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The Origins of You: How Childhood Shapes Later Life

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After tracking the lives of thousands of people from birth to midlife, four of the world’s preeminent psychologists reveal what they have learned about how humans develop.

Does temperament in childhood predict adult personality? What role do parents play in shaping how a child matures? Is daycare bad—or good—for children? Does adolescent delinquency forecast a life of crime? Do genes influence success in life? Is health in adulthood shaped by childhood experiences? In search of answers to these and similar questions, four leading psychologists have spent their careers studying thousands of people, observing them as they’ve grown up and grown older. The result is unprecedented insight into what makes each of us who we are.

In The Origins of You, Jay Belsky, Avshalom Caspi, Terrie Moffitt, and Richie Poulton share what they have learned about childhood, adolescence, and adulthood, about genes and parenting, and about vulnerability, resilience, and success. The evidence shows that human development is not subject to ironclad laws but instead is a matter of possibilities and probabilities—multiple forces that together determine the direction a life will take. A child’s early years do predict who they will become later in life, but they do so imperfectly. For example, genes and troubled families both play a role in violent male behavior, and, though health and heredity sometimes go hand in hand, childhood adversity and severe bullying in adolescence can affect even physical well-being in midlife.

Painstaking and revelatory, the discoveries in The Origins of You promise to help schools, parents, and all people foster well-being and ameliorate or prevent developmental problems.

Authors: Belsky Jay, Caspi Avshalom, Moffitt Terrie, Poulton Richie
Publisher: HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS
Pages: 432
ISBN: 9780674983458
Cover: Hardback
Edition Number: 1
Release Year: 2020

Preface

I. Introduction

1. Lives through Time

II. The Child as the Father of the Man

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

3. To Be or Not to Be Self-Controlled

4. ADHD in Childhood and Adulthood

III. The Family

5. Why Parents Parent the Way They Do

6. Troubled Families and Bad Boys

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

IV. Beyond the Family

8. Good News and Bad News about Day Care

9. What about Neighborhoods?

10. Bullying

11. Early and Persistent Cannabis Use

V. Genetics

12. Is Smoking in Our Genes?

13. Genetics of Life Success?

14. Child Maltreatment, Genotype, and Violent Male Behavior

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

16. Epigenetics, or Genes as Dependent Variables

VI. Aging in Midlife

17. Childhood Adversity and Physical Health in Midlife

18. Biological Embedding of Childhood Adversity

19. Aging Fast, Aging Slow

VII. Conclusion

20. Miles to Go Before We Sleep

Bibliography

Index

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 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 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

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.

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