Reviews for Nature, Nurture, and the Transition to Early Adolescence

The average rating for Nature, Nurture, and the Transition to Early Adolescence based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2020-02-09 00:00:00 Thomas Harvey A great cover and title convinced me this would be worth a read but I am afraid that to the layman this is unintelligible. Almost every page explains the methodology of the research with equations and symbols that are another language. I imagined that the end of each chapter there might at least be a plain english narrative that would bring into sharp focus the proposition alluded to in the title. How wrong I was. Only at the end in conclusions was there a nod to the general reader and the nod is barely an acknowledgment. While the authors may claim that the book makes no claims to be other than a collection of longitudinal studies, the packaging and the fact I found it in a general bookshop puts it, to my mind, in the territory of a false promise. This is a book for professors and clinical psychologists whose daily focus is on clinical papers and research. If you are not so academically equipped this is definitely not for you.

Review # 2 was written on 2021-03-20 00:00:00 Tracy Warren This book kind of reads like the authors just wanted to say "we've published a book!" and also use the opportunity to push their own views on prospective parents. All this book really does is scare people off from adoption and basically tell prospective parents "you must be perfect," "your past defines you," "don't adopt if you were sexually abused," and "I hope you've had good past experiences with pets". Um, okay...what? Not much is backed up with proven facts; the authors quote from subjective old autobiographies and as "evidence". This makes the super-authoritative tone pretty obnoxious. It's also embarrassingly sexist at some points. It presents absent fathers as a part of African American culture rather than a result of outside forces and circumstances. And presents gay individuals as making a "lifestyle decision" as if they could have chosen to make life easier by being heterosexual. Yeah, not recommended. Sorry not sorry.