Birth Order Psychology

Rebecca Roman '05

Are you a perfectionist? How about logical or organized? A

leader? If you answered yes to these, how about this one: do also
you happen to be the oldest in your family? According to some
prevailing theories in the field of psychology, possessing these traits
is more than just a coincidence. It is an example of birth order
psychology.
The effect of birth order is one of the concepts pioneered by Alfred
Adler when he founded the school of Individual Psychology. Adler
believed in a humanistic and holistic psychology, which was a break
with Freudian theory and a step toward the development of social
psychology. He developed a thematic overview for each of his five
major birth order positions: only, oldest, second, middle, and
youngest child. Each one of these had its own personality traits,
ingrained psychological issues, and effects later in life.
For example, Henry T. Stein from the Alfred Adler Institute of San
Francisco summarizes Adler's view of the only child as one who
likes being the center of adult attention, often has difficulty sharing
with peers, prefers adult company, and uses adult language.
According to Adler, the oldest child may become authoritarian and
feel power is their right but can become helpful if encouraged. The
oldest child may turn to the father for reassurance after the birth of
the next child.
The second child is more competitive, and wants to overtake the
older child, which leads to rivalry. He may rebel or try to outdo
everyone. Contrarily, the middle child may be even-tempered,
assuming a take it or leave it attitude. He may have trouble
finding a place and thus become a fighter of injustice. The youngest
is frequently spoiled and may never be dethroned of their place as
the baby of the family. He is likely to have big plans fueled by the
desire to outdo the others.

Are you a perfectionist? How about logical or

organized? A leader?
So what if you don't fit in to your birth order position? Discrepancies
are certainly present, thus eliciting skepticism from some. It is
important to note that Adler did document exceptions, such as the
fact that birth order is sometimes not a major influence on
personality development and that the child's opinion of himself and
his situation determines his choice of attitude. This, however, does
not quell uncertainties as to the overall legitimacy of birth order as a
psychology. For example Dr. Kevin Leman, author of the book The
Birth Order: Why You Are the Way You Are, asserted on a Trinity
Broadcasting Network program that There's hard research to
substantiate that there is something to birth order.
However, after reviewing 35 years of research and some 1500
studies, Cecile Ernst and Jules Angst concluded in Science that
on a scale of importance, the effects of birth order fall somewhere

Peter Skirko '02

[ Home | Fall2001 | Features | Poetry | Personal Essays |
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Other Feature articles:
The Naked Psyche
Good Viberations
Birth Order Psychology
Stem Cells: Blurring the Lines
Deconstructing Race
Nature as a Teen: Lazy and Messy
Astride a Beam of Light
M.C. Esher
The Enigma

between negligible and nonexistent. The importance of birth order

is an ongoing argument. One reason for this discrepancy is that
social psychology is a mlange of two distinct sciences: sociology
and psychology. Psychologists are inclined to give greater attention
to the bearing of thought processes, their molecular basis, and their
effect on the individual. Sociologists, on the other hand, are more
interested in understanding the relationships between group
structures and processes as well as social settings and individuals'
role.
As its own genre, social psychology seeks to understand the human
condition and its collective human behaviors. Like all sciences,
social psychology searches for concrete proof before belief. In birth
order studies, we do not want to acknowledge that we are
possessed of an inherited repertory of potential responses and
mental structures without empirical data. This issue is somewhat
appeased by scientists like Dr. Daniel Eckstein. He has written an
article entitled Birth-Order & Personality Differences: Empirical
Studies Indicating Significant Birth-Order Related Personality
Differences. This article explores 151 empirically-based articles on
birth-order differences and indicates the most frequently cited
statistically significant differences between the four birth-order
categories.
On the flipside, however, there is always an opposing faction. Many
claim that the experimental method is the brainchild of white
Victorian males, and therefore biased, skewing the collection of
empirical data. Opponents claim that science is socially and
culturally embedded and thus subjective. In the case of birth order,
this group can be represented by Alan Wolfe's attack in The New
Republic on Frank Sulloway's book Born to Rebel: Birth Order,
Family Dynamics, and Creative Lives. He states that the
biologizing of human beings is not only bad humanism, but also bad
science. As even famed geneticist Richard Lewontin warns, the
ideology of biological determinism, or pure reliance on genetics to
explain innate capacities, is dangerous. He warns that, in the end,
[it] prevent[s] a rich understanding of nature."

The second child is more competitive, and wants to

overtake the older child, which leads to rivalry. He
may rebel or try to outdo everyone.
Despite the issues over birth order psychology and biological proof
in general, studies are still being done. Inquiry is being taken beyond
Adler, who focused more on the manifestations of birth order in
children and is being expanded into studies of its effects later in life.
For example, a study at Ohio State University conducted in the
winter of 2001 showed that birth order affects career interests. In the
Journal of Career Assessment, researchers noted that only children
and first born children tended to have more cognitive and analytical
interests, while those later-born were more artistic and outdoors
oriented.
Websites such as William Cane's Birth Order and Romantic
Compatibility Test claim to help you learn how to avoid the problems
that plague couples like firstborns Bill and Hilary Clinton. Indeed,
according to www.birthorderplus.com, there are twenty-five types of
marriages according to birth order. The most common marital
relationship is between an only child and a second child, and it has a
fairly high rate of success, while first born-first born relationships
seem to rarely happen. Firstborns are less likely to connect
romantically.

Many claim that the experimental method is the

brainchild of white Victorian males, and therefore

biased, skewing the collection of empirical data.

Aside from the half-baked aspect of birth order that seems to have
no scientific proof, there is much to consider in the field of birth order
studies. The influence of being the first born of a specific gender, the
influence of changing family dynamics, and the potential for
methodical pitfalls in birth order research interest not only studies on
birth order, but the research of many other social trends. Thus,
social scientists face a challenging and mystifying, but intriguing path
in the quest to explain the human condition.

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