Early experience and the life path
Does early social experience predestine a child's future? Ann Clarke and Alan Clarke examine the evidence.
PERHAPS the most pervasive view
concerning long-term development
has been that early
experiences predetermine the individual’s
future. For Freud, the first five years
were regarded as critical; for J.B. Watson
it was the experience of the first two
years which would make or mar the life
path. In contrast to this super-environmentalism,
yet with the same
predeterministic implications, was the
extreme genetic notion of personal constancy
espoused by Spearman.
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