Personality & Identity Psychology, Social Psychology, Religion - Forecasting, Parenting - General & Miscellaneous, Developmental Psychology, Emotions - Psychology, Prophecy, Occultism

Galen's Prophecy: Temperament in Human Nature

Name: Galen's Prophecy: Temperament in Human Nature
Author: Jerome Kagan
ISBN: 9780641033704

by Jerome Kagan, J. Steven Reznick (With), Doreen Arcus (With), Nancy Snidman (With)

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Overview

Nearly two thousand years ago a physician called Galen of Pergamon suggested that much of the variation in human behavior could be explained by an individual's temperament. Since that time, ideas about inborn dispositions have fallen in and out of favor. Based on fifteen years of research, Galen's Prophecy now provides fresh insights into these complex questions, offering startling new evidence to support Galen's ancient classification of melancholic and sanguine adults. Two of the most obvious personality traits in children, as well as adults, are a cautious compared with a spontaneous approach to new people and situations. About 20 percent of healthy infants born to loving families come into the world with a physiology that renders them easily aroused by new experiences and, when aroused, to become distressed. A majority of these high-reactive infants become fearful, cautious children. A larger group, about 40 percent of infants, are born with a different physiology that leads them to be more difficult to arouse, but when excited they babble and smile rather than cry. Most of these low-reactive infants become sociable, spontaneous, relatively fearless children. Galen's Prophecy suggests that each of us inherits a physiology that can affect our moods, leaving some adults dour and tense and others content and relaxed. Integrating evidence and ideas from biology, philosophy, and psychology, Jerome Kagan examines the implications of the idea of temperament for aggressive behavior, conscience, psychopathology, and the degree to which each of us can be expected to control our deepest emotions.

About the Author, Jerome Kagan

Jerome Kagan is the Daniel and Amy Starch Professor of Psychology at Harvard University and the author of many books, including The Nature of the Child.

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Editorials

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Harvard professor Kagan supports ancient Greek physician Galen's theory that temperamental tendencies in humans are innate, and interprets their possible effects. (June)

Library Journal

Kagan, one of the world's eminent developmental psychologists, has argued for several decades that human nature is not infinitely malleable. In this book he discusses a project he has led for the past 15 years involving the study of toddlers who demonstrated two temperamental extremes: the inhibited (shy and withdrawn) and the uninhibited (placid and outgoing). Kagan's research uncovered a significant pattern of behavioral and physiological differences distinguishing these two groups from earliest infancy and found that these traits tend to persist at least into early adolescence. He includes a history of the idea of temperament and discusses the political implications of his work. This book is a vital purchase for all academic libraries supporting courses in developmental or personality psychology. Public libraries can probably make do with Kagan's earlier book, The Nature of the Child (LJ 9/15/84), which covers the research in less detail.-Mary Ann Hughes, Neill P.L., Pullman, Wash.