatur oleh hukum alamiah yang tak-terelakkan dan mengatasi sejarah. Oleh karena itu kita harus membedakan hukum yang mengatur gejala alamiah objektif dan gejala kemanusiaan.

Gejala objektif adalah segala macam gejala yang keberadaannya dapat dirasakan oleh kelima indera manusia. Hukum yang mengaturnya adalah hukum sebab-akibat alamiah yang tak terhindarkan dan mengatasi ruang dan waktu. Sebuah bola basket misalnya, yang dilempar ke atas dengan sudut tertentu oleh Reza, akan mengikuti hukum Newton mengenai gaya gravitasi, dan akan kembali mendarat di atas tanah. Ini adalah gejala alamiah objektif yang bisa dirasakan oleh indera manusia, dan yang perilakunya diatur oleh hukum yang tak terhindarkan oleh bola tersebut.

Sama halnya bila bola itu, setelah dilemparkan oleh Reza, mengenai Adri hingga mengakibatkan memar di wajahnya. Ini juga terjadi mengikuti mekanisme fisiologis yang tak terhindarkan bila badan manusia terbentur benda dengan kecepatan tinggi.

Sekarang bayangkan, setelah terbentur bola basket itu, Adri menjadi marah, berlari mengejar Reza dan memukulnya. Apakah ada hubungan sebab-akibat alamiah objektif antara perilaku Reza melempar bola dan kemarahan Adri terhadap Reza? Kedua gejala tersebut tentu saja melibatkan gejala objektif yang dapat dirasakan oleh indera manusia. Akan tetapi gejala objektif tersebut tidak menentukan hubungan keduanya.

Sulit dibayangkan bagaimana ada hubungan sebab-akibat alamiah yang niscaya antara keduanya. Kalaupun ada hokum yang mengatur hubungan keduanya, ia kurang lebih dapat dirumuskan sebagai berikut: “bila seseorang disakiti ia akan marah dan membalas orang yang menyakitinya.” Tidak ada sesuatu yang salah dari rumusan hukum ini kecuali bila ia diperlakukan sebagai hukum alamiah yang tak terhindarkan dan mengatasi sejarah. 

Di tataran etis permasalahannya adalah: premis kesadaran manusia secara parsial, menuntun orang untuk memonopoli kebenaran pengetahuan dan lebih jauh, menindas hak sesamanya untuk mengemukakan pendapat. Ini didasari oleh anggapan bahwa sesamanya tidak mampu untuk memiliki pengetahuan yang benar (incapable of knowledge), dan perilakunya berada di luar kesadaran.

Dalam interaksi sosial konkrit, hubungan subjek objek yang menindas ini dapat dilihat wujudnya di dalam, misalnya, beberapa bentuk interaksi dokter-pasien, psikolog dan kliennya, peneliti psikologi dan peserta penelitiannya. Apabila sikap seperti ini dianut oleh pihak yang berkuasa atas banyak orang, maka yang akan terjadi adalah proses pembisuan kesadaran publik. Suara publik jadinya kemudian hanya membeo apa yang dikatakan oleh pihak penguasa.

Situasi seperti ini dapat dilihat wujudnya dalam, misalnya, praktek pendidikan dimana guru menjadi pihak yang berkuasa atas muridnya. Dalam bentuk hubungan seperti ini, guru adalah pemegang kebenaran mutlak sehingga murid tinggal membeo kata-kata sang guru. Lebih jauh, guru juga bisa dipandang sebagai pihak yang kesadarannya dibelenggu oleh ideologi tertentu yang dianut oleh penguasa birokrasi pendidikan. 

Masih di tataran etis, permasalahan lainnya berawal dari premis esensialis yang diterapkan pada sesama manusia. Premis ini mendorong orang untuk memperlakukan sesamanya sebagai objek yang memiliki esensi mutlak yang tak terelakan dan mengatasi sejarah.

Permasalahan ini bisa dilihat biasanya lewat pernyataan-pernyataan stereotipikal mengenai orang atau kelompok tertentu: “Andi memang dasarnya pemarah,” “Seks bebas adalah kultur barat,” “Pada dasarnya orang Indonesia itu ramah,” “Cara kerja orang Indonesia tidak sistematis,” “Kaum homoseks senang gonta ganti pasangan.” Itu adalah beberapa contoh pernyataan tentang orang atau kultur tertentu yang sering dilontarkan oleh orang awam.

Akan tetapi para ahli perilaku manusia juga memiliki sikap seperti itu, bahkan dengan lebih arogan mengatakan bahwa pernyataan mereka di dasarkan pada penelitian yang objektif. Ini bisa dilihat misalnya lewat teori Individualism-Collectivism (Triandis, 1972; Hofstede, 1980). Manusia, menurut kulturnya, digolongkan ke dalam salah satu kategori: individualis atau kolektivis. Digambarkan bahwa masing-masing kategori itu memiliki perilaku yang khas.

Teori seperti ini, ketika dibawa ke kehidupan sehari-hari, menutup mata sang pengamat terhadap dinamika dan variasi di dalam sebuah masyarakat. Lebih jauh sikap ini bila dianut oleh pihak yang berkuasa atas kesadaran publik berpotensi mendorong marginalisasi orang/ kelompok tertentu yang dianggap berperilaku menyimpang dari kategori normatif.

5. Penutup

Tulisan ini tidak bermaksud mengatakan bahwa pendekatan positivistik harus dicampakkan begitu saja dalam memahami gejala kemanusiaan. Yang hendak dikatakan adalah bahwa bila pendekatan ini akan diterapkan, ini mesti dilakukan secara kritis. Ia boleh jadi dapat diterapkan untuk meneliti berbagai perilaku manusia yang berada di luar kontrol kesadaran pelakunya.

Akan tetapi, pendekatan ini terutama bermasalah dalam usaha memahami kenyataan psikis dan sosial yang melibatkan kesadaran manusia. Pendekatan apa yang lebih tepat dalam memahami kenyataan psikis dan sosial seperti ini? Ini adalah pertanyaan yang masih terbuka bagi diskusi selanjutnya.

DAFTAR PUSTAKA

Duncan, B. L. (1976). Differential Social Perception and Attribution of Intergroup Violence: Testing the Lower Limits of Stereotyping of Blacks. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 34: 590-8.

Dasgupta, N. & Greenwald, A. G. (2001). On the Malleability of Automatic Attitudes: Combating Automatic Prejudice With Images of Admired and Disliked Individuals. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81: 800-814.

Fiske, S. T. & Taylor, S. E. (1991). Social Cognition. McGraw-Hill, Singapore.

Gergen, Kenneth J. (1973). Social Psychology as History. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 26: 309-20.

McGuire, W. J. (1969). The nature of attitudes and attitude change. In G. Lindzey & E. Aronson (Eds.), Handbook of social psychology (2nd ed., Vol. 3, pp. 136-314). Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.

Triandis, H. C. (1972). The Analysis of Subjective Culture. John Wiley, New York.

Hofstede, G. (1980). Culture’s Consequences: International Differences in Work-Related Values. Sage, Beverly Hills CA.

Activity theory: a later development of Vygotsky’s psychology

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.”

The most important contribution of Leontiev for psychology is the notion of levels of units of analysis: operation, action and activity. Leontiev asserts that to understand human mind and behavior the levels must be used. 

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

Beside Leontiev, another theorist that has important contribution to the development of activity theory is Yrö Engeström. In his book Learning by Expanding Engeström (1987) provides a model that visually describes activity as a 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.

Engeström (1987) describes the system as an evolution of biological adaptation of an organism in nature. The biological adaptation is seen as an animal form of activity in order to survive in nature.  It has three modes of adaptation: individual survival (doing alone), social life (being together), and collective survival (doing together). 

Through evolution, individual survival is ruptured by tool making. It is when a species starts to use tools as instruments to deal with nature as can be seen among higher primates. Social life is then ruptured by collective tradition, rituals and rules; and collective survival by emerging division of labor. The ruptures can be seen in species of more advance development, but only among human one can see that the three modes of adaptation are ruptured simultaneously and become an integrated system. 

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.

Going back to the case of sculpture artist-businessman, his activity as a whole driven by motive of beauty and profit is a form of production activity that produces variety pieces of sculpture art. Understood as a linear process, the art products are then distributed and exchanged in market places, and at the end consumed by the buyers in activities that share the same motive of beauty. 

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.

At this stage if we go back to Leontiev’s level of units of analysis, based on Engeström’s analysis we can conceptualize at least another two levels higher that are reproduced through human activity. 

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.

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[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

[2] Santosa, E. (2007). Contribution of Russian Activity Theory to Psychology in Indonesia. Jurnal Psikologi Sosial. Vol. 13, no. 3, p. 235-245.

Contribution of Russian Activity Theory to Psychology in Indonesia

It’s been more than eight years since I first read “The concept of activity in Soviet Psychology” translated and edited by James V. Wertsch; and almost four years since the first time I introduced the concept of activity in discussions with Indonesian colleagues and students in my Cultural Psychology course. Until now I still encounter similar questions and misunderstandings about the place of the concept of activity in Indonesian psychology. 

Several of the most frequently asked questions are “What has activity theory to do with Psychology?”, “In what sense is activity theory a psychology theory, since it does not deal with ‘inner’ psyche?” “In what way is activity a psychological construct?”, “Why do we need to introduce the concept to psychology in Indonesia?”

In his introduction to the book (Wertsch, 1981:3) he noted similar misunderstanding and difficulties in introducing Russian Psychology to American psychology scientific community. One of important reasons of such difficulties is the absence of knowledge or misunderstanding on the philosophical grounds that underlie Russian Psychology: Marxist philosophy.

In Indonesia, similar observation is valid. If we examine introductory textbooks used at psychology courses in Indonesian universities the last forty years, we can conclude that Indonesian psychology is very much influenced by American psychology. This may be attributable to political orientation of Soeharto regime that ruled Indonesia for more than 35 years from 1966 to 1998. The regime took everything that smells Marxism as taboo. This was combined with uncritical acceptance of the positivistic idea of progress and modernity adopted from western countries.

Such uncritical acceptance is prevalent in psychology community as well. Until now there are no systematic efforts to scrutinize the research and practice of psychology in Indonesia. Despite problems and stagnation felt in our discipline there are little efforts to critically question the approaches adopted in doing psychology research and practice. The positivist philosophy that underlies it remains taken for granted.

Why bother to question approaches adopted in doing psychology research and practices? Main concern is the growing gap between research and practice. Twenty years ago Polkinghorne (1988: ix) has expressed similar nagging concerns. Adopting an ideal integration of academic and professional enterprise, he works both as practicing psychotherapist and as academic researcher. Yet he did not find the academic psychology body of knowledge which is built based on academic research of much help in his work as clinician. In contrast, psychology practitioners seem to work with their own approaches to help their clients to solve real problems. 

In Indonesia, the situation is not quite different. In my own professional life as corporate and product brand identity consultant my main task is to help clients to come up with strategies to develop and communicate their corporate and product brands so that they can establish meaningful connection with people. In order to do this, I need to understand the psychology of Indonesian people which become their target segments. I looked for some support from psychology research and find little that could help to understand Indonesian contemporary culture and people.

It seems to me that psychology research conducted by Indonesian academics is more of monologue with themselves and fails to establish dialogue with socio-cultural realities meaningful for Indonesian people. Positivistic approach adopted with uncritical attitude drives Indonesian academics to apply categories or concepts borrowed from some American or European authors and to treat people’s behavior merely as object (objekt) that has no conscious mind.

Categories and experiences meaningful in socio-cultural realities in which Indonesian people live left ignored. This is not to support extreme relativism to build indigenous psychology or to treat Indonesian people as an exotic object. What is asserted here is that there is a need to adopt a theoretical approach with solid philosophical grounds that helps to build psychology body of knowledge to understand meaningful lives of contemporary Indonesian people.

In this paper my aim is to introduce the concept of activity and its potential contribution to Indonesian psychology, to establish dialogue with socio-cultural realities in Indonesia, and to build meaningful body of knowledge of psychology. 

To achieve the aim for Indonesian audience, it is necessary first to understand the crisis in psychology in early decades of 20^th century. The crisis was much debated mostly among European continental authors (Teo, 2005: 28). Vygotsky is one of major figures in the debate. He and his followers have developed an approach based on Marxist philosophy that is aimed to overcome the crisis. Understanding of the crisis is an important background to understand activity theory.

Crisis in psychology

It is interesting to note that since its birth emancipated from philosophy, disputes about the way psychology as a young science should develop has become the hallmark of its development. The year 1874 had witnessed publication of two important and fundamental treatises for psychology: Franz Brentano’s Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint; and Wilhelm Wundt’s Principles of Physiological Psychology (Chisholm, Baumgartner, and Müller, 1995). As is well-known to any students of American-influenced psychology, the decade also witnessed the foundation of Wundt’s experimental psychology laboratory in 1879.  

The two publications represent s two schools of thought in dispute: Brentano’s act-psychology that advocated phenomenological description of mind; and Wundt’s content-psychology that endorsed experimental method and sought to base the description of physical phenomena on the static concept of content of mind. 

The two can be said as the founding fathers of modern psychology, and since then disputes on what psychology as science should aim has started. More schools of thought each with its own focus were established.

It was probably Rudolph Willy who first raised the alarm of crisis in psychology through his book The Crisis in Psychology in 1899 (Teo, 2005: 28). What he meant is the problem of synchronic missing unity of psychology so that it cannot be said a unified science. There are many psychologies and each live in its own silos. After Willy across the 20^th century there are many authors who express similar concerns. Wundt (1921) himself later on in his life published five volumes of Völkerpsychologie in which he admits that experimental method cannot be used to study higher mental function process. 

Teo (2005: 32-33) has identified three basic areas in discussions about the crisis: the problem of subject matter (ontological issue), problem of methodology (epistemological issue), and problem of ethics and relevance with practice. Disputes on the three basic problems would certainly hinder psychology from building any meaningful body of knowledge.

Vygotsky was among leading figures who agrees that such crisis exists and there are urgent needs to find solutions out of such situation. His article Historical meaning of the crisis in psychology: A methodological investigation (Vygotsky, 1927/ 1997) is a very serious study on the anatomy of the crisis. 

Vygotsky’s students (Davydov and Radzikhovskii, 1985) noted that to understand Vygotsky’s ideas it is important to distinguish Vygotsky as methodologist and as psychologist. They argued that Vygotsky’s position in the article is more of a methodologist than a psychologist. The article is an effort to establish a general psychology to unite and generalize various schools of thought in psychology (p. 233). It is interesting to note that the methodology he employed is similar to sociology of knowledge analysis: studying psychology scientific ideas, its philosophical assumptions and their socio-historical contexts (p. 242-4). 

Contemporary psychology at the time Vygotsky wrote the article in 1927 were dominated by three schools of thought:

1) Freud’s psychoanalysis with unconsciousness as its main concept;

2) Watson’s behaviorism and its Russian ally which share similar philosophical bases – Pavlov and Bekhterev’s reflexology; and

3) subjective psychology which at Vygotsky’s time was considered traditional psychology.

Vygotsky claims that if general psychology could not be established, the three schools of thought would develop into separate sciences each with its own fundamental concept and explanatory principle which are remote and incomprehensible to each other. Psychoanalysis would be a science of unconsciousness, behaviorism a science of behavior and reflexes, and subjective psychology a science of the mental and its properties (p. 238-9).

His analysis of actual development of psychological ideas leads Vygotsky to conclude that the existing schools of psychology have fallen into what Alex Kozulin (1990: p.83) terms “substantialist one-sidedness” in philosophical debate between idealism vs. materialism. As Vygotsky has observed at the end the schools of psychology can be reduced into just two types based on their psychological meta-theory assumptions:

1) natural-scientific explanatory psychology and

2) descriptive, philosophical-phenomenological psychology.

Those schools which adopt natural-scientific explanatory meta-theory tend to deny human mind as subjective and put behavior or reflexes as the only objective reality that should become subject-matter of psychology. Human mind is considered as a substance that is locked inside human subjectivity, and since science should deal with objective realities psychology as science should deny its existence. Any efforts to study human mind are claimed to fall into metaphysics. The consequence of such position is that natural-scientific psychologies fail to build reasonable account to explain higher mental functions that are uniquely human. This is the one-sidedness of natural-scientific schools of psychology.

Those which adopt descriptive phenomenological psychology put human mind as subject-matter but are trapped into subjectivism. As such the effort to explain mental properties would form a vicious circle in which a mental property is explained through another mental property which cannot be verified or falsified. Cognitive psychology would be a modern example of such subjectivism. For example, human thought as mental property is explained through concepts borrowed from computer as paradigm (short-term memory, long-term memory, central processing, etc) that refer to another mental properties. In Vygotsky’s words: “… to explain means to go out in search of an external cause. As soon as the idea as an explanatory principle coincides with the basic concept it ceases to explain anything.” (Vygotsky, 1927/ 1997: p.303). This is the one-sidedness of descriptive phenomenological psychology. 

To paraphrase it in modern psychology terminology, the dispute is about explaining the R (response) part of the modern Stimulus(S)-Response(R) or Stimulus(S)-Organism (O)-Response (R) scheme of analysis. Natural scientific explanatory psychology such as behaviorism tends to deny the O part of the scheme and asserts that the R can be explained solely through S. Reflexology or modern neuropsychology accept the existence of O and seeks to explain R through conceiving O as reflex or neuron systems made of objective materials. Vygotsky claims that such an approach fails to explain R of higher mental processes, even when O is conceived as complex system of reflexes or neurons.

Descriptive phenomenological psychology seeks to describe R through O in subjective terms such as values, motives or personality that cannot be falsified and thus falls into subjectivism. There are modern psychologies that can be viewed as variants of such subjectivism. Cognitive psychology explains S-R relations through describing subjective cognitive processes inside O in terms borrowed from computer science. More recent social cognitive psychology tries to “socialize” cognitive psychology by conceptualizing S as social stimulus.

The situation in modern times seems to be not far different from Vygotsky’s time. Modern psychology still falls into substantialist one-sidedness. General psychology whose subject-matter is the actual development of psychological ideas should help in the future to construct a unified and methodologically coherent science of psychology that recognizes human mind and behavior; and is not trapped into subjectivism.

Vygotsky’s psychology, and Marxist philosophy

The motivation to build a unified science of psychology underlies consistently all his efforts from early times in his career in academic psychology until his timely death of tuberculosis on June 11, 1934. January 26, 1924 is the starting point of his career in psychology. A young man of 28 years-of-age coming from remote village in western part of Russia, Vygotsky presented his first paper at the Second Psychoneurological Congress in Leningrad in front of some grey-beard professors of reflexology. 

His thesis in the paper is simple but important. Alex Kozulin formulates this thesis as follows: 

“if reflexology was to become a general theory of behavior it must first accept the existence of consciousness and must incorporate the methods of psychological investigation. In the process of such incorporation the demarcation between reflexology and psychology will disappear, and a new scientific psychology of mind and behavior will emerge: Mind [psichika] without behavior does not exist, but behavior without mind does not exist either, because they are one.” (Kozulin, 1990: pp.73-4)

From the beginning, consciousness and higher mental processes associated with it is the main problem that occupied Vygotsky’s thinking. For him the study of human mind and behavior should start from what is uniquely human that differentiates it from animals and machines. The existence of consciousness as uniquely human should be accepted as subject matter of scientific study of human without falling into subjectivism.  

How did Vygotsky deal with this problem? He noted that both reflexology and subjective psychology have similar assumption concerning the existence of consciousness. Both accept Cartesian dualism (Res Extensa and Res Cogitans) and assume that consciousness is an essence or a substance that exists spiritually in human subjectivity, which is essentially different from material substance.

Natural-scientific psychology asserts that such spiritual substance cannot become a subject matter of scientific study, and thus rejects the possibility to study consciousness scientifically. Descriptive phenomenological psychology asserts that such spiritual substance can become a subject matter of study, and thus falls into using pseudo-scientific method. Vygotsky asserts that there is a way out of the crisis if Cartesian dualism is rejected.

There are two aspects of this rejection. The first is rejection of substantialist assumption that assumes consciousness as independent substance in spiritual reality. Second is rejection of subject-object dichotomy that assumes the existence of two separate subjective and objective realities. Such dichotomy is the assumption based on which the problem of modern psychology is formulated, that is, the problem of modes of relation between subject and object; how subject is influenced by the object and object is change by the subject.

In the first rejection, following William James and Baruch Spinoza, he considers consciousness not as a substance but as a function. This is in line with what James wrote in Does consciousness exist?:

“I intend only to disclaim the sense of this word (consciousness), as an essence or substance, but I will insist on its significance as a function” (James, 1913: 120 in Davydov and Radzikhovskii, 1985: 45).

With such point of view, it can be claimed that Vygotsky’s position on consciousness is similar to Hilary Putnam’s functionalism which asserts that mental states are identified by what they do rather than by what they are made of. Such functionalism becomes the philosophical base of modern cognitive psychology which adopts computer as its model for explaining how human mind works.

Certainly there’s close affinity between Vygotsky’s and Putnam’s functionalism. But if Vygotsky lived in our modern time, he would have commented that though adopting functionalist point of view, cognitive psychology fell into subjectivism since it used concepts that refer to certain features of consciousness as explanatory principle for explaining consciousness itself.

The second rejection is formulated more by Vygotsky’s followers (Leontiev, Engestrom). Vygotsky himself did not explicitly write about the second rejection, but it is clear that for Vygotsky it would logically follow after the first.

The indication that Vygotsky rejected the subject-object dichotomy is reflected in his search of a stratum of reality that could explain consciousness.  At this point Vygotsky points to Engels’ concept of human labor and tool use as the means by which human changes nature, and in so doing, transforms himself. He sees labor practices as explanatory principle that explains human consciousness and higher mental functions.

His followers formulate the second rejection based on Marx’s first theses on Feuerbach. Engestrom quotes the theses as follows:

"The chief defect of all previous materialism (...) is that things [Gegenstand], reality, sensuousness are conceived only in the form of the object, or of contemplation, but not as sensuous human activity, practice, not subjectively. Hence, in contradistinction to materialism, the active side was set forth abstractly by idealism - which, of course, does not know real, sensuous activity as such." (Marx 1976, 615-616 in Engestrom, 1987)

An important keyword to understand the above quote is Gegenstand. Gegenstand is a German word that is rather difficult to translate into English. The English translation of this word is object, but there are two sense of it. First, object means something material (Objekt in German). The other sense of the word is described by Merriam-Webster dictionary as follows: “something mental or physical toward which thought, feeling, or action is directed [an object for study]  [the object of my affection].”

This second sense of the word “object” is what is meant by Marx as Gegenstand. It can be but is not necessarily in the form of objective material (Objekt). It is something simultaneously objective and subjective. Gegenstand is inconceivable without intentional mind[3] directed toward it. The other way around is also true: intentional mind is inconceivable without Gegenstand.

In Gegenstand-intentional mind dialectical relations the dichotomy of subject-object becomes blurred. What Marx refers to as sensuous human activity or practice is this Gegenstand-intentional mind dialectic. An object becomes a Gegenstand and a subject becomes intentional only when embedded in human practice in which human action is directed toward a Gegenstand, and in which it has meaning for an intentional mind.

Consciousness then can be conceived as modes of functioning of intentional mind directed toward Gegenstand embedded in human practice. Materialism does not know Gegenstand, it only knows object as something material (Objekt); and subject is viewed merely as mirror that passively reflect external objective reality. In contrast idealism recognizes intentional mind without Gegenstand, and thus it is locked inside human subjectivity.

In terms understood by modern psychology, Cartesian dualism rejected by Vygotsky may be schematically described as in figure 1. 

Subject and object are conceived as two independent substances whose existence is assumed and which may influence each other. The modern psychology concept of stimulus is basically what material object from outside world “does” to the subject conceived as organism. Response, in turn, is what the subject as organism does to material object. 

Such scheme is rejected, and the Marxist alternative may be formulated as in figure 2.

Thus in terms of this alternative scheme, for example, a field of rice is not experienced by a farmer as a set of stimulus in the form of light wave coming from the field, impinging on his visual senses. The field of rice is experienced meaningfully as such since it is a Gegenstand of his action towards it, for example, watering the field with the intention to harvest the rice in two months. 

The action is not simply a response of an organism after a stimulus impinges on its senses. It is a realization of an intentional mind. In conducting his action he is experiencing himself as a farmer. The actions transform the subject into intentional mind. What makes a farmer a farmer is his actions as a farmer; what makes a rice field a rice field for a farmer is his action as a farmer as well.

Following functionalist point of view then we may conceive of consciousness as the modes of functioning of intentional mind directed toward Gegenstand. Consciousness is constituted by what it does, thus its functions in certain sensuous human activity, rather than what it is made of. Features of consciousness such as knowledge, values, motive, etc. are constituted by its function in certain sensuous human activity practiced in certain time and place.

At this point we may understand why Vygotsky is very much influenced by Marx’s theory of society (known as historical materialism). According to Marx, an analysis of society must be based on the knowledge of its socio-economic history. Historical changes in society and material life produce change in human nature. Analogous to this, Vygotsky would claim that an analysis of consciousness and higher mental functions must be based on the knowledge of its socio-economic history.

Another important aspect Vygotsky’s search for explanatory principle that can explain consciousness and higher mental function is the idea of tool-mediated action. This is important for explaining the genesis of higher mental function that differentiates it from the elementary one. 

The question that logically comes to mind is how is such higher mental process possible? What kind of development and what kind of socio-cultural settings lead to such process? What kind of ‘historical changes’ makes higher mental process possible?

To answer these questions, once again, Vygotsky rely on Marxist tradition. He based his observation on Engels’ concept of human labor and tool use as the means by which man changes nature, and in so doing, transforms himself. For Vygotsky, what differentiates between animal and human, between elementary and higher mental function is that human action in sensuous activity is mediated by tools. 

Thus schematically tool mediated action may be described as in figure 3.

For Vygotsky, Marx’s idea about human nature provides him insights to find way out of the crisis in psychology. Kozulin (1990: p.99) formulates Vygotsky’s vision of psychology as science inspired by Marx: “since psychology had not been understood as a social and cultural theory, scientific psychology was identified as a natural science. But it would be the task of the future meta-theory to elucidate how psychology would be possible as a materialistic, scientific and at the same time social and cultural form of knowledge.”

Thus the way out of the crisis is that consciousness should be explained not through some metaphysical concepts, and not through biological or neurological realities, but through its socio-historical and cultural origins and development.

The socio historical determination of consciousness is discussed in the paper that was originally published in 1925: Consciousness as a problem of the psychology of behavior (Vygotsky, 1979). In this paper he identified three components of uniquely human experience that differentiates it from animals.

The first is historical character of human behavior and learning:  “All our life, our labor and behavior draw broadly on the experience of former generations, which is not transmitted at birth from father to son. We may provisionally designate this as a historical experience.” (p. 13). Consciousness is not constituted only of individual experience in physical world, but also of the experience of former generations.

The second component which has very similar mechanism to historical one is the social nature of human experience (ibid., p.13). Individual experience becomes only one of several elements that constitute human consciousness. Although I have never traveled outside my own country, I can have knowledge about Sahara from other people’s experience. And this knowledge may constitute my consciousness when summer holiday is coming. Social nature of human experience is possible through participation in social activities. Speech plays a very important role in social activities to mediate individual human to other human being, to enable individual mind to access other people’s mind, and to transform other people’s experience into individual mind. In a broad sense, speech is the source of social behavior and consciousness.

The final component of uniquely human experience is the twofold nature of human experience as mental activity and as external behavior. Vygotsky certainly has in mind what Karl Marx has written in Capital: a Critique of Political Economy in chapter seven section one:

“We pre-suppose labor in a form that stamps it as exclusively human. A spider conducts operations that resemble those of a weaver, and a bee puts to shame many an architect in the construction of her cells. But what distinguishes the worst architect from the best of bees is this, that the architect raises his structure in imagination before he erects it in reality. At the end of every labor-process, we get a result that already existed in the imagination of the laborer at its commencement.” (Marx, 1887)

According to Marx human labor as distinct from animal one is a double process. First human works in his imagination to build a structure, and then he erects it in reality. 

This last component is the feature of consciousness that constitutes human capability of knowledge. It is made possible through symbol-mediated action. The following scheme describes the mediation of action through symbol.

As we can see, the relation between symbol and Gegenstand is quite similar to Saussurean semiotic dyad of signifier-signified. Symbol corresponds to the signifier, and Gegenstand to the signified.

Semiotic is a study of interpretation processes and how a symbol comes to have meaning, or referring to certain thoughts or objects[4]. Another model that is similar to Vygotsky’s is the Peircean triangle of representamen, interpretant, and object. In this model, Symbol may correspond to representamen, Gegenstand to interpretant, and objekt to object.

In Semiotics, whereas interpretant or the signified is the ‘idea’ in the mind of an interpreter, it is stressed that representamen or signifier need not be in a form of something material. Representamen can also be an ‘idea’ or images in the mind of a person.

One important insight from Semiotic is that the act of interpretation consists of the process where the signifier may become the signified, and vice versa. This could lead to a series of successive interpretant ad infinitum. The learning from Semiotics may give us insights of how human capability of knowledge is possible emerging from human activities. 

Human production of knowledge starts when the symbol which in earlier stage mediates an action toward a Gegenstand becomes the Gegenstand itself mediated by another symbols in later stages.

At this point it is important to mention the difference between tool-mediated and symbol mediated action. While the result of tool-mediated action is the change in the objects in outside world, the effects that symbol-mediated action has is the change of the inner world of the subject. With the act of interpretation or the act referring the subjective mind change itself by expanding its knowledge.

Vygotsky aims to explain how higher mental functions are possible. One important aspect of distinctively human capability compared to animal is the capability of self-consciousness. This capability is important for human in structuring or controlling his own behavior. Vygotsky’s words: “consciousness is a problem of the structure of behavior” (Vygotsky, 1979: p.12). 

The question is how such capability is possible. For Vygotsky the genesis of self consciousness starts from consciousness of other mind in social interaction:

“We are conscious of ourselves because we are conscious of others; and in an analogous manner, we are conscious of others because in our relationship to ourselves we are the same as others in their relationship to us. I am aware of myself only to the extent that I am as another for myself..” (Vygotsky, 1979: p.29).

This is in line with Vygotsky well-known general genetic law of cultural development: “Any function in the child’s cultural development appears twice, or on two planes.  First it appears on the social plane, and then on the psychological plane.” (Vygotsky, 1981: p.163).

Following the scheme of symbol-mediated action, consciousness of other minds as the first stage in cultural development may be described as putting other people as the Gegenstand of one’s symbol mediated social action.

Only then, gradually through activities involving other minds self-consciousness comes into being. Self-knowledge is possible when man puts himself as Gegenstand of his own action. In this case, the symbol becomes a psychological tool that mediates man’s action toward himself. Such mediation is responsible for the genesis of higher mental functions. It is a very important concept in Vygotsky’s psychology that differentiates higher vs. elementary mental process.

Another important keyword for Vygotsky in his search of explanatory principle for a scientific psychology is the search for appropriate unit of analysis to avoid reductionist explanations of consciousness. The unit of analysis must be connected logically to the explanatory principle. Again at this point he learned from Marx’s Capital. Just like Marx builds his approach in Capital to study capitalist society, scientific psychology should build its own Capital to study human consciousness: 

I want to find out how science has to be built, to approach the study of the mind having learned the whole of Marx’s method…. In order to create such an enabling theory-method in the generally accepted scientific manner, it is necessary to discover the essence of the given area of phenomena, the law according to which they change, their qualitative and quantitative characteristics, their causes. It is necessary to formulate the categories and concepts that are specifically relevant to them- in other words, to create one’s own Capital.

The whole of Capital is written according to the following method: Marx analyzes a single living ‘cell’ of capitalist society – for example, the nature of value. Within this cell he discovers the structure of the entire system and all of its economic institutions. He says that to a layman this analysis may seem a murky tangle of tiny details. Indeed, there may be tiny details, but they are exactly those which are essential to ‘micro-anatomy’. Anyone who could discover what a ‘psychological’ cell is – the mechanism producing even a single response – would thereby find the key to psychology as a whole. (Vygotsky, 1978: p.8)

Thus the key for such scientific psychology is to find this “psychological cell” and studying its “micro-anatomy”. The idea of “psychological cell” is discussed further by Vygotsky and his followers under the concept of unit of analysis. Basic requirement for such unit of analysis is that it preserves the properties of the whole. Zinchenko (1985: p.97-9) has listed down seven requirements that should be met for an appropriate unit of analysis: 

1.  A unit must not be a diffuse, syncretic whole constructed of elements. Rather, it must be an integrated psychological structure.
2. The unit must maintain the characteristics of the unified whole, though internal contradictions and oppositions may exist.
3. These units, though preserving the structural characteristics of the whole, must be capable of development, including self-development.
4. The unit must be a living part of the whole. It must also be a unified system that cannot be further decomposed. Decomposition of the whole into elements is possible, but it results in its destruction as a living and unified entity.
5. Basic principle of research in psychology must involve the study of the development, functioning and structure of the unit.
6.  The analysis involving this unit must allow one to combine its results with the synthetic of the properties of any complex unit.
7. The unit must not only reflect internal unity of mental processes. It must also permit the investigation of the relationship between a specific psychological function and the various critical function of consciousness.

Despite the importance of unit of analysis, along his career in academic psychology until his death he did not seem serious in formulating the right unit of analysis. He did not leave any well-developed account of his ideas about the units to be used in the analysis of mind (Zinchenko, 1985: p.94). His writings are focused more on formulating normative requirement for such unit of analysis. 

The search for appropriate unit of analysis is explored more by Vygotsky’s followers. There are still debates concerning this. Current dominant interpretation of Vygosky’s psychology would claim tool-mediated action is the appropriate unit of analysis; and that human activity is the explanatory principle that explains consciousness and higher mental function.

What does Vygotsky’s psychology contribute to the way we build psychology in Indonesia? How can it help us to establish dialogue with socio-cultural realities in Indonesia? Instead of starting with metaphysical categories borrowed from foreign authors, following Vygotsky, the starting point must be through studying sensuous human activities in which meaningful actions, experiences and categories emerge. 

It’s not that we reject all foreign categories. The point is that we must start from categories that are really meaningful for Indonesian. The concept of sensuous human activity itself is borrowed from foreign author, but it enables us to start from concrete meaningful experiences without falling into materialism or subjectivism. 

From my point of view, human activity is not a metaphysical concept that cannot be falsified. It is a concept that refers to concrete experience of real people. Through studying human activities in Indonesian context, we may arrive at some categories that are meaningful for Indonesian people.

Literature

Chisholm, R. M., Baumgartner, W. and Müller, B. (1995). Introduction. In B. Müller (ed.) Descriptive Psychology: Franz Brentano. (pp. x-xxvi)London: Routledge.

Davydov, V. and Radzikhovskii, L. (1985). Vygotsky’s theory and the activity-orientated approach in psychology. In J.Wertsch (ed.), Culture, communication and cognition: Vygotskian perspectives (pp. 35–65). New York: Cambridge University Press.

Engeström, Y. (1987). Learning by expanding: an Activity Theoretical Approach to Developmental Research. Helsinki, Finland: Orienta-Konsultit Oy.

Koch, S. (1985). The Nature and limits of psychological knowledge. In S. Koch and D. Leary (Eds.), A Century of Psychology as Science (pp.75-97). New York: McGraw-Hill.

Kozulin, A. (1990). Vygotsky’s Psychology: a Biography of Ideas. London: Simon & Schuster International Group.

Leont'ev, A. N. (1978). Activity, consciousness, and personality. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall.

Polkinghorne, D. E. (1988). Narrative Knowing and the Human Sciences. New York: State University of New York Press.

Teo, T. (2005). The Critique of Psychology: from Kant to Postcolonial Theory. New York: Springer Science + Business Media.

Vygotsky, L. (1978). Mind in Society: the development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Vygotsky, L. (1979). Consciousness as a problem of psychology of behavior. Soviet Psychology, 17, 5–35. (Original work published 1925).

Vygotsky, L. (1981). The Genesis of higher mental functions. In James V. Wertsch (Ed.) The Concept of Activity in Soviet Psychology. New York: M.E. Sharpe Inc.

Vygotsky, L. S. (1927/ 1997). The historical meaning of the crisis in psychology: A methodological investigation (R. Van der Veer, Trans.). In R. W. Rieber & J. Wollock (Eds.), The collected works of L. S. Vygotsky, Vol. 3: Problems of the theory and history of psychology (pp. 233–343). New York: Plenum.

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.

Wundt, W. (1921). Völkerpsychologie: Eine Untersuchung der Entwicklungsgesetze von Sprache, Mythus und Sitte. Erster Band: Die Sprache; erster Teil (4. Auflage) [Folk psychology: An investigation of the developmental laws of language, myth, and custom. Volume 1: Language, first part (4th ed.)]. Stuttgart: Kröner.

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.

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[1] The term “Russian Psychology” is a substitute for “Soviet Psychology”. Since Soviet Union no longer exists “Russian Psychology” is more appropriate for referring to psychologies developed by Vygotsky and his contemporary in former USSR.

[2] 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

[3] This idea is similar to Brentano’s concept of mind as intentionality.

[4] For those who are new to semiotics, Daniel Chandler’s book “Semiotics: the basics” is a very good introduction