The Nature of the Child

jerome kagan

The world-famous Harvard psychologist challenges many of psychology's most deeply held assumptions about human development—arguing, for example, that early experience does not inexorably shape our lives and that the influence of the family is more subtle than has been supposed.

Genres psychologyeducationchildrens

352 pages, Paperback

First published September 1,1984

Literary awards

william james book award,

This edition

Format: 352 pages, Paperback
Published: May 13, 1994 by Basic Books
ISBN: 9780465048526
ASIN: 0465048528
Language: English

About the author

jerome kagan

Jerome Kagan was an American psychologist, who was the Daniel and Amy Starch Research Professor of Psychology at Harvard University, as well as, co-faculty at the New England Complex Systems Institute. He was one of the key pioneers of developmental psychology.
Kagan has shown that an infant's "temperament" is quite stable over time, in that certain behaviors in infancy are predictive of certain other behavior patterns in adolescence. He did extensive work on temperament and gave insight on emotion.
In 2001, he was listed in the Review of General Psychology among the one hundred most eminent psychologists of the twentieth century. After being evaluated quantitatively and qualitatively, Kagan was twenty-second on the list, just above Carl Jung.