How does my family environment affect my personality? Flashcards
Temperament in kids (Kagen)
- measured inhibition in kids at 21 months and at 5.5 years
- 50% of people remain inhibited, others change
- change might be due to parental influence
On what aspects of personality does environment matter?
- social factors
- e.g. altruism, attitudes
Shared environmental factors
- SES
- neighborhood
- family rituals
- marital quality
- parenting styles
Non-shared environmental factors
- peers
- sibling
- differential parenting
- teachers,coaches
- injury and illness
- birth order
Are big five traits more due to genetics or the environment?
-genetic
What environmental factors might play a role in how birth order affects personality
- prenatal or gestational factors
- differential parental treatment
- environments altered by presence of siblings
How could personality be influenced by birth order in terms of siblings?
- competition within family
- confluence model (Zajonc, 1987)
Zajonc model
- family environment changes when there are more kids
- had people rate how they thought birth order individuals related to you
- people believe that first borns are: more agreeable, intelligent, obedient, responsible, stable
- people believe that last borns are more: creative, emotional, extraverted
- Study 2:
- first-born viewed as more likely to occupy high prestige jobs, also more likely occupy these jobs
- beliefs and occupations correspond
Earnst & Angst meta-analysis
- no differences in personality due to birth order
- previous studies were poorly conducted
- good studies showed no variance
- Limitations: based on self-report, compared all first borns to all second borns
Studying birth order differences within family
- Familial norms might differ
- within family:
- first-born more likely achiever
- later-born more likely rebels
- Limitations: people might have beliefs about birth order and respond according to belief
Reasons for confluence model
- environment changes when you add more kids
- older kids exposed to environment that was just adults
- younger kids always exposed to an environment with other kids
Birth order and IQ (Kristensen & Bjerkedal, 2007)
- men have compulsory military service
- social birth order- if one sibling has died, second becomes social “first born”
- IQ differences for birth order when siblings alive
- IQ of socially first born is about the same
- Limitations: only looked at male siblings
How might parenting styles affect personality?
-parenting affects attachment style [securely attached, insecurely attached, insecurely attached 2]
Strange Situation (Mary Ainsworth)
-used to determine the infants attachment
Attachment styles influence adulthood
- attachment style in infancy correlated to adult interview (0.44)
- adult attachment interview and relationship questionnaire correlated (0.21)