In Memoriam: Robert B. Cairns

Abstract

Robert B. Cairns, Ph.D., Director of the Center for Developmental Science and Cary C. Boshamer Professor of Psychology at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, died November 10, 1999. Bob Cairns devoted his life to the study of behavior development. He was recognized internationally for his work in social development, the longitudinal analysis of antisocial behavior, and his pioneering efforts to build an interdisciplinary developmental science. His approach to the study of development fused work from the biobehavioral, psychological, and social domains and broke new ground in understanding continuity and change in aggressive behavior. Although he was foremost a developmental theorist and social scientist, Bob steadfastly believed that basic empirical research needed to be informed by and then applied to real-life issues. He actively developed collaborative relationships with applied researchers in special education and other disciplines that provide direct services to youth with emotional and behavioral disorders (E/BD). By conducting cutting-edge science with a careful eye on implications for practice, he advanced the knowledge base on the development of antisocial patterns in ways that should contribute to the prevention and treatment of disruptive behavioral disorders for many decades to come. As a graduate student in psychology at Stanford University in the late 1950s, Bob explored the social learning foundations of behavior development. For him, social learning involved more than the acquisition of knowledge through behavior imitation. From his perspective, behavior develops in the midst of dynamic social interchanges. He believed that social behavior tends to be synchronized with the behavior of others and that individuals tend to interact with their environments in ways that promote the establishment, consolidation, and generalization of behavior. In the mid-1960s, he was an NIH special fellow at the Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor, Maine, where he developed expertise in developmental genetics and the microanalysis of social interactions in animals. From the late 1960s until his death, he investigated social, biological, and genetic factors in the development of aggression by augmenting naturalistic longitudinal research in humans with parallel investigations in behavior genetics with animals. This work led him to conclude that social interactions provide the link between the environmental context and internal states and, thus, play a primary role in the continuity and change of the characteristics of the individual. In 1981 Bob and his wife, Beverley D. Cairns, began a longitudinal study of 695 youth in the fourth and seventh grades. This investigation, known as the Carolina Longitudinal Study (CLS), collected annual data on youths' social, academic, and behavioral adjustment in school and at home. A unique aspect of the CLS is that contemporaneous data were collected on social contextual factors that contribute to youths' adjustment. With a follow-up rate of over 98%, the CLS continues today with participants now in early adulthood. To explore processes of intergenerational transmission, the focus has expanded to include not only the adult adjustment of the original participants but also the adjustment of their children. In 1994 Bob and Beverley published Lifelines and Risks: Pathways of Youth in Our Time which described the CLS and its implications for understanding the development and prevention of antisocial behavior. In 1996 the book received the Biennial Best Book award from the International Society for the Study of Aggression. In 1999 the Murray Center at Harvard University named the CLS a Landmark Study of the 20th Century. Throughout his career, Bob was concerned that the study of development was limited by disciplinary boundaries. Because development involves the coalesced contributions of factors both within and outside the individual, he believed that it was necessary to have a holistic science that integrated the different developmental disciplines. …