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" Indeed, a Danish study according to Kety et al. (as cited in Kalat, 2012) "found schizophrenia in 12.5% of the immediate biological relatives and none of the adopting parents." It can therefore be noted that although only a small percentage of the general population suffers from schizophrenia, having close familial relations with someone suffering from the same does increase an individual's chances of developing schizophrenia. The disorder is thus inheritable. This effectively means that Alan's chances of becoming schizophrenic are rather high given that both his parents had schizophrenia.
It is however important to note that as I had already indicated earlier, environmental factors also do play a role in the development of schizophrenia. If one twin is schizophrenic, then it does not automatically mean that the other twin could be suffering from the same condition as well. This effectively means that genetic predisposition is not the only cause of the disorder. Indeed, according to Kalat (2012), a number of studies conducted in the past on adopted children have clearly demonstrated that environmental influences also do play a role...
As the author further points out, one such study in Finland came to a conclusion that adopted children who are already exposed to the genetic risk of developing schizophrenia have a higher probability of developing the said condition if they are brought up in an adopting family that happens to be severely disorganized. In that regard, good parenting on the part of Allan's adoptive parents could help bring down Alan's chances of developing schizophrenia. In the final analysis, the chances of Alan becoming schizophrenic are largely tied to genetic and environmental factors.
References
Kalat, J.W. (2012). Biological Psychology (11th ed.). Belmont, CA: Cengage Learning.
Kearney, C.A. & Trull, T.J. (2011). Abnormal Psychology and Life: A Dimensional Approach. Belmont, CA: Cengage Learning.
National Center for Biotechnology Information, U.S. National Library of Medicine -- NCBI, NLM (2012, February 13). Schizophrenia: Childhood-Onset Schizophrenia. Retrieved February 9, 2013, from the NCBI, NLM website: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0001925/
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