Download Nature vs. Nurture

Nature vs. Nurture
Jenny Stuart
Sara Lundblad
The search for the political gene
• Liberal Democrat MP Mathew Taylor was a adopted,
and later in life discovered that both his farther and
grandfather had both been Liberal Democrat Mp’s. This
along with other such discoveries have prompted many
studies. For example:
• Twin Study
– Dr John Hibbing, University of Nebraska
– Date unknown
Procedure
• Pairs of fraternal and identical twins
• Were asked detailed questions about their political beliefs
–
–
Assumed that both had been bought up in the same environment
Assumed that identical twins had the same genetic makeup, and fraternal twins had
50% of the same genetic makeup
• Question example:
–
Pacifism
•
•
Identical agreed at a rate of 0.34
Fraternal twins agreed at a rate of 0.15
• Calculated:
(amount of times the fraternal twins agreed) - (amount of times the identical twins
agreed) = (% figure of how strongly the twins views were shaped by their genes)
Discussions
 Ecological validity
 Twin Studies are debatably unreliable and not as clear cut
as previously thought. This is because even if they have
been separated birth, they have still shared their first
environment, the womb.
 Only asked a couple of samples, so not enough variation in
the results
 Does not state how different the twins environments
really were
 Fraternal twins, have no more similar DNA than general
siblings
Dr John Hibbing