Making the Connection: Strategies to Build Effective Personal Relationships (Collection) (71 page)

7
. Harris (
1998
) emphasizes the well-known fact that the young children of immigrants whose parents speak English with a foreign accent learn to speak like their peers instead of their parents. She takes this as strong
evidence that the social environment that children care about, and are mainly molded by, is the environment provided by their peers rather than their parents.

8
. Thomas, et al. (
1963
); Chess and Thomas (
1986
).

9
. Chess and Thomas (
1986
).

10
. Kagan (
1994
), p. 135.

11
. Schwartz, et al. (
2003
).

12
. The general conclusion that childhood behavior is somewhat predictive of behavior in later life is supported by the longitudinal studies of many investigators and reported in publications by Block (
1993
); Block and Block (
2006
); Caspi (
2000
); Caspi, et al. (
2003
); Dennissen, et al. (
2008
); Hampson and Goldberg (
2006
); Mischel, et al. (
1988
); Shiner (
2000
,
2005
); Shiner, et al. (
2002
,
2003
).

13
. Goldstein, et al. (
2006
).

14
. DiLalla and Gottesman (
1989
); Taylor, et al. (
2000
). Why do children vary greatly in their adherence to their earlier behavioral paths? Kagan (
1994
) believes that parenting makes a big difference. But Harris (
1998
) has challenged this belief in the importance of parenting. She points, instead, to the powerful influence of peers. And she goes further. Instead of simply shrugging off opinions such as Kagan’s as unverified but harmless, Harris believes that it “has put a terrible burden of guilt on parents unfortunate enough to have ... for some reason failed to produce a happy, smart, well-adjusted, self-confident person. Not only must these parents suffer the pain of having a child who is difficult to live with or who fails in some other way to live up
to the community’s standards: they must also bear the community’s opprobrium.” (
Harris, 1998
, p. 352)

15
. Kendler; Gardner, et al. (
2008
).

16
. Moffitt (
2005
); Mealey (
1995
).

17
. Moffitt (
2005
).

18
. Miles and Carey (
1997
); Rhee and Waldman (
2002
).

19
. Miles and Carey (
1997
); Rhee and Waldman (
2002
); Moffitt (
2005
).

20
. Caspi, et al. (
2002
).

21
. Edwards, et al. (
2003
).

22
. Caspi, et al. (
2002
).

23
. Plomin, et al. (
2001
). Evidence (Kendler, Jacobson, et al. [
2007
,
2008
]) also indicates that a child’s innate tendencies influence his or her selection of peers and that this, too, may contribute to the development of an antisocial pattern.

24
. Meyer-Lindenberg, et al. (
2006
); Buckholtz and Meyer-Lindenberg (
2008
); Buckholtz, et al. (
2008
).

25
. Sabol, et al. (
1998
).

26
. Caspi, et al. (
2002
).

27
.
Ibid.

28
. Foley, et al. (
2004
) ; Kim-Cohen, et al. (
2006
).

29
. Ducci, et al. (
2008
).

30
. Meyer-Lindenberg, et al. (
2006
); Buckholtz and Meyer-Lindenberg (
2008
); Buckholtz, et al. (
2008
).

31
. Meaney (
2001
).

32
. Weaver, et al. (
2004
); Meaney and Szyf (
2005
); Buchen (
2010
).

33
. Zhang and Meaney (
2010
). Methylation and demethylation of DNA are not the only epigenetic changes that influence gene expression. Epigenetic changes also occur by chemical modifications of histones that are associated with DNA in chromosomes (
Kouzarides, 2007
), and changes in acetylation of histones in specific brain cells have been shown to control behavioral adaptations to emotional stimuli (Renthal, et al. [
2007
]).

34
. Kaffman and Meaney (
2007
); McGowan, et al. (
2009
); Heim and Nemeroff (
2001
); Rinne, et al. (
2002
). Tottenham and Sheridan (2010) review some effects of early adverse social environments on behavior later in life.

35
. Fraga, et al. (
2005
); Haque, et al. (
2009
); Kaminsky, et al. (
2009
).

36
. Feinberg and Irizzary (
2010
) have proposed that some of these epigenetic differences arise stochastically (randomly) instead of in response to specific environmental influences, and that these random variations provide variability that may increase fitness in particular environments. This “stochastic epigenetic variation” not only may explain some of the methylation differences observed in the DNA of identical twins. It also may contribute to that ill-defined entity called a “nonshared environment” (Plomin, et al. [
2008
]; Turkheimer and Waldron [
2000
]) that has been put forth as the explanation for their personality differences.

37
. Morris, et al. (
2004
); Sisk and Foster (
2004
); Romeo (
2003
).

38
. Arnold, et al. (
2003
); Ahmed, et al. (
2008
); Sisk and Zehr (
2005
).

39
. Blakemore (
2008
); Steinberg (
2010
).

40
. Arnold, et al. (
2003
); Morris, et al. (
2008
).

41
. Plomin, et al. (
1997
); Petrill, et al. (
2004
). Shaw, et al. (
2006
), describe the relationship between intellectual ability and changes in cortical thickness during adolescence.

42
. Haworth, et al. (
2009
).

43
. Giedd, et al. (
1999
); Sowell (2003); Thompson, et al. (
2005
); Shaw, et al. (2008); Giedd (
2008
); Ernst and Mueller (
2008
).

44
. Fair, et al. (
2008
); Ernst and Mueller (
2008
); Dosenbach, et al. (
2010
).

45
. Harris (
1998
,
2006
).

46
. Kendler, et al. (
2007
); Kendler, Jacobson, et al. (
2008
).

47
. Sowell, et al. (2003); Thompson, et al. (
2005
).

48
. Bartzokis, et al. (
2001
).

49
. Dosenbach, et al. (
2010
).

50
. Roberts and DelVecchio (
2000
) found continuing stabilization of a person’s Big Five rankings until about the age of 50, whereas McCrae and Costa (
2003
) argue that there really isn’t much change in a person’s relative rankings after the age of 30. Studies of average scores of groups of people at different ages (as opposed to rank order of individuals) show an increase in
Conscientiousness and Agreeableness in the overall population into old age (Srivastava, et al. [
2003
]; Roberts, et al. [
2006
]; Costa and McCrae [
2006
]), as well as some other changes.

51
. Roberts and Caspi (
2003
) present persuasive arguments for what they call “the cumulative continuity model of personality development” that emphasizes the contribution of sustained person–environment transactions to the stability of adult personality. McCrae and Costa (
1994
) point out the great value of the stabilization of personality in young adulthood. As they put it, “Because personality is stable, life is to some extent predictable. People can make vocational and retirement choices with some confidence that their current interests and enthusiasms will not desert them. They can choose mates and friends with whom they are likely to remain compatible .... They can learn which coworkers they can depend on, and which they cannot. The personal and social utility of social stability is enormous.”

Chapter 5

1
. Franklin’s autobiography is available without charge at several online sites, including
www.earlyamerica.com/lives/franklin/
. All the quotes attributed to him are from his autobiography, unless otherwise indicated.

2
. For facts and interpretations of Franklin’s life, I have relied mainly on Isaacson (
2003
).

3
. Allport (
1961
), p. 31.

4
. David Hume, the Scottish philosopher, was among the first to emphasize the link between morals and emotions. As he put it in 1739, “Morals excite passions, and produce or prevent actions. Reason itself is utterly impotent in this particular. The rules of morality, therefore, are not conclusions of our reason.”

5
. Darwin (
1871
), Chapter 4.

6
. Trivers (
1971
).

7
. de Waal (
1996
); Wright (
1994
); Pinker (
2002
); Ridley (
1996
).

8
. de Waal (
2008
).

9
. A specialized group of neurons, called mirror neurons because they are activated when we mirror the behavior of others, may play an important part in the brain circuits that participate in empathy (Gallese [
2001
]; Decety and Jackson [
2004
]; Preston and de Waal [
2002
]).

10
. Haidt (
2003
) and Tangney, et al. (
2007
), have reviewed research on moral emotions.

11
. Haidt (
2003
).

12
. Trivers (
1971
). Also see Boyd, et al. (
2010
), on the importance of punishment and negative emotions in sustaining cooperation.

13
. Darwin (
1871
), Chapter 4. Laland, et al. (
2010
), have argued that culture has also shaped the human genome.

14
. Peterson and Seligman (
2004
).

15
. Cloninger, et al. (
1993
); Cloninger (
2004
).

16
. Shweder, et al. (
1997
).

17
. Shweder (
1994
) gives many examples: “On the basis of the historical and ethnographic record we know that different people in different times and places have found it quite natural to be spontaneously appalled, outraged, indignant, proud, disgusted, guilty, and ashamed by all sorts of things: masturbation, homosexuality, sexual abstinence, polygamy, abortion, circumcision, corporal punishment, capital punishment, Islam, Christianity, Judaism, capitalism, democracy, flag burning, miniskirts, long hair, no hair, alcohol consumption, meat eating, medical inoculations, atheism, idol worship, divorce, widow remarriage, arranged marriage, romantic love marriage, parents and children sleeping in the same bed, parents and children not sleeping in the same bed, women being allowed to work, women not being allowed to work.”

18
. Covey (
1989
).

19
. Charles Angoff, cited by Isaacson (
2003
), p. 483.

20
. Isaacson (
2003
), p. 476.

21
. Franklin, cited by Isaacson, p. 87.

22
. Isaacson (
2003
), p. 487.

23
. Ellis (
2003
).

Chapter 6

1
. Bruner (
1985
,
1990
).

2
. McAdams (
1993
), p. 266.

3
. Erikson (
1980
).

4
. McCrae and Costa (
2003
, p. 191) call these characteristic ways of dealing with the world characteristic adaptations: “They are
characteristic
because they reflect the operation of enduring personality traits, and they are
adaptations
because they are shaped in response to the demands and opportunities offered by the environment.” For other views of the role of characteristic adaptations in identity and personality, see McAdams and Pals (
2006
), McAdams and Olson (
2009
), Roberts and Robins (
2000
), and Bleidorn, et al. (
2010
).

5
. Friedman (
1990
).