Jerome Kagan

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Professional Psychology: Debating Chamber · Psychology Journals · Psychologists

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Jerome Kagan (born 1929) is one of the key pioneers of developmental psychology. Daniel and Amy Starch Research Professor of Psychology, Emeritus at Harvard University, he has shown that an infant's "temperament" is quite stable over time, in that certain behaviors in infancy are predictive of certain other behavior patterns in adolescence.

In an empirical study by Haggbloom et al using six criteria such as citations and recognition, Kagan was found to be the 22nd most eminent psychologist of the 20th Century, just above Carl Jung.

Biographical information

Kagan was born in Newark, New Jersey, USA. In 1951 he married Cele Katzman, and they have one daughter. He spent a year as an instructor in psychology at Ohio State University. After two years as a psychologist at the U.S. Army Hospital at West Point, he did research in developmental psychology at Ohio's Fels Institute (1957-64) before beginning his career at Harvard University.

Education

He earned a B.S. degree from Rutgers University in 1950 and earned his master's degree from Harvard University and his Ph.D. from Yale University in 1954.

Positions

He spent a year as an instructor in psychology at Ohio State University. After two years as a psychologist at the U.S. Army Hospital at West Point, he did research in developmental psychology at Ohio's Fels Institute (1957-64) before beginning his career at Harvard University.

Main areas of interest

He conducted extensive research on child development and

Honors

Kagan won the Hofheimer Prize of the American Psychiatric Association in 1963. He won the G. Stanley Hall Award of the American Psychological Association (APA) in 1994.

Publications

Books

• Kagan, J. (1971) Change and Continuity in infancy, New York: John Wiley.
• Kagan, J,(1971) Personal Development.
• Kagan, J,(1978) Growth of the Child.
• Kagan, J,(1982) The Nature of the Child.
• Kagan, J and Lamb,S (1990) The Emergence of Morality in Young Children. University of Chicago Press ISBN 0226422321
• Kagan, J & Snidman N,(2004) The Long Shadow of Temperament,Belknap Press.

ISBN 0674015517

• Kagan, J,(2006)Argument for Mind. Yale University Press. ISBN 0300113374

Papers

• Kagan, J. (1970) The determinants of attention in the infant, American Scientist 58: 298-306.

External links

• Kagan's NECSI Web Page (with a photo of him)
• The Ideas of Jerome Kagan A link to the CBC Radio One Ideas Show
• Interview with Jerome Kagan (CBC Radio One Ideas Podcast, (no longer available))
• The Meaning of Psychological Abnormality by Jerome Kagan