I don’t understand why people often want to reduce something to only one factor that explains everything . When I look back at my childhood I was influenced positively and negatively by my parents, siblings, teachers, my peers, neighbors and a lot of other people. They all had an influence at times that deeply impacted my life.

There’s a difference between “one factor that explains everything” and a dominant factor that explains most of the variation.

I just doubt that in many cases there is a dominant factor that explains most but I think that instead there are often several factors of more or less equal importance. We made that mistake already in nutrition ("fat is the main problem") and it caused decades of problems. The proportion of these factors is also highly individual.

Why do you believe that it’s more likely for several factors to have roughly equal importance than for one factor to be the most important?

As an aside, the mistake in nutrition was simply that it wasn’t true. And it also wasn’t a “mistake,” it was a lie that the sugar industry paid to spread.

the mistake in nutrition was to think that fat is the dominant factor. In reality, if you eat too much sugar, too much fat, not enough vitamins, exercise too little or too much, don't take care of your mental health, drink too much caffeine, smoke, drink too little or too much or just have bad genes you have a chance to get health problems. There is no dominant single factor you can focus on to be healthy for sure.

>Why do you believe that it’s more likely for several factors to have roughly equal importance than for one factor to be the most important?

if you pick n numbers at random, it's not likely that one of them is bigger than the half of their sum.

That really depends on the distribution of said numbers. You're probably assuming uniform distribution, but there are power law distributions like wealth where the 26 richest people own as much as the bottom 3.8 billion combined.

to be honest, I don't know much about probability.

but my intuition says that if you pick all variables from the same distribution, this should still hold.

At first, we don't know anything about the factors, so they are assigned a random importance. or am I missing something?

What if n=1 ? :)

You don't accept the possibility this could be true?

What's missing here are facts.

To dismiss something based on something anecdotally unrelated seems short-sighted.

Doubt =/= dismissal

> dominant factor that explains most of the variation.

A dominant factor can also only account for less than half of an explanation if there are enough factors. E.g. Peer group is 40%, parents are 30%, teachers are 20%, TV/videogames/groups-seen-but-not-interacting-directly-with 10%. Here peer groups would still be dominating but parents and teachers are significant factors as well. These percentages are close enough that it would be ridiculous to just focus on one (or even the first two alone).

For all X, if you study the effects of X on a complex system hard enough, it will look like X is the dominant factor that explains most of the variation.

I happen to believe peer groups are really important. But other things are important, too, including the adults.

Remove all the middle-aged and older men from a city, but still provide other necessities, and you'll see some terrible outcomes. (This is true in other species as well, like elephants where older males are hunted for tusks.)

Do you sometimes pick up a different child from kindergarten just for a bit of variety in complexion and looks at the dinner table, since that child will be essentially indistinguishable from your son in development and personality anyway, so you might as well?

How do you know what really influenced your life outcomes?

We all have stories about a great teacher or a terrible parent. But these are anecdotes. You don't actually know what would have happened if you had different parents, or different friends, or went to a different school.

It's perfectly possible that if circumstances were different, you would have gotten to the same place, by a superficially different path.

The specific stories would vary, of course. But when we talk about society-level policy, it's not specific personal stories that we focus on. It's things like income, marital status, job field, health, criminality. A lot of evidence suggests that even if your specifics were very different you would have actually ended up largely in the same place on these metrics.

“It's things like income, marital status, job field, health, criminality.”

Yes, it’s all of them. And they all need to be addressed instead of trying to pick the one all-dominant factor.

> How do you know what really influenced your life outcomes?

> ... these are anecdotes.

Combine a lot of anecdotes and add in more scrutiny and we can call that data.

In the spirit of over generalizations, Tim Ferris says that you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. So let’s say mom and dad are gone by 6, you’re at school by 7. You get a different teacher every hour but the cohort of students in each class is substantially the same. You have soccer, gymnastics, karate, piano, etc after school and then you’re at home around 6. Dinner is a quick affair. Then it’s homework and bed. Mom and dad are spent by the time they get home and retreat to their device which is you’re queue to do likewise. Now I agree that throughout the day a kid might encounter dozens of potential mentors but when You examine time spent and substance of the encounter, it’s got to be enormously isolating to a child. Rather than five positive relationships where values are discussed and real mentoring takes place a kid basically receives empty knowledge via retail / transactional delivery. How is this anyway similar to how we grew up as kids?

>Tim Ferris says that you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.

IMO this no longer holds true with the advent of the internet era. You're now spending equal amounts of time exposed to a countless number of people. Even if you aren't physically with them, and even if it's a one-way relationship (i.e. they are not aware of your observance and existence), they are still influencing who you are.

For planning and resource application purposes, you can only sell effort on one factor at a time to non-specialists (policy makers, parents, the public)

That's how you get terrible planning. Maybe we should just accept that things are not that simple and there are a lot of things that influence complex systems.

As my wife and I said to each other 'You think they way you bring up your child has a massive effect - until you have your second child"

Having said that, saying "Peer groups are the dominant influence on a child’s personality and development, full stop." is over simple. Look at the children at school. They all share a peer group. Is there personality and development all aligned? Absolutely not. Diverse friendship groups develop with distinct interests and moral codes. How do you account for that?

The argument is not that a peer group affects all members in the same way, but that the effect of the peer group is dominant.

Just responding here as well. The book actually puts forward genetics as the most important cause of behavioral differences. It then argues that the next most important cause is not parenting but what is referred to in the literature as non-shared environment (aka, everything other than parents, family, neighborhood, etc, which are all grouped under shared environment). Shared environment has zero effect.

It's all inter-related. The peer groups matter, but how they matter varies based on the environment.

As one example, you may have a kid who has a shitty family life who will act up to demand attention. If you have inexperienced teachers in a classroom of 35, it's going to be difficult to negate the impact of that kid on the classroom.

There's actually survey data about this. They ask people, basically, 'How much do differences in parenting style and decisions affect a child's personality/behavior?"

Everyone in the survey thought there was a strong effect except one group: Mothers with two or more kids.

There's probably some bias here where no parent is going to want to admit that they've treated their kids differently (likely unintentionally). Not to say that there isn't useful insight here anyway.

Have you read "Hold on to your Kids"? It also asserts that peer groups can become the dominant influence, but the danger is that they overwhelm parental attachment. In other words, for the really important decisions (we're talking down the line, things like drinking, drugs, bullying, etc.), they look to peers instead of whatever you tried to impart. The book, as you might expect, advocates for attachment parenting as the way to combat this (i.e. continually ensure your bond with your child is strong enough to survive this pressure). Evidence supporting this or dispelling is easy to find, depending on what you want to believe (and I'm including myself in this). And, of course, it's easier said than done and a high-effort commitment (attachment parenting).

For what it's worth, I'm a father of 3 and our oldest is in school 2 years now and could easily be described the same as yours. However, he is in a "good" school and we still see all kinds of new behaviours being brought home. Personally, I see it as being natural for his behaviour to change while experiencing all these new social dynamics. I see him having to go to school, put on a new personality that fits into the existing social dynamics, and then of course he comes home and has to unload the effort and stress that took. It can manifest as anger, exasperation, etc. - I try to remind myself what he's going through and just to be there to "receive" these behaviours, rather than becoming upset and trying to course-correct (I'm far from perfect in this). It's up and down, but in the macro trend, he's getting better at these transitions at a remarkable rate.

I view this stage as normal learning and it's something we all still do subconsciously as adults who go out into the "real world" and come home. How many of us are exactly the same in both situations? How many of us feel more relaxed when we get home? Learning to transition from the "outside world" to home and simply relax is a learned skill, IMHO, and hard at first for little ones and they cope with the transitions differently. Honestly, if he behaved the exact same at school and home and handled that transition with ease, I would be combination of worried and blown away.

> Peer groups are the dominant influence on a child’s personality and development, full stop.

Genetics are likely the dominant influence, with peer groups (shared environment) being the second largest influence.

At least, that's what the Three Laws of Behavior Genetics would say.

True, and thank you for the correction. Can’t do much about genes after a child is born though...

My ability to predict the future is mixed but I think it's safe to say, with the recent dawn of CRISPR, that comment will seem quaint in 20 years.

Your comment reminded me:

Our Catholic friends recently moved their young ones out of the public schools and into a Catholic school.

The songs from the ~6yo changed from ‘shake your booty’ to latin ‘Ave Maria’ at home :)

I went to Catholic schools throughout High School. Tell your friends not to worry, the kid is still listening to songs about shaking your ass, the parents just aren't hearing it.

That’s kind of the point of private schooling. It’s not that you won’t be aware of modern securlar culture, just that you will be taught to restrain yourself.

My admittedly anecdotal evidence is that you won't be taught to restrain yourself but to deceive certain individuals such as your parents regarding your behavior while acting without restraint behind their backs.

Restraint isn’t never committing an action, it’s doing so when it is appropriate. It’s rarely appropriate to sing dirty songs infront of your parents, but it’s fine to enjoy them.

That's pretty good training for adulthood, which is full of different spaces with different expectations.

There's a lot that your boss never need know...

What I’m reading here suggests peer groups more than parents are influential to young school aged children. Depending on the field you hold in highest esteem you could probably find evidence for that. But, maybe there’s more to it? For example, 5-6 year olds (kindergarten age) do start to show some independence from their parents, and they do set higher priority on peers than earlier ages, but not to the extent an adolescent aged (9-13) kid will.

Then again, you might reject developmental psychology and rely on sociological studies of child rearing like Annette Lareau’s book, “Unequal Childhoods.” Lareau outlines two competing parenting styles based on parental income: natural growth and concerted cultivation.

Or, you can pass on both of those and read Critical X Theorists who complicate the narrative of both developmental psychology and sociology by providing studies based on narratives. For an accessible take check out Ijeoma Oluo’s work. For in-depth check out Gloria Ladson Billings.

The other point mentioned in this post is about “good” and “bad” schools intersecting with the geography of opportunity. What makes a school good? Well, since the late 90’s the main criterion for a good school has been high test scores (SAT’s or state proficiency scores, depending on the school). But test scores don’t tell you a whole lot about the school’s quality, even as a proxy measure (see Dan Koretz’s “Measuring Up.”) In that case, then, what makes a “good school” good and a “bad school“ bad? Relative income and race seem to be deciding factors (see Finnigan and Holme’s most recent book, or Rothstein’s book on redlining, or Nikole Hannah-Jones’ series on her own daughter’s education).

Long story short: it’s complicated and this article is about VAM, not parenting, school quality, or peer effects.

Edit: fixed spelling and punctuation

> Peer groups are the dominant influence on a child’s personality and development, full stop.

Twins reared apart studies would dispute this.

The book I mentioned addresses that. It’s a quick read, highly recommended.

I think the person you're responding to putting genetics forth as the dominant influence, which is a point The Nurture Assumption actually makes. The book’s main point is about what generates the rest of the variation we see (so called Non-Shared Environment).

I had the benefit of being in both one of the worst schools in a region and one of the best schools in a region. The worse school had a fight every _single_ day with kids bringing in knives. An unreasonable number of kids were expelled and sent to juvi. To contrast that the better school had 2 fights in a year, numerous clubs, kids who actually paid attention in class and teachers that actually cared. I found out their scores on greatschools.org and everything really began to make sense.

You should get your kid in a better school using any method you possibly can. I mean it. There's a reason Zuckerberg went to Phillips Exeter Academy and Gates went to Lakeside. It doesn't have to be private, just a better ranked school. Any better ranked school.

This was additionally discussed in freakonomics (book).

We too saw our child go through this. He was bullied because he didn't play the right video games, watch the same youtube channels so didn't know the right jokes...a kid can stay an outsider for so long or adapt to the environment both impacting behavior.

We wrote a letter, got him transferred, a majority of it has changed.

If you choose this route, come with hard facts. It's not that they don't care about your child, but you are one of several voices. Make it easy for them to help you.

>and unfortunately we are zoned into one of the worst schools in the district

This is the reason why a house near a good school in North America can easily cost $200-300K over a very similar house in a lousier neighborhood. I would seriously advise moving to a smaller property in a better school district, if you care for the future of your kids.

So, seriously. Move.

Yeah we are working on that

Perhaps it's more nuanced than peers v. parents. For example, it can be:

Bad kids -> your good kid

but also

Bad parents/trauma -> one child with a dominant personality -> outsized influence on peer group -> your kid.

All that said, if I had a kid I'd spend every penny to segregate him/her with other kids away from average dodos. I had a terrible experience as a kid surrounded by imbeciles and bullies, which changed after I went to a better school.

This is why school choice is a key social justice issue of our time. Parents’ ability to control the environment their kids go to school in shouldn’t be based on where they can afford to live.

Above a certain threshold, it’s not a matter of resources or teacher quality. Baltimore schools spend as much per student as the wealthy suburban counties around it (and cost of living in Baltimore is cheaper).[1] Nobody from Montgomery County would send their kids to Baltimore public schools, but a ton of parents in Baltimore would love to send their kids to Montgomery County schools, but can’t afford $700k+ for a starter home.

[1] https://www.bizjournals.com/baltimore/news/2019/05/21/baltim...

>This is why school choice is a key social justice issue of our time

And it's one I have the least hope to see changed, for exactly this reason:

>a ton of parents in Baltimore would love to send their kids to Montgomery County schools, but can’t afford $700k+ for a starter home.

Changing things would require middle/upper-middle class voters to destroy the very thing responsible for half the value of their biggest asset. It's a self-reinforcing problem.

> Above a certain threshold, it’s not a matter of resources or teacher quality.

Why would Baltimore parents want to send their kids to Montgomery County, if not for better teachers and more resources?

For access to a better peer group. That’s the theme of this thread — teachers and resources don’t have that big an influence, but peers do.

Serious question, why is this being downvoted? Seems a reasonable quality comment to me.

Because it’s way off topic, and replying would just start a pointless flame war about school choice.

"Peer groups are the dominant influence on a child’s personality and development, full stop."

That has interesting implications for the idea of getting everyone to go to college. Maybe a lot of the benefits of a college are the peer group, and if there's no selection of the peer group, the benefits will evaporate.

That does raise the idea of fake students - people paid by the university to pretend to be younger co-students and influence the attitudes and behaviour of their actual student peers.

Completely unethical and unlikely to be effective of course.

> Peer groups are the dominant influence on a child’s personality and development, full stop.

Whether parents are highly involved or not is an even higher factor. Think about the amount of time a parent COULD spend with a child over the course of their development years vs their peer groups.

"Peer groups are the dominant influence on a child’s personality and development, full stop."

I think this is way overstated, but aside from that, who is it that chooses where to raise kids and hence, what type of peer groups will be available to those kids?

This might be true for social and cultural learning, but I doubt their peers are teaching them math or history, which is probably what the educators are interested in.

No, but their peers influence behaviour, and behaviour has a strong influence on whether you learn anything in school (plus other important things like whether you wind up in jail or on drugs or pregnant at fourteen).

So loners are not influenced by anything?