Abstract
In recent years, research on imagination has been receiving novel academic attention. This chapter departs from Vygotsky’s seminal ideas on the development of imagination and presents a new integrative model recently presented under the perspective of cultural-dialogical psychology – a model that combines sociocultural and dialogical approaches and regards imagination simultaneously as an individual and cultural phenomenon, grounded in people’s embodied experience of the world, in social interaction and dialogical relations, and in the use of symbolic resources. It also discusses the fundamental role imaginative processes may play in adolescent development, for instance, in amplifying adolescent’s dialogical relationships with significant others (e.g., with peers and media characters) and projecting alternative ways of acting, feeling, and thinking about their worlds. A longitudinal case study conducted with a boy in transition to adolescence (10 to 12 years old) is presented. Following an idiographic methodology, data were collected through four rounds of in-depth interviews. The case analysis highlights the adolescent’s use of imaginative processes to create a new version of himself in graphic performance. It is suggested that imaginative processes, especially the process of imagining oneself, can be seen as crucial in favoring the regulation of subjective experience during adolescence and may foster the development of reasoning and abstract thinking, as well as in anticipating future challenges and possible new solutions to cope with stressful and difficult situations.
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de Mattos, E. (2021). Exploring Imaginative Processes in Adolescence: A Case Study Following Cultural-Dialogical Approach. In: Fossa, P. (eds) Latin American Advances in Subjectivity and Development. Latin American Voices. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-72953-0_4
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