Does Birth Order Determine Personality?
Does Birth Order Determine Personality?
Adult traits may not be preordained by place in the family heirarchy, researchers say
MONDAY, Oct. 19, 2015 (HealthDay News) -- Forget what you've heard about birth order determining your adult personality, a new study suggests.
Birth order does not influence any of the "big five" personality traits -- extroversion, emotional stability, agreeableness, conscientiousness or openness to experience, said lead researcher Julia Rohrer, a graduate student at the University of Leipzig in Germany. She and her colleagues reviewed data on more than 20,000 adults from the United States, Great Britain and Germany to arrive at their conclusions.
Firstborns did score higher in intelligence, but Rohrer said she believes this stems more from social interactions within a family than from birth order.
"A firstborn can 'tutor' their younger siblings, explaining how the world works and so on," Rohrer said. "Teaching other people has high cognitive demands -- the children need to recall their own knowledge, structure it and think of a good way to explain it -- which could be a boost to intelligence for some firstborns."
Longstanding psychological theory holds that firstborns are privileged but also burdened with responsibility; middle children are attention-seekers who struggle to find their own identity; and the "baby" becomes spoiled from being showered with affection, Rohrer said.
To test this theory, Rohrer and colleagues reviewed personality and intelligence data on 5,240 Americans, 4,489 Britons, and 10,456 Germans, all gathered by national surveys conducted in each country.
The researchers report they were unable to find any pattern of personality traits based on where a person fell within the family. This finding held whether they lumped all the data together or examined each country separately.
"What is most striking about these findings is that they are in conflict with those of other large studies that have shown that birth order differences in personality definitely exist, even if they are rather modest in magnitude," said Frank Sulloway, an adjunct professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, who specializes in birth order and personality.
Prior research may have mistaken the effect that kids' age has on their personality with some potential effect from the order of their birth, Rohrer said.
Does Birth Order Determine Personality?
Adult traits may not be preordained by place in the family heirarchy, researchers say
MONDAY, Oct. 19, 2015 (HealthDay News) -- Forget what you've heard about birth order determining your adult personality, a new study suggests.
Birth order does not influence any of the "big five" personality traits -- extroversion, emotional stability, agreeableness, conscientiousness or openness to experience, said lead researcher Julia Rohrer, a graduate student at the University of Leipzig in Germany. She and her colleagues reviewed data on more than 20,000 adults from the United States, Great Britain and Germany to arrive at their conclusions.
Firstborns did score higher in intelligence, but Rohrer said she believes this stems more from social interactions within a family than from birth order.
"A firstborn can 'tutor' their younger siblings, explaining how the world works and so on," Rohrer said. "Teaching other people has high cognitive demands -- the children need to recall their own knowledge, structure it and think of a good way to explain it -- which could be a boost to intelligence for some firstborns."
Longstanding psychological theory holds that firstborns are privileged but also burdened with responsibility; middle children are attention-seekers who struggle to find their own identity; and the "baby" becomes spoiled from being showered with affection, Rohrer said.
To test this theory, Rohrer and colleagues reviewed personality and intelligence data on 5,240 Americans, 4,489 Britons, and 10,456 Germans, all gathered by national surveys conducted in each country.
The researchers report they were unable to find any pattern of personality traits based on where a person fell within the family. This finding held whether they lumped all the data together or examined each country separately.
"What is most striking about these findings is that they are in conflict with those of other large studies that have shown that birth order differences in personality definitely exist, even if they are rather modest in magnitude," said Frank Sulloway, an adjunct professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley, who specializes in birth order and personality.
Prior research may have mistaken the effect that kids' age has on their personality with some potential effect from the order of their birth, Rohrer said.