Hi Alex,
First, it is my contention that this is JH's view -- not mine. I've been involved
in an E-mail conversation with Judy for a couple of months now about the differences
in our views (I have not pulled rank in the debate with Bryan because my conversation
with Judy hasn't really touched on this specific point so I can't say for sure that
I've got her view on this issue right, but its getting to the point where I should
probably ask her...).
However, there is a very definite link between child culture and adult culture
that ensures a link between them and continuity. One thing I know for certain about
JH's views from our correspondence is that she is convinced that roles you adopt for
yourself as a child carry over to your behavior as an adult. So if I understand Judy
correctly she is saying that cultural transmission is from child's peer group to
child's peer group and the link to adult culture flows from children to adults not
adults to children. This is the interpretation I have been suggesting in the previous
e-mails.
The best evidence for her view is what happens when you throw populations from
different cultures together. The parents keep separate cultures while the kids develop
a unique "pidgin" culture that ultimately develops into a creole culture as they
become adults (with common languages and customs evolving from disparate roots). This
is certainly a better description of what happens when cultures collide than the
notion that adults transmit culture to kids.
Also, this fits my experience pretty well. My social culture looks a lot more
like the social culture that was established by my peers during the late 60s and the
early 70s than it looks like the social culture of my parents. I focus my social life
around informal visits with friends where my parents socialized mainly with relatives.
When my parents weren't socializing with relatives they were socializing with members
of social organizations they belonged to. I don't belong to the Elks or the KoC or any
organizations associated with my sons school. These are differences that were
established in our youth. From what I got from talking to my parents their friends
when they were young were also either relatives or were members of clubs to which they
belonged. Norms about topics of discussion, use of profanity, drug and alcohol use,
etc. all seemed to be established in youth and persist through adulthood. This would
seem to fit Judy's view.
Note that JH would reject out of hand any criticism of her point of view on the
grounds that it doesn't fit well with "contemporary views" since her whole point is
that contemporary views are based on extremely naive interpretations of correlational
evidence that seems to evaporate when you control for genetic factors.
Note also that if you can affect your kids peer groups and this can affect the
rest of their lives then you have to find some way of explaining why this doesn't show
up in the behavioral genetics results which suggest small effects (often vanishingly
small) of family background on almost any measurable outcome as people age. I think JH
would say that the only way you can affect your kids peer group is to move to a
different neighborhood or send him/her to boarding school. Otherwise your kid will
find his/her "peers" no matter what you do about it.
At this point I think there are three differences between my views and JH's
(though we are still in the process of clarifying that). Two are a matter of emphasis,
but one is substantive. 1) I think that she doesn't give enough credit to parents for
the work of socialization. My kid may speak the language of his peers, and if I don't
teach him that language he will learn it on his own. However, in most circumstances
kids learn their language (and a whole host of other cultural knowledge) from their
parents. She emphasizes the determinative roll of peer culture even though the main
burden of socialization is carried by parents. 2) I suspect that "small effects" may
not really be that small. Evidence that differences between families only explain a
small fraction of variance between adults doesn't mean that there can't be important
effects of differences between families. I don't think economists need much
explanation of this point -- R2 isn't a very good measure of costs an!
d benefits. 3) I think that she is right about childhood culture getting carried over
to adult culture, but I think she is wrong that the effects of peer group on
personality are any more permanent than the effects of family. I think the best
interpretation of the evidence is that most environmental variance in personality is
due to contemporaneous or recent effects of environment. Thus I tend to think that
there are large effects of many different aspects of environment on at least some
measures of personality (IQ for example), but that they all fade over time so that
what happens to kids doesn't matter much to their personality when they are adults.
But I think culture does get transmitted the way JH claims. -- Bill
>>> [EMAIL PROTECTED] 09/14/00 12:25PM >>>
Bill,
Putting aside interpretative issues, it seems that the model you
ascribe to Harris is not very plausible as it implies a radical
disconnect between child and parent culture. As I read you, you suggest
child culture passes down from child generation to child generation and
parents branch off into some other route never to be seen again.
On the other hand, the model that Bryan and I see is that children
are influenced by the surrounding culture which is mostly created by
adults. Much more plausible, and consistent with contemporary views
about the effect of advertising, television etc. on children.
On a different note. I also do think that parents can have a
significant effect on their children's choice of peers. Obviously,
location is one big example.
Alex
--
Dr. Alexander Tabarrok
Vice President and Director of Research
The Independent Institute
100 Swan Way
Oakland, CA, 94621-1428
Tel. 510-632-1366, FAX: 510-568-6040
Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
