Author’s: This post is an expansion of a feature I published a few weeks ago in New Scientist. It draws from research for a book I’m now writing, The Orchid and the Dandelion (Crown; ETA 2015). I originally explored this subject, at more length (and with monkeys) in a November 2009 Atlantic article, “Orchid Children.” A few years ago, […]
Continue reading →As faithful readers know, I’m working on a book, provisionally titled The Orchid and the Dandelion and likely to be published next year, about the orchid-dandelion hypothesis: the notion that genes and traits that underlie some of humans’ biggest weaknesses — despair, madness, savage aggression — also underlie some of our greatest strengths — resilience, lasting happiness, […]
Continue reading →My book-in-progress, The Orchid and the Dandelion, explores ideas of how genes and experience shape us, and we them. The main idea explored is known as the orchid-dandelion hypothesis, or just plain orchid hypothesis. It offers that some of the genes and traits generating our greatest maladies and misdeeds — depression, anxiety, hyper-aggression, a failure to focus — […]
Continue reading →Can Genes Send You High or Low? The Orchid Hypothesis A-bloom by David Dobbs Originally posted March 2012* A few years ago, Arial Knafo, a psychologist at Jerusalem University, wanted to see if three-year-olds would share their bonbons. Snack time would come amid a bunch of other activity at Knafo’s lab — drawing, games, […]
Continue reading →I thought I’d heard enough about Tiger Moms, but perked up when I came across Tiger Moms and Orchid Kids, by Sam Gridley. Gridley considers how presumably harsh Tiger Mom parenting might generate success and happiness even in highly sensitive kids, the kind you’d think such treatment would crush. What kind of parenting are we talking […]
Continue reading →A promising new website about science writing, The Open Notebook, features an interview with me about the genesis of my Atlantic article of last year on the genetics of temperament, “The Orchid Children” (aka “The Science of Success” in online version). The site, produced by science journalists Siri Carpenter and Jeanne Erdmann, is a craft-focused […]
Continue reading →David Shenk thinks my orchid-dandelion metaphor for temperamental plasticity is fatally flowed. I disagree. We duel. You decide.
Continue reading →The concern dominating the Motherlode commenter thread responses, and in a few other places as well, is whether the “Orchid Children” of my title are what many people call “gifted” children (defined roughly as very smart kids who have behavioral issues requiring some special handling). The short answer to this question — that is, whether by “orchid children” I mean smart-but-difficult — is No.
Continue reading →I can finally broadcast the news with which I’ve been bursting for two weeks now: Houghton Mifflin/Harcourt, publisher of many a fine book over the decades, will be publishing “The Orchid and the Dandelion” (working title), in which I’ll explore further the emerging “orchid-dandelion hypothesis” I wrote about in my recent Atlantic story.
Continue reading →I’ll be on WNYC’s Brian Lehrer show this morning, 11:06 to 11:25, discussing my Atlantic story about the “orchid gene” hypothesis, which recasts some of our most important vulnerability genes — depression, ADHD, hyperaggression and the like — as genes that can also underlie heightened function both as individuals and a species.
Continue reading →