ABSTRACT
Historical changes in rates of various social indicators pose an equally serious challenge for geneticists. Twin studies tell us of the negligible effect of shared environment and the powerful impact of unshared environment. Rowe cites Harris as offering a possible solution with her emphasis on the role of the peer group. Behaviour geneticists have focused the vast majority of their research effort in explaining personality traits and to a lesser extent social attitudes. Mainstream social developmentalists have been principally concerned with the description of social competencies and their consequences. The emphasis is firmly on the time course of development, on children’s capabilities, and on the implications for social interaction. Theory of mind research, springing as it did from a desire to explain the peculiarly asocial world of the autistic, has perhaps in its methods and theorising given inadequate attention to the spontaneously social nature of our species.
