The developmental context of culture: Reflections on the contributions and legacy of Jerome Kagan

Although the path of Kagan's career led him inexorably toward biology, in the few years between his first benchmark publication on infancy and his later focus on temperament, he turned to other cultures in order to evaluate emerging insights about early development, namely, that major developmental transitions in behavior are maturational products. These forays contributed profoundly to our current understanding of culture and human development and inspired several of his students to focus their own careers on human development in culture, or, turned around, what we might call the developmental context of culture. Drawing largely on Kagan's own writings, this essay attempts to understand what the cross-cultural work meant to him and its lasting influence on his students. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).