Sibling Rivalry: Why the nature/nurture debate won't go away

WHEN THE BRITISH EDUCATOR Richard Mulcaster wrote in 1582 that ''Nature makes the boy toward, nurture sees him forward,'' he gave the world a euphonious name for an opposition that has been debated ever since. People's beliefs about the roles of heredity and environment affect their opinions on an astonishing range of topics. Do adolescents engage in violence and substance abuse because of the way their parents treated them as toddlers? Are people inherently selfish and aggressive, which would justify a market economy and a strong police, or could they become peaceable and cooperative, allowing the state to wither and a spontaneous socialism to blossom? Is there a universal aesthetic that allows great art to transcend time and place, or are people's tastes determined by their era and culture? With so much at stake, it is no surprise that debates over nature and nurture evoke such strong feelings.

"And sometimes the answer goes the other way. Autism, for example, used to be blamed on ''refrigerator mothers'' who did not emotionally engage with their children. Schizophrenia was thought to be caused by mothers who put their children in ''double binds'' (such as the Jewish mother who gave her son two shirts for his birthday, and when he turned up wearing one of them, said, ''The other one you didn't like?''). Today we know that autism and schizophrenia are highly heritable, and though they are not completely determined by genes, the other likely contributors (toxins, pathogens, chance events in brain development) have nothing to do with parenting. Mothers don't deserve ''some'' of the blame if their children have these disorders, as a nature-nurture compromise would imply; they deserve none of it.

The above mistake can be often averted by reading what follows.

While various psychotherapeutic theories attempt to find "causes" of the disorders, a few theories focus on goal orientation. For general understanding and use, it is easier (and, hopefully better) to focus on the goal of the mistaken, pathological or immature behavior. This can be easy seen in errant children where their immature behavior can be understood as being attention getting, striving for power, securing revenge or attempting to become more dependent. Of course, sometimes the immature behavior includes two or more of the listed goals. Alfred Adler, Rudolph Dreikurs and many others pointed out years ago that much of what we term psychopathology is goal oriented and the mistaken goals rather than causes are what we need to examine first.

"I think the conclusion that parenting practices make little difference would break down in the case of extreme parental cruelty or abuse

I believe the author recognized this. Please see the quote below from the article.

"All these deeply held beliefs will have to be rethought. It's not that parents don't matter at all. Extreme cases of abuse and neglect can leave permanent scars.

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