We all know that twins are ‘womb-mates,’ but what else do they have in common?

If you had the chance to ask twins a question, what would you ask? Chances are you might ask one of the following questions, as they seem to be the questions that twins are most commonly asked. 'Can you feel if the other person gets hurt? Can you read each other’s minds? What’s it like being a twin? Do you have a secret language?'  (Source: Buzzfeed.com)  Or, maybe you have a twin? In that case, do these questions sound familiar?

Activate your background knowledge by answering the question: What do you know to be true about twins? 

Next, watch or listen to this video to see if any of the connections you made were addressed in it.

Nature/Nurture

Re-create or copy this organizer in your notes (e.g., notebook, .doc file, etc.).  After you have copied this organizer, take a minute to fill in the first column. At the end of this activity, you will have the opportunity to add what you have learned about the nature/nurture issue to the organizer. Completing this organizer will help you track your thinking and learning.

Throughout the unit, you have learned about the factors that explain how we think, feel, and act from a psychological perspective. For example, you learned about factors that explain how setting and context influence how we think, feel, and act, and how the process of socialization teaches us social and life skills. We could say that all the concepts that you have learned about in this unit so far explain how our environment or environmental factors influence how we think, feel, and act. (Did you know that even the food that we eat - our nutrition - plays a role in how we act?)

Another important factor that influences how we think, feel, and act (e.g., our personality and temperament) is our genes, or our genetic make-up. Remember, the genetic factor is represented by the biological element in the biopsychosocial model. Our genes predispose us to have certain behaviours - but what exactly does that mean? As you likely know, we inherit many different traits from our parents, such as our eye colour, hair texture, height - researchers even believe the firmness of our handshake is influenced by our genes! 

Watch or listen to this short video to understand what the terms genetics and traits mean.

Long Description

Researchers who study human behaviour and personality traits realize that nature and nurture both work together to determine how we think, feel, and act. But they are still trying to answer the question: what influences our personality more nature (our genes or heredity) or nurture (our environment)? This is often referred to as the nature/nurture issue. To try to answer this question, researchers chose to study different sets of twins. Why would researchers choose to study twins? Watch or listen to this video that answers that exact question.

So in the end, it’s probably fair to say that genes predispose us to have certain behaviours, but nurture enables or ‘turns on’ those behaviours - depending on parenting styles, culture, setting, etc. These are many of the variables that you learned about in Unit 2!  

Before you watch the next video discussing the interaction between nature and nurture, take a minute to match these subject-specific vocabulary words to their correct definitions. Knowing these terms will ensure you understand the video when you watch or listen to it.

Long Description

After watching or listening to this video, complete these true/false questions to quickly assess your comprehension.

Long Description

Let’s consider an example. There is research to suggest that certain behaviours, such as alcoholism, aggression, depression, and schizophrenia may have genetic predispositions (definition: is an increased chance of developing a disease or pattern of behavior based on the genes we inherited from our parents and our grandparents) but this does not mean that people are guaranteed to have, or suffer from, those issues if they have a family history of them. (Remember the biopsychosocial model!) Many researchers would say that environmental factors and our emotional or learned reactions will have a bigger influence on our behaviour and personality development. 

Ethics

Reach back and remember learning about the issue of ethics in research (in Unit 1). A system of moral principles has to be in place to guide the way we learn from, and with, each other.  As you have seen, many of the experiments that you have learned about in this unit have some major ethical issues, such as:

• Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison experiment;
• Asch’s conformity experiment;
• Milgram’s obedience-to-authority experiment; and
• Elliot’s “Blue-Eyed/Brown-Eyed” experiment.

But the issue of ethics applies (on a micro-level) to our own personal behaviour, actions, and choices, as well.

At this point, you (hopefully) have a better understanding of the interaction between nature and nurture. You should also now realize that our genetics influence our traits, and our psychological development, as well.

 H.O.T. Topic

Scenario:

You’re researching online and stumble upon a company that offers an inexpensive genetic testing service. ‘Awesome!’, you think (because you’ve always been curious to learn more about your ethnic and genetic make-up).  However, you also know that nurture (your environmental factors) plays a very important role in determining your development, as well. Despite your concerns, you decide to order the test. You get the results back and are surprised to find that you carry the gene for (or are genetically primed for) __________________ (insert any undesirable trait here, such as: risk-taking, temperament issues, cancer, dementia, etc.).

(If you would like to know more about the known relationships between genetics and health issues, such as mental disorders, visit this site.)

A couple of years later, when you are applying for life insurance, your insurance company asks if you have ever had a genetic test.

 

Should insurance companies have the right to ask you for your genetic test results, or insist that you take a genetic test to get insurance? Is this ethical? Or, is this genetic discrimination?

Argue for or against insurance companies having the right to ask you for your genetic test results. If you argue for the case it means that you agree - insurance companies should have access to your results. If you argue against the case it means that you disagree - insurance companies should not have the right to know your genetic results.

Justify your response with two specific reasons that explain why you chose the side you did. For example, you could use the biopsychosocial model to help explain that genes are only one part of how a person acts, thinks, and feels. If someone has a risk-taking gene, but lives in a very quiet environment, then that person may learn to avoid taking risks, which is a reason why insurance companies shouldn’t need to know about our genetic makeup.

Communication:

Choose a method to answer these questions. You might consider:

• a written response;
• a poem;
• a rant / blog;
• a journal entry (from a specific perspective);
• recording a response; or
• a short video.

Submit Your Work

Social Action

In our society, who might be hurt the most if insurance companies do have the right to ask individuals to complete a genetic test result? What could people do if they wanted to bring attention to this issue?