Jerome Kagan (1929-2021)

Abstract

Memorializes Jerome Kagan (1929-2021). Jerome Kagan was born on February 25, 1929, in Newark, NJ. Jerry's initial search for stable constructs focused on the cognitive. In articles in the 1960s, he examined the extent to which children formed analytic concepts, and whether they acted reflectively or impulsively. Jerry published the Matching Familiar Figures Test (MFF) in 1965, which led to a spate of articles by Jerry and others on the uses of the MFF and on the dimension of reflection-impulsivity-groundbreaking work that can still inform research on what has more recently been termed executive function. In 1984, with his then-graduate student Cynthia Garcia-Coll, Jerry described a group of children who were vigilant when confronted with novelty, low on approach behavior and hesitant to speak in social situations. He suggested that this cluster of behaviors (and measured physiological reactivity) reflected a temperamental trait that they called behavioral inhibition. Jerry went on to study physiological reactions to threat among behaviorally inhibited children, their interactions with unfamiliar peers, and their developing personalities, with multiple longitudinal cohorts. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).