Jaan Valsiner

Bio: Jaan Valsiner is an academic researcher from Aalborg University. The author has contributed to research in topics: Cultural psychology & Dialogical self. The author has an hindex of 55, co-authored 384 publications receiving 12659 citations. Previous affiliations of Jaan Valsiner include University of Luxembourg & University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Why simple lessons from history are recurrely forgotten: the bubble of "epistemic markets"

Abstract: History of psychology entails knowledge that is relevant for the future of the discipline in two ways: (a) by demonstrating why potentially productive new ideas failed under socio-political conditions in the past, and (b) how such ideas can fit into the solutions for new tasks in the present and in the future. @e borrowing of the notion of epistemic markets from the domain of economics has highlighted the focus on the first, while a functional history of psychology works for the second. Markets increase —and lose-value of the already existing products, but are not loci of creation of these products. Hence the second direction of inquiry —analysis of the structure of once invented ideas that lost their value on "epistemic markets"— but can provide new impetus for a science that becomes self-averaging —is in order. Otherwise psychology in the 21st century becomes a socially visible and substantively inconsequential part of societies' self-presentation. @e crucial feature of developmen t of ideas —epistemogenesis— occurs prior to their entrance onto the relations of value negotiations of these ideas. History of psychology plays a pivotal role in keeping the epistemogenesis in the focus of contemporary psychologists who would otherwise be seduced by science administrators and their collaborating peers to succumb to the forces of the epistemic market. @e market is merely one part of the chain of knowledge construction that proceeds from the atelier or factory of thinking and research to the public display through the constraints of market makers. Markets do not produce —but re-distribute— value. Yet their function is central for future ideas —and history of psychol- ogy is the filter through which ideas of the past can be dissociated from, or connected with, the future. Psychology is on the move to renewed focus on general theories of basic human * Invited presentation at the XXII Symposium of the Spanish Society for the History of Psychology,

Theories and Methods in the Service of Data Construction in Developmental Psychology

Abstract: On July 11,1987, the menace of our modern busy world — a heart attack — claimed the life of Joachim Wohlwill. Wohlwill’s contribution to this volume remains his ‘scientific testament’ — for his colleagues and disciples to study, understand, and to advance further. Wohlwill’s contribution to the methodology of developmental psychology ranges over 25 years, from his earlier work on the uses of scaling (Wohlwill, 1963a) and empirical extensions of Piagetian research (Wohlwill, 1963b), to the publication of his major monograph The study of be- havioral development (Wohlwill, 1973), and beyond — ending with his contribution to this volume. Wohlwill’s concerns about methodology that would fit the needs of developmental research advanced with great continuity over these decades. He understood the need for reorganization of the scientific method for the purposes of developmental psychology. His contribution to the present volume provides multiple lines of thought for further development of his ideas.

Learning by expanding: An activity-theoretical approach to developmental research

Abstract: 1. Introduction 2. The emergence of learning activity as a historical form of human learning 3. The zone of proximal development as the basic category of expansive research 4. The instruments of expansion 5. Toward an expansive methodology 6. Epilogue.

Remembering. A Study in Experimental and Social Psychology, Cambridge (University Press) 1964.

Abstract: Part I. Experimental Studies: 2. Experiment in psychology 3. Experiments on perceiving III Experiments on imaging 4-8. Experiments on remembering: (a) The method of description (b) The method of repeated reproduction (c) The method of picture writing (d) The method of serial reproduction (e) The method of serial reproduction picture material 9. Perceiving, recognizing, remembering 10. A theory of remembering 11. Images and their functions 12. Meaning Part II. Remembering as a Study in Social Psychology: 13. Social psychology 14. Social psychology and the matter of recall 15. Social psychology and the manner of recall 16. Conventionalism 17. The notion of a collective unconscious 18. The basis of social recall 19. A summary and some conclusions.

Being There: Putting Brain, Body, and World Together Again

Abstract: From the Publisher: The old opposition of matter versus mind stubbornly persists in the way we study mind and brain. In treating cognition as problem solving, Andy Clark suggests, we may often abstract too far from the very body and world in which our brains evolved to guide us. Whereas the mental has been treated as a realm that is distinct from the body and the world, Clark forcefully attests that a key to understanding brains is to see them as controllers of embodied activity. From this paradigm shift he advances the construction of a cognitive science of the embodied mind.