Entwined Lives: Twins and What They Tell Us About Human Behavior. - Review - book review

Adolescence, Spring, 2001

SEGAL, Nancy L. Entwined Lives: Twins and What They Tell Us About Human Behavior. New York: Plume, 2000. 396pp. $16.00 (p).

Segal reveals how twins hold the keys to understanding our physical and intellectual capabilities, personality traits, social attitudes, and more. Combining the latest research with illuminating case histories--including identical twins separated at birth and reunited thirty-nine years later-she explores the roles played by genes and environment, and shows how nature's "living laboratories" provide vital clues to our behavioral riddles. Topics include: the special relationship twins share; the unusual language patterns of twins; what twins tell us about cooperation and competition; what losing a twin reveals about grieving; pseudo twins--unrelated siblings who are reared together; the role of fertility treatments in twin and "twinlike" conceptions; how conjoined twins view their coexistence; twins and clones; twins in the courtroom; twinning in the nonhuman animal kingdom; and facts and fallacies of being a twin. From athletic prowess to marital stability to why we gain and lose weight, Entwined Lives sheds n ew light on the nature/nurture debate.