Higher Psychological Functions and Mediated Activities (Updated on Sep 10th)

My major takeaway from Tool and Symbol in Child Development (1930) is the concept of lower psychological functions and higher psychological functions. My current understanding is that higher doesn't mean accumulated effect. Higher refers to the systematical approach to problem solving. Higher is qualitatively different from lower, however, it still involves lower functions. For example, higher means the unity of one's thinking and one's behaviors. When a person masters his own behavioral processes, his action is meaningful and controlled by himself. This is a re-construction of the self.

There are a lot of things mentioned in the reading that I've not really understood. For example, Vygotsky also mentioned about volitional control. What's different between Vygotskian theory and social cognitive theory on explanation of this concept? Does social cognitive theory refer to adult psychological function more than children? Will Vygotsky argue that adults (older than six or seven years) learn differently from children?

 My answer now is that Vygotsky talked more about how human is different from non-human animals. Non-human animals' behaviors are the direct responses to the stimuli. However, human's activities are mediated. The mediation process makes planning and volitional control possible. While social cognitive theory doesn't explain from a developmental perspective, it is consistent with human's capability of changing the environment with purposes. 

The higher psychological functions or the mediated activities reminded me a graph I saw from Mind in Society a few years ago (see the figure below). I understand the difference between sign and tool is that sign "primarily appears in the child‘s behaviour as a means of social relations, as an inter-psychological function", whereas tool is the means that can work on the object in order to solve the problem. It's said in Mind in Society that,
"The tool's function is to serve as the conductor of human influence on the object of activity; it is externally oriented; it must lead to changes in objects. It is a means by which human external activity is aimed at mastering, and triumphing over, nature. The sign, on the other hand, changes nothing in the object of a psychological operation. It is a means of internal activity aimed at mastering oneself; the sign is internally oriented..... We can use the term higher psychological function, or higher behavior as referring to the combination of tool and sign in psychological activity." (p.55)

Can I think about sign as the "strategies" or "tactics" that people use for achieving their purposes? Can tools be cognitive?

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