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• Vygotsky’s Theory of Cognitive Development

Saul Mcleod, PhD

Editor-in-Chief for Simply Psychology

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Saul Mcleod, PhD., is a qualified psychology teacher with over 18 years of experience in further and higher education. He has been published in peer-reviewed journals, including the Journal of Clinical Psychology.

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Olivia Guy-Evans is a writer and associate editor for Simply Psychology. She has previously worked in healthcare and educational sectors.

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Sociocultural Theory 

The work of Lev Vygotsky (1934, 1978) has become the foundation of much research and theory in cognitive development over the past several decades, particularly what has become known as sociocultural theory.

Vygotsky’s theory comprises concepts such as culture-specific tools, private speech, and the zone of proximal development.

Vygotsky believed cognitive development is influenced by cultural and social factors. He emphasized the role of social interaction in the development of mental abilities e.g., speech and reasoning in children.

Vygotsky strongly believed that community plays a central role in the process of “making meaning.”

Cognitive development is a socially mediated process in which children acquire cultural values, beliefs, and problem-solving strategies through collaborative dialogues with more knowledgeable members of society.

The more knowledgeable other (MKO) is someone who has a higher level of ability or greater understanding than the learner regarding a particular task, process, or concept.

The MKO can be a teacher, parent, coach, or even a peer who provides guidance and modeling to enable the child to learn skills within their zone of proximal development (the gap between what a child can do independently and what they can achieve with guidance).

The interactions with more knowledgeable others significantly increase not only the quantity of information and the number of skills a child develops, but also affects the development of higher-order mental functions such as formal reasoning. Vygotsky argued that higher mental abilities could only develop through interaction with more advanced others.

According to Vygotsky, adults in society foster children’s cognitive development by engaging them in challenging and meaningful activities. Adults convey to children how their culture interprets and responds to the world.

They show the meaning they attach to objects, events, and experiences. They provide the child with what to think (the knowledge) and how to think (the processes, the tools to think with).

Vygotsky’s theory encourages collaborative and cooperative learning between children and teachers or peers. Scaffolding and reciprocal teaching are effective educational strategies based on Vygotsky’s ideas.

Scaffolding involves the teacher providing support structures to help students master skills just beyond their current level. In reciprocal teaching, teachers and students take turns leading discussions using strategies like summarizing and clarifying. Both scaffolding and reciprocal teaching emphasize the shared construction of knowledge, in line with Vygotsky’s views.

Vygotsky highlighted the importance of language in cognitive development. Inner speech is used for mental reasoning, and external speech is used to converse with others.

These operations occur separately. Indeed, before age two, a child employs words socially; they possess no internal language.

Once thought and language merge, however, the social language is internalized and assists the child with their reasoning. Thus, the social environment is ingrained within the child’s learning.

Effects of Culture

Vygotsky emphasized the role of the social environment in the child’s cognitive development.

Vygotsky claimed that infants are born with the basic abilities for intellectual development called “elementary mental functions” (Piaget focuses on motor reflexes and sensory abilities). These develop throughout the first two years of life due to direct environmental contact.

Elementary mental functions include –

o Attention o Sensation o Perception o Memory

Eventually, through interaction within the sociocultural environment, these are developed into more sophisticated and effective mental processes, which Vygotsky refers to as “higher mental functions.”

Tools of intellectual adaptation

Each culture provides its children with tools of intellectual adaptation that allow them to use basic mental functions more effectively/adaptively.

Tools of intellectual adaptation is Vygotsky’s term for methods of thinking and problem-solving strategies that children internalize through social interactions with the more knowledgeable members of society.

For example, memory in young children is limited by biological factors. However, culture determines the type of memory strategy we develop.

For example, in Western culture, children learn note-taking to aid memory, but in pre-literate societies, other strategies must be developed, such as tying knots in a string to remember, carrying pebbles, or repeating the names of ancestors until large numbers can be repeated.

Vygotsky, therefore, sees cognitive functions, even those carried out alone, as affected by the beliefs, values, and tools of intellectual adaptation of the culture in which a person develops and, therefore, socio-culturally determined.

Therefore, intellectual adaptation tools vary from culture to culture – as in the memory example.

Social Influences on Cognitive Development

Like Piaget, Vygotsky believes that young children are curious and actively involved in their own learning and discovering and developing new understandings/schema .

However, Vygotsky emphasized social contributions to the development process, whereas Piaget emphasized self-initiated discovery.

According to Vygotsky (1978), much important learning by the child occurs through social interaction with a skillful tutor. The tutor may model behaviors and/or provide verbal instructions for the child.

Vygotsky refers to this as cooperative or collaborative dialogue. The child seeks to understand the actions or instructions provided by the tutor (often the parent or teacher) and then internalizes the information, using it to guide or regulate their performance.

Shaffer (1996) gives the example of a young girl given her first jigsaw. Alone, she performs poorly in attempting to solve the puzzle. The father then sits with her and describes or demonstrates some basic strategies, such as finding all the corner/edge pieces, and provides a couple of pieces for the child to put together herself, and offers encouragement when she does so.

As the child becomes more competent, the father allows the child to work more independently. According to Vygotsky, this social interaction involving cooperative or collaborative dialogue promotes cognitive development.

To understand Vygotsky’s theories on cognitive development, one must understand two of the main principles of Vygotsky’s work: the More Knowledgeable Other (MKO) and the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD).

More Knowledgeable Other

The more knowledgeable other (MKO) is somewhat self-explanatory; it refers to someone who has a better understanding or a higher ability level than the learner, concerning a particular task, process, or concept.

Although the implication is that the MKO is a teacher or an older adult, this is not necessarily the case. Often, a child’s peers or an adult’s children may be the individuals with more knowledge or experience.

For example, who is more likely to know more about the newest teenage music groups, how to win at the most recent PlayStation game, or how to correctly perform the newest dance craze – a child or their parents?

In fact, the MKO need not be a person at all. To support employees in their learning process, some companies are now using electronic performance support systems.

Electronic tutors have also been used in educational settings to facilitate and guide students through learning. The key to MKOs is that they must have (or be programmed with) more knowledge about the topic being learned than the learner does.

Zone of Proximal Development

The concept of the more knowledgeable other relates to the second important principle of Vygotsky’s work, the zone of proximal development .

This important concept relates to the difference between what a child can achieve independently and what a child can achieve with guidance and encouragement from a skilled partner.

Vygotsky consequently focuses much more closely on social interaction as an aid to learning, arguing that, left alone, children will develop – but not to their full potential.

He refers to the gap between actual and potential learning as the zone of proximal development (ZPD) – and argues that it is only through collaboration with adults and other learners that this gap can be bridged.

The zone of proximal development is the gap between the level of actual development, what the child can do on his own, and the level of potential development, what a child can do with the assistance of more advanced and competent individuals.

Social interaction, therefore, supports the child’s cognitive development in the ZPD, leading to a higher level of reasoning. It is generally believed that social dialogues have two important features.

The first is intersubjectivity, where two individuals who might have different understandings of a task, arrive at a shared understanding by adjusting to the perspective of the other.

The second feature is referred to as scaffolding. Adults may begin with direct instruction, but as children’s mastery of a task increases, so the adult tends to withdraw their own contributions in recognition of the child’s increasing success.

For example, the child could not solve the jigsaw puzzle (in the example above) by itself and would have taken a long time to do so (if at all), but was able to solve it following interaction with the father, and has developed competence at this skill that will be applied to future jigsaws.

ZPD is the zone where instruction is the most beneficial, as it is when the task is just beyond the individual’s capabilities. To learn, we must be presented with tasks just out of our ability range. Challenging tasks promote maximum cognitive growth.

As a result of shared dialogues with more knowledgeable others, who provide hints, instructions, and encouragement, the child can internalize the ‘how to do it’ part of the task as part of their inner or private speech. The child can then use this on later occasions when they tackle a similar task on their own.

Vygotsky (1978) sees the Zone of Proximal Development as the area where the most sensitive instruction or guidance should be given – allowing the child to develop skills they will then use on their own – developing higher mental functions.

Vygotsky also views peer interaction as an effective way of developing skills and strategies.  He suggests that teachers use cooperative learning exercises where less competent children develop with help from more skillful peers – within the zone of proximal development.

Evidence for Vygotsky and the ZPD

Freund (1990) conducted a study in which children had to decide which items of furniture should be placed in particular areas of a doll’s house.

Some children were allowed to play with their mother in a similar situation before they attempted it alone (zone of proximal development) while others were allowed to work on this by themselves (Piaget’s discovery learning).

Freund found that those who had previously worked with their mother (ZPD) showed the greatest improvement compared with their first attempt at the task.

The conclusion is that guided learning within the ZPD led to greater understanding/performance than working alone (discovery learning).

Vygotsky and Language

Vygotsky believed that language develops from social interactions for communication purposes. Vygotsky viewed language as man’s greatest tool for communicating with the outside world.

According to Vygotsky (1962), language plays two critical roles in cognitive development:

• It is the main means by which adults transmit information to children.
• Language itself becomes a very powerful tool for intellectual adaptation.

Vygotsky (1987) differentiates between three forms of language:

• Social speech, which is external communication used to talk to others (typical from the age of two);
• Private speech (typical from the age of three) which is directed to the self and serves an intellectual function;
• Private speech goes underground , diminishing in audibility as it takes on a self-regulating function and is transformed into silent inner speech (typical from the age of seven).

For Vygotsky, thought and language are initially separate systems from the beginning of life, merging at around three years of age.

At this point, speech and thought become interdependent: thought becomes verbal, and speech becomes representational.

As children develop mental representation, particularly the skill of language, they start to communicate with themselves in much the same way as they would communicate with others.

When this happens, children’s monologues are internalized to become inner speech. The internalization of language is important as it drives cognitive development.

“Inner speech is not the interiour aspect of external speech – it is a function in itself. It still remains speech, i.e., thought connected with words. But while in external speech thought is embodied in words, in inner speech words dies as they bring forth thought. Inner speech is to a large extent thinking in pure meanings.” (Vygotsky, 1962: p. 149)

Private Speech

Vygotsky (1987) was the first psychologist to document the importance of private speech.

He considered private speech as the transition point between social and inner speech, the moment in development where language and thought unite to constitute verbal thinking.

Thus, in Vygotsky’s view, private speech was the earliest manifestation of inner speech. Indeed, private speech is more similar (in form and function) to inner speech than social speech.

Private speech is “typically defined, in contrast to social speech, as speech addressed to the self (not to others) for the purpose of self-regulation (rather than communication).” (Diaz, 1992, p.62)

Private speech is overt, audible, and observable, often seen in children who talk to themselves while problem-solving.

Conversely, inner speech is covert or hidden because it happens internally. It is the silent, internal dialogue that adults often engage in while thinking or problem-solving.

In contrast to Piaget’s (1959) notion of private speech representing a developmental dead-end, Vygotsky (1934, 1987) viewed private speech as:

“A revolution in development which is triggered when preverbal thought and preintellectual language come together to create fundamentally new forms of mental functioning.” (Fernyhough & Fradley, 2005: p. 1)

In addition to disagreeing on the functional significance of private speech, Vygotsky and Piaget also offered opposing views on the developmental course of private speech and the environmental circumstances in which it occurs most often (Berk & Garvin, 1984).

Through private speech, children collaborate with themselves, in the same way a more knowledgeable other (e.g., adults) collaborate with them to achieve a given function.

Vygotsky sees “private speech” as a means for children to plan activities and strategies, aiding their development. Private speech is the use of language for self-regulation of behavior.

Therefore, language accelerates thinking/understanding ( Jerome Bruner also views language in this way). Vygotsky believed that children who engage in large amounts of private speech are more socially competent than children who do not use it extensively.

Vygotsky (1987) notes that private speech does not merely accompany a child’s activity but acts as a tool the developing child uses to facilitate cognitive processes, such as overcoming task obstacles, and enhancing imagination, thinking, and conscious awareness.

Children use private speech most often during intermediate difficulty tasks because they attempt to self-regulate by verbally planning and organizing their thoughts (Winsler et al., 2007).

The frequency and content of private speech correlate with behavior or performance. For example, private speech appears functionally related to cognitive performance: It appears at times of difficulty with a task.

For example, tasks related to executive function (Fernyhough & Fradley, 2005), problem-solving tasks (Behrend et al., 1992), and schoolwork in both language (Berk & Landau, 1993), and mathematics (Ostad & Sorensen, 2007).

Berk (1986) provided empirical support for the notion of private speech. She found that most private speech exhibited by children serves to describe or guide the child’s actions.

Berk also discovered that children engaged in private speech more often when working alone on challenging tasks and when their teacher was not immediately available to help them.

Furthermore, Berk also found that private speech develops similarly in all children regardless of cultural background.

There is also evidence (Behrend et al., 1992) that those children who displayed the characteristic whispering and lip movements associated with private speech when faced with a difficult task were generally more attentive and successful than their ‘quieter’ classmates.

Vygotsky (1987) proposed that private speech is a product of an individual’s social environment. This hypothesis is supported by the fact that there exist high positive correlations between rates of social interaction and private speech in children.

Children raised in cognitively and linguistically stimulating environments (situations more frequently observed in higher socioeconomic status families) start using and internalizing private speech faster than children from less privileged backgrounds.

Indeed, children raised in environments characterized by low verbal and social exchanges exhibit delays in private speech development.

Children’s use of private speech diminishes as they grow older and follows a curvilinear trend. This is due to changes in ontogenetic development whereby children can internalize language (through inner speech) to self-regulate their behavior (Vygotsky, 1987).

For example, research has shown that children’s private speech usually peaks at 3–4 years of age, decreases at 6–7, and gradually fades out to be mostly internalized by age 10 (Diaz, 1992).

Vygotsky proposed that private speech diminishes and disappears with age not because it becomes socialized, as Piaget suggested, but because it goes underground to constitute inner speech or verbal thought” (Frauenglass & Diaz, 1985).

Educational Implications

Vygotsky’s approach to child development is a form of social constructivism , based on the idea that cognitive functions are the products of social interactions.

Social constructivism posits that knowledge is constructed and learning occurs through social interactions within a cultural and historical context.

Vygotsky emphasized the collaborative nature of learning by constructing knowledge through social negotiation. He rejected the assumption made by Piaget that it was possible to separate learning from its social context.

Vygotsky believed everything is learned on two levels. First, through interaction with others, then integrated into the individual’s mental structure.

Every function in the child’s cultural development appears twice: first, on the social level, and later, on the individual level; first, between people (interpsychological) and then inside the child (intrapsychological). This applies equally to voluntary attention, to logical memory, and to the formation of concepts. All the higher functions originate as actual relationships between individuals. (Vygotsky, 1978, p.57)

Teaching styles grounded in constructivism represent a deliberate shift from traditional, didactic, memory-oriented transmission models (Cannella & Reiff, 1994) to a more student-centered approach.

Traditionally, schools have failed to foster environments where students actively participate in their own and their peers’ education. Vygotsky’s theory, however, calls for both the teacher and students to assume non-traditional roles as they engage in collaborative learning.

Rather than having a teacher impose their understanding onto students for future recitation, the teacher should co-create meaning with students in a manner that allows learners to take ownership (Hausfather, 1996).

For instance, a student and teacher might start a task with varying levels of expertise and understanding. As they adapt to each other’s perspective, the teacher must articulate their insights in a way that the student can comprehend, leading the student to a fuller understanding of the task or concept.

The student can then internalize the task’s operational aspect (“how to do it”) into their inner speech or private dialogue. Vygotsky referred to this reciprocal understanding and adjustment process as intersubjectivity.”

Because Vygotsky asserts that cognitive change occurs within the zone of proximal development, instruction would be designed to reach a developmental level just above the student’s current developmental level.

Vygotsky proclaims, “learning which is oriented toward developmental levels that have already been reached is ineffective from the viewpoint of the child’s overall development. It does not aim for a new stage of the developmental process but rather lags behind this process” (Vygotsky, 1978).

Appropriation is necessary for cognitive development within the zone of proximal development. Individuals participating in peer collaboration or guided teacher instruction must share the same focus to access the zone of proximal development.

“Joint attention and shared problem solving is needed to create a process of cognitive, social, and emotional interchange” (Hausfather,1996).

Furthermore, it is essential that the partners be on different developmental levels and the higher-level partner be aware of the lower’s level. If this does not occur or one partner dominates, the interaction is less successful (Driscoll, 1994; Hausfather, 1996).

Vygotsky’s theories also feed into the current interest in collaborative learning, suggesting that group members should have different levels of ability so more advanced peers can help less advanced members operate within their ZPD.

Scaffolding and reciprocal teaching are effective strategies to access the zone of proximal development.

Reciprocal Teaching

A contemporary educational application of Vygotsky’s theory is “reciprocal teaching,” used to improve students” ability to learn from text.

In this method, teachers and students collaborate in learning and practicing four key skills: summarizing, questioning, clarifying, and predicting. The teacher’s role in the process is reduced over time.

Reciprocal teaching allows for the creation of a dialogue between students and teachers. This two-way communication becomes an instructional strategy by encouraging students to go beyond answering questions and engage in the discourse (Driscoll, 1994; Hausfather, 1996).

A study conducted by Brown and Palincsar (1989) demonstrated the Vygotskian approach with reciprocal teaching methods in their successful program to teach reading strategies.

The teacher and students alternated turns leading small group discussions on a reading. After modeling four reading strategies, students began to assume the teaching role.

The results showed significant gains over other instructional strategies (Driscoll, 1994; Hausfather,1996).

Cognitively Guided Instruction is another strategy to implement Vygotsky’s theory. This strategy involves the teacher and students exploring math problems and then sharing their problem-solving strategies in an open dialogue (Hausfather,1996).

Based on Vygotsky’s theory, the physical classroom would provide clustered desks or tables and workspace for peer instruction, collaboration, and small-group instruction. Learning becomes a reciprocal experience for the students and teacher.

Like the environment, the instructional design of the material to be learned would be structured to promote and encourage student interaction and collaboration. Thus the classroom becomes a community of learning.

Scaffolding

Also, Vygotsky’s theory of cognitive development on learners is relevant to instructional concepts such as “scaffolding” and “apprenticeship,” in which a teacher or more advanced peer helps to structure or arrange a task so that a novice can work on it successfully.

A teacher’s role is to identify each individual’s current level of development and provide them with opportunities to cross their ZPD.

A crucial element in this process is the use of what later became known as scaffolding; the way in which the teacher provides students with frameworks and experiences which encourage them to extend their existing schemata and incorporate new skills, competencies, and understandings.

Scaffolding describes the conditions that support the child’s learning, to move from what they already know to new knowledge and abilities.

Scaffolding requires the teacher to allow students to extend their current skills and knowledge.

During scaffolding, the support offered by an adult (or more knowledgeable other) gradually decreases as the child becomes more skilled in the task.

As the adult withdraws their help, the child assumes more of the strategic planning and eventually gains competence to master similar problems without a teacher’s aid or a more knowledgeable peer.

It is important to note that this is more than simply instruction; learning experiences must be presented in such a way as to actively challenge existing mental structures and provide frameworks for learning.

Five ways in which an adult can “scaffold” a child’s learning:

• Engaging the child’s interest
• Maintaining the child’s interest in the task e.g., avoiding distraction and providing clear instructions on how to start the task.
• Keeping the child’s frustration under control e.g., by supportive interactions, adapting instructions according to where the child is struggling.
• Emphasizing the important features of the task
• Demonstrating the task: showing the child how to do the task in simple, clear steps.

As the child progresses through the ZPD, the necessary scaffolding level declines from 5 to 1.

The teacher must engage students’ interests, simplify tasks to be manageable, and motivate students to pursue the instructional goal.

In addition, the teacher must look for discrepancies between students” efforts and the solution, control for frustration and risk, and model an idealized version of the act (Hausfather, 1996).

Challenges to Traditional Teaching Methods

Vygotsky’s social development theory challenges traditional teaching methods. Historically, schools have been organized around recitation teaching.

The teacher disseminates knowledge to be memorized by the students, who in turn recite the information to the teacher (Hausfather,1996).

However, the studies described above offer empirical evidence that learning based on the social development theory facilitates cognitive development over other instructional strategies.

The structure of our schools does not reflect the rapid changes our society is experiencing. The introduction and integration of computer technology in society has tremendously increased the opportunities for social interaction.

Therefore, the social context for learning is transforming as well. Whereas collaboration and peer instruction were once only possible in shared physical space, learning relationships can now be formed from distances through cyberspace.

Computer technology is a cultural tool that students can use to meditate and internalize their learning. Recent research suggests changing the learning contexts with technology is a powerful learning activity (Crawford, 1996).

If schools continue to resist structural change, students will be ill-prepared for the world they will live.

Critical Evaluation

Vygotsky’s work has not received the same level of intense scrutiny that Piaget’s has, partly due to the time-consuming process of translating Vygotsky’s work from Russian.

Also, Vygotsky’s sociocultural perspective does not provide as many specific hypotheses to test as Piaget’s theory, making refutation difficult, if not impossible.

Perhaps the main criticism of Vygotsky’s work concerns the assumption that it is relevant to all cultures. Rogoff (1990) dismisses the idea that Vygotsky’s ideas are culturally universal and instead states that scaffolding- heavily dependent on verbal instruction – may not be equally useful in all cultures for all types of learning.

Indeed, in some instances, observation and practice may be more effective ways of learning certain skills.

There is much emphasis on social interaction and culture, but many other aspects of development are neglected, such as the importance of emotional factors, e.g., the joys of success and the disappointments and frustration of failure act as motivation for learning.

Vygotsky overemphasized socio-cultural factors at the expense of biological influences on cognitive development. This theory cannot explain why cross-cultural studies show that the stages of development (except the formal operational stage ) occur in the same order in all cultures suggesting that cognitive development is a product of a biological process of maturation.

Vygotky’s theory has been applied successfully to education. Scaffolding has been shown to be an effective way of teaching (Freund, 1990), and based on this theory, teachers are trained to guide children from what they can do to the next step in their learning through careful scaffolding.

Collaborative work is also used in the classroom, mixing children of different levels of ability to make use of reciprocal / peer teaching.

Vygotsky vs. Piaget

Unlike Piaget’s notion that children’s cognitive development must necessarily precede their learning, Vygotsky argued, “learning is a necessary and universal aspect of the process of developing culturally organized, specifically human psychological function” (1978, p. 90).  In other words, social learning precedes (i.e., come before) development.

Vygotsky’s theory differs from that of Piaget in several important ways:

Vygotsky places more emphasis on culture affecting cognitive development.

Unlike Piaget, who emphasized universal cognitive change (i.e., all children would go through the same sequence of cognitive development regardless of their cultural experiences), Vygotsky leads us to expect variable development depending on cultural diversity. 

This contradicts Piaget’s view of universal stages of development (Vygotsky does not refer to stages like Piaget does).

Hence, Vygotsky assumes cognitive development varies across cultures, whereas Piaget states cognitive development is mostly universal across cultures.

Vygotsky places considerably more emphasis on social factors contributing to cognitive development.

• Vygotsky states the importance of cultural and social context for learning. Cognitive development stems from social interactions from guided learning within the zone of proximal development as children and their partners co-construct knowledge. In contrast, Piaget maintains that cognitive development stems largely from independent explorations in which children construct knowledge.
• For Vygotsky, the environment in which children grow up will influence how they think and what they think about. The importance of scaffolding and language may differ for all cultures. Rogoff (1990) emphasizes the importance of observation and practice in pre-industrial societies (e.g., learning to use a canoe among Micronesian Islanders).

Vygotsky places more (and different) emphasis on the role of language in cognitive development.

According to Piaget , language depends on thought for its development (i.e., thought comes before language). For Vygotsky, thought and language are initially separate systems from the beginning of life, merging at around three years of age, producing verbal thought (inner speech).

In Piaget’s theory, egocentric (or private) speech gradually disappears as children develop truly social speech, in which they monitor and adapt what they say to others.

Vygotsky disagreed with this view, arguing that as language helps children to think about and control their behavior, it is an important foundation for complex cognitive skills.

As children age, this self-directed speech becomes silent (or private) speech, referring to the inner dialogues we have with ourselves as we plan and carry out activities.

For Vygotsky, cognitive development results from an internalization of language.

According to Vygotsky, adults are an important source of cognitive development.

Adults transmit their culture’s tools of intellectual adaptation that children internalize.

In contrast, Piaget emphasizes the importance of peers, as peer interaction promotes social perspective-taking.

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Further Reading

What is vygotsky’s theory.

Vygotsky believed that cognitive development was founded on social interaction. According to Vygotsky, much of what children acquire in their understanding of the world is the product of collaboration.

How is Vygotsky’s theory applied in teaching and learning?

Vygotsky’s theory has profound implications for classroom learning. Teachers guide, support, and encourage children, yet also help them to develop problem-solving strategies that can be generalized to other situations.

Children learn best not when they are isolated, but when they interact with others, particularly more knowledgeable others who can provide the guidance and encouragement to master new skills.

What was Vygotsky’s best know concept?

Lev Vygotsky was a seminal Russian psychologist best known for his sociocultural theory. He constructed the idea of a zone of proximal development ,  which are those tasks which are too difficult for a child to solve alone but s/he can accomplish with the help of adults or more skilled peers.

Vygotsky has developed a sociocultural approach to cognitive development. He developed his theories at around the same time as  Jean Piaget  was starting to develop his ideas (1920’s and 30″s), but he died at the age of 38, and so his theories are incomplete – although some of his writings are still being translated from Russian.

Like Piaget, Vygotsky could be described as a  constructivist , in that he was interested in knowledge acquisition as a cumulative event – with new experiences and understandings incorporated into existing cognitive frameworks.

However, while Piaget’s theory is structural (arguing that physiological stages govern development), Vygotsky denies the existence of any guiding framework independent of culture and context.

No single principle (such as Piaget’s equilibration) can account for development. Individual development cannot be understood without reference to the social and cultural context within which it is embedded. Higher mental processes in the individual have their origin in social processes.

What is Vygotsky’s Social Development Theory?

Vygotsky’s Social Development Theory is often referred to as the Sociocultural Theory.

Vygotsky’s Social Development Theory posits that social interaction is fundamental to cognitive development. Vygotsky emphasized the influence of cultural and social contexts on learning, claiming that knowledge is constructed through social collaboration.

His most known concept, the Zone of Proximal Development, refers to the difference between what a learner can do independently and what they can achieve with guidance.

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(Re)Introducing Vygotsky’s Thought: From Historical Overview to Contemporary Psychology

Olga vasileva.

1 Psychology Department, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, BC, Canada

Natalia Balyasnikova

2 Department of Language and Literacy Education, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada

Theories formulated by Russian psychologist and educator Lev Vygotsky currently range from being applied and celebrated across multiple contexts to be considered outdated. In this paper, we maintain that such inconsistency in application stems from the overreliance on translated or reformulated Vygotskian theories, the attempts to understand these ideas in isolation from the scientific historical context of their development, and the impact of Vygotsky’s personal life circumstances on the development of his scholarship. It is known that Vygotsky’s untimely death prevented him from elaborating on his theoretical views and expanding his early empirical work. We suggest that Vygotsky’s scholarship could be better understood in light of the core principles that transcend all aspects of his work. In this paper, we elaborate on two such core principles: theories of language development and their relation to the integrated systemic approach to psychological development. We argue that although linguistic and historical boundaries have shaped the common perception of Vygotskian theories in anglophone research in a specific way, there is a potential for a renewed application of these theories to modern psychology that might be especially relevant in light of the increasingly interdisciplinary character of the modern science. To support our argument, we provide a brief overview and examples of potential connections between Vygotsky’s scholarship with contemporary landscape in psychological science. The paper presents a brief introduction to the topic of Vygotskian work and its application to modern psychology, rather than an addition to the field of Vygotskian scholarship. It is geared toward non-Vygotskian scholars and invites researchers working in interdisciplinary areas of psychology.

Introduction

Concepts developed by Vygotsky have transcended time and geographical boundaries. Today, his work is widely applied to many fields of inquiry ranging from psychology ( Saxe, 1990/2015 ; Burman, 2016 ) to language education ( Lantolf, 1994 ; Lantolf et al., 2018 ). While this embrace of the Soviet psychologist’s thought is a cause for celebration, a number of scholars have stressed the lack of application of Vygotskian thought to contemporary psychological research ( Stetsenko, 2016 ). As scholars working in interdisciplinary fields ourselves, we believe in the potential for broader applications of Vygotsky’s work. At the same time, we would like to acknowledge an extensive field of Vygotskian scholarship that exists to this day. Indeed, those specialists who have in-depth knowledge of his work and theory will not likely find anything new or surprising in this paper. Our intent is not to outline the Vygotskian project in its entirety, as his research embraced topics spanning from clinical aspects of development to applied aspects of educational practices; neither do we provide a nuanced application of Vygotsky’s work to specific research questions nor present a detailed review of how Vygotsky’s work has been implemented previously. Rather, we seek to inspire interdisciplinary conversations and encourage non-Vygotskian specialists to engage with his work and consider its relevance for their own research. In fact, we have intentionally situated this article in an open access journal as an act of knowledge brokering between these different disciplines and different scholars. With this intent in mind, we do not limit our discussion to one particular aspect of Vygotsky’s work. We intentionally organized our paper around broadly defined research themes. We hope that this would help the readers to identify those areas of research where they could apply Vygotsky’s work or engage with Vygotsky’s ideas.

To assist our readers, we begin with a brief overview of the context of Vygotsky’s work that had significant influence on the way it can be understood today. We maintain that Vygotsky’s work should be conceptualized holistically, as a research program that was broad in scope and governed by fundamental research questions on the nature and development of the human mind. To this end, we address the two core principles of Vygotsky’s work: the systemic approach to the study of mind and the social origin of the mind. We conclude with some recommendations regarding pertinent applications of Vygotsky’s work as it relates to contemporary research in psychology. The end result is thus a text that is rather eclectic conceptually. We encourage our readers to address different parts of the text that they might find more relevant or interesting and further engage with some in-depth accounts of his work provided by Vygotskian scholars.

Applications of Vygotsky’s Work: Issues and Challenges

Vygotsky has been dubbed the “Mozart of psychology” ( Toulmin, 1978 ). However, his original work has often being rewritten or modified by other “composers” by adjusting or sampling the original work, especially in cases of translation. Therefore, it might be useful to understand how Vygotsky’s work has been taken up by the global research community and, to continue the metaphor, how his music (that is, his theoretical contribution and research questions) was performed and by whom . For example, we have observed that translated works of Vygotsky that are widely available today are often a de-contextualized aggregation of texts, which had a complex history of publication in their original Russian. While the historical context of his scholarship is fascinating and warrants a separate discussion beyond the limits of this paper, we feel that a brief historical overview of Vygotskian research is needed to situate this paper within modern psychological discourse.

First, as noted by Van der Veer and Yasnitsky (2016a , b) and Zavershneva (2016) , a complete and accurate bibliography of Vygotsky’s work is yet to be created. The existing Vygotsky’s bibliographies often contain significant limitations ( Van der Veer and Yasnitsky, 2016a , b ). As the result, we cannot accurately establish how much Vygotsky wrote himself. It is known that Vygotsky’s texts were not always written and sometimes consisted of notes rather than well-formulated and polished texts, and a significant portion of what is known as Vygotsky’s work was published posthumously. In other words, Vygotsky did not collect and organize these specific pieces of text in the order in which they are found today. Moreover, as noted by Yasnitsky (2011a) , some texts that appear under Vygotsky’s name were redacted prior to publication while in other texts portions from different manuscripts were inserted. Furthermore, a significant portion of Vygotsky’s work has not been published at all, and these archival works have become accessible to a broader audience only recently ( Zavershneva, 2010 , 2014 , 2016 ).

Second, Vygotsky’s texts underwent various levels of censorship during his life and posthumously. It is a well-known fact that in the Soviet Union, research papers were severely censored to make them more agreeable to Marxist ideology. In fact, Vygotsky’s own students censored some of his texts when they rose to prominence in the field during the 1960s and 1970s (e.g., Luria, Leontiev). Consequently, these scholars used Vygotsky’s texts to promote their own work, omitting the parts that were less relevant to their respective research paradigms and in so doing contributed to the establishment of so-called canon of “Vygotsky school” ( Fraser and Yasnitsky, 2016 ; Yasnitsky, 2016a ).

Third, publications of Vygotsky’s work in the Western press resulted in significant changes to the original work due to language editing. For example, Cole, John-Steiner, Scribner and Souberman, the editors of Mind in Society ( Cole et al., 1978 ) acknowledged that they took “significant liberties” with the original texts while preparing them for publication. This appears to have been done partly to make them more “digestible” and understandable for a Western audience.

The notion of translation is extremely important for the appropriate presentation of Vygotsky’s ideas to a non-Russian-speaking audience, and careful translations of Vygotsky’s texts are currently becoming an area of study in its own right. We refer interested readers to the work of Van der Veer and Yasnitsky (2016a , b) for a review of core Vygotskian semantics. Readers can also refer to Zavershneva (2014) for a “phraseological toolkit” that can assist a reader with essential terminology of Vygotskian texts. More significantly, in our opinion, the translation of Vygotsky’s original Russian texts into other languages adds a layer of difficulty to the accurate application of his work. We maintain that Vygotskian texts could be better understood if studied within the context of the Russian school of psychology and the specific terminology and apparatus of this school. For example, differences in the semantics of the core concepts “mind,” “psyche,” and “cognition” in Russian and English open the door for interpretation, as was highlighted by Bruner (1962) , who used the word “ image ” for the Russian word “ znak. ” We feel that the usage of “ image ” in this context could lead readers to different connotations that are rather distant from the more appropriate word “ sign. ”

In sum, when Vygotsky’s texts were adapted by his students, translated, and published in international journals and books, some pieces of his “music material” were omitted. Other pieces “sang” too loudly. However, this situation is not the only obstacle to interpreting Vygotsky for Western readers. What is crucially important is that Vygotsky was writing his “music” during a particular time. This period is important both in the larger historical context and the specific context of developments in the field of psychology, which occurred differently in the West and Soviet Union. As a result, some notes and musical pieces might be unclear to listeners unaware of the specific contexts of their creation.

The Contexts of Vygotsky’s Work

Researchers have defined at least three major periods of Vygotsky work. The early period took place at the start of the 1920s. The middle period began in the mid-1920s and continued until late 1927 or early 1928 at which time Vygotsky significantly reevaluated his earlier ideas. The final and arguably the most productive period began in 1929 and continued until mid-1934. By this point, Vygotsky’s health was rapidly deteriorating, and he was well aware that he might not live long enough to finish his work. This period for Vygotsky was characterized by a more focused theoretical work and less concern for the meticulous testing of newly developed hypotheses. We suggest that the seemingly lack of precise experimental work is not attributed to any perceived unimportance on Vygotsky’s part. Indeed, this focus on theoretical work in the last period of his life may be better explained by his desire to leave enough theoretical instruments and ideas to his students, who could in turn develop and test his ideas experimentally.

Regarding the specifics of Vygotsky’s life as a researcher, we suggest that a reader of early and late Vygotsky will not necessarily encounter the same scholar. The three major periods of Vygotsky’s work demonstrate varied levels of focus on different topics, changing research programs, and shifting theoretical perspectives. Consequently, we suggest that a single, unified, well-developed theory of Vygotskian theory and methodology is untenable. Rather, there are “several Vygotskies” ( Van der Veer and Yasnitsky, 2016a , b ), depending on the period of Vygotsky’s work. Moreover, as Toulmin (1978) notes, Vygotsky’s work in psychology was unfinished; he did not have an opportunity to refine his ideas and present them in any final, exhaustive theoretical form. However, our interpretation of Vygotsky suggests that while his career took different turns over the years, it was always guided by general, fundamental questions, such as the structure and origins of human mind. We maintain that other aspects of Vygotsky’s work, such as his interest in defectology, abnormal psychology, and experimental work in comparative psychology, should be understood as leading to an answer for his ultimate research puzzle: the genesis of human mind.

In our opinion, a more accurate understanding of Vygotsky is impossible without an appreciation of the temporal context, which framed Vygotsky’s work and the global social contexts of psychological sciences at that time 1 . We begin our discussion with the focus on temporal contexts.

Temporal Contexts

Vygotsky started his research career soon after the October Revolution of 1917, which impacted the entire trajectory of his career. The revolution brought tremendous changes to every aspect of Russian social life, including research and academic endeavors. The revolution impacted science and academia in Soviet society in at least two major ways: the newly established government threw their support behind scientific research, including research on child development, and established a political ideology that impacted all aspects of Russian society, including science. Since the government established the rules, the new ideology defined what a “right” or “correct” society was expected to look like, how it was supposed to function, and what individuals in the society were supposed to do. In the academy, limits were imposed on what scientists could claim in their research, how phenomena could be examined and explained, and what conclusions were in line with the established ideological framework 2 .

Guided by the ideology of the time, Vygotsky embarked on a metaphorical boat that was sailing toward a new goal – the creation of a new man in a new socialist society. Large populations, such as factory workers, women, and agricultural workers, who previously had limited access to schooling, were now able to pursue an education. Tasked with educating such a large number of people who were illiterate or minimally literate, the Soviet educational system grew exponentially. This increase in the number of individuals seeking an education required innovative scientific approaches, both regarding general science of child development and applied approaches. The old ways of being had been abolished and the new society required different approaches to education, namely a shift in the science of child development. Within this context, Vygotsky’s work was marked by a significant paradigm shift, both in the system of social class interaction and by fundamental shifts in scientific inquiry.

Throughout his entire career, Vygotsky’s work was influenced and constrained by the changing political climate. For example, in 1929, he embarked on a research expedition to Soviet Central Asia together with Luria and a group of students. Despite coming to interesting results, upon completion of the research, Vygotsky was unable to publish and share his work. Even Luria himself, as a well-respected scholar in the Soviet academy, could not publish their joint conclusions until many years later ( Lamdan and Yasnitsky, 2016 ). A possible cause for this stagnation was that the interpretation of the data was not likely favorable for the young Soviet government and did not meet the guidelines set by the ideology of the political changes in the region. Another example of the contextual limitations on Vygotsky’s work was the fact that it could not be published due to the naming of specific individuals in his manuscripts. The 1930s and the decade that followed were characterized by increasing tendencies of isolation from Western science. This led to the demise of extensive reliance on foreign research programs, methods, and theories by Soviet scholars. At the time, extensive citation of foreign names in the work of Soviet scholars was perceived as unpatriotic and in certain contexts could in fact be detrimental to one’s career. Readers are likely familiar with the name Leon Trotsky, a once celebrated communist who was subsequently proclaimed an enemy of the regime. Vygotsky cited Trotsky in some of his manuscripts, and it is apparently this citation that barred the work from publication ( Fraser and Yasnitsky, 2016 ). It is necessary to note, however, that although this situation impacted Vygotsky’s work, it cannot be perceived as an absolute. Vygotsky himself (and his students after his death) collaborated with foreign scholars. Thus, their research never developed in complete isolation from Western psychology ( Yasnitsky, 2012a , b , 2016b ).

Further examples of contextual influences can be seen in the trajectory of Vygotsky’s research on child development. As mentioned above, the Soviet educational system was tasked with educating large groups of underprivileged children (war orphans, poor or working-class children, and the homeless). All these children had to become new members of the society: they had to be educated, socialized, and provided with professional training that could make them into productive members of the society. As such, the Bolshevik government supported scientific research, discovery and understanding of the basic laws of development, and application of this knowledge for the development of practical methods of education and rehabilitation for underprivileged children. This led to development of a new research discipline – pedology. The science of pedology – a particular direction in Soviet research, which aimed to unite the approaches of various sciences (medicine, biology, psychology, etc.) to the method of child development – was tasked with meeting this challenge. Pedology provided a scientific foundation for the entire educational system, aiming to discover and understand the basic laws of development. Pedology sought to apply this knowledge to practical methods of education and rehabilitation for underprivileged children. The mandate was to make these children “normal” members of society despite their initial impoverished backgrounds. The belief was that should these children be provided with the right social environment, such as an educational system attuned to their needs, the hardships the children have experienced might not have profound, unchangeable consequences for their future.

Overall, the relationship between Vygotsky’s work and political climate of the time was a tumultuous one. The primacy of the environment over innate tendencies was dear to the Bolshevik government. Thus, Vygotsky’s work, with its focus on the social origins of the mind and the environmental impact upon it, was initially well received. With governmental support, pedological institutions were established throughout the country and new classes for teachers and educators were opened. Vygotsky himself considered pedology of the utmost importance in his own work, as the discipline dealt with questions that were central to his interests. However, despite such a favorable start, the discipline of pedology failed to thrive in the Soviet Union ( Kozulin, 1984 ). It became an outcast, and the government halted pedological research.

Regardless of the government’s reasoning, the decline of pedology had a profound impact on Vygotsky’s work. Researchers with a vested interest in pedology had to disassociate themselves from the discipline. Some shifted their research programs to defectology (a discipline more closely aligned with special education and investigating development of children with visual, hearing, and mental impairments); some focused on child clinical psychology and psychiatry; and others turned to physiology or pedagogical research ( Yaroshevsky, 1993 ). This massive departure from pedology did not occur rapidly; however, it had a profound impact on the careers of many researchers. Previous research programs were not halted entirely but had to be significantly transformed. Scholars were required to reformulate their research questions and methodology and corroborate with new host disciplines. Much more significant was the fragmentation of previously established research groups. Members now found themselves in different institutions affiliated with different disciplines. As a result of these changes, the close-knit Vygotskian Circle formed in 1927–1931 eventually dispersed throughout different disciplines and geographical locations ( Yasnitsky, 2016b ).

Therefore, we conclude that the context of time had a deep impact on the development of Vygotsky’s school of thought. By decontextualizing Vygotskian theories, contemporary researchers might overlook the ideology which guided his work. Moreover, by selectively applying Vygotsky’s ideas to the contexts of their work, many researchers may risk overlooking the changes that Vygotsky made to his own theories.

Social Contexts

The nature of Vygotsky’s collaboration with colleagues and students had a profound impact on his science. This is why we argue that one needs to acknowledge the social context of Vygotsky’s work as foundational to the development of his theories.

First, it is known that Vygotsky worked closely with a number of like-minded researchers – both his peers and students – and conducted joint experiments with them. The core of the so-called Vygotskian Circle consisted of the B ig Three – Vygotsky himself, Luria, and Leontiev – and the Big Five – first generation students of the three: Zaporozhets, Bozhovich, Levina, Morozova, and Slavina. All of them spent years working intensely with Vygotsky and were clearly influenced by his ideas 3 . The cross-pollination of ideas sometimes gets omitted in viewing Vygotsky as an autonomous, independent thinker.

Second, it is important to consider the trajectory of Vygotsky’s work as it was taken up after his death. After Vygotsky’s passing in 1934, his colleagues continued working on their own research programs, bringing Vygotskian thinking to wider audiences. Vygotsky’s ideas and fundamental beliefs did not truly vanish with the author’s death but continued to develop in later years. The Vygotskian Circle was instrumental in publishing and promoting Vygotsky work posthumously (especially Luria, who contributed to translating Vygotsky’s work in English and disseminating those ideas to the international research community). Several of Vygotsky’s students published their own works shortly after his death (see for example Sakharov, 1994 ). Although these students published content under their own names, the works were based on close collaboration with Vygotsky or research he conducted himself. Consequently, we can consider some of these publications to be Vygotsky’s work to a large extent. By focusing exclusively on works authored by Vygotsky alone, we could be excluding a large corpus of research that is de facto an extension of his original thought.

All Vygotskian Circle researchers have developed their own research programs, as we have mentioned earlier. For example, Luria further worked in clinical psychology and psychopathology, studying memory and aphasia, and Leontiev developed his Activity Theory ( Leontiev, 1978 ). Thus, not all aspects of the Vygotskian Circle are a direct continuation of Vygotsky’s ideas. Some features of their theories are less dependent on Vygotsky and represent a departure from his way of thinking. In some cases, this separation started even before Vygotsky’s death and was known to Vygotsky himself. For example, scholars working with the Vygotsky archive ( Zavershneva, 2010 , 2016 ) have found notes, stating that he perceived Leontiev’s development of Activity Theory as a departure from Vygotsky’s own ideas. We would like to reiterate that the Vygotskian Circle can and should be viewed as a development of Vygotsky’s thinking and not simply as its linear extension. Indeed, within the works of the members of the Circle, there are multiple varied engagements with Vygotsky’s original thought. While some of Vygotsky’s colleagues stayed close to his original ideas, others took a significant departure from them.

Core Principles of Vygotsky’s Work

In section 3 of the paper, we discussed various reasons preventing Vygotsky from finalizing his theory in the complete operational form. We suggest, however, that despite changes and shifting focuses in research, Vygotsky has always followed two core principles: systemic approach to the development of mind and the role of language in this process. In our opinion, these principles are crucial for understanding Vygotsky’s overall theoretical standing and the motivation for his work. Thus, we suggest that those who are embarking on the application of Vygotskian work in their own practice might benefit primarily from understanding and operationalizing these core principles, instead of addressing specific aspects of Vygotsky’s work or rely on his published texts. Moreover, we suggest that incorporation of these two principles has profound implications for about every aspect of psychology. To this end, we discuss how these principles can be applied in various branches of modern psychology as well as other disciplines, such as education and language studies.

The First Core Principle: Systemic Approach to the Development of the Mind

The first core principle of Vygotsky’s approach to the research of psychological functioning is the application of a systems perspective. Vygotsky continuously stressed that it is a mistake to study psychological functions individually, e.g., to study development of memory or development of perception. He argued that researchers should address the change in the relationships between various functions ( Luria and Vygotsky, 1930/1992 ). In other words, according to Vygotsky, the new object of research should be not individual functions , but psychological systems .

A systemic approach in the sciences generally stands in opposition to the reductionist approach ( Toomela, 2015 ). In the field of psychology, for example, the reductionist approach is commonly associated with Cartesian thinking and modular approaches ( Toomela, 2003 ). While a discussion of this opposition is beyond the scope of this paper, it is worth noting that Cartesian thinking generally postulates a separation of studies of mind and body, which in modern scientific discourse means an opposition between psychological and biological processes. What is important to consider, given the focus of this paper, is that Vygotsky clearly did not embrace this dichotomy. For him, a developing organism (for example, a human being) could not be reduced to either its biological or social environment. A comprehensive study of child development for Vygotsky had to employ a systemic approach that included both bio-social and bio-psychological aspects of development.

Drawing on a systemic approach in sciences, Vygotsky viewed a unified system as consisting of interdependent elements ( Toomela, 2015 ). In this system, every element has properties that are subject to that system’s function, and no element can be changed without affecting the whole system. At the same time, the system itself is viewed as more than a collection of its individual elements, which change properties when they become parts of a system. Following the systemic principle, Vygotsky saw elements of the human mind as having precursors in animal cognition ( Zorina and Smirnova, 2006 ). However, he argued that the human mind becomes qualitatively different once it becomes semiotically mediated. That is, the basic processes of psychological functioning (e.g., memory, decision-making, formation of behavioral programs) acquire new properties as they are mediated through symbols. Emotions, affect, decision-making, and memory acquire specific qualities once they become a part of the general cognitive system. An important aspect of a system is its hierarchical organization. This means that elements comprising a system are interdependent and organized in a particular manner, with some elements being subordinate to other either structurally or functionally. In the earlier period of his work, Vygotsky believed that psychological functions in the human mind are also organized in a hierarchical system. He distinguished between elementary, primitive, lower psychological functions (LPF) that humans share with other animals (e.g., mammals), such as memory and concept formation, and higher psychological functions (HPF) that are characterized by semiotically mediated processes and include decision-making, speech and language, and cultural transmission of knowledge. Vygotsky suggested that in the course of individual development, initially isolated LPF merge with developmentally older HPF.

Some criticism of Vygotsky’s work might stem from ignoring or misinterpreting the systemic principle. For example, Wertsch and Tulviste (1992) take issue with Vygotsky for not explaining how LPF affect HPF in development. As Toomela (2014a) points out, such criticism in fact ignores the systemic approach taken by Vygotsky and applies Cartesian cause-effect thinking. In Vygotsky’s interpretation, mental functions comprising the system change qualitatively in development. This is why within this framework it is impossible to state with certainty how LPF affect HPF, as the former cease to exist in the previous form and become different, culturally mediated psychological processes.

The application of a systemic approach lead Vygotsky to another very important conclusion: since psychological functions are organized in hierarchical systems, developmental processes become central for understanding the human mind. The crucial role of developmental processes in the system as a way to understand the system itself is a direct consequence of a principle of systemic organization: when a component becomes part of a system, both the properties of the new whole and the properties of the component change ( Vygotsky, 1932/1960 ; Koffka, 1935 ; Kohler, 1947 ). Vygotsky argued that once new components enter the system, they affect the system in general and all other components of this system accordingly. For example, once a child masters language, its psychological functions become semiotically mediated and thus change their qualities, becoming higher psychological functions. This principle was essential for Vygotsky, who maintained that the structure of the mind cannot be understood by researching the mind of an adult. To know what a mind system is, we need to observe mind development in a child. It is not enough to observe only the final product of these processes. The system structure and functionality can only be understood through system development . In the following section, we highlight how Vygotsky’s systemic approach to understanding of developmental processes has been utilized across disciplines.

Applications of the First Principle

As mentioned above, Vygotsky stressed the importance of understanding developmental processes as a system. Indeed, this is relevant to several psychological disciplines and interdisciplinary research today.

The first area where systemic principle is applicable is developmental research . In contemporary developmental psychology, Vygotsky’s systemic perspective comes in contrast with nativism, which suggests that pre-linguistic infants possess a number of psychological abilities in the early stages of development ( Onishi and Baillargeon, 2005 ; Hamlin, 2013 , etc.). Nativist studies are unified by a core-knowledge theory framework, postulating that human psychological abilities are largely innate or pre-formed. Nativists postulate that psychological processes in individual development increase quantitatively rather than change qualitatively. According to Vygotsky’s systemic perspective, psychological processes are organized as hierarchical and interconnected dynamic systems, which provide for the heterogeneous nature of the human mind ( Vygotsky, 1931/1983a , b ; Vygotsky and Luria, 1931/1994 ). As such, he suggested that not all psychological mechanisms emerge simultaneously but that one’s existing psychological abilities develop qualitatively. Since the nativist perspective suggests that psychological processes change quantitatively, from a systemic perspective, it is a-developmental. If psychological abilities are present from birth and development is conceptualized as quantitative addition of computational power, nativist perspective has difficulties explaining observed variations in development. As Subbotsky (2014) puts it, it is not clear, why a 6-year-old does not demonstrate certain reasoning abilities, when an infant (according to the nativist perspective) does. Similarly, a number of scholars (e.g., Carpendale et al., 2013 ) expressed criticism to the nativist approach, suggesting that it lacks an explanation of truly developmental processes.

Taking up Vygotsky’s theories, memory development in a 2-year-old, a 3-year-old, and a 5-year-old cannot simply be measured by “how much” memory is “added” at each developmental stage. In the systemic framework, the structure of memory for a 5-year-old is qualitatively different from the memory of a 3-year-old. Therefore, instead of studying the development of memory, as a uniform ability throughout childhood, in Vygotskian framework researchers can address formation of “qualitatively different memories.” A systemic framework also calls into question a common approach adopted by nativism research methodology, namely, the search for the initial stages of a given psychological ability in development. Questions such as at what age morality appears or whether preverbal infants understand false-beliefs – adopted by this framework – are meaningless in a systemic perspective. The “morality” of an 8-month-old infant is structurally and functionally different from the morality of a 5-year-old, and both would differ from that of an adult. In a systemic approach, rather than questioning the age at which ability X emerges, it is more appropriate to investigate which aspects of ability X change as they enter other functional systems, to what extend do they change, and under what environmental influences.

The problem of qualitative change in development discussed by Vygotsky relates to a hotly debated question in psychology: whether or not the discipline has methodological tools that can adequately capture developmental processes. Vygotsky (1997) noted that in an attempt to analyze the mind, psychological science tends to dissect its higher forms and structures into primary elements, ignoring the problem of quality, which cannot be reduced to quantitative differences. We believe modern psychology would benefit from applying the Vygotskian standard to research. Valsiner and Van der Veer (2014) suggest that the application of Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) at the conceptual level might provide developmental psychologists and educators with a new approach to assessing and measuring developmental processes. Valsiner and Van der Veer’s suggestions echo the current discussion of the replication crisis in psychology ( Earp and Trafimow, 2015 ) and a call for revisioning methods and statistical apparatus widely used in psychology today. Some researchers suggest this crisis might be resolved with improvements in general theory and the adoption of alternative statistical techniques. For example, Valsiner and Van der Veer (2014) and Toomela (2015) argue that psychology has adopted inferential statistics that are conceptually inadequate for investigating psychological processes. Similarly, a number of developmental researchers ( van de Schoot et al., 2014 ) argue for the adoption of Bayesian statistics in developmental research.

At least two major discussions in Vygotsky’s neuroscientific approach are the structural composition of the brain and the relationship between the brain and its environment. Advancements in modern neuropsychology and neuroscience are indeed remarkable; however, some researchers criticize modern neuropsychology for its reductionist approach to human cognition ( Toomela, 2014b ). Specifically, this criticism focuses on two main aspects of reductionism: the structural organization of psychological processes in the brain and an implied assumption that a careful description of the brain’s structure can be enough for our understanding of human psychology. We suggest that Vygotsky’s scholarship can be useful in addressing such criticism. As Toomela (2014b) suggests, in the search for a neurological basis of behavior, researchers tend to focus on determining which area of the brain is responsible for processing psychological function X. This approach is associated with a modular account of the human brain structure and the assumption that it is possible to determine (more or less precisely) a relationship between specific brain areas and respective psychological processes. Theories on the “modular mind” vary from the more extreme (e.g., “the Swiss-army knife”) model of the mind ( Pinker, 1997 ) to more inclusive ( Gazzaniga, 2004 ; Geary, 2005 ). However, the underlying assumptions tend to remain the same. Research programs aim to localize precise areas of the cortex responsible for processing specific information or genes that are expressed in a given brain region and in turn affect formation of a particular behavioral program. Such genocentric and modular approaches to the human mind clearly collide with Vygotsky and Luria’s thinking. They suggest that HPF – the most developed, complex, and semiotically mediated psychological processes – are not strictly localized in the brain but are rather dynamically distributed. This approach does not suggest that no localized processes exist in a brain whatsoever. However, similar to modern evidence ( Anderson, 2014 ), it suggests that many complex psychological processes are neither functionally nor structurally localized in the brain. Vygotsky was critical of Pavlov, who associated cognition with the prefrontal cortex and the frontal lobes of the brain. Vygotsky argued that while frontal lobes are important for cognitive processes, some aspects of these processes could be more precisely localized by activating a given area in the brain. According to Vygotsky, real-time processes activate the whole brain and the body, as they activate various functional systems. In this paradigm, complex cognition is not an entity that can be located “somewhere” but rather a process taking part at different locations. For Vygotsky, an appropriate question about cognition is not “where” it can be located but rather “how” it is processed. Vygotsky (1997) wrote that “…no specific function is ever connected with the activity of one single brain center. It is always the product of the integral activity of strictly differentiated, hierarchically interconnected centers.” (p.140). In other words, psychological processes are better explained not by “where” in the brain they are localized, but how different functional brain networks interact with each other in real time. A similar perspective was taken by a number of researchers, including Goldberg (1995) , who focused on gradiental approach to neocortical organization and Anokhin (1971) , who studied the theory of functional systems, investigating connections between the formation of functional systems and learning. Indeed, modern day neurological research supports Vygotsky’s arguments and shows that many areas of the brain process various types of information ( Anderson, 2014 ). Moreover, studies show that specific areas of the brain – associative cortices – seem to specialize in information synthesis, it is a-modal representation and processing.

Vygotsky (1982) understood the process of development from the neurological perspective, in which the brain reorganizes neuronal connections and creates new, functional systems. In this framework, psychological structures on a neurological level become functional relations between neurons , whereas complex functional systems “do not mature by themselves but are formed in the process of communication and material activity of a child” ( Luria, 1969 , p. 34). This is how the brain, developing as a biological organ, also becomes a cultural organ ( Toomela, 2014b ). Child interaction with language, cultural tools, artifacts, and social environment leads to changes in the brain, developing new functional systems. Not surprisingly, a prolonged ontogenetic period that in humans is necessary for learning cultural knowledge from conspecifics coincides on a neurological level with a series of massive rewiring events in the brain ( de Graaf-Peters and Hadders-Algra, 2006 ).

The hierarchical nature of functional systems allows for a fresh perspective on understanding impairments in brain damage and developmental disorders. If we conceptualize the damage as impairment in a functional system instead of a broken module, it is possible to separate primary and secondary defects that might affect different levels of the system. Damage to a hierarchically superior level will affect abilities at a lower level as well. Similarly, damage to a lower level of the system will have some effect on that system’s higher levels. For example, Vygotsky demonstrated that impairments in visual perception are related to impairments in language development, verbal thinking, and, in turn, visual thinking ( Vygotsky, 1995 ). What matters is that compensatory mechanisms developed by the brain in each case might differ, depending on the age at which damage to the system occurred (hence the stage of functional system formation). Symptoms that are similar on the surface level might be produced by different psychological processes (e.g., in case of brain lateralization and phonological processing; Stiles et al., 1998 ). As Akhutina and Shereshevsky (2014) suggest, some modern theoretical perspectives on disabilities, such as neuroconstructivism ( Johnson and Karmiloff-Smith, 2004 ), are frequently in agreement with aspects of Vygotsky and Luria’s work. Drawing on the work of Jean Piaget and systems theorists, neuroconstructivism aims to reconceptualize how we understand development and change from the perspective of a brain. In such reconceptualization, neuroconstructivism applies the systemic thinking so prominent in Vygotsky and Luria’s work with regard to both typical and abnormal development.

Third, systemic approach can benefit cultural research . Throughout the 20th century, psychological research focused heavily on the search for “universals” in the human mind. These could be universal rules of learning and stimuli response in behaviorism; the genetic foundation of behavior; innate computational processes in cognitive science and innate modules in evolutionary psychology; and brain structures and processes in neuroscience and neuropsychology. However, recently, cross-cultural researchers have questioned this quest for “universal human nature.” For example, in their seminal paper, Henrich et al. (2010) demonstrate that the majority of samples in psychology research papers come from so-called WEIRD populations. The acronym stands for populations coming from Western Educated Industrialized Rich and Democratic societies. In other words, close to 90% of papers published in psychology are based on investigations of about 12% of the global population. Similarly, Nielsen et al. (2017) have analyzed publications in major developmental psychology journals (Child Development, Developmental Science, and Developmental Psychology), concluding that the majority of all samples in published studies come from North America and Western Europe and are based on English-speaking participants. This situation is troubling. A closer look at “human universals” demonstrates that psychological abilities vary between cultures: executive function ( Benson and Sabbagh, 2010 ), mirror self-recognition ( Broesch et al., 2011 ), infant-directed speech ( Broesch and Bryant, 2018 ), and population-level differences in developmental trajectories by children ( Henrich et al., 2010 ), to name a few.

Vygotskian cultural-historical psychology provides a route for understanding how culture can form mental structures in a more mechanistic way. Specifically, how something shared and social can become individual and private . Remembering that Vygotsky defines culture and cultural tools in a particular way is crucial to understanding this point. To illustrate the specificity of his approach, we focus on two perspectives that define culture: cultural-historical psychology based on Vygotskian theory and the socio-cultural approach that is in-line with contemporary Anglo-Saxon and neo-Vygotskian thinking ( Matusov, 2008 ). The socio-cultural approach commonly defines culture as a human-created environment, artifacts, and practices. Toomela (2014b) calls such an approach a-cognitive and a-developmental, as it does not explain how mind structures change qualitatively in development with the use of a cultural tool. Sociocultural schools assign major influence to the formation of behavior to environment. Consequently, since from the perspective of sociocultural school environment determines behavior, there is no need to study individual cognitive levels, as such levels are not informative for the understanding of individual differences in psychological processes. In this framework, development can be explained solely by describing differences in cultural practices. However, as Toomela (2014a , b) discusses, this approach ignores the fact that the same practices are interpreted uniquely by different individuals. This suggests that we cannot understand the source of individual differences solely by relying on the description of cultural practices and avoiding any analysis on an individual cognitive level. In the systemic perspective, an analysis that neglects the individual cognitive level becomes a-developmental. This happens because non-systemic approach does not analyze the individual cognitive development and implies that during development, the mind does not necessarily change qualitatively. Rather, the complexity with which a child interacts with its environment increases. What we wish to highlight is not that cultural psychologists deny that the human mind changes in development, but that the discipline as a whole lacks a mechanistic explanation of how this change happens through interaction with cultural tools. Researchers tend to focus on describing increasingly complex patterns of behavior for a given activity, e.g., social cognition, without necessarily linking these changes to other domains of the mind.

In discussing Vygotsky’s paradigm of cross-cultural research, it is important to mention that Vygotsky’s work was criticized as “ethnocentric” ( Matusov, 2008 ). Vygotsky and Luria’s expeditions to Central Asia, and later Luria’s research with urban, rural, and homeless children ( Luria, 1930/1978 ), aimed to demonstrate developmental changes in cognition introduced by formal education. This work suggested that people indeed tend to apply different problem-solving strategies to a situation depending on whether or not they had formal education (however, see Van der Veer and Yasnitsky (2016a , b) for a critical analysis of these expeditions). Researchers were able to replicate the results of many of these findings later (e.g., Tulviste and Hall, 1991 ; Subbotsky and Quinteros, 2002 ). Additionally, modern research acknowledges that the presence or absence of formal education is associated with variability in various psychological phenomena ( Saxe, 1990/2015 ). As Matusov (2008) suggests, the socio-cultural approach opposes Vygotsky’s interpretation of cross-cultural differences. In this framework, humans in different cultures utilize essentially the same psychological mechanisms.

We believe that such criticism of Vygotsky is fair, but only if we do not apply the systemic principle to this problem. In a hierarchically organized mind, some psychological processes are developmentally early, and some emerge later in life. Psychological processes that are associated with the implementation of population-wide formal education, such as reliance on abstract “scientific” concepts of abstract categorization, are developmentally older. In most cultures and for most individuals, all these psychological processes are available, but utilized to varying degrees. In culture A, people may largely rely on developmentally early strategies to solve a specific task, while in culture B the same task is commonly solved by means of a developmentally older mechanism . The fact that the mechanism utilized in culture A is developmentally younger than the mechanism utilized in culture B does not make it in any way inferior. In such a framework, ethnocentrism can be avoided, as long as we acknowledge (1) the diversity of psychological mechanisms and (2) the absence of the superiority of one mechanism over another based on its developmental emergence. In some cases, developmentally early mechanisms might be more useful for individuals living in a given environment. For example, research demonstrated that in comparison to people living in the West, people with limited formal education in non-Western societies tend to be more accurate at perceptual constancy. Such results might be explained by increased demands to interpret complex spatial environment for the latter group ( Ardila and Keating, 2007 ).

We believe that Vygotsky’s view on culture and its role in the formation of the human mind might generate some interest from within the field of cultural evolution , which focuses on an evolutionary understanding of social change. Cultural evolution is a young discipline and is still subject to debates that include the notions of progress in cultural development, cultural relativism, etc. Cultural evolution aims to understand the relationship between culture, environment, and human mind. Importantly, the field attempts to unify behavior, culture, and biology on a conceptual level by studying human development more holistically. It suggests that cultural rather than biological changes have significant effect on both human evolution and the individual development of the human mind. Although the discipline does not rely on Vygotsky’s work explicitly, it raises similar concerns such as the extent to which the human mind and human behavior evolve from cultural processes. We believe researchers working in the field of cultural evolution could find Vygotsky’s view on culture and its role in the formation of the human mind relevant for their work.

The Second Core Principle: Language and the Social Origins of the Mind

The second core principle of Vygotsky’s work is the social origin of the human semiotically mediated mind and the role of language in this formation. Language is one of the central topics of Vygotsky’s research, and his writings on language development have received much attention on a global scale ( Lantolf and Aljaafreh, 1995 ; Frawley, 1997 ; Goodman and Goodman, 2014 ). In this paper, we aim to highlight the connection between Vygotsky’s view of language development and his systemic approach to the development of the mind. It is important to reiterate that specific words and terms coined by Vygotsky (e.g., “sign as a tool”) are not mere metaphors but carry profound meaning and can be better understood in the context of Vygotsky’s general theoretical views. While he saw language as a universal feature of the human species, Vygotsky was mostly interested in the role it played in human development at both the evolutionary and individual levels.

Vygotsky viewed language as an essential component of the human experience, a part of human interaction with the environment, of human behavior and mind and argued that the appearance of language was a driving factor in human development ( Vygotsky, 1929/1956 ). He stressed that through language human psychological processes became semiotically mediated and thus human cognition is fundamentally different from animal one. He also addressed differences in cognition of children before and after they begin to talk. Vygotsky saw a linguistic sign (a word) as a cultural tool closely related to the behavior of a developing organism. He argued that words were a tool similar to physical tools used by children in joint activity with others, as they advance in their development. Importantly, the processes of activity are first mastered with an adult and later become internalized at the mental level. As such, psychological functions are initially interpsychic as an activity between a child and an adult or a more knowledgeable peer and only later become intrapsychic as individual thinking of a child. Consequently, Vygotsky devoted much attention to the concept of “inner speech” as a special type of psychological activity and suggests that speech develops first in the social environment and later becomes internalized into mental processes ( Friedrich, 2014 ).

In addition, Vygotsky argued that all linguistic signs are dual in nature. On the one hand, their meaning is internalized on the individual level – they become part of the internal psychological processes ( Vygotsky, 1931/1983a ; Vygotsky, 1960 ). On the other hand, signs are used in an external activity for social communication and in engagement with others. Therefore, Vygotsky stressed that tools (including linguistic signs) are produced and culturally conventionalized ( Arievitch and Stetsenko, 2014 ). If we accept that meaning of a particular sign is socially conventional then we can conclude that humans can “share minds” by relying on internal psychological processes with socially constructed meanings. Moreover, human cognition develops on the basis of extracerebral connections. In Vygotsky’s framework, these connections form the basis of regularities created in the socio-cultural semiotic environment ( Vygotsky, 1982 ). We believe it is important to understand the difference between this specific conceptualization of the role of language in the development of the mind and a more general notion that humans learn from their social environment.

It was important for Vygotsky to study his research subjects without isolating them from their cultural-developmental context ( Toulmin, 1978 ). Seeing a child’s development as a complex process that happens in a close interaction with his social medium, Vygotsky introduced a new, comprehensive approach that allowed him to observe the child’s psychological and linguistic development during interactions with others ( Cole and Gajdamaschko, 2010 ; Karimi-Aghdam, 2016 ). Originally, Vygotsky believed that thought and speech performed different functions and evolved relatively independently. He mentions a defined pre-speech phase in the development of intelligence and pre-intellectual phase in the development of speech. He saw similarities in how groups of young children or higher animals communicate without speech (symbols and signs): expressive movements, gestures, facial expressions, etc. However, he emphasized that ways of thinking not associated with speech exist. Vygotsky believed that the age of two is a critical and crucial point in a child’s development. Since at that stage, thought and speech begin to intertwine. Vygotsky observed that this stage is characterized by the rapid increase in the communicative vocabulary of the child. A child first discovers the symbolic function of language, understands the meaning of generalization as a means of communication, and begins to use it for communication and problem solving. As Toomela (2014b) stresses, such an understanding of sign interiorization brings new potential to different research. The concept of “inner speech” as a form of linguistically associated psychological process proposed by Vygotsky has found strong empirical support and is an active field of modern research ( Alderson-Day and Fernyhough, 2015 ; for an excellent review see Sawyer, 2016 ).

The conceptualization of human environment as first and foremost a social and cultural one is a hallmark of Vygotsky’s work ( Stetsenko and Arievitch, 2010 ; Arievitch and Stetsenko, 2014 ) and manifests itself in the work of modern developmental researchers ( Tomasello, 1999 ; Rochat, 2001 ). Tomasello’s work in particular is a prime example of researchers’ focus on social processes and their role in development. Tomasello argues that human-specific psychological abilities develop in human infants due largely to the specificity of a cooperative social environment ( Moll and Tomasello, 2007 ). Quite tellingly, he calls this hypothesis the “Vygotskian Intelligence Hypothesis.” The Vygotskian thesis of the importance of a social environment for the formation of the human mind is concordant with modern research of shared activities, joint attention, development of theory of the mind, development of these abilities through co-joint actions, embodied experiences, and shared routines. Carpendale and Lewis (2004) , Racine and Carpendale (2007) , and Nelson (2007) argue from a constructivist perspective that the social environment, including a communicative one, actively shapes the mind. Shared routines that are structured, embodied, and rich in meaning provide a foundation for creating shared meaning, knowledge, and feelings. A child’s mind originates in such shared routines that are culturally and linguistically mediated and collaborative (e.g., for an elaborate account of early lexicon development through shared routines, see Nelson, 2003 ). Such an approach suggests that a child experiences the environment as cultural and semantic from the very onset of life. As Arievitch and Stetsenko (2014) point out, such a view of development is still unorthodox in modern psychology. However, it is a viable approach, if conceptualized through constructivist relations and is in line with Vygotskian thinking.

Applications of the Second Principle

As Vygotsky articulated the importance of societal context for education and possible implications for his theory in education, the second principle has been recognized in various disciplines, namely educational research . Vygotsky argued that learning is a step ahead, enduring the further development. While completing a challenging task with the help of a teacher or peers, a child develops and learns. Vygotsky’s thinking has a clear application to educational research, for it highlights the agency of various learners and the educational value of a child’s interaction with the environment. The role of the teacher, therefore, is to sustain this interaction and not simply relay decontextualized knowledge. We believe this is a promising expansion of current work in the psychology of learning and classroom research ( Moll, 1992 , 2013 ; John-Steiner and Mahn, 2003 ; Tudge and Scrimsher, 2003 ; Wells and Claxton, 2008 ). However, there is a wider application of Vygotsky’s ideas in education far beyond developmental psychology and the theory of childhood speech ( Davydov, 1995 ; Prior and Welling, 2001 ).

Since Vygotsky was interested in how social medium shapes the cultural values of an individual, his theory is being applied in intercultural language studies . Human cultural and linguistic development, Vygotsky writes, passes two stages – first social and then psychological or individual. This transition inwards has its structure and function, as language and culture become internal and fossilized. The most important takeaway from Vygotsky’s theoretical framework for educational research, we believe, is that language structures and speech patterns are internalized through a child’s development. In addition, from this perspective, culture is seen as an aggregate of both material and spiritual values manifested in human behavior. As such, application of Vygotsky’s ideas to the analysis of miscommunication in language teaching allows researchers to postulate that the main cause of misunderstanding does not lie solely in language proficiency. Communication is in itself an expression of one’s lived experience, represented in a symbolic system. While interlocutors might share the code, their use of this code could vary significantly. The underlying source of miscommunication is often the difference in styles of speech and patterns of behavior fossilized in communicants, which interlocutors might be unaware of. Vygotsky called attention to the fact that communication between two individuals is in itself a communication of consciousness that occurs in the mind of a carrier of a particular culture and seeks to comprehend the symbols of a different culture.

Moreover, Vygotsky’s focus on the role of the societal context is relevant for modern developmental science. Vygotsky proposes two lines of development in a child – a natural line and a cultural one. Such a distinction reflects a conceptual question that transcends psychological science throughout time: the extent to which biology and environment contribute to the development of the mind. Nativism and mainstream cognitivism have been criticized (sometimes explicitly) for separating these lines of development. Followers of alternative perspectives such as constructivism and Developmental Systems Theory (e.g., Oyama, 2000 ; Gottlieb, 2007 ; Nelson, 2007 ; Griffiths et al., 2012 ) attempt to demonstrate, both theoretically and empirically, that environment cannot be strictly separated from the internal biology of an organism. Rather, the human mind is constructed by active involvement in the environment in which it develops. Gottlieb (2007) describes development as processes interacting at different levels, from cellular to social. Development in this case becomes probabilistic, and any observed patterns can be explained by similarities in developmental contexts rather than hardwired, genetically determined programs. Variations in an environment and its relationship to an individual organism affect the formation of mind structures. In such a framework, there is no one-on-one relation between an organism and environment. Similarly, Vygotsky (1931/1983b) and Vygotsky (1933/1934) argued that environment should be studied not in absolute terms as is, but in relation to a child. The same environment can be different for a 3-year-old and a 5-year-old, as they perceive it differently on an individual level and through different psychological mechanisms. A strong emphasis on environment as a factor in formation of the mind in modern day research is utilized in the ecological approach to cognition ( Heft, 2001 ) and embodied cognition ( Shapiro, 2010 ) and is in line with Vygotsky’s thinking ( Karpov, 2005 ; Falikman, 2014 ). We believe Vygotskian approach can be applied to DST framework, and an excellent example of such application was developed by Stetsenko (2009) .

Furthermore, modern neuroscience is often associated with the question of whether an understanding of human brain is sufficient to fully understand the human mind. The answer to this question for many contemporary researchers (e.g., Carpendale et al., 2010 ; Karmiloff-Smith, 2018 ) (and we speculate Vygotsky as well) is “no.” As Toomela (2014b) suggests, reductionist approach to neuropsychology tends to focus on the brain and ignore its relationship with the environment. But in this case, we cannot understand the development of the human mind as it develops during constant interactions between the brain and environment. The results of multiple studies convincingly demonstrate that particular experiences with environment are reflected in brain processing, e.g., a canonical study of an increased hippocampus in London taxi drivers ( Maguire et al., 2000 ); a study by Gaser and Schlaug (2003) on differences in brain structure associated with music training (for a detailed discussion, see Kotik-Friedgut and Ardila, 2014 ). Importantly, since human environment is a cultural one, an ecologically valid neuropsychology should incorporate disciplines such as anthropology and semiotics, as these disciplines explain the cultural regularities and cultural environment that the human brain reacts during development ( Toomela, 2014b ). The discipline of cultural neuroscience ( Chiao, 2009 ) specifically focuses on the relationship between brain development and culture. It investigates differences in the brain processes of participants with varied cultural backgrounds ( Han and Humphreys, 2016 ). We believe that the Vygotskian tradition in cultural-historical neuropsychology is in line with recent developments in brain research. For Vygotsky, culture is defined as an environment of sign and language ( Vygotsky, 1929/1994 ; Vygotsky, 1932/1960 ; Vygotsky, 1935/1994 ). In cultural development, the sign is “internalized” and becomes a part of cognition. A human mind, according to Vygotsky, starts with a cultural line of development, when children do not simply learn knowledge from adults but internalize human-specific cultural tools – linguistic signs. As Bakhtin and Holquist (1981) notes “becoming a human being … is the process of selectively assimilating the words of others” (p. 341). Based on the conceptualization of cultural tools by Vygotsky (contrary to more traditional socio-cultural schools), it follows that a child can be enculturated from birth. Children are not only born in a human-created environment, but in a linguistically mediated environment that becomes internalized through development. This notion was crucial for Vygotsky. Similarly, an answer to the question of whether animals have culture would differ depending on how one defines culture. This answer can be affirmative if culture is defined as the manufacturing and usage of tools and the ability to modify the environment in which an animal lives ( Snowdon, 2017 ). However, to Vygotsky, the answer would likely be negative, as for him, culture is mainly a semiosphere, socially shared information coded in symbols ( Toomela, 1996 ). In our opinion, Vygotsky’s focus on social processes as sources for individual cognitive development are in line with the modern approaches to cultural research treating culture as inseparable from human biology and recognition of the fact that an individual brain is immersed in a world of social environment. Not surprisingly, contemporary attempts to study culture in a more comprehensive way have led to the emergence of interdisciplinary fields of neuroanthropology ( Dias, 2010 ), neuropsychology ( Brickman et al., 2006 ), neurosociology ( TenHouten, 1997 ), and psychological anthropology ( Bock and Leavitt, 2018 ).

In this paper, we sought out to demonstrate that Vygotskian thinking can be applied to contemporary psychological research and there is a potential for such an application. To this end, we first reviewed historical, social, and temporal contexts of Vygotskian work. Knowledge of these contexts is useful for understanding aspects of Vygotskian thinking. Following this review, we outlined two core principles transcending every aspect of Vygotskian theory, which in our opinion have the most profound implication for understanding his approach. We suggest that these principles are useful for modern day psychology and are in fact developed by many researchers, although such application does not necessarily rely explicitly on Vygotskian work. Consequently, we discuss how these core principles can be applied to modern psychological research and can assist psychology in solving problems that are still important for the discipline (just as they were important for Vygotsky). In doing so, we intentionally do not provide our readers with direct precise instructions on how Vygotskian approach can be applied to their work. We maintain that our readers are in a better position to develop specific applications of Vygotskian work to their areas of interest. Our goal was to outline potential avenues for such applications and to invite our readers to further dialog on questions that were of interest to Vygotsky himself (such as development and structure of the mind, and the role of culture and language in it).

In conclusion, we suggest that although Vygotsky’s research took place a century ago and every branch of science has made tremendous advancements since then, some of the questions he was working on are still left unanswered. Despite limitations and outdated aspects of his work, there is a potential for incorporating Vygotskian thinking into modern psychological research across disciplines.

We would like to leave the readers with the following reflection. Vygotsky envisioned the success of psychology as a science only if it sustained its holistic and interdisciplinary nature:

Such a system [of an interdisciplinary holistic psychology] has not yet been created. We can say with confidence that it will not arise out of the ruins of empirical psychology or in the laboratories of reflexologists. It will come as a broad biosocial synthesis of the theory of animal behavior and societal man. This new psychology will be a branch of general biology and at the same time the basis of all sociological sciences. It will be the knot that ties the science of nature and the science of man together. It will therefore, indeed, be most intimately connected with philosophy, but with a strictly scientific philosophy which represents the combined theory of scientific knowledge and not with the speculative philosophy that preceded scientific generalizations ( Vygotsky, 1925/1997 , p. 61; c.f. Yasnitsky, 2011b ).

While a comprehensive reconstruction of Vygotsky’s work is yet to be completed, many of the questions he was working on are still relevant to contemporary research. Indeed, there are new perspectives that support early theorizations of Vygotsky (see Newman and Holzman, 2013 ; Subbotsky, 2014 ; Alfredo, 2016 ). We invite scholars working in these interdisciplinary areas to engage with Vygotskian thinking, to explore aspects of his thinking by consulting the work of Vygotskian scholars, and to develop their own nuanced applications of Vygotsky work in their specific research areas.

Author Contributions

OV and NB conceived the idea for the article and the scope of the review, discussed the results, and contributed to the final manuscript. OV carried out the main literature review. NB verified the analytical conclusions.

Conflict of Interest Statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Timothy Mossman, Justin Stacy, and the reviewers for their comments on the initial stages of this manuscript.

Funding. This open-access publication was funded by The SFU Central Open Access Fund.

1 A complete description of the scientific landscape available to Vygotsky during his lifetime is beyond the scope of this paper. There are some excellent publications on the topic (e.g. Van der Veer and Yasnitsky, 2016a , b ; Yasnitsky, 2016a ).

2 This situation might rightfully be viewed as restrictive and limiting to scientific inquiry. However, in our opinion, it would be incorrect to suggest that this context erases any value of research conducted during that historical period. Science has never been free from the ideological and political climate of the time. Consequently, scientists were never completely immune from any given political and ideological climate ( Aleksandrov and Kirdina, 2012 ). We believe that rather than perceiving Vygotsky’s work as limited by existing ideology, it may be more accurate to highlight specific aspects that were shaped by this historical period of time.

3 Some of the works that showcase the productivity of these collaborations include: Vygotsky and Luria (1993) , Vygotsky and Leontiev (1932) , and Leontiev (1931) .

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The Developing Learner

Social Constructivism: Vygotsky’s Theory

Like Piaget, Vygotsky acknowledged intrinsic development, but he argued that it is the language, writings, and concepts arising from the culture that elicit the highest level of cognitive thinking (Crain, 2005). He believed that social interactions with teachers and more learned peers could facilitate a learner’s potential for learning. Without this interpersonal instruction, he believed learners’ minds would not advance very far as their knowledge would be based only on their own discoveries.

Figure 3.7.1. Lev Vygotsky.

Zone of Proximal Development and Scaffolding

Vygotsky’s best-known concept is the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). The ZPD has been defined as “the distance between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem-solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers” (Vygotsky, 1978, p. 86). Vygotsky stated that learners should be taught in the ZPD . A good teacher or more-knowledgable-other (MKO) identifies a learner’s ZPD and helps them stretch beyond it. Then the MKO gradually withdraws support until the learner can perform the task unaided.  Other psychologists have applied the metaphor of scaffolds (the temporary platforms on which construction workers stand) to Vygotsky’s theory. Scaffolding is the temporary support that an MKO gives a learner to do a task.

Figure 3.7.2. Model of Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development.

Thought and Speech

Do you ever talk to yourself? Why? Chances are, this occurs when you are struggling with a problem, trying to remember something, or feel very emotional about a situation. Children talk to themselves too. Piaget interpreted this as egocentric speech or a practice engaged in because of a child’s inability to see things from another’s point of view. Vygotsky, however, believed that children talk to themselves in order to solve problems or clarify thoughts. As children learn to think in words, they do so aloud, referred to as private speech , speech meant only for one’s self. Eventually, thinking out loud becomes thought accompanied by internal speech, and talking to oneself becomes a practice only engaged in when we are trying to learn something or remember something. This inner speech is not as elaborate as the speech we use when communicating with others (Vygotsky, 1962).

Implications for Education

Vygotsky’s theories have been extremely influential for education. Although Vygotsky himself never mentioned the term scaffolding, it is often credited to him as a continuation of his ideas pertaining to the way adults or other children can use guidance in order for a child to work within their ZPD. (The term scaffolding was first developed by Jerome Bruner, David Wood, and Gail Ross while applying Vygotsky’s concept of ZPD to various educational contexts.)

Educators often apply these concepts by assigning tasks that students cannot do on their own, but which they can do with assistance; they should provide just enough assistance so that students learn to complete the tasks independently and then provide an environment that enables students to do harder tasks than would otherwise be possible.  Teachers can also allow students with more knowledge to assist students who need more guidance. Especially in the context of collaborative learning, group members who have higher levels of understanding can help the less advanced members learn within their zone of proximal development.

Vygotsky’s Influence on Education

Video 3.7.1. Vygotsky’s Developmental Theory introduces the applications of the theory in the classroom.

Contrasting Piaget and Vygotsky

Piaget was highly critical of teacher-directed instruction believing that teachers who take control of the child’s learning place the child into a passive role (Crain, 2005). Further, teachers may present abstract ideas without the child’s true understanding, and instead, they just repeat back what they heard. Piaget believed children must be given opportunities to discover concepts on their own. As previously stated, Vygotsky did not believe children could reach a higher cognitive level without instruction from more learned individuals. Who is correct? Both theories certainly contribute to our understanding of how children learn.

Candela Citations

• Social Constructivism . Authored by : Nicole Arduini-Van Hoose. Provided by : Hudson Valley Community College. Retrieved from : https://courses.lumenlearning.com/edpsy/chapter/social-constructivism-vygotskys-theory/. License : CC BY-NC-SA: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
• Adolescent Psychology. Authored by : Nicole Arduini-Van Hoose. Provided by : Hudson Valley Community College. Retrieved from : https://courses.lumenlearning.com/adolescent. License : CC BY-NC-SA: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
• Vygotsky's Developmental Theory. Provided by : Davidson Films. Retrieved from : https://youtu.be/InzmZtHuZPY. License : All Rights Reserved

Educational Psychology Copyright © 2020 by Nicole Arduini-Van Hoose is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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9.4: Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory of Cognitive Development

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Sociocultural Theory

Zone of Proximal Development:

Vygotsky’s best known concept is the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). Vygotsky stated that children should be taught in the ZPD, which occurs when they can almost perform a task, but not quite on their own without assistance. With the right kind of teaching, however, they can accomplish it successfully. A good teacher identifies a child’s ZPD and helps the child stretch beyond it. Then the teacher gradually withdraws support until the child can then perform the task unaided. This highlights the importance of instructional decisions related to types and quality of interactions in designing effective learning experiences for infants and toddlers. [1] [3]

Researchers have applied the metaphor of scaffolds (the temporary platforms on which construction workers stand) to this way of teaching. Scaffolding is the temporary support that caregivers give a child to do a task. ​​Scaffolding represents the way in which a caregiver guides a child’s learning during a goal-oriented task by offering or withdrawing support at different levels depending on the child’s individual developmental level and learning needs. Scaffoldings typically include a mutual and dynamic nature of interaction where both the learner and the one providing the scaffold influence each other and adjust their behavior as they collaborate. In an interactive game of peek-a-book, a caregiver can scaffold an infant’s attention and understanding of object permanence by changing the length of time they stay hidden and by changing how they reveal themselves (e.g., using their hands or another object to hide behind). Research suggests that even in infancy scaffolding plays an important role in the development of cognitive abilities (Cuevas et al. 2014; Matte-Gagné & Bernier 2011; ​​Neale & Whitebread, 2019). Ideas such as the ZPD and scaffolding bring to light a fundamentally different view of a caregiver who serves more as a facilitator of learning rather than someone providing general knowledge. Likewise, the learner takes on more responsibilities such as determining their learning goals, becoming a resource of knowledge for peers, and actively collaborating in the learning process (Grabinger, Aplin, & Ponnappa-Brenner, 2007). This often contrasts with how many people perceive education--as the teacher being the source of knowledge and the teacher directly giving their knowledge to the children. [1] [4] [3]

For infant and toddler caregivers, every interaction, whether during play or a care routine, is an opportunity to engage with a child inside their ZPD. To begin to engage with an infant or toddler inside their ZPD, we must first purposefully observe them. Beginning with observation is critical because it allows us to first understand what the child is interested in and hypothesize about what their goals may be. Furthermore, observation reveals their current ability or understanding about the activity and objects they are engaged in. Next, we should then reflect upon our observations and consider our role within the child’s ZPD. What type and level of assistance can we offer to the child? What is the least amount of assistance we can provide as guidance? While implementing assistance to the child, we should constantly be reflecting upon how our assistance changes their activity and reflect upon our potential new role as their behaviors change.

Contingency is one strategy to use while engaging with a child in their ZPD. Contingency describes the extent to which a caregiver’s interaction is dependent upon attributes of the child (for example their age, ability, attention, interest, and whether or not they are struggling with the task at hand). A contingent caregiver response is one which occurs when a child requires help of some kind, as opposed to assistance which appears unnecessary because it occurs when a child is coping adequately. A contingent response will also provide the appropriate level of support to assist the child – not taking over the task completely, and not giving too little assistance to not have any effect. As a result, to respond contingently, a caregiver must be present in the unfolding of an activity and observe the child carefully. [4]

Development and learning originate in social, historical, and cultural interactions.

Vygotsky contended that thinking has social origins. Social interactions play a critical role especially in the development of higher order thinking skills, and cognitive development cannot be fully understood without considering the social and historical context within which it is embedded. He explained, “Every function in the child’s cultural development appears twice: first, on the social level, and later, on the individual level; first between people (interpsychological) and then inside the child (intrapsychological)” (Vygotsky, 1978). It is only through working with others on a variety of tasks that a child adopts socially-shared experiences and acquires useful strategies and knowledge (Scott & Palincsar, 2013). [3]

Barbara Rogoff (1990) refers to this process as guided participation, where a learner actively acquires new culturally valuable skills and capabilities through a meaningful, collaborative activity with an assisting, more experienced other, such as a caregiver. It is critical to notice that these culturally-mediated functions are viewed as being embedded in sociocultural activities rather than being self-contained. Development is a “transformation of participation in a sociocultural activity” not a transmission of discrete cultural knowledge or skills (Matusov, 2015). The processes of guided participation reveal the Vygotskian view of cognitive development “as the transformation of socially-shared activities into internalized processes,” or an act of enculturation (John-Steiner & Mahn, 1996). In this way, children cognitively learn about the world by participating in it with others. [3]

Examples of guided participation can be seen when caregivers involve infants and toddlers in everyday routines. In her research with Mayan families in Guatemala, Rogoff et al., (1993) reported mothers guiding their toddlers through the process of making tortillas. Mothers would give the toddlers small balls of dough to practice rolling and flattening. This cultural practice both contributed to the child’s cognitive development and their learning of practices important for their culture. As another example, consider a group care setting during meal time where toddlers are seated with a caregiver and the meal is separated into larger bowls on the table where the toddlers are seated. The toddlers are able to participate in the routine by serving themselves using the serving spoons and then feed themselves using the utensils. The first few times this routine is started, the caregiver may do more serving and guiding, but eventually, through practiced participation, toddlers are able to participate more deeply, all the while learning culturally-valuable skills such as turn-taking, conversation around a meal, vocabulary and the motor skills needed to serve and eat.

This Vygotskian notion of social learning stands in contrast to some of Piaget’s more popular ideas of cognitive development, which assume that development through certain stages is biologically determined, originates in the individual, and precedes cognitive complexity. This difference in assumptions has significant implications to the design and implementation of learning experiences. If we believe, as Piaget did, that development precedes learning, then we will make sure that new concepts and problems are not introduced until learners have first developed the capabilities to understand them. On the other hand, if we believe as Vygotsky did that learning drives development and that development occurs as we learn a variety of challenging concepts and principles with others, then we will ensure that activities are structured in ways that promote interaction. We will know that it is the process of learning that enables achievement of higher levels of development, which in turn affects a child’s “readiness to learn a new concept” (Miller, 2011). [3]

Private Speech

Do you ever talk to yourself? Why? Chances are, this occurs when you are struggling with a problem, trying to remember something, or feel very emotional about a situation. Children talk to themselves too. Piaget interpreted this as Egocentric Speech or a practice engaged in because of a child’s inability to see things from another’s point of view. Vygotsky, however, believed that children talk to themselves in order to solve problems or clarify thoughts. As children learn to think in words, they do so aloud before eventually closing their lips and engaging in private speech or inner speech. Thinking out loud eventually becomes thought accompanied by internal speech, and talking to oneself becomes a practice only engaged in when we are trying to learn something or remember something. This inner speech is not as elaborate as the speech we use when communicating with others (Vygotsky, 1962). Despite the fact that toddlers are still progressing through the early stages of language acquisition, they nevertheless use private speech. For example, young toddlers, between 14 to 18 months of age, independently use gestures to help think through the use of complex toys and for self-regulation (Basilio & Rodríguez, 2017) and when left alone in their bed at night, toddlers sing to themselves as a way to “practice musical skills, reflect, experiment, self-soothe, and understand their own worlds” (Sole, 2017). [1]

Although Piaget’s theory of cognitive development receives more attention, sociocultural theory has several widely recognized strengths. First, it emphasizes the broader social, cultural, and historical context of all human activity. It does not view individuals as isolated entities; rather, it provides a richer perspective, focusing on the fluid boundary between self and others. It portrays the dynamics of a child acquiring knowledge and skills from the society and then in turn shaping their own personal environment (Miller, 2011). Second, sociocultural theory is sensitive to individual and cross-cultural diversity. In contrast to the universal aspects of Piaget’s theory, sociocultural theory acknowledges both differences in individuals within a culture and differences in individuals across cultures. It recognizes that “different historical and cultural circumstances may encourage different developmental routes to any given developmental endpoint” depending on particular social or physical circumstances and cultural tools available (Miller, 2011). Finally, sociocultural theory greatly contributes to our understanding of cognitive development by integrating the notion of learning and development. The idea of learning driving development rather than being determined by a developmental level or age of the child fundamentally changes our understanding of the learning process and has significant instructional and educational implications for the care and education of infants and toddlers. [3]

Limitations of Vygotsky’s Theory

There are critical limitations to the sociocultural perspective. The first limitation is related to Vygotsky’s premature death, as many of his ideas remained incomplete. Furthermore, his work was largely unknown until fairly recently due to political reasons and issues with translation. The second major limitation is associated with the vagueness of the ZPD. Individuals may have wide or narrow zones, which may be both desirable and undesirable, depending on the circumstances. Knowing only the width of the zone “does not provide an accurate picture of a child’s learning, ability, style of learning, and current level of development compared to other children of the same age and degree of motivation” (Miller, 2011). Additionally, there is little known about whether a child’s zone is comparable across different learning domains, with different individuals, and whether the size of the zone changes over time. And importantly, there is not a common metric scale to measure ZPD. [3]

[1] Lally & Valentine-French (2019). Lifespan Development: A Psychological Perspective . CC by NC SA 4.0

[2] Image by josemota is licensed under CC by 2.0. CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

[3] “ Sociocultural Perspectives of Learning ” by Polly et al., is licensed under CC by 4.0

[4] Neale & Whitebread (2019). Maternal scaffolding during play with 12-to 24-month-old infants: stability over time and relations with emerging effortful control . Metacognition and Learning, 14 (3), 265-289. CC by 4.0

[5] Image by Anna Earl is licensed under CC by 4.0

[6] Image by Liana Mikah is licensed under CC by 4.0

[7] Image by Markus Spiske is licensed under CC by 4.0

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10.3 Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory

Learning objectives.

• Describe Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory of cognitive development
• Describe Vygotsky’s model, including the zone of proximal development

Changes in Thought with Guidance

Modern social learning theories stem from the work of Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky, who produced his ideas as a reaction to existing conflicting approaches in psychology (Kozulin, 1990). Vygotsky’s ideas are most recognized for identifying the role of social interactions and culture in the development of higher-order thinking skills. His theory is especially valuable for the insights it provides about the dynamic “interdependence between individual and social processes in the construction of knowledge” (John-Steiner & Mahn, 1996, p. 192). Vygotsky’s views are often considered primarily as developmental theories, focusing on qualitative changes in behavior over time, that attempt to explain unseen processes of development in thought, language, and higher-order thinking skills. Although Vygotsky’s intent was mainly to understand higher psychological processes in children, his ideas have many practical applications for learners of all ages.

Three themes are often identified with Vygotsky’s ideas of sociocultural learning: (1) human development and learning originate in social, historical, and cultural interactions, (2) the use of psychological tools, particularly language, mediates the  development of higher mental functions, and (3) learning occurs within the Zone of Proximal Development. While we discuss these ideas separately, they are closely interrelated.

Sociocultural theory

Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory emphasizes the importance of culture and social interaction in the development of cognitive abilities. Vygotsky contended that thinking has social origins, social interactions play a critical role especially in the development of higher-order thinking skills, and cognitive development cannot be fully understood without considering the social and historical context within which it is embedded. He explained, “Every function in the child’s cultural development appears twice: first, on the social level, and later, on the individual level; first between people (interpsychological) and then inside the child (intrapsychological)” (Vygotsky, 1978, p. 57). It is through working with others on a variety of tasks that a learner adopts socially shared experiences and associated effects and acquires useful strategies and knowledge (Scott & Palincsar, 2013).

Rogoff (1990) refers to this process as guided participation , where a learner actively acquires new culturally valuable skills and capabilities through a meaningful, collaborative activity with an assisting, more experienced other. It is critical to notice that these culturally mediated functions are viewed as being embedded in sociocultural activities rather than being self-contained. Development is a “transformation of participation in a sociocultural activity” not a transmission of discrete cultural knowledge or skills (Matusov, 2015, p. 315). For example, young children learn problem-solving skills, not by sitting alone at a desk trying to solve arbitrary problems, but by working alongside parents or older siblings as they work on actual culturally-relevant tasks, like preparing a family meal or repairing a fence. Working together, the dyad or group encounter social or physical problems, and discuss their possible solutions before taking action. Through participation in joint problem-solving, young children develop these skills.

Language as a developmental tool

In his sociocultural view of development, Vygotsky highlighted the tools that the culture provides to support the development of higher order thought. Chief among them is language. For Vygotsky, children interact with the world through the tool of language. For Piaget, children use schemas that they construct and organize on the mental plane, but for Vygotsky, language,  a social medium, was the mechanism through which we build knowledge of the world. He believed that with development, the language we acquire from our environment shapes the ways in which we think and behave. With development, language becomes internalized as thought (i.e., cognition, or reasoning) and children use this internalized language to guide their action.

Scaffolding and the “Zone of Proximal Development”

Vygotsky differed with Piaget in that he believed that a person not only has a set of actual abilities, but also a set of potential abilities that can be realized if given the proper guidance from others. He believed that through guided participation known as scaffolding , with a teacher or capable peer, a child can learn cognitive skills within a certain range known as the zone of proximal development . While both Piaget and Vygotsky highlighted the importance of interactions with the social and physical world as the sources of developmental change, Piaget’s ideas of cognitive development emphasized universal stages progressing toward increasing cognitive complexity. Vygotsky presents a more culturally-embedded view in which situated participatory learning drives development. The idea of learning driving development, rather than being determined by the developmental level of the learner, fundamentally changes our understanding of the learning process and has significant instructional and educational implications (Miller, 2011).

Have you ever taught a child to perform a task? Maybe it was brushing their teeth or preparing food. Chances are you spoke to them and described what you were doing while you demonstrated the skill and let them work along with you throughout the process. You gave them assistance when they seemed to need it, but once they knew what to do, you stood back and let them go. This is scaffolding . This approach to teaching has also been adopted by educators. Rather than assessing students on what they are doing, they should be understood in terms of what they are capable of doing with the proper guidance and mentoring.

This difference in assumptions has significant implications for the design and development of learning experiences. If we believe as Piaget did that development precedes learning, then we will introduce children to learning activities involving new concepts and problems, but follow their lead, allowing learners to initiate participation when they are ready or interested. On the other hand, if we believe as Vygotsky did that learning drives development and that development occurs as we learn a variety of concepts and principles, recognizing their applicability to new tasks and new situations, then our instructional design will look very different.

Link to Learning: Vygotsky and Education

Vygotsky’s theories do not just apply to language development but have been extremely influential for education in general. Although Vygotsky himself never mentioned the term scaffolding, it is often credited to him as a continuation of his ideas pertaining to the way adults or other children can use guidance in order for a child to work within their ZPD. (The term scaffolding was first developed by Jerome Bruner, David Wood, and Gail Ross while applying Vygotsky’s concept of ZPD to various educational contexts.)

Educators often apply these concepts by assigning tasks that students cannot do on their own, but which they can do with assistance; they should provide just enough assistance so that students learn to complete the tasks independently and then provide an environment that enables students to do harder tasks than would otherwise be possible.  Teachers can also allow students with more knowledge to assist students who need more guidance. Especially in the context of collaborative learning, group members who have higher levels of understanding can help the less advanced members learn within their zone of proximal development.

The following video shows how Vygotsky’s theory applies to learning in early childhood:

You can view the transcript for “Vygotsky’s Developmental Theory: An Introduction (Davidson Films, Inc.)” here (opens in new window) .

John-Steiner, V., & Mahn, H. (1996). Sociocultural approaches to learning and development: A Vygotskian framework.  Educational psychologist ,  31 (3-4), 191-206.

Kozulin, A. (1990).  Vygotsky’s psychology: A biography of ideas . Harvard University Press.

Matusov, E. (2015). Comprehension: A dialogic authorial approach.  Culture & Psychology ,  21 (3), 392-416.

Miller, R. (2011).  Vygotsky in perspective . Cambridge university press.

Rogoff, B. (1990).  Apprenticeship in thinking: Cognitive development in social context . Oxford university press.

Scott, S., & Palincsar, A. (2013). Sociocultural theory.  Education. com , 1-4.

Vygotsky, L. S. (1978).  Mind in society: Development of higher psychological processes . Harvard university press.

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• “Lifespan Development: A Psychological Perspective, Second Edition”  by Martha Lally and Suzanne Valentine-French is licensed under a  CC-BY-NC-SA-3.0
• “Cognitive Development (Early Childhood Cognition)” by Ellen Skinner & Eli Labinger, Portland State University is licensed under a  CC-BY-NC-SA-4.0
• Lifespan Development by Lumen Learning  is licensed under a  Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
• “Language Development in Early Childhood.” Authored by : Stephanie Loalada for Lumen Learning.  Provided by : Lumen Learning. Located at : https://courses.lumenlearning.com/wm-lifespandevelopment/chapter/language-development-in-early-childhood/. License :  CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike

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• Lev Vygotsky.  Provided by : Wikipedia.  Located at :  https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lev-Semyonovich-Vygotsky-1896-1934.jpg .  License :  Public Domain: No Known Copyright
• Zone of Proximal Development.  Provided by : Wikipedia.  Located at :  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_of_proximal_development .  License :  CC BY-SA: Attribution-ShareAlike
• Vygotsky’s Developmental Theory: An Introduction.  Provided by : Davidson Films, Inc..  Located at :  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InzmZtHuZPY .  License :  Other .  License Terms : Standard YouTube License

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The Socio-Cultural Theory of Vygotsky

• First Online: 08 September 2021

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• David Tzuriel 12  

Part of the book series: Social Interaction in Learning and Development ((SILD))

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According to Vygotsky’s (Thought and language, MIT Press, 1962; Mind in society: The development of higher psychological process, Harvard University Press, 1978; Wertsch (ed) The concept of activity in Soviet psychology, Sharpe, 1981; Thought and language, MIT Press, 1934/1986) sociocultural theory children’s cognitive development comes about through mediation. Mediation is the process by which adults provide children with both instrumental tools (e.g., machines) and psychological tools (e.g., language, thinking strategies, mnemonics, rules). Children acquire and master these tools during their use under adults’ guidance.

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Tzuriel, D. (2021). The Socio-Cultural Theory of Vygotsky. In: Mediated Learning and Cognitive Modifiability. Social Interaction in Learning and Development. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-75692-5_3

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Chapter 4: Early Childhood

Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory of cognitive development.

Figure 4.11 Lev Vygotsky

Lev Vygotsky (1896-1934) was a Russian psychologist who argued that culture has a major impact on a child’s cognitive development. Piaget and Gesell believed development stemmed directly from the child, and although Vygotsky acknowledged intrinsic development, he argued that it is the language, writings, and concepts arising from the culture that elicit the highest level of cognitive thinking (Crain, 2005). He believed that the social interactions with adults and more learned peers can facilitate a child’s potential for learning. Without this interpersonal instruction, he believed children’s minds would not advance very far as their knowledge would be based only on their own discoveries. Let’s review some of Vygotsky’s key concepts.

Zone of Proximal Development and Scaffolding: Vygotsky’s best known concept is the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). Vygotsky stated that children should be taught in the ZPD, which occurs when they can almost perform a task, but not quite on their own without assistance. With the right kind of teaching, however, they can accomplish it successfully. A good teacher identifies a child’s ZPD and helps the child stretch beyond it. Then the adult (teacher) gradually withdraws support until the child can then perform the task unaided. Researchers have applied the metaphor of scaffolds (the temporary platforms on which construction workers stand) to this way of teaching. Scaffolding is the temporary support that parents or teachers give a child to do a task.

Private Speech: Do you ever talk to yourself? Why? Chances are, this occurs when you are struggling with a problem, trying to remember something, or feel very emotional about a situation. Children talk to themselves too. Piaget interpreted this as Egocentric Speech or a practice engaged in because of a child’s inability to see things from another’s point of  view. Vygotsky, however, believed that children talk to themselves in order to solve problems or clarify thoughts. As children learn to think in words, they do so aloud before eventually closing their lips and engaging in Private Speech or inner speech.

Thinking out loud eventually becomes thought accompanied by internal speech, and talking to oneself becomes a practice only engaged in when we are trying to learn something or remember something. This inner speech is not as elaborate as the speech we use when communicating with others (Vygotsky, 1962).

Contrast with Piaget: Piaget was highly critical of teacher-directed instruction believing that teachers who take control of the child’s learning place the child into a passive role (Crain, 2005). Further, teachers may present abstract ideas without the child’s true understanding, and instead they just repeat back what they heard. Piaget believed children must be given opportunities to discover concepts on their own. As previously stated, Vygotsky did not believe children could reach a higher cognitive level without instruction from more learned individuals. Who is correct? Both theories certainly contribute to our understanding of how children learn.

• Authored by : Martha Lally and Suzanne Valentine-French. Provided by : College of Lake County Foundation. Located at : http://dept.clcillinois.edu/psy/LifespanDevelopment.pdf . License : CC BY-NC-SA: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike

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Lev Vygotsky’s Life and Theories

Vygotsky died young but had an important influence on psychology

Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

Emily is a board-certified science editor who has worked with top digital publishing brands like Voices for Biodiversity, Study.com, GoodTherapy, Vox, and Verywell.

• Contributions to Psychology
• Piaget vs. Vygotsky

Frequently Asked Questions

Lev Vygotsky was a seminal Russian psychologist best known for his sociocultural theory . He believed that social interaction plays a critical role in children's learning—a continuous process that is profoundly influenced by culture. Imitation, guided learning, and collaborative learning feature prominently in his theory.

Lev Vygotsky's Early Life

Lev Vygotsky was born November 17, 1896, in Orsha, a city in the western Russian Empire. In 1917, he earned a law degree at Moscow State University, where he studied a range of topics including sociology, linguistics, psychology, and philosophy.

His formal work in psychology began in 1924 at Moscow's Institute of Psychology. He completed a dissertation in 1925 on the psychology of art but was awarded his degree in absentia due to an acute tuberculosis relapse that left him incapacitated for a year.

Following his illness, Vygotsky began researching topics such as language, attention, and memory with the help of his students. Among these were Alexei Leontiev, the developmental psychologist and philosopher who developed activity theory, and neuropsychologist Alexander Luria, the author of "Higher Cortical Functions in Man ."

Lev Vygotsky's Theories

Vygotsky was a prolific writer, publishing six books on psychology in 10 years. His interests were diverse but often centered on child development, education, the psychology of art, and language development. He developed several important theories about the way children learn and grow within culture and society.

The Zone of Proximal Development

One of Vygotsky's well-known concepts was the zone of proximal development. He defined it as "[The] distance between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem-solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers."

In other words, the zone is the gap between what a child knows and what they do not. Acquiring the missing information requires skills that a child does not yet possess or cannot use independently, but can with the help of a "more knowledgeable other."

The More Knowledgeable Other

Vygotsky's "more knowledgeable other" is a person who has greater knowledge and skills than the learner. Often, this is an adult such as a parent or teacher who provides educational opportunities, such as guided instruction, within a child's zone of proximal development.

Vygotsky noticed that children also learn a great deal from peer interactions. In fact, children often pay more attention to what friends and classmates know and are doing than they do to adults. Teachers can leverage this tendency by pairing less skilled children with more knowledgeable classmates to observe and imitate.

No matter who serves as the more knowledgeable other, the key is that they provide the needed social instruction within the zone of proximal development when the learner is sensitive to guidance.

Sociocultural Theory

Lev Vygotsky also suggested that human development results from a dynamic interaction between individuals and society. Through this interaction, children learn gradually and continuously from parents and teachers.

However, this learning varies from one culture to the next. It's important to note that Vygotsky's theory emphasizes the dynamic nature of this interaction. Society does not just impact people; people also affect their society.

If you're interested in reading some of Vygotsky's works, many of his writings are available in full-text format at the Vygotsky Internet Archive .

Lev Vygotsky's Contributions to Psychology

Vygotsky's died of tuberculosis on June 11, 1934, when he was just 37. Still, Vygotsky is considered a formative thinker in psychology, and much of his work is still being discovered and explored today.

Although he was a contemporary of Skinner , Pavlov , Freud , and Piaget , Vygotsky never attained their level of eminence during his lifetime. The Russian Communist Party often criticized Vygotsky's work, making his writings largely inaccessible to the rest of the world. His premature death also contributed to his obscurity.

Despite this, Vygotsky's work has continued to grow in influence since his death— particularly in the fields of developmental and educational psychology .

Lev Vygotsky, "Mind in Society," 1978

Learning is more than the acquisition of the ability to think; it is the acquisition of many specialised abilities for thinking about a variety of things.

It wasn't until the 1970s that Vygotsky's theories became known outside of Russia, as new concepts and ideas emerged in the fields of educational and developmental psychology . Since then, Vygotsky's works have been translated many times over and have gained international recognition, particularly in the area of education.

In a ranking of eminent psychologists, Vygotsky was identified as the 83rd most influential psychologist during the 20th century.

Jean Piaget vs. Lev Vygotsky

Jean Piaget and Vygotsky were contemporaries, yet Vygotsky’s ideas did not become well known until long after his death. Although their theories on child development have some similarities, there are also significant differences.

Says cultural differences have a dramatic effect on development

Emphasizes the importance of more knowledgeable others

Heavily stresses language's role in development

Breaks development into a series of predetermined stages

Suggests development is largely universal

Focuses on peer interaction

Largely ignores the role of language

A Word From Verywell

Although he was not well-known in his lifetime, Lev Vygotsky made significant contributions to psychology. Vygotsky's theories on child development and learning influence how we think about education and development today.

Vygotsky theorized that cognitive development occurs in collaboration with others and could not happen in the absence of language and interaction. Piaget believed that children learn independently and come to their own individual understanding of the world.

Both Piaget and Vygotsky acknowledged the role of peer interaction in children's learning, a gradual process that happens in sequential stages. They felt that nature and nurture both play important roles in this process.

One way is in the application of the zone of proximal development theory. Students best bridge the gap between what they know and what they don't in an ongoing process that involves both group interaction and scaffolded levels of instruction. This allows them to learn new concepts while also developing social skills.

Haggbloom SJ, Warnick JE, Jones VK, et al. The 100 most eminent psychologists of the 20th century . Rev Gen Psychol . 2002;6(2):139–152. doi:10.1037/1089-2680.6.2.139

Vygotsky LS. Thought and Language . Kozulin A, trans. The MIT Press.

Vygotsky LS. Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological Processes . Harvard University Press.

Vygotsky LS.  Thinking and Speech . Minick N, trans. Plenum Press.

Woolfolk AE. Educational Psychology (14th ed). Pearson.

By Kendra Cherry, MSEd Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development and Scaffolding

Vygotsky created the concept of the zone of proximal development, often abbreviated as ZPD, which came to be a central part of his theory. Language is the way that a child communicates with others after they are born and they continue to learn by interacting with those around them. Building on his idea of social interaction as the basis for learning, he broached the value of a mentor or teacher in the life of a student.

See also: Andragogy Theory – Malcolm Knowles

Vygotsky declared some controversial statements that went against prominent educational research at the time. He dismissed the idea that there was no ideal age for learning and instead introduced ideal stages for learning, a similar opinion as Piaget. He also explained that the cognitive growth increased less for students with a higher intelligence than a lower intelligence when they entered school. He coined this term relative achievement, a method that highlights the departure point of student learning and not just the end result. This led Vygotsky into the idea of the ‘zone of proximal development,’ as it assessed the change in cognitive development of students and not just the final outcome. Students benefit directly from the social interactions in class, and ideally, reach their learning potential with the help of their teacher.

Vygotsky consistently defines the zone of proximal development as the difference between the current level of cognitive development and the potential level of cognitive development. He maintains that a student is able to reach their learning goal by completing problem-solving tasks with their teacher or engaging with more competent peers. Vygotsky believed that a student would not be able to reach the same level of learning by working alone. As a student leaves his zone of current development, he travels through the zone of proximal development towards his learning goal.

The zone of proximal development consists of two important components: the student’s potential development and the role of interaction with others. Learning occurs in the zone of proximal development after the identification of current knowledge. The potential development is simply what the student is capable of learning.

See also: Problem-Based Learning (PBL)

Scaffolding

To help learners achieve independence, Vygotsky outlined scaffolding as a tool for growth. Learners complete small, manageable steps in order to reach the goal. Working in collaboration with a skilled instructor or more knowledgeable peers help students make connections between concepts.

As learners grow within their zone of proximal development and become more confident, they practice new tasks with the social support that surrounds them. Vygotsky maintains that learning occurs through purposeful, meaningful interactions with others.

How Vygotsky Impacts Learning

Many psychologists, including Piaget and Bandura , have assessed the cultural influences on learning, however, only Vygotsky claims that they are inherently woven together. He felt that studies should be analyzing the individual within the society and not the individual itself. Only then could you observe the level of growth, as it is social interaction itself that promotes mental development. While morals, values, and thoughts are believed to be influenced by society, the process of learning is not seen as something that is mimicked. Vygotsky outlined that interactions with others created growth by making connections between concepts. To summarize, Vygotsky’s views on cognitive development can be grouped into four main points, outlined as follows:

• the relationship between the student and the teacher is central to learning;
• society and culture influence the attitudes and beliefs of a student towards learning and education;
• language is the primary tool used in the development of learning in children, including the transfer of sociocultural influences; and
• students benefit greatly in programs that are student-led, as they can use the social interaction to grow towards their potential level of development.

Curriculum – Learning goals and curriculum outlines should be designed around social interaction between students and tasks.

Instruction – The idea of scaffolding is the basis of instruction. Students can achieve their learning potential with guided instruction from their teacher. The teacher constantly reassesses the levels of achievement of the student and creates the next task as a building block to the goal. As an added benefit, the student also learns problem-solving skills from performing leveled tasks on their own.

Assessment – Evaluations are catered to each student based on their zone of proximal development. As teachers strive to see the potential level of cognitive development in all students, assessments must cover a range of abilities. Some students may achieve a higher level with support from their teacher than others.

See also: Inclusive Teaching Strategies

On a more practical note, many wonder how this type of learning can be implemented in schools. Scaffolding seems to be a cycle – the teacher is constantly evaluating the progress of a student throughout a learning activity and consistently responding according to their needs. This means that the teacher adjusts the difficulty of the tasks and learning goals in order for the student to meet the expectations. The zone of proximal development indicates the level of task that the student can accomplish independently, which, in turn, demonstrates the actual activity that can be accomplished with guided support from the teacher. As they create learning goals, teachers must keep in mind the fact that each student will have unique personality traits that will affect their zones.

To summarize, students require many opportunities to demonstrate their point of learning in order for the teacher to create the next steps and support each need. The gradual release of responsibility, which we know as scaffolding, allows students to gain independence in learning tasks as they reach their goals. The teacher begins by offering a strong presence and close guidance; this may include demonstrations, facilitating activities, or explicit teaching of ideas. As the student moves through the zone of proximal development towards the goal, the teacher gradually releases control to the student as they approach their level of potential learning. The tasks become progressively more difficult as the student gains more knowledge and comes closer to reaching their potential level of cognitive development. Some suggest that all tasks should be on the higher end towards the optimal level of the zone of proximal development in order to main the interest of the student. Scaffolding is used as a tool to achieve the potential learning outcomes of a student.

The question remains then: is the theoretical idea of zones of proximal development really that different from what experienced teachers do in the classroom? Vygotsky’s theory is centered on the idea that social interaction is critical to cognitive development. With the exception of some large classes, students actively engage with their teacher and with each other. Collaborating with peers is encouraged but cannot be over-used, as it may actually cause stagnant growth in some cases. Additionally, the teacher is the most educated on the learning process, automatically assessing many factors related to the student’s potential growth.

Language tasks in education are still the best indicator in cognitive development. Such activities allow chain reactions to occur that begin with solid communication skills, lead to clarification of inner speech and continues with growth in thought patterns. However, one must not view language activities as exclusive: it does not mean that a student possesses a low level of cognitive ability if they are unable to orally express themselves. Language is complex, and some do not grasp the subtle meanings present in communication. Other types of intelligence, such a musical and bodily-kinesthetic, are not necessarily compatible with learning-centered on language. It is important to note, however, that early development of language offers an advantage to children in our society, as it offers favoritism towards other educational skills.

Currently, the value of educational software has been inconsistent in relation to Vygotsky’s theory. As there is such a broad variance in computer-based programs available, it is challenging to evaluate its effect on learning. Social interaction looks different when on a computer; now students may be interacting with a human-like software program. Some artificial intelligence systems offer great responses to questions and misunderstandings, but others are not as advanced. There is great hope that a sophisticated program could assess a student’s zone of proximal development and respond appropriately, but for now, the wide range of programs available are too unpredictable.

Vygotsky made it his mission to analyze the effects of socialization of cognitive development. We can see how language is the central approach of his theory, and how the cultural and societal relationships affect learning. In real-life applications, we discussed the utilization of the zone of proximal development by the teacher, which also emphasizes the need for student-directed learning in the educational system. As we move towards remote learning and computer-based applications, we need to evaluate the impact of the social world and the attention required for students.

See also:  Using Bloom’s Taxonomy to Write Effective Learning Objectives: The ABCD Approach

I am a professor of Educational Technology. I have worked at several elite universities. I hold a PhD degree from the University of Illinois and a master's degree from Purdue University.

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Article contents

Vygotskian theory of development.

• Yuriy Karpov Yuriy Karpov Touro College
• https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190264093.013.915
• Published online: 30 June 2020

Russian followers of Vygotsky have elaborated his theoretical ideas into an innovative theory of development. In this theory, children’s development is viewed as the outcome of adult mediation: adults engage children in the age-specific joint activity (the so-called leading activity) and, in the context of this activity, promote the development in children of a new motive, and teach them new tools of thinking, problem-solving, and self-regulation. As a result, children outgrow their current leading activity and transition to the new leading activity, which is specific to the next age period. Vygotskians have described the leading activities of children in industrialized societies thus:

• first year of life: emotional interactions with caregivers.

• ages one to three: object-centered joint explorations with caregivers.

• ages three to six: sociodramatic play.

• middle childhood: learning at school.

• adolescence: interactions with peers.

Vygotskian developmental theory has received strong empirical support from the studies of contemporary researchers. Its major strength lies in the fact that it integrates in a meaningful way motivational, cognitive, and social factors as resulting in children’s engagement in the age-specific leading activity. This theory also provides an explanation of the mechanism of children’s transition from one developmental stage to the next, which many alternative theories of development fail to do. Some of the Vygotskians’ notions, however, weaken their analysis and can be disputed (for example, their disregard of the role of physiological maturation in children’s development).

• developmental periods
• higher mental processes
• leading activity
• psychological tools
• Russian Vygotskians
• zone of proximal development

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