Jerome Bruner (1915–2016) was one of the most influential cognitive psychologists of the 20th century. A Harvard professor and co-founder of the Center for Cognitive Studies, Bruner was central to the cognitive revolution in psychology in the 1950s-60s and later became a key figure in cultural psychology and educational theory.
His contribution most relevant to thinking styles research is his theory of two fundamentally different modes of human cognition, articulated in his 1986 book Actual Minds, Possible Worlds.
Bruner argued that humans have developed two distinct ways of organizing and making sense of experience. These are not learning styles or personality types — they are fundamental cognitive modes with different logics, different criteria of success, and different relationships to truth.
Also called the logico-scientific mode. This is the mode of formal logic, science, and mathematics.
Characteristics:
Criteria of success: true or false. An argument in paradigmatic mode succeeds if it is logically valid and empirically supported.
Examples of paradigmatic thinking in action: