Jerome Kagan

The Physiology and Psychology of Behavioral Inhibition in Children.

Longitudinal study of 2 cohorts of children selected in the second or third year of life to be extremely cautious and shy (inhibited) or fearless and outgoing (uninhibited) to unfamiliar events revealed preservation of these 2 behavioral qualities through the sixth year of life. Additionally, more of the inhibited children showed signs of activation in 1 or more of the physiological circuits that usually respond to novelty and challenge, namely, the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, the reticular activating system, and the sympathetic arm of the autonomic nervous system. It is suggested that the threshold of responsivity in limbic and hypothalamic structures to unfamiliarity and challenge is tonically lower for inhibited than for uninhibited children.

Adolescent social anxiety as an outcome of inhibited temperament in childhood

OBJECTIVE Chess and Thomas suggested that temperament might make a contribution to social phobia and other forms of extreme social anxiety. This study provides the first investigation of the outcomes in adolescents who had been inhibited (subdued to and avoidant of novelty) or uninhibited (approaching novelty) in the second year of life, utilizing both direct interview and direct observation. METHOD Seventy-nine subjects, aged 13 years, who had been classified as inhibited or uninhibited in the second year were assessed with both standardized interview and direct observation. RESULTS There was a significant association between earlier classification of a child as inhibited and generalized social anxiety at adolescence, but no association with specific fears, separation anxiety, or performance anxiety. The adolescents who were classified as socially anxious made fewer spontaneous comments than those without social anxiety; no relation was seen between any other type of fear and the number of spontaneous comments. Adolescent girls who had been inhibited as toddlers were more likely to be impaired by generalized social anxiety than boys. CONCLUSIONS The interview and observational data indicate that important aspects of an inhibited temperament are preserved from the second year of life to early adolescence, which predispose an adolescent to social anxiety.

Galen's prophecy : temperament in human nature

* The Idea of Temperament: The Past * What Is Temperament? * The Family of Fears * The Beginnings * The Physiology of Inhibited and Uninhibited Children * Early Predictors of the Two Types * Infant Reactivity and Sympathetic Physiology * Implications * Reflections

Reflection-impulsivity and reading ability in primary grade children.

Each of 130 children was given visual-matching problems involving designs and pictures and reading-recognition tests at the end of the first and second grade. Ss with fast response times and high error scores on the visualmatching tests (impulsive children), in contrast to Ss with long decision times and low error scores (reflective children), made more errors in reading English words on both occasions.

Constancy and change in human development

1. Constancy and Change: A View of the Issues Orville G. Brim, Jr., and Jerome Kagan 2. Perspectives on Continuity Jerome Kagan 3. The Continuous and the Discrete in the History of Science Everett Mendelsohn 4. Continuities and Change in Maturational Timing Stanley M. Garn 5. The Dynamics of Growth, Organization, and Adaptability in the Central Nervous System Donald G. Stein and Ronald G. Dawson 6. The Endocrine System Charles H. Doering 7. Physical Health Barbara Starfield and!. B. Pless 8. The Course of Schizophrenic Psychosis Michael J. Goldstein 9. Cognitive Development in Childhood Joachim F. Wohlwill 10. Cognitive Development in Adulthood John L. Horn and Gary Donaldson 11. Longitudinal Study of Personality Development Howard A. Moss and Elizabeth J. Susman 12. Values, Attitudes, and Beliefs Norval D. Glenn 13. Criminal Behavior over the Life Span Hugh F. Cline 14. Schooling and Occupational Careers: Constancy and Change in Worldly Success David L. Featherman Index

The second year : the emergence of self-awareness

1. Classification of Children 2. Sources of Evidence 3. Signs of Self-Awareness 4. Cognitive Growth 5. Attempt at Synthesis References Index

Neural and behavioral substrates of mood and mood regulation

A review of behavioral and neurobiological data on mood and mood regulation as they pertain to an understanding of mood disorders is presented. Four approaches are considered: 1) behavioral and cognitive; 2) neurobiological; 3) computational; and 4) developmental. Within each of these four sections, we summarize the current status of the field and present our vision for the future, including particular challenges and opportunities. We conclude with a series of specific recommendations for National Institute of Mental Health priorities. Recommendations are presented for the behavioral domain, the neural domain, the domain of behavioral-neural interaction, for training, and for dissemination. It is in the domain of behavioral-neural interaction, in particular, that new research is required that brings together traditions that have developed relatively independently. Training interdisciplinary clinical scientists who meaningfully draw upon both behavioral and neuroscientific literatures and methods is critically required for the realization of these goals.

Temperament and the Reactions to Unfamiliarity

The begavioral reaction to unfamiliar events are basic pheomena in all vertebrates, Four month-old injants who show a low threshold to become distressed and motorically aroused to unfamiliar stimuli are likely than others to become fearful and subdued during early childhood, whereas infants who show a high arousal threshold are more likely to become bold and sociable. After presenting some developmental correlates and thrajectories of these 2 temperamental biases, I consider their implication for psychopathology and the relation between propositions containing psychological and biological concepts.

Inhibited and uninhibited types of children.

An initial group of 100 children who were not selected a priori on any behavioral features were observed in laboratory settings at 14, 20, 32, and 48 months and their behaviors coded for inhibition and lack of inhibition to the unfamiliar. The children who had been extremely inhibited or uninhibited at both 14 and 20 months differed significantly at 4 years of age in behavior and cardiac acceleration to cognitive stress. However, for the entire sample, there was no significant relation between degree of inhibited behavior at 14 or 20 months, on the one hand, and inhibition at 4 years of age, on the other, nor any relation between behavior and heart rate acceleration. These results suggest that the constructs inhibited and uninhibited to the unfamiliar refer to children who fall at the extremes of a phenotypic continuum from shyness and restraint to sociability and affective spontaneity.

Temperamental Factors in Human Development.

The initial dispositions to approach or to avoid unfamiliar events are 2 temperamental characteristics of children--among the many that have been described--that appear to be moderately stable over time and associated with distinct, physiological profiles that may be under partial genetic control. The display of high versus low levels of both motor activity and crying to unfamiliar in 4-month-old infants predicts these 2 temperamental profiles in the 2nd year. This fact implies, but does not prove, that variation in the excitability of those brain areas that mediate motor activity and crying participates in the actualization of the temperamental categories called inhibited and uninhibited to the unfamiliar.