Twin expert shows compassion in her research | Campus News

Nancy Segal, a psychology professor and the director of the Twin Studies Center at Cal State Fullerton, shot into the spotlight of psychological research in the early 1990s for contributing to a University of Minnesota study that compared the similarity of twins reared apart versus twins raised together. The study revealed that genetics did have a role in people’s behavior.

The Minnesota study of twins raised apart is considered a groundbreaking moment in psychological research, which cemented her reputation as one of the leading experts in twin psychology.

She said she was drawn to psychology because she had an innate interest in people and how they became who they were. As a fraternal twin, she also became curious about how her and her sister were different in ways other than appearance.

“She’s one of the foremost twins researchers. She was involved in that seminal study that pretty much all students learn in their psychology 101 class,” said Steven Miller, associate professor of psychology at Rosalind Franklin College of Science and Medicine in Chicago, Illinois.

Founded in 1991, the same year Segal began teaching at Cal State Fullerton, The Twin Studies Center serves as a space for colleagues, students and herself to work on their psychological research on twin relationships.

“I realized the advantage of having a named center, and when I came to Fullerton, I felt that it would really be to my advantage to have a named center that would support my research and the research of my students and my colleagues, but also very importantly, to have a resource for the public,” Segal said.

Segal said that twin research is important because it answers if behaviors are the result of genetics or upbringing. This also means that people may be able to learn more about themselves by exploring their genetic history as well as their life experiences.

Her latest work, a book published in November 2021 called “Deliberately Divided: Inside the Controversial Study of Twins and Triplets Adopted Apart,” delves into the harrowing tale of ethical boundaries being crossed in the name of scientific discovery.

The book tells of an exploratory study headed by Peter Neubauer, a child psychiatrist, in collaboration with now-obsolete New York adoption agency Louise Wise services. The head researcher separated four sets of identical twins and one set of identical triplets at birth to see how different parenting styles affected children with similar genetic makeups.

Segal said this study has been deemed controversial because the children were separated without the parents’ knowledge that their children had a twin sibling. The results of this study have not been published and are being held in Yale University’s library until 2065, she said.

Although the actions that the researchers took were not illegal, they were considered highly immoral, Segal said. To prevent a situation like this from happening again, Segal said that there needed to be more respect for human subjects in twin studies and stricter rules or regulations for breaking ethical guidelines.

“I think what I would like to see more of, although we’re moving in that direction too, is more appreciation or respect for the importance of sibling and twin relationships,” Segal said. “I would like to see rules, not just guidelines; I’d like to see real legislation passed that, aside from very mitigating circumstances, all siblings and twins should be placed in the same home.”

Despite the previous coverage and movies created about Neubauer’s study, her account of the study puts her compassion and morality at the forefront of the work. Joseph Nedelec, associate professor in the School of Criminal Justice at the University of Cincinnati, praised Segal’s book for humanizing the twins and triplets included in the study and for taking a more nuanced standpoint on the researchers involved.

“I think what Nancy’s book did was illustrate that this is nuanced; this whole story is nuanced that these aren’t necessarily evil people. What they did was unconscionable, but not necessarily with evil intent,” Nedelec said.

Graduate students of Segal’s have also picked up on their mentor’s strong sense of morality. Elizabeth Pratt-Thompson, an M.A. student in the psychology department and Segal’s graduate assistant in the Twin Studies lab, said that Segal sets an example for her students to have compassion for the human participants in their studies and to conduct research in an ethical and moral way.

“It helps younger researchers, like myself, understand how important ethics are and how important it is to research ethically and be moral in your work,” Pratt-Thompson said. “Because is the research even important if it’s not done ethically?”

Segal’s teaching methods have also left an impact on her students. Jamie Fuentecilla, faculty member at the University of Texas at Austin in the department of human development and family sciences, worked with Segal during her Master’s program. She said that one of the qualities she picked up Segal as a mentor herself is to provide resources for her students.

“I mentor like her in the sense that I’m able to provide resources to my mentees that are neither typical nor required in the field, so I feel like I go above and beyond because she did that for me,” Fuentecilla said.

Segal is currently working on two books. The first is about a 2018 case in Los Angeles involving a gay couple who had twin children via surrogate, which would comment on immigration, family separation, gay marriage and twinship. The second book is an annotated photo collection from a 1985 trip to Poland and Israel in remembrance of the Jewish Holocaust.

As a researcher, Segal said she hopes that people read her most recent book and keep in mind how blind scientific ambition can harm human research subjects. As a professor and mentor, she said she wants students to know that they should be able to find their passion and enjoy what they do for a living.

“I’ve always told them that any project they take on, any field they enter, has got to be something they love, and then their lives are guaranteed to be happy,” Segal said. “Never do anything to please other people, that’s a big mistake.”