Aleksei Leontiev

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Lore & Background

Aleksei Leontiev began his studies in 1921 at the historical-philological faculty of Lomonosov Moscow State University, which at the time included a Department of Philosophy where Georgy Chelpanov was teaching psychology. Leontiev studied psychology with him. In 1924, Leontiev graduated from what became the Faculty of Social Sciences. From 1924 to 1930, he worked with Lev Vygotsky and Alexander Luria, collaborating on the development of Marxist psychology as a response to behaviorism and the focus on the stimulus-response mechanism as an explanation for human behavior. Leontiev left Vygotsky's group in Moscow in 1931 to take up a position in Kharkiv. He continued to work with Vygotsky for some time but, eventually, there was a split, although they continued to communicate with one another on scientific matters (van der Veer and Valsiner, 1991). Leontiev returned to Moscow in 1934.

Reader's Guide

Leontiev'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. Systematic development of the psychological foundations of activity theory was started in the 1930s by the Kharkiv group of psychologists headed by Leontiev, including researchers such as Zaporozhets, Galperin, 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 Leontiev had moved to Moscow and took a position at the Moscow State University. Later, he became the Head of the Psychology Department at the Faculty of Philosophy of Moscow State University. In 1966, Leontiev became the first ever Dean of the newly established Faculty of Psychology at the Moscow State University, where he worked until his death in 1979. For Leontiev, the psychological 'activity' consisted of those processes 'that realize 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' (Leontiev 1977). The core of his work is the proposal that we can examine human processes from the perspective of their psychological macrostructure in three interrelated units: the stimulating unit of activity and motives, the behavior-orientation unit of actions and goals, and the conditional unit of operations that serve as means for the achievement of action goals.

Did You Know?

• Leontiev began his studies at Moscow State University in 1921 at the historical-philological faculty, studying psychology under Georgy Chelpanov.
• He worked with Lev Vygotsky and Alexander Luria from 1924 to 1930, collaborating on Marxist psychology as a response to behaviorism.
• In 1931, Leontiev left Vygotsky's group in Moscow to take a position in Kharkiv, and though a split eventually occurred, they continued to communicate on scientific matters.
• Leontiev became the first ever Dean of the newly established Faculty of Psychology at Moscow State University in 1966.
• His 1931 study on mediated memory, 'The development of higher forms of memory', was part of Vygotsky's cultural-historical research program.