Who is kagan psychology

Friends, colleagues, and former students spoke of his mentorship and commitment to improving the work of others — often with no holds barred. His style and balance of critique and praise were genuine; he fostered a sense of not only equality, but also mutual respect.

Students in the class often wrote to Kagan about how the course changed their career plans and steered them into pediatrics or child advocacy. His wife of nearly 70 years, Cele, died in How acupuncture fights inflammation. Breakthrough within reach for diabetes scientist and patients nearest to his heart.

He was an avid tennis player, a voracious reader, and a fixture at the Harvard Faculty Club. In , Kagan and Moss published their landmark book Birth to Maturity. He has tracked the development of inhibited and uninhibited children from infancy to adolescence. A shy adult is more likely to have been high-reactive fearful in infancy and childhood than their bold and sociable counterparts, who were most likely low-reactive. Susan Fiske, Dr. Fred Morrison, and Dr. Nora Newcombe for nominating Dr.

He has been a pioneer in re-introducing physiology as a determinate of psychological characteristics. His father was a businessman. In he married Cele Katzman; the couple have one daughter.

Kagan earned his master's degree from Harvard University and his Ph. Following two years as a psychologist at the U. In , he became chairman of the Department of Psychology there. Since the late s, 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.

However, they found that a small group who had been very fearful as toddlers had retained aspects of this "behavioral inhibition" as adults. In , Kagan and Moss published their landmark book Birth to Maturity.

In , 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.