The Personality Of First Born Adolescents

Parents’ own birth orders and children experience can impact family dynamics, such as, firstborn parents getting into “raging battle” with a firstborn child, youngest-born parents not having high expectations on their kids or seeing their children’s abilities, biases based on their own birth positions, sticking up for the children with the same birth order, and birth order affecting the children’s personalities.

1a) In the research article “Personality Predictors of Successful Development: Toddler Temperament and Adolescent Personality Traits Predict Well-being and Career Stability in Middle Adulthood” by Marek Blatný, Katarína Millová, Martin Jelínek, Terezie Osecká. The problem that these researchers identified was the relationship between personality and psychological functioning and well-being, or the relations between personality and social functioning. The authors conducted this study mainly to determine whether ones’ personality affects his/her satisfaction with their quality of life in adulthood. They believe that personality traits play a major role in who/what you become in the future and they wanted to see if they could predict it. If yes, they wanted to know how early? – As early as childhood, adolescence or early adulthood.

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

First born children who later have younger siblings may have it the worst. These children are given excessive attention and pampering by their parents until that fateful day when the little brother or sister arrives. Suddenly they are no longer the center of attention and fall into the shadows wondering why everything changed. They are left feeling inferior, questioning their importance in the family, and trying desperately to gain back the attention they suddenly lost. The first born child can become “problem children, neurotics, criminals, drunkards, and perverts” (Cloninger, 2008). However, on the flip side, the first born usually are the peacemakers of the family even though they are a pampered and spoiled child.

The article “Strategic Parenting, Birth Order, and School Performance” explored the topic of birth order and parenting practices and its effect on academic success. Hotz and Pantano (2015) found that as birth order increased parents would be less inclined to punish their child for bad grades resulting in greater academic achievement. Both the

Birth order can have an effect on many personality traits and even a child’s future occupation. First borns are more likely to become managers because their order in the family trains them to have more responsibility. This responsibility allows the child to have more managerial and leadership skills. For example,

Birth order can no longer be the scapegoat for misbehavior. While many people would like to blame birth order for certain personality traits as well as behavioral patterns, birth order can no longer take responsibility. Sometimes birth order can have correlation with specific behaviors that are exhibited, but it is not a big deciding factor in the grand scheme of things. A writer for the Huffington Post recently explained that “These links between personality and birth order ring true for many people. But decades of research have failed to show any consistent and substantial association between birth order and any personality trait” (Haslam). As children grow up, they tend to have a bend toward a certain personality type. Many factors are involved in shaping who people will become, however, birth order

It is hypothesized that aspects of a firstborn personality will result in the firstborn being more self-confident, independent, conscientious, and more of a leader whereas the later-born is the opposite: very sociable, a follower, less conscientious and more social. The hypothesis was not supported, in that the results do not show all the aspects of personalities that were expected. Categories such as: self-confidence sociability and leadership are as expected, but conscientiousness is a surprise. The firstborn is instead less conscientious than the later-born. An extraneous variable that could have affected the results include how the individual is raised. One way of overcoming participant variables could be to test both or all siblings as well

Jim Carrey and Eddie Murphy are perfect examples of the “baby brother” of the family. They are often given all the attention, therefore requiring such as they grow older. Less is usually required of younger siblings as they age from babies to adolescents, this provides for a relatively stress-free youth. Babies of the family as adults, more often than not, tend to be entertainers, artists, architects, and salesmen. They have much more freedom than their older siblings because usually by the last child, parents are more comfortable, laid-back, and lenient than they were with the first and even second. This freedom as a child generally transfers into a creativeness and independence as adults, hence artists and architects. In parents’ eyes, the youngest child has a certain aura that tends to be extremely persuading. As they grow up they rarely lose touch with this birth order gift, which is why many successful salespeople happen to be of last born

Researchers in science and psychology alike have pondered whether birth order has an impact on personality traits. There has been evidence discovered in favor and against this theory. Francis Galton and Alton Adler were two key men who spearheaded promotion of this theory. Through time, the idea resonated within the science realm, and it was viewed as factual. Modern researchers however, wanted more proof to substantiate these claims. What specific factors determine how birth order and personality mix? With no solid answer readily available, the question remained, is there a link between birth order and personality? And if so, what is that link? The truth is, there is no link between these two factors. Birth order has a small impact on our

Being the first born child in my family shaped the way I act and handle life. I usually have to do new tasks by myself without knowing anyone who has already done it before. Being the first born created a path for my sister to be more familiar with things I’ve already done. As I continue my journey, new experiences await me, and it’s up to my personality to get me through the real world. I’ve developed strengths, traits, and weaknesses just for being the first born.

Alfred Adler who was a psychologist known for his theorization of how birth order can affect your personality. He stated, “since the oldest receives responsibility and the youngest can be spoiled, children in the middle can feel like they don’t receive any attention at all. They fight for significance and privilege”. The middle child or the second born often develop the competitive nature, making natural entrepreneurs later in their lives. For me, Alfred Adler’s theory is one hundred percent correct. Reasons of the theory of birth order being correct is me being born the second child in my family has changed my personality to be less of a caring person and to only work in order to succeed. My parents became a bit more lenient with me after my sister went on to college.

Here Damian is questioning the reliability of the data, suggesting that it is skewed by one’s tendency to follow social stereotypes. The evidence is clear through the statistics that birth order has a prominent effect on personality although critics are suspicious of the data’s accuracy. Birth’s order is not just thought to effect one’s sociability or extraversion, as the order in which someone were born could affect their IQ, as intellectual capabilities may be impacted by birth order as well.

Children in a family tend to develop personality traits that are specific to them as individuals. While this is affected by other social factors outside the family over time, the family setting itself also plays a major part in it. The family is a social unit with certain roles played by each member, and it affects the birth order of every sibling. The interactions it has with those individuals tend to affect how they interact with the wider society. Since family is the first social foundation a child is introduced to, birth order can affect personality traits as well as individual success. The order of birth affects the individual’s development of personality, intelligence as well as career choices. After being introduced to the family as a social or group setting, the child’s role in the group influences their personality traits first. Children first learn what has meaning or importance to their parents and siblings. They then compete with siblings for various roles until a personal creates there own space in the group. They make a place for themselves as they are socialized into the family, which is why no two children can make a place for themselves that are alike. Family roles are significant because they are primarily components that affect how siblings develop throughout the family. In this way, a child’s role can reflect on the child’s personality and consequently the manner in which they define themselves as a whole in society (Collins, 2006). There are three

The fact that he did not face any unequal behavior in childhood can be a reason for him being independent and responsible. His parents treated him and his siblings equally in all stages regardless of birth order. According to a study, compared to firstborns, who are likely to be more responsible, vigilant, competitive and have more achievements, later-borns are perceived to be more rebellious, trust worthy, freethinkers and also generous, both generally and also in comparison to their older siblings (Paulhus et al., 1999) (Saroglou and Fiasse, 2003). Mr. Ejaz has the quality of both a first born and late born, as he has a strong sense of responsibility as well as by being a free thinker and trust worthy. First born’s are considered to be the mirror the parent’s beliefs, attitudes and personality characteristics while late born have different personality characteristics from their parents(Paulhus et al., 1999) (Michalski and Shackelford, 2002). Being the youngest, he portrays the characteristic of a first born as defined by researchers. He maintained his parent’s beliefs and attitudes by being responsible, optimistic and unbiased.