Maccoby

"Do parents matter?" asked one of the nation's most eminent psychologists at Cornell in delivering the 2006 Ricciuti Lecture, "Transformations in the Way We Think About Parenting," to about 100 students and faculty members Oct. 23 in Martha Van Rensselaer Hall.

With the advent of genetics research, Eleanor Maccoby, the Barbara Kimball Browning Professor Emerita of Psychology at Stanford University, revisited the classic developmental question of whether children are more influenced by nature or nurture. In studies of twins, she said, researchers have found that identical twins are far more alike psychologically than fraternal twins; adopted children tend to favor their natural parents more than the ones who adopted them.

Known for her research in child psychology and development, Maccoby admitted that after looking at such studies, she found that she and her colleagues had been "overclaiming the strength of parenting effects on children's psychology … we almost never studied more than one child in a family."

However, she asserted, "behavior geneticists were wrong in disclaiming all parenting effects." She cited a Scandinavian study showing that adopted children with negative genetic traits "raised in functional homes manifested less than in less-functional homes."

Maccoby said that for years development psychologists studied different parenting styles (authoritarian, rewarding good behavior and punishing bad behavior, unconditional love/laissez faire, democratic) and their effects on children's behavior. It wasn't until the 1970s, she said, that development psychologists took a more psychoanalytical approach and began to look at the parent-child relationship as a reciprocal relationship, and that the various styles are adapted to a child's characteristics.

"It is necessary to know your child in order to monitor them," she said, noting that parental monitoring is driven by the child's communication. Now, however, she said, researchers are looking increasingly at the importance of genetics and its effect on children's behavior.

Maccoby has been honored for her work in developmental psychology with the American Psychological Association's Lifetime Achievement Award, election to the National Academy of Sciences, and even an eponymous award, the American Psychological Association's Eleanor Maccoby Book Award.

Chandni Navalkha '10 is a writer intern with the Cornell Chronicle.