Rainer Scheuchenpflug, in response to my posting of the article that
discusses how the restricted range of family environments leads to
misleading conclusions about the importance of shared environment wrote:
>I just wanted to add that Mrs. Harris would probably be very happy with
>Stoolmiller's findings. She mentioned in a discussion at the Psychology
>Place
>that she definitely believes that *extreme* environmental conditions like
>abuse
>and violence *have* an influence on child development (which was a common
>criticism against her book, mostly from persons who hadn't read it).
>
>But apart from these extremes, she maintained that "normal" styles of
>parenting
>are very similar to each other; in other words, in the majority of studies
>the
>variance between different environments is very small, and cannot explain
>the
>large variance on developmental outcomes.
>
>So I would think she would be quite contented with the newer findings.
I agree with your characterization of Harris' views but I was obviously not
clear enough about the article. The restricted range is not just the
elimination of extremes, but the elimination of most famillies that are not
poor and all the other limitations that adoption agencies put on families.
In addition, the samples are limited to those adopted families who agree to
participate in the research. I would include some quotes but I am home and
the article is at school.
In any case, I really do not believe that Harris' ideas on extremes applies
to the argument made in the article.
I agree, however, to the comments made concerning Kagan's response to
Harris' work.
Jeff Nagelbush
Ferris State University
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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