Westernalization in the mirror: on the cultural reception of western psychology

Motivational Congruence Theory: Beyond the Dualistic Approach to Human Motivation

Dualism has long been part of human sciences, including psychology and its sub-discipline of motivation. In psychology, such dualism is reflected in the rationalism-empiricism dichotomy. This dichotomy has resulted in two seemingly contradictory perspectives, including empiricism and rationalism. From empiricism perspective, the primary contact between subject and object is the passive reception of inputs from the environment. From rationalism perspective, the primary contact is through the match between conceptual forms and empirical observations. Relying on the notion of "being-in-the-world", activity theories reconcile these discrepancies by stressing the role of individual's activity in the contact between individual and the world. Similarly, in the motivation literature, such duality is highlighted by the dissection of motivation into intrinsic and extrinsic categories. It has resulted in three contrasting streams on the relationship between extrinsic and intrinsic motivation. The first stream by reinforcement theories argues that these two motivational mechanisms act in an additive way. The second stream by undermining theories posits that they interact in a negative way. Yet, the third stream by contingency theories postulates that the simultaneous effect of these motivational mechanisms depends on reward salience. These theoretical streams either implicitly or explicitly give priority to one type of motivation over the other. Emphasizing a dialectical stance, motivational congruence theory gives equal weight to both types of motivation. It stipulates that the perceived congruence between motivational mechanisms and context determines overall motivation and performance. The theory goes beyond the dualistic approach in motivation and resolves discrepancies that have long afflicted the literature.

Concerning the Importance of Ontological Issues for Cultural Psychology: a Reply to Comments

The paper continues the "ontological" discussion in IBPS, addressing the question of the importance of ontological issues for contemporary development of cultural psychology. The language psychological science speaks is considered as an ontological issue and a most topical one for cultural psychology, aiming at "constructing a psychology that is universal while being culture-inclusive" (Valsiner 2009, p.2). Ontological issues could stay implicit and neglected, as long as the 'etant, "the mode of being", "the particularities" were discussed within the circle of adherents of one and the same school, who implicitly had in mind the same 'entre. However, as soon as the discussion involves representatives of different schools, ontological issues become crucial for mutual understanding and meanings of the words have to be explicated. Same words like "psyche", "subjectivity", "social", "culture", etc., - often mean different things when they are pronounces or written by representatives of different theoretical trends. The discussion of the 'etant without clear indicating of the 'entre under consideration is likely to turn into a Babel. Global modernity requires constant efforts and insistent desire for mutual understanding across the diversified global scientific community. Thus, creative collaboration in epistemological developments has to ground on clear comprehension of the ontological stances of the debaters.

Activity Theories and the Ontology of Psychology: Learning from Danish and Russian Experiences

Psychology has permanent problems of theoretical coherence and practical, analytic and critical efficiency. It is claimed that Activity Theory (AT) with roots in a long European philosophical tradition and continued in Russian AT is a first step to remedy this. A Danish version of AT may have a key to exceed some, mostly implicit, ontological restrictions in traditional AT and free it from an embracement of functionalism and mechanicism, rooted in Renaissance Physics. The analysis goes back to Aristotle's understanding of the freely moving animal in its ecology and introduces some dualities in the encounter between subject and object which replace the dualistic dichotomies traditionally splitting Psychology in Naturwissenschaft vs. Geisteswissenshaft. This also implies a "Copernican turn" of Cartesian dualism. The perspectives are to give place for a phenomenology of meaning without cutting human psyche out of Nature and to open Psychology to its domain.