The origin of personality
Lance
Books
BY PETER PETTUS
February 14, 2006
URL: http://www.nysun.com/article/27543
In 1998, a kindly grandmother living in New Jersey wrote a book about
child-rearing that created quite a stir. In "The Nurture Assumption:
Why Children Turn Out the Way They Do," Judith Rich Harris had the
temerity to suggest that the most important influences on children were
not their parents but genes and peers. This was heresy, and critics
immediately attacked the book in reviews with titles such as "Parents
Don't Count!"
Nonetheless, Mrs. Harris had made a very convincing argument, and she
stuck to her guns. Now, with "No Two Alike" (W.W. Norton & Company, 352
pages, $26.95), she has expanded her thesis and has attempted to
formulate a new theory of personality formation - the first, in fact,
since Sigmund Freud. More specifically, she has attempted to solve the
mystery of why people are different.
Why are we the way we are? Why do identical twins, raised in the same
house by the same parents, turn out to have such different
personalities? For years, psychologists and other professionals thought
they had the answers, but this grandmotherly, iconoclastic outsider may
force us to revise our thinking about these basic questions.
One way to understand the great changes in our attitude about the
formation of personality is to consider two well-known cases, one from
the 19th century, one from the 20th. Alice James (sister of William and
Henry) and John Cheever both suffered from depression. Each sought to
explain their condition in terms of the prevailing ideas of their time.
James blamed heredity; she believed she had inherited the affliction
from her parents. Cheever, on the other hand, blamed his childhood
environment. His mother worked away from home and neglected him, he
claimed.
Two events caused this fundamental shift in attitude. First, the advent
of Freud and his child development theories (based on infant
sexuality), which became wildly influential and popular during the
first half of the 20th century. Second, the complete discrediting of
behavioral genetics following the Nazis and World War II ("eugenics").
Thus the blank slate (that is, the infinite malleability of the brain)
became the dominant model, and environment the explanation of all human
behavior.
This bitter debate still rages on today, despite the fact that Freud
has been discredited completely and genetic explanations for human
behavior are now widely accepted. Accepted, that is, by scientists in
such fields as evolutionary psychology and behavioral genetics, but
definitely not accepted by academic psychologists and child development
experts. They continue to dispense advice about how we should parent
our children (Benjamin Spock lives on!) and have continued to willfully
underestimate the genetic role in human behavior.
This is where the indomitable Mrs. Harris has jumped into the fray.
Here is how she describes the situation:
The developmentalists found that the children's behavior was correlated
with the parents' behavior and attributed the correlation to the
effects of the home environment. Though they realized that heredity
might account for some of the correlation, they never considered the
possibility that heredity might account for all of it. But that is
exactly how it turned out. Once the effects of genetic similarities
were estimated and skimmed off, the correlation declined to zero. The
putative effects of the home environment disappeared.
This was not welcome news for developmental psychologists, and they
responded with vitriolic attacks. Part of their problem was a lack of
understanding of how genetics works, particularly with regard to its
role in defining the behavior of the child's parents. Good parenting
itself is largely a genetic characteristic.
But the larger question Mrs. Harris seeks to address in this book is
how to account for differences in human personalities.As she puts it:
"My goal was to explain the variation in personality - the big and
little differences among individuals - that cannot be attributed to
variations in their genes." This is not a simple matter. Her theory is
not simple, either.
Basically, Mrs. Harris believes there are three "perpetrators" at work
in the formation of the human personality, each associated with an
aspect of a modular brain. One is the "relationship system," designed
to maintain favorable relationships in society.Another is the
"Socialization System," where the goal is to be a member of a group.
The third is the "Status System," where we compete with our peers for
status.
The interplay among these systems accounts for the emergence of
differences between individuals. So it is that even identical twins
develop different personalities because the members of their community
see them as unique individuals and treat them differently. Their
individual striving for status propels them into different modes of
competing, which in turn differentiates their personalities.
By combining inputs from so many scientific disciplines - social
psychology, developmental psychology, psycholinguistics,
neurophysiology, anthropology, primatology, and entomology, in addition
to evolutionary psychology and behavioral genetics - Mrs. Harris has
created a novel, holistic perspective. Even if it turns out the final
explanation of human development is a long way off and still more
complicated ("biological processes have turned out to be fancier and
messier than anyone imagined," she admits), this book clears out much
dead wood and will shape the debate to come.
Mrs. Harris is an amazing woman. Now in ill health and largely confined
to her home, she nonetheless has pursued her interest in these subjects
in spite of her many physical handicaps and the fact that she is not a
formal member of any of the scientific disciplines involved.
Ironically, this has been her main strength. As an independent scholar,
she took a broader view of the issue than was possible for many of the
certified experts. Perhaps that is why she has been able to see the
forest, as well as the trees.
Lance
personality is that the alternatives seem to lack explanatory power.
Freud made it it possible to understand why some people engage in
self-defeating behaiours, why there are people who like being
humiliated, why people are driven to repeat the same mistake again and
again. The sort of theory advocated in the above article offers a basic
account of how people come to be sorted into groups, but offers no
insight into general nuttiness of human beings...
Lance
David Smith
"Lance" <Lanc...@Operamail.com> wrote in message
news:1140525046.3...@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com...
Yes, theorists concentrate on aspects of personality development that fall
within their general area of interest -- Kohlberg on moral development,
Erikson on psychosocial adjustment, and so on. I would have thought
learning theory might help explain some of our intricacies and foibles.
It's difficult to pass an opinion on Mrs Harris's book without more
information.
Lance
"Yes, theorists concentrate on aspects of personality development that
fall
within their general area of interest -- Kohlberg on moral
development,
Erikson on psychosocial adjustment, and so on. I would have thought
learning theory might help explain some of our intricacies and foibles.
It's difficult to pass an opinion on Mrs Harris's book without more
information. "
--------------
Yes I too would need to read more of Mrs Harris's book to be sure about
it.
Are ytou thinking of Seligman's "learned helplessness" for example when
you refer to learning theory?
Lance
David Smith
"Lance" <Lanc...@Operamail.com> wrote in message
> Dave Smith wrote:
> ...................... I would have thought
> learning theory might help explain some of our intricacies and foibles...
>
> Are ytou thinking of Seligman's "learned helplessness" for example when
> you refer to learning theory?
Not particularly. It's just that I tend to assume that behaviour is partly
'situation specific' and reflects the individual's 'learning history'.
Presumably very intricate patterns can result from a person's interaction
with his environment.
Dave
Lance
"Not particularly. It's just that I tend to assume that behaviour is
partly
'situation specific' and reflects the individual's 'learning history'.
Presumably very intricate patterns can result from a person's
interaction
with his environment."
-------------\\
Sounds like what Peter A. calls "Hand waving".
Lance
David Smith
"Lance" <lache...@ukzn.ac.za> wrote in message
news:1140730444.5...@e56g2000cwe.googlegroups.com...
Yes, an admission of relative ignorance.
.