Pleasure of Thinking

Tania Zittoun demonstrates that there is pleasure in thinking and that the pleasure of thinking plays a key role in our lives - in the development of children in learning in adult life and in ageing. Drawing on arts and philosophy exploring research in developmental psychology cultural psychology and psychoanalysis it highlights five modalities of thinking: curiosity the functional pleasure of pursuing a task the pleasure of discovery the dialogical pleasure of thinking with others and a meta-pleasure. This book proposes a unique integrative model of thinking conceived as a situated activity following trajectories that combine modalities of pleasure. Evolving with time the pleasure of thinking can take place as we reason make sense or daydream at school at work when we garden or do science. Academics and graduate students in sociocultural critical developmental and cognitive psychology will benefit from The Pleasure of Thinking.