Intellectual Biography of Jerome Bruner - Essay Example

Introduction

Jerome Seymour Bruner was born on October 1, 1915, to a father who was a watch manufacturer in New York City. He was born blind resulting from cataracts. His father was called Herman Bruner and mother Rose Bruner who were immigrants from Polish Jewish origin. His father died when he was at the age of 12 but had already sold his business hence left them a well-off family. At the age of two years, an operation done to him was successful and restored his sight. In the year 1937, Bruner received his bachelor’s education degree from Duke in psychology. In the year 1939 he got his master degree in psychology and the year 1941 he was awarded a doctorate in psychology from Harvard University. It was in the year 1939 that Bruner published his first psychological article on thymus effects on the sexual behaviors of the female rat. He served as an expert to the US army specializing in psychological warfare during the Second World War. In the military he was trained on intelligence and used his training to assess propaganda. In 1945 he returned to Harvard as a professor of psychology. He was able to direct the university`s center for cognitive studies. In 1972-80, he was at the Oxford University as an experimental psychology. He later in his life he was able to teach at the New School for Social Research in the New York City, before joining New York University School of Law. He was married to Blanche Ames Marshall and Katherine Frost, but the two marriages ended in divorce. However, his third wife Carol Feldman passed away in 2006. He had two children, Whitney Bruner in Vienna and Jane Mullane based in Tewksbury, England. Bruner also has three grandchildren at his death. Bruner turned 100 years in October 2015 but died on 5th June 2016.

Educational career

Harvard University. Jerome Bruner returned to Harvard University as a professor of psychology. At Harvard, he was involved in researchers that related to educational psychology cognitive psychology. In 1960 Bruner established a department together with his colleague George Miller as the co-director. The center for cognitive studies, Harvard University. Within the three-decade period, Bruner was able to do publications on cognition, learning theory and perpetual organization which made a significant departure from the mind-blindness of behaviorism. Bruner also while at the university made an investigation regarding the cognitive development of children where he advanced a three internal representation system. First as the enactive or the action-based, second as the iconic or image-based and finally as symbolic or the language based.

At Harvard, Bruner advanced the possibility of internal representation to produce a variety of thoughts. The theory was able to give a distinction between narrative thought and paradigmatic thought. Narrative thought encompasses causally sequential, which focuses on the details and actions. Similarly, paradigmatic thoughts include mental categorization, recognizing similarities of the unrelated phenomena and abstract. However, the two fundamental contributions are seen in the educational psychology and cognitive psychology while at Harvard.

Educational psychology. While at Harvard he published various publications regarding educational systems and how these systems could be improved. He posted a book titled the process of education. In his book, he noted as quoted that, "knowing how something is put together is worth a thousand facts about it." He insisted that education was not just about the fact memory. From the period of 1964 to the year 1996 he was on a mission to establish a curriculum that was better placed than the one which was being used to benefit student wholly. He was creating an educational environment that was going to focus on three issues. One of what was being uniquely humans on the human beings. Secondly, how humans were able to get to that situation and finally how the human was able to become more. The published a book in the year 1966 related to education and was titled, Towards a Theory of Instruction. In the year 1973, he also made a publication of another book titled The relevance of Education and a final edition of a book, called the Culture of Education. The contributions of Bruner to the study of education has been invaluable and used to date world over.

The cognitive psychology. The central concept in the idea of cognitive psychology that was postulated by Jerome Bruner while at Harvard was that in the study of developing a successful function regarding an artificial intelligence and or computer science, then it was possible to conduct testable inferences concerning the mental process of human beings.

New York School of Law. Jerome Bruner started as a visiting professor at the NYU School of Law. He later contributed to the integration of law, society, and culture. The further studied how psychology was influencing the legal practice.

Oxford University. At the Oxford University, Jerome was able to do several types of research in the department of psychology. One crucial such kinds of research involved the study of preschool children across Oxfordshire.

Cognitive psychology

Bruner is regarded as one of the leading pioneering cognitive psychologists in the United States of America. The "New Look" school of psychology advanced by Bruner postulated that the perception of people about objects and some events are sometimes in many ways influenced by their unseen cultural and social conditions. This pioneering work began through his researchers based on perception and sensation being active as opposed to passive processes. In 1947, he published his work on Value and Needs as Organizing Factors in Perception. In the publications, children from both the affluent and low-income families were requested to makes estimates of coins and wooden disks which were the size of the American nickels, dimes, pennies, half-dollars and quarters. The research findings established that the values varied and needs which the poor and rich children associated with making them overestimate the sizes of the coins they were given. This was a comparison to the dimensions of the disks they were given. This particular research was vital and helped him in reaching a conclusion that the motivations of a human being were very complicated and were driven or directed with various variables like the emotions, cultural training, and imaginations.

Conversely, Burner did another research with other colleagues like Leo Postman. The analysis showed some levels of lower reaction times and some less accurate responses when playing cards reversed the suit symbol`s color of some cards. These experiments were issues in a known new look psychology which was aimed at challenging psychologists to study the organism`s stimulus and also the subjective interpretation. In the year 1956, Bruner published a book titled, A Study of Thinking which was meant to initiate cognitive psychology as a study formally. It was at this time that he helped in establishing the Harvard center of cognitive studies. In one of his books regarding cognitive psychology called Acts of Meaning, Jerome refuted the computer models designed for the mind studying and advocated for a more holistic approach to the study of the mind by postulating the understanding the brain itself and its other conditions.

Publication

A Study of Thinking. This is a book that was published and mainly talked about the study of how human being strives to attain rationality even though they face a level of constraints imposed to them by bias, limited memory, limited attention, risks regarding the error that are imposed or pushed by the limited timeframes and ignorance. The book was first published in the year 1956 and is still being regarded as one of the best books in the discovery of the mind. The book introduces the cognitive aspect of psychology as a revolution due to its artificial intelligence that is handmaid. The primary objective of the paper is centered on the scientific study of humans concerning the meaning and his/her achievements as opposed to the behaviorists' stimuli or responses, the following presumed relations between them. The research and findings recorded in the book by Bruner recount that dozens of the experiments that have been done are critical as they show how human beings have been able to use strategies that penetrate deep structures of the information that they encounter. A Study of Thinking was hailed as a revolutionary publication in the 1950s regarding the study and understanding of cognitive psychology.

Acts of meaning. This was one of the major publications by Jerome Bruner where he sets a differently new agenda for the study of cognitive psychology hence the study of the human mind. The book seeks to study the aspect of the brain that makes meaning to the experiences. The irrepressible human act for imaginations allows the human beings to be able to make meanings out of their skills as advanced by the book. The author stipulates that this is the good side of the human brain making it possible for an individual to tell sweet stories, primitive myths, good drama, rituals and the various plausible human accounts. The book further advances that the narrative mode of the mind is essential in the human study of the brain. The recent works, in theory, literature, and linguistics, cognitive and developmental psychology the author examines the various mental aspects of actions that enter imaginative creation of the possible world. He shows in the book, how the imaginary world has influences science, philosophy, and literature. Further, he depicts how the human`s sense of self and the everyday thinking is affected.

One of the other publications of Jerome Bruner was on the field of education where he made tremendous efforts in his contributions to the psychology of teaching. The culture of Education, published in 1996. Jerome Bruner states, “What we don't know about learning could fill a book--and it might be a school book” in his book titled, Culture of Education. In this work, the author notes how education can usher children into their culture which at the time of his publications, did not. He proposes that the mind can only reach its fullest possibility if it is used in participation in cultural issues more so in thinking, carrying discourses and feeling. He insists in the book that education could not be reduced to merely sorting out information and knowledge, but to help the learners in understanding the construction of meaning in different phenomena.

Educational contribution

There are various aspects in which Jerome Bruner has contributed in the field of education. Most importantly, he was one of the leading pioneers in the field of cognitive psychology. His studies of the human mind and the experiments were recognized world over. The contribution to education was also seen in his book publications that helped in the curriculum developments. The editions, of the books, The Process of Education and another book, Towards a theory of Instructions. Have been recognized as classics. In the course of his works and practice, he was influenced by many people, and also changed various colleagues. At Oxford University, he led researchers to the academics works of the preschools in the Oxfordshire which influenced policy.  Some of the people Bruner worked within oxford includes, Alison Gopnik, Magda Kalmar), Alan Leslie, Roy Pea, Susan,Michael Scaife, andKathy Sylva among others. He worked with President Kennedy as an advisor on psychology. He also worked with the military in the Second World War to study intelligence and interpret propaganda. Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky born in 1896 was a psychologist having graduated in Moscow Russia. He influenced Jerome Bruner in some issues, but one of the influence he had on him was that language served human beings to mediate between them and the environmental stimuli.

Conclusion

As established from the paper, Jerome Bruner who was born in 1915 managed to influence the world in various scholarly ways. Before he died at 100 years, he was one of the leading researchers for the army of the USA, in the period of the Second World War. Additionally, he acted as the advisor to the president-John Kennedy. He was one of the leading pioneers of cognitive psychology and worked in many universities ranging from Harvard, Oxford, New York University, and finally at the New York University, School of Law. He made some publications in the field of education, psychology, and law. Some of these books included; A Study of Thinking. 1956., The Process of Education. 1960, Studies in Cognitive Growth. 1966., Toward a Theory of Instruction. 1966., Processes of Cognitive Growth: Infancy. 1968., On Knowing: Essays for the Left Hand. 1979., and Child's Talk: Learning to Use Language. 1983. among other books.

Educational psychology. While at Harvard he published various publications regarding educational systems and how these systems could be improved. He posted a book titled the process of education. In his book, he noted as quoted that, "knowing how something is put together is worth a thousand facts about it." He insisted that education was not just about the fact memory. From the period of 1964 to the year 1996 he was on a mission to establish a curriculum that was better placed than the one which was being used to benefit student wholly. He was creating an educational environment that was going to focus on three issues. One of what was being uniquely humans on the human beings. Secondly, how humans were able to get to that situation and finally how the human was able to become more. The published a book in the year 1966 related to education and was titled, Towards a Theory of Instruction. In the year 1973, he also made a publication of another book titled The relevance of Education and a final edition of a book, called the Culture of Education. The contributions of Bruner to the study of education has been invaluable and used to date world over.

The cognitive psychology. The central concept in the idea of cognitive psychology that was postulated by Jerome Bruner while at Harvard was that in the study of developing a successful function regarding an artificial intelligence and or computer science, then it was possible to conduct testable inferences concerning the mental process of human beings.

New York School of Law. Jerome Bruner started as a visiting professor at the NYU School of Law. He later contributed to the integration of law, society, and culture. The further studied how psychology was influencing the legal practice.

Oxford University. At the Oxford University, Jerome was able to do several types of research in the department of psychology. One crucial such kinds of research involved the study of preschool children across Oxfordshire.

Cognitive psychology

Bruner is regarded as one of the leading pioneering cognitive psychologists in the United States of America. The "New Look" school of psychology advanced by Bruner postulated that the perception of people about objects and some events are sometimes in many ways influenced by their unseen cultural and social conditions. This pioneering work began through his researchers based on perception and sensation being active as opposed to passive processes. In 1947, he published his work on Value and Needs as Organizing Factors in Perception. In the publications, children from both the affluent and low-income families were requested to makes estimates of coins and wooden disks which were the size of the American nickels, dimes, pennies, half-dollars and quarters. The research findings established that the values varied and needs which the poor and rich children associated with making them overestimate the sizes of the coins they were given. This was a comparison to the dimensions of the disks they were given. This particular research was vital and helped him in reaching a conclusion that the motivations of a human being were very complicated and were driven or directed with various variables like the emotions, cultural training, and imaginations.

Conversely, Burner did another research with other colleagues like Leo Postman. The analysis showed some levels of lower reaction times and some less accurate responses when playing cards reversed the suit symbol`s color of some cards. These experiments were issues in a known new look psychology which was aimed at challenging psychologists to study the organism`s stimulus and also the subjective interpretation. Read More