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Sources of Human Psychological Differences: The Minnesota Study of Twins

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Sources of Human Psychological Differences: The Minnesota Study of Twins Reared Apart
Author(s): Thomas J. Bouchard, Jr., David T. Lykken, Matthew McGue, Nancy L. Segal, Auke
Tellegen
Reviewed work(s):
Source: Science, New Series, Vol. 250, No. 4978 (Oct. 12, 1990), pp. 223-228
Published by: American Association for the Advancement of Science
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2885713 .
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 Articles

Sources of Human Psychological Differences:

The Minnesota Study of Twins Reared Apart

THOMAS J. BoUCHARD, JR.,* DAVID T. LYKKEN, MATTHEW MCGUE,

NANcY L. SEGAL,AuiuE TELLEGEN

and (ii) the effect of being reared in the same home is negligible for
Since 1979, a continuing study of monozygotic and many psychological traits. These conclusions will not come as
dizygotic twins, separatedin infancy and rearedapart,has revelations to the many behavioral geneticists who have observed
subjected more than 100 sets of reared-aparttwins or similar results and drawn similar conclusions (5). This study and the
triplets to a week of intensive psychological and physio- broader behavioral genetic literature, nevertheless, challenge prevail-
logical assessment. Like the prior, smaller studies of ing psychological theories on the origins of individual differences in
monozygotic twins reared apart, about 70% of the vari- ability, personality, interests, and social attitudes (6). Here we
ance in IQ was found to be associated with genetic summarize our procedures and review our results and interpreta-
variation. On multiple measures of personality and tem- tions of them.
perament, occupational and leisure-time interests, and Participants complete approximately 50 hours of medical and
social attitudes, monozygotic twins rearedapartare about psychological assessment. Two or more test instruments are used in
as similar as are monozygotic twins reared together. each major domain of psychological assessment to ensure adequate
These findings extend and support those from numerous coverage (for example, four personality trait inventories, three
other twin, family, and adoption studies. It is a plausible occupational interest inventories, and two mental ability batteries).
hypothesis that genetic differences affect psychological A systematic assessment of aspects of the twins' rearing environ-
differenceslargely indirectly, by influencing the effective ments that might have had causal roles in their psychological
environment of the developing child. This evidence for development is also carried out. Separate examiners administer the
the strong heritabilityof most psychological traits, sensi- IQ test, life history interview, psychiatric interview, and sexual life
bly construed, does not detract from the value or impor- history interview. A comprehensive mental ability battery is admin-
tance of parenting, education, and other propaedeutic istered as a group test. The twins also complete questionnaires
interventions. independently, under the constant supervision of a staff member.
Reared-aparttwins have been ascertainedin several ways, such as:
(i) friends, relatives, or the reunited twins, themselves, having
M jr ONOZYGOTIC AND DIZYGOTIC TWINS WHO WERE SEPA- learned of the project, contact the Minnesota Center for Twin and
rated early in life and reared apart (MZA and DZA twin Adoption Research (MICTAR); (ii) members of the adoption
pairs) are a fascinating experiment of nature. They also movement, social workers, and other professionals who encounter
provide the simplest and most powerful method for disentangling reared-aparttwins serve as intermediaries; (iii) twins-who are, or
the influence of environmental and genetic factors on human become aware of, a separated co-twin solicit assistance from thE
characteristics.The rarity of twins reared apart explains why only MICTAR staff in locating this individual. Selection on the basis of
three previous studies of modest scope are available in the literature similarity is minimized by vigorously recruiting all reared-apart
(1-4). twins, regardless of known or presumed zygosity and.similarity. W,
More than 100 sets of reared-aparttwins or triplets from across have been unable to recruit to the study six pairs of twins reared
the United States and the United Kingdom have participated in the apart whom we believe to be monozygotic.
Minnesota Study of Twins Reared Apart since it began in 1979. Zygosity diagnosis is based on extensive serological comparisons,
Participants have also come from Australia, Canada, China, New fingerprint ridge count, and anthropometric measurements. The
Zealand, Sweden, and West Germany. The study of these reared- probability of misclassification is less than 0.001 (7). Where appro-
apart twins has led to two general and seemingly remarkable priate, our data are corrected for age and sex effects (8). Due to space
conclusions concerning the sources of the psychological differ- limitations and the smaller size of the DZA sample (30 sets), in this
ences-behavioral variation-between people: (i) genetic factors article we focus on the MZA data (56 sets). The results reported
exert a pronounced and pervasive influence on behavioralvariability, here are, for the most part, based on previously reported findings, so
that the sample sizes do not include the most recently assessed pairs
and vary depending on when in the course of this ongoing study the
T. J. Bouchard, Jr., and M. McGue are in the Department of Psychology and the
Institute of Human Genetics, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455. D. T. analyses were conducted.
Lykken, N. L. Segal, and A. Tellegen are in the Department of Psychology, University As shown in Table 1, the sample consists of adult twins, separated
of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455.
very early in life, reared apart during their formative years, and
*To whom reprint requests should be addressed. reunited as adults. Circumstances of adoption were sometimes

12 OCTOBER 1990 223

Table 1. Means, standarddeviations (SD), and ranges for age, measures of contact, IQ, and parentaleducational level for MZA twins. Two MZA male triplet
sets were each entered as one set. Data are based on the first 56 sets of MZAs recruited, although the sample size varies slightly from measure to measure, as
data are not always available or relevant (for example, rearing mother died very early in twins' life or twins could not be tested with an English language
WAIS).

Time Time Total Rearing Rearing

Age together apart to contact IQ
father's mother's
Statistic (years) prior to first time (WAIS) education education
separation reunion (weeks) level level
(months) (years) (years) (years)
Mean 41.0 5.1 30.0 112.5 108.1 10.7 10.3
SD 12.0 8.5 14.3 230.7 10.8 4.5 3.7
Range 19.0-68.0 0-48.7 0.5-64.7 1-1233 79-133 0-20 0-19

informal, and the adoptive parents, in comparison to parents who of IQ: (i) the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS); (ii) a
volunteer to participate in most adoption studies, have a lower level Raven, Mill-Hill composite; and (iii) the first principal component
of education (mean equals 2 years of high school), and are quite (PC) of two multiple abilities batteries.
heterogeneous in educational attainment and socioeconomic status The WAIS consists of a set of six verbal and five performance
(SES). Because our sample includes no subjects with lQs in the subtests that are individually administered, requiring about 1.5
retardate range (?70), the mean IQ is higher and the standard hours, and that yield an age-corrected estimate of IQ (10). To avoid
deviation lower than for the general population. examiner bias, we administer the WAIS simultaneously to the twins
in different rooms by professional psychometrists. The Raven
Progressive Matrices (Standard Set) is a widely used nonverbal
measure of problem-solving ability often paired with the Mill-Hill
Components of Phenotypic Variance Vocabulary Test, a multiple-choice word knowledge test (11). In
If genetic and environmental factors are uncorrelated and com- this study, the Raven and Mill-Hill are both administered and
bine additively (points we return to later), the total observed scored by computer. The two age- and sex-corrected scores are
variance, Vt, of a trait within a population can be expressed as transformed to have a mean equal to 50 and a standard deviation of
10. The sum of these transformed scores (which intercorrelateabout
Vt = Vg + Ve + Vm (1)
0.57) provides a separate estimate of IQ. The first major ability
where Vg is variance due to genetic differences among people, Ve is battery included in our assessment is an expanded version of the
variance due to environmental or experiential factors, and Vm is battery used in the Hawaii Family Study of Cognition (12). The
variance due to measurement error and unsystematic temporal second major ability battery is the Comprehensive Ability Battery
fluctuations. For measures of psychological traits, Vmranges from (13). Detailed results from analysis of both tests are reported
approximately 10% (of Vt) for the most reliablymeasured and stable elsewhere (14).
of traits (for example, IQ) to as high as 50 to 60% for traits that are In each of the three prior studies of MZA twins, two independent
less reliable or that show considerable secular instability (for exam- estimates of intelligence were obtained. The sample sizes and
ple, some social attitudes). The environmental component,. Ve, can intraclass correlations for all four studies are compared in Table 2.
be divided into variance due to experiences that are shared, Ves, and The table illustrates the remarkableconsistency of the MZA correla-
experiences that are unshared, Veu. Shared events may be experi- tions on IQ across measurement instrument, country of origin, and
enced differently by two siblings (for example, a roller coaster ride or time period. These correlations vary within a narrow range (0.64 to
a family vacation), in which case they contribute to the Veu 0.74) and suggest, under the assumption of no enviroumental
component. If the total variance, Vt, is set at unity, the correlation similarity, that genetic factors account for approximately 70% of the
between MZ twins, Rmz, equals Vg + Ves.The heritability of a trait variance in IQ.
equals Vg; the heritability of the stable component of a trait (for This estimate of the broad heritability of IQ is higher than the
example, the mean value around which one's aggressiveness varies) recent estimates (0.47 to 0.58) based on a review of the literature
equals Vgl(Vt -Vm). Vt and Vmcan be estimated from studies of that includes all kinship pairings (9, 15). Virtually the entire
singletons, but Vg is more elusive: for monozygotic twins reared literature on IQ similarity in twins and siblings is limited, however,
together (MZT), some of the within-pair correlation might be due to studies of children and adolescents. It has been demonstrated (16)
to effects of shared experience, Ves. The power of the MZA design is that heritability of cognitive ability increases with age. A heritability
that for twins reared apart from early infancy and randomly placed estimate of approximately 70% from these four studies of mainly
for adoption, Ves is negligible, so that Vg can be directly estimated middle-aged adults is not inconsistent with the previous literature.
from the MZA correlation.

Do Environmental Similarities in Rearing

Similarity in the IQ of MZA Twins Environments Explain MZA IQ Similarity?
The study of IQ is paradigmatic of human behavior genetic Such marked behavioral similarities between reared-apart MZ
research. There are more than 100 relevant twin, adoptee, and twins raise the question of correlated placement: were the twins'
family studies of IQ, and IQ has been at the center of the nature- adoptive homes selected to be similar in trait-relevant features
nurture debate (9). The analysis of IQ is also paradigmatic of the which, in turn, induced psychological similarity?If so, given that the
approach taken by this study. It illustrates our use of replicated total varianceequals 1.0, then Veswill equal at least Rif x r2ft,where
measures, evaluation of rearing environmental effects, and analysis Rif is the within-pair correlation for a given feature, f of the
of environmental similarity. We obtain three independent measures adoptive homes (the placement coefficient), and rft is the product-

224 SCIENCE, VOL. 250

Table 2. Sample sizes and intraclass correlations (? standard error) for all IQ measures and weighted averages for four studies of MZA twins.

Study and test used n for each Primary Secondary Tertiary Mean of
(primary/secondary/tertiary) test test test test multiple test (43)
Newman et al. (1) 19/19 0.68 ? 0.12 0.74 ? 0.10 0.71
(Stanford-Binet/Otis)
Juel-Nielsen (1) 12/12 0.64 ? 0.17 0.73 ? 0.13 0.69
(Wechsler-Bellevue/Raven)
Shields (1) 38/37 0.74 ? 0.07 0.76 ? 0.07 0.75
(Mill-Hill/Dominoes)
Bouchard et al. (42) 48/42/43 0.69 ? 0.07 0.78 ? 0.07 0.78 ? 0.07 0.75
(WAIS/Raven, Mill-Hill/
first principal component)

moment correlation between the feature and the trait in question, t. Table 3. Placementcoefficientsfor environmentalvariables,correlations
A checklist of available household facilities (for example, power betweenIQ andthe environmental variables,andestimatesof the contribu-
tion of placementto twin similarityin WAISIQ.
tools, sailboat, telescope, unabridged dictionary, and original
artwork) provides an index of the cultural and intellectual resources Correlation Contribution
in the adoptive home (17). Each twin completes the Moos Family
MZA between of place-
Environment Scale (FES), a widely used instrument with scales Placementvariable similarnty IQ and ment to the
describing the individual's retrospective impression of treatment and placement MZA
(Rff)
variable correlation
rearing provided by the adoptive parents during childhood and (rft) (Rif x rtf)
adolescence (18). The age- and sex-corrected placement coefficients
for these and other measures are shown in Table 3, together with the SES indicators
Father'seducation 0.134 0.100 0.001
correlations between twins' IQ and the environmental measure (rft) Mother'seducation 0.412 -0.001 0.000
and the total estimated contribution to MZA twin similarity. The Father'sSES 0.267 0.174 0.008
maximum contribution to MZA trait correlations that could be Physicalfacilities
explained by measured similarity of the adoptive rearing environ- Materialpossessions 0.402 0.279** 0.032
ments on a single variable is about 0.03 (19). The absence of any Scientific/technical 0.151 -0.090 0.001
Cultural -0.085 -0.279** -0.007
significant effect due to SES or other environmental measures on the Mechanical 0.303 0.077 0.002
IQ scores of these adult adopted twins is consistent with the RelevantFES scales
findings of other investigators (20). Rearing SES effects on IQ in Achievement 0.11 -0.103 0.001
adoption studies have been found for young children but not in Intellectualorientation 0.27 0.106 0.003
adult samples (21), suggesting that although parents may be able to differentfromzero at P < 0.01.
**rff significandy
affect their children's rate of cognitive skill acquisition, they may
have relatively little influence on the ultimate level attained.
WAIS IQ difference are 0.06 ? 0.15 for time together prior to
separation, 0.08 ? 0.15 for time apart to first reunion,
Has Pre- and Post-Reunion Contact -0.14 ? 0.15 for total contact time, and 0.17 + 0.15 for percent-
age of lifetime spent apart (25).
Contributed to MZA Twin Similarity in IQ? The absolute within-pair difference in WAIS IQ of co-twins as a
MZA twins share prenatal and perinatal environments, but except function of degree of contact are plotted in Fig. 1. Also shown are
for effects of actual trauma, such as fetal alcohol syndrome, there is the expected absolute IQ differences between randomly paired
little evidence that early shared environment significantly contrib- individuals and between two testings of the same individual (26).
utes to the variance of psychological traits. Twins are especially Although the MZA average difference approximates the absolute
vulnerable to prenatal and perinatal trauma, but these effects are difference expected between two testings of a single individual, we
most likely to decrease, rather than increase, within-pair similarity do observe a wide range of differences. It is not that we have found
(22). There is evidence that twins who maintain closer contact with no evidence of environmental influence; in individual cases environ-
each other later in life tend to be more similar in some respects than mental factors have been highly significant (for example, the 29 IQ
twins who engage in infrequent contact (23). It appears, however, point difference in Fig. 1). Rather, we find little support for the
that it is the similarity that leads to increased contact, ratherthan the types of environmental influences on which psychologists have
other way around (24). MZA twins in this study vary widely in the traditionally focused (27).
amount of contact they have had prior to assessment. All twin pairs
spent their formative years apart. Some had their first adult reunion
at the time of assessment, whereas others met as much as 20 years Similarity of MZA Twins on a Variety of
earlier and had experienced varying degrees of contact. A small
number of the pairs actually met at intervals during childhood. As
Dimensions
shown in Table 1, total contact time for the MZA twins ranges from Table 4 (28) gives the MZA correlations, most previously pub-
1 to 1233 weeks. In the one case of 1233 weeks of contact, the twins lished, on variables ranging from anthropometry and psychophysi-
met as teenagers and lived near each other until assessment when ology, to aptitudes, personality and temperament, leisure-time and
they were adults. Since they met on a regular basis, most of this time vocational interests, to social attitudes. Correlations for MZT twins
was coded as contact time. Degree of social contact between two and retest stability coefficients are also provided for comparison.
members of a reared-aparttwin pair accounts for virtually none of Stable, reliably measured variables like fingerprint ridge count and
their similarity. The correlations with the within-pair absolute stature show the highest correlations. Brain wave spectra are highly

12 OCTOBER 1990 ARTICLES 225

reproducible (29) and are strongly correlated in both MZA and but all of them were reared apart throughout the formative periods
MZT twins. Most other psychophysiological variables (for example, of childhood and adolescence. If being reared together enhances
blood pressure and electrodermal response) vary considerably across similarity in twins, within-pair correlations for MZA twins are
time so that the retest correlations between repeated measurements expected to be smaller than those for MZT twins. For example, the
on the same persons range from 0.5 to 0.8 (30). These retest mean MZT correlation for IQ, based on 34 studies of primarily
correlations set the upper limit of similarity that might be found children or adolescents, is 0.86 (9) as compared to 0.72 for all,
between MZ co-twins. The retest stability of aptitude measures, primarily adult, MZA twins. If the mean MZT correlation were
such as IQ, is rather better, ranging from 0.8 to 0.9 (10), whereas maintained into adulthood, its difference from the MZA correlation
stability of personality and interest measures ranges from 0.6 to 0.7. would suggest that common rearing increases the similarity of IQ in
With these upper limits in mind, the findings in Table 4 twins (and siblings). However, the MZT correlation apparently
demonstrate remarkablesimilarity between MZA twins. In terms of declines with age (for example, as a result of the accumulation of
standardized tests and measures, the MZA twin similarities are often nonshared environmental effects) (16), in which event the small
nearly equal to those for MZT twins (last column) and constitute a MZT-MZA correlation difference would suggest little influence of
substantial portion of the reliable variance (column 5) of each trait. common rearing on adult IQ. In any case, a significant contribution
of shared environment is found for the personality trait of social
closeness (31), and possibly religious interests and values (32).
As illustrated in Table 4, however, adult MZ twins are about
The Minimal Effect of Being Reared Together equally similar on most physiological and psychological traits,
Some of the MZA twins have had considerable contact as adults, regardless of rearing status. This finding and the failure to find

Table 4. Interclasscorrelations (R), sample sizes, and MZA/MZT ratio for monozygotic twins reared apart and together for nine classes of variables. NA, not
available.

Minnesota MZAs MZTs

Variables (reference) R Pairs R Pairs bility* RMZA/RMZT

(no.) (no.)
Anthropometric variables (28)
Fingerprint ridge count 0.97 54 0.96 274 0.99 1.01
Height 0.86 56 0.93 274 0.98 0.925
Weight 0.73 56 0.83 274 NA 0.880
Electroencephalographic (brainwave) variables (28)
Amount of 8- to 12-Hz (alpha) activity 0.80 35 0.81 42 NA 0.987
Midfrequency of alpha activity 0.80 35 0.82 42 NA 0.975
Psychophysiologic variables (29)
Systolic blood pressure 0.64 56 0.70 34 0.70 0.914
Heart rate 0.49 49 0.54 160 0.58-0.80 0.907
Electrodermal response (EDR) amplitudet
Males 0.82 20 0.70 17 NA 1.17
Females 0.30 23 0.54 19 NA 0.555
Trials to habituation EDR 0.43 43 0.42 36 NA 1.02
Information processing ability factors (17)
Speed of response 0.56 40 0.73 50 NA 0.767
Acquisition speed 0.20 40 NA NA NA NA
Speed of spatial processing 0.36 40 NA NA NA NA
Mental ability-general factor (44)
WAIS IQ-full scale 0.69 48 0.88 40 0.90 0.784
WAIS IQ-verbal 0.64 48 0.88 40 0.84 0.727
WAIS IQ-performance 0.71 48 0.79 40 0.86 0.899
Raven, Mill-Hill composite 0.78 42 0.76 37 NA 1.03
First principal component of special mental abilities 0.78 43 NA NA NA NA
Special mental abilities (14)
Mean of 15 Hawaii-battery scales 0.45 45 NA NA 0.80 NA
Mean of 13 Comprehensive Ability Battery scales 0.48 41 NA NA 0.78 NA
Personality variables (31)
Mean of 11 Multidimensional Personality 0.50 44 0.49 217 0.88 1.02
Questionnaire (MPQ) scales
Mean of 18 California Psychological 0.48 38 0.49 99 0.65 0.979
Inventory (CPI) scales
Psychological interests (45)
Mean of 23 Strong Campbell Interest Inventory 0.39 52 0.48 116t 0.82 0.813
scales (SCII)
Mean of 34 Jackson Vocational Interest Survey 0.43 45 NA NA 0.84 NA
scales (JVIS)
Mean of 17 Minnesota Occupational Interest scales 0.40 40 0.49 376 0.75 0.816
Social attitudes (32)
Mean of 2 religiosity scales 0.49 31 0.51 458 0.80 0.961
Mean of 14 nonreligious social attitude items 0.34 42 0.28 421 0.48 1.21
MPQ traditionalism scale 0.53 44 0.50 217 0.49 1.06
*Thecorrelation
betweentwo testingsof the sameindividual.Theseestimatesof the stablecomponentof theobservedtraitvariancealsoestimatetheupperlimitforRMZ. tThe
markeddifferencein EDR amplitudebetweenmalesand femalesis discussedin Lykkenet al. (29). tThis valueis for 116 studies,not pairs.

226 SCIENCE, VOL. 250

significant rft effects for cognitive abilities (17) or personality (31), 30 -
together with findings from numerous studies of MZT and DZT 0~~~~~~~~
twins, sibs, and foster sibs, implies that common rearing enhances
familial resemblance during adulthood only slightly and on relatively g 20 - Tworandom
individuals
0
few behavioral dimensions. This conclusion is given detailed discus-
sion by Plomin and Daniels (5). 0 0

< Cc
1010 0 X a0 a z MeanMZA
difference

Why Are MZA Twins So Similar? E~~~~~ m

E
m m
00 0 Twotestings
ofsameindividual
It is well known to naturalists and to animal breeders that there 0 Ia I
are wide and heritable differences in behavior within other species, 0 4 8
but there is a curious reluctance among some scientists (33) to In(Contact
inweeks)
acknowledge the contribution of genetic variation to psychological Fig. 1. The absolutevalue of the MZA within-pairIQ differenceas a
differences within the human species. Our findings support and functionof the naturallogarithmof paircontactin weeks.The horizontal
extend those from many family, twin, and adoption studies (15), a linesarethe expectedabsoluteIQ differencebetweentwo randomlyselected
broad consilience of findings leading to the following generaliza- individuals,the observedaverageMZA absolutedifference,andthe expected
IQ differencebetweentwo testingsof the sameindividual.
tion: For almost every behavioral trait so far investigated, from
reaction time to religiosity, an important fraction of the variation
among people turns out to be associated with genetic variation. This all their children. It seems reasonable that charismatic, dedicated
fact need no longer be subject to debate (34); rather, it is time parents, determined to make all their children share certain personal
instead to consider its implications. We suggest the following: qualities, interests, or values, may sometimes succeed. Our findings,
1) Generalintelligenceor IQ is stronglyaffectedbygeneticfactors.The and those of others (37), do not imply that parenting is without
IQs of the adult MZA twins assessed with various instruments in lasting effects. The remarkable similarity in MZA twins in social
four independent studies correlate about 0. 70, indicating that about attitudes (for example, traditionalism and religiosity) does not show
70% of the observed variation in IQ in this population can be that parents cannot influence those traits, but simply that this does
attributed to genetic variation. Since only a few of these MZA twins not tend to happen in most families.
were reared in real poverty or by illiterate parents and none were 3) MZA twins are so similar in psychologicaltraits becausetheir
retarded, this heritability estimate should not be extrapolated to the identicalgenomes make it probablethat their effectiveenvironmentsare
extremes of environmental disadvantage still encountered in-society. similar. Specific mechanisms by which genetic differences in human
Moreover, these findings do not imply that traits like IQ cannot be behavior are expressed in phenotypic differences are largely un-
enhanced. Flynn (35), in a survey covering 14 countries, has shown known. It is a plausible conjecture that a key mechanism by which
that the average IQ test score has significantly increased in recent the genes affect the mind is indirect, and that genetic differences
years. This increase may be limited to that part of the population have an important role in determining the effective psychological
with low. IQs (36). The present findings, therefore, do not define or environment of the developing child (38).
limit what might be conceivably achieved in an optimal environ- Infants with different temperaments elicit different parenting
ment. They do indicate that, in the current environments of the responses. Toddlers who are active and adventurous undergo differ-
broad middle-class, in industrialized societies, two-thirds of the ent experiences than their more sedentary or timid siblings. In
observed variance of IQ can be traced to genetic variation. addition, children and adolescents seek out environments that they
2) The institutionsand practicesof modern Westernsociety do not find congenial. These are forms of gene-environment covariance,
greatlyconstrainthe developmentof individualdifferences in psychological Cge. Moreover, different individuals pay different attention to or
traits.The heritability of a psychological trait reveals as much about respond differently to the same objective experience, or both. These
the culture as it does about human nature. Heritability must in- are forms of gene-environment interaction, Vge. From infancy
crease as Ve, the variance affected by the environment, decreases. onwards, genetic individuality helps to steer the developing orga-
Where the culture's influence is relatively homogeneous and effica- nism through the multitude of possible experiences and choices.
cious, Ve will decrease and heritability will increase; most American That is, Eq. 1 must be elaborated to include these indirect and
boys, for example, have similar opportunities to play baseball, so modifiable ways in which the genome exerts its influence
that one'expects heritability of baseball skill in American young men
Vt = Vg + Ve + Cge + Vge + Vm (2)
to be high. Where culture is efficacious, but heterogeneous, Ve
(and total phenotypic variance) will increase; thus, one would The proximal cause of most psychological variance probably
expect the heritability of specific linguistic or religious behaviors involves learning through experience, just as radical environmental-
in the United States or in the Soviet Union to be low. Individuals in ists have always believed. The effective experiences, however, to an
Western societies are heterogeneous with respect to personality important extent are self-selected, and that selection is guided by the
traits, interests, and attitudes, yet the heritabilities of these traits are steady pressure of the genome (a more distal cause). We agree with
relatively high. We infer that the diverse cultural agents of our Martin et al. (39) who see "humans as exploring organisms whose
society, in particular most parents, are less effective in imprinting innate abilities and predispositions help them select what is relevant
their distinctive stamp on the children developing within their and adaptive from the range of opportunities and stimuli presented
spheres of influence-or are less inclined to do so-than has been in the environment. The effects of mobility and learning, therefore,
supposed. augment rather than eradicate the effects of the genotype on
Psychologists have been surprised by the evidence that being behavior")(p. 4368).
reared by the same parents in the same physical environment does If this view is correct, the developmental experiences of MZ.twins
not, on average, make siblings more alike as adults than they would are more similar than those of DZ twins, again as environmentalist
have been if reared separately in adoptive homes. It is obvious that critics of twin research have contended. However, even MZA twins
parents canlproduce shared effects if they grossly deprive or mistreat tend to elicit, select, seek out, or create very similar effective

12 OCTOBER 1990
ARTICLES 227
environments and, to that extent, the impact of these experiences is 12. J. C. DeFries et al., Behav. Genet. 9, 23 (1979).
13. A. R. Hakstian and R. B. Cattell, J. Educ. Psychol. 70, 657 (1978).
counted as a genetic influence. Finally, if the genome impresses itself 14. T. J. Bouchard, Jr., N. L. Segal, D. T. Lykken, Acta Genet. Med. Gemellol.39, 193
on the psyche largely by influencing the character, selection, and (1990).
impact of experiences during development-if the correct formula is 15. J. C. Loehlin, Am. Psychol.44, 1285 (1989); R. Plomin and J. C. Loehlin, Behav.
Genet. 19, 331 (1989).
nature via nurture-then intervention is not precluded even for 16. K. McCartney, M. J. Harris, F. Bernieri, Psychol. Bull. 107, 26 (1990).
highly heritable traits, but should be the more effective when 17. M. McGue and T. J. Bouchard, Jr., in Advances in the Psychology of Human
tailored to each specific child's talents and inclinations. Intelligence,R. J. Sternberg, Ed. (Eribaum, New York, 1989), vol. 5, p. 7. This
checklist yields four relatively independent scales: scientific or technical, cultural,
mechanical, and material possessions.
18. R. H. Moos and B. S. Moos, Manual: Family EnvironmentScale (Consulting
Psychologists Press, Palo Alto, CA, 1986).
Relevance to Evolutionary Psychology and 19. Formally, this is the maximum linear contribution; nonlinear effects are, of course,
possible. For these data, however, investigation of higher-ordered relationships
Sociobiology (quadratic and cubic) showed no associations that did not exist at the linear level,
and there was no discernible nonlinearity detected in visual inspection of the
This research focuses on individual differences, but like other scatterplots.
animals we share certain species-specific tendencies by virtue of our 20. T. J. Bouchard, Jr., Intelligence7, 175 (1983).
21. C. Capron and M. Duyme [Nature340, 552 (1989)] have shown an SES effect in
being human. Whereas behavioral geneticists study variations with- an adoption study of young children; S. Scarrand R. Weinberg [ Amer. Sociol. Rev.
in a species, evolutionary psychologists or sociobiologists attempt to 43, 674 (1978)] did not find an SES effect in a study of young adult adoptees.
delineate species-typical proclivities or instincts and to understand 22. B. Price, Am. J. Hum. Genet. 2, 293 (1950).
23. R. J. Rose and J. Kaprio, Behav. Genet. 18, 309 (1988).
the relevant evolutionary developments that took place in the 24. D. T. Lykken, T. J. Bouchard, Jr., M. McGue, A. Tellegen, Behav. Genet., in press.
Pleistocene epoch and were adaptive in the lives of tribal hunter- 25. As in our earlier analysis, nonlinear relationships were tested for and found not to
exist. Additionally, deletion of a single outlier (IQ difference of 29 points) did not
gatherers. The genes sing a prehistoric song that today should appreciably change the correlation estimates.
sometimes be resisted but which it would be foolish to ignore. 26. Expected difference (D) can be expressed as a function of the correlation (r) and
At the interface of behavioral genetics and sociobiology is the standarddeviation as D = 1.13 uV17r [R. Plomin and J. C. DeFries, Intelligence
4, 15 (1980)].
question of the origin and function, if any, of the within-species 27. K. R. White, Psychol. Bull. 86, 461 (1982).
variability we have been discussing. One view is that it represents 28. D. T. Lykken, T. J. Bouchard, Jr., M. McGue, A. Tellegen, Acta Genet. Med.
evolutionary debris (40), unimportant to fitness and perhaps not Gemellol. 39, 35 (1990); and (6).
29. H. H. Stassen, D. T. Lykken, G. Bomben, Eur. Arch. PsychiatryNeurol. Sci. 237,
expressed in prehistoric environments. Another view is that variabil- 244 (1988).
ity has an adaptive function and has been selected for. Whether 30. Systolic blood pressure from Minnesota twin studies. Heart rate from B. Hanson et
al., Am. J. Cardiol. 63, 606 (1989). Electrodermal and habituation data from D.
sociobiologists can make evolutionary sense of the varieties of T. Lykken, W. G. Iacono, K. Haroian, M. McGue, T. J. Bouchard, Jr., Psychophysi-
human genetic variation we have discussed here remains to be seen ology 25, 4 (1988). Reliability data from K. Matthews, C. Rakczky, C. Stoney, S.
(41). Manuck, ibid. 24, 464 (1987); M. Llabre et al., ibid. 25, 97 (1988).
31. MPQ data from A. Tellegen et al., J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 54, 1031 (1988); CPI data
Whatever the ancient origins and functions of genetic variability, from T. J. Bouchard, Jr., and M. McGue, J. Pers. 58,263 (1990). Reliability data
its repercussions m contemporary society are pervasive and impor- from test manuals.
tant. A human species whose members did not vary genetically with 32. MZA and MZT Religiosity data from N. G. Waller, B. A. Kojetin, T. J. Bouchard,
Jr., D. T. Lykken, A. Tellegen, Psychol. Sci. 1, 138 (1990). Reliability of religious
respect to significant cognitive and motivational attributes, and who leisure time interests and religious occupational interests and mean of 14 nonreli-
were uniformly average by current standards, would have created a gious social attitude items from Minnesota twin study data base (28). Reliability of
other scales from test manuals. For a general discussion of the reliability of traits
very different society than the one we know. Modern society not such as those measured in this study, see K. C. H. Parker, R. K. Hanson, J.
only augments the influence of genotype on behavioralvariability,as Hunsley [Psychol. Bull. 103, 367 (1988)] and J. J. Conley [Pers. Individ. Differ. 5,
we have suggested, but permits this variability to reciprocally 11 (1984)].
33. R. C. Lewontin, S. Rose, L. J. Kamin, Not in Our Genes; Biology, Ideology, and
contribute to the rapid pace of cultural change. If genetic variation Human Nature (Pantheon, New York, 1984).
was evolutionary debris at the end of the Pleistocene, it is now a 34. S. Scarr, Behav. Genet. 17, 219 (1987).
salient and essential feature of the human condition. 35. J. R. Flynn, Psychol. Bull. 101, 171 (1987).
36. R. Lynn, Pers. Individ. Differ. 11, 273 (1990); T. W. Teasedale and D. R. Owen,
Intelligence13, 255 (1989).
REFERENCES AND NOTES 37. R. Wilson, Child Dev. 54, 298 (1983).
38. K. J. Hayes, Psychol. Rep. 10, 299 (1962); C. J. Lumsden and E. 0. Wilson,
1. H. H. Newman, F. N. Freeman, K. J. Holzinger, Twins: A Study of Heredityand Genes, Mind and Culture (Harvard Univ. Press, C mbridge, MA, 1981); S. Scarr
Environment(Univ. of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1937); N. Juel-Nielson, Acta and K. McCartney, Child Dev. 54, 424 (1983).
Psychiatr. Neurol. Scand. Suppl. 183, (1965); J. Shields. Monozygotic Twins: 39. N. G. Martin et al., Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. f 3, 4364 (1986).
Broughtup Apart and Broughtup Together(Oxford Univ. Press, London, 1962). 40. M. W. Feldman and R. C. Lewontin, Science190. 1163 (1975); D. Symonds, The
There are two other ongoing studies of twins reared apart, one in Sweden (2) and Evolution of Human Sexuality (Oxford Univ. Pre, 3, New York, 1979).
one in Finland (3). The questionable study by Burt (4) has been omitted. 41. D. M. Buss, J. Pers. 58, 1 (1990).
2. N. Pedersen, G. E. McClearn, R. Plomin, L. Friberg, Behav. Genet. 15, 407 42. T. J. Bouchard, Jr., D. T. Lykken, M. McGue, N. L. Segal, A. Tellegen, this article.
(1985); R. Plomin, P. Lichtenstein, N. L. Pedersen, G. E. McClearn, J. R. 43. The MZA correlation of 0.771 reported by the ! ite Sir Cyril Burt and questioned
Nesseiroade, Psychol. Aging 5, 25 (1990). for its authenticity after his death (4) falls withmnthe range of findings reviewed
3. H. Langainvainio, J. Kaprio, M. Koskenvuo, J. Lonnqvist, Acta Genet. Med. here.
Gemellol. 33, 259 (1984). 44. WAIS data for MZTs from K. Tambs, J. M. Sundet, P. Magnus, Intelligence8,283
4. L. Hearnshaw, Cyril Burt: Psychologist(Hodder & Stoughten, London, 1979); but (1984). Reliabilities from (10). Raven, Mill-Hill, and composite data from
see R. B. Joynson, The Burt Affair (Routledge, London, 1990). Minnesota twin studies (6, 42).
5. R. Plomin and D. Daniels, Behav. Brain Sci. 10, 1 (1987); L. J. Eaves, H. J. 45. MZA data on SCII and JVIS from D. Moloney, unpublished thesis (University of
Eysenck, N. G. Martin, Genes Culture and Personality: An Empirical Approach Minnesota, Minneapolis, 1990). Minnesota Occupational Interest Scale data from
(Academic Press, New York, 1989). N. Waller, D. T. Lykken, A. Tellegen, in Wise Counsel: Essays in Honor of Lloyd
6. T. J. Bouchard, Jr., in The Chemicaland BiologicalBases of Individuality,S. Fox, Ed. Lofquist,R. Dawis and D. Lubinski, Eds. (Univ. of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis,
(Plenum, New York, 1984), p. 147; N. L. Segal, W. M. Grove, T. J. Bouchard, Jr., in press). SCII MZT data from Nichols [Homo 29, 158 (1978)]. Reliability data
in Genetic Issues in PsychosocialEpidemiology,M. Tsuang, K. Kendler, M. Lyons, from test manuals.
Eds. (Rutgers Univ. Press, New Brunswick, NJ, in press). 46. We thank our colleagues E. D. Eckert, L. L. Heston, and I. I. Gottesman for their
7. D. T. Lykken, Behav. Genet. 8, 437 (1978). help on the medical and psychiatric portions of the study and H. Polesky, director,
8. M. McGue and T. J. Bouchard, Jr., ibid. 14, 325 (1984). for the blood testing. This researchhas been supported by grants from The Pioneer
9. T. J. Bouchard, Jr., and M. McGue, Science212, 1055 (1981). Fund, The Seaver Institute, The University of Minnesota Graduate School, The
10. J. D. Matarazzo, Wechsler'sMeasurementandAppraisalof Adult Intelligence(Williams Koch Charitable Foundation, The Spencer Foundation, The National Science
and Wilkins, Baltimore, ed. 5, 1972). Foundation (BNS-7926654), The National Institute of Mental Health
11. J. Raven, Manual for Raven's ProgressiveMatricesand VocabularyScales (Lewis, (MH37860), The National Institute on Aging (AG06886), and the Harcourt
London, 1986). Brace Jovanovich Publishing Company.

228 SCIENCE, VOL. 250

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