There is a new documentary titled “Three Identical Strangers” which tells the story of three identical triplets who were separated at birth and raised by different families. It was shown at the recent Sundance Film Festival. The three, born in 1961, were part of a controversial psychology experiment to answer the nature versus nurture debate on raising children.
Robert Shafran, David Kellmann, and Eddy Gallan were monitored for the study by the Manhattan Child Development Center. It is headed by Dr. Peter Neubauer, a psychoanalyst. The experiment wanted to determine if the triplets became who they now are because of the environment they grew up, the New York Daily News reported.
27 minutes apart
The triplets were born 27 minutes apart from each other, Robert first, followed by David, and Eddy. They found out about
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Landmark moments, such as learning to ride a bike, were filmed and logged. Hours were spent by psychologists to watch them play with toys as well as to talk to their parents and adoptive siblings. They would also visit them at home sometimes.
Different social classes
Neubauer, to study the effects of the socio-economic environment on the development of the boys, placed them in homes from different social classes. Robert was placed with an affluent family in Scarsdale, Westchester County with a doctor for a father and a lawyer for a mother. Eddy’s father was a teacher who lived in a middle-class suburb on Long Island. David lived with his parents in Queens which is populated by the working class.
In response to criticisms why the triplets were separated at birth, Neubauer pointed out that adoption agency had a policy of splitting identical twins. The rationale behind the policy was to enable both twins to develop more of a separate identity instead of a shared one as what often happens to identical twins raised in one