Nature, Judith Rich Harris, and My Theory of Memory

I just finished Judith Rich Harris' No Two Alike, a fascinating book. I am not going to attempt to summarize all her points in this post--that's what the book is for! (Buy it! Borrow it!) I am going to respond to a very specific issue.

Here's the part I am going to summarize. Harris is trying to explain where personality variation comes from. Using controlled studies, evolutionary psychologists and behavioral geneticists (Harris herself is an amateur insofar as a person who synthesizes and clearly explains extremely complex scientific ideas can be called an amateur) have shown that genetics account for approximately 50% of personality. Something between 0-10% of a person's personality is due to his or her homelife. The rest is anyone's guess.

At this point, I have to clarify that when Harris refers to 0-10% of a person's personality being due to his or her homelife, she is talking about one's homelife actually forming personality (a belief promoted by developmentalists). Harris believes that the remaining "rest" is due to the environment in the sense that she believes that it is due to evolutionary factors that work themselves out in the environment. I believe Harris is making the distinction between an environment forming a person and a person bringing his/her genetics and homelife (however inconsequential) to bear on an environment.

Because Harris is an "amateur" evolutionary psychologist, she looks for the answer to the "rest" in evolutionary psychology, not in poetry or philosophy. She presents the need to determine relationships (who can I trust? who can I not trust?), the need to socialize (how do I get along?) and the need for status (how can I survive by getting resources?) as the three factors that make up the "rest" of a person's personality (I'm super paraphrasing). It is in the juggling of these three factors that personality becomes differentiated.

And I more or less think she is right. This doesn't contradict my religious beliefs since I believe one of the purposes of mortality is to experience mortality which seems redundant but does include things like evolution. (I also believe--side note--that genetics is the best defense for free will; as products of environments, we would never get the chance to form individual personalities. Our current environment would mold us instead. I also believe--double side note--that free will is a much more specific instrument than it sounds; I don't think free will means, "Creating my own personality free from outside pressures!" I think free will means, "Being or not being a total dork"--at least from a religious standpoint.)

However, believing Harris is right doesn't prevent me from understanding why she freaks out the developmentalists. (Harris wrote a book called the Nurture Assumption that apparently got the developmentalists very upset). You think the Middle East has problems, check out academic camps regarding nature versus nurture versus evolutionary biology. Yikes!

And Harris, unfortunately (for the developmentalists), is able to point to extremely slipshod trials and experiments run by developmentalists. But this actually brings me to my own (slight) problem with Harris. I am not an amateur evolutionary psychologist. I'm an English teacher. My slight problem arises from inside the gap between evolutionary psychology and the human experience or what humans communicate about themselves.

The developmentalists are upset because Harris states that one's homelife does not form one's personality. It isn't useful to say that parents who go out of their way to attend parenting classes produce better children who become better parents because parents who go out of their way to attend parenting classes are the parents who care about issues of parenting in the first place and will pass on said genes to their kids. (This actually happens in teaching all the time; the teachers who attend the boring required teaching courses often happen to be the best/most dedicated teachers; that doesn't mean the teaching courses are any good.)

Now, partly the developmentalists are upset because their egos are bruised and because there's a whole industry out there built on giving advice to parents to make them better parents (and what? everyone is suppose to just not care?), but I think the developmentalists are upset for another reason as well. (And I think Harris is a little dismissive here; she seems to think that parents are upset about their lack of influence for reasons that have nothing to do with the claim itself.)

Society is filled with conventional wisdom and commonsense wisdom: everybody thinks it and that just makes sense. Now, I'm not a huge fan of conventional wisdom. EVERYBODY thinks that global warming is due to pollution and that, if not stopped, the world as we know it will fall apart at the seams. Yeah, well, it's always something, isn't it?

But I am a huge fan of commonsense wisdom. That is, I do believe that human beings are some of the best people to ask if you want to know what is going on with human beings. So if people have been writing about the impact that parents have on children for thousands of years, I'm kind of going to think they probably do.

Harris argues that this connection between homelife/parenting and personality is relatively new, and she's sort of right (in terms of the obsession and the blame). Ancient Roman fathers may have worried about being good examples to their sons, but I'm not sure how much they blamed themselves if their sons turned out badly. I think they blamed the kid. Or society. In other words, the dependence on socialization in producing decent people has been higher throughout history than dependence on the family.

Except for the nagging problem that you have whole swaths of human beings who for much of history didn't socialize with anyone but their families. I'm not talking about hunters/gatherers where a large percentage of individuals were related. I mean, the pioneers (for one example), sitting out there in some cabin hundreds of miles from nowhere (Laura Ingalls Wilder, anyone?).

Now, note, that Harris and I are talking about two different things. She is talking about the formation of personality and would argue, based on my understanding of her book, that in the absence of an obvious outside social structure, the child will go looking for one. It is vital to the child's growth to respond to something other than ma and pa.

I, however, am talking about influence.

But this is where I feel there is a gap in Harris' arguments. Because that influence exists and human beings talk about it all the time, both historically and contemporarily. People claim influence from their parents. It is easy to say, "Well, you say your parents taught you to be honest, but the fact is you inherited a predisposition for honesty," but when you are relying on those same people to tell you about their personalities, it seems a bit churlish ("a little weird" is my totally unscientific response).

And I think this is where the nature folks lose adherents. I don't think most people are frightened of genetic determinism (why genetic determinism would be any more threatening than environmental determinism is beyond me), but I think there is a reluctance to undermine one's own understanding of one's experience. Commonsense tells us that our personal understanding carries weight. Historical documents assure us that people have always expended energy on their own thought processes. Since I live in my own head and since my personality is (however constructed) my own, I'm hardly going to trust anyone who tells me to ignore my own reason or my own senses. Good grief, Jane Austen didn't. Why would I?

This brings us to my own theory which is the theory of memory. Actually, Harris could probably incorporate my theory of memory into one of her factors (systems), but I separate it because it brings homelife back into the game. I believe with Harris that we tell ourselves stories (explain ourselves to ourselves), but I also believe that those stories, specifically the memories we select to tell ourselves those stories, have tremendous weight. I believe people start creating memory stories (these memories describe me and my experience) as soon as their reasoning skills develop adequately. I also believe that people are drawn to creating a memory story exclusive to their homelife: holidays, vacations, family dinners or lack thereof.

Commonsense (and cognitive learning theories) state that the pathways formed by the selection and repetition of certain memories has something to do with how a person operates. We can change our stories of course, but I find it almost impossible to believe (in terms of commonsense) that a homelife that supplied few positive memories would result in a hugely positive homelife memory story. Gotta work with something. And I also find it difficult to believe that a positive or negative homelife memory story won't influence me in terms of my choices (and I believe that while personality may not be the result of choice but rather the determination that leads to choice, looking at choice is really the only way personality CAN be determined. You can look at a DNA strand or brain scan, but you have to put the owner of the DNA/brain in motion to determine anything about the relationship of the strand or scan to the owner. Otherwise, evolutionary psychology falls into the category of "really, really boring.").

Here is where Harris and I would agree (I think): the homelife doesn't determine what memory story I create or even how much time I focus on creating and repeating a memory story ("time spent" could be genetic). Homelife simply supplies evidence. Other factors will determine what/how I create the memory story but once created, it does carry influence, and that influence impacts my choices outside the home.

Now, it is possible that my desire to create a memory story based on my homelife is a result of experiences outside the home: I come from cultures (American and Mormon) that place a high premium on what happened in my childhood home. But here's where Harris can't have it both ways. If socialization is a factor in our personalities, and if we come from societies which place a high premium on our homelife/experiences with our parents (and most of us do), then we have been socialized to take our homelife seriously which is going to impact our personalities.

And we may not even know it, according to Harris who argues that socialization is largely unconscious. We adopt the patterns of speech and behaviors of our culture in order to conform/operate. This isn't a bad thing; it's survival. If we didn't, we couldn't communicate (and I believe Harris is right that operating successfully as a social animal comes down to communication). However, an invisible force leaves room for other invisible forces. I doubt very much that overt discipline in the home greatly alters a child's personality (unless, as Harris points out, such discipline is relentlessly severe), but I do believe that the influence of memory (what happened to me yesterday; what my parents did this morning and the morning before that; what I tell myself about what happened) does. It just doesn't make any (common)sense that it wouldn't.

I should end by reminding the reader that I am more on Harris' side than opposed to her. I recently took a (very boring) education class where the material instructed me that girls and boys don't always learn information the same way. The material also instructed me not to be sexist and not to harass the boys--oh, wait, that was a different class--and frankly, what the material had to say about male/female learning differences was pretty shallow. But still, I was pleased to know that one is (finally) allowed to say that genes and biology make a difference. It's about time!

HISTORY & LEARNING

Northanger Abbey 2007

Northanger Abbey is one of my favorite Jane Austen novels, so I've looked forward (with some trepidation) to Masterpiece Theatre's latest version.

Trepidation because when it comes to favorites, the result often doesn't live up to the expectation.

It should be stated immediately that 2007 Northanger is far superior to the 1986 version. Peter Firth did an excellent job as Henry Tilney in the 1986 version, but he was far too worldly-wise (more about this later). And collectively, the 1986 version didn't get the joke.

The joke is that Catherine Morland loves "horrid" novels (more about this later) and enjoys imagining potential gothic horrors, but her own life is fearfully prosaic. So prosaic, in fact, that when she finds herself in the middle of a classic adventure story, she fails to recognize herself as the thwarted romance heroine.

The 1986 version instead presented Northanger Abbey as straightforward gothic romance--which completely and totally missed Jane Austen's point.

Unfortunately, the 2007 version kind of missed it too (they did miss is less). I think Catherine's "prosaic" adventure is just too tempting: script writers and filmmakers can't resist it. They can't resist underscoring parts of the plot with thudding music. They can't resist making Northanger Abbey a huge, rambling building with dozens of towers (no, it isn't that way in the book: that's part of the joke). They can't resist making John Thorpe far more villainous than he actually is. And consequently, they miss how truly funny the novel is.

Watching the 2007 version, it occured to me that perhaps the novel isn't translatable to film. If you moved the whole thing into modern times, Jane Austen would be the smart, introverted, withdrawn high school student who decided to spoof not JUST the antics of the jocks but also (and this is important) the antics of the arty-self-important crowd. In other words, nobody is spared. There's Isabella who complains about men looking at her and then insists on strutting past every man in sight. There's John Thorpe who brags about on fast he drives his "car" and then brags about how safe a driver he is and then brags about how he got into an awful wreck just last week (all in the same conversation). There's Mrs. Allen who says placidly to Catherine, "Oh, yes, dear, I wish someone was here in Bath to talk to you" and then does absolutely nothing about it.

Basically, Northanger Abbey is Heathers.

But the thing that makes it outrageously funny is how completely matter-of-fact it is. No thudding music. No gothic ramparts. Everything is down-to-earth and ordinary. The horrors don't stand out the way they do in a "horrid" novel and in a movie. When Catherine travels home by herself, she doesn't even realize she has behaved heroically.

This hum-dum quality is hard to translate into film: instead of asking you to sympathize with the main characters, the audience would have to be taken into a conspiracy with the narrator against all the characters. The downside of such a conspiracy is that the audience would have a hard time sympathizing with Catherine and, possibly, a hard time understanding Henry.

Catherine is the original innocent. She is so artless, she is clueless; her love of "horrid" novels does not translate into, for instance, a Jane Austen type of imagination. Catherine would never spoof anyone. And a complete innocent, who is also likable, is hard to pull off. (Hence the 1999 Mansfield Park where innocent Fanny becomes instead a combination of Elizabeth Bennett and Jane Austen.)

2007 Catherine, played by Felicity Jones, is not Elizabeth Bennett and does a good job as an innocent, but she is not quite as gullible as the book's Catherine. (In the book, our high school Jane Austen isn't spoofing Alicia Silverstone (Clueless) as much as Mandy Moore (Walk to Remember). And she isn't really spoofing; she's just being cryptic. Rolling her eyes a bit, perhaps.) Without some hint of reserve or suspicion, a film Catherine would, I'm afraid, come across as an airhead which doesn't invite sympathy, especially since Jane Austen fans tend towards the Elizabeth Bennett model.

The second main character is Henry Tilney and here 2007 Northanger hit the money bag. The actor is JJ Feild, who is a PBS classic workaholic
(Railway Children, Death on the Nile, Pullman novels). The character of Henry Tilney--working off our high school model--is the stereotypical smart, semi-arty type who sees through the arty pretense but doesn't have the confidence to be completely himself. So he turns sardonic. This pretty much sums up every guy I knew in High School. I should have hung out with the AV guys, who really didn't care what anyone thought. Instead, I hung out with the arty guys who couldn't stand to be thought pretentious, so they watched lots of Monty-Python. THIS is Henry Tilney.

And he is entirely lovable. He is funny, first of all, and he is flawed. The 2007 Northanger won my heart because although the writer and director fell down when it came to capturing Austen's caustic purpose, they entirely captured the unstable dynamics of the Tilney household. Henry is an unhappy and vulnerable young man. He isn't unhappy because his father is a gothic villain; he is unhappy because his father is an overbearing jerk. There's mundane and prosaic for you.

The 1986 Northanger made Henry much too confident and wise to the ways of the world; one never had any doubts that that Henry would fix everything. But 2007 Northanger gives Henry much more complexity; he may not fix everything; he isn't masterful like Darcy; he isn't accustom to authority like Mr. Knightly; he may not be as heroic as we wish him to be.

Okay, it's Jane Austen, and she may have been caustic but she wasn't cynical: Henry does achieve a level of heroism, but one suspects that this Henry, at least, is just relieved that someone loves him at all. Which is sweet in a very ordinary, human way.

MOVIES

Psychoanalysis--Hollywood Style

Starting with Spellbound in 1945, Hollywood became a factory of psychological/"that-darn-childhood-trauma" thrillers.

Okay, I don't know if it started with Spellbound, but Spellbound is a very good example of the basic plot of these psychological thrillers; the plot's premise goes something like "Person X suffers terrible experience as child/young adult. If person X is forced to confront terrible experience, person X will be instantly cured."

It's the premise of the movie The Three Faces of Eve and of the movie, Marnie, which I watched this weekend for the first time.

Now, Marnie deserves a few kudos.

(1) Marnie's terrible experience is what I thought it should be but didn't believe Hitchcock would actually present: sexual abuse.

(2) There's no indication at the end of the movie that Marnie (Tippi Hedren) is "cured." Her last comment to her husband/amateur psychiatrist is, "I'd rather stay with you than go to jail." Well, yes, I think most people would rather live a life of comparative luxury than go to jail.

(3) The husband/amateur psychiatrist (Sean Connery) is a bundle of weirdness himself for voluntarily marrying a woman who lies, steals, and won't let him near her. Marnie states this during the movie, and the point is never really refuted; in fact, based on the beginning of the movie, the husband is carrying out his dysfunction when he married Marnie--although he does give great lines while he is doing it:

When we get home, I'll explain that we had a lover's quarrel... That you ran away... That I went after you and brought you back. That'll please Dad. He admires action. Then I'll explain that we're gonna be married before the week is out... That I can't bear to have you out of my sight. He also admires wholesome animal lust.

You're very sexy with your face clean.

However, the movie still depends on a really silly idea--that Marnie is troubled and messed up but fundamentally, in her core, normal: there is a normal person in her fighting to get out. Or, at least, a person who still has the right instincts even if said instincts are covered up by trauma.

Marnie isn't a normal person fighting to get out--she's a freaking sociopath.

Basically, the character gets positions of trust in small companies by telling incredible lies that play off people's emotions. She then becomes friendly with the staff. And finally, robs the company blind. This isn't a nice person who just can't help herself. Or even a nice person who due to her terrible childhood is doing things that in her heart of hearts she knows are wrong. This isn't even a cat burglar who steals from acquaintances or unknown victims--this is a person without conscience manipulating the people around her, so she can get what she wants.

And interestingly enough, Tippi Hedren plays the role that way--she is completely believable. Grace Kelly was originally slated for the role, and I think she could have pulled it off, but I think she would have brought more pathos to the character. Hedren has a coolness, even deviousness, which makes the role far more modern than perhaps Hitchcock intended.

Still, the fact that Hitchcock (and many other directors of the time) presented extreme psychosis as a veneer to otherwise good and normal desires tells you a lot about the time period and psychoanalysis in that time period.* I'm not sure if the idea stems from nurture (we can undo the bad environment!) or nature (the basic personality is still intact!), but the theorists of the day seemed to have completely missed the reality that a lifetime of behaviors, no matter how repented of, don't simply vanish. Marnie might feel repentent; she may recognize her childhood trauma; she may wish to be a wonderful wife and mother to her darling husband/amateur psychiatrist. But it's doubtful that robbing five companies through sheer manipulative cunning and hatred leaves a person with a lot of conscience to cling to. Not to mention that her flight responses are pretty well-trained; ten to one, the next time she panics, she's outtathere.

*Granted, Spielberg did more or less the same thing with Catch Me If You Can. According to Abagnale, nothing in his childhood accounts for the thefts he pulled off. However, Catch Me If You Can has several points in its favor; Christopher Walken does a fabulous job as the father who kind of knows what is going on but can offer no refuge to his son; Leonardo DiCaprio's character (Frank, Jr.) commits all of his thefts before, I believe, the age of 21. And lastly, Frank, Jr.'s flight responses, not his character, are tested at the end of the movie.

And finally, Catch Me If You Can, like Marnie and all psychological thrillers, is a whole bunch of fun!

MOVIES