Do Parents Matter?

Programme Outline

An examination of a radical new theory about the origins of children’s personality traits: that it is not parents but other children that have the most impact on the development of a child’s personality and character. Parents, according to this controversial theory, have no power to mould their child’s personality and exert no important long-term effects on the child.

00.30—05.00
Introduction — The long-standing assumption that parents are the centre of children’s world and are a formative influence on children’s personalities. Judith Harris and her theory that it is children’s peers that shape their personalities. How Judith Harris gathered evidence for her theory by re-examining existing child development studies and experiments from seemingly unrelated research areas.

05.00—10.30
American research into peer relations and peer pressure, and how large groups (eg a school year group) segregate themselves into smaller groups with common interests or status (eg the ‘populars’ or the ‘jocks’).

10.30—19.00
Behavioural genetics and how studies of identical twins raised apart suggest that about 50 per cent of adult personality traits are determined by genetic factors. The surprising finding that, for identical twins, being raised in the same home seemed to have minimal effect on personality traits. Support for the idea that, genes apart, parents seem not to be a key factor in shaping their children’s personality.

19.00—22.00
A psycho-biological experiment showing that changing immediate environment changes a baby’s behaviour, indicates that context is important and that early learning does not appear to be directly transferable from one situation to another. Judith Harris takes this as support for her idea that the world of ‘the home’ (ie under parental/carer influence) is different from the world of ‘not home’ (ie under peer group influence).

22.00—31.00
Evidence from primate studies indicates that in humans, belonging to a group may be an innate behaviour. For Judith Harris, it provides a clue that group involvements may play a large role in shaping individual personalities. The big question: ‘Can children’s own world be powerful enough to shape their personalities?’

31.00—38.00
The idea that the desire to conform comes from the person, not from pressure from the group — people do things to ‘fit in’.

38.00—48.00
A classic research study on conformism — students randomly assigned roles of warder and prisoner in a two-week ‘prison’ situation. The idea that the way peer groups differentiate among members is an important factor in shaping individual personalities.

48.00—end
Evaluations of Judith Harris’ theory — as a challenging set of ideas, a service to psychology, an as yet unproven explanation of what shapes individual personalities.