Adoption studies

Question 1

what are adoption studies?

Answer 1

find adopted parent.adopted child with specific trait and look at how many of their biological family members and adopted family members also share that trait-compare to concordances

Question 2

how do researchers use adoption studies?

Answer 2

• researchers look at frequency with which a trait occurs in children living with parent with 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-may also compare levels with baseline level in population

Question 3

what are STRENGTHS for adoption studies?

Answer 3

• -one of only ways we can differentiate nature from nurture
• adoptions naturally occurring-no ethical poorness to it

Question 4

what are WEAKNESSES of adoption studies?

Answer 4

• recruiting can be difficult-hard to find children fulfilling criteria-time-consuming
• hard to tell nature from nurture-possible that prenatal environment of children will be different as mothers
• adopted child may be adopted by family culturally similar to biological one-share environment
• attrition