Subjective Experience and Culture: Structure and Dynamics

The article examines the formation and dynamics of structures of subjective experience and culture. Culture is understood as an environment consi.sting of artificially created patterns of «affordances». The results of the res.earch represent the evolution of impli.cit social representations in the period of social and economic changes in Rus.sia. The authors describe language as a special instrument used in individuals reports and self.reports on results of their behaviour, with which they evalu.ate the significance of individual res.ults for the community; they argue that this instrument is community.specific They give a complex definition of cul.ture and discern its elements and units. They also offer a systematic view of morals and make an analogy between morals as a feature of under.differentia.ted systems in culture, on the one side, and emotions as a feature of under.dif.ferentiated systems in the structure of subjective experience, on the other si.de. In contrast with this, they link law and consciousness to the high.differen.tiated systems of the same structures.