Judith Rich Harris - The Nurture Assumption: Why Children Turn Out the Way They Do

Thank you for purchasing this Free Press eBook.

Sign up for our newsletter and receive special offers, access to bonus content, and info on the latest new releases and other great eBooks from Free Press and Simon & Schuster.

or visit us online to sign up at
eBookNews.SimonandSchuster.com

Critical Praise for The Nurture Assumption

Judith Rich Harris wrote a brilliant book called The Nurture Assumption.... Beautifully and convincingly, Harris showed that our parents play a far smaller role in determining how we are than we could ever imagineand that what really matters is the influence of our peers. At a time when parents have become convinced that everything they say and do irreparably affects the lives and potential of their children, Harriss book is an absolute must-read.

Malcolm Gladwell, Entertainment Weekly

Important.... Lively anecdotes about real children suffuse this book.... Harriss brilliant stroke was to change the discussion from nature (genes) and nurture (parents) to its older version: heredity and environment.

Carol Tavris, The New York Times

A sea-changing book.

Ellen Goodman, The Boston Globe

Harriss book is well written, toughly argued, filled with telling anecdotes and biting wit.

Howard Gardner, The New York Review of Books

Harriss core, convincing messagethat many parents wildly overestimate their influencemay usefully calm some nerves in this age of high-anxiety parenting.

Robert Wright, Time

A leading tome on child development published in 1934 didnt even include a chapter on parents... With an impish wit and a chatty style, Harris spins a persuasive argument that the 1934 book got it right.

Sharon Begley, Newsweek

Mixing logic-chopping rigor and wise-cracking humor, Harris turns academic overviews and her own sleuthing into a brisk tour of controversial data collection and interpretation. She deftly leads her readers through the inadequacies of socialization research.

Ann Hulbert, The New Republic

Her conclusions have rocked the world of child development

Susan Reimer, The Baltimore Sun

Ms. Harris takes to bits the assumption which has dominated developmental psychology for almost half a century.... Her book is an extraordinary feat.... She writes with unusual clarity and irreverent wit.

The Economist

Occasionally, The Great American Hype Machine trumpets a book well worth reading.... Im pleased to welcome Mrs. Harris and her impressive rationality, serious scholarship, sardonic humor, and vivid prose to the ranks of realists.

Steve Sailer, The National Review

Harris... has razor-sharp common sense, perhaps the greatest gift of all.

Wendy Orent, The Atlanta Journal and Constitution

Shockingly persuasive.... Harris has an impressive breadth of knowledge, and entertainingly leads the reader from social development to genetics, from neuropsychology to criminology, and from social anthropology to linguistics and child-care.

Simon Baron-Cohen, Nature

Harris is a wonderful writer who doesnt stop drawing research from fields as disparate as behavioral psychology, ethnology, evolution, and sociology; she also draws cultural allusion from sources as disparate as Little House on the Prairie, Darwin, and Dave Barry.

Marjorie Williams, The Washington Monthly

[Harris] is eloquent and entertaining, she makes people sit up and pay attention, and she opens our eyes to important considerations.

Sir Michael Rutter, The London Times Higher Education Supplement

A cool compress for feverish parents who fear their every action... will mark their childs psyche for life.

Lynn Smith, Los Angeles Times

[Harris] presents her arguments in a style that is engaging and fun to read. People who raise children, teach children, and treat children will want to read this book.

Dr. William Bernet, Journal of the American Medical Association

Judith Rich Harris is a fiery iconoclast who offers relief. If you accept the central thesis of The Nurture Assumption, you can at last relax about raising your children.... Her book is worth reading if only for the pleasure of watching an acknowledged outsider taking on the conventional wisdom with such chutzpah.

Jack OSullivan, The Independent

The maverick writer and theoretician believes that peers, not parents, determine our personalities, and her unorthodox views have made the very real world of psychology sit up and take notice.

Annie Murphy Paul, Psychology Today

The Nurture Assumption is a hoot. [Harris] is a witty and articulate writer who clearly and systematically explains her refutations of commonly held assumptions in social psychology and behavioral genetics.... Its a very readable... entertaining book.

Dr. Marilyn Heins, The Arizona Daily Star

An iconoclastic contribution to conventional psychology, The Nurture Assumption may also be a window on the future, triggering a shift away from a century of thinking that elevates early parental influence over all else.

Cate Terwilliger, The Denver Post

What Harris proposes is nothing short of breathtaking... her ideas might easily be dismissed, but Harris has done some serious research in psychology, sociology, and anthropology, backing her theory with dozens of articles and studies.... She also has the wit to write about them in a breezy and often entertaining manner.

Peter Jensen, The Baltimore Sun

An extraordinarily ambitious attempt to reexamine, from the ground up, an entire centurys worth of findings on the forces that mold the child of today into the adult of tomorrow.... Most of what Harris writes is not only illuminating, but thoroughly persuasive.

Mary Eberstadt, Commentary

Her ideas make fascinating reading, and her work clearly deserves attention from developmental psychologists and other scholars of child development.

Wendy M. Williams, The Chronicle of Higher Education

The Nurture Assumption is a stunning book... Judith Harris shows how in thinking about child development we are trapped in a maze created by our uncritical acceptance of entrenched beliefs and biases.... The result is a new perspective that provides a thread we can follow to escape the maze.

John T. Bruer, president of the James S. McDonnell Foundation; author of The Myth of the First Three Years

Judith Harriss The Nurture Assumption is a paradigm shifter, which sounds like heavy work and yet she somehow makes it fun.

David T. Lykken, professor of psychology, University of Minnesota; author of The Antisocial Personalities and Happiness: What Studies ofTwins Show Us About Nature, Nurture, and the Happiness Set Point

The Nurture Assumption is a rare book: clear, well informed, occasionally hilarious, and rich with compelling examples.

David G. Myers, professor of psychology, Hope College; author of The Pursuit of Happiness: Who is Happyand Why and Intuition: Its Powers and Perils

The book is based on solid science, analyzed with a piercing style thats not afraid to take on the leading orthodoxy, and communicated in a clear, accessible, terrifically witty way.