Dear Colleagues:
Although Harris raises a legitimate point about the confounding of genetics
with the effect of parenting style on children, her wholesale discounting of
family environment is not borne out by the data. For example, Bouchard's
study of twins found that social closeness (the desire for intimacy with
others) and positive emotionality (an active engagement to one's environment)
were influenced by the family environment (Tellegen et al., 1988). Social
closeness has an obvious lasting impact on choice of friends and partners.
Harris does not mention this work in her book.
Moreover, "family environment" is not a unitary force, and the same family
event will affect children of different ages differently. For example, Lois
Hoffman (1991) points out that a divorce (affecting the family environment)
will affect a five year old differently than an eleven year old simply
because of their differing capacities to understand the event; thus a main
effect would be age, not family environment. This doesn't mean that the
family environment didn't have an impact on personality, it just means that
the family environment didn�t affect children of different ages in the same
way.
Tellegen, A., Lykken, D.T., Bouchard, T.J., Wilcox, K.J., Segal, N.L. & Rich,
S. (1988). Personality similarity in twins reared apart and together. Journal
of Personality and Social Psychology, 54, 1031-1039.
Hoffman, L.W. (1991). The influence of the family environment on personality:
Accounting for sibling differences. Psychological Bulletin, 110, 187-203.
Robin Rosenberg, Ph.D.
