Dear colleagues,
thank you very much for all your valued comments on my article. There
are a lot of aspects already discussed and I have some difficulties to
follow all lines of argumentation. Therefore, I would like to answer
to the following:
1. Emotions as psychological function within the macrostructure of
activity.
As Andy claims it I get my Activity Theory from AN Leont'ev and I
focused especially on his concept of macrostructure of activity and
its levels of activity that is related to motives, actions that are
related to goals and operations that are related to the conditions
under which an action is given. And Andy gets precisely to the heart
of it when he stated that my article needs to be read with attention
to motivation and how the macrostructure of an activity is related to
the motives and goals of an individual. One activity can be realized
by different actions, and one action can realize different activities.
May I quote Andy's words:
" Because motives are not given to immediate perception; they have to
be inferred/learnt. Emotional expression and experience signal the
success, failure, frustration, expectation, etc. of goals and motives
for both participant/observers and the individual subject themself,
emotion is tied up with motives and goals and therefore with the
structure of an activity. One and the same action could be part of
different “”actions activities (!) (MH)””. It is the emotions which
signal (internally and externally) the success, etc., etc., that is,
in an action's furthering an activity, and it is this which makes
manifest and actual that connection between action and activity, for
both the observer/participant and the individual subject.
So there is no metaphysics here. No hypothetical "states of mind", or
intelligent infants, etc."
a) Take the example of the opening of the window. That's the behavior.
What's the goal?
b) Imagine the person is a leader and opens the window in order to
greet his followers and to hold a speech. That's the goal. What is the
activity?
c) If one look at the circumstances one can derive that the speech is
a part of a political activity in order to celebrate the election
victory. So, if the leader also feels pride and enthusiasm about the
victory there is coincidence between the publically assigned meaning
and the personally felt sense of the situation. However, it may also
be possible that he doesn't feel pride but a great burden and he
personally feels to be overloaded with the duties and future
expectations. Then the societal meaning assigned by the followers to
this situation and the personal sense assigned by the leader himself
are not congruent. The leader framed this situation under an
achievement perspective whether he is able to fulfill the leadership.
But, note when we talk about actions and activity, then we speak about
an advanced level of activity e.g. in children or adults, but not in
infants who start to have intentions but still not a mental image of a
future state of affairs.
2. Differentiation between the basic level in infants and advanced
level in older children:
- A young infant has not already established a goal-driven level of
actions. In the first weeks one can observe the acquisition of first
operations and of first expectations what should happen. But these
expectations are not yet represented as a mental image about the
desired future states. This is the product of the acquisition of a
sign system which enables the person to evoke and imagine a future
state in the here and now and to start to strive for it. And for this
starting point, not only to imagine different future states, but also
to select one of them and to start to strive for it, emotional
processes come into play that color one of the imagined future state
e.g. in a state worth striving for and that mobilize the executive
power to start striving for it.
However, the ability to form such notions of goals and to transform
them into actions is not something that occurs automatically. It
emerges in a long-drawn ontogenetic learning process in which the
attainment of goals through actions is tried, tested, and increasingly
optimized. Older children are
So, for an understanding of my emotion concept the macrostructure of
an activity is very decisive because I embedded emotions as a specific
psychological function within the macrostructure of an activity.
Best
Manfred
Prof. Dr. Manfred Holodynski
Institut für Psychologie in Bildung und Erziehung
Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster
Fliednerstr. 21
D-48149 Münster
+49-(0)-251-83-34311
+49-(0)-251-83-34310 (Sekretariat)
+49-(0)-251-83-34314 (Fax)
http://wwwpsy.uni-muenster.de/Psychologie.inst5/AEHolodynski/index.html
manfred.holodynski@uni-muenster.de
-----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
Von: Andy Blunden [mailto:ablunden@mira.net]
Gesendet: Freitag, 22. März 2013 04:13
An: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Cc: Holodynski, Manfred
Betreff: Re: Polls are closed: Manfred Holodynsk's article is choice
Mike, Manfred gets his Activity Theory from AN Leontyev, rather than
Engestrom's "systems of activity."
So actions and activities are defined by their goals and motives. So
Manfred's article needs to be read with attention to motivation and
how the structure of an activity is related to motives and goals.
Because motives are not given to immediate perception; they have to be
inferred/learnt. Emotional expression and experience signal the
success, failure, frustration, expectation, etc. of goals and motives
for both participant/observers and the individual subject themself,
emotion is tied up with motives and goals and therefore with the
structure of an activity. One and the same action could be part of
different actions. It is the emotions which signal (internally and
externally) the success, etc., etc., that is, in an action's
furthering an activity, and it is this which makes manifest and actual
that connection between action and activity, for both the
observer/participant and the individual subject.
So there is no metaphysics here. No hypothetical "states of mind", or
intelligent infants, etc.
It's all in there.
Andy
mike cole wrote:
> Hi Andy - and here I was wondering why operation/action/activity were
> not prominent in Manfred's article. Where does he lay out the views in
> this note? Am I reading too superficially as usual? Seems important
> for me to get clear about!
> Mike
>
> On Thursday, March 21, 2013, Andy Blunden wrote:
>
> Think of your illustration,Martin, about whether, in opening the
> window, you were acting as a technician or moral leader. I.e., the
> meaning of the action lies in the activity of which it is a part,
> which is not immediately given. Manfred does not refer this to
> "intention" or "belief". Manfred is quite specific that the
> signalising and self-perception of an action in relation to an
> activity - i.e., an action's being of this and not that activity -
> is a function played by emotion. Concepts like internal state and
> intention are derivative from operation/action/activity, not
> fundamental.
>
> Andy
>