Chapter 8: Time in and for Development: Mind on the Move Between Multiple and Interdependent Temporal Experiences

Human experience is always and inevitably located in space and time. The social experience in our late-modernity is believed to be characterized by high-speed tempo and acceleration of time that reconfigures the structure of social relations at cultural, social and individual levels and creates tensions for individuals who are not always able to accommodate this changing pace and rhythm of everyday life (Vostal, 2014). In this context, it is argued, it is especially important to understand how time is experienced and lived in social practices by social subjects as they negotiate and navigate those tensions and pressures (Keightley, 2013). It is thus surprising that the concept of time that has received significant attention in social sciences in recent decades and is crucial for understanding human lived experiences in socio-cultural context, has received very little theoretical attention in the discipline of psychology. Murakami (2012), for example, writes that despite the centrality of the notion of time to the process of remembering, this concept is hardly ever systematically considered in memory studies. The same can be said about the conception of time in developmental psychology, where time is considered merely in a linear, sequential and causal manner as a unit that measures intervals and degrees of difference between events and states (Valsiner, 2001). As Valsiner points out, the use of this objectified clock time makes human experience seem stable and static and allows describing entities and forms of the past as these have already emerged, while offering little for understanding the dynamic and future-oriented nature of human development. It is thus suggested that recognizing the irreversible nature of time and taking into account the ever-present novelty in human experience might be a better starting point for developmental psychology.