Comparative Psychology of Mental Development
Heinz Werner
G. Stanley Hall, Professor of Genetic Psychology
Clark University
New York: International Universities Press, Inc.
Foreword by Gordon W. Allport
Book 1. Introduction
I. The fields, the problems and the methodsof developmental psychology.
- The fields of a comparative developmental psychology
- The basic problems of developmental psychology
- Mechanistic and organic approach in ethnopsychology: The concept of cultural patterns and creative change
- The remaining developmental psychologies
- The comparative point of view and the problem of genetic parallelism
- The relation of general experimental psychology to comparative developmental psychology
- The nature of development
- A more precise definition of some important concepts of developmental psychology
Book 2. Primitive mental activities
Part one: Sensori-motor, perceptual and affective organization
II. The syncretic character of primitive organization
- Things of action
- Primitive perception as dynamic: "physiognomic perception"
- Undifferentiated phenomena within the sphere of emotion
- Lack of differentiation in primordial perception
- Synaesthesia and the primordial unity of the senses
III. Diffuse forms of sensorimotor and perceptual organization
- Diffuse organization in lower organisms
- Inflexibility (rigidity) and inconstancy in lower organization
- Diffuse perceptual organization in the child
- Diffuse perceptual-motor organization in the child
- Lability and rigidity in the sensori-motor and perceptual organization of the child
- The development of constancies
- Diffuse phenomena in the world of primitive man
- Lability and rigidity in the concrete world of primitive man
Part two: Primitive imagery
IV. Syncretic and diffuse organization in imagery
- Syncretism of function in imagery
- Syncretism of meaning in primitive imagery
- Diffuse organization in primitive imagery
Part three: Primitive notions of space and time
V. Primitive notions of space
- Spatial ideas of primitive man
- The child's notion of space
- Pathological primitivation of the idea of space
VI. Primitive notions of time
- Temporal notions of primitive man
- The child's notion of time
- Pathological primitivation of the notion of time
Part four: Primitive action
VII. The nature of syncretic action: Action as bound to the concrete situation
- Immediacy
- Motivation
- Planning
VIII. The diffuse character of primitive action
- Mass activity and un-coordination as two typical characteristics of primitive movement
- Diffuseness and rigidity (all or none reaction in primitive action)
Part five: Primitive thought processes
IX. Conception
- The nature of syncretic thought
- Analogous processes in the development of thought
- Primitive forms of relationship
- Concrete grouping as an analogous process of concept formation and classification
- Primitive abstraction
- Analogous processes of abstraction
- The development of generalization in conceptual thinking
- Primitive representation
- Primitive stages of naming
- Physiognomic language
- The content of names and their development
- Primary development of the number idea as an illustration of concept formation
X. The primary structure of thought
- Structure of thought in primitive man
- The structure of child thought
- Conceptual relations
- The child's causal reasoning and its development
- The development of the child's logical inference
- Pathologically primitive forms of thought
XI. The fundamental ideas of magic as an expression of primitive conceptualization
- Syncretism in primitive magic
- Diffuseness in primitive magic
- The nature of magic things
- Conceptualization in magic
- Child magic
- The magic forms of pathological individuals
Book 3. The world and personality
XII. Primitive worlds and spheres of reality
- The worlds of animals
- The general character of the child's world
- The spheres of the child's reality
- The primitive man's worlds and spheres of reality
- Pathological (schizophrenic) spheres of reality
XIII. Primitive personality
- The primitive man's ideas of personality
- The child's personality
- The pathologically primitive (schizophrenic) structure of the personality
Addenda
Bibliography
Index