Methodological Thinking in Psychology: 60 Years Gone Astray? (Pb)

Marc Notes: Includes bibliographical references.; Available in cloth. Publisher Marketing: A volume in Advances in Cultural Psychology Series Editor: Jaan Valsiner, Clark University In recent years an increasing dissatisfaction with methods and thinking in psychology as a science can be observed. The discipline is operating under the tension between the traditional quantitative and the new qualitative methodologies. New approaches emerge in different fields of psychology and education-each of them trying to go beyond limitations of the mainstream. These new approaches, however, tend to be "historically blind" - seemingly novel ideas have actually been common in some period in the history of psychology. Knowledge of historical trends in that context becomes crucial because analysis of historical changes in psychology is informative regarding the potential of "new/old and forgotten" approaches in the study of psyche. Some approaches in psychology disappeared due to inherent limitations of them; the others disappeared due to purely non-scientific reasons. And some new approaches were rejected long ago for well-justified scientific reasons. This book brings together contributions from leading scholars in different fields of psychology - cognitive psychology, developmental psychology, cultural psychology, methodology of psychology. Each of the contributors discusses methodological issues that were more thoroughly understood more than half a century ago than they are now. Overall, the contributions support the idea that in important ways 60 years old psychology was far ahead of the most recent trends in mainstream psychology. Contributor Bio:  Toomela, Aaro AARO TOOMELA is Visiting Professor in the Department of Special Education at the University of Tartu in Estonia. Contributor Bio:  Valsiner, Jaan Jaan Valsiner is Niels Bohr Professor of Cultural Psychology, Aalborg University, Denmark and Professor of Psychology and English, Clark University, USAHe is a cultural psychologist with a consistently developmental axiomatic base that is brought to the analyses of any psychological or social phenomena, who has been a visiting professor in Japan, Australia, Estonia, Germany, Italy, United Kingdom, and the Netherlands. He is also founding editor (1995) of the Sage journal, "Culture & Psychology". He has published many books, including "The Guided Mind "(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998), "Culture and Human Development "(London: Sage Publications, 2000), and "Comparative Study of Human Cultural Development "(Madrid: Fundacion Infancia y Aprendizaje, 2001). He has edited (with Kevin Connolly) the "Handbook of Developmental Psychology "(London: Sage Publications, 2003) as well as the "Cambridge Handbook of Socio-cultural Psychology "(2007, with Alberto Rosa). He has established the new journal on individual case analyses "International Journal of Idiographic Science "(2005, www.valsiner.com) and is the editor of "Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Sciences "and "From Past to Future: Annals of Innovations in Psychology "(from 2007, with Transaction Publishers). In 1995, he was awarded the Alexander von Humboldt Prize in Germany for his inter-disciplinary work on human development.