Background
Kagan, Jerome was born on February 25, 1929 in Newark. Son of Joseph and Myrtle (Liebermann) Kagan.
(In this work, Jerome Kagan demonstrates that innovative r...)
In this work, Jerome Kagan demonstrates that innovative research methods in the behavioural sciences and neurobiology, together with a renewed commitment to rigorous empiricism, are transforming our understanding of human behaviour. Kagan argues that behavioural scientists have reached less-than-satisfactory answers to the fundamental questions about temperament, cognition and the self because they have failed to appreciate the biases inherent in their frame of reference and the limitations of their investigative procedures.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0674930398/?tag=2022091-20
( Do the first two years of life really determine a chil...)
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. Scientists, as well as lay people, tend to think of abstract processes--like intelligence or fear--as measurable entities, of which someone might have more or less. This approach, in Kagan's analysis, shows a blindness to the power of context and to the great variability within any individual subject to different emotions and circumstances. "Infant determinism" is another widespread and dearly held conviction that Kagan contests. This theory--with its claim that early relationships determine lifelong patterns--underestimates human resiliency and adaptiveness, both emotional and cognitive (and, of course, fails to account for the happy products of miserable childhoods and vice versa). The last of Kagan's targets is the vastly overrated pleasure principle, which, he argues, can hardly make sense of unselfish behavior impelled by the desire for virtue and self-respect--the wish to do the right thing. Written in a lively style that uses fables and fairy tales, history and science to make philosophical points, this book challenges some of our most cherished notions about human nature.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0674001974/?tag=2022091-20
(¿Realmente poseen las personas características estables, ...)
¿Realmente poseen las personas características estables, trátese de la inteligencia, el miedo, la ansiedad y el temperamento? ¿Es verdad que los dos primeros años de vida determinan el futuro del niño? Y por último, ¿es el placer la única motivación de los seres humanos, como ocurre con los primates? Este libro, producto de toda una vida de investigación, se enfrenta a los poderosos supuestos que subyacen a estas preguntas y demuestra que son erróneos. Así, pasando con pasmosa facilidad de la historia cultural a la filosofía y a la investigación psicológica, Jerome Kagan despliega argumentos que atañen también a las ciencias sociales y a los fundamentos de la política pública. Por ejemplo, tanto los científicos como la población en general tienden a concebir los procesos abstractos ?la inteligencia, el miedo...? como entidades mensurables. Kagan dice, sin embargo, que este enfoque se muestra muy poco sensible tanto al poder del contexto como a las distintas reacciones que pueden mostrar los individuos ante emociones y circunstancias distintas. Otra convicción muy extendida que Kagan discute es la del «determinismo de la primera infancia». Esta teoría, con su afirmación de que las relaciones tempranas determinan los patrones de toda una vida, subestima la flexibilidad y la adaptabilidad humanas, tanto desde el punto de vista emocional como desde el cognitivo. El último objetivo de Kagan, en fin, es el tan sobrevalorado principio del placer, que, sostiene el autor, difícilmente puede adquirir el sentido de una conducta egoísta impulsada por la inclinación hacia la virtud, el respeto por uno mismo y el anhelo de hacer lo correcto.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/8449308313/?tag=2022091-20
( When we are startled by the new, confronted with discr...)
When we are startled by the new, confronted with discrepancies, our knowing gives way to uncertainty—and changes. In the distinctive manner that has made him one of the most influential forces in developmental psychology, Jerome Kagan challenges scientific commonplaces about mental processes, pointing in particular to the significant but undervalued role of surprise and uncertainty in shaping behavior, emotion, and thought. Drawing on research in both animal and human subjects, Kagan presents a strong case for making qualitative distinctions among four different types of mental representation—perceptual schemata, visceral schemata, sensorimotor structures, and semantic networks—and describes how each is susceptible to the experience of discrepancy and the feeling of surprise or uncertainty. The implications of these findings are far-reaching, challenging current ideas about the cognitive understandings of infants and revealing the bankruptcy of contemporary questionnaire-based personality theory. More broadly, Kagan's daring, thoroughly informed, and keenly reasoned book demonstrates the risks of making generalizations about human behavior, in which culture, context, and past experience play such paramount and unpredictable roles.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0674007352/?tag=2022091-20
(This relevant and influential book is the analysis of a l...)
This relevant and influential book is the analysis of a longitudinal study of eighty-nine individuals who were assessed at birth and again at regular intervals; observational, psychometric, and interview data were collected for each child and his family until the child reached adolescence, and seventy-one of the subjects were reassessed when they became adults. The book emphasizes the relationship between early experiences and adult characteristics, and has remained throughout the years a forceful argument for and illustration of the continuity thesis.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0300030290/?tag=2022091-20
( We have seen these children--the shy and the sociable,...)
We have seen these children--the shy and the sociable, the cautious and the daring--and wondered what makes one avoid new experience and another avidly pursue it. At the crux of the issue surrounding the contribution of nature to development is the study that Jerome Kagan and his colleagues have been conducting for more than two decades. In The Long Shadow of Temperament, Kagan and Nancy Snidman summarize the results of this unique inquiry into human temperaments, one of the best-known longitudinal studies in developmental psychology. These results reveal how deeply certain fundamental temperamental biases can be preserved over development. Identifying two extreme temperamental types--inhibited and uninhibited in childhood, and high-reactive and low-reactive in very young babies--Kagan and his colleagues returned to these children as adolescents. Surprisingly, one of the temperaments revealed in infancy predicted a cautious, fearful personality in early childhood and a dour mood in adolescence. The other bias predicted a bold childhood personality and an exuberant, sanguine mood in adolescence. These personalities were matched by different biological properties. In a masterly summary of their wide-ranging exploration, Kagan and Snidman conclude that these two temperaments are the result of inherited biologies probably rooted in the differential excitability of particular brain structures. Though the authors appreciate that temperamental tendencies can be modified by experience, this compelling work--an empirical and conceptual tour-de-force--shows how long the shadow of temperament is cast over psychological development.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0674015517/?tag=2022091-20
( In this elegantly written book, Jerome Kagan melds the ...)
In this elegantly written book, Jerome Kagan melds the history of the field of psychology during the past 50 years with the story of his own research efforts of the same period and an analysis of what he terms the currently rocky romance between psychology and biology.” As Kagan unwinds his own history, he reveals the seminal events that have shaped his career and discusses how his assumptions have changed. With full appreciation for the contributions to psychology of history, philosophy, literature, and neuroscience, he approaches a wide range of fascinating topics, including: · the abandonment of orthodox forms of behaviorism and psychoanalysis · the forces that inspired later-twentieth-century curiosity about young children · why B. F. Skinner chose to study psychology · why the study of science less often ignites imaginations today · our society’s obsession with erotic love · the resurgence of religious fanaticism and the religious Right Embedded in Kagan’s discussions is a rejection of the current notion that a mature neuroscience will eventually replace psychology. He argues that a complete understanding of brain is not synonymous with a full explanation of mind, and he concludes with a brief prediction of the next five decades in the field of psychology.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0300126034/?tag=2022091-20
Kagan, Jerome was born on February 25, 1929 in Newark. Son of Joseph and Myrtle (Liebermann) Kagan.
Bachelor of Science, Rutgers University, 1950; Doctor of Philosophy, Yale, 1954.
Instructor psychology Ohio State University, 1954-1955. Research associate Fels Research Institute, Yellow Springs, Ohio, 1957-1959, chairman department psychology, 1959-1964. Associate professor psychology Antioch College, 1959-1964.
Research professor psychology Harvard University, 1964-2000, director Mind Brain Behavior Initiative, 1996-2000, research professor, 2000—2005, professor emeritus, since 2005. Advisory committee National Institute Child Health and Development.
(¿Realmente poseen las personas características estables, ...)
( Do the first two years of life really determine a chil...)
(This relevant and influential book is the analysis of a l...)
( In this elegantly written book, Jerome Kagan melds the ...)
(In this work, Jerome Kagan demonstrates that innovative r...)
( We have seen these children--the shy and the sociable,...)
( When we are startled by the new, confronted with discr...)
(Will be shipped from US. Brand new copy.)
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Served with Army of the United States, 1955-1957. Fellow American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Psychological Association (Distinguished Science Contribution award 1987, G. Stanley Hall award 1995), American Academy Arts and Sciences, Society Research Child Development (Distinguished Science Contribution award 1989). Member National Academy of Sciences, Institute Medicine, Eastern Psychological Association.