Stranger in the Nest: Do Parents Really Shape Their Child's Personality, Intelligence, or Character?

Rating:
Summary: You'll find yourself quoting him
Review: "Stranger in the Nest" really has impact. I've been quoting it every day. Cohen makes a great case: we do not-and cannot control as much as we thought-and it's okay. Hell of a book! I'm still thinking about it. This book will really throw some heads.

Rating:
Summary: You'll find yourself quoting him
Review: "Stranger in the Nest" really has impact. I've been quoting it every day. Cohen makes a great case: we do not-and cannot control as much as we thought-and it's okay. Hell of a book! I'm still thinking about it. This book will really throw some heads.

Rating:
Summary: You'll find yourself quoting him
Review: "Stranger in the Nest" really has impact. I've been quoting it every day. Cohen makes a great case: we do not-and cannot control as much as we thought-and it's okay. Hell of a book! I'm still thinking about it. This book will really throw some heads.

Rating:
Summary: Stranger in the Nest Review
Review: As a teacher, I was struck by Cohen's ability to communicate highly technical research findings in a clear, vivid, and highly readable manner to an educated lay readership (the intended audience). As a scientist, I was deeply impressed by the rigor and intellectual honesty with which you approached the central issues at have. And as a parent, I was grateful for the opportunity to understand more fully the limits of my own influence over the personalities and characters of my two children.

The central theme of the manuscript obviously runs counter the most of the conventional wisdom about child rearing and its effects. But when one considers the heavy and unfair burden of responsibility that many parents have felt when their children have suffered from such maladies as autism, drug addiction, and sociopathy, it is high time that this conventional wisdom-with its almost complete absence of scientific foundation-must be challenged by responsible scientists.
This is a profoundly compassionate book. . . . I will recommend it enthusiastically to friends and colleagues who themselves have experienced similar family problems. In writing this book, which I know has been a labor of love, Cohen has performed a great service, both intellectually and morally.

Rating:
Summary: Stranger in the Nest Review
Review: As a teacher, I was struck by Cohen's ability to communicate highly technical research findings in a clear, vivid, and highly readable manner to an educated lay readership (the intended audience). As a scientist, I was deeply impressed by the rigor and intellectual honesty with which you approached the central issues at have. And as a parent, I was grateful for the opportunity to understand more fully the limits of my own influence over the personalities and characters of my two children.

The central theme of the manuscript obviously runs counter the most of the conventional wisdom about child rearing and its effects. But when one considers the heavy and unfair burden of responsibility that many parents have felt when their children have suffered from such maladies as autism, drug addiction, and sociopathy, it is high time that this conventional wisdom-with its almost complete absence of scientific foundation-must be challenged by responsible scientists.
This is a profoundly compassionate book. . . . I will recommend it enthusiastically to friends and colleagues who themselves have experienced similar family problems. In writing this book, which I know has been a labor of love, Cohen has performed a great service, both intellectually and morally.

Rating:
Summary: A child's biology can trump parental influence.
Review: Author Comments:

How come so many kind-hearted, well-meaning parents have such awful or odd-ball kids? This question, which has haunted me for years, has a ready answer, but only if you believe the so-called experts whose predictable parent-blaming, in most cases, is so much baloney.

Any doubts? Then consider identical twins reared apart who later in life meet for the first time. Bingo! Many discover that they have been using the same kind of toothpaste, shaving lotion, hair tonic, and cigarettes, that they have the same kind of job, and enjoy the same hobby, that they even have the same idiosyncratic behaviors, for instance, a preference, while at the beach, for entering the ocean backwards, but just up to the knees. Such anecdotes make sense in light of two stunning observations: first, that identical twins reared apart are remarkably alike in personality and IQ, as if they had been reared together; and second, that adoptees who are genetically unrelated to their siblings and parents show virtually no family resemblance for personality and IQ, as if they were reared apart.

The specter of genetic influence suggested by such evidence can be troubling. Let's say we mostly can't help being more or less intelligent, sociable, or moody than other people. Does that make us less responsible for our behavior? Not if our capacities to manage those problems and strive toward self-improvement are just as biological. Fact is, a biological solution to the mystery of human nature supports traditional ideas about social conduct. As individuals, we are responsible for behaving well even when our biology is clearly against us, while as parents, we are responsible for helping our children behave well even when their biology is clearly against them. Yet we can do only so much-more with some kids, less with others. For while they feel pressure to conform to our hopes and expectations, our children must eventually go their separate ways. And that may be the hardest thing for us to accept.

Reactions to my book have been heartening, to say the least. What author wouldn't be gratified by comments, for example, like this one from a leading researcher: "David Cohen has produced a book that turns its own pages. I could not put it down"-or like this one from a home builder: "Your new book really has impact. I've been quoting it every day. You make a great case: we do not-we cannot-control as much as we thought, and it's okay. Hell of a book!" Heartening, yes, but what touched me personally was a comment by a teacher who wrote: "This is a profoundly compassionate book . . . . I will recommend it enthusiastically to friends and colleagues who themselves have experienced similar family problems. In writing this book, which I know has been a labor of love, you have performed a great service, both intellectually and morally." What more could an author hope to hear?

Rating:
Summary: A must have book for a thinking person's shelf.
Review: David Cohen presents an outstanding look at what makes us who we are. This book has a strong academic foundation, presented in an intelligent and humorous style making it a pleasure to read. Cohen's last book, "Out of the Blue" has become a classic reference for the clinician interested in depression. Stranger in the nest seems destined to become an indispensable volume in the ongoing debate about nature versus nurture and the role of parents in a child's development. Many diverse issues are discussed and many difficult questions are articulated. This is a very satisfying contribution to a field where important questions abound and research continues.

Rating:
Summary: A Great Book!
Review: I couldn't put this book down. Dr. Cohen gives a lot of fascinating evidence in the nature vs. nurture debate. Written in highly entertaining and accessible prose!

Rating:
Summary: Shoddy prose and poor organization
Review: In Stranger in the Nest, David Cohen skeptically examines the role of parents in shaping their childrens' lives. The book is loaded with examples from dozens of studies of twins, adoptions, and family life. Cohen concludes that children are shaped by their genetic endowment more than their parents' style of rearing.

Although he does an excellent job of highlighting the confounds, difficulties, and overgeneralizations from many areas of psychological research, his contribution to the field is neither novel nor particularly readable. Cohen points out that correlations between parental behavior and child behavior are confounded by their relatedness, and in so doing illustrates the fundamental problems with research in this area. He returns again and again to relatedness, or genetics, as the answer to why children resemble their parents.

In this regard, Cohen was beaten to the punch by Judith Rich Harris' book, The Nurture Assumption. The Nurture Assumption is a much better book than Stranger in the Nest, in part because it covers both the child's peer environment, his home environment, and his genetic endowment all at the same time and in greater depth than Cohen does. Cohen's book is also defective in that it presents no organizing hypothesis or overarching framework: it is a series of detached anecdotes and synopses of various studies, interspersed too liberally with rhetorical questions.

I agree with Cohen's thesis that genetics matters more to childhood outcomes that we usually acknowledge, and often more than parental nurturance. I found the author's style too dense and punchy, skipping from point to point and not analyzing each major aspect of parenting in sufficient depth.

Those interested in this book would find essentially the same argument and a lot more from Judith Rich Harris, and a more enjoyable and better organized book, to boot.

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Summary: A Review From Publishers Weekly...
Review: Publishers Weekly March 15, 1999

STRANGER IN THE NEST: Do Parents Really Shape Their Child's Personality, Intelligence, or Character?

David B. Cohen. Wiley, (320p) ISBN 0-471-31922-8

Parents who blame themselves for children who are unambitious, irresponsible, moody or suicidal may be full of unwarranted self-reproach, Cohen contends, because of the influence of parenting on a child's personality development is much weaker than most people assume. According to the professor of psychology at the University of Texas at Austin, genetic factors play a pervasive role in molding individual capabilities, dispositions, habits, intelligence and emotional adjustment. He bases this conclusion in part on studies demonstrating the close psychological resemblance of identical twins reared apart, on studies of adoptees, and on recent investigations pointing to startling connections between DNA patterns or single genes and personality traits. This highly accessible, forcefully argued report is a brilliant synthesis of the new genetic findings and their stunning implications, though Cohen overstates his case, citing for example, debatable studies that conclude that attitudes about the death penalty, religion, patriotism and sex before marriage have a high degree of heritability. Far from endorsing genetic determinism, however, Cohen underscores the importance of parenting in fostering security, learning, civility, and self-confidence. Further he believes that individual autonomy and unforeseeable life circumstances make it hard to predict how a child grows into adulthood. His "seven rules of parenting" combine good common sense with some cautions, as when he asserts, "Parents have limited moral responsibility for how a child turns out." The opinionated salvo in the nature vs. Nurture debate will challenge general readers, psychologists, scientists and thoughtful parents.