Personality Syndromes in the Light of the Historical Crisis in Psychology, a Cultural-Historical Activity Theory Position

Abstract

<p>Following the cultural-historical activity theory guidelines, this study investigates the potential consistency between scientific methodologies and personality syndromes. By minding not falling into rough simplification and misleading generalization, our methodological assumption suggests a line of historical similarity worthy of being investigated deeply in future studies. The study looks into the consistency in the historical development of the methodologies representing ‘the symptoms’ of psychology as a science living through its historical crisis, on one hand, and the personality syndromes representing the ‘implicit methodologies’ of individuals, on the other. Such an approach allows one to draw more on personality syndromes, their taxonomy, and their root, in addition to the potential predictions of their destiny. A crucial methodological consideration that allows such dependency is that science is a <em>special </em>form (highly abstract and generalized) of creative activity sharing a similar nature to the daily ordinary creative activity of personality. So, science might represent an early historically elaborated version of the ordinary-daily form of activity structure, which allows us to hypothesize that personality syndromes, in their own characteristics, might share the developmental tendency of the noted methodologies rooted in the subjective-objective epistemological rupture as a ground of the historical crisis.</p>