Manuel L. de la Mata

A Liberation Psychology Approach to Acculturative Integration of Migrant Populations

This paper describes an acculturative integration approach that stresses the contribution of liberation psychology. Immigrant integration is a challenge for receiving countries in the Western world due to the frequent asymmetrical and oppressive conditions suffered by newcomers in their new settlements. The cross-cultural perspective connects integration with psychological acculturation, emphasizing harmony between acquisitions of the new culture while maintaining cultural heritage, and creating opportunities for intergroup relationships. In turn, liberation psychology permits an understanding of the acculturative transition as an empowerment and self-construction process by which immigrants acquire a new vision of the world and of themselves, transforming both structural conditions and themselves. From this perspective we conceptualize acculturative integration as the process by which newcomers become an accepted part of the new society through a reflexive and evaluative process, changing their social references and position, rebuilding their social and personal resources, and achieving a new agency in coherence with their new challenges and goals. In this process, they acquire critical thinking about unequal conditions, gain capacities to respond to the inequalities, and take effective actions to confront them. We illustrate this process using the narratives of nine Moroccan women who are living in asymmetrical and oppressive local contexts in Andalusia, the southern-most region of Spain.

Cultural Self-Construals of Mexican, Spanish, and Danish College Students: Beyond Independent and Interdependent Self

Cross-cultural research over the past two decades has shown very important differences in self-construal. However, the comparison of a wider range of cultures is needed to further understanding into this relationship. In contrast to Markus and Kitayama’s distinction between independent and interdependent self-construal, authors such as Matsumoto, Kagitçibasi, and Oyserman and colleagues have defended a more complex, multidimensional, and situated perspective on self-construal. Recent studies using the Twenty Statement Test (TST) as a measure of self-construal have supported this multidimensional view of the construct. The current study explored self-descriptions in college students from three different countries (Denmark, Spain, and Mexico) by using a shortened version of the TST. The results evidenced some unexpected cultural differences in self-construal. Danish participants referred proportionally less to private and personal attributes and qualities than their Mexican and Spanish participants, and they made more references to interdependence and responsiveness to other. Results do not fit with some basic assumptions of Markus and Kitayama’s theory and give support to the view of self-construal as multidimensional and with variations associated with personal and situational factors.

Psicología cultural : aproximaciones al estudio de la relación entre mente y cultura

Resumen El objetivo fundamental de este trabajo es explorar las distintas teorías que en la actualidad son denominadas como Psicología Cultural, así como analizar las diferencias y similitudes entre ellas. Las aproximaciones culturales citadas han sido incluidas dentro de dos grandes bloques que se diferencian por sus orígenes y focos de interés. En el primero incluimos los enfoques histórico-culturales, herederos de la Psicología Transcultural. Dentro de este primer grupo hemos hecho referencia, en primer lugar y como punto de partida, a las ideas de Vygotski y Leontiev que han dejado huella en la Psicología Cultural. En este bloque nos hemos detenido especialmente en el enfoque de M. Cole. En un segundo bloque, heredero de la tradición proveniente de la revolución romántica contra la Ilustración y de la Psicología de los pueblos, se ha incluido los enfoques simbólicos de J. Bruner y R. A. Shweder y la teoría de la Acción Simbólica de los psicólogos alemanes E. E. Boesch y L. H. Eckensberger

Activity Settings, Discourse Modes and Ways of Understanding: On the Heterogeneity of Verbal Thinking

Various authors in the tradition of cultural psychology have analysed the idea of the existence of different ways of thinking. Several classifications about ways of thinking have been proposed, all of them referring to similar ideas. Bruner distinguishes between narrative and propositional thinking, while Scribner distinguish between theoretical and empirical or functional argumentation. Vygotsky also assumed the existence of different ways of thinking. Once the cognitive plurality and the existence of different ways of thinking has been accepted, we are left with two questions: what changes in the different ways of thinking, and why does it change? With regard to the first question, we must consider the differences in the means employed to mediate mental processes. As for the second issue, we refer to the activity settings and practices in which individuals participate. The empirical analysis is applied in the context of adult education. Individuals in the sample belong to two different levels of adult education: basic literacy and advanced literacy levels. Two different tasks are proposed: the first consists of preparing menus and the second is a classification task. Results related to the different ways of solving these tasks show a plurality of ways of thinking in individuals in the advanced group. Our data show how school experience allows the development of new ways of thinking and the adjustment of mental functioning to task demands. Heterogeneity of verbal thinking is here interpreted and discussed as a heterogeneity despite genetic hierarchy, instead of a non-genetic one or as a hierarchy of power. From this, it appears that development is not the replacement of one mode of discourse-thinking by another, but the differentiation and co-existence of different ways of thinking connected to different practices.

Adolescents’ meaningful memories reflect a trajectory of self-development from family over school to friends.

The relationship between autobiographical memories and self is important in many theories. Promising recent approaches from cross-cultural psychology use a concept of self-construal”, in which reference to others can be as important as indicators of autonomy. However, these studies typically ask for earliest memories only, whereas we would expect the roles of others to change over the course of development. Taking as a premise that adolescents life unfolds in three concurrent settings - family, school, and friendship - we asked 66 adolescents (22 Norwegians in Study 1, and 40 Slovaks in Study 2) for a meaningful memory from each of these settings. The memories they selected from the family setting were oldest, school memories intermediate and friend memories most recent, suggesting a developmental trajectory in which the three settings have changed in importance. Memories from the friendship setting were also most frequently on their mind. Furthermore, family memories referred most to other people, friend memories marginally less and school memories least, suggesting different contributions of these settings to self-construal. We conclude that characteristics of adolescents meaningful memories reflect shifting settings dominance during development and complementary roles of family, school and friends for adolescents current self-construal.

Thinking as Action Theoretical and Methodological Requirements for Cultural Psychology

The aim of cultural psychology is understanding how mind is related to cultural, social, institutional, and historical contexts. This endeavor requires an adequate unit of analysis. We believe this unit of analysis to be mediated action. Our view of action as the unit of analysis has important theoretical and methodological consequences. In the theoretical domain , it means assuming a notion of culture as a set of semiotically mediated activity settings, and a view of cognition as heterogeneous, contextually and historically-culturally situated and semiotically mediated. We outline three methodological implications: a historical or genetic perspective, the analysis of activity in everyday cultural contexts, and the use of semiotically mediated action as a unit of analysis. Finally, we explain the way in which we have employed mediated action as a conceptual and methodological tool for conducting research in cultural psychology and illustrate some of these ideas with reference to specific studies carried out by our research group.

Género, identidad y memoria autobiográfica

Resumen Se realiza un análisis de la relación entre género, identidad y memoria autobiográfica desde la perspectiva de doing gender. Para ello se intenta integrar resultados que corresponden a diferentes niveles de análisis. En el nivel individual se han observado diferencias en aspectos como la edad en el primer recuerdo, la macroestructura y el contenido de la memoria autobiográfica. Para rastrear los orígenes de estas diferencias se ha demostrado que los padres y madres emplean estilos narrativos diferentes con sus hijos e hijas. Estas diferencias en los estilos narrativos son consistentes con las diferencias en los recuerdos de niños y niñas. Para concluir, asumimos la necesidad de profundizar en el análisis del nivel sociocultural, resaltamos el carácter bidirectional de la relación entre género y memoria autobiográfica, reconocemos la existencia de semejanzas entre los recuerdos de mujeres y hombres y afirmamos la dependencia contextual de las diferencias y semejanzas de género.

Referential perspective and instruction: A study on teacher-student interaction and text remembering

The aim of this paper is to study the role ofteacher-student interaction, in the acquisitionof text comprehension and memory skills from asocio-cultural approach. In our view, one ofthe most important areas of neglect in cognitive research in this field is the interactional nature of that development. We intend to establish the way in which teacher-student interaction and, specially, the use of some specific semiotic means mayfacilitate the acquisition and internalizationof general strategies for understanding andremembering expository texts. The role ofreferential perspective (Wertsch, 1989) in theinternalization of complex text study actionsis analysed.The task was to study three expository textsthat were similar in their structure. Thecontent of the texts was analysed in terms ofidea-units (Meyer, 1984). Each text was formedby idea-units from three different levels: mainideas, secondary ideas and details. A categorysystem for the analysis of study and recall ofthe text is developed. In the study phase theanalysis proceeded in two steps: study actionsand text ideas. In the recall phase, two types ofindexes (number of ideas and degree ofclustering) were considered. For the analysisof instructional actions, both the nature ofinstruction and referential perspective wasrecorded.

Earliest autobiographical memories in college students from three countries: Towards a situated view

The relationship between culture and autobiographical memory has become an important research topic since research over the past three decades has shown (cross)-cultural variations in the content and style of autobiographical memories that are related to differences in how people from diverse cultures describe themselves and others. However, most research has compared North-American to Asian cultures, leaving a need to address the relationship in others. Our study examines differences in characteristics of autobiographical memory in three countries: Mexico, Spain and Denmark, using Qi Wang’s methodology and categories of analysis. College students from these three countries were asked to describe their earliest memory. Results confirm the expected differences, with Danish and Spanish participants’ earliest memories dating significantly earlier than that of the Mexican participants. At the same time, Danish participants were less likely to spontaneously mention emotions and feeling states in their earliest memories. On the other hand, Mexicans demonstrated a higher level of autonomous orientation than the participants in the other two groups. Gender was found to interact with several indicators, and even displayed a cross-over effect in emotion. The findings are interpreted as supporting the view of cultured self-construals, while also suggesting the need for more attention to the situated character of cultural differences.

Educación formal y acciones de agrupación y memoria en adultos: Un estudio microgenético

ResumenSe estudio la influencia de la educacion formal en el empleo de acciones de agrupacion y memoria en sujetos adultos. El trabajo tenia una doble perspectiva, transversal y microgenetica. Los sujetos pertenecian a tres niveles educativos y se les estudio a lo largo de cuatro dias, en dos pruebas de memorizacion y recuerdo y una prueba de categorization dirigida intercalada entre las anteriores. Los resultados mostraron la influencia esperada de la escolarizacion en el empleo de acciones de agrupacion y memoria asi como cambios a lo largo de las sesiones en el grupo intermedio. La interpretacion de los resultados se baso en las nociones de subordinacion de acciones mentales y de descontextualizacion de los instrumentos de mediacion.