Birth Order Affects on Personality

After Frank Sulloway published his popular studies on how birth order affects individuals (1996 & 1999), many researchers delved into the field to determine how personality is affected by birth order. General hypotheses state that most first-born children are more intelligent than those born later, and that the youngest children are more social. Many more similar hypotheses exist in the field, and through several researches, more information on the actual relationship between birth order and personality is available. These researches and experiments give insight into the psychological significance of birth order.

According to Alfred Adler, the birth order of the children in a family will largely affect how they age and the personalities which they will form. First borns enter the family as the only child. They revel in the love and full attention from their parents, that is, until the second baby comes along. Suddenly, first borns are dethroned and lose the undivided attention they are used to receiving. As a result, they tend to develop a strong sense of responsibility and protectiveness over their siblings at an early age, which often leads to them becoming authoritative adults. Moreover, when there are multiple children in the family, parents will set high

Almost all of us are familiar of the Birth Order theory that Alfred Adler presented almost a century ago. Adler theorized that our personalities are hugely influenced by our chronological place in the family because

Among the first psychologists to consider the effect of birth order on personality was Alfred Adler. Adler espoused that birth order was determinative of the amount of attention that children garnered from their parents (Adler, 1964). The first perspective on birth order thus stemmed from a belief that individuals competed for attention and for areas of strength as a response to parental expectations.

The first journal article I found is called “Birth Order Impacts: Real or imagined? A Review of Literature Past and Present” and this article is very interesting because it details how research has proven that this in fact it is true. “Even Charles Darwin, the revolutionary biologist who proposed the theory of evolution based in natural selection, took a stance that birth order must impact how an organism travels through life” (Govek, 2012). The author also states very good points of research that has been done with infant temperament. “Starting as early as infant temperament, researchers have posed that a child’s later personality can be determined. Where birth order is concerned, it can have an impact on personality, as it has an impact on

Have you ever thought about if your mom treats you differently than the oldest or the youngest kid? If you are the youngest or the oldest have you ever thought that the middle child was treated better than you just because it's the the middle child like everyone always thinks and everything is just easier for them. Well it just might be true in another way. The birth order does affect things that happen to you. In many ways such as allergies, ADHD, and PTSD. Birth Order of when kids are born can have effects on them for the rest of their lives.

Have you wished that you could switch places with your siblings? Whether it is because they are getting more attention from your parents or because they seem to be having more fun, understanding where your place is in the family can reveal a lot about your personality. There are many different factors that impact one’s emotions, outlook, and behavior, but birth order is the most influential. Birth order can impact every facet of our lives, including careers, relationships, and personality. The place that you were born into your family influences the way you interact with other people. But, how can multiple kids from same parents in the same house be so different?

Bob likes to be the center of attention. Joe feels that he has authority. Julia tries to outdo everyone and Jimmy just wants to be bigger than the others. What do these all have to do with Birth Order? These all deal with the children’s characteristics depending upon when they were born. Birth Order is the cause of each person’s personality and individual characteristics.

Through different studies like the General Social Survey, it’s clear that birth order does influence personality development and in turn social behavior. This paper explains the factors within the studies and how they proceed to showcase the correlation between birth order and personality development. These results help affirm that a person’s birth order does affect how their personality develops.

The birth order effect has proved to be a highly debated topic among psychologists and scientists for many years. Magazine pages are flooded with articles about how your birth order can help you pick a spouse or a career. Hundreds of books have been written about the way that birth order affects your personality and intelligence levels. There are many articles written on parenting websites suggesting the best parenting styles to use depending on the birth order of a child. Is the birth order effect a significant factor in who we are or just an elaborate, long-standing hoax? Birth order is the numerical order you are born in relative to your siblings (Moore and Cox, 1990). When a couple has a child, that child will be considered an only child until another child is born. When this second child is born that couple now has a firstborn and a baby of the family. If that couple goes on to have yet another child the first child remains the firstborn, the second child moves to the position of middle child, and the new child is now the baby of the family. The birth order effect emphasizes

Personality is determined by a number of influences such as genes, environment, social class and family. While all of these factors play significant roles, family tends to be one of the most influential. From an outside perspective, family influences makes members of that household more alike. However, there are many aspects that can differentiate siblings personalities. In the text, factors such as birth order and gender are used to discuss personality differences within families (Cervone, 2014). In a historical context, male siblings often were viewed as more important due to family lineage and inheritance. There is also believed to be a bias in birth order with the eldest holding more significance (Cervone, 2014).

From the very moment a person is born, they are subject to judgment. While this unconscious social labeling may seem unwarranted, it still exists and how a person is perceived can be traced to something very specific in many cases. The specific thing is birth order and how it affects one’s awareness of their self and others. Alfred Adler was considered to be the initial researcher of birth order, with theories of how a child’s birth rank affected their development, not only physically but mentally (Franz Description). Birth order within society has a positive effect on personality development, health, and education.

The debate between whether there is a correlation between familial birth order and specific personality traits, such as intelligence, success, and social skills, has been discussed and argues since 1874, where Francis Galton started to first look at the subject. The birth order’s impact on the individual is a subject that still is questionable on whether it exist or not to this day. There are plenty of studies that argue for and against this correlation, but the real question is which is right? Through this study I will look to try and reassure a reassure a correlation between birth order and personalities traits, through examining the main focus question, how does birth order influence the personality and learning styles of an individual?

This paper presents the study conducted on psychology students to determine if birth order has a direct causal relationship with personality, notably the Big Five personality traits, which include openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness and neuroticism. The study focusses mainly on Alder and Sulloway’s theories. The study was coordinated using two separate questionnaires including both a biographical questionnaire and an IPIP-Neo questionnaire. Age, birth order and age were determined by the biographical questionnaire and the personality traits of each tested individual were scored by the IPIP-Neo. The data from the participants varied greatly as was to be expected from such a diverse group. Said group was made up of 69.9% female participants (72) and only 30.1% male participants (31) with ages ranging from 18 to 47. Once all the results were compiled they were sorted into two separate groups of high or low. It was hypothesized that there would not be a direct correlation between birth order and personality. Parts of the results related that there may be a correlation in that some firstborns turned out to be more conscientious, but the majority of the results of these results, once calculated using a

The order in which a person is born into their family plays substantial role in the individual’s development of personality. Birth order is believed to influence many aspects of one’s personality. The familial atmosphere is the first group experience a child has and the child’s role in their family influences the development of the child’s individual personality traits. In families, children learn what is valuable and meaningful to their parents and siblings and they compete with their siblings for various roles before they find their personal niche in the family (Stewart et al., 2001). As children are socialized into their families, the children make a place for themselves and no two children make a place for themselves exactly alike. Adler (Weiten, 1998), best known for his theories regarding striving for superiority, was one of the first in the field of psychology to theorize about the differences birth order can make. Adler had a successful older brother, but Adler was weak as a child and thus was most likely affected with the desire to assert himself and prove his worth. Adler’s theory stressed the social aspect of personality development and therefore proposed the possibility of birth order and its significance in the interpersonal relationships of family life. He felt that each position in the order, whether first or last, had distinct characteristics.