There seem to be two issues that are being conflated: (1) The
issue of whether Harris is presenting a scientific hypothesis (as
opposed to bunch of poorly-documented anecdotes) and (2) whether
Harris' argument is valid.
I suggest that the first question can be answered by examining
the 1995 Psychological Review article (v. 102, pp. 458-489)
instead of arguing over endnote/footnote/reference formats. The
argument in the 1995 article is presented in a format familiar to
psychologists.
It also seems to me that many people misunderstand her basic
thesis, which is *NOT* that parents are unimportant but that they
lack a certain influence that has been automatically assumed.
Her argument is that a lot of environmental influence has been
uncritically assigned to the parents when it should have been
assigned to the peer group. I don't know whether she is correct
or not but this hypothesis seems plausible and empirical.
Here is a summary of the thesis from the 1995 article.
"The theory presented in the remainder of this article, Group
Socialization (GS) theory, explains the shaping of adult
personality characteristics in terms of the child's experiences
outside the parental home. It is important to note that this
theory does not imply that children can get along without
parents. Children are emotionally attached to their parents (and
vice versa), are dependent on them for protection and care, and
learn skills within the home that may prove useful outside of it;
these facts are not questioned. What GS theory implies is that
children would develop into the same sort of adults if we left
them in their homes, their schools, their neighborhoods, and
their cultural or subcultural groups, but switched all the
parents around." (1995, p. 461)
What a gedankenexperiment!
Ken
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Kenneth M. Steele, Ph.D. [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Department of Psychology http://www.psych.appstate.edu
Appalachian State University
Boone, NC 28608
USA
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