«Fuori contesto». Si chiama così la terra di nessuno delle astrazioni indimostrate in cui vagolano da tempo i fantasmi della psicologia, ossia della disciplina che più di altre dovrebbe invece indagare gli esseri umani nella loro viva, singolare concretezza. A cacciare i fantasmi con intrepido fervore è proprio uno psicologo, tra i maggiori al mondo. Pochi come Jerome Kagan conoscono dall’interno le dinamiche dei progetti di ricerca e sono in grado di additare autorevolmente i preconcetti ...

In this thought-provoking book, psychologist Jerome Kagan urges readers to sally forth from their usual comfort zones. He ponders a series of important nodes of debate while challenging us to examine what we know and why we know it. Most critically he presents an elegant argument for functions of mind that cannot be replaced with sentences about brains while acknowledging that mind emerges from brain activity.Kagan relies on the evidence to argue that thoughts and emotions are disti...

"Kagan . . . surveys a broad range of qualitative ideas from anthropology, psychology, and neurology to discuss the complexity of emotion as we know it." — Science NewsFinalist for the ForeWord Magazine Book of the Year Award in the Psychology CategoryIn this sophisticated overview of human emotions, a widely respected psychologist and author addresses the ambiguities an...

Per decenni le differenze di temperamento sono state attribuite a fattori esclusivamente ambientali. Quando le teorie di Freud imperavano, le differenze nella risposta emotiva e comportamentale delle persone venivano tutte legate a esperienze vissute, alla condizione familiare, a traumi subiti nel corso della prima infanzia.Jerome Kagan dopo aver organizzato il più grande esperimento di psicologia al mondo, seguendo passo passo centinaia di persone per oltre vent’anni, rovescia qui ...

A leading psychologist takes a hard look at the state of his profession today, finds major flaws, and argues for specific changes in practices and attitudes.

An argument that the meaning of a psychological or biological measure depends on the age, gender class, and ethnicity of the human subject.In Kinds Come First, the distinguished psychologist Jerome Kagan argues that—contrary to the common assumption—age, gender, social class, and ethnicity affect the outcomes of psychological measures, and he questions the popular practice that uses statistical procedures to remove the effects of these categories to confir...

As infants we are rife with potential. For a short time, we have before us a seemingly infinite number of developmental paths. Soon, however, we become limited to certain paths as we grow into unique products of our genetics and experience. But what factors account for the variation -- in skills, personalities, values -- that results? How do experiences shape what we bring into the world?In The Human Spark, pioneering psychologist Jerome Kagan offers an unflinching examina...

A distinguished psychologist considers five conditions that constrain inferences about the relation between brain activity and psychological processes.Scientists were unable to study the relation of brain to mind until the invention of technologies that measured the brain activity accompanying psychological processes. Yet even with these new tools, conclusions are tentative or simply wrong. In this book, the distinguished psychologist Jerome Kagan describes five co...

The culmination of almost seven decades of research, A Trio of Pursuits: Puzzles in Human Development is the magnum opus of the career of Dr. Jerome Kagan, Emeritus Professor of Psychology, Harvard University, USA. This book summarizes three of the author's major research themes during a career that spanned from 1954 to present: preservation of individual traits, maturation of cognition and emotions, and the influence of two temperamental biases on personality. An introspective chapter on ...

Nearly two thousand years ago a physician named Galen of Pergamon suggested that much of the variation in human behavior could be explained by an individual's temperament. Since that time, 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. Integrating evidence and ideas ...

As infants we are rife with potential. For a short time, we have before us a seemingly infinite number of developmental paths. Soon, however, we become limited to certain paths as we grow into unique products of our genetics and experience. But what factors account for the variation—in skills, personalities, values—that results? How do experiences shape what we bring into the world?In The Human Spark, pioneering psychologist Jerome Kagan offers an unflinching examination of persona...

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-kn...