Terrie E. Moffitt

A Marginal Revolution Book of the Year“Brings the groundbreaking research of the top developmental psychologists of the past quarter-century to a wider audience…A masterpiece!”—Dante Cicchetti, Institute for Child Development at the University of Minnesota“Deliver[s] a flood of insights around the book’s central question: To what degree do our childhood personalities and behaviors predict our adult selves?”—Wall Street Journal“One of the best and most important works of the last few years…Fascinating.”—Tyler Cowen, Marginal RevolutionDoes childhood temperament predict adult personality? What role do parents play in shaping how a child matures? Is day care bad—or good—for children? Does adolescent delinquency forecast a life of crime? Do genes influence success in life? Is one’s health shaped by childhood experiences? In search of answers to these questions, four leading psychologists dedicated their careers to studying thousands of people, observing them as they grew and emerging with unprecedented insight into what makes us who we are.They found that human development is not subject to ironclad laws so much as a matter of possibilities and probabilities—multiple forces that together determine the direction of one’s life. The early years do predict who we become, but they do so imperfectly. At once actionable and revelatory, The Origins of You is an invaluable guide for parents, teachers, and anyone working with or caring for children.

A Marginal Revolution Book of the YearAfter 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 day care 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.

Every family has secrets; only some secrets are lethal. In Victoria Costello's family mental illness had been given many names over at least four generations until this inherited conspiracy of silence finally endangered the youngest members of the family, her children. In this riveting story-part memoir, detective story, and scientific investigation-the author recounts how the mental unraveling of her seventeen-year-old son Alex compelled her to look back into family history for clues to his condition. Eventually she tied Alex's descent into hallucinations and months of shoeless wandering on the streets of Los Angeles to his great grandfather's suicide on a New York City railroad track in 1913. But this insight brought no quick relief. Within two years of Alex's diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia, both she and her youngest son succumbed to two different mental disorders: major depression and anxiety disorder. Costello depicts her struggle to get the best possible mental health care for her sons and herself, treatment that ultimately brings each of them to full recovery. In the process, she discovers new science that explains how clusters of mental illness traverse family generations. Artfully weaving the scientific into the personal, Costello takes a journey to the far reaches of neuroscience and reports back on the startling findings it is yielding about the complex interplay between genes and environment that drives mental illness, and what it now tells us about how parents can trump a lethal inheritance. She shares the results of long-term U.K. and European family studies identifying the earliest signs of mental illnesses that can be passed on from grandparents to parents and grandchildren. She tracks ongoing clinical trials to reverse the courses of these diseases through early intervention with the latest evidence-based treatments and offers brain-healthy choices individuals and families can make to prevent mental illness-freeing future generations to live healthier, happier lives.

In this century, social factors have dominated theories of antisocial behaviour to the near-exclusion of other explanatory variables in the study of criminology. Criminologists are now coming to realise that fully understanding the causes of criminality requires consideration of both social and biological variables and that their models must take into account the interaction of the two. Reports of the relevant scientific work have previously been scattered through journals with varying disciplinary and geographical limitations. The book presents state-of-the-art investigation into the biological factors that produce criminal activity from authorities in nine countries who are on the forefront of research in behaviour genetics, neurophysiology, biochemistry, neuropsychology, psychophysiology, psychiatry and sociology. The Causes of Crime: New Biological Approaches offers the first comprehensive overview and integration of this new field of enquiry. It will be an invaluable resource for everyone concerned with the causes of criminal behaviour and interventions to reduce its frequency.

Why are females rarely antisocial and males antisocial so often? This key question is addressed in a fresh approach to sex differences in the causes, course and consequences of antisocial behaviour. The book presents all-new findings from a landmark investigation of 1,000 males and females studied from ages 3 to 21 years. It shows that young people develop antisocial behaviour for two main reasons. One form of antisocial behaviour is a neurodevelopmental disorder afflicting males, with low prevalence in the population, early childhood onset and subsequent persistence. The other form of antisocial behaviour, afflicting females as well as males, is common and emerges in the context of social relationships. The book offers insights about diagnosis and measurement, the importance of puberty, the problem of partner violence and the nature of intergenerational transmission. It puts forward a new agenda for research about both neurodevelopmental and social influences on antisocial behaviour.

Why are females rarely antisocial and males antisocial so often? This key question is addressed in a fresh approach to sex differences in the causes, course and consequences of antisocial behaviour. The book presents findings from a landmark investigation of 1,000 males and females studied from ages 3 to 21 years. It shows that young people develop antisocial behaviour for two main reasons. One form of antisocial behaviour is a neurodevelopmental disorder afflicting males, with low prevalence in the population, early childhood onset and subsequent persistence. The other form of antisocial behaviour, afflicting females as well as males, is common and emerges in the context of social relationships. The book offers insights about diagnosis and measurement, the importance of puberty, the problem of partner violence and the nature of intergenerational transmission. It puts forward an agenda for research about both neurodevelopmental and social influences on antisocial behaviour.