Identical Strangers

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Identical Strangers: A Memoir of Twins Separated and Reunited is a 2007 memoir written by identical twins Elyse Schein and Paula Bernstein and published by Random House. The authors were separated as infants, in part, to participate in a "nature versus nurture" twin study. They were adopted by separate families who were unaware that each girl had a sister. Soon after the twins reunited for the first time in 2004 at the age of 35, they began writing the book. Of the 13 or more children involved in the study, three sets of twins and one set of triplets have discovered one another. One or two sets of twins may still not know they have an identical twin. [1] [2] [3]

Contents

Twins study

Viola Bernard, a prominent New York City psychiatrist, had persuaded Louise Wise Services, an adoption agency, to send twins to different homes without telling the adoptive parents that they were adopting a child who had a twin. Then, researchers sponsored by the Jewish Board of Family and Children's Services secretly compared their progress. Bernard believed that identical twins would better forge individual identities if separated. By the time the twins started to investigate their adoptions, Bernard had already died, but the twins found New York University psychiatrist Peter Neubauer who had studied them. [3] [4] [5]

The twins study they were involved with was never completed. [6] The practice of separating twins at birth ended in the state of New York in 1980, shortly after Neubauer's study ceased. [7] Neubauer reportedly had Yale University lock away and seal the study records until 2066. [8] He realized that public opinion would be so against the research that he decided not to publish it. As of 2007, the sisters and other twins had not persuaded Yale or the Jewish Board to release the records. [3] [4] [5] [7] By 2018, some 10,000 pages had been released but were heavily redacted and inconclusive. [9]

The Neubauer study differed from most twins studies in that it followed the twins from infancy. [3] However, the debate about whether nature or nurture has a greater impact on human development continues. The documentary Three Identical Strangers , which told the story of three male triplets who were also part of the study and found one another at age 19, noted that although much was made of superficial similarities among the three, their personalities were significantly different because they were raised by parents with profoundly different personalities and child-rearing practices. In addition, no one can accurately assess to what degree each infant in the study was shaped by the trauma of separation after several months together as infants. [10] Some researchers nonetheless believe that children's differences are forged less by their families than by genetics and chance. [4] [11] These beliefs have now been superseded by the extensive neuroscience research of the last three or four decades which confirms that minds are formed through relationships, especially in the first 1000 days of a child's life. [12]

Documentary films

Two documentaries about this study have been released, The Twinning Reaction (2017) [13] and Three Identical Strangers (2018), [10] [14] along with the television episode Secret Siblings (2018). [15]

Related Research Articles

Nature versus nurture is a long-standing debate in biology and society about the relative influence on human beings of their genetic inheritance (nature) and the environmental conditions of their development (nurture). The alliterative expression "nature and nurture" in English has been in use since at least the Elizabethan period and goes back to medieval French. The complementary combination of the two concepts is an ancient concept. Nature is what people think of as pre-wiring and is influenced by genetic inheritance and other biological factors. Nurture is generally taken as the influence of external factors after conception e.g. the product of exposure, experience and learning on an individual.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Twin</span> One of two offspring produced by the same pregnancy

Twins are two offspring produced by the same pregnancy. Twins can be either monozygotic ('identical'), meaning that they develop from one zygote, which splits and forms two embryos, or dizygotic, meaning that each twin develops from a separate egg and each egg is fertilized by its own sperm cell. Since identical twins develop from one zygote, they will share the same sex, while fraternal twins may or may not. In very rare cases twins can have the same mother and different fathers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Multiple birth</span> End of a multiple pregnancy where two or more offspring are born

A multiple birth is the culmination of one multiple pregnancy, wherein the mother gives birth to two or more babies. A term most applicable to vertebrate species, multiple births occur in most kinds of mammals, with varying frequencies. Such births are often named according to the number of offspring, as in twins and triplets. In non-humans, the whole group may also be referred to as a litter, and multiple births may be more common than single births. Multiple births in humans are the exception and can be exceptionally rare in the largest mammals.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Conjoined twins</span> Medical condition

Conjoined twins, popularly referred to as Siamese twins, are twins joined in utero. It is a very rare phenomenon, estimated to occur in anywhere between one in 49,000 births to one in 189,000 births, with a somewhat higher incidence in Southwest Asia and Africa. Approximately half are stillborn, and an additional one-third die within 24 hours. Most live births are female, with a ratio of 3:1.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sibling</span> One of two or more individuals having at least one parent in common

A sibling is a relative that shares at least one parent with the subject. A male sibling is a brother and a female sibling is a sister. A person with no siblings is an only child.

Judith Rich Harris was an American psychology researcher and the author of The Nurture Assumption, a book criticizing the belief that parents are the most important factor in child development, and presenting evidence which contradicts that belief. Harris was a resident of Middletown Township, New Jersey.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kyle Pruett</span> American psychiatrist

Kyle D. Pruett is an author of books and columns on parenting, and is a professor of child psychiatry at Yale University. This researcher and practicing psychiatrist was the host of the TV series Your Child Six to Twelve with Dr. Kyle Pruett. He has contributed to Good Housekeeping, Child, and The New York Times. He has appeared as a guest on Good Morning America, Oprah, CBS This Morning, and National Public Radio.

Child of Our Time is a documentary commissioned by the BBC, co-produced with the Open University and presented by Robert Winston. It follows the lives of 25 children, born at the beginning of the 21st century, as they grow from infancy, through childhood, and on to becoming young adults.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Uterus didelphys</span> Medical condition

Uterus didelphys represents a uterine malformation where the uterus is present as a paired organ when the embryogenetic fusion of the Müllerian ducts fails to occur. As a result, there is a double uterus with two separate cervices, and possibly a double vagina as well. Each uterus has a single horn linked to the ipsilateral fallopian tube that faces its ovary.

<i>The Parent Trap</i> (franchise) American family comedy film franchise

The Parent Trap franchise consists of American family-comedies, including the original theatrical film, three made-for-television sequel movies, and a theatrical legacy sequel/soft-remake. Based on the 1949 novel Lisa and Lottie by Erich Kästner, the plot centers around identical twin sisters, who were separated at birth and rediscover each other while attending summer camp. The pair trade places upon returning home, and devise a plan to bring their family back together.

Babies switched at birth are babies who, because of either error or malice, are interchanged with each other at birth or very soon thereafter, leading to the babies being unknowingly raised by parents who are not their biological parents. The occurrence has historically rarely been discovered in real life, but in recent years is becoming more commonly identified due to genealogical testing of DNA, which reveals true genetic parentage. The phenomenon has been common as a plot device in novels and films, such as the TV series Switched at Birth and Autumn in My Heart.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nancy Segal</span> American psychologist (born 1951)

Nancy L. Segal is an American evolutionary psychologist and behavioral geneticist, specializing in the study of twins. She is the Professor of Developmental Psychology and Director of the Twin Studies Center, at California State University, Fullerton. Segal was a recipient of the 2005 James Shields Award for Lifetime Contributions to Twin Research from the Behavior Genetics Association and International Society for Twin Studies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter B. Neubauer</span> American psychiatrist and psychoanalyst

Peter Bela Neubauer was an Austrian-born American child psychiatrist and psychoanalyst.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jewish Board of Family and Children's Services</span> American nonprofit organization

The Jewish Board of Family and Children’s Services is one of the United States' largest nonprofit mental health and social service agencies, and New York State's largest social services nonprofit.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Secure attachment</span>

Secure attachment is classified by children who show some distress when their caregiver leaves but are able to compose themselves quickly when the caregiver returns. Children with secure attachment feel protected by their caregivers, and they know that they can depend on them to return. John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth developed a theory known as attachment theory after inadvertently studying children who were patients in a hospital at which they were working. Attachment theory explains how the parent-child relationship emerges and provides influence on subsequent behaviors and relationships. Stemming from this theory, there are four main types of attachment: secure attachment, ambivalent attachment, avoidant attachment and disorganized attachment.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Maternal sensitivity</span>

Maternal sensitivity is a mother's ability to perceive and infer the meaning behind her infant's behavioural signals, and to respond to them promptly and appropriately. Maternal sensitivity affects child development at all stages through life, from infancy, all the way to adulthood. In general, more sensitive mothers have healthier, more socially and cognitively developed children than those who are not as sensitive. Also, maternal sensitivity has been found to affect the person psychologically even as an adult. Adults who experienced high maternal sensitivity during their childhood were found to be more secure than those who experienced less sensitive mothers. Once the adult becomes a parent themselves, their own understanding of maternal sensitivity will affect their own children's development. Some research suggests that adult mothers display more maternal sensitivity than adolescent mothers who may in turn have children with a lower IQ and reading level than children of adult mothers.

<i>Twinsters</i> 2015 American film

Twinsters is a 2015 documentary film which covers the true-life story of identical twin sisters, separated at birth, discovering each other on-line, meeting, confirming their identity with a DNA test, and exploring aspects of their background together.

<i>The Blood Sisters</i> (TV series) 2018 Philippine drama television series

The Blood Sisters is a 2018 Philippine drama television series directed by Jojo Saguin, starring Erich Gonzales in three characters: Erika, Carrie, and Agatha. The series premiered on ABS-CBN's Primetime Bida evening block and worldwide on The Filipino Channel from February 12 to August 17, 2018, replacing Wildflower and was replaced by Meteor Garden.

<i>Three Identical Strangers</i> 2018 documentary film directed by Tim Wardle

Three Identical Strangers is a 2018 documentary film directed by Tim Wardle, about the lives of Edward Galland, David Kellman, and Robert Shafran, a set of identical triplet brothers adopted as infants by separate families. Combining archival footage, re-enacted scenes, and present-day interviews, it recounts how the triplet brothers discovered one another by chance in New York in 1980 at age 19, their public and private lives in the years that followed, and their eventual discovery that their adoption had been part of an undisclosed scientific "nature versus nurture" study of the development of genetically identical siblings raised in differing socioeconomic circumstances.

References

  1. ↑ Flaim, Denise (25 November 2007). "Lost and Found: Twin sister separated at birth are reunited and work toward a new relationship". Journal Times.
  2. ↑ Flaim, Denise (25 November 2007). "Lost and found: Other twins were tracked for study". Journal Times.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Bernstein, Paula; Schein, Elyse (25 October 2007). "'Identical Strangers' Explore Nature Vs. Nurture". All Things Considered (Interview). Interviewed by Joe Richman. NPR . Retrieved 19 January 2019. Audio also.
  4. 1 2 3 Flam, Faye (7 December 2007). "Studying twins and identity: 1960s child-development experiment is unthinkable now". Philadelphia Inquirer– via Monterey County Herald.
  5. 1 2 Bradley, Lisa (9 December 2007). "SCIENCE: When Paula met Elyse". Sunday Star Times.
  6. ↑ Rieger, Robin (29 November 2007). "Twins Reunited After Experiment Speak Out". CBS 3 . Archived from the original on 1 December 2007. Retrieved 10 December 2007.
  7. 1 2 Spillius, Alex (29 October 2007). "Identical twins reunited after 35 years". Telegraph. Retrieved 19 January 2019.
  8. ↑ McCormack, William (1 October 2018). "Records from controversial twin study sealed at Yale until 2066". Yale Daily News. Retrieved 19 January 2019.
  9. ↑ Ryan, Patrick (26 June 2018). "Three Identical Strangers': How triplets separated at birth became the craziest doc of 2018". USA Today . Retrieved 22 July 2018.
  10. 1 2 Nevins, Jake (28 June 2018). "Three Identical Strangers: the bizarre tale of triplets separated at birth". The Guardian . Retrieved 5 March 2019.
  11. ↑ Segal, Nancy (1999). Entwined Lives: Twins and What They Tell Us About Human Behavior. Dutton.
  12. ↑ Shonkoff & Phillips (2000) From Neurons to Neighborhoods
  13. ↑ The Twinning Reaction: Official Site Archived 2020-11-22 at the Wayback Machine . Retrieved 22 July 2018.
  14. ↑ Three Identical Strangers: Official Trailer. Retrieved 22 July 2018.
  15. ↑ "Secret Siblings". 20/20 . 9 March 2018. ABC News.
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