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Harold T. Shapiro and Bernard J. Shapiro are identical twins ternal twins have, on average, half their genes in common,
who both became heads of major universities, Princeton and as do any two full siblings. Comparing identical and frater-
McGill, respectively. Along the way, they both went to graduate nal twins enables researchers to separate genetic from envi-
school, specialized in statistics, had academic careers, and held ronmental influences without measuring genes directly. If a
positions as university provosts. Ann Landers and Abigail Dear physical or behavioral trait, like hair color or success at
Abby Van Buren were also identical twins. Each became a math, is shared more often by identical twins than by fra-
world-famous newspaper advice columnist, and the two of ternal twins, researchers reason, genes must have played a
them dominated the advice-column business for more than 40 role in developing the trait.
years, counseling more than 200 million people. Although their There is a big difference between stories about twins and
personal rift was widely publicized, the twin sisters agreed on studies of twins. The Shapiro brothers story is fascinating and
almost everything they discussed in their columns. suggestive; it may be excellent material for television programs
Twin stories like these fascinate the general public. As iden- and magazine coverage. But by itself it is not particularly
tical twins, each pair shares essentially 100 percent of their informative. Career similarity between twins could be a result
genes. And having been raised together, these identical twins of coincidence, genetic likeness, similar family influences, or a
also shared the same family environment. So if both common combination of any of these factors. A scholarly study may not
genes and common environment contribute to twins similar- be as sensational, but it must be more systematic; it must ana-
ity, how much does each matter? How much do genes and lyze a relatively large number of both identical and fraternal
environment shape our lives? These questions can be twin pairs. In particular, it must avoid emphasizing for dramatic
answered by twin studies, which generally show that both effect only identical twins with similar traits and fraternal twins
genes and environment influence human traits and behaviors. with dissimilar ones.
Twin and related studies provide most of the evidence that
traditional twin studies
genes determine human traits and behaviors. For example,
Scholars have long studied twins to address the nature- schizophrenia runs in families. Twin studies show that when
nurture question. Identical twins separated at birth and one twin in an identical pair suffers from schizophrenia, the
brought up in separate environments provide the ideal test chance that the other twin will be schizophrenic is about one
cases, but such cases are exceedingly difficult to find. in two; it is only one in six for fraternal twins. This gap is evi-
Instead, most researchers study twins who have grown up dence for the existence of a genetic tendency toward schizo-
together and carefully compare the experiences of identical phrenia. Similar evidence suggests that genes influence such
twins to those of fraternal twins. Since identical twins are traits and behaviors as height, weight, manic-depressive psy-
monozygotic, developed from a single sperm fertilizing a chosis, alcoholism, cognitive development, reading skills, par-
single egg, which then divides into two separate cell mass- enting style, rate of accident occurrence in childhood,
es within the first two weeks of development, these twins television-viewing habits, peer-group selection, timing of first
are essentially clones. Fraternal twins, on the other hand, sexual intercourse, marital disruption, and educational and
are dizygotic, developed when two eggs are each separate- economic attainment.
ly fertilized by different sperm. Identical twins like Dear Scholars use the results of the identical versus fraternal
Abby and Ann Landers have all their genes in common; fra- twin comparisons (and similar studies of families) to estimate
Contexts, Vol. 4, Issue 3, pp. 43-47, ISSN 1536-5042, electronic ISSN 1537-6052. 2005 by the American Sociological Association. All rights reserved.
Please direct all requests for permission to photocopy or reproduce article content through the University of California Press's Rights and Permissions
website, at www.ucpress.edu/journals/rights.htm.
how much of the total variation among them in a trait, such Critics note that identical twins tend to be treated more alike
as scores on cognitive skills tests, can be attributed to (1) vari- than fraternal twins and suspect that this greater environ-
ations in genes (this estimate is called heritability); (2) the mental similarity may explain the greater trait similarity of iden-
family environments they share; and (3) everything else tical twins. For example, identical twins are probably more
(including measurement errors), categorized as unshared envi- often dressed alike than fraternal twins. Ann Landers and Dear
ronments. Table 1 shows estimates for selected traits for her- Abby were almost mirror images of one another as young chil-
itability, variations due to shared environment, and variations dren. If being treated identically, in dressing for instance,
due to unshared, individually idiosyncratic environments. (The makes identical twins more similar than fraternal twins, we
personality measure used in the table is based on what psy- could mistakenly attribute effects to genes that are really due
chologists call the Big Five dimensions of personality: neu- to differences in treatment.
roticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness, and More examples of similar treatment of identical twins in
conscientiousness.) Genetic factors appear to have a signifi- certain aspects of life, however, does not automatically dis-
cant effect on all the selected traits in the table. Contrary to credit twin studies. What is crucial is whether the special
traditional views, environmental factors that twins or families way identical twins are treated affects the outcome of inter-
share tend to play a much smaller role. Environmental factors est. If dressing does not, for instance, affect schizophrenia,
unique to each individual also seem important. Lacking direct the validity of the equal environments assumption is not rel-
observations of genes, traditional twin studies rely on statisti- evant as far as the conclusions about genes and schizo-
cal analyses of differences in identical and fraternal twins to phrenia are concerned.
decompose the variations between them into these three The second assumption is that there is little or no assor-
sources. These studies cannot, however, tell us about the spe- tative matingthe tendency of people to marry people who
cific effects of particular genes or particular environments are like them in intelligence, personality, looks, and so forth.
only about the contributions of genes, shared environment, Assortative mating could distort estimates of genetic influ-
and individual environment. ences in family studies. Children of similar parents would be
more likely to receive the same genes for some traits than chil-
problems with traditional twin studies
dren of more dissimilar parents. For this reason, assortative
Traditional twin study designs rely on two assumptions, mating would exaggerate genetic similarity for fraternal twins,
both of which have prompted criticism. First, the equal envi- but it would not affect genetic similarity for identical twins
ronments assumption states that the environments of iden- because they are 100 percent similar genetically, with or with-
tical twins are no more similar than the environments of out parental assortative mating. In a twin study, assortative
fraternal twins. However, if the experiences of identical twins mating could underestimate the influence of genetics, which
are more similar, genetic influences would be overestimated. is calculated by measuring the differences in similarity for iden-
tical twin pairs against the same similarities for fraternal twins.
Violations of the equal environments and the assortative mat-
Guang Guo, professor of sociology at the University of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill, has written extensively about adolescents well-being,
ing assumptions thus have opposite effects and may, to some
gene-environment interactions, and statistical methods. extent, cancel each other.