It is curious indeed that you are bringing up emotions. I have been
wondering about who has done research on the emergence of emotions,
positioned against the emergence of 'cognition' in infants and toddlers.
(By cognition here I mean in the traditional educational sense, which
distinguishes cognition from affect - Barry Saferstein once informed me
that sociologists do not make this split.)
Recently I posted a reference to "The man who tasted shapes" by Cytowic.
There are essays there having to do with the 'primacy of emotion', which I
have been interested in connecting to cognition (trad. ed.), motivation,
and interaction ala activity theory. There are some serious weaknesses in
Cytowics work, but it is provocative and sometimes grounded.
I would love to have a passionate debate on these issues.
Bill Barowy
>hello xmca'ers,
>
>I'm sitting here w/ a strained back from dancing in my kitchen over
>thanksgiving, pondering some ideas I've been wrestling w/ for years now.
>Maybe some of you can help??? I'll start with a simple and perhaps brazen
>argument: that what psychologists have come to refer to as "cognitions"
>in more mentalist depictions of knowing are really intentional and
>interpretive acts stripped bare of historicity, feeling (both emotional
>and sensual passions), and considerations of value.
>
>I would assume that one goal of S-H-C psychology is to "embed" our
>cognitive acts, restoring notions of historicity, etc., to them. At the
>same time, I am consistently puzzled by the siphening off of emotional and
>ethical knowing from the theoretical accounts we construct of cognitive
>understanding. This relates back to what Martin P. raised earlier, about
>the role of narrative in educational and psychological studies.
>
>I have a question to throw out to "ya'll" (my southern past provides a
>useful plural form here):
>
>What IS the distinction between "emotions" and "cognitions". Emotions
>are surely intentional, fully rational, and embedded in "distinctions of
>worth" (C. Taylor). Why then, are these considered different in kind from
>"thinking". Would this take us into the realm of the "irrational" in our
>theorizing about learning? Emotions can lead to ill-formed intentional
>acts, as any of us who have been enraged or in love would testify. But
>then, cognitions can be ill-formed too, and this hasn't led to their being
>distanced from theories of learning.
>
>I write this in part f. the perspective of someone who struggled to put
>together an aera session on narrative and emotions. This session was
>accepted through the hard work of Pedro, and undoubtedly through the
>support of many colleagues in the S-H SIG and elsewhere. But one reviewer
>(anonymous of course) noted that the session might be better placed in
>another SIG. Why, I would ask???
>
>
>Finally, a small bit of commentary. Much has been written about the
>metaphor of scaffolding, and that construct has come under some critique
>within the xmca community. How might the insertion of something like
>"felt experience" into our discourses about scaffolding, learning,
>teaching, etc. reveal different aspects of "knowing". Here's a "for
>instance" that reflects a focus on narrative:
>
>A mother and child are engaged in joint activity, centered on the child's
>solution of a problem (this might be something like making a replica of an
>object, with the mother offering support and guidance). One description
>of such an episode might be that the two participants in joint activity
>are constructing situational definitions, coming to provisional kinds of
>intersubjective understanding, etc. Another description might be to think
>about the same "act" from the mother's point of view, in relation to the
>child. From the mother's point of view, the activity setting is as much
>about differentiation as intersubjectivity. The mother and child have,
>after all, shared an intimacy that is hard to fathom within the language
>of Western psychology. As the child works on her task, the mother is
>constantly attuned to the child's movements and expressions. Is she
>(the child) cranky because she didn't have a nap? Is she uncomfortable in
>this lab setting? Should I let her keep struggling with what she's doing?
>Sometimes when I step in and mediate she screams bloody murder.
>
>In short, ethical deliberations and felt attunement would infiltrate each
>and every moment of the activity being constructed by these two social
>participants. Should such things be a part of S-H theorizing???
>
>Deborah
Bill Barowy, Associate Professor
Technology in Education
Lesley College, 29 Everett Street, Cambridge, MA 02138-2790
_______________________
"One of life's quiet excitements is to stand somewhat apart from yourself
and watch yourself softly become the author of something beautiful."
[Norman Maclean in "A river runs through it."]