Twinship as a resource: Zygosity- and gender-based comparison of twins' attitudes toward twinship

摘要

Aiming to perform the first sociological survey of Hungarian twins, our main question was whether being a twin has positive consequences on one's life. Adult twins completed our questionnaire at three Hungarian summer twin festivals, in hospitals during medical twin studies, and on some websites online. Data represent 140 twin pairs (mean age: 38.2 ± 14.6 years). We employed some indices for measuring the resource nature of twinship. Three main types of benefits were distinguished: profit of attraction, as 'material capital'; the easier obtainability of cultural goods when twins take part in it, as 'cultural capital'; and positive aspects of an a priori existing dyadic relation, as 'relational capital'. We were interested in the difference among types of twins regarding advantages. We paid special attention to the five groups of twins derived from gender and zygosity (i.e., monozygotic females, monozygotic males, dizygotic females, dizygotic males, opposite-sex pairs). Our analysis showed that Hungarian twins involved in our research basically enjoy their twinship; during their lives they used and still make use of different benefits given by it. In our twin samples, women had more advantages from being a twin than men. Significant differences could be observed on all indicators between monozygotic and dizygotic twins.