Innovating Genesis

Microgenesis and the Constructive Mind in Action

Edited by:
Emily Abbey, College of the Holy Cross
Rainer Diriwächter, California Lutheran University, USA

A volume in the series: Advances in Cultural Psychology: Constructing Human Development. Editor(s): Jaan Valsiner, Niels Bohr Professor of Cultural Psychology, Aalborg University.

Published 2008

Cultural psychology is currently in a phase of rapid growth. Innovating Genesis is an example of how the most central aspect of any science—its methodology—undergoes revolutionary transformation. Yet in this book we see careful continuity with the past of the discipline. The orientation to study processes of emergence was well prepared by the Ganzheitspsychologie tradition in early twentieth century. If we all have learned something about the world since then it is the inevitable quality of the whole that transcends its parts. Scientists have tried to grasp the general notion of such wholes—yet recurrently regressing to the easy illusion that one can reduce the complexities of the in vivo events to the scrutinizes in vitro. By looking to the history of how holistic ideas might help our present investigations, this book demonstrates how contemporary science has something to learn from its own history.

The editors of this volume have managed to bring together a creative international team of scholars whom they have guided to be on target of the content matter of the book—innovating the genesis of the methods for the study of psychological emergence.

CONTENTS
Foreword: Genesis of Methodological Innovation, Jaan Valsiner. Editors' Introduction, Emily Abbey and Rainer Diriwächter. PART I: MICROGENESIS OF VISUAL GESTALT PERCEPTION. From Visual Actual Genesis and Ontogenesis Toward a Theory of Man, Lothar Kleine-Horst. Developing "development" in Theory and Method: A Commentary on Kleine-Horst (2007), Brady Wagoner. PART II: MEANING MAKING ABOUT VIOLENCE. The Making of Nonviolence: Affective Self-Regulation in a Shooting Game, Nicole M. Capezza and Jaan Valsiner. The Need for Microgenetic Analysis of Semiotic Fields in social psychology, Gyuseog Han. PART III: SYMBOLIC SELF-SOOTHING. Processing Process: A Microgenetic Look at Microgenetic Analysis, Valerie M. Bellas and James P. McHale. A Researcher at the Crossroads: A Commentary Upon Processing Process, Carla Cunha. PART IV: DAYDREAMS. Morpheus Awakened: Microgenesis in Daydreams, Stacey Pereira and Rainer Diriwächter. The Microgenetic Study of Daydreaming, Jeanette Lawrence and Agnes E. Dodds. PART V: EARLY DEVELOPMENT OF SUBJECT-OBJECT RELATIONS. Production of Signs and Meaning-Making Process in Triadic Interaction at the Prelinguistic Level: A Task for Sociocultural Analysis—The Case of Ostension, Christiane Moro and Cintia Rodríguez. Challenging Questions in the Study of Early Semiotic Activity in Children, Selma Leitão. General Conclusions, Emily Abbey and Rainer Diriwächter. About the Authors.