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.

Theory of the Dynamic Sublime

Abstract: In the chapter the focus on the process of affective transcending of their mundane lives and—simultaneously—finding such self-constructed acts of invention affectively overwhelming, are viewed as the key features of sensuality This leads to the construction of the sublime that philosophers from eighteenth century onwards have tried to understand The dynamic moves between the mundane and the sublime do not necessarily cross the border to the post-sublime domain They remain episodic encounters with the awesome—turned into one or another form of hyper-generalization (grotesque, humor) for their returns to the mundane domain The zone of the sublime is where most solutions for problems in the everyday life are being contemplated Religious institutions of all varieties have skillfully set up specific places for support for these moves—in the forms of sacred rivers and forests, temples, synagogues, churches, and other shrines Our secularized societies add to these art museums, concert halls, movie theatres, tourist spots, restaurants, schools, psychotherapists’ offices, and saunas Persons are expected to navigate out of their everyday life contexts of home to encounter places that support their entrance into the zone of sublime—for subsequent return to the ordinary life In that process the pleromatic generalization pathway leads the schematization processes, with hyper-generalized affective meaning fields providing solutions for the mundane issues Not only are affective processes primary in the human mind, but their hierarchical integration leads us to understand the seemingly paradoxical unity of love and violence in any of our societies, and within the minds This chapter gives the historical and philosophical background to the rest of the book

Introspection as the Basic Method in Psychological Science

Abstract: The primary method of psychology needs to be introspection. Yet any introspective evidence, to be of value to science, needs to be explicated into the public domain—“shared” between people and generalized from scientific knowledge creation. In this chapter I outline the original Wurzburg method of Karl Buhler and its transformation by Brady Wagoner. Analysis of the rating scales is included.

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.