| 1 | Name: | Dr. Jerome Bruner | |
| Institution: | New York University | ||
| Year Elected: | 1982 | ||
| Class: | 3. Social Sciences | ||
| Subdivision: | 301. Anthropology, Demography, Psychology, and Sociology | ||
| Residency: | Resident | ||
| Living? : | Deceased | ||
| Birth Date: | 1915 | ||
| Death Date: | June 5, 2016 | ||
Psychologist Jerome Bruner was a prolific contributor of original ideas and research findings on perception, cognition, attention, learning, memory and early language acquisition and problem solving in young children. Born in New York City and educated at Duke and Harvard Universities, he worked as a social psychologist during World War II before becoming a professor of psychology at Harvard and cofounder and director of the Center for Cognitive Studies. In the 1940s Dr. Bruner worked with Leo Postman to study the ways in which needs, motivations and expectations influence perception, and later in the 1950s he became interested in studying aspects of schooling in the United States. The result of this latter quest, the landmark book The Process of Education (1960), had a direct effect on American educational policy, as it portrayed young students as active problem solvers who were ready to explore difficult subjects. Dr. Bruner developed his theory of cognitive growth throughout the 1960s and went on to become a professor of experimental psychology at Oxford University, where he began a series of explorations of children's language. He returned to Harvard University in 1979 and two years later joined the faculty of the School for Social Research in New York. He turned his attention to cultural psychology in later years, most significantly in his 1996 book The Culture of Education. Since 1986 he worked on cultural-psychological foundations of the law and teaching at the New York University School of Law, where he was University Professor. Jerome Bruner died June 5, 2016, at age 100, in Manhattan, New York. | |||