Myrtle Kagan

Kagan was born in Newark, New Jersey in 1929, the son of Joseph and Myrtle (Liebermann) Kagan.
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Kagan graduated from Rutgers University in New Jersey in 1950 with a B.S. degree.In 1951 he married Cele Katzman; the couple have one daughter.Kagan earned his master,s degree from Harvard University and his Ph.D. from Yale University in 1954 and spent one year as an instructor in psychology at Ohio State University.Following two years as a psychologist at the U.S. Army Hospital at West Point, Kagan joined the Fels Research Institute in Yellow Springs, Ohio, as a research associate.In 1959, he became chairman of the Department of Psychology there.

Since the late 1920s, scientists at Fels had been studying middle-class children from infancy through adolescence in order to better understand human development.At that time, most psychologists believed that personal characteristics were determined by environmental factors rather than by inheritance.Kagan,s early research at Fels focused on the degree to which individual personality traits carried through from infancy and childhood to adolescence and beyond.On re-examining some of the Fels subjects as adults, Kagan and Howard Moss did not find strong support for the maintenance of behavioral characteristics such as aggression, dominance, competitiveness, and dependence.
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In 1962, Kagan and Moss published their landmark book Birth to Maturity.
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In 1964, Kagan moved to Harvard University.After spending a year doing fieldwork in a small native Guatemalan village, he began to examine the influence of biological factors on development and developmental variation in children.Kagan discovered that the development of memory skills, the understanding of symbolism, a sense of morality, and self-awareness arise in a particular order during the first two years of life.He concluded that children are very adaptable and that their biology promotes a regular developmental progression even under unfavorable circumstances.In 1984 he published The Nature of the Child, which he revised in 1994.In this book, Kagan argued that biology and environment both were important factors in development, and he questioned the widespread belief that adult personality was determined by childhood experience alone.

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Since 1979, Kagan and his coworkers have studied inhibited versus uninhibited temperaments among infants and children, particularly in response to unfamiliar situations.
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Kagan,s research suggests that Galen was correct.Kagan published Unstable Ideas: Temperament, Cognition, and Self in 1989.

Questions continuity of development and parental influences

In his book Three Seductive Ideas (1998), Kagan argued against ,infant determinism,, the widespread belief that experiences and parenting during the first three years of a child,s life are the most important determinants of adult personality.To Kagan, this assumption is unproven, and perhaps unprovable.He also argued against the common belief that development is a continuous process from infancy to adulthood.Rather, he believes that it is discontinuous process.

Kagan,s many writings include Understanding Children: Behavior, Motives, and Thought (1971), Growth of the Child (1978), The Second Year: The Emergence of Self-Awareness (1981), and a number of cross-cultural studies of child development.He has coauthored numerous editions of a widely used introductory psychology text.In 1982, he was awarded the Wilbur Lucius Cross Medal from Yale University.He also is a recipient of the APA,s Distinguished Scientist Award.Kagan is on the editorial board of the journals Child Development and Developmental Psychology, and is active in numerous professional organizations.
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Kagan, Jerome. ,A parent,s influence is peerless., Harvard Education Letter November/December 1998. http://www.edletter.org/past/issues/1998-nd/parents.shtml (March/April 2000).

Kagan was born in Newark, New Jersey in 1929, the son of Joseph and Myrtle (Liebermann) Kagan.
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Kagan earned his PhD from Yale University in 1954 and received an honorary master's degree from Harvard University in 1964. He also spent one year as an instructor in psychology at Ohio State