Intelligence Squared

The Sunday Debate: Parenting Doesn’t Matter (Or Not As Much As You Think)

Jun 19, 2022

This discussion features Robert Plomin, a behavioural genetics professor from King's College London, and Susan Pawlby, a developmental psychologist, alongside therapist Ann Pleshette Murphy and genetic psychiatry expert Stuart Ritchie. They challenge traditional views on parenting's role in shaping children, arguing that genetics often holds more sway. Love and attachment are highlighted as pivotal to development, while socioeconomic factors and parenting styles complicate the narrative. The debate encourages a nuanced understanding of the balance between nature and nurture.

01:06:54

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Episode notes

Intro

3min

The Genetic Blueprint of Parenting

26min

The Impact of Love on Child Development

3min

The Impact of Parenting on Child Development

4min

Socioeconomic Factors and Child Development

5min

Genetics and Parenting: The Nurture Debate

10min

Unpacking Parenting Dynamics

11min

The Influence of Parenting in Child Development: A Debate

3min

We delve back into the archive to 2018, when we held a debate getting to the heart of nature vs nurture. How much do our parents influence the people that we eventually turn out to be? We were joined by Professor of Behavioural Genetics Robert Plomin, the Developmental Clinical Psychologist Susan Pawlby, therapist, parenting counsellor and broadcaster Ann Pleshette Murphy, and Stuart Ritchie, lecturer in social genetics and developmental psychiatry and author of Science Fictions. Hosting the debate was Doctor and broadcaster, Dr Xand van Tulleken.

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