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Sibling Studies

  • Living reference work entry
  • First Online:
Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science

Synonyms

Sibling comparison; Sibling design; Sibling method

Definition

Research designs that use sibling comparisons to infer genetic and environmental contributions to phenotypes.

Introduction

Sibling studies are a class of research methodologies that compare siblings within and/or between families. A genetically informed subtype of sibling study utilizes information about genetic relatedness between siblings and principals of genetic inheritance to infer both environmental and genetic influences on phenotypes. Genetically informed sibling studies include monozygotic (MZ) and dizygotic twins (DZ), nontwin full siblings, half-siblings, and adopted siblings.

Twin Designs

Basic twin studies compare concordance or correlations between pairs of MZ and DZ twins to evaluate trait heritability. Monozygotic twins are genetically identical (i.e., identical twins) whereas dizygotic twins share only 50 % of their genes, on average, and are genetically the same as full siblings (i.e., fraternal...

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University at Albany, SUNY, Albany, New York, USA

    G. L. Schlomer

  2. Department of Psychology, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA

    B. J. Ellis

Authors
  1. G. L. Schlomer
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  2. B. J. Ellis
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to G. L. Schlomer or B. J. Ellis .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Oakland Univ Dept of Psycholgy, Rochester, Michigan, USA

    Viviana Weekes-Shackelford

  2. Department of Psychology, Oakland University, Rochester, Michigan, USA

    Todd K. Shackelford

  3. Rochester, Michigan, USA

    Viviana A. Weekes-Shackelford

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© 2016 Springer International Publishing Switzerland

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Schlomer, G.L., Ellis, B.J. (2016). Sibling Studies. In: Weekes-Shackelford, V., Shackelford, T., Weekes-Shackelford, V. (eds) Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_1925-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_1925-1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-16999-6

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