ABSTRACT
The field of embodied cognition encompasses various empirical approaches that are connected through a shared recognition of the importance of bodily factors in mental life (e.g., Anderson, 2003; Foglia & Wilson, 2013; Shapiro, 2011, 2014; Wilson, 2002). The implications of embodiment continue to be the focus of much debate, particularly in terms of the extent to which the body plays a constitutive versus simply an enabling role in cognitive processing (Menary, 2010b; Müller & Newman, 2008; Rowlands, 2010; Wheeler, 2005). The current chapter initially examines similarities and differences between two particular approaches to embodiment, specifically the functionalist and enactive accounts. The discussion will then turn to considerations of embodiment in the process-relational developmental systems metatheory (Lerner, Agans, DeSouza, & Hershberg, 2014; Overton, 2014). In the process-relational approach, embodiment is a construct that integrates the various standpoints (neural, individual, sociocultural) from which human mental life can be studied. It will be argued that the inherently ontogenetic orientation of this approach, which is less apparent in other views of embodiment, can facilitate progress toward a truly integrative developmental science of psychological life.
