Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences

Living Edition
| Editors: Virgil Zeigler-Hill, Todd K. Shackelford

Dizygotic Twins

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_743-1
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Synonyms

Biovular twins, Fraternal twins

Definition

Dizygotic (DZ) twins are children born from one pregnancy as a result of the fertilization of two eggs by two separate sperm (di – two, zygote – fertilized egg). The terms “nonidentical” and “dissimilar” are also used to refer to DZ twins, but these are more general and can refer to all polyzygotic sets (triplets, quadruplets, etc.).

Introduction

Unlike monozygotic (MZ) twins, which develop from one fertilized egg and share 100% of their genes, DZ twins share an average of 50% of genes just like singleton siblings, and they can be either same sex or opposite sex.

The frequency of DZ twin births varies in different populations from 0.6% to 4.5% of all births and depends on a number of factors, including the mother’s race and ethnicity. In sub-Saharan Africa, DZ twins are born twice as often as in Europe and five times as often as in Japan or China.

Causes of Twinning

The prerequisite for DZ twins is polyovulation (the maturation of two...

Keywords

Dizygotic Twin Gestation Period Twin Birth Prenatal Testosterone Singleton Sibling 
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
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Copyright information

© Springer International Publishing AG 2016

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Department of PsychologyLomonosov Moscow State UniversityMoscowRussia