Three Identical Strangers Documentary Questions PDF

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One of the mandatory weekly assignments about the three identical strangers documentary....

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Three Identical Strangers (2018) Documentary Questions Irmak Hatirli 1. What are some similarities and differences among the “three identical strangers”? They were all placed in families with different economic and social status. So the education level of the parents were different too. They immediately focused on the similarities rather than the differences. Kind of superficially. They smoked the same cigarettes, they were wrestlers at one time, they had the same taste in women, they liked the same colors. They also all banged their heads to their cribs because of separation anxiety. They had very different work ethics, which later on raised serious issues. All grew up with an older sister. 2. What were the goals of Dr. Peter Neubauer’s twin/triplets study? So basically to study the nature vs nurture debate. They suspect that the aim was also to study the heritability of mental health. Parenting and family dynamics but they couldn’t know. 3. What variable(s) did he manipulate? What kinds of data did they collect? The environment they grew up in, high class, middle class and lower class. The researchers came over frequently and did IQ tests, eye hand coordination tests, personality inventory tests, ink blot tests and they filmed everything. They all had an older sister Was not a random selection, as the both parents of the three households were radically different than one another. 4. Describe how this research design might be considered unethical by modern standards. Could the research questions about nature and nurture be studied in a different way? This was a very upsetting study which affected the lives of the “participant”. They are not toys or lab rats. There was no consent or ascent or debriefing with neither the triplets/twins nor the parents who adopted them. They could not even access the results of this study that they were a part of, which is infuriating. The parents were just told they were being followed for a study for the development of children. All of the triplets grew up having mental problems such as depression and had dysfunctional teenage years. One committed suicide. I really do not know if it can be studied in a different way, as no one would knowingly agree to be separated with their twin at birth. And if told in earlier years that they were being studied, this could effect the results. 5. Were there any conclusions about the contributions of nature and nurture to development from the study or documentary? What open questions remain?

The results were never published because they were trying to conceal what they had done. Some conclusions were that the mannerisms seem to be inherited. By the end of the documentary, we see that most of the people who were close to the twins were convinced that nurture had the upper hand in development. “Nurture can overcome nearly everything…”...