Jerome Bruner facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Jerome Bruner
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Bruner pictured in the Chanticleer 1936, as a junior at Duke University
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Jerome Seymour Bruner
October 1, 1915 New York City, New York, U.S.
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| Died | June 5, 2016 (aged 100) Manhattan, New York City, New York, U.S.
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| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | |
| Known for | Contributions to cognitive psychology and educational psychology Coining the term "scaffolding" |
| Awards | E. L. Thorndike Award (1981) Balzan Prize (1987) CIBA Gold Medal for Distinguished Research Distinguished Scientific Award of the American Psychological Association |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Psychology |
| Institutions | |
| Thesis | A psychological analysis of international radio broadcasts of belligerent nations (1941) |
| Doctoral advisor | Gordon Allport |
| Doctoral students |
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Jerome Seymour Bruner (born October 1, 1915 – died June 5, 2016) was an American psychologist. He made big contributions to how we understand human thinking (cognitive psychology). He also helped shape how we think about learning in schools (educational psychology). Bruner worked as a senior researcher at the New York University School of Law. He earned his first degree from Duke University in 1937 and his PhD from Harvard University in 1941. He taught and did research at Harvard, the University of Oxford, and New York University. In 2002, a survey ranked Bruner as the 28th most referenced psychologist of the 20th century.
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Early Life and Education
Jerome Bruner was born on October 1, 1915, in New York City. His parents, Herman and Rose Bruner, were immigrants from Poland. He was born blind because of cataracts. But an operation when he was two years old helped him see.
He studied psychology at Duke University, getting his bachelor's degree in 1937. He then went to Harvard University, where he earned his master's degree in 1939 and his doctorate in 1941. During World War II, Bruner worked with the Psychological Warfare Division. This group was part of the Allied forces under General Dwight D. Eisenhower. They studied how people's minds work in social situations.
Career and Research
After the war, in 1945, Bruner became a psychology professor at Harvard. He spent a lot of time researching how people think and learn. In 1972, Bruner moved to the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom to teach. He came back to the United States in 1980. He continued his research on how children develop and learn. In 1991, Bruner joined New York University (NYU). He mainly taught at the School of Law there.
At NYU, Bruner explored how psychology affects legal practices. Throughout his career, he received many special awards. These included honorary doctorates from famous universities like Yale University and Columbia University. He was also a member of important groups like the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Bruner lived to be 100 years old, passing away in June 2016.
How We Think: Cognitive Psychology
Bruner was a key figure in starting cognitive psychology in the United States. This field studies how we think, remember, and solve problems. His early research showed that our senses and perception are active processes. This means we don't just passively take in information. Instead, our minds actively interpret it.
In 1947, Bruner did a study called Value and Need as Organizing Factors in Perception. He asked children from rich and poor backgrounds to guess the size of coins. They also guessed the size of wooden disks that were the same size as the coins. The results showed that children, especially those from poorer backgrounds, often guessed the coins were much bigger. This happened because of how much value they placed on the coins. This showed that our needs and values can change how we see things.
In another study, Bruner and Leo Postman showed people a deck of playing cards. Some cards had their colors reversed (like red spades). People took longer to identify these cards. They also made more mistakes. These experiments led to a "New Look" in psychology. It encouraged scientists to study not just how people react, but also how their minds interpret things.
In 1956, Bruner published A Study of Thinking. This book officially started the study of cognitive psychology. Soon after, Bruner helped create the Harvard Center of Cognitive Studies. Later in his career, he wrote Acts of Meaning. In this book, he argued against thinking of the mind like a computer. He believed we should understand thinking in a more complete way.
How We Learn: Developmental Psychology
Around 1967, Bruner started focusing on how children learn. He came up with the idea of "scaffolding." Imagine building something tall. Scaffolding is a temporary support structure. In learning, "scaffolding" means a teacher or parent gives careful help. They slowly reduce this help as the student learns more.
Bruner suggested that students understand tasks in three ways:
- Enactive representation: Learning by doing, through actions.
- Iconic representation: Learning through images or pictures.
- Symbolic representation: Learning through language, words, and symbols.
These ways of learning are connected and build on each other. Symbolic representation, using language, is the most advanced.
Bruner believed that learning new things works best when we go from acting it out, to seeing pictures, then to using language. He also thought that even very young children can learn complex things. This is true as long as the teaching is set up correctly. This idea was different from what other thinkers like Jean Piaget believed.
Bruner also suggested the spiral curriculum. This is a teaching method where you revisit a subject many times. Each time, you learn it at a deeper and more complex level. For example, you might learn basic science in one year. Then, in later years, you learn more advanced parts of that same subject. This helps you build on what you already know. Bruner also felt that learning should be driven by interest. He thought people learn best when they find the topic exciting, not just because of tests.
Education in Practice: Educational Psychology
While at Harvard, Bruner wrote many books about how to improve education. In 1961, he published Process of Education. He also advised Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson on education. Bruner believed that education should not just be about memorizing facts. He wrote, "knowing how something is put together is worth a thousand facts about it."
From 1964 to 1996, Bruner worked on a full curriculum for schools. It was called Man: A Course of Study. He wanted education to focus on what makes humans unique. He also wanted to explore how humans became this way and how they could grow even more. Bruner also helped start the Head Start program. This program provides early education for young children. He was very impressed by the schools in Reggio Emilia, Italy. He worked with them to improve education around the world.
How We Learn Language: Language Development
In 1972, Bruner became a professor at the University of Oxford. He stayed there until 1980. During this time, he focused on how young children learn language. He disagreed with the idea that language is something we are born knowing. Instead, Bruner believed that social interaction is key to learning language. He thought children learn language by communicating with others. They learn the rules of language at the same time.
Bruner said that meaningful language comes from how parents and babies interact. He called this support system the "language acquisition support system" (LASS). It's like "scaffolding" for language. At Oxford, Bruner and his team used video recordings of children at home. This new method helped them study how children learn language in real-life situations. In 1983, Bruner summarized this work in his book Child's talk: Learning to Use Language.
This research made Bruner a leader in understanding language development. He explored how children learn to communicate. He also looked at how parents help children learn language forms. This work suggests that learning language and making meaning is a shared process. People work together to create shared understanding.
Stories and Reality: Narrative Psychology
In 1980, Bruner returned to the United States. He became a professor at the New School for Social Research in New York City. For the next ten years, he worked on how we use stories to understand reality. This led to his ideas about narrative psychology. His books Acts of Meaning and Actual Minds, Possible Worlds are very important.
In these books, Bruner said there are two main ways of thinking:
- Paradigmatic thinking: This is like scientific thinking. It uses categories and classifications.
- Narrative thinking: This is how we make sense of everyday life. We organize our experiences into stories.
Bruner believed that understanding this "storytelling" way of thinking is important for psychology.
Psychology and Law: Legal Psychology
In 1991, Bruner joined NYU as a visiting professor. He did research and started a group to study how psychology relates to legal practice.
See also
- Constructionism
- Constructivism
- Cognitivism
- Cognitive psychology
- Cognitive revolution
- Narrative psychology
