Vertical cultural transfer effects -- plausible but mostly not real
www.emilkirkegaard.com
Since this topic comes up repeatedly and I have to find the same studies over and over, here's a little review. Vertical cultural transfer (various other names: vertical cultural inheritance, cultural transmission) is the main effect proposed by various social scientists for the similarity of parents and kids. It differs from the shared environment concept. Shared environment is really a combination of several environmental effects that all affect children growing up in the same family. These can be 1) vertical downstream (parents to kids), 2) vertical upstream (kids to parents), and 3) various horizontal (siblings to each other, or older sibs to younger sibs). So when you find a shared environment effect in some classical twin study, pause and think about whether it might more plausibly reflect (2) or (3) rather than necessarily (1). The classical twin design -- the one that compares MZs and DZs both reared together -- cannot be used to study vertical transfer effects. However, various extended family designs can, most popularly the children of twins/extended twin design. Here's 4 studies that have examined vertical transfer effects with these designs.
Vertical cultural transfer effects -- plausible but mostly not real
Vertical cultural transfer effects …
Vertical cultural transfer effects -- plausible but mostly not real
Since this topic comes up repeatedly and I have to find the same studies over and over, here's a little review. Vertical cultural transfer (various other names: vertical cultural inheritance, cultural transmission) is the main effect proposed by various social scientists for the similarity of parents and kids. It differs from the shared environment concept. Shared environment is really a combination of several environmental effects that all affect children growing up in the same family. These can be 1) vertical downstream (parents to kids), 2) vertical upstream (kids to parents), and 3) various horizontal (siblings to each other, or older sibs to younger sibs). So when you find a shared environment effect in some classical twin study, pause and think about whether it might more plausibly reflect (2) or (3) rather than necessarily (1). The classical twin design -- the one that compares MZs and DZs both reared together -- cannot be used to study vertical transfer effects. However, various extended family designs can, most popularly the children of twins/extended twin design. Here's 4 studies that have examined vertical transfer effects with these designs.