Abstract

Every year, Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minnesota hosts the Nobel Conference. For two days, prominent scientists present issues that are at the forefront of current thought. The fall 2002 topic was entitled “The Nature of Nurture.” Featured presenters were neuroscientist and Nobel laureate in physiology/medicine in 2000 Eric R. Kandel (Columbia University, New York), psychologists Eleanor Maccoby (Stanford University), Avshalom Caspi (Social, Genetic, and Developmental Psychiatry Research Centre), and Jerome Kagan (Harvard University), behavioral geneticist Robert Plomin (Social, Genetic, and Developmental Psychiatry Research Centre and Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London), psychiatrist Judith Rapoport (National Institute of Mental Health), and bioethicist Thomas H. Murray (The Hastings Center, New York). They represent seven of the leading researchers in human development. Seniors from Creighton University (Omaha, NE) who were attending an honors course on the psychology of gender, traveled to Minnesota to listen to the first four talks. This article represents a summary of their Nobel experience and it attempts to make new connections between the experts’ presentations and gender role development.