Largest ever study of its kind.
By Raif Karerat
WASHINGTON, DC: The order in which one is born relative to their siblings fails to register as an important factor for shaping one’s personality, according to the results of the largest study ever conducted of its kind.
Researchers studied 377,000 high school students to find out how much birth order affected their personality development and intelligence. They found that firstborns do have slightly higher IQs than their later-born siblings, but only one point higher – a statistically significant but practically meaningless difference, reported Forbes.
Firstborns also tend to score higher on certain personality traits like extroversion, agreeableness and conscientiousness, but the differences between their scores and those of later-borns are, according to the researchers, “infinitesimally small,” Forbes continued.
According to study co-author Brent Roberts, professor of psychology at the University of Illinois, “In some cases, if a drug saves 10 out of 10,000 lives, for example, small effects can be profound. But in terms of personality traits and how you rate them, a .02 correlation doesn’t get you anything of note. You are not going to be able to see it with the naked eye. You’re not going to be able to sit two people down next to each other and see the differences between them. It’s not noticeable by anybody.”
The modern assumption that that the first child is the smartest, the middle is ignored and the youngest is spoiled come from Alfred Adler, a 20th century psychologist, according to InvestorPlace.
According to the authors of the latest study, it’s time to revamp those assumptions: “The message of this study is that birth order probably should not influence your parenting, because it’s not meaningfully related to your kid’s personality or IQ,” wrote co-author Rodica Damian.