Article

Abstract The purpose of this article is to propose the Generative

Life Cycle Model (GLCM) in two versions. The ecological version
of the GLCM focuses on the cyclical images of successive
generations beyond an individual’s life and death within
ecological contexts. The spiral version of the GLCM is represented
by the repeated spirals with variants, and is characterized by the
multiple time concepts and the generative processes of life and
death. The linear time concept, represented as a horizontal arrow,
reflects an individual’s life characterized by a single stream of
time from birth to death. Certainly, each individual is unique and
can never be reproduced. Nevertheless, people can image and
narrate stories in which their lives are regarded as being
reproducible. These life stories based on repetition, reproduction,
recovery and renewal have significant meanings for generative
connections from past generations to future generations, and for
the imaginations of continuities of multiple human lives within
different historical eras.

Key Words generation, life and death, life cycle, life story, spiral
model, time concept

Yoko Yamada
Kyoto University, Japan
Yoshinobu Kato
Aichi Prefectural University, Japan

Images of Circular Time and Spiral

Repetition: The Generative Life
Cycle Model
Life-span developmental psychology covers the entire lifetime of a
human being by observing long-term change in the performance of
certain tasks as a function of age. In this research paradigm, time is
typically represented as a horizontal axis, extending from left to right.
But is this frame the only form of time representation that would be
useful for studying human development? As Hall (1983) has pointed
out, time is a core system of cultural, social and personal life, so each
culture must have its own time frame. For example, the Japanese
concepts of time (toki), age (toshi) and generation consist of cyclical
images, one of which is typically a twelve-year cycle. After a sixty-year

Culture & Psychology Copyright © 2006 SAGE Publications

(London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi) http://cap.sagepub.com
Vol. 12(2): 143–160 [DOI: 10.1177/1354067X06064575]
Culture & Psychology 12(2)

cycle, people think that they can return to the origin and renew their
lives. The cyclical time perspective may be combined with the concepts
of ‘cyclical change of life’, ‘seasonal transition and aging’ and ‘renewal
and recurrence of life’. This example suggests the possibility of an
exploration into multiple ways of looking at time, an exploration that
could improve our understanding of time generally and stimulate
further interesting research in life-span developmental psychology.
Recently, psychology seems to have opened its door to the contro-
versies on the psychological nature of time in relation to cultural and
historical contexts. This new trend brought into the academic discourse
of psychology is, in itself, a thrilling experience. Of these new theories,
Valsiner (1994) has developed his theory based on his idea of the irre-
versibility of time. Carr (1986) has argued that, unlike physical or objec-
tive time, the temporality of human experience and action is structured
as narrative. Lightfoot and Lyra (2000) have stressed the importance of
looking at human development through three major temporal contexts:
the phylogenetic, the ontogenetic and the cultural-historical. We
sympathize with these new looks at time:
• in terms of time based on developmental change;
• as narrative structures of human experience and action; and
• from the viewpoint of three major contexts in which human
development takes place.
However, in this article, we wish to emphasize the multiplicity of time
perspectives. It is important to take temporal perspectives into account
other than those of linear, irreversible and historical time. We think that
cyclical and spiral images or metaphors of time related to human life
and death are especially worth noting. The imaginary worlds and life
stories that people use to narrate their life and death must be based on
these kinds of images.
We begin by considering the nature of the time frame implicitly
adopted in psychology. Its first assumption is that time is linear, irre-
versible, unidirectional and progressive. The second assumption is that
time is an external entity, measured using some instrument, such as a
clock. According to Attali (1982), the history of time is described as a
history of time measurements that homogenize every moment of our
life and then enable us to quantify it. As a result, people of today think
of time as something that can be saved, consumed, lost, gained and
sold, just as money is. Hereafter, we call the time concept based on
these assumptions the linear progressive view of time.
Certainly, this view of time, which is widely accepted in contempor-
ary societies of the modern era, cannot constitute the only view of time

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in human history. Rather, various understandings of time have co-

existed in many different cultures. For example, in parts of Europe,
time was thought to be linear in the Hebraic period, but cyclical in the
Hellenistic period. These two perspectives probably reflect the differ-
ent temporal nature of phenomena in our living world. Many phenom-
ena can be looked at cyclically; we experience the succession of day
and night and the pattern of the seasons, and we observe the waxing
and waning of the moon and the regular movements of stars, in
addition to feeling the rhythmic beating of our hearts inside our bodies.
Naturally, human beings would formulate these regularities and
invent a calendar based on an idea of cyclical time for organizing
human life. We should not forget that certain facts, such as physical
decay and the aging process, tend to posit an idea of time that is not
only linear, but also involves movement in a single direction from the
past, through the present, and onwards to the future.
This is true not only in the Occident, but also in the Orient. In China
(Loewe, 1999), up until the 5th century BC, time was seen as a thread
or line that linked the past and present. It provided a starting point
towards which men and women could trace their ancestry, and the
permanent existence of their kin, stretching from one generation to
another. Nevertheless, time was also seen as a cycle of birth, death and
rebirth, charted in the movements of the stars, the growth and decay
of vegetation, the births of sons and daughters, and the deaths of
grandfathers and grandmothers.
In this study, besides the predominantly linear view of time that
holds in our modern age, we propose another model of time, based on
circular images of time that are still found in many cultures. In this
article, we reconsider the significance of a concept of cyclical time in
life-span developmental psychology, on the basis of two studies of
images drawn from a number of different cultures, and using our
own method, known as IDM (Image Drawing Method). Study 1
examines images of the life course and Study 2 examines images of the
relationship between this world and the next world. One member of
our study group (Yamada, 2002, 2004) has already proposed her own
life cycle model, called the Generative Life Cycle Model (GLCM). Here,
focusing on a recurrent time perspective, we attempt to develop a new
version of this, that is, a spiral version of the Generative Life Cycle
Model.

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The Ecological Version of the Generative Life Cycle

Model
As we know, ‘life cycle’ is not a new term in life-span developmental
psychology. Despite the fact that some psychologists use it as a key
word in their theoretical frame, does this necessarily mean that they
have really reflected on the circular nature of time? Certainly, life-span
developmental psychology is based on a time scope that covers an
entire life, from birth to death (Baltes, 1987); however, it is also based
on a unidirectional extension of time toward the future, and considers
nothing but a single human life. Yamada (2004) has pointed out that
although Erikson (1982) and Levinson (1978) used the term ‘life cycle’
in their model, what they actually proposed ended up constituting a
model of linear progressivism.
Yamada (2002, 2003, 2004) conducted Study 1 to understand how
people visualize their life course, and constructed a new model based
on these data. The participants were 874 Japanese university students.
They were asked to draw an imaginary map of their life (past, present
and future), in freestyle, without regard for drawing skill, and to
explain their images (Image Drawing Method, IDM). They were
encouraged to include a variety of images in their drawings.
The results included two contrasting types of visual image:
1. Ascendant: Many students depicted their lives using images of
progress and ascent. This represents linear progressivism and indi-
vidualism, which is in accord with Western models of develop-
mental psychology.
2. Circular: A number of images were classified as representing the
cyclical nature of life. Based on this type, Yamada constructed her
model, the Generative Life Cycle Model (GLCM). In this paper, we
develop the ecological version of the GLCM.
Before presenting this version, an explanation of our idea of
‘versions’ of the model is appropriate. It is necessary that the GLCM
should have a variety of versions, or, put another way, the core
meanings of this model cannot be revealed without referring to its
different versions, which are related, in turn, to different contexts. This
is because the model has such rich connotations that one abstract struc-
ture or one mathematical formula cannot cover them all. Just as the
prototype of a folktale is transformed into many versions, and
mediates different kinds of relationship between storytellers and listen-
ers, in a variety of cultures, so it is with this model. Since a single
expression of the model cannot cover all the multi-dimensional aspects

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of a phenomenon, and different expressions and explanations related

to different viewpoints and contexts are required, the model, necess-
arily, must have a number of versions. In our opinion, neither too
abstract a schema nor too concrete a figure is appropriate for represent-
ing a version of the model. It is important that versions include semi-
concrete images in order to reveal the meaning of aspects of a
phenomenon, without creating a reductive effect with respect to its rich
content and context.
Although Figure 1 shows a unique drawing, it illustrates the eco-
logical version of the concepts in the GLCM. The drawing indicates
that the life of a self has six phases:
1. A tree, and nothing else, is presented (i.e. in the beginning, an
ecological context preexists).
2. The tree begins to bear fruit. The first fruit (former generations) is
very beautiful. The fruit that is me (myself) has not appeared yet.
3. The fruit that is me appears in this phase.
4. The fruit that is me is not picked and remains on the tree.
5. The fruit that is me has fallen to the earth (death).
6. After my death, the fruit that is me nourishes the earth, and this will
continue in subsequent generations in an ecological context.
In Figure 1, time is regarded as a cycle and an apple symbolizes a
human life. Note that the Japanese word ‘mi’, which means fruit, has

Figure 1. An illustration of the Generative Life Cycle Model: an apple’s life cycle
(Yamada, 2002)

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the same pronunciation and the same origin as another Japanese word
‘mi’, meaning self and body. Therefore, the use of an apple as a
metaphor for the self has a deeply symbolic meaning. Furthermore, the
apple represents not only the self, but also the dual meaning of the
child and parent. An apple is the ‘child’ of an apple tree, and matures
into an edible fruit; its flesh contains seeds, which are its ‘children’. An
apple is both the child of a tree and a parent of the next generation. In
this circular depiction of an apple’s life, the fall of an apple does not
represent a useless death, but shows how the dropped fruit produces
new life in the form of the next generation. The Japanese concepts of
time (toki), age (toshi) and generation can be understood in terms of
cyclical images. This perspective may be combined with the concepts
of ‘cyclical change in nature’, ‘seasonal transition’ and ‘alternation and
renewal of generations’. Thus, it is possible to imagine a larger life
cycle, beyond that of an individual’s life or ego identity, by situating
that life within an ecological context. We may presume that the
meaning of fading and dying is valued in life. As this ecological
version illustrates well, the GLCM may be defined as a way of looking
at human development that is based, primarily, on the following five
concepts:
1. A cyclical model: Time perspectives and the transition of an individ-
ual’s life, as well as the life of a generation, are circular, spiral or
recurrent.
2. Change as a process: The process itself is fundamental. It is compared
with the linear model, in which the beginning (the origin) and end
(the goal or purpose) are important.
3. Generating and dying: The processes of declining and dying should
not be viewed negatively, since the emphasis is on the natural cycle
of transition, which includes these processes.
4. Contextualism: The core concept is not that of the individual self or
entity, but is constituted in contextual relationships. An individual’s
life cycle is fundamentally related to many other life cycles, such as
the life cycle of generations, the life cycle of spirits and the life cycle
within an ecological context.
5. Meaning of life: No phase of an individual’s life has a privileged
status over any other phase, because each phase has its own charac-
ter, nuances and meaning.
In short, the GLCM gives new meaning to the concept of a cycle.
First, it suggests the importance of a circular image of time, rather than
a linear image. Second, it holds that time has a reversible nature, rather
than the unidirectional, irreversible linear view. Third, it re-evaluates

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the significance of certain concepts, such as repetition and recycling.

We think that this re-evaluation is particularly important given that
modern societies are now so dominated by linear progressivism that
we are inclined, generally, to consider positive change as involving
only processes of ascending and rising, and concepts such as improve-
ment, competence or advancement as a function of time (Yamada, 2002,
2004).
The GLCM could help to free us from an individualistic point of
view; it could also facilitate the contextualization of a single human life
within a larger situation, beyond individuality. This model considers
the individual life cycle to be closely related not only to generation
cycles, which are constituted by the life cycles of individuals, but also
to larger ecological life cycles in nature. A nested system of multiple
cycles of different sizes might exist and interact with each other.
The GLCM is also characterized by its treatment of two temporal
processes: generating and dying. Referring to Janet’s admirable reflec-
tion, Bonaparte (1952), a famous French psychoanalyst, argued that
time consists of three different aspects: destruction, retention and
creation. This reminds us that in India there are three supreme Hindu
gods: Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, who represent these three aspects of
time, respectively. Thus, human beings have long been concerned with
the essential phenomena of time, that is, that everything on the earth
came into existence at a certain point in time, continues to exist for a
certain period, and then disappears.
Life-span developmental psychology aims at understanding how
humans grow, develop and change as a function of time. It actually
deals with the change a person undergoes from birth to death, but it
never deals with all of the aspects of time mentioned above. That is to
say, it does not usually touch on all the natural transitions in life, such
as losing, decaying and dying. Certainly, some psychologists are inter-
ested in the idea of loss in human development, but they always regard
such change as having a negative value, or as something to be gone
through as quickly as possible, or as something to be overcome with
courage. By contrast, the GLCM treats aging, decaying, losing and
dying as a part of the process of a natural cycle.

Images of Death, Transformation of the Soul and

Rebirth
Study 1 suggested that it was important to consider not only the uni-
directional image from birth to death, but also the imaginary story of
its opposite trajectory, from death to birth. This leads us to focus on the

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important role of a variety of myths, old tales and cultural images

concerning the soul as it exists after death. Humans have transmitted
such types of story from generation to generation. Every culture has
developed its own system of folk concepts related to life after death.
Influenced by cultural concepts of the next world, people construct the
meaning of their lives, and accept or protest their destiny in this world.
Psychology, which was founded as a modern science at the end of the
19th century, has long overlooked the concept of the soul and replaced
it with the mind (Reed, 1997). Can we carefully reconstruct and re-
evaluate a meaningful concept of the soul in contemporary contexts?
We (Yamada & Kato, 2001, 2004) studied folk images of the soul,
especially the structures of their different cultural representations, and
disregarded the question of whether the soul really exists. Our
approach here is in keeping not with cross-cultural comparisons, but
with the framework of cultural psychology (Markus & Kitayama, 1991;
Shweder, 1991; Valsiner, 2001) and theories of social representation
(Moscovici, 2000).
We surveyed young people’s images with respect to the following
three topics: (1) depictions of the relative locations and relationship
between this world and the next world after death; (2) depictions of
the transfer of the soul (tamashii) from this world to the next, or vice
versa; and (3) beliefs about the next world. The participants were Asian
(285 Japanese, 205 Vietnamese) and European (139 British and 159
French) university students. In the second image-drawing task, they
were asked to draw a picture in response to the following: ‘If the soul
exists after death, how do you imagine it? Please draw a picture repre-
senting your image of the soul’s passage from this world to the next
and from the next world to this. Please explain your drawing.’ The
results showed that the majority of Japanese students (63.7 per cent)
drew the soul returning to this world after visiting the next; only 32.7
per cent of them portrayed a unidirectional image of the soul going to
the next world. Figure 2 shows a good example of a cyclical depiction
(Japanese Case J371). The majority of Japanese students, who drew the
return of the soul from the next world to this one, imaged returning
souls re-entering human wombs or babies. Very few people produced
images of souls being reborn as other animals. Therefore, the circular
worldview represented in the happy birth–death–rebirth images
created by the majority of the Japanese is fundamentally different to
Hindu-Indian ideas of the negative images of the closed cycle: the
wheel of life or the transmigration of the soul. Indian religions, includ-
ing Buddhism, presuppose that the cycle of transmigration continues
indefinitely through a destiny and causality of painful punishment.

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Figure 2. Case J371 (Japanese)

Spiritual enlightenment means escape from this enduring cycle

(Vernette, 1998).
The participants from the other three countries depicted the soul
returning to this world less frequently than did the Japanese (Vietnam:
27.8 per cent, Great Britain: 25.0 per cent, France: 37.8 per cent). Never-
theless, some of them also produced drawings very similar to Japanese
Case J371. The cyclical image of French Case F118 (Figure 3), drawn by
a Catholic Frenchwoman, is analogous to the Japanese one. This image
is obviously not derived from Christianity, but we know that Greek
myths and folk beliefs often differ from systematic theology and have
the capacity to influence people’s lives profoundly (Davies, 1997).
Though there are numerous differences of cultural and religious back-
grounds and contexts, we can find common essences of psychological
images. The core meanings of the word ‘soul’ are as follows: (1) an
animating principle irreducible to purely material elements; and (2) a
non-material, psychological entity, separable from the body and surviv-
ing after death, in contrast to the physical body. The meanings of soul

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Figure 3. Case F118 (French)

(Greek: anemos, Latin: anima) and spirit (Latin: spiritus) are also derived
from the meanings of air and breath. In Japanese, the soul is called
‘tamashii’, which means essential core of life. Life is called ‘i-no-chi’,
where ‘i-’ means breath and ‘-chi’ means animating power. These words
reflect the essential power making the life of all creatures possible. Inter-
estingly, its meaning is similar to that of Western concepts, despite great
differences in culture and language between East and West.
It is easy to imagine that circular cosmologies derive from a naïve
image of the continuance of life and generations. Just as the animating
principle of a plant is preserved in the form of a seed after the plant
itself decays, so the animating principle of a person may be imagined
as preserved in the form of the soul or genes after the person decays.
The following season, the next generation, can be reborn from
preserved material, such as the soul or genes.

The Spiral Version of the GLCM: An Illustration of a Spiritual Life

Cycle
Here, we present the spiral version of the GLCM, which is illustrated
in Figure 4. As Figure 1 already shows, the ecological version of the

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Figure 4. The spiral version of the Generative Life Cyle Model: an illustration of the
spiral life cycle. (The hatched area shown in the figure represents a horizontal surface in
three-dimensional space.)

model is focused on an individual’s life cycle, from birth to death, and

successive generations, in an ecological context. By contrast, the spiral
version focuses on the human life cycle not only from birth to death,
but also from death to birth.
The spiral life cycle model shown in Figure 4 is characterized by its
depiction of spiral or whirl-like forms that constitute a nest of multiple
structures. Spirals or whirls are appropriate for symbolizing the essen-
tial meaning of the changing generative and dynamic processes of life.
In fact, as molecular biologists have found, a spiral form is closely
related to almost all of the dynamic movements of vital beings, as in
the double-spiral structure of DNA. A few examples of spirals from the
macroscopic to the microscopic include the emergence of galaxies in
the universe, the movement of typhoons and tornadoes, the growth of
vines, the existence of spiral shells and flagella, the pattern of a finger-
print, and the crystallization of high-molecular-weight substances. The
spiral has also been used in iconic representations as a symbol of death
and rebirth in many cultures.
In the spiral life cycle version shown in Figure 4, life cycles coexist
at multiple time perspectives. The linear time concept, implying
progression from the past to the present and then to the future, is

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represented as horizontal arrows directed from left to right on the

ground. This linearity reflects the life of each individual, which is char-
acterized by a single stream of time from birth to death. In contrast to
this unidirectional individual life, other kinds of lives, which are
recycled in different spaces, are depicted as repeated multiple spirals
in the figure. These are representations of multiple cycles from gener-
ation to generation, beyond an individual life. Note that these cycles
are depicted as repeated spirals with variants. Consider a simple
example: an apple tree never bears exactly the same fruit as other trees,
even if it continues to bear many fruit year after year. Each fruit is
unique. Nevertheless, if we change our viewpoint, from looking at its
uniqueness to the regularity and reproducibility of the event, or to its
similarity with other things, we can say, ‘Autumn has come and the
apples are ripening again!’ Both viewpoints can coexist. The same is
true for humans: we can experience multiple perspectives on our life
and world simultaneously. Certainly, each individual is unique and can
never be reproduced exactly. Nevertheless, we can say that we are
reproducible in the sense of endless continuity, from generation to
generation. It is a kind of repetition, not in the sense of a perfect repro-
duction of a unique individual, but in the sense of reproduction with
variants. The pictorial representations of open multiple spirals in
Figure 4 suggest the possibility of dynamic changes, produced by repe-
tition with variants.
It is worth mentioning here Overton’s two metaphoric concepts of
time, which seem, at first glance, to be partially similar to our model
(Overton, 1994). According to him, ‘the Arrow of Time’ is a metaphor
entailing a relational field of both non-closed cycles (spirals) and direc-
tion. This metaphor emerges from the organic narrative. ‘The Cycle of
Time’ is a metaphor of closed cycles that reduce apparent directional-
ity to nothing but variation, and it emerges from the mechanical narra-
tive. Overton related his two metaphors to a deep paradigm shift that
had occurred during the past three centuries, that is, a shift away from
foundational, objectivist, atomist, non-directional mechanistic category
systems toward interpretational, holistic, relational-dialectical, direc-
tional organic category systems.
We agree with Overton’s idea of a paradigm shift: However, we do
not share his metaphorical meanings of two kinds of time. In Overton’s
view, the cycle is used as a metaphor of mechanical changes and
therefore given rather negative meanings, whereas in our model it
represents the images of going back and forth, reversibility and retro-
gression, that need to be reconsidered as having positive meanings. In
both of the two views, the image of the spiral is used for representing

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the repetitive and non-closed nature of time. But Overton argues that
it has directionality and thus essentially belongs to the Arrow of Time,
whereas we think it to be a symbol reflecting an important aspect of
circular time. We don’t think of circular time as merely mechanical.
Rather, we wish to insist that it has a generative power by repetitions
with variants and that this kind of change may not necessarily have
directionality.
One of multiple time perspectives with respect to life cycles is that
of a recurrent time concept that includes retrogression from death to
birth. In folk representations based on this recurrent time concept, the
essence of life, called the ‘soul’, ‘spirit’ or ‘gene’, is detached from the
body after death and, after passing through certain processes, it once
again comes to dwell in the body of a mother. In this manner, the cycle
of birth, death and rebirth is repeated endlessly. Such cycles can be clas-
sified into three categories. Two types of cycle are drawn with dotted
lines: The first cycle, already shown in Figure 1, includes a passage
through an underworld, where the soul or spirit continues to exist in
the form of roots or seeds. Another cycle, already seen in Figures 2 and
3, is represented as a passage through the sky. In addition, we intro-
duced the third cycle, drawn with solid lines in Figure 4, for theoreti-
cal purposes. This cycle depicts a depth dimension, where the soul
starts from the point of origin, travels to a distant place, and then
returns to its original location.
Note that the Generative Life Cycle Model that we propose here is
quite different from other cyclical models in psychology and sociology.
In antiquity, a circular image of time appeared to be dominant. For
example, in Hindu tradition, a circular form like a wheel is used to
represent the very same thing, repeated eternally. Hindus gave the
wheel the power to shape human destiny. This form usually implies
centrality and stability, so it was a suitable symbol of the systematic
order that God brought out of chaos. In ancient Greece, time (cronos)
was represented as a large circular river surrounding the earth, or as a
snake swallowing its own tail. It was also closely related to the cyclical
regularity of the movements of heavenly bodies. It is important that all
these representations have circular forms.
In India, a circular image of time was also deeply rooted in people’s
minds. However, it always had a negative meaning. In typical Hindu
thought, humans are fated to an eternal vicious cycle of transmigration
of the soul, known as metempsychosis. Indian astrologists tried to
predict when and where the next rebirth of the dead person would
occur by relating it to a specific constellation in the heavens. As Eliade
(1958) pointed out, the myth of ‘eternal recurrence’, which is similar to

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this Hindu concept, is found in many cultures worldwide; further-

more, people have long believed that larger fatal cycles of time have
the overwhelming ability to dominate all human conditions.
Our cyclical model is very different from the typical ancient image
of circular time that mediates an endless repetition of a closed, stable
order or structure. In so far as it is cyclical, our model assumes a repet-
itive aspect of time; however, as it attaches more importance to the
generative, creative, ever-changing aspects of life, the image of a spiral
or tornado-like form is key. In our model, repetition does not have
negative connotations. Rather, it has positive connotations in that it is
based on a concept of ‘repetition with variants’.
A spiral form does not imply a pre-established harmonious stability;
rather, it suggests dynamic continuous change through repetition with
variants. This change is not merely regular change, but can include
many different types of variation, such as modification, mutation and
fluctuation, leading to genuine creative changes. In nature, as noted
above, many examples of spiral forms occur, in great variety. For
example, human fingerprints have similar repetitive patterns, while
they are, in fact, unique. This miraculous variety might be made
possible by the fact that every one assumes a spiral form. The same is
true for a spiral shell or for waves of dissolved color rippling outward
on water. These examples show that the spiral form constitutes a
powerful way to produce different patterns of almost endless variety
by inducing the slightest variation, by chance or otherwise.
Even in our contemporary societies, where the dominance of the
linear time concept has been well established, we do not ordinarily live
everyday life with a clear notion of linear time. For example, we use
watches, which turn on a twelve-hour cycle. Viewing the world as a
repeating and recurring phenomena provides people with a sense of
security. Despite the fact that the notion of ‘novelty’ is considered more
valuable than that of ‘repetition’, which reminds us of old-fashioned
customs and parrot-like imitation, we retain a sense of enhanced value
with respect to coming back to one’s starting point, such as a home
town or native country, and give much importance to the security
provided by such attachments in life. Imagine trying to experience
something new at every moment of time, so that one was always going
ahead without looking back, in order to find new experiences to
acquire. What would happen in this situation? It would be impossible
to maintain such a lifestyle. No creature could live safely in a spatio-
temporal system where time always moves forward at full speed. In a
positive sense, the spiral version of the GLCM gives generative
meaning to the notion of ‘repetition’.

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Finally, a further explanation of multiple perspectives of time is

offered here. As has been pointed out, the cyclical time concept
discussed in this study mediates different meanings to those mediated
by a linear view of time. However, our proposal does not necessarily
replace the linear view with a cyclical one. Thinking that A should
move to B might implicitly suggest a linear progression; thus, such a
proposal might, in fact, be rooted in a manner of looking at things from
a linear time perspective. Here, we propose that the focus should be on
coexisting concepts of time that are present within our culture. This
perspective in relation to coexisting linear and circular time structures
might lead to a reconsideration of the limited validity of ‘scientific
thinking’ that only considers the linear progression of events, on a one-
dimensional scale, such as developmental change from A to B or a
causal relationship between A and B. Contrary to the dominance of this
linear view, we propose, therefore, a new way of looking at time; we
call this new perspective ‘Ryoko’ (parallel going) in Japanese. This term
is derived from the work of the traditional Chinese philosopher
Tchouang-tseu, and generally means the parallel coexistence of contra-
dictory principles, concepts, phenomena, and so on. In our context, it
means, specifically, the coexistence of multiple time perspectives and
various forms of time consciousness.
Note that we should not consider multiple time perspectives as a
version of dualism, in that physical time measured with a watch is one
thing and psychological time experienced as a stream of consciousness
is another. Such dualism is far from ‘Ryoko’, because it merely divides
the world into two entities, materiality and mentality, and it never
assumes that these two are contradictory. Our proposal implies a
radical reconsideration of the concept of time, similar to that of White-
head (1925), made on the basis of Einstein’s theory of relativity. He
criticized the separation of the time concept from the space concept in
traditional Western epistemology and proposed a new concept of
events, which he conceived of as the unity of time and space. His
thought unfolds as follows: given that E1 and E2 are mutually co-
present event-particles, then E1 precedes E2 in a certain temporal
system, while in another temporal system, E2 might precede E1.
Furthermore, in a third temporal system, E1 and E2 could happen
simultaneously. At first glance, this seems paradoxical, but if we
assume the coexistence of different temporal systems, we realize that
all of these alternatives are possible.

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General Conclusion: Looking at the Non-linearity of

Time
Some papers suggest that the temporal relations of past, present and
future are not fixed but interact, and realities are reconstructed. Sheth
and Shimojo (2000) claimed that present perceptual events could affect
the past. They reported that spatial, working memory was systemati-
cally distorted and interacted with by subsequent perceptual events.
They showed that the memory of the target position that was being
stored, and later distorted on-line, was affected by the illusory target
position. An on-line representation of the target’s original position is
updated in an ongoing fashion in order to reconcile the perceived
illusion with the perceived present.
The possible world (Bruner, 1986) and assumptive world in the
future could affect the present. Inversely, although we can never meet
historical figures, their writings can influence our behavior, long after
their deaths, in the present and into the future. Some of the starlight
that we can see now has traveled for millions of light years, and the
source might already be a dead star. In this manner, the past and future
are incorporated into the present; thus, the idea of the coexistence of
multiple structures for time is based on relatively familiar phenomena
in our everyday life.
In this article, we do not insist that the linear time concept be
replaced by a circular one, but propose a model that leads to a differ-
ent way of looking at life-span development by situating it in a context
of multiple coexistent time perspectives. Our ecological and spiral
versions of the GLCM should serve to construct new theories of life-
span development that could facilitate the integration of individual
levels of life with larger cycles of generations. Our framework, which
uses ideas of circular time, reversible time and refrains with variants,
will also be useful for introducing a new, generative way of examining
phenomena in psychology.

Acknowledgements
We are grateful to Prof. J. Valsiner and Prof. S. Shimojo for reading the first
draft and making helpful suggestions. This study was supported by a
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research from the Japanese Ministry of Education,
Science and Culture (representative: Yoko Yamada) and by the 21st-Century
Center of Excellence Program for the Psychology Association in Kyoto
University.

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Biographies
YOKO YAMADA is a Professor of the Graduate School of Education at Kyoto
University. Her expertise is in life-span developmental psychology, and,
especially, she is a theorist of developmental models and narratives in
Japanese culture. She has studied life stories and visual representations of
death in multiple cultures. More recently, she has examined coexistent
narratives in Japanese cinema, referring to Bakhtin’s dialogic narratives. She is
a contributor to the following two books: The Generative Society: Caring for
Future Generations (E. de St Aubin, D.P. McAdams, & T.C. Kim, Eds., American
Psychological Association, 2004) and Practicing the Afterlife: Perspectives from
Japan (S. Formanek & W. Lafleur, Eds.; Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie
der Wissenschaften, 2004). ADDRESS: Prof. Yoko Yamada, Graduate School of
Education, Kyoto 606-8103, Japan.
[email: l50096@sakura.kudpc.kyoto-u.ac.jp]

YOSHINOBU KATO is a Professor of the Department of Child Education at

Aichi Prefectural University, Japan. He has been working on the development
of spatial representation in children and its micro-genesis in adults. More
recently, he has been interested in younger children’s understanding of video
images, including the image of the self. He has also published articles about
French thought on human development, especially that of Henri Wallon.
ADDRESS: Prof. Yoshinobu Kato, Department of Child Education, Faculty of
Letters , Aichi Prefectural University, Kumabari, Nagakute-cho, Aichi
480-1198, Japan.
[email: yo-kato@lit.aichi-pu.ac.jp]

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