Quick! Tell me what order you are in the family and what that means to you. Were you the youngest, the baby, who was taken care of, protected (perhaps spoiled) and not left to make your own decisions? Were you the oldest, who had all the pressure and demands placed on you to “set an example?” Or were you a middle, or lost child, who kind of fell through the cracks? You weren’t really special on either end of the spectrum, were you? You may have even been the peacemaker as the middle child, trying to maintain the calm in a family that was otherwise a little chaotic.
Some experts believe that birth order is an important tool in shaping how you turn out as an adult. It determines how you see the world, how you expect the world to treat you, and how you treat others. If you are the baby, you will probably marry a firstborn. Why? Because they already know how to take care of you.
It’s not a conscious decision, this. It’s believed by some to be innate. Middle children may either marry the oldest or the youngest, for different reasons. For instance, the oldest again will know how to take care of you. The youngest will allow you to be the one who takes care of them. “Only” children have another problem. They are accustomed to being the center of attention (good or bad) and this may be hard to overcome later on in life.
Psychiatrist Alfred Adler (1870-1937) first proposed a theory on the effect of birth order on personality. (Personalities are the way that we deal with all the tasks of life, including our professions, friendships and even ways that we entertain ourselves). Adler said that the firstborn children are “dethroned” when the next child comes along and that they may never recover from that.
One must also consider the spacing between children, the demographics or social status, changes in the household over the years, and the number of children that grow up in that house. If there is a gap larger than 6 years, you’re looking at two different generations. For instance, if you have a sibling that is spaced at least that far apart from you, think about the different things that the two of you discovered growing up—different music, technology, even world events. If you are living in the United States, you have seen many different presidents, different problems, and different celebrities. It’s almost like you don’t have a lot in common, other than your family.
Family size also matters. If there are 12 children, the “middle child” can be any number of kids, or none of them. The youngest, depending on the years between children, may always be the baby, but the oldest one may change as gaps occur in the birthing.
Another theorist, Frank Sulloway, proposed that birth order has strong and consistent effects our personality traits. For instance, he wrote that the firstborns are more dominant, less open to new ideas, and more conscientious than later-born children. Another author, Delroy Paulhus and his colleagues have written that later-borns were more rebellious, open, and agreeable.
We believe birth order has such a profound effect because we see the same characteristics in the adult child as we saw when the child was young. This is not always true, however. Events such as a parent’s early death, a divorce or remarriage can profoundly affect a child’s development. The same holds true if a parent has mental health or substance abuse problems.
Other theorists disagree with the importance of birth order. Judith Rich Harris proposes that we may be affected by birth order within the family, but that it doesn’t have an effect on our personalities.
I will be writing more about these ideas in the near future. In the meantime, I invite you to share your own theories and experiences with us. There are lots of different families out there, and lots of different ways of growing up. We’re looking forward to hearing from you.
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Links to This Article
Moonlit Minds @Moonlit Minds (7/23/2009)
From Psych Central's website:
I’m an Only Child. So What? | Psych Central (10/6/2009)
10 Comments to
“Birth Order and Personality”
“If there is a gap larger than 6 years, you’re looking at two different generations.”
Well…no. A generation is generally 20-25 years.
thats a very interesting article !! i want to read more about what adler wrote, thanks
Blended families and joint custody can throw the theories out of whack. My son was an only for 8 years. With divorce and remarriages on both sides he became the youngest in one house and the oldest in the other, but still enjoyed days of being the only. My step sons were also affected; the oldest is the oldest at his mothers and sometimes with us, but then the middle other times. They are growing up with blended traits.
Birth order refers to a situation, a vantage from which one’s place in the family situation was evaluated and defined. Discussion of this variant is made difficult by assumptions (whether open or unexamined)of causal determination. Typological errors follow: “You behave this way because you are a first-born son.” True, any first-born son is likely to share more life-style similarities with any first-born son from another family than he does with his younger brother, the second-born son of his own parents. This likelihood is probabilistic, a result of their having faced common challenges at the beginning of their lives and trained themselves for reliable methods of continuing to meet the challenges of social living. It is not a necessary consequence of such challenges, since a creative child defined the meaning of those challenges and what they required of him for himself.
Adler attracts a lot of attention for his early recognition of birth-order differences, which helped him to stay free of reductionist schemes of developmental determinism.
For more on this, consult our text, “Understanding Life-Style: The Psycho-Clarity Process,” by Robert L. Powers and Jane Griffith, each of whom has served as president of the North American Society of Adlerian Psychology, and both of whom are emeritus faculty of the Adler School of Professional Psychology in Chicago.
This is a very interesting argument!
I don’t think that birth order has any strong effect on our personality, but this is only my opinion!
highly interesting.
i grew up an only child but i got no attention and i have the personality of the older child. as a future psychologist (with a degree that is, lol) i’m studying cognitive, mental illnesses and child psychology. this was a helpful introduction.
That was a very spot-on article. I have a fascination for birth-order. Within days of knowing someone, I can tell what there placement is
hey, i like reading about all this kind of stuff. a lot of it is very spot on, but i like to make my own observations of birth order. i am no phsycologist, i am just finishing high school. i am the second oldest of four, my dad is also the second oldest of four, and my mum is the third oldest of four.
i take notice of how each person’s traits are similar. the number one thing i notice is that the oldest are bad at managing money. they seem to want everything now, and don’t know how to wait, maybe don’t have as much patience. they cant really live on a budget. it’s weird that each of them are in the same situation. i must say i think they are good at parenting though, they know how to set boundaries, but also know when to let go. i think they have good judgements for their kids.
second oldest, me, i think i we are good at relating to a range of different people. also i agree with that sisterhood rivalry, i like my older sister doing well, but i like it even more when i do better. also i think we take note of our older siblings, learn from their experiences as well as our own.
3rd oldest, i think he is more of a middle child than me, a bit rebellious, which is the same as in mum and dad’s family. don’t really think of the consequences of their actions. i don’t think they like to be different, they like to just blend in with the crowd. not materialistic like the oldest child, content with the simple life.
youngest, bad at making their own decisions, they take forever to make decisions and like others to make their decisions for them. like people to mother them.
I think birthorder refers to the order that they entered this existance, not to be confused with divorce and remarriages, as in many cases those are temporary situations. It would be no different than having an older friend. So with that stated, my birth order is middle child 2, oldest female. In the case of my children, my first born is the first born, though in life he was middle child 2, youngest brother. My second child would be last born in all cases, and youngest girl. My first born shows all aspects of first born child, not middle traits. While families can change with divorce, it will never change who their mother gave birth and in what order.
I am very interested in hearing more about this field of study. I am the oldest and married the baby of three. The differences that I believe come from the birth order make for a great match!
I’d also like to find more data about only children, and how the increase in more only kids will affect them, and their peers alike. We are planning on having one child but can’t find a lot of good information about the impact (good and bad) on the child.
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Last reviewed: By John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on 22 Jul 2009
