Book contents
- The Cambridge Handbook of Sociocultural Psychology
- The Cambridge Handbook of Sociocultural Psychology
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Preface
- Contributors
- The Cambridge Handbook of Sociocultural Psychology
- Editors’ Introduction Contemporary Socio-Cultural Research
- Part I Theoretical and methodological issues
- Part II From nature to culture
- Part III From orientation to meaning
- Part IV Symbolic resources for the constitution of experience
- Part V From society to the person through culture
- Part VI From social culture to personal culture
- Part VII Making sense of the past for the future: memory and self-reflection
- Chapter 31 Social and Cognitive Determinants of Collective Memory for Public Events1
- Chapter 32 Collective Memory
- Chapter 33 Issues in the Socio-Cultural Study of Memory
- Chapter 34 The Social Basis of Self-Reflection
- General Conclusions: Socio-Cultural Psychology on the Move
- Index
Chapter 34 - The Social Basis of Self-Reflection
from Part VII - Making sense of the past for the future: memory and self-reflection
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
Book contents
- The Cambridge Handbook of Sociocultural Psychology
- The Cambridge Handbook of Sociocultural Psychology
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Preface
- Contributors
- The Cambridge Handbook of Sociocultural Psychology
- Editors’ Introduction Contemporary Socio-Cultural Research
- Part I Theoretical and methodological issues
- Part II From nature to culture
- Part III From orientation to meaning
- Part IV Symbolic resources for the constitution of experience
- Part V From society to the person through culture
- Part VI From social culture to personal culture
- Part VII Making sense of the past for the future: memory and self-reflection
- Chapter 31 Social and Cognitive Determinants of Collective Memory for Public Events1
- Chapter 32 Collective Memory
- Chapter 33 Issues in the Socio-Cultural Study of Memory
- Chapter 34 The Social Basis of Self-Reflection
- General Conclusions: Socio-Cultural Psychology on the Move
- Index
Summary
This chapter reviews socio-cultural theories of the origins self-reflection. Four types of theory can be distinguished: rupture theories, mirror theories, conflict theories, and internalization theories. In order to address the limitations of these theories, Mead's theory of the social act is advanced. These theories are evaluated against an empirical instance of self-reflection and a novel conception of complex semiotic systems is proposed. Mead's theory of the social act is a theory of institutional structures. Additional social acts in which frequent position exchange occurs include: buying/ selling, giving/receiving, suffering/helping, grieving/consoling, teaching/learning, ordering/ obeying, winning/losing, and stealing/ punishing. The social act is the institution that first provides individuals with roughly equivalent actor and observer experiences, and second, integrates these perspectives within the minds of individuals. The chapter explains the semiotic conditions underlying any self-reflection in terms of the structure of the sign, or significant symbol.
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- Information
- The Cambridge Handbook of Sociocultural Psychology , pp. 678 - 691Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2007
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