We think that psychology as science is – once again—at a crossroads. As it has happened recurrently in the past it is about to lose its appropriate focus—that of the subjective domain of the human being (the Psyche) that is an immediate component in the arena of living—involving all the activities of being human. Being ourselves—as human beings—involves happiness and sorrow, hopes and their failures, endless searches of “who am I” and developing sellable tools for helping others as well as destroying them. Both construction and destruction have been parts of being human—poetry and cruelty go hand in hand in our lives. The human Psyche is complex, subjective, meaningful, and mysterious. As such it cannot be reduced to explanations that consider it accounted for by causal mechanisms of lower levels of organization. Thus, the efforts to reduce higher level psychological functions to physiological or genetic “causes” violates the hierarchical systemic structure of the totality of human beings. That system is organized at multiple levels—all of which are related, yet in ways that is functionally non-causal. Each level is simultaneously participating in the organization of adjacent levels as well as buffering against the potential malfunctions of these levels. The result is a highly resilient open system that deends on the relations with the environment—yet it is not in any way “caused” by direct environmental “influences”. In a similar vein, all higher levels of organization of the psychological phenomena are related with physiological and genetic levels—but not determined by them.

Valsiner, J., Marsico, G., Chaudhary, N., Sato, T. & Dazzani, V. (2015). What is changing in psychology? In J., Valsiner, G., Marsico, N. Chaudhary, T., Sato, V., Dazzani, (Eds). (2016). Psychology as a Science of Human Being: The Yokohama Manifesto, Annals of Theoretical Psychology, 13, (p. v-vii), Geneve, Switzerland: Springer

MARSICO, Giuseppina;
2015-01-01

Abstract

We think that psychology as science is – once again—at a crossroads. As it has happened recurrently in the past it is about to lose its appropriate focus—that of the subjective domain of the human being (the Psyche) that is an immediate component in the arena of living—involving all the activities of being human. Being ourselves—as human beings—involves happiness and sorrow, hopes and their failures, endless searches of “who am I” and developing sellable tools for helping others as well as destroying them. Both construction and destruction have been parts of being human—poetry and cruelty go hand in hand in our lives. The human Psyche is complex, subjective, meaningful, and mysterious. As such it cannot be reduced to explanations that consider it accounted for by causal mechanisms of lower levels of organization. Thus, the efforts to reduce higher level psychological functions to physiological or genetic “causes” violates the hierarchical systemic structure of the totality of human beings. That system is organized at multiple levels—all of which are related, yet in ways that is functionally non-causal. Each level is simultaneously participating in the organization of adjacent levels as well as buffering against the potential malfunctions of these levels. The result is a highly resilient open system that deends on the relations with the environment—yet it is not in any way “caused” by direct environmental “influences”. In a similar vein, all higher levels of organization of the psychological phenomena are related with physiological and genetic levels—but not determined by them.
2015
978-3-319-21094-0
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11386/4649640
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