Twin Studies

The study of twins in scientific research allows researchers to attempt to disentangle the effects of genetic and environmental effects on biology and psychology. Twin studies have provided valuable insight into detecting and treating various diseases and psychological disorders, as they reveal the importance of genetic and environmental influences on traits, phenotypes, and disorders. Twin research is a key tool in the field of behavioral genetics, and twin studies are part of the broader methodology used in behavior genetics, which uses genetically informative data to track a variety of traits ranging from personal behavior to the presentation of severe mental illness such as schizophrenia. In attempting to describe, understand, and explain how learning takes place throughout a person’s life through educational research, twin studies provide ...