''The Nurture Assumption: Why Children Turn Out the Way They Do'' is a 1998 book by the psychologist
Judith Rich Harris
Judith Rich Harris (February 10, 1938 – December 29, 2018) was an American psychology researcher and the author of ''The Nurture Assumption'', a book criticizing the belief that parents are the most important factor in child development, and pre ...
. Originally published 1998 by
the Free Press, which published a revised edition in 2009. The book was a 1999
Pulitzer Prize finalist (general non-fiction).
Summary
Harris challenges the idea that the
personality
Personality is the characteristic sets of behaviors, cognitions, and emotional patterns that are formed from biological and environmental factors, and which change over time. While there is no generally agreed-upon definition of personality, mos ...
of adults is determined chiefly by the way they were raised by their parents. She looks at studies which claim to show the influence of the parental environment and claims that most fail to control for
genetic influences. For example, if aggressive parents are more likely to have aggressive children, this is not necessarily evidence of parental example. It may also be that aggressiveness has been passed down through the genes. Indeed, many
adopted children show little correlation with the personality of their adoptive parents, and significant correlation with the natural parents who had no part in their upbringing.
The role of genetics in personality has long been accepted in psychological research. However, even
identical twins
Twins are two offspring produced by the same pregnancy.MedicineNet > Definition of TwinLast Editorial Review: 19 June 2000 Twins can be either ''monozygotic'' ('identical'), meaning that they develop from one zygote, which splits and forms two em ...
, who share the same genes, are not exactly alike, so inheritance is not the only determinant of personality. Psychologists have tended to assume that the non-genetic factor is the parental environment, the "nurture". However, Harris argues that it is a mistake to use "'nurture' ...
sa synonym for 'environment.'"
[The Nurture Assumption, Chapter 1]
/ref> Many twin studies
Twin studies are studies conducted on identical or fraternal twins. They aim to reveal the importance of environmental and genetic influences for traits, phenotypes, and disorders. Twin research is considered a key tool in behavioral genetics a ...
have failed to find a strong connection between the home environment and personality. Identical twins differ to much the same extent whether they are raised together or apart. Adoptive siblings are as unalike in
personality as non-related children.
Harris also argues against the effects of birth order
Birth order refers to the order a child is born in their family; first-born and second-born are examples. Birth order is often believed to have a profound and lasting effect on psychological development. This assertion has been repeatedly challen ...
. She states: Birth order effects are like those things that you think you see out of the corner of your eye but that disappear when you look at them closely. They do keep turning up but only because people keep looking for them and keep analyzing and reanalyzing their data until they find them.
Harris' most innovative idea was to look outside the family and to point at the peer group
In sociology, a peer group is both a social group and a Primary and secondary groups, primary group of people who have similar interests (homophily), age, background, or social status. The members of this group are likely to influence the person's ...
as an important shaper of the child's psyche. For example, children of immigrants learn the language of their home country with ease and speak with the accent of their peers rather than their parents. Children identify with their classmates and playmates rather than their parents, modify their behavior to fit with the peer group, and this ultimately helps to form the character of the individual.
Reception
''The Nurture Assumption'' received mixed responses. The neuroscientist Robert Sapolsky
Robert Morris Sapolsky (born April 6, 1957) is an American neuroendocrinology researcher and author. He is a professor of biology, and professor of neurology and neurological sciences and, by courtesy, neurosurgery, at Stanford University. In ad ...
says her book is "based on solid science". The psychologist Steven Pinker
Steven Arthur Pinker (born September 18, 1954) is a Canadian-American cognitive psychologist, psycholinguist, popular science author, and public intellectual. He is an advocate of evolutionary psychology and the computational theory of mind.
P ...
of Harvard
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
predicts that the book "will come to be seen as a turning point in the history of psychology
Psychology is defined as "the scientific study of behavior and mental processes". Philosophical interest in the human mind and behavior dates back to the ancient civilizations of Egypt, Persia, Greece, China, and India.
Psychology as a field of ...
".
However, the psychologist Frank Farley claims that "she's taking an extreme position based on a limited set of data. Her thesis is absurd on its face, but consider what might happen if parents believe this stuff!" Wendy Williams, who studies how environment affects IQ, argues that "there are many, many good studies that show parents can affect how children turn out in both cognitive abilities and behavior". The psychologist Jerome Kagan
Jerome Kagan (February 25, 1929 – May 10, 2021) was an American psychologist, who was the Daniel and Amy Starch Research Professor of Psychology at Harvard University, as well as, co-faculty at the New England Complex Systems Institute. He was ...
argues that Harris "ignores some important facts, ones that are inconsistent with this book's conclusions".
Harris rejects the idea that ''The Nurture Assumption'' will encourage parents to neglect or mistreat their children. She maintains that parents will continue to treat their children well "for the same reason you are nice to your friends and your partner, even though you have no hopes of molding their character. For the same reason your great-grandparents were nice to their children, even though they didn't believe in the nurture assumption".
See also
*Nature versus nurture
Nature versus nurture is a long-standing debate in biology and society about the balance between two competing factors which determine fate: genetics (nature) and environment (nurture). The alliterative expression "nature and nurture" in English h ...
* ''The Gene Illusion
''The Gene Illusion'' is a 2003 book by clinical psychologist Jay Joseph, in which the author challenges the evidence underlying genetic theories in psychiatry and psychology. Focusing primarily on twin and adoption studies, he attempts to debun ...
''
Reviews
"Do Parents Matter?"
Malcolm Gladwell
Malcolm Timothy Gladwell (born 3 September 1963) is an English-born Canadian journalist, author, and public speaker. He has been a staff writer for ''The New Yorker'' since 1996. He has published seven books: '' The Tipping Point: How Little T ...
, ''The New Yorker
''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...
'', August 17, 1998.
Psychpage review
Richard Niolon.
Carol Tavris
Carol Anne Tavris (born September 17, 1944) is an American social psychologist and feminist. She has devoted her career to writing and lecturing about the contributions of psychological science to the beliefs and practices that guide people's l ...
, ''New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'', September 13, 1998.
*
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Nurture Assumption
1998 non-fiction books
Books by Judith Rich Harris
English-language books
Free Press (publisher) books
Popular psychology books