Aleksei N. Leontiev - Scientific Work

Scientific Work

Leont'ev's early scientific work was done in the framework of Vygotsky's cultural-historical research program and focused on the exploration of the phenomenon of cultural mediation. Representative of this period is Leontiev's study on mediated memory in children and adults The development of higher forms of memory, 1931.

Leont'ev's own research school is based on the thorough psychological analysis of the phenomenon of activity. Systematic development of the psychological foundations of activity theory was started in the 1930-s by Kharkov group of psychologists headed by Leont'ev and included such researchers as Zaporozhets, Gal'perin, Zinchenko, Bozhovich, Asnin, Lukov, etc. In its fullest form, activity theory was subsequently developed and institutionalized as the leading psychological doctrine in the Soviet Union in the post-war period after Leont'ev had moved to Moscow and took a position at the Moscow State University.

For Leont'ev, ‘activity’ consisted of those processes "that realise a person’s actual life in the objective world by which he is surrounded, his social being in all the richness and variety of its forms" (Leont’ev 1977). The core of the Leont'ev's work is the proposal that we can examine human processes from the perspective of three different levels of analysis. The highest, most general level is that of activity and motives that drive it. At the intermediate level are actions and their associated goals, and the lowest level is the analysis of operations that serve as means for the achievement of the higher-order goals.