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Embodied Cognition is a Matter of Grip: Humanistic Cognitive Science and the Phenomenology of Attunement

Garri Hovhannisyan

Journal of Humanistic Psychology March 3, 2026 DOI: 10.1177/00221678261422777 (opens in new tab)

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Study at a glance

AI-extracted from the abstract
Characteristics Theoretical or philosophical paper Peer reviewed
Topics Philosophy of mind
Key points Argues that cognition should be understood not as abstract mental content but as an embodied mind achieving "optimal attunement or grip" with the perceptual world. The author grounds this concept in Husserl's and Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology, extends it through enactivist, ecological, and humanistic frameworks, and contends that research on personality traits and styles of "grip" shows its relevance to psychological theory and practice.

Abstract

This article advances the view that cognition is to be found not in the world of abstract mental content but in the intricate interplay between an embodied mind and its world. Accordingly, the guiding theme of this article is that having a mind is about achieving a kind of optimal attunement or grip with the world of perception through embodied means. The article thus begins by situating the concept of grip within its proper philosophical context—the phenomenological tradition—with a special emphasis on the contributions of Husserl and Merleau-Ponty. It then surveys contemporary theoretical and empirical developments within the cognitive and human sciences that extend and further refine the concept of optimal gripping, including enactivist, ecological, and humanistic frameworks. It concludes by reviewing emerging research on the relationship between personality traits and styles of grip in the context of applied personality assessment, demonstrating the significance of optimal gripping—and therefore of phenomenology and embodiment—for psychological theory and praxis.

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