I thought this article was very interesting. What do you nomads think do you think parents have a great impact on their childrens personalities or their peers have more influence. Are we born with whatever traits in personality in our genes or are they developed?
--------------Parents: Who Needs Them?----------
Ever since Sigmund Freud published his first papers on psychoanalysis, people have placed great weight on parents' influence over their children. From doting parents who play Mozart in the crib to popular parenting texts such as Change Your Child's Behavior by Changing Yours, modern society has long assumed that the quality of the parenting directly affects the quality of the kids.
This is not the case, according to author Judith Harris. Harris lays out this idea in her 1998 book The Nurture Assumption: Why Children Turn Out the Way They Do; Parents Matter Less Than You Think and Peers Matter More. As the title suggests, kids' classmates, neighbors and friends have a far greater effect on them than their parents, according to Harris.
The book, which has generated considerable controversy, comes from an unlikely source. Rather than a tenured university professor with a Ph.D., Harris is a stay-at-home grandma with no academic affiliations. She was kicked out of Harvard in the 1960s for showing little academic promise, and has since spent her days writing textbooks.
Crippled by disease, Harris wrote her book from the confines of her New Jersey home, ordering psychology texts through interlibrary loan and research papers from helpful scientists. Her unconventional credentials aside, Harris has produced an influential work, which has attracted praise from some of the biggest names in psychology.
Separated at birth
Much of Harris's theory is based on studies of twins, which try to determine how much of people's personalities are shaped by genes and how much by life experiences.
Some of the classic twin studies have focused on identical twins who were separated at birth and raised in different households--an increasingly rare phenomenon. These twins, who have the same genes but grew up in different environments, provide a unique opportunity for measuring the relative importance of genes and environment in determining personality. Based on these studies, some scientists estimate that genes are responsible for up to 50% of personality traits while environment accounts for the rest.
Some studies have turned up uncanny similarities between adult twins raised under markedly different circumstances. These include long- lost twins who smoke the same cigarettes, drive the same model car, both wear rectangular glasses, have the same habits when reading magazines, and have similar hobbies, mustaches and fashion senses. These cases suggest that genes play a strong role in determining relatively insignificant personality quirks--tendencies that some assumed could only be acquired through individual experience.
Other studies have further diminished the role that environment plays in shaping personality. If upbringing had a significant effect on personality, then one would expect that identical twins raised together would be even more similar than ones raised apart. But studies reveal that this is not the case. Additionally, adopted siblings, who share no genes, are no more similar to each other than they are to genetically unrelated kids growing up in other households. If upbringing indeed plays a role in personality, then kids raised in the same household should have noticeable similarities.
Psychologists began to wonder why the influence of family on personality could not be seen. They devised more and more sophisticated experiments to uncover the hidden family effect. In the meantime, Judith Harris was busy writing textbooks on psychology, quietly following the debate. She eventually developed a theory of her own--one that would force her to quit writing textbooks and start work on The Nurture Assumption. Perhaps the family's influence cannot be seen in people's personalities, she mused, because the family has no influence on personality.
The Cinderella complex
Harris's idea requires some clarification. She does not believe that parents have zero effect on their kids, it's just that these effects don't stretch beyond the home. People live two different lives, according to Harris: life within the family and life among their peers. She illustrates this point through the story of Cinderella.
While at home, Cinderella had to be passive and dress unattractively so as to not arouse the jealousy and contempt of her stepmother and stepsisters. But when she goes to the ball, she transforms herself into a glamorous, self-possessed beauty capable of winning the hand of a prince.
Kids do the same thing, Harris says. Time spent at school, sports or social activities takes up a great deal of children's lives. Much of kids' personalities form from learning how to deal with this larger world, she says. From an early age, kids adapt themselves to this world's rules, conventions and styles-- something which will serve them for the rest of their lives.
The outside world can be considerably harsher and less supportive than one's family. In some cases, family life can be harsher than the outside world. When moving between these two worlds, kids adapt themselves to the requirements of each.
In the long run, the influence of the outside world wins out, Harris says. Much of life involves dealing with the larger world, and the behaviors adapted to this realm eventually outshine others.
What came first
Harris provides several examples of how children's peers influence them more than their parents. The children of recent immigrants quickly drop the accents of their parents and adopt those of their new-found peers. She says the best predictor of whether someone smokes is not whether their parents smoke but whether their friends do.
In support of her thesis, Harris downplays the extent to which parenting style affects children's behavior. Many psychologists have taken for granted that being loving and supportive of a child will make the child more self-confident and adjusted. Alternately, many assume that constantly screaming at or berating a kid will make him or her fearful, angry or less self-assured.
Harris suggests that things may work the opposite may. Perhaps kids shape their parents' behavior more than the other way around. Perhaps naughty, misbehaved kids prompt some parents to scream at them. Maybe well-behaved kids are more likely to be treated affectionately.
Lingering doubts
Harris's ideas have not met with universal acceptance. Some have accused her of being selective in her examples. There are literally thousands of studies examining childhood development, many of which offer contradicting views. An agile researcher can pick and choose among them to prove just about anything.
People have accused Harris of relying on studies that have later been called into question, or of ignoring more recent studies that don't fit her point of view. In particular, she has downplayed the success of "intervention studies," in which therapists teach parents effective ways of dealing with problem children. Work by John Gottman of the University of Washington has shown that when parents learn different ways of reacting to children's behavioral problems, the children can experience long-term benefits both inside and outside the home.
Some have also questioned Harris's reliance on twin and adoption studies. The small number of subjects available for these studies may limit their relevance to the population at large.
Harris's interpretation of these studies may also be skewed. She believes that because the same parents can produce two completely different siblings, that parents must have no effect on kids. But just because parents have no consistent effects on their children does not mean that they have no effect on them at all. It may just mean that scientists don't understand these effects.
Some have also suggested that Harris's views on the subject are not merely those of a disinterested scientist. Perhaps she has an ax to grind. Harris has raised two daughters. One is her biological child, and the other was adopted at a young age. As she recounts in the book, they did not fare equally. Her biological daughter was a dutiful child, well- groomed and inquisitive, who rarely went against her parents' will. The adoptive daughter, as Harris frequently points out, was a different story. Failing in school, she was distracted, needy of attention and a bother to other kids. She ran away as an adolescent and later dropped out.
Some have suggested that Harris constructed her thesis that parents don't matter to avoid any blame for how her adopted daughter turned out.
A needed perspective
Faults aside, Harris's book injects a missing perspective into developmental psychology. There is little doubt that a person can live two lives: life with their family and life among peers. Someone who is bossy and unyielding with their family may be easygoing among friends. Someone who is shy in public may be talkative and open at home.
An awareness of these two sides to personality may lead to better-designed psychological studies. Scientists may no longer look solely at someone's behavior in the home or in school when measuring developmental effects, but rather take both of these areas into account.
Observers also hoped that Harris's book would help some anxious parents relax. Hurriedly shuttling kids between soccer games and violin lessons may not be necessary. Maybe people shouldn't be guilty over every parental lapse. Some of their kids' fate is out of their hands.
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