On Netflix, there is a fascinating documentary called ‘Three Identical Strangers’ following the story of triplets: Edward Galland, David Kellman and Robert Shafran, separated at birth as part of a study by Peter B. Neubauer and Viola W. Bernard. The study involved monitoring and testing the children through their childhoods to discover whether their behaviours changed based on the environment they were brought up in; each triplet had been adopted by a different family. The parents were all unaware their baby had siblings and each raised their child in completely different environments.

Unfortunately, there were many issues in carrying out such an experiment. The film gives evidence that the triplets suffered with mental health issues during their adolescent years, likely due to separation anxiety caused by being taken away from their siblings having lived in the womb with them during the pregnancy period. This caused one triplet, Edward Galland, to take his own life in 1995. Such harm caused by a psychological experiment seems unjustifiable.

Furthermore, the lack of awareness of the parents of the situation they were in was ethically wrong as one family stated that they would’ve happily taken the other two in as well had they known there were three. While this wouldn’t have allowed Neubauer and Bernard to carry out the experiment, the triplets may have had far happier, healthier lives. Instead, they were forced to meet each other 19 years after being separated by complete coincidence.

The experiment did, however, allow us to make some conclusions regarding the ‘nature vs nurture’ argument. Each triplet grew up with a different personality and character despite having identical genetics, suggesting that nurture may have more to do with a person’s character than genetics. However, this experiment was not ethically justified because such an extreme, harmful study should not be carried out unless there was no other way of drawing similar conclusions in another way.

This is a really interesting documentary to watch if you want to look closer at the ethics of psychological experiments and the nature versus nurture debate. It may also be relevant to the A level topic of attachment.