The Nurture Assumption

The Nurture Assumption by Judith Rich Harris

Nurture is not the same as environment.  Environment is more about peers and everyday interactions, this shapes us much more than parents who literally nurture us.

Memorable quotes:

• Heredity and environment.  They are the yin and yang, the Adam and Eve, the Mom and Pop of pop psychology.
• 30 years before Shakespeare, an educator Richard Mulcaster wrote, “Nature makes the boy toward, nurture sees him forward.”
• Significant correlations are easy to spot, nicely marked with asterisks by the statistics software.  It’s a technique known as “psychoastronomy”: looking for the stars.
• Parents tailor their child-rearing style to the individual child.