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How much can a parent even affect their children? I remember studies of adopted children showing it was little. Edit: this[0] is not the study but shows someth

by acover 4y ago

How much can a parent even affect their children? I remember studies of adopted children showing it was little. Edit: this[0] is not the study but shows something similar > Adopted children resemble their adoptive parents slightly in early childhood but not at all in middle childhood or adolescence In contrast, during childhood and adolescence, adopted children become more like their biological parents, and to the same degree as children and parents in control families [0] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-9280.1997.tb00458.x https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-9280.199...

elil17 4y ago
Twin adoption studies often show that effects of parenting are present but smaller than effects of genetics. However those don’t typically look at abnormal cases like homeschooling.
- dash2 4y ago
  Very much this. Effects of current levels of variation in parenting practice ≠ effects of potential variation. Here’s the argument in full: https://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/no-wait-stop-parents-do-make-difference https://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/no-wait-stop-parents-do-m...
cm2012 4y ago
The studies are mixed! Twin studies show that nurture has little impact on personality or IQ, excepting things like serious abuse. But, they do show huge correlation between parental income and child income. So it seems nurture can affect life outcomes a lot but not much intrinsic to who you are.
- tomtheelder 4y ago
  > Twin studies show that nurture has little impact on personality or IQ, excepting things like serious abuse. I don't know anything about personality, but I do know that for IQ this is an awfully contentious topic, for a multitude of reasons. Whether that's ignoring maternal effects, the implicit assumption of independence between genetics and environment in twins reared apart, or just plain old questioning of how to interpret heritability as a statistic, it's REALLY unclear what to think. You will find serious academics in field with vastly different beliefs. I spent an inappropriately large amount of time researching this recently, and my conclusion is that it's a lot harder to measure than people think, and that the commonly cited numbers of 0.7-0.8 for heritability should be viewed with a significant deal of skepticism. It might be right, but it's a number that I have very low confidence in. I would also say that even if those numbers are correct, that does imply a very substantial effect due to environment. What I will say is that you have to more or less ignore the Wikipedia article on the subject. It's too political a topic for Wikipedia to perform well.
jerf 4y ago
This is one of those places in science where you can defend almost any arbitrary combination of nature vs. nuture not just with a paper here and a paper there, but with a slew of papers supporting your chosen position. It's just there's a slew of papers supporting all the other positions, too. At this point, about all I'd say based on the science is that it clearly isn't 0% or 100% of either, but the data to make any grand pronouncements based on science beyond that in any direction just isn't solid enough. I'd be comfortable saying "it's more complicated" but I'm not convinced enough of any particular summary of the "more complicated" to bank on it.
pawelmurias 4y ago
I know a lot of people that are super heavily influenced by traumas inflicted by their parents. Homeschooling someone is a lot different then your average lifestyle (that possibly wasn't that different between the adopted families)
- actfrench 4y ago
  Are they less so traumatized by their parents when they go to school ?
  - swatcoder 4y ago
    Sure. Along with respite, school gave me access to countless alternatives perspectives, influences, and people that would become part of my coping strategies. I’m absolutely certain that home schooling is great for certain parents and certain children, but some kids are better off not being around their parents quite so much.
  - kennywinker 4y ago
    That’s a pretty deeply unquantifiable thing. How do you measure trauma at the scale we’re talking about? Self reporting will only reflect the trauma people are aware of, and mental health diagnosis are basically just self reporting one-step removed. As far as I know we’re stuck in anecdote and personal opinion territory, until we have a better way of quantifying the kind of low-level trauma of a non-abusive-but-still-damaging childhood.
concinds 4y ago
Be extremely careful believing in the "it's mostly genetics, nurture is a minor factor" stuff. Most of these studies have surprisingly bad (or at least naive) methodologies, of the "we don't know what we don't know (but people like Taleb do)" kind (!). See e.g. this study: https://elifesciences.org/articles/39725 https://elifesciences.org/articles/39725 (and that's for height, which is vastly lower-dimensional than emotional health or IQ) Or an easier to read article: https://www.quantamagazine.org/new-turmoil-over-predicting-the-effects-of-genes-20190423/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/new-turmoil-over-predicting-t... Can also see this thread: https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/1163435285193076737 https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/1163435285193076737 and this tweet: https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/1476173796323246082 https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/1476173796323246082. Nature-über-alles studies rely on relatively basic misunderstandings of the required math. Of course if you want to read studies by biologists too, there's quite a few addressing the problems with twin studies (especially with high-dimensional outcomes like intelligence and emotional health). But to be clear, the problem with the nature-matters-a-lot studies isn't a biology problem; it's a math problem. And the wider problem is that the "mostly nature not nurture" idea disincentivizes conscientious, careful parenting (since "it doesn't matter in the long run anyway").

by acover 4y ago

elil17 4y ago

Twin adoption studies often show that effects of parenting are present but smaller than effects of genetics. However those don’t typically look at abnormal cases like homeschooling.

dash2 4y ago
Very much this. Effects of current levels of variation in parenting practice ≠ effects of potential variation. Here’s the argument in full: https://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/no-wait-stop-parents-do-make-difference https://thepsychologist.bps.org.uk/no-wait-stop-parents-do-m...

cm2012 4y ago

The studies are mixed! Twin studies show that nurture has little impact on personality or IQ, excepting things like serious abuse. But, they do show huge correlation between parental income and child income. So it seems nurture can affect life outcomes a lot but not much intrinsic to who you are.

tomtheelder 4y ago
> Twin studies show that nurture has little impact on personality or IQ, excepting things like serious abuse. I don't know anything about personality, but I do know that for IQ this is an awfully contentious topic, for a multitude of reasons. Whether that's ignoring maternal effects, the implicit assumption of independence between genetics and environment in twins reared apart, or just plain old questioning of how to interpret heritability as a statistic, it's REALLY unclear what to think. You will find serious academics in field with vastly different beliefs. I spent an inappropriately large amount of time researching this recently, and my conclusion is that it's a lot harder to measure than people think, and that the commonly cited numbers of 0.7-0.8 for heritability should be viewed with a significant deal of skepticism. It might be right, but it's a number that I have very low confidence in. I would also say that even if those numbers are correct, that does imply a very substantial effect due to environment. What I will say is that you have to more or less ignore the Wikipedia article on the subject. It's too political a topic for Wikipedia to perform well.

jerf 4y ago

This is one of those places in science where you can defend almost any arbitrary combination of nature vs. nuture not just with a paper here and a paper there, but with a slew of papers supporting your chosen position. It's just there's a slew of papers supporting all the other positions, too. At this point, about all I'd say based on the science is that it clearly isn't 0% or 100% of either, but the data to make any grand pronouncements based on science beyond that in any direction just isn't solid enough. I'd be comfortable saying "it's more complicated" but I'm not convinced enough of any particular summary of the "more complicated" to bank on it.

pawelmurias 4y ago

I know a lot of people that are super heavily influenced by traumas inflicted by their parents. Homeschooling someone is a lot different then your average lifestyle (that possibly wasn't that different between the adopted families)

actfrench 4y ago
Are they less so traumatized by their parents when they go to school ?
- swatcoder 4y ago
  Sure. Along with respite, school gave me access to countless alternatives perspectives, influences, and people that would become part of my coping strategies. I’m absolutely certain that home schooling is great for certain parents and certain children, but some kids are better off not being around their parents quite so much.
- kennywinker 4y ago
  That’s a pretty deeply unquantifiable thing. How do you measure trauma at the scale we’re talking about? Self reporting will only reflect the trauma people are aware of, and mental health diagnosis are basically just self reporting one-step removed. As far as I know we’re stuck in anecdote and personal opinion territory, until we have a better way of quantifying the kind of low-level trauma of a non-abusive-but-still-damaging childhood.

concinds 4y ago

Be extremely careful believing in the "it's mostly genetics, nurture is a minor factor" stuff. Most of these studies have surprisingly bad (or at least naive) methodologies, of the "we don't know what we don't know (but people like Taleb do)" kind (!). See e.g. this study: https://elifesciences.org/articles/39725 https://elifesciences.org/articles/39725 (and that's for height, which is vastly lower-dimensional than emotional health or IQ) Or an easier to read article: https://www.quantamagazine.org/new-turmoil-over-predicting-the-effects-of-genes-20190423/ https://www.quantamagazine.org/new-turmoil-over-predicting-t... Can also see this thread: https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/1163435285193076737 https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/1163435285193076737 and this tweet: https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/1476173796323246082 https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/1476173796323246082. Nature-über-alles studies rely on relatively basic misunderstandings of the required math. Of course if you want to read studies by biologists too, there's quite a few addressing the problems with twin studies (especially with high-dimensional outcomes like intelligence and emotional health). But to be clear, the problem with the nature-matters-a-lot studies isn't a biology problem; it's a math problem. And the wider problem is that the "mostly nature not nurture" idea disincentivizes conscientious, careful parenting (since "it doesn't matter in the long run anyway").