24 Birth order effect & personality

Question 1

What traits did Alfred Adler believe were possessed by first-borns?

Answer 1

Neuroticism and substance abuse. Related to having lost parental attention.

Question 2

What traits did Alfred Adler believe were possessed by youngest children?

Answer 2

Entitlement, low empathy - from being pampered and overindulged.

Question 3

What traits did Alfred Adler believe were possessed by middle-born children?

Answer 3

Successful and rebellious – attempting to change family dynamics. Neither dethroned nor pampered.

Question 4

What traits did Alfred Adler believe were possessed by only children?

Answer 4

Hard workers and intellectuals.

Question 5

What profession was found by Adler to be associated with being first-born?

Answer 5

First-borns more likely to be lawyers.

Question 6

What flaw was revealed in studies comparing first and later-borns?

Answer 6

High-SES families have fewer kids, so high-SES offspring are overrepresented among first-borns.

Question 7

What did Skipper & McCaghy (1971) find out about strippers?

Answer 7

31/35 strippers were first-born.

Question 8

How did Ernst and Angst put the nail in the coffin of birth order?

Answer 8

Studied more than 1,000 papers and concluded birth order effect “widely overrated”.

Question 9

Who heralded in the “resurrection” of birth order?

Answer 9

Frank J. Sulloway, author of “Born to Rebel”

Question 10

What is Sulloway’s family niche model of personality development?

Answer 10

That personality is influenced by the specialized niches siblings adopt in the quest for access to parental resources. Personalities of siblings vary because they adopt different strategies in the universal quest for parental favor.

Question 11

What potentially important personality-shaping factors are subsumed by birth order?

Answer 11

Differences in age, size, power and privilege among siblings.

Question 12

What is Sulloway’s central thesis?

Answer 12

That eldest children identify with parents and authority, and support for the status quo, whereas younger children rebel against it.

Question 13

What Darwinian conflicts relating to birth order did Sulloway suggest might shape personality?

Answer 13

Sexual selection - first-borns more eligible

Differential parental investment - difference in investment in offspring if one (must keep our genetic material alive) or many (meh, who cares if one or two die?)

Parent-offspring conflict - if few resources, elder children have higher survival/reproductive value

Sibling-sibling conflict - stronger kids kill weaker in struggle for resources

Question 14

How did Sulloway suggest the personality traits might vary across birth order?

Answer 14

Extraversion –dominance, assertiveness - FIRSTBORN

Conscientiousness - respect for authority - FIRSTBORN; rebel against system - LATERBORN

Agreeableness –antagonism towards younger sibling - FIRSTBORN; maintain relationship with stronger sibling - SECONDBORN

Neuroticism – jealousy, emotional outbursts to maintain privileges/resources - FIRSTBORN

Openness – risk-averse (too much to sacrifice), FIRSTBORN; reduced identification with parental authority, daring, rebellious - LATERBORN

Question 15

What did Sulloway’s metaanalysis of birth order and BIg 5 demonstrate?

Answer 15

That 37% of studies confirm birth order effect - significantly more than you would expect if all Type I error (5%).

Question 16

What did Paulhus et al. (1999) within-family study of birth order effects demonstrated?

Answer 16

Firstborn more likely within families to be called achievers and later-borns more likely to be rebels. [But aren’t they just younger and thus more likely to be rebellious and have achieved less?]

Question 17

What did Paulhus et al. show about link between birth order and Big 5?

Answer 17

First borns more likely to be scholastic achievers (.07 above chance) and conscientious (.11).

Later-borns more likely to be liberal (.10), rebellious (.06) and agreeable (.07). No difference in extraversion and creativity.

Question 18

How did Beck et al. (2006) resurrect the association between extroversion and birth order?

Answer 18

Extraversion was split into:

dominance (assoc. with first born) AND

sociability (assoc. with later-born)

Question 19

What association did Sulloway find between birth order and support for Darwin’s evolutionary theory in the 19th century?

Answer 19

Laterborns four times more likely to support evolution