cognition, symbols, and vygotsky's developmental psychology

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Cognition, Symbols, and Vygotsky's Developmental PsychologyAuthor(s): Dorothy C. Holland and Jaan ValsinerSource: Ethos, Vol. 16, No. 3 (Sep., 1988), pp. 247-272Published by: Wileyon behalf of the American Anthropological AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/640487.

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Cognition, Symbols,n d Vygotsky sevelopment sychology

DOROTHY C. HOLLAND andJAAN VALSINERBecause anthropology is predicated upon the centrality of the socialand the cultural in human life, anthropologiesof the individual mustaccount for the collective nature of the individual. Psychologies in-spired by Marxist thought share a similar task and, at least in onecase, have originated an account of cognitive and affective devel-opment that appeals to anthropologists. Developed in Russia in the1920sand 1930s by L. S. Vygotsky and his associates, including A.R. Luria, this approach grants society a key role in the developmentof personality. Human development is characterized, in a phrase, asthe transformation of the interpersonal into the intrapersonal. Thecultural-historical school of psychology, as this approach iscalled, began to attract attention outside of the U.S.S.R. in the1960s,when translations reached anthropologists and psychologistsin the United States and in Europe. Although translatedworks (Vy-gotski 1929, 1934, 1939, 1962, 1978, 1981a, 1981b) are limited, a

DOROTHY C. HOLLAND is Professor,Department of Anthropology, University of NorthCarolina, Chapel Hill.JAAN VALSINER is Associate Professor, Department of Psychology, University of NorthCarolina, Chapel Hill.

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248 ETHOS

neo-Vygotskian perspective has begun to flourish (Holland, inpress; Hood, Fiess, and Aron 1982; Ijzendoorn and van der Veer1984; Rogoff and Lave 1984; Rogoff and Wertsch 1984; Wertsch1985). Our purpose here is to contribute to this perspective by affil-iating what we see as one of Vygotsky's more useful constructs, me-diatingdevices,with the anthropological notion of culturalmodels.Wearguethat placing these concepts in tandem bringsVygotsky's ideasmore in line with recent conceptualizations of culture and correctsan unfortunate tendency toward a unilinear view of cognitive evo-lution. We suggest that the Vygotskian school of psychology in turnbrings a much needed social developmental perspective to anthro-pology and especially to cognitive anthropology.We begin by describing Vygotsky's concept of mediating deviceand the developmental process whereby these symbols are used firstin social activity and then in mental activity.

MEDIATING DEVICESIn the latter half of the 1920s Vygotsky (1956, 1960) began towrite about mental tools or devices that influence cognition and af-fect. He referred to these tools as helping means (in Russianvspomogatel'nyeredstva).These means (or activities, as Vygotskywith his emphasis on process might prefer) are psychological de-vices for mediating etween one's mental states and processes andone's environment.Below we referto these means as mediating de-

vices. 1For Vygotsky mediating devices were signs (znaki in Russian;symbols in contemporary anthropological terminology) thatfunction in the mental world as tools do in the physical world. Hu-mans arrange and organize their physical worlds with the aid oftools; analogously, they arrange and organize their mental worldswith the aid of symbols.Vygotsky formulated his thoughts in opposition to the stimulus-

response psychology of his day. For him human psychology restedupon the active construction and use of symbols and so, differedqualitatively from nonhuman psychology. Thanks to their produc-tion of, and facility with, tools and symbols, humans can not onlymodify the environment physically, but they can also modify itsstimulus value for their own mental states. Nonhuman animals aremuch more restricted, certainly in their ability to manipulate their



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DEVELOPMENTALSYCHOLOGY 249environment physically, but especially in their ability to alter theenvironment's symbolic value for themselves. Humans can affecttheir own cognition and behavior in a way that animals cannot.A typical mediating device is constructed by assigning meaningto an object or a behavior. This symbolic object or behavior is thenplaced in the environment so as to affect mental events. Vygotsky(1960:102) used the example of tying a knot in a handkerchief toremindoneself of something. The knot is given meaning for the pur-pose of organizinga mental event, remembering.Similarly, the diet-er is using a mediating device when he tapes a picture of an obeseindividual to his refrigeratordoor; the purpose of the image is toaffecthis intentions about the refrigeratorand its contents. Anotherexample, described by Saxe (1982), comes from a New Guineacounting system where body parts are assigned the meaning of dif-ferent quantities. These symbols are used to affect thought aboutand the recall of amounts.In devising his concept of mediating device, Vygotsky drew fromEngels' ideas about the role of tool-making and the use of tools inthe history of the human species. Vygotsky was excited as well byanthropological accounts of mediating devices from different cul-tures. Engels' writings led Vygotsky to see an analogy between toolsand signs; cross-culturalaccounts of the modification of externalob-jects into psychological means-to-an-end assured Vygotsky that theanalogy could be fruitfully applied. The descriptions available tohim at the time from the workof Levy-Bruhl, Thurnwald, and Tay-lorprovedto Vygotsky (1930) that human beings frequentlyuse cul-turally constructed means to control their own psychological pro-cesses. Vygotsky especially liked examples of mnemonics. He citedthese techniques-from elaborate objects used by messengers in tra-ditional cultures for remembering messages, to the contemporaryWesterner's knot in her handkerchief as a reminder of somethingimportant-to show that mediating devices signal a turning pointin human cultural history: the transition from the useof one's mem-ory to active ontrol ver it (Vygotsky 1930:83).Although Vygotsky stressed the construction of higher psycho-logical functions, particularly thinking in situations of recall, theidea of mediating devices is appropriate far beyond the domain ofhumans' control over their memory and even their problem-solvingand inferencing. Luria (cited in Cole 1985:149), for example, pre-



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250 ETHOS

sented a case of the mediation of will. Vygotsky (1984:379) dis-cussed the development of a logic of emotion. Through signs andwordschildrenlearn to talkabout, compare, classify, and thus man-age their emotions. Even more familiar to us are popular notionsand some studies of artifices for modulating emotion. Arlie Hochs-child's book, TheManagedHeart,describes devices that the friendlyDelta stewardesses use to control their anger at obnoxious passen-gers: They purposely imagine, for example, that the passenger hasundergone a traumatic event or tell themselves that the irritatingpassenger is behaving childishly because of his fear of flying(1983:24-27). Another area of mental control achieved throughsigns is that of social identity. Although sociolinguists have not em-ployed the concept of mediating device, they have described manycases of the management of a sense of social identity through lin-guistic variants. Labov (1972), for example, described the develop-ment of a linguistic marker, or, as we would prefer,mediating deviceon Martha's Vineyard. Following increasing influxes of tourists andsummer visitors, the natives of the island began to exaggerate cer-tain phonological features of their speech as a means of signalingtheir social affiliationsand differencesto themselves and others.

Vygotsky saw these tools for the self-control of cognition and af-fect as supremely social and cultural. Mediating devices are part ofcollective meaning systems that are products of history. It is truethat individuals constantly construct and reconstruct their own me-diating devices, but most of their constructions are not original.They have been learned in the course of social interaction with oth-ers who in turn have learned the devices from others.

Forge's (1970) account of a New Guinea group, the Abelam, pro-vides a cleardescriptionof the socially embedded processof learningmediating devices. He describes Abelam initiation rituals, espe-cially the paintings that are prominent in these rituals, and the re-sulting meanings that the paintings come to have for the initiates.The Abelam child begins by playing a very small part in the intia-tions of older cohorts. As time passes, the neophyte takeson increas-ingly complex roles that revolve around the paintings and the fun-damentals of Abelam social organization that the paintings encap-sulate for the older Abelam. Gradually the new participant goes be-yond simply enacting the ritualistic behaviors involving thepaintingsand comes to use the paintings to organizehis understand-



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DEVELOPMENTALSYCHOLOGY 251

ings of Abelam social life. Through enacting the roles in the initia-tion ritual, the participant experientially learns the symbolism of thepaintings and they come to evoke powerful cognitive and emotionalreactions from him.

LANGUAGE: THE PROTOTYPICAL MEDIATING DEVICEFor Vygotsky, words2 constitute the prototypical mediating de-vice. Language is a collective and historical creation that one learnsin the course of interacting with one's fellows and eventually incor-porates as a primary tool for organizing cognition and affect. At

first, the child simply imitates the movements and sounds he seesand hears around him as just another part of a behavioral routine.The senses (smysl)of the words are predominant; the associatedemotional context and intonation of the utterance dominates. Atsome point, the child begins to recognize that those around him at-tributemeaning to his sounds and movements. Eventually he deter-mines the meanings (znachenie)f the words and finally comes to usethe words to organize his own thinking (see also Luria 1981:47-53).Vygotsky provides the example of the child's acquisition of pointingas a meaningfulgesture:When the mothercomes to the aid of the child and comprehendshis/her movementas an indicator, the situation changes in an essential way. The indicatory gesturebecomes a gestureforothers. In responseto the child's unsuccessfulgrasping move-ment, a response emerges not on the part of the object, but on the part of anotherhuman. Thus, other people introduce the primary sense into this unsuccessfulgrasping movement. And only afterward,owing to the fact they have already con-nected the unsuccessfulgrasping movement with the whole objective situation, dochildren themselves begin to use the movement as an indication. The functions ofthe movement itself have undergone a change here: from a movement directed to-ward an object it has become a movement directed toward another human being.The grasping is converted into an indication. Thanks to this, the movement is re-duced and abbreviated, and the form of the indicatory gesture is elaborated. Wecan now say that it is a gesture for oneself. However, this movement does not be-come a gesture for oneself except by first being an indication, i.e., functioning ob-jectively as an indication and gesture for others, being comprehended and under-stood by surroundingpeople as an indicator. Thus, the child is the last to becomeconscious of his/her gesture. Its significance and functions first are created by theobjective situation and then by the people surrounding the child. The indicatorygesture initially relies on a movement to what others understand and only laterbecomes an indicator for the child. [1981a:161]

In brief, reaching begins for the child as a utilitarian movementtoward an object in the environment. It is regarded by others as an



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252 ETHOSinterpersonal ction, pointing. Eventually the child incorporates orinternalizesthe meaning of the movement. The gesture has becomean intrapersonal ool as well. In the view of the cultural historicalschool the individual commonly develops mediating devices in thismanner. The sensory object is first encountered in interaction; it issimply a part of an interactional routine. Only gradually does thedevice become a symbol that is incorporatedor internalized into in-trapersonalprocesses.

THE RELATIONSHIP OF DEVICE AND ACTIVITYVygotsky died at the age of 37 from tuberculosis. Leontiev, animportant member of the cultural historical school, continued theworkby analyzing the socially created contexts of human behavior.Some scholars attribute the roots of activity theory, as the con-ceptual framework is called, to Vygotsky; others argue that it wasnot present even in rudimentary form in his ideas (Davydov andRadzikhovskii 1985; Wertsch 1981).3 Whatever the historical ge-nealogyof activity theory, its development and contemporaryim-portancedo attest to lacunae in Vygotsky's notion of context. In thefollowingsections, we discuss the articulation of device and activityand the importance of interpretations of context. Although we usethe term activity, we do not rely upon activity theory becausewe are interested in cultural components of activity that have notbeen developed in detail in that theory (however, see Hundeide

1985).Loss OF AWARENESSAND THE FOSSILIZATION PROCESS

In many situations the mediating device and the context of useare difficult to separate. The user may come to employ the deviceautomaticallywithout thought.Judging from Hochschild's descrip-tion, the training of Delta stewardesses produces such a situation.The training produces what Vygotsky might label okamenelost'o-vedenia,a fossilized state of behavior.4 Fossilized behavior ariseswhen a mediating device has been incorporated to the point thatthere is no longer any awareness of using the device to modulatethinkingor feeling. The resulting fossilized behavior retains onlylimited remnantsof its developmental history (Vygotsky 1960:137).The Delta stewardesses are taught techniques for controlling theiranger in flight attendants' school. Eventually the stewardesses lose



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DEVELOPMENTALSYCHOLOGY 253consciousness of employing the techniques and in time lose aware-ness even of the initial surge of anger. The stewardesses come to thepoint that they no longer feel anger toward irritating passengers;they are no longer aware of imaging the passenger as a child orcounting to ten, but the effects are present-in many cases, they feelno anger. Likewise, it is difficult for most of us to imagine having todecide whether we will use words as a medium for organizing ourthinkingor to recall the processes by which we as children acquiredlanguage as a means of mediating thought.Similarly,in history, groups take up new mediating devices, someof which become central to shaping the information and the pro-cessing of information in the society. Societies incorporate the use ofscript for the recordingand transmission of informationand knowl-edge. Curriculum vitae come to be the way to get to knowother peo-ple. Ceremonial items such as fine mats in Samoa or armbands inthe Trobriands come to be primaryways to understand an individ-ual's or a group's prestige. Agencies adopt measures such as cost-benefit analysis for assessing the worth of government projects.Groupsacquire electronic media for maintaining historical records.Eventually these new devices may become so often relied upon inthe society that they set the parameters of the task;what there is toknow about a person is listed in her c.v. and the value of a new gov-ernment project is its economic costs and benefits.

DEVELOPMENTAL AND CROSS-CULTURAL VARIATION IN THEINCORPORATION OF MEDIATING DEVICES

Although mediating devices may become so incorporated into theway of doing a task in a given culture that the device and the taskcannot be disentangled, it is clear that, over the development of anindividual and the history of a society, the device and the task arenot always merged. In the case of language, the child constructs,through speaking, senses of words and only later narrows down themeanings to those of the adult speakers (Vygotsky 1962:146). Like-wise, over time, the child acquires the use of other mediating devicessuch as numerals to understand quantity, scripts as signs to imaginesituations that a writer is trying to communicate, and clothing as ameans of affecting mood. Similarly, in history, groups devise andincorporate new mediating devices. The old means for forming eval-uations of government projects, for instance, are displaced, overtime, by cost-benefit analysis or some other new means.



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254 ETHOS

There is a period in development and in history when the task oractivity and the mediating device are not amalgamated and the di-alectic between the mediating device and the task may be studied.The historical track of the interaction is important for understand-ing the eventual amalgamation. What might a researcherignorantof the techniques learned in air flight school conclude about stew-ardesses who seldom feel anger at irritating passengers?Their pro-cesses of emotion control have become fossilized. Would the re-searcher be likely to realize the degree to which the stewardessesmodulate their emotions?

Becker's (1963:41-58) account of learning to use marijuana pro-vides another demonstration of the importance of studying the de-velopmentof an individual's use of a mediating device-in this case,a narcotic agent intended to control mood. He argued that the nov-ice smokershe studied not only learned the techniques for ingestingthe drug from others but also, and perhaps more important, themeaning and purpose of the activity. The novices did not automat-ically recognize the sensations that the experienced marijuanasmokersassociated with the drug, nor did the novices tend to inter-pret these sensations as pleasurable. They had to be trained and en-couragedto do so. Without a study such as Becker's one might sup-pose that the smokers' highs were simply the invariant conse-quences of ingesting marijuana. But the control of mood that thesmokersachieved was not simply a result of the physiological effectsof the drug. The mediating device-the marijuana cigarette-me-diated in a context-a culturally interpreted context that the nov-ices had to learn. Together the device and the context of use resultedin the particularkind of mood control achieved by the smokers.Furthermore,mediating devices are not incorporatedin the samemannereverywhere;cultural and individual differencescome aboutthroughdifferencesthat occur in the process of incorporation.Cole and Griffin(1983) recently published an analysis of the pro-cess of learning to read. They describe a reading problem thatclearly illustrates differences in the incorporation of the same me-diating devices-in this case, printed text. One set of readers-those considered successful by the school-consider a printed textto be a set of symbols and conventions used by an author to describea situation, a message, a story, an argument for a reader. They re-gard the printed words as a means to help the reader gain an un-



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DEVELOPMENTALSYCHOLOGY 255derstanding of the author's message. Less successful readers en-counter the same mediating device, the printed text, and may un-derstand the script well enough to identify words, but they havecome to conceptualize the goal of readingdifferently.For these latterreadersthe task of reading is to say the words or phrases aloud andto answer questions about the words and phrases that the teacherasks. They regard the text as a mediating device to help themread aloud and think up answers that will satisfy the teacher.These children sound like they are reading sentences, but they canread John hung himself, and by later remarksindicate that theyhave not really paid attention to the meaning conveyed by the sen-tence. In the remedial intervention-shaped from a Vygotskian per-spective-the teachers dispensed with reading aloud. Instead theyset up a sort of skit in which the participants, including the less suc-cessful readers, took roles in asking the type of questions that suc-cessful readers ask themselves as they use a text to understand theauthor's message: What is the main point in this section? Whatis the author trying to describe here? What does this wordmean? Eventually, the children's reading improved; supposedlythey had internalized the questions they were acting out in the in-teractionand thus had learned to use the text for a differentpurpose.Supposedly their understanding of the task was altered to be morein line with that of successful readers (see Brown and Ferrara1985:279,300, for references to related studies).Another study reveals yet another interpretation of the task ofreadingand the use of script. McDermott (1974) described a schoolwith several student factions. He argued that some of the studentsintentionally learned not to read because they wished to show affili-ation with one group of students and not the other. In their school,script had acquired a social signaling function that had little to dowith its mediating value for discerning the author's message; read-ing had become a mediating device for modulating a sense of be-longing to one of the student factions. For these students the impor-tant point of reading was not to understand the author's message oreven to answer the teacher's questions, as in the example fromColeand Griffin above, but rather to signal group affiliation. Like theteenagerwho ignores shoelaces as a means of keeping his shoes lacedand instead thinksof them (in their untied state) as signaling to him-self and others that he's cool, the potential of script for mediating



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256 ETHOSideas may be ignored in favor of its potential for mediating socialaffiliationand social identity.

The point to be drawn from these examples is that mediating de-vices operate in relation to a task, tasks that are open to differentinterpretations. The mediating device does not fully determine itscontext of use and vice versa. Written text does not in itself deter-mine how a child will conceptualize the point of reading. Nor doesthe child's understanding of the point of reading fully determinehow he or she will be affected by alteration of details of the mediat-ing device such as the form of the print or the style of the author.Marijuana, as Becker's account suggests, does not in itself deter-mine the effects it will be used to achieve. Nor does the user's pur-pose fully determine the effects. Purpose may alter the effects of thedrug and the drug may affect purpose. A device and the interpre-tation of context are independent at least at points in development.Eventually the behavior may become fossilized-the drug is alwaysused in the same way to achieve the same outcomes. But beforethathappens there are many possibilities.An analogous case can be made for cultural development on agrandscale. The advent of literacy-the use of script as a mediatingdevice-has been argued to bring about important changes in thepatterns of thought represented in a society (Ong 1982; see Goody1977 and Scribner and Cole 1981 for reviews). But does literacybring invariant consequences? Are the tasks to which it is appliedalways the same? Vygotsky himself seemed to argue for unilinearcognitive evolution, as we discuss below, when he refrained fromdiscussing the differentways by which the invention (or introduc-tion) of literacy in a culture reorganizes thinking in a multiplicity ofways. In line with our argument about the interaction of device andcontext, Scribnerand Cole (1981) have seriously challenged the in-variabilityof consequences of literacy. They carriedout a case studyof the Vai of Liberia, a people who use several differentscripts, oneof which is script the Vai invented for their own language. Literacyfor the Vai is confined to a small number of tasks such as letter writ-ing; their interpretation of the tasks for using a script differs fromthat of literateAmericans, forexample. Especially forthose Vai whohave learnedone or morescripts at home but who have not attendedschool, the consequences of literacyare not what would be predictedby most scholars of literacy. Again the Vai case suggests that a me-



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diating device does not fully determine how it will be used; culturalinterpretations of the task play a role in determining how it will beused and, thus, the consequences of its incorporation.

CULTURAL MODELSVygotsky did not propose a label forwhat we have been referringto as cultural interpretations of the task. In fact, we suspect thathe may have sometimes neglected the interpretation of the task orthe context of use of the mediating device and so was led to an er-

roneous conclusion, which we discuss below. For their part, anthro-pologists in cognitive studies have a construct for culture, butthey lack a label for mediating device. Following, we discuss cul-tural models, their relationship to mediating devices, and the ben-efits to be gained by anthropologists from interrelating the two con-cepts.In anthropological accounts, individuals interpret situations ac-cording to learned collective models of the world.5 Cognitivists, ofcourse, study these models as they are grasped by individuals. Inrecent formulations, these cultural models are described as consist-ing of simplifying assumptions (more technically, interpretiveschemas ) that individuals have learned to make about the worldorsome portionof it. This taken-for-grantedknowledge provides thebackground against which individuals set their goals, make theirplans, try to manipulate their environment, anticipate what otherswill do and describe their experiences. A mundane example of thelatter can be given with a story situated in a restaurant. If one tellsa fellow American about an experience in a restaurant and happensto refer to paying the cashier, one need not tell the listener what wasbeing paid for-the storyteller knows that the listener knows thatfood has been ordered, served, and is now being paid for. Peopleinterpretcontexts and the use to which mediating devices can be putin these contexts on the basis of relevant cultural models-perhapsofrestaurants,of intimate male-female relationships, social support,marriage, the human mind (see Holland and Quinn 1987, for ex-amples)-which they have learned.6 The dieter who pastes the pic-ture of an overweight person on his refrigeratordoor is trying to af-fect his own behavior within a world no doubt defined by culturalmodels from which he has learned about the nature of obesity, itsdimensions, its causes and its consequences. He may have placed



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258 ETHOSthe image there to turn himself from the refrigeratorcompletely; toturn himself from the leftover cake, but not the raw carrots; fromimmoderate servings; or from whatever in his interpretation, asgiven by the cultural models he has learned, is the cause of un-wanted obesity. The picture does not define the specific actions tobe taken or avoided; the cultural model-cued by the device-does.

CULTURAL MODELS AND MEDIATING DEVICESSince cultural models are learned devices that aid individuals in

organizing and managing their thoughts and feelings, they are me-diating devices in a general sense. However, we find it useful to thinkof cultural models as contrasting with a more limited meaning of

mediating device. We have been careful in this paper to restrictmediating device to circumscribed, tangible activities or objectsof sensory dimensions-an Abelam painting, a frightening maskedfigure in Murik society (Barlow 1985), a marijuana cigarette, aprintedtext, or the stewardess's activity of counting to ten.7 In con-trast cultural models refers to a complex of mental representa-tions, to understandingsof and assumptions about a piece or part ofthe world. In the example of the dieter, the mediating device is thepicture, the cultural model is the complex of understandings, eval-uations and expectations that the dieter has about obesity. Themodel fleshes out the dieter's notions of the meaning of fat and waysto lose weight; the picture helps the dieter to manage his dieting be-havior. Another example can be drawn from Quinn's description ofan American cultural model of marriage. The cultural model ofmarriage includes the notion of sharedness; a real marriage isshared. Her informants told her about various sensory representa-tions of sharedness including the activity of holding hands in public(Quinn n.d., 1987,personal communication). The cultural model ofmarriageis a set of shared beliefs and understandingsabout shared-ness, permanency, mutual benefit, need fulfillment and so forth;holding hands in public is a tangible, sensory activity important toat least one of Quinn's informants-because it mediates or evokes afeeling of sharedness.In many respects what we are calling mediating devices are re-ferred to by other anthropologists as symbols. Are we simply point-ing out that symbols are reflected in the cultural-model studies ofcognitive anthropologists?Why not refer to holding hands or pic-tures of obese people or Abelam paintings as symbols? Why bring



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DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY 259in the concept of mediating device and the cultural-historicalschool of psychology?

We preferto label hand-holding by Americans and the paintingsof the Abelam mediating devices because Vygotsky's concepthighlights the role of these symbols in the developmentf individualsand societies. Through a Vygotskian lens, significant points of ar-ticulation between symbols and cognitivist views of culture becomeclear.First, Vygotsky's account of mediating device suggests how sym-bols encountered in social life become incorporated into cognitivemodels. From his perspective, a symbol's evocative power grows inproportionto its role in mediating the development of cognition andaffect. And, conversely, the saliences of particular cultural modelsin mental life are determined, at least in part, by encountering sym-bols associated with them. Second, the cultural-historical school'semphasis on development and dialectics encourages us to follow in-dividuals and individual societies over time as they incorporatenew

mediating devices. Models and mediating devices feed back uponone another, creating an enduring dynamic that informs our under-standing of the nature of cultural models and symbols. As suggestedabove and discussed in more detail below, these points have impli-cations for some conundrums in cognitive anthropology as well asin Vygotsky's own thinking.SYMBOLS AND COGNITION

Vygotsky's notion of mediating device connects symbols as theyare encountered in social life to symbols as cognitivists find them inmental life. When they function as cognitive and affective aids, sym-bols become internalized mental tools. As Abelam children grow up,for example, they internalize or incorporate an understanding oftheir society that is mediated by the paintings. In the process, thesymbol acquires a metonymic function.8 The paintings come tostand for, or bring to mind, a whole complex of feelings and thoughtsabout the society.Lakoff (1987) and Quinn and Holland (1987) describe metonymyas characteristic of the way in which cultural knowledge is mentallyorganized and alluded to in talk about the world. People allude totheir cultural models by referring to those parts of the model that byconvention stand for the whole. Lakoffand Kovecses (1987), for ex-



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260 ETHOS

ample, analyze English phrases about anger- hot under the col-lar or blowing his top as referringto a core metaphor for anger:anger is a hot liquid in a container. The metaphor in turn stands fora model of anger that consists of a sequence of events: one partytakes offense at another's actions, eventually loses control, and re-taliates. Here we suggest that this characteristicorganization of cul-tural models through metonyms may come about because mediat-ing devices-which forVygotsky were fundamental to cognitive de-velopment-are also the primary means by which cultural modelsare learned fromothers, and it is they that come to be the pieces thatstand for the whole. The parts of the model that come to express themodel to others are those that functioned developmentally as me-diating devices for organizing the understandings associated withthe model. As with the Abelam and their paintings, artifacts or be-haviors are singled out for the neophyte and emphasized in inter-actions;they become the objects aroundwhich the neophyte's learn-ing of the largercultural understandings is organized.

Specialized vocabularies probably function in similar manner-if we can take the case described by Holland and Skinner (1987) asindicative of a more general pattern. They describe a vocabulary ofgender types (such as Don Juan, creep, chick, easy lay )that college-age males and females use to describe one another.Their research suggests that these words are interpreted against acultural model of the development of intimacy in male-female rela-tionships. The words are used frequently in casual talk about otherpeople. A newcomer no doubt quickly notices them and respondswith them. They become an important means through which thenewcomerlearns and demonstrates that he or she has mastered thebroaderunderstanding.Viewed from Vygotsky's developmental framework these sym-bols, whether Abelam paintings or American gender terms, are me-diatingdevices. They are first encounteredin interactional contexts,but are eventually internalized. They become the metonyms thatsupport the cognitive organization of cultural knowledge.

THE EVOCATIVE POWER OF SYMBOLS AND THE PROBLEM OFINSTANTIATION

Vygotsky's concept of mediating device helps us recall that, whilesymbols are incorporatedinto mental life, they also remain in sociallife. The evocative powerof these symbols in social life is central to



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DEVELOPMENTALSYCHOLOGY 261an understanding of what has heretofore been a problem in thestudy of cultural models.

One of the more important problems in both cognitive anthro-pology and cognitive psychology is that of explaining instantia-tion -the application-of beliefs. Although it is clear that cul-turalbeliefsare extremely important in canalizing behavior, it is notalways clear when-or perhaps how-a particularset of beliefs willbe applied to a particular situation (Clement 1979, 1982;Hutchins1980; Lave, Stepick, and Sailer 1977; Lutz 1987). The problem ofinstantiation arises because actual situations can usually be inter-preted in many differentways and at different levels of abstraction.What determines which particular set of cultural beliefs will guidebehaviorin these situations? One popular answer to this question isthat the actor's attentions, concerns and actions are directed by hisor her goals (Clement 1979; Lutz 1987; Quinn and Holland 1987;Schankand Abelson 1977). If one is hungry, then beliefs and knowl-edge about how to obtain food will be relevant; if one is concernedabout being successful in life, then cultural models of success willdirect one's attention to, and concerns about, one's immediateworld. Although goals are depicted as embedded in or entailed bycultural models (D'Andrade 1984:97-101; Lutz 1987; Quinn andHolland 1987), there is a tendency to speak as though individualsaregoal driven. Recognition of the importance of mediating devicescould help to balance this tendency. Objects and behaviors thathave served in the past as mediating devices are likely to continueto evoke the models or general understandings associated with thedevices regardless of present goals. Adult Abelam are likely to re-spond to the paintings that have been involved in the rituals of theiryouth and adulthood and adult Americans are likely to continue toreact to American flags like those that adorned and received ritualattention in the classrooms of their youth. Since each of us has onlypartial, incomplete controlover the contents of our environment, wecannot fully control the thoughts and feelings that will be evoked ina given situation. This is true even though the evoked thoughts andfeelings may be irrelevant or even contrary to our plans.The continuing power of the symbol to evoke feelings andthoughts is especially important in cases of markers of social affili-ation, opposition, and identity. As studied by sociolinguists and oth-ers, stylistic variations-ways of talking, ways of acting, and ways



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262 ETHOS

of dressing-accomplish such ends as conveying a message or pro-tecting oneself fromthe weather, but they also serve as markersthatmediate social affiliation and identity. They evoke these feelings ofsocial identification and these feelings may disrupt achievement ofthe instrumental task at hand.

Ogbu (1985) describes such a situation for black Americans whoacquire advanced positions in predominantly white business cor-porations or universities. Success in the corporation entails actingin ways that in some black communities are used as markersor me-diating devices of being white. Acting in these ways symbolizes tothe black executive that he or she is acting like a white person. Thefeelings are evoked by the behaviors regardless of the black execu-tive's plans and goals for his or her career in the corporation.The view that emphasizes goals as an extremely significant partof instantiation is consistent with a frequently cited view of culturearticulatedby Goodenough (see, forexample, 1981,especially chap-ters4 and 5). In that view culture is the set of mentally grasped con-ventions and recipes by which one generates behavior that isdeemed culturally meaningful by one's fellows. Cultural artifactsand behaviorsare the end product of culture, and the actor's goal-within the largergoal of acting in a culturally appropriatefashion-determineswhich mental recipes will be instantiated or activated.Note the differencein this view of culture and Vygotsky's meta-phor of mental tool. For the cultural-historical school, artifactsand behaviors are not only cultural outcomes but also are them-selves attributed meaning and thus made into tools for effectingand affecting cognitive and emotional outcomes. This is a morecomplex interpretationthan Goodenough's. In Vygotsky's view, ar-tifacts-as-symbols are indeed produced by human activity (whichperhaps can be thought of fruitfully as guided by learned conven-tions) but once produced they evoke thoughts and feelings. Individ-uals do use these mediating devices to achieve their goals, but thedevices continue to influence subsequent behavior, so that, in asense, individuals manage the devices but also are managed bythem. As Lee (1985:76) summarizes the interrelationship: Signs... are inherently 'reversible'-they feed back upon and controltheir users.

By recognizing the evocative power of symbols we are in a betterposition to understandthe limitations of a totally goal-driven theory



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DEVELOPMENTALSYCHOLOGY 263of instantiation. Likewise by recognizing the importance of goalsand the cultural models associated with them, we should be able toresist the opposite extreme of a totally symbol-driven theory of in-stantiation. We try to control our own behavior, but our means forcontrolling it control us as well. We create and learn signs to helpus manage our feelings and thoughts in one context, but we arelikely to encounter the signs in other contexts. Like the black exec-utives, we all end up facing situations that are meaningful accordingto a given cultural model or interpretation yet which contain ele-ments that evokeother, noncompatible, interpretations.Several cul-tural models are instantiated and our resulting behavior is an at-tempt, often inelegant, to respond simultaneously to the multipleinterpretationsthat have come to mind.

THE ONGOING ELABORATION OF MODEL AND MEDIATINGDEVICE

In the preceding section, we discussed Vygotsky's developmentalframeworkand the light it sheds on the role of mediating devices inthe learning and subsequent evocation of cultural knowledge. Vy-gotsky's emphasis on dialectics and process also facilitates our con-ceiving another aspect of the relation between mediating devicesand cultural models. His frameworkserves to integrate the variedresearch findings in cognitive anthropology which suggest that-over time-cultural models are elaborated and developed throughtheir interrelationship with narratives, metaphors, proverbs, andartifacts such as paintings-all of which we would label mediatingdevices.The interactivedynamics between narrativesand cultural modelshas been documented in several cases. Price (1987), for example,describes accounts of illness in a barrio in Quito, Ecuador. Theseillness narratives or stories are conventionalized and frequentlytold. They include descriptions of remedies, the courses of illnesses,sources of assistance, and the responsibilitiesof family membersandneighborsfor taking care of the sick. These stories fit Vygotsky's no-tion of a mediating device. They are a means for organizing and re-membering technical information about illness and for modulatingemotion about the performanceof social responsibilities.Pricepoints out that the stories are not identical with or fully de-terminedby the cultural models of illness. Listeners sometimes alteraspects of their cultural models of illness when they hear a story



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264 ETHOSabout a particularillness episode; at the same time the stories them-selves are made sense of or interpretedin light of the cultural model.The stories are generated largely in line with the models but themodels are shaped, developed and elaborated in response to the sto-ries.The process of elaboration and development of cultural modelshas been specifically followed in several cases (e.g., Collins andGentner 1987;Harkness, Super and Keefer 1986;and Holland andEisenhart, in press). Kempton (1987:234-237), for example, cap-tured an interesting example of individual change in an interviewon how thermostats work. In the process of answering Kempton'squestions, one of his informantsremembereda space heater she hadonce operated. Upon juxtaposing the specific thermostat and hergeneralized understanding of thermostats, she noted a discrepancyand decided that her some of her answers about thermostats hadbeen incorrect.As Kempton (1987:236) concludes about her use ofthe space heater: This striking example shows how an immediatelyvisible device can display its operation and thus influence folk [cul-tural] theory.One of the moredebated aspects of the interactionbetween modeland mediating device comes from the study of metaphors and anal-ogies. Quinn and Holland (1987) regard metaphors and analogiesas one of the majormeans by which cultural models are elaboratedand developed. Metaphors and analogies are commonly used as me-diating devices to aid the comprehension of abstract processes andinvisible entities; a preliminary understanding of atoms, for exam-ple, may be gained by thinking of atoms as analogous to tiny solarsystems. In 1980 Lakoff and Johnson went against the receivedview of metaphor as a device of trivial import to the tasks of com-municating and thinking. They countered this position by demon-strating the pervasive presence of conventional metaphors in botheveryday and scientific speech. They argued the other extreme andsometimes seem to claim that metaphor-the mediating device-completely shapes one's understanding of the new topic. More re-cent views take a stance compatible with Vygotsky's emphasis ondialectics. Metaphors highlight and shape aspects of the model, butthe meaning of the metaphor is shaped by what one knows of atomsor the subject matter independent of the analogy (Carbonell andMinton 1983;Holland 1982;Holland and Skinner 1985;Quinn and



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DEVELOPMENTALSYCHOLOGY 265Holland 1987). Highlighted by a new metaphor, a cultural modelmay be developed in differentdirections, and similarly the meaningof the new metaphoritself may come to be elaborated in new ways(see Salmond 1982). The metaphor and the model develop togetherin a dialectic fashion; neither determines or is determined by theother.The debate over the interaction of metaphor and model and theempiricalstudies reportedabove suggest that models are elaboratedin relation to a mediating device or symbol in an ongoing process.Similarly, symbols are interpreted and extended in relation to cul-tural models. Vygotsky's emphasis on process and the importanceof developmental history provides a common frameworkof analysisforthese studies and encourages that further historical studies of theinteraction between model and device be undertaken.

CULTURAL MODELS AND THE CULTURALHISTORICAL SCHOOL OF PSYCHOLOGYWe have devoted most of the preceding discussion to an argumentfor the incorporation of Vygotskian developmental theory, espe-cially the concept of mediating device, into anthropology. We alsoargue,however, that the cultural historical school of psychology andneo-Vygotskian theory can be improved by incorporating anthro-pological concepts. Specifically we criticized the cultural historicalschool's impoverished notion of the contexts in which mediating de-

vices are used. Insufficient attention to the possibility that culturaldefinitions of task vary apparently led Vygotsky to an unfortunateconclusion. He was insufficiently critical of notions of unlinear cog-nitive evolution.VYGOTSKY AND UNILINEAR EVOLUTION

In order to subscribe to an implicit position of unilinear cognitiveevolution Vygotsky and his collaborators had to imagine that me-diating devices such as scripts or numerals are everywhere em-ployed in similar activities or rather that activities are everywheresimilar. Cole (1985:149-50, 152), for example, has criticized Luria'scognitive studies in Central Asia for neglecting a crucial part of Uz-beki culture. Luria took Uzbeki artifacts and vocabulary into ac-count but neglected the ways in which they organized their activi-ties. Luria seemed to assume that Uzbeki patterns were similar to



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266 ETHOSthose with which he was familiar, yet he lacked knowledge of Uz-beki activities and their associated congeries of goals and means.Hence, he was on shaky ground when he attempted to draw infer-ence about thought. . . (Cole: 152).In particular Luria seemed to assume that people learn and dis-play cognitive skillsand knowledgewithout regardto the social con-text. He seemed not to realize that ways of talkingand ways of actingmediate social relationships and social identities. At the time Luriawas interviewing the uncollectivized, unschooled peasants of Uz-bekistan, they faced an intense political situation and marked socialupheavals. Yet Luria (1976, chapter 7) never discusses how they in-terpretedhim and his research mission. Did they think of him as anagent of the government?Did they thinkof him as a person to whomthey must show deference?He had to ignore the usual contextualsensitivity that people show in their talk about themselves as well asthe intense currents affecting Uzbekistan in order to suppose thathis interviews revealed the full range of the Uzbeki peasants' self-conceptualizations.Mediating devices, even ones that are similar, such as writtenscript, need not function cognitively in the same way either fromindividual to individual or from group to group. Vygotsky likenedthe construction of mediating devices to the construction of tools,but perhaps he failed to attribute significance to the implications ofthe analogy.Just as tools are constructed and used in differentwaysdepending upon the interpretationof the task or context, mediatingdevices are constructed and employed differently depending uponthe culturally given interpretationof the task at hand. We have dis-cussed the example of Cole and Griffinin which the task of readingwas interpreted in alternative ways, with the consequence thatgood readersused the text (the mediating device) for one purposewhereas the poor readers used it for another. McDermott's caseis an even more complicated one in which students learned not toread because reading had come to signal affiliation with the wronggroup. Likewise, societies incorporatemediating devices into differ-ent sets of tasks. The consequences of a new mediating device at thesocietal level need not be the same from one society to another.In a very valuable review of Vygotsky's uses of history, Scribnerargues that Vygotsky did not attribute enough significance to thepluralityof histories of differentsocieties:



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DEVELOPMENTALSYCHOLOGY 267Societies and cultural groups participate in world history at different tempos andin differentways. ... Particularsocieties, forexample, may adopt the same cul-tural means (e.g., writing systems) but, as a result of their individual histories, itscognitive implications may differwidely from one society to another. [1985:138]

Ironically, Vygotsky may have remained insensitive to the impor-tance of variation in contexts-even formediating devices that havebecome generalized to many contexts and thus seemingly context-independent-because of his own social milieu. In the 1920s Russiawas alive with the enthusiasm of many people trying to solve thecomplex problemsof building a new society. There was the wide-spread idea-the mediating device for conceptualizing the situa-tion-that the new, utopian, society by definition was the highestformof human society and qualitatively differentfrom its predeces-sors. No wonder that Luria, an otherwise careful observer of psy-chologicalphenomena, could (together with Vygotsky) a prioriviewthe far from voluntary collectivization of central Asian peasants asfreeingtheir cognitive processes from the influence of their life con-text, rather than replacing one kind of context-dependency by an-other.9

SUMMARYVygotsky's appeal for anthropology comes from his appreciationof the dialectical nature of individual cognition and cultural deviceswith its concomitant emphasis on history and cross-cultural differ-

ences. Fortunately, the implicit subscription by him and his asso-ciates (such as Luria) to a unilinear view of cognitive evolution isnot dictated by the rest of his approach. It appears that Vygotsky-without much critical scrutiny-adopted the idea of unilinear evo-lution from the dialectical philosophy of Hegel and the psychologyof Heinz Werner. Despite this shortcoming of Vygotsky's theoreti-cal framework,we nonetheless advocate careful examination of hisapproach, for it seems to have much to offer to anthropologicalthought.Here we have focused upon only one of his concepts- mediatingdevice. We have suggested that it provides a means for cognitiveanthropologists to expand their explanations of how individualscognitivelygrasp culture by conceiving the incorporationof symbolsin a new way-a way that clearly admits both the cognitive and af-fective dimensions of cultural knowledge (see also, D'Andrade



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268 ETHOS

1981). Further, Vygotsky's concept of mediating device is integralto his developmental framework.Thus we acquire an orientation tothe individual's acquisition and elaboration of cultural models, anda means fordiscussing their historicaldevelopment. In addition, wesee that cultural models are evoked by encounter with those aids orsymbols that have served in the past as mediating devices. The re-sulting picture of the instantiation and use of cultural knowledge inactual situations becomes more complete. The concept helps, inshort, to relate cognitivist views of culture to a historical and devel-opmental frameworkand to the power of cultural symbols.

NOTESAcknowledgments:e would like to thank Rene van der Veer, Catherine Lutz, Laurie Price,William S. Lachicotte, James Peacock, members of the Life Histories seminar, and two

anonymousreviewers for their thought-provokingcomments on earlier versions of this paper.Thanks also go to CaroleCain for her help and toJohn Ogbu who keepsasking Holland goodquestions about cultural models.

'Most contemporaryEnglish translations of Vygotsky's writings (see, forexample, Vygot-sky 1978) use mediational device as the term for Vygotsky's concept. We use mediatingdevice instead because it preserves more of Vygotsky's emphasis on process. Vygotsky usesboth mediating activity (Russian: oposredstvuiustchaiaeiatel'nost') nd mediated activ-ity (Russian: oposredstvovannaiaeiatel'nost')n his writings. But he was careful to use thefirstwhen discussing process; the second when discussing the results of the process. The pro-cess/outcome distinction was central in Vygotsky's approach to development and should beemphasized when his terminology is translated into other languages.

2Acaution fromWertsch (1981:158) is relevanthere:Vygotsky's referenceto words shouldnot be taken as referring solely to morphologicalunits; rather,phrases, sentences, and entiretexts fall under this category as well.3In characterizing activity theory, Wertsch (1981) lists six points; four of them are clearlyVygotskian.

4A more literal translation is behavior turned into a stone-like state.5Vygotsky was probably aware of Durkheim's notion of collective representations

through the writings of Levy-Bruhl and others. Because of its lack of a developmental per-spective, however, the French school was and continues to be severely criticized by Sovietresearchers.6In a sense, cultural models might be thought of as a crystalized or fossilized process-a

view of the world that has developed and become established at the collective level. Newmembers do not participatein the original creation of these models, but learn them frommoreexperiencedmembers. Relatively speaking, such crystalized views are slow to change. Theycan be brought into awareness when they are challenged or cease to work (Kempton 1987)but by and large they are like Vygotsky's fossilized behaviors-processes that are not fullyconstructed anew for each application but ratherare automatic, producingbehaviorthat con-tains only limited remnants of its developmental history.

7In the beginning, the activity or object is external to the person and tangible. Eventuallya mental representationof the tangible object may simply be recalled.



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DEVELOPMENTALSYCHOLOGY2698Burke's1969:506) iscussion fmetonymymakes hesimilarity fmetonymsomediat-ingdevicesquiteclear.He says, Thebasic'strategy'n metonymys this:to conveysomeincorporealrintangible tate n termsof thecorporeal rtangible.9Theculturalhistorical chool also espoused he idea that tools (suchas script)whichevolved ater istorically retherefore etterecause heyaredevelopedrom he oldertools.A similarineofargumentwouldsuggest hat adultsare morecompetent better) hanchil-dren.Some have inferred imilar nequalitiesbetween primitive nd modern people:Themore advanced modern) eoplesaremorecompetenthan he ess advanced eoples.This viewhas beenattributedo Vygotskybecausehe comparesprimitivepeoplewiththechildren f moretechnologicallydvancedgroups.A recentarticleby Scribner 1985:124-132)analyzes he passagesn his writings hatcompare hildto primitive ndargues hatthiscomparisonas beenmisinterpreted.

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