Tom McNeil's List: Sociological Investigation

• Firstborns are more likely to associate with firstborns, middle-borns with middle-borns, last-borns with last-borns, and only children with only children.

  • This is simply because of their personalities. They get along better with people they have things in common with. It is not a known fact that they are both "firstborns" for example. They get along because of the similarities in personality. This shows a clear correlation with birth order affecting your personality traits and this provides a great example of how it affects people in the real world.
• spouses should correlate on birth order

  • This shows that people with similar birth patterns will most likely have somewhat similar personalities due to their compatibility.

• But two studies from the past three years finally found measurable effects: our position in the family does indeed affect both our IQ and our personality.

  • Has an effect.
• Put simply, birth order is intricately linked to family size

  • One of the reasons for the birth order theory and its effect on personality.
• A child from a two-kid family has a 50 percent chance of being a firstborn, whereas a child from a five-kid family has only a 20 percent chance of being a firstborn.

  • When being the firstborn you are exposed to things first, you act a certain way, and often they are exposed to the best opportunities because they are the original focus -- the example to follow.
• More children mean that parental resources (money, time and attention) have to be spread more thinly
• important social factors, such as ethnicity, education and wealth.
• For example, wealthier, better-educated parents typically have fewer children. If astronauts are more likely to have well-educated, comfortable parents, then they are also more likely to come from a smaller family and thus are more likely to be a firstborn.
• In 2007 Norwegian epidemiologists Petter Kristensen and Tor Bjerkedal published work showing a small but reliable negative correlation between IQ and birth order: the more older siblings one has, the lower one’s IQ.

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• 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.

  • It is not conscious because their personality and natural tendencies determines it.
• 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.

  • You've grown up through times of different trends, different presidents, music, world issues.  The world can change a lot from year to year.  6 years is just the difference in age but it also takes a few more years until you are conscious of the world around you and society starts to impact you. 
• It’s almost like you don’t have a lot in common, other than your family.
• 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.
• For instance, he wrote that the firstborns are more dominant, less open to new ideas, and more conscientious than later-born children.
• later-borns were more rebellious, open, and agreeable.
• 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.

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• They say, for example, being born first makes you more responsible.
• That seems to hold true in the Cowan home, a North Carolina family who agreed to let 20/20 videotape some of their family interactions. Their first-born child, Jonathan, is very serious. His younger sister, Ellen, likes to torture their youngest brother, Jameson.
• Jonathan often intervenes. In one instance, we saw him dragging his sister to the kitchen, telling his mother to discipline her. Jonathan agrees he's responsible. He says it's his job to help parent his younger siblings. "You have to watch over them when the parents are gone,"
• 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.
• "Within the family, they are about as strong as gender differences," according to Frank Sulloway, author of "Born to Rebel".
• 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.
• 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.
• I wanted to be a doctor, but became a reporter only because Tom was already a successful doctor, and I didn't think I could compete.
• "Typical first-born strategy is to use the advantages of age, size and power to dominate a younger sibling," Sulloway says.

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• Parenting experts point out some kids fight to get their parents attention. So, ignoring the fighting may lead to fewer battles, and also teach the kids how to resolve conflicts on their own.
• Dr. Kenneth Hardy, a family therapist at New York's Ackerman Institute, says a certain amount of sibling rivalry is to be expected.
• The birth of a second child is a threat "at the most primal level" to your first-born, according to Hardy
• To help Spencer with his dyslexia, his parents spend extra time with him. Jackson, jealous of the extra attention Spencer gets, says he wishes he were dyslexic.
• • Spencer and Jackson are in a battle over parent's attention.  They are close in age and have similar needs.  Spencer is the oldest so he is more adept to receiving attention where as his younger brother is also attention seeking being the youngest -- the baby.

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• Sulloway does acknowledge 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."

• 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."

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• It could not have been easy being Elliott Roosevelt. If the alcohol wasn't getting him, the morphine was. If it wasn't the morphine, it was the struggle with depression. Then, of course, there were the constant comparisons with big brother Teddy.
• n 1883, the year Elliott began battling melancholy, Teddy had already published his first book and been elected to the New York State assembly.
• By 1891—about the time Elliott, still unable to establish a career, had to be institutionalized to deal with his addictions—Teddy was U.S. Civil Service Commissioner and the author of eight books. Three years later, Elliott, 34, died of alcoholism. Seven years after that, Teddy, 42, became President.
• There was Donald Nixon and the loans he wangled from billionaire Howard Hughes. There was Billy Carter and his advocacy on behalf of the pariah state Libya. There was Roger Clinton and his year in jail on a cocaine conviction. And there is Neil Bush, younger sib of both a President and a Governor

  • Various other examples showing how younger siblings struggle to live in the shadow of highly achieving first siblings.  How can they compare when their siblings have achieved so much.  Also when their older brothers were given the head start in life and therefore had the opportunity to do things first.  
• But it couldn't have been easy being Billy Ripken either, an unexceptional major league infielder craning his neck for notice while the press swarmed around Hall of Famer and elder brother Cal. It can't be easy being Eli Manning, struggling to prove himself as an NFL quarterback while big brother Peyton polishes a Super Bowl trophy and his superman stats.
• But in family after family, case study after case study, the simple roll of the birth-date dice has an odd and arbitrary power all its own.
• In June, for example, a group of Norwegian researchers released a study showing that firstborns are generally smarter than any siblings who come along later, enjoying on average a three-point IQ advantage over the next eldest—probably a result of the intellectual boost that comes from mentoring younger siblings and helping them in day-to-day tasks.
• The second child, in turn, is a point ahead of the third. While three points might not seem like much, the effect can be enormous. Just 2.3 IQ points can correlate to a 15-point difference in sat scores, which makes an even bigger difference when you're an Ivy League applicant with a 690 verbal score going head to head against someone with a 705.
• "In many families," says psychologist Frank Sulloway, a visiting scholar at the University of California, Berkeley, and the man who has for decades been seen as the U.S.'s leading authority on birth order, "the firstborn is going to get into Harvard and the second-born isn't."
• The differences don't stop there. Studies in the Philippines show that later-born siblings tend to be shorter and weigh less than earlier-borns.

  • This can make a big difference in terms of athletes.  Some may excel more due to their physical advantage.
• Eldest siblings are also disproportionately represented in high-paying professions.
• Younger siblings, by contrast, are looser cannons, less educated and less strapping, perhaps, but statistically likelier to live the exhilarating life of an artist or a comedian, an adventurer, entrepreneur, GI or firefighter
• In the past, girls were usually knocked out of the running for the job and college perks their place in the family should have accorded them. In most other ways, however, there was little to distinguish a first-, second- or third-born sister from a first-, second- or third-born brother. Now, with college and careers more equally available, the remaining differences have largely melted away.

  • Equal opportunity for women has showed even more correlation between birth order now that eldest women can achieve virtually the same things eldest men can.  Without this discretion the research and collected data expressed shows just more connections.
• "People read birth-order books the way they read horoscopes," warns Toni Falbo, professor of educational psychology at the University of Texas. "'I'm a middle-born, so that explains everything in my life'—it's just not like that."

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• Runts of litters are routinely ignored, pushed out or consigned to the worst nursing spots somewhere near Mom's aft end, where the milk flow is the poorest and the outlook for survival the bleakest. The rest of the brood is left to fight it out for the best, most milk-rich positions.
• Catherine Salmon, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Redlands in Redlands, Calif., laments that even today she finds it hard to collect enough subjects for birth-order studies from the student body alone, since the campus population is typically overweighted with eldest sibs.
• "Families invest a lot in the firstborn," she says.
• As parental pampering produces a fitter, smarter, more confident firstborn, Mom and Dad are likely to invest even more in that child, placing their bets on an offspring who—in survival terms at least—is looking increasingly like a sure thing. "From a parental perspective," says Salmon, "you want offspring who are going to survive and reproduce."
• In a recent survey of corporate heads conducted by Vistage, an international organization of ceos, poll takers reported that 43% of the people who occupy the big chair in boardrooms are firstborns, 33% are middle-borns and 23% are last-borns.
• And a recent study found a statistically significant overload of firstborns in what is—or at least ought to be—the country's most august club: the U.S. Congress.
• But there are low-power strategies too, and one of the most effective ones is humor
• Birth-order scholars often observe that some of history's great satirists—Voltaire, Jonathan Swift, Mark Twain—were among the youngest members of large families, a pattern that continues today.

  • In order to get the attention they desire, and perhaps deserve they resort to comedic strategies and are loud and outgoing, perhaps simply outrageous in their comments yielding attention and praise.
• Faux bloviator Stephen Colbert—who yields to no one in his ability to get a laugh—often points out that he's the last of 11 children.
• personality tests show that while firstborns score especially well on the dimension of temperament known as conscientiousness—a sense of general responsibility and follow-through—later-borns score higher on what's known as agreeableness, or the simple ability to get along in the world.
• Even more impressive is how early younger siblings develop what's known as the theory of mind.
• "When you're less powerful, it's advantageous to be able to anticipate what's going on in someone else's mind," says Sulloway.
• Later-borns, however, don't try merely to please other people; they also try to provoke them.
• Richard Zweigenhaft, a professor of psychology at Guilford College in Greensboro, N.C., who revealed the overrepresentation of firstborns in Congress, conducted a similar study of picketers at labor demonstrations. On the occasions that the events grew unruly enough to lead to arrests, he would interview the people the police rounded up. Again and again, he found, the majority were later- or last-borns. "It was a statistically significant pattern," says Zweigenhaft. "A disproportionate number of them were choosing to be arrested."

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• All sibs are equally likely to be involved in sports, but younger ones are likelier to choose the kinds that could cause injury.
• Sulloway is currently collaborating on a study of 300 brothers who were major league ballplayers. Though the work is not complete, he is so far finding that the elder brothers excel at skills that involve less physical danger. Younger siblings are the ones who put themselves in harm's way—crouching down in catcher's gear to block an incoming runner, say.

• firstborns tend to earn more than later-borns, with income dropping about 1% for every step down the birth-order ladder. Most researchers assume this is due to the educational advantages eldest siblings get, but Black thinks there may be more to it. "I'd be interested in whether it's because the second child is taking the riskier jobs," she says. 
• Firstborn ceos, for example, do best when they're making incremental improvements in their companies: shedding underperforming products, maximizing profits from existing lines and generally making sure the trains run on time. Later-born ceos are more inclined to blow up the trains and lay new track. "Later-borns are better at transformational change," says Dattner. "They pursue riskier, more innovative, more creative approaches."
• The Norwegian intelligence study showed that when firstborns die, the IQ of second-borns actually rises a bit, a sign that they're performing the hard mentoring work that goes along with the new job.

  • The middle child is forced to adapt.  They play multiple roles but sometimes for short periods of time.  They were the youngest for a period and then replaced, they are the oldest when the oldest leaves, but only for so long. 
• "There is a U-shaped distribution in which the oldest and youngest get the most," says Sulloway. That may take an emotional toll. Sulloway cites other studies in which the self-esteem of first-, middle- and last-borns is plotted on a graph and follows the same curvilinear trajectory.
• The phenomenon known as de-identification may also work against a middle-born.
• Siblings who hope to stand out in a family often do so by observing what the elder child does and then doing the opposite.
• In general, they found that when only one child in the family was abused, the scapegoat was usually the eldest. When a younger child was abused, some or all of the other kids usually were as well. Mistreatment of any of the children usually breaks the bond the parents have with the firstborn, turning that child from parental ally to protector of the brood. At the same time, the eldest may pick up some of the younger kids' agreeableness skills—the better to deal with irrational parents—while the youngest learn some of the firstborn's self-sufficiency. Abusiveness is going to "totally disrupt the birth-order effects we would expect," says Sulloway.
• The sheer number of siblings in a family can also trump birth order.
• The 1% income difference that Black detected from child to child tends to flatten out as you move down the age line
• The IQ-boosting power of tutoring, meanwhile, may actually have less influence in small families, with parents of just two or three kids doing most of the teaching, than in the six- or eight-child family, in which the eldest sibs have to pitch in more.
• But families are very different things—distinguished by size, income, hometown, education, religion, ethnicity and more. Throw enough random factors like those into the mix, and the results you get may be nothing more than interesting junk.

  • Very hard to study because they are so unique and come from so many different situations and backgrounds.
• The alternative is what investigators call the in-family studies, a much more pointillist process, requiring an exhaustive look at a single family, comparing every child with every other child and then repeating the process again and again with hundreds of other families.

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• Spacing - the number of years between children

   

  The sex of each child - and in what sequence males and females are born  

   

  Physical, mental, or emotional differences – yes, genes are important  

   

  Sibling deaths – which, if occurring early, cause the child below to be “bumped up” to the next birth order   

   

  Adoptions – which may or may not have an effect on birth order, depending on how old the child is when adopted  

   

  The birth order position of each parent – first-born parents usually run a much different ship than later borns  

   

  The relationship between parents – and the parenting style they use as they pass on their personal values to their children  

   

  The “critical eye” of a parent – constant criticism takes its toll  

   

  The blending of two or more families – due to death or divorce – in a stepfamily certain birth orders often get stepped on
• Middle children have a list of contradictory personality characteristics: loner/sociable, impatient/laid-back, aggressive/conflict-avoider. This suggests that middle children do not have a certain list of general characteristics like the other birth orders. Leman (2000) did say that middle children tend to be mediators and are choosy about who they confide in. Middle children also are one of the most monogamous birth orders, who are motivated to make their marriages and families work. Middle children also tend to have the less problems than first-born/only children.
• Youngest children tend to be charming, people-oriented, tenacious, affectionate and attention-seeking. They also tend to just “do” things – without thinking about the consequences of their actions. This is a trait that would come into play during relationships as well (Leman 2000).
• Leman (2000) has found that the absolute worst birth order pairs are those within the same birth order (e.g., two first-borns/onlies, two middles, or two youngest). He says that two first-borns together equals a lifelong power struggle. Leman (2000) also says that two middles are a bad match because communication will be lacking due to avoidance of conflict, a natural trait of middle children (as discussed earlier). Leman (2000) also says two babies are not a great match because youngest children usually do not delegate responsibilities well, and assume that someone else will pick up the slack. If there are two people that are both assuming the other will pick up the duties at home, then the household will more than likely fall apart. According to Leman (2000), it is best to marry outside your birth order. On top of that, it is best to marry the most opposite birth order position.
• The study dealt with birth order and age at marriage. Murdoch said that first borns are more dependent than later borns (which is contrary to the research that states they are the independent birth order) and also learn that anxiety is reduced when one is with other people. Based on these two assumptions, Murdoch (1966) hypothesized that first borns tend to marry earlier than later borns. He found that oldest males do, on average, marry earlier than later born males. First born females did not actually marry earlier, but they did talk about getting married earlier than later born females. Furthermore, when asked to say when the best age is to get married, the mean for oldest females was lower than that of later born females (Murdoch 1966).

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• Personality Traits of First Born Children - Birth Order

   
  • Smarter? First born children may be smarter than youngest and middle children. First borns' IQ points are on average 3 points higher than their younger siblings; in fact, IQs tend to drop as more children are born in the family. This may be because parents spend more time with first borns, and first born children mentor their younger siblings and thus learn more. However, Aaron Wichman of Ohio State University found that it’s not birth order that affects intelligence, it’s family size (from a research study called “Older Children Not Smarter Than Younger Sibs, Study Finds”). Big families can’t offer the same advantages to all the kids that small families can. It’s genetics and the family environment that affects IQ more than birth order.
  • Better educated. First born children are more likely to go to college or university than youngest or middle children. If parents can afford to send one child to school, it’s more likely to be the first born. Families invest more in first born children than middle or youngest children.
  • More money. First born children may earn more money and be more likely to hold a high-paying, white collar job. First borns are more likely to be surgeons, chairs in boardrooms, and hold MBAs.
  • Favorites. First born children are more likely enjoy resources (food, parental time, emotional nourishment, attention) than youngest children. It becomes a cycle: the more first borns are nurtured, the stronger they become – prompting parents to invest even more time, money, and attention.
• • More mysterious. Middle born children are more difficult to define because their identity growing up changed (from last born to middle child). This affects their personality and environment in unpredictable ways.
  • Peacekeepers. Middle born children may be more likely to keep peace in the family, to restore connections and relationships.
  • Less decisive. Middle children may take longer to choose a career than firstborn or later-borns. They may deliberately make opposite choices than firstborns; if the first born is a doctor, the middle child may choose to be a firefighter or policeman.
  • Less connected. Middle children may not be as attached to the family as first borns or later borns.

• Personality Traits of Last Born or Youngest Children - Birth Order

   
  • More adventurous. Last born or youngest children are more likely to be “loose cannons”, according to an article in Time magazine (“The Power of Birth Order”, Oct 29, 2007). Youngest children are more likely to be an artist, entrepreneur or adventurer – and more likely to participate in physically risky sports.
  • Funnier. Last born children are more likely to be comedians or satirists. They’ll be outrageous or funny as a power strategy in the family.
  • More agreeable. Younger children tend to get along in the world better – a trait known as “agreeableness” in the Big Five Personality Traits. Compared to first born children, last borns are less likely to provoke people.
• These birth order personality characteristics and lifestyle traits are not set in stone; they’re affected by family size, the environment, circumstances, etc.. Even so, birth order does have a very real effect on your life and personality traits!
• “Birth order, even on a rudimentary level, gives you a jump start on understanding each other,” says Cliff Isaacson, an Iowa-based psychotherapist and author of five books on birth order, including The Birth Order Effect for Couples. “Each place in the birth order has a unique thinking pattern, how he or she processes information.”

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• Innate strengths: The firstborn is often used to being the center of attention; he has Mom and Dad to himself before siblings arrive (and oldest children enjoy about 3,000 more hours of quality time with their parents between ages 4 and 13 than the next sibling will get, found a study from Brigham Young University in Provo, UT). “Many parents spend more time reading and explaining things to firstborns. It’s not as easy when other kids come into the picture,” says Frank Farley, Ph.D., a psychologist at Temple University in Philadelphia, who has studied personality and human development for decades. “That undivided attention may have a lot to do with why firstborns tend to be overachievers,” he explains. In addition to usually scoring higher on IQ tests and generally getting more education than their brothers and sisters, firstborns tend to outearn their siblings (firstborns were more likely to make at least $100,000 annually compared with their siblings, according to a recent Careerbuilder.com survey).
• Common challenges: Success comes with a price: Firstborns tend to be type A personalities who never cut themselves any slack. “They often have an intense fear of failure, so nothing they accomplish feels good enough,” says Michelle P. Maidenberg, Ph.D., a child and family therapist in White Plains, NY. And because they dread making a misstep, oldest kids tend to stick to the straight and narrow; “They’re typically inflexible — they don’t like change and are hesitant to step out of their comfort zone,” she explains.
• That burden can lead to excess stress for a child who already feels pressure to be perfect
• “I don’t want her to be a little grown-up. but it’s also easy to give her responsibilities; I really can trust her.”
• Necessary nurturing: Firstborns are constantly receiving encouragement for their achievements, but they also need to know it’s okay if they don’t succeed at everything, says psychologist Kevin Lerman, Ph.D., author of “The Birth Order Book.” So tell your eldest about that time you didn’t make the cheerleading squad or got fired from your first job — any situation in which you tried something and it didn’t work out exactly as you planned. Be sure to emphasize why it was okay in the end and how you learned from your mistakes. You want her to see that making a few of her own is nothing to worry about and can actually be a good thing.
• Innate strengths: Lastborns generally aren’t the strongest or smartest in the room, so they develop their own ways of winning attention. They’re natural charmers with an outgoing, social personality; no surprise then that many famous actors and comedians are the baby of the family (Stephen Colbert is the youngest of 11!), or that they score higher in “agreeableness” on personality tests than firstborns, according to Dr. Sulloway’s research.
• Youngest also make a play for the spotlight with their adventurousness. Free-spirited lastborns are more open to unconventional experiences and taking physical risks than their siblings
• Common challenges: Youngests are known for feeling that “nothing I do is important,” Dr. Lerman notes. “None of their accomplishments seem original. Their siblings have already learned to talk, read, and ride a bike. So parents react with less spontaneous joy at their accomplishments and may even wonder, ‘Why can he catch up faster?’ ”
• Lastborns also learn to use their role as the baby to manipulate others in order to get their way.
• “I expected more from my oldest when he was this age.”
• The long-term result of too much babying could be an adult who is dependent on others and unprepared for the world. So don’t underestimate your child. Youngests are masters at getting out of chores and are often seen as “too little” to participate.
• Innate strengths: Middleborns are go-with-the-flow types; once a younger sibling arrives, they must learn how to constantly negotiate and compromise in order to “fit in” with everyone. Not surprisingly, Dr. Sulloway notes, mid kids score higher in agreeableness than both their older and younger sibs.
• Because they receive less attention at home, middletons tend to forge stronger bonds with friends and be less tethered to their family than their brothers and sisters.
• Unfortunately, they’re often acutely aware that they don’t get as much parental attention as their “trailblazing” older sibling or the beloved youngest, and they feel like their needs and wants are ignored.
• A survey by The BabyWebsite.com, a British parenting resource, found that a third of parents with three children admit to giving their middle child far less attention than they give their other two.
• “A lot of the time, middle children end up deferring to the oldest’s wants and the youngest’s needs,” Dr. Maidenberg says. So do what you can to make her feel empowered.
• In fact, most only children turn out to be movers and shakers with similar traits to firstborns: They’re ambitious and articulate. And since they spend so much time with their parents, they’re comfortable interacting with adults. The downside: Onlies may have difficulty relating to kids their own age.
• The firstborn twin typically acts as the older child in the twosome, while the secondborn will have traits of a younger sib.
• Outside of their relationship, however, they often get lumped together as “the twins.” This can be a source of frustration when twins get older and each seeks to carve out an individual identity.
• it’s important for each kid to establish his or her own interests and personality.

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