When trying to find research for our expert to talk about we found it really difficult as there is not much twin studies that have actually been carried out by pyschologists.
This is a website I found that explains twin studies;
This is an article about two over weight identical twins where one had a gastric bypass surgery on the NHS and lost 11 stone and the other is still over weight. It is interesting to see how it changes their relationship.
This is a very good article about a Radio 4 programme “DOES
an original work of art have more value than a copy...and if so, why?” Twins Lindsey
and Karen joined in the discussion and this is what they had to say.
“Our part in it was to discuss what
it is like to have a genetic copy of yourself, do you feel the same and what
are your differences?”
But what was it like as a twin being
involved in a discussion about ‘copies’?
Karen said: “We don’t get offended if
people mix us up and we don’t feel any less
individual if people mix us up, but then we don’t know any different. I look at
Lindsey and it is like looking in a mirror.
“We don’t feel we have to go out of
our way to be the same or different. We have similar hair but that is the way
we feel our hair suits us. We might look more different if we were striving for
individuality but we don’t feel any less of a person because there is someone
very similar to us either.”
We want our documentary to be quite fun and modern and fit in well with the other documentaries on BBC 3. This is a documentary on BBC 3 called Freak Like Me it is presented by Russel Kane and it is about people with odd habits.
As part of our documentary we want to have psychological input to really get into the mind of twins and find out if there is any studies to show whether or not they can really feel each others pains and things like that. Me and Maddie both did Psychology at A-Level and we have been in contact with our psychology teacher to see if he knew of any studies which would help us and to also ask if he would be in our programme as our expert. He's just got back to me with a good article and to say that he would be more than happy to help us out and be in our film. We are so excited about this it feels like everything is starting to fall into place all we need to do know is find a 3rd set of twins.
The world's largest gathering of twins took place this weekend in Twinsburg,
Ohio.
More than 2,000 sets of twins and multiples took part in the event, which
started in 1976.
The gathering provides entertainment, food, a twins' parade, music, and
contests for the "most alike" and "least alike".
The city of Twinsburg was founded in 1819 by the twins Moses and Aaron
Wilcox.
They were identical twins who were also business partners. The Wilcoxes
married two sisters, had the same number of children and died of the same
ailment a few hours apart.
At the festival, 10 teams of researchers study the pool of twins
available.
Identical twins have 100% matching DNA, offering scientists the opportunity
to compare between genetically identical people.
The University of Virginia is focusing on marriages, family and
relationships.
At the festival, the researchers say they can compare "apples and apples",
and try to establish, for example, why is one identical twin is happy but the
other is not.
Meanwhile, Pittsburgh's Carlow University is studying how genetics affect our
behaviour online.
How much time does each twin spend on social networks or shopping online? How
many times they have been scammed? Is it nature or nurture?
So originally we wanted to get older twins who had spent their whole lives together and are now living in a nursing home together but we were having a bit of trouble trying to find them. We have decided to change it and have our first episode from the point of view of the parents of twins.
I added myself to a few twin Facebook groups including one which was called "Parents Of Identical Twins". I added a post and I got a lot of interest on it.
I made contact with a few of the parents who replied to my post and I have asked them to answer these questions.
Questions To Ask Parents
Do twins run in your family?
How did you feel when you knew you were expecting twins?
What was the birth like?
How far apart where the births?
How did you choose their names? Was it a theme? Do they
rhyme?
Can you tell them apart? How?
Do you ever get them mixed up?
Do they have different personalities?
Do you dress them the same?
Do they have any other siblings? If so how do they and
the twins get on?
Has anything spooky happened like them doing exactly the
same thing at the same time or reacting to the other ones pain?
When they are older will you try and keep them together
or encourage them to be individual?
How do you spread you love and attention evenly?
Do your twins get on?
I'm hoping that I get a good response but for now I will just sit and wait.
Freak was a drama series on Myspace a couple of years ago. I know it's not a documentary series but I thought it would be good for us to have a look at to see how a web series is put together and marketed.
I have just been having a look on Youtube and I have found some videos of Georgio and Dino from the Only Way is Essex taking part in head to head challenges. I have again downloaded them so that I can watch them with Maddie and hopefully this will give us further inspiration for our challenges in our own doc.
My sister is a Youtube addict and anything you need to find on Youtube she will know where to find it. When me and Maddie told her about our Twin documentary and how we wanted to ask the twins questions on life as a twin she said "Oh you should defo check out twin tags on youtube".
Twin tags are videos of twins answering questions about being twins. I typed twin tag into Youtube and thousands of videos came up. I have downloaded a couple of them to watch with Maddie to help us get some more of an idea about what kind of answers we can expect from the twins.
This is a blog set up by a man called Larry Horowitz he has made a series of personal history documentaries including this one on 77 year old identical twins Iris and Frances talking about their life history and current events.
