A thread through the archive
Essays tagged “childhood development”. Follow an idea across the archive.
Scott analyzes ACX survey data on Internet addiction, exploring correlations between usage patterns, life satisfaction, and parental restrictions, while acknowledging the difficulty of establishing causation in the findings.
Scott Alexander explores new data on birth order effects among his blog readers, finding social factors likely explain firstborns' overrepresentation.
Scott reviews a book applying evolutionary psychology to psychiatry, finding the approach intriguing but hard to verify and potentially open to misuse.
This Adversarial Collaboration Contest entry examines the evidence and debates surrounding transgender children transitioning, covering desistence rates, social transitioning, puberty blockers, and mental health outcomes.
Scott Alexander examines a study showing positive effects of early intervention on at-risk children, but questions its policy implications due to high costs.
Scott criticizes a study linking childhood bullying to negative adult outcomes, arguing that its method of controlling for confounders is inadequate and proposing alternative explanations for the correlation.
Scott uses a thought experiment about hypothetical "reformed" Nazis in post-war Germany to explore whether problematic ideologies can be successfully reformed or whether their symbols and texts inevitably carry harmful baggage.