contexts to the forefront. Indeed, efforts for integrating motivation, emotion,
and cognition have been made by those pioneers of cognitive psychology
(e.g., Bruner, 1986; Norman, 1980; Simon, 1967, 1979, 1994). Yet, much re-
mains to be desired. Kintsch (1998) lamented that “an all too narrow focus
on cognition places intolerable restrictions on cognitive science” (p. 13). He
predicted that future progress would depend on the ability to reintegrate the
cognitive and emotional-motivational aspects of human behavior (see also
Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, 2000; Bruner, 1994; Gardner, 1985; Hilgard,
1980; Hoffman, 1986; Norman, 1980; Resnick, 1989; Shuell, 1996; Simon,
1994, for a similar position).
In the rest of this introduction, we provide an overview of different per-
spectives on intellectual functioning and development, and highlight and pre-
view some of the issues discussed in the ensuing chapters. Specifically four
general perspectives are discussed:
1.Cognition in motivational and affective contexts. We present three basic
approaches to integration: neurobiological, psychological-behavioral,
and phenomenological.
2.Intelligence and personality. We discuss how the field of differential psy-
chology moves toward a more dynamic, multidimensional approach to
understanding intellectual functioning.
3.Development of intellectual competence. We discuss the emergent role of
personal agency, and in what way personal agency helps develop high
levels of expertise through learning and development.
4.Intellectual functioning and development in social cognitive and cultural
contexts. We discuss social contexts as integral part of intellectual func-
tioning and culture as an important modulator of intellectual function-
ing and development.Due to the scope and nature of the topic at hand, our introduction is sche-
matic, illustrative, and occasionally speculative.
COGNITION IN MOTIVATIONAL
AND AFFECTIVE CONTEXTS: FUNCTIONAL-
DEPENDENCY PERSPECTIVES
The notion that basic mental processes such as attention, perception, cogni-
tion, and memory never occur as neutral events containing raw data of what-
ever is registered or encoded, but rather colored with motivational and affec-
8 DAI AND STERNBERG