Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-g8jcs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T21:24:51.607Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Chapter 16 - The Role of Symbolic Resources in Human Lives

from Part IV - Symbolic resources for the constitution of experience

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2012

By
Tania Zittoun
Edited by
Jaan Valsiner  and
Alberto Rosa
Jaan Valsiner
Affiliation:
Clark University, Massachusetts
Alberto Rosa
Affiliation:
Universidad Autónoma de Madrid
Get access

Summary

A person using a symbolic resource is a person using a novel, a film, a picture, a song, or a ritual, to address an unfamiliar situation in her everyday life. This chapter sketches the historical background of the notion of symbolic resource, and highlights its potential for socio-cultural psychology. It gives a model for the analysis of uses of symbolic resources. The chapter shows how symbolic resources participate to psychological development because of their mediation of three basic psychological processes: intentionality, inscription in time, and distancing. It explains that the symbolic systems and artefacts have as major property the fact that they encapsulate human meaning and experience; people are constantly striving for meaning, especially in moments of change. However, it appears that social sciences are still unable to account for how cultural tools participate in people's personal meaning making, and emotional elaboration as part of psychic transformation.

Keywords

Ape Language Researchculture theoryethnographic accountszone of proximal developmentlanguagenon-human primates
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of Sociocultural Psychology , pp. 343 - 361
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2007

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×