Does a parent's love really improve a child's behavior?

This new study examined 227 pairs of twins:

They found that the twin who experienced stricter or harsher treatment and less emotional warmth from parents had a greater chance of showing aggression and a lack of empathy and moral compass—a set of characteristics known as callous-unemotional traits.

The researchers conclude that the study provides compelling evidence that parenting matters.

They might be right, but the scientific literature indicates parenting has little long-term effect on behavior. Overall the long haul, genes simply dominate. 

The scientists fail to mention that, in their discipline style, parents might be reacting to differences in the twins' behavior. Identical twins turn out different because of accidental events that happen during development. For example, one twin could get fall and get a brain injury which worsens his behavior, and parents might react more harshly and coldly to such behavior. One might ask why would a parent systematically treat one twin different than the other? The obvious answer is that the twins diverge first, and then parents treat them differently second. Parents typically delay punishment until the child seems old enough to understand it.  

One the other hand, if it is true that there are short-term benefits to more parental warmth and more moderate discipline, that is not without value.  I have 6 children and spend a lot of time managing them. If there are techniques that get my kids under better control, that is awesome even if it doesn't change their long-term character.

How personality is related to sexuality

This new, large meta-analysis of 761 effects sizes with a sample of over 400k people looks at the relationship between personality traits sand sexuality. 

People who score high on neuroticism (the tendency to experience negative emotions like anxiety) are less sexually satisfied (r = .18) and have more symptoms of sexual dysfunction (r = .16). 

Extraverts engage in more sexual activity (r = .17) and risky sexual behavior (r = .18) and have less sexual dysfunction (r = −.17). 

People who are open to experience are more likely to be homosexual (r = .16) and to have liberal attitudes toward sex (r = .19). 

Highly agreeable and conscientious (i.e., self-disciplined) people are less sexually aggressive (r = −.20; r = −.14) and are less like to be unfaithful (r+ = .18; r+ = .17). 

So, if you're looking for a trustworthy partner who enjoys sex, your best bet is to find a person who is even-keeled, cooperative, and diligent. 

By the way, these traits are highly influenced by genes, so don't assume you can change someone into a desirable partner. A major theme among people who take genes seriously is, what you see is what you get (WYSIWYG).

Narcissistic and other-blaming

 

I just watched Chris Rock's Oscars monologue. Disgusting. The guy can be funny, but we get a 15 minute lecture.

It occurs to me that if the black race were a person, it would have the personality of a common criminal.  Research shows that crooks tend to be narcissistic and always blame their problems on others. They are victims, and yet they're so special, every other consideration must take a back seat.

Family meals

According to this new study, eating breakfast and dinner more frequently with family members was unrelated to cognitive and behaviorial outcomes for kids from kindergarten to 8th grade. A parents-are-everything model would predict that family meals are important since it is a time when parents can encourage and instruct kids about school and behavior. (It is an opportunity for bonding as well. One of my fat friends associates food with his mom's love.)

My students absolutely refuse to believe that parenting has little effect on a child's IQ and personality. Citing research doesn't matter. The idea is repugnant to them. Americans hate genes.

For those of you who are more open: don't decide to not have kids because work takes up too much of your time. The truth is, you ain't that important. (Your genes are, on the other hand.)

Science at its finest, Part II

I just finished reading The Authoritarians by psychologist Bob Altemeyer. His very scientific research has found that a large segment of white Americans are basically proto-Nazis, and of course they're all on the right. His "Right-Wing Authoritarian" scale strongly taps traditionalism, aggression, and respect for government authority.

I couldn't sleep for nights after hearing his campfire stories of bloody, hook-handed Christian Right Bogeymen. I was also surprised to learn that the RWA scale proves that hardline Russian Communists are actually right-wingers!

Naive person that I am, I would've guessed that aggression and government-worship were prevalent at least among some Democrats; how about American blacks, for example? I don't know about you, but armed Black Panthers and students taking over campus buildings look like fascists to me.

I noticed a couple posts back that blacks score higher than whites on an aggression scale, and I just checked the traditionalism scale among MIDUS respondents: the black mean surpassed that of whites by almost a third of a standard deviation. And does anyone doubt that blacks adore government more than whites? 

Altemeyer devotes many pages warning us of the dire threat of Christian fundamentalists to American democracy. Nuremberg rallies, megachurches on a Sunday morning--what's the difference? But Bobby seems to think that Bible thumpers can only be white. He must have missed the memo. In the MIDUS study, I calculate that 29 percent of whites strongly agree that the Bible is the actual Word of God. Blacks must be about--what--10 percent? Try 66 percent. Blackshirts, black all over.

Legitimate researchers are supposed to identify factors that predict the subject of study. At least that's what I thought that scientists did. But what do I know? I didn't win APA's highest award.

Altemeyer devotes many pages calling us to crusade with righteous fervor against the fascist takeover of the United States, but somehow never identifies race as relevant to the study of authoritarianism. I suppose that wouldn't be objective.

Please download the free book and send it to all your friends. Professor Altemeyer doesn't care about a profit when the issue is the moral salvation of the country. With your help and that of Almighty Science, we will prevail against the Forces of Evil.  

More on aggression

An aggression score was calculated for MIDUS respondents based on the following items: is physically aggressive; enjoys upsetting and frightening others; enjoys scenes of violence; victimizes others for own advantage; will retaliate; is vindictive. Here are the means by ethnicity (sample size = 3,392):

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
* significantly higher than English-American women
 
With the exception of Italian-American women compared to their English-American counterparts, none of the groups are significantly different. The Italian-English female gap is one-third of a standard deviation--a moderate difference.  If we ignore the significance issue, the English-Swedish male gap is about as large. Overall, there does not appear to be wide variation among whites (or across races as shown in the last post).
 
It is interesting that, like Chinese Americans in the last analysis, the 11 Asian Indians in the sample have a very high mean--7.82. It's significantly higher than the mean for all Americans. It's 1.5 standard deviations higher than the English-American mean--an enormous difference. (The Chinese mean for males from the last post is also roughly 1.5 sds above the mean for their English counterparts).  

Race and alienation

An alienation score was calculated for MIDUS repondents based on the following items: feels betrayed, deceived; feels exploited; feels mistreated; believes others wish him/her to fail; sees self as target of false rumors; and feels unlucky. Here are the means by race/ethnicity (N = 3,988):

Mean alienation score

White 5.08
Black 6.03*
Amerindian 5.70*
Asian 5.79
Mexican 5.26 

* significantly higher than whites

Blacks are slightly more than half a standard deviation above whites--a moderate difference. In a twin study, the heritability for a MMPI scale of alienation was .61, but the environmental component might be larger for racial minorities.

Blacks, gay men, and narcissism

MIDUS study participants were asked: "I enjoy being unique and different from others in many respects." In personality research, this item is a measure of narcissism. Here are the means by race/ethnicity (N = 3,980):

Narcissism mean score

Blacks 4.87*
Asians 4.75
Hispanics 4.41
Amerindians 4.21
Whites 4.07

*significantly higher than whites at the 95% confidence level


The black mean is 1/2 a standard deviation higher than the white mean--a moderate difference. The higher measured black level of self-esteem might be actually tapping greater narcissism.


Gay men 4.79*
Bisexual men 4.59
Straight men 4.13

*significantly higher than straight men at the 95% confidence level


The mean for gay men is more than four-tenths of a standard deviation higher than the straight male mean--also a moderate difference.

Race and speaking up

MIDUS respondents were asked if they agreed with this: "I am not afraid to voice my opinions, even when they are in opposition to the opinions of most people." Here are the means by race/ethnicity:


Mean "speaking up" score


Black 4.87
Amerindian 4.67
Hispanic 4.63
White 4.55*
Asian 3.67


* significantly lower than blacks at 95% confidence level


The gap between blacks and Asians is eight-tenths of a standard deviation--a large difference.  Blacks on top and Asians on the bottom is consistent with my experience in the classroom.

More indicators of conscientiousness

Here are more indicators from the National Health Interview Survey (2008) of greater conscientiousness among Asians:

• When results are considered by single race without regard to ethnicity, 10% of Asian adults were current smokers compared with 21% of black adults, 21% of white adults, and 23% of American Indian or Alaska Native adults. 

• Asian adults were more likely to be lifetime [alcohol] abstainers compared with other single race groups (excluding Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander).

And of lower conscientiousness among blacks and Hispanics:

• Regarding vigorous leisure-time physical activity, 55% percent of non-Hispanic white adults never engaged in periods of vigorous leisure-time physical activity compared with 66% of non-Hispanic black adults and 69% of Hispanic adults (no number was given for Asians).

Fatal gun accidents by race

Using self-report data, we haven't gotten very far in identifying racial differences in personality. (Maybe there aren't many differences, but I doubt it.)  Let's try to infer traits from behavior. Fatal gun accidents (FGA) are an interesting first step. People usually kill themselves or others accidentally with guns when they are fooling around. A typical scenario is one drunk guy trying to shoot a beer can off the head of another drunk guy. Rates are highest for teenage males which supports the claim that the behavior measures recklessness.

The graph for the United States 1999-2006 shows that rates of fatal gun accidents vary across racial groups (raw data is available here). Amerindians and blacks have the highest numbers. Whites are in the middle, while rates for Asians are very low.

The incidence of FGAs should be affected by gun ownership prevalence and the popularity of hunting among groups. Amerindian numbers might be elevated a bit, but according to the GSS, they are not really much more likely to own guns or to hunt than whites. Blacks are less likely to hunt and possess firearms, so their high rates of FGAs must be due to more improper handling. According to the GSS, few Asians hunt or have guns, so this might lower their rates. (High rates of drunkenness among Indians might also raise their numbers, but self-report surveys indicate that blacks drink less or no more than whites).

I take this as evidence that, on average, Amerindians and blacks are more reckless than whites and Asians.


UPDATE: I checked, and Hispanics have rates similar to whites, but they are less likely to hunt and own guns (GSS)).

Sex differences in personality: The article I cited in the post on race differences in personality also examined sex differences. The aim of the study was to see if personality assessments used by employers are biased against minorities. Since they found that non-whites came out ahead on most traits, then of course there is nothing to worry about.

But I digress. Here are the results by gender:



Compared to men, women are less adjusted and sociable. They score lower on intellect and stress tolerance, and have less clerical potential.



Women are less influential, less relaxed, less emotionally controlled, less active, less innovative, less competitive, less data rational, and they are less methodical.




Women are less work-oriented but are more perfectionistic.

Most of the differences I list are small. The gaps on "active" and "data rational" are larger.

Many of these differences seem plausible, but give me a second to flex my brain to figure out why the gaps would be more valid for sex than for race....

Ow, that hurt. My guess is this: cultural differences and differing reference groups might cause racial groups to score themselves higher or lower on self-assessments. Males and females belong to the same culture, so that factor is eliminated. On the other hand, I imagine that men tend to compare themselves to other men when self-assessing, and women with other women. If I'm right, then we still have a reference group problem.

Race differences in personality: I found an interesting British study (Journal of Occup. and Organizational Psych. 2002. 75, 255-76) that examined racial differences in personality. The sample included university students: 324 whites, 56 blacks (Caribbean, African and other), 47 Asians/Indians (Pakistani, Bengladeshi, Indian), and 30 Chinese. Three personality tests were used. They are all self-reports:



Let's just hit the larger differences. Compared to whites, blacks have more managerial potential and are: less sociable, more prudent, and more service-oriented. Compared to whites, Chinese folks have more clerical and managerial potential and are more ambitious, prudent, service-oriented, and geared toward school success. Compared to whites, Asians have more managerial potential and are more ambitious, prudent, and oriented toward school success.






Compared to whites, black are more indecisive, relaxed, emotionally controlled, and more likely to give socially desirable answers. Chinese are more influential, emotionally controlled, active, data rational, achieving, methodical, and are less decisive, relaxed and sociable. Asians are more influential, empathic, innovative, data rational, achieving, and methodical.







Compared to whites, blacks are warmer but have less stamina. Chinese people are more competitive, limelight-seeking, and have less stamina. Asians are more risk-taking.

Some of the results for Chinese and Asian students seem plausible, but many black-white differences don't square with other types of data; in fact, they seem just the opposite. I'd like to see personalities assessed by others--perhaps by spouses, close friends, or experts, with a mixed-race population as the reference group. Or measurement through experimental manipulation would be interesting. Keep in mind that the sample is university students, so the range of personalities is restricted. Also--it would be nice to know how many students are immigrants.

UPDATE: In connection with this post, it is interesting that black Americans rate themselves as the smartest in self-assessments of intelligence, while Asian Americans rate themselves as least intelligent.

Race and anger: GSS respondents were asked three questions about anger: 1) how many days in the past week were you angry at someone; 2) how intense was the anger, and 3) how long did the anger last? The alpha coefficient for the three measures is .53. I converted the scores on each question to z scores and summed them, creating an index.


Mean anger index (N = 1,110)

Blacks .56
Whites .02


Whites are significantly less angry than blacks at the 95% confidence level. The difference between the two means is 25% of one standard deviation.

A study of twins calculated heritabilities for the angry-hostility sub-scale of the NEO: .52 for Canadians, .52 for Germans, and .40 for Japanese (Jang et al. 2001. Covariance structure of neuroticism and agreeableness. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 81, 295-304.)

Variables: ANGRY, HOWANGRY, ANGRLAST

Race and the Big Five

* p

The General Social Survey asked ten questions in 2006 about personality traits--two questions for each of the Big 5. Two questions per trait is not nearly enough (typical performance by sociologists) but we'll use what we've got.

For extraversion, the questions asked about outgoingness, and for agreeableness, people were asked if they agreed that they didn't find fault in others and trusted them. On conscientiouesness, people were asked if they agreed that they were hardworking and thorough. Questions for emotional stability asked about agreeing that you are relaxed or prone to nervousness.

Respondents were asked if they are imaginative and artistic, so I called this measure "creativity." Answers to these pairs of questions were summed. You see the means in the table.

Whites are significantly more extraverted than Mex-Ams, but do not differ from blacks. Blacks are more agreeable than whites, but Mex-Ams are less so. The group do not differ on conscientiousness.

Blacks are more emotionally stable than whites. This contradicts findings from my last post, but keep in mind that the measure I used before tapped depression more than anything else, while this one focused on how relaxed someone is.

Finally, the groups do not differ on creativity.

One comment about the data: it's clear that respondents lack some objectivity because a disproportionate number of people describe themselves as having what I'm sure people see as the positive quality. Few people admitted that they are lazy and fail to do a thorough job. Conscientiousness was more skewed than any other measure, but the others were skewed as well. There is a tendency to think you're outgoing, agreeable, conscientious, relaxed, and creative, regardless of the facts. I don't know if groups differ in these biases, but there is an overall bias, no doubt.

Race and negative emotionality--again: In the last post, data on college students revealed no significant difference between blacks and whites on the trait negative emotionality.

In some ways, the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health) is a better source of data because: 1) it's a sample of high school students, so it has much less of a range of restriction problem; 2) it includes several racial/ethnic groups; and 3) the sample size is much larger.

I summed answers from five questions about the respondents level of sadness, the blues, depression, fearfulness, and being bothered by things. Three of the questions deal with depression, so this characteristic is weighed heavily. Cronbach's alpha is .79 which indicates that we're measuring a single, underlying trait. Here are the mean scores:

N is 6,476, but of course it gets much smaller for individual groups. To maximize sample size, I first compared groups with males and females lumped together. All minority groups have significantly higher negative emotion scores than whites, but as the effect sizes indicates, differences are not large.

When we turn to gender-specific comparisons, minority groups sometimes differ from whites, but not always. Mexican American and Amerindian males are not higher in negative emotionality than white males, but black and Asian guys are. The black-white difference for females falls just short of statistical significance, but all other minority women have higher scores.

How do we make sense of these patterns? Most of the researchers I know would announce imperiously that this is proof of pervasive white racism. Minorities of all colors experience more negative emotions because they have to deal with us traumatizing white people all the time.

Following the example of my august colleagues, I will declare imperiously that white folks are genetically the most even-keeled of all races.

(By the way, I'm sure you noticed that women score higher on this trait. The effect size for whites is .35--I'd call that a moderate difference).

Narcissism, negative emotionality, and race: In an earlier post, I showed how homosexual men, as a group, are more narcissistic than straight men. Using the same survey, I used answers from 11 questions to develop a scale of negative emotionality (anxiety, moodiness, depression, emotional instability, etc.). Cronbach's alpha was .91.

I compared white and black men and found no statistically significant difference on the trait or on the narcissism measure (N = 814). Studies show that heritability for negative emotionality is .4 to .5, and it's as high as .6 for narcissism. The data here suggest that, even with moderate heritabilities, trait frequencies will not necessarily differ between racial groups.

I assumed the lack of race research on the Big Five was due to fear, but perhaps some of it is due to lack of difference. Anyone know of documented differences? I've guessed at some things, but haven't run across research (Lynn's work on psychopathy is an exception).

All this reveals one of the perversions of this era of racial hysteria (Jimmy Carter being the best recent example). IQ research has documented a huge racial gap, but since everyone is too afraid to research personality differences, it leads one to assume based on IQ research that blacks and whites are probably very different (and possibly genetically different) in many ways. Give us the damn research so we know the truth and don't have to guess!

Sex and personality

I scanned pages 128 and 129 from Sex Differences in Antisocial Behavior by Terrie Moffitt et al. Over 900 males and females aged 18 completed the Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire (MPQ), and the researchers correlated various dimensions of personality with a measure of antisocial behavior. As you can see for both sexes, a willingness to take advantage of others and cause them discomfort (Aggression) was most predictive of the list of measures. The sex differences in these predictors explain over 90% of the sex difference in antisociality. Keep in mind that research shows sizable heritabilities for many of these traits.

But I was most interested in two other items. First, see how traditional/conservative folks are less likely to be criminal. Second, look at the sex differences in personality. Let's list the differences from largest to smallest in terms of standard deviations:


Female advantage

Harm avoidance .72
Social closeness .43
Prone to over-react .41
Self-control .34
Traditionalism .21


Male advantage

Aggression .87
Suspicious/persecuted .32
Achievment .22


Women are more cautious, controlled social, sensitive, and in need of a predictable environment. Men are more willing to take advantage of others; they are more likely to feel mistreated; and they are more achievement-oriented.

These findings square with my perception of the sexes: Women are the good sex; men are the interesting sex. Women seem like social anchors, but most of the interesting people I know or read about are men. Some of them are good people, and some are bad.

We can see a similar pattern with the major races, but IQ is important as well as personality. Asians are a smart and good race, but since they have a feminine personality, they are less interesting. Blacks are the "male" race and are thus interesting, but whites are smart and less feminine than Asians, and so arguably have produced the greatest number of interesting people.