Customer Reviews

The NURTURE ASSUMPTION: Why Children Turn Out the Way They Do

5 star:		(60)
4 star:		(18)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(23)

 

 

This is a very difficult book to review, almost as difficult as it was to read. It is not difficult to read because of technical sophisication, but because both content and style trigger very strong emotions. Make no mistake, this is not an "unscientific" or hastily written defense of bad parenting, as has been claimed in some of the prior reviews here. Agree or not, she does handle the research with competence, discipline, and insight. She does not handle it all objectively, at least in the book. Moreover, it's questionable that the rhetorical purpose of questioning a mainstream dogma could be accomplished by a "balanced" approach to surveying the extant research.

This book challenges us to think of specific ways in which we influence our children's behavior and traits outside the home, other than through heredity. Yes, as many critics claim, we can find some. Aside from the early developmental issues which Harris acknowledges, we teach our children basic problem solving and moral reasoning that they often apply when we are not around. If she had recognized more of that, and written more about that, many of the harsher and more sophisticated criticisms would probably be somewhat assuaged. Her evolutionary argument about children doing what is neccessary to survive childhood is not at all inconsistent with the notion that parents do have some survival and coping skills to provide. Even within group socialization theory, the skills don't have to come from the group, they are selected by interaction with the group.

My bone of contention with most of the critics is that this doesn't really upend the group socialization theory. It largely shows that parental influence is less pervasive and overwhelming than the popular and social science models assume. That message would probably have inspired less virulent criticism, but also less praise from supporters and certainly would have made for less of a controversy.

Harris assuredly makes some very profound points about the foundation of the social science model of parenting. Yet it is hard to avoid the feeling that she goes way overboard in spots. The greatest challenge in reading this book is completing it with an objective enough mindset to appreciate what she is really bringing to the discussion.

Sometimes she does seem, as her many critics contend, to be, by implication, waving away parental responsibility. Yet by struggling through and giving her the benefit of the doubt, I found this criticism overturned by the end of the book. She does not outright say that parenting doesn't matter at all, she says that it matters most to the family relations, and less to traits and qualities as measured in other contexts. In the process, she challenges the reader to think of ways in which we influence our children, and ways they resist that influence.

One of the most interesting points made in the book, and one often glossed over in reviews, is Harris' defense of the concept of social context as a determining factor in behavior. In other words, that we take on different roles in different situations, in much more than a trivial sense. This is a necessary and profound part of her scientific argument, though perhaps it has little impact compared to the conclusion that the effect of parenting is different than we generally assume. I fear that some profound theoretical issues like this will become victims of the more general controversy over what Harris says and implies about parenting, and some of her more extreme conclusions.

In the end, I rated this book so highly not just because it is good science writing, and because it constantly engaged me and made me think hard, but because thinking about these things and talking about them with each other is part of good parenting.

This book asks a question that is interesting to many people: what factors explain the personality differences in people?

The author starts by reporting on studies that show that about half of the differences can be explained genetically. Most social scientists would agree with that assessment.

But what about the half that cannot be explained genetically? The author deals with this in three steps.

1. The _assumption_ that parenting style matters is attacked by showing that the evidence for it is merely anecdotal. Rigorous attempts to quantify the effect of parents fail to show more than a negligible impact.

2. An alternative theory is developed. She suggests, based on evolutionary biology, that there might be a greater role for peer groups than parents in shaping personality. This is a very interesting section of the book, because even outside of the context of the theory, the observations of how groups form and interact are interesting.

3. The author tries to provide empirical support for the "group socialization" theory. Ironically, to my untrained eye, this evidence appears to be largely of the anecdotal variety derided in step 1! And nowhere is there a clear demonstration of the quantitative importance of peer groups.

I believe that the author has succeeded in raising the "group socialization" theory to the same level of plausibility as the nurture assumption. But I came away feeling that neither theory is well supported.

I suspect that we may never prove that anything other than genetic factors matter in personality. A large component of the "other half" could be measurement error. A physical characteristic, such as eye color, is a relatively well-defined concept that can be measured fairly precisely. Not so with "intelligence" or "aggressiveness." These are fuzzy concepts, measured imperfectly. The mere attempt to measure these concepts induces random variation. Imagine how difficult it would be to explain height differences if we weren't quite sure what "height" really means, and if the measurements were based on rulers with 20 percent margins of error!

Try to read the book with an open mind.

I came upon this book by accident in search of something else. It is sooooo intriguing I've been reading it and pondering all day! The author has written several text books on child development, but through personal experience (two completely different daughters, academically, socially, etc.) and a careful review of scientific literature comes to other conclusions which she is able to support with anthropology, biology, genetics (nature) and double-blind psychological studies. The results dispel popular notions of "nurture" theories so ingrained by Freudian and behavioralist influences in our education establishment and social culture. To authenticate her assertions, recorded histories of identical and fraternal twins raised by adopted or foster families and other scientific and biologic data are offered. Judith Harris makes a convincing case that parents have less influence on how children turn out than do their peers. In the process, she relieves parental guilt if not suffering.

On the second anniversary of the Columbine tragedy, it's worth examining a shift in thinking. Obviously the mainstream media are consistent about maintaining the status quo of pop psych nurturing or we would be aware of this 21st century paradigm. Harris does not discount the value of being a loving, caring, supportive parent. But, she effectively illustrates how decent parents can have decent children or not as well as the reverse. Genetic conditions for behavior apparently are not as politically correct among psycho/social "advice givers" as the egalitarian NURTURE ASSUMPTION. She contends children are more likely to bring peer influences home than share home influences with peers; preferences (genetic similarities?) determine peers; peer acceptance or rejection is far more powerful than parental guidance or lack of it. Parents, educators, social workers, law enforcement officers, counselors and coaches need to open the blinds to this view of human behavioral development.

Among the questions Harris asks of researchers are: (p.353) - How can we keep a classroom of children from splitting up into two dichontomous groups, pro-school and anti-school? - How do some teachers, schools...prevent this spilt and keep kids united and motivated? - How can we step in and break the vicious cycle of aggressive kids becoming more aggressive because in childhood they are rejected by their peers and in adolescence they get together with others like themselves?

This book was published in 1998, the year before Columbine.

As a mother of an almost 2 year old child, I picked up this book as it seemed a quite interesting read. And it is. Although, as others have said before, it does get a bit repetitive.

I think it's good that the pressure is taken off of the parents, as perfection isn't achievable. But it just raises so many questions in my mind.. It seems that Harris thinks she can explain the effects of the social environment on children by looking at children growing up in cultures decidedly different from our own. Which is an interesting premise, but it doesn't quite qualify to rule out parents' contribution to their children's development. All it does is show that within an environment where parents aren't present/able to teach something, children will learn it from their peers. When parents are a larger part of the social context in which their children grow up, their contribution to the final result will be larger, too.
I think Harris overlooks the fact that children are likely to be different in how much they will be formed by their parents, and how much by their peers.

Furthermore, the fact that children behave differently in different social contexts doesn't rule out that they'll behave like their parents within the context of their own future family.
In raising my son, I've definitely recognized my parents upbringing seeping though. Doesn't everybody sometimes stop and think: "wow, I sound just like my mother/father"?

Finally, what I kept on thinking throughout reading the book, is that raising your child with love & respect - even if it has no effect on the final outcome of your child's character - will make the time you spend together under one roof so much more pleasureable. And they'll even want to visit you for Christmas (or whatever it is that you celebrate)!

This book is outstanding for two reasons. First, the author wrote university textbooks about how parents influence their children and from her own observations and subsequent research realized that the data was flawed. The radical environmentalist dogma was using very slim data to make statements about human behavior that just was not true. Second, it is complete and very easy to read. A book that should be read by every parent, either to help raise children or parents who have failed and felt it was all their fault.

The book puts forth concepts that are well established now in behavior genetics, evolutionary psychology, etc. It takes a new look at the interaction between parents and children, and between children's peer groups. It is now recognized now that children, from a very early age, are all about exploring the world and finding their own niche, and they do this in several contexts. For example, they may show one set of moral rules while around the family, and a completely separate set of moral rules while amongst their friends, and they can switch between the two contexts easily.

The book is a fascinating adventure into a world that is known by researchers but has not yet filtered down to the press or society. There are too many social scientists and social workers who have too much at stake at blaming every fault or good a child has on the parents. This book tackles not only the nurture assumption, but also rounds out the behavior of children with an explanation of the genetic components as well. This is a must read for anyone stuck in the 60's dogma, especially Dr. Laura (sp?). This author thoroughly repudiates most of Dr. Laura's assumptions. And they are all based on the latest research, not just wishful thinking about how children should behave.

For the last century, child development experts have searched for the causes of human's personalities in two places: genetics and the family environment. Nature or nurture. Former psychology textbook author Judith Rich Harris offers a fresh perspective on this problem.

Through detailed analysis of data on language acquisition, twin studies, and anthropological research, Harris determines that the family environment, and in particular, parental styles, have little influence on the personality of their children. While fifty percent of the personality differences can be attributed to genetics, Harris argues the other fifty percent of personality differences arise from a child's peer groups. Furthermore, parental style has practically no influence on a child's personality.

In a clear and thorough manner, Harris buttresses her argument through examples from the language acquisition of immigrant children, the social life of rhesus monkeys, anthropological research of primitive child raising techniques, twin studies, and her own personal life.

Harris's argument is so persuasive and clear, the reader will miss the fundamental shift in thinking it represents. Since the time of Freud, child development theorists have argued that the way that parents treat their children-especially at a very young age-have tremendous influence on adult human behavior. This dominant view of parental influence is so prevalent in modern society that parents walk on eggshells, paralyzed with the fear of doing the wrong thing and [messing] up their children.

Harris's book calls for a more humble view of parenting. Based upon her arguments, parents should no longer worry about [messing] up their children. No longer sculptor to their child's Pygmalion, parents should focus on improving their own relationship with their children and, when possible, providing their children with a stable group of friends that share their values.

Harris has written a rare and important book, one that will influence a generation of child development scientists in the same way that Richard Dawkin's THE SELFISH GENE influenced a generation of evolutionary biologists. And like Dawkin's seminal work, Harris has written her book in prose both entertaining and accessible to people unfamiliar with the details of her chosen specialty.

This book should be on every parent's bookshelf.

This is a book that will make you rethink all of your assumptions about the effects of child-rearing. Harris takes all of the recent developmental psychology studies and shows that the don't demonstrate what we think they do. Harris' theory is a simple one: While "nurture" contributes substantially to the composition of the personality and character of a child, the parent turns out to be only a small part of that mix. This flies in the face of all of our cherished beliefs about modern parenting, quality time, loving guidance, and positive discipline.

I was prepared to resist Harris' thesis to the death, but I found her arguments compelling. In the end, she won me over: If you look at the studies, if you examine your common sense notions, if you look at the way primitive societies raise their children, and if you do so without preconception, it is reasonable to believe that parental rearing styles are only a very small factor in how children turn out.

This is both comforting and scary. It is comforting because it removes a lot of the pressure to be the "perfect parent" and it is scary, because it shows how little control you truly have as a parent.

In short, this is not just another "parenting" book, it may force you to throw away most of the parenting books you already own.

Highly recommended!

The dominant ideology during my parenting years was the notion that parents are responsible both for the successes and failures of their offspring. Freudians were at the forefront in promoting this ideology, to the point where even autism and asthma were considered the product of poor parenting. The ideology was by no means harmless. Consider the tragedy of the poor mother with an autistic child. Not only was she forced to bear the costs of raising a difficult child, but society blamed her for the "cold parenting" that led to her child's disorder. It was Hans Eysenck's The Experimental Study of Freudian theories (1973) with G. D. Wilson that convinced me that Freud was seriously misleading, but it took another quarter century before the love affair of the intellectuals was irreparably tarnished.
The traditional disciplines of sociology and social psychology also tended to lay great stress on parenting in the determination of a child's psycho-social development. Certainly there was a considerable body of statistical evidence supporting this notion, but it was shaking in the 1980's when behavioral geneticists showed that half the variance in many behavioral traits was genetically inherited, and the cultural element tended to be extra-familial (non-shared environment). Judith Rich Harris's blockbuster article in the Psychological Review (1995) was therefore welcomed by many, including myself. Rich supplied an impressive body of evidence that peer effects are far more important than parental influences on adult functioning.
I expected that her book would be an expansion of her Psychological Review paper, but it is not that at all. If there is a table or a t-statistic in this book, I missed it. There is absolutely no evidence of the sort the behavioral scientist takes as persuasive in this book. I do not mean this as a criticism. Rather, I am deeply impressed. What Judith Rich Harris has produced is a philosophy of parenting that tells parents that they are important, but they are not responsible either for their children's successes, or their failures. There are good and bad ways of parenting, but good does not imply success, nor does bad imply failure. Harris urges us to be the best parents we can be, but to watch our children's successes and failure more as natural events than measures of parenting quality.
Harris suggests that the best think a parent can do for a child is provide a social environment in which the child's choice of peers is most likely to lead to a healthy developmental process and a successful adulthood. This is very wise advice
One of her most compelling arguments is that the fact that some parents have had great success in raising healthy children does not imply that all parents could be equally successful, if they only tried. Harris argues that if you have five hard-working, obedient children, you might profitably devote lots of time to their development, whereas if you have five difficult to handle children, perhaps you would do better to get them out of the house as fast as possible. Not bad advice..
Some social theorists have treated Harris's argument as a critique of the standard sociological notion of socialization and the internalization of norms. This is a mistake. If Rich is correct, peers are a more important socialization influence that parents, but her total argument is an affirmation of socialization theory.

This teaching family, six educators, grades K-16, (plus 3 degrees in psychology) agrees that this book is indeed a shift in thinking and one that finally faces up to some important truths. Those psychologists who are crying foul and using their lofty psychobabble to discredit this work likely have not observed first hand the long-range development of student behavior, or perhaps they just have too great a stake in their own precious (and hard-learned) notions. Granted, the author goes a bit overboard in discounting the parental influence quite so completely, but one doesn't have to accept every word to recognize the kernal of truth present in the basic premise. In our over 100 years of collective teaching we have watched students change completely according to the peer group they were with at the time. (Classroom Angel to Neighborhood Terror) (Elementary School Honor Student turning into a Middle School Dropout) It is quite hard to accept that as parents we have only a certain amount of influence, but there it is. Teachers, counselors, and parents could all benefit from giving the ideas in this book careful consideration.

This book is already a classic! Let's face it, in the nature versus nurture debate, nature pretty wins when it comes to most important traits (e.g., adult IQ, major personality traits, homosexuality, etc.).

How do we know this? We know it from: 1) Studies of identical twins separated at birth and raised apart. When they were later reunited again as adults, they were quite similar. 2) Studies of biological siblings reared together and apart. Biological sibilings reared together are generally no more similar than biological siblings reared apart. 3) Studies of non-related adoptive siblings that show them to be as dissimilar as random people picked off the streets.

And yet, despite all of these basic facts, people in the media as well as "experts" who are not familiar with many of these basic facts, continue to talk about "nature versus nurture," as though there is some sort of relevent scientific debate going on. Paradoxically, psychology "experts" are often more confused about this issue than the average person, who may observe empirically that siblings reared together are often quite different (despite the fact that they share at least half of the genes that can be expected to differ in the human population!).

It is interesting to see how people in fields like Developmental Psychology continue to distort the issue, even after the publication of this book put all of the facts out there. What they should have done was to admit, "Hey, we were wrong. We did not really know. We thought that maybe small differences in parenting practices would be important. I guess that we were off." Do you know what they did instead? They decided to redefine "nurture"! I am not making this up! "Nurture" has now amusingly been redefined in order to encompass random environmental effects that have nothing to do with upbringing or the effects of two siblings reared together. Although "Nature versus Environment" is a relevant, exciting question, "Nature versus Nurture" is no longer a viable debate. And yet, as Harris points out, what exactly "Environment" means is not at all clear. Could peer groups be crucuial? Who knows? We do know, however, that it is not parents.

Well, I loved this book. Furthermore, over the years, I see that more and more people are seeing things more clearly. This is a great thing in many ways, because it implies to parents that they no longer have to act like freaks when it comes to raising their kids. No one disagrees that it would be a terrible thing to deprive an infant of basic needs. On the other hand, there is no real evidence to show that children will not thrive under most conditions.