I recently finished reading a book called The Nurture Assumption, which my dad gave me. Its a fascinating work on developmental psychology which explains how most previous dev psych was wrong. Specifically, the nurture component of your personality (the non-hereditary part) is not mainly due to fashionable things like lots of parental attention, or a nurturing home environment, or indeed anything about your parents or home at all. Rather, the influences of your peer group are the dominant force.

Besides discussion of Evolutionary Psychology (a fascination of mine), TNA contained lots of really interesting studies. One idea which really meshed with my view of the world was that stereotypes and group differences tend to start with real differences, but then amplify and reinforce them. For example, there are real biological differences between male and female psychology that one can detect in children who are only 2 or 3 years old. However, the gender roles we take on go well beyond those genetic differences.

TNA offered support to a theory I'd made about my own development. I spent middle school and high school as a geek, a nerd, and a social outcast. Things improved a little the last couple years due to the automatic prestige that comes with age, but in general I was unpopular and didn't have a lot of friends. College was a dramatic change. I went to a science-oriented school, and suddenly I was surrounded by other geeks and nerds, as well as better-socialized folks who happened to be smart. I flourished in this environment, made tons of friends, smooched lots of girls (and a few boys), and became reasonably popular (or at least notorious, which is a decent substitute :) ). Most importantly I became self-confident and comfortable with meeting new people and interacting with them. I still experience occasional bouts of shyness, generally triggered by insecurity, but not too often.

The differences between the two stages can perhaps best be seen through pictorial contrast:

On the left is me in high school, on the right is me after college.

Now, TNA suggests that ones personality is strongly affected by ones peer group, and that it is set in childhood and can be hard to change. Why doesn't my case offer a counterexample? The theory I'd had in college was that the key was my participation in the Society For Creative Anachronism (SCA) . Besides being a place for midieval recreation, the SCA was very much a social group. Not just a random social group, but one that drew heavily from SF fandom, gamers, theatre, and other subcultures which tend to be geek-heavy and generally tolerant of nerdiness. In the SCA I was treated not only as a person instead of a geek, but as an adult much more often than in conventional society. I got to do the flirting and socializing which I missed out on in the rest of my life, and develop self-confidence within that social context.

TNA believes strongly in people's personalities being context-dependent. This explains the apparent contradiction between claims that things like birth order are very important (with studies to back them up) with the thorough studies showing that birth order doesn't mean squat. If you ask someone's family, or watch them with their family, birth order matters a lot. If you study them in the real world, it has no detectable effects. So I developed at least two facets to my personality in two different contexts. College, being friendly and full of geeks, was much more like the SCA, and so the social Patri emerged as dominant. I remember thinking in college that I was "getting to be my SCA self the whole time". If I'd gone to a less nerdy school (not that I applied to any), I might have continued to be shy most of the time, coming out of my shell only around people I was comfortable with.

Now its true that many people manage to find a group they are comfortable with in college, and become more social. I suspect that its much harder for those starting from scratch to have dominant extroverted personalities, but it could just be a matter of degree. I should also note that the basic personality in my family is quite social and extroverted, so I was at least swimming with the current. Another interesting note is that the actual time I spent in the SCA was very low. I went to the Pennsic War every summer for a week or two, and a few other events (such as the Buttery New Years party), for a total of perhaps 2 or 3 weeks a year. Yet this brief period was (if my theory is correct) enough to have substantial effects on my development. I wonder if people involved in summer programs such as CTY or theatre programs have had similar experiences?

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