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The Wisdom of Psychopaths
In this engrossing journey into the lives of psychopaths and their infamously crafty behaviors, the renowned psychologist Kevin Dutton reveals that there is a...
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In 1998 Judith Rich Harris, an independent researcher and textbook author, published The Nurture Assumption: Why Children Turn Out The Way They Do. The book provocatively argued that parents matter much less, at least when it comes to determining the behavior of their children, than is typically assumed. Instead, Harris argued that a child’s peer group is far more important. The Nurture Assumption has recently been reissued in an expanded and revised form. Mind Matters editor Jonah Lehrer chats with Harris about her critics, the evolution of her ideas and why teachers can be more important than parents.
LEHRER: Freud famously blamed the problems of the child on the parents. (He was especially hard on mothers.) In The Nurture Assumption, an influential work that was published 10 years ago, you argued that parents are mostly innocent and that peers play a much more influential role. What led you to write the book?
HARRIS: It wasn’t just Freud! Psychologists of all persuasions, even behaviorists such as B. F. Skinner, thought the parents were responsible, one way or the other, for whatever went wrong with a child. One of my purposes in writing the book was to reassure parents. I wanted them to know that parenting didn’t have to be such a difficult, anxiety-producing job, that there are many different ways to rear a child, and no convincing evidence that one way produces better results than another.
But my primary motive was scientific. During the years I spent writing child development textbooks for college students, I never questioned the belief that parents have a good deal of power to shape the personalities of their children. (This is the belief I now call the “nurture assumption.”) When I finally began to have doubts and looked more closely at the evidence, I was appalled. Most of the research is so deeply flawed that it is meaningless. And studies using more rigorous methods produce results that do not support the assumption.
LEHRER: How did the field react?
HARRIS: The initial reaction was far off the mark. Professors of psychology were asked to give their opinion of the book before they’d had a chance to read it, so their comments were based on what they had heard about it. Many of them responded by saying that, “Harris has ignored a great deal of evidence.” But when pressed to specify the evidence I had ignored, they’d name the very same kinds of studies I had mercilessly dissected in the book. Or they’d tell the journalist about a study that hadn’t yet been published but that, when published, would prove that Harris was wrong. My attempt to track down those unpublished studies is described in my second book, No Two Alike.
As time went on, the professors calmed down. Some of them began to listen to what I was saying, perhaps because I was also publishing articles in academic journals. My work is now cited in many psychology textbooks and assigned in college courses. Of course, most developmental psychologists still don’t agree with me, but at least they’re acknowledging that there’s another point of view.
There has also been some improvement in research methodology, due not to my nagging but to a greater awareness of genetic influences on personality. It’s no longer enough to show, for example, that parents who are conscientious about childrearing tend to have children who are conscientious about their schoolwork. Is this correlation due to what the children learned from their parents or to the genes they inherited from them? Studies using the proper controls consistently favor the second explanation. In fact, personality resemblances between biological relatives are due almost entirely to heredity, rather than environment. Adopted children don’t resemble their adoptive parents in personality. I’m not particularly interested in genetic effects, but the point is that they have to be taken into account. Unless we know what the child brings to the environment, we can’t figure out what effect the environment has on the child.
LEHRER: Why do you think this is such a controversial idea? In other words, why are we so convinced that parents must matter?
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92 Comments
Add CommentThis article is just a way to sell books to parents who choose NOT to spend time with their own children. Blame it on the schools, again! There is no substitute for good parenting. I am a teacher and see this every day. If you see a problem student, 99% of the time, you have to look no farther than the parent... who does not value education, who is working too many hours to know or care what there kids are doing, who is mentally or physically abusive, who is dependent on alcohol or drugs, or who suffers from some type of mental illness. I am amazed at what our kids have to overcome everyday. I am also a parent of two honor students. My college student has won multiple scholarships. Who do you credit for that? Her teachers? They deserve some credit for their knowledge of subject matter....BUT it is the YEARS that I have spent raising them to value education, spending precious time with them, and pushing them to always do their best. The most promising students are those who benefit from the combination of GOOD parenting and GOOD teaching. They will choose their peers based upon shared values, and they will have the strength of character to speak their own mind. The old saying "birds of a feather, flock together" is very true.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisKids who are raised in similar homes, suffer similar problems, and will group together to find some sort of "home away from home" feeling of comfort and safety. Its hard to be a member of an intelligent and successful peer group, when you cannot relate to any of the experiences that they have had. This article and the author of this book is a joke. Sadly it will be used by irresponsible parents to bolster their own irresponsible attitudes of denying any responsibility for the fate of their own offspring.
It's nice to see different opinions emerging in the psychology field about personality and behavior influences, but Harris seems to be one of those researchers blinded by pride of her own theory. I haven't read her books, but I'm not convinced.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt's always been intuitively clear for me that behavior is affected by a complex interaction of many different factors (heredity, parents, peers, environment) feeding back on each other to create a unique entity. So to put responsibility on the parents (originally) or now on the teachers and peers (Harris) seems too black and white in my opinion. IMHO, Harris should not disregard parents altogether and pigeon-hole their role to the house and pigeon-hole the role of peers and teachers at school. The reality is more complex than that. Perhaps research psychologists should rather spend time figuring out the weighing values of each entity shaping a person's behavior and how these change with time and with each other.
This would explain that identical twins are necessarily different. It's simply because they don't live the exact same experiences, and thus don't experience their environment the same way. One could imagine that in an impossible experiment where twins would do exactly the same things and have the same environment, parents, teachers and peers, an extra peer for one of the twin would probably result in a completely different person. I basically see behavior as deviation from the mean, where the mean is never the same.
Psychologists would do good by hiring a mathematician to solve multiple unknowns equations and time-series.
amphib1: "This article is just a way to sell books to parents who choose NOT to spend time with their own children. "
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWow--that was exactly my thought after reading this. The author's argument seems to be a convenient rationalization for parents who institutionalize their children in day care from the time they are six weeks old.
Just because she didn't find any studies in the academic literature means good parenting isn't important? That's a ludicrous and dangerous over-simplification. One of the reasons for our country's downward spiral is the lack of high quality, attentive, informed parenting. Schooling is obviously important, but good parenting lays the foundation upon which everything else is based.
IF the author is as careful about science as she claims to be, and IF her own research is sound, THEN this is huge! My anecdotal evidence suggests a very strong correlation between parental involvement and student behavior, but that's three years of unscientific observation. Whether she's right or wrong, it's worth looking into. I'm skeptical, but curious.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thiswell the law says do not discipline your children, in that way the parents influence declines, the child belongs to the state.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGreat article. There are many studies that have done in behavioral genetics that have demonsrated both genetic and peir influence; while highlighting the lack of parental impacts in development. This type of research and result is not new. We as parents do not like to hear this but that does not change reality. Perhaps we can just be more careful who there friends are and what school they go to.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAlways refreshing to see a different way of seeing what makes us tick. As a youngster my parents always reminded me that children should be seen and not heard and to get outside and play with your friends right now. What continues to puzzle me though is the lack of substantive research that deals with the effects of television on child development. Its like theres this enormous elephant in the room that developmental psychologists ignore for the most part. Most kids spend 5 hours per day watching television versus a small fraction of that amount 30 years ago. Running, playing, climbing trees, reading and dust-ups in the playground have been replaced by Reality TV. Hows that working out?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAlways refreshing to see a different way of seeing what makes us tick. As a youngster my parents always reminded me that children should be seen and not heard and to get outside and play with your friends right now. What continues to puzzle me though is the lack of substantive research that deals with the effects of television on child development. Its like theres this enormous elephant in the room that developmental psychologists ignore for the most part. Most kids spend 5 hours per day watching television versus a small fraction of that amount 30 years ago. Running, playing, climbing trees, reading and dust-ups in the playground have been replaced by Reality TV. Hows that working out?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe article makes it sound like she's against "meticulous parenting", not necessarily pro-institutionalized child rearing. I think some of the comments are taking this too far. What Harris's conclusion would be going against is the industry that has sprung up around child rearing selling unnecessary trinkets and bogus child rearing books to parents.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf the reasoning in her book is as sound as she claims and the important studies received due diligence, then it should be researched further.
davidmbeyer: how about this explanation: inattentive/careless parents pass on genes responsible for inattentive/careless behavior in schools. Harris's conclusion would only mean we need to look for solutions other than meticulous/overprotective parenting, not that we should give up.
Can I remind everyone that recent and very exciting research has shown that children not only inherit genes from the gametes of each parent, but that their parents' subsequent behavior not only modifies their children's genes and the way those genes are expressed; best of all, these changes can then be inherited by the children's children! Presumably, if a child develops a close enough attachment to a teacher, clergyman, or caregiver, the behavior of these secondary influences also modifies both genotype and phenotype, and these influences can then inherited, too!! Behavior is the result of multiple endogenous and exogenous influences, always interacting intimately with the genetic inheritance, which serves as a blueprint for the constantly evolving behavioral house, which every so often needs a new roof, furnace, or painting.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTherefore, to minimize the importance of parents OR teachers OR caregivers is to ignore the myriad kinds of family configurations to be found here in the US and around the world at the present time. Fifty years ago, David Riesman had already said everything Harris and her opponents have said by dividing children into those whose behavior is mainly governed by cultural tradition ("tradition-directed"), those who internalize their parents' attitudes ("inner-directed"); and those, increasing in number during the 1950s, whose behavior is governed by their responses to their peer groups ("other-directed"). Now that we understand the genetic mechanisms behind these differences, it is not difficult to explain the origin of such profound differences in ways of thinking nor to locate the precise times in a child's pre- or post-natal development when a pattern of such thinking may have been adopted for the long haul.
When all rational determinations have been made, when their is nothing substantial and nothing new to contribute to a topic, falsehoods rule the day. This is the world we live in. We thank you for your contributions to this important field of research, but you have gone to far. Arrogance promotes poor research and the quick leap to ungrounded supposition.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhen their is nothing substantial and new to contribute to a field, falsehoods abound; this can be seen in many different areas of research. Arrogance promotes poorly conducted research and the need for continued relevance does the same. To state that parenting is insignificant is ridiculous. We greatly appreciate your contributions to the field, but my 7 year old could tell you that he is shaped by everything from how his parents demonstrate social relations to the car wreck he saw last week. Oh and by the way, do you think his peers will put the car wreck in perspective for him, and properly assist him in dealing with what he saw? Just as important as parents, teachers and peers are the isolated incidents that stick in a child's mind. A properly nurtured child relays these experiences to his/her parents. So parental influence not only sets up the ability for the child to discuss the incident, but dictates what is said. The parents are the roots of the tree.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt's pretty easy to tell who among the commenters is a parent and who isn't. I have no idea what that experience is like, but your collective voices still only add up to anecdotal evidence. Harris has spent years doing the research, not you and not me. Whether or not she is arrogant is completely beside the point. A lot of scientists are arrogant, but that doesn't necessarily make them wrong.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm curious about what she has to say and would probably peruse her books if I came across one in a library, but ultimately, I wouldn't base my whole parenting philosophy on what she or ANY other scientist says. I think we need to lighten up a bit when it comes to child behavior and the fate of our youth. The sky is not actually falling.
Amphib, you missed the point. You observe that undisciplined students tend to have undisciplined parents. Harris does not disagree with you. She points out that common genes may be a major cause of this correlation. You simply assume that the major cause is similar parent-child interactions that are repeated generation after generation. Careful studies imply that this assumption is wrong.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisStoic,
> my 7 year old could tell you that he is shaped by everything from how his parents demonstrate social relations to [...]
Until educated otherwise, he can also tell you that the world is flat, just like almost all ancient peoples believed. He may also be able to assure you that Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy are real.
> do you think his peers will put the car wreck in perspective for him, and properly assist him in dealing with what he saw?
Harris' work suggests that if you explain the wreck to him in a way that's within the normal range of variation, it may not affect measurable aspects of his personality later on. I don't think her work says much about what would happen if you did something outside the normal range of variation, such as never explaining anything to your child at all. Therefore, you could argue that it's probably important to your child's development to be a "somewhat normal" parent - even if exactly where on the "somewhat normal" spectrum you are might not effect his development.
Furthermore, the importance of your acts doesn't just come fro whether they can alter someone else's personality. As Harris put it elsewhere, they say you can never change your husband's or wife's personality very much - does that mean having a spouse is therefore meaningless? Obviously not.
Anyway, say there are two acts A and B which you must choose from - even if it doesn't matter much for your child's development which one you choose, one of them might be far preferable over the other, because of who you are and how you see the world. Harris isn't suggesting you should just forget about having any preferences or character whatsoever.
Neko,
> I wouldn't base my whole parenting philosophy on what she or ANY other scientist says.
Fair enough, in my opinion. It's fascinating research, though.
The cult of parenthood is strong. It's interesting that whenever Harris's ideas are discussed, some people get agitated, and blame Harris for promoting irresponsible parenting and other evils. Typically none of these critics have read Harris's works, preferring to rely on their own anecdotal "evidence". It's obscene to attack her if you have not even bothered to find out why she thinks the way she does.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn "The Nurture Assumption", Harris conducts meta-analyses of lots of studies, demonstrating that her thesis is strongly supported, while the idea that the style of parenting is a major determinant of a child's behavior is not.
"amphib1", Harris suggests a way to help problem students, whereas you, more or less, claim that there's nothing you as a teacher can do to help problem students if they have bad parents. Who's the irresponsible one here, Harris or you? Harris argues that the behavioral resemblance between parents and children is almost entirely due to heredity. Moreover, she argues that people's behavior changes a lot depending on with whom they are--the way children behave at home with parents and siblings is not the same that they behave at school, surrounded by classmates.
"discipline", it's ironic that you think that "one of the reasons for our country's downward spiral is the lack of high quality, attentive, informed parenting". I bet that you would find the way your grandparents were brought up cruel, even barbaric. Harris documents in the above mentioned book how the preferred way of parenting has changed radically from era to era, with little effect on the behavior of people.
"rbbloom" claims that presumably, "if a child develops a close enough attachment to a teacher, clergyman, or caregiver, the behavior of these secondary influences also modifies both genotype and phenotype, and these influences can then inherited, too". This is nonsense, there's no evidence to support this. There are epigenetic effects, but complex effects like the ones you suggest are pure fantasy.
Neko wrote: "I wouldn't base my whole parenting philosophy on what she or ANY other scientist says. I think we need to lighten up a bit when it comes to child behavior and the fate of our youth. The sky is not actually falling."
Hear hear!
The most important question that arises out of this thinking is "what does the child bring to the environment, we cant figure out what effect the environment has on the child."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe most important question that arises out of this thinking is "what does the child bring to the environment, we cant figure out what effect the environment has on the child."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe most important issue that arises from this way of thiinking is what does the child bring to the environment, we can’t figure out what effect the environment has on the child. I would agree with the author that in order to examine the issue of do parents matter we may need to examine this issue. However, I am not ready to take the leap that parents do not matter - not yet.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe question then becomes whats the parents influence on a child's peer selection, thus reinforcing parental contribution.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTo me as a parent, Harriss work is intuitively obvious. If your children hang around with other children that behave anti-socially, the whole gamut from simply not studying and valuing grades to much worse, are more likely to think it is normal and go along. What Harris didnt address is that parents play a huge role in the choice their kids make as to who they choose for friends and role models. I know that the term helicopter parent is derisive but in my experience, those are the kids that ultimately succeed. Getting your children involved in organized activities from very young is important. My friends chose Scouting for their children so the kids looked up to older boys who were successful, the party animals weeded out fast because they didnt fit in. My children were involved in competitive swim from pre-school. The children all studied at the same time and those that did not were ostracized by their peers because low grades threaten their participation on the team. My daughter was National Honor Society where grades and volunteer work were a point of prestige. In college, division 1 sports require discipline and routine drug testing, another incentive to the straight and narrow. If the parent maintains a network of adult friends that are solid and their children grow up as playmates from toddler then their chances of choosing friends wisely is not guaranteed but it is greatly enhanced.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI adopted a baby and as she grew to maturity, she became who she is and her personality, talents, interests and abilities were uniquely her own. She responds to the world in a very different way from either of her adoptive parents. She is from a different nest. I love her no less for who she is but I can certainly agree that no matter what environment she would have been placed within, she would have been whom she is, unique as we all are, that uniqueness is inborn, genetic and immutable. As parents we must nurture what is there and not imagine for one minute that we can change the person into something that WE WANT for our role as parents is to protect and give the child opportunities..not to turn them into ourselves or to expect that they follow our dreams. They have their own predispositions and we need to recognise that, work with their abilities and interests and respect that. There has been so much bull written about parenting, it is an industrial strength production of do-gooders who have accomplished nothing. There is a big difference between giving a child a safe and caring environment and one that is force fed with self esteem promoting activities, pre school literacy and a continual self denial of the parents with the over nurturing of one's child. Giving love is one thing that is what a child most needs. It is not the other stuff... I had almost no supervision when I grew up. My best friend turned out to be a felon later in life. I grew up playing in abandoned buildings and did not have music lessons and after school activities. I was valedictorian. I grew up to become an artist, a professor and feel my childhood was rich and independent. I read Summerhill when I taught school and it changed my way of seeing. No one made me study. Let kids find themselves. It is built into each and everyone of us. All the discipline and force feeding of activities does nothing but slow the process down. It was presumed I would be a scientist when I grew up..that was the environment that existed in my generation. Schools tried to shape my development and I was good at it but it was only when I got away from this proscribed presumption that my innate behaviour with was permitted to flower. Kids dream. Ask them what they dream and listen to it. It is true with us all...Give the kid a break and asking them what they want? ., I would have found who I was a lot earlier with a good external environment so having choices in life is critical. If one never hears music, one does not know it is missed. Watch and learn from your kids.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs a young teacher, I'm inclined to offer anecdotal evidence in support of the idea that peer groups play a large role in child development. Then I reflect on my own upbringing and recognize the roles that my parents played in developing my identical twin sister and my distinct personalities. I certainly understand the desire to evaluate one's own experiences in light of research. At the same time, we all know (or should know) that lengthy, self-selected examples are a far cry from sound scientific evidence.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRead Harris' work (I haven't). Evaluate her evidence. Understand that trends and correlations are NOT absolutes: Harris' evidence in support of peer influence does not necessarily negate YOUR influence on your child, but rather questions a cultural myth.
"I haven't read her books, but I'm not convinced."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDid you read the interview?
I do think that peers and genetics have a very important affect on behavior, but I think parents and teachers do also. I consider myself a scientific thinker, and I realize anecdotal evidence can be very unreliable, but her assersions just do not support my observations. I've been teaching elementary kids for 20 years and have noticed that students with behavior problems almost always have parents that appear to be lacking in parenting skills. I realize there is genetics involved in this. But I cringe many times when talking to parents, they don't make their kids accountable for their actions don't have logical consequences for their kids actions. For the kids that behave, the worst thing you could do when they got in trouble is to contact their parents. They know there would be serious consequences when they got home!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis just reminds me of some of the scientific ideas in the past that I thought were completely off base and later have been shown to be completely wrong. A lot of the ideas in the past on animal behavior/intelligence, where my anecdotal observations were totally different and I wondered if these people had ever been on a farm or around animals much. I also wonder how much time Harris has spent with kids? In the "real" world.
Please, please, please folks, if you haven't read the book and taken a look at the evidence she cites that argues against the role of parenting, then you really cannot begin to address her arguments. Everything that I have read so far in the comment sections is addressed by Harris in her two books. She knew in advance the reaction she would receive to her ideas, prompting her to very methodically address the supposed weaknesses in her argument that would be pointed out by the developmental psychology establishment. All I'm asking is for everyone who thinks they just know that parents have a large influence to read Harris' two books (as have I) from cover to cover and THEN enter the discussion. I'm not being arrogant - I'm simply stating that it's patently unfair to castigate Harris without truly understanding the evidence upon which her thesis is based.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have 4 grown children that all have remarkably different personalities , considering they have the same mom and dad. From my experience, a baby is born with a personality and there is not much parents, teachers, psychologist, or anyone else, can do about changing that personality. I think most all parents who have more than 1 child know this.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMy youngest daughter had a lot of trouble with addiction, beginning at age 14. None of my other 3 children had this problem. My husband and I are not addicts, but my father was an alcoholic. When my children were young I read all the parenting books, and a lot of books about adult children of alcoholics. I even read a book called "Breaking the Cycle of Addiction". I believed everything these books said. I believed that if I could only give my children enough love and nurturing and care that I could protect them from bad things such as addiction. I did my best. I had natural childbirth, breastfed them until they weaned naturally, let them share the family bed, never let them "cry it out", never left them with baby sitters. We filled the house with books and music, and spent a lot of time driving them around to lessons. We made thei friends welcome in our home. I spent 16 years as a full time mom. And their dad was (and is) a wonderful, loving dad. We have been married for over 30 years.
When my daughter began to go off the rails it was a terrible shock. This wasn't supposed to happen. We had read all the books--done everything right. Mixed in with our grief and horror there was guilt and anger. Everywhere we turned there was the veiled message that our daughter's problems were our fault. Before this happened to my daughter, I myself always thought it was the parents fault--my favourite theory was that the parents hadn't provided enough nurturing. (Other people prefer the theory that the parents haven't provided enough discipline. )
Several years ago I read "The Nurture Assumption" and it lifted a great weight from me. This book makes a lot of sense and rings true. The author does NOT say parenting doesn't matter. She says that parenting doesn't change a child's personality. That is not the same as saying that it doesn't matter. Of course it matters. Looking back, I wouldn't do anything differently with the way I raised my babies. I would still breastfeed them until they weaned themselves, and let them sleep in the family bed, and give them all the love and security possible because that is what seems natural and right and loving.
Harris does NOT say that parents should ignore their children or that how they treat them is not important. What she does say is that parents do not form their children; what they form is relationships with them. Those relationships are important to the children, but they do not determine how the child behaves in other contexts -- they (partly) determine how the child behaves in the family. It is not so radical to say that people adjust their behavior to fit the context!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI never had anything but adversial relationships with my teachers, and the Dean expelled me at age 15, thinking school was a waste of time for me. As for my friends, they were -- and became increasingly -- my polar opposites. There was, however, one teacher at an MDTA, 11-month vocational program I signed up for in my mid-20s who took an interest in me and rescued me from what might easily have been a lifetime of menial work. Resultingly I became a field engineer and then a technical/marketing writer/editor -- free-lancing for many top-tier companies, like JPL, Magnovox, Walt Disney, Western Digital, and scores of others.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBut it was really the seeds of literary/engineering ability in father (though unrealized in him) and the loving, impractical idealism of my mother that owned my soul.
So I have difficulty with the argument that it's peers, not parents, that shape lives.
The "personalities" that children are born with are in fact the basis for the strategies that they will instinctively use the rest of their lives. These are what give individuals an alloted place in the group pecking order. The rest of one's life is devoted to perfecting and/or modifying these strategies according to life's circumstances. Unfortunately, we tend to perfect our social skills at the level achieved by adolescents rather than adults, who themselves are the product of their own adolescence.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm convinced that children learn some things from peers rather than parents, their dialect, for example. My wife and I, both born in New York, share vowel pronunciations as do our children. Having grown up in Connecticut, however, their vowels are those of New England. Similarly my wife and I put mustard on hot dogs and both our kids use catchup. Peers? Probably.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMy wife and I have Ph.D.s as do both our children. I don't think their peers had much to do with that! We probably did. Of course all this is anecdotal, non-scientific, etc.
Having raised in Asia and schooled in high volume high density schools, where an average class had up to 100 students (yes hundred), I am not too convinced with this researchers's theory. It is value based parenting; values such as sincerity, honesty and hard work, and the power (of doing and being right or the absence of guilt) that comes with that is unsurpassable. If there is a good value based education and well trained teachers to go with good parenting, then the kids go a long way in their life. Where I come from, it was all about competition, simply because there were so many of us. Failure was not an option. But strangely this hardly led to any stress at all. Because we knew no other way. It becomes a problem ( like here in this country) when kids realize that they have a choice to slack, both at school and at home. Parents are role models. They do have it with in them to motivate their children to be pro-education.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisParents should be giving a child a lot more than genes. To say that the peer group is more important than parental input points to the absent parent. If parents don't take an active role in their children's lives, teaching and mentoring them, and directing them into healthy choices, including healthy appropriate choice of peer group, then children tend towards what I call "The lowest common denominator", and you get unmotivated, peer pressure controlled children. They will never grow to their potential when raised in some feral environment, no matter how good their genes are.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is astonishing to see people advertise their ignorance as though it were a qualification. Harris's books have been out for years, and they are readily available. You may agree or disagree with her conclusions as presented in this brief interview, but why share your ignorance by commenting in a public forum? If you care enough to voice an opinion, then you certainly ought to READ THE BOOKS. Get them from the library, if you don't wish to buy.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this(For what it's worth, I've read the books and think they support the statements in this interview very well. I have a Ph.D. in psychology and years of experience reviewing articles for scientific journals, but people with similar credentials don't always agree.)
In response to the first commenter, I saw a show where the parents were divorced but they got along really well and were good parents to their son. The son ended up becoming homeless and had a drinking problem. The family intervened and he was 'normal' for a few months but then went back to the homeless lifestyle. To me that was proof that no matter how good you try to be as a parent, sometimes your kid will do what they want. Nurturance can only take a child so far and it depends on the individual child as well.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThink of a child as an onion or a building. The core or foundation is critically important and up to age 7 or 8, the child is profoundly influenced by the parents. Note the plural: parents since the interaction of the parents with each other is part of the modeling process. The child forms the world view and how to interact successfully or with less success with the environment and peers.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs the child grows, peers begin to mold the outer layers built on the foundation. The selection of peers and the form of interaction are influenced profoundly by the younger childhood.
By the time the child is a teenager, the parents cannot do much. Peers and the wider society have captured the education and personal growth of the child.
To state the parents do not matter is incredibly na�ve. Or, to sell a book so that others can read and argue.
thank you for sharing your story. My comment (I posted it prior to reading yours) is based on seeing the same thing happen on a tv show. My brothers are mentally ill as well so sometimes parents feel it is their fault if something bad happens to their children, when really it was no one's.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat a hack job. "many different ways to rear a child, and no convincing evidence that one way produces better results than another" Yeah, we see that Morman kids who have much parental involvement are out joining gangs and filling up our jails while fatherless African American kids are going on missionary trips in huge numbers to change thier world. We see evangelical teens steeped in the drug culture while secular ones are driving the "Purity Ring" fad thats going on now? Not even close! This lady is cuckoo.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMy Dear amphib1 , My heart goes out to you, but you are wrong and right. Irresponsible parents don't read books like that for a start. I met my father 27 years after my birth and I was astounded at the genetic similarities - my step father was an alcoholic, but also the most astoundingly honourable man at the same time. My mother was abusive but she gave me a great gift - how not to mother. We choose our lives - our genetics matter, and at the end of the day, my dear, you have nothing more than genetics to offer for your childrens' success - its in the 'jeans'! That you were a loving attentive parent helped, but if you hadnt been, it wouldnt have stopped them. So lighten up. Ken Wilbur wrote - the opposite of a profound truth is another profound truth - not a lie or an untruth. Love your children, rejoice and be glad for them, but they did it, because they chose to, not because you wanted them to. They chose you for their mother before you knew their names because they wanted to have you enable their desires - now there is an idea you might want to mull over. I'm sure you are a fabulous mother and the world is richer for it. And peers count big time. BIG TIME. Consider yours. Even now. As mothers we fight to give our kids the best we can and sometimes that means working all hours of the day to provide what we can. Sometimes we ourselves are dry as a bone in the gift department and all we can give is material opportunities. In the end we are responsible for our own lives. No one else. My children taught me that. I keep apologising for my mistakes and my children say I did nothing wrong. I might not agree, but shoot, I'm glad they still love that I tried so hard. Don't judge parents, help them by loving their kids while you teach them. The greatest encouragement I got growing up was from my principal, a nun, who was hard as nails, but she wrote to me until she died. Because of her, I wrote two books. I hope they will be published. I wrote the story of my life - "It took a little time" I call it - maybe one day you will read it. It's about family, mine - and how it all turned out... Blessings and good things.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLike the old saying goes : Tell me who your friends are, and I'll tell you who you are.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLike the saying goes: tell me who your friends are, and I'll tell you who you are
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishscohen, every parent is an "expert" on child rearing, so forgive us. I love the article and can't wait to read the books. We can never know too much about ourselves. Every opinion matters.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI reject Dr. Lehrer's hypothesis.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhile I do not underestimate the influence of peers over the short term, I think it's fair to state that the LONG-TERM values a person brings into adulthood, are most likely those they gained from their parents--or if the parents were not present, a long-term "parent-like" adult guardian/role model. I only have to look to our own children and compare their life position with that of many young adults from their direct peer groups, to correlate the impact of parenting of life success and ultimately happiness. Without exception, the children of those parents who took an active involvement in their upbringing, are demonstrably more successful and at least by outward appearances, happier--than those whose parents abdicated their responsibility and left it in the hands of teachers or a "peer group".
Please bear in mind, I am NOT setting myself up as an exemplar of great parenting. Truth be told, I've made many mistakes along the way--too bad there's not a graduate school for parenting! However, I truly believe that the influence my wife and I have had on our children has been measurable and positivea belief confirmed many times by our childrenby their own words and actions.
Why wasn't my comment posted?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDavid Fredericks
It is true that bad children can come from good parents and good children from bad.....but it's ridiculous to think that the quality of the parent has nothing to do with the out come.You don't have to be a scientist to see that.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI've long viewed our development as driven by three main elements: Nature (genes), Nuture (authority figure based support and directives) and Environment (meaning peers, social interaction outcomes, and outcome of attempts at selfactualization).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNothing I just read would cause me to change my view of the three main elements of development.
Hate to sound too skeptical but I fear her core motivation is exactly what she mentions first--to reassure parents. I wonder if she had a child who didn't turn out too well.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI was a high school teacher. I heartily disagree with this person's opinion. But I do agree that parents should be more interested and involved in what their children are doing in school.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm ordering copies for parents of our middle school students at a time in their lives that is truly shaped by their peer choices!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm purchasing copies for our parent audience of middle school students at a time that is incredibly influenced by their peers. Having raised sons to adulthood, I support the parent role of availability and facilitation, but the peer role is the one that we, as educators, see truly taking its toll. Let's face it, we spend a great deal more time with these young people than their parents.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe generational comparison based on discipline is an absurd reduction of parenting. Style of discipline, physical or verbal, is still a small part of parenting. The difference in style is smaller.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMeaningful comparisons are available. Yes, parents do matter! This article should have been named "Does Personality Matter?" Suggesting that norms differ in school, home and church, limits none of these. Had Harris checked, she would find the "pro-school" students differ from the "anti-school" students by family structure. Any heads up teacher can tell in the first hour of any class which students are from intact families.
Meaningful comparisons are easily available. Harris could do this in the classroom. Compare students in intact families, "single parent" family, and foster kids. Orange County, Calif. Probation Dept. found that half of their client population were foster kids. US Dept. Ed. found that when kids were in contact with their Dad, something Obama and Bush have limited, grades were up a full point. That's not teachers.
What doesn't matter are personality divas. Book or no book; snarky or not. We are now at the point where half of kids are without full contact with their parents. That is much easier to fix than to find some "miracle" teachers. Early estimates on just "keep the kids in contact with their real parents" add a half trillion dollars to US economy. What is not to like, parents?
Harris asserts:" parenting didnt have to be such a difficult, anxiety-producing job, that there are many different ways to rear a child, and no convincing evidence that one way produces better results than another."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPoppycock. I personally know of several examples where parents played DEFINING roles and had great influence (positive or negative) on their children's development and set the course for their children's entire lives. OTH - I know of kids who have associated with "terrible" peers or peer groups but broke away easily when they saw the negative effects and consequences.
High school journalism classes generate journalism groups, high school science, music and civics classes generate clubs and other social groupings which actually mimic healthy adult societies.
Harris should check with teachers who actually know what's going on. I've heard teachers tell of 5th graders threatening them and when "called on it" the 10 year-old calls a parent on their cell phone and the parent then threatens the teacher. Harris is a fool to paint over this "parental role."
"no convincing evidence that one way produces better results than any other?!" - Hah! When parents treat their children with the joy of being a coach and mentor, the child knows it. When parents teach the child how to make intelligent choices and plans: the child becomes reliable and independent. Parental influence is KEY to success and happiness for children, there IS ONLY one way to fulfill the responsibility of being a parent. And... it's mostly joy and not stress that knowledgeable parents experience.
Harris's notions are what got our society in such bad shape to begin with. Why listen to more of this nonsense?
It is very discouraging that so many of the commentators here dismiss the theories in "The Nurture Assumption" out of hand, without reading the book. Few people posting here seem to understand that an association is not necessarily a causation. That is, an association between diligent, successful parents and diligent successful offspring doesn't necessarily mean the parenting CAUSED the children to be diligent. In fact studies of twins and adopted children strongly suggest that the offspring inherit a tendency to be diligent and successful from their parents. Yet many of the people posting here will not even consider the possibility that parenting does not have a major influence on their children's personalities, and they hold their views with religious zeal. It is disturbing that readers at the Scientific American site seem to care so little about the scientific method.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSomeone suggested that the author might have had a child that turned out badly, and this is why she wrote the book. This is not true. I recall reading in one of her books that the author has two daughters and they both turned out just fine.
euphobot,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou say that, for example, kids in foster care have a lot more problems than kids from intact families. Well this association can just as easily be explained by genetics as by environment. The reason the kids ended up in foster care is most likely because their parents have some sort of personality problems, and the kids in turn have tended to inherit these problems. Studies of babies adopted at birth support this genetic theory.
Genetics? No. In the last 50 years increase in the number of kids separated from one or both parents. Now before kids become adults, half have had the treatment. Largely the "unintended consequence" of several "well meaning" public policies, these started with welfare policies against the black urban poor such as "man in the house" policies forcing black Dad's to leave so their kids could get welfare. Now there are many more policies with expanding effect.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYes, causation is a task master, but kids missing parent resources are clearly less successful. The Obama effect is a very expensive one to produce without parents and not likely.
It easy to be fooled and easy to fool. Political groups are involved. It was interesting to watch Dept. Ed. follow a political agenda only to be forced to back off when results showed access to Dad added a full grade point.
Family structure is not something education psychologists are familiar, so they forgive bad measurement proxies and limited range. This gives them "causation" from a limited view. What causes funding that view is its political suitability. These politics are hurting 35 million kids.
The evidence has been quite robust for years that genetics & environment play relatively equal roles in influencing child development & resulting behavioural traits or symptoms. I think this evidence supports what most people would have seen as intuitively obvious for millenia.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn our present culture, the question is, which particular environmental variables have the greatest power to influence childhood development.
Once again it seems obvious that there are at least two factors which would correlate: the amount of time & attention spent in each environmental activity; and the strength of the attachment to each activity or relationship.
Kids spend many hours per week in classrooms & with peers, therefore it is obvious that these experiences would have strong effects over time. At home, some kids spend a lot of time with parents, or have strong attachments to parents; whereas many other kids spend more time at home in front of a TV. Or they may have parents who bicker with them about chores, etc. but do not actually do anything TOGETHER with their children which build a sense of bond or connection (this could be measured by hours spent reading books together, playing games together, having conversations together, going for walks together).
I suspect if these variables are examined more closely, it would be apparent that quality and quantity of time affects child development, whether it be with peers or with family. If we want to have a stronger, healthier formative role in our children's development, the two obvious solutions are to spend more time, pay more attention, and have less negative or unnecessary critical interactions with our children; and to have an involved, interested investment in our children's social and educational lives. So, get to know your children's friends! And spend quality time playing, reading, learning, etc. together WITH them, not just sending them off on their own! And get to know your children's teachers--be involved in what goes on at your children's school! This way, there doesn't need to be this dichotomy between "peer" and "family" influence--it can be part of a healthy and harmonious whole.
Cohen: Having a Ph.D is great. Just because you have some academic prowess does not mean that you should out right reject the comments by "ordinary" parents. For some parents this is heart-breaking; and for others it is some sort of guilt free-ing relief. But most of these comments here seem be objective enough to earn some respect, whether you agree or not. Parents do know better (at least most of them do), may be they are not using all the technical jargon like you academics, but they all have learned so much from their own experience, friends and neighbors etc and when they putting all that into perspective here. Just like ordinary parents here most of these Pshycologists and researchers are highly polarized and they all have their favorite theories. They can go to any length to twist the data and to prove their point. Same is true when they try to disprove others. Until this theory stands the test of time (read that as few decades), people are not going to accept it. This theory may be very true in some cases. But how true is it? Is it a universal phenomenon? This book is one way to find out some answers. In order to lend some credibility to her theory, fellow researchers also need to publish supporting observations and it all will take time. Majority of fellow Pshycologists need to be convinced about these observations before you can expect a nod from you know people. Till then every parent will be skeptical, and rightly so.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI was raised by drunk, abusive parents, yet I did well in school, hold two graduate degrees, and am generally successful in life. How do you explain that? When I see teachers react as defensively and aggressively as you just did to the suggestion that they might sometimes do a bad job, it just makes me think that, deep down, they know that they don't know what they're doing.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI disagree with the comments that "parents know better than the fancy-pants scientists". While fancy-pants scientists often turn out to be wrong, I can confidently say that parents today take themselves way too seriously. After a certain minimum level of care, putting in ever more effort into your kids is more a symptom of your own insecurities than real responsible behavior. And yes, I am a parent, and have been for some time.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTo Buckskinman;
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHarris asserts:" parenting didnt have to be such a difficult, anxiety-producing job, that there are many different ways to rear a child, and no convincing evidence that one way produces better results than another."
Poppycock. I personally know of several examples where parents played DEFINING roles and had great influence (positive or negative)
=============================================
1 I think it is important to understand WHY Harris wrote this book before deciding HOW we feel about it
Harris wrote this book "to reassure parents. wanted them to know that parenting didnt have to be such a difficult, anxiety-producing job, ....... '
2 I can empathize with Buckskinman , but the real debate is not whether parents play a defining role or not . OF COURSE THEY DO. The real debate is TO WHAT EXTENT DO THEY DO SO?Does parenting contribute 90% or 10%?
3 I have not seen any reference to a quantifiable factor that is at issue.In my view there is no real agreement or disagreement with Harris
I would like to know exactly how many people who commented on this article have actually read the book(s).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI've never read them. I think that they would be interesting at the VERY LEAST. Until which time I DO read them, I can't honestly say that I agree or disagree with what she is saying.
I believe that the article is minute to the ACTUAL reading itself. I also believe that parents who are offended by such opinions should try to understand why they find it this way.
And for what it's worth....yes, I am a parent, and a damn good one! :o)
Do you mean to tell me that peers having more influence on you than your parents is actually news? Pardon me while I pick myself off the floor, I just fell out of my chair. To whom is this news!? This is merely a further argument for homeschoolers to point to as to why they do not send their kids to school. If you send your kids to school, you didn't raise them, the school did.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI agree that certainly genes do play a significant role, or to say it simply, clever parents produce clever children. However, this is not the important issue for me. The most important thing is to make people with moral values and this is something that heavily lies on good parenting. So, for example, an adopted child maybe different to his foster parents as far as academic abilities and other external behavioural characterists, however, if properly raised from a baby s/he could still become a moral and respected citizen.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI haven't read Harris's books, however, I have got the impression that her research is based on a particular set of society, where, perhaps, parents do not spend that much time with their kids. In such a society it should only be natural that kids are influenced more by their teachers and peers since they are the people with whom they interact more. In my society, by contrast, where kids are more dependent on their parents - even, sometimes, after they get married - it is only natural that parents exert the main influence in their lives.
As a grand parent, rather than merely a parent or a helping professional/academic, I want to add two new ideas.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTwo more elements in this situation have thus far been ignored in the interview and all the comments. First, parental influence is widely known to be through example-setting, not telling. In other words, the process is much more instructive than the substance. How a parent presents to a child is much more influential than what a parent presents. Until this distinction is factored into the equation, the relative influence of parents and peer groups is an imponderable. Negative peer group and school situations may lessen those influences, as in my case. The same was true of my parents, however. Now, the second idea I add as a grand parent is that the relative influence of home versus school is rather irrelevant. I spent time with my three daughters and spend time with my grand children because all of them bring me endless joy. I like to think I'm a positive influence, on balance; but it does not really matter to me as much as does the overwhelming love I feel for them all. When our kids were little, my wife and I thought we could guide them in a major way; but my mother scoffed. We did not heed her, but now we know as grand parents that there is no way we could take credit for how fabulously our daughters turned out. So, we know that how our grand children will turn out depends less upon the parenting they get, about which we often have doubts, than upon the great genes they got from us and their other grand parents.
As a grand parent, rather than merely a parent or a helping professional/academic, I want to add two new ideas.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTwo more elements in this situation have thus far been ignored in the interview and all the comments. First, parental influence is widely known to be through example-setting, not telling. In other words, the process is much more instructive than the substance. How a parent presents to a child is much more influential than what a parent presents. Until this distinction is factored into the equation, the relative influence of parents and peer groups is an imponderable. Negative peer group and school situations may lessen those influences, as in my case. The same was true of my parents, however. Now, the second idea I add as a grand parent is that the relative influence of home versus school is rather irrelevant. I spent time with my three daughters and spend time with my grand children because all of them bring me endless joy. I like to think I'm a positive influence, on balance; but it does not really matter to me as much as does the overwhelming love I feel for them all. When our kids were little, my wife and I thought we could guide them in a major way; but my mother scoffed. We did not heed her, but now we know as grand parents that there is no way we could take credit for how fabulously our daughters turned out. So, we know that how our grand children will turn out depends less upon the parenting they get, about which we often have doubts, than upon the great genes they got from us and their other grand parents.
Harris' ideas are pure, unadulterated nonsense!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAll individual traits (including behavioral traits) of all living organism (including humans), develop ontogenetically (in the individual organism), under inseparable (!) effects of both (!) genes & environment (nature & nurture).
In order to determine which effects are stronger, you need to compare them, which requires that you first separate them; which cannot be done, since they are inseparable! The statement that this, or that effect, is stronger,is, therefore, plain logial nonsense!
amphib1: You utterly and completely miss Harris's point. OF COURSE children from difficult homes have problems: they carry the same genes that their difficult parents do! Harris is very aware that she's swimming upstream, that it is an article of faith in our culture that parents shape their children. But almost all the research "proving" this is hopelessly tainted by a failure to control for the influence of genes. This is not Harris's fault: she is merely insisting that we be careful scientists before we jump to the conclusion that we want to draw: the "Nurture Assumption." Read her book with an open mind.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisamphib1: you utterly and completely miss Harris's point. OF COURSE children from difficult homes have problems: they carry the same genes their difficult parents do!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNo less an eminent psychologist than Steven Pinker has called Harris's book The Nurture Assumption a landmark. You owe it to yourself to read it before you criticize.
Harris knows that everybody believes that parents shape their children. But when you really analyze the evidence, this belief proves to be built on sand.
Yep. That's why we home educate our children. My wife and I SOCIALIZE our children not a bunch of children and overworked teachers. Strangely enough, they are very competent in social circumstances... Odd.. Very strange. NOT!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPS We are non-believers.
Really, it all depends on how social a parent allows their child to be. If the parents are the child's main social interaction, then the peer group is definitely not as influential, until the child no longer puts up with the forced anti-social behavior. In that case, the child might then have a free fall into negative social behavior, in essence, making up for lost time. I only say this because I've experienced it, and seen it happen to many children who've grown up in very strict social conditions.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI would like to comment certain points:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisrbbloom argues that: "research has shown that children not only inherit genes from the gametes of each parent, but that their parents' subsequent behavior not only modifies their children's genes and the way those genes are expressed"
Ok, do we have clarified what behaviors affect which genes and what is the outcome? (and what in turn are the different interaction of those genes with other genes and so on...)
How do we know what's best for the child? I have serious doubts about our ability to predict the outcome of any multifactorial and so dynamic system like human behavior.
When you research a group of people and make statistic analysis you can count on different kinds of errors in your data, that's a given. Try to extrapolate that info to a single person and predict what will happen... those errors in the original data will lead to your inability to predict the individual's behavior. Simply the factors that interact to forge a personality not only have complex interactions (genes are a good example, they are not simply on and off switches for one characteristic)
Our scientific knowledge has limits, and she has not denied that parenting plays a role, only that such role is not what we thought before, that there are other influences in a child or juvenile Homo Sapiens. She is right about something (IMHO) that parenting should not be what it is now, our current model of parenting is not what we were evolved to do (quite possibly parenting was a Troop effort and not so stressful as it is)
Regarding Good teaching and problems with a child in school. In my experience as a clinician I have been able to find that the problem was at times not in the child nor in his/her parents, but in the teacher. Sometimes teachers simply don't comprehend the kind of harm that they may do to a child with their prejudices or pride (specially when the child is able to outsmart the teacher) Again, what I just said should not be used as an attack on the teachers. The point is that we are humans, and humans are not simple, but rather complex beings that develop thanks to the interaction between nature and nurture as Mat put it.
I simply fail to intuitively grasp why amphib and discipline see the article as an excuse for parents who doesn't want to spend time with their children, it is true that kids learn different aspects of socialization in school than what they learned at home. I would say that both are related, but they correlation between them is not perfect as some would like to point.
While the different perspective is refreshing and has merit, any suggestion that Asian schools do a better job of managing classroom dynamics, thus allowing children to learn more, is a red herring. In East Asia, particularly Japan and South Korea, kids don't learn more in school, they attend cram schools until late at night with constant (and what most Americans would find abnormal) pressure from parents to succeed academically. Classroom environments at best teach to the middle, since there is typically no tracking of students through junior high school, and bullying (and consequent suicides by the kids bullied) is a rampant social problem. This bullying happens when teachers leave the room, since it is teachers who go to the classrooms; students essentially remain in the same homeroom all day. I would caution the author to keep these points in mind in her comparative analysis, and to also beware that classroom dynamics seen in publicized visits by educators or researchers from abroad are typically highly staged in advance, with the best classes chosen for show, as it were.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo let me get this straight- parents, who , in the best circumstance, might spend 5/6 years with their children for long periods and time and then normally for less amounts of time while the child is in school, have little to no effect on a child's behavior- but a peer group, which generally only become important about 5th grade and which lasts until about 12th grade- have a huge effect? She seems to suggest that nature has the upper hand and parents can't do much to influence the game (DNA) once it has been played out, but then throws this idea out when she suggests that peer group can determine behavior. Which is it? Nurture or nature? But it's ridiculous to say that nurture doesn't matter if it does-even through a peer group- And if nurture does matter, then so do I.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd the parent doesn't matter but the teacher does? Because presumably, the teacher is controlling the peer group situation? Did this author/psychologist ever go to school?
This idea just doesn't seem to hold much water from this article. Perhaps it's a great theory, but this article certainly doesn't ring our any great confidence in it.
bergiemoore: Like most of Harris's critics, you miss the point. She doesn't say the environment has no influence. "Nurture" is commonly understood to be the home environment, and it does in fact influence behavior and personality AT HOME. Outside the home is a different story.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNot only did Harris go to school, she wrote college textbooks on child development—until she realized that there was no scientific support for the claims of the experts that the home environment was a major factor in personality development.
READ HER BOOK.
"In fact, personality resemblances between biological relatives are due almost entirely to heredity, rather than environment. Adopted children don’t resemble their adoptive parents in personality."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisShe clearly states *Nature*, not nurture, is in command of a person's response mechanisms and defenses.
"So if you want to improve the way children behave in school—for instance, by making them more diligent and less disruptive in the classroom—then improving their home environment is not the way to do it. What you need is a school-based intervention. That’s where teachers have power. A talented teacher can influence a whole group of kids. "
Here however, she states that the influsence for action comes from outside forces acting on the child/person- NUrture.
She says clearly that parents roles are overrated because a child personality comes more from heredity. ( "...a greater awareness of genetic influences on personality" ) What I hear you saying is that a parent influences home behavior- which is not what the author has concluded, she states it's genetics and sites adoptive research to back that idea up, and that a teacher and peer group influences outside reactions. So we all have what can only be called categorical personalities? Where we act totally, in some instances perhaps opposite of how we act outside our home. S shy person due to better influences in peer groups will be an extrovert suddenly for class adn teacher approval?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI state again, you can not claim that nurture has little effect on a personality and then come back two sentences later and say that the influence of a particular group- the very definition of nurture on a personality- matters. I do not intend to waste my time reading this book. If you can show my my logically fallacy within this sited article- please enlighten me. Don't simply throw out my criticism by saying I didn't read the book. I don't need the author has spoken for her theories here in this article.
"Professors of psychology were asked to give their opinion of the book before theyd had a chance to read it, so their comments were based on what they had heard about it." - Judith Rich Harris
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"I haven't read her books, but I'm not convinced." - Mat
"If we will only allow that, as we progress, we remain unsure, we will leave opportunities for alternatives. We will not become enthusiastic for the factm the knowledge, the absolute truth of the day, but remain always uncertain.... In order to make progress, one must leave the door to the unknown ajar." - Richard Feynman.
It seems your door is jammed shut, Mat, and all those who simply write off that which jars with conventional wisdom.
Pattern-chaser
"Who cares, wins"
A classic way for academics to sell books to the masses is to take a stance contrary to conventional thinking. Just because there weren't studies that showed what she was arguing against didn't make it untrue. And in fact, there were not a lot of studies that proved what she was arguing.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTo "amphip1" and"discipline"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDid you read the book? or just based your opinion on the article?
Benjowo
To those who are trash-talking Harris: Have you read the book? I didn't think so. Harris addresses many of the issues you bring up. For example someone mentioned the great point about absent, abusive or alcoholic parents who really can damage a child. She concedes that point, and she does NOT approach the subject superficially or ignore the complex interaction of genes, parents and peers in development. If after reading this article you are skeptical, then it's as it should be, seeing as she is attacking a deeply entrenched (but possibly false) assumption. Be skeptical, but don't judge her theory before you read her book.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTo parents with healthy children: think about why you might be inclined to automatically reject a theory such as this. You have invested many years of your life to ensuring that your children are raised properly, to have good values etc. Obviously it would be a tremendous blow to your world-view and self-concept to bring the nurture assumption into question. That doesn't mean it's wrong, it just means you are emotionally invested in the traditional view and find it hard to let go of that. I'm 24, and my parents would say I turned out very well. My brother, on the other hand, had problems with drugs and depression. My mother blamed herself for many years for his struggle, thinking she had failed him. What if Harris is right about the nurture assumption? People like my mother can let go of that guilt if they do the best they can and their children have difficulties.
I'm ranting now. End.
We shouldn't be reactionary in our refutation or acceptance of this data. It does seem immediately clear that points raised here are true. I am a teacher, and I have seen classes split where we have those that do and those that don't perform in class. Certainly we acknowledge that peers count. Have we forgotten "Peer Pressure?" I don't think it is negating the fact that parents matter. They certainly do! But when I see some of my misbehaved students out in public say a restaurant or shopping center. They certainly aren't misbehaving as they do in class. Something to think about.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Why do we believe that parents matter so much". I bet professor Harris is pulling all our legs. I can only speak for myself of course but what I remember from my own childhood and those of my many siblings was a natural duty to my mother and a fear and reverence for my father. To be principled and helpful was expected because those principles and those charities, we understood, create a poetic resonance that encourages familiarity and tolerance. It is the simplest and most direct way to be in concert with the world, and if one or all of us so chose, the way to divining the mind of God if you will. My young friends were almost exclusively sportsmen. Behind the language or conversation of sports was my father's unheard voice in how I might approach and examine motivation and desire. Could we sacrifice for our brothers. Did we have grit. Could we readily accept fault. The level at which I played involved a sure and intuitive knowledge of personality and background of the other boys. Some I cared for and some I didn't. What mattered was a sensitivity and comradship that would itself remain forever precious to us all I'm sure. Of the boys I played with, they are all gone and forgotten but for that remembrance of love and devotion to our little armies that would one day sweep the land somehow and ready us for what lay ahead. Little soldiers. Little acolytes. Though my parents are dead and gone my deep sense of their presence remains as though I am still a boy and can still feel my mother's smile and my father's amusement.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI always wonder when I read these articles, "How many children does this author have? And was she/he at home to raise them?"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEverything matters in child development. Health of parents, family finances, education of parents, dedication to the concept of having a family, birth order, friends and neighbors, extended family, church attendance, jobs kids might have, things they see on the street. Many of these things are like the unseen microbes in the dirt that affect a plant. They are there but we can't always quantify what they do, how they do it, or when they do it.
Perhaps timing is the most important thing.
My only daughter keeps harping on things that I don't even remember happening. We recenlty had a heart to heart and she asked why I had so many children. "Well", I said, " should I have killed the children that came (including yourself) in spite of contraceptives?"
We had 6 children. 3, 10 years later 2, and 10 years later 1.
I was an only child
My husband had one brother 10 years younger than himself.
We didn't have a clue what we were doing and we were always tired and broke.
We have one MD, 2 PhDs, 1 MS, 1 BA in military and 1 in grad school. We empahsized education, perhaps too much. 4 of them had single sex education. Socially my children are not as successful as they should be.
One is divorced, one is gay, two are married to spouses who are not their equal (these women married my sons for their large paychecks).
You just don't know what will affect a child. Here is an example. One thing made one of my sons study and get his PhD in spite of illness and other difficulties. We live in nice clean suburbia and rarely went into the city except to the museums or theaters. He said we were drivcing through a big city down town one day and he saw some homeless people. He said he never wanted to be that way. H esaid that was what motivated him to do well in school.
So all the things we, his teachers, his minister, his friends, his employers (he worked cutting lawns and baby sitting) did might not have mattered if he hadn't seen those homeless people that day when he was ready to make that connection.
so go figure
Better Late Than Never
I would say that the influence my parents had on me was more long term than short. They taught empathy for those less fortunate, stand up for those who cannot stand up for themselves, defend the weak, work hard, think for yourself and wear your seat belt and love. These are the things that have stuck with me irregardless of the friends that have come and gone.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI agree with Dr Harris about children especially adolescents. When I was a teenager my parents weren't very smart, didn't know anything and were not to be trusted with the truth. As I got older, amazingly, they got smarter.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisif you think parents do not matter, you have no idea what it is like growing up without any. my brother a drug addict, my sister a suicide. i don't know how they went from homeless street children to jobs and homes but what they did wasn't legal and had a price. my children and i live in poverty. our father is well off but in 35 years he only made one appearance in our lives, to claim himself heir and take what little my sister had.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisthis is the thing... she from an outsider looking, she seems to harbor a lot of guilt on direction in life her adopted child went.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo let's assume a teenager's behavior is influenced 20% by his parents and 80% by his peers. Each peer is influenced 20% by his own parents, so parents in the community in general provide at least 36% of the influence. But wait -- each peer is influenced by _his_ peers, each of whom is influenced 20% by his parents. If we keep going, the influence of parents in general is, oh, maybe somewhere near 100%.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe lesson here is that if you want good kids it is not enough to be good parents, but you must segregate your children from the children of bad parents. You must not allow them to attend school alongside the children of drug dealers and gang members, for example.
On another subject, I would certainly expect the scientific community's resistance to the idea that personality has a large genetic component. Critics of the book, _The Bell Curve_, persuaded us that there is no significant genetic component to IQ, and if genetics had no influence on _that_, there was certainly no reason to suspect that it would be any different with personality. Perhaps research to explain this discrepancy (as to why there is such a strong difference between IQ and personality as concerns the degree of genetic influence) could give us insight into the degree of genetic influence on other human attributes.
what about autistic children with good outcome after 3-4 years of home based therapy? was the effort of their parents useless or on the contrary? can somebody deny the huge beneficial influence their parents had in teaching these children? what would have happened with these children if parents were told not to emphasize on educational matters because genes are anyways unbeatable? I'm the mother of three, one is autistic, and am ready to say: good parenting makes the big difference in our kids lives regardless their genes.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI wouldn't take the risk of leaving educational issues on my child's teachers and only on them! Good luck with parenting to everybody!
what about autistic children with good outcome after 3-4 years of home based therapy? was the effort of their parents useless or on the contrary? can somebody deny the huge beneficial influence their parents had in teaching these children? what would have happened with these children if parents were told not to emphasize on educational matters because genes are anyways unbeatable? I'm the mother of three, one is autistic, and am ready to say: good parenting makes the big difference in our kids lives regardless their genes.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI wouldn't take the risk of leaving educational issues on my child's teachers and only on them! Good luck with parenting to everybody!
Amphib1, I think you are missing the point here. Rich Harris is saying: "It’s no longer enough to show, for example, that parents who are conscientious about childrearing tend to have children who are conscientious about their schoolwork. Is this correlation due to what the children learned from their parents or to the genes they inherited from them? Studies using the proper controls consistently favor the second explanation." You ask who does she credit for your kids' success? Well, she credits your genes, which means she credits you! She also credits you indirectly for having provided your children with the right environment for the development of their personality, both inside and outside of their home. Double praise. So don't feel she's attacking you and don't have a knee jerk reaction to what you read in the interview. If you haven't yet, please read the book, it's enlightening.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou should actually read her books.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRight on!
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