Is It True That Parenting Has No Influence on Childrens Adult Personalities?
A Review of The Nurture Assumption by Judith Rich Harris by Milton Spett The Nurture Assumption by Judith Rich Harris (1998, New York: The Free Press) is about the transmission of language, culture, and personality from one generation to the next, but my review will be limited to the transmission of personality. Harris’s four main points are: 1. Half of adult personality is determined by heredity. 2. The other half of adult personality is determined by the child’s peer group. 3. The percent of adult personality determined by parenting is zero, zilch, none, nada. 4. Behavior that develops within the family, remains within the family; it does not generalize to non-family relationships. Half of adult personality is determined by heredity. Here Harris is on firm scientific grounds. She cites behavioral genetic research to support this point, explaining that some of the effects of heredity are the direct expression of our genes, and the rest is indirect: people treat us in certain ways due
