Psychology Commons^™

Loneliness In Middle Childhood: Social Connectedness And Genetic Relatedness, Taryn Larribas, Margaret Gross, Meenakshi Palaniappan, Helena Karnilowics, Shannon Mccarthy

Creative Activity and Research Day - CARD

The evolutionary approach argues that genetic similarity contributes to greater social similarity due to their desire to protect their genes. The social perspective model argues that loneliness is impacted by social relationships. It is hypothesized that MZ twins will show support for the evolutionary perspective, having the closest levels of loneliness, and will have levels comparable to FFs (Segal, 2000). It is hypothesized that loneliness means will show the following pattern: MZ < DZ = FS < VT with MZ = FF. Additionally, it is hypothesized that there will be a gender difference in loneliness in that M > F (Junttila & Vauras, 2009).

Participants were 300 pairs of children (8-12 years), who took part in the TAPS Study. The hypothesis was examined using 54 pairs of …

Parental Differential Treatment: A Twin-Sibling-Adoptee Study, Meenakshi Palaniappan, Helena Karnilowicz, Shannon Mccarthy, Taryn Larribas, Margaret Gross, Shirley Mcguire, Nancy Segal

Creative Activity and Research Day - CARD

From a behavioral genetic perspective, similar experiences between siblings will vary by genetic relatedness. The purpose of the present study was to examine parental differential treatment across twins, siblings, and adoptees using a genetic model. Mothers of 54 monozygotic (MZ) twins, 86 dizygotic (DZ) twins, 68 full siblings (FS), and 43 same-aged adoptees (VT) reported their differential treatment of both siblings in three dimensions: school, play, and discipline. The results supported our genetic hypothesis, with a significant effect for dyad type, F (9, 581) = 2.47, p<0.01.