Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science

Correction to: Situating Culturally Embodied Play Ecologies of Preschool Children: Lost in Transition The original version of this article unfortunately contained a mistake. The name of "Kristine Jensen de López" was incorrectly tagged.

Ground-Breaking Innovations in General Psychology Abstract The article addresses two recently published books in General Psychology by Niels Engelsted and Jens Mammen. The two approaches offer in their own way solutions to the so-called 'crisis of psychology'. Mammen's new logical foundation for psychology is based on two different properties of the objects we relate to: those characterizing the objects appearances, and those characterizing the objects as unique substances or singulars distributed in time and space - the existence of the objects as opposed to the appearance of the objects. Engelsted makes a journey from Aristotle (384–322 BC) until today's psychology in his quest to identify the domain of psychology. He places the psyche in the natural world as a result of locomotion in the first, most simple animal life. The domain of psychology includes intentionality, mind and consciousness.

The Art of Living in Transitoriness: Strategies of Families in Repeated Geographical Mobility Abstract In the context of migratory instabilities, an increasing number of professionals engage in repeated moves across countries with their families, living more or less permanently on the move. Yet the international adjustments of these families are usually studied in terms of the adaptation of family members to a single host country. This article uses in-depth interviews conducted with families in repeated geographical mobility and currently living in Switzerland to identify the strategies enabling them to move across countries while adjusting to diverse sociocultural environments. By bringing together studies on psychology with those on migration and mobility, the article introduces the specific challenge of repeated geographical mobility and sets out a theoretical framework for understanding this phenomenon from a sociocultural perspective. It then presents three types of strategies employed by families. The findings show that against the backdrop of constant changes, families recreate the same spheres of experience everywhere, transform their relations to objects, and build a continuum of social relationships by enlarging their social networks while focusing inward on the relationships within the nuclear family. The analyses bring to the fore a new modality of establishing a sense of continuity that involves a complete reconfiguration of investments so to embrace more complex ways to cope with the apparent concurrent requirement of adjusting to a new country while preserving some degree of mobility in view of the next move. The research sheds light on very contemporary dynamics embedded in the broader unfolding context of mobility by taking into account its experiential dimension.

From Inner Speech to Mind-Wandering: Developing a Comprehensive Model of Inner Mental Activity Trajectories Abstract The objective of this work was to develop a comprehensive model of inner mental activity's trajectories. For this purpose, a review of updated research was conducted on the wandering mind topic - a phenomenon that has been recently conceptualized and that has become a focus of interest in cognitive sciences - alongside early psychological postulates on the inner speech phenomenon that were brought back to the surface of scientific literature. In summary, this article presents a reformulation of the spontaneous thought model by Andrews-Hanna et al. (2017), broadening its scope to approach inner mental activity in all its forms and transitions. It is concluded that modern cognitive research has overlooked the full complexity of different types and forms of consciousness' expressions, understanding them as isolated phenomena and sub-dimensioning their trajectories during the flow of experience. This, mainly, due to a scarce incorporation of temporality and morphology to current theoretical models. It is proposed that cognitive acts described in modern research (spontaneous, controlled, involuntary, etc.) are, in synthesis, different symbolic and expressive natures of inner mental activity or thought phenomenon, which current literature has failed to understand as a whole. This article constitutes a contribution to future theoretical and experimental research that seeks out to explore the nature of thought and its development during a cognitive act.

Role Differences in Healthcare: Overcoming Borders through Semiotic Skin is the Basis for Communication Abstract Role differences in healthcare systems are the very foundation of communication in this specific field of environment. It has to be understood as a collective corporation between collective individuals and thus connect through intertwined border zones. These border zones between collective communicators holds the notions of individuality, which is represented in the ability to decipher and negotiate the multiple layers in the communicative border zone. These processes in border zones of persons - in relation with others - are dealt with by the Semiotic Skin Theory. In addition, the biological skin is central for human lives and the Semiotic Skinis conceptualized as a socio-somatic-semiotic, layered and dynamic membrane that operates as a semi-permeable, communicative boundary. A constant interpretation between a self-reflecting system and an unending spiral of semiosis is the emergent of the semiotic skin. It creates a semi-permeable barrier that holds the very notions of the multi-layered skin-on-the-skin that is reflected in an embodied communication between humans and environment. In this theoretical understanding of an embodied aspect of not only meaning-making but also the regulative aspect of embodied interaction with others, the very idea of borders of individuality becomes the notion of interpretation. Any communication in a medical setting involves actions on the border of mutual understanding - e.g. communication between a pediatrician and a child. The concepts of a collective patient and a collective doctor are introduced as to understand the aspects of the multiple dynamics of the semiotic skin as the holder of an individual's personal ideas/interpretations in the interaction with one other person, holding multiple aspects from others as well. Examples of the interaction between patients and the healthcare system in Denmark illustrate how a new theoretical and practical performance of mastering the communicative partnership in the cross field between the healthcare system and psychology is born.

A Grammar of Praxis: an Exposé of " A New Logical Foundation for Psychology ", a Few Additions, and Replies to Alaric Kohler and Alexander Poddiakov Abstract Taking departure in the author's recent book "A New Logical Foundation for Psychology" the paper proposes a solution to the long-standing so-called crisis in psychology. The causes to this crisis are above all found in a ruling reductionist and mathematically supported mechanistic understanding of nature with roots in European Renaissance, and following that, of man's embedment in nature. This leaves no place for non-mechanistic relations to unique and irreplaceable persons and objects defining the human psyche or soul, and fundamental phenomena as love and grief are consequently not understood. No humanistic superstructure of language or systems of signs and concepts can repair this loss of a vital dimension in basic human practical relations to the world. However, it is just in modern mathematics and mathematical logic, that the reductions of mechanicism are surmounted, at the same time leaving a place for mechanicism within a broader conceptual frame and defining a rich practical basis for understanding the role of language and human concepts. The wider perspectives comprise a new union of natural and human sciences. Finally the paper presents replies to two important commentaries to the author's abovementioned book.

Theorizing with/out "Mediators" Abstract Mediation is one of the most often cited concepts in current cultural-historical theory literature, in which cultural actions and artifacts are often characterized as mediators standing between situational stimuli and behavioral responses. Most often presented as a means to overcome Cartesian dualism between subject and object, and between individual and society, some scholars have nonetheless raised criticism suggesting that such mediators are problematic for a dialectical psychology that takes a unit analysis (monist) approach. In fact, Spinoza develops a monist theory of mind and body that goes without and even excludes every form of mediation. In this study, we follow up on the latter criticisms and explore what we consider to be problematic uses of the notion of mediation as an analytical construct in the literature. We elaborate an empirically grounded discussion on the ways the concept of mediation may lead to dualistic readings; and we offer an alternative account where the notion of mediator is not needed. We conclude discussing prospects for and implications of a cultural-historical theory where the notion of mediation no longer is invoked to account for human action and development.

A Relational Ontology for Psychology: Life as an Asymmetric Subjet-Object Choosing Relation Abstract This review of Mammen's new book (2017), provides a brief summary of the first part, stressing the main points of the author's constructive critique of the unfortunate issues psychology inherited from the atomistic mechanism of classical physics. Driving the discussion on the ontological level, Mammen briefly shows how nowadays natural sciences provide the main components psychology needs to overcome the everlasting crisis of psychology since its constitution as a science: discontinuity, contextuality, etc. Making of the relation between subject and object the foundation of any science, Mammen contributes to a new ontology specific to human study with elements of last century mathematics, notably the axiom of choice, bridging the rift between natural and human sciences with a continuum from inert matter to more or less advanced life forms. Mammen's constructive proposal opens the building site of a new foundation for life sciences, avoiding both simplistic mechanism and nihilist post-modernism.

Towards an Algebra of Existence and Development of Unique Subjects with Unique Minds: a Commentary to Jens Mammen's Book Abstract In the commentary to Jens Mammen's book A New Logical Foundation for Psychology (2017), three issues are discussed. The first one concerns possible interrelations of: (a) others' irreplaceability and existential irretrievability rigorously proved by Mammen; and (b) morality and attitudes to the others. Lem's criticism of Heidegger's existential philosophy, which paradoxically ignores mass homicide, is discussed in the context of topology of being. Different attitudes to the other as irreplaceable and irretrievable (e.g., in case of apprehension and execution of a murderer) are analyzed. The second issue concerns the possibility of true duplicates of the same person. The paradox of copied complexity is introduced. The third issue concerns reductionism (including brain reductionism) and opportunities to deduce various phenomena of development (mental development, actual genesis of creative thinking, etc.) from the new logical foundation for psychology built by Mammen.

Can We Abandon Mediation? A Commentary on the Article "Theorizing with/out 'Mediators'" Abstract In view of the status of mediation as a long standing and widely used developmental principle, it is clear that theoretical challenging of mediation would have far reaching consequences. Therefore, it is assumed that the best strategy to respond to challenge would be to examine the solidity of foundations of both the principle of mediation and the suggested alternative non-mediational position. This strategy has determined the structure of the paper. First, it offers anthropological, cultural-historical, ontogenetic, microgenetic and epistemological foundations of the principle of mediation in order to justify its historical and theoretical status. In the second step, claims which challenge the necessity and fruitfulness of mediation as a developmental principle will be examined. Within the challenging strategy two argumentative patterns will be analysed: first, the validity of interpretation of mediation principle offered by its critics and second, explanatory potentials of non-mediational standpoints. In conclusion, it will be argued that the proposed non-mediational position does not offer sufficient justification for repudiation of mediation principle and adoption of an alternative non-mediational standpoint.

Alexandros Sfakianakis
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