Blame your peers, not your parents, author says

A former textbook writer challenges one of psychology?s most sacred beliefs?that parents are the primary influence on their children?s personalities.

By Scott Sleek
Monitor staff

Judith Rich Harris is an unusual recipient of an APA scholarly award, given that she?s neither a psychologist nor an association member. But even more ironic is the fact that the award is named after the same man who kicked her out of Harvard University?s graduate psychology program 38 years ago.

'I don?t think you?ll ever have a recipient of the George A. Miller Award who was happier to receive it,' Harris chuckled upon receiving the honor named after the renowned experimental psychologist.

Harris, of Middletown, N.J., accepted the award during APA?s 1998 Annual Convention in San Francisco, for a 1995 journal article that said research has never proven that parents are the biggest influence on their children?s personalities. APA?s Div. 1 (General) bestows the honor on scholars whose work deftly integrates various subfields of psychology.

She?s even received written congratulations from Miller himself, who, as acting director of Harvard?s psychology department in 1960, signed the letter that denied Harris a doctorate because she failed to meet the 'stereotype of what an experimental psychologist should be.' Once again, Harris is defying that stereotype, and not just because she?s been published in an academic journal without having a PhD. The soft-voiced former textbook writer, who suffers from an auto-immune disorder that leaves her generally homebound, is disputing one of psychology?s most sacred, enduring beliefs. She said her thorough review of the evidence reveals that parents, contrary to nearly a century of scientific doctrine, have no lasting effects on the personality, intelligence or mental health of their offspring.

'The nurture assumption is the one legacy of Freudian psychology that the behaviorists didn?t throw out with the bath water,' Harris said during her award speech. 'The Freudians and the behaviorists never questioned the notion that parents influence their children. They only disagreed on how parents influence their children.'

So who does have the biggest impact on our personalities, if not Mom and Dad? According to Harris, children are most influenced by their peers?the people who tell them in the classroom, on the ballfield or at parties just how well they?re fitting in. Children adopt certain behaviors in social venues in order to win acceptance from their peers, she says. And it?s those behaviors outside the home that remain steadfast through adulthood, she contends.

Her claims, detailed in her award-winning 1995 article in the APA Journal Psychological Review (Vol. 102, No. 3, 458-489) and in her new book 'The Nurture Assumption' (Free Press, 1998) have drawn strong national media attention, including a Newsweek cover story. USA Today said her book is 'launching the hottest debate over nature and nurture in years.'

Indeed, Harris has sparked considerable debate within the psychology community. Some say she?s made a strong case for the possibility that developmental research has based much of its work on a dubious hypothesis. 'I think she?s going to stir up an impassioned, productive revolution,' David Lykken, PhD, a well-known behavioral genetics researcher at the University of Minnesota, told the Monitor. 'And I hope people will come to realize much of what they believe [about parental influence] can?t be proven. It?s a very healthy thing.'

But others say her claims are flimsy, and could be dangerous in that they may lead parents to simply give up when they have difficulties with their children.

'Basically my concern is she reached the conclusion she did by not taking into account a lot of evidence that would contradict her conclusions,' says Theodore Wachs, PhD, a Purdue University psychology professor who specializes in the study of environmental influences on development. 'She ignores, for example, the fact that the family environment can influence the kind of peer groups kids find themselves in.'

Building the case

Harris began immersing herself in the child-development literature a few years ago, while under contract to write developmental-psychology textbooks. In 1994, she sent a draft of her article, 'Where is the child?s environment? A group socialization theory of development,' to Psychological Review, and the editors, in a rare move, decided to publish it despite the author?s lack of professional credentials.

In the article, Harris contended that the relationship with parents and siblings is an important aspect of early childhood, but may be of little use outside the home. Children?s social environment?their interaction with their peers?permanently modifies their inborn psychological characteristics. But in her convention speech, and in her book, she?s expanded on that point by emphasizing that children rarely transfer their behavior at home to their behavior outside the home.

She cites research, dating back centuries, that shows that children who are honest at home may cheat or lie at school or on the playground. Those who fight with their siblings are often congenial with their friends. And children who speak one language at home will easily transition to the language of their peers outside the home and primarily speak that second language in adulthood, Harris noted.

'Parents do influence their children?s behavior?of course they do,' she said at the convention. 'But the influence is in context, specific to the home. When children go out, they leave behind the behavior they acquired at home. They cast it off like the dorky sweater their mother made them wear.'

Harris also addressed research that would ostensibly challenge her premise: What about studies that show bad parents tend to have children who misbehave both in and away from home? Or what about studies showing that well-treated children grow up better adjusted than maltreated youngsters?

'The problem with that evidence is that it?s ambiguous,' she said. 'Children who are given a daily hug tend to be nicer than children who are being spanked daily. But are the hugs the cause or the effect of the child?s niceness?'

Even personality traits like aggression or shyness?characteristics that appear handed down from one generation to another?may be more the result of genetics than family socialization, she said. In fact, studies have found genetic influences on children?s television-viewing habits, their belief in the death penalty and their musical preferences, she has noted.

A surprise speech

Div. 1 members who attended Harris? speech are still quick to commend her original Psychological Review paper, but were a bit surprised, and in some cases dismayed, by her public remarks.

'The paper in Psychological Review apparently was a fine piece,' said Frank Farley, PhD, Div. 1 president and a former APA president. 'But she may have gone quite a bit beyond that in her presentation at APA. I don?t believe the research supports some conclusions she draws. She has taken an extreme position.'

Purdue?s Wachs, who has read Harris? journal article but emphasizes that he hasn?t read her book, said her claims slow the advancement of developmental psychology by looking at family/peer influences as an 'either-or' proposition rather than an integrated process.

She doesn?t look at how family influences interact, or complement, experiences outside the home, he said.

Even Lykken says he doesn?t buy all of Harris? assertions. He agrees that behavioral science has amassed little evidence to show that good parents can positively influence even the most troubled or temperamental child. But he strongly believes lousy, incompetent parents can 'ruin a child.'

But all in all, Lykken believes Harris has sparked a healthy debate in the behavioral sciences.

'I don?t know of any work other than ?The Bell Curve? that has gotten the publicity this has,' he says, referring to the controversial 1994 book about race and intelligence. 'I think this is a very important, paradigm-shifting book. It will make a lot of developmental psychologists angry, but the fact is, she makes a strong, scholarly case.'

For her part, Harris hopes her book will make society stop and reconsider the way it looks at parenting, perhaps making mothers less to blame for all of our neuroses and traumas. The nurture assumption, she says, has made parenting an anxiety-provoking experience.

'It?s introduced a form of phoniness into family life, because parents think they have to praise their children and hug their children whether they feel like it or not,' she says.

'And as far as I can see, it has not reduced the level of child abuse, and it has not made children any happier.'