Importance of parenting style in homosexuality

[Patavium]

This is a controversial study from Taiwan in terms of the results, but not the methodology.

mygenes.co.nz/lung&shu.htm

Here are some fragments of a discussion of the study

Lung and Shu seem to be associated with the military in Taiwan and their subjects were from the annual intake of 140,000 young recruits. In that country military service is compulsory, hence the recruits represent the whole population of men. There are inevitably those who find military training almost unbearable, and many in Taiwan are diagnosed with adjustment disorder (a DSM mental health category). From these the authors selected 51 homosexuals, and 100 non-homosexuals. The controls were 124 recruits without adjustment disorder. Recruits with mental health issues other than these were eliminated from the study. It seems obvious that this study was possible because Lung and Shu were told by the authorities to study recruits who could not cope. However it means that the study of homosexuality is complicated by the adjustment disorder, which the authors had to take into account in the interpretation of their results. No other study has involved those with an accompanying mental condition like this. However it seems to me that the authors allowed for the adjustment disorder quite adequately. Overall the sample is much more representative than many in the West.

Social factors explain 62% of homosexuality

In their statistical model to explain homosexuality, Lung and Shu managed to explain 62% of the variance by parental factors and neuroticism level, ie 62% of homosexuality in their sample can be explained by parental factors and higher than normal levels of neuroticism. It is quite rare to get a figure as high as this when a sociological survey is involved. The relative strengths of the factors found important were Maternal Care 0.42, Maternal Protection 0.21, Paternal Care 0.21, Neuroticism 0.64. Paternal Protection, although individually the most important, and highlighted by the authors, exerted its effect through production of neuroticism. (General mental health itself did not directly affect development of homosexuality.) Unfortunately because of the peculiarities of modeling mathematics we cannot directly add the parental factors together to get an overall effect and compare them with the neuroticism result, but we can say other parental factors and neuroticism are roughly comparable in effect.

 

[McMcMe]

Interesting study. Thanks for posting.

 

[Patavium]

Interesting study. Thanks for posting.

No problem. It is a hard true that your child may suffer from SSA and your parenting style contributed to this whether it was your intention or not…

 

[antag]

Absolute balderdash.

I grew up in a devout Catholic family, with loving parents, and a strong traditional paternal role model. I ended up gay. Not because my parents did anything wrong, nor because I did anything wrong. It just happened. I am not neurotic, neither do I have father or mother ‘issues’.

People are homosexual because they’re homosexual. If it was so easy to categorise the root causes, it would be a lot more prevalent than it is. Also, it would occur in considerably greater numbers amongst siblings than it does.

It just happens. Sexuality, for those who are not bisexual, is not a choice nor is it a symptom of something else. People should simply get over that fact and stop trying to find something to blame.

 

[Slavonic]

The study is not very good.

In further review of the study, it appears that the flaws in design outweigh any conclusions that could be drawn from it. Not only was the homosexual group a clinical group (they were diagnosed with an adjustment disorder), they had much higher neuroticism scores than the other two groups which stacked the deck against them. In essence, the authors varied two independent variables (sexual orientation, & neuroticism) simultaneously and attributed all the effects to the homosexual variable. You can’t tell what predicts what and certainly not causes what. Without adequate controls, you cannot say how much of the variance in perceived parenting was related to being gay and how much was due to higher neuroticism.

wthrockmorton.com/2007/02/taiwanese-study-links-parenting-and-adult-homosexuality/

 

[Patavium]

Absolute balderdash.

I grew up in a devout Catholic family, with loving parents, and a strong traditional paternal role model. I ended up gay. Not because my parents did anything wrong, nor because I did anything wrong. It just happened. I am not neurotic, neither do I have father or mother ‘issues’.

People are homosexual because they’re homosexual. If it was so easy to categorise the root causes, it would be a lot more prevalent than it is. Also, it would occur in considerably greater numbers amongst siblings than it does.

It just happens. Sexuality, for those who are not bisexual, is not a choice nor is it a symptom of something else. People should simply get over that fact and stop trying to find something to blame.

It’s not blaming. It is stating that homosexuality is mostly environmental factors rather than genetic, so the environment you grew up in matters… people are not gay just because they are gay that is just nonsense

 

[Patavium]

The study is not very good.

wthrockmorton.com/2007/02/taiwanese-study-links-parenting-and-adult-homosexuality/

Like Whitehead says

Lung and Shu seem to be associated with the military in Taiwan and their subjects were from the annual intake of 140,000 young recruits. In that country military service is compulsory, hence the recruits represent the whole population of men. There are inevitably those who find military training almost unbearable, and many in Taiwan are diagnosed with adjustment disorder (a DSM mental health category). From these the authors selected 51 homosexuals, and 100 non-homosexuals. The controls were 124 recruits without adjustment disorder. Recruits with mental health issues other than these were eliminated from the study. It seems obvious that this study was possible because Lung and Shu were told by the authorities to study recruits who could not cope. However it means that the study of homosexuality is complicated by the adjustment disorder, which the authors had to take into account in the interpretation of their results. No other study has involved those with an accompanying mental condition like this. However it seems to me that the authors allowed for the adjustment disorder quite adequately. Overall the sample is much more representative than many in the West.

…

**I should add a caveat about this type of modeling. It neglects rigorous control groups in favour of using the criterion of how well the model accounts for the data, on the kind of basis “if the shoe fits, wear it”. It even assigns causes on this basis. This is not an absolute proof because the well-fitting shoe could be a coincidence, and it’s even possible that two unrelated shoes might fit equally well. This will make traditional sociologists uneasy, but when the results are as strong as those here, there is not likely to be much error.

This is twice as successful as the explanation of homosexuality that Bell, Weinberg and Hammersmith found, and has an extra fascinating implication: for the first time a careful modern study shows social factors predominate, and hence other factors, such as genetics (at least in Taiwan), must be minor!

These results support those who talk about over-close mothers and distant fathers as causes of homosexuality. Why were Lung and Shu’s results so clear compared with results from the West which were much less clear? Could the authors have manufactured their results? Are they too good to be true? I think not, because the authors seem largely unaware of the details of the controversy there has been in the West, though they understand it existed. They do not appreciate the significance of their results. **

 

[Slavonic]

…but when the results are as strong as those here, there is not likely to be much error.

This is a huge red flag. The error very well may be the ‘strong’ result.

And second problem, in general, is the assumption the only acceptable ‘cause’ of homosexuality if a genetic cause.It is also fallacious to assume that a social cause implies a non-genetic cause, as Whitehead does.

Thirdly, the study may fall victim to a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy. The parents of the gay soldiers may have responded to their child’s difference with neurotic parenting.

 

[livingwordunity]

Absolute balderdash.

I grew up in a devout Catholic family, with loving parents, and a strong traditional paternal role model. I ended up gay. Not because my parents did anything wrong, nor because I did anything wrong. It just happened.

It doesn’t have to be something a parent did. It could be a relative, a friend of the family, a babysitter, another child, etc. And at a young enough age, one could believe that they were born that way simply because they repressed the memory and can’t remember back to when they were molested by someone. All it takes is a few minutes of a child left alone with a molester, and the parents might never know. Think about all the single parents or parents who both work and leave their kids with a babysitter or in childcare. They have no way of knowing for sure that their kid didn’t get molested especially if the kid is too young to know how to talk. Here’s a statistic that illustrates the point:

“In research with 942 nonclinical adult participants, gay men and lesbian women reported a significantly higher rate of childhood molestation than did heterosexual men and women. Forty-six percent of the homosexual men in contrast to 7% of the heterosexual men reported homosexual molestation. Twenty-two percent of lesbian women in contrast to 1% of heterosexual women reported homosexual molestation. This research is apparently the first survey that has reported substantial homosexual molestation of girls. Suggestions for future research were offered.”

Source:
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11501300

 

[kozlosap]

Absolute balderdash.

I grew up in a devout Catholic family, with loving parents, and a strong traditional paternal role model. I ended up gay. Not because my parents did anything wrong, nor because I did anything wrong. It just happened. I am not neurotic, neither do I have father or mother ‘issues’.

People are homosexual because they’re homosexual. If it was so easy to categorise the root causes, it would be a lot more prevalent than it is. Also, it would occur in considerably greater numbers amongst siblings than it does.

It just happens. Sexuality, for those who are not bisexual, is not a choice nor is it a symptom of something else. People should simply get over that fact and stop trying to find something to blame.

:clapping: I find it fascinating that the’blame’ game still exists. This reminds me of the old wives tale from the fifties and sixties that autism is caused by an overbearing and COLD maternal figure that failed to bond with their infant.

 

[fix]

Absolute balderdash.

I grew up in a devout Catholic family, with loving parents, and a strong traditional paternal role model. I ended up gay. Not because my parents did anything wrong, nor because I did anything wrong. It just happened. I am not neurotic, neither do I have father or mother ‘issues’.

People are homosexual because they’re homosexual. If it was so easy to categorise the root causes, it would be a lot more prevalent than it is. Also, it would occur in considerably greater numbers amongst siblings than it does.

It just happens. Sexuality, for those who are not bisexual, is not a choice nor is it a symptom of something else. People should simply get over that fact and stop trying to find something to blame.

Finding the cause of a disorder is now blame?

 

[SamH]

“In research with 942 nonclinical adult participants, gay men and lesbian women reported a significantly higher rate of childhood molestation than did heterosexual men and women. Forty-six percent of the homosexual men in contrast to 7% of the heterosexual men reported homosexual molestation. Twenty-two percent of lesbian women in contrast to 1% of heterosexual women reported homosexual molestation. This research is apparently the first survey that has reported substantial homosexual molestation of girls. Suggestions for future research were offered.”

Source:
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11501300

That’s something I have noticed in the foster care system. Many of the sexually abused children (especially boys) are homosexual. Many are also sexually aggressive making their placement in families with other children impossible.