I'm afraid it just took me chapter 1 of Judith Rich Harris' "The Nurture Assumption" to see where the argument is going and where the flaw in reasoning occurs. It especially occurs in the first two of her three observations that bothered her (10) -- the third being a complaint about Freudianism that is mostly justified.
The first observation was that the children of immigrants speak and dress "like ordinary American kids." The second observation was that upper-class British males, though raised away from their fathers, ended up behaving like them. She uses these to debunk the "nurture assumption" but fails to notice a pattern underlying both situations: expectations.
My wife is Mexican-American and a teacher, and she has observed that in homes where parents expect their children to learn perfect English, they do; but in homes where there is no such expectation, they children typically speak both bad English and bad Spanish. The recent trend in schools not expecting children to assimilate has made this problem worse. Those homes which expect their children to learn good English and good Spanish produce children who can indeed do both. Now certainly in a home where only Spanish is spoken, or English is spoken but poorly, the children will have to get the better English elsewhere, but it is the parents' expectation which results in the English spoken being good or bad, with or without an accent, or being present at all.
I can also use a personal example of this. My mother was from South Bend, Indiana and spoke with a neutral midwestern accent. My father was from Kentucky and, when I was four, our family moved from Indiana to Kentucky. When I came home from Kindergarten one day, I said that I'd seen a "dawg." My mother's response: "You know how to say 'dog' properly." Her expectation was that my brother and I would speak without an accent and, despite the fact that everyone around us spoke with a Southern accent, we met her expectation. Harris cannot possibly explain this with her theory. I tin fact refutes it soundly.
We can see this too in the examples Harris gives. THe Russian parents emigrated to the U.S. to assimilate into American culture. Thus, they expect their children to assimilate -- and they do. Parents who don't expect their children to assimilate have children who don't -- at least, not completely. If the parents expect their children to retain certain Russian holidays or customs, those children will more often than not retain them. And if we take the example of the British upper class, everyone's expectation -- from the nanny to the school teachers -- is that the boys will all grow up to act like a gentleman. And the boys typically don't disappoint.
Naturally, not all expectations can be met. You can't get a child with a 100 IQ to become a quantum physicist simply through your expectation of him to become one. That is too specific an expectation. Rarely do children meet our narrow expectations, but they do at least try to meet our broad expectations. My parents expected me to go to college, and I did. There was also the expectation that I would become a doctor or a lawyer. I have a Ph.D. in the humanities. Sometimes a child faces conflicting expectations -- sometimes from those who are raising them. My wife was raised by her grandparents, who expected her to start working right out of high school and to not attend college. But they also let her attend a magnet high school that was designed to prepare her for college. She managed to meet their unstated expectations rather than their stated expectations -- actions speak louder than words. Children rarely disappoint us in meeting unstated expectations.
Harris does touch on this in chapter 1, but uses it to disprove "socialization," where we tell children not to act like adults. Again, she fails to see the larger pattern in the specifics given. Everything we teach a child to do or not to do has later applications as a basic principle. As a child becomes older and more responsible, the specific rules change, though the general rule never does. My 16 month old toddler will walk down the aisle of a store and not grab a thing, even though she has seen her mother and I shop. It's because I taught her not to touch anything not hers. This will get expanded to "without someone's permission" as she gets older, so she will be able to play well with others and not be rude to others -- we still retain this if we see something we like at someone's house and ask, "Do you mind if I look at this?" It thus teaches respect for other people's things, meaning as adults they don't take things without permission, etc. Children not taught not to touch things grow up to be adults who take things without permission and show a general disrespect for people's things. So a specific rule for a child is shown to develop into a broader rule for adults, contra Harris' thesis. She's so concerned abut the specifics of each tree, she fails to see the forest.
The rest of the book should be interesting.
9 comments:
Harris' title is provocative--by suggesting that "nurturing" our children is wasted effort she alarms every parent concerned about their children's future. However, there are two major flaws in her book--First, like most of the nature/nurture "experts", she limits her scope to the child's personality and temperament, which are primarily genetic. Second, she ends the book by arguing, not so much that genetics is determinant, but that it is the peer group environment, not the parental nurturing that is determinant. The resulting conclusions do not contribute much to the debate. First, parents are concerned with "the whole person" their child becomes. If we examine the uncommon men and women who have contributed greatly to the world around them, we will find a variety of personalities--but what made them great may have been their integrity, their vitality, their optimism, their tolerance and communication skills--all of which can be improved by parental nurturing. And secondly, to the extent parents determine which peer group their child encounters, are not the parents playing a decisive role?
Your last comment is something else I've been thinking about in regards to her claims. If i've done a good job the first few years, wouldn't that have an affect on the kind of people she picks as friends? Also, my wife and I are the ones picking where we live, where she's going to school (we're planning on a Montessori school ASAP), where she's going to church, etc. And if we choose not to watch much TV, she's going to pick up that habit too. And if we choose to eat dinner at the dinner table instead of in front of the TV, that's going to make a difference too. Also, how does she account for the differences in how children turn out between homes with and without fathers in them -- especially in the first 7 years of the child's life?
Not sure anyone is still reading this thread, but here goes...
The post reads a bit like "my andecdotes against your data". It's not in chapter 1, but in the rest of the book she cites a lot of data that shows that the effect of shared environment is zero.
Bill,
I don't see how largely limiting oneself to the topic of personality is a flaw - that's her topic (although one might argue that the title is inaccurate). She explicitly says that there are ways in which parents can influence their children (ch. 14, "What Parents Can Do").
"what made them great may have been their integrity, their vitality, their optimism, their tolerance and communication skills--all of which can be improved by parental nurturing."
That's highly speculative.
"to the extent parents determine which peer group their child encounters, are not the parents playing a decisive role?"
She explicitly says so. In fact, that's a bit puzzling when you read the book, because she keeps citing evidence of no effect of shared environment and then comes up with a reason to expect an effect of shared environment. If I remember correctly, what she says in this respect is that peers are to a large extent a matter of choice - you can find "bad" peers even in a "good" neighbourhood. Another way to reconcile the evidence with her theory is to point out that adoption studies rely on samples that are taken almost exclusively from middle-class families - there may simply be too little variation in environments. (This is a general problem with all of the evidence cited in the book.)
Troy,
"how does she account for the differences in how children turn out between homes with and without fathers in them -- especially in the first 7 years of the child's life?"
See ch. 13. In short, she argues that a) the personality traits that are likely to get children into trouble are the same personality traits that are likely to cause adults to get divorced (e.g., aggressiveness) and b) those traits are partially heritable.
As I'm reading along, I'm noticing several flaws in the way data is collected. I'll be getting into that in later points. Also, when you make an absolute statement like "parents make 0% contribution," and I can provide ANY contradictory evidence, then my anecdote does override your data. Further, she still hasn't so far even said what "personality" even is. As far as I can tell "personality" is what personality test test for. The few examples she has given -- like the acquisition of a certain accent -- is not part of one's personality at all. On that topic, I did provide anecdotal evidence, but I also provided some rough data to further support my contention that expectation is important.
I think the problem Bill has with her focusing on personality is that parents are going to come away from the book thinking that they don't have any effect on their children at all. Further, she muddies the water by including things -- like accent in language -- that has nothing to do with personality. To the extent that she's saying, "you can't turn a nice kid into a complete jerk, or a kid who's a jerk into a model child," then she's right. Genes have a large influence on that. But she seems to throw the baby out with the behavioral bath water when it comes to mild behaviorist approaches that do work. If you reward a child for throwing a fit, they will continue to throw fits. If you punish them throwing a fit, they will stop. Especially if you in turn reward good behavior. Now, you're probably not going to completely eliminate fits from an ill-tempered child, but you can certainly reduce the number of fits they throw. I have nieces and nephews who are better behaved with me than they are with their parents, grandparents, or other aunts and uncles. The only difference between me and them is that when they do something bad, I punish them, while everyone else just lets them do what they're doing. The result is that when I"m around they were well-behaved -- and they all love to see me coming. Now that may or may not feed up into their being adults, but at the very least they are fun and pleasant to be around when they are well-behaved. Which means they are getting more positive attention, which has to be more psychologically beneficial than negative attention or being ignored.
'Also, when you make an absolute statement like "parents make 0% contribution," and I can provide ANY contradictory evidence, then my anecdote does override your data.'
That's correct, but one of Harris's central points - a correct one, I think - is that there is no way of saying whether correlations between parental qualities and their biological childrens' are causal. The correlation between a parent's expectations about proper English and the quality of the child's English is just one example of this.
'Further, she still hasn't so far even said what "personality" even is. (...) The few examples she has given -- like the acquisition of a certain accent -- is not part of one's personality at all.'
That's pretty much what I said in the short discussion we had at EconLog. Two major weaknesses of the book.
If someone takes the argument away from the book that "parents have no influence on their children", certainly he or she can't have read the book.
Your argument about punishment in no way contradicts the theory; she explicitly says that parents influence the way that their children are with them, what she says is that that doesn't translate into the childrens' general adult personalities. (In the case of punishments, an exception is a battering that's so extreme that it causes neurological damage, which can have all kinds of funny effects.)
Well, I'm still reading the book. I'm on ch 3 and so far I still find the argument to be weak, the data vague, and I have serious questions about what it is they are even testing. I'll give a more complete review when I've finished the book.
Looking forward to it.
If we look back over the past 5,000 years when men and women developed from barbarians to modern suburbanites, etc, we can point to no genetic factor that caused these changes. Today's youngster is more competent and knowledgable simply because of the cumulative advances that are taught by parents, clergy and teachers. In addition we have TV and peer groups--which are in turn shaped by the culture and grown-ups. Therefore, it is environment that trumps genetics. In my book Common Genius, where I trace the history of these advances, I contrast the graduate student of astrophysics at MIT with a young Australian aborigine growing up in the remote bush. The large differences between them are the result of the slow but consistent advances in knowledge and attitude in the West over thousands of years. All the advantages of the MIT student are attributable to his being steeped in, and having access to, countless discoveries and civil advances made by enterprising individuals. A modern college student can take pride in his learning, but he should never lose sight of the fact that his opportunities rest on the hard won accomplishment of predecessors. Americans are wealthy today simply because they have inherited the priceless values, customs, and institutions passed on by their ancestors. Without that head start, we would all be aborigines. The MIT student must have had the kind of childhood in which all those previous human accomplishments could inform his mind and character. Typically, he was born into a relatively stable middle-class or lower-class family that valued work and discipline. He finished high school, never joined a gang, avoided heavy drug use, acquired no criminal record, and had no children before going off to college. Another youngster, growing up in anearby community but without the same cultural and familial advantages, might be little better off than the Australian aborigine. Good nurturing is thus a vital ingredient of both personal success and societal success. Harris' book and studies muddy the whole issue by mixing up personality traits with character and learning--the acquired skills that make up "the whole person." IIn this regard, I like to compare two men that emerged from the American working classes--Franklin and Adams in Paris in the 1770's. One was gregarious, attractive, and the center of attention, the other was rather caustic and stiff, puritannical, buttoned-up, and hyper-critical. But both men led outstanding lives and contributed greatly to their nation. Thus we can say that nurture trumps genetics; the resulting knowledge and manners trump personality; and except in the hard sciences, EQ trumps IQ.
Actually, there was a mutation that affected brain development that occurred 5800 years ago that coincided with the development of agriculture, cities, and writing and which spread through the human population quite rapidly, but it seems like little else has happened since then, so it seems you are right on in regards to genetic vs. cultural differences. In fact, it seems that the mind complexifies in its thinking in reaction to the cultural conditions it finds itself in. Don Beck and Christopher Cowan go into detail on this in their book "Spiral Dynamics," which unfortunately is a book designed for corporate management more than a clear explanation of the theory and the evidence supporting it -- though one can pull out much of the theory from it. In it they explain how psychological and social complexity evolve in tandem. They argue too that it has nothing to do with genetics and everything to do with life conditions.
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