Premium
Prosocial and self‐interested intra‐twin pair behavior in monozygotic and dizygotic twins in the early to middle childhood transition
Author(s) -
Yirmiya Karen,
Segal Nancy L.,
Bloch Guy,
KnafoNoam Ariel
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
developmental science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.801
H-Index - 127
eISSN - 1467-7687
pISSN - 1363-755X
DOI - 10.1111/desc.12665
Subject(s) - prosocial behavior , psychology , dizygotic twins , developmental psychology , reciprocity (cultural anthropology) , altruism (biology) , monozygotic twin , dizygotic twin , social psychology , cooperative breeding , helping behavior , twin study , heritability , demography , genetics , medicine , obstetrics , sociology , biology
Several related and complementary theoretical frameworks have been proposed to explain the existence of prosocial behavior, despite its potential fitness cost to the individual. These include kin selection theory, proposing that organisms have a propensity to help those to whom they are genetically related, and reciprocity, referring to the benefit of being prosocial, depending on past and future mutual interactions. A useful paradigm to examine prosociality is to compare mean levels of this behavior between monozygotic (MZ) and dizygotic (DZ) twins. Here, we examined the performance of 883 6.5‐year‐old twins (139 MZ and 302 DZ same‐sex 6.5‐year‐old full twin pairs) in the Differential Productivity Task. In this task, the twins’ behaviors were observed under two conditions: working for themselves vs. working for their co‐twin. There were no significant differences between the performances of MZ and DZ twins in the prosocial condition of the task. Correlations within the twin dyads were significantly higher in MZ than DZ twins in the self‐interested condition. However, similar MZ and DZ correlations were found in the prosocial condition, supporting the role of reciprocity in twins’ prosociality towards each other.