Everything about Judith Rich Harris totally explained
Judith Rich Harris (born
February 10,
1938) is a
psychologist 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.
Early life and education
Harris spent her early childhood moving around the USA until her parents eventually settled in
Tucson,
Arizona. The dry climate suited her father, who suffered
from
ankylosing spondylitis, an
autoimmune disease.
Harris graduated from Tucson High School and attended the
University of Arizona and
Brandeis University, from where she graduated
magna cum laude in 1959. In 1961 she received a master's degree in
psychology from
Harvard University.
Marriage and illness
She married Charles S. Harris in 1961; they've two daughters (one adopted) and four grandchildren.
Since 1977, Harris has suffered from a chronic autoimmune disorder, diagnosed as a combination of
lupus and
systemic sclerosis.
Research: 1977-1995
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 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 for which she received the
American Psychological Association's
George A. Miller Award for an Outstanding Recent Article in General Psychology. Ironically, it was George A. Miller, then chair of the Department of Psychology that formally dismissed Harris from the PhD program at Harvard in 1960, on the grounds that her 'originality and independence' didn't live up to Harvard's standards.
The Nurture Assumption
Harris's most famous work,
The Nurture Assumption, was published in 1998.
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 isn't necessarily evidence of parental example; it may also be that aggressiveness has been passed down through the genes. Harris also argues against the effects of
birth order. The book looks outside the family and points at the
peer group as an important shaper of the child's psyche. Harris argues that children identify with their classmates and playmates rather than their parents, modify their behavior to fit with the peer group, and this ultimately helps to form the character of the individual.
No Two Alike
, 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:
- A relationship system allows us to distinguish family from strangers and tell individuals apart.
- A socialization system helps us to become members of a group and absorb the group's culture.
- A status system enables us to acquire self-knowledge by measuring ourselves against others.
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.
Selected publications
Harris, J. R., & Liebert, R. M. (1984, 1987, 1991). The Child: Development from Birth through Adolescence. Prentice Hall, ISBN 978-0-131-31046-9
Harris, J. R., Shaw, M. L., & Altom, M. J. (1985). Serial position curves for reaction time and accuracy in visual search: Tests of a model of overlapping processing. Perception & Psychophysics, 38, 178-187.
Harris, J. R. (1995). Where is the child's environment? A group socialization theory of development.
Psychological Review, 102, 458-489.
Harris, J. R. (1998). The nurture assumption: Why children turn out the way they do. Free Press, ISBN 978-068-484409-1.
Harris, J. R. (2000). Socialization, personality development, and the child's environments. Developmental Psychology, 36, 699-710.
Harris, J. R. (2000). Context-specific learning, personality, and birth order. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 9, 174-177.
Harris, J. R. (2002, January 17). Why do people believe that birth order has important effects on personality? The Nurture Assumption Web Site. Retrieved 2007-08-27
Harris, J. R. (2006). Parental selection: A third selection process in the evolution of human hairlessness and skin color. Medical Hypotheses, 66, 1053-1059.
Harris, J. R. (2006). No Two Alike: Human Nature and Human Individuality. W.W. Norton, ISBN 978-0-393-05948-9Further Information
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