Twins: Double the Magic?

MARGOT AMOUYAL: There are a lot of ideas out there about twins. Maybe you’ve
heard some of them … like that twins have superpowers and are able to
telecommunicate, or that they are symbols of happiness or danger.

AUSTIN: Me and my brother were always on the same wavelength, and I was like,
wow, I have a buddy and a partner in crime … so we were kind of joined at the hip. That
was just kind of what we were. We still are but now like miles and miles away. It’s a long
hip.

MARGOT AMOUYAL: That was Austin Kelly, an identical twin and first-year theater
major from Pelham, New York. Austin’s brother, Andrew, studies at Columbia University.

AUSTIN KELLY: When I do bring it up, people are like, woah, that’s crazy. People used
to bring it up to me a lot because I was in a small town with both me and my brother.

MARGOT AMOUYAL: For this quarter’s special broadcast on 11/11, WNUR News will
be digging into the role superstitions play in our modern society. This segment? The
superstition of twins. Is it real? Is it not? What’s it like to be a twin? What role do twins
play in our modern world?

MARGOT AMOUYAL: While the Kelly twins are very similar, Austin says there are a lot
of differences too.

AUSTIN KELLY: So we’ve worked out to be pretty much steadily the same person, for
probably up until sophomore year of high school … we had all the same friends, that
kind of stuff. But then the pandemic kind of hit and we were like trying to focus on
ourselves. And then that’s when we like, we’re like, okay, we’re into different things,
actually.

MARGOT AMOUYAL: Austin started to spend more time on theater and comedy, while
his brother furthered his passion for science.

AUSTIN KELLY: He has been like, like a super big STEM kid, and I would just, like, be
singing in my room. I think that we’re both smart, because I need to hold on to that, and
I think that we’re both doing great things. And probably well, he’ll be able to cook meth a lot easier.

MARGOT AMOUYAL: Another difference? Their appearances.

AUSTIN KELLY: I really do think that now we are apart this is a way … to explore
myself. I can tell that he has been doing the same thing because he’s wildly changing
his appearance. He has bleached hair now, and a bunch of piercings and two tattoos.
For comparison, I know you can’t see me because this is radio. I have none of those
things.

MARGOT AMOUYAL: Well, do Austin and Andrew have magical powers?

AUSTIN KELLY: People would ask me and my brother if we could think of the same
number at the same time. And, well, I try to make it work because I always think of the
same number, and I actively tell my brother, I’m always thinking seven. This guy’s
always saying three, and it’s infuriating. But, no, we don’t have telepathic powers.

MARGOT AMOUYAL: So here’s our answer no, and that checks out. Throughout
history there have been many tales of twins having magical powers, but, as I’m sure you
would expect, none of these accounts have been confirmed by scientists over time. I’m
sure you needed a podcast to figure that one out!

MARGOT AMOUYAL: But, while twins might not be magical in a Harry Potter sense,
they still have a superpower: twins are a natural scientific experiment.

DANIEL MROCZEK: Twin studies are so valuable for all kinds of psychological
research.

MARGOT AMOUYAL: Dr. Daniel Mroczek is a professor of psychology at Northwestern
University and the Feinberg School of Medicine. His research predominantly focuses on
personality development and health.

DANIEL MROCZEK: Any differences between them, physical differences, any kind of
behavioral differences have to be due to the environment, they can’t be due to genetic
factors because you’ve completely controlled for genes.

MARGOT AMOUYAL: Let’s take a look at one example of a twin study. In 2021, Dr.
Mroczek co-authored a paper that used identical twins to show that, on average, higher
income was correlated with a higher lifespan. Another important finding that emerged
from twin studies? The significance of peer groups on one’s lifespan and personality
development.

DANIEL MROCZEK: That’s one of the classic findings of twin studies. It’s not just on
personality, it’s on everything. It’s on relationships, it’s on psychology pathology, like any
dimension you can think of there is this effect of peer-to-peer influence being stronger
than family influence.

MARGOT AMOUYAL: But, influences, such as peer groups, can not only be seen as
cause and effect. This realization brought about the theory of “birectionality” in
psychology research. This realization makes psychology research even more difficult to
conduct. How does a researcher design studies that pick out the impacts someone
sparks versus the ones they are affected by? What happens if they co-exist? Are
personality traits reinforced by behavior or are they adaptable? And, even though twins
are useful tools for helping address these questions, they alone are not enough. But
scientists, like Dr. Mroczek, work every day to address these questions and to help us
better understand the ways we interact with the world and the ways the world interacts
with us.

DANIEL MROCZEK: The ethos of research and science is that you always
have to stay open minded. The public doesn’t want that as they want a definitive
answer. The truth usually takes a long time, so there’s this tension between the
fundamental aspect of science where you may not know the end for quite some time,
and we don’t want to lose the trust of the public in the meantime.

MARGOT AMOUYAL: So, while twins might not have magical powers per se or hold
the truths to the psychological universe, they do help make our complicated world a little
easier to understand.

MARGOT AMOUYAL: For WNUR News, I’m Margot Amouyal, a journalist and a twin
myself.