Where is the child's environment? A group socialization theory of development.

1995/07/01 by Judith Rich Harris · 17 citations
Psychology · #Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development #Cultural Differences and Values #Bullying, Victimization, and Aggression

paper · doi:10.1037/0033-295x.102.3.458

Abstract

Do parents have any important long-term effects on the development of their child's personality? This article examines the evidence and concludes that the answer is no. A new theory of development is proposed: that socialization is context-specific and that outside-the-home socialization takes place in the peer groups of childhood and adolescence. Intraand intergroup processes, not dyadic relationships, are responsible for the transmission of culture and for environmental modification of children's personality characteristics. The universality of children's groups explains why development is not derailed by the wide variations in parental behavior found within and between societies.

Citations

• Ecology of the family as a context for human development: Research perspectives.
• Psychological impact of biculturalism: Evidence and theory.
• Friendship and friendship quality in middle childhood: Links with peer group acceptance and feelings of loneliness and social dissatisfaction.
• A Theory of Social Comparison Processes
• Evolutionary Personality Psychology
• Experiments in Intergroup Discrimination

Cited by

• Cultural Evolution: A Review of Theory, Findings and Controversies
• The emotional dog and its rational tail: A social intuitionist approach to moral judgment.
• How Adolescents' Victimization Trajectories Divergently Predict Trajectories of Depressive Symptoms and Aggressive Behavior Across Cliques With Different Victimization Norms: A Multilevel Latent Growth Model
• Birth‐order effects on risk taking are limited to the family environment
• Collective student characteristics alter the effects of teaching practices on academic outcomes
• The Child Behavior Scale (CBS) revisited: A longitudinal evaluation of CBS subscales with children, preadolescents, and adolescents.
• Rejection Sensitivity in Late Adolescence: Social and Emotional Sequelae
• A replication attempt of personality change through randomized peer groups
• Victimized adolescents' aggression in cliques with different victimization norms: The healthy context paradox or the peer contagion hypothesis?
• Virtual Socializing, Peers, and Juvenile Delinquency: A Study of Incarcerated Male Youths in China
• Well-functioning class climate and classroom prevalence of bullying victims: a short-term longitudinal class-Level path analysis
• Longitudinal links of negative student–teacher relationships and positive class climate with traditional bullying and cyberbullying perpetration
• Parent emotion socialization and children's socioemotional adjustment: when is supportiveness no longer supportive?
• Sorting it out: perceptions of foods among newly arrived adolescent refugees in the Southeastern USA
• Friendships are more group‐oriented in the United Kingdom than in Japan
• Independence and Interdependence Values in Changing Societies: A Three-Generation Comparative Study in Estonia, Germany, and Russia
• Social Identity Complexity

Related

• Childhood Socialization
• The social ecology of development: The changing structure of preschoolers’ everyday experiences
• Ecology of the family as a context for human development: Research perspectives.
• An Interactionist Perspective on the Socioeconomic Context of Human Development
• Parenting style as context: An integrative model.