Paul Henry Mussen

Background

Paul Mussen was born on March 21, 1922, in Paterson, New Jersey, the United States, into the family of Harry and Taube Mussen.

Education

Paul Mussen graduated with a bachelor's degree from Stanford University in 1942. There he also received a Master of Arts degree in 1943. He earned his Doctor of Philosophy in psychology at Yale University in 1949.

Career

Paul taught at the University of Wisconsin and Ohio State University before joining the Berkeley faculty in 1956. Then he traveled as a lecturer and consultant to universities throughout Europe, the Middle East, the Far East, and Australia.

He spent a considerable part of his career to writing. Dr. Mussen's books focus on interactions between parent and child, an emerging concern in the 1950s when the first of them were published; they were widely translated, and a number of them remain in print. He wrote ''The Psychological Development of the Child'' and was the co-author of ''Roots of Caring, Sharing and Helping'', ''Psychological Development: A Life-Span Approach'', and ''The Roots of Prosocial Behavior in Children'', among others.

Mussen was the main editor of the four-volume ''Handbook of Child Psychology.'' He also edited the Annual Review of Psychology from 1968 to 1973.

Achievements

• Paul Mussen was famous for being the principal author of the seminal ''Child Development and Personality,'' first published in 1956. It was a standard for 30 years and made Mussen the best-selling author at Harper Textbooks for years.
  
  He was the recipient of a National Institute of Humanities grant.

Works

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• book

  • The Roots of Prosocial Behavior in Children 1989
  • Roots of Caring, Sharing, and Helping: The Development of Prosocial Behavior in Children 1978
  • Child Development and Personality 1963
  • Concepts in Psychology 1974

Politics

Paul was a Democrat.

Connections

On October 30, 1953, Paul married Ethel Foladore, with whom he had two children, Michele and James Mussen.

Father:

Harry Mussen

Mother:

Taube Mussen

Spouse:

Ethel Foladore

Daughter:

Michele Mussen

Son:

James Mussen

Brother:

Irwin Mussen

References

• Contemporary Authors, Vol. 189
  2001