Harris states, unequivocally, in a great many sources including both her
books, interviews, etc., that parents matter a great deal and are very
important to the quality their children's childhood experiences (happy vs.
unhappy), their development and growth as people--attitudes, values,
beliefs--and their behavior (in the home). Her thesis applies specifically
to socialization and personality, as Joan quotes below. Parents do not form
their children's *personalities* according to Harris, and are not their
primary socializers. That's it. Pinker tends to use attention grabbing
language. Go to Harris. Read.
Paul Okami
----- Original Message -----
From: "Joan Warmbold" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS)"
<[email protected]>
Sent: Sunday, March 16, 2008 9:33 PM
Subject: Re: [tips] Harris 1995 [Was Nurture assumption]
Gee, do I really want to get into this at all anymore?! But both Pinker
and Harris boldly state that parents are not important. Quote from the
foreword by Pinker states, "The thesis of The Nurture Assumption . . .(is)
that genes and peers matter, but parent's don't matter. In the preface by
Harris, she quotes from her journal article, "Do parents have any
important long-term effects on the development of their children's
personality? This article examines the evidence and concludes that the
answer is no."
I will again apologize for my very inaccurate statement that no citations
were provided. However, I have been spending much time today reviewing
this text and will provide a number of examples of statements in this book
later this week that are quite unfounded and provide no citation.
Stephen, please don't respond yet. Wait until I have the proper time and
energy to provide what I believe to be reasons that this text has
weaknesses that the scientific community at-large should be made aware.
After I present such, go at me with any and all criticisms. This is what
this listserv is all about--learning what does and does not make up good
science.
Joan
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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
---------------------------------------------------------------
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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