The Origins of You: How Childhood Shapes Later Life

by Jay Belsky, Avshalom Caspi, Terrie E. Moffitt, Richie Poulton

Overview

A Marginal Revolution Book of the Year

“Brings the groundbreaking research of the top developmental psychologists of the past quarter-century to a wider audience…A masterpiece!”—Dante Cicchetti, Institute for Child Development at the University of Minnesota

“Deliver[s] a flood of insights around the book’s central question: To what degree do our childhood personalities and behaviors predict our adult selves?”—Wall Street Journal

“One of the best and most important works of the last few years…Fascinating.”—Tyler Cowen, Marginal Revolution

Does childhood temperament predict adult personality? What role do parents play in shaping how a child matures? Is day care bad—or good—for children? Does adolescent delinquency forecast a life of crime? Do genes influence success in life? Is one’s health shaped by childhood experiences? In search of answers to these questions, four leading psychologists dedicated their careers to studying thousands of people, observing them as they grew and emerging with unprecedented insight into what makes us who we are.

They found that human development is not subject to ironclad laws so much as a matter of possibilities and probabilities—multiple forces that together determine the direction of one’s life. The early years do predict who we become, but they do so imperfectly. At once actionable and revelatory, The Origins of You is an invaluable guide for parents, teachers, and anyone working with or caring for children.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780674293854
Publisher:	Harvard University Press
Publication date:	08/22/2023
Pages:	432
Sales rank:	393,378
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.25(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Jay Belsky is the Robert M. and Natalie Reid Dorn Professor of Human Development at the University of California, Davis. He was a founding investigator of the NIH Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development in the United States and the National Evaluation of Sure Start in the United Kingdom. He received the Urie Bronfenbrenner Award from the American Psychological Association.

Avshalom Caspi is the Edward M. Arnett Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at Duke University and Professor of Personality Development at King’s College London. He is a recipient of the American Psychological Association Award for Distinguished Scientific Contributions to Psychology.

Terrie E. Moffitt is the Nannerl O. Keohane University Professor at Duke University and Professor of Social Behaviour and Development at King’s College London. She has received a host of honors, including the 2022 Grawemeyer Award in Psychology and the Stockholm Prize in Criminology, and is a member of the National Academy of Medicine.

Richie Poulton is Professor of Psychology at the University of Otago in New Zealand, where he serves as codirector of the National Centre for Lifecourse Research. An elected fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand, he received the New Zealand Prime Minister’s Science Prize for the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study.

Table of Contents

Preface vii

I Introduction

1 Lives through Time 3

II The Child as the Father of the Man

2 Moving Against the World, Moving Away from the World 29

3 To Be or Not to Be Self-Controlled 52

4 ADHD in Childhood and Adulthood 71

III The Family

5 Why Parents Parent the Way They Do 91

6 Troubled Families and Bad Boys 111

7 Early-Maturing Girls, Troubled Families, and Bad Boys 131

IV Beyond the Family

8 Good News and Bad News about Day Care 153

9 What about Neighborhoods? 178

10 Bullying 199

11 Early and Persistent Cannabis Use 219

V Genetics

12 Is Smoking in Our Genes? 235

13 Genetics of Life Success? 254

14 Child Maltreatment, Genotype, and Violent Male Behavior 271

15 Life Stress, Genotype, and Depression in Young Adulthood 287

16 Epigenetics, or Genes as Dependent Variables 300

VI Aging in Midlife

17 Childhood Adversity and Physical Health in Midlife 323

18 Biological Embedding of Childhood Adversity 338

19 Aging Fast, Aging Slow 357

VII Conclusion

20 Miles to Go Before We Sleep 373

Bibliography 389

Index 399

Editorial Reviews

The Origins of You poses a question that is both timely and timeless: how does each of us become the unique person we are? Drawing upon the most authoritative psychological studies ever conducted on the topic, the authors offer a treasure trove of remarkable insights that both underscore the complexity of human development and affirm the power of human resilience.

Dan P. McAdams

The Origins of You brings the groundbreaking research of the top developmental psychologists of the past quarter-century to a wider audience. The book captures the genius and visionary stature of its authors and illustrates their profound influence on the current and future thinking of the field. A masterpiece!

Dante Cicchetti

Will prove one of the best and most important works of the last few years…Fascinating.

Marginal Revolution - Tyler Cowen

Tells us which types of children grow up to be which types of adults, and it offers hints as to how childhood experiences can aid or hinder human development…A must-read.

Institute for Family Studies blog - Robert VerBruggen

A compelling journey exploring the results of the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study…Its findings are the x-marks-the-spot treasure trove that will help teachers, school administrators, and child psychologists support the growth and development of children.

New Zealand Journal of Educational Studies - Laura Petillo

06/08/2020

A group of psychologists explore fundamental questions about human development, while also introducing a lesser-known research approach, in this cogent work. Using landmark studies that tracked large groups of people from birth—one, ongoing since 1970, involving about 1,000 New Zealanders—they explore topics such as how difficult childhoods impact people later in life and whether childhood ADHD carries through into adulthood. The introduction explains that, by “prospectively” following study subjects through time, significant childhood experiences can be studied close to when they actually occur, instead of via later, and potentially inaccurate, subject interviews. This careful explanation of methodology lends more credence to the book’s conclusions, such as that “temperament at age three predicted how some children functioned much later in life.” The authors also found that, even if children with ADHD could not be clinically diagnosed later in life, their behavior continued to exhibit its hyperactivity and the difficulty with focus characteristic of the disorder. Most generally, and optimistically, they stress throughout that the “factors and forces that undermine human development,” such as bullying and chaotic home lives, “can be prevented from working their black magic” by other, more positive factors, such as secure attachment during infancy and supportive peer groups. This thought-provoking volume should fascinate psychology students. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly

It’s hard to imagine a better introduction to the way that contemporary developmental scientists think than The Origins of You, and it is hard to think of a more qualified group of writers, themselves among the most important, creative, and accomplished scholars in the field, to serve as guides. In much the same way that Bronfenbrenner’s The Ecology of Human Development forever changed the way we think about the environment, this book will change the way we think about the process of development itself. The Origins of You is destined to become a classic.

Laurence Steinberg

For those new to cohort literature, The Origins of You is an engaging introduction. For those familiar with this work, it is a chance to hear the authors thinking aloud, debating the best approaches and pondering what to study next. We can be certain that those conversations will now include how best to use these rich longitudinal resources to understand the effects of COVID-19.

Nature - Barbara Maughan

This book’s authors, having plumbed their data in depth, deliver a flood of insights around the book’s central question: To what degree do our childhood personalities and behaviors predict our adult selves?

Wall Street Journal - John Donvan

The Origins of You deserves to be read by everyone who wants to understand human development.

David P. Farrington

A fascinating book from an outstanding team of scientists, dedicated to answering the central questions about how lives develop.

Anne Petersen

2020-03-24
Four prominent psychologists investigate a range of human development questions.

Belsky, Caspi, Moffitt, and Poulton bring together a variety of threads in this engaging account of the results of three longitudinal studies—“nonexperimental, observational research in which children are studied over time and no efforts are made to influence their development.” In mostly accessible, occasionally jargon-y prose, the authors explain that their field is a probabilistic rather than deterministic science, a dynamic process that mingles what is going on within the child and the environment in which they are raised. Taken together, a myriad of factors allows researchers to gain insight into—even to predict—future adult functioning. The volume displays scope and curiosity, as the authors look at genetic factors, whether early circumstances can forecast certain later developmental outcomes, how and if the family experience and the environmental situation shape aspects of later life, and the role of the childhood experience in determining elements of adult health. The authors also examine developmental mechanisms at work regarding how self-control displayed in childhood can lead to particular behavior in adulthood or how a diagnosis of childhood ADHD could affect elements of adult life. There is a clear mapping of how adverse family and neighborhood environments promoted enduring anti-social behavior, and there are evident indications that long hours spent in day care fostered disobedience and impulsivity (even in sensitive day care environments). There are wide-open, preliminary chapters on the roles of genetics and the environment on anti-social behavior and depression (and your chances of becoming a smoker), and it doesn’t come as much of a surprise that adverse experiences in childhood, such as bullying, can undermine future health. Amid the grim news is evidence of the salubrious roles played by resilience and intervention.

A dispassionate embrace of both theory-guided inquiry and theory-free empiricism. (28 illustrations)

Kirkus Reviews