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Nature, Nurture, and Individual Differences in Early Understanding of Mind
Claire Hughes 1 & Alexandra L. Cutting 2
  1 Medical Research Council Child & Adolescent Psychiatry Unit, Institute of Psychiatry, London, U.K.,   2 Social, Genetic & Developmental Psychiatry Research Centre, Institute of Psychiatry, London, U.K.
Copyright 1999 American Psychological Society

ABSTRACT

The ability to understand other minds is a dramatic development that enables children to adapt to their social worlds. In this first genetic analysis of the phenomenon, using 119 same-sex 3-year-old twin pairs, evidence for substantial genetic influence was found. Intraclass correlations for identical and fraternal twins were .66 and .32, respectively; the maximum-likelihoodmodel-fitting estimate of heritability was 67%. Bivariate model-fitting analyses showed that most (66%) of this genetic influence on understanding of mind was independent of verbal ability. Environmental influences on understanding of mind were attributed to child-specific factors,rather than those shared by children in the same family.

DIGITAL OBJECT IDENTIFIER (DOI)
10.1111/1467-9280.00181 About DOI

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