Harry Kempen
In the 1990s, Kempen and Hubert Hermans developed a new approach in cultural psychology around the concept of the dialogical self. In 1993, they published the seminal work "The dialogical self: Meaning as movement", and published several articles in "American Psychologist", "Journal of Personality" and "Theory & Psychology". Despite their success Kempen suffered from depression. In 2000, he died in Nijmegen four days before his retirement from the Radboud University. At the university he is remembered by as the "personification of cultural psychology."Articles, a selection:
Symbolic behavior
Symbolic interactionism (SI), a phrase coined by Herbert Blumer as early as 1937, was derived from lectures of early philosophy and sociologist theorist George Herbert Mead’s student notes. Mead’s notes from a course he taught in social psychology were posthumously transcribed into the book Mind, Self, and Society; 1934. Mead, born in 1863, arguably laid the foundation for the symbolic interactionism concept of how the individual mind arises out of the social process. Mead’s description of language as communication through significant symbols and concepts of “me” and “I” are examples of his contributions to symbolic behavior perspective. Symbolic behavior perspective stems from symbolic interactionism perspective. Blumer (1962) summarizes the perspective as how people act towards things based on the meaning those things have for them. These meanings are derived from social interaction and modified through interpretation. The symbolic interactionism perspective relates to the organization by describing how employees form a concept of self in relationship to their organization as they interact with individuals, subordinates, and superiors within the organizational architecture. Individuals learn appropriate behavior within an organization as the code of values, roles, attitudes, and norms of behavior of that work environment become apparent (Wood, 1999).