Harris 1995 where is the child environment

DOI: Open Access. Open Journal of Medical Psychology Vol. Psychology Vol. Open Journal of Nursing Vol. Open Journal of Geology Vol. Baron-Cohen and Staunton attributed this outcome to "a lack of the normal drive to identify with peers" p. The example of language demonstrates that, although many different factors may exert their influence on developmental outcomes, each may exert its influence only within its own domain Bugental, The result is not a blend but what psycholinguists call code-switching -- switching back and forth between separate programs, the way the children of immigrants switch back and forth between the language of their home and the language they speak without a foreign accent outside the home.

What makes it look as though developmental outcomes result from many different environmental influences blended together is the fact that most social behaviors are influenced by genes as well as by experiences. Genetic influences transcend context. Supportive evidence comes from studies using a technique called multivariate genetic analysis, which makes it possible to estimate how much genetic and environmental influences each contribute to the correlations found between behavior in different contexts Harris, a; Saudino, Shyness is a personality trait rather than a socialized behavior.

Personality theorists e. The lack of agreement was the result, I believe, of a failure to distinguish between genetic and environmental components of personality. According to GS theory, consistencies in behavior across contexts are primarily due to the genetic component of personality.

McCrae and Costa recently concluded that the components of their five-factor model of personality reflect "endogenous basic tendencies" p. Most of the behaviors thought of as socialized or unsocialized are influenced by genetic factors as well as by learning, so correlational studies that provide no control for genetic factors can produce results -- correlations between a child's behavior in different contexts -- that look like generalization.

The correlations, however, are often remarkably weak. Dishion, Duncan, Eddy, Fagot, and Fetrow studied a type of social behavior they called "coercive" i. They observed school-age children with their parents and with their peers and recorded instances of coercive behavior. Behavior in the two contexts was "only weakly correlated" p. As I explained in my book Harris, , p. A child who has inherited a predisposition to be disagreeable or aggressive will have a tendency to behave that way both at home and on the playground.

Though Vandell , p. It provides scant support for the proposition Patterson et al. Wierson and Forehand's conclusion supports my proposition that behaviors acquired at home do not generalize to familiar outside-the-home settings. Vandell wrongly attributed to me the belief that infants' early relationships "have no import for psychological characteristics after infancy" p.

Actually, I have said Harris, , p. What has no import for later psychological characteristics, according to GS theory, is how well or poorly these early relationships go. Human babies, I maintain, are smart enough to keep their various relationships straight. The expectation that Mommy will come running when they cry does not lead them to expect a similar response from babysitters, siblings, or peers. The various relationships of a given child will all be affected by genetically influenced characteristics such as temperament and appearance.

Nevertheless, the evidence indicates that these relationships are, to a surprising degree, independent of each other. Though at first glance it seems counterintuitive that children should fail to apply what they learned in their sibling relationships to their relationships with peers, the tendency not to generalize is adaptive. Children who are dominated by older siblings at home would be handicapped, not helped, by the expectation that they will also be dominated by their peers.

The finding that sibling and peer relationships are independent provides strong support for my proposition that patterns of social behavior acquired in dyadic relationships are context- and relationship-specific. The extension of this proposition to long-term personality development is supported by the evidence that birth order effects do not show up on most tests of adult personality but do show up on tests that evoke the family context Harris, a.

According to GS theory, dyadic relationships and group processes are governed by separate mental modules Harris, ; see also Bugental, The two modules can issue conflicting commands; they produce different behaviors and emotions compare speaking to a group with speaking to an individual. The capacity to form dyadic relationships is present from birth; identification with a group develops more slowly.

Evidence that dyadic relationships and group processes are handled by different mental modules was cited by Vandell: Children's friendships and their status in the peer group have different short- and long-term correlates e. Because qualities such as intelligence, cheerfulness, and a pleasant appearance are assets in every area of a child's life, success in these two domains of social endeavor is correlated and success in either is correlated with academic performance.

Having a friend undoubtedly makes a child happier and less lonely, but is there any good evidence that dyadic relationships with peers have long-term effects on personality or socialized behavior? Most also fail to distinguish between friendships and group status.

Of the studies Vandell cited, only Bagwell et al. The results were consistent with GS theory: Only peer acceptance or rejection was "uniquely associated with variations in overall life status adjustment" in adulthood; friendship had "unique predictive implications only for positive relations with family members" Bagwell et al.

Childhood friendships also made a small unique contribution to "general self-worth" in adulthood, but this measure was an assessment of self-perceived competence in eight different areas, five of which would be affected by success in the relationship domain. If relationships with parents and siblings -- children's earliest and most enduring relationships -- have only context- and relationship-specific effects, the implication is that the same is true of dyadic relationships with friends.

The evidence Vandell presented is inadequate to support her belief that children's friendships as opposed to group acceptance or status have long-term effects on developmental outcomes. Socialization, as I noted in the introduction, makes children more alike; personality refers to ways in which they differ.

According to GS theory, socialization results from assimilation to a group and contrast effects between groups. Nongenetic differences in personality, on the other hand, are attributed primarily to differentiation within groups. Cultures differ in the social behavior they demand; thus, children have to learn through experience how people like them are expected to behave in their society.

The problem is that acceptable behavior in every society differs for children and adults. Children who imitated the behavior of their parents would not make a success of childhood Harris, According to GS theory, children solve this dilemma by means of a cognitive process called self-categorization Turner, Children sort people into cognitive categories such as kid and adult or boy and girl the relevant categories depend upon the social context , and then decide which one they belong in.

The "group" in GS theory is actually a social category. Its members need not congregate in one place or even interact; a child can identify with a group even if its members reject her.

When people identify with a group, they take on its behaviors and attitudes Turner, Thus, according to the theory, the way children learn to behave outside the home is by identifying with a group of others they perceive to be similar to themselves and taking on the behaviors and attitudes of that group.

To a large extent, at least in the early years, this means taking on the behaviors and attitudes the majority of the children learned at home -- a parents'-group-to-children's-group effect that can be identified as such only by observing the small minority of children who learned something different at home and controlling for heredity. According to Eibl-Eibesfeldt , once children in these societies have been weaned, they spend most of their time in the local play group.

Children's groups. Although I have cited many of the studies she mentioned, it is true that I do not rely on them heavily. Like the studies of parenting and friendship discussed earlier, most of these studies are correlational and provide no controls for genetic effects, so the results are uninterpretable. The researchers selected 22 boys who were as much alike as possible and arbitrarily divided them into two groups.

The two groups quickly developed contrasting behavioral norms. The Rattlers saw themselves as tough and manly; the Eagles saw themselves as pure and religious. The war that broke out between them is evidence of children's deep-rooted predisposition to ally with a group and to feel strongly about their group alliances, even when the groups are created arbitrarily. Most children's groups form spontaneously and consist of individuals who were similar to begin with Rowe, , which makes it difficult to assess their effects.

A study that circumvents this problem was carried out by Kindermann Vandell reported that Kindermann "observed that the motivational profiles of students' peer networks at the beginning of the school year predicted changes in the students' academic engagement from fall to spring" p. When a child switched from a clique of academic achievers to a clique of nonachievers or vice versa , the child's attitude toward schoolwork shifted to match that of the new group.

The design of this study provides a control for the effects of the child's IQ and the parents' attitudes, because neither was likely to change over the course of a school year. When children divide or are divided into two groups, GS theory predicts that any preexisting differences between the groups will be widened by contrast effects between groups and assimilation within them.

Thus, putting antisocial youth together for a group intervention is likely to make them more antisocial, a prediction that has recently been confirmed by Dishion, McCord, and Poulin The teacher.

Vandell seems to feel that I underestimate the importance of teachers, but there is a lengthy discussion in my book Harris, , pp. I attribute the influence of charismatic teachers like Miss A not to their ability to "set the stage for peer interactions" Vandell, , p. When children divide up into proschool and antischool factions, GS theory predicts that average academic performance will go down. Some teachers I suspect that Miss A was one of them have a magical ability to keep a classroom united.

What sent me on a quest for a new theory was the realization that existing theories could not account for the nongenetic variation in adult personality. Ironically, my solution to this puzzle has turned out to be the most speculative aspect of GS theory -- the part for which there is the least evidence. Though most of the existing data are consistent with the theory, they cannot be used to test it.

Within any group, individuals vary in status -- social power, not necessarily correlated with niceness -- and in the way they are typecast or labeled by their groupmates.

These differences will occur even between identical twins who belong to the same peer group. If the differences in status and typecasting are persistent, GS theory predicts they will leave permanent marks on the personality.

The second problem is that the direction of effects is ambiguous. Although many studies have found correlations between rejection i.

Rowe has shown that sociometric status is influenced by genetic factors. Because status and typecasting are determined partly by the group's reaction to characteristics an individual was born with Rowe, , the best way to test this aspect of GS theory is to study within-group processes in children's groups using genetically informative longitudinal designs.

Such studies have not yet been done; kudos to Vandell for calling for them. In the meantime, I have searched for ways of estimating group status that are independent of preexisting personality characteristics and have come up with one; unfortunately, it works only for boys. A boy's status in his peer group is determined in part by his size. The best study, though, is an old one, greatly in need of replication. Jones did a longitudinal study comparing males who were slow developers -- smaller than most of their peers throughout childhood -- with early developers.

The two groups ended up almost equal in mean adult height, but there were significant differences in their adult personalities. The early developers were more dominant, relaxed, and poised; the slow developers were more impulsive, attention-seeking, and touchy. Perhaps personality, and not size per se, is the reason why tall men command higher salaries than short ones Pinker, I have no data other than anecdotes to support my prediction that how one is typecast or labeled by one's peers also has lasting effects on personality.

This is a virgin area for patient researchers who are willing to wait 10 years or more to collect their data. Do parenting behaviors have any lasting effects on child outcomes? Vandell views parenting effects as "conditional" p. At best, one can answer this question only with "not proved. Also not proved is the proposition that children learn things from one relationship or in one context that they automatically carry with them to new ones.

A good deal of evidence supports my proposition that learned behavior is tailored to fit specific relationships and contexts. The implication is that if parenting behaviors do have lasting effects, the effects are specific to the context in which the behaviors were experienced.

Because children are destined to play out their adult lives in other contexts, what they learn in these other contexts will be more important in the long run. Thus, the answer to the question "What are the experiences that do have lasting effects? The alternative view of development I have presented is not in accord with people's firmly held beliefs, but firmly held beliefs can get in the way of scientific inquiry.

There is a large volume of evidence I have only scratched the surface of it here that does not fit the prevailing view. Group socialization theory can account for that evidence because that is what it was designed to do. Whether it can account for evidence produced by future research remains to be seen.

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Sign in to use this feature. About us. A group socialization theory of development. Harris Published Psychology Psychological Review Do parents have any important long-term effects on the development of their child's personality?

This article examines the evidence and concludes that the answer is no. A new theory of development is proposed: that socialization is context-specific and that outside-the-home socialization takes place in the peer groups of childhood and adolescence. Intraand intergroup processes, not dyadic relationships, are responsible for the transmission of culture and for environmental modification of… Expand. View via Publisher. Save to Library Save.

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