identical twins that have been separated at birth and raised apart. Although it seems amazing, researchers have found that identical twins that are brought up in the same family are no more alike as adults that are identical twins who are reared apart. When separated twins are found to have strikingly similar traits, it is assumed that heredity has been a major contributor to those traits heredity, and the adoption method. One of the most extensive investigation of twins raised in separate homes is the Minnesota Study of Twins reared apart, which over the past 20 years has studied hundreds of twin pairs who were separated early in life (Bouchard, 1994; Finkel et al., 1995). This study, like others of its kind, has consistently found such striking psychological and behavioral similarities between monozygotic twins that the important role of genes in personality development can no longer be denied. Typical is the case of Oskar Stohr and Jack Yufe, identical twins born of a Jewish father and Christian mother in Trinidad in the 1930s. Soon after their birth, Oskar was taken to Nazi Germany by his mother to be raised as a Catholic in a household consisting mostly of women. Jack was raised as a Jew by his father, spending his childhood in the Caribbean and some of his adolescence in Israel.On the face of it, it would be difficult to imagine two more disparate cultural backgrounds. And when the twins were reunited in middle age, they certainly had their differences. Oskar was married and a devoted union member; Jack was divorced and the owner of a store in southern California. But when the brothers met for the first time in Minnesota,Similarities started cropping up as soon as Oskar arrived at the airport. Both were wearing wire-rimmed glasses and mustaches, both sported two-pocket shirts with epaulet. They share idiosyncrasies galore: they like spicy foods and sweet liqueurs, are absentminded, have a habit of falling asleep in front of the ...
