The Human Spark: The Science of Human Development

353 Pages·2013·3.71 MB·English

by  Jerome Kagan

A L L I S O N
K
PSYCHOLOGY
a $28.99 US / $32.00 CAN
g
a
n As infants we are rife with potential. For a PDF KM 2/28 PE
short time, we have before us a seemingly
ADVANCE PRAISE FOR
3/14
infi nite number of developmental paths. Soon, PDF CG AUTHOR
The Human Spark
however, we become limited to certain paths as we grow
T into unique products of our genetics and experience. AC
h But what factors account for the variation—in skills,
e personalities, values—that results? How do experiences CH

H shape what we bring into the world?
“Another Kagan masterpiece! As ever, he is helpfully provocative and challenging, but what he
u In The Human Spark, pioneering psychologist Jerome NC
writes is scholarly, informed by up-to-date research, culturally sensitive, and with appropriate
m Kagan offers an unfl inching examination of personal,
references to literary as well as scientifi c sources. The book is said to be about development but
a moral, and cultural development that solidifi es his place CG
it is as much about broad concepts such as morality and emotion and especially about scientifi c n as one of the most infl uential psychologists of the past
strategies. Most of all, it is highly engaging and very readable.” —SIR MICHAEL RUTTER, LH
S century. In this defi nitive analysis of the factors that shape
Dillon Professor of Developmental Psychopathology, Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London p the human mind, Kagan explores the tension between
Moira ar biology and the environment. He reviews major advances SW
© k in the science of development over the past three decades
and offers pointed critiques and new syntheses. In so TB
Jerome Kagan
is emeritus professor of “The Human Spark is a book painted with a broad stroke to bring into relief the panorama doing, Kagan calls out the shortcomings of the modern
psychology at Harvard University and one of the pioneers of human development. From culture and history and biology to parental practices, social fad for neuroscience, shows why theories of so-called TJK
of the fi eld of developmental psychology. The author of class and morality, this book reveals all the hills and valleys of the psychology of becoming HU The attachment parenting are based on a misinterpretation of
M T
numerous books including The Nature of the Child and human. Jerome Kagan writes with the authority that comes with six decades of experience AN HE research, and questions the fi eld’s refl exive tendency to DL

S Human Spark
Galen’s Prophecy, he received the William James Award understanding the science of human development.” —MAHZARIN R. BANAJI, D C pathologize the behavior of the young. Most importantly,
E I
V E
and the Distinguished Scientist Award from the American Richard Clarke Cabot Professor of Social Ethics, Harvard University, EL NC he reminds us that a life, however infl uenced by biology CB
O E
Psychological Association. Kagan is a member of The and coauthor of Blindspot: Hidden Biases of Good People PM O and upbringing, is still a tapestry to be woven, not an
E F
Institute for Medicine. He lives in Belmont, Massachusetts. N outcome to be endured.
T 6.25 x 9.5”
THE SCIENCE OF HUMAN DEVELOPMENT A profound exploration of what is universal and S: 1-3/16”
B: 1”
what is individual in human development, The Human
Jerome Kagan BASIC
Spark is the result of a scientist’s lifelong quest to
HC
discover how we become who we are. Whether the
$28.99 US / $32.00 CAN
4/COLOR
reader is a fi rst-time parent wondering what infl uence
ISBN 978-0-465-02982-2
52899 FINISH:
AUTHOR OF THE NATURE OF THE CHILD she, her genes, and the wider world will have on her
Gritty
Jacket design by Andrea Cardenas
child; an educator seeking insight into her students;
Jacket image: Mother and Child, 1900 (oil on canvas), A Member of the Perseus Books Group
or simply a curious soul, Kagan makes an expert and
Cassatt, Mary Stevenson (1844–1926) / Brooklyn Museum of Art, www.basicbooks.com
9 780465 029822
New York, USA / The Bridgeman Art Library companionable guide.
The Human Spark
0465029822-Kagan.indd i 3/15/13 2:07 PM
Also by Jerome Kagan
Psychology’s Ghosts
The Temperamental Thread
The Three Cultures
What Is Emotion?
Three Seductive Ideas
The Second Year
An Argument for Mind
The Long Shadow of Temperament
Galen’s Prophecy
The Nature of the Child
Birth to Maturity
0465029822-Kagan.indd ii 3/15/13 2:07 PM
THE
Human Spark
The Science of Human Development
•
Jerome Kagan
A Member of the Perseus Books Group
New York
0465029822-Kagan.indd iii 3/15/13 2:07 PM
Copyright © 2013 by Jerome Kaga n
Published by Basic Books,
A Member of the Perseus Books Group
All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may
be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without writt en permission except in the case
of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, address
Basic Books, 250 West 57th Street, 15th Floor, New York, NY 10107.
Bo oks published by Basic Books are available at special discounts for bulk purchases
in the United States by corporations, i nstitutions, and other organizations. For more
information, please contact the Special Markets Department at the Perseus Books
Group, 2300 Chestnut Street, Suite 200, Philadelphia, PA 19103, or call [phone],
ext. 5000, or e-mail [email protected].
Designed by Timm Bryson
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Kagan, Jerome.
The human spark : the science of human development / Jerome Kagan.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-465-02982-2 (hardcover)—ISBN 978-0-465-03773-5 (e-book) 1. Child
psychology. 2. Child development. 3. Psychology. I. Title.
BF721.K155 2013
155—dc23
2012047558
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
0465029822-Kagan.indd iv 3/15/13 2:07 PM
Contents
Preface, vii
Chapter 1 Sett ing the Stage 1
Chapter 2 The First Year 27
Chapter 3 Early Childhood 61
Chapter 4 The Family and Beyond 87
Chapter 5 What Is Preserved—for How Long? 125
Chapter 6 The Development of Moralities 157
Chapter 7 Emotions and Their Development 195
Chapter 8 Mental Illness: A Modern Epidemic 221
Chapter 9 New Certainties, Old Uncertainties 257
Notes, 285
Index, 317
0465029822-Kagan.indd v 3/15/13 2:07 PM
0465029822-Kagan.indd vi 3/15/13 2:07 PM
Preface
Social scientists who were trained in American universities during the fi rst half of
the twentieth century found it hard to escape the assumptions about human na-
ture that history had bestowed on them. As that century began, large numbers of
children from impoverished, illiterate immigrant families living in densely popu-
lated neighborhoods were doing poorly in school and disrupting civic harmony.
The social scientists’ preferred explanation of such facts emphasized the power of
experience to create these and other profi les. This unquestioned faith in the malle-
ability of the mind, an idea not yet documented by research, sustained the hope that
proper rearing within the family and proper instruction by conscientious teachers
in the schools could transform all children into productive citizens.
Only a few decades earlier, many experts had assumed that the less-than-adequate
adjustment of the children born to poor immigrants was att ributable to inherited
biological defects. This pessimistic explanation bothered liberal Americans who,
believing in the power of experience to conquer all but the most serious defi cien-
cies, hungered for scientifi c support of their belief. Freud and the behaviorists sup-
plied the reassurance by announcing that variation in experience could account
for most of the variation in children’s competences and behaviors. By the 1950s, a
large majority of developmental psychologists were certain that the events of early
childhood, especially in the home, were the primary determinants of adolescent
and adult profi les. Each child’s biological features, which the psychologists did not
deny, could essentially be ignored.
A rash of unexpected scientifi c discoveries aft er 1960 challenged this optimis-
tic position. Stella Chess and Alexander Thomas described the contribution of in-
fant temperaments to later personality at the same time that others were fi nding
vii
0465029822-Kagan.indd vii 3/15/13 2:07 PM
viii Preface
evidence for genetic contributions to many talents. These discoveries—combined
with the failure to provide convincing evidence that experience alone could create
an extremely shy, aggressive, or intellectually impaired child—forced the next co-
hort of psychologists to acknowledge biology’s infl uence.
I entered graduate school in 1950 committ ed to the older environmental posi-
tion but suffi ciently receptive to the biological perspective to take advantage of a
chance event that led to a personal epiphany. This event occurred during the 1960s,
when I visited Guatemala as a member of a team of American scientists charged
with evaluating a research proposal on the eff ects of nutritional supplements on
the health and cognitive talents of malnourished children living in poor, rural vil-
lages. Following our formal meeting, Robert Klein, the American psychologist who
would direct the day-to-day operations of the research, took me to Lake Atitlan in
the northwest part of the country. This exquisitely beautiful, cobalt-blue lake at the
foot of a volcano was rimmed by a number of villages containing the descendants of
Mayan Indians, some living under conditions that had not changed much over the
previous two hundred years.
This scene provoked my curiosity about the development of children in this
non-Western sett ing, and I spent my sabbatical year in 1972–1973 observing adults
and children in one of the poorest, most isolated villages on the lake. It was there,
aft er several months of study, that I was forced to acknowledge biology’s substantial
contribution to psychological development through its control of brain matura-
tion—an idea supported by evidence from other laboratories as well. Upon return-
ing to Harvard in the fall of 1973, I devoted much of the work of my own laboratory
to the pursuit of this idea.
I summarized my revised views of development in 1984 in The Nature of the
Child. This book (and its 1994 revision) contained three major themes. The fi rst
was that the major changes in behavior over the fi rst few years of life depend on
stages of brain maturation. This idea implied the second theme—namely, that
the habits and emotions established during the fi rst year might be so seriously al-
tered as to have litt le infl uence on the psychological profi les of older adolescents.
The third theme was that the human capacity to understand the distinction be-
tween right and wrong emerges during the second year. All three ideas, which were
tentative twenty-eight years ago, are now fi rm facts thanks to the eff orts of many
investigators.
As I was searching for a writing project in the spring of 2011, the idea of revis-
ing The Nature of the Child pierced consciousness and T.J. Kelleher of Basic Books
0465029822-Kagan.indd viii 3/15/13 2:07 PM
Preface ix
found this proposal att ractive. Upon completing the early draft s of each chapter,
I was surprised by the need to recast the arguments and to elaborate three ques-
tions that had been less clearly articulated in the 1984 book: What is the expected
developmental course for the cognitive talents, motor skills, emotions, beliefs, and
moral values that are inherent possibilities in all children? How does variation in
experience aff ect the rates at which these properties develop and the forms they
assume? And, fi nally, what factors determine the variation among children and
adults within every community? The present book probes the concepts of moral-
ity and emotion more deeply than the original and addresses a concern that was
less salient in 1984 but is now widespread: mental illness in children and adoles-
cents. Because this book covers a larger territory than the earlier one, it needed a
new title.
Chapter 1 considers the infl uences of culture and history. Each person’s experi-
ences in a particular culture during a particular era select one profi le from an enve-
lope of possibilities that existed during the fi rst hours aft er birth. Human behavior
is controlled by features in the local sett ing and the person’s motives and beliefs. On
the one hand, children must react to events that threaten their survival or mental
serenity. They must do something if att acked and maintain relationships with those
supporting them. On the other hand, many actions are provoked by ideas, espe-
cially representations of the properties one ought to att ain—whether good grades,
friends, love, money, a higher status, or greater power.
Events during a historical era within a culture oft en challenge existing values to
produce a generation with diff erent ethical premises. The generation of Americans
who came to maturity aft er 1970 were more tolerant, more skeptical of authority,
and less prudish about sexuality than their grandparents.
Chapters 2 and 3 document the biologically based progression of cognitive ad-
vances during the fi rst three years. Among the most important advances are the
nature of the infant’s representations of experience, the enhancement of working
memory, and the emergence of the fi rst forms of language, inference, a moral sense,
and consciousness.
Developmental scientists are engaged in a lively debate over the similarity be-
tween the infant’s knowledge and what seem to be similar ideas in adolescents.
Some psychologists claim that the infant’s understanding of the concepts of num-
ber and causality shares important features with thirteen-year-olds’ understand-
ing of the corresponding conceptions. I consider the evidence and side with the
skeptics.
0465029822-Kagan.indd ix 3/15/13 2:07 PM