What? I’m not saying insufficient parental nurturing is the cause of all psychological problems, I’m just saying that
parenting has close to zero effect on how children turn out.
is a very strong claim, and that I have seen very strong evidence against it. You’re going to need to make a hell of a case. (please note: linking two pop-psych books and saying that my politely disagreeing with you constitutes proof is not much of a case at all.) This makes me think of someone looking at the equations for electromagnetism and gravitation, then concluding “logically” that gravity will have nearly zero effect on the path of a projectile.
My “Q.E.D.” was not making the point that your disagreeing with me constitutes proof of my assertion. It was that every time I have made this assertion to anyone not already familiar with Harris’ book, they immediately rejected it, making it a perfect example of the kind of thing the original post was asking for.
As for the mountain of evidence supporting my claim, the “pop psychology books” I linked to are extensively referenced. The easiest way to think about it is to consider twin studies. Since identical twins have the same genes, we can measure the amount of difference parenting makes on personality by measuring the differences in personality between identical twins raised in the same home and identical twins separated at birth and raised in different homes. Numerous studies have shown that there is no greater difference in personality between identical twins raised in the same home and those raised in different homes. Ergo, whatever environmental influences shape personality come from outside the home, not inside.
Studies that purport to show massive influence of parenting style on personality are very frequently flawed, as Harris shows abundantly in The Nurture Assumption. And as far as Vaniver’s argument that parental abuse is an exception to all this, I would have to re-read Harris’ book, but I’m pretty sure this was covered.
Ergo, whatever environmental influences shape personality come from outside the home, not inside.
How far apart were the different homes—in the same neighborhood? School district? I also wonder how different the parenting styles considered were; at the same economic level in the same town, for example, divisions in “style” might be minor compared to people elsewhere, of different means.
It doesn’t seem plausible, but you assert the books have mountains of evidence and I am not curious enough to check myself, so I ultimately withhold judgment.
So, approximately 5% of adult personality is dependent on parenting style in current populations in the developed world. That’s pretty close to zero.
I think glennonymous is taking that result too far, though: parental abuse is pretty uncommon, and so you can’t expect the 5% number also applies to parental abuse- abuse, as it is atypical, should have an effect different from the population mean, whereas non-abuse, as it is typical, should be hard to distinguish from the population mean.
A better way to put it is that the difference between great parenting and mediocre parenting appears small, especially compared to the difference between great genes and mediocre genes and the difference between great peers and mediocre peers.
As other commenters have pointed out, that 5% figure seems like it could be adequately explained by modern developed-world kids having close to 95% of their time locked up in school, ‘extracurricular activities,’ or sleep, none of which involve parental interaction.
5% of non-sleep time is 48 minutes a day. Do you think that’s a good estimate of the amount of time children spend around their parents? It also seems likely that parents would have a disproportionately large impact compared to their share of the time- among other things, their personalities will be mostly constant whereas a rapidly changing set of peers or teachers would have a wide range of personalities.
(About 50% is heredity, and so if we assume all of the rest is effects by other people, we could go up to 10%- 96 minutes- but I think the best explanation is low variation among parenting styles masking the impact that parenting style has on children. That doesn’t have to mean there’s much room for benefit above a mediocre style, that there’s room for detriment below mediocre would be enough).
What? I’m not saying insufficient parental nurturing is the cause of all psychological problems, I’m just saying that
is a very strong claim, and that I have seen very strong evidence against it. You’re going to need to make a hell of a case. (please note: linking two pop-psych books and saying that my politely disagreeing with you constitutes proof is not much of a case at all.) This makes me think of someone looking at the equations for electromagnetism and gravitation, then concluding “logically” that gravity will have nearly zero effect on the path of a projectile.
My “Q.E.D.” was not making the point that your disagreeing with me constitutes proof of my assertion. It was that every time I have made this assertion to anyone not already familiar with Harris’ book, they immediately rejected it, making it a perfect example of the kind of thing the original post was asking for.
As for the mountain of evidence supporting my claim, the “pop psychology books” I linked to are extensively referenced. The easiest way to think about it is to consider twin studies. Since identical twins have the same genes, we can measure the amount of difference parenting makes on personality by measuring the differences in personality between identical twins raised in the same home and identical twins separated at birth and raised in different homes. Numerous studies have shown that there is no greater difference in personality between identical twins raised in the same home and those raised in different homes. Ergo, whatever environmental influences shape personality come from outside the home, not inside.
Studies that purport to show massive influence of parenting style on personality are very frequently flawed, as Harris shows abundantly in The Nurture Assumption. And as far as Vaniver’s argument that parental abuse is an exception to all this, I would have to re-read Harris’ book, but I’m pretty sure this was covered.
How far apart were the different homes—in the same neighborhood? School district? I also wonder how different the parenting styles considered were; at the same economic level in the same town, for example, divisions in “style” might be minor compared to people elsewhere, of different means.
It doesn’t seem plausible, but you assert the books have mountains of evidence and I am not curious enough to check myself, so I ultimately withhold judgment.
So, approximately 5% of adult personality is dependent on parenting style in current populations in the developed world. That’s pretty close to zero.
I think glennonymous is taking that result too far, though: parental abuse is pretty uncommon, and so you can’t expect the 5% number also applies to parental abuse- abuse, as it is atypical, should have an effect different from the population mean, whereas non-abuse, as it is typical, should be hard to distinguish from the population mean.
A better way to put it is that the difference between great parenting and mediocre parenting appears small, especially compared to the difference between great genes and mediocre genes and the difference between great peers and mediocre peers.
As other commenters have pointed out, that 5% figure seems like it could be adequately explained by modern developed-world kids having close to 95% of their time locked up in school, ‘extracurricular activities,’ or sleep, none of which involve parental interaction.
5% of non-sleep time is 48 minutes a day. Do you think that’s a good estimate of the amount of time children spend around their parents? It also seems likely that parents would have a disproportionately large impact compared to their share of the time- among other things, their personalities will be mostly constant whereas a rapidly changing set of peers or teachers would have a wide range of personalities.
(About 50% is heredity, and so if we assume all of the rest is effects by other people, we could go up to 10%- 96 minutes- but I think the best explanation is low variation among parenting styles masking the impact that parenting style has on children. That doesn’t have to mean there’s much room for benefit above a mediocre style, that there’s room for detriment below mediocre would be enough).
Low variation among parenting styles is a better way to phrase what I meant by extracurriculars.