Chapter 9: Struggling with Powerful Conceptual Reifications: Cognitive Socialization When Learning to Reason as an Economist

A defining element of a sociocultural approach to human communication, cognition, and social action is the idea of mediation and the role of artifacts as mediational means in human activities (Vygotsky, 1978; Wertsch, 2007). Just as physical, or technical, tools extend the powers of the human body in practices such as digging (spades, excavators), hunting (rifles, snares), or when moving from one place to another (bicycles, cars), mental or psychological tools—language, concepts, number systems, alphabets, and so on—play a decisive role in human cognitive activities. This idea of the role of intellectual tools for human thinking is clearly expressed in Vygotsky’s (1981) famous essay, “The Instrumental Method in Psychology,” where he analyzes how tools are constitutive of what he refers to as “instrumental acts.” In the instrumental act, “artifical formations”—that is, human-made signs and sign-systems—reorganize mental functioning and introduce “several new functions connected with the use of the given tool and with its control” (p. 139). Such an artificial tool also generally “abolishes and makes unnecessary a number of natural processes, whose work is accomplished by the tool” (p. 139).