glennonymous comments on Absolute denial for atheists - Less Wrong

39 Post author: taw 16 July 2009 03:41PM

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Comment author: glennonymous 17 April 2012 09:35:41PM * 2 points [-]

As elucidated by Judith Rich Harris in The Nurture Assumption and Steven Pinker in The Blank Slate, and completely contrary to our current cultural fad of attributing all neurosis to the failure of parents to properly nurture their children, parenting has close to zero effect on how children turn out. How our peers interact with us has a far greater impact on personality development than whatever our parents do or don't do, whether they abuse us, slather us with affection every day, ignore us, constantly berate us, constantly tell us we are wonderful, et cetera.

Comment author: Vaniver 21 April 2012 04:06:26AM 3 points [-]

to our current cultural fad of attributing all neurosis to the failure of parents to properly nurture their children

Does this really count as our current culture? As an example, autism was being blamed on parenting style in 1950 but that blame has been successfully opposed by parent lobbies, to the point where I don't think it's the sort of thing that can be mentioned on public television without career damage. (It also appears that there may be some justification for the claim that parenting style causes or exacerbates autism, but that's not the sort of question people are willing to pay for the answer for.)

Comment author: Strange7 18 April 2012 04:20:18PM 1 point [-]

No, I'm pretty sure PTSD from parental abuse is a real phenomenon.

Comment author: glennonymous comment score below threshold [+] (7 children)

Comment author: Strange7 21 April 2012 03:34:04AM 0 points [-]

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.

Comment author: glennonymous 24 April 2012 01:23:39AM 2 points [-]

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.

Comment author: Hul-Gil 24 April 2012 01:38:53AM * 1 point [-]

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.

Comment author: Vaniver 21 April 2012 04:11:01AM 0 points [-]

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.

Comment author: Strange7 21 April 2012 04:19:01AM 0 points [-]

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.

Comment author: Vaniver 21 April 2012 04:57:59AM 0 points [-]

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).

Comment author: Strange7 21 April 2012 07:13:56AM 0 points [-]

Low variation among parenting styles is a better way to phrase what I meant by extracurriculars.

Comment author: thomblake 20 April 2012 08:41:46PM 0 points [-]

Isn't that trivially obvious for this culture, given that parents tend to spend very little time with their children? In the relevant studies, do they control for the massive penalties incurred by the default mode of parenting, or examine cases where 'peers' doesn't mean a bunch of unsocialized children in an institutional setting?

Comment author: glennonymous 20 April 2012 08:35:28PM 0 points [-]

Wow. Well I see that my comment has been downvoted out of existence, which I'm pretty sure means that it is a perfect example of that the original post was looking for. FWIW, people hating on this would do well to at least LOOK at the books to which I linked in my comment. Harris' book in particular is beautifully and rigorously argued, and very useful. The chapter in Pinker is a nice encapsulation.

Comment author: thomblake 20 April 2012 08:39:19PM * 2 points [-]

Wow. Well I see that my comment has been downvoted out of existence

As I'm seeing it right after you made this comment, your comment has been downvoted to -1. That's certainly not "out of existence", nor even worth commenting on. On net, one out of the myriad readers here didn't think your comment was high-quality - wowzers.

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