Does Birth Order Determine Personality?
By JOHN STOSSEL
May 21, 2004
Some people say you are the kind of
person you are because of when you were born in your family. They say, for example, being born first makes you more responsible. A number of researchers say, where you fit in your family has a big influence on how you will act, how well you do in school and how much money you'll make. They say first-borns earn the most.
Some researchers say birth order differences are as strong as gender difference.
In his book "Born to Rebel", Frank Sulloway says later-borns tend to rebel because they often can't do what their older siblings can do, so they start trying to find other ways, even dangerous ones, to get their parents' attention. Sulloway points out that leaders of revolutions — like Thomas Jefferson, Karl Marx and Fidel Castro — were rebellious
younger brothers. He says older brothers are often more conservative — like former Presidents Carter and Clinton and their younger brothers, Billy and Roger. Billy Carter had a beer-making business, and Roger Clinton tried a singing career — far cries from presidential politics. Sulloway said younger siblings "tend to pick interests that are diametrically opposite to those of their older siblings. They're the risk takers, the adventurers, the people who are constantly trying to find something new and different to do." Sulloway also says later-borns rebel by choosing different professions. Later-borns rebel, says Sulloway, because they're controlled by the first-born. "Typical first-born strategy is to use the advantages of age, size and power to dominate a younger
sibling," Sulloway says.
Sulloway does acknowledge however, that there may not be hard and fast rules about birth order. "Humans are complex," he said, "The fact that you can find things that are more important than say, birth order, doesn't mean that birth order isn't something we don't learn from."
While some researchers say Sulloway is right, others are skeptical, as Dalton Conley, author of "The Pecking Order," another book on the effects of birth order, says that "birth order makes about as much sense as astrology, which is almost none." But, there is at least one point on which both sides agree: middle children get the worst deal.
According to Conley, middle children are "25 percent less likely to be sent to a private school than they were before, and they're five times more likely to be held back a grade." Conley said middle children need "time where they're not being compared, at least in their own heads, to their older, or to their younger siblings. Time where they can get the individual attention from their parents." So while the claims about first-borns and last-borns may not hold up. Parents should be sure to take care of the middle child.