A Psychological Mechanism for the Development of Activity: The Cross-cultural Context

The article offers a representation of the psychological mechanism for the development of a child as distinguished from those which are accepted in modern developmental and educational psychology. The contradiction between emerging systems of relations at different ages and the developing capabilities therein of a child's activity are examined as sources of development. These capabilities cease to correspond to the developed system of relations, which makes it motivationally necessary to change the system. Development as an objective process for resolving emerging contradictions takes place in a variety of historically and culturally specific forms of meaningful activity in which these contradictions mature. The specificity of forms for carrying out activity, which is clearly traced in cross-cultural research, is an important condition for development, which enables a variety of possible trajectories.