ABSTRACT
Although systems theory has been widely used in some domains of psychology, such as family studies (for an overview and historical account, see Anderson, 1993; Whitchurch & Constantine, 1993), and was central in the work of such eminent researchers as Bateson (1972), Bowlby (1991), and Gibson (1950), systems theory has not become a well-articulated metaphor in some areas of psychology. In the domain of intelligence, systems theory can be used to investigate how systems formed by persons and their tools function during problem-solving activities. An expressive and well-known example that illustrates how systems theory contributes to the analysis of higher order intellectual functioning is found in Bateson (1972):
Sternberg (1990) considered systems theory to be the vaguest of the metaphors applied to intelligence, an attempt to bring together various other metaphors “by viewing intelligence in terms of a complex interaction of various cognitive and other systems” (p. 261). Thus I attempt to be more specific about the use of this metaphor in the study of intellectual development. I concentrate here on five basic aspects of systems theory, to be summarized later, and refer to them as I discuss how they were used in Vygotsgy’s and Piaget’s theories. I suggest that systems theory is not simply a framework compatible with Vygotsky’s and Piaget’s theories, but that it is actually more than that: Both theories rely on the systems theory paradigm. They use systems theory to solve one common problem-the relation between intelligence and the body-and arrive at the same solution: There is no specific organ for intelligence. They also use it to solve different, complementary problems. I consider each theory in turn, starting with Vygotsky and Luria.
