Judith Rich Harris (February 10, 1938 – December 29, 2018) was an American psychology researcher and the author of The Nurture Assumption , a book criticizing the belief that parents are the most important factor in child development, and presenting evidence which contradicts that belief. Harris was a resident of Middletown Township, New Jersey .
39-440: Judith Harris may refer to: Judith Rich Harris (1918-2018), psychology researcher and author Judith Harris , American poet and author Judith Lynette Harris, Senior UX/UI and Graphic Designer [REDACTED] Topics referred to by the same term This disambiguation page lists articles about people with the same name. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change
78-449: A "confluence" model in which the lack of siblings experienced by firstborns exposes them to the more intellectual adult family environment. This predicts similar increases in IQ for siblings who next-oldest sibling is at least five years senior. These children are considered to be "functional firstborns". The theory further predicts that firstborns will be more intelligent than only children, because
117-437: A by-product of an evolved mechanism that shifts personality away from heterosexuality in laterborn sons. According to Miller, this would have the consequence of reducing the probability of these sons engaging in unproductive competition with each other. Evolution may have favored biological mechanisms prompting human parents to exert affirmative pressure toward heterosexual behavior in earlier-born children: As more children in
156-455: A child predisposed toward homosexuality. More recently, this birth order effect on sexuality in males has been attributed to a very specific biological occurrence. As the mother gives birth to more sons, she is thought to develop an immunity to certain male-specific antigens. This immunity then leads to an effect in the brain that has to do with sexual preference. Yet this biological effect is seen only in right-handed males. If not right-handed,
195-399: A family survive infancy and early childhood, the continued existence of the parents' gene line becomes more assured ( cf. the pressure on newly-wed European aristocrats, especially young brides, to produce "an heir and a spare"), and the benefits of encouraging heterosexuality weigh less strongly against the risk of psychological damage that a strongly heteronormative environment poses to
234-835: A new theory of child development , focusing on the peer group rather than the family. This formed the basis for a 1995 article in the Psychological Review , which received the American Psychological Association 's George A. Miller Award for an Outstanding Recent Article in General Psychology. George A. Miller was chair of the Department of Psychology at Harvard in 1960, when Harris was dismissed from that Ph.D. program (see above) Is it dangerous to claim that parents have no power at all (other than genetic) to shape their child's personality, intelligence, or
273-399: A particular trait, it may be due to birth order, or it may be due to family size, or to any number of other variables. Consequently, there are a large number of published studies on birth order that are confounded. Literature reviews that have examined many studies and attempted to control for confounding variables tend to find minimal effects for birth order. Ernst and Angst reviewed all of
312-488: Is a positive good—not because it necessarily will determine a happy adulthood. She married Charles S. Harris in 1961; they had two daughters (one adopted) and four grandchildren. Since 1977 Harris had suffered from a chronic autoimmune disorder , diagnosed as a combination of lupus and systemic sclerosis . Her friend and colleague, cognitive scientist Steven Pinker , reported her Dec. 29 death via Twitter on December 30, 2018. Birth order Birth order refers to
351-414: Is not necessarily evidence of parental example; it may also be that aggressiveness has been passed down through the genes. She also points out that correlations between parent and child personalities may result as easily from child-to-parent effects as the reverse. As part of her presentation, she also argues against Frank Sulloway's theory of the effects of birth order . The book looks to influences outside
390-419: Is one's habitual way of dealing with the tasks of friendship, love, and work. According to Adler, firstborns are "dethroned" when a second child comes along, and this loss of perceived privilege and primacy may have a lasting influence on them. Middle children may feel ignored or overlooked, causing them to develop the so-called middle child syndrome . Younger and only children may be pampered and spoiled, which
429-426: Is that genetic effects are stronger than birth order effects. Recent studies also support the claim that only children are not markedly different from their peers with siblings. Scientists have found that they share many characteristics with firstborn children including being conscientious as well as parent-oriented. In her review of the research, Judith Rich Harris suggests that birth order effects may exist within
SECTION 10
#1732851853865468-436: Is the name given to the theory that the more older brothers a man has, the greater the probability is that he will have a homosexual orientation. The fraternal birth order effect is said to be the strongest known predictor of sexual orientation, with each older brother increasing a man's odds of being gay by approximately 33%. (One of the largest studies to date, however, suggests a smaller effect, of 15% higher odds. ) Even so,
507-737: The National Academy of Sciences in the USA concluding that effects are zero or near zero. Such research is a challenge because of the difficulty of controlling all the variables that are statistically related to birth order. Family size, and a number of social and demographic variables are associated with birth order and serve as potential confounds . For example, large families are generally lower in socioeconomic status than small families. Hence third-born children are not only third in birth order, but they are also more likely to come from larger, poorer families than firstborn children. If third-born children have
546-543: The 'originality and independence' of her work were not to Harvard's standards. She was granted a master's degree in her field, before departing. In the late 1970s, Harris developed a mathematical model of visual information processing which formed the basis for two articles in the journal Perception and Psychophysics (1979, 1984). After 1981 she focused on textbooks about developmental psychology . With Robert Liebert , she co-authored The Child (Prentice-Hall, 1984) and Infant and Child (1992). In 1994 she formulated
585-474: The 17th century and is most prevalent in fathers and sons, where the son will receive the same first name, middle name, and surname with either a "Jr.", "II", "III" or "IV", etc. attached after the family surname. This practice started as a symbol of status for 'upper class' citizens, but is now more commonly used as a family tradition, not necessarily implying that they are of a 'higher status' than their peer(s), sibling(s) or other family members. The tradition of
624-877: The Life Sciences , dated September, 2000 but not published until 2004 due to legal threats from Sulloway, contains carefully and rigorously researched criticisms of Sulloway's theories and data. Subsequent large independent multi-cohort studies have revealed approximately zero effect of birth order on personality. In their book Sibling Relationships: Their Nature and Significance across the Lifespan , Michael E. Lamb and Brian Sutton-Smith argue that as individuals continually adjust to competing demands of socialization agents and biological tendencies, any effects of birth order may be eliminated, reinforced, or altered by later experiences. Claims about birth order effects on personality have received much attention in scientific research, with
663-639: The United States until her parents eventually settled in Tucson , Arizona . The dry climate suited her father, who had ankylosing spondylitis , an autoimmune disease . Harris graduated from Tucson High School and attended the University of Arizona , and then Brandeis University where she graduated magna cum laude in 1959. Harris was dismissed from the Ph.D. program in psychology at Harvard University in 1960, because
702-508: The apparent birth-order effect on intelligence is wholly an artifact of family size, i.e. an instance of selection pressure acing against intelligence under modern conditions. The claim that firstborns have higher IQ scores to begin with, has, however, also been disputed outright. Data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth show no relationship between birth order and intelligence. The fraternal birth order effect
741-473: The birth order of an individual. Smaller studies have partially supported Sulloway's claims. Paulhus and colleagues reported that first borns scored higher on conservatism, conscientiousness and achievement orientation, and later borns higher on rebelliousness, openness, and agreeableness. The authors argued that the effect emerges most clearly from studies within families. Results are weak at best, when individuals from different families are compared. The reason
780-415: The context of the family of origin, but that they are not enduring aspects of personality. When people are with their parents and siblings, firstborns behave differently from laterborns, even during adulthood. However, most people don't spend their adult lives in their childhood home. Harris provides evidence that the patterns of behavior acquired in the childhood home don't affect the way people behave outside
819-415: The fraternal birth order effect only accounts for a maximum of one seventh of the prevalence of homosexuality in men. There seems to be no effect on sexual orientation in women, and no effect of the number of older sisters. In Homosexuality, Birth Order, and Evolution: Toward an Equilibrium Reproductive Economics of Homosexuality , Edward M. Miller suggests that the birth order effect on homosexuality may be
SECTION 20
#1732851853865858-411: The home as the primary socializing agents of children, with peers being particularly important in personality development. Harris argues that children identify with their classmates and playmates rather than their parents and other adults, and that personality is formed both through efforts to fit in with the group or to compete with specific others. No Two Alike: Human Nature and Human Individuality ,
897-437: The home, even during childhood. Harris concludes that birth order effects keep turning up because people keep looking for them, and keep analyzing and reanalyzing their data until they find them. In a metanalysis, Polit and Falbo (1988) found that firstborns, only children, and children with one sibling all score higher on tests of verbal ability than later-borns and children with multiple siblings. Robert Zajonc argued for
936-700: The important elements of personality that can be measured. Contemporary empirical research shows that birth order does not influence the Big Five personality traits. In his 1996 book Born to Rebel , Frank Sulloway suggested that birth order had powerful effects on the Big Five personality traits. He argued that firstborns were much more conscientious and socially dominant, less agreeable, and less open to new ideas compared to laterborns. However, critics such as Fred Townsend, Toni Falbo , and Judith Rich Harris , argue against Sulloway's theories. A full issue of Politics and
975-439: The influence of birth order on the development of personality has become a controversial issue in psychology . Among the general public, it is widely believed that personality is strongly influenced by birth order, but many psychologists dispute this. One modern theory of personality states that the Big Five personality traits of Openness , Conscientiousness , Extraversion , Agreeableness , and Neuroticism represent most of
1014-542: The latter will not benefit from the "tutor effect" (i.e. teaching younger siblings). Several studies have found that firstborns have slightly higher IQ than later borns. Such data is, however, commonly confounded with family size, which is in turn correlated with IQ confounds, such as social status. Likewise, an analysis of data from the National Child Development Study has been used in support of an alternate admixture hypothesis , which asserts that
1053-508: The link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Judith_Harris&oldid=932923566 " Category : Human name disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Judith Rich Harris Born in Brooklyn in 1938, Harris spent her early childhood moving around
1092-410: The message of 'The Nurture Assumption' is that "Parents are not important." Instead, she emphasizes that their importance lies not in shaping or determining the people their children will become, but in determining to a large extent the quality of their children's first important relationships (i.e., with their parents) and the quality of life within the home. Harris claims that a happy home life in itself
1131-446: The notion that birth-order significantly influences personality continues to have a strong presence in pop psychology and popular culture. Alfred Adler (1870–1937), an Austrian psychiatrist , and a contemporary of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung , was one of the first theorists to suggest that birth order influences personality . He argued that birth order can leave an indelible impression on an individual's style of life, which
1170-410: The number of older brothers has been found to have no prediction on the sexuality of a younger brother. This has led researchers to consider if the genes for sexuality and handedness are somehow related. Not all studies, including some with large, nationally representative samples, have been able to replicate the fraternal birth order effect. Some did not find any statistically significant difference in
1209-418: The number of the newborn within the family, and only then chooses the male/female name, according to the gender of the newborn. So, for example, if a baby girl is born after three boys, her name would be Moonaga (4th born, female) as she is the fourth child within the family. In some modern day Western cultures, it is common for parents to give their children the same name as them. This tradition dates back to
Judith Harris - Misplaced Pages Continue
1248-455: The order a child is born in their family; first-born and second-born are examples. Birth order is often believed to have a profound and lasting effect on psychological development. This assertion has been repeatedly challenged. Recent research has consistently found that earlier born children score slightly higher on average on measures of intelligence, but has found zero, or almost zero, robust effect of birth order on personality. Nevertheless,
1287-684: The research published between 1946 and 1980. They also did their own study on a representative sample of 6,315 young men from Switzerland. They found no substantial effects of birth order and concluded that birth order research was a "waste of time." More recent research analyzed data from a national sample of 9,664 subjects on the Big Five personality traits of extraversion, neuroticism, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness to experience. Contrary to Sulloway's predictions, they found no significant correlation between birth order and self-reported personality. There was, however, some tendency for people to perceive birth order effects when they were aware of
1326-530: The sibling composition of gay and straight men; this includes the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health , the largest U.S. study with relevant data on the subject. Furthermore, at least one study, on the familial correlates of joining a same-sex union or marriage in a sample of two million people in Denmark , found that the only sibling correlate of joining a same-sex union among men
1365-438: The way he or she behaves outside the family home? ... A confession: When I first made this proposal ten years ago, I didn't fully believe it myself. I took an extreme position, the null hypothesis of zero parental influence, for the sake of scientific clarity. ... The establishment's failure to shoot me down has been nothing short of astonishing. Judith Rich Harris, 2006. Harris's most famous work, The Nurture Assumption ,
1404-440: Was first published in 1998, with a revised version published in 2009. In this book, she challenges the idea that the personality of adults is determined chiefly by the way they were raised by their parents. She looks at studies which claim to show the influence of the parental environment and claims that most fail to control for genetic influences. For example, if aggressive parents are more likely to have aggressive children, this
1443-507: Was having older sisters, not older brothers. In some of the world's cultures, birth order is so important that each child within the family is named according to the order in which the child was born. For example, in the Aboriginal Australian Barngarla language , there are nine male birth order names and nine female birth order names, as following: To determine the suitable name for the newborn child, one first finds out
1482-450: Was published in February 2006. Harris attempts to explain why people are so different in personality, even identical twins who grow up in the same home. She proposes that three distinct systems shape personality: No Two Alike expands on some of the ideas from The Nurture Assumption and attempts to answer some of the criticisms leveled at the former book. For example, Harris denies that
1521-419: Was suggested to affect their later personalities. All of this assumes what Adler believed to be a typical family situation, e.g., a nuclear family living apart from the extended family, without the children being orphaned, with average spacing between births, without twins and other multiples, and with surviving children not having severe physical, intellectual, or psychiatric disabilities. Since Adler's time,
#864135