Laszlo Garai
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Garai, Laszlo (Budapest, 29th August 1935) is an Hungarian scholar of theoretical, social and economic psychology, doctor of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, and founding professor of Department of Economic Psychology of the University of Szeged.
Contents |
[edit] Curriculum vitæ
Graduated from the Faculty of Arts of Budapest University, philosophy and psychology (1959); Academy candidat's thesis (1968), on the specifically human basic need (Personality dynamics and social existence, Academic Press). Academy doctor's thesis (1988), on the social identity and paradoxes of its psychic elaboration '(A psychosocial essay on identity, Central Hungarian Library.
[edit] Teaching
After teaching theoretical psychology at Moscow State University. (1969 - ), social psychology at Nice Univ. (from 1981 on - ),and economic psychology at California State University (Bakersfield) and San Bernardino, 1990 -- Dr Garai returned to the University of Szeged, Hungary (formerly: Attila Jozsef Univ.), where he was prof. of economic psychology from 1994-2005, From 1997-2000 he was head of the Department of Economic Psychology at that university.
[edit] Professional work
He started his career as Editor at the Encyclopaedia Department of Hung. Academic Press (1959-1961). After finishing his PhD studies (1961-1964) where he begin a research about the specifically human needs he finished this research as a fellow of the Institute for Philosophy of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (1964-1971. Invited to the Department of scientific creativity’s psychology in the Institute for History of Natural Sciences and Technology in the Soviet Academy of Sciences (Moscow, 1969-1970)). Head of a department at the Institute for Psychology of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (1971-79) and research advisor (1998-2002). He worked at the Laboratoire Européen de Psychologie Sociale (Paris, 1971, 1973 and 1977). and directed psycho-economic research supported by the National Scientific Research Foundation (1990-2005). He was a member of the Advisory board of the (Hungarian) Ministry of Finance (1991-1994).
[edit] Publications
Theoretical and general psychology:
- Split psychology
- Vygotsky and the Vygotskians: A cure of the split psychology
- Brain and culture;
- Paradoxical psycho-social configurations
- Specifically Human Basic Need-Need for needfree activity (SHBN);
Personality dynamics and social existence [In Hungarian]; Budapest: Academic Press, 1969.
- Problemes des besoins spécifiquement humains. Recherches Internationales: Psychologie. [Paris] 9. 1966. (51). 42-60.
Историко-материалистический подход к проблеме специфически-человеческих потребностей (Problems of the specifically human needs approached by the historical materialism). Вопросы психологии (Voprosy Psikhologii). 3. 61-73. A hypothesis on the specifically human basic need (SHBN) about a structure that is isomorphic with a specifically human basic activity: the "'work" as an activity of arranging in a structure "'ends and means" and transfering that structure to various parts of its universe. The hypothesis is based on the Leontievian activity theory completed by a critical chapter about what is ommitted from the Leontievian interpretation of L. Vygotsky)
- The principle of social relations and the principle of activity (co-author: M. Kocski). Soviet Psychology. 1989/4. 50-69.
- On the mental status of activity and social relation: To the question of continuity between the theories of Vygotsky and Leontiev [in Russian; co-author: M. Kocski). Psykhologichesky Zhurnal, 11:5. (1990) 17-26.
- Positivist and hermeneutic principles in Psychology: Activity and social categorization (co-author: M. Kocski). Studies in Soviet Thought. 1991/1. 97-110. (About two complementary theories (a "What does he?" type theory and a "Who does it?: type theory) being given in Vygotsky's heritage. The psychology gets disintegrated onto two hemi-sciences: one applying the positivistic methodology of natural sciences (experimentation) and another one that applies a "hermeneutic methodology of historical sciences" (interpretation). A Vygotskian methodology provides the possibility to reintegrate the psychology by dealing with "signs" and "tools" within the same structure)
- The brain and the mechanism of psychosocial phenomena. Journal of Russian and East-European Psychology. 31:6. 1994. 71-91.
- Vygotskian implications: On the meaning and its brain. A keynote paper at a conference dedicated to the 100th annyversary of L. Vygotsky. Moscow, 1996.
