Ask babies who they are, and they\u2019ll babble something that seems nonsensical. Turns out, they\u2019re onto something.<\/p>\n
Jerome Kagan<\/a>, a developmental psychologist and the Daniel and Amy Starch Professor of Psychology Emeritus<\/em>, has spent the past 30 years of his lengthy career studying the temperaments of those little people, which originate in a child\u2019s unique biology, along with the experiences that shape their personalities. These discoveries are summarized in his new book, \u201cThe Temperamental Thread.\u201d<\/p>\n Twenty percent of Kagan\u2019s 4-month-old infant subjects were labeled high reactive, \u201ca behavioral profile marked by vigorous motor activity and crying to unfamiliar experiences.\u201d And 40 percent were labeled low reactive because they showed the opposite behaviors. Both temperaments are modest predictors of future personalities, depending on how children responded to their environments. (Another 40 percent belonged to neither group.)<\/p>\n \u201cThe high-reactive infants are biased to become children who are timid, shy, and cautious in unfamiliar situations. This is a personality trait known as inhibited,\u201d said Kagan. \u201cThe low reactives are biased to develop into outgoing, spontaneous, fearless children \u2014 uninhibited.\u201d<\/p>\n Kagan also explores links between temperament and gender, ethnicity, mental illness, and more. The difference between males and females is always newsworthy fodder, and, according to Kagan, \u201cover the past 50 years, many scientists have discovered intriguing biological differences between males and females that imply different patterns of temperaments in girls and boys.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe most obvious are related to the molecules oxytocin and vasopressin, and the sex hormones. It appears that these molecules, in conjunction with others and experience, bias girls to care more about the quality of their social relationships and bias boys to care more about their potency and relative status with other males.\u201d<\/p>\n Kagan said he\u2019d always been curious about the mind and \u201cthe persistence of beliefs that are not in accord with experience,\u201d and recalled arguing at a young age with his mother, who believed in inborn traits of personality.<\/p>\n \u201cDuring the 1940s and \u201950s, many citizens and social scientists believed that the main, if not the only, cause of the problems that plague our species were childhood experiences,\u201d said Kagan. \u201cThis belief was an heir of Freudian ideas and the confidence of behaviorists, who were demonstrating the power of experience to shape animal behavior. It followed that anyone who discovered the specific experiences that led to a mental illness, crime, or school failure would be a hero doing God\u2019s work. Who would not entertain the idea of becoming a child psychologist, given this Zeitgeist?\u201d<\/p>\n Although retired, Kagan still enjoys collaborations with colleagues Nancy Snidman<\/a> of Children\u2019s Hospital and Assistant Professor of Psychiatry Carl Schwartz<\/a>, and has begun to write \u201ca set of essays on some contemporary but controversial issues that surround the meanings and measurements of the concepts of happiness, morality, brain bases for psychological states, and mental illnesses.\u201d<\/p>\n But what about Kagan\u2019s baby subjects? Where are they now? \u201cInfant temperaments act to limit what children will become; they do not guarantee a particular personality,\u201d he noted.<\/p>\n \u201cA life itinerary is like the game of \u2018Twenty Questions.\u2019 Each new piece of information eliminates a large number of possibilities, but many still remain.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Ask babies who they are, and they\u2019ll babble something that seems nonsensical. Turns out, they\u2019re onto something. Jerome Kagan, a developmental psychologist and the Daniel and Amy Starch Professor of Psychology Emeritus, has spent the past 30 years of his lengthy career studying the temperaments of those little people, which originate in a child\u2019s unique […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4175,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-528429","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528429","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4175"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=528429"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528429\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=528429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=528429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=528429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}