The Constructivist Tradition
The cognitive revolution in North American psychology began in the mid-1950s (Gardner, 1985).1 In the experimental scientific wing, anomalies for behaviorism were accumulating, and its adequacy in addressing language and other symbolic processes was being challenged (Chomsky, 1959; Osgood, 1956). Social learning theories, Rotter’s most notably, were contributing to a new social cognitive center. In the humanistic clinical wing, a phenomenological perspective was being advanced by the “third force” (Maslow, 1954; C. R. Rogers, 1951, 1959). The social Gestalt tradition was creating a social cognitive alternative in the work of Heider, Asch, and Lewin’s followers (e.g., Festinger, 1957). From 1954 to 1956, the constructivist and information processing traditions burst on the scene, and American psychology began to be transformed. George Kelly published his constructivist personality theory, and Gordon Allport published his category-based theory of prejudice. Herbert Simon invented his thinking machine and presented his theory of bounded rationality, and information-processing conferences were held, as covered in the next chapter. Jerome Bruner connected to European constructivism and established a constructivist research tradition in North America. He learned of Lev Vygotsky from Russian psychologists at a Montreal conference, went to Europe to cohost a conference with Frederic Bartlett and visit Jean Piaget, and published his experimental research on constructing categories (Bruner, Goodnow, & Austin, 1956). When he and George Miller established the Center for Cognitive Studies at Harvard, he said, “In 1960 we used ‘cognitive’ in our name defiantly. Most respectable psychologists at the time still thought cognition was too mentalistic for objective scientists. But we nailed it to the door and defended it until eventually we carried the day” (Bruner, 1983b, p. 124).