Psychology
2013. Vol.4, No.5, 488-493
Published Online May 2013 in SciRes (http://www.scirp.org/journal/psych) http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/psych.2013.45069
488
Human Psychological Characteristics versus Animal
Characteristics
Arnulf Kolst ad1,2
1Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway
2Hangzhou Normal Univer s ity (HNU), Hangzhou, China
Received January 28th, 20 13; revised March 2nd, 2013; accepted April 1st, 2013
Copyright © 2013 Arnulf Kolstad. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attri-
bution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the
original work is properly cited.
The role of biology in psychology changes from animals to humans. Biology determines animal behav-
iour in natural environments. For humans the biological forces changes to an energizing function. They
recede in the background and the higher psychological functions govern consciousness and behavior.
Humans do not have to obey the instincts or reflexes, but have the option to do what they decide to do
after reflecting on the alternatives. No other species have this ability to the same degree. The difference
between Homo sapiens and other species in this regard is not only a distinction in degree it is a distinction
in principle. To understand development of language in its relation to thought, consciousness and volatile
behavior is essential.
Keywords: Biology; Culture; Lower Psychological Functions; Higher Psychological Functions; Cultural
Tools; Language; Thought
Introduction
The role of biology in psychology changes from animals to
humans. Biology, instincts and drives determine animal behav-
iour in natural environments; for human psychological func-
tions and social behaviour biology changes to a potentiating,
energizing but not determining function. As Carl Ratner claims,
“This is only logical, and it is Darwinian, for we have seen that
the fundamental principle of Darwinism is that organismic be-
havior is a function of environment. Culture is a radically dif-
ferent environment from nature; therefore cultural behavior and
its mechanisms must be radically different from natural behav-
ioral mechanisms of animals” (Ratner, 2011). The different role
played by biology is not a difference in degree between animals
and humans, but in principle, as formulated by Lev Vygotsky
and Alexander Luria: “behavior becomes social and cultural not
only in its contents [i.e., what we think about] but also in its
mechanisms, in its means…A huge inventory of psychological
mechanisms—skills, forms of behavior, cultural signs and de-
vices—has evolved in the process of cultural development”
(Vygotsky & Luria, 1930/1993).
The number of human activities under biological control is
greatly reduced in comparison with (other) animals. Conscious
behaviour is for instance only possible if the instinctive or
lower functions characterising animal behaviour are set aside
from their original function. The most peculiar aspect of hu-
mans compared with other living species is that humans are
created by a culture that they have created. Their higher psy-
chological functions are acquired in a human culture using
symbols and signs (language). Psychological phenomena, in-
cluding cognition, emotion, memory, motivation, self-appraisal,
and identity are humanly constructed when individuals partici-
pate in social interaction.
The instinctive, lower functions operate in different ways
from cultural conscious processes and therefore the former can-
not govern the latter. The lower functions do not even serve as
the basis of the higher functions. The instinctive or elementary
functions are actually inimical to cultural conscious processes
since they are automatic, mechanical, involuntary, physical pro-
cesses; which directly impel non-volitional, unconscious beha-
viour. The division of the pre-social, lower psychological func-
tions from the higher (cultural) ones illustrates the difference
between animal and human and defines the human psyche as a
special system for conscious, volitional regulation of the beha-
viour of the human organism whose individual development
(unlike the organism of the animal) integrates the biological
and the socio-cultural (Kolstad, 2012).
Natural processes operate in hummingbirds, for example, to
automatically impel them to fly toward red-coloured flowers; or
they impel male dogs involuntarily and mechanically to mount
and mate with a female dog that emits a particular scent during
the fertile period. Hummingbirds and dogs do not think about
what they are doing, they cannot control it, they cannot plan it
or imagine it, or remember (relive) it in specific detail; they do
not appreciate the object of their behaviour, as a human male
appreciates his sexual partner or appreciates a beautiful sunset
or a symphony by Beethoven. This is why elementary natural
processes cannot determine human psychology in the same way
that they determine behaviour of birds and dogs (Ratner, 2011).
The lower psychological functions, those automatic, instinc-
tive kinds of behaviour are non-volitional and uncontrolled by
consciousness. To be a human, however, means to reduce the
automatic, instinctive behaviour and become a conscious being,
able to decide, choose, and think with language as a cultural

A. KOLSTAD
and psychological tool. Humans’ higher psychological func-
tions, their language and thinking, have to be the c ore of h uman
psychology. Scientific psychology cannot ignore the volitional
and conscious mind. It has to be a significant topic in psychol-
ogy.
The distinction between lower and higher psychological
functions is described and explained in detail by Vygotsky and
the school of cultural historical psychology. Other contributions
to a scientific psychology have made this distinction as well.
Freud, following Darwin, divided for instance “the brain into
‘lower’ parts that we share with animals, and that process our
brute animal instincts, and ‘higher’ parts that are uniquely hu-
man” (Doidge, 2007: p. 297). Freud believed that civilization
rests on the partial inhibition of lower functions such as sexual
and aggressive instincts. He also believed we could go too far
in repressing our instincts, leading us to develop neuroses (Doi-
dge, 2007).
The tools for the mind, for example language, giving humans
the ability to reason and to abstract thinking are situated in and
belong to the culture, and they are internalized and become psy-
chological tools during socialization. People in different cul-
tures, with different tools such as different languages also have
different higher psychological functions, different perceptions,
motivations, emotions, and cognitions. The cultural tools are
also making the brain’s function and structure. Different cul-
tures create different brains (Kolstad, 2013); in short culture
affect everything that psychologists may be interested in.
The architecture of the neuro system in the brain changes
with the inclusion of symbols and signs in the psychological re-
pertoire. The brain has to follow the development of the mind
assimilating words, concepts and symbols, acquired in commu-
nications with others, and has to change its structure and func-
tion to represent the sense impressions, the communication ex-
periences and the changing mind. When we learn to read and
write our mental, cognitive functions are reorganized and changes
even more and the structural and functional brain architecture
adapt and adjust as well.
The Cultural-Historical Evolution of the Mind
The first attempts to approach human mental processes as the
products of evolution were taken in the second half of the nine-
teenth century by Charles Darwin and his successor Herbert
Spencer. They both attempted to trace the ways in which com-
plex forms of mental activity develop through the evolutionary
process. The evolutionary approach, which was quite valid for a
comparative study of development of the lower psychological
functions in the animal world, found itself in something of a
blind alley when it tried to study evolution of higher psycho-
logical functions among humans as a result of natural circum-
stances. Those functions cannot be explained by natural adap-
tation or adaption solely to nature. They originated as a result of
social, cultural development and adjustment. And definitely not
solely by something innate in every human, for instance the
genes.
At the beginning of the present century, the French social-
ogist and social psychologist Emile Durkheim assumed that the
basic processes of the mind are not manifestations of the spirit’s
inner life or the result of natural evolution, but rather originated
in humans as a result of the created culture or society (Durk-
heim & Mauss, 1963). Durkheim's ideas formed the basis for a
number of other studies, in which the French psychologist Pi-
erre Janet and others played a prominent part. The French
school of sociology, however, had shortcomings that invali-
dated its theories. It refused to interpret the influence of society
on the individual mind as the influence of the cultural and so-
cial system and the actual forms of social activity on individual
consciousness. Unlike the approach of cultural-historical psy-
chology, the French school considered this process only as an
interaction between “collective representations” or “social con-
sciousness” and individual consciousness, all the while paying
no attention to particular social systems, culture or practices
(Luria, 1976).
In Russia in the beginning of the 20th century humans were
understood and studied as determined by reflexes, reactions and
associations with little room for subjectivity, agency and crea-
tivity. Vygotsky asserted, however, that a scientific psychology
cannot ignore that human consciousness exists and that it has to
be a significant topic in psychology (Vygotsky, 1931/1997).
Humans’ higher psychological functions, their language and
thinking, have to be the core of human psychology. Humans
have many psychological functions in addition to the ones we
find in dogs and other living organisms. Most basic is the fact
that man not only develops (naturally); he also constructs him-
self. The number of human activities under biological control is
greatly reduced in comparison to animals. Psychological phe-
nomena, including perception, cognition, emotion, memory,
psychopathology, personality and malfunctions are humanly
constructed as individuals participate in social interaction. This
position, that psychology has a constructed character, does not
disregard biological influences.
Evolutio n Made Us for Culture
The higher-order functions became, however, a possibility
since natural evolution made thinking and language appropria-
tion possible, and because we established human cultures which
developed higher psychological functions in each individual
whatever culture they were born into (Fiske et al., 1998). When
human beings participate in social interactions and employ cul-
tural and psychological tools, for instance language and other
signs, they develop, construct and create their higher psycho-
logical functions, ways of thinking, feeling, remembering, their
sensation and perception. These higher functions are not natural
or innate processes in human adults as the lower functions are
in animals and human neonates. “Most basic is the fact that
man not only develops (naturally); he also constructs himself”
(Vygotsky, 1989: p. 65). Therefore there are qualitative differ-
ences between the psyche of humans and that of animals.
Unlike animals the key to human’s psychological functions is
sociogenesis, the transformation of social relations, through
interiorization, into the individual’s psychological functions.
Kono (2010) also refers to the creation of human culture
when he comments on the qualitative discontinuity between hu-
man beings and animals, referring to Merleau-Ponty. He does
not, however, go into details about what is the essence of huma-
nity that distinguishes human beings from other animals except
for mentioning that human beings have collectively changed
their environment, much more than other animals have done
and created a human culture: Humans make “unaccountably va-
rious kinds of tools, raise animals, cultivate the fields, plant ve-
getables, construct houses, buildings, monuments, villages and
cities, make social systems such as government, law, economy,
intellectual and communicative tools such as language, charac-

A. KOLSTAD
ters, signs, symbols, calculators, books, libraries, arts, mass me-
dias, and so on” (Kono, 2010: p. 334).
Also according to Cole (2002) there is an important differ-
rence between humans and other living organisms in their rela-
tion to the environment. While most organisms adapt and do
not affect to any great extent their environment, humans create
to a certain degree the cultural, social (and partly physical) en-
vironment they experience and are affected by. Biology there-
fore changes its role in behavior from animals to humans.” …the
struggle for existence and natural selection, the two driving
forces of biological evolution within the animal world, lose
their decisive importance as soon as we pass on to the historical
development of man. New laws, which regulate the course of
human history and which cover the entire process of the mate-
rial and mental development of human society now take their
place” (Vygotsky, 1994: p. 175).
The specific interpretation of the empirical evidence of rel-
ationship between mind, brain and culture is colored by a more
general view on the nature of the human species and especially
the importance of the genetic outfit and culture respectively.
This is well known as the “nature and nurture dichotomy”. This
old discussion about the influence from nature (biology) and
culture is a result of the fact that humans from different cultures
are universal and unlike at the same time.
The History and Origin of Homo s a pi e n s
The universal behaviour that defines human beings arises
from our biological similarity . In some way we are all Africans
(Shipman, 2003) since the first Homo sapiens lived in Africa.
Researchers studying human origins do not, however, quite
agree when and in what shape the homonids left Africa. Ac-
cording to the Multiregional Continuity Model, Homo erectus
left Africa 2 mya (million years ago) to become Homo sapiens
in different parts of the world (Myers, Abell, Kolstad, & Sani,
2010). The “Out of Africa Model” claims that Homo sapiens
evolved relatively recently in Africa and migrated into other
parts of the world to replace other hominid species, including
Homo erectus (Johanson, 2001). In response to climate change
and the availability of food, those early hominids migrated
across Africa into Asia, Europe, the Australian subcontinent
and, eventually, the Americas. As they adapted to their new en-
vironments, early humans developed differences that, meas-
ured on anthropological scales, are relatively recent and super-
ficial. For example, those who stayed in Africa had darker skin
pigment, a “sunscreen for the tropics” (Pinker, 2002) and those
who went far north of the equator evolved lighter skins capable
of synthesizing vitamin D in less direct sunlight.
We were Africans recently enough that “there has not been
much time to accumulate many new versions of the genes”
(Pinker, 2002: p. 143). Biologists who study our genes have found
that we humans are strikingly similar in gene s, like members of
one tribe. We may be more numerous than chimpanzees, but
chimps are more genetically varied. We also share the majority
of our genes with other species, for instance mice (My ers, Abell,
Kolstad, & Sani, 2010).
Cultural Diversity
The diversity of humans’ languages, customs, and expressive
behaviors confirms that much of our behaviour is socially and
culturally programmed, not hardwired in the genes. Humans,
more than any other animal, harness the power of culture to
make life better. We have culture to thank for our communica-
tion through language. Culture facilitates our survival and re-
production, and nature has blessed us with a brain that, like no
other, enables culture. No species can accumulate progress
across generations as smartly as humans due. We can pass our
experiences and transmit information and innovations across
time and place to the future generations in a unique way, by
written language (Myers, Abell, Kolstad, & Sani, 2010).
We needn’t think of evolution and culture as competitors.
Cultural norms subtly but powerfully affect our attitudes and
behaviour, but they don’t do so independent of biology. Ad-
vances in neuroscience indicate that experience and activity
change the brain and establish new connections between neu-
rons (Quarts & Sejnowski, 2002). Due to its plasticity the brain
develops and increases its capacity, and the culture puts its
special marks on its structure and changes its function.
Phylogenetic and Ontogenetic Development
The phylogenetic development of humans followed the pri-
nciple of natural evolution. During this evolution humans ac-
quired the possibility of speech and thought owing to the in-
creased size of the brain and the voice-tube. These two abilities,
language and thought, were combined at a certain stage of de-
velopment and the language ability combined with thinking
initiated a new era for humans: the cultural era, where psycho-
logical functions were no longer dependent to the same degree
on the lower instinctive reactions. Gradually consciousness de-
veloped so that the instinctive biological forces were set aside.
The acquired abilities changed human’s further development
radically.
Relevant to the phylogenetic aspect is that in the transition
from animal to human a change occurred in the relation be-
tween the individual and the environment. Animals adjusted to
their environment by means of evolution. Humans, on the other
hand, adjust to their environment by acting on it and changing
it. In the transition from animal to human there is an emergent
property in relation to psychological functioning. Humans learn
to reflect and control their own mental processes, yielding high-
er psychological functions which are absent in animals. Intima-
tely involved in this control of one’s own psychological proc-
esses are the emergence of cultural/psychological tools and the
mediation of psychological functioning by means of them (Pick
& Gippenreiter, 1994).
The higher-order functions became a possibility since natural
evolution made thinking and language appropriation possible,
and because we established human cultures which developed
higher psychological functions in each individual. When human
beings participate in social interactions and employ tools, for
instance language and other cultural signs, they develop, con-
struct and create their higher psychological functions, ways of
thinking, feeling, remembering, their sensation, perception and
communication.
Evolutionary biologists have for many years discussed the
reason why Homo sapiens became a new species so different
from its animal ancestors. Most often they have looked for
anatomical or morphological characteristics, for instance the
size of the brain, the functional benefits due to bipedalism, i.e.
the ability to move on two legs, or the hand with opposable
thumb able to seize (Kolstad, 2010). The unique ability to use
language and symbolic systems were hardly mentioned by the
biologists. Focusing intently on biological changes they do not
490

A. KOLSTAD
refer to culture as a cause of selection. Because of this the evo-
lutionary biologists did not analyze the relationship between
biological and cultural development (deLima, 1997) and they
missed the most important for developing Homo sapiens: the
voice tube. The Neanderthals, in many ways similar to Homo
sapiens from a biological point of view, did not develop in the
same way. They lacked the voice-tube and could not develop
spoken language as did Homo sapiens.
Although the voice-tube had some biological drawbacks, for
instance increased exposure to choking and less effective chew-
ing (Lieberman, 2006) it represented an enormous enhancement
in flexibility concerning production of sounds, and therefore an
improvement of communication. This benefit meant the start of
human beings with higher psychological functions as we know
them today.
Language as a Cultural/Psychological Tool
With language and the substantial growth in brain size an
accelerated change began. Humans developed the ability to
think using a language, written language, rituals and arts. From
a biological and anatomical point of view however, we are in
principal similar to our ancestors 200,000 years ago. In a cul-
tural and psychological sense however, there are such huge
differences from our ancestors that it cannot be explained by
biological adaption (Kolstad, 2010). To explain radical changes
in humans the importance of language and other cultural and
psychological tools have to be accepted as a major contribution
to human development and higher psychological functions.
Vygotsky said that the greatest drama of ontological develop-
ment was played out in the very first words of a child—this
period illustrates and represents the conflict between the natural
and the socio-historical. Penetration of the plot of that drama
and its motive forces led Vygotsky to his principal theory: the
theory of the development of the higher psychological functions
(Yaroshevsky, 1989).
Human Language
No other specie has a language like the human language.
Vocal reactions in animals are not connected with intellectual
reactions, i.e., with thinking. It originates in emotion and is
clearly a part of the total emotional syndrome, but a part that
fulfills a specific function, both biologically and psychologi-
cally. It is far removed from intentional, conscious attempts to
inform or influence others. In essence, it is an instinctive reac-
tion, or something close to it. For humans language is some-
thing else than an instinctive, emotional reaction. It is objective
and social, connected to thinking and the correspondence be-
tween thought and speech characteristic of man is absent in
(other) animals. Thought and language have different genetic
roots and the two functions develop along different lines and
independently of each other up to a certain age, about 3 years.
The close correspondence between thought and speech that
characterizes man from about 3 years of age is absent in ani-
mals. “(T)he most significant moment in the course of intellec-
tual development, which gives birth to the purely human forms
of practical and abstract intelligence, occurs when speech and
practical activity, two previously completely independent lines
of development, converge” (Vygotsky, 1978: p. 24).
Language is not created by the subject. It exists indepen-
dently of it. The task with which the subject is concerned is the
use of a ready-made sign system (not one she/he creates on his
own) in communication, cognition or action in the surrounding
world. We often hear that “language is a tool of thought”. This
is a familiar expression among psychologists but language is
much more than a tool for thought. The word also has a voli-
tional function. Humans’ locomotive apparatus is subordinate
to it. The word has power over the real actions of humans’ bod-
ily structure and their psychological functions (Yaroshevsky,
1989). Literacy and the written language has contributed to hu-
man development and made Homo sapiens different from all
(other) animal s .
What had been a natural evolution of Homo sapiens has be-
come a cultural evolution for every individual. Human culture
influences every individual’s psychology and biology (espe-
cially the brai n), and culture creates higher psychological func-
tions, i.e. human perception, cognition, memory, motivation,
emotions etc., all the functions with which psychologists deal.
Communic ation amon g Animals and Humans
Animal’s communication is different from human commu-
nication: “Nonhuman primate communication consists of natu-
ral bodily and vocal expressions in direct response to events.
These expressions, in turn, directly stimulate behavioral res-
ponses in other members of the species. Such biological reac-
tions contrast with human communication which consists of in-
vented sounds that express symbolic concepts about things hu-
man words cognitively mediates rather than being immediate
by-products of them” (Geertz, 1966: pp. 25-26). Drummond
puts it this way: “Words are conventional, movements and
sounds are natural” (Drummond, 1894: p. 208).
From the very beginning a child is led along the path of psy-
chological development by adults. Communication serves as a
necessary condition for each new turn of a child’s thought.
Communication assumes understanding, and the instrument of
understanding is the word. The word’s “adult” meaning, how-
ever, cannot be poured into the head of a little child together
with the sign of the language; the words meaning will change
during development and new words or concepts develop under-
standing and enter into new connections, and knowledge and
understanding increase with the relation the word enters into.
.... “animals’ natural dispositions can be elicited by crude
communicative acts because the organism already knows what
to do. Human communication, in contrast, must tell the indi-
vidual what to do and how to do it, because he has no biologi-
cal guidance” (Geertz, 1966: p. 30).
One of Vygotsky’s main hypotheses was that cultural factors
and cultural operating mechanisms elevate and expand con-
sciousness beyond animal consciousness (Ratner, 2011). Hu-
man consciousness is more agentive since it is dependent on a
human shaped culture and not on biological mechanisms. Being
a socially constructed phenomenon and possessing cultural fea-
tures and mechanisms, psychology cannot logically be simul-
taneously governed, by natural, biological processes (Ratner,
2011). Biology has lost its determining function in human be-
haviour. To live in a human constructed culture calls for so-
cially constructed, designed, voluntary, changeable behaviour.
Culture determines the form, content, and conditions of behave-
iour. In contrast, the form, content, and conditions of animal be-
havior are determined by natural, biological elements. Elemen-
tary, natural mechanisms are antithetical to cultural-psycholo-
gical mechanisms and features. Biological processes and lower,
elementary psychological functions therefore have to recede

A. KOLSTAD
into the background as a general potentiating substratum of be-
haviour (Ratner, 2011). The driving forces of biological evolu-
tion within the animal world lose their decisive importance as
soon as we pass on to the historical development of man. New
laws regulating the course of human history which cover the
entire process of the material and mental development of hu-
man society now take their place (Vygotsky & Luria, 1930/
1993). Because “this auxiliary stimulus possess the specific
function of reverse action, it transfers the psychological opera-
tion to higher and qualitatively new forms and permits humans,
by the aid of extrinsic stimuli, to control their behavior from the
outside. The use of signs leads humans to a specific structure of
behavior that breaks away from biological development and
creates new forms of culturally-based psychological processes”
(Vygotsky, 1978: p. 40).
The biological and elementary functions have not disap-
peared but they have changed their function and importance as
they mingle with higher cultural functions. There is inter-func-
tionality between the organic maturation and cultural learning
which characterizes the merging and the development of a child
into a culture. Cultural learning and the acquisition of cultural
tools involve a fusion with the processes of organic maturation.
The two contributions to development—the natural and the cul-
tural—coincide and mingle with one another; they penetrate
one another and essentially form a single line of sociobiological
formation of the child as a cultural human being, developed
from a biological being (Vygotsky, cited in Wertsch, 1985: p.
41).
Humans capacity or requirement to acquire culture make
human social in a sense that is different from the sociability of
other species and explain the new principles of development
which appear once a child is born (Cole, 2002).
Thought and Language
As mentioned in the preceding there are qualitative differ-
rences between the psyche of man and that of (other) animals.
The key to man’s psychological functions is cultural- and so-
cial-genesis, the transformation of culture and social relations,
through interiorization, into the individual’s psychical acts and
with language the most important cultural and psychological
tool. We do not find this language mechanism in animals since
they do not have the biological prerequisites, the brain and the
voice tube nor a culture maintaining a language. Animals are
not able to think using a language and therefore not able to de-
velop higher psychological functions in the same way as hu-
mans. Language and thought have a particular significance in
humans. They stand in a dialectical relationship and constitute
each other reciprocally in an internal unity. Language objecti-
fies, completes, and informs thought just as thinking creates
language and produces its meaning (Ratner, 1991). “The two
processes manifest a unity but not an identity” (Vygotsky, 1987:
p. 280). “Speech does not merely serve as the expression of de-
veloped thought. Thought is reconstructed as it is transformed
into speech. It is not expressed, but completed in the word”
(Vygotsky, 1987: p. 251). Thought development is determined
by language, i.e., by the linguistic tools of thought and by the
sociocultural experience. The child’s intellectual growth is
contingent on his mastering of the social means of thought, that
is, language. How it develops is one of the most complex pro-
blems in psychology. To solve this puzzle mean to explain a
vital psychological function in humans.
The relation between thought and speech undergoes many
changes. Progress in speech and progress in thought are not
parallel. The meanings of words are not a constant. Words un-
dergo evolution especially during childhood but also in adult-
hood, and an important task is to describe and define the basic
steps in that evolution. For instance to uncover the singular way
in which the child’s “scientific” concepts develop, compared
with his spontaneous concepts, and also formulate the laws go-
verning their development means to reveal human develop-
ment. To demonstrate the specific psychological nature and lin-
guistic function of written speech in its relation to thinking is
also an essential task together with clarifying the nature of inner
speech and its relation to thought.
Conclusion
Biological determinism or reductionism cannot explain h-
uman emotions and behaviour since all higher psychological
functions characterizing humans are culturally created. Hor-
mones are for instance involved in all kinds of love, but only as
energizing mechanisms, The behavior, thoughts, feelings, and
experiences of love is culturally determined and variable and
not biologically determined as in animals. Biology has lost its
determining function in human behavior, which is only “natu-
ral” given the unique cultural environment in which people live.
Culture determines the form, content, and conditions of behav-
ior. In contrast, the form, content, and conditions of animal be-
havior are determined by natural, biochemical elements (Ratner,
2011). Psychology involves and includes natural, biological
processes, such as neuronal and hormonal activity, just as it
involves breathing air.
Culture determines the form, content, and conditions of b-
ehaviour for humans. In contrast, the form, content, and condi-
tions of animal behavior are determined by natural, biological
elements. Elementary, natural mechanisms are antithetical to
cultural-psychological mechanisms and features. The driving
forces of biological evolution within the animal world lose their
decisive importance as soon as we pass on to the historical
development of man. New laws regulating the course of human
history which cover the entire process of the material and men-
tal development of human society now take their place (Vygot-
sky & Luria, 1930/1993).
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