Jerome Kagan

In 1959 C. P. Snow delivered his now-famous Rede Lecture, “The Two Cultures,” a reflection on the academy based on the premise that intellectual life was divided into two cultures: the arts and humanities on one side and the natural sciences on the other. Since then, a third culture, generally termed “social science” and comprising the fields of sociology, anthropology, political science, economics, and psychology, has grown in importance. Jerome Kagan’s book describes the assumptions, vocabulary, and contributions of each of these cultures and argues that the meanings of many of the concepts used by each community are unique to its methods because the source of evidence contributes to meaning. The text summarizes the contributions of the social sciences and humanities to our understanding of human nature and questions the popular belief that biological processes are the main determinant of variation in human behavior.

"In this overview of human emotions, a widely respected psychologist and author addresses the ambiguities and embraces the controversies that surround this intriguing subject. An insightful and lucid thinker, Jerome Kagan examines what exactly we do know about emotions, which popular assumptions about emotions are incorrect, and how scientific study must proceed if we are to uncover the answers to persistent and evasive questions about emotions." "Integrating the findings of anthropological, psychological, and biological studies in his wide-ranging discussion, Kagan explores the evidence for great variation in the frequency and intensity of emotion among different cultures. He also discusses variations among individuals within the same culture and the influences of gender, class, ethnicity, and temperament on a person's emotional patina. In his closing chapter, the author proposes that three sources of evidence - verbal descriptions of feelings, behaviors, and measures of brain states - provide legitimate but different definitions of emotion. Translating data from one of these sources to another may not be possible, Kagan warns, and those who study emotions must accept - at least for now - that their understanding is limited to and by the domain of their information."--Jacket.

"Over the past forty years, Jerome Kagan has done more than virtually any other developmental psychologist to advance the scientific study of early childhood. In his distinctive style - the personal essay supported by pillars of research on both animal and human subjects - Kagan now challenges his colleagues to recognize that more than one mental foundation underlie the diversity of behavior, emotion, and thought. Kagan focuses mainly on two qualitatively different modes of mental representation: perceptual schemata and semantic networks. Novelty and the recognition of discrepancy are the engines of change, whether in the perception of surprise or the more prolonged and unpredictable experience of uncertainty."--BOOK JACKET.

Do the first two years of life really determine a child's future development? Are human beings, like other primates, only motivated by pleasure? And do people actually have stable traits, like intelligence, fear, anxiety, and temperament? This book, the product of a lifetime of research by one of the founders of developmental psychology, takes on the powerful assumptions behind these questions - and proves them mistaken. Ranging with impressive ease from cultural history to philosophy to psychological research literature, Jerome Kagan weaves an argument that will rock the social sciences and the foundations of public policy.

Nearly two thousand years ago a physician called Galen of Pergamon suggested that much of the variation in human behavior could be explained by an individual's temperament. Since that time, ideas about inborn dispositions have fallen in and out of favor. Based on fifteen years of research, Galen's Prophecy now provides fresh insights into these complex questions, offering startling new evidence to support Galen's ancient classification of melancholic and sanguine adults. Two of the most obvious personality traits in children, as well as adults, are a cautious compared with a spontaneous approach to new people and situations. About 20 percent of healthy infants born to loving families come into the world with a physiology that renders them easily aroused by new experiences and, when aroused, to become distressed. A majority of these high-reactive infants become fearful, cautious children. A larger group, about 40 percent of infants, are born with a different physiology that leads them to be more difficult to arouse, but when excited they babble and smile rather than cry. Most of these low-reactive infants become sociable, spontaneous, relatively fearless children. . Galen's Prophecy suggests that each of us inherits a physiology that can affect our moods, leaving some adults dour and tense and others content and relaxed. Integrating evidence and ideas from biology, philosophy, and psychology, Jerome Kagan examines the implications of the idea of temperament for aggressive behavior, conscience, psychopathology, and the degree to which each of us can be expected to control our deepest emotions.

Includes sections on children's emotions and morality.

The papers in this volume touch most of the vital social, educational, political and psychological issues bearing on creativity. Each author speaks to a different theme but there is a general unanimity on one proposition: each is worried and wary about the deadening effect of group pressure and the negative sanctions that are placed on a deviant response.