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The NURTURE ASSUMPTION: Why Children Turn Out the Way They Do Paperback – September 1, 1999

by Judith Rich Harris (Author), Steven Pinker (Author)

113 customer reviews

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A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK

How much credit do parents deserve when their children turn out welt? How much blame when they turn out badly? Judith Rich Harris has a message that will change parents' lives: The "nurture assumption" -- the belief that what makes children turn out the way they do, aside from their genes, is the way their parents bring them up -- is nothing more than a cultural myth. This electrifying book explodes some of our unquestioned beliefs about children and parents and gives us a radically new view of childhood.

Harris looks with a fresh eye at the real lives of real children to show that it is what they experience outside the home, in the company of their peers, that matters most, Parents don't socialize children; children socialize children. With eloquence and humor, Judith Harris explains why parents have little power to determine the sort of people their children will become.

The Nurture Assumption is an important and entertaining work that brings together insights from psychology, sociology, anthropology, primatology, and evolutionary biology to offer a startling new view of who we are and how we got that way.

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Editorial Reviews

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Howard Gardner The New York Review of Books Harris's book is well written, toughly argued, filled with telling anecdotes and biting wit. -- Review

About the Author

Judith Rich Harris is also the author of No Two Alike: Human Nature and Human Individuality. A former writer of college textbooks, Harris is a recipient of the George A. Miller Award, given to the author of an outstanding article in psychology. She is an independent investigator and theoretician whose interests include evolutionary psychology, social psychology, developmental psychology, and behavioral genetics.

Paperback: 480 pages
Publisher: Free Press; 1 edition (September 1, 1999)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0684857073
ISBN-13: 978-0684857077
Product Dimensions: 6.2 x 1 x 9 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 113 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,580,532 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #4233 in Books > Parenting & Relationships > Parenting > Early Childhood
- #4999 in Books > Health, Fitness & Dieting > Psychology & Counseling > Child Psychology
- #5067 in Books > Medical Books > Psychology > Child Psychology

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W. Gulyas

Important - Guaranteed to surprise, and change your thinking

November 29, 2012

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

A child's peers have more influence on a child's self-esteem and eventual success in life than a child's parents do.

Don't believe it? I didn't either - until I read this book, which made me consider the possibility seriously.

The author is a former writer of child psychology textbooks. The book reports the surprising facts and research that the author discovered in the course of her work that led her to the above conclusion, which she substantiates thoroughly. The book is also very well-written, and interesting to read. The real-life examples of children who had problems that originated with their peer group, and not with themselves, and the simple changes that these children's parents made in their environments to change their peer group, and which radically changed their lives for the better, were remarkable.

While I initially scoffed at its counter-intuitive premise, this book may have been the best book on child psychology that I read during my graduate studies at Columbia University. It contained well-substantiated, important information that most people don't know, in a very entertaining read. At a time when parents invest so much time and energy in their decisions with respect to their children, this information could be invaluable by helping parents recognize when a problem is not with their child, or in their home, but in their child's peer environment, and what they can do to fix it.

14 people found this helpful

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March 14, 2014

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

This really is a perfect book to read: lucid, funny, evidence-based, rational and groundbreaking in its insight. It completed changed my view on parenting and, I think, makes me a better parent today. It's central premise (that children are shaped almost entirely by their genes and peer group, and very little by the style in which their parents raise them) is so well constructed and so clearly true - and so backed up with good science - that it's amazing nobody really wrote about it beforehand. Many people who consider themselves good parents probably won't like what she has to say, but it's hard to see how they can't concede that she is mostly right. I have read this book three times, and gave it as a gift to three others (they weren't nearly as convinced as I am, if I'm honest). In my opinion, five stars is not enough for this provocative and brilliant work..

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Stephanie B.

Excellent challenge to our culture's understanding of parenting

February 27, 2018

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

This book fundamentally changed the way I see human personality and the way we behave. For me, this wasn't just theoretical: it helped me to understand my own motivations, and the difficulties I faced as a teenager. It was an eye-opening shift in the perspective I had on my own life. I hope the message is spread wide and clear: our culture is so quick to blame the parents when anything goes wrong, but this book does an excellent job of illustrating how study after study have demonstrated that parents don't have anywhere near as much influence as we all seem to assume.

2 people found this helpful

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December 11, 2010

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

The book is essential for everybody interested in the human being.

The reasoning and the experiences that she has collected to show that peer influence is more prevalent and lasting than the influence of parents is firmly established in the book. Many have already detailed these experiences in the comments and not worth it to repeat here.

Clearly, to improve the adaptability to the environment, is much more appropriate for children "adopt" rules for living with different groups that have little relation to what goes right or wrong at home. Thus, it makes sense the idea of "code switching", in different environments.

The resistance to most people accept even listen these ideas (which therefore implies the low book evaluation in Amazon) stems from the fact that they need and want to have control over the fate of their offspring. This also stems from the deep belief and morality that parents act as a master guide for their children.

Judith Harris, on the other hand, tells that the guilt burden that parents bear when something goes wrong is too heavy and unfair.

The core goes in the right direction, but it does not prevent, to my understanding, make inferences, at least, risky.

* I personally do not believe there is a separate module for interpersonal relationships and group relationship. There is even some kind of separation, but there are important links, both direct and indirect. Direct, because groups and friends have in common and share experiences. Indirect, because close friends influence you to select groups or subgroups by affinities.

* So, although the parents did not consist of a group, the books doesn't tells that love and family care does not implies identification and sharing experiences. Thus, for example, a very close relationship between a mother and a daughter who goes beyond the love and care, can direct the child to adopt behaviors and attitudes that may affect the way she faces the differents groups. No reseach is described in the book explores this possibility, which is lost in big and generic samples

* On the other hand, I think the issue of "abuse" is handled too much generically. Families of thieves or drunks does not mean that abuse continued happen to their children. The author even addresses this issue lightly, but not much stands out. All research that uses it quoted a very broad universe of maladjustment. If one single rape can cause sequelae in adults why a child continually mistreated will not be affected? Further research would need to be made on this issue.

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