I've been away and seem to have missed the fun. But I can't
help but join in on this judgemental comment from Paul, which
is rather daring of him considering that he admits that he has
not read Harris' book.
On 18 Nov 2009 at 11:02, Paul Brandon wrote:
> E.g., I think that Joan has a valid point about Harris'
> failure to address a considerable behavioral literature in the past
> 20 years showing the effects of parental actions on child behavior
> <snip> but since I
> don't have a copy of the book available, I am not prepared to debate
> it with someone who has.
Where did Paul get the idea that Harris failed to address the
behavioural literature on parental actions? In fact, her skillful
treatment of this literature is one of the strengths of her book. In
a detailed, insightful chapter on methodology ("The Nature and
Nurture of the Evidence"), she discusses the flawed nature of
this research, in particular its failure to consider that the results
reported for parental effects could be explained as readily by
heredity as by upbringing. Joan also fails to understand this (see
her critique).
Harris says:
"[Behaviour geneticists] are still overwhelmingly outnumbered by
socialization researchers. Perhaps that is why most socialization
researchers find it easy to ignore the results of behavioral
genetic studies. The behavioral geneticists, on the other hand,
do not ignore the work of socialization researchers. They have
pointed out time and again that the failure to control for the
effects of heredity makes the results of most socialization
studies uninterpretable. And they are right."
In her next chapter, Harris reviews the literature on parental
actions through a detailed discussion of a major and lengthy
review paper by Maccoby and Martin on the topic. She cites
their conclusion, "The implications are either that parental
behaviors have no effect, or that the only effective aspects of
parenting must very greatly from one child to the other within the
same family" (which Harris then further discusses). Although
Maccoby and Martin published back in 1983, one only has to
pick up a current textbook or journal of child psychology to see
that the problems they (and later Harris) identified with parenting
studies are still with us today. Joan, despite claiming to have
read Harris' book, seems oblivious of these problems.
Harris does consider examples of socialization research as well,
notably the deeply flawed work on birth order effects, but also
such matters as research on parenting styles so beloved by
Joan, day care, and unconventional homes, and finds all these
sources of evidence wanting in support for parental effects. She
also reviews such topics as attachment studies, studies of
deprived children, the effects of father absence, divorce, and
spanking. How many more such studies would Joan have
Harris repetitively plod through if every one shows the same
defects? To recyle a familiar phrase, garbage in = garbage out.
This is why I did not ask Joan to provide a verbose, rambling,
nit-picking essay consisting mostly of false accusations against
Harris of incorrect referencing. I asked her to provide us with
one single experiment which, in her opinion, unequivocally
blows Harris' research-buttressed contention away, and shows,
once and for all, that parental upbringing does have a lasting
effect on the adult personality. Harris' claim that it does not is
what horrifies Joan, and it's the substantive issue I expected
Joan would respond to in her critique. Not misguided trivia about
referencing, style, and illustrative anecdotes.
I'm still waiting.
Stephen
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Stephen L. Black, Ph.D.
Professor of Psychology, Emeritus
Bishop's University
e-mail: [email protected]
2600 College St.
Sherbrooke QC J1M 1Z7
Canada
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