A large study denies the idea that the birth order has no effect on personality. It counts, just as the number of children counts.
The firstborn? Conscious, responsible, spoiled, intelligent. The second sons? Peacemakers, mistreated, ignored. The thirdogenites? Independent, creative and original in order to get noticed. Are they just prejudices or is there a fund of truth? A large study refutes the idea that the birth order has no effect in forging the personality. The research, published on Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciencesfound that The middle children are more brought to cooperation.
Little, but it affects. On the theme of birth and personality, it has been discussed for decades, but recently several studies had concluded that the effect, if there is, is too little relevant to make a difference. The new analysis conducted by Michael Ashton and Kibeom Lee, professors of Psychology at the Brock University of Ontario and at the University of Calgary in the Alberta (Canada), found not only that the effect of the birth order “can be seen” , in statistical terms, but which weigh even more on how we will become the number of children of the family in which we grew up.
Pleasant to have next to it. The two analyzed the personality traits reported by over 700,000 English language volunteers who had also given information on the number of brothers and their birth order, and then subjected the same questions to a separate group of 75,000 people. Those who had grown together with multiple brothers reported higher scores in two personality traits connected to the ability to cooperatethe pleasantness (agreeablenesswhich manifests itself for example such as empathy, kindness, altruism) and Honesty-humilitythe tendency to be genuine with others, to avoid manipulating them for personal earnings. In the middle children, these characteristics seemed enhanced compared to the other brothers.
The first relationships and future. The results suggest that, even if you cannot deduce much on the personality from the order of birth, if a single child were extracted and a person born in a family with 6 children, there would be a 60% probability that the second has higher scores of pleasantness. And that if this was also a middle child, the tendency to cooperate would be slightly enhanced – perhaps, they hypothesize the researchers, for art, long coached, of intertwine and strengthen ties with the older or minor brothers.
