Books by Jaan Valsiner

The book includes a new theoretical synthesis of William Stern's classic personology published in the 1930s with contemporary cultural psychology of semiotic mediation developed by the author over the last two decades.

This book is a theoretical account for general psychology of how human beings meaningfully relate with their bodies-- from the basic physiological processes upwards to the highest psychological functions of religiosity, ethical reasoning, and devotional practices.

Ornamented Lives is a theoretical synthesis of cultural psychology, aesthetics, and philosophy of meaning construction. It is an extension of the author's theory of Semiotic Dynamics (Culture in Minds and Societies, 2007) to the field of ornaments. Ornaments are not merely "e;decorations"e; but play the important role of guiding the affective depths of the human minds. This is done by capturing the whole fields of perceivable peripheral spaces and filling them with highly recursive forms. The book concentrates on the visual ornaments of various kinds, indicating in them the tensions between basic forms-linear and curvilinear. This tension is present in human construction of environments-natural growth involves curvilinear forms while human constructions introduce linearity. The basic tension between linear and curvilinear infinities is expressed in the use of spiral forms in art and architecture. The book builds a theoretical account of human beings constantly creating sublime life occasions that give them affective charge for dramatizations of ordinary living. Episodically the sublime acquires new quality-becomes aesthetic. The coverage in this book links the aesthetic, the sublime, and the mundane into one theoretical scheme within cultural psychology.

The book provides conceptual and theoretical elaborations on human values from a cultural psychological approach. The authors illustrate their original contributions with empirical data, allowing for productive discussion on the topic of ontogenesis of values from a historicalcultural perspective.

CIP catalogs this two-volume set as a series, with the main entries as follows: Parental cognition and adult-child interaction (v.1); and Social co-construction and environmental guidance in development (v.2, 488-6). The first volume comprises six contributions on parental thinking and action and on

An Invitation to Cultural Psychology looks at the everyday life worlds of human beings through the lens of a new synthetic perspective in cultural psychology - that of semiotic dynamics.

In this ambitious book, Jaan Valsiner argues for a theoretical integration of two long-standing approaches to personality theory: the individualistic tradition of personalistic psychology, typified by the work of William Stern and Gordon Allport, and the semiotic tradition of cultural-historical psychology, typified by the work of L. S. Vygotsky.

." . . provides rich and interesting detail about the conditions, values, and experiences of children and those who rear them" - Contemporary Psychology

An error in the realms of medicine, ecology, peace, and war brings with it psychological strategies that differ from those a practitioner faces where errors are correctable.How does a doctor or therapist bridge the gap between particulars and generalizations regarding patients and various phenomena or diseases?

This book brings together a variety of contemporary approaches to learning that by and large follow the structuralist path to understand learning, a path both ecological and dynamic. The book views the learning processes as they take place in the course of personenvironment relationships.

. . . provides rich and interesting detail about the conditions, values, and experiences of children and those who rear them - Contemporary Psychology

A cultural perspective on every developmental stage from pregnancy to old age, demonstrating the interface between cultural psychology and developmental psychology. It features broad coverage of theoretical and methodological issues which have relevance to this field of enquiry.