The Nurture Effect: How the Science of Human Behavior Can Improve Our Lives and Our World

A fascinating look at the evolution of behavioural science, the revolutionary way it's changing the way we live, and how nurturing environments can increase people's well-being in virtually every aspect of our society, from early childhood education to corporate practices. If you want to know how you can help create a better world, read this book.

What if there were a way to prevent criminal behaviour, mental illness, drug abuse, poverty, and violence? Written by behavioural scientist Tony Biglan, and based on his ongoing research at the Oregon Research Institute, The Nurture Effect offers evidence-based interventions that can prevent many of the psychological and behavioural problems that plague our society.

For decades, behavioural scientists have investigated the role our environment plays in shaping who we are, and their research shows that we now have the power within our own hands to reduce violence, improve cognitive development in our children, increase levels of education and income, and even prevent future criminal behaviours. By cultivating a positive environment in all aspects of society-from the home, to the classroom, and beyond-we can ensure that young people arrive at adulthood with the skills, interests, assets, and habits needed to live healthy, happy, and productive lives.

The Nurture Effect details over forty years of research in the behavioural sciences, as well as the author's own research. Biglan illustrates how his findings lay the framework for a model of societal change that has the potential to reverberate through all environments within society.

"Anthony Biglan persuades us that rather than focusing on preventing individual problems of family dysfunction, drug addiction, academic failure, child abuse, and even crime, we need to cut to the chase and attend to what all of these have in common. Biglan shows that poverty consistently makes it harder to help, and that nurture is so frequently missing. By integrating findings from the past fifty years in psychology, epidemiology, education, and neuroscience, he pulls out the common threads to show that it is possible to make families, schools, and the larger social context more nurturing, and ultimately to create the nurturing environments so vital to well-being and to preventing widespread harm."
- Lisbeth B. Schorr , Senior Fellow, Center for the Study of Social Policy, and/or author, Within Our Reach: Breaking the Cycle of Disadvantage

"The Nurture Effect is a powerful reminder of the transformational impact a nurturing environment has on individuals’ well-being throughout their lives. In documenting many carefully selected examples of evidence-based interventions from early childhood and through subsequent stages of development, it makes an outstanding contribution to the field of prevention science. Biglan makes a compelling case for widely implementing scientifically supported interventions that create nurturing environments in our homes, schools and communities."
- Matthew R Sanders, Ph.D. | Professor of clinical psychology and director of the Parenting and Family Support Centre at the University of Queensland, as well as founder of the Triple P-Positive Parenting Program

"In The Nurture Effect Anthony Biglan offers a challenge and a road map for making our society more effective and successful. His message is at once simple and overwhelming. There is a science of human behavior, and we need to use it."
- Rob Horner, Endowed professor of special education at the University of Oregon