Theodore Wachs, born in Brooklyn, USA, in 1941. Ph.D. from George Peabody College, Nashville. Professor of Psychological Sciences at Purdue University, West Lafayette.
Golestan Fellow (1 September 1995 – 30 June 1996)
My major proposed goal during my stay at NIAS was to gather material to allow me to write a book reviewing and integrating current knowledge on the role of multiple influences on human development. As of this point I have written drafts for the first five chapters of the book, which is to be titled: “But Not Sufficient: Multiple Influences on Individual Development”. I will continue work on the remaining eight chapters during the next year with a target date for completion being the summer of 1997.
A second proposed goal during my stay at NIAS was to collaborate with colleagues in the Netherlands to set up a conference that would integrate what is known about psychosocial contributions to biologically based individual differences in child and adult temperament. In collaboration with Professor Dolph Kohnstamm of Leiden University, funding for a conference on `Temperament in Context’ was obtained from NIAS, the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Science (KNAW) and the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO). The conference was held at NIAS from 27-29 June 1996. Conference participants came from the Netherlands, the United States, Italy, Germany and Poland. Eleven papers were presented during the course of the conference with extensive discussion of each paper. We expect to publish an edited book based on the conference proceedings.
I also gave lectures to the Department of Developmental Psychology, Catholic University Nijmegen, and to the Social, Behavioural and Developmental Genetics Institute of the University of London. In addition, the following paper was written during my stay at NIAS, “Developmental psychology. Known and potential processes underlying developmental trajectories in childhood and adolescence”.