Family resemblance (anthropology)

Family resemblance refers to physical similarities shared between close relatives, especially between parents and children and between siblings.

For example, one study found that approximately half of personality differences in high-school aged fraternal and identical twins were due to genetic variation - and another study suggests that no one personality trait is more heritable than another.

[6][8] Family resemblance is also shaped by environmental factors, temperature, light, nutrition, exposure to drugs, the time that different family members spend in shared and non-shared environments, are examples of factors found to influence phenotype.

[9][10][11] Phenotypes found to be largely environmentally determined in humans include personality, height, and weight.

[10][15][16] Additionally, anomalous findings, such as second-degree relatives of alcoholics, showing surprising similarities to them have led some researchers’ attempts in generating better models that account for the environmental impacts on influences like cultural inheritance, family structure and head of household, which have been shown to influence family resemblance.