Henri Wallon (psychologist)

Henri Wallon (Paris, June 15, 1879 – ibid., December 1, 1962) was a French psychologist, professor at the College of France, director of studies at the Practical School of Higher Studies and director of the Institute for Child Psychobiological Research, in Paris. His research in psychology, education and philosophy are widely known in his country and abroad given the significance they reached due to their significant importance and scientific validity. Some of his publications are obligatory reference in neuropsychology, such as From act to thought and The origins of character in children, as well as Studies on genetic psychology of personality and The origins of thought in the child.

His work is fundamentally focused on the psychological development of children and education. His work is of a high quality in terms of the ideas contained in his theory of psychological development. His psychological thought developed in parallel to the polemic in the psychological thought of Piaget who, very significantly, dedicated an article paying homage to his scientific work, which can be read in the text "Psychology and Marxism (The Ideas psychological studies of Henri Wallon)" by the French psychologist René Zazzo. On the other hand, Henri Wallon's psychological thought -due to its dialectical approach- relates well to Vygotsky's psychological thought.

Work

• Origins of character in the child
• Psychology of the child of birth at 7 years
• The psychological evolution of the child
• From the act to thought
• The Origins of Thought in the Child

In 1948 he founded the magazine Enfance, which has devoted several monographic issues to him.

Wallon's theory

Wallon's early work focused on psychopathology, later focusing on child psychology and counseling.

Among his disciples and followers of his work are René Zazzo and Hélène Gratiot-Alphandéry.

His work has not been widely disseminated. Among other reasons, as Vila (1986) points out, two fundamental ones. The first is due to the competition between Piaget and Vygotsky's theories, widely dominant at the time Wallon's work was translated into English. The second, due to his political commitment, which caused mistrust, especially in the United States.

Theoretical framework and background of Wallon's theory

Wallon came to psychology from philosophy and medicine, at a time when there were two very important debates in Europe. The first on the epistemological foundation of science. Authors as relevant as Piaget participated in this discussion. The second focused on the evolutionary explanation of the construction of personality and was promoted by psychoanalytic schools.

Wallon, from an anti-dualist position, argues that the origin of intellectual progress resides in consciousness, but this does not occur at birth but is a quality that is socially constructed, through what he calls symbiosis affective Consequently, the object of Psychology is the explanation of the formation and development of consciousness. For this purpose, both biological and social aspects must be studied. For this, the author focuses especially on four factors to explain the psychological evolution of the child (1987, pp 103-132): emotion, the other, the environment (physical-chemical, biological and social) and movement (action and activity). Consequently, Wallon affirms (1958) that psychology is both a humanistic and natural science. Some authors (Ochaíta and Espinosa, 2004) see in this approach an advance of the current postulates of systemic theory and especially of the hypothesis of functional integration between the different levels of organization of the human being: biological, psychological and social (Lerner 1998).

In turn, the concept of affective symbiosis is not exclusive to our author. We can also find it in psychoanalysis and in Wallon's contemporary authors, such as Spitz and M. Mahler, who used it to explain the beginnings of development, from the first month on.

A current concept that we can find implicit in Wallon is that of intersubjectivity. However, we can find influences in his time, such as those from psychoanalysis, Bakhtin's linguistics or Vygotsky's theory of language. In this sense, some psychoanalysts, such as Winnicott, are among the precursors of the concept of intersubjectivity that is implicit in Wallon's approach, in the study of the relationship with the other. Freud himself made a great contribution when he explained the formation mechanisms of object relations, transference and countertransference, concepts of great interest for the understanding of affective communication. More recently, from a different theoretical framework, focused on communication, Trevarthen's theory of primary intersubjectivity addresses the problem of building intersubjective dialogue, between the child and others, around 3 months.

Wallon's theoretical framework is epistemologically based on Marxist philosophy and more specifically on dialectical materialism. In this way he defends the importance of the biological foundation but without falling into the organic mechanism. In turn, he highlights the relevance of the individual psyche, but without substituting it for the reality of objects, as was the case in idealist approaches. He admits the presence of contradictions but integrates them as a fundamental part of the explanation of development. In short, he is heir to the theoretical tradition of Marxist philosophy in his criticism of mechanistic empiricism and idealistic rationalism, and although he is nourished by a dialectical methodology, heir to Hegel, he bases the psychological fact on phenomena alien to consciousness, whether biological. or historical and social. Consequently, for Wallon, the dialectical method is the only valid one for the study of consciousness, affirming that the scientific status of psychology will only be achieved to the extent that it is capable of recognizing that the psyche is the most elaborate form of development. Of the mattery. For all the above arguments, he considers that the psychological study must be carried out globally and criticizes reductionist models:

I have never been able to dissociate the biological and the social, not because it creates reductible one to the other, but because it seems to me in man so closely complementary since his birth that it is impossible to focus psychic life if it is not under the formation of his reciprocal relations.

The methodology

From the dialectical approach, Wallon approaches the study of consciousness and human development. In this way, he will study psychological processes from genetic psychology, that is, from the evolutionary analysis of the processes of formation and transformation of the human psyche, both from an ontogenetic, phylogenetic, biological, historical, and cultural perspective. For this purpose, the interdisciplinary work of different sciences and the use of techniques such as observation in natural situations, experimentation, comparative techniques and statistics must be used. A summary by Zazzo sums up Wallon's methodology in an illuminating way:

Its method is to study the material conditions of the development of the child, both organic and social conditions, and to see how, through these conditions, a new plane of reality is built that is psychism, personality

(Zazzo, 1976, p.85)

The concept of development

Unlike other dualistic conceptions, coming from Cartesian rationalism, Wallon defends a unitary concept of the individual. In this line, he defends that in human development there is a transition from the biological or natural, to the social or cultural. This transition will occur thanks to the presence of the other. In this approach it is very important to take into account two considerations: The first is that both social and biological factors can be considered innate or acquired, since some are built thanks to the presence of others. The second asserts that biological differences can end up becoming social. Biological development, thanks to genetic instructions, makes it possible for the function to be created, but said function without a medium on which to act would remain atrophied, according to Lurçat (1975), a disciple of Wallon. Thus, according to this author, the biological and the social constitute a dialectical duo.

Wallon agrees with Vygotsky when affirming that the child is a social being from birth and that the key to his development will reside in the interaction with others. However, despite this and other important coincidences such as the defense of the dialectical method, they will differ in the explanation of the individuation process. That is to say, in the way that the child is constructed as an individual from the social scene. In this way, Vygotsky (1978) affirms that all higher psychological functions appear first at the interpsychological level, in interaction with others and are later built and internalized at the intrapsychological level. However, for Wallon, individuation occurs thanks to the role played by emotion in development, going so far as to affirm that thanks to it children build their psyche. The first gestures of the newborn and of the child under three months are calls for attention to the adults around them. These expressive gestures become cultural to the extent that they are capable of arousing in others a set of reactions aimed at satisfying their needs, be they biological or affective, and to the extent that adults attribute intentions to the children's behaviors that initially they don't have them. From these first moments, the baby establishes an affective symbiosis with her caregivers that enables her development. But for Wallon, emotion not only has an adaptive value, but also has a genetic value, since it is capable of generating new structures of knowledge.

Wallon said: «Language has been preceded by more primitive means of communication. The basis of these means is in emotional expression. As Palacios points out, commenting on Wallon (Wallon, 1987, p.60), In ontogenesis, emotion is the first thing that welds the organism with the social environment, since the fabric of emotions is made of the network of its neurophysiological bases and the reciprocity that ensures exchanges with the environment... In emotion and language are the keys that give man his hallmarks; Emotion and language have biological roots, but they are constituted and structured thanks to social exchange. It is therefore, thanks to emotion and through it, that the child converts from being biological to being social. The reactions that occur in the child, based on the behavior of others, will constitute the origin of the first representations.; and these are the mediators that allow the integration of biological and social factors, while explaining their links. Another concept that Wallon uses to explain the psychic I is that of socius or alter. This is represented through the affective symbiosis that is established with the other, and the process of both symbiosis and differentiation, gives the result that the emotional expression is reversed, since it causes a kind of affective symbiosis between the child and his environment. (Wallon, 1987, pp 109)......his initiation into psychic life consists of participation in situations that are under the strict dependence of those who care for him......Through this mutual affective understanding, it is established between the child and his relatives a kind of osmosis that has an exceptional importance in the first stages of his personality... As soon as the man is, the group and the individual appear indissolubly supportive, they are due to the emotion that acts as a true weld between the baby and the human environment. In conclusion, we wish to highlight that although Vygotsky and Wallon differ in the explanation of the individuation process, we can appreciate that both perspectives are not contradictory, but that both authors have focused on different levels and objects of analysis. Regarding psychological and educational research, Wallon proposes from the dialectical method that Psychology and Pedagogy are inseparable, since they are two complementary moments of the same experimental attitude.

Development from the stadiums

The concept of development is linked to the concept of stage, as in the reference theory of evolutionary psychology from the last third of the century XX, Piaget's theory. However, the approaches of both authors were very different. Piaget established some stages of cognitive development by means of a logical-mathematical model that was dominant in science at the time, evaluating the child's abilities, at each age, to use and interpret the operations of said model at each age. In this way, the child put into play a set of capacities necessary to solve problems that were found fundamentally in the domains of mathematics or physics, although Piaget progressively extended them to other areas, such as morality or play. However, Wallon defines a stage as a set of specific characteristics that are established from the relationships that the subject maintains with the environment, at a given moment of development. Consequently, for the definition of each stage it would be necessary to take into account both the dominant function that is present in it (dominant activity) and the orientation of the activity that the subject develops (towards himself or towards the outside). In this way, the transition from one stage to another is produced by the change of dominant function.

The sequence and organization of the stages is regulated by two laws, the law of functional alternation and the law of preponderance and functional integration:

• La Functional alternation law is the main law regulating the psychological development of the child. It plans that the activities of the child are sometimes directed at the construction of their undividuality and others to the establishment of relations with others; the orientation is gradually altered at each stage.

From this perspective, we have an interesting example in building the personality. For Wallon the social environment, and within it the group, are very important for the formation of the personality, but it is not forgotten that the individual must develop a personal construction, posing the following (1985, p.110)

"The most important medium for personality formation is not the physical environment but the social one. Alternatively, the personality is confused with him and dissociated. Their evolution is not uniform, but made of oppositions and identifications. It is dialectical...There is no rigorous and definitive appropriation between the individual and his medium. Their relationships are of mutual transformation. »

• The second law Wallon states is that of and functional integration. It consists in that there is neither rupture nor functional continuity in the transition from one stage to another. In this way, the old functions do not disappear but are integrated with the new ones.