Nature vs Nurture

In the last post I spoke about a writer how posited that peers had more influence over child and adolescent development than parents. I finally tracked down the information about here and the source of my hearing of her theories.
She was interviewed on Life Matters (Radio National Podcast) in May 2007. The blurb reads:

"How important is our upbringing in terms of how we turn out, what kind of people we are?
Contrary to what most people think, Judith Rich Harris says the most crucial aspects of a child's environment are actually outside the home.And she says parents need to lighten up, and stop treating their children like projects. Day to day happiness is more important than moulding and shaping by parents when genes and the external environment are more significant influences".
She has a rather clumsy looking website at: The Nuture Assumption
This provides links to more of her research work.

I think certainly from discussions with students at the school where I work, that peer relationships are crucial during adolescents, and work both positively and negatively in identity formation and social behaviour. I am opening up a can of worms by writing the title: Nature vs Nuture...but it is interesting to see which end of the scale you fall on. I am inclined to think that it is not a question of either/or or even to which end of the scale you lean toward, but more an understanding that different aspects of an individual are more or less affected by nature and nuture and it continually changes and develops over time. The individual is not a stagnant creature, but rather one that (hopefully) grows and learns...but there might just be a core set of beliefs/themes/undertandings/modes that assist us to approach different situations without having to reinvent the wheel so to speak whenever we are confronted with the new.

I want to explore more of this through the continuity/discontinuity arguments after I have read some examples of those with differing views on related topics.

There was a good discussion about this topic on All in the Mind recently titled "Nature vs Nuture? What makes us Human?

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