Twin Adoption Studies

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This essay will discuss the controversial topic of; the nature, nurture debate. It will do so by examining twin and adoption studies. Through compiling results from various studies conducted by researchers and academics, it will demonstrate inconsistencies, which in turn conclude that human mental processes, and behavior cannot be determined by one specific factor.

The nature, nurture debate is a widely regarded topic of inquiry, which aims to define the prevalent force behind an individual’s personality, identity and behavior. For humans as a species, it is important to discover to what extent external or learned behavior, and internal or hereditary behavior, affects our mental process, and in turn, our identity (A. Tomlinson, 2010). Over
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Due to this separation, each child has been raised with different family influences and surrounding environments. This variable allows for comparisons to be made between psychological traits that may share with their biological family, of whom represent nature, and their adopted family, who are representative of nurture (J. Smoller, C. Finn, 2003). Despite the multitudes of twin and adoption studies that have been carried out, there is still no conclusive answer to the nature or nurture debate. This is due to the fact that no two studies have produced the same exact …show more content…
This is due to the children who were adopted, showing similarities between their adoptive parents. Environmental influence on childhood obesity in adoption studies were not however, the most prominent outcome of this collective review, as some of the children also demonstrated clear genetic links to their biological parents. This correlation between them was considered to be stronger than that of their adoptive parents (K. Silventoinen, B. Rokholm, J. Kaprio, T.I.A. Sorensen, 2010). In demonstrating results that are representative of both; nature and nurture, this journal article further proves the fact that the nature, nurture debate has not yet been solved by twin and adoption studies. It is clear that environment plays a role in mental processes, as well as behavior and as of yet, it is impossible to tell which plays a more crucial

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