László Garai

The native form of this personal name is Garai László. This article uses the Western name order.

László Garai (born 29 August 1935 in Budapest) is a scholar of psychology: studies theoretical psychology, social psychology and economic psychology.

Laszlo Garai

Hungarian scholar of theoretical, social and economic psychology

Curriculum vitæ

Graduated in philosophy and psychology from the Faculty of Arts of Budapest University (1959).

Obtained Candidate degree from the Hungarian Academy of Sciences with a thesis on a specifically human basic need[1] (1968).

Obtained Doctor of Science degree from the Hungarian Academy of Science with a thesis on social identity and paradoxes of its psychic elaboration[2] (1988).

Teaching

Moscow State Univ. (1969—theoretical psychology)

Nice Univ. (from 1981—social psychology)

California State Univ. (Bakersfield and San Bernardino, 1990—economic psychology)

University of Szeged (formerly: Attila Jozsef Univ. – 1994-2005; from 1997 – prof. of economic psychology; 1997-2000 – head of Dept of Economic Psychology he founded)

Professional work

László Garai started his career as editor at the Encyclopaedia Department of the Hungarian academic publishing house Akadémiai Kiadó. After the defence of his thesis above on specifically basic human need, he concluded this research as a fellow of the Institute for Philosophy of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (1964–1971).[3] According to his hypothesis, a paradoxical need for a needfree activity is specific for humans and substantial for their other needs. The structure of the hypothesized need is isomorphic with that of the work considered as a "specifically human basic activity" and defined as that of arranging in one and the same structure ends and means. The hypothesis is based on the activity theory of Alexei Leontiev.[4]

He won a Keldysh Scholarship (post doctoral scholarship founded by Keldysh, president of the USSR Academy of Sciences, to support joint Soviet-Hungarian academic research projects) to the Department of scientific discoveries’ psychology in the Institute for History of Natural Sciences and Technology in the Soviet Academy of Sciences (Moscow, 1969-1970)). There Garai studied simultaneous scientific discoveries (such as that of Bolyai and Lobachevsky).

In 1970, Garai founded in the Institute for Psychology of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences a research unit that became the first in Hungary research team of economic psychology and a center of Vygotskian theoretical research.[5] head of that department (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).

Garai was a member of the advisory board of the Hungarian Ministry of Finance. He is on the editorial board of the Journal of Russian and East European Psychology.[6]

Selected publications

Notes

  1. ↑ Personality dynamics and social existence; Budapest: Hungarian Academic Press, 1969. On the book published in Hungarian see a detailed and well-documented English review of F. Eros: "Personality dynamics and social existence, by L. Garai". European Journal of Social Psychology, Volume 4 Issue 3, pp. 369-379. See
  2. ↑ A psychosocial essay on identity, Central Hungarian Library
  3. ↑ Garai's publications on "specifically human basic need"
  4. ↑ Interview with Laszlo Garai on the Activity Theory of Alexis Leontiev and his own Theory of Social Identity as referred to the meta-theory of Lev Vygotsky. Journal of Russian and East European Psychology, vol. 50, no. 1, January–February 2012, pp. 50–64.
  5. ↑ Theoretical Psychology Vygotskian Writings
  6. ↑ Journal home page
  7. ↑ See review by Hovanyecz László in Népszabadság. 16 January 1995: 11; review article by Popper Péter, "Változások nehéz szaga..." in Kritika 1995:8. 22-23

External links

Bibliography

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