Nature & Nurture Play

Twin studies as an active research area of developmental psychology and medicine, discusses the extent to which genetics and learned characteristics influence personality. These studies are particularly valuable as the unique connection of study subjects provides researchers with a common baseline for investigating genetic and environmental influences on health and psychological wellbeing. According to twin researcher Nancy L. Segal, author of Born Together – Reared Apart monozygotic twins share upwards of 70% of intellectual characteristics. Similar findings by Bouchard (2013) suggest that heredity accounts for 20% -80% of traits. Specifically, twin study research attribute 20%-40% of proclivities namely phobias and depression to hereditary factors. On the big 5 personality traits, twin research assigns hereditary attributions of 40%-60%. Expectedly, influence of heredity on intelligence was reported to be75%.