Jerome Bruner - Biography

Biography

Jerome Bruner was born on October 1, 1915 in New York to Polish parents, Heman and Rose Bruner. He received his bachelor's degree in psychology in 1937 from Duke University. Bruner went on to earn a master's degree in psychology in 1939 and then his doctorate in psychology in 1941 from Harvard University. In 1939, Bruner published his first psychological article, studying the effect of thymus extract on the sexual behavior of the female rat. During World War II, Bruner served on the Psychological Warfare Division of the Supreme Headquarters of the Allied Expeditory Force Europe committee under Eisenhower, researching social psychological phenomena. Then, in 1945, Bruner returned to Harvard as a psychology professor and was heavily involved in research relating to cognitive psychology and educational psychology. In 1970, Bruner left Harvard to teach at the University of Oxford in England. He returned to the United States in 1980 to continue his research in developmental psychology. In 1991, Bruner joined the faculty at New York University, where he still teaches students today. As an adjunct professor at NYU School of Law, he studies how psychology affects legal practice. Throughout his career, Bruner has been awarded honorary doctorates from Yale and Columbia, as well as colleges and universities in such locations as Sorbonne, Berlin, and Rome, and is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.