An interesting view of development: Nature vs. Nurture

Before the 1960’s, twins that were put in adoption agencies were often intentional separated at birth. Psychologists and scientists interested in human behavior wanted to study the twins without them knowing about each other. Studying the twins to see if they had similar behavior patterns and interests should prove the impact our environment plays on in shaping personality, or if it genetics makes up who we are before we are even born. If genes are more important in behavior, then separated twins should have similar personalities, despite their different families. But if environment is more important, then each twin should be more like their adoptive family.
In 1968 a women who was a schizophrenic psychiatric patient, and had learned she was pregnant only two weeks earlier, gave birth to twin girls. Knowing she was too sick to raise the girls herself, she gave them up to a prominent Manhattan-based Jewish adoption agency. The girls were given to two different families and made the subjects of a secret scientific study of mental illness. The girls didn’t learn of each other until they were 35 years old. In 2003, Elyse went looking for her birth mother but instead found her twin sister Paula. A few days later they met at a café and almost immediately notice the similarities in their mannerism. Within minutes, they learned they had the same medical tendencies - depression, eating disorders in college, acne in high school, weak eyesight and the same drug allergies. They had even first menstruated at the same time, days before their 13th birthday. Their faces both go flush when they get excited, and their eyebrows make the same expressions. As the two began talking they learned of other shared characteristics; both had been adopted by Jewish families that had also adopted toddler sons and grew up to consider themselves more ambitious and liberal than their adoptive parents. Both became editors of their high-school newspapers, took school trips to Italy at age 17, and attended New York colleges where they studied film. Elyse became a filmmaker and Paula a writer - both write film criticism.
The girls both had been visited by psychologists who said they were checking up on the girls when in fact they were studying their behavior and the environment they were living in. They discovered they were among five sets of twins and one set of triplets separated by the Louise Wise Services and used as unknowing guinea pigs in a developmental study headed by an NYU psychiatrist and funded in part by the National Institute of Mental Health. This institution has since been shut down because of lawsuits brought about by the people who were separated from their twins. However all paper work having to do with this study has been sealed until 2066 at Yale University.
Identical twin girls were born in Mexico and separated at birth, for twenty years the two didn’t even know the other existed. They grew up 20 miles away from each other. The way these girls meet is an amazing story of coincidence. Adrianne was a 20 year old college student who had been dating a man she met at school. The two didn’t click so they decided to be friends; the man’s friend set him up on a blind date with a girl, Tamera, who went to school just half an hour away. When the two met he was astonished by the similarity of this girl and has ex Adrianne so he began asking questions. After only minutes he realized they had to be sisters. Both girls were born in Mexico, given up for adoption at birth, and they were both the same age.
After hearing of this girl who was just like her, Adrianne insisted on meeting Tamera. Adrianne says: "It's uncanny how much we have in common.”We've both been dancing since the age of five. We're both musical - I play the clarinet and Tamara plays the sax - and love listening to RnB and hip hop. We're both sporty and love to dress casually. We even both wanted to be vets when we grew up but then decided we couldn't bare to put down an animal."
The girls even have similar tall, dark and handsome boyfriends called Alex and Adam. And when they were children not only were they dressed in identical Minnie Mouse romper suits, they had both crashed into a plate glass door.
In my research of twins being separated at birth, although I was looking similarities and differences in identical twins, I came across an article that I found amazing yet disturbing. A couple in London who were married find out that they are actually twins. The couple is urging adoption agencies to provide more information in their records. The marriage was annulled.
The reason I was so interested in the subject is because my brother and sister, obviously not identical, are twins. Their personalities are nothing alike and I always wondered if it was because they try so hard to be different or simply because they are different. They compete at everything they do. My brother is very athletic and played sports all through high school, where my sister hates to even watch sporting events on TV. My brother started college this year and is doing very well and my sister doesn’t plan on ever going to college. I found in my study that these people who did not know they had a twin were amazingly alike, and in the case of my family, the twins are so different you wouldn’t know they are actually twins.