ABSTRACT

Eight chapters ago, I held ou t the prom ise o f a synthesis : a gathering

together o f the threads that the last seven chapters contain. T he pros-

pect no w seems a little bleak, general ideas serving only too often as ‘short cuts from one area o f ignorance to another’. It is w orth attem pt-

ing even so, no t because m y studies have a strict, logical un ity o f p u r-

pose - they do no t; bu t because they belong together, in the sense that

they occupy the same field. I shall try to say w hat this field is ; partly for clarity’s sake, partly because m y results suggest a new fram e o f

reference for w ork on intellectual developm ent as a w hole. B etw een them , the results o f the preceding pages suggest a v iew o f

hum an developm ent w hich stands m idw ay betw een that o f the

psychologist and that o f the social scientist - one now incarcerated,

in fact, in the textbooks o f social psychology.1 It seems that w e are bound to envisage the intellectual g row th o f the individual, the evolu-

tion o f his characteristic fram e o f m ind, as the product n o t only o f his

genetic endow m ent and horm onal secretions, but o f a continual traffic w ith his context - w ith parents and teachers, examinations and

curricula, prejudices and m yths. A nd even w hen his fram e o f m ind is firm ly established, it seems that an individuars intellectual perform -

ance is partially conditioned by the audience for w hich, and the

setting in w hich, it is produced. H ence transplantation from one context to another m ay radically alter the am ount o f m ental ability he is

free to display. Faced w ith such a diversity o f possible causes - genetic, physio-

logical, psychological, educational, familial, cultural - 1 feel the need

for a centre o f focus; to feel that I am no t m erely w orking in a field,

bu t w ith a particular crop in m ind. W ith o u t this the evidence still

sprawls. T he idea round w hich m y results have in fact coalesced is the

fam iliar one o f personal identity’. M uch o f w hat interests m e m ost

a b o u t4the nature, functions and phenom ena o f the hum an m in d /1 relates in one w ay or another to our sense o f w ho w e are and the be-

haviour that befits us. A nd increasingly, I see our sense o f identity as exerting a controlling influence over the intellectual choices w e make,

and the m ental abilities w e are w illing to reveal.