The semiotic predicament of developmental psychology

Abstract

This article critically assesses various proposals for a cultural semiotics of maturity and developmental stages. Semiotic theories consider developmental subjectivity as a function of a person's progressive immersion into sign systems, and are key to a denaturalization and contextualization of the life-staged subject. A semiotic understanding of maturity inspired by the post-Marxist work of Jean Baudrillard suggests that neo-Marxist indictments of consumer society as alienating individuals either by ‘hurrying’ or infantilizing them, is complicit with a more profound and ambient naturalization of life stages. However, a look at Japan's ‘cute culture’ (kawai karucha) is taken to suggest that both developmental psychology and its critique, may be, importantly sidetracked by late capitalist mass production and circulation of maturational markers. Various implications of this case study for developmental psychology are discussed.