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The Origins of You: How Childhood Shapes Later Life - Paperback | Diverse Reads

The Origins of You: How Childhood Shapes Later Life

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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 promises to help parents, teachers, and anyone working with or caring for children.

ISBN-13: 9780674293854

Media Type: Paperback

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Publication Date: 08-22-2023

Pages: 432

Product Dimensions: 6.12(w) x 9.25(h) x (d)

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