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Context, Overview

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Encyclopedia of Critical Psychology
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Introduction

The study of psychological processes is increasingly characterized by a focus on understanding the dynamic relationships that exist between people and different life contexts. Although the study of environmental contexts has long been a goal for psychology, the ways in which contextual factors are interconnected and the mutual shaping of human action and life’s context still need to be better conceptualized.

Definition

Context is the background of a figure and cannot exist separately. The key element allowing the creation of the relationship amidst inside and outside social settings is the idea of the link between context with the figure itself (Kindermann & Valsiner, 1995). When a phenomenon comes into being, context is necessarily there. This idea is in contrast with the “traditional” psychological concept of context, understood as something into which a person is placed.

According to Valsiner’s notion of context (1987), the organism creates the context and the context...

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Correspondence to Giuseppina Marsico .

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Marsico, G. (2014). Context, Overview. In: Teo, T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Critical Psychology. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-5583-7_656

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-5583-7_656

  • Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4614-5582-0

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4614-5583-7

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