Academy Caritas

I’m not wor­ried about Katie being “too shel­tered,” although that’s one of the “dan­gers of home­school­ing” accord­ing to its oppo­nents. This study is some­thing to remem­ber the next time some­one brings up that old argument.

Peo­ple who have suf­fered life’s hard knocks while grow­ing up tend to be more gullible than those who have been more shel­tered, star­tling new find­ings from the Uni­ver­sity of Leices­ter reveal.

A six-month study in the University’s School of Psy­chol­ogy found that rather than ‘tough­en­ing up’ indi­vid­u­als, adverse expe­ri­ences in child­hood and ado­les­cence meant that these peo­ple were vul­ner­a­ble to being mislead.

The research analysing results from 60 par­tic­i­pants sug­gest that such peo­ple could, for exam­ple, be more open to sug­ges­tion in police inter­ro­ga­tions or to be influ­enced by the media or adver­tis­ing campaigns.

The study found that while some peo­ple may indeed become more ‘hard-nosed’ through adver­sity, the major­ity become less trust­ing of their own judgement.

From Sci­ence Daily via Omni­Brain.