Summary: The Nurture Assumption

Originally written and posted in my blog the 31st of January, 2003.
Reposted here by request of the Nurture Assumption website webmaster.

Every now and then, you run across something that completely changes your thinking. I just read a book that had that effect on me.

Of late, I've been reading a book called The Nurture Assumption, written by Judith Rich Harris (who has two children, by the way). It presents, and backs up pretty well, an intriguing idea - that parents actually have very little to do with how their children grow up like. Instead, most of the personality children develop comes from their peers.

A lot of people will probably oppose this idea, but here's some of the evidence the book mentions:

* The children of immigrants. An Arab child coming to the United States at an early age, who only speaks Arabian at home, nonetheless often grows up to speak English better than Arabian and as one who follows an American culture.

* Many-faceted personalities. It's common knowledge that kids often behave completely differently in school than at home. Adults act differently at work than with their parents, and so on. Just about EVERYBODY acts differently with their parents than with other people. The youngest, most quiet child of the family can be very outgoing and active with his same-aged peers. It would seem that while parents undoubtably very much influence how their kids behave at home, it's questionable if they influence the kid's behavior anywhere else at all. Similiarly, people often act completely different with different people.

* Statistical studies about how parents influence their children tend to be muddled and contradictory. While there does indeed exist a slight correlation between the parents and children, this is small enough so it can be explained entirely with genetics (many studies have indicated that about half of people's different personalities are due to genes). There have been much studies made into how living with only one parent, or with gay parents, affect children, but the studies seem to indicate that while such things do make a difference, their long-term effect is very small (it is true that people whose parents are divorced are more likely to get divorced themselves - but once again, genes can just as well explain this).

* It's also common knowledge that kids who end up in bad company are more likely to get into trouble, while the ones who hang around with the 'good kids' are more likely to stay out of trouble.

* People are different from birth, and siblings can turn out to be very different from each other. If the parents' methods of raising their children would have as big of an effect as is commonly thought, siblings should have similiar personalities.

* People tend to view there to be three ways of raising children - 'too harsh', 'just right', and 'too lenient'. Some (American) studies have indeed found a connection between parents whose raising methods are considered 'too harsh' and children who behave badly... But, in general this connection only exists with white parents of European origin. No such connection seems to exist with the children of, for instance, American-Japanese, whose methods of raising children are usually more harsh: they have about the same ratio of well and badly behaving children as other Americans. Indeed, it would appear that the reason of the connection is instead with the children and not the parents - parents tend to use harsher discipline with children who are naturally problematic, while some kids are naturally so obedient that only very little discipline is needed.

* British upper-class boys were often sent to boarding schools for much of their childhood. They would have very little contact with their fathers, who they'd often only see briefly during short vacations - it was fashionable for the fathers to openly say that they found children disgusting, even when the children in question were present. The boys were raised by nannies and boarding school teachers, neither of which behaved like upper-class men. But when the boys finished the school, they'd come out acting just like typical British upper-class men, not like their teachers or nannies. Why? Because that's how the boys' culture was like in the boarding schools they were sent to. The boys adapted to the norms of their peers.

* There are many politically correct parents who think there's no inherent difference between girls and boys, and strive to raise and treat their children the same way regardless of the children's gender. Yet, often the girls still grow up to act much like the stereotype of how girls should act, and vice-versa for boys. This is hard to explain by just natural differences - genetics hardly influence whether one likes playing with trucks, or wearing dresses. Instead, boys and girls naturally separate into separate groups, where they learn how they should behave - if you want to play with the boys, you better act like a boy and not a girl.

* Kids try to act with their peers in the way they perceive as normal - if a kid's parents are somehow different from the norm, the kid's usually ashamed of it and tries to hide it. Kids don't usually take the way they behave at home to their peers, but what they often do do is bringing the way they behave with their peers to their home.

* There's a theory that says that a child has an idea of what his relationship to his mother is and what can be expected of the mother. This is true. But the theory also says this model applies with anybody and everywhere. I don't think so - I don't expect the whole world to come and comfort me if I suddenly begin crying.

In the face of this evidence, it's surprising how widely people think that the parents' way of raising their children has everything to do with the children's personality. Harris mentions this several times in her book - the 'Nurture Assumption' seems to be something that everybody takes for granted, but which has very little actual evidence backing it.

Exceptions always exist, of course, even to the evidence listed above. If a kid is rejected by their peer group and can't adapt enough to gain acceptance, there's a chance that they'll turn out different than their peers. Children who have little peers and spend more time with adults than with other children are likely to obtain more impressions from adults (this, I believe, has largely been the case with me). Genetics play a role, extreme abuse has obvious effects, and so on.

In general, however, it would appear like the peers of the children would have far more of a long-term effect than their parents do. Note the emphasis on long-term: the older the children become, the less of an effect their parents have on them. Parents' short-term effects on children can certainly be significant, but the book is all about the long-term effects, and how the children will ultimately manage in society, away from their parents.

It should be noted, though, that not everything is completely due to the peers' influence. In our society, religion is one example - unless the child goes to a religious school, religion isn't something you practice among your peers but with your parents, and so religion can be something that parents have more of an influence on. Anything that is learned at home and that remains at home - untested by peers - can be passed from parents to children. Peer groups can also have different norms of what things are acceptable and which ones aren't that big of a deal.

The main point in Harris' book is the group, people's natural tendency to make us versus them divisions. A family, in the West at least, doesn't normally form a group - it's just a few individuals. Children, however, do form groups - boys and girls, geeks and jocks, and so on. Children adapt to the norms of their group and want their group to be different from the others - if there are two groups who don't have any differences, the differences will be created. The approval of his group is one of the main things motivating a child. Children count adults and children to be two separate groups - which, on closer thought, can only feel natural. After all, for a child, an adult is something completely different than his peers. Thus it's less likely that a child'll adapt things from his parents.

The book also refutes the commonly held idea that being the middle or the youngest or the oldest child in the family has effects on your personality. Yes, while at home it does affect how you behave, but as has been stated, people don't act the same at home and elsewhere. In an overview of many studies, only a small minority found one's order of birth to have effects on one's personality. The rest of the studies produced inconclusive or "has no effect" results.

This all raises the obvious question: "You mean it doesn't matter how I treat my children?" According to Harris, the answer is the same as the answer to the question "You mean it doesn't matter how I treat my husband/wife?" would be. It doesn't affect very much what sort of a person your husband will be in ten or twenty years, but it does affect the relationship you'll have with him. Treat your kids well, and they'll be friendly with you even as they grow older. Treat them bad, and they won't bother with having much to do with you.

This is also one of the messages in the book: stop laying all the blame on the parents. Parents, treat your kids well but stop feeling so guilty if they screw up in the slightest. Having children is supposed to be fun, not a chore.

You can find the Nurture Assumption website here.