March 29, 1999		Oberlin College to Host Talk on Personality Formation by Leading Behavioralist April 6 Media Contact: Betty Gabrielli
	GUEST LECTURE Tuesday, April 6 4:30 p.m.  Severance Hall Room 108 120 W. Lorain St.   Free and open to the public. For more information, call William Friedman at 440/775- 8365		OBERLIN, OH--Dr. David Rowe, one of the country's leading experts on the importance of peers in shaping personality--and the relative unimportance of parents' child rearing practices--will present a guest lecture on the topic April 6 at Oberlin College. An expert on the use of twin studies to learn about environmental influences on personality, delinquency, and smoking, among other behaviors, Dr. Rowe will discuss "The Nurture Assumption Controversy: A Behavioral Genetic View of Family and Peer Environmental Differences." "The topic has been much in the news," says Dr. William Friedman, "thanks to Judith Rich Harris whose ideas were singled out this year in such magazines as Newsweek, ideas that were based to a considerable extent on David Rowe's work." Her book The Nurture Assumption was published this winter. Dr. Rowe, currently a member of the faculty of the University of Arizona, taught at Oberlin for several years in the late 1970's before joining the faculty of the University of Oklahoma.