Adoption Studies Flashcards
How would you conduct an adoption study?
Find an adopted individual with a specific trait and look at how many of their biological family members and adopted family members also share that trait and compare those two concordances
Look at the frequency with which a trait occurs in children living with a parent
who has that same trait
Look at rates for children of people with that trait who have been adopted into families without that trait
Look at differences in frequency between groups and compare levels with the baseline level in the population
Why are adoption studies good for society?
Helps determine whether a behaviour is due to nature or nature so its useful in helping us determining why a behaviour may occur
Why are adoption studies not good in regards to time?
Recruitment may take a long time to find children who meet the criteria and match to families so its time consuming as it may take several years.
Why are adoption studies good ethically?
Adoption is a naturally occurring event that does not require manipulation of groups from the researcher
Why might adoption studies not establish nature and nurture?
prenatal environment of the children may be different
What is another reason as to why adoption studies can’t establish nature and nurture?
Adopted children may be adopted by a family culturally similar to their biological one and so may end up with some shared environment
What is a weakness of using adoption studies in regards to high attrition rate?
Participants may drop out so results in the adoption studies may not longer be representative
