Deliberately Divided: Inside the Controversial Study of Twins and Triplets Adopted Apart: Nancy L. Segal: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Deliberately Divided

Inside the Controversial Study of Twins and Triplets Adopted Apart

Deliberately Divided

Inside the Controversial Study of Twins and Triplets Adopted Apart

Description

A 2022 Choice Reviews Outstanding Academic Title
Takes the first in-depth look at the New York City adoption agency that separated twins and triplets in the 1960s, and the controversial and disturbing study that tracked the children’s development while never telling their adoptive parents that they were raising a “singleton twin.”
In the early 1960s, the head of a prominent New York City Child Development Center and a psychiatrist from Columbia University launched a study designed to track the development of twins and triplets given up for adoption and raised by different families. The controversial and disturbing catch? None of the adoptive parents had been told that they were raising a twin—the study’s investigators insisted that the separation be kept secret. Here, Nancy Segal reveals the inside stories of the agency that separated the twins, and the collaborating psychiatrists who, along with their cadre of colleagues, observed the twins until they turned twelve. This study, far outside the mainstream of scientific twin research, was not widely known to scholars or the general public until it caught the attention of documentary filmmakers whose recent films, Three Identical Strangers and The Twinning Reaction,left viewers shocked, angered, saddened and wanting to know more.
Interviews with colleagues, friends and family members of the agency’s psychiatric consultant and the study’s principal investigator, as well as a former agency administrator, research assistants, journalists, ethicists, attorneys, and—most importantly--the twins and their families who were unwitting participants in this controversial study, are riveting. Through records, letters and other documents, Segal further discloses the investigators’ attempts to engage other agencies in separating twins, their efforts to avoid media exposure, their worries over informed consent issues in the 1970s and the steps taken toward avoiding lawsuits while hoping to enjoy the fruits of publication. Segal's spellbinding stories of the twins’ separation, loss and reunion offers readers the behind-the-scenes details that, until now, have been lost to the archives of history.

Acknowledgements
Preface
I. d how the situation mya be appropriately addressed.gregius s findings from visits with two sets of accidentII. I. Twin Studies: Illustrious and Ignoble
II. Separated by Design: Policy and People
III. Inside the Twin Study: How Did It Work?
IV. Familiar Strangers: Twin Brothers with Twin Sisters
V. Kathy and Betsy: “The Biggest Thing in My Life”
VI. Media Inquiry: Sixty Minutes
VII. Anne and Susan: Dancing Solo
VIII. Melanie and Ellen: Identical, but Not the Same
IX. Doug & Howard: Parallel Lives
X. Identical Triplets: Three Versions of the Same Song
XI. Sharon: Twinless Again
XII. In Search of the Findings: Unpublished or Unavailable?
XIII. The Book That Never Was: Yale University Press
XIV. Justin: Not Just a Doppelgänger?
XV. Paula and Elyse: Artists From Afar
XVI. Paula and Marjorie: Opportunities Lost
XVII. Michele and Allison: Fraternal, Almost Identical
XVIII. Letters of Protest: Oscars and Emmys
XIX. Professional Standards: Codes of Conduct, Legalities and Moralities
XX. Controversies: Over or Unfinished?
Notes
Index
About the Author

Product details

Published	Nov 08 2021
Format	Hardback
Edition	1st
Extent	520
ISBN	9781538132852
Imprint	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Illustrations	3 b/w illustrations; 20 b/w photos; 1 table; 12 textboxes
Dimensions	237 x 161 mm
Publisher	Bloomsbury Publishing

This outstanding volume describes the author's persistent efforts to overcome the roadblocks encountered at every step as she tried to uncover the details of the study. Segal adopts a sympathetic tone in describing the impact of the research on adopted twins who discover each other. At the same time, she pulls no punches in identifying the ethical issues that the researchers should have considered. This masterful book will appeal to readers interested in developmental psychology, research ethics, research methodology, personality, behavior genetics, and theories of psychology. Highly recommended. Lower- and upper-division undergraduates. Graduate students and faculty. General readers.

Choice Reviews
In the 1930s a famous radical behaviorist had conjectured that given a dozen healthy infants he could take anyone at random and transform in any type of specialist, doctor, lawyer, and even beggar and thief, regardless of children’s tendencies or abilities. This was a thought experiment, which has never been carried out in practice, and the reasons are obvious. It would be antithetical and unimaginable. Generations of psychology students take knowledge and debate this thought experiment during their undergraduate courses. This was a thought experiment, which has never been carried out in practice, and the reasons are obvious. Now we find that unlike the radical behaviorist, who was strictly ethical, a group of psychoanalysts and psychiatrists conducted the experiment with twins, without parents’ knowledge, in the 1960s. Professor Nancy Segal, Director of the Twin Studies Center at California State University, Fullerton, wrote the book Deliberately Divided about this controversial study of twins and triplets adopted apart and observed until they turned twelve. Segal opened the archives of history and analyzed the information in-depth on the basis of her decades of experience working with twins. As a professor of psychology, I consider this an important book for the formation of students and I recommend its translation into Portuguese.

Emma Otta, Instituto de Psicologia/Universidade de São Paulo
The documentary Three Identical Strangers captivated viewers with the story of identical triplets who were separated at birth, studied by psychiatrists, and kept unaware of one another’s existence. Deliberately Divided is the inside story of the history and science behind this disturbing event, told by a leading researcher and a gifted expositor.

Steven Pinker, Johnstone Professor of Psychology, Harvard University, and author of “The Blank Slate” and “Rationality”
Before reading Deliberately Divided it never occurred to me that a book on the study of twins could be a gripping drama. Yet here, Nancy Segal, herself a professor of psychology (and a twin), writes so movingly about an unfortunate twin study that deliberately left many twins to grow up apart. Was this disruption of human lives worth the cost just to learn something about human nature? I was on the edge of my seat waiting to find out what happened when the long-separated twins found each other later in life. This is one of the most educational and entertaining books on psychology I’ve ever read.

Elizabeth F. Loftus, distinguished professor, University of California, Irvine and former president, Association for Psychological Science
This is surely the last word on studies of twins raised apart, the most profound experiment nature has to offer on the relative contributions of genes and the environment to the makeup of the human personality. Nancy Segal has given us a career’s-worth of insight into the twin experience.

Lawrence Wright, author of “Twins” and “The Plague Year"
A rich, moving, and comprehensive account of a human drama every living person can identify with. Being both a twin and a twin researcher with deep experience in the domain under discussion, Dr. Segal brings a unique perspective to bear on the moral and ethical issues this controversial study raises. She touches every base with clarity, compassion, intelligence and common sense.

Thomas J. Bouchard, Jr., PhD, Professor Emeritus, Department of Psychology, University of Minnesota