Entwined Lives: Twins and What They Tell Us About Human Behavior - Softcover

Segal, Nancy

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0452280575 ISBN 13: 9780452280571

Publisher: Plume, 2000

Synopsis

Twins are nature's living laboratories. Through them we are able to uncover new information concerning the genetic and environmental factors affecting who we are. Studies using identical and fraternal twins hold the keys to understanding our intellectual abilities, personality traits, social attitudes, and behavior. In Entwined Lives, Dr. Nancy Segal brings together cutting-edge information with illustrative case histories of twins and their families. In addition to the fascinating stories of identical twins reared apart and reunited as adults, Dr. Segal provides insights into the unusual language patterns of twins, how twin studies affect legal decisions, the role of fertility treatments in twin and "twinlike" conceptions, and more. This groundbreaking book explores the ways in which twins enhance our knowledge of human behavioral and physical development, while shedding new light on the nature/nurture debate and on the burgeoning field of evolutionary psychology.

About this title

About the Author:

Nancy L. Segal is professor of Developmental Psychology and director of the Twin Studies Center at California State University, Fullerton.

From The New England Journal of Medicine:

The study of twins is a fundamental tool of genetic epidemiology and thus is important to all medical and behavioral sciences. Even in this era of study of the human genome, the definition of phenotypic boundaries in many fields still requires refinement, and genetic and environmental influences require further exploration. Despite their importance, I have heard the results of twin studies described as "opaque" by medical colleagues. They need look no further than Entwined Lives, by Nancy Segal, for clarification. The book covers the various facets of twin research, particularly in the study of behavior, in an accessible and sensible manner. It is ably illustrated with case descriptions and anecdotes of encounters with twins during the author's own work and describes aspects of life as a twin that are not usually included in textbooks, such as grief over the loss of a twin, the special relationship between twins, and legal issues involving twins. Although it focuses on behavior rather than on clinical disorders, the book will be of interest to clinicians because the principles of twin research it explains are widely applicable to an understanding of the human condition.

Segal discusses the biologic basis of twinning along with unusual types of "twins," such as unrelated siblings of the same age who are reared together through adoption, and complicated sibling relationships, such as those that can result from modern fertility treatments involving sperm or egg donation or surrogate motherhood. For example, there are twins who had different intrauterine environments because they were carried by different surrogate mothers and, in rare cases, fraternal twins with different fathers. This book deals imaginatively with the ways in which such sibling relationships challenge our notion of twinning and offer new angles for the study of genetic and environmental influences on behavior. Identical twins reared apart offer a rare opportunity to examine similarities between persons who are genetically identical but do not share a common environment; such work is eloquently described and illustrated with fascinating cases. The importance of differences between the members of separated pairs is also highlighted, since these differences tell us as much about environmental influences on behavior as they do about genetic influences.

There are interesting chapters on what twin studies can tell us about athleticism, intelligence, personality, and mental disorders, but because the emphasis here is on behavior (as the title of the book suggests), a detailed review of studies of mental disorders in twins is outside its scope. For anyone interested in twin research, this book will provide a wealth of information illustrated with real-life examples and written in an understandable, readable style. Its wide-ranging and up-to-date content makes it a valuable review of all aspects of twin research.

Reviewed by Jane Scourfield, M.R.C.Psych.
Copyright © 2000 Massachusetts Medical Society. All rights reserved. The New England Journal of Medicine is a registered trademark of the MMS.

About this edition

• Publisher: Plume
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0452280575
• ISBN 13: 9780452280571
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 416