Triplets separated at birth in real life experiment on nature vs nurture

‘Three Identical Strangers‘ is about triplets separated at birth and later reunited. Photo: Mongrel Media

When Robert Shafran started community college in upstate New York in 1980, he was puzzled that some of his fellow students seemed unusually friendly, acting as though they already knew him. That mystery is retold in the opening moments of the movie Three Identical Strangers, and it gets more bizarre from there.

Spoiler alert: Shafran learned he was one of a set of triplets who were separated soon after birth and placed with adoptive families – part of a study in which researchers explored the age-old question of how human beings are shaped by nature and nurture.