Page 23 - 2024-bfw-MyersAP4e-TE

Module 1.1

high cheekbones, same smile, same walking style. Was it Jorge, pretending to be someone
else? Confused, she returned to the butcher shop to show William a picture of his look-alike,
Jorge. William laughed and didn’t take it seriously, but Laura later showed Jorge a photo- ENGAGE 1.1-3
graph of William. “That’s me!” Jorge exclaimed. Scrolling through William’s social media
photos, Jorge found another surprise: his look-alike, William, sitting next to a mirror image (15 minutes) Although the story of
of Jorge’s fraternal twin brother. the “Bogotá brothers” is extraordi-
Until then, William and Jorge had lived utterly separate lives. William grew up in a rural nary, relative strangers often share
village, while Jorge was city-raised. William and Jorge both — thanks to a colossal hospi-
tal mistake — believed they had fraternal twin brothers, Wilber and Carlos, respectively. In many things in common. The Student
reality, Wilber and Carlos, like William and Jorge, were identical twins. The hospital had sent Activity: Striking Similarities enables
William home with Wilber, and Carlos home with Jorge. students to find even more similarities
Although they were raised apart, William and Jorge both were jokesters, physically
strong, and supportive. Wilber and Carlos were moody and serious, always organized, and between themselves and someone
prone to crying, and they had the same speech impediment. Each of them had wondered they may not even know. This points
why he felt so different from his supposed fraternal twin. Meeting their identical twin to the influence of similar environ-
revealed the power of genetics.
Genes matter, but so does environment. Urban-dwellers Jorge and Carlos had better ments on development.
nutrition, and were taller than rural-raised William and Wilber. Wilber didn’t have access to
the speech therapy that Carlos did, which meant that only Wilber struggled with speaking M1.1: Striking Similarities
as an adult.
The remarkable story of the “Bogotá brothers” resembles that of many separated twin
pairs. When tested by psychologists Thomas Bouchard and Nancy Segal, separated identical
twins exhibited similarities in not only tastes and physical attributes but also personality,
abilities, attitudes, interests, and fears. PRACTICE
Worth Publishers.

Copyright © 2018 by Nancy L. Segal and Yesika S. Montoya. Reprinted by
From ACCIDENTAL BROTHERS by Nancy L. Segal and Yesika S. Montoya. & Worth Publishers. Not for redistribution.
Research Methods & Design
(SP 2)
permission of St. Martin’s Press. All Rights Reserved.
(5 minutes) The authors quote
Thomas Bouchard’s critics, who
say, “The plural of anecdote is
Bedford, Freeman &
not data.” This quote highlights
science. Emphasize to students
that we must balance our
Bogotá brothers Due to a medical error, two sets of identical twins born in Bogotá, Colombia, were a major theme of psychological
separated at birth. The identical twin brothers were later reunited and noticed that they shared many of their personal experience with data
twins’ physical and personality traits. Yet the identical twins were raised in different environments, which led from scientific research. Although
to differences in their access to quality education and nutrition. The Bogotá brothers illustrate how nature and ®
AP Science Practice
Distributed by Bedford, Freeman individual experiences on the
nurture interact. Research we may know of someone’s
Stories of startling twin similarities have not impressed critics, who remind us that To draw conclusions, psychologi- experience that counters research
findings, data from research
cal scientists rely on data gathered
“the plural of anecdote is not data.” They note that if any two strangers of similar age, sex, from studies — not anecdotes,
and ethnicity were to spend hours comparing their behaviors and life histories, they would hearsay, or common sense. This is show how these experiences
probably discover many coincidental similarities (Joseph, 2001). Twin researchers reply that why it is so important to understand occur among the population.
separated fraternal twins do not, however, exhibit similarities comparable to those of sepa- the information about research Individual differences do occur,
methods in Unit 0.
rated identical twins. Copyright © but we should not generalize those
Interaction of Heredity and Environment Module 1.1 13
population as a whole.

03_myersAPpsychology4e_28116_ch01_002_163.indd 13 15/12/23 9:21 AM

Interaction of Heredity and Environment Module 1.1 13

03_HammerTE4e_47547_ch01_2a_163_4pp.indd 13 07/02/24 5:16 PM