Paul Mussen; UC Professor Was a Leader in the Field of Child Psychology

Paul H. Mussen, 78, a UC Berkeley professor who was a pioneer in child psychology and author of the influential text “Child Development and Personality.” Born in Paterson, N.J., Mussen was in naval intelligence during World War II and got his PhD in psychology from Yale in 1949. He joined the Berkeley faculty in 1956 after teaching stints at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and Ohio State University. At Berkeley, he served as director of the Institute of Human Development from 1971 to 1980 and returned from retirement to serve as acting director in 1987. A leader in child development theory, Mussen was among an avant-garde who moved the field from stimulus-response theory to a focus on social interactions between parents and children. In addition to “Child Development and Personality,” which was the leading text it its field for nearly 30 years, Mussen wrote “Handbook of Child Psychology,” “The Psychological Development of the Child,” and “Roots of Caring, Sharing and Helping.” In addition, he was the president of the Western Psychological Assn. from 1973 to 1974 and the American Psychological Assn.’s division of developmental psychology in 1977. In an interview with The Times some years ago, Mussen decried efforts to dumb down college textbooks. “The way to get students to do good work is to challenge them, not to write down to them,” he said. In July, at Alta Bates Hospital in Berkeley, of prostate cancer.