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The Personalities of Twins: Just Ordinary Folks
Open accessAbstract
Twin studies have demonstrated that personality traits show moderate genetic influence. The conclusions drawn from twin studies rely on the assumptions that twins are representative of the population at large and that monozygotic and dizygotic twins are comparable in every way that might have bearing on the traits being studied. To evaluate these assumptions, we used Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire (MPQ) data from three samples drawn from the Minnesota Twin Registry (totaling 12,971 respondents) to examine the effect sizes associated with mean differences on the 11 MPQ scales and 3 higher-order MPQ factors for singletons versus twins and MZ twins versus DZ twins. The singletons in the samples were family members of the participating twins. We also used ratios of scale variances to examine the significance of variance differences. The only mean or variance difference replicated across all three samples was greater Social Closeness (about.1 standard deviation) for twins than for singletons. This difference was obtained for both males and females. It would appear that, with respect to personality, twins are not systematically different from other people. Our results also highlight the importance of replication in psychological research because each of our large samples showed differences not replicated in other samples.
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“For the study of both personality and somatic health, twins have been shown to be representative for the general population [31, 32]”
From Personality disorders are important risk factors for disability pensioning (2014) · cites this paper as [32]
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Metadata
- Authors
- Johnson, W., Krueger, R. F., Bouchard, T. J., & McGue, M.
- Affiliations
- University of Minnesota (US)
- Corresponding author
- Johnson, Wendy
- Venue
- Twin Research
- Publisher
- Cambridge University Press (CUP)
- Published
- 2002-04-01
- Volume
- 5
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 125-131
- ISSN
- 1369-0523 (ISSN-L)
- 0000-0000
- OpenAlex
- W2103747583
- Cited by
- 190
- References
- 47
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 2 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 4 · 2022: 10 · 2021: 2 · 2020: 8 · 2019: 12 · 2018: 6 · 2017: 8 · 2016: 9 · 2015: 8 · 2014: 8 · 2013: 16 · 2012: 8
- FWCI
- 18.10
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- Twin Research (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- University of Minnesota
- National Institutes of Health (2r01mh037860-07)
- National Institute of Mental Health (MH37860, 5 R01 MH37860, MH65137, R21MH065137, R21 MH 65137)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Personality Traits and Psychology
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Pediatrics, Perinatology and Child Health › Assisted Reproductive Technology and Twin Pregnancy
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Genetics › Genetic Associations and Epidemiology
- Keywords
- personality traits, twins, monozygotic twins, dizygotic twins, Minnesota Twin Registry, Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire, social proximity, replication, singletons
- MeSH terms
- Analysis of Variance, Female, Humans, Male, Personality, Personality Assessment, Surveys and Questionnaires, Twins, Twins, Dizygotic, Twins, Monozygotic
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