Being a Psychologist

One of the nice things about being a psych professor is having colleagues who know a lot about human cognition and behavior.  A good friend/colleague pointed out yesterday that the twins don't understand there are two of them in my belly. It takes a long time for infants (much less babies in utero) to understand that there is a world apart from them.  Infants don't understand that they end at the boundaries of their body and the rest of the world starts then.

What that means, we figured out, is that the twins probably "think" about each other as part of themselves.  There is not this "other baby" in here with me.  There is  "me",  and sometimes I kick myelf in the head or I take up too much space and squash myself and sometimes, I can cuddle with myself.

But it certainly explains why twins should share the same bassinet in the hospital and why they sleep better  beside each when they are still newborns/infants.  Otherwise, they are missing half of themselves.