{"title":"The hypotheses put forward in the Nurture Assumption inspired much needed research regarding the influence of parenting and peers, but were overstated","authors":"S. Alexandra Burt","doi":"10.1016/j.dr.2024.101120","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>The provocative hypotheses put forth in <span>Harris (1998)</span> spawned a great deal of criticism within the field of child development but far less in the field of behavior genetics, which generally found her arguments quite persuasive. I considered whether 21st century behavioral genetic literature and understandings continued to support her hypotheses, and generally concluded that they did not, at least in regards to child and adolescent psychopathology. Early interpretations of behavioral genetic findings were more limited in scope than they realized at the time, applied only to WEIRD populations, and may have overlooked key etiologic information contained in the mean. What’s more, even when restricting to standard behavioral genetic designs and interpretations in WEIRD data, there is good evidence that parenting behaviors do “causally” shape adolescent mental health outcomes to some degree, and relatively little evidence that peers socialize adolescents via non-shared environmental pathways. Put another way, although group socialization theory remains interesting and worthy of additional study, other key elements of <span>Harris (1998)</span> may have been overstated or have not stood the test of time.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":48214,"journal":{"name":"Developmental Review","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":5.7000,"publicationDate":"2024-02-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Developmental Review","FirstCategoryId":"102","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0273229724000042","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"PSYCHOLOGY, DEVELOPMENTAL","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
The provocative hypotheses put forth in Harris (1998) spawned a great deal of criticism within the field of child development but far less in the field of behavior genetics, which generally found her arguments quite persuasive. I considered whether 21st century behavioral genetic literature and understandings continued to support her hypotheses, and generally concluded that they did not, at least in regards to child and adolescent psychopathology. Early interpretations of behavioral genetic findings were more limited in scope than they realized at the time, applied only to WEIRD populations, and may have overlooked key etiologic information contained in the mean. What’s more, even when restricting to standard behavioral genetic designs and interpretations in WEIRD data, there is good evidence that parenting behaviors do “causally” shape adolescent mental health outcomes to some degree, and relatively little evidence that peers socialize adolescents via non-shared environmental pathways. Put another way, although group socialization theory remains interesting and worthy of additional study, other key elements of Harris (1998) may have been overstated or have not stood the test of time.
期刊介绍:
Presenting research that bears on important conceptual issues in developmental psychology, Developmental Review: Perspectives in Behavior and Cognition provides child and developmental, child clinical, and educational psychologists with authoritative articles that reflect current thinking and cover significant scientific developments. The journal emphasizes human developmental processes and gives particular attention to issues relevant to child developmental psychology. The research concerns issues with important implications for the fields of pediatrics, psychiatry, and education, and increases the understanding of socialization processes.