NurtureShock (33 page)

Because of this, kids can seem to be walking contradictions. A child can run high in positive emotions
and
high in negative emotions—so the fact that a teen can be happy about a new boyfriend won’t negate her stress over school.
There can be wild disconnects between children’s stated opinions and their actions. Kids can know that fruit tastes good and
that it’s good for them—but that doesn’t mean kids will eat any more apples.

And many factors in their lives—such as sibling interactions, peer pressure, marital conflict, or even gratitude—can be both
a good influence
and
a bad influence.

Despite these contradictions, the goal of having a deeper understanding of children is not futile. In fact, it’s by studying
these apparent contradictions very closely that deeper understanding emerges.

It’s when children are at their most mysterious that we, their caretakers, can learn something new.

We wish to thank Adam Moss and Hugo Lindgren at
New York Magazine
for encouraging us to “geek out” in our stories, trusting that readers would be turned on, not turned off, by the depth of
science we covered. Many others at
New York
also deserve credit—especially Lauren Starke, Serena Torrey, and our former editor, Adam Fisher.

At our publisher, Twelve, special thanks go to Jon Karp, Jamie Raab, and Cary Goldstein. Peter Ginsberg, at Curtis Brown Ltd.,
played a huge role in guiding us. We are also indebted to Nathan Bransford, Shirley Stewart, and Dave Barbor.

Of course, we’re enormously grateful to many scholars and others who were instrumental in helping us with our research. Our
praise chapter—the catalyst for our first piece for
New York
on the science of kids—would not have been possible without the cooperation of Stanford University’s Carol S. Dweck. Our
chapter on “Why Kids Lie” just wouldn’t have been the same without the cooperation of McGill University’s Victoria Talwar
and her entire lab—especially Cindy M. Arruda, Simone Muir, and Sarah-Jane Renaud. Similarly, our language chapter is particularly
indebted to Michael H. Goldstein and Jennifer A. Schwade of Cornell University and the rest of the B.A.B.Y. Lab. Deborah J.
Leong, Elena Bodrova, and Amy Hornbeck showed us Tools of the Mind in action. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s
Laurie Kramer and Mary Lynn Fletcher spent snowy days driving us around, while explaining their work on sibling relationships.
We are also indebted to the many families who spoke with us and allowed us to observe their children’s participation in lab
experiments.

Dozens of researchers kindly agreed to be interviewed. Countless others sent advanced drafts of papers and presentations.
We hounded scholars at conferences. We made pests of ourselves with endless rounds of e-mails and so sorry to call again but
if you could clarify that number just one more time…. Despite all that, they were uniformly gracious.

Thanks to Brown University’s Mary A. Carskadon, Judith Owens, and Monique K. LeBourgeois; Douglas K. Detterman at Case Western
Reserve University; and, also at Cornell University, B.J. Casey, Marianella Casasola, Gary W. Evans, Jeffrey T. Hancock, and
Heidi R. Waterfall; Columbia University’s Jeanne Brooks-Gunn and Geraldine Downey; at Duke University, Kenneth A. Dodge, Jennifer
E. Lansford, and James Moody; Florida State University’s Roy F. Baumeister and Stephen I. Pfeiffer; David S. Crystal, Georgetown
University; Harvard University’s Mahzarin R. Banaji, Kurt W. Fischer, and Jesse Snedeker; Linda B. Smith, Indiana University;
Douglas A. Gentile of Iowa State University; Cynthia L. Scheibe of Ithaca College; Kent State University’s A. Margaret Pevec
and Rhonda A. Richardson; Robert D. Laird, Louisiana State University; Kay Bussey, Macquarie University; Dan Ariely at Massachusetts
Institute of Technology; Judith S. Brook and Catherine S. Tamis-LeMonda of New York University; Northwestern University’s
Frederick W. Turek; Oberlin College’s Nancy Darling; Christopher Daddis and Sarah J. Schoppe-Sullivan of Ohio State University;
Jeane Coperhaven-Johnson of Ohio State University at Mansfield; Marjorie Taylor, University of Oregon; Duane F. Alwin, Clancy
Blair, Linda L. Caldwell, Pamela M. Cole, and Douglas M. Teti of Pennsylvania State University; Shawn Whiteman at Purdue University;
Rutgers University’s W. Steven Barnett; Jean M. Twenge, San Diego State University; Jamie M. Ostrov, State University of New
York, University at Buffalo; Tabitha R. Holmes at State University of New York, New Paltz; Avi Sadeh at Tel Aviv University;
Texas A&M University’s Cecil R. Reynolds; Birgitte Vittrup, Texas Women’s University; Laurence Steinberg at Tufts University;
Noel A. Card and Stephen T. Russell of the University of Arizona; University of British Columbia’s Adele Diamond; Silvia A.
Bunge, Elliot Turiel, and Matthew P. Walker of University of California, Berkeley; Greg J. Duncan and Richard J. Haier, University
of California, Irvine; Abigail A. Baird, Adriana Galvan, Michael Prelip, and Gary Orfield at the University of California,
Los Angeles; University of California, Santa Barbara’s Bella M. DePaulo; Claire Hughes, University of Cambridge; Susan Goldin-Meadow,
University of Chicago; Antonius H. N. Cillessen, University of Connecticut; David F. Lohman and Larissa K. Samuelson at the
University of Iowa; University of Kansas’ Patricia H. Hawley and Dale Walker; Frederick W. Danner of the University of Kentucky;
Rochelle S. Newman and Nan Bernstein Ratner at the University of Maryland; Linda R. Tropp, University of Massachusetts, Amherst;
Ronald D. Chervin, Jennifer Crocker, Denise Kennedy, and Louise M. O’Brien of the University of Michigan; Kyla L. Wahlstrom
at University of Minnesota; Alan L. Sillars, University of Montana; E. Mark Cummings at the University of Notre Dame; April
Harris-Britt and Jane D. Brown of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; David F. Dinges of University of Pennsylvania;
University of Pittsburgh’s Ronald E. Dahl; Judith G. Smetana, University of Rochester; at the University of Texas, Austin,
Rebecca S. Bigler, Elizabeth A. Vandewater, and Mark Warr; Joseph P. Allen at the University of Virginia; Steven Strand, University
of Warwick; Andrew N. Meltzoff at the University of Washington; C. Robert Cloninger of Washington University in St. Louis;
and Peter Salovey of Yale University.

We’d also like to express our appreciation to: Deborah Linchesky at the American Academy of Pediatrics; Stephen C. Farrell
of Choate-Rosemary Hall; Brian O’Reilly of the College Board; Donald A. Rock at Educational Testing Service; Anna Hogrebe
at Elsevier B.V.; Lawrence G. Weiss of Harcourt Weiss / Pearson; Lauri Kirsch of Hillsborough County Public Schools; Lisa
Smith and Stacy Oryshchyn of Jefferson County Public School District, Denver, Colorado; Gigi Ryner and Jackie Gleason of Stony
Creek Preschool in Littleton, Colorado; Minnesota Regional Sleep Disorders Center’s Mark W. Mahowald; Thomas D. Snyder, National
Center for Education Statistics; Jay N. Giedd and Marc Bornstein at the National Institutes of Health; Lisa Sorich Blackwell,
New Visions for Public Schools; Richard L. Atkinson, Obetech LLC; Sally Millaway and Kathleen Thomsen of Neptune, New Jersey
schools; Erin Ax at Effective Educational Practices; Judy Erickson, Sage Publications; the entire staff of the Society for
Research in Child Development; Jessica Jensen and Debbie Burke of Van Arsdale Elementary School, Arvada, Colorado; and Bethany
H. Carland of Wiley-Blackwell. Additionally, thanks to Joan Lawton, the staff and members of the Magic Castle in Hollywood,
California, and Rose M. Kreider at the United States Census Bureau.

Preface

Cary Grant as doorman:
A number of Magic Castle members recall Cary Grant acting as the doorman, either having been there
during Grant’s tenure or having heard it from other members at the time. Outside the club membership, the story has become
more elaborate over the years; some versions even claim that Grant occasionally donned a doorman costume when at its entrance.
Our account is based on Joan Lawton’s recollection of the events, which she kindly relayed to us in interviews. (And no, Lawton
doesn’t recall him ever wearing a costume. He was usually in a suit, sometimes a tuxedo.)

Introduction

Neural network activated in parenting:
Parts of the brain involved in paternal attachment, love, and responsiveness include:
anterior cingulate cortex; anterior insula; mesial prefrontal cortex; right orbitofrontal cortex; periaqueductal gray; hypothalamus;
thalamus; caudate nucleus; nucleus accumbens; and putamen. Bartels and Zeki (2004); Lorberbaum et al. (2002); Noriuchi et
al. (2008); and Swain et al. (2007).

Prose throughout is our mutual collaboration:
From start to finish, the book has been a joint effort, from the research to
the writing. However, at times in the text when recalling personal experiences, we needed to identify ourselves individually.
Therefore, when the pronoun “I” is used, it refers to Po’s personal experiences; when “Ashley” is employed, this refers to
her personal experiences. These passages of text, though, are jointly composed and edited.

Chapter 1, The Inverse Power of Praise

Categorization of gifted students:
The exact requirements for gifted programs vary, but most start calling children gifted
based on scores on an intelligence test or achievement test at the 90th percentile.

Advanced students’ poor self-assessment of competence:
That gifted students frequently underestimate their abilities has been
reported in a number of studies, including: Cole et al. (1999); Phillips (1984); and Wagner and Phillips (1992). Note that
in these studies, a common method of assessment is to ask students to describe their proficiency in a school subject and then
compare the students’ self-reports to their actual achievement scores.

Columbia University survey:
Dweck (1999).

Brightest girls collapse after failure round:
One of the things that Dweck’s research suggests is that there is nothing inherently
fragile or dramatic about being blessed with an advanced brain, but it’s the praise that makes intelligent children more vulnerable.

Interestingly, in one of her studies, Dweck found that after the failure round of tests, all the girls were collapsing, but
the higher their IQ, the more they collapsed—to the remarkable point where girls who had the highest IQs in the first round
of tests performed even worse than the low IQ girls in the last round. Explaining this, Dweck conjectured: “Girls are used
to being perfect. Girls feel other people’s opinions and feedback are valid ways to learn about their abilities. Boys always
call each other morons. Nobody else is going to give you the final verdict on your abilities.”

This may explain findings by Henderlong: she has seen age and gender differences in her own renditions of praise experiments,
indicating that boys may respond differently to person-oriented praise such as “You’re smart.” Henderlong Corpus and Lepper
(2007).

Baumeister’s assessment of self-esteem findings:
Baumeister’s expressed disappointment at the results of his findings was
originally reported by Ahuja (2005).

Higher self-esteem leads to higher aggression:
Since Baumeister’s review, the relationship between high self-esteem and aggression
has been expressly seen in the study of children. In 2008, scholars reported on a study where children were to play computer
games—believing that they were playing against other children, but in reality playing only against the computer—with a predetermined,
losing outcome. After studying how the children attacked their believed opponents, the researchers concluded that there was
no empirical support for a claim that children with low self-esteem were aggressive, but there was support that those with
high self-esteem were more aggressive and more narcissistic. They even suggested that efforts to boost self-esteem “are likely
to increase (rather than to decrease) the aggressive behavior of youth at risk.” Thomaes et al. (2008).

Review of 150 praise studies:
Henderlong and Lepper (2002).

Cloninger’s location of the persistence circuit in the brain:
Cloninger put people inside an fMRI scanner to measure their
brain activity while they looked through a series of 360 photographs, like car accidents and people holding children. He asked
them to rate the photographs as pleasant, neutral, or unpleasant. Those who were most persistent (scored on a seven-factor
personality test) had the highest activity in their lateral orbital and medial prefrontal cortex, as well as their ventral
striatum. Interestingly, they also rated more neutral photographs as pleasant, and unpleasant photographs as neutral. In other
words, persistent individuals actually experience the world as more pleasant—less bothers them.

Chapter 2, The Lost Hour

Parents’ poor accuracy in assessing the sufficiency of their children’s sleep:
Several scholars have tried to figure out how
accurate parents are at assessing their children’s amount of sleep, comparing parental reports with kids’ reports and scientific
measures (actigraphy). Parents frequently overestimate the time their kids are asleep by at least a half-hour—even as much
as an hour and a half. See, for example, National Sleep Foundation (2006a) and Werner et al. (2008).

High school students reporting sleep deprivation:
Teens’ lack of sleep is a problem that by no means is limited to American
youth: teens around the world are exhausted. In a study of Singaporean high-schoolers, 96.9% said they weren’t getting enough
sleep. And only 0.5% of them had discussed their sleep difficulties with a physician. Lim et al. (2008).