What You Can Change . . . And What You Can't*: The Complete Guide to Successful Self-Improvement (54 page)

4
. When investigators actually go and look, rather than just declare that we are products of childhood, the lack of strong continuity from childhood to adulthood is what hits you between the eyes. This is a major discovery of life-span developmental psychology. “Change” is at least as good a description as “continuity” for what happens to us as we mature. For good reviews of this very large literature, see M. Rutter, “Continuities and Discontinuities from Infancy,” in J. Osofsky, ed.,
Handbook of Infant Development
, 2d ed. (New York: Wiley, 1987), 1256–98; H. Moss and E. Sussman, “Longitudinal Study of Personality Development,” in O. Brim and J. Kagan, eds.,
Constancy and Change in Human Development
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1980), 530–95; G. Parker, E. Barrett, and I. Hickie, “From Nurture to Network: Examining Links Between Perceptions of Parenting Received in Childhood and Social Bonds in Adulthood,”
American Journal of Psychiatry
149 (1992): 877–85; and R. Plomin, H. Chipuer, and J. Loehlin, “Behavior Genetics and Personality,” in L. Pervin, ed.,
Handbook of Personality Theory and Research
(New York: Guilford, 1990), 225–43.

Especially instructive is the finding that divorce itself is heritable. If you have an identical twin who divorces, your chances of divorce increase sixfold, whereas a divorced fraternal twin only increases your chances of divorce twofold. See M. McGue and D. Lykken, “Genetic Influence on the Risk of Divorce,”
Psychological Science
3 (1992): 368–73.

5
. The twin studies and adoptive studies are cited in
chapter 3
. See especially R. Plomin and C. Bergeman, “The Nature of Nurture: Genetic Influence on ‘Environmental Measures,’”
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
14 (1991): 373–427. For other important studies, see S. Dinwiddie and R. Cloninger, “Family and Adoption Studies in Alcoholism and Drug Addiction,”
Psychiatric Annals
21 (1991): 206–14; T. Bouchard and M. McGue, “Genetic and Rearing Environmental Influences on Adult Personality: An Analysis of Adopted Twins Reared Apart,”
Journal of Personality
68 (1990): 263–82; A. Heath, L. Eaves, and N. Martin, “The Genetic Structure of Personality: III. Multivariate Genetic Item Analysis of the EPQ Scales,”
Personality and Individual Differences
12 (1988): 877–88.

There continues to be a flourishing field investigating childhood antecedents of adult problems. Occasionally reliable effects emerge, but what astonishes me—given the heritability literature—is the absence of any genetic theorizing in this field. So, for example, there are two recent, otherwise competent studies that find (1) correlations between mothers’ treatment of children and the children’s later criminality, and (2) correlations between childhood trauma and later suicidal attempts. Both interpret the childhood events as causal. Both fail to explore the possibility that the adult behavior and what happened in childhood result from third, genetic variables. These studies are H. Stattin and I. Klackenberg-Larsson, “The Relationship Between Maternal Attributes in the Early Life of the Child and the Child’s Future Criminal Behavior,”
Development and Psychopathology
2 (1990): 99–111; and B. van der Kolk, C. Perry, and J. Herman, “Childhood Origins of Self-Destructive Behavior,”
American Journal of Psychiatry
148 (1991): 1665–71. Editors beware.

6
. A. Browne and D. Finkelohr, “Impact of Child Sexual Abuse: A Review of the Research,”
Psychological Bulletin
99 (1986): 66–77; and K. Alter-Reid, M. Gibbs, J. Lachenmeyer, et al., “Sexual Abuse of Children: A Review of the Empirical Findings,”
Clinical Psychology Review
6 (1986): 249–66, both provide good reviews. J. Herman, D. Russell, and K. Trocki, “Long-term Effects of Incestuous Abuse in Childhood,”
American Journal of Psychiatry
143 (1986): 1293–96, is a good example of the genre.

In one of the only studies to play off family pathology against the effect of childhood sexual abuse per se, no long-term effect of childhood sexual abuse could be found over and above associated family pathology. See M. Nash, T. Hulsey, M. Sexton, T. Harralson, and W. Lambert, “Long-term Sequelae of Childhood Sexual Abuse: Perceived Family Environment, Psychopathology, and Dissociation,”
Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology
61 (1993): 276–83. This leads to the curmudgeonly skepticism in the next paragraph.

7
. D. Finkelhor, “Early and Long-term Effects of Child Sexual Abuse: An Update,”
Professional Psychology: Research and Practice
5 (1990): 325–30.

8
. See D. Finkelhor, “Early and Long-term Effects of Child Sexual Abuse,” for a recent review.

Three longitudinal studies are R. Gomes-Schwartz, J. Horowitz, and A. Cardarelli,
Child Sexual Abuse: The Initial Effects
(Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage, 1990); A. Bentovim, P. Boston, and A. Van Elburg, “Child Sexual Abuse—Children and Families Referred to a Treatment Project and the Effects of Intervention,”.
British Medical Journal
295 (1987): 1453–57; J. Conte, “The Effects of Sexual Abuse on Children: Results of a Research Project,”
Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences
528 (1988): 310–26.

For the better prognosis in children than in adults, see R. Hanson, “The Psychological Impact of Sexual Assault on Women and Children: A Review,”
Annals of Sex Research
3 (1990): 187–232.

For ripping off the scars and even manufacturing them out of whole cloth, see D. Kent, “Remembering ‘Repressed’ Abuse,”
APS Observer
5 (1992): 6–7.

For the effect of lengthy litigation, see D. Runyan, M. Everson, D. Edelsohn, et al., “Impact of Legal Intervention on Sexually Abused Children,”
Journal of Pediatrics
113 (1988): 647–53.

9
. The first scenario is from D. Quinton and M. Rutter,
Parenting Breakdown: The Making and Breaking of Intergenerational Links
(Aldershot, Eng.: Gower, 1988), 93–108. The second scenario is from A. Caspi and G. Elder, “Emergent Family Patterns: The Intergenerational Construction of Problem Behaviors and Relationships,” in R. Hinde and J. Stevenson-Hinde, eds.,
Relationships Within Families: Mutual Influences
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988), 218–40.

10
. There is one disorder that seems to fit the inner-child premises well: multiple personality. This typically seems to begin with severe childhood abuse—rape or attempted murder—from which the child withdraws by creating another personality to endure it. This tactic relieves pain, and so, when further trauma strikes, new personalities are created. See E. Bliss, “Multiple Personalities: Report of Fourteen Cases with Implications for Schizophrenia and Hysteria,”
Archives of General Psychiatry
37 (1980): 1388–97. Fortunately, this disorder is quite rare, and there is no evidence that this kind of etiology applies to ordinary depression, anxiety, or other common adult problems.

11
. For a good review of this large literature, see R. Plomin and D. Daniels, “Why Are Children in the Same Family So Different from One Another?”
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
10 (1987): 1–60, and R. Plomin, “Environment and Genes,”
American Psychologist
44 (1989): 105–11. For some of the literature on the small effects of child rearing on adult personality, see M. Heinstein, “Behavioral Correlates of Breast-Bottle Regimes Under Varying Parent-Infant Relationships,”
Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development
28 (1963); J. Whiting and I. Child,
Child-Training and Personality
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1953).

12
. I thank my good friend Barry Schwartz for these colorful metaphors, which he uses in Psychology 1 at Swarthmore College. But I wish he would remember new minor forcing. See M. Rutter, “Pathways from Childhood to Adult Life,”
Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry
30 (1989): 23–51, for an elaborate discussion of many possible models and paths.

13
. My discussion of the influence of the childhood environment on adult personality has glossed over an important distinction for human-behavior geneticists: the distinction between “shared” and “unshared” environments. Joan and Sarah share certain experiences—being upper-middle-class, gardening with Daddy, and Catholicism, for example. They also have an unshared environment: Joan was molested at age ten, Sarah had appendicitis, and Sarah secretly hates gardening. Shared and unshared environments turn out to have very different influences on adult personality. The shared childhood environment—church, school, rearing techniques, socioeconomic status—has virtually no effect on adult personality. Identical twins reared apart are just as similar, maybe more similar, in adult personality than identical twins reared together. Conversely, adopted sibs raised in the same household are no more similar than if they had been raised separately. This means that shared environment in childhood adds nothing.

The whole kit and caboodle that conventional American developmental psychology bet on came up with a bust.

The unshared childhood environment is more promising. It probably accounts for between 15 and 50 percent of the variance in adult personality—probably not as much as genes, but a substantial amount. Before we environmentalists get too excited once again, however, let me say some of what “unshared environment” includes: big events like sexual abuse (which warms the hearts of environmentalists); small events like missing one ballet class; how you interpret, perceive, or remember big or small events; differing bodily reaction to events; parents’ loving you more or less than they did your sib; fetal hormones; childhood illnesses; and good old error of measurement—anything at all that you and your sib are not identical for. It is, unfortunately, a wastebasket category that contains three-quarters of psychology.

No specific piece of unshared environment in childhood has yet to be shown to have any effect at all on adult personality once genes are controlled. In the correct kind of design, J. Loehlin and R. Nichols,
Heredity, Environment, and Personality
(Austin: University of Texas Press, 1976), looked at over seven hundred pairs of identical twins. They isolated about fifty pairs in which one had saliently different events from the other during childhood—one had a serious illness but the other did not, one got spanked a lot, but the other did not, and so on. None of these differences produced any detectable differences in later personality.

To sum up: Genes have a big effect on adult personality. Surprisingly, childrearing techniques, schools, socioeconomic status, and religion do not have a detectable effect. Idiosyncratic experience—traumatic or nontraumatic events, differential treatment by parents, peculiar turn of mind—should in theory have a noticeable effect, but it has yet to be demonstrated.

This is a difficult but illuminating literature. I recommend that the serious student start with R. Plomin and D. Daniel’s classic “Why are Children in the Same Family So Different from One Another?”
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
10 (1987): 1–16, along with the very high quality “peer commentary” that follows. It also has a first-rate bibliography. Then read J. Dunn and R. Plomin,
Separate Lives: Why Siblings Are So Different
(New York: Basic Books, 1990).

More recent papers include A. Tellegen, D. Lykken, T. Bouchard, et al., “Personality Similarity in Twins Reared Apart and Together,”
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
54 (1988): 1031–39; L. Baker and D. Daniels, “Nonshared Environmental Influences and Personality Differences in Adult Twins,”
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
58 (1990): 103–10 (showing small but significant nonshared influences—father’s strictness and mother’s warmth—the only specific ones in the whole literature); J. Loehlin, J. Horn, and L. Willerman, “Heredity, Environment, and Personality Change: Evidence from the Texas Adoption Project,”
Journal of Personality
58 (1990): 221–43; T. Bouchard and M. McGue, “Genetic and Rearing Environmental Influences on Adult Personality: An Analysis of Adopted Twins Reared Apart,”
Journal of Personality
58 (1990): 263–92. All of this heralds nothing less than a revolution in the study of how personality develops.

14
. J. L. Austin, “A Plea for Excuses,” in
Philosophical Papers
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1961), 123–52.

15
. The research literature on the effectiveness of catharsis (also called
abreaction)
is very thin. For the most complete recent review, see I. Marks, “Emotional Arousal as Therapy: Activation vs. Dissociation,”
European Psychiatry
6 (1991): 161–70.

On the negative side, see, for example, M. Stern, E. Plionis, and L. Kaslow, “Group Process Expectations and Outcome with Post-Myocardial Infarction Patients,”
General Hospital Psychiatry
6 (1984): 101–8; M. Lieberman, I. Yalom, and M. Miles,
Encounter Groups: First Facts
(New York: Basic Books, 1973); A Bohart, “Toward a Cognitive Theory of Catharsis,”
Psychotherapy
—
Theory, Research, and Practice
17 (1980): 192–201; R. Baron, “Countering the Effects of Destructive Criticism: The Relative Efficacy of Four Interventions,”
Journal of Applied Psychology
75 (1990): 235–45; and R. Edelmann and S. Hardwick, “Test Anxiety: Past Performance and Coping Strategies,”
Personality and Individual Differences
7 (1986): 255–57.