Correction - I meant to say points 1 to 5 in my concluding sentence. Apologies for the other typos; that should teach me to type lengthy messages prior to my mandatory morning injection of caffeine. Cheers...Scott
________________________________________ From: Lilienfeld, Scott O [[email protected]] Sent: Thursday, November 19, 2009 7:10 AM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) Subject: RE: [tips] Critique of Harris's book: The Nurture Assumption/Study in Social psychology? Hi All: I certainly appreciate Joan's willingness to share her analysis with us. I don't have time to respond in the depth I'd like, but I'll say only that I've corresponded with Judy Harris on a number of occasions (and seen her correspond with others), and that she is not to be underestimated intellectually, as some appear to have done here. She is a formidable scholar and intellect and has thought through the rebuttals very, very carefully. That is not to say that she is correct about everything (who is?) or that her work ought not be challenged by Joan or others, only that one must be careful not to dismiss her conclusions cavalierly. People who have done so have typically ended up humbled, if not humiliated. I'm not especially interested in the quality of her citations or referencing either (plus, some of this may be a result of formatting constraints imposed by her publisher). I'm much more interested in whether her conclusions stand up to scrutiny. To me, the key issue is as follows: (1) Until about 20 or 30 years ago, many schools of modern social and personality psychology presumed that shared environmental influences - those that tend to make family members more alike - play key shaping roles in adult personality. One could go on at length here, but Freudian theory posits that children tend to take on the characteristics of their parents post-Oedipally; social learning theory (most forms of it, anyway) posits that parental modeling plays a key role in the development of personality; many cognitive-behavioral models posit that parenting shapes early schemas; and so on. (2) Until recently, much of developmental psychology similarly presumed that shared environment was important, if not determinative, in adult personality. This was so much the case that even when obvious potential genetic confounds were present in designs (Baumrind's work comes to mind; so does much of the literature linking attachment to personality; so does all - and I mean all - of the huge literature on parenting styles and depression, anxiety, introversion, impulsivity, ad nauseum in intact famlies; so does all of the research on parenting monitoring and substance abuse/sexual behavior...one could mention literally hundreds of research domains here), they were often not even mentioned by researchers. The assumption, apparently, is that these potential confounds are so trivial in magnitude that they can be safely ignored. Indeed, Joan didn't even mention the clear potential genetic confounds in Baumind's widely cited parenting work. And I'm serious and sincere when I say that I don't mean to pick on Joan here, as she is in very good company - most of the field at large has until fairly recently ignored these confounds. We repeatedly teach our students that they cannot infer causation from correlation, yet until a decade or so many developmental researchers - not to mention scores of textbooks - confidently drew causal conclusions from genetically uninformative designs (especially studies intact families) that do not permit such conclusions. Remarkably, many continue to do so today. (3) Data from both twin and adoption studies converge in suggesting that the role of shared environment on adult (not always child, however) personality or psychopathology (with disorders of antisocial behavior being a likely exception) is minimal across the personality spectrum. Some behavior genetic studies suggest no role of shared environment at all, others at best a modest role. Whether or not we like their conclusions (which shouldn't be relevant, as our role as scientists is to put aside emotional reasoning), these studies challenge the nurture assumption and challenge the prevailing view that shared environment is of key importance in shaping personality, normal and abnormal, in adulthood. At best, it is a modest influence; in the lion's share of studies, it is a nonexistent or negligible influence. (4) These data do not imply, as some have claimed, that parenting makes no difference. They do suggest that within the broad range of average expectable environments, parents tend not to have the potent homogenizing influence often attributed to them by social and personality researchers. Parenting can still play a key role in producing differences among children - and later adults - in their personality traits, although the magnitude of influence here remains controversial. And I don't know anyone in the field (maybe they're out there, but if so they are certainly outliers) who deny that outside the range of average expectable environments, such as exceedingly neglectful or abusive parents, shared environment can play a role (a negative one on the low end) in shaping personality. Children need basic love and nourishment to thrive, and the prolonged lack of both can produce dire consequences for later personality and intellectual development. (5) Nor do these data imply that environmental factors are unimportant in shaping personality. These same behavior genetic data clearly demonstrate that nonshared environment plays a key role in adult personality and psychopathology, although it is unclear how much of this environment is systematic (e.g., differential parental treatment, differential peer exposure) or essentially random, as Eric Turkheimer has concluded in his writings on what he terms the "gloomy prospect" for work on environmental influence. I will not discuss Harris' views on peer influence, partly because I'm not sure I grasp these as well, and also because I don't see them as essential to the above arguments. Even if Harris is wrong about peer influence, she could be entirely correct about the nurture assumption. I would contend that points 1 to 4 have stood up to careful scrutiny, and that minor details and amendments aside, Harris's central conclusions about the nurture assumption are essentially correct. ....Scott ________________________________________ From: [email protected] [[email protected]] Sent: Wednesday, November 18, 2009 8:19 PM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) Subject: Re: [tips] Critique of Harris's book: The Nurture Assumption/Study in Social psychology? 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 ----------------------------------------------------------------- Stephen L. Black, Ph.D. Professor of Psychology, Emeritus Bishop's University e-mail: [email protected] 2600 College St. Sherbrooke QC J1M 1Z7 Canada ----------------------------------------------------------------------- --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([email protected]) This e-mail message (including any attachments) is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. If the reader of this message is not the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution or copying of this message (including any attachments) is strictly prohibited. If you have received this message in error, please contact the sender by reply e-mail message and destroy all copies of the original message (including attachments). --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([email protected]) --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([email protected])
