The central question of this book is: How do children get socialized—how do they learn to behave like normal, acceptable members of their society? What shapes the raw material of the infant’s temperament into the finished product of the adult’s personality? These may sound like two separate, almost unrelated questions—indeed, they are the subject matter of separate, almost unrelated schools of psychology—but from my point of view they are two sides of the same coin. For children, socialization consists largely of learning how to behave when they’re in the presence of other people. And an adult’s personality consists largely of how he or she behaves in the presence of other people. In a social species like our own, most behavior is social behavior. I am sitting here all by myself, but nonetheless I am engaging in social behavior. If you weren’t ever going to read what I’m typing into my computer, what would be the point?

Children have to learn to behave in a way that is appropriate for the society they live in. The problem is that people in their society don’t all behave the same way. In every society, people behave differently according to whether they are children or adults, males or females, single or married, princes or peons. What children have to do first is to figure out what sort of people they are—which social category they belong in. Then they have to learn to behave like the other members of their social category.