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BASIC PROPOSITIONS
A few propositions have been fundamental 6to this shift toward ecological,
dynamic psychology, and they are basic to most of the arguments presented
in this volume:
1. Psychological events are transactions that take place between
individuals and their specific environments. Psychological phe-
nomena are explained with joint reference to active, constructive
characteristics of both the individual and the interactional and
physical contexts within which the individual acts.
2. The human mind is fundamentally social in nature. Human action
and thought are built on social co-construction through joint
activity, intersubjectivity, and acculturation.
3. The environment, both social and physical, is an exceedingly
complex affair, and it participates directly in behavior. The con-
texts within which human beings develop are complex systems that
exist at multiple levels from the microstructure of surfaces to the
interinstitutional relationships of cultures.
4. Neither characteristics of individuals nor characteristics of the
many contexts within which individuals live will, taken by them-
selves, be adequate to explain transactions. How we perceive the
world, act on objects, interact with people, and generate symbols to
represent events must be understood as the joint product of the
physical and social situations that individuals find themselves in
and the personal characteristics that individuals bring with them to
these situations.
Along with these assumptions, several methodological orientations also
permeate the new approach:
1. Development should be studied in its natural settings and in
enriched laboratory situations that capture some of the complexity
of naturalistic conditions.
2. To handle the complexities of person in context, researchers should
study process with outcome, using appropriately complex methods
such as the dynamic assessment of interaction as it unfolds over
time, assessment in multiple contexts including variations in tasks
and contextual supports, and participatory observation.

ORIGINS OF THE NEW ORIENTATION

This new orientation did not suddenly emerge de novo. It grew organically
from work with its roots in a century of scholarship. Indeed, constructive

-xii-

Questia, a part of Gale, Cengage Learning. www.questia.com

Publication Information: Book Title: Development in Context: Acting and Thinking in Specific Environments. Contributors: Robert H. Wozniak - editor, Kurt W. Fischer - editor. Publisher: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Place of Publication: Hillsdale, NJ. Publication Year: 1993. Page Number: xii.
    
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