Texas Adoption Project

The main sample consists of 300 families who adopted a child from a Texas home for unwed mothers between 1963 and 1971. Included are ability and personality data from the adoptees and other children in the families, from the adoptive mothers and fathers, and from many of the birth mothers of the adopted children.

The data include an initial study in the late 1970s, a ten-year follow-up of the children in the late 1980s, interviews with the parents in about half the adoptive families between 1997 and 2002, and a short mail questionnaire in 2002-2005 focused on life outcomes. The second sample consists of 220 families who adopted a child from the same institution prior to 1966. The data are comprised of item responses and scale scores from two personality inventories completed by mail in 1980 by 215 fathers, 219 mothers, 302 adopted children, and 63 biological children of the adoptive parents.