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.

The fate of the forgotten: Chamberlain's work reconsidered.

Abstract: This article discusses the early psychological traditions developed at Clark University under the guidance of G. Stanley Hall. Anthropology and cultural psychology are both rooted in the notion that humans are social beings. That idea constituted a brief moment of theoretical unity between psychology and anthropology in the study of human language in its psychological functions. In that context, the work of Alexander Chamberlain is explored as a major contribution. Chamberlain—if viewed in the jargon of our contemporary social scientists—was deeply “interdisciplinary” in his work. Despite the positive meaning of the term “interdisciplinary” in contemporary discourse about the social sciences, the realities of social organization of any science entail separation rather than integration. Chamberlain’s work took place in parallel in anthropology and in developmental psychology under the interdisciplinary emphasis of “child study” as set up by G. Stanley Hall. Hall made child study the distinctive feature of the “Clark tradition” of psychology. Chamberlain’s work constituted both the beginning and the end of the (miniscule) “Clark tradition” in anthropology.

The Romantic Encounters

Abstract: In this chapter I look at the label romantic which seems to bring us to the realm of love poetry and serenades sung under the balconies of various beauties confined to their family fortresses Yet behind these images are psychological functions of the human mind to relate with their environment in imaginative, affectively overwhelming ways—in my terminology—using the pleromatic pathway of generalization (Chap 1) in its dominance over the schematizing pathway The main mechanism here is Einfuhlung—feeling-into the environment and thus feeling forward towards the future The romantic movements in nineteenth-century Europe and the Bhakti traditions in India provide a good example of the use of sensuality in the macro-social realms The feelings into one’s own body are guided towards anticipating the sublime, which in its turn leads to pleromatic signification of centrally relevant meanings (auspiciousness, patriotism, love) for human existence

The future of cultural psychology: An interview with Jaan Valsiner

Abstract: Jaan Valsiner (JV) has been the foremost cultural psychologist in the world for the last 30 years. In 2021 professor Valsiner turned seventy, and he agreed to do an interview with colleagues and students on his understanding of cultural psychology, its potential for innovation and its connection to his many interesting experiences from around the world. The interview was conducted by the three directors of the Center for Cultural Psychology in Aalborg Denmark: Carolin Demuth (CD), Brady Wagoner (BW), and Bo Allesoe Christensen (BA). For an extensive discussion of the different sides of Valsiner work, readers can consult the recently published Festschrift (Wagoner, B., Christensen, B., & Demuth, C. [Eds.]. [2021]. Culture as process: A tribute to Jaan Valsiner. Springer.).

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.